In Conversation With Jeffrey Lewis
It was hard to fathom one of the greatest living songwriters sleeping on a dainty grey sofa in the Avenues but there he was. Jeffery Lewis had wandered into Salt Lake City that afternoon and was set to spring into a new city the following day. During his stay in Salt Lake, Lewis took refuge at his opening act Marcus Koncar’s home. Lewis applies a DIY method to almost every aspect of his career. As a repercussion, Lewis often relies on the kindness of strangers for shelter while touring.
With his eyes heavy with sleep, he typed the wifi password “anime b00bies” into his laptop. The apartment was filled with noise and laughter while the rest of his bandmates munched on cold cheese pizza and chatted about their travels. He remained unfazed by the ruckus and sat quietly on the floor attending to another interview
Paul Bank, from the famed band Interpol, once commented "Jeffrey Lewis sings as though absurdity were the truth, and truth absurdity. And I think I agree with him." Jeffrey Lewis hails from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, an area that serves as an inspiration for much of his music. Lewis began his comic book and songwriting career in the ‘90s. The early years of his career consisted of playing open mics and distributing self-published comic books outside of coffee shops. Since then he has cultivated a cult following, released eight acclaimed albums, and continued to produce comic books. Most recently Lewis released the anti-folk album ‘Bad Wiring’. The combination of Jeffrey Lewis’ self-deprecating humor and themes of common feelings of occurrences make ‘Bad Wiring’ an incredibly witty and personal album.
When it came time for Jeffrey Lewis to take part in an interview with Salt Lily magazine, he sprawled on the soft carpet floor in Marcus Koncar’s bedroom. With his head on the floor and his hands busy playing with Marcus’ adorable cat Beans, Jeffrey Lewis answered all of our questions.
Q:You’ve been active for several years but have remained a DiY artist, Why is that?
A: It’s basically like desperation. I don’t have another reason to do it. It’s just DIY being 'do it yourself'. It’s like no one else doing it, and someone has to do it, so it ends up being me. It’s not like someone is putting the tour together, no one is saying ‘you have to come to play in Denver’ or something. Well, I want to play so I have to email a bunch of clubs and find a place to sleep. You know we’ll just drive out there do it. It’s a matter of making it happen because if I waited for it to happen it wouldn’t happen. We’re not in so much demand. We are just relying on ourselves to make it work.
Q: You have a song called ‘Don’t Let the Record Label Take You Out to Lunch’, do you have any experiences similar to that?
A: Well, it was surprising when I first started getting involved in music stuff officially. I was playing open mics and playing shows and things like that before. I unexpectedly found myself doing something more official with record labels and shit. They don’t really make it clear to you that the artist is paying for everything. It really is the case that if the record label takes an artist out to lunch, you think you’re getting this free lunch. ‘It’s so nice they are buying me food’, but they will take that whole bill and put that on your account. That money comes out of your record sales so it’s more like you took them out to lunch. No one makes that clear. They are just like ‘oh we’ll find someone to pick you up from the airport and you’ll have a driver'. It’s like ‘oh that’s so nice, this is such wonderful treatment' but all of that money gets charged back to the artist. Then you have to sell that many more records before you make any money. That whole system just felt I don’t know I just didn’t want to get involved in that. I don’t know I just never felt like I was going to sell very many records, so it just seemed like a waste of money to be spending money on all of this other stuff. I just felt like I was a pretty small artist and I was going to stay a pretty small artist. It just seemed wasteful to have these fancy things. I don’t know we don’t really need that stuff.
Q: Do you have any advice for other DIY musicians?
A: Well, I think the most important thing is the songs. If you write songs that feel powerful to you then everything else should fall into place one way or another. It just seems like if you don’t have songs that don’t feel like they are worth all of the effort then it doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter what kind of amplifier you have, or how nice of a guitar you have, or that you have a record label deal or not. It just comes down to the next time you’re looking at a blank piece of paper how can you put words on it that means something to you. I guess my advice is just to do a lot, write a lot of songs, play a lot of open mics, make a lot of recordings, play a lot of shows. Just the more you do anything the better you’ll get at it.
None of this stuff helps. Tomorrow there is going to be another blank piece of paper that I’ll need to turn into a song. Money can’t buy that. It doesn’t matter whether I have a great gig tomorrow, have more fans tomorrow, or make more money. None of that is going to help me write the next song. Which is kind of fantastic? For all artists, it’s this great level playing field where everyone is kind of equalized. You don’t really have advantages. Donald Trump could spend ten million dollars but it’s not going to help write a better song than I can write like I can write a better song than him. It’s really interesting that way because anyone trying to be an artist it’s just about the dedication you have for doing it.
Q: What are the best and worst parts of touring?
