In conversation with Xiu Xiu’s archangel Jamie Stewart

The first time you stumble on a Xiu Xiu record you might find yourself at the very bounds of a hermetic loop. Not the elitism-riddled kind which prays you never enter and instead lurk from a distance – but a mechanism so intricate and alluring that you get coaxed into its vortex, despite staggering at first to grasp its insides. Or maybe that’s a solitary experience… Regardless, calling with Jamie Stewart underpinned our outsider-turned-insider interest in their cultish oeuvre. Our conversation eddied around the rather mundane aspects which enable Stewart’s mind to alchemise into Xiu Xiu’s mystery, rather than trying to elucidate said-mystery in itself. In other words, we both agreed early-on music is an art to be practiced and not anatomised in a matter-of-fact manner – we therefore diverted toward omens in dreams, social alienation, and Stewart’s innuendo-titled autofictional debut Anything That Moves, all as to carve out their artistic vastness.
Being Xiu Xiu’s one persistent member since the band’s onset, Stewart’s prowess has been expanding past their role as vocalist or multi-instrumentalist into something similar to an omni-guardian. And even though we might have surpassed the redundancy of “genre-defying” as a descriptor in music, Xiu Xiu would otherwise remain improperly contextualised without it. Try listening to any of their albums, be it A Promise, celebrating more than 20 years ago since its release, or 13’ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips (named after Stewart’s esteemed switchblade collections): you will be soothed, aggravated, thrilled, anguished (and in the end, possibly blissed out?). Whatever it is, it might forever be slightly evasive, but nevertheless tantalizing. Make sure there’s some Xiu Xiu playing as you read through our chat, as an accompaniment to Stewart’s shrewdness (our suggestion is Dear God I Hate Myself – the Deluxe version).  

Hey, what’s up?
I’m a little jet-lagged, but I’m doing pretty good. How are you? 

I’m also very good. Did you fly back from California to Berlin? When did you move to Berlin again?
Yes. Maybe two and a half years ago. I’m glad that I moved, I don’t regret it at all. I miss Los Angeles a lot, but I don’t really feel like moving back there at all. All the good things about Berlin are not in Los Angeles, and all the good things about Los Angeles are not in Berlin, but also the bad things about both cities are not in either place either.

Berlin was always a bit too dark for my own preference.
A lot of people feel that way and I agree. But I like it, and I’m beginning to very much feel at home here whenever I return. This is gonna sound like heresy, but I find it a little bit boring. I know most people think it’s like the most exciting city in the entire world, but I kind of need it to be a little bit boring. Los Angeles was getting way too hectic, so I’m slightly relieved. It’s not that I don’t understand that some people think they’ve died and gone to heaven when they come here, but I haven’t quite found that heaven. It seems more of a practical place for me to be. 

But I do feel how it could not be fun. People are just so obsessed with the idea of it being fun that everything resorts to chasing that instead of the actual fun. It sort of transgressed.
Well, dear Berlin, we still love you, despite talking shit about you. I guess we’re talking more shit about people’s perceptions, not necessarily the city itself.

Being a hater is contingent on a lot of love… Anyways! How does a day in your life look like these days, in or outside the city?
I’ll take it, that sounds good. If I’m home, which lately has been rarely, although thankfully I’ll be home all summer, except for a couple of shows, I usually keep a pretty strict schedule. This is very boring, but I have really bad depression and I find if I have a schedule then it helps a whole lot. So I get up in the morning, I eat my fucking German muesli like every other good German and go to the gym. I come home, do vocal exercises and make postcards for a subscription thing, do emails. I go to the studio until 11 o’clock and then I come home.

That sounds sweet, we love a routine.
It’s not for everybody, it works for me, but not everybody needs one. My bandmate Angela has no routine at all and it works for her.

My next question is, can you tell me a secret?
No, I mean, that’s a secret.

