Here's a Liars interview that never ran anywhere. Damn shame. It might arrive at the beginning of the year in Modern Fix.

Liars


Three known liars sit in front of me at one of their homes in Los Angeles. They’re hitting the bong something fierce, stopping occasionally to down a hot dog or answer a question. Whether the answers are truthful or not is up for reader interpretation.

What’s not is that the band’s new record, “Liars”, might be their most divisive yet. After a career of spawning primitive, tribal noise punk, the band decided to actually try to write rock songs. For context, check Sonic Youth’s brilliantly constructed “Rather Ripped” to see how far Liars have come as songwriters. Or, conversely, how close they’ve come to “selling out” in the narrowed eyes of purists.

The following interview with vocalist/guitarist Angus Andrew, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Hemphill and drummer Julian Gross meanders through a bunch of topics, most notably the new album and the contemporary music landscape.

What was your mentality going into the new album? It seems like more of a “rock” mentality than every before.
Angus: We’ve made some records in the past that are quite conceptual and intellectual. We became very concerned about how albums worked as a whole, making sure songs related to each other, etc. to the point where when we got to this one, we really wanted not to think about it at all and go more from instinct and fun, really. We didn’t really labor over songs as much as we normally do, or really even talk about them as much. The rock aspect comes from something we all love. Me personally, I never thought we could actually do that. The music we have made in the past had more to do with not sounding like anything else, rather than sounding like something. That was always a positive element in our naïve approach to making music. It was sort of an experiment. It was sort of surprising that we could play a rock song, or something like that. That was immediately exciting and gratifying for me.
Aaron: It’s become really fun and scary. Most bands tend to rock out (for their “experimental” album). It’s scary to try to write “songs” and focus on other ways of applying concepts, instead of just using one instrument or tones, blah blah blah. It seemed scary, like, “God. Can we just do this?” I feel really proud that we faced that fear as though we just had to do it.
Julian: That fear is something we thrive on. I’d rather attack something we fear, that we’re afraid of rather than something we’re more confident in. Do something unexpected.

Did it take you guys a long time to get to a place where you could write an album like this? Were you afraid if you wrote an album like this that you’d get a lot of backlash? Maybe “selling out” or something like that?
Angus: The whole album is the result of our progression so far. It’s a culmination of however how many years we’ve been working together, almost finally relaxing enough to do something like this. Like Aaron said, it was probably one of the most frightening to do because it was so straight-forward and instinctual. It had a lot to do with just being surprised at making these sort of songs. There’s one song called “Cycle Time” on the record that starts with a straight-forward blues riff, or something like that. It seems like such a classic rock sort of thing. For us that seems so foreign, but also so a part of us. We love Led Zeppelin.
Aaron: It’s funny. Always if you “go the other way” it’s associated with selling out for monetary gain. No one ever says that if you’re making an experimental record that you’re trying to cash in on the intellectual loyalists.
J: I don’t even understand what “selling out” is anymore. I was trying to think about how somebody could sell out. I guess it would be if every record you ever put out was against eating beef and then you did a commercial for McDonalds.
Aaron: But if you want to eat McDonalds, it’s the life you should lead. Do it.

Is there any significance to the fact you named the new album “Liars”? Is this album what Liars as a band is?
Aaron: I think it’s more to do with the fact we didn’t have a pre-process concept that’s linear. The last one we didn’t either, but we had this thing that tied the songs together which was mistaken for concept (the relationship between Drum and Mt. Heart Attack). We just wanted to get out of the way of it. There was no huge reason other than to avoid misunderstanding or replacing ourselves of any sort of ownership of ideas of a song. You listen to a song and you apply the ideas. Otherwise it sounds like we’re in your room saying, “This is about a captain and the sea” or whatever.
Angus: It’s been fun making interesting titles and stuff. But after a while it becomes a bit of extraneous noise in relation to the actual music. We would find ourselves explaining more about characters or particular song titles rather than the music itself. I think it represents the idea of getting back to a direct quality and avoiding the intellectual, cerebral approach.
Aaron: I think before we would have been less comfortable with having a song being singled out, so part of the concept with making the titles so difficult so people couldn’t just say, “Listen to ‘The White Lamb.’” With this one, maybe we all feel a little more comfortable with people saying, “I like ‘Cycle Time.’”
J: I like the straight-forwardness of it too. It’s simple in its sound and rock idea. That quick song title is an old rock idea.
Angus. We were going to title it with Roman numerals. “IV.”