A: Well, pros are I get to meet folks like you guys and feel like somebody is interested in what I have to say. Here I am being interviewed. I feel like I spent so many years just you know feeling like ‘wouldn’t it be so great if someone wanted to talk to me’. Now I go around and people want to talk to me, it’s amazing. I love to travel. You have to like the travel to do this. Even before I was making music, any chance that I could get I would travel and just go see different places. Seeing different friends all over the place is really fun and cool. An old high school friend of mine lives in Denver and I got to see her yesterday. My brother lives in Portland so I get to see him on Friday. A lot of people don’t get to see their friends and family around the country as regularly as we do. Friends of ours live in Europe or live in England. Basically, within every given year we will probably get to pop in and say hi. The downside is that it’s [touring] not creative. If I’m on a three-week tour I’m not going to draw comics the entire time. I’m not going to write songs the entire time. It’s just going to be three weeks of driving, hanging out, finding places to sleep, playing concerts, and meeting people which is fun. I’ll come home from the tour and I won’t have any new work to show for myself. Coming home is when I really have to get to work on writing new songs and working on my new comic.
Q:Were you trying to tell a story on ‘Bad Wiring’?
A: I guess I’m always trying to not make depressing art because it’s too easy to make stuff about how everything sucks. I’m always trying to find a better way to look at things. There is a general dark cloud over things during the last couple of years, which is when most of the songs were written. It does sort of end up being more depressing and hopeless than I would normally want it to be. I think there is enough positivity in it somewhere, somehow that it all still works.
Q:How is ‘Bad Wiring’ different from other albums you’ve written?
A: I deliberately tried to do a record where we would know how to play the songs completely before we went to record them. All of the songs on the record were songs that we had been playing live before. We didn’t have to make any decisions in the studio. We knew what the bass line was, we knew what the backing vocal was, we knew which songs would have keyboards on them, stuff like that. It wasn’t like trying to make stuff on the spot, all of the decisions had been worked out over time. I think that made for a much better record because we weren’t experimenting. All of the trying and honing had all happened over the previous year. Also when people see us play live now, the show sounds like the record. I would like to make another record like that.
Q: The song ‘My Girlfriend Doesn’t Worry’ is extremely existential. How did you come up with it?
A: I think it’s one of those [songs] that came out fully formed. There are even lines in it that don’t make that much sense. It sort of spilled out because it was just I don’t know. Other songs take a lot of work, but that one I like because you are sort of left wondering who in the relationship has the wiser perspective. The fact that you can take either character’s standpoint as being the smarter way to be.
Q: What is your songwriting process like?
A: It’s changed a little over the years. In the last few years, I’ve been into this idea that I should finish writing anything that I start. Every time I start writing a song even if I feel like it’s coming out stupid I should at least finish it so I have a finished song. I can add it to my little pile of finished songs. Then I end up with thirty or forty songs in there before there are a couple that I feel are worth holding on to. I really tried to fight against giving up on a song. Even if it just seems like it’s going nowhere or it just seems dumb or corny or something. As long as I get to the end of it then I’m like 'okay I got one more for the pile'. The idea of just not giving up and finishing everything that I start has been a good part of the process. Also that it’s okay to work on stuff. I think for the first few years that I was making songs, I was really into the idea that if it didn’t come out exactly how you felt it then it wasn’t worth it. I was just really against working on things. But then in the last few I really got into the idea that 'okay I like these lines, but this other line is kinda dumb, so maybe I can take that line out and write a better one'. Just because it was written that way originally doesn’t mean I have to keep it that way. I can fix it. That’s been a really great thing for me to learn. Things do get better if you work on them.
Q: How did you get into making comic books?
A: I was just always into it since I was a little kid. I really loved reading comics and drawing. Somehow, when I was little I decided I wanted to grow up and make comic books. Somehow, even though I’m an adult now, I’m a slave to that decision made by that little kid. I feel beholden to that decision even though maybe it wasn’t a rational decision.
Q: What are some of your inspirations for your comic books?
A: I think Eightball is my favorite comic of all time. It came out in the ‘90s and the comics that I make are really inspired by that. I’m trying to make that kind of comics because I wish that there was more of that being done nowadays. Everyone wants to make these giant graphic novels now. People are taking comics more seriously now, it’s going to be something that’s going to be in bookstores, reviewed in The New York Times, and be talked about on NPR. I kind of miss when comics were more trashy and alternative. You know just a regular cheap stapled floppy comic. Even though it could be something very smart and underground, something more counter-cultural. There is something really appealing to me about the trashy-ness of a comic book when it’s not trying to get into a bookstore or get proper reviews. Yeah, I really like the ‘90s alternatives stuff like Eightball, Peepshow, Jester Brown and Dirty Plot. I’m just trying to make stuff like even though I think it’s really out of style nowadays. That’s one of the greatest things about being ‘Do it Yourself’ because I don’t have to worry about whether a publisher likes it, or whether the public likes it. I just like doing it, and I’ll make copies of it and hope that somebody likes it.
Q: Do you consider yourself an artist or a musician first?
I guess more of an artist if I have to pick one. I certainly make more of my living from music stuff, just because I think most people have music in their lives. Everyone listens to music but not that many people read comic books. At least in terms of black and white, self-published comic books, it’s a really marginal culture. Most people would think it’s normal to go see a gig, but a lot of people wouldn’t necessarily buy a self-published comic book. It’s just been easier for me to reach people with music than with comics. If I really had to pick one I would stick with comics, just because that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.
Bad Wiring is available on Spotify and Bandcamp
