the making of ELLIOTT SMITH (Self-Titled) - featuring Larry Crane, JJ Gonson, Tony Lash, Slim Moon and Leslie Uppinghouse

Intro:

Dan Nordheim: You’re listening to Life of the Record. Classic albums, told by the people who made them. My name is Dan Nordheim.

Elliott Smith grew up around Dallas, Texas before moving to Portland, Oregon at the age of fourteen. In Portland, he played music in multiple bands, while also recording his songs at home. He met Neil Gust in college and formed the band Heatmiser, along with high school friend, Tony Lash. While playing in Heatmiser, Elliott continued to work on solo music, recording songs that would eventually become the album, Roman Candle. Though not intended as an album initially, Roman Candle was released as his first solo record in 1994. Soon after, Elliott began recording songs for his second solo album, Self-Titled, which was released in 1995.

In this episode, we'll hear from Elliott's friends and collaborators, including Larry Crane, JJ Gonson, Tony Lash, Slim Moon and Leslie Uppinghouse about the making of Self-Titled on its 25th Anniversary.

Billy Ruann (Host): Ladies and gentleman, please stay seated and welcome Elliott Smith.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): Yeah the second album seems more like a folk storytelling thing where the first one seems more autobiographical.

Elliott Smith: Huh. Well that’s good. I thought it was the other way around…

Shane Kennedy: Like you started writing here and became more of the observer at the end of the bar.

Elliott Smith: The first one I didn’t have any idea it was ever gonna come out. I was just doing it, I’d been doing stuff like that since I was fourteen or fifteen. The first one I didn’t know was gonna come out, the second one I knew it was and I thought it sounded more like I was presenting something more so than the first one.

Larry Crane: With Self-Titled, you really have the first solo work of just Elliott Smith on his own, focused to make it an album, to be a release. And I think that’s why it’s a little more important than some people realize.

Leslie Uppinghouse: In his catalog of solo work, I think it stands out as it feels like it’s the beginning. Especially some of that solo work with Dreamworks which was very large. You know, big orchestration but this was sort of his template of where he wanted that to go. To me, it doesn’t feel like unfinished work, it just feels like the beginning work. The first novel or the first painting in a series.

Tony Lash: The Self-Titled record is just so direct. I mean certainly the songwriting is very sophisticated and there’s so much subtle technique in his guitar playing that I think maybe you don’t notice because it feels so fluid and natural and effortless, like it’s deceptively simple. If you start picking it apart, musically and technically, it’s a major achievement but none of that detracts or gets in the way of the direct emotional involvement that you feel when you listen to those songs.

JJ Gonson: They’re all very special, these records, right? They’re all really unique. But this one, it certainly was sending messages that maybe the other ones weren’t. It was kind of a harbinger of things to come but maybe not quite there yet. Maybe still a little flirty and not quite down the rabbit hole. Kind of dancing around the edge of the rabbit hole.

Larry Crane: My name’s Larry Crane, I am the archivist for the estate of Elliott Smith. I recently oversaw the remastering of his second solo album, Self-Titled or Elliott Smith. The Self-Titled record...well let’s go back. Roman Candle was released in July 1994. Roman Candle was like really a collection of 4-track cassette demos that he was doing mostly at JJ Gonson’s house.

JJ Gonson: My name is JJ Gonson. I lived at Taylor Street with a bunch of people, a bunch of talented musicians. I was booking and managing, other people were making music and so in the basement there was a practice space. So that was where Roman Candle was recorded and one of the things I think is really special about the record is that you can hear Elliott’s fingers on the strings and you can hear like the pop of his saliva in his mouth. And the reason that Roman Candle has that intimacy is because we didn’t have a studio.

Shane Kennedy: Tell me about how you record, tell me about recording Roman Candle.

Elliott Smith: That was in JJ’s basement. She was…

Shane Kennedy: Your manager, JJ?

Elliott Smith: Yeah, I was going out with her at the time and one of her roommates had a 4-track. There was like a Radio Shack mic and like a normal 57.

JJ Gonson: He had to hold it very close to his mouth, he sang very quietly so it’s got this very intimate experience like he’s whispering in your ear. And that has to do with how low tech that situation was. He spent days and days and months making that recording. Getting songs down that maybe weren’t Heatmiser songs. He was just documenting.

Larry Crane: So I think the thing that’s interesting about Roman Candle is that JJ Gonson was dating Elliott at the time and also I think at that point or about to be managing Heatmiser, which was the band he was in. She took it upon herself to say this is, obviously notice that the music was great but then also pass it around to our friends Denny and Christopher at Cavity Search Records. They obviously saw that it was great and wanted to put that out but it was never, it definitely was never intended as a proper release. And in fact the instrumental on the end was tacked on to it just to make it long enough. So it really was just a collection of songs that he was just kind of knocking down but Elliott would always be like just recording constantly just to get the ideas captured when they were available or fresh and working them out in his head and working them out on tape. The initial sessions for the Self-Titled record began just a few months later with sessions at Tony Lash’s house.

“Needle in the Hay”

Tony Lash: I’m Tony Lash. I met Elliott in high school, we played together in Heatmiser, I was the drummer. I just remember offering him to come over, I was living in this house and shared a basement studio with a couple guys and we had a couple of decent condenser mics and a half inch 8-track. So it was definitely a huge leap in the quality over the kind of crappy cassette 4-track that he had used. And he really just came over that one day, before he started working with Leslie, the day when he recorded “Needle in the Hay” and at least the beginnings of “Alphabet Town.” Elliott came over, got him set up, you know I threw the best condenser mic that I had at the time on his acoustic guitar, we got a level and then I went upstairs to make some lunch. And he was working down there and I couldn’t really hear what was going on because he was so quiet. My memory is just that in the time it took me to make lunch and eat it and then going back down there to check on him, he had already recorded the two guitars and the doubled vocals for “Needle in the Hay” and it just...you know, it was so good. And I was really struck by how quickly he did that.

You can hear the precision in the guitar playing and the vocals, the mood was in place, it didn’t feel overworked at all. He was just that good of a musician and must have had a really clear idea before he sat down how he wanted that song to feel.

Leslie Uppinghouse: My name is Leslie Uppinghouse and I recorded the Elliott Smith Self-Titled record at my home in North Portland. So “Needle in the Hay,” it’s interesting that it was recorded before, if it was sort of the genesis of the sound that he wanted to carry through because it fits very beautifully throughout the record. I don’t think that anybody listening to it would necessarily pick up on, “Oh this was recorded in a different space and a different time.” It really sets the tone for the record, it really sets the mood for the record. And that quiver in the vocal in the beginning is sort of a tentativeness. It doesn’t come in with confidence. And that vulnerability of expressing what you want to say by singing it as a man. Having that little hesitation and that little quiver, you hear that fear and sort of that fear of expression and you hear it so poignantly in that vocal, that first vocal. It comes in so quiet and so afraid and I think that’s a really cool special thing that it takes a real bravery to leave on a record, to be comfortable leaving that out there.

Slim Moon: I’m Slim Moon, I run the record label Kill Rock Stars and founded it back in 1991 and put out Elliott Smith’s second and third albums. I got asked to do spoken word on this tour of solo artists. That’s definitely when I met Elliott and got to know him. The first night of the tour was at The Crocodile Lounge in Seattle and I missed Elliott’s set and then while Sean Croghan was setting up, the first thing he said before he played his first song was, “everybody who just missed Elliott Smith missed something special.” So I took that to heart and made sure to watch Elliott’s set the next night. I had already done my set at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco and then he played and his set just blew me away so much that I went out to the van to listen to his CD, which of course he was selling at the merch table and I just listened to it over and over for the next several hours while rest of the show happened and was just a complete and total fan of his music from then on.

