Seattlest Interview: Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen
Seattlest has loved Brooklyn-based rockers The Walkmen for a while now, but it was their second full-length, 2004's critically acclaimed Bows and Arrows, that really got us good. The album slowly revealed its facets, intense and yearning one moment, subdued and wistful the next---qualities that made it a great post-break-up listen. Since we had nearly worn that CD out over the past two years, it was about time for some new tunes, and the Walkmen deliver with A Hundred Miles Off, in stores yesterday.
The reviews haven't been as glowing (and the songs didn't grab us by the throat like those on Bows and Arrows), but nonetheless it's a solid album. Central to the band's sound is tall, towheaded lead singer Hamilton Leithauser, whose vocals elicit comparisons including early Bono, a screechier Rod Stewart, and (on the new album) Dylanesque mushmouth. Seattlest struck up a conversation with Mr. Leithauser via the magic of the internets.
We're huge fans of Bows and Arrows, so it was good to hear many of the strengths of that album carry over to A Hundred Miles Off. Lead off track "Louisiana" seems to act as a bridge from the last album to the new one. How deliberate was that?
Thank you. Well that was the first song we wrote for the record (I think)...at least part of it. We wanted to start on a new foot when we began writing for this record, and we wanted to do a sort of fun party song, so we came up with that horn part first, then the rest of the song came together. We originally did it a lot more like "Monica" by the Kinks...with a calypso guitar and stuff...we played that version live for a while, [but] it just wore on us. Then we did a dub reggae version that was a little weird...it was all King Tubby-d out...we never made it out of the studio with that one. I hope it resurfaces as a b-side some day. I'm very happy with the final version. It was definitely the best of the bunch.
You're constantly referring to dreams, not the content of them, but the fact that you have them at all. On the last album, you were "thinking of a dream you had," while on this album you're telling someone that s/he was "in a dream you had last night" or that you'll "tell them of every dream." What's the deal with all those dream references?
I really don't know. Pete [Bauer, bassist on previous albums, now more of a keyboardist/organist] pointed that out to me when I was doing one of the later songs that had the word "dream" in it. He said something like "Ok Ham, that's enough dreams for this record." It's kind of weird, but I don't know why it's like that. I need to come up with a better answer for that one.
Yesterday we dreamt that we were chewing glass. It didn't hurt. We were just walking along, chewing on it, and spitting it out from time to time. Have you had any notable dreams lately?
I actually had that exact dream one time. It was like 5 years ago...I remember I had gone to the Knitting Factory the night before to see the Royal Trux, and my friends and I had snuck this pint of whiskey in and we were passing it around and we got totally loaded, and then I woke up the next day with this terrible terrible taste in my mouth and I thought I was chewing on a piece of salty glass. Really weird...that one stuck with me.
Yet again, it's the last song on the album that lingers most of all. Both "Bows and Arrows" and [Mazarin cover] "Another One Goes By" are reflective tunes sung by a guy who's resigned to his fate but seemingly not too sad about it. How do you always manage that "yeah it sucks, but oh well" tone?
They're both about the same tempo...just breezy and light, but slow. They're sort of lazy, mid-afternoon, or maybe cocktail hour sounding to me.
How are your other projects going? It's been reported that you've got a pretty busy year ahead, since you're going to be recording a song-by-song tribute to Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats, as well as attempting to write the great American novel.
Yeah, Pussycats is in the bag. It really came together into something we're excited about. It went from sort of being a joke to something we are going to put out and tour off of. I hope the novel's done this year, but I can't say...we have about 400 pages to go.
Though there's nothing on the club's webpage to confirm this, we've heard of A Hundred Miles Off listening party tonight at Wire at the Baltic Room.
The Walkmen perform at the Showbox June 9th.
