The Magnetic Fields came for first time to Spain last september to play one off show with Belle and Sebastian in Barcelona. The place was a beautiful and crowded square enclosed by the historical old walls of the mediterranean city. Stephin Merrit and Claudia Gonson were interviewed that weekend by Jorge Palomar for his fanzine "100.000 luciérnagas(fireflies)" and the result is printed here. Many thanks Jorge for this contribution to SOUVENIR

Interviewed by JORGE PALOMAR

I think The Magnetic Fields begun in 1.988 and you weren’t one of their members, am I right?

Stephin: Who was singing when I wasn’t one of them?

Claudia: Me.

Why did you join them?

Claudia: Because we were so bad!

Stephin: You should let Claudia answer as well.

Claudia: These are questions I can answer because I was there.

Why did you let him join the band?

Claudia: I asked him to join. He wasn’t very interested, but then, after he heard how bad we were, he decided to help us and slowly we convinced him to become the main guy. We had one show and it was really, really bad.

Stephin: I didn’t go. I didn’t see it.

Claudia: Fortunately it was at our school, so nobody knew about it.

When you joined them, did you want to be their Phil Spector?

Stephin: Yeah.

Claudia: That was what he wanted, but it wasn’t what happened.

Stephin: I wanted not to sing. I’ve always dreamt, even since I was a little girl, in my big tutu in Australia, of not singing. For a while there I had it going and I was not singing to my heart’s content and now I’ve failed in my dreams and I’m a rock star singing.

So, you wanted people from the band to be your instruments...

Stephin: I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, Claudia...

Claudia: Sorry, Jorge.

Stephin: ...when I was 15 I promised my mother that I will never become a professional musician. This is a true story. I just wanted to write music. I’ll have to stand on pop stages not been able to go to the bathroom for an hour, having to sing things on the microphone frightening to electrocuting, having everybody staring at me so I can’t scratch my nose, having to dress up in special clothing, some people will know I’m a singer.

Do you feel uncomfortable been a front man?

Stephin: Well, now I’m more used to.

Claudia: But I don’t think that he would objected the possibility of someone else being the front man or woman, someday.

I think initially "Distant Plastic Trees" was a record by Buffalo Rome and then become a Magnetic Fields record.

Claudia: We never called it "Distant Plastic Trees". They were reworked for it.

Did it change very much?

Claudia: Well, a little bit. The sound, some of the lyrics, the singer changed. It was like a demo and then we made it into a record.

Stephin, why didn’t you sing from the very beginning?

Claudia: He never intended to sing. Singing happened because we ran out of singers.

So, you didn’t try to look for an other singer, did you?

Stephin: We tried. We arrived to a dead line, or something, and we had to put some vocals on the record.

Claudia: Stephin had made a demo with his vocal of "Charm Of The Highway Strip". We though, "who are we going to get to sing this?" and we kept asking people to sing it. We demoed 5 or 10 people and it never sounded good enough. Also his voice was a little more appropriated to that record because of the country songs done, but it was never an intention of us to continue, it just happened. People liked it.

Is there a secret behind the instruments you use? Do you want people to know the ones you use?

Stephin: It is a secret. I don’t put credits, partly because there’s dozens of them and partly because I really don’t want people to know what they are.

Do you really use samplers?

Stephin: No comment. I use everything some of the time.

Is your conception of the instruments more open-minded that the one of other people?

Stephin: I think it’s just that I don’t play one instrument much better that I play another instrument, so I don’t feel tight to any particular instrument. Also I don’t really care about the difference between instruments and what they imply. If I hear an electric guitar I don’t necessarily think I am going to hear a rock record and when I hear a synthesiser I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be a disco record. I think maybe I’m a little more open-minded than other people about it. There aren’t lots of instruments that I really hate to hear.

Is it necessary to know how to play the instruments?

Stephin: Well, not always.

Do you work in the songs more than you used to?

Stephin: It’s more or less the same songs sitting around for long since suddenly a drunken inspiration sticks two songs together and it’s done. That’s often how it happens. It’s really hard to say how much I work on a particular song because I sit around for years.

When people tell you how have they been affected by your lyrics...

Stephin: People don’t tell me that kind of thing actually. People don’t tell me specifically enough for me to have any real reaction. It’s just like somebody coming up and saying "I like your shirt" what can I say other than "Oh, thank you"?

Are they unisex? They can be related to relationships between man-woman, man-man, woman-man, ...

Stephin: Like every other songwriter who writes love songs I usually don’t put genders into the songs with the idea that everybody would be able to identify with them more easily, but once in a while I do put genders into the songs, just like everybody else.

Don’t you like rain? You refer to it as something bad (i.e. "all the umbrellas in London couldn’t stop this rain", "no rain can touch me now"?

Stephin: Well, there is good rain and there is bad rain. I use a lot of clichés in my lyrics. The rain is one of them; another is the moon.

Is it difficult to co-ordinate all your projects

Stephin: I don’t do that. Claudia does the co-ordination.

