Guided by Voices

It took a band headed by a middle-aged elementary schoolteacher to bring rock back to its truest raw form. That band is Guided by Voices, and the man behind it all is Bob Pollard. The Dayton band has been around since the mid-80s, originally writing tunes reminiscent of classic rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and Cheap Trick and immortalizing them via a shitty four-track recorder. It would be nearly a decade before an appreciation for the band's sound would start to build. With the release of 1994's Bee Thousand on Matador Records, GBV was hailed by critics and fans alike as being responsible for bringing the lo-fi movement into the musical spotlight. A lot has happened to GBV since then, including a variety of lineup changes and a brief stint with major label TVT. But nearly 10 years later, the band seems to have come full circle. Their latest record, Earthquake Glue, that reminds us why Guided by Voices was so appealing in the first place: because they cut straight to the rock and skip through all of that overdriven, over-produced bullshit. Recoil recently talked to Pollard by phone from his Dayton home, hitting on such subjects as his latest solo project and the art of writing a song after a drunken night on the town.

Recoil: Does the sound of Elephant Glue stay along the lines of your previous album?
Bob Pollard: Pretty much. I've read where people have said it's more lo-fi than the last one, but I disagree - I think the sound quality is better than the last one. But it's pretty much along the same lines because the same people [worked] on it. We did it with Todd Tobias, he's like our in-house producer now. He's kind of found the niche of the way we want to sound. The only problem now is that we don't have Cro-Mag [Studios] anymore. They're going to close in two weeks. I'm kind of bummed out about that because we're going to have to find another place to record.

R: Having been in the business for nearly twenty years now, what goals did you have coming into the music business? Has your perception of the music industry changed over the years?
BP: I didn't have any goals because we did it by ourselves for ourselves. We did it like that for years. Someone found us. We were just unearthed, so to speak. I didn't want anyone to find out about us because I was too bashful, I didn't have any musical background, I didn't think I had any talent, I thought that what I did was somewhat derivative of everything I've ever listened to - so I just kind of shied away from any kind of exposure whatsoever. So when we were thrust into whatever limelight we were thrust into it was pretty scary. So I didn't have any goals or expectations. I just had to kind of get a grip on myself and say, 'Hey, this is really happening.' It took me a long time to realize that. I've gotten used to [being in the limelight]. I know we're going to sell a certain amount of records every time, a certain amount of people are going to buy it - so I make records for those people. At one point when we were at TVT [Records], I kind of wanted to break through that barrier of record sales, so we used producers and we went with a bigger label and it just didn't work, so I finally came to the realization that we are what we are and there's no need to try to go beyond our means, to just keep doing what we do and have fun doing it. I don't place any expectations on myself now even, other than to try to become a better songwriter.

R: Have there ever been times when you've thought about quitting the music business and going back to teaching?
BP: Oh, no, no. No. [Laughs loudly.] When we were doing it for ourselves, I thought like, 'Maybe this is a silly hobby. Maybe I should put it away and be a little bit more responsible.' I had people tell me that. Once we were signed and we got to start doing it for a living, no, I don't want to quit doing it.

R: You always seem to be coming out with new material - whether it's a new Guided By Voices album or one of your many side projects. Where does all the energy to continuously produce such a massive quantity of material come from?
BP: It's just what I do. I do it every day. I get up in the morning and I can't wait to pick up my guitar and look at my notebook - see what I've come up with in my drunken state. I take a notebook to bars and I write down ideas, things people say. Then I get up in the morning and say, 'What did I do last night?' So I'll take a look at my notebook and mess around with a song. That's where my energy comes from because it's just a daily thing; some people get up and swim and run or something. This is just what I do so I don't even think about it.

