“I was super psychic,” says Kurt Weil, bouncing his legs as he lands on the edge of an orange chair. “Just grateful for the concert.” The singer and songwriter speaks from the basement of his century-old home in Philadelphia, relaxing in a corner of the studio he designed for himself as a hiding place when overwhelmed or nervous. “I hadn’t played that long,” he explains.
Vile talks about the time in November 2020, when Seth Myers asked him to perform Speed of the Sound of Loneliness by John Prine in his talk show. This would be the first time anyone has performed live on the show in eight months due to the pandemic, and Vile enjoyed the challenge. Vile is a fan of Prine, as is Meyers, and this will also serve as a tribute: Prine had died of Covid seven months earlier.
But soon the dream became a nightmare. As Weil drove to New York, his back began to throb. In the TV studio, the make-up artist stood on the other side of the locker room door and told him how to apply blush. Moreover, Vile had decided to shift the tempo of the song from her usual trot to make it her own, speeding up some parts and slowing down others. However, as he rehearsed behind the scenes, he worried he was making a mistake. When the show aired the next day, Thanksgiving, his fears were confirmed. “People said I just slaughtered this song, that John was rolling in his grave. Weil laughs softly, leaning so far back in his chair that he almost disappears. “I felt disappointed in John Prine. I was playing in a spiral. “
That night, Weil escaped the Thanksgiving family celebrations and fell into an overwhelming spell of insecurity, playing guitar and overcoming his despair. As he lay down, he had written like exploding stones, a candid look at his own failures. The synthesizers relax as he jingles his strings, singing slowly for simpler times as he reflects on the worries of performance and the pressures of life in the eyes of society. “It was,” he says, “exorcism.”
“I have steaks and songs to play in arenas. And I like the idea of having songs in the pop charts of … Vile live in London in 2018. Photo: Antonio Olmos / The Observer
Vile – still skinny and with a fresh expression at 42, with a sense of boyish enthusiasm – has been specializing in carefree stoner jams for nearly two decades, full of melodic murmurs. Although written in the first person, his impenetrable songs have long felt resistant to ready-made interpretation, so the candor of Like Exploding Stones is a fundamental change. The slow-burning seven-minute song recorded while Weil’s band muffled the tape he made that night is the first single from (watch my moves), his first album in four years and his most personal to date.
This is also his debut on the big label, recorded in the home studio, which he built with money from Verve Records. It’s a bold departure from someone who spent his time as a teenager with a skateboarder wearing a Cate Le Bon T-shirt and T-shirt, with a shower in the basement full of skateboards and guitars. “I can be in the arena,” he says, like Willie Nelson or Bob Dylan. “I know I have abilities, steaks, songs. And I like the idea of having songs in the pop charts, connecting with people. I have these abilities. ”But can he do all this and keep his specialness while dealing with the worries that these opportunities may bring?
Vile talks about his music with intensity and is disappointed when his cool songs are seen as discarded: he believes his latest record, Bottle It In 2018, has been misunderstood and the complexity has been overlooked. “It was a deep album. I go so deep and work so hard. I want to blow my mind. ” He makes a loud, vile laugh, which is more like a howl. “I very rarely miss music that can be embarrassing, that I’m not proud of.”
Record-making became the reason for Vile’s existence soon after his father, obsessed with bluegrass, gave him a banjo for his 14th birthday. He missed college and moved from the suburbs of Philadelphia downtown, earning a living from various jobs while compiling tapes and recording War on Drugs with friends and roommates. Soon after their debut in 2008, Vile left these psychedelic core rockers and signed with Matador, his career booming when indie music entered the mainstream. When Matador asked him for a single after being there for more than five years, Vile wrote Pretty Pimpin. “I was trying to write a hit song,” he says, “and I did.” The song already has 92 million streams on Spotify. “I have touched this area enough to know that I can go there again. I want to do that with every song now, in different ways. ”
He struggles with his “ping-pong psyche”. Part of him longed for the stability at home that the pandemic offered
Vile felt like he was on a plateau in indie, where each new record was released like the last. “It’s always a small step,” says Weil, who avoids eye contact by staring at the floor until he reaches the point he likes, as he does now. “I put everything I have in all my records and in the end I’m exhausted. How many more times can I do this without trying something new? “
After Vile paid tribute to Velvet Underground at Universal Verve’s subsidiary, executives asked about his plans. Recently in his 40s and at the end of his deal with Matador, he decided it was time to jump in, not least because Verve’s extended family included Velvets, as well as Alice and John Coltrane. “I’ve always been a fraud, thinking about what’s next,” he said. “It was my chance to see what happened.”
On March 11, 2020, Weil met with longtime manager Reni Jaffe in Philadelphia to sign his new contract and celebrate. Later that evening, Donald Trump announced a travel ban in response to Covid. Despite Vile’s ambitions, this sudden break and cancellation of his upcoming tour brought a breath of relief. The musician has been struggling for years with what he calls the “psyche of ping pong”, thinking more about what lies ahead than what is happening now. Part of him longed for the stability at home that the pandemic offered.
Sitting in Philadelphia, Weil developed a routine, aided by the fact that he had stopped drinking the previous year (and smoked weed, more or less). He was in bed until 10 pm and got up until 7 am to drink coffee and read about music before recording until the evening. His daughters, Dolphin, nine, and Avilda, 11, studied upstairs with their mother, Susanne Lang, Weil’s wife of nearly 20 years. His world became smaller. “We have so many beautiful trees here,” he said. “I just started thinking about them.”
“Children and Flowers”… with his daughters on the cover of the new album
Vile used Verve’s funds to turn his basement into his dream studio, named OKV Central. The studio is a continuation of the already musical home of the Vile: in the room upstairs there is an organ and a piano, surrounded by books, records and sketches. Piles of albums and tapes are crowded in every corner of the basement, and the walls serve as sanctuaries for the bands Vile loves: Neil Young box sets, Dinosaur Jr set lists, ZZ Top tapes, Silver Jews notes. Vile picks up a photo of rapper Schoolly D and shines: “Philly pride!”
This continuum between work and home life is fueled by new songs that are confessed in a way that Vile rarely was. Despite his noise of success and fame, (watch how they move) is intimate and unguarded, evidence of domestic behavior from the pandemic era. “Write about what you see around you,” he sang to the beautiful Chazzy Don’t Mind. “Children and flowers / And days with hours.” Texts include toys on the windowsill, favorite stereo tiles, new growth in the old gardens. His brother Sam and his nephew Koda star in the video for Mount Airy Hill (Way Gone), while his daughters stand next to their father – hiding behind an alligator mask, of course – on the album cover.
Vile laments the world crises during Jesus on the phone, a charming number in the country. Playing guitar at home, he concludes, may be all he can do to help now. He agrees that this is his “homecoming” record, acknowledging that the next step – embarking on a tour to promote it – may not be easy.
“I’m finally coming to my senses here in the woods, making music myself,” he later said on the phone, three days after the band’s training. He slips out for the first time since rehearsals and adds, “But I’m really about to be brought back to these crazy times with all their worries.” As his voice fades, he notes that the weather is beautiful, though he doesn’t know if it will stay that way for long.
Kurt Weil (watch my moves) is already coming out on Verve / Virgin Music.
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