Pop Music Is Fun: Ariel Pink Looks Back On His Earliest Recordings – Recording Academy | Grammys
Pop Music Is Fun: Ariel Pink Looks Back On His Earliest Recordings Recording Academy | Grammys
In music’s current era, bedroom-pop artists, i.e., Billie Eilish, Clairo, Mac DeMarco, live next to major-label, studio-produced pop acts on the charts, festival lineups and sometimes even the GRAMMY stage. Back in the early-to-mid ’00s, uploading your music to Myspace and slinging homemade CDs at local gigs were your best shots at getting homemade jams out to eager ears. Through it all, Los Angeles-born-and-raised lo-fi stalwart Ariel Pink has always found a way to get his music noticed—and remain relevant—while staying true to his do D.I.Y. and I.D.G.A.F. ethos.
In 2001-02, as the one-man-band Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Pink recorded Loverboy, House Arrest, Fast Forward and Scared Famous on an 8-track cassette recorder while locked in a cheap room he rented from monks.
Now, these projects and some of his other early LPs and lost tracks have made it to streaming and vinyl for the first time, thanks to the massive Ariel Archives reissue project released by Mexican Summer. The first two cycles of reissues dropped earlier this year, along with Odditties Sodomies Vol. 2, “a long-awaited second volume of outtakes and non-album tracks,” with two more are coming before the end of 2020.
In celebration of the Ariel Archives, we caught up with the L.A. indie-pop architect to learn more about what the reissues mean to him, where he recorded the albums and much more.
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We’re in the midst of the Ariel Archives releases. What does it mean to you to share this sort of treasure trove of your early music in this way, in this format?
It’s what the label wanted to do. I guess it’s appropriate that it’s the 20th anniversary of my initial recording releases and this is my career milestone or something like that. But yeah, it’s sort of like the midway point. I made these recordings more or less when I was in my early 20s. Now I’m in my early 40s, so it’s sort of been a lifetime since I started. Hopefully, there won’t be any need to review my backlog and my “legacy” in another 20 years, because I’ll be 60 then. I just don’t want people to forget about me when I’m alive, that’s all. After I’m dead, then they can forget about me all they want.
Obviously, the main way people consume music now is via streaming. So, if an album or a song isn’t on Spotify and Apple Music, it doesn’t exist to a large subset of music listeners.
Yeah. It’s very dystopian of me to even speak of things in terms of an old mode, sort of historicizing things. I kind of think history is history. I’ve never really thought of myself as necessarily being worthy of being noticed or being singled out as being a special artist that has stood the test of time and has fought for every fan and their integrity every step of the way, blah, blah. I don’t really think in those terms. I think, really, it’s always panic mode. You sink or swim.
Wherever there’s been interest, I’ve been showing up and then basically been like, “Oh, you rang? Okay, I’m right here.” [Laughs.] That’s not completely accurate, but I showed up to the job and I created the job for myself when there wasn’t one. And in a sense, making music has never made me money. So, it’s obviously not about the money, but the stuff that happens on the periphery of that, like playing shows, syncs, branding and sales and royalties.
All that stuff is what’s made me be able to do what I want to do. In a sense, these are the things that are at stake in these trying times, these dwindling opportunities that rise up around the music, that have nothing to do with the actual making of the music. Making music never made me a cent, never did anything good for me whatsoever, except make me feel better.
But what am I trying to say with these archives? I mean, well, that they existed, that things existed more than two years ago, and just because I’m over 20 years old does not make me a Boomer.
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What do you feel when you listen back to these early albums?
I’m very proud. I’m proud, and I’m like, “Wow, look at him go.” I don’t know how I did it. I mean, I can’t do it now, that’s for sure. I don’t work the same way that I worked back then. I was firing off on all cylinders back then, I guess you could say. My brain was in peak fitness, and so I was basically able to tackle all sorts of Herculean tasks that I don’t have the patience, skills, time or concentration for anymore. My workflow at the time was so infused with being single-mindedly determined, a me against the world kind of thing. That kind of desperation has been sort of chiseled out of me slowly over the course of 20 years. I’m definitely not as confident as I once was, just by having nothing to show for it.
