Interviewing FFFFest: Wavves' Nathan Williams Talks Shop (& Pot)

It was fun. I don’t write songs with people very often so it was cool to sit down with Billy and write “Baby Say Goodbye” and “Convertible Balloon” with him, and work through these old demos. It just seemed appropriate for the situation and the record and it ended up being great. I like all the songs that went on the record, Stephen’s song is great, “Linus Spacehead,” so it was a lot of fun.

Do you have any update on new projects, like I know you’ve got the one with Zach Hill [of Hella]. Are you working on writing anything new already?

I’m ready to record another record, but at this point it’s just finding studio time, the touring schedule is so hectic—until April of next year I’m touring. I go to the East Coast in the next couple of days, and then I’m going to Australia, and China and Japan later in the year, or earlier next year and then there’s another East Coast and West Coast. Right now it’s just a question of when I’ll have any down time to put the songs down, but we’ll see. Hopefully soon I can get something out.

What type of experience are you guys expecting over in China and Japan?

One without any weed I think. The laws there are pretty strict, so…

How the hell is that gonna work?

(Laughs) I don’t know, I guess I’m just gonna get really drunk, I’ll drink a lot of sake. I’ve wanted to go to China and Japan since I started touring, and Australia—those are basically the only three places besides South America that I haven’t toured yet so it’ll be really fun. I’m just excited to go and visit those places and see what the culture’s like.

Yeah, and with the suffocating sobriety.

Suffocate, that’s a good word. Maybe I’ll actually snap out of the stoned cloud that I’ve been in for the past five years, and be able to use my brain. That’d be interesting. I mean we’ve played shows in Norway and Sweden and they’re pretty strict as well, but China and Japan are a whole new level of strict.

What do you think would happen if you tried to record an album without weed?

I write when I’m sober sometimes…I mean most of the time I’m probably a little bit stoned at least. But the recording process? Absolutely I have to have weed. I can’t record without it. I get too frustrated. For King of the Beach, some of those tracks I sat in there and played the same guitar part 40 or 50 times, and Dennis [Herring, Producer] was like “I don’t really like the feeling of this,” “Eh, it didn’t really have character that I like here” and, you know, I just had to go smoke a little bit and come back in with a fresh head, and be like “Ok, I’m ready to try again.”

They say that if you meditate a whole bunch you can access those same brain waves.

Right, you can bring up endorphins, that euphoric sort of thing. That’s interesting. I wish—I mean I can do that…with weed, so I guess I don’t need to meditate.

I mean my weed store is two blocks away from me. I can walk there. I can smoke legally in California. I can buy legally, I can grow legally, so I don’t really have too much of a problem.

How did you end up wrangling one of those licenses?

It was actually after I broke my wrist skateboarding. I had surgery on it, and I had the metal put in there, and Advil and Tylenol, even over-the-counter pain relievers give me a really bad stomachache and make me nauseous, so I went to my doctor and they prescribed me marijuana.

When you went in with the broken arm and said that it hurt, did you have to ask for the pot, or were they just like, “Here”?

When I went into the doctor they gave me a script for 150 Vicodin and I kind of had a past with Vicodin and pain relievers, so I opted to just try and get a medical marijuana card. Because if you break a bone they’ll give you Vicodin until your arms fall off. I mean it’s insane, I didn’t even ask for it and they gave me a script of 150 and I was able to refill it. So 300 Vicodin, that’s just…I’d rather just smoke weed. Vicodin is like an easy one to just get into the habit of taking five, six, seven a day.

The thing is, with Vicodin, don’t get me wrong, Vicodin is awesome, but pain relievers are heavy on your liver. At least with weed, it just makes me stupid.

So it’s just the brain, but the liver’s all good.

(Laughs) I can live life dumb. But I can’t live life without my liver. So maybe I should stop drinking too, which I’m not going to, so really there’s no basis for my argument at all.

Maybe by the time you’re like fifty or something you can have it all canceled out.

Yeah, I mean I’m twenty-four. I’ve got some learning years…

Speaking of learning years, I have a really lame question for you, but I felt because you’ve got youth on your side I could ask it: where do you see yourself and your musical career in ten years?

This is my new…this is like my new question! The question that I used to get was Primavera, and I’m glad I don’t get that one anymore—now I get something about the future, that’s good. That’s a good sign (laughs).

It’s like, what’s better: looking to past, or looking to the future?

I’m very glad this is my new go-to question. Ten years from now, that’s pretty far ahead. I’d say maybe I can tell you a year from now. I mean, I just want to continue to be able to live comfortably and support myself playing music and recording records. I mean, one of the few joys I have in life is just being able to record a record. I think it’s the most fun thing in the world to do. And as ridiculous as some of the shit that goes on around and surrounding Wavves, when I actually get a chance to go and record a record and put my stamp on Wavves, something that people will have forever, I actually take it kind of seriously so, I don’t know. Hopefully five, ten years from now I’ll still have the opportunity to be doing what I’m doing, in whatever fashion that is.

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Wavves is playing on Saturday at 3:30 at the Orange Stage.