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.
of Montreal formed in Athens, Georgia in 1996 by Kevin Barnes. After signing with Bar/None Records, Kevin started working with a rotating lineup of band members as of Montreal released their debut album, Cherry Peel in 1997. The Bedside Drama, The Gay Parade, Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies, and Aldhils Arboretum followed before they signed with Polyvinyl Records. Kevin began working primarily alone and released Satanic Panic in the Attic in 2004 and The Sunlandic Twins in 2005. While living in Norway with their wife and baby, Kevin turned their attention to the next album. Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? was eventually released in 2007.
In this episode, for the 15th anniversary, Kevin Barnes looks back on how Hissing Fauna came together. This is the making of Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
Kevin Barnes: This is Kevin Barnes, from the band of Montreal and we are going to be talking about Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? I feel like with everything I make, everything is very organic. And it just sort of happens on some unconscious level, I'm just driven to do it. And I try not to be self conscious, I try not to second guess anything, because I figure, “Okay, I'm just gonna write and record.” And then there'll be time later to decide, like, “What I want to include, what I want to erase, what I want to change.” So everything that I was seeing and writing at that time was very much connected to what was going on, in my inner world. So things like, “I’m in a crisis, I need help.” You know, that's just how I felt at that time, like, excited about having a child but also terrified about having to become like a real adult. Because up to that point, I'd just been sort of in my, you know, daydream world all the time, and never really had to, like take care of something, never had the pressure of that. And when, as we were getting closer to nine months, that just kind of got more and more extreme and more and more intense. And also, to make matters worse, I was so completely unable to really take care of even myself financially, let alone another creature. So it's just like a really crazy, fucked up situation to be in just on a personal level. So I think that all of that chaos led to, you know, the songs that are on the record.
I don't really think of it as like my best record or anything like that. So it's kind of just to me, it's a bit arbitrary. Like why Hissing Fauna is the one that people seem to like the most. I think of it as sort of like the anxiety depression album, because in a lot of ways, it is, you know, it's like what I was going through at that time, before I got on medication and I was going crazy, I didn't know what's going on with me, had never really experienced anything like that. It was such an extreme experience that it feels probably more powerful in a way. Cherry Peel, the first record, was very personal and then I sort of got away from that and wanted to live or just create these sort of more fantastical types of albums and not really put too much of my personal, private life into the records. And then Hissing Fauna was definitely more of a return to that of like, what's going on, in my personal life, it should be like really transparent, you know, like, “I'm going to sing about what's real, sing about what's happening.” And not, you know, create some outrageous characters that I would invent so that I didn't have to write about myself or sing about myself. So maybe that's why people connected with it more, you know, that there hadn't been a bunch of songs about depression or anxiety, really. And I think that maybe the vulnerability of it is what appeals to people and just kind of making people feel like they're not alone in having those those feelings and having these experiences.
I mean, we were completely obscure for the first like six records, five or six records, and then we signed to Polyvinyl and put out Satanic Panic in the Attic. And then that was like the first real taste of any kind of commercial success or any sort of boost in our popularity. Sunlandic Twins, the record before Hissing Fauna, was very, was also another step forward. I was like, “Wow, people seem to really like of Montreal for some reason right now, this is cool.” But there was a lot of stuff going on in my personal life at that time. So I had been married for about a year, when Sunlandic Twins came out and my wife was pregnant, like nine months pregnant,
I think when Sunlandic Twins was released, or like, basically like right around the time where my daughter was born. And I wasn't making enough money at that time to really think that this is a way I'll be able to support my family. And so there was a lot of stress in my life, a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, but still trying to keep everything going and went on tour, a bunch for Sunlandic Twins and the record was doing very well and we were playing to larger audiences. And so on that level, it was very positive, but at the same time, to do that as your form of earning money, you have to be away from your family. So to be away from my daughter, you know, like newly born and my wife and all the stress that she was feeling was pretty intense as well. And so it put me in a very a strange place psychologically. Because I was happy that the record was doing really well, happy that my career was sort of taking off, but then also torn, because to do what I wanted to do and needed to do, I had to basically kind of like abandon my family to do it, at least physically, I couldn't be there physically. So that created a rift between my wife and I, and a lot of stress and stuff was connected to that. And then we actually split up. And she’s Norwegian, and she went back to Norway, and took our daughter with her. So that was basically like, where my mind was, where my where my life was, when I started working on Hissing Fauna.
Yeah, the Georgie Fruit creation is sort of, I could see it being like when someone goes through a traumatic experience, and it creates like a split personality disorder or something. Or just like, you kind of create these other characters, personas that you can escape into. So I think that the Georgie Fruit character was something that psychologically I created unconsciously, and just sort of fell into. And it was a way to escape from all the pain and anxiety and depression, and pressure and stress that was going on in my life and wanting to be free of it and be more carefree and less burdened. I think that for me, creating the Georgie Fruit character, that it was basically, me deciding, like how I want it to be perceived, even just on my own level of like, how I want to perceive myself. And growing up, you know, in like, suburban America with pretty conservative, pretty normal parents, and, it wasn't really the kind of life where you have access to all the information that we have now, you know, pre-internet and all that. So, my gender perception was very much informed by that upbringing, which, you know, is very limited, like, what you can do, how you can feel or how you can identify. How it's just like, “man, woman, that's it.” But I always felt like I was definitely somewhere in the middle, you know, a third gender or whatever, but I didn't really know that much about it. And never really spent a lot of time researching and just sort of like living in the moment, and having certain feelings about it, or having certain changing views about how I want to be identified by other people. During the Sunlandic Twins tour, I started getting more into gender bending more into, like, being outrageous or whatever, just like getting more into like partying. And, you know, it was a very unhealthy thing that I was doing, but I was mixing anti-anxiety drugs and alcohol, which can definitely create some dicey experiences. So it was definitely a form of escapism to be this outrageous character and be sort of glamorous, and this character that is pretty far from, you know, my childhood, pretty far from the person that I was able to be up to that point. And people were enjoying it and the concerts were really great, and everything seemed to be flowing really well, on that level. And so yeah, getting into this party mode, and all the trappings that come with it. Where I think, you know, songs like “Bunny Aint’ No Kind of Rider,” “Suffer for Fashion,” are sort of connected to that sort of party animal, party monster aspect of the Georgie Fruit character.