JJ Gonson: It certainly was new, it was definitely new. I mean what he was doing was not like… Now we think of the singer/songwriter and the like indie/pop singer/songwriter as like a thing, what he was doing was really not happening. There was folkies and there was bands but there wasn’t really this singer/songwriter element. There had been, but at that moment in time, it was so different that it was kind of startling. And just being out there alone with a guitar on a stage and playing really quietly was really unusual. And special. And I think the people that were at those shows recognize that.

Slim Moon: It was really out of step for somebody in the sort of indie slash punk space, to be playing under their own name, solo acoustic without any odd bells and whistles, no funny drum machine through a tube or you know, just with a capo, like a folk musician. But it’s really hard to be incredibly captivating with just voice and guitar with songs you wrote for yourself about yourself and he had that ability just to deliver as emotionally gut wrenching of a show of any show you could possibly see of any lineup but with that minimal presentation and that’s what I was really impressed with was how much power he could pack with just voice and guitar.

Leslie Uppinghouse: When I would be his audio engineer for live shows, you would go into big noisy rock rooms. I mean these are rooms that hold several hundred people and they’re noisy and they’re loud and he would start typically those sets with “Needle in the Hay” and you could hear a pin drop by the second phrase. I mean people would be standing, just holding their glasses scared to take a sip because it was just, it just brought everybody’s attention into focus. And so that song, I’m really happy is the first song on the record because it just brings in whoever’s listening to the record into this super tight focus where all of the sudden you’re paying attention.

Slim Moon: The first couplet is a total grabber yeah. It just totally sucks you in and then you’re on for a ride all of the way.

Larry Crane: The little guitar figure on “Needle in the Hay” is just brilliant. It isn’t like he’s doing a throwaway part on the guitar and the words are really good or it’s a really cool guitar part and the words aren’t that good. It’s like, it’s a really economical, interesting, captivating guitar part with a lot of insistence, tension and everything and really good words, with humor thrown on top of it. And you’re just like, “This is a quadruple whammy of how to do it right.” Why do you think the song has resonance, it’s all those factors. And most people don’t hit two of them, he’s hitting like four, five things out of the park with that. Everyone else, give up (laughs).

Tony Lash: I like the ambiguity of the beat. You can’t really tell at first, where the one is or what beat the changes are happening on until it gets into the vocals and even then, I remember feeling like there’s a little bit of rhythmic ambiguity there that adds a nice tension to what’s going on. Yeah I mean, it’s a really great song. I might be imposing my present day interpretation on it. I mean it’s a standout song but also it was reinforced by it being the first song on the record and it being in Royal Tenenbaums but I must have realized it was a big leap ahead for him compared to that first record.

Leslie Uppinghouse: It’s got a very fat sound to it, a very low end fat sound but if you scrutinize that a little bit, it’s not bass, it’s actually a fat mid tone and the whole record is very heavy in the mids. And mids are the range that artists really ignore and it’s too bad because that is the range that everyone’s voice is most present and most comfortable are in those heavy mids. It’s a beautifully recorded song and I think it’s a beautifully written song. I think “Needle in the Hay” goes down as...it’s important in the history of songs.

JJ Gonson: When he wrote “Needle in the Hay,” when he started to play around with those concepts, even though I don’t know if he was doing drugs yet, even though I don’t think he was, I started to react to that. There are songs where I felt more like I could hear his voice and other ones where I was just like, “Why? Why are we doing this, why are we going in this direction?” It was hard. It was hard to hear, you know, it’s hard to hear somebody you care about flirting with heroin. And obviously, it went from flirting to using.

“Christian Brothers”

Larry Crane: And then in January and February 1995, he went over to his friend Leslie Uppinghouse’s home and she had equipment there, a tape deck, an 8-track reel to reel, everything he could work on in a spare room. So he would work on the recordings there that became the bulk of the Self-Titled record.

Leslie Uppinghouse: And I let him use what I called my office and it was just a small wood floor room, really nice beautiful high ceilings, big glass windows. Everything was wood, right, it had a room sound for sure. And so the setup was pretty much just a ride cymbal, a snare drum, a couple of his acoustic guitars, my 12-string Vox, a really funny Fender keyboard, my cello, my tambourine, I think that’s it. And yeah it was just recorded on an 8-track, Tascam 38, on the little Tascam board. He would come in whenever he felt, you know, we would set up a whole day and I kind of feel like we did them, not super early in the morning but I feel like it was earlier in the day and we’d spend, they would be long days. We’d talk about the song, we’d talk about the setup, we’d get our signals and our levels. He was right in front of the machine and we’d get it all set up and then I’d just step outside of the room, shut the door and he’d hit play.

I remember they were working on a possible record deal with Frontier Records. That was with Heatmiser. And there was some clauses in there that made Elliott nervous to sign that record deal right away because it had some non-competition clause that they couldn’t really do any solo stuff. And he was in the throws of writing. He was really prolific in his writing right then. He was really writing a lot of stuff that was pretty raw and not, I don’t know if it was ever going to be written in terms for band use but it was my observation that it was primarily solo work. And I think he was a little bit nervous about not getting that stuff on tape before he signed this deal that may or may not have prevented him to record that stuff after that without some hiccups. And again, I have no idea if that is even factual, that was just sort of how it was presented from him to me that he really wanted to get some stuff on tape fast. He just wanted to play with some songs that he was writing all in a wave and he just wanted to get it on tape. And we just put them on tape as fast as we could. And in terms of as fast as we could, just as fast as they were coming. So it wasn’t like a rush to get it done for any deadline. He just had them all in his head and he wanted to get them down.

Slim Moon: He told me he wasn’t happy with Cavity Search. That he appreciated them putting out his first record but he wanted to get more reach or have a better distribution or something.

Shane Kennedy: Hasn’t that ended up being the biggest seller on Cavity Search now?

Elliott Smith: Ah...maybe?

Shane Kennedy: I thought I heard it was the biggest thing they ever sold.

Elliott Smith: Maybe? I think yeah they actually gave me a check the other day. I think it was the first time they’d gotten to pay a band for record sales and they were really excited. It was weird that they were happy to be paying someone but… They’re really nice guys.

Slim Moon: He asked my advice for finding a record label that would be a good fit for his solo music and I asked him, “Well what about the label that’s putting out Heatmiser?” and he was like, “I don’t want to confuse those two things, I want to keep them really separate.” So I kind of helped him brainstorm the pros and cons of some of the labels that might even be willing to listen to him or consider him. Because I had basically said, “I don’t think Kill Rock Stars is the best option. Everything we’d done up until now were loud guitar bands like Unwound or loud Riot grrrl bands like Bikini Kill.” We just decided to do the seven inch. At that point, I was still thinking that maybe having a 7 inch out with national distribution would lead to more opportunities for Elliott. But once the 7 inch came out I think Elliott liked that we were able to get it in stores around the country and mostly I think he had just become comfortable working with me so he just, it was his idea, he was like, “why don’t you put out the record?”

Shane Kennedy: For a while, it seemed like your stuff and Heatmiser’s were miles apart.

Elliott Smith: Yeah it’s not so different now.

Shane Kennedy: You think you might incorporate some of your stuff? Because for a while there I thought, “He’s gonna bail.”

