The Thousands

Nathan Williams must have known that this was going to happen. You can’t produce off-key, less-than-demo quality punk songs about weed and teenage despondence and not expect a bit of flack when the blog world starts creaming their jeans and crying genius. Still, it’s made for an eventful 18 months for the Californian musician. Following his spectacular implosion at a major European festival in May – something he later blamed on mental exhaustion, problem drinking and a good dose of prescription pills – Mr Williams tells TwoThousand about new songs, old bandmates and his strange little place in the modern music economy.   

Paul Donoughue: Hey Nathan, what’s up? Are you on the road right now in the US?
Nathan Williams: We started the tour but we have a chunk of time off. Right now I am in sunny, fiery L.A. I just got done playing a couple of shows with my new drummer Zach (Hill, from Californian band Hella and Marnie Stern) and finishing up recording a record with him in Sacramento. He is actually there right now, going through the final mixing stuff. That’s basically it.

PD: You’ve got another US tour coming up. Given the schedule of your last year, are you physically and mentally ready for another tour?
NW: Absolutely not. This is just one of those things. Me and Zach joke about this – you can never really tell if you are mentally ready. But I am sure there’ll be some mental breakdowns halfway through this thing. But they are more welcome than anything.

PD: Why are they welcome?
NW: Because it is inevitable. The schedule is just so fucking hectic. And it has been since the beginning. It is at a point where it is almost more effort to even try to fight it than to just go along, just do it.But it’s really hectic and it’s super stressful. But it’s something that we both love doing so in the end it’s totally worth it.

PD: On your Ghost Ramp blog you’ve posted some new songs from your recent recordings with Zach (namely ‘Hula Hoop’). They seem sonically pretty removed from the first two records. Are you trying to move away from the totally bedroom feel?
NW: From the beginning it was always just doing things that sound new and interesting and for the first two records, how muddy and fucked up they sounded and the whole recording process – how simple it was – was what I was into and what I was trying to achieve at that point. This time around it’s kind of different, because I don’t always want to do the same thing. I want to expand what I am doing and try new things. As far as songwriting goes nothing has really changed too much but this record there is more time and effort and thought put into the songs as opposed to the last ones. I worked with two other people on a good portion of the record as opposed to just doing it all myself. It was a totally new experience, and different and really cool.

PD: Does that mean you are spending more time on aspects of songwriting, like lyrics?
NW: Yeah- structure, lyrics, that sort of thing. Most of the time [lyrics are] put on during mixing. Prior to this they were all written. I did both of the last records in a month so they took about two weeks each to record so this time around a lot of the songs were things that I hadwritten. ‘Hula Hoop’ was a song that I had written years ago and kindof came back to again. They all sound like bedroom stuff to me but it’s a lot different to the prior stuff still.

PD: You played and recorded everything yourself on the first two records, Wavves and Wavvves. Do you have to make compromises when you have someone else adding their own thoughts?
NW: That’s the main difference. I always want to bury my vocals and that sort of thing so it’s a compromise with other people [who say] ‘No, no, you have to be able to hear the main vocals’. I am not opposed to [it] because a lot of me wanting to bury the vocals stems from insecurities and weird personal things. So I feel like it’s different in a really good way.

PD: You had a fairly public falling out with your original drummer Ryan onstage at Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona a few months ago. Are you not working with Ryan anymore?
NW: I am not playing live with Ryan right now. Me and Ryan both have stuff going on. Not to say I will never play with Ryan again, but, at this point in time, I wanted to do something different with the live show. You know, for the time being…

PD: Was that Ryan’s decision, your decision, or a mutual one?
NW: It wasn’t some sort of weird thing where I kicked him out or he quit. It was just a point where we were in two different places and it was time for something different. I had wanted to work with Zach before and we had talked about doing it and the time just seemed right. Me and Ryan remain friends.

PD: The profile of Wavves seems tohave ballooned in the last year.. How has the attention been? How haveyou handled the intense Internet scrutiny?
NW: It’s fucking bizarre. I never, ever thought I would be getting this sort of attention, good or bad. I could have probably guessed half way through that I’d at some point do something that would get me into trouble like[Primavera]. I handled the situation in front of me with probably not the best…I handle everything actually pretty badly, probably.

A lot of people get into the situation I am in and there is a lot of attention and there is a lot of backstage whispering that people don’t really understand. There is a lot of business sort of things with big web sites and labels and with people that claim they are independent and for music. In the end most people, that I have found, at least, are out for money. It’s an intense and weird place to be in, and most people in my situation go about getting a manager a lot sooner than I have. I still don’t have a manager, just because all I have heard from other people is just horror stories about them stealing money and they kind of remind me of ‘yes’ men – pushing your career to further their salary. I feel like the motivation and the relationship generally speaking between the manager and artist or client – which is reallywhat it is – is kind of a weird, fucked up one.

One of the reasons why I didn’t want to get into a studio is you pay by the hour. I feel like that’s a really shitty way to try to make a piece of art,on such a weird timed budget. I just want to go out and play music and have a good time with my friends, and write new, interesting things. And have the means for people that enjoy it to be able to hear it; to be able to hear it for free.

So there’s a lot of shit that comes along with it but in the end I don’t really pay attention to the Internet or what people say. Everybody’s got a fucking opinion and that’s just life. No real sweat off my back and I am having a good time.

PD: So what’s next?
NW: In two days we leave for about a six and a half week US tour. Then we have a short break, accompanied by another five and a half weeks in Europe.Then Australia…hopefully early February, mid-January, something like that.