Science fiction and Philly cheese-steaks

After some confusion, he brings over the trinket to the screen. It’s the American dream in the form of a music box scene: picturesque house, blossoming tree, even a cow. A gift from David Berman for his two daughters, he plays it for me and it lets out a sweet sound. “I don’t know how to turn this off now,” laughs Vile.

It’s early afternoon in Philadelphia, and Vile is spending the week rehearsing with his band. He’s preparing to release his ninth album (watch my moves) – his Verve Records debut – with tour dates across Europe and the UK approaching. It’s the first time in a long time that life has taken on a slower pace however, with much of (watch my moves) being recorded at his home studio OKV Central during the pandemic. There’s references to movement scattered throughout the record, and despite this physical standstill, Vile assures me his headspace is rarely static. “There’s all kinds of ways to travel,” he counters, “I’m flying in my brain a lot.”

Before Vile gets onto the call, I talk with his publicist about how the record has been a fitting accompaniment to my commutes – something that serves as an escape. She tells me how she’s encouraging listeners to take it on a walk, which feels like the perfect way to experience the transportative record. (watch my moves) ultimately feels like a journey – though never linear. It’s laden with Vile’s fried sensibility, distorted guitar and idiosyncratic lyrics. First single “Like Exploding Stones” is a dizzying snapshot into ricocheting thoughts, whilst others feel like they could serve as a soundtrack to a coming of age film (notably “Mount Airy Hill (Way Gone)”), each finding Vile in a more meditative zone. It's a hypnotic listen: “I would say the whole record if it had to be one or another is positive,” Vile muses, “it’s a balance isn't it.”

Vile’s no longer in a rush, and it feels more apparent than ever on his latest project. It’s not something that comes entirely naturally to the 42-year-old, but something he's learned over the last couple of years. “I was definitely wary of turning 40 but I actually really like it,” he tells me. “I don’t have so much to prove. I’m just enjoying life and still feel like I’ve proven plenty.”

KURT VILE: I’ve lived in Philly since 2003, at least in the city, and before that my hometown was called Lansdowne. It’s a mile radius small suburban town and it’s right outside of West Philly. When I graduated high school in 1998, I moved right out into the city for a year or so. When I was a kid, a teenager, I’d go into the city constantly too to buy records. There was a kid in high school who told me if I bought records I could get things that weren’t available on compact disc. This is probably funny because – wait, how old are you? [laughs] – bands like Pavement had these vinyl-only releases. There’s all these different nostalgic moments I get to look back on now, because then I moved to Northern Liberties in 2003 and I would work in the brewery and I’d be dreaming of how the hell am I going to stop working a day job and I’d be self-releasing my own CD-Rs.

And now I still work in that area, but we’ve moved; we’re by the woods but still in the city. I’ve got a song on this album called “Mount Airy Hill” and that’s an ode to where I am now. I like to go back to Northern Liberties where I work and I can clear my head ‘cause it’s all my old haunts and stomping grounds. I could walk down to Fishtown, the brewery and see the album cover of Constant Hitmaker when all the buildings were bombed out. There’s all kinds of levels. I grew up here and I get to sort of go back several haunts. I’m just glad I never left because I’m more cosy than ever to be honest.

Totally, but I feel like just sort of walking around and going back to those places, you can just do it in your mind. I’s way better. We’d rather both be sort of chilling now, we’re working but we’re chilling. We’re both working but we eased into this moment today. But yeah, there’s all kinds of things to be nostalgic about. The world is confusing and scary. It’s always been but it’s more of a circus all of the time really, so let’s just take it one minute at a time.

[Laughs] If you’re talking about food, it’s hoagies and cheesesteaks and people with weird accents that are real ballbusters etcetera–all of these things are true. I wish I could still eat cheesesteak today. I don’t eat meat anymore which I’m glad about because I feel a lot better but I do also wish I could have a cheesesteak. There’s bands like The Dead Milkmen where he just rants Philly style. There’s some stereotypes in there. There were moments where I admired New York and LA and I still do of course.

I record in LA all of the time, but Philly’s so close to New York that I never had to move up there and I could still benefit from its resources. And now I feel like a lot of people are moving the other way, coming out of New York and moving to Philly, and here I never left.

