Band Interview — Elvis Perkins

By Shannon McGregor

Elvis Perkins has been buzzing around for a few years since the 2007 release of his debut Ash Wednesday. It was a sad and hauntingly beautiful album, informed by the ghosts of Perkins’ tragic family history. His father, Anthony Perkins, of Psycho fame, died in 1992 from HIV/AIDS complications, and his mother, noted photographer Berry Berenson, was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into one of NYC’s Twin Towers on Sept. 11. But that is not all you need to know about Perkins. Yes, his father named him after that hip-shaking ‘60s superstar. He’s softly sharp and witty and thoughtful. On his new album Elvis Perkins In Dearland, Perkins joined with his In Dearland bandmates to create songs that are both joyous and mournful, hopeful and backward looking. Perkins spoke recently with Drift ahead of his June 11 show at Café 11, where Holopaw will open.

Drift: I read you took guitar lessons from The Knack’s Prescott Niles. What was that like?
Elvis Perkins: He was teaching a bunch of friends of mine at the time, at the very end of elementary school, so it was a very easy maneuver to get him to come to my house as well – he was making the circuit. I didn’t really know The Knack from Adam at that point, so it wasn’t as though an enormous celebrity was walking through the door. But he was a cool dude with great kinked hair that you would want from the bass player of The Knack, and he drove in a giant, chaotic station wagon with baseball bats and all sorts of things, useful and not, in his car. He would go around and teach everything: bass, drums, keyboards, guitars, whatever you wanted, he got. He’s a good dude, and it was good fun.

D: You’re playing Bonaroo this year, and you did last year. Do you enjoy playing festivals?
EP: Yeah. The festival atmosphere and scene is good fun. Especially when people are all sort of holed up in one place, have pilgrimaged their way to a certain spot, like what you get at Bonaroo or Sasquatch, that you don’t necessarily get at Lollapalooza. That behind-the-scenes thing is fun, and just taking part in something like a modern day religious-less pilgrimage, a Mecca of sorts, if good. It lets everyone know that they’re alive. The playing of the sets themselves can sometimes be challenging, but once you get thrown to the fire, you get used to the temperature. And if you can accept that it’s going to be somewhat chaotic and that it’s not going to sound very good, at least to you, on stage, then it can definitely be an enjoyable moment. The last time I was at Bonaroo, I certainly wasn’t in the best spirits, or in the best shape rest-wise or nutrient-wise, so it was a bit of a struggle for me against the heat and the dust. But this time I’m prepared, and I know what awaits. This time I’m going to take Bonaroo before it takes me.

D: Elvis Perkins In Dearland seems more upbeat than Ash Wednesday, musically, but the themes remain mostly downtrodden. What caused the shift?
EP: It’s a combination of me wanting to do something different and express something different, in combination with the energy that’s brought by the guys in the band – the energy that’s created by the four of us together. I didn’t necessarily want to play to a downbeat or mournful-ish sound with these three young energetic dudes, nor did I feel like carrying on that myth myself either. It is in part a media-generated myth that the first record is this complete downbeat slogger of a record. I think it’s a fact that the new record is livelier, more jumpy, more joyful in sound, if not necessarily in sense – some combination of the band, In Dearland, and the man, Elvis Perkins, trying on a new hat.

D: That leads perfectly to my next question. Thank you.
EP: You wanted to know my hat size?

D: Ha, how has your songwriting process changed or evolved from Ash Wednesday to EPID? Are the other members of the band involved?
EP: I’ve never known how to write a song, and I still don’t know how to write a song. It’s still a shot in the dark for me. The band had a lot to do with the arranging of the songs on the new record. Some of them we had on tour with us for a year or two together before we put them into the studio. I’m still doing the words and the general structure of the chords. Together we sort of flesh them out and make them dance.

D: You come from a family rich with actors. Was music something that always spoke to you as a way of performing?
EP: When I started playing, I don’t think I was thinking much about performing. I had gone from, what I hear, was a fairly personable and gregarious young child to a sort of inward-facing somewhat quiet adolescent, who wasn’t really after the sensation of being a performer so much as music making sense to me in my hands. It was more of a way to express something that I couldn’t or somehow didn’t want to express in everyday speak or action. That’s more it than the performance gene coming down and needing expression in this particular set of DNA. And even today I find myself sort of uncertain about what it is to be a performer, and if I am one and where the line is between being oneself fully onstage and being something that you imagine is entertaining to other people. I think music was more, for me, just music and the mysterious substance that it is than a vehicle to embody someone else or to be in front of crowds of people dancing and singing.

D: Do you like being in front of crowds, dancing and singing?
EP: Like I said, I’m at odds with it sometimes, or not trusting that I really know exactly that I know how to do it or if it feels good or if I’m better off in a room by myself making the songs. Sometimes its fun, and it’s always a good antidote to the absurdity of all things and of the goings on of modern man, being a performer – modern man and the absurdity of being alive and having a band and then having to do something with it. As you can see, I don’t really have a straight answer.

D: You’re about to be on tour with Bon Iver. How did that happen? Looking forward to it?
EP: We had the pleasure of doing a little bit of traveling with Mr. (Justin) Vernon a couple of years ago. Aside from being a creative dynamo, he’s also a really wonderful dude. We’ve known each other for a few years, and it made sense for us to accompany him on these few shows on the way to Bonaroo.

D: How did you end up with the solo gig at Café 11 in the midst of the Bon Iver tour?
EP: I’m not sure exactly. One day I woke up, and in my possible directives I saw a show in St. Augustine, and would we want to do it? It’s a great town, and it made sense with the routing. So we thought about it for two seconds and said, “Sure, let’s do that.”