Kim Gordon Interviews Kurt Vile About b’lieve i’m goin down…, Neil Young, Day Drinking

Kurt Vile‘s new album b’lieve i’m goin down… is out September 25 via Matador. Today, Vile was interviewed by Kim Gordon, who previously wrote about b’lieve in a press release where she called the record “all air, weightless, bodyless, but grounded in convincing authenticity, in the best version of singer songwriter upcycling.” They talked about b’lieve, the perils of day drinking, Neil Young, and more. Read it here via Dazed, and check out some excerpts below.

Vile said his favorite song on b’lieve is “Wheelhouse”, which he called “kind of meditative.” “I think that some – OK, all – of the lyrics are darker on this album, but I think my lyrics are always pretty dark,” he said. “Although I did make a mistake before by saying that my albums were dark, because it’s not like they’re Radiohead or ‘women and children first’ or anything. It’s not total despair, I would just say they’re melancholy.”

Gordon added, “There are melancholy melodies, but I thought the lyrics were especially good and I thought that they were kind of mature, like someone who knows themselves and who is singing about ‘how it is’, but making that sound poetic. I like the way you spit lines and make it work. I don’t mean that in an emo way!” 

Vile expressed appreciation for Gordon’s memoir, Girl in a Band, and talked about watching Sonic Youth perform at ATP in 2010. “I was still pretty young and green back then so I would do weird things like drink wine in the middle of the day and sort of stagger around,” he said. “And I remember I went to crash in bed for a while in the middle of the day and my friend from Fucked Up, Damian (Abraham), was in the bed watching TV and I woke up to him saying ‘Hey, what’s up, Kurt?’”

They also landed on a similar place regarding Neil Young: Vile said his favorite Young record might be On the Beach, while Gordon said her favorite Young song is “On the Beach”. 

Watch Kurt Vile and the Violators perform “Freak Train” at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival:

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