“Suffer For Fashion”
So I went out to Norway, in between Sunlandic Twins tours, because I really missed them both. And really, you know, didn't want Alabee to not have a father. So I went to visit them and Nina and I patch things up and she agreed to come back to Athens and for us to live together again. So in that time, some of the songs that I made were after they came back, “Suffer For Fashion” actually was one of the songs I made after they came back. I think of the music and how I want it to flow together. And very much influenced by the concept albums of the 60s and 70s. And I always thought it was cool, you know, the way certain songs flowed together on classic records like The White Album or Sgt. Pepper's or whatever. And for there not to be just like, you know, the typical three seconds of space in between each song or whatever. I think it's really cool when you can't really tell where one song ends and one song starts, or even just the challenge of trying to make things flow together in that way, musically, is always cool. So, I did a lot of that on Sunlandic Twins, and that kind of just carried over into his environment, I guess. But “Suffer For Fashion” just seemed like a good intro song. Just because it is more upbeat. And, you know, sort of thinking about that, how like, The Beatles and the Stones and people like that, I guess maybe it's just kind of like, a thing that a lot of artists do is like, yeah, you want to put like a real peppy song up front. It's kind of like a concert or something. If you go to see a band play and the first song they play is super downtempo. There's no momentum anymore. You know, it's like, you have all the momentum in the world before you come on stage. And then you get to dictate like what the energy of the experience is going to be. So a lot of times I do want to start with like more upbeat songs so that it feels good to be listening to the record and you want to get deeper into it.
“Sink The Seine”
Yeah, with “Sink The…” I think you say “sink the seine.” I think that's the way the Frenchies would say it. I think I say “sink the seine” in the song because I'm an idiot American. But I made that song in Norway. A friend of ours had this factory, like abandoned factory space, that they were using to put on this art production, theatrical production that they were working on, it was a huge old factory. I can't remember what kind of factory it was but it was humongous. And there were all these extra rooms, very cold and drafty. In the winter, you had to have a space heater in the room or whatever, you’d freeze to death. So that was where I worked on a couple of songs, just to have a space where I could be away from everybody. That a song like “Sink The Seine” was there. There was an organ that just happened to be in one of the rooms, I can't remember why, but that's what I played on that song. And also, I think there was a bass guitar there. So it was basically just like whatever instruments happened to be around, I would use and try to write something with just to kind of escape from what was going on in my life and just try to have a little bit of fun. So that one yeah, it was just made in this like tiny little room. There's just a little organ there and it just kind of happened.
Yeah, so for some of the songs, I was doing that rewire thing where you have Logic and Reason running at the same time, which now you don't have to do anymore. So that was how I did that. I had a laptop and had the drums in Reason. And then everything else was real instruments, you know, like the vocals and the bass and the organ. There was a brief period where “Sink The Seine,” “Cato As A Pun,” “Heimdalsgate,” “Gronlandic Edit” and “A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger” were more bare bones and they didn't have a bunch of extra stuff added to them. They're mostly just things that I did in Reason, but then later once I got home, then I added some other things to them. I think that when I was doing like “Cato As A Pun,” I basically just had like a tiny little MIDI keyboard and just kind of fooling around just like making a little song, not thinking too deeply about it. You know, just having fun, put the headphones on and just make a song. I'm not thinking about it as being like a thing that I'm going to release or play for anyone ever, just like something to do with my time that is more positive than, you know, sort of ruminating over how I'm going to be a horrible father or whatever (laughs).
“Cato As A Pun”
The people that we were staying with in Norway had a cat that they named Cato. And, you know, obviously, it's a play on words to call your cat Cato in a way so “Cato As A Pun” was a connection to that. So a lot of the song titles are connected to living in Norway. Heimdalsgate was the street that we were living on while we were in Norway, and Gronlandic is the neighborhood that we're living in, Kongsvinger is the city that my ex-wife's family lived, where we used to go. And so that whole section is very much connected to that experience in Norway. But yeah, “Cato As A Pun,” like it's not really about, has nothing to do with the cat really (laughs). But the second verse is kind of more about, “I can't even pretend like we're friends.” I've written a lot of songs about, like different people, different friendships that were sort of fizzling out, or were sort of toxic and so that the second verse is kind of about that. I kind of felt that I wasn't really emotionally supported by the people in my life at that time. It's troubling when you're going through a difficult period, and you don't feel like anyone gives a shit. And on top of that, they're like, adding more stress, because they're bitching to you about something that you can't control. So that's a very, I would say, a very unhappy song.
