When word of a Stars Of the Lid show began to surface, we were rapturously high-fiving around the office. That’s not too common a reaction to slow, thoughtful, 18-minute passages. So why? Because Stars Of The Lid are up there as two of the best creators of instrumental music to ever grace a pair of monitors. Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie are sensei within the world of drone, post-rock, ambient (pick your poison – as you’ll read below, it’s all a little meaningless anyway). The likes of And Their Refinement Of The Decline or The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid are majestic, massive bodies of work, rightly held up as contemporary classics and cherished by those that know.
Finally, they rarely indulge in live performances, choosing to only to step out the shadows once every blue moon. We’re delighted to be part of that, with the highest-quality documentation of a Stars gig in their 20+ years of operation. Ahead of that performance at Brooklyn’s St. Agnes Church, Boiler Room’s Editor-in-Chief spoke with Adam Wiltzie in an equally rare interview. The archived broadcast & all information about the show can also be found here.
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GABRIEL SZATAN: Right from the off I have to wonder if this — doing a phoner in the back of a tour bus — is a drudgery for you? Or is there a kind of exciting novelty in being on the road with Stars of the Lid again?
ADAM WILTZIE: Well, it’s not really very often I’m off the road, given the solo stuff I’m doing, as well as Winged. Even Stars of the Lid are playing more often: we just played in Toronto last month, and played in Austria earlier in Spring. So, touring is very much a part of my life.
Do you need a period of decompression between all your different projects?
No, although I’m much more keen to taking holidays this summer. Actually, I went away for 10 days after Proms to relax and stuff. I love to unwind.
Mary Anne Hobbs told me recently about “a matrix of parts” that you and Dustin wrote for Nils Frahm to improvise within at that Proms. It takes serious experience to do that and I’m sure as your career has developed, you’ve become more competent as a musician. Do you see the old Stars recordings from 15 or 20 years back as improvable, or even underdeveloped?
I mean, I’ve never been very good at looking at myself with any sort of reverence. But at the same time, I’m able to look at all the things I’ve done over the years – and man, it is over 20 years now that I put out that first record. I just look at them as time capsules. I’m not often listening back on old recordings anyway, but it was a moment in time and I’m glad I was able to do it at the time, for whatever reason. Because it felt urgent at the time, and it was necessary.
How emotionally involved do you become with your old music when you perform? Do you need to reach back to conjure the feelings of a record that you might have laid down years ago?
No, I think that’s impossible. I have to relive it in a different way. We’re adding more live aspects with strings and brass now. I also find, despite me writing the parts out, there’s also a human element that will take shape when you bring in a new person; some are familiar with the music, and others aren’t. Three of the four string players we’re going to play with in New York, this is not something they’re really familiar with, so they’re going to bring their own personality.
You’ve left a lovely Easter egg trail of collaborations and recordings basically throughout your career – like, I hadn’t realised you worked with Labradford until a day or two ago. Do you recognise anything from a young age that lent you a collaborative mindset, or whether you gravitate towards that in general?
Hm, that’s an interesting question. It’s going to sound a little hokey, but I kind of feel like every experience – right back from what happened as a kid to right now, whether you’re having a good day or horrible day – all rubs on your emotional ticker, and leads you to the things you do. I mean, Labradford were label mates on Kranky, but they also became really good friends of mine. I was lucky enough to tour with them, and I feel like I’ve probably rubbed off on them.
Do you keep up with any of the contemporary Kranky artists? Grouper? Steve Hauschildt? That set.
I’ve met Steve and Liz, but I don’t really know them very well. I came to Steve when I met the Emeralds guys, but that was a while back. In terms of contemporary stuff, I’m more associated with people that I’m running into: Ben Frost or Tim Hecker; or Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Hauschka, and all these kind of guys around Berlin. Europe feels really small in that I can be almost anywhere in an hour on a plane. So, this is the group of guys that I wind up seeing all the time, and all their music is quite beautiful. I’m lucky to have them in my life.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the end, but there’s material that’s been in the vault for a while. Some of it might end up just being a solo record.”
I know you guys are working – fittingly – at glacial pace on a new record, but as you mentioned Ben Frost and Hauschka, I wanted to see if there’s any substance in rumbling they’ll both be appearing on it?
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the end, but there’s material that’s been in the vault for a while. Some of it might end up just being a solo record. Eventually, there’s going to be a Stars of the Lid record that we’ll finish. You know about this upcoming Moog project? Basically you get these old Moog modular units delivered to your studio and you work on a piece of music and then you perform it live at a curated event. We’re going to be doing that, and that’s going to debut next September. We are working on new things, not specifically to have a release, but you know, fit into a live concert for sure.
Given that you’re a senior in relative terms, how you see this microcosm of ambient, drone, neo-classical and generally more experimental music in 2015 compared to when you guys were in full operation?
Well, you live in England, so [that grouping] is basically different anyhow. I think the neo-classical connection comes from our European label – in the States, no considers Stars of the Lid anything to do with that. And I remember back in the early Nineties when the world came up with ‘post-rock’, and then suddenly they thought Tortoise and us and Labradford all lived in the same house. I don’t know; do you even hear about post-rock anymore? Maybe you do. I’m not sure.2
No you do, but it’s mostly legacy concerts.
