Kurt Vile’s most recent album, 2015’s b’lieve i’m goin down, was a left turn of sorts — a Folk-fortified collection powered less on the Philadelphia native’s soaring guitar leads and more by a laid-back, meditative vibe. “Wheelhouse,” the album’s melancholic centerpiece, sounds like something lifted from prime-era Yo La Tengo, its atmospherics and circular guitar pattern transporting listeners to an alternate universe. Then there’s “Dust Bunnies,” an addictive gem that seems to combine Tom Petty with John Prine — a well-crafted, interestingly textured song flavored with Vile’s distinctive drawl and evocative lyrics.
CityBeat recently tracked down Vile via phone to discuss everything from the recording of b’lieve i’m goin’ down (his sixth studio album since 2008) to the satisfaction of diving into a good Rock biography.
CityBeat: Are you still in California? Didn’t you play The Hollywood Bowl a couple days ago?
Kurt Vile: Yeah, in Fresno. Feeling kind of crispy right now. Long night. The Hollywood Bowl was amazing. (National Public Radio station) KCRW put it on. Sufjan Stevens played last, and we played before him. It was completely packed.
CB: How have the new songs, which are more subdued than those on your last couple albums, changed or evolved in a live setting?
KV: They tend to rock more, get a little more epic. It seems like there’s just a lot more guitar playing. Not like Phish or something. Not like wanking or playing too fast, but things tend to rock a little more or get a little heavier in other ways, especially if it’s like a solo jam.
CB: You’ve been on the road a lot in recent years. Is it something you enjoy? Do you approach it any differently than when you were just staring out?
KV: I love touring when it’s going good. I definitely hit walls in the psyche and otherwise. My ears are definitely ringing, but that’s been happening for a while. But, ultimately, the reward is when you play a sweet gig. Or another reward is when I think I played a bad gig, because it sounds weird to me, and then everybody says it was amazing, and then the band even likes it. So I know some of it is in my head.
CB: I read that you added some guitar solos to the new songs, but then took them out of the finished recordings. Why did you take them out?
KV: A solo could just stand for just adding overdubs. As in, “Let’s see what this sounds like, let’s see what that sounds like.” It easily ends up that you’re noodling. I didn’t feel like it sat right. If I whip out a solo on the spot on the actual take, that would be cool. I’m sure it would stay in there. But I’m into doing things as live as possible. I’m definitely not opposed to overdubbing, but for this record in particular I loved the organic thing. (Adding the solos) just didn’t feel right.
CB: You recorded most of the songs on the new record in different places — California, Philly, Athens (Ga.). Why didn’t you want to go with a single producer in a single studio this time out?
KV: My last two were recorded like so many albums in professional studios — in and out, and producers and all these assistant engineers and backing up tracks and being organized. And I was in a race to finish my records — for both of them I had babies on the way. I had to finish the record before the baby came, so there was all kind of insanity. I just thought that because I had two great engineers in my band that I could just literally have our guard completely down and not go into a professional studio where all these people are working at the desk or whatever.
I wanted to do something where nobody is waiting around to do something, just everybody knowing that I’m going to be up until whenever and nobody is looking at the clock or getting charged by the hour or anything like that. I wanted to capture a moment. The way I write songs is like on my couch late at night. Eventually I will have to have my tape machine set up. Soon, probably for the next record, one side will be right from my couch.
CB: You seem like a pretty astute student of Rock history. You’re always talking about a biography or a new era or genre you’ve discovered or are getting into. Where does that intense interest come from?
KV: My whole family is obsessive, so I got obsessed with music first. And once I discovered how cool it was to read books, I would just get obsessed and get somebody’s whole discography and consume it. In the early days, when I was a teenager still in or just out of high school, I read that Sonic Youth book, Confusion is Next, and I read that Velvet Underground Up-Tight book. Those were some early ones that got me hooked.
CB: You were born in 1980, which means you came of age when the Alternative revolution was really kicking into gear in the early 1990s. Were you into Nirvana at the time?
KV: Yeah, sure, I was 11 or 12 when the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video came out. We were wearing flannel shirts and we were head-banging awkwardly at birthday parties. And that was all cool, but I’m glad that I actually came of age at 15, 16, 17, when it was a little post that serious Grunge thing. I love Nirvana to this day, but I feel like some of the Alternative bands that came a little bit later, or the records that came out later, were a bigger influence. There was a good pocket in there a little later in the ’90s where Alternative was turning into this weirder hybrid. And then there was Indie Rock under there, like on Drag City, which was equally exciting. So I’m glad I wasn’t, say, 17 when Pearl Jam’s Ten came out. I probably would sound completely different right now.
KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS play Friday at Covington’s Madison Theater. Tickets/more info: madisontheateronline.com.
