John Vanderslice:
The Wizard of Indie Rock

By Veronica Young

Photos by Autumn De Wilde

San Francisco’s John Vanderslice can bet that in any conversation, his name will always be whispered as if he’s independent music royalty. He’s the musician’s musician, first carving his name in the sidewalk with MK Ultra, then becoming a mainstay in the independent music community by recording as a solo artist while simultaneously opening and managing the all-analog Tiny Telephone recording studio. Vanderslice’s sound is defined by his copyrighted term — sloppy hi-fi — which translates to intentionally distorted and loose-sounding, despite being recorded on very expensive equipment.

He’s an affable guy who laughs when he hears that phrase used to describe his music. His sixth album, Emerald City, which was just released by Barsuk Records late last month, stays true to that sound and continues to push the envelope lyrically as Vanderslice shares his views and disappointments with the government and society.
Regardless of his rising fame within the music community and among fans, Vanderslice remains with his feet as firmly planted in the earth as his beloved garden. “I absolutely love my garden,” says Vanderslice nonchalantly. He mentions his garden often — it seems to be a peaceful respite for him, and he’s proud of the work he’s done to beautify it. He opts for water instead of coffee, and when he returns to the cafe table, he brings back a tiny paper cup of tap water instead of a plastic bottle. “I’m terribly cheap like that,” he says. “I looked at the bottle of water, and decided I just didn’t want to spend the money.”

As these first few interactions with him support, despite the fact that he’s just completed a tour with engagements in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia, Vanderslice lives his life more like an ascetic, introverted artist wholly dedicated to his craft than a bona fide rock star. “Honestly, I’m not really social,” Vanderslice says. “I drink like twice a year, and I don’t smoke pot. If I could do rails of coke and hang out with strippers, be like Young Jeezy or Nas, I would. But that’s just not how my body works, so I have to be true to who I am. I stay in and force myself to write.”

For a singer-songwriter with a collection of tracks as lyrically deep as his, it’s surprising to learn that writing songs is actually something Vanderslice struggles with. “For me personally, lyrics are the only thing that matter,” he says, “and I am not an automatic songwriter. What I love is the feeling of recording and finishing an album — I would love it if I didn’t have to actually write music anymore.” This would explain his passion for recording, although he jokingly admits that his responsibilities at Tiny Telephone have been reduced to sweeping the floors and vacuuming. “The studio has really helped support my touring — it’s allowed me to lose money in certain markets and provided me with some stability,” says Vanderslice. “But these days, I don’t have the time to do anything more than fix gears or do other bonehead things. I’ve got to conserve my time and creative energy, and write my songs.”

He exhibits the discipline of a true artist, and completed Emerald City in eight months from top to bottom. “I find that you have to be disciplined or you’ll never make a record; you sometimes have to force it,” Vanderslice says. “There were some tracks that took me an hour to write, others that took weeks; some that were inspired and some that mean nothing at all.”

Vanderslice told himself after 2005’s Pixel Revolt that it would be at least two years until he released another album. “There are a lot of exciting things about touring, and it’s a main way to make money, but it just really slows things down,” says Vanderslice. “Your schedule gets so ridiculous, it’s almost anti-musical. You have to recover on a certain level because you’re totally depleted.” Even while in the midst of touring, Vanderslice exhibited his dedication to his craft as he started to write material for Emerald City.
While in Australia, Vanderslice was interested by the juxtaposition of nature and technology. “I was in an area that was primal, looking at the cliffs that had been eroded, when this Kookaburra bird appeared,” he says. “Those birds are beautiful, but confrontational, and seeing them in this natural setting made me think of how life is created, which led me to start writing about the end of times on this planet.” These thoughts led to his penning “Kookaburra,” the first track on Emerald City. The song examines how technology will enable us to build ourselves into oblivion, and how the basic energy that gives us life is the same energy that will spell out our doom.

Heavy topics to sing about, but Vanderslice makes Armageddon an aurally palatable subject. While he chooses to write cerebral lyrics, Vanderslice delivers the message wrapped delicately in layers of melody that are stitched together meticulously by harmonies and background vocals that make the topics he covers seem light and sweet. “I want to create a natural listening experience, and melody can carry you for a long way. You can say all sorts of fucked up stuff, but as long as it sounds good, you’re OK,” says Vanderslice. He points out “The Parade,” a track off of the album that “covers all sorts of strange, quasi-homosexual things” but sounds beautiful. Vanderslice enjoys combining opposites in his work, forcing listeners to get through dissonance and noise in sound in order to enjoy the beauty of his message — or vice versa.

It’s a good thing that Vanderslice has perfected this craft, because the subject matter of Emerald City is anything but fluffy. “Emerald City looks at this fascinating, but horrific, train wreck that is our country. And for me, it’s hard not to pay attention to that stuff,” says Vanderslice. Hot off the heels of the politically charged Pixel Revolt, his latest album culls from both his personal life and from that of an imaginary narrator, navigating through an Orwellian netherworld.

Vanderslice didn’t have too difficult of a time developing an absurd and fragmented narrator for this album — he wrote much of the content while dealing with immigration issues with his French girlfriend, Isabel. “I started writing this from the intersection between love and politics, which is an interesting place to write from and be in. Trying to negotiate love across borders, government and political infrastructure added to the ridiculousness of the situation I see us in currently,” says Vanderslice.

Moving away from politics, Vanderslice becomes excited when the discussion turns to the state of the music industry today. It’s not surprising that Vanderslice is an avid music listener himself — scouring for new ideas, listening for interesting arrangements and deconstructing the work of other artists. Says Vanderslice, “This is such a good time for music — it’s the Golden Age. If anyone complains that music isn’t good right now, they might as well be run over by a bulldozer and thrown in a ditch.” Or they should just be pointed in the direction of Emerald City.

www.johnvanderslice.com