Okay.
I’m good at keeping secrets, therefore I shall tell you no secrets…

What’s the most prophetic dream you’ve ever had?
Oh, I have had really completely insane dreams almost every night since I was a kid. Thankfully, they’re so far out and so peculiar and it’s generally so stressful and unrealistic that thankfully none of them are prophetic. I don’t know how or why my mind is like this. It’s as if people have taken every conceivable thought in human history, put it into a wobble cube, shaken it up and poured it out into my nighttime brain. I started keeping a…this is ridiculous sounding, but I started keeping a dream journal just to write them down because especially in the last year, they’ve become more and more insane, indescribably insane at times. But so no, thankfully none of them have been prophetic.

Glad they’re kept at dream level then. Along the same lines, is there any portentous life event or an omen that did come to fruition – maybe not in a dream, but in a real setting?
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything specific, but for me personally, and I can’t really describe it beyond this, but if I get a particular feeling that I should or should not do something, anytime I have not done it, something really terrible has happened. I don’t know if this is an absolute for all human existence, but if I get this particular feeling (and I can’t even really describe it other than that it’s in there) I absolutely, without fail, will follow whatever the directive is. And I have found when I have done that, in a few instances, without exaggerating, has literally saved my life. It’s kept me from dying a couple of times. So, yes. Absolutely, yes. I actually remember one instance. Interestingly, it happened around transportation a couple of times, just in certain driving situations. Once I had changed lanes. I was driving around a mountain, and a humongous boulder crashed down where I would have been. Had I not changed lanes, it would have smashed the whole car. Yeah, so things like that.

Oh my God. Thank you, universe.  Not a related question at all to what you just told me, but growing up, have you felt or do you feel alienated in social settings?
I don’t. I always had an outwardly bitchy attitude to anybody who has attempted to alienate me, which is just coming from insecurity, more like, you can’t fuck with me, I’m gonna fuck with you, that sort of attitude. So I think because of that it’s always made social situations a little bit difficult for me. Since I’ve been a kid until now, and this is a little embarrassing to say, I’ve just always assumed I was on the unlikable side, so I would generally avoid social situations, and I’d claim that I’m shy and don’t like hanging out, but it really just comes from feeling wildly insecure.

So does it get better with age?
I think the only part of getting older that has made that easier is that I know myself better, and I am more comfortable with it, and if I don’t wanna do something social, I just won’t do it, rather than go and suffer through my long list of insecurities, and then end up leaving anyway. I don’t necessarily feel more comfortable socially, but I certainly feel more comfortable just not dealing with social situations. I’m more comfortable with being by myself, and realising that that may be my most natural state.

Moving forward to your book which I read this past winter. What brought you to compile it in the way you did? What was the process of writing it?
Oh.. thank you. It was a very, very long process – over several years, actually. I didn’t have any plans to write a book at all, but then the editor, Sam Nicholson, who had been coming to Xiu Xiu shows since he was a teenager, gave me his card at a show in New York. He was at the time working at a very big US publishing house, and asked me if I ever wanted to write a book. I initially asked him if he wanted a book of haikus, which I had done before, and I always said I didn’t expect that he would, and he said no, thanks. So I kept his card for maybe six months, and then it occurred to me that I always had a very good memory. I’m sort of a whore also, so I had a very vivid memory of all my whorishness. I had told a couple particular stories to friends when I’m drunk, repeatedly, and it occurred to me that they might be interesting, and it might be a good way for me to explore them a little bit, they’d just been rattling around for my whole life. I talked to Sam about this, and he asked for a couple samples, and I sent him a couple of the incidents. He thought that they were alright. 