So, I really do admire that 20-year-old me who just basically believed in himself so much that he was able to weather all those setbacks and all the naysayers, and all the things that were pointing towards how futile it would be to even pursue that line of work. I think it’s really tough for people to really understand that nowadays, more than ever, because being different and marching to your own beat now is even more rare than it was back then. And despite the fact that I’ve been accepted, like I used to say, the world came to me and I didn’t go to it. So, that’s a really key point in all of this. And I think it would be equally Herculean for somebody to expect to get what I got from doing what I did nowadays. So, it’s just a totally different can of worms. But I definitely would say, don’t listen to me or anybody else who tells you to do differently. We don’t know anything.
Well, I was going to ask if you could go back and offer your 20-year-old self any advice or wisdom, what would it be?
That’s it. I would not listen to anything that anybody said, so I would do the exact opposite. It would be confirmation of the fact that I was right and they were wrong. If somebody agreed with me, I would have been worried. It would have been cause for doubt. What I’m saying is, to do what I did, you need to actually really be at odds with the world. I’m not saying I’m a serial killer or a lowlife, but what I was doing was practically suicidal. I blocked out the world in a very, very thorough fashion. I did not want to engage. I was extremely disaffected. If it was nowadays, I might not even have a phone or a computer. I would still be sending messages through the mail. I wouldn’t even be listening to anything that was online. If I could find it online, I wouldn’t even be doing music, probably. All those things were part of my identity, that I felt like a freak for even thinking about when I was in it.
So, that was me basically embracing my own individuality in the face of everybody else, and paying the price for it too. I was ostracized. I never got any kind of high fives or “More power to you, man. You keep doing what you’re doing.” People think that that stuff’s going to help them, and I don’t think it helps at all. People shouldn’t get support if they’re doing something different. They should expect to get no support, and that should give them the fire that’s necessary in order to overcome that. If you’ve done something for 10,000 hours, which roughly works out to four years of five-day work weeks, you’re going to be a professional at it and pretty much know what you’re talking about. I’ve been doing my job now for about four times that amount.
So, I definitely feel like I know what I’m talking about, even with regards to the industry. Up until COVID-19, I could probably be a great manager for some band. I could put a band on the road and tell them exactly at what point they’re going to break up in the tour based on how much money they were getting and how much the overhead would be. I have lots of practical skills I’ve acquired in my adult life that have really come in handy. But based on just pursuing this single-minded way of doing things, and never having had a manager. I’m open to one, but none of them could ever really explain to me how I wouldn’t be basically shooting myself in the foot by having them. It’s been an uphill battle, but again, my ambition is actually pretty low on the totem pole. I’ve got low overhead, and I’m basically just myself here. I’ve been doing it pretty well. I mean, I don’t really rely on my parents at all for anything, and I haven’t for 20 years almost. That’s because I’ve lived in very cheap places and been like, “F*** you. No, I don’t want your help.”
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When you first started recording music as Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, was your goal the same then as it is now? Did you ever imagine then that you’d have the fan base that you do now?
No, I never did. I expected to fail. I expected that it was basically going to be me working at record stores for the rest of my life, and I was perfectly happy with that. I was secure in that. Naïve little me thought that record stores would actually be there forever. I thought that was job security for me. Nobody would need to know that I made music, it would just be my inside joke with myself, and I’d be perfectly happy sweeping floors and working in a dusty old little record shop somewhere. That would be my revenge against my family, the powers that be, and all the haters. A very modest ambition, basically. I surpassed my goal at about 27 years old. At that point, everything had to change. I was not as prolific anymore. I guess I was just looking for love. I didn’t even realize it.
