Of all the things Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart can be accused of, preciousness is probably not one of them. Sure, on a current solo tour he’s already sold out of homemade chocolate and posters of his enormous stuffed animal collection, but don’t let that deceive you, a cute singer/songwriter showcase this is not.
For an artist whose central themes revolve around incest, physical violence, drug abuse, Anne Frank, ill-attended birthday parties and cacophonous noise, a solo show probably won’t be any less unnerving than the psychological, harmonically disparaged brilliance typical of a Xiu Xiu set.
He comes to town this week armed with an electric guitar, a ’70s synth known as a stylophone and a handful of bird call whistles (blue jay, robin, Canadian goose and the cuckoo, to name a few), aiming to reinterpret songs both old and yet-to-be released. The Vanguard recently spoke to Stewart about his solo tour, the forthcoming Xiu Xiu album and, of course, his stuffed animals.
Daily Vanguard: What inspired a solo tour?
Jamie Stewart: It’s actually not that interesting, we just had more time between records than usual. I haven’t done [a solo tour] in about five years, because I just haven’t had the calendar space to do it. We’re working on a new record right now, and it gives me the chance to try out some new songs.
DV: Do you think this show appeals mostly to the established Xiu Xiu fan?
JS: It’s kind of impossible for me to determine that. The intent is to have it as intense as a Xiu Xiu show, probably having the intensity be an implosion rather than an explosion. It’s definitely not a relaxing experience. Have you ever seen the Storyteller series on VH1? Ray Davies will be there with an acoustic guitar making jokes … creating this sort of cute, communal event. It’s nothing like that at all.
DV: Is it difficult to transfer some of the texturally complex Xiu Xiu songs into solo songs?
JS: For some of them the transfer from digital to vocals and one instrument is relatively easy, and then completely impossible for others. Particularly with the music on the new record, it’s really electronically based, and in an attempt to work on some of those songs it’s really difficult to reverse-engineer them from electronic songs. I think all of them needed to be rethought; none of them ever started out as a solo song, and therein lies the challenge. It’s an interesting musical problem, it doesn’t seem pointless, or it doesn’t seem like work, it seems like a chance to try and be creative.
DV: Could you explain what some of those creative challenges are?
JS: If there’s a passage in a particular song, it’s based upon two different conflicting harmonies and a drum machine part, and trying to translate that into a guitar [part] which kinda looks like—at least for me because I’m not that good—one harmony at a time and vocals. It’s trying to figure out what essentially defines a particular passage, even though that particular passage may not, in its initial form, have an essential point. I guess trying to take something that is purposefully harmonically amorphous, and turn it into something that is harmonically concise, is probably where the challenge lies.
DV: I understand you have an extensive stuffed animal collection. Which one is your favorite?
JS: I have more than 500 [stuffed animals]. [My favorite] from an emotional standpoint is my very first one, that my now dead uncle made me, just a regular teddy bear. If I could only keep one, it would be that one. But aesthetically I think I have two favorites, one is a turkey, a very expensive and elaborate turkey. And one is this really big cube of a watermelon with a face and legs on it, and then I have two other watermelons which are really great, they have mustaches and one is weeping with glasses on. Anything that’s anthropomorphous, and any animals that look like realistic representations of animals. Or as I said, something that has a face and arms and legs on it that in real life does not.