Elliott Smith: Ah well...um, it’s unclear what’s gonna happen. But yeah like stylistically, they’re more similar now than they used to be.

JJ Gonson: Heatmiser were a really, like a straight up rock band. Like a four piece. They were described in maybe Willamette Week or something as “chugga chugga boy rock.” And there was this kind of equitable arrangement with the band where they would work on the same number of Elliott’s songs as Neil’s songs. So Elliott was stockpiling this music. Maybe he was bringing the songs to Heatmiser, I couldn’t speak to that, I wasn’t in those rehearsals but because they were doing this sort of fair balance of songs, he was definitely putting down songs that there wasn’t a place for. I think people explore, they explore different sounds and they explore different ways of making music. And I think he was kind of finding a thing to do but I’m not necessarily sure that it was like, “this is gonna replace rock and roll.” I think it was something else to add to the repertoire at that time. It’s too bad that they couldn’t have coexisted better.

Tony Lash: I think “Christian Brothers”, I was always just a little bit disappointed because I preferred the Heatmiser version (laughs). I don’t remember a lot of kind of like playing this song and being like, “oh would this be better for Heatmiser or solo?” Maybe he had those conversations with Neil and definitely JJ, I would assume. But I don’t remember having any of those with him. The only clear memory I have of that coming up would be around “Christian Brothers” because we had originally worked on it as a Heatmiser song and then he recorded it for the Self-Titled record and then made a decision about which one he wanted to go with.

Larry Crane: That song is something else. There’s an intensity to it. It’s always interesting with Elliott’s work to think yeah he was in this loud guitar band at the same exact time and people always go, “oh that could have been a Heatmiser song.” and obviously they tracked it, but he starts to create a delineation which gets even more confused on Either/Or and Mic City Sons because there’s songs that definitely feel like they could’ve crossed over to one record or the other. But there was a definite delineation earlier on with Heatmiser and Elliott in the writing and what songs he’d kind of point in one direction or the other and then it got more confused and Heatmiser kind of morphed into a little more sounding like him solo on his songs, not on Neil’s of course. I think that if he had been Elliott Smith, but just been a solo guy the whole time, like known as this guy with an acoustic guitar, that some of these kind of songs, if he’d tried to rock them up like “Christian Brothers,” they wouldn’t have sounded right at all. So I think that was kind of the coolest thing is that he had the experience of being on a loud stage and then he was like, “well how can I create the intensity with some of these songs without having the band behind me?” And I really think that if he’d never been in Heatmiser, he wouldn’t have been as good.

Slim Moon: I like the sort of galloping, kinetic feel of “Christian Brothers.” The Self-Titled record really shows a real variety of songwriting styles of different ways to be successful with an acoustic guitar. “Christian Brothers” I really love the breadth that it shows because it’s kind of different than the other songs on the record in its rhythm.

Leslie Uppinghouse: “Christian Brothers”, I think that one is a nice one to understand the minimalist...like when we did use drums, it was only a ride cymbal and a snare and it was only about one mic. Because we’re really on 8 tracks and we’re trying to reserve as many of those tracks for vocals. And I think that song in particular is interesting when you’re talking about rhythm because it does sort of speed up and slow down and he didn’t fuss with that, he would sort of follow that. Yeah no click tracks on this one at all. He would use the first vocal and the first guitar basically as the click track but he would keep them. So he didn’t dump them. And so there are definitely times where you would hear this speed up and speed down in that song and he would follow it with the drums and the ride or whatever he was doing or a second vocal. But he could sing with no practice at all. Just headphones in his ear of his own voice and absolutely hit harmonies to something that basically wasn’t there. I remember he would be a little surprised sometimes on where he went with those.

Larry Crane: My experience was this: He would come into the studio with the music pretty much fully fleshed out, lay down all the parts, put down a lead vocal, double the lead vocal. And then he would do “Sending out a probe,” he would just “Open a track, don’t hit record.” “Ok Elliott.” And then he would run down a vocal pass where he would just go, (sings) and he’d sing looking for harmony notes in different sections. And then he’d go, I swear, once or twice, he would run it through and then he’d go, “Ok.” And then he would start laying down harmonies then he would double the harmony. He’d say, “Send out the next probe.” Look for the other harmony on top of the other harmony and then lay down that and then double that. And so the only thing he never really had written were vocal harmonies in most cases. I was always pretty amazed because I’d never, I still haven’t seen that many solo performers that can play all the instruments and have it come together like it sounded like a really good band and things weren’t flamming terribly or sounded disjointed. It was always kind of amazing.

“Clementine”

Audience member: “Clementine!”

Elliott Smith: Ok. But I’m gonna fuck it up. I’m fucking everything up tonight. But you know, sometimes you gotta fuck everything up. I’m not gonna get in a bad mood and storm off the (laughs). I promise (laughs).

Audience member: We don’t have enough time.

Elliott Smith: Right. I’d have to storm off really quick. Otherwise I’d be taking too long.

JJ Gonson: There are songs that I love more than others. I love “Clementine.” I absolutely love that song.

Leslie Uppinghouse: I love that song “Clementine” and I think it’s a really really cool song. I think the way he recorded it was really fun. So that one, he was so enamored with my Vox guitar, it was an Italian Vox with a big crack and so it would slip out of tune. And that one you can really hear how out of tune that Vox is and rather than re-record it, he just kind of recorded everything on top of it. If he was into that take, he would sing and follow the out of tuneness on the guitar and then work mightily to have everything on top of that match that. So it has this very dissonant sound to it that I’ve heard people try to cover that song and they can’t do it because it just slips in and out of tune so bad.

Slim Moon: Clementine really worked live. It was a real “You could hear a pin drop” type of song. When he played it, it was one of the ones that people stayed...you know some of the fast strummy ones, people start to think they can turn to their neighbor and talk about like, “Hey, do you have a cigarette?” or “Is it time to get another beer?” or “How’s it been since I saw you last Tuesday?” but with a song like “Clementine,” people would be dead quiet usually. He could really command attention with that song.

Leslie Uppinghouse: He really wanted to honor the song, the traditional song “Clementine” but he didn’t know the lyrics and remember this is back before we really utilized the internet to just google stuff. So he called my mother on the phone and went over the original lyrics of “Clementine.” And it was so special just to witness that conversation and Mom was so gracious that she went line by line from what she could remember of the original lyrics to “Clementine.” And I remember it because years later when he was up for the Oscar and I was actually at home watching that with her. We were both so nervous about his performance at the Oscar for Good Will Hunting that Mom would brag to people that she knew that she had collaborated with Elliott on his record. Which people would confuse for the Good Will Hunting (laughs) but it was kind of sweet.

Sometimes there are tracks, I think there’s one on “Clementine,” but where if you listen on headphones, you kind of hear this weird little breathing, this heavy breathing (laughs). It’s my dog. So that was Anna. She was a boxer and she was very friendly and didn’t understand when he was recording why she and I would be on the other side of the door. And so it took awhile for her to settle down and she blew some beautiful tracks and some cuts because she would whimper or scratch on the door. So it took awhile for her to get used to the set up and that she would snuggle down and she’d stick her nose right under the door and just hold perfectly still the whole time. And she would get used to it, like she could tell when the tape machine would end and then she’d wiggle and wiggle and when he’d come out and give her big pets and stuff but it was so hard to get her not to whimper. Because she was a big barker so that was the risk. But she held her cool, she was pretty good about it.

“Southern Belle”

Shane Kennedy: You were telling me I think you were from Texas originally?