It was the break I probably never would have gotten in reality. I was dreaming of taking a year off, just staying home… Literally just dreaming of making this album without knowing it. I was building my studio before this all happened. But yeah, then I got more like two years which in reality has been even better. I feel like in the old days people were staying put a little more; I feel like people, even when they’re home, because cellphones are just filling up their days and weeks and months without even knowing it they’re just bouncing around like a pinball. All of a sudden everyone was forced almost to live a simple life and that really just focussed my brain. I would fill up journals like I did when I was in highschool. I just have so many notebooks from the past few years before this where it’s literally just a couple of pages and then blank so I think I’m grateful to just get back to basics.

Obviously that’s just me, I know a lot of terrible things came from the pandemic, but I think also a lot of people got to focus on what’s important to them.

I loved it. I mean maybe I wouldn’t have loved it, but I had two good sessions of recorded material in the can before everything hit. It was an interesting time because I’d just signed to a new label and I knew I had to make a new record and at the same time get my studio together… Everything just took longer than I thought. I did have one tour set for this past fall instead of this spring, or… Yeah we just passed fall. But I knew I wouldn’t be ready, I knew I’d have to turn in a record when things were still uncertain. But for all of those reasons and maybe just being around my kids, I was writing everyday nonstop and not just enough songs to fill the record, but just everyday writing or when it came to me. It was just a way of life and I feel like that’s what it should be anyway, It wasn’t a problem.

They reached out and were interested in signing me so it was totally organic. Matador is my family, I love them, I owe a lot to them and who’s to say what the future holds. But I was really excited to sign with Verve when it came down to it and I saw how much they were into my music. It wasn’t like we got lawyers and shopped our thing around; it’s the same with Rob Schnapf who’s my producer now. He started working with me during b’lieve i’m goin down... The first song he recorded was “Pretty Pimpin” which is my only real hit so far, but he reached out to me as well. He recorded a lot of the first Beck album which was a big record for me when I was a kid. So it’s the same thing with Verve and I admire their history too with jazz and The Velvet Underground.

It’s been awesome working with them because all I did was work on this record for two years and they’re like whatever you want to put out, let’s put out. And for all of those reasons it just worked out organically. And during that time even when I was signed to Verve I still put out the last EP where I do a duet with John Prine on Matador. Matador is totally family. I love them.

Yeah, there’s all kinds right. There’s sharks, there’s people who fuck you over, but in our world we try to keep it as organic as possible. I can't remember the last time we pissed somebody off to be honest. You can work with somebody instead of somebody else but you can still stay friends with whoever you’re friends are, there’s no reason for somebody to fuck everyone over.

Yeah it can be a headache but this time around I had people around when things were going down with the making of the record and I had people who became my friends. I’ve even gotten more involved in the videos and stuff, more of my ideas. All of that stuff’s natural too, like they’re just posting stuff from when I was actually out there doing the music, so I don’t have to sit around and think up hairbrained promotional schemes and things like that. But yeah TikTok [laughs] I see people going crazy on TikTok which I guess I don’t know. Maybe somebody’s going to have to run a TikTok of mine eventually.

Yeah, there’s a bunch of people from an underground roller skating scene in that, I forget the name of it, and then also the sax player from Sun Ra – James Stewart. He’s a hero of mine and we got him to play on that. He was into roller skating and he invited some people. Very Ape, who were involved in filming the making of the record documentary style, filmed and directed that video. Also Drew Saracco, who did my “Loading Zones” video, he was the cameraman and has been involved in the last few videos.

It was my idea to have James come in and grab three guitars and make them feedback. And then on the last video I just turned it in for “Mount Airy Hill” I had a ton of ideas. It's been really fun. I did that with Drew too. But anyway yeah, I think it’s because they’re my friends and they’re kind of fun and psychedelic as well and we had that whole dance party with members of my family and friends family, it was a really fun first video to do. My most psychedelic and fun, and not scary psychedelic. It just came together ‘cause keeping it organic with my friends.

It was a little hard to come up with the right name for this record. Sort of like the way the album cover came together. I’d just been doing halloween with the family in the woods near my house. I just thought of the juxtaposition of having a mask on in those woods, and it might be cool with my kids who looked so good in their Halloween attire, and then I had the same film crew come out and film us just walking through the woods. They told me to sit down and I was like, ‘We’re either going to get the album cover or we’re gonna get a lot of funny footage of us walking around in costumes in the woods’.

