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Music Preview: Guided by Voices takes off sonically with 'Isolation Drills'
Friday, May 04, 2001 By Scott Mervis, Weekend Editor, Post-Gazette
It was a nice thought, but the Dayton Music Hall of Fame should've known better than to try to give the Lifetime Achievement Award to Robert Pollard.
You see, the leader of Guided by Voices isn't ready to go quietly into that dark night. At least not unless there's beer there. Preferably Miller Lite.
Pollard, a Dayton folk hero at the ripe rock 'n' roll age of 43, turned down the honor, saying that he was flattered but that he's "still growing as an artist" and his "best work is still ahead of him."
Not only that, he's on the brink of something that looks strangely, unbelievably commercial. The latest Guided by Voices record, "Isolation Drills," recently became the band's first to debut on the charts, coming at No. 168 (it's not there now, but who's counting?). Ask Pollard about the potential for commercial success and he sounds a good bit conflicted.
"Sure," he says, "I'm always interested in making money and playing bigger places and having more people hear my music. But I just never count on it, you know, so whatever. If it happens I guess I'll just have to deal with it, you know. That might suck. You never know. I don't know what it's like. Maybe I don't want it to happen, I don't know ... But maybe I do. I don't care. It's not something you can sit around and think about it. That's not important."
What's important to Pollard is the creation of songs, of which there are now upward of 600 in his catalog. The ones on "Isolation Drills," while still veiled with abstraction, are among his most potent and, he says, his most personal. They came as a result of a tough year of touring that kept him away from his wife and two daughters.
"There were a lot of changes in my life last year," he says. "A lot of things happened that kind of weirded me out. I kind of reflected on that. I took time to check out what was going on in my life and I found out there were a lot of things that were kind of sad, and out of sadness comes a good creative period. I couldn't wait to put music to them."
It's perfectly Pollard that he did his quiet reflection moving at 90 miles an hour on a trip back from San Diego.
"I was actually physically writing poetry while driving my car 90 miles an hour through the desert -- writing with a pen and paper," he says. "It was kind of dangerous, but there's nothing out there. What am I going to do, run into a cactus? A tumbleweed?"
Anyone hearing Guided by Voices for the first time would have to be wondering how they came to be called the kings of lo-fi. "Isolation Drills" -- full of the kind of slashing guitar riffs that belong on a Who or Bowie record -- is another bold step into a hi-fi world they discovered with last year's "Do the Collapse."
That one was produced by former Cars frontman Ric Ocasek. This time, Rob Schnapf (Foo Fighters, Beck, Elliott Smith) was at the controls, and he dropped the no-drinking policy.
"It was looser because we were allowed to drink," Pollard says. "I'm really not saying anything bad about Ric Ocasek. He's a good guy, I thought he did an excellent job on 'Do the Collapse.' I just think it was more laid-back and our performances were better because of it. Rick is kind of flashy, he's a rock star, so I was slightly intimidated by him."
Pollard is the rare cult hero who would be more intimidated by a mainstream rocker like Ocasek than anyone in the indie rock scene. When the subject gets around to how different Guided by Voices is to other big indie-rock bands like Pavement and Yo La Tengo, he isn't bashful about comparisons.
"Yeah, it is totally different," Pollard says, "because we rock, we party. It's a totally different thing. It's old school rock. We all have that college appeal. We've all been around for a while. You're allowed to like all three. I personally think we're a better band."
Which brings him to a little issue he has with the former leader of Pavement.
"I've been seeing a lot of talk about Stephen Malkmus. Somebody said, 'You're considered to be a lyrical genius.' He said, 'Well, there's just no competition out there.' I think my lyrics are [bleepin'] way better than his. My lyrics are out there, they're open to interpretation. His are fairly straightforward. I think they strive too hard to be clever. But, you know, I think he's probably talking more about mainstream music."
One of the things that separates a Guided by Voices show from indie rock and mainstream alike is just how much alcohol the band consumes on stage. If Kiss has makeup, Pink Floyd has lasers and Bowie has costumes, the Guided by Voices shtick is six cases of beer. Pollard wouldn't go on without it.
"I tried it, it was like ridiculous," he says. "It was scary. Everyone was out there yelling and getting drunk, and I'm not? It didn't make sense. I think we sound better drunk. The thing is -- this is a strange phenomenon -- I can't remember the lyrics if I'm not drunk. I screw up. When I'm drunk I just kind of forget about it and plug myself into the songs. When I'm not, I start thinking about the lyrics and I forget them."
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WITH: Spoon.