By Richard Langston

As featured in Phantom Billstickers Cafe Reader, Vol. 6 Winter 2015

Thirty-five years after forming his first band in Dunedin, New Zealand, Hamish Kilgour remains a creative force—drummer, percussionist, dreamer, creator, and friend to many.

He talked to Richard Langston about his first solo album, producing Chinese band Carsick Cars, and surviving 20 years of living and making music in New York.

Good to see you Hamish. Your solo album, how did that come about?

Yeah, good to see you. I recorded it over winter. I had a couple of songs to start off with, perhaps I should tell you how it came about. What happened is Tiny Ruins (Hollie Fullbrook) came over from New Zealand, she played here during CMJ (a music festival in New York, Oct 2013). She asked if I’d play percussion/drums with her and I did a bunch of shows with her. Ben Goldberg from Ba Da Bing Records who’s done stuff with the Dead C and The Renderers came to see us. At the end of our set he said I’m going to NZ and I’m going to do these lathe-cut singles, would you do one for me? and I said sure, I’ll do that.

At the end of playing with Tiny Ruins, I said let’s go in and record my couple of songs and we’ll record yours. What happened was I recorded two songs with her then she took off before she had a chance to play on my stuff. The stuff I did with her was really cool, two songs turned out really well.

I went back into the studio and recorded my two songs by myself. The format was, I’ve got this Martin acoustic guitar, lay down the track and the vocal, y’know the basis of the songs, and basically added various elements like dulcimer and stuff like that, and build it up. Gary Olson from Mad Scene played some keyboards.

I got really stoked about doing it, and I thought this is the opportunity to do an album, so I said to Ben would you finance an album and he said yeah. I’d go in each week with a couple of songs, I was forced to write, to create songs.

Were you writing at home?

Yeah, and then just taking them into the studio. Gary kind of collaborated and engineered it as well. Eventually I got some friends to play bass, marimba, glockenspiel and vibe song, extra instrumentation, but it’s pretty much, a lot of it’s myself, pretty minimal and stripped back.

How do you feel about it?

I feel pretty cool about it. David [Kilgour, his brother] thought it sounded like a step on from the Great Unwashed album; it’s got that sort of folky vibe, psychedelically. It’s sort of interesting to me because there’s probably something about me that probably embodies that a bit more than David. There’s a couple of rock numbers, but it’s got that folky-psychedelic thing.

Was it interesting for you to do? You’re such a great collaborator, you’ve collaborated with so many people, did you make any discoveries about you in terms of music?

Yeah. It’s really empowering because I guess when you strip it back to yourself it’s elemental so you’re just responsible for yourself and what you create and bring out. But even with a solo project I worked with Gary, he collaborated on the feel and the production. It come along when I was also doing a lot of solo sets, dealing with that challenge, it really tests you. I’d get on the subway with my guitar and my amplifier go off by myself to play a club with other bands. It makes you draw on something, pretty cool too because it makes you do things that you wouldn’t normally do.

Even though you’ve been up on stage a hell of a lot and have made a lot of music, being up there by yourself is still a real test?

It sure is. You’re dependent upon yourself, what you can do in that moment, what you can do with a song, improvisation or whatever.

But by the look on your face it’s been good…

Yeah, cos if you came back to play with other people you come back with a bit more self-strength.

You’re more aware of your particular voice and qualities…

Yeah, and also your limitations, what you’re capable of and what you’re not capable of, what you can do with those limitations. I guess I’m a bit of a primitivist, I like the raw essence of things, they have strength in themselves. I’ve always liked people like Daniel Johnston, pure sort of expression that comes out, it really fascinates me. I thought with the solo album it’s not just going to be a Skip Spence [Moby Grape founder who did one solo album then disappeared]. I’m trying to go for a two-header… Syd Barrett … I ’d like to do one more before I disappear off the face of the earth.

What’s the album called?

It’s called All of It and Nothing.

A good title.

A friend Mike Wolf, who worked for Flying Nun in the States here for a while, gave it to me. He’s always been a supporter of NZ music…

It’s surprising the number of people you meet in New York who are…

Yeah, there’s a lot who are into it. You find our stuff on jukeboxes here. It’s a funny thing The Clean are kinda well known in an undergroundy sort of way. I’ll be like working at the food co-op [in Brooklyn] or something, and I’ll get into a conversation with someone and they’ll turn out to be Clean fans or they know all about the Clean, it’s just really weird. The awareness amongst young people. We haven’t become extremely wealthy or rich through it (laughs).

