Austinist Interviews John Cale

What sort of music have you been listening to nowadays?

A bunch of it, of course. There's a girl in Belgium called Camille that I just heard, and she does everything with her voice - all the instrumentation and the backing with her voice. It's sort of [like] Björk, kind of.

So not so much hip hop as of late?

Well, yeah, there's Rhianna. Have you heard that Rhianna album, with Jay-Z?

No, I haven't. My sister can't stop talking about it, though.

It's a really hot record. It sounds like every track is a hit. So I dunno whether it's everything in the past years that I've missed, or whether the album's just set up pretty well.

Was this the last album that you bought?

Yah. That one, and I bought Elbow's [Leader of the Free World], and damn - I'll have to look through my iTunes.

What about the last book that you bought?

There's a book called Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger. He died a few years ago, he was an explorer. It's about the Empty Quarter, in Oman.

And do you get a chance to do a lot of reading on the road?

I do try. I mean, it's either crosswords or books. And ... you kinda know when you're jet-lagged when you just can't do the crosswords.

When it comes to all things music, you seem like the quintessential renaissance man: whether it's your solo career, producing records for other artists like the Happy Mondays or Garageland, or composing music for movie soundtracks. Why take it upon yourself to do so much?

Oh, I just get bored with what I'm doing. I like to switch. I learned all that stuff about Pro Tools from the soundtrack work. I did a lot of soundtrack work and got faster and faster, and once I got that under my belt, I started writing songs. You can write them faster, you can finish them faster. Everything about it was geared towards efficiency. And I really didn't like spending time in the studio.

I don't want to stop, anyways. That's what my life is, writing songs.

Absolutely, and you're still continuing the composing - "Process" most recently?

Ahh yeah, that one - and that one's a pretty gaudy piece of film. People sort of, in various places, know me for that solo piano music I did. And so they certainly call up and tell me, "we'll give you a time code and there are three scenes that we need .. elegiac, cantata, mid-tempo..." And it's very straightforward.

So you don't necessarily watch any cuts of the film beforehand?

Not in film, but yes on HBO, with Carnivale and Deadwood. I watched Gray's Anatomy last night, and there were some startling things on that soundtrack. Somebody had done - I dunno who the artist was - but they remixed the track, and it was just astonishing, some of the stuff that was on TV. I think it was all driven by HBO.

The thing with HBO is that they give a lot of creative freedom to their artists.

I suppose, I suppose! That's the stuff I look forward to seeing on my iPod.

The last band whose record you produced was in 2000, for Medieval Faerie - any plans to continue this?

Producing? Yeah, when I get off the road in November, I think that's when it's time for me to go back in the studio with Alejandro [Escovedo]. It's just going to be the two of us, and I'm looking forward to it. It could be a lot of fun! He has an album that he wants to record, and I've not yet heard the songs yet, but I'm sure they're going to be great. I can do the grooves for them, and we can do them as quickly as we can.

So here's a stupid hypothetical situation -

Oh, no...

Suppose that NASA or our government decided to launch a giant rocket into space, filled with all things representing who we, the Earthlings, are, and you had to choose a single one of your albums to share with the aliens. Which would you choose?

[Without hesitating] The next one!

So what do you make of this "hipster" scene that's become such an integral part of music-centric cities like New York and Austin? Do you see it as a genuine appreciation for the music, or merely posturing?

In cities like New York and Austin there's much more of a social context for music than in other places. It's like going out and if you don't have a club for one thing, you have to make a club. It's always been that way in New York - Williamsburg has become the new club center. And the way it happened, it was really nice.

I remember when I was doing 5 Tracks, I had someone come in and play synth. She lived in Williamsburg, and she pointed out all the clubs that sort of had websites.

And you'd go in and look at it, and it was just a small room with tables and candles in it. The thing that I liked about it was she said the way gigs would happen there was, somebody would call somebody else, and ask, "What are you doing on Thursday, and do you feel like - ?" and that's just really a switch, so it sounded like a very nice social atmosphere. And invariably you'd have people who had their own bands, and they would all converge and do something for that night, and that'd be it.

I think what we've seen recently is that it's become exponentially easier to get people together, because of websites like Myspace -

Myspace! Myspace is an A&R man's dream, because what's interesting about Myspace too is ... it's not all dreck. It shows that some bands have learned where to put the hook and where to put the pitch. And it's not ... splatter music.

It's also the sense of accessibility. I'll be sitting at home in Austin, and I'm listening to a tiny band from Toronto that I'll likely never see in person.

Well yah, MS is international .. it was sold for [a huge fortune] to Rupert Murdoch?

Yah, it seems that Murdoch has decided now, seven years after the fact, that the internet should be an important piece of his media empire.

Wow. Well, good for him. We can't all be Johnny-On-The-Spot like the rest of us.

You've been to Austin several times in the past -- have you any favorite bars or restaurants?

Well, they keep changing! How can I keep up with you guys? I have some good friends in Austin, and they really take very good care of me.