Sure. As you know as a writer, there’s always going to be terms that conjure an association, so it’s normal. But whether the artists really are buying into it, I’m not certain.
This year has been comparatively full of Stars of the Lid shows – which makes a break from almost a half-decade of hibernation. Is the general scarcity of your live performances necessitated by real-life concerns, or do you just seek to make it special but having just a couple every other year?
I dunno, there’s interest, not least from [Wordless Music founder] Ronan. We’re not aching to play real bad all the time, so a lot of it’s financial, and our visual projectionist Luke [Savinksy] has some free time as well. Plus, with the vinyl re-release of Tired Sounds and Refinement, there’s a reason to celebrate this milestone.
I was just about to ask about Luke. What’s the dynamic he brings to your performance?
We’ve never played a show without Luke; I’ve been friends with him since forever. As a filmmaker he’s always been into film collage, influenced by cut-and-paste but created his own little world too. He started out working with 16mm and eventually re-filmed all the 16mm and is now doing high-definition video with that. ‘Cuz before, when we had the 16mm, they couldn’t get that bright, so we were really limited in the kind of spaces we could play. But now, with technology as it is, we’re going to have a couple 18,000 Lumen projectors in that giant church. It’s going to look fantastic.
Have the visuals evolved at all since the last run of UK shows in 2012/3 – St John’s Church at Hackney being one – or is it going to be relatively similar in terms of the visual accompaniment?
We’ll continue projecting all over the ceiling and yeah, there’ll be new films I think, but we’re not going to completely re-invent the wheel. We’ve got our shtick, and we’re sticking to it. Were you there at St John’s?
“What we’re able to do with the visuals plays a big part in it. They can completely transform the space.”
No, but it’s basically my backyard. I can see it from my window now, which is cute.
We’ll be back. Next year we’re playing Barbican on the 1st or 2nd of October. It’s not announced just yet, but you can have that one, it’s fine with me. [Laughs]
Is the grandiosity of the surroundings something you guys always strive for?
I mean, just playing a regular rock club will happen every once in a while, but what we’re able to do with the visuals plays a big part in it. They can completely transform the space. Onstage, there’s not really that much going on; for the broadcast on Tuesday, it’ll be the string quartet and Brian and myself, but without Luke, I think sometimes it could get quite boring. A church is quite special, and maybe it’s become a bit cliché, but at the same time, for what we’re doing I think it works phenomenally with the sound and the lights.
A friend told me that you were originally set on a career in tennis before a bad injury, and I think your godfather or someone won Wimbledon –
Yeah, my godfather won it. Charles McKinley won Wimbledon in 1963, beat Fred Stolle of Australia. He dated my mom for a short while, and was one of my dad’s best friends. And yeah, he taught me how to play tennis.
Do many people know about that? That you had this massive drive as a sportsman, and you went into music almost as an afterthought.
I’m not so sure. I’m still heavily into sports, so I find that the sporting world is a breath of fresh air from the art world sometimes, the absolute winners-and-losers thing.
I imagine there isn’t too much overlap on the Venn diagram between the world of quote-unquote post-rock and hardcore sports fans.
In the sport world, they love music, but the music world, a lot of times they frown on you if you even mentioned it: “Oh, I don’t like sports.” But actually, the ridiculous and unfortunate part is artists can be way more competitive than sporting greats. [Laughs]
Is it also true that that you were in the same tennis school as Andre Agassi?
He was just in my same age group. When I was going to tennis camp in Florida, at like eight years old, he was already so good he was beating kids a lot older than him and everyone knew about him, whispering, “this guy’s gonna be a monster someday.” You know, a lot of kids get burned out, but he was so much better than everyone at that young age, you kind of thought it was impossible that he wouldn’t go on – and he did. ‘Cuz a guy like Sampras, they didn’t really develop until he was almost 20 years old.
It’s funny – your cadence and your excitement levels have both risen when talking about Luke’s work and when talking about tennis, but you seem very nonchalant when it comes to music.
Is that obvious?
Oh so obvious, man. So obvious.
[Distant murmuring and laughter] I just found my sound man. He concurs.
Are you just a relaxed dude when it comes to music? Are you just politely taking on people’s enjoyment but shrugging your shoulders all the while?
Well, I don’t know. I never really expected that it would become a proper job to me, that I’m actually making a living off music. I’m the luckiest guy in the world, and very, very fortunate to have people that even care about what I do. It has mellowed me a little bit.
Do you ever mull over how these little ‘time capsules’ you unassumingly put into the ground in ’97, ’01 or whenever have wound up impacted upon people’s lives? Is that surreal at all?
Yeah, it’s very humbling. I have a hard time taking myself seriously, but I very much appreciate that — and it’s so subjective. I’ve heard so many great stories over the years, whether they used it to have one of their babies in the hospital, or it pulled them out of a depression. That’s the amazing thing about art, you know? You can affect someone in such a grandiose fashion without even being there. I can be nonchalant and maybe even joyless sometimes, but when it comes to the people that I’ve touched, it’s a wonderful thing.
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– Stars Of The Lid performed a rare show live from St. Agnes Church in Brooklyn. To find out more, head here. –
