Pavement: Kings of the curb

With Guitars takes you back to the mid-nineties, 1996 to be exact, with loads of new bands and journos pouring praise all over the indie rockers, we went back in time to give you a flavour of how it was, so to speak. Back then, our ‘all things rock’ writer and soul mate, know simply by the moniker, Duff, as sits he down with Pavement…

“Oh, do you like my jacket? I got it in the sales. Only ninety pounds,” Pavement bassist Mark Ibold beams. The garment in question is a dark green Barbour affair, the kind only sported by Range Rover-driving affluent outdoor types, Princess Anne, and gullible terrorists. Actually, it’s the ideal protection against the rain strewn streets of Liverpool, where tonight the group will showcase some sparkling new songs in a venue the size of your living room. Add to this a tidy checked scarf and a pair of well-tailored trousers and you get the impression that this so called ‘art-rock’ business must have some privileges.

Long gone, it seems, are the days of ill-fitting T-shirts and questionable shorts. “Well I guess that’s still pretty expensive but in America it would be like, three times as much, so I thought it was a good deal” he adds defensively. “Then again, this year and last year were the first years when I didn’t really have to work at home in New York.”

So this is the new, easy-fit, leisure-seeking Pavement. Sliding gracefully into middle age, the band has just completed their fourth album ‘Brighten the Corners’, a sprightly collection of skewed melodies, classic pop and wine-soaked logic. An album that, far more than 1995’s brilliant but schematic ‘Wowee Zowee’, highlights the group’s often glimpsed accessibility. From the frazzled japes of new single ‘Stereo’ to the bobbing elegance of ‘Shady Lane’, this is the record the five-piece always threatened to make. Whisper it if you dare, but Pavement have gone… commercial.

For all the praise heaped upon artists such as Blur and Beck, if you check the history books you’ll find that Pavement were rocking the country-fried art school thang way back in 1994.

Or maybe not. “I heard recently: ‘Pavement Go Commercial!’.” Mark muses, “So if we’re going commercial then this record had better be a hit on the radio, and it clearly won’t be. But we’d always be up for it if the masses decided that they liked Pavement as much as they liked Oasis that would be great. But I don’t think they do or will. I mean our sound isn’t that far away from a band as successful as Oasis, so there is a chance that something could happen.”

But that’s the problem with Pavement. By ploughing their own particular fertile patch of distinctive, left-field, tune-smitten rock the groups records are always going to be ahead of their time, sounding as they do, unlike anything by their contemporaries. For all the praise heaped upon artists such as Blur and Beck, if you check the history books you’ll find that Pavement were rocking the country-fried art school thang way back in 1994 with the dazzling ‘Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain”. So don’t be too surprised to find Noel Gallagher waxing lyrical about the songwriting genius of Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus in, oooh, five years time.

It’s this willingness to experiment, to gently confound expectations, that perhaps scares a lot of folk away from the bands unique sound. Conversely, it’s the discreet charm of the Pavement song, that ability to furtively seek out a melody where others would just give up, which is there most attractive asset. Is this what we might call ‘art-rock’? ”I don’t think that’s very descriptive,” Mark retorts. “I guess it has good connotations, it makes us sound like creative people. If you listened to the band and what you heard was pleasing but wasn’t quite what you expected, something that definitely has its own sound, then that’s cool. That’s the sort of impression you want to get when you see a new painter in a gallery. I don’t know what other bands the term ‘art-rock’ would really apply to.” Er, Sonic Youth perhaps? “I think we are much more of a pop band than Sonic Youth. We’ve approached things before in a way that they do now but I guess we’re a little more accessible. Speaking of all things art-rock, there’s this British group called Blur who have just made their difficult ‘experimental’ fifth album.” That Damon Albarn, he’s been hanging out with your singer and citing Pavement as a major influence. Don’t you guys want to return the favour? “I’ve never been a big fan of that band”, Mark replies, “and they remind me of Primal Scream in that every time they put something out it’s got this new look, and in all interviews they make a big deal out of it. And I think it’s soulless. That song ‘Beetlebum’, it has parts that are cool, you know, there are some riffs that we might do, but the way it’s done it doesn’t sound anything like Pavement. More like Weezer – it’s kinda gross. They may have cool little guitar effects but they haven’t got any soul. It’s just a shame about this Blur thing but I just wonder if it’s gonna help us or hurt us at this point”.

But surely all this gratuitous name-dropping can only be a good thing.

“Yeah it might be, but it won’t make a f**k of a difference in the States. People over there will just of it as been hysterical. I mean, I know Stephen’s hung out with Damon and that he’s also recorded a song with Justine for the new Richard Link later movie, ‘Suburbia’, so I guess it’ll be interesting to see what happens.”

From the poignant and genuinely touching to the plain daft, Pavement’s lyrics have always caused a certain amount of confusion. “What about the voice of Geddy Lee, how did it go so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy,” Malkmus sings on ‘Stereo’. Do you think you could sing about absolutely anything and make it sound credible? “Well Stephen writes most of the lyrics” points out Mark, “and I don’t know if anything really sounds sensible. I think they all sound good for one reason or another. The images he creates are pretty interesting but I’m not sure if they really make a lot of sense. But as long as it sounds good I would say that the subjects are pretty much limitless”. So other than playing benefit gigs in San Francisco for Tibetan refuges, toying with the idea of getting The Smurfs in to do a remix, and touring the world till autumn, are there any other hitherto untapped reservoirs of talent in the rock phenomenon that is Pavement?

“If we have enough time off,” Mark enthuses, “I would probably do some catering cos it’s what I’m trained in. I’d like to open a restaurant eventual once we finish. Steve West (the drummer) bought a pre-Civil War mansion in Virginia but it’s completely falling apart so he’ll be working on that for the rest of his life. He’s gotta bat proof it too, cos when we were practising there at night we’d sit outside and count the bats as they flew out and we would like lose count at about seventy. Bob (Nastanovich, the other drummer) lives right across from the horse-racing track in Louisville, Kentucky.” Ah, yes. He’s the band’s resident bookie that puts out some kind of small-time betting publication isn’t he? “Yeah he does a tip sheet called ‘The lucky lavender’ that he sells for about a dollar a copy at the race track. It’s just like his tips for the day and, consequently, he’s been doing alright in Britain. He’s obsessed with horse racing so when we drove past Aintree today he was just like (pulls panting face pose) out the window. You’ll find him in William Hill. I just wish I could be more certain of a win, “grins Mark.

Pavement, of course, are on a clear winner. ‘Brighten The Corners’, already one of the albums of the year is almost certain to win them a legion of new fans, some of whom may have even ditched the re-invented Blur and plumped for the genuine, fuzzed-out article instead. Hang on a minute, let’s just run through those facts again. One of them’s got a great big house in the country? The other’s a fan of restaurants and art gallery openings. They like to have a dabble on the horses? The singer hangs out with Justine from Elastica? Nah, it’s too much of a coincidence, Blur are nothing like Pavement.

If you would like to check out what the fuss is about, visit http://www.ilike.com/artist/Pavement, loads of videos of Pavement, so go on, fill yer boots. Meanwhile, the band are bysy touring the coast to coast in the States, more news as soon as we have it.