Claudia: Yes, it is a little bit difficult because it’s like you have to start again with each record and all the people who buy the records you need to say "this is Stephin from The Magnetic Fields". Also people like it because it gives them a feeling of getting a new thing that is different.

Is it difficult to change the way of composing among the bands? If you do it...

Stephin: No, it’s not difficult. It’s a relieve to be able to use different type of songs for different purposes, so I don’t have to write in the same way all the time.

So, when you are composing a song you think "I’m going to do it for The Future Bible Heroes, for The 6th’s"...

Stephin: Yeah.

Do you think about composing a song or you just stare, walk around and inspiration comes suddenly?

Stephin: I actually don’t write with instruments any more. I usually sit in gay bars and scribble down things that occur to me and I remember melodies from the written lyrics. I only have a lyric that I’m just gone to throw away, but it would remind me of the melody I thought of. For some reasons I seem to be good at writing melodies when I’m hearing other music. It doesn’t distract me.

How did Future Bible Heroes arise?

Stephin: Chris thought I was the best lyricist he could work with. I figured out that I didn’t want to do all the vocals, so I made Claudia do half of them and she’s forgiven me by now. Everybody hates it when people ask them to sing. There’s a little known secret that people don’t like singing in front of other people. Everybody hates the way they sound on tape and nobody wants to stand up in front of anybody else.

Claudia: No questions about The 6th’s. Jorge wants to know about The 6th’s and why did you choose those singers.

I’ve read that you choose them because you don’t like the way they sing.

Claudia: That was a confusion. It was actually misquoted.

Stephin: Yeah, I don’t think I said that.

Claudia: What happened with the 6th’s record which was confusing to all of the interviewers was that I choose the singers and everybody that interviewed Stephin and said: "so you really like Mark Robinson, or Georgia Hubley" and he said: "I didn’t know them. They just came with the project". I was going out and said: "I like this person and would like to ring him in", so there was a confusion that he was associated with having a personal involvement with the singers which he doesn’t actually have, but he’s friends with some of those people.

Stephin: Now.

Claudia: Yeah, we become friends with a lot of them just because of the project.

Stephin, have you composed the songs for the next 6th’s album?

Claudia: Part of them. Some are sure. We are working on it.

Have you chosen the people who are going to sing?

Claudia: Yeah, but we are not telling.

Momus, and who else?

Claudia: We are not telling.

What’s the worst thing about touring?

Stephin: Never being alone. I’m used to being alone for 8 hours a day and it’s stressful to have to ask to go to the bathroom.

How have the cities you’ve lived in affected you and your music?

Stephin: When I was a child I moved around all the time and that probably affected me a lot.

You’ve sometimes read poetry on stage...

Stephin: Well, part of being a songwriter is...you end up with a lot of things that look like poetry, but aren’t really. When I do poetry, I actually only do fond poetry . I find things that are poetry and write them down and then they are poetry. I don’t write poetry in a difficult way.

You seem not to have too much connection with part of "the real world". Is Claudia the vehicle that helps you to connect with it (i.e. music industry, fans,...)?

Stephin: She’s my connection to the music industry. Thanks Heaven the music industry has very little to do with the rest of the real world, so no. I have little enough to do with music and not a hell of a lot to do with industry, actually.

How can you play live songs with such a painful lyrics? They will remind you the experiences the are based in...

Stephin: They are not personal. My songs that anyone’s heard are not about me in particular; they are about situations that everybody can be into sometimes. More there enough really about anything except other songs, which is usually what I like. So I don’t feel like I’m baring my soul to the audience. Anyway, I’m generally too busy playing guitar and trying to sing on key and hear myself properly to bother about the meaning of the words, which is fine, because my voice doesn’t really express very much. It’s just it’s there.

Will you like to sing in a different way, with a different voice?

Stephin: If I had a completely different voice, yes, but with the voice that I have I wouldn’t like to sing in a different way.

The Gothic Archies.

Stephin: It’s my gothic-bubblegum project... With the Magnetic Fields more anything goes. They will have a record out in the U.S. in October. Seven songs. Cd- ep. It’s called "The New Despair". On Merge.

Do you expect any kind of response from the people, or you just don’t care after you’ve finished to record it? I’m not only talking about The Gothic Archies ...

Stephin: Sure I care with the audience. Half of the music is all about the audience. If I were making experimental music I might not care with them very much, but I have to.

Your song in the David Bowie tribute album...

Stephin: I don’t wanna talk about that.

Have you started to work in the new Magnetic Fields album?

Stephin: Yes. It’s going to be called "Americana". I’ve only just started it so I can’t describe it very much.

Are you doing things in a premeditated way?

Stephin: It’s a combination of careful planing and improvisation. I begin with an idea and sometimes I have to change it or throw it away, sometimes it develops and sometimes it success. Just like pretty much anything else.

You can order a copy of the fanzine "100.000 luciérnagas" writing to:
Jorge Palomar C/ Podencos 69, Alcorcón, 28922 Madrid SPAIN
The zine features interviews/articles about Windy and Carl, Julien Baer, Labradford, Hood, Vainica Doble.... it's only available in spanish, so it's the time to improve your foreign language!