Scott the explorer

Scott the Explorer.

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Savage, Jon. Interview 01/98 v28:n1. p28(3)

COPYRIGHT 1998 Interview Magazine

A major pop icon in the '60s, Scott Walker went underground at the height of his popularity. Now, after eleven years, he's back with a new album. Here's why you should care Scott Walker's is one of the strangest stories in pop music. Inverting the usual career trajectory, he began as a genuine teen idol and then, over the next thirty years, established himself as a unique avant-garde artist.

Walker was born Scott Engel in Ohio on January 9, 1943. A transitory upbringing beached him in Los Angeles, where he cut his musical teeth on the vibrant mid-'60s Sunset Strip scene. In 1965 he left for England, where, as frontman for the Walker Brothers, he sang lead on a string of Top Ten hits, including "My Ship Is Coming In," which shot to number three in December 1965. They were a peculiar presence, the Walker Brothers: Americans beating the Brits at their own game in their own country; conventional beat balladeers with a moody, almost gothic undertow - featuring Scott Walker in the role of the archetypal tortured artist.

Walker's public persona would lead you to believe that he is alienated, difficult, even slightly mad. This has been fed by a complicated, often-interrupted sequence of highly personal albums, beginning with Scott I in the late '60s, on which Walker developed his trademark mix of lush orchestral arrangements and bleak lyrics topped by vocal performances that are at once passionate and disciplined. If anything, Walker's new record, Tilt, his first in eleven years, refines and purifies this vision still further; his latest songs could almost be described as lieder: songs without words, in which both emotion and sense are conveyed through pure sound. But despite all this baggage, it was refreshing to talk with a man who was charming, professional, and serious,
his answers as pared and insightful as his music.

JON SAVAGE: Why did it take so long to release Tilt in the States? It's been out for a full two years in the U.K.
SCOTT WALKER: We weren't going to release it at all. It was my manager's idea to do it, not mine. It's just an experiment. I don't imagine we'll move many records.
JS: Do you have any sense of how you're perceived in America today? You were born there, but most of your success took place in the U.K.
SW: It seems like people "in the know" have my records. I guess they get them as imports. But apart from that. I don't think anyone knows who I am. Someone in my family went to get a record of mine a couple years ago at some big place, and the clerk said, "Scott Walker? Oh, you mean that English singer?" So now I call myself the English singer.
JS: Have you gone back to America since you left?
SW: Rarely. If I added up the time, it would be a total of four or five weeks. The last time I returned, it was because my mother was dying and I wanted to be with her. That was last year.
JS: I can't imagine what it would be like to live away from the country where I was born and raised. Do you feel like an exile?
SW: Well, it's funny. I feel like I'm sort of floating, you know? Especially as my family gets smaller and smaller, I remember more and more about America, and I've begun to think more about it over the past few years. I'm not antagonistic toward America anymore; I was when I came to Britain. I was being chased by the draft [for the Vietnam war], really hounded, and that's why I stayed. I was really angry about the war. But I've lost a lot of that.
JS: I wanted to talk about your lyrics - not actually what the songs mean, but the way you create new phrases by taking stuff that's familiar and putting it in a new context.
SW: In the early days, I used to be fairly torn between music and lyrics; but one day I realized that the lyrics really dictate the music. With most people, it's the reverse: They go into the studio and start making music. I can tell you that it takes me a long time to wait for those lyrics, to wait for things to come through.
JS: Most lyrics in pop music are so obvious. Yours seem to leave room for the listener's imagination.
SW: That's certainly what I try to do - pare things down until they open up. More than ever, we have a problem with words. We're at the end, in a sense, of language. There's not a lot more we have to say. Another problem is that a lot of people write lyrics that aren't singable; they sound awkward. I think to myself, How does that sing? Because in the end, I'm a singer.
JS: You mentioned the breakdown of language. Are you trying to make a language of your own?
SW: Of course. I think everybody who takes language seriously is; Joyce was. But yes, I think that's it. It's about looking into yourself and building something that's churning around in there. It's a slow buildup. That's why it takes so long to wait for the words: It's got to be the right one at the right place. It's almost like a little soldier on its own, every single word in an army.
JS: Do you listen to a lot of contemporary music?
SW: No.
JS: Nothing catches your ear?
SW: Quite honestly, I think there's too much music going on now. I kind of like what's happening with the dance scene - you know, Prodigy and Primal Scream and stuff like that. But most guitar bands are just glorified buskers; I've heard people in the subway that are better. It's all too retro.
JS: Another thing I wanted to discuss is the consistency of your work. You seem to be fascinated with, or keep coming back to, people who are outsiders or in extreme states. Do you think that's a fair comment?
SW: Of course, of course. I'm only interested in that. I'm not interested in normality at all. That's boring.
JS: Did you go straight into the music business from school?
SW: I had a year at Cal Arts - California Institute of Arts - but I had to make a choice because I was putting myself through school and working in a night club off the Sunset Strip, a very popular spot. It was great. That's where the Walker Brothers started. There were lines around the block all the time, just to dance. Johnny Rivers was up at the Sunset Strip. It was a very exciting time. I was up till four in the morning every night. I was doing these four- or five-hour sets with fifteen-minute breaks in between; after a while, I couldn't go to school in the daytime. It was killing me. So I chose music. I'm still interested in art, of course, and I might do something about that next year. I went to art school here for a while. I just take a long time to get things to where I like them.
JS: You became successful very quickly in the '60s. What was it like to be a professional musician at that time?
SW: Touring was pure hell. I would love to be able to tour today, because the sound systems are much better. You just whisper into the mike and it's like an explosion. You don't have to be a brilliant singer, exactly. The lights back then were awful too. And you were driving from London to Glasgow in a van in one night. On the other hand, you're young, so you can take it. We were ill most of the time. A lot of bands were very sick with colds and stuff. And we were southern Californians, so we were ill more. It was a living hell. But it had its compensations, you know.
JS: Did you have the control you wanted over your recordings?
SW: No. I certainly didn't have enough time to make them.
JS: I find it extraordinary that you were the archetypal teen star, and now you're making better records than any of your contemporaries. There must have been a huge amount of pressure to remain a pop star after a certain point.
SW: There was for me. But like I was saying earlier, so many things were not right. When groups go out on tour today, they have wonderful sound, wonderful roadies, and people looking after them. They'll never know what a nightmare it was to try and do it in those days. It was so frustrating. It literally drove me bonkers. I was really strung out for years about it, drinking heavily and everything.
JS: Is there any autobiography in what you do now?
SW: Well, we don't really know who we are, in a sense. I'm trying to build a self with each song and find out what that is. You could
say that's autobiographical, but not in any traditional way.
JS: Are you working on a film at the moment?
SW: I'm working on one with Leos Carax. That'll be interesting. It might end in tears. It's the first one I've done, but he wanted me to do it. I'm very interested. He's a great director.
JS: I know this is kind of a corny question, but would you say, in general, that you're happy in your life now?
SW: Well, yes, and like everyone else, I'm making the best of it. I think I'm all right. You caught me on a day when I'm too tired to fight back and be ornery. But yes, I'm as happy as I'd be anywhere.