Were there previous accounts like yours that inspired you, format-wise at least?
There was a book that I read when I was in my early 20s by the American writer Sandra Cisneros, and she organised her book really similarly to how I organised this book, in that it’s a succession of vignettes that are all related. It’s not really a linear novel, and they’re not short stories, essentially, and you don’t need to really read them in order, but they all relate to the same world, and I really always enjoyed how that book was organised. It is called House on Mango Street. It seemed like a way that I could handle writing it. I just basically made a list of everybody that I could remember that I had had any sort of sexual interaction with, and I wrote maybe like two or three sentences about each one, and then, you know, probably for about half of them, the story wasn’t interesting enough, or it didn’t really go anywhere, and some of them, it seemed like if I combined them into one fantastical person, it would make a good story. Some of the stories have completely made up endings just because it became a better story, but then some of them, from beginning to end, are completely true, so it’s kind of a mix of just what would make a better story, composites of several people sometimes, or also complete and total fact, so I probably spent a year doing this, and talked the same on and off, but it took a couple years after it was done to get it published, for a long list of fairly boring reasons.

Was there any crazy reaction from someone mentioned in it?
I mean, everybody’s name was changed, and a lot of very identifying features are purposely obscured. Only one person read it and recognised themselves and got back to me. Most of the people in it, I don’t have anything to do with anymore and (I would suspect) don’t even know the book exists, but she thought it was funny, you know? And we’re still friends. I was relieved, because I like her, and what happens in the story is very fucking embarrassing, but she, to her credit, thought it was funny. And nobody but her would know that it was her.

I wouldn’t want to imagine someone actually getting pissed over something written about them. I assume it can get so messy. Regardless, do you still write?
Mostly just working on Xiu Xiu lyrics. I think that might be the only book I have in me. If I had more to say, I would say it, but I don’t wanna just force myself to write something that would be boring for the sake of self-evocation.

Speaking of writing lyrics, I have this question about your creative process. Does it differ when writing or creating more experimental/caustic tracks versus softer ones? How does the ambivalence work from the perspective of process?
This will be fairly obvious, but certainly the emotionality of doing both things is very, very different. The mechanical process of doing it, which I don’t think about all that much, I think is pretty much the same. If the muse is being generous, the lyrics pour out very quickly. But if the muse has decided I have to work hard for this one, you know, over a period of months, I usually have, like, three different notebooks. There’s the incredibly rough draft, the not even thinking about it notebook, which 99% of drafts end up as. Then I find a couple of lines and put them in, just as various degrees of development, and then the final one has what I hope to be the most cogent lines – the ones that seem to go together easily. But that kind of long and very pointed editing process, usually over several months, is the same, whether or not it’s more far out or more pointed. Again, unless I get a gift from the universe and it just pours out and it’s all there. But that rarely ever happens.

What was your favourite era to be making music in?
I think always just whatever era I’m in at each moment. I mean, making music is my favourite thing to do in the world, so I think I would just wanna be most devoted to this moment. 

Do you have any favourite memory with your band?
Sometimes I can be a bad interviewee because I really don’t like to think about music very much. I just like to do it. Sometimes you have a show that seems to really matter a lot to the people that are there. If you play great, the conditions are good, and it gives your life some very pointed meaning with no struggle — certainly that situation is the greatest. There’ll also be times in the studio where something is completely out of your hands and just the pieces fit together magically and you’re not moving or breathing or anything, the music is just happening. I mean, a lot of musicians say that it’s the best when you completely get out of the way of whatever the mystery of music is and it just occurs. There are particular songs that I remember very, very fondly, and this is gonna sound so ridiculous, but I never like to talk about them because I don’t want the other songs to feel jealous that I don’t like them as much.

That’s very considerate. It’s better then since most of my questions are not that much about music. I think this was literally my last one. If you were not doing what you are doing now, what do you think it would be?
I have a degree in social work and before I was making a living as a musician, I worked in social work as a preschool teacher. So I’d probably go back to do something in human services or probably something related to environmentalism. There was a while, maybe about 10 years ago when it seemed like the band was not gonna work out anymore. And I had to seriously start thinking about getting a job. And my mom worked at funeral homes for a long time. So I went to an orientation for a mortician’s university. So maybe I might do that. But also, I mean, I haven’t had a normal job in more than 20 years, so I don’t know, like who on earth would hire me?

