Thieves, God, Willie, and Kicking Ass: An Interview with Swans' Michael Gira

Well, there weren’t that many young fans in the 80’s; I mean, we didn’t have any fans in the 80’s (laughs). I am grateful that the audience is largely young people, though, it’s really mixed. It’s a lot of young people and then some older people. Thankfully, there’s a good smattering of females there, too. So it’s nice. But one thing that’s been really gratifying is watching the audience grow. Realizing that it’s grown so much after thirteen years. It’s related to how people deal with music these days. There is a huge difference. Now it’s something that’s just being spent and disposable, and there’s no commitment involved on the part of the consumer. But that’s distressing and sad. I don’t know what’ll happen with that, ultimately.

Just the fleeting nature of music listening now?

The people that come to see us, I don’t think they’re that emblematic of that syndrome. Cause we’re not exactly mainstream and it takes some work to seek us out. So I think we attract people that care more about music. I know they certainly buy a shit load of records at the shows, so they care about it.

Has doing this Swans thing and having people buy albums at the shows and everything, has it given you a little faith in that there will be hope in the future?

No. (laughs) I mean, how much can you tour? And also, for a lot of musicians, they need to tour to make a living at all now. It gluts the market so it’s harder to get shows and it pays less, so it’s really squeezing everybody in every which way. And it all boils down to the fact that there’s just this rampant act of immorality taking place, stealing music. You know, I’m tired of complaining about it, there’s really nothing I can do about it, so I’m just adjusting the best way I can and you know, hoping that I don’t die poor, basically.

In a more philosophical sense, in the song “Reeling the Liars In,” what’s your perspective on human nature in that regard—is there anyone who’s not complicit in the act of dishonesty?

I think an important asset of being a good person, even a true Christian, is recognizing your capacity for sin and evil. It doesn't mean everyone's evil and everyone's always bad, but I don't think any morality is worth anything if it doesn't recognize that everybody has the power to do evil inside them.

You've said that Dylan and Willie Nelson and stuff were delivered to us by God…I don’t know how tongue in cheek that statement was.

It’s not tongue and cheek at all. I just don't know how to describe such genius. It’s not that I'm admiring their intelligence, I just don't know how else you would describe someone’s capacity to channel human experience in a such magical way. I don't know how to describe that other than saying it’s a gift of God. Even someone who’s an atheist, like the painter Francis Bacon, I look at him as a really spiritual person.

Is there anyone else who you think leaps out as a reason to have faith?

Any number of writers and film makers and artists. Akira Kurosawa the film maker, Werner Herzog, the film maker, Cormac McCarthy, the writer, these are the people who are my heroes really.

For the album, you guys played the songs for twelve straight hours, and recorded them without touring them.

Yeah, that was a way to get command of them and make them have an identity based on this group of players, and find the inner core of the song in a short period of time. Also because we were all coming from different places and I couldn't afford, frankly, to have everyone rehearse for three weeks or a month, pay for rehearsal space and everybody to stay someplace and all that, so I thought the best approach would be to send people the acoustic demos I made and they kind of figured out the cords first, but I thought the best approach would be to just go in the studio which, thankfully, I got a good deal on, and just play for twelve hours. And that worked out really well. The songs, now that we've played them live continually for the last several months, have transformed into something entirely different, really powerful. But that’s the way it always is. Once you start touring the songs they just evolve. And the record is just a signpost along the way in the life of the song.

And the next album?

I’m working on it. I’m conceptualizing it now, yeah. We have one new song we’re doing already, which we’ve been playing in Europe, it’s called “Avatar.” And it’s not about the film.

And then I have another song I’m working on right now, which we’re going to rehearse in Austin, because we’re rehearsing for four days in Austin and that’s called “You’re There”. It’s more of a hymn, I guess, and it’ll take a long time to work on, and we'll spend the lion’s share of the four days while rehearsing working on it. You know, we have just a couple long instrumental sections in the tour that I’m going to take and use on the record as well. On the new record.

So you’re going to be in Austin for a few days, which is great—we’re huge fans of Thor [Harris, Swans drummer, Shearwater and Bill Callahan alum, and Austin resident] here. Do you have any particularly crazy Austin memories?

Well, for reasons you might infer, I don’t remember much of my time in Austin.

It’s a good town.

Yeah, it is.