And we got the album cover which you know is great, but "watch my moves" – that's something I say twice in the song “Mount Airy Hill”. I say “watch my moves” and it’s sort of challenging; it’s like being in the zone basically when you’re playing music and in that moment you know it’s sort of like get out of my way. But there’s a lot of movement in the record too. Also Rob Schnapf and his engineer Matt in LA, while they were mixing the song they kept saying “watch my moose” which was funny too. Made me think of some cowboy in some weird way stopping at a saloon and hitching his moose up [laughs] and he goes into the saloon and he’s like, “watch my moose” It’s like a phrase and attitude kind of thing.

Well, I’ll tell you what, you say you have trouble writing sometimes because your brain’s flying? Yeah, there’s the last minute thing which is cool usually because you put it off and you put it off and all of a sudden there’s no choice, and there’s certain songs that came out of the fact that I’m about to go into the studio that I didn’t even have planned. But I’ve learned, because I’m 42 now, I’ve definitely wondered am I not able to write now, but the more you think about when do I write or how do I write, the more you’re probably going to get blocked.

"I’ve had plenty of times in my life where I’ve had to wonder if I am washed up, but it’s fun now. If you’re not writing, you’ve got to enjoy that time!"

So I think the thing to do is don’t even think about it, because inspiration will just strike. You could pass by an organ or guitar or just hear a song on the radio that you’re grooving on and somehow some other lyrics pop into your head. But I’ve had plenty of times in my life where I’ve had to wonder if I am washed up, but it’s fun now. If you’re not writing, you’ve got to enjoy that time. Enjoy the downtime, don’t sweat it. That way things will pop again naturally.

I mean sure there’s times when I'm feeling down. With “Like Exploding Stones”, I was actually pretty distraught when I wrote that and I brought myself out of it by writing that song. You can hear the shift in the lyrics as well when you notice how beautiful a tidy tree looks. Or like, you look outside, the world can be stressful, but everyone’s just looking at their phones and all the terrible things are going on or it just triggers being stressed about everything you have to do… Or you don’t even know why but all the strobing of this device is making you tense and all you gotta do is go outside and look at the sky. Look at the trees. But obviously that’s not the case for everyone man. Right now people are losing their homes, things like that. It's scary. But anyway, yeah, I’d say that songwriting is cathartic for me but ultimately all of the songs are positive. Because there’s the stress in there but there’s a release in the song. There’s pretty elements in all of them, hypnotic chords, and I would say the whole record if it had to be one or another is positive. It’s a balance isn't it?

It’s funny ‘cause yeah there’s so many levels. Early on when I signed to Matador, I opened for Sonic Youth which was a dream before opening for Neil Young. I feel like Sonic Youth and Pavement were my Neil Young in my teens, and I got turned on to Neil Young in my teens but I didn’t get religious about Neil Young until my early 20s. I read Shakey and then you consume it all and realise that he’s the greatest. I’ve had so many things that I am grateful for. I’ve met Neil a few times but I’m sure he had to watch his guard a little. It’s Neil Young so I can’t act like a normal person, my head’s going to explode you know. But if I ever meet him again I’ll try and keep it real chill, we’ll see what happens [laughs]

Yeah of course. I remember in fact another ealy hero is Jim O’Rourke. I liked his records for sure but he also produced a lot of records in the 90s that I was listening to. One that I listen to a lot these days again is Sam Precot from CNK. His first solo record. A dude I just met played bass on that and he’s opening some shows, Natural Information Society. But that’s such a good record and Jim O’Rourke produced it and I remember Jim played with Loose Fur which is Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. They did a couple gigs so this is early 2000s and I had his CDRs and I basically followed him. Like I was waiting behind the building to give it to him and I kind of cornered him. I didn't mean to but I just handed him these CDRs and I was like yeah! You influenced me a lot! I was very awkward, I didn’t want to be, but he’s like ahh thank you thank you ahhh ahh thanks. And that was it [laughs]

Yeah we’re both awkward. I was in my early 20s, maybe 21? But yeah. I’m sure he was his own kind of awkward and I was mine [laughs] But it’s been cool. I’ve been going back to a lot of those records lately and they hold up real good.

One band I always get excited for new releases is Beach House. They’re friends of mine too but never disappoint. Grouper too, she’s amazing. But there’s plenty. I feel like for a moment a few years ago I wasn’t listening to a lot of current music, I like a lot of old music anyway, but then I was really inspired ‘cause Courtney Barnett turned me onto Chastity Belt and I love them. And then Julia from Chastity Belt turned me onto Chris Cohen.

