Tom Waits

Photo by Anton Corbijn

Tom Waits is a born storyteller who loves a good

yarn, and like the fast-talking characters who
populate his songs, you're never quite sure if he's
on the level. "The truth is overrated," he said
during this conversation, and you get the feeling
those are words he lives by.

Waits is supporting a new album, Bad as Me,

which is out next week. His last proper full-length
(not counting 2006's three-disc set, Orphans:
Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards) was 2004's Real
Gone, but this collection feels like a very different
beast. Where Real Gone was noisy and harsh,
Bad as Me is a batch of short, intensely focused
songs that have many distinctive production
elements and a few new wrinkles. There are
noisy political songs, tender ballads, extended
jokes. Crafting shorter tracks was a conscious
decision suggested by Waits' wife and
collaborator, Kathleen Brennan: "Get in, get out.
No fucking around."

We spoke with Waits via telephone from

California. When we asked where he was, he
claimed to be at the barber shop. We couldn't
hear any clippers in the background.

"Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are

modular, they are about as big as a bagel."

Pitchfork: Is the internet a big part of your

life?

Tom Waits: No. I mean, it's necessary, but it's not

really part of my world. It's robots, right? They
are taking over the world. What is the biggest
enemy of a computer?

Pitchfork: I'm going to say water.

TW: There you go. Slowly, their goal is to

eliminate all the water on Earth so they can just
hum in a room somewhere with each other,
generating information. Right now we're part of
their plan because we're helping them promote
and become more popular, but eventually they'll
kill us off.

Pitchfork: Right now I'm only able to listen

to your album in front of my computer
because of this promo stream thing I have.

TW: Oh, sorry about that.

Pitchfork: Do you ever think about how the
ways that we listen to music has changed
so much?

TW: Yeah. People record on a laptop and then

listen to it back on a speaker the size of a dime.
There's a certain fast-food approach to the whole
music thing that's changed the role it plays for us
all. You are doing it while you are doing other
things. Not that that is new-- people have had
music on in the background as long as there has
been music.

Pitchfork: It's been a little while since you

put out an album that's all new music. Is
there a point where you say, "It's time to
make a record," or is it something you are
always chipping away at?

TW: It's not a science. Sometimes it forms like a

weather system. It gathers, as they say. When it's
done, you can reach up there and pull it down,
maybe. But most people want the world to
collaborate with them in some way with regard to
what they do. Songs are pretty easy. They are
small, they are modular, they are about as big as
a bagel. They are easy to build. Films are
overwhelming in their magnitude and scope. By
comparison, a lot of film directors wish they were
writing songs because you can do it while getting
your hair cut.

waits6242.jpg ¬
Photo by Anton Corbijn

Pitchfork: Are you someone who writes

songs by making demos or recording things
as you go?

TW: If you are recording, you are recording. I

don't believe there is such a thing as a demo or a
temporary vocal. The drama around even sitting
in the car and singing into a tape recorder that's
as big as your hand-- waiting until it's very quiet,
doing your thing, and then playing it back and
hoping you like it-- is the same basic anatomy as
when you're in the recording studio, really.
Sometimes it's better that way because some of
the pressure is off and you can pretend it's
throwaway.

It's like what they say about Chinese food: All this
preparation and it's gone in a half an hour. How
do you think the people in the kitchen feel? Then
you got the dishes. But there are dishes that go
along with every project. Now, I'm not in the
studio dancing around or writing songs, having
fun. I'm doing the dishes.

"This whole division between genres has more to

do with marketing than anything else. It's terrible
for the culture of music. Like anything that is
purely economic, it ignores the most important
component."

Pitchfork: Is the car generally a place to

write for you?

TW: A good one. You're enclosed, you're alone,

you're quiet. Perfect. There's a feeling of a
vanishing point. And you're moving, like a song
moves as it's going through the tape
machine. It's like combing your hair with the
highway.

Pitchfork: Do you ever take drives just for

that purpose?

TW: Oh god, yeah. But sometimes you just bring

it with you. I don't really like listening to the radio
so much. Everything's so compartmentalized now
with all this satellite radio. It bugs the shit out of
me. But I like Bob [Dylan]'s Theme Time Radio
Hour though. That was really how radio used to
be when I was a teenager. You had disc jockeys
who were literally able to pick a theme:
[impersonating Dylan] "Roses, man. This song's
about roses. White roses. Thorns of roses."

Talking about genre overlap or mixing, the vocal

styling on the Four Tops' "Reach Out I'll Be
There"-- [sings] "When you feel lost and about to
give up/ 'Cause your life just ain't good enough...
Look over your shoulder"-- he was doing Bob
Dylan. Because, at that time, "Like a Rolling
Stone" was a big hit. And it was on the airwaves
alongside everybody else that was happening at
the time. It was a really beautiful thing. Culture is
a living thing. It has to be allowed to be exposed
to things without it being an accident.

Pitchfork: What was the radio station when

you were a kid?

TW: KFWB. I don't remember where that was.

But, as a musician, it was inspiring because you
were hearing the connections between songs. It
was more like if you sat around at home for a
couple hours and said, "Let's just play records
and entertain each other." There's something
very organic about that. I think this whole
division between the genres has more to do with
marketing than anything else. It's terrible for the
culture of music. Like anything that is purely
economic, it ignores the most important
component.

Pitchfork: The songs on Bad as Me are

mostly compact. In some ways they kind of
feel like singles.