Elliott Smith: Mmm hmm.

Shane Kennedy: Tell me about when you came from Texas and what prompted that. Did you play in Texas and what did you do there?

Elliott Smith: Uh no I moved out of there when I was fourteen...because of family problems and um I don’t know, I don’t really want to get into it but um...

Shane Kennedy: Right. Are a lot of those things reflected in the songs on Roman Candle.

Elliott Smith: Some of them, yeah.

Shane Kennedy: Are those situations mostly, fairly true stories, adapted into song form here and there?

Elliott Smith: Well…

JJ Gonson: “Southern Belle,” that’s one of the songs that earlier maybe didn’t go on to Roman Candle, writing about his mother. He always said that he wasn’t writing about things but I don’t agree (laughs). I think a lot of these songs have very specific topics.

Slim Moon: Because I was starting to get to know him better, it’s the first song that I found myself wondering if I knew who it was about or if it was an autobiographical situation. But it’s the first time I remember him writing a new song and me trying to analyze it from that framework of actually being a friend of him. Wondering if it’s about a real person or something.

Tony Lash: I don’t remember him talking to me very openly about that. I mean I knew that there was a bad relationship with his stepdad. And I could feel the tension when we were on tour and would stop by and stay with them. I remember when we went through Dallas, his discomfort was apparent. But I’ve learned more about the details about it sort of since he’s died as it’s come out in other ways, other interviews and other research. I wished we could have had more of those conversations at the time. But we didn’t.

“Single File”

Larry Crane: The thing that he had was a really good sense of what the song was going to be and like I said, even if he didn’t have the vocals written. But he would know kind of the melody of where they were going to be. And he would have a really good sense of what wasn’t in there yet but able to record the parts that were going to wrap around that. Which a lot of times, people, musicians, say you’re a songwriter, you might focus on your rhythm instrument, piano or guitar or whatever. And then just play that rhythm instrument like it’s either on or off and it plays all through the song and it takes up this kind of space that’s not really all that revealing to the core of the song if that makes sense. And then you have this kind of constant piano or guitar or what have you that goes all through the song and then you try to build the arrangement around that and you’re adding to something that’s maybe already too busy and you’re cluttering up even more. And that’s why a lot of home recordings sound like ass (laughs). A lot of homemade single person projects don’t sound that good is they can’t sit there and go, “Oh if I just strum this chord and let that hang for like four beats, there’s going to be this room.” And if you listen to the nuance of all the little spaces he leaves open and stuff like that, when something’s busy and when something’s not busy, it’s like taking into account like as if three or four people are in a room looking at each other and playing it and trying to leave those little pockets and leave space in the arrangement. And that’s why it comes together good, it’s so easy to mix (laughs). Everything has a space. When you listen to these songs on Self-Titled and Either/Or and everything, one of the hallmarks is that everything has a place, a reason to be there and it doesn’t just play like, they’re not played like musicians, like “oh I’ve got to get my part in there.” They’re played like a songwriter who is a great musician. And that’s a real difference.

Slim Moon: One of the things Elliott was good at is this use of negative space. That it’s not just what’s there, it’s what’s not there, what’s implied or what the decisions he made sonically that were quieter or more empty. Lots of other songwriters would be like, “This is too empty, I need to fill this space. I need to put a cello in here or something.” And he was bold enough to just leave the empty space and have that emptiness be powerful and I feel like “Single File” is one of the songs where that’s really really true.

Leslie Uppinghouse: “Single File,” the mood of that whole song, the way it’s written, the way it’s performed, the way it’s recorded certainly, it feels very hurried and nervous. That one, the timing speeds up and slows down. And I’m trying to think if that was maybe a song that we recorded first of the day, but you can hear the nervousness and sort of the hurriedness in that song that later in the day, he would really settle down. But I’m kind of pleased that that song made the cut because it did have that sort of nervous energy that he had in this whole project. That he would come in for the first part of the day and monkey around, it was almost like he was nervous to sing to himself alone in that room. That room was a very live room, it was very present. It’s sort of like the singing in the shower where it makes you feel cozy but if you’re singing in a church, you’re going to feel a little bit nervous. And I think “Single File,” I like it because you hear the speeding, slowing up and down, you hear the nervousness, you hear the hurriedness and it just is a very honest song and I just really like that one on that record for that reason.

The other thing I want to give a shout though is that sweet little guitar part that Neil Gust did.

Tony Lash: Does he play, is there like a tremolo guitar in that, is that Neil? Yeah I can’t remember if we did that at our place or if he did it at Leslie’s. I don’t have any clear memory about it.

Leslie Uppinghouse: I feel like I remember Neil being there because I remember Neil sitting on something that was awkwardly tippy. But I don’t really remember. There wasn’t a lot of witnesses, sorry (laughs).

“Coming Up Roses”

Slim Moon: Well I remember that we decided that that was the single and we had a video shot for it. And I’ve always wondered, “Did he put keyboard on it because it was like an obvious single?” You know, “Coming Up Roses” is a catchy chorus and there’s this idea that a pop song has a catchy chorus. I wish I could ask him today, like “Was that just because there was an organ in the room?” or “Was that a conscious decision because this was a pop song?” I’ve always wondered that. I mean, I think it works. It does stand out on the record because you don’t really hear that sound come out anywhere else on the record.

Leslie Uppinghouse: The funny little keyboard. That was a bizarre piece of equipment. I had it forever and it was so hard to use live because it had no volume control (laughs). It just plugged directly into an amp and so you would use your amp as a volume control, but we were doing it direct. And it had no sustain pedal so you had to like hold the key down the whole time and so that guy, that was a crazy loud instrument. He loved it, it was hard not to let him play with it on a bunch of different stuff. He wanted to put it on more songs but it’s just such a dominant sound (laughs) that we just kept it on that one.

I don’t know but I’d love to go back in time and try to remember if he added the electric guitar so that the keyboard didn’t sound so electric. Because remember, that’s like the only electric instrument on there. So I don’t know if the little lead part with the electric guitar was purposeful or if it was something he added after the keyboard decision and I don’t remember and I kinda wish I knew. But pairing that electric guitar piece with that little organ, barely makes that song presentable. But I think without it, it would’ve been a wash (laughs). So that electric guitar part is super important to that song.

I remember there was a little kerfuffle with Tony and Elliott about the end cause at the end it just goes (mouths stuttering organ), at the very end and then it stops and starts again. There was this whole back and forth of “We have to cut it off.” And it made it onto the record. Elliott won out on that. I think that song, out of any song, when they told me that they were going to actually release the record, I was sort of horrified like, “But we have that crazy song with the crazy part that we ended it wrong on!” (laughs). And I like it that it made the cut so that’s kind of fun.

“Satellite”

Leslie Uppinghouse: Second side, “Satellite.” Just one of my very favorite songs on the record.

Tony Lash: It’s hard to pick a favorite song, but “Satellite” is certainly one of them. I love that song.

Leslie Uppinghouse: A really cool thing that he probably worked out a little bit in his head of, “how do you get all of this complication and all of this melody line in on 8 tracks?” and so sacrificing, using the extra vocals and giving some room for the complicated guitar. And that’s a really cool one, I love that a lot and it’s a really great recorded song.