OKV stands for Overnight KV which is an early song I had but it also just became my company. This is OKV Central; it’s a studio I’ve been building for a while. I even called my home studio that on the last record Bottle It In, but my studio wasn’t truly together then. I already had a name for it, but it’s in reference to Hillbilly Central. I love Waylon Jennings and I love all Waylon Jennings but he made his own career, him and Willy, they got complete control and then they would record at Hillbilly Central. That was his studio. This is a similar idea–about taking control and getting back to my own personal roots.

I feel like early on I was nervous thinking I had to know how to run all of the equipment. But now that it’s over, long story short, it got laid back and it got natural to be in there. But now that the album’s over and I’ve had time in the studio where I’m not even using it and everything’s set up just the way I like it, I love it because I know the band’s gonna come and rehearse here and we’ll record the sessions or just hang. From now on I have control of whatever I want to do down there. Two of my friends now live out in Philly that are both engineers, Adam Langellotti who helped me build it and Ted Young.

"Mount Airy Hill" is a song I had written pretty quick. I knew Rob Schnapf was coming over, I wrote it pretty quick, just played the organ and sang it live. The band was in town, including my drummer Kyle who doesn’t live in Philly, Rob Schnapf was here from LA. I’d never had a producer come to my house, it was pretty amazing. And yeah it just came together within one day. By the end of the night we had this song which was extra special. But yeah, Mount Airy is the city I live in and it’s surrounded by woods and things. It’s sort of like I’ve been around and now I’m gone… In one way you could put it like I’m completely off the grid forget it or you could say I lost my mind. That’s the beauty of it but also I think these days it means I’m happy where I am. You can try to call me but I might now answer, I’m just living my life. I’m in my own world. And then I love the way that came out. There’s a hilarious video that we just finished, I can’t wait until you see that. I’m skateboarding around my town anD my brother and I are goofing off in the woods.

And “Say the Word”, that was all my touring band The Violators which is my equivalent to Neil Young’s Crazy Horsewe always reconvene. “Say the Word” was a song that I wrote early on. I always knew it had potential, but finally the band all flew to LA and they met me in Rob Schnapf’s studio. That was the only song we got in LA but it was the energy of the band reuniting where we got this kind of epic rock song. But like acoustic rock, sort of hypnotic. It’s sort of about the opposite of Mount Airy Hill really because I was writing it whilst bouncing all over the world– a lot of travelling and insanity. And then I finished the lyrics by the time we laid it down in LA a couple of years later. Yeah, I’m glad you liked that one.

I still feel that way just by signing to another label and trying to take more control. Or maybe it’s thinking ahead for where life gets tiring and why go somewhere else to work all of the time when you could be close to home and then hit the road when it’s time to hit the road and having more control for when you want to do all that. Or like I said before, having more fun getting more involved in the videos. Because things can feel unnecessarily like work when you let them, it is a stressful thing. You could make your schedule more hectic if you let it but you’ve just got to kind of try and make it a little more natural or you’ll lose your mind. That’s been a weird step up for me.

No, no, I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve had serious stress issues, I couldn’t take it in the old days. I had to take control and figure out how to make things not stressful for sure.

I like to just sit around and read. That’s the number one thing. Certain science fiction, especially early in the pandemic. A lot of people were reading science fiction more and I could see why. I totally fell into that and was reading Philip K. Dick and things like that. A Scanner Darkly was such a good book, it was probably a standout book during all of this because it’s dark but funny, it’s pretty extreme, filled with all kinds of drugs and things. It’s hard to look away, let’s put it that way.

But then there’s always the classics too like Flannery O’Connor. She was an early love but I had been slowly reading her complete stories in chronological order for a long time, but I blew through so many books these past few years that it’s hard to pick a standout. Oh but you know who else that is more recent that I read a whole bunch of his books is Dnnis Johnson, he’s incredible. I read a lot of his books in a row whilst recording [watch my moves].

Sun Ra's Space is the Place. It’s like The Bible, I’ve been reading it for a long time now. I was blowing through tons of books for a while but this one I knew I would have to take my time with. I’ll reread everything again because it’s kind of deep but also my mind trails off a lot. It’s so rewarding; I love Sun Ra so much.