The natural one

In the meantime, Barlow continued to fiddle with his many side projects under various monikers: Folk Implosion, Deluxx Folk Implosion, Sentridoh. The side projects were a chance to screw around in the studio, experiment with samples, odd sound mixes, song ideas as well as songs. Barlow and partner John Davis could tinker without worrying about the practicalities of live performance, releasing EP-length tapes and CDs on mini-labels like Communion and Shrimper. These are open sketchbooks of music, -- casual, funny, occasionally abrasive.

It took the Kids soundtrack, from director Larry Clark's unsparing, controversial look at adolescent nihilism, to bring Barlow his first radio hit, "Natural One." The song (by Folk Implosion) is a deceptively slick indie-funk dance tune, replete with post-punk crunchy-granola sentiment spiked with a dash of hot-sauce irony. As it climbed the charts, "Natural One" opened a larger audience to Sebadoh's seven-year history. The album's touching lament, "Spoiled," with its one-chord acoustic accompaniment to Barlow's injured tenor, went back to 1991's Sebadoh III. "Daddy Never Understood" exposed Sebadoh's hardcore thrash side. And it boasted a distinctive Barlow touch: in the midst of his screamed-out vocals and scraped guitar strings, a minor-tinged instrumental bridge emerged, suspended by the haunting wheeze of a Mellotron. Suddenly the song took on a new dimension: an infantile thrash rant opened with the ache of an elegy. Joining '80s hardcore screed with '60s psychedelia, the song took on a narrative perspective broader than its first-person lyrics. It was an effect more typical of fiction or lyric poetry than hardcore.

Fans can cite numerous Barlow triumphs. "Soul and Fire," from 1993's Bubble and Scrape (Sub Pop), is a perfect pop song, with an odd, ascending structure of unequal phrase lengths and another of Barlow's deathless bridge sections, where a simple chord change implies a cataclysm of shifting emotions. It also has to be one of the most touching break-up songs I've ever heard. This from the man who also coined the anti-anthem of post-punk, "Gimme Indie Rock!"

So why the sourpuss in the crowd when we mention Lou? Stories abound. Maybe it was that otherwise brilliant Paradise show where Lou and Sebadoh bandmates Jason Lowenstein and Eric Gaffney stalled the momentum by repeatedly exchanging instruments. Maybe it's the disastrous Avalon show where Barlow repeatedly interrupted the set to whine between songs, finally his smashing his guitar and then apologizing to his parents, who were in the audience, for his bad behavior. Or maybe it was the show at T.T. the Bear's last month, where Deluxx Folk Implosion played to a radio-promoted audience primed by the Kids hits "Natural One" and "Nothing Gonna Stop." Instead of those funky studio pieces, the audience got an hour of 90-second hardcore outbursts.

Although Barlow considers himself a collaborator in all these projects (Bob Fay has now replaced Gaffney in Sebadoh's drum chair), he's the most visible frontman, and the common denominator. And with his wire-rimmed glasses, he's also a representation of the bands' indie appeal, which is defined by introspective songwriting rather than arena polish, post-grad ennui rather than teenage angst, and a drive toward personal artistic fulfillment rather than commercial expectations.

When I met Barlow for brunch at the Trident Bookstore Cafe on Newbury Street, he showed up in a suede winter jacket over a zip-up cardigan sweater and a knit cap. Munching on breakfast burritos and downing many cups of coffee in the course of 90 minutes, he never removed a single garment. But he fell into conversation easily, without pretension, talking frankly about rock and roll, songwriting, and his inability to perform happily in front of a Boston audience.

Q: When I listened to the Kids soundtrack, I didn't hear radio hits. I was surprised at how good "Natural One" sounded on the radio.

A: "Nothing Gonna Stop the Flow" is more of a groove with some lyrics on top of it, but when we finished "Natural One," we thought: "Whoah, this is really slick." It's a real cosmic quirk where everything just mixed together at this moment for us to have a song that people would like. The chances of us doing that again is slim. Especially if we follow our instincts, which is what we do anyway.

Q: How did you work out the little instrumental bridge in "Daddy Never Understood"?

A: The Mellotron is my favorite instrument. It's so emotional if you use it right. So to put it to an aggressive hardcore song and make it work was really satisfying.

Q: Tell me a bit about your background. Where are you from?