And then I didn’t write songs for five years. I basically just focused on getting my live presence back in shape, and make it feasible and take it seriously as a source of income, and to get signed, with the ultimate goal of getting signed to a real label. And I did that. Once I was signed, then there was the sort of reality check that it’s not really anything to get signed, you need to get paid for getting signed. And I sort of had to get sued a few times to learn what friendship is and what being a boss is, too, and what being responsible is and what it isn’t. Those are all very, very good lessons, which I’m grateful to my enemies for.
My ambition now is really to go back to being my 20-year-old self and having not a care in the world, basically chilling out. If I ever get there, you won’t hear about it. But I’m halfway there. I’m not playing live anymore, so that’s a good thing. I’m grateful I don’t really have to do that. I can put myself in a place where basically I can roll out reissues and I can just do a few interviews and hopefully I won’t have a dwindling audience. Hopefully, I’ll still reach new listeners. And I’ve got syncs, people want to use my stuff in TV shows. I’ve got respect, and I’ve got all the things, basically, that Paul McCartney has, except for the kids. My new goal is to buy a house and to start a family. I’m single and I’m ready to mingle.
Well, no mingling yet.
No mingling yet, yeah. No creeping for me. Absolutely not.
In the period when you weren’t making music, what did that feel like for you? Because it sounds like music is very much an outlet for you, as it is for many people.
To be honest, it was a little bit concerning at the time. But I always told myself that I would never do it if I didn’t feel inclined to. At the time, I wasn’t inspired to. I’m not really inspired these days either. That said, what I do feel is that it’s a job for me. So, I’m grateful for every little bit I manage to squeeze out. The fact that it has any kind of audience whatsoever, however small, I’m just shocked and pleasantly surprised about, because I always feel like I’m yesterday’s news pretty quickly. So, I’m grateful for the people that give a sh*t. I’m super, super psyched. I’m out of retirement! That’s how it always feels for me.
The demands I put on myself with regards to music are much more lax these days, and I don’t have as much integrity, per se, or single-minded determination. I’m really more slowly, kind of nervously, putting things together every once in a while, when I feel like I might be able to. And if people like the results, I’m like, “Yeah, I still got it.” I’m pretty happy about that. I’m not as confident as I used to be, but I’m happy with whatever it is that I can do, and grateful for that.
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I think that’s such a hard balance that you find with creative work. You want to do it when you feel inspired, but the world in not always the most inspiring place. If you get stuck in a rut, it’s like, “How do I force myself out of here nicely?”
Well, I think that’s been a problem with thinking about yourself as an artist from the get-go. I think people put a lot of undue stress on themselves, and their work suffers from it because they have to find themselves as an artist. They have to be making work because that’s the only thing that makes them an artist. God forbid, they shouldn’t work—will they be called out as not being an artist? Was it all basically a fraud?
First of all, being creative and being an artist is the last goal that anybody should have, honestly. It’s not an ambition. It’s something that you had at three years old. You had all that stuff and more back in the day, and you don’t need to have any kind of degree. Of course you can f***ing be an artist if you want to be. It just means that you do stuff. And you shouldn’t be so f***ing hard on yourself about the quality of it. Who cares what anybody thinks, if you want to do it?
I think of it as therapy. If it’s working, it basically should bring you to a place where you don’t need to do it anymore and you exorcize those demons, and that should be a cause for celebration, not for worry or concern. You should go do something else. Once you’ve purged that musical thing, go find another interest. Go get into astronomy. There’s catharsis in it, and you shouldn’t be doing art for your whole life. That means that you’re not getting anywhere. I think it’s a stupid thing to want to do, especially as a career.
I’m able to make music and make it in a way that basically conforms to a certain level of quality that my label can basically get behind. If I had it my way, I would just be sending my voice memos to them. Essentially, I don’t care. I’ve already gotten all the props I can get from all of my releases. I don’t really need any more acknowledgement. I really should get into gardening or something like that, some other hobby, at this point.
