Photo by Randy Cremean

While indie-pop superstars Death Cab For Cutie might be the face of the Barsuk Records roster, John Vanderslice is most definitely its backbone. His Tiny Telephone studio in San Francisco is a veritable production mecca for countless bands and artists who want their record done right, and his own music is as thoughtful as it is dynamic. Because his band members change with each tour, each live performance is a new experience for the audience, and after years of relentless touring, he has built up a following of unfailingly loyal fans. This time around, he toured with the lovely and talented Ms. Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent, whose debut LP, Marry Me, is due to be released on Beggars Banquet on July 10th. Both were kind enough to set aside some time on their hectic tour to interview each other for Soundcheck. What follows is only a part of that conversation, as it was so fascinating –- at times deliciously creepy, at times hilarious, at times thought-provoking –- that I lost track of time and let them go for over an hour. Perhaps one day the full transcript will be posted online, but in the meantime, we are pleased to present some highlights of their conversation.

SM= Soundcheck Magazine / JV= John Vanderslice / AC= Annie Clark

SM: So, do you want to start?

JV: Oh!

AC: Oh!

SM: Yeah, you two have to ask each other questions.

JV: This is big-time responsibility. Ok!

SM: Ha! Yeah, it's all on you guys.

JV: Ok. Annie Clark, when's the first time that you had romantic feelings that wasn't schoolgirl confusion but actually a developed crush on someone? And tell me about it.

AC: I was probably 24.

JV: No!

AC: (laughs) I don't know!

JV: (incredulously) Twenty-four?

AC: I don't know! That's a hard one! It's hard to tell.

JV: What about in junior high school? Or high school?

AC: Maybe high school.

JV: Alright, what happened?

AC: Maybe my high school boyfriend, who was here tonight, actually. (laughs)

JV: Maybe your high school boyfriend? She's evading! From the get go!

AC: (laughing) No! No!

JV: Ok, tell me about your new record. Do you want me to go that route?

(Everyone laughs)

JV: So he was here tonight?

AC: Yeah, he was here.

JV: And how long did you date him?

AC: Nine months...

JV: Wow!

AC: ...of magic. (laughs)

JV: Was it cool?

AC: It was totally cool. He was a musician, too, so it was one of those things that— It was a creative—

JV: Wasn't it great to see him?

AC: Yeah, it was great! You know, I see him whenever I go—

JV: Was he the first person that you dated?

AC: Yeah.

JV: So he was the first, and he was here tonight. So there's some symmetry to this question that I'm asking.

AC: Yeah, absolutely, we have come full circle. You are on fire! Um... (pauses) Where do you see China's role in the next ten years?

JV: Well, my personal theory – and this is a lot of people's theory – is that the reason that we invaded Iraq is endgame against China. We're actually in a chessboard game that started a long time ago against China. We know that [the war in Iraq] has nothing to do with democracy. And there's also the Heartland theory, which states that the Middle East is where the end of the world is going to happen, and it's the most fragile part of the world—

AC: Premillenial dispensationalism?

JV: Well, that's— The Heartland theory is much less religious and much more about brute force. You want to have a military base in the middle of hell. You want to have a very secure heartland for dealing with covert and overt threats to your— If you want to remain the only superpower around, that's not kidding around.

AC: Oh yeah, it's huge!

JV: You're talking about undermining any government that's coming up. And think about it: China does not have a history of democracy. If you're going to go up against a totalitarian government—

(At this point, some fans came up and talked to Annie and John for a few minutes.)

JV: So I believe that we invaded Iraq as part of our endgame. And think about it: the one thing we know about Iraq is that Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait because they were slant drilling into Iraq. The reason Kuwait was slant drilling was because Iraq has around eleven or twelve percent of the world's oil reserves. But there are a lot of people who think that Iraq has way more oil than that, but they've never properly exploited their oil because it's such a corrupt country. The other thing is, why has Iraq been an irritant since the Iran contra in the ’70s? The reason is that there are massive, massive profits in this country. If you want to prevent China from becoming a superpower, this is one way to do it. (pauses) Well done! Good question! Ok, I mentioned this to you earlier, but one day we're going to stop making music. And it might be when we're 70. What do you want to do after you stop touring and making music? What do you want to do?