I think that’s quite a diverse palette for a CV tbh. But if you were not bound by employment or capitalism, what would it be?
Oh, that’s a good question. I’m American, so everything I think about is bound by employment or capitalism. [laughs] I really have a hobby of drawing fruits and vegetables with noses and mouths and them fighting each other with swords and axes and spears. So I’d probably just do that all day. I started doing that using a lot of glitter glue. So I’d probably just get more invested in becoming an expert with using gold and silver and red and green glitter glue, I guess.

I would be really curious to see them. 

We’ll see, they’re kind of ridiculous.

I don’t even know if I should say this, but this reminded me of this picture I saw yesterday with the twin towers with big boobs and big lips and stuff. When you started speaking of vegetables with added details, my mind fully just departed in that way.
That kind of sums all that up in a horrible and incredibly accurate and funny way.

Do you have a favourite word in English?
This is so dumb and obvious, but probably the F word. It just means so many things and it sounds fantastic. It looks good on a page. I can’t think of any other word that is so useful and flexible and sounds as good in English.

I think that’s an appropriate answer.
You’re generous. What is yours?

Speaking of Berlin, my favourite German word is Schlampe. Rolls off the tongue beautifully.
That’s a good one! So fun. I don’t know any other curse words in German other than Durchfallgurgeln, which means diarrhoea gurgler.

That’s definitely a new one in my repertoire… Do you have any media recommendations or favourite books, movie directors?
I don’t know why it took me so long, but I recently got into the Romanian-German writer Herta Müller. It blew my fucking brains out. It is remarkable; at least the English translations I’m reading are totally remarkable. And there’s a French writer named Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, who wrote this book called Animalia, which might be the best thing I’ve read in decades. So strange. I don’t know, there’s so many approaches in it that I’ve never experienced before. It’s about a pig farm, but it’s the most remarkable book I may have ever read, in fact, about a pig farm. But those two writers are, I’ve been particularly obsessed with lately.

Added to Goodreads! How do you keep calm with all the insanity that’s currently unfolding?
Oh, who says that I’m keeping calm? Definitely not keeping calm. 

Then how are you coping or processing or existing in it?
Well, being a workaholic helps. It’s very corny, but I found it to be pretty useful: the old standby of literally taking a deep breath and realising that in this exact moment, there is nothing I can do about it. I do not have a good answer. Unfortunately, I think at this moment, nobody has a good answer, which is why all this shit’s happening. Yeah, I wish I had something encouraging to say. I don’t.

On a more neutral note, what are three things you love and three things you hate? And it can be anything.
I take love and hate both very seriously. So I want to give a good answer, but I guess I shouldn’t think that hard about it. I love, similar to discovering Herta Mueller, finding something new in art: music, film, any sort of human expression that blows my brains out making me realise there’s so much more for me to explore. It’s one of the best things about being a human for me. Silly, but I love going on a hike along the beach. (I grew up in California. I can’t get it out of my system.) And God, I love eating so much. It will literally bring me to tears at times if it’s particularly good. I don’t want to say the things that I hate because dealing with hate is something that I really struggle with. I will find myself literally shouting to God, please get this fucking person out of my brain because I cannot stop hating them. So I think I shouldn’t enumerate or dwell on things that I hate, of which the list is outrageously long, problematically long. I’m going to avoid that one. It’s already there. I don’t need to remind myself or you. That’s why if it was harder for me to think of something that I hated, then I could probably answer it. But because it’s probably so simple, the list is unfortunately so, sooo long that it makes me sad. 

What an anti-hate manifesto… A little final question: what are your dreams and fears for the times, the future, your life?
I think unfortunately my fears are what a lot of people’s fears are: a protracted and horrible, but upcoming Armageddon. For my dreams, I hope that I just have the opportunity to keep making records and have the opportunity to be nicer today than I was yesterday. And maybe see a beautiful flower along the way.