“I never even think about composing…”

Jeffrey Lewis was raised in New York City and is a maker of comic books, tragi-comic folk narratives, and lysergic garage rock”; that’s what his biography states and it’s an apposite introduction which makes mine redundant really. Jeff is at the forefront of the Anti-Folk movement. No one knows what anti-folk is, but Jeff doesn’t either, so everything’s okay. He’s a genuinely interesting person and an honest, sharp songwriter. So far, he’s released four albums. And so I decided to interview him…

_Sorry to start with a kind of obvious question, but how do you approach writing a song?_

I’ve found that I can mess around on guitar and come up with nice guitar parts very easily, but it does not become ‘songwriting’ for me until I find a piece of paper and a pen and put down the guitar and get down to the ‘real’ work of trying to think up lyrics. Any guitar part can become a good song if the lyrics are good, so for me it’s the most important part. I never even think about ‘composing’ a melody.

_Who would you cite as your principal literary inspiration(s)?_

Do you mean authors? I suppose Modernist writers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, etc, people for whom there’s a lot of thought put into an underlying structure, a lot of creative trickery with form and content, I like that sort of thing. It also applies to comic book writer Alan Moore, really the only person to fully use a Modernist writing approach to comic books.

_If you could only continue doing one for the rest of your life, what would it be, drawing and writing comics or making music?_

I would have to pick making comic books, because songwriting for me just depends on inspiration, I don’t think it’s something you can get better and better at as you get older… but comic books have a lot of craft involved, and craft is something I can get better and better at with age.

_How difficult, or easy, is it to be in a band with your brother?_

Jack is my only sibling, he is five years younger than me. We always shared a room when we were growing up so we have always been pretty close although we fight a lot. When I started writing songs about ten years ago, he started learning bass and making up his own songs too; actually, the first tape of songs we recorded was almost all Jack’s songs, we recorded it in our bedroom to give to our mother as a present. Now he has his own band and lives far away from New York, but we still play together everytime we have a chance and I think playing together is when the two of us are sounding at our best. We can disagree a lot, the usual younger brother/older brother issues, but we get a lot of our best work done together.

_On those familial lines, what do your parents think of your music?_

They like it; they are fans of folk music, though they are probably a little mystified that I’ve actually been able to survive off this stuff that is probably not as well-played or well-sung as they would normally think ‘real’ music is. They come to our shows sometimes.

_How difficult is it to travel to foreign places and have to sleep on the floors of fans’ houses? Or could you not see yourself doing it any other way?_

At this point we do a combination of staying in people’s homes and the occasional hotel room. I do still think that the travel aspect is a lot more interesting when you meet people and stay in real homes – you really get more of a sense of where you are. It can be hard when people just want to hang out all night rather than let you sleep… or when there’s no real place to sleep and you end up on a kitchen floor…but it’s all part of the adventure!

_What’s next, a tour or a follow up to City and Eastern Songs (or 12 Crass Songs, I’m not sure what you consider your last Jeff Lewis release)?_

My new album is pretty much finished, I’ve just been touring so much in 2008 it’s been hard to finally get it done and get the art finished and all sent to the label…It’s all about 98% finished I think. There’s a scheduled release date for April at this point. And I think I probably won’t be touring until then, which is quite a change from this past year!

_Can I just ask, on a really indulgent note (these are all favourite artists of mine), what it was like to tour with Stephen Malkmus, Daniel Johnston (and on a side note – have you seen The Devil and Daniel Johnston?) and finally, the Fall?_

I didn’t tour with the Fall, just played one show (in London in 2004), but it was great. It was the debut of my ‘History of the Fall’ illustrated song. We didn’t meet Mark E. Smith but we met his wife and his mom. I also have not toured with Daniel Johnston, but I’ve done a few shows with him, the first time was in New York in 1999, not long after I had just started playing shows, so it was a huge thrill to suddenly be on a bill with one of my songwriting inspirations. He’s hard to talk to because he’s on so much medication, but we’ve talked about some comic book stuff, we went together to the Forbidden Planet comic store in Liverpool, he bought a huge pile of comics! I thought the movie about him was really good. I’ve sort of become friends with the director, Jeff Fuerzeig, he’s currently working on a movie about Tiny Tim, I think it’ll be amazing! Steven Malkmus and the Jicks were great fun to tour with, it was awesome to get to see them play all those shows, they are one of the best bands out there. I got to know them mostly through Gary from the Cribs who we’ve toured a lot with, he’s engaged to Joanna, the Jicks bassist. Also a couple years back I had played some shows with Quasi, which is the current Jicks drummer, Janet Weiss’s band. She is an incredible drummer! Joanna is in Quasi too, I just did a show with them here in New York last week.

_As a film and literature student, I’m duty bound to ask this, what’s your favourite film?_

I can’t quite say I have a favourite film, though Evil Dead 2 has been one of my favorites most of my life…Street Trash also…I just saw Waltz With Bashir the other night, I thought that was maybe the best new movie I saw all year.

_And considering it’s just passed, how did you celebrate Christmas? And (as I’m writing this it’s not occurred quite yet) how will you celebrate New Year’s?_

New Year’s I’ll hang out with some friends at a house where we’ll also play a little show, for Christmas my Jewish family all gather at my mom’s sister’s house in the Bronx for the day. Lots of eating.

_Just as a bit of finishing guff, most anticipated album of 2009? And what’s your favourite album of all time?_

I don’t know what albums are coming out in 2009 except for mine, but I’m definitely really anticipating mine! Favourite albums of all time is a big list but it would include For Little Ones by Donovan, Dragnet by the Fall, Don’t Be Scared by Daniel Johnston, and lots of others.