James Murphy is a comically difficult man to get in touch with.In early July, I was presented with the opportunity to talk to the former LCD Soundsystem frontman about the film he'd directed for Canon's Project Imaginat1On series, for which he'd been hand-picked by Ron Howard. Since then, he and I (he and one of his presumably many PR teams, rather) have played a dreadfully unsexy game of cat-and-mouse, scheduling close to a dozen time slots that came and went as weeks passed and seasons changed, making the interview feel like that unlikely birthday gift your friend keeps promising you, despite it being close to a year after your last birthday.But, to be fair, James Murphy does a lot—a lot more than what he used to do as part of LCD Soundsystem, it seems. Between DJ'ing, co-running DFA Records, directing movies for Canon, opening a sock and candy store in Brooklyn, and producing for Arcade Fire, it makes sense that his schedule is a lot less flexible than mine. When Murphy and I finally spoke on the phone earlier this week, though, he was as charming and affable as anyone can be, opening up his new short film Little Duck, the federal government shutdown, and being misconstrued in interviews.Noisey: Tell me about Little Duck.
James Murphy: It's a movie. Did you see it?No, I didn't see it yet.
Oh, that makes your job of coming up with pertinent questions very difficult, doesn't it?It does. (Laughs)
(Laughs) It's a movie that you haven't seen, that I did for Canon's Project Imaginat1On. It's 12 minutes.I've read that it's about a young man who's pulled from life in Manhattan back to his home in rural Japan.
That's still the blurb description, isn't it? I remember that passing my desk. It certainly is. (Pause) No, for me it's more of a character study. I just wanted to make a movie about people in awkward situations.You were given 10 photos to adapt into a film. How did you go about that—was it more of an abstract or concrete adaptation?
It depends on the pictures. Since the brief was to take inspiration from the pictures, I didn't want to come up with anything beforehand because I thought it would be kind of cheating. I kind of take those things really literally. So I looked at the pictures and the first time I looked at them, I was like, "I don't know what I'm going to do," then I came up with pretty much the entire idea, in fact an idea for a full-length movie if I wanted to. Some of them were quite literal, but I tried to pick pictures which were not heavily dramatic. I didn't pick stuff that was like a "traumatized person," you know what I mean? I was picking stuff that was situational. That led me to think about things and develop them. It was a fun experiment. It took the pressure off, because it wasn't like—what's the movie I want to make right now, above all other movies? Instead, it was just like—hat can I come up with right at this moment, looking at these pictures and doing exactly what I'm supposed to do?What kind of parallels do you see in directing films and producing albums?
It depends. I think directing films, for me, was a lot easier, because in film people have jobs. There are clear jobs. There's a producer, then there's like a DP, and people ask you questions. Like someone will say, "What pair of socks should the actor wear, these or these?" And you just point to a pair of socks, or you say, "No, I need a different kind of socks." But when I'm producing music, I'm around and no one is asking me anything, and I'm always just lost in my own head and there's always a big blank piece of paper. But [directing] is never a blank piece of paper, it's a multiple choice question most of the time. It's actually really refreshing. I felt like other people were helping the train get to the station, for lack of a better word. I'm not used to that. I tend to do everything alone, and I find it really frustrating. I do everything alone, or I do everything in a mad rush without really having any time to prepare.On the music side, I saw a piece about you producing a metal album with the Cavalera brothers. How did that came about?
All the stuff in that article is wildly overstated. Iggor [Cavalera] is an old friend of mine, and since he got into programming and doing a lot of different kinds of music, I was like, "Dude, it'd be really fun to just make an EP with your brother," where each one of you is allowed to overdub, and it's just really stripped-down, heavy stuff. It'd just be just for fun, because it'd be a great drum recording, a great guitar recording and not a lot of production. But that's just really a theoretical thing that we've been dying to try to find the time to do, partially because Iggor is like one of my favorite human beings on the planet, and because it would be fun to be in Brazil and work with them. It's not the big… I think someone was interviewing him about something totally else, and then took part of what he was saying and turned it into a whole thing.That happens.
Oh my god. The amount of apologetic e-mails that I've had to write to other bands because of things like that… like, "I didn't mean this!" It's a hazard of the trade.A little while ago, you DJ'd at Output, which is Williamsburg's first nightclub. What's it like for you to see those popping up in that area?
