Pavement is pounding: a band so hot you could fry an egg on it

Interview, May, 1995 by Ray Rogers

RAY ROGERS: I first saw you play five years ago at CBGB and I bought two of your singles directly from you. Do you ever miss the more hands-on days?

BOB NASTANOVICH: Some aspects of them, unquestionably. Certainly the sound of the room.

STEPHEN MALKMUS: I think we get enough hands-on. People would be surprised by how much. You can still go see us anywhere else in the country in small clubs. We're not actually selling the singles, but we're hanging out with the guy selling them. It's just in major metropolitan areas that it's gotten bigger.

BN: And we take care of all the tour managing, driving, routing, and hotel reservations ourselves. We tour with the absolute minimum in a van and a rental car. It's still very small-scale.

SM: So the answer is no, we don't miss it.

RR: You still take turns driving the van?

BN: Absolutely. This last tour we decided to leave our ancient van halfway through the tour and pick up a Lincoln Town Car, which is really pretty cheap. It was outstanding, absolutely outstanding.

RR: All right! You guys are riding in style.

SM: We're trying to make car rental sexy. [laughs] We could have a bigger entourage, but it's more pragmatic this way. We don't expect it to be easy either, or posh. We're still young dirtbags.

BN: The bands that we used to go see eight years ago prided themselves on jam econo, so we jam econo.

SM: And we'll look back at these golden days of hard work, and they'll be the best days of our lives. We have a strong work ethic.

BN: It's good to work a twelve-hour day.

SM: And that way the beer tastes that much better.

RR: Are there any fears or pressures about becoming bigger?

SM: Sure. There's a little fear of becoming insignificant, rather than becoming big. We're thinking more historically. We would be nervous about being just another "trendy forgotten band of the '90s." That would be the worst fate.

RR: There is a definite anti-reek star attitude on several of your songs.

SM: We don't like rock stars. It seems like there's this new tide where it's cool to want to be famous, this antislacker thing. It's a difficult question, because we do want to be noticed and remembered just like most other human beings. And we're happy we don't have day jobs. We would like our fans to think that they would like to be in our band. It's more like that - not like we're above them.

RR: Your new record is incredibly diverse.

SM: I just wanted everyone to think that a different song was the best song. And a lot of people will cringe at some of the songs. They'll be like, "Ugh, why are they just doing some dumb punk song," or, "Why are they doing some acoustic song that sounds really affected?," or, "Why are they doing a heavy-metal version of Pavement?" But they will be able to listen to other things and say, "Oh, that's good," and forgive us our trespasses.

RR: Wowee Zowee isn't quite as slick or smooth as Crooked Rain.

SM: Yeah, it probably is a little less.

RR: Was there any fear of an indie backlash?

SM: No. I already thought that had happened full on, and that we were done with that. I thought we just didn't have to care about it anymore, because I really don't.

RR: Did you at the time when that record came out?

SM: Well, a little bit. I just figured it's all over with that type of person anyway. The critic types that were expecting us to go on to a bigger, post-Nirvana fame are going to listen to this record and find out that's not going to happen, so they can just wait for the next Breeders or PJ Harvey albums to come out and see how big that's going to be on the Lollapalooza circuit. That's not to say anything negative about those bands. They're just bands that we're perceived to be in the same sort of school as. We'd like to get away from critic-supported rock, and we have enough people who like our band so we don't have to worry about that anymore. And we don't. But I still don't like it when people dis us. Even if they're just being objective critics, they can expect an iron fist if they meet us face to face. Right, Bob?

RR: Are you trying to instill some fear in me? [all laugh]

BN: Look at us. You can run faster than us. I think there are valid criticisms about everything we've ever done.

SM: For every band in the world there is. You can't worry about it. So long as our friends like it, and hopefully people that like the band, because I respect their opinions, too.

RR: Is there any truth to the rumor that Smashing Pumpkins kept you from being added on to Lollapalooza last year [after Pavement jabbed at them in the song "Range Life"]?

SM: Not much. It's all unverified. We've had a lot of fax wars with them, but we're pretty much friends now.

RR: Do you have any interest in doing Lollapalooza this year?

BN: Not me!

SM: When it was coming around this year, I thought, If they ask us we'll see what it's like, but really with no mind of doing it. Sometimes you can feel like there are things that you should do, or pressures that certain people would really like you to do. But we realized that it was totally unnecessary. Being on one of those corporate tours would not befit us; our spirit is not really attuned to that.