I did an interview with Robert Pollard about a month ago for PopMatters, timed to coincide with the release of his solo debut From a Compound Eye. Thanks to a backlog of features on the site, three weeks on from that release it has yet to appear. So, I thought I'd at least post this to tide you over and keep up my (two-week) streak of Monday interviews. The PopMatters package will also include a lengthy review of the disc, which I argue is Pollard's first top-to-bottom great album.

Despite that forthcoming voluminous package from PopMatters, which clocks in at a few thousand words, I had much more from my Q&A with Pollard and offer it here. We talked about his work with producers, his many side projects, the fate of bands that started at the same time as Guided by Voices, and about his new live band, which includes power pop phenom Tommy Keene and Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster. Please do keep checking back on the status of the PopMatters piece, however; it covers much more about the creative process that led to Pollard's disc than I've seen elsewhere.


You’ve called this a new beginning. Do you feel you capitalized on that, that people will see this as a new start?

I’m excited about it. I think that people are going to think this is kick ass. I’ve rounded up a new band. It’s a really good band. It’s just like these guys are really good, smart, fun. I think people will see that. First of all, they’re going to hear this new material that I’ve come up with this year. I’m excited about supporting From a Compound Eye. I think that stuff is going to translate really well to the stage. There are a lot of good songs, a lot of powerful songs like "Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft," "The Numbered Head"...

Tommy Keene is going to play keyboards, so for the first time in my life I’m going to be on stage where there’s keyboards, there’s actually going to be this kind of, at times kind of an ethereal effect. I’ve always had, you get on stage and pound 'em out.

Have you know these guys for a while?

I’ve know (Tommy) for a couple years. He opened some shows for us in the past couple years on both coasts. I’ve been a fan of Tommy’s for a long time anyway and it was a big deal for me to play on the same stage with him. He’s a good guy, and he just expressed interest that he’d like to play.

Are you going to play guitar?

...When we first started I played a lot of guitar, in the ’80s. But it gets too much to be the band leader and the drunken clown and the singer and try to play guitar too. I just want to get up there and have a good time, and it’s more fun not playing guitar. Some people may disagree, but it’s easier. I’m lazy.

The people that you work with either seem to have an impact on your sound, or you find the right people to help you achieve the sound you want.

I’ve gotten lucky. I’ve lucked into a couple good situations. The first one was with John Shough with Cro-Mag. First of all you’ve got to get used to each other, you’ve got to get acclimated. First with John it took a while before he understood what I did and then pretty soon he knew what I wanted. I don’t know how to articulate technical things. So all I can say is, "Make it go ‘wah wah wah,’" or, "Make me sound like Peter Gabriel on that," or "Give me the David Bowie effect," or emulate a lead with my mouth. You’ve got to be comfortable with somebody to do that. Strangers will think you’re weird when you do that. So after awhile they know what I want. I don’t even have to tell them, they just know.

Does (FACE producer) Todd Tobias push you more than other folks?

Todd doesn’t push me at all. That’s what I like. I went through the painful process of working with producers. It was a good learning experience and the guys were great. Rob Schnapf and Ric Ocasek were great. But I’m just like, I don’t have the patience to sing every syllable correctly... See, I don’t like things to be perfect. There’s a certain charm to things being technically imperfect. I just like to sing the song. I like to be the judge. When I worked with producers, they’d say, "You don’t want to have something that makes you cringe when you listen to it." That’s true, but I got to the point where I don’t care. I kind of like cringing sometimes.

Listening to your early work recently, I was struck by how much some of it sounded like the best regional bands during that time, early ’80s bands influenced by R.E.M. They made records that were as good as Forever Since Breakfast, but then --

You know, I hope those records, and they were, were better than Forever Since Breakfast. But that’s the reason, we made records, but I didn’t want to do anything with it, because I knew people would think, "This sucks," and I knew we couldn’t play very well. We just did it for our own amusement. It’s just strange. I think I was just rewarded for my perseverance, my sheer love of doing it, and not going for it. We didn’t promote ourselves at all. Finally, someone heard it. By the time someone heard us, I was ready to do something, you know, with Propeller.

Most of those bands faded away, but you kept plugging away and are obviously a better songwriter today than you were then. And it seems like there’s a lot of lost music because people didn’t have the wherewithal that you did.

It’s luck, it’s timing. We were done with Propeller. I was sure I would have continued to make music, but that was it. You’ve probably heard that I said that this was going to propel us to success, it was a joke. But luckily people found that record and were, there became a buzz and it started snowballing... Propeller did it. My joke became true. It did propel us to whatever level of success we were able to reach. These other bands that played around the same time, the same thing could have happened for them. It was just luck for us. Who’s to say. Not only did we achieve some success, but it became kind of fanatical, in small circles. I’m not sure those same bands at that time could have reached that craziness, but they certainly were good enough to still be around today. I think it was just timing and luck, and we had a certain weirdness that other bands didn’t have.

You channel that weirdness in many different ways, including side projects like that with Tommy Keene, to be called the Keene Brothers, and the Takeovers with (former GBV bassist and Off Records honcho) Chris Slusarenko.

I’ve got to cut down on that type of thing. It’s just getting too pressurized. It’s been pretty successful, and you wonder, when is one of them going to completely suck, you know. And what do you do about it. But, I can’t even believe that I have that fear. I shouldn’t worry about something sucking. That’s what I go by. I just pump them out and if it sucks then go on to the next one, or whatever. I just need to cut back on the collaborations, because I have a lot of people sending me music. And that’s the other thing, who do you decide to do it with and who not? And whose feelings do you hurt, because you don’t want to. "Why don’t you want to do it with me? Does it suck?"

That’s a nice problem to have, though, all those people wanting to work with you.

I guess. But then, I’ve got too much stuff coming at me. I need to chill, that’s what I need to do. But right now I’ve got to get ready for the tour, and that’s going to be fun.