Satanic Panic in the Attic was the first record that I did, almost exclusively by myself, and all the other records, I had other people who were contributing. And definitely like, The Gay Parade, Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies, and Aldhils Arboretum were more band records and that like, pretty much every single song had one or two or three or four other people playing on it. And then after Aldhils Arboretum, the people that had been playing, a bunch of the people that I've been playing with decided they didn't want to be in the band anymore. That was like right around the time where I got married. And Nina and I moved in with my brother and I had, I still had some recording gear. And so it's kind of just, you know, the one consistent in my life has always been that I just want to be working on music all the time. So I had some recording gear in this one bedroom, an extra bedroom that we had and set up there and made Satanic Panic in the Attic. But I was kind of thinking like, “Well, the band's maybe done forever, I don't know what's going on, but I'm just gonna make this record.” So I make Satanic Panic in the Attic. And then people seem to like it, “Disconnect The Dots” gets played on like MTV, came out with a show, some like, indie rock MTV show that they had. And I was like, “Okay, cool, things are starting to go well, college radio seems to like it, we're getting invited to play these cool shows.” And so then people want to get back in the band. So it was easier to find some musicians and then like, some of the people that had been in the band before, still wanted to be in the band. So everything was kind of chill then. But then, when I made Sunlandic Twins totally by myself again, they're like, “What the fuck? Now you're just gonna completely like, freeze us out. We're not gonna be involved in any of this stuff?” It was like, “Yeah, I guess.” Cause I just want, it's very therapeutic for me. You know, of course, it's therapeutic for them as well, but for me, it's like, I need to be in the studio with the headphones on just escaping and creating, and it’s so fulfilling to do that. And I don't need necessarily, unless I want, I might want other people to be involved. But I don't really need other people to be involved to like, do the things that I want to do. And it's kind of easier. If I can just, it's more fun if I can do the things myself, I can play the keyboards myself, play the bass myself, you know, do whatever it is myself. So at that time, especially, I just didn't really think that much about including other people. So it would hurt their feelings. Well, one person in particular, hurt their feelings the most and so it's kind of like a weird thing that I was going through where it’s like, on a lot of levels, things are great. A lot of levels, things are horrible. And I'm just kind of absorbing all of it and feeling all of it and it's a bit overwhelming.
“Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse”
Yeah, with “Heimdalsgate,” I was trying to make something more positive feeling because in general, like if I'm feeling super depressed, stressed out, frustrated, miserable, I don't always make music that matches that mood, I often will try to make music that will pull me out of that state of mind. So I was trying to make like the poppiest, happiest sounding music. And I didn't have any lyrics or really melody lines or anything. When I was making it, I was just trying to create something that felt more positive so that I wouldn't have to just sort of dissolve into a state of misery. But then once the music was done, I was deeply depressed and I wasn't just going to sing about some like trivial, superficial happy thing because I couldn't do it. I wanted to sing about something that was more connected to what was going on. So singing about that, you know, singing about, “What's going on with the chemicals in my brain? Why am I unable to enjoy life? Why do I feel like I'm under attack?” And so yeah, singing, “I'm in a crisis and I need help, come on mood shift.” Because you know, that sort of realization that it could be anything, like that moment in time, you could feel anything, you could feel like excruciating pain, you could feel, you know, incredible ecstasy. And a lot of it, you don't really have any control over, you know, it's just what's happening and you're just like, dealing with it. So as sort of that feeling of like, “Come on something change, something get better.”
Of course, there are things you can do to make your mood better, you know, whether it be like, exercising, yoga, breathing exercise, whatever. It's not gonna, like completely cure the problem. Or even like, you know, sometimes you have to break up your marriage, because you can't function, you're not functioning properly, and you need some space to get your head together. So that was kind of like, I think the problem is, like, the two things were like, sort of, like, butting heads, where it’s like, “I really don't want to be relied on 100% of the time, I don't want to be, I don't want to have to be reliable person. I'm like an artist, I'm a freak, I'm a weirdo. I'm, like, unpredictable. This is scary for me.” So just that whole thing was hard. It was a hard transition to make. Like, “I need to be more reliable and predictable, ugh.” I think that played a big part of it, and then also just the terror of being unable to support my wife and my daughter financially was, you know, pretty intense. And at this point, totally broke, we didn't have a house, we didn't have an apartment, we didn't have a place to live, everything was in storage. So it was until after Hissing Fauna, after Nina and I got back together, Hissing Fauna comes out. That's when like all these like things like the Outback Steakhouse thing, the T-Mobile thing, like all like the weird corporate stuff is coming in, we play Coachella, we play Lollapalooza, like all that shit happened Hissing Fauna came out. So yeah, it's just like, all these things. I didn't realize at the time, it’s like, “Man, you'll just figure it out. It'll be okay.” At the time, it seemed like, “I don't know how it's ever going to happen, like we’re fucked, everything is fucked.”
