Merritt Badge
the magnetic fields’ frontman on spector and sondheim
in the latest issue of the Village Voice, a critic laments the lack of rock stars on today’s music scene. Whatever happened to the “fuck you” attitude and wailing guitar riff? Why are rock stars so afraid to tease their hair and wear leather?
While songwriter-and-performer Stephin Merritt professes an affinity for the era of big rock-star hair (think lots of Phil Spector), he is not going to fill the gap it’s left. Shy, self-effacing, and more fond of the mandolin and synthesizer than the electric guitar, Merritt’s music has ranged from the magnificent (69 Love Songs, his three-disc opus), to the strange (Showtunes, a collection of, well, show tunes, from his many musical theater endeavors), to the childish (his music for the film Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events). And that doesn’t even begin to mention his many side projects, including The Gothic Archies, Future Bible Heroes, and the 6ths.
While Merritt’s main focus has been on his band The Magnetic Fields, which released an album this year, life has been busy for this prolific songwriter. The band is touring this month, though not necessarily in support of the new album—the band deemed it too difficult to play in concert because the feedback may damage their ears.
The album, Distortion, is another concept album, following 69 Love Songs and an album called i, in which all the songs begin with the letter “i.” The album features every instrument except for the drums feeding back through complicated and old-fashioned methods. Every drumbeat on the album is based on the beat of the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” according to Merritt.
“I do feel Distortion is a departure from the themes [of the last two albums], though in terms of production style, it is not,” Merritt says. “I don’t need to distance myself [from my themes]. Two gimmicks in a row is not the same as three gimmicks in a row.”
Merritt, who suffers from hearing damage, plays his shows at concert halls so that respect for his craft and the subtleties of his melodies are not lost in the din of a crowd. He also does not use monitors and covers his ears during applause, for fear of further damaging his already delicate ears. In New York, the band is playing five sold-out nights at Town Hall. Even so, Merritt is calm and collected about the upcoming tour. “I am not nervous,” he says. “I do not have stage fright. The only time I am nervous is when we are under-rehearsed, which we are not.”
An enigmatic figure with a dry sense of humor, Merritt is notoriously terse in interviews. His speaking voice is similar to his singing—deep and rich, with a smoky undertone of whisky and cigarettes. He has sung alone on previous albums; and though his singing voice is expressive and full on its own, he chose to work with his friend and long-time collaborator Shirley Simms on the vocals for Distortion after recording his voice on the entire album. He claims that he realized later that what was missing was Simms, who has a soaring and high-pitched vocal range, the opposite of Merritt’s. In past interviews, Merritt has described her voice as “pure pop,” and drawn a sharp distinction between his work as composer and as pop artist. His range seems effortless.
For a man who cites his influences as ABBA and The Jesus and Mary Chain—the new album is based on their landmark Psychocandy, which Merritt describes as “a mix between Phil Spector and the Velvet Underground”—this obsession with pop music seems likely. He listens to very little “new music,” is unable to name one album of the past year, and says that the best album of the year was the Sweeney Todd soundtrack.
To justify himself, he cites the pop-music adage, “If you want to have a hit record, cover a Supremes song. I think if you want to make a nice soundtrack album, just do Sweeney Todd, and you can’t go wrong.”
Like musical theater, Stephin Merritt appeals to the heartsick romantic, dramatically telling stories of broken hearts and unrequited love. He claims that his songs don’t come from his love of musical theater, but rather the other way around. “My songs are easily adaptable to theater because I have a dramatic sense of how things should go from one part of a song to another.”
Whether it is his sweeping synths or vividly poetic and storytelling lyrics, the man behind these songs is much more subdued and humble.
“Why did I start writing music?” he asks. “When I was learning to speak, it just seemed like the thing to do. I don’t remember starting to write music ... When I was a child I didn’t care about the quality of the output. I can still write songs spontaneously like a child, but they’re, you know, horrible ... More than that, I would be [writing songs] accidentally if I didn’t do it for money. These things go around in my head, as they do for many other people.”
Merritt clearly has dreams of a Broadway life, though. He owns a chihuahua named Irving (after the songwriter Irving Berlin), and is able to hold long conversations on Sondheim. This range of influences, from the highbrow Sondheim to the lowbrow ABBA, is just part of the whole for Stephin Merritt—a pastiche of his own American life.
“In a large way, I have been formed by American tastes in music. If I had lived outside of America, life may have been different. For one, I would have a different accent,” he says.
This soft-spoken, often difficult performer makes no excuses, and considers his songwriting a job. Here, then, is the anti-rock star, who writes songs as a living, for money, no matter what. “I don’t know that I want to find inspiration. I need to be able to do the work whether or not I am into it, and I do approach it as work ... Inspiration is frustrating. You don’t want to wait for inspiration. I can be feeling uninspired, feeling like there are no ideas popping into my head. But there usually are.”
While the Voice may lament the loss of the big-hair, big-attitude rock star, Merritt hearkens back to the first rock stars of America—the great Broadway composers who lived, wrote prolifically, and died with a place in the Great American Songbook. Merritt’s place is soon to be solidified, as he redefines music for the stage, for the screen, and for the studio.