A: I'm from Westfield, near Northampton. After I got out of high school, I moved to Northampton. That's where I met my wife. We moved out here so she could get a job after college.

Q: What do your parents do?

A: My mother works at a resource center for families with children with autism in Northampton. My father works at a computer store, selling computers, in West Springfield. I didn't go to college. My mother went to college for a year or two, but she dropped out to have a kid and be a wife. My dad was in the Air Force. After he got out, he got married and had a kid -- me. I was born in Dayton, Ohio, then we moved to Michigan when I was like 2. We lived in Jackson, Michigan, which is between Detroit and Ann Arbor. My father worked in the same building as Iggy Pop's mom -- Bendix Abrasives. They make car brakes. When the auto industry folded, we had to move to Massachusetts.

Q: It's funny that you have this reputation as the quintessential middle-class college rock guy, and yet that's not your background at all.

A: I know, I've come to represent this huge legion of guys with glasses who obviously went to a lot of college and think about stuff way too much because they've read too much. I barely read. I barely made it out of high school. Never went to college. Being in a band is the only thing that has ever given me any kind of money or independence.

Q: The SPIN Alternative Record Guide describes your music as being about a "post-grad world."

A: Anyone who writes for SPIN certainly should know a whole lot about that. That's the ironic thing. People who pigeonhole me as that are exactly that, the postgraduate class nerds that they accuse me of being. It's difficult to convince anyone that that is not my background. No, I'm not a rich kid who went to pseudo-Ivy League schools.

Q: You and your wife [Web site creator and 'zine publisher Kathleen Billus] have been together a long time, but your songs discuss heartbreak and break-up as though you'd been through many relationships.

A: We've been together about eight years. We got married last April. Anytime you write about heartbreak, [people assume] you move on to someone else, and they don't realize that you can have a series of heartbreaks and reconcilations and fights and break-ups all with the same person over a series of years. That's actually the only way you can really have a life with someone, taking that all in, and still if you have reasons to be together, then you stay together. It's not like you have three strikes and you're out. It's more complex than that. It bums me out that people don't accept complexity. But if you're a musician or a media figure, people like things to be simple.

Q: You mentioned that you're not particularly intellectual, that you don't read.

A: No. Every year Kathleen will persuade me to read something. This year she gave me White Noise by Don DeLillo, and The Information by Martin Amis. They were both really good. I never get in the habit, and then I get into these ruts where all I'm reading is fanzines, looking for reviews of my own things, and then I get so bummed out and I don't pick up anything.

Q: Do you get bummed out by what you find or bummed out by the act of looking for these things?

A: That this is what I'm doing. I'm forever chasing little bits of myself and they're littered throughout. In The Information one of the characters is this guy with a huge hit novel and he's constantly looking for references to himself. Instead of actually writing, he spends all day looking for references to himself, so he can figure out his place in mass culture. I thought that was really funny. White Noise was the first novel I read in a long time. I liked it: the apocalyptic modern life, everything closing in on you, being bombarded by information. And The Information is like that too -- the constant flow of information.

Q: In terms of your own press, I was interested in what you had to say in the dialogue between you and Liz Phair that was published in Option. You mentioned that you hated the critical interpretations of her work. How so?

A: I liked her first record. People were obsessed with the fact that she said, "Fuck." People were simplifying it like she is the first female to do this. And I was like: `No she's not, and on top of that, who cares!' They were making a big deal of her being this young woman who was singing about sex and I didn't think that was the strongest point of it.

Q. What did you like about it?

A: I thought it was really catchy and clear. The lyrics all made sense. And I liked her guitar playing. It was very simple, very direct.

Q: Going back to the T.T.'s show, here was this big radio audience. Some of them might have been there for the other bands, or they knew Folk Implosion only from "Natural One." They might have been taken aback by these 90-second thrash songs.

A: We had told London that we weren't going to do any support gigs for the Kids soundtrack because we can't play those songs live and we don't have the time to learn them -- to get the samples going and try to get a real Folk Implosion sound going. So we did it as Deluxx Folk Implosion, four guys, and I can just sing. To do what we did -- which is to play all of our really short, punk rock songs in the place of Folk Implosion songs -- was a bit audacious, a little snotty. So I felt a little defensive when I was playing. Other than that I had a really good time. It's very weird to be put in that position, where we have to go out and play "Natural One," now that it's big and all. But I'm so busy with Sebadoh, and on top of that we've always intended Folk Implosion to be an exclusively recorded thing: record whatever we want and not worry about whether we can play it live or not, because it's just fun and experimental.