A lot of D.I.Y. and alternative artists over the years have counted you as an influence. How does that make you feel, or does that matter to you that your sound and your approach influences others?
Oh, yeah. It’s the whole thing, man. Those are the people that have the careers. I mean, the kids are the ones who are getting record deals. As long they get turned on to what I do, I seem to be somewhat successful in my ability to sort of influence tomorrow’s record deals today. It seems like the people who were exposed to my stuff as teenagers went on to become artists themselves who got record deals, that had careers that far surpassed my own.
I’m happy that I get any kind of mention at the table, and it’s really what makes it possible for me to do what I’m doing. I mean, this is the first time the GRAMMYs has ever gotten in contact with me. I’ve never been invited to a red carpet event. But any time Julian Casablancas says something nice about me, I f***ing glow up. I’m like, “Yeah!” And then if somebody talks shit about me, I’m like, “Yeah, exactly.” I feel a little bit valuable in the world, in some kind of weird, sick and twisted way.
[Music] is a kids’ game. Every day I’m not over the hill, I’m stoked to still be somewhat employed by my interests. It’s key that other people shine a light on me. That helps. I’m aware of the people doing that, and I’m not asking them and I never have. And they don’t call me up and just say, “Hey, I’m Billy Corgan, and I’m a huge fan.” Nobody ever does that. I find out about it after it’s been circulated. So, I’m kind of like the last one to find out about that kind of stuff.
What artists remain as influences to you to this day?
All the same influences, all the things I listened to back in the day. There’re more artists out there that I like now. There’s so much good music hitting the world, and it’s always been that way. It’s always been right next door to you, you just didn’t know it. I don’t really have the appetite and the time or the level of patience to listen to everything that comes my way.
I mean, I’ve got people sending links all day long, never-ending, like, “Could you listen to this and tell me what you think about what I do?” I’m just like, “Oh, no, no, no.” If you like what I do, that’s a red flag. I don’t want anybody that likes what I do thinking I want to hear what they do. I don’t necessarily love what I do or think very highly of myself or even listen to my own music, per se. So it’s a much different kind of dynamic and I try to be polite about it, but it doesn’t stop me from rubbing people the wrong way, almost as a rule.
I would love to get a glimpse back into your life of when you were recording House Arrest and Loverboy. Where were you living and hanging out? What kind of music were you listening to at that time? Take us there for a moment.
So, I was living in a $300 bedroom, utilities included. I shared a bathroom with several other people in this house in Crenshaw. I answered a classifieds ad in The Recycler magazine. I thought it just was a cheap room. I went, and I got to the house in the ghetto, on a very dangerous street. It’s right by where Catch One disco is, where Das Bunker was. Back then, there was nothing going on there. It was practically condemned.
But my house was the one that’s overlooking the parking lot of Catch One. It was a top floor. There was this older Cambodian guy. He was kind of a hoarder. He was in the room right next door to me. Then there was this guy who was fresh off the boat from Hungary, who was doing chiropracting down the hall. The downstairs was occupied by a bunch of monks. It was a meditation center, an ashram. They didn’t deal with money or with material things in this world. They have different homes, places around the country and around the world that are Ananda Marga centers. They welcomed these nomadic monks that go from one place to another, all of them coming and going. They’d stay for a week or two, or sometimes a couple months.
And then there was also some South American refugees that were upstairs in the attic. They didn’t speak a word of English. They weren’t part of the meditation center, per se. Then there was a guy downstairs who was a very handsome, tall, Black man from the Congo. His whole family had been murdered and he had just arrived in the United States. I think the monks did amnesty stuff, outreach around the world and good things like that. Every Sunday, Ananda Marga would do a food drive, sort of like a market, on the front lawn of our house. They were devoted to doing good things for the community. And they’re still there. I went there with a radio show, actually.