“Gronlandic Edit”
So “Gronlandic Edit,” the title, yeah, is referencing the neighborhood that we lived in, in Norway. And the anxiety that I was feeling, like the paranoia, the fear, had gotten so extreme, where I couldn't even really leave the house. In Norway, in the winter, it’s pretty oppressive, I mean, the sun is only up for a few hours, it's cold, it's gray. And if you don't get into what it has to offer, as far as like, I don't know what, like skiing or ice skating (laughs), I don't know, like snowy things. If you're kind of just like a depressed person, it's pretty extreme, like, what you have to go through, no sunlight. Or just the way it feels, you know. I have like pretty bad seasonal depression anyway so that's like a very extreme environment where you get almost no sunlight. It's just like, you feel like, it's just endlessly dark, endlessly nighttime. And if you sleep in, because you're depressed, then you miss whatever little light you might have gotten. So, you know, I was joking, I was kind of just like playing around, like, “I am satisfied. Living in a friend's apartment and only leaving once a day to buy groceries.” So yeah, that song is just about my state of mind, while I was living in Norway, and being in that depressed, anxiety ridden state of mind.
That’s sort of like, you know, wanting to have some sort of religious or not religious, but spiritual life, or some sort of grounding aspect in your life, but feeling like it's all bullshit. And so what do you do even, you know, “it’d be nice to give my heart to a god, but which one do I choose?” You know, that's like, the joke, it’s like, it's all made up. So like, “What fictitious, what fictional god are you going to give your heart to?” And like, not really feeling like, “Oh, this is like a legitimate thing.” Like the people who do this are just, you know, delusional, just living in a fantasy world and, but still, it's a very real need. That's why I don't really, you know, I try not to criticize people, for being Catholic, even though like I grew up thinking it was bullshit because I understand the need. I understand why people want to have that. It's terrifying, you know, to not have that in a lot of ways if you think about it at all. So I get it. I understand the need. I'm like everybody else, I have the same need, but I can't do it if I don't believe in it. So it's pretty much about that.
And also growing up Catholic as well, like I was raised Catholic, went to church for 18 years, every Sunday, went to Catholic school, my mom was a bible studies teacher, but I always thought it was a joke. I never, for even a millisecond believed any of it or cared about any of it, but I still had to go. So it was like kind of torturous to just have to sit there in church and just see this weird charade play out every Sunday. And like the whole thing of like, getting up with my sisters and my brother, and all of us piling into the car, and the smell of perfume and makeup. And it was a very intense, visceral experience. And then I was even an altar boy for a while. So like, wearing like, the weird little child vestments, and shaking the incense can and doing that whole thing. So yeah, raised, you know, definitely raised in the church or whatever, but never really thinking like, “This is normal, or this is like a good thing for humans to be involved with.” But I think that, you know, having that experience was actually cool for me, just to kind of like, see what life is like, inside that world. You know, the weird, like uptight, conservative world, and like, “God, how do you fucking survive? What like, thrills you? What excites you? Just everyday being exactly the same? Like, how could that give any meaning to life?” And the craziest thing is like, with everybody, and anything that you could change so quickly, and everything up to that point just dissolves, because now you're a new person and a new thing. So there's like, absolutely no reason to cling to any feeling that you have about what you are, what your self is, or whatever your identity is. So I think that I knew that at an early age. But it's interesting when you're not surrounded by other people who are like, “Yeah, I agree with you, that makes sense.” You know, you're surrounded by people, like, “You're crazy.”
I understand and appreciate the function of performance, and also the voyeuristic function of going to see another person perform. That it can be very transformative and cathartic, you know, to not only be the performer but also to be in the audience and watch somebody else performing. Because, you know, it's like, they say, “in dreams, you're every character.” And I think it holds true in life in a lot of ways for every person that we see, as well as being ourselves. So I think, you know, that like, “I guess it would be nice to help in your escape.” And sort of realizing, like as the person that's onstage and prancing around and being cheered for, it can be actually great, because, you know, it feels exciting, obviously, to be prancing around the stage, and people are into it. But at the same time, I know it's sort of like an empty thing that like, eventually, people leave, you're alone again. And you can't just be the indie star, you know, for yourself as well so it's kind of a fleeting moment. So in a lot of ways, fleeting moments, I feel like are potentially a kind of superficial in that they can't really fulfill you completely forever.
“A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger”
Yeah, I think I made this one actually, in Kongsvinger. We were staying in my ex-wife's childhood bedroom because it was like her childhood home that her parents still lived in. So it's kind of like this weird, just sitting at this little desk that she must have sat at, doing homework and stuff when she was in high school and working on this song. That was another one where I was like, deeply depressed and trying to make something that felt really positive to sort of pull myself out of it.
It has that sort of like, disco strings. That was something that I did in Reason. And I think the name of the sample was like, “disco trill” or something. But yeah, I was thinking of somebody trying to make something that kind of like ABBA, sort of feeling, kind of disco-ey and really poppy and catchy.
“The Past Is A Grotesque Animal”
So the record was kind of split in half in a way where like, the first half were songs that I had written and recorded while I was still with my wife and still doing the family thing. And then the second half was when we had split up. With “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal,” that would have been after we broke up, because that's all about the breakup, and all about just the frustration and the struggle that was going on. But yeah, so that's sort of like in the middle that separates the two pieces, maybe, or it could be more connected to the second half. Yeah, it's definitely kind of an outlier, I definitely hadn't ever made a song like that before. I can't really, like the whole thing just happened sort of organically and I don't really remember what inspired me to just to begin it. But I think that a lot of times I go into the studio or go into the bedroom, or whatever it is, whatever space I'm working in, and just sort of start and then these things just sort of happen organically. And then it's kind of like this train that just like leaves the station and you just have to like, chase after it.