But no, when we did all those DFI songs it wasn't like: "Here is a bunch of thrashing that you don't understand, you idiots." For us, this is the kind of music that we really like to play together as four people, and this is what works for us and makes a lot of sense to us to play, and I get a lot of energy out of it. It's not like a big fuck you to anybody. I've always run into that problem. I find out that people think I'm saying fuck off when I don't mean to be. Or maybe the fear that I have manifests itself in this snotty pride.

Q: After that show, someone said to me, "That was pretty good, because Lou apologized only at the end of the show. He usually apologizes before each song, before he even plays it."

A: I am trying to get better, you know. That's the biggest thing right now: my problem with playing live. I feel so bad playing live all the time. I feel overly apologetic and overly conscious of whether people like it or not. Especially local shows.

Q: So you get obsessed that it's not going well or you haven't played the song well?

A: Or that there are people out there going: "How come they made it out and I didn't?" I always imagine these little groups of musicians going, "What the fuck, how come they made it. They suck!" People are so critical, especially when you make a name for yourself. When you come back home, there's always going to be people to say, "What the fuck, he can't play! Why the hell am I sitting in my practice space three times a week, putting out my records." I'm so conscious of that as a musician and because everyone I know is a musician. Musicians are such a jealous group of people. I know that, because that's how I am myself. You become so cynical about the process.

Q: So do you get any kick by being on stage ?

A: Oh yeah. When we're on tour I get into a groove. I've been doing this for years and years now. There's a large part of me that relies on that energy and tries not to be so self-conscious. But inevitably it comes back to me on stage going, "I'm sorry" and "This sucks." It's the one thing that I seem to be growing out of, or I hope to grow out of. What I have begun to realize is that when you stand up on stage and say, "I'm sorry this sucks," everyone else is going, "He thinks we suck too." Your audience is such a fragile thing. They came there to see you and they're very excited and you're up there complaining. And since people already sort of pigeonhole me as this postgraduate cynical guy, they're like, "Oh he thinks nothing is good enough because he's an intellectual mired in irony." Just by virtue of wearing glasses on stage, you don't have a lot of leeway.

Q: Have you thought of getting contacts?

A: (Laughter.) I tried but I can't take care of contacts. I don't feel I see as well with them.

Q: When you read about Elvis Presley's early shows, they were only four songs or so, part of these multi-act revues.

A: I think for pop bands that almost works better. When Sebadoh are doing well on tour and get into a groove, we play for an hour and a half a night. The way I justify that is that there are people there to see us play certain songs. It's not so much a sound we have. It's songs. You try to play as many songs that people will like. For Sebadoh to go out and play for 20 minutes and leave would be snotty. That would bum people out.

Q: People would think of all the songs that you didn't play.

A: Exactly. It's so wrapped up in the lyrics and the songs. But there are certain bands that have sounds, you know? Sound is a really big thing now. Like White Zombie. They have a sound, they don't have songs. They have a big sound and they do it very well. For 20 minutes I bet I could watch White Zombie and go: "That is really great." But I wouldn't care if they stopped after that.

Q: I find that's a big critical issue. As critics, we always complain that bands have a sound but no songs.

A: I think having a sound is just as legitimate. That's why I don't get particularly jealous with bands that are becoming insanely popular. They have a very specific sound and it's very powerful. They might have one or half of a good song, but at least they have a sound, and that's a lot. When you're playing music to huge audiences, that's really all you can have. If you don't have that sound, then you have to have a lot of incredible songs, and no one does. I like heavy metal and I like punk-rock bands as well. They're funny as hell to me for 15 minutes, and they make a lot of sense and they can be real powerful. But after that, then you start thinking about how much hearing you're losing and how much time you're wasting watching someone repeat a pattern over and over. Sometimes when I do shows myself I become apologetic, because I know the limits to my own attention span. I think of my worst-case scenario: I think of an audience like myself. What a nightmare that is, to think of playing to a bunch of people like myself. No attention span, very critical of songs and singing. That gives me kind of a bad stage presence, thinking a little bit too hard about what people are thinking about me on stage.