TW: My wife Kathleen wanted to do 12 three-

minute songs. Get in, get out. No fucking around.
Because people don't have a lot of time. The way
I think is more like, "Oh, you got time for 19
songs on there? Put 19 songs on there, baby."
She says," No, no, no. Twelve." Like the eggs, 12.
You can do a lot in two minutes. So I'm starting to
get more economical as I go. Don't overstate,
don't restate.

Listen to "Back in the Crowd" from Bad as

Me:

Pitchfork: There's a song on the album that

I like very much called "Back in the Crowd",
and it's almost disarming in its simplicity.
You've certainly had a lot of
straightforward, stripped-down songs over
the years, but what's the arrangement
process like for you now?
TW: Well, that song was an attempt at some of
the-- you know what they call it-- Spanish Tinge.
It's actually a musical category, like "Under the
Boardwalk" is Spanish Tinge. "It's Over" by Roy
Orbison, Spanish Tinge. It was done in the 60s.
You can still hear it, but most people don't even
know that expression.

[Los Lobos' David Hidalgo] put castanets and

claves on it-- you know [imitates Spanish Tinge]--
but this was a little more subtle. My wife had this
melody on a tape recorder, just something she
sang in the car or wherever, all by herself-- [sings
a melody]. Like that. And I just rescued it from
oblivion. Sometimes words are just music
themselves. Like "Chicago" is a very musical
sounding name.

"It's weird talking about really funky old

neighborhoods that you haven't been to in a
while. There's this corner of 9th and Hennepin in
Minneapolis. It used to spell trouble; now it spells
sandals and yogurt."

Pitchfork: You lived in Chicago at one point?

TW: Yeah, for a little bit. We did that play at Briar

Street [Frank's Wild Years, which had a run in the
80s]. And I used to go there in the early 70s,
used to play at Belmont and Sheffield. There was
an old Latin club called the Quiet Knight. It was
under the El. It had a huge staircase that went
straight up, like four flights. I used to open a
show for Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
Richard Harding was the owner. Eddie
Balchowsky, a painter, worked for Richard. Very
interesting group of people.

There was a cafe called the Victoria. There was a

hotel called the Wilmont. I was very acquainted
with that piece of Chicago. They had these old
Cadillacs at the airport, and a guy leaning up
against it, saying, "You want a ride?" He's not a
limo driver, he just has a Caddy. He would bring
me into town, drop me [at the hotel]. It was
probably like 30 bucks a night. It was a great
little neighborhood, I don't know what it's like
now.

It's weird talking about really funky old

neighborhoods that you haven't been to in a
while. There's this corner of 9th and Hennepin in
Minneapolis. It used to be a really dangerous part
of town. It used to spell trouble; now it spells
sandals and yogurt. So maybe Belmont and
Sheffield is like that, too: "Belmont and Sheffield?
Oh yeah. That unisex hair place down there? We
go there sometimes. I took yoga down there for a
while."

Listen to the title track from Bad as Me:

Pitchfork: Keith Richards plays guitar and

sings on this album. How far do you go back
with him?

TW: Rain Dogs. I was being ridiculous. First of all,

my wife Kathleen said, "Why don't you get Keith
Richards on here? You love him. You love what he
does. We're in New York and he lives in New
York." And I go, "Oh, I gotta listen to this shit."

So then I was talking to the record company and

they say, "Any guests you want on the record?"
And I said, "What about Keith Richards?" I was
just joking, but somebody went ahead and called
him. And then he said, "Yeah." And I said, "Now
we're really in trouble."

I was really nervous. He came with about 600

guitars in a semi-truck. And a butler. We were in
these huge studios in New York, like The Poseidon
Adventure. Huge, high ceilings in these rooms
like football fields. They'd fill these things up with
orchestras and we were in there with five guys. It
felt a little weird. He killed me. I was really
knocked out that he played on all those things.

Pitchfork: The song "Satisfied" references

the Stones and Keith. Was it written with
the idea that he would play on it?

TW: It's just a shout out. I was just caught up in

the moment. And then making it kind of an
answer to ["Satisfaction"]: "Can't get no
satisfaction... my ass, you can't get no
satisfaction!" So that was just being refuckulous.
It's an evangelical litany of life affirmations. It's
devotional music, really. It was a goof. Les
Claypool played bass on it, my son played drums,
Keith. It caught on.

waits6241.jpg ¬
Photo by James Minchin III

Pitchfork: I've always enjoyed when

songwriters incorporate elements from
other songs, like the bit at the end of Bad
as Me's "New Year's Eve" where "Auld Lang
Syne" comes in.

TW: The song needed a chorus and they didn't

have one. So Kathleen and I said, "Come on,
we're talking about New Year's, let's just do it!"
And if you've ever been at one of those
gatherings where things went badly, where we all
sing even though the fireworks scared the dog
and he's been gone for two hours, and someone
lit the sofa on fire, and Marge got food poisoning,
and Bill O'Neal called the cops.

"New Year's Eve" was a long, long song that had

to be cut down to what they call a pony. That's an
alcoholic term for a small bottle. "Come on, give
me a pony, man!" I think that's what they call
those little bottles they give you on the airplane.
Anyways, it was cut back to a more manageable
size, but it still got the point across.

I always think of that line in Procul Harum's "A

Whiter Shade of Pale": "I was feeling kind of
seasick and the crowd called out for more." But
what if it had been something else? "The crowd
was disinterested," or "I was sick to my stomach
and the crowd got up and left." Maybe that's
what happened. That's why they get the big
bucks. They know how to sell it. The truth is
overrated. Avoid it all costs.