The album opens with the lyric “I wanna run away.” Does that have anything to do with you fleeing New York for Los Angeles and Germany?
Angus: When Aaron and I started talking about songs for this record, we were interested in the idea of what it felt like to be like a teenager and to hear music and be affected by music in a certain way. At that point, one song or one band can really turn your life around. Escapism is fairly common subject matter for me, and us. I think the idea was more exciting and happy escapism, than sad, like the last one was. “Plaster Casts of Everything” is really about a teenager wanting to run away from home. It relates to our idea of how music can be for a teenager at that time. One of the ways we thought about those songs was pulling at the gut strings, instead of the mental.
Aaron: It’s interesting too, to interpret it as how he (Angus) was as a teenager and what he was listening to. I think my input and Julian’s, if you were to go back in time and see what we were listening to or raised on, or what our childhood was like, who raised us…(would all be in the album).
Angus: Love, escapism, melodrama, the angst of being a teenager.
J: I don’t think about running away in that song as running away from your problems, necessarily, or getting away from the world so much as running into the world and starving. I’m 17. I’m getting out of high school. I’m ready to start my life. I’m ready to run out of where I’ve spent my whole life. It’s time to begin, start fresh, by myself. Become a dishwasher. Or something.
Angus: It’s more about the romanticism of that period of your life and how it can be affected by music.
J: Even how great it is how you feel like there’s so much responsibility, like everything’s so heavy. Looking back on it, I could have done anything. I could have lived on people’s couches and it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Work anywhere. Or not.
Aaron: I could not have gone to jail for petty crimes. (everyone laughs)

What do you think triggered that nostalgia?
Angus: Again, it’s that idea of being caught up in making records that are caught up in themselves, and looking to make a direct connection. The most obvious way to make that connection was exploring those years. Referencing that time period as a way to get in touch with the really visceral quality of music. It doesn’t have to be a mind game. It can be something that can really make you cry, or run away, or something.
J: I’m not that little spring chicken I used to be. You’re closing in on those years where you remember your parents at the age you are now. That was a weird turning point for me. Somehow that makes being young again kind of special. I see young kids skating down the street on their skateboards and it makes me smile in this really weird way.
Angus: Our friends too. Deerhunter, The Blood Brothers. They’re not kids, but they’re definitely younger than us. It’s inspiring to go on tours with those people who have that youthful enthusiasm that everyone wants. The Fountain of Youth. Maybe that’s what we should have called the record. (everyone laughs)

In connection with that, your sound is very tribal and primal. What led you there?
Angus: It has to do with our genesis, which has a lot to do with naivete, especially on my part. Aaron knows how to play the instruments, but me not knowing how to play brought him into another level of it. We’ve always gone to the basics. Tribal, but maybe minimal is another way to describe it. There hasn’t been a lot of guitars or things going on because we really don’t know how to do that, or at that point didn’t know how. It was about working with what skills we had. My skills have only just been growing. It’s a learning curve. I think we’ve always been drawn to a native, instinctual, banging on things and making loud noises, but I would say this record is something that makes us realize that maybe we can craft some songs that can affect people. Not that we haven’t already (laughs).

Did you ever think starting out that you’d end up here?
Aaron: No. I’m not saying in spite of all the riches we accrued (spans arms out in the direction of Gross’s modest home), I think we still approach every record the same way. Let’s do it now and investigate what we’re interested in to the fullest. Just make the record that you wish was out there for you here. I’ve had some bands who have said, “I wish we could rock out more.” You can just do what you want.
Angus: In such a creative and liberal field as music, people can get stuck in conservative ways of approaching it. Interpol’s got their thing and there’s no real reason they should change it. I ran into their singer after we did “They Were Wrong, So We Drowned” (Mute) and he said, “We want to make a record that has no vocals.” We were all like, “Yeah right! Do it then. It’d be great.” Obviously other things come into play. We’re grateful for the fact we can really make anything we want to.
Aaron: We really ignore expectations in a really humble way. There’s so much music out there, how could people be thinking: “Gee, when are Liars going to come out with that tribal, skronk, no-wave whatever the hell.” Generally we have a humble disregard for expectations and just make the music we love because that’s what has worked. Some people get bummed and accuse us of ignoring our audience, but I think the worst thing we can do is worry about the fans and what they want. I think our responsibility is to make music we’re interested in.

liarsliarsliars.com
2007 Liars (Mute)
2006 Drum’s Not Dead (Mute)
2004 They Were Wrong, So We Drowned (Mute)
2001 They Threw us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top (Gern Blandsten)