Q: Are you at all able to give yourself over to the idea of a show as a theatrical presentation, with a set list that will build to a planned climax?

A: We do when we're on the road. I don't think we have ever played a really good Sebadoh show in Boston. I can pretty much confidently say we have failed every time we've played here.

Q: Is that because you don't come up with the right set list, or because you know everyone in the room?

A: The last time we played a big show at Avalon, we had to be off in 45 minutes because there was this big dance thing coming on. I find when I am under that kind of time limit, it makes me cranky, especially if my parents are in the audience, which is always the case. I find it difficult to relax playing in Boston, unlike if we were in the middle of a six-week tour and playing in Kansas. There's a certain amount of freedom that I get on the road. After being on the road for a while I loosen up. We get a real flow going with sets. We pace it out. Of the, say, 40 shows we play on a tour, at least 30 of them are decent. That's a good average. I like to do DFI shows, because then I'm just singing and that's all I have to concentrate on, and it's so much fun. The songs are so short and to the point and hilarious to me. I know at the very least we're funny, and that's pretty much the most important thing, to have a sense of humor. Even Sebadoh has a sense of humor when we're in a groove.

In DFI, it's all screaming. Screaming is really the first thing I ever did. When I started playing music I was really into hardcore, so that to me is the most basic -- short, fast punk-rock songs.

Q: So hardcore is to you what the blues are to other musicians?

A: Exactly. When you slice everything down that I do, it comes down to someone screaming into a mike. That's it. It's so simple and so basic. I don't worry about the dynamics of a presentation or the lyrical thrust. No one's going to understand the lyrics anyway. For "Daddy Never Understood," those lyrics to me are funny. If you listen to that song and pick out the lyrics it'll make you laugh.

Q: It strikes me as almost a parody of a kid getting pissed off, but then the Mellotron comes in and takes it to another emotional level.

A: I love the way that song sounds. Those lyrics -- "Sticky sweet between my fingers/Peanut butter on my pants" -- that's just like being a little kid. And then your dad running after you in his sweat pants. That's a true drama. When I wrote it, I was thinking about being a kid, and then I put it into an aggressive hardcore thing. Rather than put it in that usual hardcore, teenage introspective anger, it takes it back to being eight years old. That's the real roots of hardcore. It's like being eight years old and [making a whining voice] "Daddy never understood!" That, to me, makes the most sense, it resonates the deepest and it's funny, but it's not really a joke. That's why I like that song so much and I like DFI so much. It's the idea of screaming when you're not really angry, screaming because it feels great. It feels good to scream and to jump around just like when you're little. When you strip rock way down to its basics, like hardcore, that's it, and that's where I like the lyrics to come from, either nonsensical or playful.

Q: Did you see Green Day when they came to the Centrum?

A: No -- I watched them on TV, though. I think they're good. I find myself standing up for them. You know, people say, "I fucking hate the way Green Day took punk rock and ruined it." They didn't ruin anything. They're an uptempo pop band and there's not a lot of bullshit there. What's to hate about it? Other than maybe it's a little bland -- but not really. If you put that kind of music in front of thousands of young kids, it takes on a life of its own. If you're listening to it at home, it doesn't resonate that deeply, but to realize that they're playing to an audience of millions of kids who are picking up on the energy of the music, it's funny. To me it's also a vindication: wow, everything that I thought was good when I was 13 is good to 13-year-olds now.

I've never had any crises about Rancid or Green Day. They deserve to be popular, because if they're going to be so single-minded about their sound, about making this very little sealed-in punk-rock statement, they have every right to become billionaires. If they can do it today, in 1995, that takes a lot of conviction. Because I could never do that. I'd be bored out of my skull if I had to play music like that or try to attach everything that I do to a sound. That'd be so boring. I can't do that, but I totally respect people that do because it takes a lot of focus and a lot of energy.

I saw Green Day at Woodstock where they basically reduced all of Woodstock to this really bad hardcore show at a VFW hall, singing Twisted Sister songs as everything is collapsing. And dividing the audience: you say "fuck" and then the other side say "you." I love that. Even Rancid I can deal with. I don't listen to them, but when I see them I think it's hilarious. Who'd have thought that some kid would be watching TV and go, "That's a really cool mohawk!" I think that's great.

Lou Barlow will be appearing at the Middle East this Tuesday, January 16, with openers Noise Addict, featuring Ben Lee.