Slim Moon: When songs are droney in particular, but just randomly with different songs, there’s a way your brain adds things that aren’t there. You think you hear strings or you think you hear harmonies that aren’t actually in the recording. So when you’re like in the shower singing it, the version in your head is full and thick with all this extra stuff. That’s how I feel about “Satellite.” Everytime I listen to it, I’m like, “Oh, it’s just that.” Because the way I remember it, every single time is this big, thick, lush song with all these extras. But it’s more like all those extras are just implied by the sound rather than really in there. That song just has a feel to it that hinted towards the bigger instrumentation that he would do later because it feels like it wants to have big instrumentation, that song does.

Tony Lash: I don’t think he quite ever surpassed the level of emotional intimacy that he achieved on the Self-Titled record. Certainly, he surpassed other things. There are a lot of songs he did on other records that are amazing pieces of work. But just in terms of that feeling of him sitting right there playing the songs in front of you. The combination of it being hi-fi enough or more hi-fi than Roman Candle but not sort of pro-studio hi-fi, it was just really direct. And it’s 8 tracks but it’s not like 24 tracks, it’s not super layered. Yeah it’s like sometimes it could be, it seems like in his later stuff, it would be harder to jump on that, like catch that emotional thread, and get swept up by it and pulled along by it as you listen to the song. Obviously not in every later song but just as an overall emotional impact.

JJ Gonson: I feel like it’s a really solid record. I don’t think it shows the maturity of the later records and I don’t think it shows the immaturity of Roman Candle. The songs are more thought out than they are on Roman Candle, but he hadn’t quite gotten into the production value that he got into later so it’s a really interesting record.

Larry Crane: The roughness of an inexpensive Yamaha acoustic guitar, a 57 on the guitar, like simpler, cheaper equipment kind of gives it a sort of charm in a way or makes it feel very intimate, like “Oh this is just a guy recording at his home.” But I know that he always wanted to be moving forward and writing more or revisiting work and reworking it. But I don’t think he ever felt like, “oh the charm in one of these songs, is that you can really hear the guitar scrapes on the chord changes” or “There’s so much hiss on ‘Satellite’ and that’s really cool.” That was a never an Elliott Smith kind of conversation, I can guarantee you. He would talk about records he liked and they had fidelity to them. The Zombies, The Beatles, you know they were records that had a lot of clarity and focus on the songs and the vocals and the instruments and the parts. And that’s really where his mind was. I mean, go look for an interview with him where he says something like, “Oh I really had to record on 4-track to make it sound authentic.” You’re never gonna fucking find that. That doesn’t exist. That was not his thought process. And when people were like, “Oh XO sounds kind of polished,” I was like, “that’s what he wanted!” You know, we were like, “We gotta have at least 16 tracks.” It was nothing about going backwards sonically. There was never an intent to that. But that said, if you had left him in a room with a 4-track cassette recorder for a couple days, you’d probably end up with a collection of recordings because he’s not gonna stop (laughs). He’s gonna keep recording.

Leslie Uppinghouse: It’s interesting to listen online about how people kind of go back and forth about how it was recorded and how many tracks and all this. It was so simple, it was so bare bones. But the reason I think it sounds a little more complicated is, at that time, I recorded almost everything through two different preamps. So I had a vacuum tube direct preamp and a vacuum mic preamp and both of those were handmade and designed by Greg Sage from the Wipers. Just a kind of really interesting tube preamp that had just phenomenal amounts of clean gain. Dynamically, he could control that so carefully with his voice and so it’s a really delicate record. And it sound really wide and really open and really big and that all has to do with those tube preamps.

“Alphabet Town”

Shane Kennedy: Because we thought that Heatmiser was a homocore band, when you would sing, we were like, “Oh he’s a gay junkie.” And we thought, “Man, he’s got good reason to have dark songs.”

Elliott Smith: Haha

Shane Kennedy: Like “He’s an abused child and a gay junkie” so we kind of figured that’s why you’re so good.

Elliott Smith: Well I’m not gay, I’m not a junkie.

Shane Kennedy: (laughs) Last time I saw you, you looked sick, so I thought, “Woah, he must be cold turkeying.”

Elliott Smith: A lot of those songs have to do with a while ago. I’m not really writing songs that… Cause a lot of people seemed to say or not a lot of people but some people in their review would say like, “Oh these songs are all about dope” or whatever. Which I thought totally missed the point cause…

Shane Kennedy: I thought they were about human misery.

Elliott Smith: Right, they…

Shane Kennedy: I thought the other issues were just kind of the medium the person was in then but everyone has that…

Elliott Smith: Right right, yeah it was like that happened to be the vehicle then. And that’s where I was at then, but they could have just as easily been about love or something and it would still be about the same thing, which in my mind was more like dependency and stuff like that.

Shane Kennedy: Yeah

Slim Moon: I didn’t think it was romanticizing it, I thought it was just like with both eyes open look at it. And I didn’t know how much of it was autobiographical or looking at his friends or someone he knew or imagining that this would be what it was like. But I just thought it was like gritty realism, I didn’t think it was romanticizing. I think a lot of people have tried to analyze like, “Is there a story here?” “Is this about a certain person?” or “a certain thing that happened in his life?” Even at the time, I was like, “That’s not what’s important, what’s important is the story that comes together in this music. These songs as a collection. The worldview that comes together.” I didn’t spend any time trying to analyze his life, I just really believed in his talent. And I really believed that he knew what the hell he was talking about about drug culture and about the complications when love and drugs are intertwined.

Tony Lash: You can look at it as being specific about drugs or you can look at it as being about emotional alienation or isolation or attachment to negative coping mechanisms. I mean there are bigger themes that can be expressed through the analogy of drug use. But I don’t remember having any conversations with him about it and I don’t remember having any specific reaction to the lyrics.

Larry Crane: There’s a continuity to the record that’s really kind of interesting and then there’s an amazing amount of depth to the work that’s in there. I’m looking at a list of the songs and I’m like, “Yeah how many of these are like observations or telling little stories?” They’re not like, “This is how I feel” (laughs) in general. They’re like, “This is this thing. This is the scenario I’m showing you or these are these little glimpses into somebody’s life and all these different things.” It’s like, you’d see him sitting in a club and he’d be like watching people. He’s taking notes, man (laughs). It’s like, he’s watching how we’re all interacting and stuff.

JJ Gonson: “Alphabet Town” is about going to Alphabet City to score heroin. Or dreaming about it. It’s funny, he made people up in that song. He creates these characters. But I think what he’s talking about is the romanticism of going into Alphabet City in New York and scoring heroin.

Leslie Uppinghouse: “Alphabet Town,” great song. That was done at Tony’s. It’s interesting because there’s been books and documentaries and videos and articles where I’ve read a couple of takes that like, “Oh yeah, he was so messed up on drugs when he recorded this because he’s singing about drugs so he must have been messed up on drugs.” But Elliott was a keen observer and he wrote as a keen observer and I would think he was more comfortable writing as an observer than personal. Because when he did write personally, it was really personal and it was super scary. And his comfort was to write it in a more metaphor style. You know, write it more as a metaphor. It was easier for him. And he was really good at it. He was a really great writer.

Tony Lash: Even if he wasn’t doing any kind of serious drugs while he was working on the Self-Titled record, plenty of the kind of darkness that’s expressed and the kind of darkness of experience that can lead people to get into drug use, he had in his past. And that kind of alienation and pain and isolation, it could have come out of his experience, irrespective of drugs. And yeah it’s sad that that actually did manifest in his life. It’s also not surprising given his history and his experiences growing up.