But it was a very, very strange thing. I lived behind a locked door. I didn’t adhere to any of the rules of the house. I should have been kicked out within seconds. The only thing I asked when they gave me the three-page list of restrictions, the things that I had to agree to in order to live there, I just asked if there was a lock on my door. They said yes. But I broke every rule in the book. You can’t even bring onions in there. Anything with flavor, that was banned from the house. But I smoked. I messed around. I had people sleeping over. I had lowlifes that made noise all hours of the night. Not one noise complaint ever, and they were up early. I was really shocked.
I made four records there. I made House Arrest, Loverboy, Fast Forward and Scared Famous in the time I was there, just under two years. And in that time, I met my wife-to-be, and we broke up not long after I left there. I had another girlfriend before that when I got there. And I was working jobs. During the day, I was working at the elementary school that I had attended, Temple Emanuel. I was doing that from 7:00 in the morning to 3:00, 4:00 in the afternoon. I basically had no life and no friends, so I had all of my time open to devote to making music. When I wasn’t working at that place, I worked at Rhino Records and at my dad’s office. I was committed to being independent and not freeloading off of my parents.
It was a very magical time. It was a very, very dark time, too, in a weird way. I can’t believe I managed to get through it. It was really amazing. I don’t know how I had all the time to do all the things that I did. I just didn’t have any friends. I was making the most of it.
Did you feel lonely at the time or feel strange being in a place of people doing something totally different from what you were doing in there?
That was the world. I never felt like I was a part of the world until fairly recently, about eight years ago. Being completely at odds with the world was the most natural thing to me, so I sort of blocked it out. I had this cognitive dissonance. I was a very troubled, A.D.D. kid. I was used to being left alone, at least that’s what I wanted it to be. I had a very, very active private life that was just in my mind, and I just needed to be allowed to do that.
“It took New York discovering me for L.A. to pay attention. So, that’s changed now, and there’s a whole culture that’s basically arisen around that because of me.”
I’m sure that place had a specific influence on the music you were recording there. You’ve spent most of your life in and around L.A. How do you feel like L.A. has influenced your art and music, and why do you think you’ve chosen to still stay here?
I mean, I’ve never lived anywhere else. I guess I’m a country bumpkin. I never left home. I don’t know what it’s like to even imagine what being somewhere else would do to influence my music or my surroundings. If I were to leave L.A. and move to New York or anywhere else—I’ve never done that, and I’ve been asked this question hundreds of times—I’d be running away from something, from my family.
I’ve been one continuous stream. I don’t start over. I don’t understand what the disconnection is between people and their roots. I still walk down the same streets that I did when I was younger. For me, it’s the most natural thing in the world to be in my element here. I’m not trying to advance or move anywhere else. I’m not even trying to make it back to the westside or anything like that. I don’t even understand how people from the East Coast come here and become bi-coastal. They have means. So they all come out here, and they bring their rent prices with them. They’re going to go back east eventually, but not before they f***ing make it impossible for L.A. people to live here. This place used to be cheap. I mean, L.A.’s just a shitty town like any other place. But it’s my place and it’s where my family is.
I don’t need to move. It’d be weird if I just moved somewhere else. I’m very, very rooted and very anchored to my comfort zone, I guess. So that’s the real reason I’m here. And like I said, the world seemed to come to me, in that regard. When I was doing the music stuff in the early 2000s, there was no indie music scene here. It took New York discovering me for L.A. to pay attention. So, that’s changed now, and there’s a whole culture that’s basically arisen around that because of me. L.A. was just a place for Interscope Records, it was where the big industry was. There were no indie labels, there was no grassroots scene happening underneath the current. The audience wasn’t here, is what I’m saying. We just broadcast careers across the world. It’s sort of a behind-the-music place. That’s changed now, and now it wants to think of itself as a hotbed of indie activity, which I don’t engage with at all. I’m like, “You guys are f***ing suckers. I’m going to the GRAMMYs.”
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