Motif Interviews Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow

You don’t usually hear Lou Barlow’s name in a list of influential songwriters, which is a shame. Through his work with Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., Folk Implosion and even his solo material, Barlow’s melancholy, genuine and heartfelt style has left quite an imprint on a lot of independent bands and musicians, despite the fact that it sometimes goes unnoticed. Sebadoh will perform at The Met on Sat, Jun 6, so Barlow and I had a chat about the differences between writing songs with Jason Loewenstein in Sebadoh and J Mascis in Dinosaur Jr., going back into the studio with Sebadoh after 14 years, being considered a pioneer of the lo-fi genre and what we can expect in the future.

Rob Duguay: When it comes to writing songs and lyrics, what’s the biggest difference between playing with Jason Loewenstein in Sebadoh versus J Mascis in Dinosaur Jr.?

Lou Barlow: I guess when I write for Dinosaur Jr. lately for some reason I always try to write about what’s going on in the band at that moment. When we had our first reunion, I did one song that was pretty much about coming back to the band. I like to write the songs for Dinosaur Jr. about Dinosaur Jr., even if it’s kind of abstract or at least that’s the way I look at it. I don’t know if the casual listener would know that or even care, but that’s the way I do it. When I write for Sebadoh, those are always usually my most earnest songs. They’ve always been the ones where I feel like I’m the most direct. They’re the ones that reflect something that I’ve been through or something that I’m going through.  When I do solo stuff I think it’s more abstract and bleak, I guess, but with Sebadoh it’s really straightforward.

RD: Would you rather do solo stuff or do you like being in Sebadoh where you work with Jason and Dinosaur Jr. where you work with J?

LB: I like all of those things, I like them all in doses. I like to do a Sebadoh record, then go on tour with Sebadoh and then I like to do something different. Sebadoh has toured for quite a bit now. I’m chomping at the bit to do some solo stuff and soon enough I’ll be working on another Dinosaur Jr. record. I like cycles; I like going through all of those different things. I’ve always kind of done that, there was Folk Implosion with John Davis and I would cycle through that and go back to Sebadoh. Now I go from Sebadoh to Dinosaur Jr. and then back to solo stuff. They’re all very worthwhile for me; they all tap different parts of my brain.

RD: I can see how it must make it easier to manage everything when going through cycles rather than have it come at you all at once. In December 2013 Sebadoh put out Defend Yourself and it was the band’s first full-length album in 14 years. What was it like for the band going back into the studio after such a long time of just touring?

LB: It was really easy. We did it very quickly, we didn’t do it in a studio per se; we did it in my practice space in California when I was living in Los Angeles. Jason and Bob [D’Amico] came out and we spent around a week and a ½ going down to the practice space about 10 in the morning and just playing all day. We had toured quite a bit together already so we already had developed a sound and we had a bunch of new songs so we worked together for a week and a ½ on them and that was it.

RD:  Now you’re back living in Massachusetts right?

LB: Yea, I just moved back here.

RD: When you lived in Los Angeles, did you have to adjust to the culture? Do you miss living in L.A. or did you miss living in Massachusetts on the West Coast?

LB: I lived in LA for almost 17 years, but the last place I lived before moving there was Boston and I loved Boston. I didn’t own a car, I was pretty young, I just bought records every day, went to shows and made music. Boston is a good place to be while you’re young and into music, so when I moved to L.A. it took a bit to adjust just because the city has a lot of clichés and a lot of things tagged onto the place. There are a lot of preconceived notions about Los Angeles — what it entails and what the people are like — all of which I pretty much found out was bullshit when I got there. After I lived in L.A. for a few years I loved it, I think the people are really friendly there. A lot of clichés that people attach to L.A. aren’t really true, there’s Hollywood and all those fake things but it’s only a small part of it. It’s an incredible place with so many different cultures colliding and it’s very beautiful and the weather is actually as good as they say it is. All the catastrophes that people associate with the area don’t happen very often; it’s not fake and it’s actually great. Coming back to Massachusetts was a choice that I made based on my family and practicality, I guess, just for living out the rest of my life and coming back to where I grew up and where my family is. It’s different, though, it’s not as culturally diverse, but it’s also familiar to me and I like the East Coast. I can be happy anywhere I’m at, it’s up to you and what you make of it yourself.

RD: Fans know you as one of the first musicians who first started playing the lo-fi style in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Now a lot of new bands coming out have adopted that technique in their recordings. What made you want to start playing lo-fi and what do you think of it having a distinct influence on independent music today?

LB: Lo-fi is just that it sounds good, it’s just a raw capture. You make these raw captures of the music that you are making and I think it sounds better. I liked records that sounded that way and I certainly wasn’t the first person to pick a guitar and record on a cassette, there’s a rich tradition of that because of what was going on during the beginning of recorded music. I don’t consider anything I did to be particularly groundbreaking, but to me it just sounds what it’s naturally supposed to sound like. Through the ’70s and ’80s, recording became very specialized and became a whole world unto itself with production, mastering and everything else. To me, production became something that really obscured the music rather than letting the raw strength of music come through, so when I started recording my own stuff I did it because it was cheap and practical. You didn’t have to go to a studio and have someone ruin the music with expensive microphones and terrible production techniques. You just do it yourself, and that’s the most direct and satisfying way to do it. When I hear it now, I think it’s cool that people have control and the means to record. It’s so much cheaper to record yourself now. A full range recording can be anyone’s practically for almost no money. I like that people have the option to take that and make something that sounds good to them. To me, lo-fi is just people making music that sounds good and I have no problem with people making self-consciously lo-fi music because it’s a choice. I personally like it and it all comes down to the songs anyway, no matter how you record it. If you’re making music that’s not particularly catchy, it’s not going to go over well. I guess that’s it in a nutshell.

RD: The Internet has been a viable resource for bands to get their music heard, and it seems like a must these days for a band to have a Facebook page. With all of that happening and pirating being prevalent, do you think the Internet is a good thing or a bad thing for music as a whole?

LB: I think it’s great; I’ve always been into people sharing music. For me, I’ve always made money the same way, which is touring. I’ve never really made significant money by recording music and selling it to people. I suppose at the peak of Sebadoh we were maybe making money, but I still owe record companies hundreds of dollars for what they’ve spent on promoting music that I recorded for them. I make money by touring, so it’s hard for me to go and say that the Internet is destroying the music industry because I don’t know if it is because people still love music so they steal it and they’ve always stolen it. People have always recorded records on tape and now it’s even easier. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know, maybe? But for me personally, I’ve made money the same way I’ve always made it just by dragging my ass around the country and going to Europe and Asia occasionally. I get royalties, I guess, but that stuff comes in from all these different sources and there are so many more of them now that it seems like my royalties are almost as totally consistent from when it was just terrestrial radio. It’s hard for me to get worked up about the evils of the Internet when I’ve consistently been able to do what I’ve done regardless of whether I sell records or not.

RD: Will we be seeing any new releases from Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., or even a solo record from you in the near future?

LB: I just finished a solo record, which will be out in September, and right after that I’ll start recording with Dinosaur Jr. again. The solo release is called Brace The Wave and it’ll be out in a few months.

Tickets to the show at The Met on Jun 6: etix.com/ticket/p/5885463/sebadoh-pawtucket-the-met

Sebadoh’s website: sebadoh.com