Larry Crane: I mean when we were working, building Jackpot, late ‘96 up through ‘97 and stuff, and then hanging out in ‘98 and ‘99, recording a little bit. I mean, the most craziest thing I ever saw was like drinking whiskey after a session (laughs). You know, “Let’s go get a whiskey.” “Ok.” It was really like I didn’t see any of that, I never did. When drugs seem to have maybe become a part of his life, I wasn’t around and I stayed away from it, from being warned.

Leslie Uppinghouse: We just had a really straight forward, pleasant, healthy relationship while we were working together. Drank a lot of juice, drank a lot of tea (laughs). But you know it was pretty PG-13, pretty straight.

Slim Moon: You know if there was anything back then that he was concerned about, he once told me that he had to stop playing video poker. That when he sat down at a video poker machine, that he’d end up playing for a long time and he wanted to quit playing video poker. But it never came up again. I have no idea if he kept playing video poker or if he stopped but one time he told me, “Oh those video poker machines are sucking me in” (laughs).

Leslie Uppinghouse: In that time period, a lot of us were so fricking poor. I mean I really can’t emphasize how broke we all were. We were all living like ten people to a house and all working three jobs and recording and playing music and touring and just trying to make a buck, that there is a lot of drugs and alcohol and sadness that you’re witnessing. Portland, Oregon was pretty hard hit and not a thriving community that you see today. It was really dangerous to be sitting outside of Satyricon and you had people laying out on the streets OD’ed all the time. And I think he wrote much more about what he was seeing all around him and just a general sort of tragedy that he was seeing with economic disparities all around us where we just didn’t see any way that any of us we’re going to get out of this hole. And then all the music, people were singing about it, people were talking about it, people were living it and trying to survive and trying not to get just so depressed that did end up taking tons and tons of drugs and alcohol. Because honestly, you would do shows and people would try and pay you in drugs and alcohol. And you’re like, “Man, you agreed to pay me 50 bucks, can we just do the 50 bucks?” So there was a ton of that in your face all the time and I get a little bit concerned when people think that you can’t talk about stuff like that unless you are personally are experiencing it at the time because I don’t believe that’s true. And I don’t believe that’s what he was saying. Cause I think he was, for this record especially, I think he was talking about more what he was seeing. And it definitely was a lot about how depressed he was, about his life. I think there was a lot of things that excited him but we just didn’t believe that any of the art that we were making at the time, anybody was paying attention to at all.

Slim Moon: Portland in the nineties was one of those towns that you stay in or you go to if you had no plans for the future. It wasn’t a place you go to to make it or as a stepping stone to being discovered. Scenes like that are really cool because in a lot of ways when bands are just playing to impress their friends with no other stakes than just being awesome, that you get the most creative music. And Portland in the nineties, they were just trying to be awesome, they weren’t trying to be famous. That just wasn’t happening out of Portland.

JJ Gonson: I mean I knew a lot of people in Portland who were doing heroin. Heroin unfortunately is not something that is uncommon in the Pacific Northwest, it’s not uncommon anywhere, I mean you hear about it all the time. But at that time, I did know people who were doing it and I was distancing myself from them. I would say the biggest reason that I walked away from that friendship had to do with that he was starting to play around with drugs that I didn’t want to be around. I just, I couldn’t be near it, I’d had too many friends that had succumbed to those drugs and I didn’t want anything to do with them. So finally I just said to him, “I can’t support this. If this is what you want, I can’t endorse it.” And that was definitely a big breaking point in our friendship. You know, I knew someone that he was approaching about it and I sort of said, “I can’t be a party to this at all.”

“St. Ides Heaven”

Audience member: “St. Ides Heaven!”

Elliott Smith: Ok. It won’t be so pretty without Becca singing.

Leslie Uppinghouse: “St. Ides Heaven” with Rebecca. Just a super fun, easy vibe. He loved performing with her. I just kind of can hear the happiness in both of them. But it was done quite a bit later, not the same day as the original recording. It was cool. And I always like working with Rebecca. She’s just a really phenomenal singer and she has that ability to sing with anybody’s music and just makes it sound like her own. So I love it that you can really tell that it is Rebecca Gates singing and I really love that song.

Slim Moon: Something that comes up all the time when I hear other people being interviewed about Elliott and when I’m interviewed about Elliott and I think came up in the movie and everything is his sense of humor. He was a really fun, funny, ironic, witty guy. I mean not fun like life of the party but fun just like when he was in a group, he was going to tend to look for the ironic or the funny or the witty rather than...You know, people have this picture of him as dire and moody and introspective but he also was quite funny. And I feel like “St. Ides Heaven” is one of those Elliott Smith songs that show some of the sense of humor.

Larry Crane: With Elliott Smith, it’s so strange people feel connected to his music obviously cause it’s emotional and it feels like a person you could have known if you didn’t know him. But I mean everything I read about him, I’ve read people written books about him that are so full of bullshit and they just get it wrong. I know that Sean Croghan and Pete Krebs and me and Joanna (Bolme) and all these people, when we get interviewed, we go, “He was funny and he was our friend” and you try to keep reiterating that there was a person behind all this that was fully dimensional if not flawed. And man, it just feels like a never ending battle that’s only going to get worse as time goes by and people are going to see him as this pariah, martyr, whatever figure (laughs). They’ll start inventing stories that didn’t even happen, I’m sure, to tell the story they want to tell. And that’s really frustrating when you know the guy and you know how sensitive and amazing he was and you think about this sort of cult and the bullshit that gets written around a person of this talent. It’s just tiring.

“Good to Go”

Larry Crane: The original version of this album as it is on CD is not really mastered. It’s just sort of assembled and the song levels are adapted to kind of flow together. But there’s no limiting or equalization or anything going on to either hype up the sound, or to make it work better on stereos or what have you. That was really just assembled by Tony Lash. Cause none of us knew in that era how to master a record (laughs).

Leslie Uppinghouse: When I was told that it was going to be made as a record just as is, that surprised me a lot. And it happened, I think kind of quickly but maybe not, I don’t know. I just remember not really knowing about it until after it had happened. And being kind of worried, like, “Ahhh!” you know, “Is it good enough?” It was actually kind of scary. Because I’d worked on different records where you get to go back and you fuss with it and you do stuff with it. I mean, even mastering it, we tried to get a DAT machine to just master it onto a DAT and we didn’t have one. And I remember it was actually the week we were trying to do it, we just couldn’t get one that week so it was just a very casual thing to go over to Tony’s house like, “Well we’ll just use Tony’s DAT.” It was all very casual and so mastering was extremely casual as casual as the making of the record and that was literally just to get it on a DAT format.

Tony Lash: You know, he brought the reels over from Leslie’s to mix. We were going through the same system that we’d done Roman Candle on. It was just a Mackie 16 channel mixer so pretty minimal in terms of what we were doing from a technical standpoint. I remember maybe throwing down a couple of drum ideas during the mix process. I don’t think they all got used. It’s hard to remember the specifics but there was probably already a bit of tension developing between me and Elliott just in terms of like the kinds of things that would be important to me in a mix versus what he was looking for. There might have been moments where he felt like I was going in a wrong direction or something. I mean those kind of things went all the way back with us. Like sometimes, we would just hear something totally different from each other and could get to an impasse or something where tension could develop. And so I think having three people there was helpful for that.

Leslie Uppinghouse: He borrowed the tape that the record is on. I had new tape but I didn’t have him buy it and so he felt very uneasy about not having the money to purchase the tape. And I was like, “Dude, no, this is your tape, don’t worry about it.” And he’s like, “Well, we’ll put it on DAT and that way…” (laughs) because he could afford a DAT tape. And so yeah it was really funny. I mean it was really that bare bones and really that casual. But that actually ended up being the master that literally went to press.

