Our journalist Lachlan was recently able to speak with Jamie Stewart, frontman of legendary experimental rock band Xiu Xiu. Amongst consideration of the uneasy listening of upcoming and previous music and the group as humble music fans, their conversation reflects Stewart to manifest a uniquely interchangeable relationship between artist and art.
If you want to speak to someone about Xiu Xiu, don’t let it be Jamie Stewart. Given his
dedicated tenure as an artist, the involvement in and binding to music has led to a noticeable inability to tell his music apart from himself. As a result, despite humble attempts to, any kind of real overview of the Xiu Xiu project is impossible to comment on from Jamie’s perspective without it being intimately true to his own life.
When asked how best to describe Xiu Xiu to someone who is unaware of them and
their music, Jamie guessed that they were “maybe” an experimental art-rock group, “but very loosely.” Continuing, Xiu Xiu is essentially a musical collective interested in the darker, more intense side of human existence, who use music to muddle through this experience. Yet under his breath, Jamie still claimed to be the worst conceivable person to ask, having no other life than barrelling through “the morass that is this band.”
Similarly, Jamie sees himself as the wrong person to answer how Xiu Xiu’s five driving
thematic topics: family, politics, sex, love/lovelessness, and suicide: have been impacted by the progression of the band through its history from shifting their focus from a tortured self to a tortured world. Coming from being “totally fucking nuts”, Jamie described that, in the midst of it, he always tries to avoid being analytical about what the band is working on as it feels that conscious attention is at odds with creativity. Starting to think about what is happening actually gets in the way of allowing things to happen. Though Jamie concedes that the band still pursues how to use music to deal with these subjects, in contrasting the extraordinarily lucky parts of life against it as a complete fucking nightmare. Apologising for potentially sounding maudlin or very grandiose, “sorry if this does,” if he did not have music as a means to organise and help to deal with these distinct, heady types of experience, then “I would not be long for this world.” Nonetheless, the band has lately been freer with the five subjects as, with the inclusion of new member David Hendrick, they have been able to allow “more subconscious, near psychedelic” aspects of life to enter into narratives also. Jamie here reiterated how sorry he was to not have a more substantial point.
Turning to the recent Bandcamp project XIUMUTHAFUCKINXIU and musical
inspiration, Xiu Xiu are basically just fans of music. Jamie stressed that he doesn’t shy away from gushing over influences when he is touched by other bands. One of the, “sorry for this,” defining characteristics of Xiu Xiu is that they try to be as open and honest as they can. As bands who have been like that have influenced them, they try to keep that circle going in return. XIUMUTHAFUCKINXIU is essentially a thank you to the bands who have made their lives meaningful. With respect to covers: “we don’t hear a song and think ‘we can annihilate this, this song fucking sucks, we could do so much better’”: all motivation has been to say thank you. Rather than an impedance, it’s exciting and a joy to be able to come across something that signifies creative space. It allows for imitation, as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and to grow and expand into the continuum that music is.
This notion of progression continued into discussing the upcoming new album, and the
experimental and emotional motivation behind it. Jamie explained how the band tried to incorporate some distinctly different approaches to certain things, ending up doing something that feels very different to their previous work. Motivationally it is push and push and push. “I always sound like such an ass but I assure you of all the assish things,” it is not only about what his own band can be, but also to attempt to add to what music can be in general. “Obviously, we fail at that all the time.” It’s important to be constructive over derivative. Although originality can sometimes be in conflict with deep and exciting world influences, this passion provides a momentum to move on into other directions. “I know we consciously and unconsciously rip things off all the time, so I’m clearly a hypocrite.”
Yet altogether, the new record is not easy listening, “at least not to my ears,” and is very
much like a piece, with no real singles on it. “Then again, it’s not a record for me, it’s a record for other people, so who cares what I think about it.”
Distinct auditory horror and distress is characteristic of Xiu Xiu. However, as it turns out,
there is typically no conceptualisation or visualised stimulant used in developing this foreboding and disturbing function to their music; no conscious decision causes it to come to fruition. According to Jamie, it’s about allowing an emotive idea and particular emotional scope about what the next record will be about or feel like to filter out. Because a lot of the subject matter is unpleasant, having unpleasant sounds supports that. Even with their good few chirpy pop songs, that are about grim subjects also, Jamie sees them as a reflection that even if something fucking horrible happens, you still have to go to work or school the next day: such coping is now the norm. It’s just a matter of pushing through those things. “Again, in most of these questions I’m the worst person to ask.”