AC: Die. (laughs)

JV: Because we're going to live to be 90 or 100, or longer in some freakish machines that they will have invented. (laughs)

AC: No, we are. That's true.

JV: So what do you want to do? What is possible for Annie Clark at 70?

AC: (long pause) My silence is deafening. I have no idea. I would, uh...um...oh, travel. Everybody says that: “Ooh, I'll travel when I'm old.” But we do that already.

JV: Yeah, don't you think that by that time you will have seen every corner of the world?

AC: I think I will. (another long pause) This shows how I see about as far in front of me as my nose.

JV: Well maybe that's how you survive.

AC: Yeah. It's like AA on the road: it's one day at a time.

JV: I know. That's totally valid.

AC: You know, I think that I would finally like to read a lot more than I get to lately. I would like to read a lot. And I can't think of doing anything that wouldn't be artistic-related.

JV: Yeahyeahyeah!

AC: I used to write screenplays. Maybe write some more—

JV: Really? (laughs)

AC: Yeah, I write terrible screenplays. I'd like to write some more terrible screenplays.

JV: That's cool. That's great!

AC: Ok?

JV: Yeah! That works! Ok. Your turn.

AC: (thinking)

JV: [Coming up with questions] is a lot of responsibility, isn't it?

SM: But it's also a freedom, if you think about it. You get to talk about whatever you want. So think of it as freedom, but with more freedom comes responsibility.

AC: Yeah! That's true! Well, how about this? You have alluded to the fact that you may be slightly controlling, and you like to control your environment. Can you give me an example of one time when that absolutely worked out in your favor, and another time when it caused a debacle?

JV: I was in a band before I went solo that was a pure democracy. Everyone had 25% of the songwriting responsibility; everyone had an equal say, in theory. It was absolutely the most horrible and inefficient way to be making music. I mean, it was achingly slow. We would have a whole rehearsal on the most minute, you know, key change. When there's an unlimited amount of tabling of issues, there's no one there to say, “Fuck it, man! Who gives a shit what key it's in?” You know? You need someone with ADD who is results-oriented to be at the top of the food chain to say, “Come on, man, we need to book a tour,” or, “We need to put out a record. We don't need to worry about this stuff.” It was a good experience for me to be in that band; they were great people that I played with, but it really taught me a lesson: that I never, ever wanted to be in a band again. So when I went solo it was such a reaction [to that] that, even though I wanted to call myself something— Like, I think St. Vincent is great. I wish that I had had the patience to a name and then have it be an umbrella for creative people to come in and out. But I was so burned from being in a band that I was like, “Fuck it, man, I'm John Vanderslice,” and no one is going to question that there is absolutely an autocratic leader. You know, this is not the Executive and Legislative branches fighting it out. So I think that that really helped me because I put out three records in three years, and I moved very quickly. And it was unbelievable. I was like on a skateboard: “Holy shit, I'm moving so fast!” But the thing that ended up hurting me is that I never found a stable band because I was totally afraid of commitment. And I didn't have the money to hire the kind of session people I wanted to have. And there's no loyalty— You have huge bands hiring away your people all the time. So over and over again, because of my lack of being able to commit to a stable group of people, I was scraping up a drummer two weeks before a tour started. So it has helped and hurt me. It helped the records; it hurt the touring, very clearly. Ok, so let's say that climate change becomes really intense, and there's migration of population, and there's a hint that we're on the brink of anarchy. What do you do?

AC: Well, it's interesting, because in this circumstance I have more reverence for the life of a cockroach, because they're going to outlive us anyway. You know what I mean? They've got it made. That sort of biological adaptability is something that we're slower to—

JV: Yeahyeahyeah! Well would you try to adapt? Would you drive up to the far north of Canada and, like, homestead?

AC: Yes, I would probably go into hermit mode, anyway. Maybe keep some people that I love close, but just kind of...survive. And that said, if that kind of all hell broke loose – which is entirely possible – I think no one knows what they would do. Everyone's like, “Oh, well, I'm a good person. I probably wouldn't be a cannibal if it came to that.” But really, it's like, “No, you don't know what you'll do until you're in that position.” So I'll probably just be eating people and worshipping cockroaches.

