by Joey Shemuel
Drawing Inspiration
singer-songwriter jeffrey lewis gets sketchy
PrintLooking through Jeff Lewis’ sketchbooks, I realize why he compels me. The almost impossibly talented comic artist and singer-songwriter is simultaneously self-deprecating and eloquent, nerdy and too cool.
A large, inked page that shows Jeff meeting his favorite comic book character—Rom from Rom Spaceknight—opens every sketchbook. The walls of his Williamsburg apartment are lined with Lou Reed records, and when he plays Biff Rose for me and gets excited about Woody Guthrie, I can barely contain my enthusiasm. Lewis surrounds himself with his influences, materially and musically, precisely because he is so cognizant of them. “It’s always horrifying to realize after the fact the roots of your own ideas,” he says. “Sometimes it’s years later that you realize where these inspirations come from.”
This awareness is the subject of one of Lewis’ well-received New York Times blog posts, which came in the wake of 12 Crass Songs, his critically acclaimed cover album. The tracks feature catchy, elaborately arranged covers of songs by Crass, a seminal anarchist punk band. “It’s interesting that the album that’s gotten the most press has been the one that has the least to do with what I’m known for, which is a very lo-fi, simple recordings of my own songs,” he says. Em Are I, his new album with his current band, Jeff Lewis and the Junkyard, will be released on May 12th.
The album reflects Lewis’ changing relationship with production. He believed for many years that arrangements and production were insignificant, and that live performance and audience connection were what really mattered. Lewis’ lo-fi, anti-folk, home-recorded songs gave him a cult following, and he was signed by Rough Trade Records in 2001. For Lewis, songwriting is a “desperate” act—he claims he writes most songs when he’s procrastinating on writing a comic.
His comics often complement his music, both as visual representations of songs and as full comic books. Thirty of his illustrated songs can be seen only in concert. The songs are impossible to find outside of YouTube—which may augment Lewis’s cult status, but ultimately frustrates the artist. His label hopes to release new videos as a collector’s edition, but Lewis is wary: “I wanted something that would be more widespread and accessed by people who may not know those songs.”
To bring his art to every fan, Lewis’s new album’s cover is, like previous covers, hand-drawn with a full comic insert. “I’ve been trying to design these album covers that are weird and unique and theoretically still cheap to produce,” he says. Lewis, who once wrote a song called “Don’t Let the Record Company Take You Out to Lunch,” says his label often opposes his hands-on approach to his liner notes because of the rising cost of CD production.
Lewis’ comics are, much like his songs, brutally honest, self-consciously critical, and filled with unexpected rhymes and turns. “I’m sort of traditional in the way I approach it. I’m not abstract. My comics are all functional for the sake of telling a story,” he says. Lewis uses his sketchbook to outline both his songs and his comics, explaining, “Some of the comics that I do rhyme, and sometimes rhymes or lines that I jot down could still end up being comics.”
Literacy and self-reference come easily to Lewis. His songs conflate the personal with the political and historical—sometimes with startling results. In “The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song,” he writes about discussing Leonard Cohen with a stranger, and the experience becomes a parable for human relationships. “Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror,” a song about seeing Will Oldham on the subway, is ultimately about artists’ own influences and music history. “History is so much more amazing and interesting ... Even if it’s my own personal history,” he says. “True life is fascinating and has a certain power to it just because it’s true.”
This predilection for honesty can endear and enrage Lewis’ friends and fans. Asserts the artist, “If you say something, there’s a certain amount of responsibility to feel like you’re saying something true, or not deceptive. Especially when it involves other people.”
Seeking the truth, Lewis is hyper-conscious of his audience and admirers. He compares himself to a translator, claiming, “It’s knowing what’s going on inside you and knowing how to translate that into a language that other people will understand.”
After sitting on Lewis’ couch for about two hours, I have the distinct feeling that there is someone else in the apartment. Unsure if I should ask, I drink my tea and we continue talking and playing records. We get ready to go outside, and he pokes his head into another room. Sure enough, there had been someone there the entire time, reading a book and waiting for me to leave, which makes me as self-conscious as he was during the interview. Unfazed, he turns to the door in his blue puffy coat and we walk out under the Williamsburg Bridge.
26 February 2009
vol. 6, issue 5
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