Slim Moon: My memory is a little fuzzy on this but I think he just gave me the Self-Titled record and said, “This is the album, this is what it’s called, this is the art I want to use.” And we just did a little bit of layout to realize his vision and make it work in a CD package and work in a vinyl package. But he had a real clear idea with everything. He may have had a lot of soul searching and hemming and hawing and trying different sequences before he sent it to me. But by the time he sent it to me, it was just like, “Here’s the record.”

JJ Gonson: The cover of the second record was shot in Prague and it’s a piece of art, a sculpture of people falling off the top of the art museum in Prague. He would just go through my pictures looking for things. Those pictures, they’re not shot specifically for the record, they’re just pictures. He really liked my photography a lot and he grabbed at those pictures. And it looks on the front cover like people are falling. Like actual people, which is not the case (laughs). It’s art, it’s not real people. But because of the way that it was Xeroxed, it does have that look.

Larry Crane: Sometimes on a record, especially in a CD order, the songs near the final end, something gets a little lost maybe sonically. You know, you’ve been listening to the whole record and you’re kind of getting near the end and you’re like, “Oh, I kind of tuned that one out.” And I always felt that “Good to Go” was a much better song than I never hear people talk about it, the way they do “The White Lady Loves You More,” “The Biggest Lie,” “St. Ides Heaven,” “Alphabet Town,” “Satellite,” “Coming Up Roses,” “Single File,” every other song. “Clementine,” “Christian Brothers,” (laughs) “Needle in the Hay,” they all get mentioned, right? Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve never seen anyone write about how great “Good to Go” is or anything. And so when I started prepping everything to be mastered and sitting down with Adam Gonsalves, I was like, “Can we make sure this song just feels more immersive than it was on the album and draws the listener in more?” And sonically, I did a lot of cleaning up on that and tried to make things a little more present, like the nuances of the arrangement and the stuff that’s in there. And I think I did it and I hope it’s something where people go, “Holy shit, I never noticed that song before, it kind of felt like filler.” And start to hear how different that is. That was one of my biggest goals besides getting some of the tape hiss out of “Satellite” (laughs) and the bumps out of “Needle In The Hay,” those were my three things starting off, setting up the remastering of this album.

Leslie Uppinghouse: “Good to Go,” that is the one where people swear up and down that there is another female vocal because you can really hear the falsetto harmonizing. It’s very quiet, it’s really high up there. That one is a very technical vocal recording, both in the way that he recorded his vocals so spot on and also the way that he handled where those vocals were going to lay on there and it was really cool.

“The White Lady Loves You More”

Tony Lash: I mean he was certainly one of those musicians who could wing it on any instrument. He could find something that worked. Yeah I was talking to Larry, is it “The White Lady Loves You More” that has that viola or violin on it? Is it cello? Ok yeah. I don’t know for sure that he played it but I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s a little bit weird and pitchy but that works exactly right with the mood. And he was just so musical, he’s maybe tied for the most musical person that I ever worked with so he could find his way on whatever instrument he set his mind to.

Larry Crane: That’s kind of how he would be like whatever things were laying around were what get used (laughs). And I think there was just certain things, there was the cello there.

Leslie Uppinghouse: It was something that he was like, “Ooh you have a cello.” And I was like, “Yeah I have a cello.” And he wanted to play it, practiced it a ton, practiced it and practiced it and practiced it, chickened out. Because cello’s hard, cello’s a hard thing to play if you don’t know how to play cello. And came back and I think we monkeyed with the tuning and then it was cool because he just sort of did it. And so he did it in one take and there’s some notes that aren’t quite hit right. It’s not really up there in the mix, it’s pretty light, but it’s there. Yeah there’s a little bit of cello throughout the whole song.

Slim Moon: That’s my favorite song on the Self-Titled record. I think it’s absolutely gut wrenching. There’s themes on this record of like a frustrated love story and themes on this record of like observing drug addiction or being cynical about drug addiction and I just really feel like that song pulls the various themes all together into one song in a way that just leaves me breathless every time I listen to that song alone or listen to the record all the way through.

Leslie Uppinghouse: There’s one note that’s just horribly in the wrong place and we almost scrapped it but we left it and I’m glad we did because I like hearing those mistakes. Because again I think there’s an honesty to the whole record that mistakes or “happy accidents” as I’d like to hear it, kind of pull that listener into attention that they’re hearing something that sounds almost live and that one is in there with that cello. It just goes to totally the wrong note, he just misses it by a little bit. He had to practice that a lot, notes are hard to get with cellos. So he tried to do single pulls but with the rhythm on it, it was a place where he had to go to a new note cleanly and he missed it by just a smidge. But he stuck with it, which was cool. So it kind of slides back in to key. There’s a vibe to that cello part sort of like when he would do a vocal that was very tentative. So it’s a very soft, quiet, in the background, probably mixed a little bit too low but again it was for his comfort level. And also, it kind of chases the melody. So he’s definitely playing cello to what he’s hearing and it’s not ahead and it’s not even with the guitar or the vocal, it’s a little bit behind all the way through. And I think it really works, it kind of gives “White Lady” that sort of creepiness. There’s a creepiness to “White Lady” and I think that has to do with the delay that the cello’s just kind of following. That comes with him being a little bit insecure about playing it. But I think it works for the song and I think it’s pretty special.

“The Biggest Lie”

Elliott Smith: Ok this is the real last one. Thanks again for coming.

Slim Moon: Oh yeah, “The Biggest Lie” Like “White Lady Loves You More,” it’s a place where the themes of the record really come together. Whether he’s playing a character or he’s speaking for himself, it feels so intimate and naked and self-revealing, that song does. So it’s another one that shakes me to the core, it’s just so emotionally powerful.

Leslie Uppinghouse: For whatever reason, I don’t know what it is, it doesn’t have anything to do with Elliott personally, I don’t believe, but that song will make me cry every time. And it’s something about its construction and it’s something about its melody. And it’s written kind of like a children’s in the round, you know what I mean, like where kids would sing a phrase and then the other kids would sing a phrase half off and it would match up. He would play with that type of construction. Like “Ring Around The Rosie,” you could sing “Ring Around The Rosie” and then somebody else could start in. And there’s something about “The Biggest Lie” that reminds me of that kind of song construction and it’s not actually in the round but it just loops again and again and again. So it’s just sort of this poignant phrasing, melodic phrasing that for whatever reason, I don’t know if it’s the notes or the timing but whatever it is, it just hits me. It’s a very emotional song for me.

Slim Moon: If there’s a thread like that in Elliott’s lyrics, it’s not a suicide thread, as much as it is a resigned that there’s no pain-free existence, that pain is always there. That “don’t kid yourself that tomorrow’s going to be better” kind of thing. And that’s how I feel about this song.

Leslie Uppinghouse: And I remember even the first time I heard it, when he was practicing it, I was like, “uhhhh.” There was something that was kind of scary to me about that song and it’s captured perfectly on tape. And I don’t know, I’ve never talked to anybody else about it, about what they hear with that song or anything, but there’s something about it. And I love it that it’s the last song on the record too. Because I remember the first time I heard it, there was something that I didn’t like about it. It was just sort of a scary song to me and it just makes me sad.