(Everyone laughs)

JV: That's cool. Ok. Send it back, A1.

AC: Have you ever had any nicknames?

SM: You mean aside from JV? And The Slicer? (laughs)

AC: (laughs) I have never called him The Slicer before! I don't know why I said that tonight!

JV: That was funny, actually! But, I mean, it's always been JV. And JV, by the way, is only said by— People either call me John or JV, and I don't know who calls me what, because I don't [notice]. But most people, if they're going to call me something other than John, 99% of the time, it's JV. Sometimes someone will call me JV Slice, or— You can guess all of the kind of boring variations, but nothing like The Slicer.

AC: Nothing that's really out there.

JV: Nothing like A1 or Steak of any of your nicknames that are fucking awesome. Nothing like that.

SM: (laughs) Why is your nickname Steak?

AC: Well, a dear friend of mine started it. It started off as AC, much like JV. And then it would be A Sizzle. And he grew up in the Midwest, so it would remind him of Western Sizzlin', which made him think of steak sauce, like A1 Steak Sauce. And then it became just Steak.

(Everyone laughs)

JV: And it's so absurdly far from AC—

SM: It's a whole bunny trail!

JV: I think it's beautiful. I'm actually jealous, because my friends have not gone to that length to come up with a name for me. And then you said you were going to ask me another question.

AC: Right. Who was John Vanderslice in high school?

JV: Well, the interesting story is actually in junior high school, because when I was 11, one of my older friends got me stoned, and it was very intense. I was really young; this was the summer before going into the seventh grade. So I got into drugs. By the time I was in eighth grade, we were doing mushrooms and cocaine, and— It was a wealthy suburb, so there were tons of drugs. By [that time], if I didn't have pot when I got home from school, I would just scrape our bongs down to the plastic to get resin. I mean, I was only interested in getting high. That's all I wanted to do. In seventh grade, I was placed in infinite math, which is the highest math class you could be in, and there were only four students. By the time I got out of junior high school, I was in business math, with all the fucking drop-outs. It was like this Dickensonian fall from grace. By the time I was in ninth grade, I was absolutely a burn-out. I remember one time we bought an eight ball of cocaine for New Year's Eve, and I remember it was snowing outside, and I smoked pot and did this cocaine, and I found absolute, pure bliss. I mean, I had never felt that good in my life. And I thought, “This is danger, my friend. You're only in tenth grade.” You know, I was a smart kid. I could plot out the kid's future. My parents got so upset with me that they sent me to Outward Bound. My grandfather died right before I went. I was very close to him, but he had a stroke. So I went to Outward Bound, and they put you alone on an island for four days. And I was like, “Fuck these fuckers.” I [smuggled in] these cigarettes, and I was a really bad kid. But on this island you don't eat food. You're just allowed to have water for four days. So I started hallucinating, and my grandfather's death hit me. I had never, ever been open to any emotional experience before. I watched my parents get divorced twice, I watched all this strife, but I had always been untouchable. But [my grandfather's death] absolutely wrecked me. I think I cried for like 24 hours. So when I left Outward Bound, I made a pact that I was going to quit drugs. So when I entered eleventh grade, I was actually totally sober. And I never went into drugs again. It's such a cliché! Your mom sends you to Outward Bound to straighten you up, and at first you're like, “Fuck you!” But it absolutely changed my life.

AC: Wow.

SM: That's amazing.

JV: So that's my story. Ok, Annie Clark, you have had a similar transformative experience that you may have never talked about, and I want you to talk about it.

AC: Ok. It never occurred to me that I would do anything else except play music, really, in my whole life. Right before I joined the Polyphonic Spree, and right before I started working on Marry Me, I had a total breakdown, where I thought this thing that I love so much and that I really wanted to do, I fucking suck at. I'm terrible at this. I'd made some recordings that I'd worked so hard on, and it was terrible. It's a real mirror, because microphones don't lie, but it was a harsh, harsh mirror. I was living in New York at the time, and I drank months away. I just totally shut down.

JV: And how did you get out of it?

AC: I moved back to Texas, and then two weeks later I got asked to join the Polyphonic Spree and went to Europe. It just got me on my feet again.

JV: And so from [there] you started touring and playing, and that mirror was gone.

AC: Yeah!