Um… I don't know. It was a really short cab ride. I haven't seen the other place yet, and I've only seen Output that one time. I'm ambivalent. I don't feel positively or negatively about it, really. (Laughs) I don't have a stance.What's going on with your store, House Of Good?
It's so far away. It's a boring answer. It's New York City construction, so it's like a year away. (Laughs) It's a boring answer. It's so far off that I just get really frustrated. Everything in this city takes a pretty long time.DFA celebrated 12 years this year. I spoke with one of its artists Sinkane this week and he mentioned that you're like a spiritual dad of DFA who you don't get to see too often. Is that your approach with the label?
Since he's been on DFA, we've never seen each other. We've never been in the same room. It's pathetic, because I'm never here, and he's not here. [Mars] is honestly one of my favorite records we've ever put out. It's certainly the record at the moment that gets played in the house the most often, and it has been for a while. I'm so stunned, and I had nothing to do with it. I was completely divorced from it. Jon Galkin found him and built that relationship, and signed him. And I got the record when it was done, which was super exciting for me because one of my favorite things is to just like hang out and then a record comes out on my label.And I think he has another one that's pretty much done.
Really? I will find out when Jon Galkin gives it to me. I'm super excited.Do you have a stance on the federal government shutdown?
Yes.What is it?
Well, I think it's a bit embarrassing, but I think at the moment, it could turn out to be a good thing, and not for any of the reasons why anybody wanted it to happen. It could be a good thing in that finally the Republican party is going to tire of their Tea Party contingent. It's just weakening them so much. It's crippling them as a party, and it's not able to provide the kind of balance that they're supposed to provide. Instead they have this irrational wing of people who don't understand ramifications of not paying off your international debts and stuff like that. Hopefully, it'll be a wake-up call, internally to the party, rather than Republicans vs. Democrats, which is incredibly boring and unproductive. It's sort of the way when the Democrats had to marginalize the super-extremist left, because it wasn't effective in actual government.On an unrelated but also-sad note, the New York City Opera also shut down earlier this week? Did you hear about that?
No, I didn't.Yeah, they filed for bankruptcy and shut down.
Whoa.Obviously you're not an opera musician, but it feels like a big deal.
That seems crazy. What was their funding before? What went wrong?Basically they were really in debt, and they were fundraising, but they didn't raise enough money for next season.
Oh… I wonder what it is. Like, what's the difference now? Like, 20 years ago, how were they economically? Were they running at a loss? I have to wonder what the mechanics of that are. Because the Met survives, but it's so endowed. I didn't know about this at all, which is kind of shocking, because I'm currently working with a former Met opera cellist. I didn't know about this at all, but it's very sad.-----Want more interviews with icons? We've talked to Lydia Lunch, Jacob Bannon, and Riff Raff.
Publicidad
James Murphy: It's a movie. Did you see it?No, I didn't see it yet.
Oh, that makes your job of coming up with pertinent questions very difficult, doesn't it?It does. (Laughs)
(Laughs) It's a movie that you haven't seen, that I did for Canon's Project Imaginat1On. It's 12 minutes.I've read that it's about a young man who's pulled from life in Manhattan back to his home in rural Japan.
That's still the blurb description, isn't it? I remember that passing my desk. It certainly is. (Pause) No, for me it's more of a character study. I just wanted to make a movie about people in awkward situations.You were given 10 photos to adapt into a film. How did you go about that—was it more of an abstract or concrete adaptation?
It depends on the pictures. Since the brief was to take inspiration from the pictures, I didn't want to come up with anything beforehand because I thought it would be kind of cheating. I kind of take those things really literally. So I looked at the pictures and the first time I looked at them, I was like, "I don't know what I'm going to do," then I came up with pretty much the entire idea, in fact an idea for a full-length movie if I wanted to. Some of them were quite literal, but I tried to pick pictures which were not heavily dramatic. I didn't pick stuff that was like a "traumatized person," you know what I mean? I was picking stuff that was situational. That led me to think about things and develop them. It was a fun experiment. It took the pressure off, because it wasn't like—what's the movie I want to make right now, above all other movies? Instead, it was just like—hat can I come up with right at this moment, looking at these pictures and doing exactly what I'm supposed to do?