You’ve become extremely cool…

Pretty funny (laughs). At times it’s nice when someone recognises you. 

I guess you’ve ended up where you were always going to end up, in the sense that the music always came first…

Yeah I guess so. One thing about never getting caught up in the machinations of the business, always being aware of it, it gives you longevity and maybe keeps the creative spark alive, the challenge of just wanting to do it for the love of it rather than getting caught up in the hoo-ha.

The first time that prospect reared its head…you did hit the charts from the outset (Tally Ho and Boodle Boodle Boodle)…you could’ve been…but I guess you were never going to be a commercial band…

I guess not, no. We didn’t do all the correct things, being in NZ too it was difficult at that time [early 80s] to think about trying to do things internationally. That didn’t come till later, till after it has filtered through…

Till after Vehicle, wasn’t that the one that caught another generation? That’s the one that seems to have made the impact overseas…only 28 minutes long too!

(Laughing) The Ramones used to only play 20-minute sets (laughs). I recently played in Brooklyn between three other acts, two solo artists got up and did their thing, they were very dramatic and trying to impress and did their whole routine, you kinda get it pretty quickly what they’re about, the idea of compacting something, rather than something that’s enjoyable.

I got up and I just played a seven minute piece, guitar improv piece, and people really listened and were quite accepting of me doing that, and I found that sort of fascinating. You kind of get worn out listening to a number of bands in a row, just the nature of New York, people either compact it down to give people something special …other people just go on and on…they should stop! (laughs) as soon as possible! (laughs).

It strikes me New York would be a great place to be for a creative person but it would be hard to survive here…

Yeah, it’s both that, just getting by paying the rent, one of most expensive cities in the world. It’s changed, it’s a lot less funky than it was, it’s been gentrified, but there are still people here who are cool and creative and they try and work with what they’ve got, within those limitations, good things still come out of it.

And you’ve worked with some other people, you’ve worked with a band from China, Carsick Cars…how did that happen?

I’d heard that some Chinese bands were into Flying Nun music, The Clean, New Zealand bands and this friend of mine from Brian Jonestown Massacre…

Anton?

Not Anton (laughs). I know about Anton. (laughs). I’ve hung out with that guy on occasion. In the back of the Bowery ballroom—a venue here—he was about to perform. I was alone with him in the room, he was stripped off to the waist getting ready to go onstage, this is when he was wilder, he’s smashing the tops off beers bottles, drinking out of the beer bottles, then drop kicking the beer bottles against the wall, fuckin’ crazy. One of his band members turned-up and he said Okay get into the fuckin’ band room, they were like a bunch of pirates, Anton was saying I wanna get outta here tomorrow, give me 200 dollars now, give me the money! I wanna get outta here, just crazy shit (laughs). Also he had, the guys he was hanging out with were Hells Angels, South American Hells Angels, they travelled up for the show, like these are friends of mine.

Who was the BJM guy who introduced you to Carsick Cars?

Rick Maymi who’s a friend of mine, he’d became friends with Carsick Cars a Beijing band and they’re big Clean fans and through him they contacted me and asked if I would produce their record. I was a bit freaked out about the idea of being a producer because I’m not a technical or engineering person, but I guess I’ve got a set of ears…

Pretty good pop instincts…

Yeah, trying to get a performance or whatever. We worked with a really good engineer. We just collaborated, made sure we got down good takes of the songs, good feels. They’re just really enthusiastic young kids who want to make great music, they’ve got really great musical taste, they’re open to anything and everything.

What’s really wild about China is that the only music that exists in China is post-Tiananmen Square, so they’re basically ingesting the whole history of rock’n’roll from that point on, they just devour everything. As I say they really like the NZ stuff and a lot of New York stuff from the punk period—Ramones, Suicide, No-Wave.

It’s just sort of fascinating meeting them and working with them, that cross-cultural thing and just the friendship. They came back and played and it felt like they were old buddies, they’ve asked us to come and play in China too which is a little scary. . .

