On tour to promote their newest album, 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips, the extreme and ever-evolving group Xiu Xiu, performed at The Coast on October 26th of last year. Before the show, I was able to sit down and talk with the band’s main vocalist and longest-running member, Jamie Stewart, at the nearby Gaku Ramen, to talk about their creative process, the responsibilities of an artist and how their music changes over time. Also at our table was band member Angela Seo, who let Jamie do most of the talking while she worked on a Rubik’s Cube.

The following conversation has been revised for clarity and length.

Nico: What was the process like to make this new album and what was different or similar to the way you wrote and have recorded other albums?

Jamie: This one was a little odd, in that we have never done a really guitar riff heavy record before and it’s not the kind of music I generally listen to, although I think playing guitar is interesting. So it required a lot more of allowing things to happen and not fighting with what the goddess of music was telling us to do.

We were writing all these kinds of guitar riff type songs. We liked how they sounded, but part of us was going, ‘We’re not a rock and roll band, why are we doing this?’ But then, that’s what was being sent to us. So the process was a lot of letting go of preconceived notions. Which is not super different than other records we worked on, but it was a very specific, like, guitar is a very specific and very loaded instrument.

Nico: Yeah, lots of associations.

Jamie: So, because of that, it required then, a very specific type of letting go that we had not had to do before.

Nico: How important do you think it is for an artist to address things that they’ve done in their past that are considered insensitive or controversial? And, I was prompted to ask this question because of some of the statements you made about previous songs like ‘Black D***’ and the audio version of your book ‘Anything That Moves’.

Jamie: It’s on a case-by-case basis and it really depends on the person. If somebody is doing that because they genuinely feel through time and introspection that something requires a second look, and they feel it’s important to do out of respect for other people, then I think that can be an important thing to do. I don’t think it’s required… I don’t think people are obligated. In a blanket way, I don’t think that anybody who makes anything publicly is obligated to do it.

For those two particular things, and in totally different ways… With the song, ‘Black D***’, at the time we were, it’s a song that sort of through the lens of Surrealism and Dadaism is asking questions about racialized sexual fetishization. And through time, we realized that although those are important questions, asking those questions through those particular lenses is now not really appropriate. At the time, it felt fine. We’ve thought a lot about it; we didn’t do it cavalierly at all. But, you know, for language and sociology, very fortunately evolves, and through that evolution, it didn’t seem like something that now made sense.

With the book, it was just more an editing thing. The editor pointed out that something I was writing, which was not real, would be taken as a fact. And it made sense to not give people the wrong impression of what a particular fairly sensitive fact would be. So it was in a totally different way. But in an attempt to be, again, respectful of certain people’s potential feelings, we were motivated to do it in that same way.

Nico: I’ve noticed with live recordings versus studio recordings that there’s kind of like a change in structure of the songs. Could you talk about how on this particular album, songs or compositions have changed from the studio to performing them live.

Jamie: This one is different than a lot of ones we’ve done because a lot of it was recorded live and it’s new. So, because it was recorded live, a lot of it we can just play flat out. I mean, to play it exactly how it was, we would need like eight guitar players. But I mean, the arrangements on this one live are pretty similar to the records and between the three of us and using some live sampling, we’re able to do effectively what the records sound like. And also, because they’re new we haven’t been playing them for ten years. We don’t feel as if, out of respect for people who’ve also already seen these songs for ten years, that we need to evolve them, so it remains interesting for them. But other songs, they’re impossible to play live, like they are in the studio.

Nico: I was prompted to ask this because I saw a live version of the “Girl with a Basket Fruit” song and how Thor [Harris] was doing some of the reading on that.

Jamie: Oh, yeah.

Nico: Oh no, maybe it was “Pumpkin Attack”.

Jamie: It was “Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy,” yeah, that he kind of did as a poem. And it’s also just interesting. I mean, a new arrangement is an opportunity to be creative and, why else be involved in something creative if not to take those opportunities.

Nico: Is there anything that you haven’t done or haven’t been able to do as an artist that you still are interested in doing?

Jamie: Oh yeah, absolutely! [Laughs] Times a million. There’s an infinite list. I mean, one of the greatest things about music is that it’s an unsolvable puzzle. Not unlike a Rubik’s Cube, which Angela is currently working on.

[To Angela] How’s your Rubik’s Cube going? Is it an unsolvable puzzle?

Angela: It’s going alright. [Laughs]

Jamie: Angela Seo everybody…

Yeah, I am intensely excited about the next 22 years of being in Xiu Xiu and what other things there are to do. I’m not tired of it in any way.

Nico: Are there any other questions that you feel people haven’t been asking you or haven’t asked you enough? Like, on the press cycle for this album at least.

Jamie: People don’t ask me…

What animal I wish that I could ride through the desert. People never ask if I could have my feet turn into something other than feet, what I would like them to be? People don’t seem to be asking what my favorite lichen or bacteria is. No one is really asking me what I dreamt last night. Nobody really seems to ask me why I have dressed like a waiter for the last ten years. Nobody ever really seems to ask me what my favorite color of light bulb is. Nobody ever really seems to ask me what my favorite style of chopsticks is. Nobody really, ever seems to ask me if I could learn to play any classical music piece on piano, what it would be. Nobody ever really seems to ask me if I could make a neon sign, what I would want it to say. No one ever really seems to ask me what my favorite character from Star Trek is. Nobody really seems to ask me what my relationship with my haircut is. And, nobody ever really seems to ask me if I would rather have eleven fingers or nine fingers.

Nico: Well…

Angela: [Sarcastically] So needy.

Nico: …I’ll just take one of those.

Jamie: [Quietly] Ok.

Nico: I’ll take one of those for the, for the brevity of the interview. But what is the deal with your outfits then? With the all black…

Angela: [Laughs, then, in a Jerry Seinfeld voice says] What is the deal with your outfit?

Nico: [Also in a Jerry Seinfeld voice] What’s the deal with your outfits?

Jamie: I really sweat a lot when I play, and we had a publicist, and I used to wear kind of crazy colors when we played. But we had a publicist who showed me some photos of what it looked like when I was wearing pink pants and a light blue T-shirt that was totally covered with sweat. And she just shook her phone and put it in front of my face and said, ‘You look disgusting.’ And then I figured I probably just should wear all black because it just still looks like all black, even though I sweat like a disgusting pig. So it’s functional.

Nico: I was wondering if it was a David Lynch thing because he wears his uniform because he doesn’t wanna waste creative energy.

Jamie: No, it’s because I’m repulsive. That’s mostly why.

Nico: Thank you so much.

Jamie: Thanks, nice to talk to you Nico. Thank you.