That one, lyrically, I just basically went through this journal that I was keeping. And I often keep like a songwriting journal. So yeah, just kind of went and looked through the journal and looked at all the different lines that I had written down and chose, which ones I wanted to use. And it's very much, you know, sort of like, an open letter to Nina. Because, you know, just directly talking to her the whole song and talking about our life together, things that we'd experienced. And at this point, we were broken up, so I was reflecting on our time together and just, you know, kind of communicating directly to her.
Yeah, I remember, when I was done recording it, I felt a little bit self conscious, because it's like, it is very emotionally bare and very vulnerable. And I hadn't really done that very much in the past, I guess I did it more on Cherry Peel and then I stepped away from it. Because the criticism that Cherry Peel received made me feel like, “Oh, I don't really want to share my inner world with anybody else, because then they'll make fun of me for it or whatever.” So I kind of got away from that for a long time. And just with things that were going on in my life, when I was making Hissing Fauna, especially like recording that song. I just didn't really have the feeling that I needed to protect myself from the world, I just really wanted to express that. So yeah, I guess it is probably the closest that I've come to being completely not self-conscious, and just making something in the moment. But I think it helped that I was basically just like, “I'm just singing the song to Nina, not really singing it to anybody else.”
Yeah, so there's a Swedish festival called Emmaboden. And for whatever reason, they would have American bands play it sometimes. And so this other band that I was playing in got to play there one one year, and then they invited us back. And then of Montreal was also allowed to play. So that's where I met her when I was at that festival, and she came with her friend and who was involved with the indie underground music scene in Norway, and like put on shows and stuff for different bands. And so that's how we met. And all that stuff is like straight from our experience of like, I love Story of the Eye. I read it when I was like 16, 17 years old or something and I read it. I think Bjork mentioned it in an interview that I was reading, and it totally changed my life. And but I'd never met anybody, for whatever reason, I just hadn't really hung out with people that read a lot or watch a lot of movies or whatever. And so meeting her, I was very impressed that she not only knew that, but knew a lot of stuff that I didn't know. So yeah, that's like, directly connected to that conversation and the first time I met her and all that.
I think we both love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I can't remember all the lyrics, but there's definitely some references to different things that we both enjoyed, or things that we experienced together. But just yeah, the character in the play, who screams, “violence, violence!” when the other two main characters are fighting, and just the intensity of that relationship. I guess, on some levels, was something that we could identify with the main married couple in that movie, being extremely close, but having been together for a very long time and experienced a lot of trauma and pain together and are sort of seemingly very much committed to each other but are also very damaged people and sort of lose themselves and forget to be caring towards each other. And just the weird games that they invent, the weird like role playing games that they invent, to sort of keep things interesting and to sort of vent the frustration that is just inherent in every relationship, especially if it's been going on for, like, 15 years or something. So I don't think that we could really identify with that experience necessarily, but on some level, you know, obviously, you don't have to experience it to relate to it. But just the powerfulness of it. I mean, definitely. I've read the play the Edward Albee play, but the film version is really great. Because you know, Elizabeth Taylor's amazing and Richard Burton's amazing. So just the two of them, they had such an incredible dynamic that I think that, for whatever reason, kind of romanticized it a bit.
I mean, yeah, this is one of the few songs that’s just the same four chords throughout the whole song. And it's a really long song, so definitely wouldn't be something that I would normally even consider doing. But yeah, it is kind of just like a vamp. And it's just a way for me to get all this stuff off my shoulders. And so in that way, I just wanted to keep it musically, kind of more simplistic. Definitely, the vocals were the thing that I wanted to highlight. But I also wanted the music to feel very alive and emotive and connected to the emotions of the song. There's a lot of kind of like growling sounds, there's a lot of kind of nefarious animal sounds. And so I think of that as kind of like what I was, at that time, just sort of like an animal in pain.
When I was recording “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal,” I think that initially, you know, the initial recording, I just sort of laid down just like, whatever, the 16 minute version. I don't think I like slumped down into a fetal position or anything, but it's kind of just like, “Hmm. Okay.” Just like, you know, because I'm recording by myself, I was alone. So, you know, it's kind of like, it's interesting how it is when you work alone, there’s nobody else in the room, nobody else to like, see anything that's going on. So you just sort of do it, and then it's over. And then it's quiet. And then you think about it. “What did I just do?”
“Bunny Ain’t No Kind Of Rider”
There's a bar in Athens called the Go Bar. It doesn't exist anymore. But it was for a long time, everyone's like, favorite bar basically. It's like, very cool, chill people that work there and they'd have a lot of awesome bands playing. And it was kind of one of the coolest spots in Athens. “Bunny” is definitely, you know, directly from an experience I had. And like an asshole, I didn't change the names to protect the innocent. So Eva is actually a person that I knew. And the whole experience is like, straight from what happened one night. But I don't know why I said the thing about the soul power and all that stuff. It’s a mean song, you know, but I think it's just the way it's, you know, very common for me to not really think about the ramifications of something that I'm singing about and just sing it because that's what I feel like singing about in the moment and then later on being like, “Ugh, why did I do that?”
There was a weird experience. One time we were playing a show in Athens and Eva actually got on stage. And I was like, “Oh no.” While we were playing it, and she kind of like pretended like she was gonna kick me in the face. Luckily, she didn't, or I'm not sure. I'm not sure what her pronouns are, I shouldn't say she. They didn't. I don't know, I think that kind of made me feel like they were like, chill with it on some level and just thought it was funny. It would have been intense if they would have like, strangled me or like shot me or something.