The intertwining of Jamie Stewart and Xiu Xiu’s music strengthened further when
confronted with the question of how ageing has impacted on Jamie’s musical process and outlook since establishing the band. Making sure to highlight that it happens with anybody in any field, a musician at one point is “certainly” better at certain things but also progresses to be better at others. Music is a funny thing in as far as youth and experience are not necessarily at odds with each other but instead frequently bring out different results. “The band has been around twenty years, so I’m twenty years older than when the band started.” Not sounding as “so fucking dumb” as he would like to think, life changes make the fundamental difference, as they can – “thank God!” – move on and transgress the “fucking horrible.” You can think of any life and see how it has changed in such a way. With respect to bands, you can hear something on earlier records and can’t put it into words, but a lot of bands’ later records are fucking terrible in comparison, they lose this quality. Still, there are a handful of bands that have fortunately continued to make very good changes throughout their career. “And even if I have walked that well-trodden path, I’m not too sure I could tell you why.”
“That’s an incredibly muddled answer, sorry.”
Still managing to move attention away from himself, this recline in a band’s
circumstances was briefly applied to Xiu Xiu up until the flashpoint of covering the soundtrack of Twin Peaks.
“Business wise, things were going very badly. Even if I was happy with how records
were turning out, we were at an end with people’s interest. Then came what was a whole series of good luck. We were on tour and ran into a friend who lives in Australia but, completely by chance touring at the same time, was in the Hague. We met for lunch and he told us about how a friend of his, who works at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, was curating the first David Lynch exhibition of visual art. As massive, massive, massive Twin Peaks fans, and of how David Lynch’s films are structured in terms of aesthetic intent, we said we’d love to participate in it, but people say shit like that all the time. We didn’t think about it until later that year, he came back asking if “you guys are ready to do the Twin Peaks soundtrack?” and we then realised that we had agreed to do something incredibly daunting but an incredible honour and challenge we didn’t want to shy away from.
“We figured out arrangements that kind of followed the philosophy of not trying to make
exact copies of the songs but insert what we’ve learnt from that music that made whatever the fuck our band is. When we arrived in Brisbane, the curator José de Silva said a third season of Twin Peaks was going to be happening. The timing could not have been better as the show was totally back in public consciousness again. We played it live a couple of times before our label asked if we wanted to record it. Then we did a couple of short tours performing just that music to much bigger crowds than we usually would because people were just interested in Twin Peaks. They didn’t care about us, we were just “this band” playing Twin Peaks.
“It essentially rescued our careers as people. It rejuvenated the band because the
music was so hard to put together. We got technically better because it forced us to do things I certainly couldn’t do initially or didn’t feel very comfortable doing in terms of complexity or amount of music. Then again it was also extraordinarily fun to be able to dive into the greatest film and tv soundtrack there has probably ever been and, again, because we love it so much.”
The opportunity importantly signified a leave from performing intrinsically personal
music, an admittedly strange shift for Jamie. So too was contemplating any notion of a legacy. Feeling extraordinarily grateful to have been a part of records people still seem to be interested in, he is as interested in making records as ever and will continue to make them. Only because, “very, very thankfully,” people are still checking Xiu Xiu out.
Drawing to a close, 2021’s OH NO had a purposely restorative function and grew on the
central theme of friendship to strengthen beneficial connections for Jamie. From this I asked whether there was any advice he could give in how best to be kinder to yourself and accept yourself more.
“Please note the start of the conversation where I said I was fucking nuts. I don’t have
any advice on that other than: don’t hang out with assholes, life is short, be as nice to people as you can be, if you’re fortunate enough to be involved in something that you are interested in, then dive in as hard as you can because these things go away quickly, look at trees and why they last. I mean I wouldn’t come to me for life advice. “How to be nice to yourself”… I would very much like some of that advice.”
Altogether, Jamie Stewart embodies and is indistinguishable from the music that he
makes. Living and breathing and able to laugh off: “Well I avoided most of your questions.” Albeit trying to disconnect from wondering whether Xiu Xiu exists on its own, it is a force as unmistakably self-critical and purely honest in character as the man who formed it. The connection between wretchedness of life and consequent hopefulness reflected through this relationship of person and music is painfully accurate. What resonates in the listener is much more than a harshness or temporary shiver, but a deep musical introspection into weakness. The emphatic darkness of Xiu Xiu’s music powerfully dismisses ordinary constraints as dealing with enduring anguish becomes a pursual of goodness directly in the listener. We become bystanders in viewing the torment and selfless acceptance of an artist metaphysically incorporated in their art. An artist able, amongst boxes packed for his move from California to Berlin and the screams of his parakeet, to bid an excellent evening and adieu! “Thanks for being such a sweetie.”
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