R: Where did the idea of recording new lyrics for Phantom Toolbooth's Power Toy album come from and how did the project come about?
BP: I was out on the west coast on a tour and a friend of mine was with me who knew Dave Rick from Phantom Toolbooth, and we were discussing our mutual admiration for them and I said something like, 'Power Toy is one of my favorite record from the eighties, the thing is, I wish I could do the vocals over.' Not that I don't like them - I like the vocals - but I wanted to make it more of a classic rock album. I wanted to make it sounds more like Black Sabbath or Blue Oyster Cult or something. So we called him! At first he was kind of adamant about it, but then he said it was a good idea, so he called the other band members and they said, 'Let's do it.' I thought it was very unselfish of them to even allow me to do that. I didn't think they would let me or even be interested in it but they were. Then the challenge for me was to pull it off, because it's a very complex record. And I wanted to make them happy. I certainly didn't want to make a record that wasn't as good as [the original], because then I would have failed. But I think it was successful because they like it. They think it's a really good record, they enjoy it. So somehow I guess we pulled it off. It was tough, though; it's a tough record.

R: When you declined to accept Dayton, Ohio's Lifetime Music Award, how did the officials there respond?
BP: They were alright with it. First of all, I'm not into awards and I'm not into that whole formality and ceremony and all that shit. I just told them, 'I'm flattered but I'm actually not close to being done, in my opinion. Contact me in thirty years or something.' [Laughs] I'm just not into all of that shit.

R: Do you have a position or opinion on the stranglehold that Clear Channel has on the music market?
BP: Yeah, I do. I mean, I guess they're even involved in the merchandise bands sell at clubs and shit. So they're taking a percentage of everything. I just don't see where they can do that. And their stranglehold on what's being played on the radio and everything? Fuck that. That's bullshit. But what can you do? In the good old days they used to play songs on the radio because they were good, not because a label put a certain amount of money behind marketing it. Especially in the sixties, the bands that wrote the best songs got played on the radio.

R: You've said that the creation of the professional songwriter has ruined the pop-song structure, that it's more about image, not about who cares about the songs. Could you expand on that or tell me why you feel this way?
BP: You've got guys writing songs on computers. They book time in a studio and they sit there for weeks writing songs on computers, and I just don't think you're supposed to write songs on computers. Songs, in my opinion, should be written on either a guitar or a piano. Nowadays you've got these guys writing for the boy groups and girl groups and their just these computerized, digital creations that are lifeless. Even the new Liz Phair album has that, a little bit. Have you heard that? Oh, man. I think she collaborated with some of these guys. I think she's a really good songwriter, too, so I just don't really understand.

R: Guided By Voices is less spontaneous in the studio when making a record than you used to be. Why is that?
BP: For one thing, we're not on a four-track [recorder]. With a four-track you can take every idea you have and go down and bang it out in no time at all, and now we have a limited amount of time. Plus, more so now then ever, Guided By Voices is a band, and I want input from my band and I want to take my time on the songs and I want them to come across really well live, so we take a little bit more time [to prepare before recording]. I want what we do in the studio to match up with what we do live, whereas in the four-track days they were two completely separate entities.

R: What kind of music do you listen to at home?
BP: People send me CDs all the time and I go through them. Some of the new stuff is good, some of it. But for the most part I listen to sixties and seventies type stuff. I always say that the Golden Age of Rock is from sixty-seven to seventy-nine, so most of the stuff I listen to is from that period.

R: What are your thoughts on Guided By Voices being considered one of the pioneers of lo-fi music?
BP: I appreciate it in the sense that it opened the door for us. When bands like Pavement and the Grifters came out there was this kind of movement of what they call lo-fi, where we found a home. At the time, it started a little jealousy among some of the bands that we were considered to be the pioneers of it. We made albums in the mid-eighties that were lo-fi, but no one heard them. I'll take that tag, it's nice, it got us into the Ohio section of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But the thing is, I've always considered us to be a classic rock band. We only recorded on a four-track because we didn't have any money. And that's what the whole lo-fi movement was - it was an extension of punk, because not only did you not have to know how to play your instrument, you didn't have to know how to record it.

August 2003