“Faberge Falls For Shuggie”
Yeah, “Faberge” was something where it was the first time ever, I think I ever really used a sample in a song that was, you know, something just completely random. It had no connection to anything. There's two records that I had, they were like Dixieland music. I just kind of played around just trying to make something in the studio. And I was wanting to experiment with doing some samples and so I chose these two Dixieland records that you know, deeply obscure, just kind of like, “The Sound of New Orleans in 1951,” or something. And it wasn't anybody famous or anything, so I've never been sued for it. I don't think anybody would really be able to pick out what the samples were from luckily. But so that whole like, (hums intro sample), that's like two different samples that I chopped up and put together and then I pitched it up and back down again, just for that intro thing. And then musically, when it goes into the kind of funkier part, I was definitely thinking, because it’s fun to make something musically that I could express this persona through, the Georgie Fruit persona that was sort of starting to evolve. I think of that song probably as the most Georgie, of all.
The Faberge egg. You know, it's something that I worked at a flower shop when I was in high school and there was a man who was traumatized as a child deeply and all of his hair fell out and never grew back. And he was very into creating Faberge eggs. So it became like this weird thing in my imagination, just thinking about this person making these Faberge eggs and thinking about like a Faberge waterfall or the Faberge egg falling and shattering and just the pain that that would cause. But I think Shuggie was somebody that I was listening to a bunch at that time and so it's like this combination of semi-abstract, poetic lyrics and more direct sexual references and just things that were going on. Like, “I can't take the stage straight,” was sort of that feeling I had, like, I need to be kind of addled to be on stage. So I can like really get into the groove of what I wanted to do. Because I'd be too uptight or whatever if I was sober. Yeah, so there's so many different references in that song.
Yeah I love, I always love the way Prince, when Prince would get really weird in songs. And just like, say something in a weird voice and then scream (laughs). It was like, really inspiring to me. Like, there's some songs on Controversy, where he's like talking, where he just says, like, weird stuff, like, “The inventor of the accujack.” You know, he just will like, say some random thing. And that is something that I thought was so cool. I do that a lot in my songs, too. But then they're like, making just like crazy animal noises. It feels you know, it's like very emotive to do that, you know, feels like you're sort of exercising some like weird sex demon. Yeah, because like the Georgie Fruit character is a very sexual character. And that whole time period for me was this period of exploration. Yeah, it's like, you know, a couple year long, sexual adventure, sexual walkabout, to do with 30 Rock reference.
I remember one day, just like sitting on my couch and just like writing, kind of like free verse and thinking, you know, what would be some interesting titles that I could create. And so those things, “the controllersphere” and “skeletal lamping” and “false priest,” were three things that popped into my head, and I wrote them down. And I thought it would be cool, because more so at that time, really than any other time, I was feeling very creatively inspired. And I was very productive and I was making a lot of things at the same time. And, like, once the record would be done, I would start another one right away. Like how quickly I made Skeletal Lamping after this, and how quickly I made False Priest after that. And so I kind of knew in my head, like what I wanted to do next.
“Labrynthian Pomp”
So I think, yeah, I experimented with different lyrics on “Labrynthian Pomp,” and definitely, the Georgie Fruit character, probably played a large role in this. Like, things that I would say, as Georgie Fruit that I probably wouldn't say as Kevin Barnes. And just thinking of like, what this character would, how this character would talk, how this character would communicate, and what kind of language it would use. And so, like, “How you gonna tag my style?” so like, tagging, like a graffiti thing, like basically “How you're gonna like trash me and the way that I live, when you're like, nothing, or whatever.” You know, just kind of like being kind of, I know, like, a lot of people like, I've been bullied a lot, you know, like, when I was in high school and stuff, because I was “different.” And, like a lot of people who were sort of bullied, you see, like, “Oh, this person is bullying me, but they're like, nothing. They're like, basically sub-human, there's nothing special about them. It's insane, that they feel like they could be talking shit to me, you know.” So sort of like, a reference to that. And then the verses, there's this idea that I had of this fantasy of like smashing all the windows in my neighbor's houses, obviously, you know, it's like, I have some impulse control. But that was something that I was thinking about. That it’d be really wild, like in the middle of the night to just like break that very serious, social taboo and just like smash people's windows, your neighbors, you know, especially. Like, “Kevin, the fuck are you doing?” People who know you, you know. But I mean that song is very much, I think about it as that time period where Nina and I were renting this house in this one neighborhood and it was very much connected to that neighborhood in my mind and the vibe of of the neighborhood. And Alabee being like, you know, one or, I guess she's yeah, like one or one and a half or something, one and a half, two years old and having friends in the neighborhood, having a trampoline in the backyard. Things are definitely like a little bit better at this point in my life, feeling a little bit more frisky and happy.