Publicidad
It depends. I think directing films, for me, was a lot easier, because in film people have jobs. There are clear jobs. There's a producer, then there's like a DP, and people ask you questions. Like someone will say, "What pair of socks should the actor wear, these or these?" And you just point to a pair of socks, or you say, "No, I need a different kind of socks." But when I'm producing music, I'm around and no one is asking me anything, and I'm always just lost in my own head and there's always a big blank piece of paper. But [directing] is never a blank piece of paper, it's a multiple choice question most of the time. It's actually really refreshing. I felt like other people were helping the train get to the station, for lack of a better word. I'm not used to that. I tend to do everything alone, and I find it really frustrating. I do everything alone, or I do everything in a mad rush without really having any time to prepare.On the music side, I saw a piece about you producing a metal album with the Cavalera brothers. How did that came about?
All the stuff in that article is wildly overstated. Iggor [Cavalera] is an old friend of mine, and since he got into programming and doing a lot of different kinds of music, I was like, "Dude, it'd be really fun to just make an EP with your brother," where each one of you is allowed to overdub, and it's just really stripped-down, heavy stuff. It'd just be just for fun, because it'd be a great drum recording, a great guitar recording and not a lot of production. But that's just really a theoretical thing that we've been dying to try to find the time to do, partially because Iggor is like one of my favorite human beings on the planet, and because it would be fun to be in Brazil and work with them. It's not the big… I think someone was interviewing him about something totally else, and then took part of what he was saying and turned it into a whole thing.
Publicidad
Oh my god. The amount of apologetic e-mails that I've had to write to other bands because of things like that… like, "I didn't mean this!" It's a hazard of the trade.A little while ago, you DJ'd at Output, which is Williamsburg's first nightclub. What's it like for you to see those popping up in that area?
Um… I don't know. It was a really short cab ride. I haven't seen the other place yet, and I've only seen Output that one time. I'm ambivalent. I don't feel positively or negatively about it, really. (Laughs) I don't have a stance.What's going on with your store, House Of Good?
It's so far away. It's a boring answer. It's New York City construction, so it's like a year away. (Laughs) It's a boring answer. It's so far off that I just get really frustrated. Everything in this city takes a pretty long time.DFA celebrated 12 years this year. I spoke with one of its artists Sinkane this week and he mentioned that you're like a spiritual dad of DFA who you don't get to see too often. Is that your approach with the label?
Since he's been on DFA, we've never seen each other. We've never been in the same room. It's pathetic, because I'm never here, and he's not here. [Mars] is honestly one of my favorite records we've ever put out. It's certainly the record at the moment that gets played in the house the most often, and it has been for a while. I'm so stunned, and I had nothing to do with it. I was completely divorced from it. Jon Galkin found him and built that relationship, and signed him. And I got the record when it was done, which was super exciting for me because one of my favorite things is to just like hang out and then a record comes out on my label.
Publicidad
Really? I will find out when Jon Galkin gives it to me. I'm super excited.Do you have a stance on the federal government shutdown?
Yes.What is it?
Well, I think it's a bit embarrassing, but I think at the moment, it could turn out to be a good thing, and not for any of the reasons why anybody wanted it to happen. It could be a good thing in that finally the Republican party is going to tire of their Tea Party contingent. It's just weakening them so much. It's crippling them as a party, and it's not able to provide the kind of balance that they're supposed to provide. Instead they have this irrational wing of people who don't understand ramifications of not paying off your international debts and stuff like that. Hopefully, it'll be a wake-up call, internally to the party, rather than Republicans vs. Democrats, which is incredibly boring and unproductive. It's sort of the way when the Democrats had to marginalize the super-extremist left, because it wasn't effective in actual government.On an unrelated but also-sad note, the New York City Opera also shut down earlier this week? Did you hear about that?
No, I didn't.Yeah, they filed for bankruptcy and shut down.
Whoa.Obviously you're not an opera musician, but it feels like a big deal.
That seems crazy. What was their funding before? What went wrong?Basically they were really in debt, and they were fundraising, but they didn't raise enough money for next season.
Oh… I wonder what it is. Like, what's the difference now? Like, 20 years ago, how were they economically? Were they running at a loss? I have to wonder what the mechanics of that are. Because the Met survives, but it's so endowed. I didn't know about this at all, which is kind of shocking, because I'm currently working with a former Met opera cellist. I didn't know about this at all, but it's very sad.-----Want more interviews with icons? We've talked to Lydia Lunch, Jacob Bannon, and Riff Raff.