Larry Crane: I mean the most important thing he ever told me, I think, was, “I want to write songs, I want to record songs. Everything else is stuff I have to do to do that.” So touring, interviews, signing contracts (laughs), whatever. You know, that’s just the crap that you have to do the part he wanted to do. And he just wanted to keep getting really good songs, writing really good songs and recording them. That’s all that mattered. So I think when you look at it that way, the records thankfully hold up pretty well still. They hold their own and he got to do these and I just wish we would’ve gotten to see a lot more of these records from him.

Leslie Uppinghouse: So can you imagine being a shy person, having to do the Oscars against Celine Dion and then right before you walk on stage, they hand you a suit that is made for a man ten times your size. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever witnessed on TV. I remember Mom and I watched and we both screamed, we were like, “What is he wearing? Why is he wearing…?” because his hands, the suit arm length was too long for his hands, and I was like, “Oh my God!” and it was like dressing a small child in a giant man’s suit. It was so mean. It was like the meanest thing that’s ever happened on television. That was where I felt sorry for him and proud of him but really scared for him. But also, that was the first time that I really understood that, “Oh shit, he’s good. His music will be out in the universe forever and ever and ever.” And that was a really good feeling to have. Because you don’t get that very often. When you work with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of artists, the couple that get to have that shot and that chance, that you care about and that you support, it’s so rare. It’s a super good feeling. Suit and all, but Jesus.

Larry Crane: I think that, (sigh) I don’t know, I got a lot of thoughts. I’m not blaming anyone in specific, it’s just, you know everyone’s playing their part and doing what they think is right, but it’s like…I don’t think that being in Good Will Hunting or being nominated for an Oscar was good, I don’t think that being on a major label was good. I think the sort of bullshit exposure that you get out of something like the Oscars is just distracting and I think that the major label thing, I mean…As far as I know. I remember one time a few years ago, finding out that he still hadn’t recouped on XO or something and you’re just like, “What?” Give me a fucking break. That’s a joke, if that had been on Kill Rock Stars with Slim, he would’ve made hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from that release along with the label and then you’re telling me that XO didn’t make any money at all. I know there were advances but advances are never that much compared to what goes on and it’s like, that just seems weird. And I think that the world that he was thrust into, you know, Lenny Waronker and everybody kind of propped him up or didn’t prop him up but they encouraged him to go into it. It wasn’t the right world. If this had been like the seventies and he was hanging out with Jackson Browne, it would’ve made sense, he would’ve been another top songwriter. And he and J.D. Souther could go hang on a porch somewhere and trade licks, you know. But this world that they tried to put him into, there wasn’t even a category for a guy of his abilities to exist in within the major label world and he’s not going to fit into a slot. “Oh he’s a songwriter so he’s going to just stand there and play acoustic guitar.” Yeah but also with a band sometimes and he wants to put piano on it and layer the harmonies and strings, you know. It’s just...I think a lot of things got handled wrong and he wasn’t always the most assertive person to just say, “This is what I want.” He would try to just go along and keep other people happy as well and I think sometimes that was the worst part of his personality.

Leslie Uppinghouse: Cause then it went very fast, he was picked up very fast. He started making records like crazy. And Dreamworks got a hold of him pretty quick. I remember when I was in Texas and the first time he did a show in Texas on Dreamworks, that he contacted me and we were all excited to see each other and then he’s like, “Yeah meet me afterwards.” And when I went out, I actually had to stand in line, I had to stand in an autograph line (laughs) in order to say hi to him. And it was just so surreal. Cause I was like, “This is really weird.” and he’s like, “Yeah this is really really weird.” And he was on this giant tour bus alone (laughs).

Larry Crane: God, you know. I think if there had been a different path, it could’ve been a little easier and it could’ve been a little more in his control. One of the best quotes about that would certainly be from Joanna Bolme. I think maybe it was in Autumn de Wilde’s book and she says something like, “If you made him do things, if you made him work, he would work. And if you do everything for him, he’s kind of aimless.” So like, having to say, “Elliott, if you come help me build this studio, then you can work out of here.” “Ok good, I’ll do that.” It would just give him a lot of focus. Once he started getting tour managers, which you need tour managers, I get this, I’m not saying this is wrong, but you get all these people around you doing everything for you. People going, “Do you want a glass of water?” You know, I think some of it just ends up building this...it just sets people up for a different world perspective, everything. (laughs) It’s funny, I was just reading about Pink Floyd and The Wall and (laughs) there’s so much of that in that story. Of this sort of weird isolation and comfortably numb and all the weird rock star stuff. And you know, I think that’s kind of where he ended up in a weird way, like sort of disconnected from himself and it’s just too fucking bad. I had very little contact with him, like I was going to go down and work on Basement On A Hill and I talked to him on the phone a little bit before that. You know, a couple weeks before he passed so he just sounded different than he had been in the past. It was weird, sounded weaker and different. It’s weird. I hesitate, I wouldn’t really want to know what someone does to themselves to get there, you know.

Tony Lash: I mean nobody needs me to tell them that he really achieved a new level of maturity and sophistication in his songwriting and singing and guitar playing when he did this record. And like I was talking about before, the emotional directness. And I think that’s why it’s still a standout.

Leslie Uppinghouse: I think it was a really brave piece of work and I’m glad that we were able to do it. As anything, I don’t think it could be reproduced any other way. I think it was just a perfect little room and a perfect little setup, really simple gear, and that it’s the artistry of the artist that makes it a record that stays around rather than everyone monkeying around with gear.

Larry Crane: With Self-Titled, it’s like the recording luckily doesn’t get in the way. It doesn’t necessarily help in some cases, it’s a little noisy or scratchy or whatever but it’s like the songs are so damn good, that it’s its own little world, it just works, it’s amazing. And what was amazing that he went on to do several more albums at that level. Like “boom boom boom in a row.” And then the outtakes were nearly as good or better in some cases so that’s just bizarre (laughs). This period, like ‘95, ‘96, it was just ridiculous how many songs he wrote as New Moon shows (laughs). And Mic City Sons and Either/Or and this album (laughs) and the singles and comp tracks, I mean it’s ridiculous.

Leslie Uppinghouse: You know some people say it’s the purest work of his solo work. I just think it has more to do with the excitement about it. He was really excited to do some solo work. And then after he did it, I think it gave him a real focus of like, “Oh yeah, that’s where my interest is.”

Tony Lash: Even compared to his other records, his later ones, that have so much more put into them. So much more ambitious in so many ways and really achieved greatness a lot of the time, there’s still something to the directness and the purity of this record that I think comes from just a great confluence of his ability, his confidence in what he was doing and the slightly better recording situation but not too much better. And it just seems like all the things came together on the Self-Titled record.

Outro:

Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about Elliott Smith. You'll also find a link to stream or purchase Self-Titled, including the 25th Anniversary Edition. Special thanks to all of our guests and also Shane Kennedy for the use of his interview with Elliott from 1996. Thanks for listening.

Credits:

"Needle in the Hay”

"Christian Brothers”

"Clementine”

“Southern Belle”

“Single File”

“Coming Up Roses”

"Satellite”

"Alphabet Town”

“St. Ides Heaven”

“Good to Go”

“The White Lady Loves You More”

“The Biggest Lie”

Words and Music by Steven Paul Smith

Universal Music - Careers on Behalf of Itself and Spent Bullets Music (BMI)

Theme Music:

“Winter Cold” by North Home

Meladdy Music (ASCAP)

Intro/Outro Music:

“Out on the Water” by North Home

Meladdy Music (ASCAP)

Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim

Mixing assistance by Jeremy Whitwam and Nick Stargu

Mastered by Jeremy Whitwam