Well, I was very influenced from an early age by Prince. And Prince is interesting because obviously, he has his roots are in like more black genres of music like R&B and soul and things like that. So yeah, maybe on some level of thinking, well, a white person can't really do that sort of thing without, it's just like Blue-eyed soul. Or Blue-eyed R&B or whatever, even though I have brown eyes (laughs). Yeah, so I think that maybe saying like, “Oh yeah, Georgie Fruit’s a black transgender person” or whatever because that's really the kind of music that I was in love with and wanting to make and wanted to feel like it was okay to do it. And not that it was like some sort of appropriation or some, like, cheap facsimile of the thing. You know, I wanted it to feel authentic. “So how do I make it feel authentic? I have to become something that I'm not, maybe.” But all this stuff is just going out of my head, I’m not as self-conscious as I might seem. It's kind of more like, fun, you know, it's just play-acting. So I didn't really spend that much time thinking about, “What is Georgie Fruit or what kind of character should I create to help me become more liberated as an artist, and a songwriter and a performer?” That it was more just this organic thing that was just happening. And then other people obviously will witness it, know about it, have opinions about it, but I haven't really, obviously, because maybe I wouldn't have done it if I had been more conscious of the outside world.
Yeah, so the Georgie Fruit character is very problematic. And it's interesting, just because like, if you live inside your head, and you don't really think about the outside world, then you're not really like looking out for anybody else, it’s basically just your own art adventure. And so the Georgie Fruit character was just basically this adventure that I went on. But now because we're all, you know, more in touch with each other's feelings and looking out for each other more, I sort of realized that the Georgie Fruit character, or what I was trying to create was basically a character that was completely fluid wasn't trapped by any gender, race, sexual preference, or whatever, just like the perfect kind of polymorphous persona. And so that's why I said that it had multiple sex changes, and it was sort of just bouncing around between genders and sort of thinking of it more as like, kind of like a chameleon, Zelig sort of character, you know, less than a specifically black transgender character. So I really was kind of at that time just picking something that was very foreign to what I was physically. So I shouldn't have given it any race. That's kind of like what I realized, sort of the takeaway, currently, is I shouldn't have given it any race or any gender, it should have just been completely free. And it should have been a character that, you know, nobody could say what it was, it wasn't specifically anything. It's great that we are evolving, it's exciting to see the evolution. That's why I never, I don't mind being called out for being insensitive about something. It's really actually helpful for someone to say like, “Hey, this thing is going on in the background, you don't know about it, because it's not your scene or whatever. But this group of people is upset by what you're saying. It's hurting them, it’s causing them emotional pain. Do you care?” It's like, I do care. I don't want anyone to feel emotional pain because of something that I did. Or you know, because a character that I had created so you know, basically when I went through like a process of, at first being like, “Oh my God, this is so stupid. Like this is just like a persona I created a long time ago, I haven't even thought about it in forever. Why do you care? Why does it matter to anybody that this thing happened 15 years ago, whatever, like, why does it bother anybody?” Because, you know, by then it's like, the thing that I learned is like, just because I don't understand it, doesn't mean that it's not real. And it doesn't mean that other people aren't feeling it. You know, it's like, I think we all struggle with that idea that, well, “I wouldn't be offended. So you shouldn't be offended, or you have no right to be offended, because I personally wouldn't be offended.” So when you realize that, like, it doesn't matter what I would be offended by, like, this is offending these other people. And then I have to ask myself, “Do I care? Or do I not care?” And I do care, because I don't want to offend trans people. You know, that is the last thing I'd want to do. I want to support them, give them love, and do everything I can to create a more positive environment for everybody like that. So that's when I realized that the apology was important. And trying to say like, “I get it. I understand why it would be, how it could be upsetting.”
“She’s A Rejector”
Yeah, that one is kind of, I think of it almost like, well it’s definitely the most rock and roll thing on the record and I always love you know, like Iggy and the Stooges and MC5 and The Velvet Underground when they're like super rocked out. And of course, like Bowie has some awesome rock songs. And so I was definitely kind of feeling inspired by that and wanting to make something that had that groove to it. It also has a little bit, I remember at the time, that song, “House of Jealous Lovers” was really popular, and I really liked the way that song sounded. And so kind of wanted to make a song that had a bit of that energy to it.
That song’s pretty problematic, in a way, like, saying you want to hit somebody, especially saying you want to hit a woman. I mean, at least there's some self-restraint, saying, like, “I'm not gonna hit you, but I want to pay some other girl to hit you” (laughs). You know, it's just kind of like sassy, but you know, definitely kind of like tongue in cheek, it's meant to be playful, it's not meant to be a serious song. I feel like, at that time, I felt like I was very much, thinking back on it now, it seemed like I was very much in some sort of, like, protective bubble, or I wasn't second guessing anything or being critical, or even like being sensitive. Which I've had a problem, I guess you could say it's a problem, like for a long time of being insensitive in songs, because I'm not really when I'm making them. I'm just in the moment, I'm not thinking about anyone ever hearing them. And then when they're done, I kind of forget that the outside world exists and that people are going to hear it and then potentially be offended or upset or hurt, or whatever. But I don't, luckily, I don't say anybody's name in “She's A Rejecter.” So nobody has to feel like I'm directly attacking them or whatever.
“We Were Born The Mutants Again With Leafling”
Yeah, so that song is about me and Nina and Alabee. When Nina and I were separated, Alabee would take a photo of me and bring it to bed with her every night. And that just really broke my heart, you know. And that’s like one of the big reasons why I really wanted us to get back together and really wanted to be in her life. Because it's so sad to think about. So I make a reference to that in the song, “She takes my photo to bed,” was about Alabee. And just kind of like, like I know I'm a very messy person, and fucked up and insensitive, but yet this beautiful little creature loves me and like wants me to be a part of her life.
