Band Interview — Jamie Stewart

By Shannon McGregor

Jamie Stewart, front man of avant-folksters Xiu Xiu, hits the road this month for a solo tour, his first since 2003. He stops at Café 11 on April 24, and the show promises to be a more intimate variation on a Xiu Xiu set, with instruments ranging from normal (electric guitar) to the strange (bird call whistles). But would we expect anything less from a man who’s well-known for his tortured lyrics on subjects like AIDS, child abuse, and sexual violence? Also on tour with Stewart is photographer David Horvitz, who will take a portrait of every person at every show – bartenders, ticket takers, fans and anyone else hanging around. All pics will be posted on Xiu Xiu’s blog, with a lucky 300 making it into an upcoming photo book.

Xiu Xiu, ambient brainchild of Stewart, has been making music reflecting disparate genres since 2000. With a lineup that’s varied throughout the years, Stewart has played most recently with percussionist Ches Smith and his cousin Caralee McElroy. The solo tour comes on the heels of his release of a one-year subscription to monthly, ambient music CDs, hand-wrapped and hand-numbered by Stewart himself.

The Stewart solo-set promises to include tunes old and new, along with a few from Xiu Xiu’s upcoming release Dear God, I Hate Myself. And if you ask nice, Stewart might offer you some serious, homemade chocolate.

Drift: How did you come to do the solo tour this year?
Jamie Stewart: We had more time between records than usual, and a lot of people had been asking me when I might do one again. In this case, timing was everything.

D: There’s a lot of strong emotion in your music – where does the inspiration for your songwriting come from?
JS: From the lives of the people in my family, my life and international politics.

D: Tell me about how a Jamie Stewart show is different from a Xiu Xiu show.
JS: It is much quieter, less violent, probably sadder and in some ways more intense on the nights when it works. It is of course the most simple approach to the Xiu Xiu songs – focusing more on the lyrics and not as much on the timbres. It is a chance to play some covers as well that I would not want to put into a full-on Xiu Xiu set.

D: What can we expect for the new Xiu Xiu album due out next year, Dear God, I Hate Myself?
JS: Self hate and pop.

D: Tell me about the portraiture project that goes along with this tour. What’s the reason behind wanting a photograph of every person at each concert?
JS: From an art perspective, why not?

D: Can you tell us a bit about the one-year subscription you started for handcrafted CDs? Where did this idea come from? Were you surprised at how quickly they sold out? Any plans to do something like this again in the future?
JS: They are actually all new ambient records made each month specifically for the series. I had wanted to make an ambient record but there are probably only 50 people who would buy it, so it made sense to make it as singular as possible for those 50 people. Each month I make a new recording, wrap it in a different color of felt and mail it. I was very surprised, considering it was not cheap, that it sold out in less than 4 hours. I might do it again, but it is a tremendous amount of work and this may be the only year in a while that I have the time to focus on it. I am learning more about music and space from it than I ever thought I would. I hope people get something from it.

D: And you make chocolate? What’s with that?
JS: It is yummy, that is what is up with it! I am obsessed with chocolate and get tired of it not being as good as it is in Europe, so I make my own and will bring some on tour for people. I like it very, very strong. It is not a candy experience; it’s more of a narcotic or hard liquor approach to chocolate.