With The Walkmen on indefinite hiatus, it has given its members new freedom to venture out on their own. Such as member Peter Matthew Bauer, who released his debut album Liberation! on Mexican Summer last month. I’ve seen Bauer’s live show now, and can confirm that he’s made the full transition into a solo musician.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak with Bauer over the phone, where we talked about life as a solo musician, the influence behind his album, and if he would ever consider getting the band back together.
Find our full discussion posted below.
I had a great time at your show at Rough Trade, how did you think it went?
P: It was good, real good. Still felt a bit terrifying.
Even after all those years playing in a band, this is a new experience for you. Like starting over again, right?
P: Well definitely with a new band, you don’t know what’s going to happen. As we proved!
Hey, you guys made it through.
P: Yeah we made it through. There’s so many different people coming in and out of the band right now. Every week is a new process of teaching everyone the same stuff again, and trying to make it so guys who have been there the whole time, get to play the rest of the songs they haven’t played yet. We’re getting there. By the end of the tour we have coming up, we should be a well-oiled machine.
You just released your debut album Liberation!. After so many years with The Walkmen, how does it feel to be flying solo?
P: Its more fun, you know, by virtue of what I’m doing and having the whole thing ride on you personally. Its great, scary, and a blast.
Was releasing a solo record always a part of your plan as a musician, or did it sort of formulate on its own?
P: You know, for a long time I was happy being in a band. I think when you’re young, there’s something neat in starting a band. Then as you get older, it began to be something we had to do by virtue of paying the bills. Eventually it spirals out of your control (out of everybody’s control, not just mine). You try to figure out a new take on it every round that you go and make another record. Eventually you run out of reasons to do that. It’s a funny thing to be doing when you get to be a little older and you feel that you’re capable of doing everything on yourself. There’s something funny philosophically about bands. Even the ones that stick around, you know, no one is saying “The Rolling Stones are really a lot better now that they were…”
There’s a time limit on that sort of thing. I think we may have overstayed our time, but maybe we didn’t…
Personally, I don’t think you guys overstayed your time, but that’s me.
P: Well that’s good. Well, we definitely completed our time though. We didn’t have anything left to do. We gave it our best.
With that said, is a Walkmen reunion someday totally out of the question? If the right time or situation came up, would it be something you’d consider?
P: You know, those guys are all just friends of mine. It’s a different thing. I don’t think we would ever be the five of us in a room writing music again. I’m sure we are just saying that, but I can’t imagine it ever happening. I mean we still see each other; it’s not like Morrissey and Johnny Marr. When I look at a band I see a creative thing. I can’t imagine it being a creative thing ever again. And that’s different than everyone getting together, shot-gunning beers and playing a show 10 years from now. There’s no harm in doing something like that. It’s like getting the gang back together for a high school reunion type situation, which is fine. I like hanging out with those guys, they’re like my brothers.
Now as a solo artist, you have complete artistic freedom and responsibility. That’s exciting, but can it be a bit daunting to share your own personal stories, reflections, and leading the charge through your own voice.
P: Yeah it’s definitely different. Going into this experience you feel like your very full of yourself for a while. It’s a much more freeing feeling; you feel like a fraud half of the time. But I had fun doing it, but there’s no one else in there, so I’m playing by myself now. It’s definitely exciting.
Last May I saw you play at Gary’s Electric Studio, and at that show you were giving these little personal antidotes in between songs that served to give a little insight into the album. So I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about the different themes that were involved, specifically revolving around belief.
P: Haha, yeah, the record label told me I had to talk, so it was really a funny situation. But yeah, I tried to make the songs about specific ideas, even if was just an exercise to get something on the paper, and sort of deviated from there. When I started making a record I thought it should be about something that could exist, sort of a reason to exist. It’s just something I think you struggle with when you make art, you don’t want to feel like you’re doing it for your own sake. There’s a lot of questioning. It feels a little selfish. I mean you are, you know you’re an arrogant bastard, and you’re trying to convince yourself that your not. So, I made it about things I can think about a lot, and not trying not to be vague.
I like music a lot. Music is easy to write, but to make it an expression of something, or to get something across to people, that’s hard. I can write fun rock music all day, but to get to that other place, that’s fun to get to. Since it’s a first record, I wanted to make everything feel like that since it’s a fresh start for me, even though it’s not actually my first record. But I definitely like the feeling, I think that’s a part of the joy of recording and making music, I wanted to make it about very formative experiences. A lot of the songs are about growing up and trying to make something universal out of it.
When I first heard the songs at Gary’s it all transcribed very well live and had a universal feel to it. So you definitely achieved that, and it’s not an easy thing to do, in studio or live. Not everyone can make that come through on stage.
P: I really like playing live; I think that’s the thing. I realized that recently. I feel like with The Walkmen, we used to have this real negative energy that was sort of fine, but we loss that, and you got to reach for something. I like trying to get to something very joyful. But yeah, it’s really fun to play live now and I like playing with my live band, they all feel like they’re getting something out of it, as its different from what they’ve done in the past. It’s fun to me; everyone is having their own experience.
Let’s talk about your touring band. It features a lot of your friends, and even family. Your wife Marisa is in the band too.
P: Yeah, she’s a big part of it now. She’s having a lot of fun, she’s been learning to sing.
Wow, it’s her first time performing? I never would have guessed.
P: Yeah totally. She just started learning how to sing a few months ago. I think the first time she ever sang was actually on the record. It’s been a lot of fun having her on board. It’s a very different experience being up there with the person you love. That’s a lot more fun.
And then everyone else is a good friend from different places. Emily and Jess, the other two back-up singers, are pals of mine from Philly. Emily did a lot of work on the record, and she’s always been around bands, but not for a long time so it’s been fun for her too. Then you have Sky, who is from Fleet Foxes, him and me are real close pals.
I thought he looked familiar.
P: Yeah Sky and me go back a few years, and we have become best pals. He’s always a big support for me, and hopefully vice versa. Literally every day in the van he and my wife get in a big, kind-of playful fight where they have to hug it out at the end of the day. It’s a very different atmosphere. It’s my favorite part of the day.
Tell me about the significance of your album title, ‘Liberation!’ Does it have anything to do with being free of the confines of the band?
P: I mean, no, but you know it’s the stupidest possible thing to say and not have it happen. It was in agreement with myself to take it on the chin that 80% of people would think it was the lamest record title ever. It has that quality. It’s one reason I put that exclamation point on it. I thought at least it looks really dumb now. The idea was, you’re talking about belief and trying to be over the top having fun with it. It’s the only thing out of all the words that summed everything up without being assertoric. I didn’t want to come off as intellectualizing anything. It was very fitting in that form. The songs are sort of poking fun of the idea that liberation takes thousands of lifetimes or something like that. I felt that it was very immediate, and not that big of a deal. That’s sort of the theme of the record. When its all said and done, it started off kind of angry, and then got a bit more realized as I went a long, and I got a little bit more at peace with aspects of that.
At Rough Trade you played a few new songs (even newer than the album). So what’s next for you? Are you already working on the follow-up to Liberation?
P: I have three songs we have been playing live and two more that will turn into real songs. So, yeah, if I was able to sit down and record, I would be ecstatic to record for the next year. You know, you’re doing everything yourself. So you’re spending a lot of time booking plane tickets than anything else. So if we had the time to record songs again, then yeah, I think we could record really fast.
I like the idea of having different experiences recording and not knowing what is going to happen. It’s very different; you don’t feel tied into a role. It’s exciting. It’s important for people to do things differently.
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