We call Alabee “our leafling.” So this sort of thought that we had been reincarnated lovers or whatever, but we're always freaks and so that's why the title, “We Were Born The Mutants Again,” this time with leafling. So yeah, just kind of like a sweet reference to you know, like our little family at that time. Yeah, so it's funny because I talked to my therapist about this a while ago and they're saying like how unhealthy it is to think of you and your partner as twins or that like it's you know, in a way it's like that whole thing, like it's us against the world. In a way that kind of says like, you lose your individuality, like you don't have to morph with another person to have a healthy loving relationship. But I think at that time, like The Sunlandic Twins was a reference to Nina and in “Heimdalsgate,” I say, “Nina Twin.” And I just thought of her as my twin, but more of like my art twin, you know, because I respected her so much. I respected her brain and the things that she created and I would always refer to her as Nina Twin. When I finished the record, she hadn't really heard many of the songs and I basically just like, left her alone. I think Alabee was in bed so it's like later at night, and I just left her with, like the headphones and the record and she listened to it and she was crying, but like, really happy. She felt like it was, you know, a really good record and didn't feel upset about anything that I was sharing with the world or whatever, and just felt my pain and knew that it was, you know, really, in a lot of ways, our record because in so many ways, was also her experience that I was singing about.
Well, it's funny when Hissing Fauna was finished, and like we were playing it for people, when I was like playing for friends and stuff, they all seem to kind of be like, “Wow, this is really good.” Kind of like implying like, “The rest of your stuff’s okay, but this is like really good,” kind of surprised. So that was like, “Oh, okay, that makes me happy.” But it actually leaked, like way early, I think it had leaked on the Internet, like, three months before it came out or something. So we're like, “Oh my God,” you know, at the time, it seemed like bad news, because people were still buying CDs back then. And, you know, they go, “If it's already leaked, then it probably won't sell very well,” the label was like kind of freaked out about it. But I think it actually helped the record, because, you know, the buzz was growing so much, by the time the record came out, that a lot of people were excited about it, wanted to hear it. So when it came out, it was very kind of instantly, like Pitchfork gave it a really good review and the shows were going really well and we're kind of playing like bigger and bigger venues. So it was like, around this time, or like places that we used to play, kind of the indie circuit that we used to play where, you know, if we were lucky, we might get 100 people at a show but most often they'll be like, 12 people at the show. Now those places were selling out, and there was like, a line around the block. And so that was like, really exciting to see, you know, like, the evolution of that. And you know, to have our 15 minutes of fame was really exciting. Especially after so many years of being totally obscure and feeling like a complete loser, it was nice, you know, to be special to feel special for a little bit of time. So I remember that, that time period, I have, like, you know, really positive feelings about it. But then it was also, you know, the same problem that existed with Sunlandic Twins, you know, where like the records doing really well, but my marriage is not doing well, because I have to be gone all the time. And it definitely makes you kind of grow apart, the more time you spend away from each other. And, you know, Nina was back at home with Alabee and like, having to be basically like a single mom and I was out on the road. So yeah, it was, you know, it's good and bad from that perspective, but from just, you know, if I forgot that I had a daughter and a wife back home, then you know, it's a pretty exciting time period, definitely like Kevin's wild years.
This was definitely the most commercially successful record, and critically acclaimed time period, you know, because like, pretty much quick really quickly after this, all the critics started like shitting on me. So this is like the tiny period because like, critics were shitting on me from the beginning, up until Hissing Fauna, and then they liked Hissing Fauna and then they hated everything else. So this was like my one little window, where people like, it seemed like everybody liked me. It's like, “Okay, cool,” but then it quickly turned. But that's the way it goes, you know, I was lucky to have that little moment, you know, because most people are just hated their whole lives, and they’re never liked for even a second. So I feel happy that there was a little period of time where people liked me. I could be like, “Oh, I'm not just like, the Hissing Fauna person, like I've done other things.” But, you know, it's just like anything else, like you have that, if you're lucky, you have that one record that people like, you know, and it's the thing that makes you special or gives you like cultural relevance or whatever. And it would be easy to feel weird about it, you know, and feel like, “There's more to me than just this thing that I did 15 years ago,” which I totally feel that way. Obviously, I don't really care that much about Hissing Fauna, but I think it's cool that other people do. And it definitely feels good when you play a song on stage, and people recognize it, and they're happy that you're playing it, you know, because that's a rare thing. I think that it would be stupid of me not to appreciate. I think it's cool that people can still get something out of something that I made so long ago. So 15 years, some people still like it, but just imagine how much people are gonna like it in 1015 years. We’ll see. We’ll check back in in 1015 years and see if people still care.
Outro:
Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about of Montreal. You’ll also find a link to stream or purchase Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Thanks for listening.
Album Credits:
"Suffer For Fashion"
"Sink The Seine"
"Cato As A Pun"
"Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse"
"Gronlandic Edit"
"A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger"
"The Past Is A Grotesque Animal"
"Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider"
"Faberge Falls For Shuggie"
"Labyrinthian Pomp"
"She's A Rejecter"
"We Were Born The Mutants Again With Leafling"
All songs written, performed and recorded by Kevin Barnes. Published by Apollinaire Rave (BMI).
Mastered by Glenn Schick
©℗ 2007 Polyvinyl Record Co.
Episode Credits:
Theme Music:
“Winter Cold” by North Home
Intro/Outro Music:
“Fly Too Low” by Charlie Don’t Shake from the EP, America Is Our Office.
© 2007 Rexrode Records
Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim
Additional mixing and mastering by Jeremy Whitwam