Going to Seattle

The Mountain Goats began in 1991, when John Darnielle—then a registered nurse living in California—began recording his enormously literate songs (which frequently mentioned early-'80s Brit fops Spandau Ballet, for some reason) onto a fuzzy boombox. Collected into a steady stream of cassette-only releases before Darnielle made the jump to compact disc in 1995, the lo-fi recordings won a devoted following; by the time Darnielle signed with 4AD two years ago, he'd become an indie-rock semistar, thanks also in part to his terrific 'zine, Last Plane to Jakarta, which is online at www.lastplanetojakarta.com. His 4AD debut, 2002's Tallahassee, recorded cleanly in the studio and featuring some of the best songs he'd ever written, put Darnielle further in the public eye, and the new We Shall All Be Healed, recorded at Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville with producer John Vanderslice, is just as good. Darnielle has said the new album's lyrics are more personal than is usual for him, and Healed's landscape of fragmented friendships and speed-freak paranoia documents an urban bohemia reminiscent of the Beats without resorting to mere mimicry. The Jukebox took place backstage before a March show at New York's Knitting Factory.

R. Kelly: "Ignition Remix" (2003) from Chocolate Factory (Jive)

John Darnielle: Please! Best song of the past 10 years! [sings along and starts mock-grinding with Kimya Dawson, who is standing nearby, looking bemused] I think it's better than anything the Beatles ever did. Period. Although this is emblematic of what R. Kelly does. He has a lot of songs that are close to that good. That just sounds like the most free and loose one; he managed to make it sound like nobody was even trying, like they just happened across that sound. It's clear that everyone involved is tweaking everything, micromanaging the sound. But he winds up sounding like he just stepped in, had an idea, and just started saying what was in his head. Which is the whole idea behind a good party record.

Seattle Weekly: Do you like the rest of that album?

Darnielle: Yeah. Like most R. Kelly albums, it's about three-quarters good. "Snake" is really good, the "Step in the Name of Love Remix" is gorgeous. It's just really lush and great, so yeah. I like a lot of stuff on that album.

John Vanderslice: "Pale Horse" (2004) from Cellar Door (Barsuk)

Darnielle: It's the first one on the new Vanderslice. I'm pretty sure the lyrics are a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Which is funny because I didn't know that, and I criticized John for rhyming "life" with "strife," which I consider to be a really bad rhyme. And he said it's Shelley, and I said, well, that's OK, most English majors like me don't consider Shelley all that much.

SW: Can you talk a little bit about working with John Vanderslice?

Darnielle: As I've said often, he's a cruel and sadistic man, and he gets the results he gets from the bands he records by physically abusing them, night and day, running us on two hours of sleep a night, and kicking us frequently in the eye and in the small of our backs. Nah. As is widely known, John is the nicest guy in the whole industry. The way he works in the studio is the way he works elsewhere; he just sort of makes room for you to do what you meant to do. Yeah, he and his engineer Scott are inseparable. They work beautifully together.

SW: What made you decide you wanted to work with him?

Darnielle: The sound of Time Travel Is Lonely, especially the acoustic guitar sounds he got. I really wanted somebody who could get a live, crackling acoustic guitar that doesn't sound like it's window dressing, who could understand that the acoustic guitar could be a very violent thing. I thought he had a great ear, and I knew he liked my stuff. And I thought the new songs were the best ones I'd ever written, so I wanted someone who was doing what I was doing.

SW: The orchestration on We Shall All Be Healed is certainly a lot different from your previous records. Some purists are like, this isn't a Mountain Goats record—what's with the tinkling piano and that sort of thing?

Darnielle: The whole point of the Mountain Goats has always been the lyrics. The main reason there's been minimal orchestration has been so there wouldn't be anything to distract from what I think the whole point is. I think anybody who doesn't think my new lyrics are the best ones I've ever written either likes the old ones for the wrong reasons, or hasn't listened to the new ones well enough. I can say that as an English major guy, that this is my best work, from a number of objective standpoints. There's nothing you can do about those people; they were looking for something to be mad about. So I guess I gave them their Christmas present.

Danger Mouse: "Justify My Thug" (2004) from The Grey Album (bootleg)

Darnielle: This is a pretty indie-sounding Jay-Z! This isn't with Panjabi MC, is it? Where's it from? I haven't heard the new record. Oh, this is off that Grey Album, right? I have this in the car, but I haven't made it past the first track or two.