Stephin Merritt has done very little this year to shatter his reputation as the glummest man in pop. Currently on the road in support of The Magnetic Fields‘ latest concept album, Distortion, he has been frowning his way across America while giving the disc’s feedback-soaked tunes a forlorn acoustic makeover. It’s all for good reason. For one thing, he hates playing live. And then there’s his hearing condition that makes loud noises actually sound painful. Still, the retooled songs have been drawing loving reviews while the album has been classified as another triumph by the man that recorded 1999’s three-disc chamber-pop classic, 69 Love Songs. Not the world’s most forthcoming interview subject, Merritt was still gracious when we recently caught up with him at his house in Los Feliz, California to talk about the album and tour.
Fuzz: You don’t like playing live.
Stephin Merritt: I don’t like playing live.
Why don’t you just stop?
That’s my aesthetic stance. It’s not my commercial stance.
Oh, so you’re doing it for the money?
It pays well. We sell a few t-shirts. We sell a few CDs. We sell a few tickets.
Doesn’t it actually hurt to play live?
Yeah, but I have Claudia (Gonson) or Shirley (Simms) singing the loud songs and I have earplugs in my ear so I won’t be hearing what everyone else is hearing five times as loud.
You could have easily picked a different, quieter concept for this album?
The albums have nothing to do with the live shows. All the songs are written before the production style is decided upon. So for this album we had a variety of songs which only “Zombie Boy” actually fit the production style. But generally the songs don’t depend on the production style at all.
Distortion was inspired by the Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1985 debut, Psychocandy. Were you more interested in the sound or creative spirit behind it?
Clearly what I as emulating was the actual sound. This is an unusual, somewhat drastic production style.
Why did it take you so long to discover Psychocandy?
I was into Psychocandy the week it came out. I bought it on vinyl. I actually don’t think it took me a long time. The moment we started using guitars it was definitely in there.
Do you keep lists of album ideas around or do you just think them up after you finish one?
I do have lists for possible ideas. I just never consult them. It’s just something to do on airplanes.