Because of the politics…

Yeah, just the politics. I have a bit of Buddhist inclination and I don’t like what they’ve done in Tibet and all the political stuff that goes on in China, the repression. I don’t know…it could be a bit like coming to New York for the first time, it was rough, could be a bit disturbing…

So the politics might stop you going…

It seems like challenging to go there too, obviously the more people that go there and experience it and relating to the youth and what’s going on with the youth is kinda fascinating because they can articulate their ideas and protest through music, and also the bands are building scenes there, they’re going to cities they’ve never had bands play in before.

Have you worked with anyone else?

There’s talk of working with a band from the West Coast from Seattle but nothing’s eventuated yet…the offers haven’t come flooding in (laughs).

Are Americans jaded?

I haven’t been out on the road for a bit but The Clean always had a good experience y’know. I find people enthusiastic. Maybe it’s more of a struggle for younger bands…

Probably because the people who come to see The Clean have sought you out, they’re fans, and you don’t play that often that you could ever leave anyone jaded…

Right (laughs) could be that too yeah (laughs).

Have you ever played in Texas at South by Southwest?

I played down there with a band I played with in New York, then The Clean played there for a punk festival Chaos in Tejas which is no more. South by SW is a pretty horrible event jam-packed with bands, it’s like a hell zone. It’s just an overload of music in a short compacted amount of time. I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s like a sausage machine.

The best thing when I was there a few years ago, they had parties outside the main areas, they were quite cool, there was an old church where they had this event, an old hall…

You’ve always tried to avoid that machinery of the business, and that’s why you’ve lasted isn’t it?

Yeah I guess so, avoiding that idea of making it, recognition and buzz band stuff…yeah (laughs)…don’t like it much.

It’s about making the thing isn’t it? Which do you get more pleasure out of—if you can quantify it at all—creating the song or playing the song to an audience?

Ah, I think it’s a combination of the two, you create things to excite yourself to inspire yourself, but then you perform it too…it’s always different and I’m pretty terrible at listening to live recordings and thinking about how things change, how gigs change, how certain moments are fantastic and others are not always, looking for that thing that excites both in live recordings and recording when you listen back and think ah, in the moment when you really did something creative you got it down in a recording, but it’s the same thing live at times, you hit on things.

The Clean, I guess one of the things we’ve always had as a group, nothing is ever completely set down or nailed down completely, some of our structures… there’s room to extend, release, go off in different directions and change things around. We never really play things exactly the same all the time…

And that’s why is doesn’t get boring?

That’s why it doesn’t get boring, you’re always depending on your mood and where you’re at, the thing you’re going through…

One of the most amazing things I’ve seen is when you came back and played in New Zealand at Camp a Low Hum…where the audience invade the stage…I watched the You Tube clip and I thought, shit this band’s been playing music for thirty years and yet you can have a moment where the people are so excited they invade the stage and you keep playing …it looks joyful…

Yeah, that was really special because they’re kinda like the sons and daughters of our generation. You’re playing there, these old dudes bashing out these songs from our youth basically, but with the same energy, they’re sort of just picking up that, pretty damn cool…

You’re picking up on too…Bob [Scott, bass player] was hilariously still being Bob, David was like whoa!!!…and you were hammerin’…

(Laughs) We didn’t know that was going to happen, that’s the cool thing that spontaneous thing never really knowing what’s going to arise where or how, The Clean sort of specialise in that (laughs). There’s another good story…there’s a little bit of live footage of us playing at a place in Hamburg, Germany [in 2010] after playing with Pavement. My brother [David] and I were having a bit of tension on the tour, before the gig there was a certain amount of tension, we were a bit ratty.

So we play. I was kind of annoyed, I thought we didn’t play well and David played badly. I look back at the footage and what we did was cool, great y’know. David and I had this huge stand-up argument in front of all these Germans, the promoter (laughs), and these people. There was a guy who was sort of a sycophantic fan, he just disappeared, he thought this is really bad, the Kilgour brothers are going at it! (laughs). I said to David, right that’s it, I’m done, that’s the end of the tour, I’m going to get a train back to London. David said OK, I’m going to be on the train with you man! (laughs), like there’s no escape….

The intensity of brothers…

Yeah, we got through the tour and it was all right in the end.

(Much laughter).

That seems like a good place to stop, Hamish, thanks so much.

[Hamish showed me the way to the subway and he headed off on his bike].