Thursday, October 25, 2007

New Interview: Timothy Smith of Parata

By Erin Rice

One thing you don’t have to worry about when talking with Timothy Smith is him blowing the proverbial smoke up your ass. The Parata frontman and songwriter has very clear opinions on the state of current music and popular culture and is not scared to share them in detail. Of course, if you have listened to his music previously, this realization should not surprise you.

A Grapevine High School grad (like Eric Michener of Fishboy and Bryce Avery of The Rocket Summer), Smith would trek out to shows in Dallas and Denton when he was younger, to which he partially credits his current attraction to music as an art form. After a lengthy process of putting together Parata’s album, Heads! Heads! Heads!, he will be celebrating its release Thursday night at Rubber Gloves, the same venue he witnessed one of his earliest influences, Modest Mouse, eight years ago. Smith stopped by the Pegasus News offices earlier this week to talk about the new album and what influences him, but more prominently, his views on popular music and the state of what he deems an art form that’s currently lacking substance.

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An apropos album cover for Heads! Heads! Heads!

Pegasus News: What are some of the influences that have gone into your songwriting and creating this album?

Timothy Smith: A lot of pop - not mainstream - presented in a band format, like the Pixies. The Beatles have become an influence more recently, but I really can’t say they influenced me early or were formative. Early Modest Mouse and the early Paper Chase, but I guess that’s kind of biased because I’m friends with John [Congleton] now. Early Weezer; the second Weezer album just kind of blew me out of the water. That was a big departing point.

I’m really influenced by horror movies. As an art form, whether they are good or bad they kind of - there are not really any scary ones anymore, and maybe it’s because I’m getting older – but when I was really young, horror movies would just take you somewhere and put you in a completely magical situation where anything is possible. You’re left reeling, as a kid, by the possibilities.

All art is really magical in terms of what it can do to you. Do you ever just get washed in chills when you are hearing something really crucial? What are the chills? What are they there for? When I’m writing, if I don’t get the chills, it’s not worth it.

The circumstances [in horror movies] are just so outlandish that they take you to the edge of reason. If it can get you to suspend your disbelief, then it can speak to you. That’s something that is so important in music that people aren’t doing anymore. I suppose everyone is influenced by stuff when they were young, but for me it was horror movies.

Particularly for this album, I was paying a lot of attention to Matthew Barney (Bjork’s husband). He did a series of films called the Cremaster Cycle… the cremaster muscle is the muscle that raises and lowers the testicles from the abdomen of males, and each [film] is a different stage in descension. All these visceral ideas are woven together with elements of his own life that create this tapestry of life’s story. You can’t buy them anywhere, but I’ve bought a lot of books and I’ve studied him.

Cremaster Cycle 3; guggenheim.org

What kind of music do you think you would make if this guy influenced you? Maybe something like "High Dollar Whore"?

His idea of art is interesting, really visceral. It takes little things that people don’t notice in society and blows them up disproportionately so people can see them; all the social conventions in society that people do but don’t really know why they do them. Not to go into too much detail, but his idea of art, his process of art really affect[ed] my take on things in terms of [making] this last record.

PN: You've mentioned that so many artists aren't saying anything with their music anymore. Are you?

TS: I can’t go very far without sounding self-inflated, but in daily life you come across these situations, or I do because I have maybe a dissociated point of view. I don’t always feel like a person dealing with other people. I know I did at one point, but I don’t get wrapped up into little emotional feelings, little shit, day to day. There’s all this weird stuff that goes on with people, and I feel like nobody pays attention to it, and it naturally goes into my art. What can be said? It has to be woven in cleverly, but it definitely has to be in there. What am I saying with it? I’m really disillusioned with popular culture and mass media , I feel like most of it has bottomed out, nothing is being said. But that’s a big inspiration, I feel like something has to be said. There’s too much complacency, especially with artists. I can’t say that I’m going to say much that means anything to anybody besides me, but I don’t feel much coming from anybody else.

PN: As you currently live in Denton, do you notice/feel like much of what is coming out of Denton is more experimental and independent, often with electronic influences? If so, why do you think this might be?

TS: It’s really weird. Denton has this whole shut off little thing. There is a lot of that coming from there, like there’s a lot of rock coming from Dallas, but I don’t feel like any of it is doing anything important. I feel like all the stuff that comes out of Denton, even the cream of the crop, is kind of blasé. It’s style over substance. No real effort. They write a song and it’s on MySpace two days later. There’s no process. They wrote it in a day, put it on MySpace in two days, and then what? I don’t think they imbue their art with much magic unless they put an incredible amount of attention and time into it. What they are doing is experimental, but for the most part completely unaccessible, so what are people hearing and why are you doing it? I feel like you have to have a purpose with what you do, [but] a lot of their stuff, indie stuff and experimental stuff, is charged with a jerk-off mentality. "I’m just going to do this and look I’m getting my rocks off doing it.” Then when you ask them, "What are you doing with this? What are you trying to say?" they don’t really have an answer. It’s all about looking cool and playing cool and getting a good writeup…

PN: So then why do you make music?

TS: I always felt empty, just playing by the rules. This is the only thing that makes me feel like I’ve got something that nobody else can have. It’s differentiation. There are tons of things you can do that make you feel like everybody else There are really not too many you can do that make you feel the opposite.

PN: Is it your intention to continue forward, to become national? Or is this something you're just doing right now while you're in school?

TS: I’m finishing my degree right now, but only because I’m buying time. I feel driven. I don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s really weird for me to make projections at this point, but I feel like me and a couple of the guys I’m playing with right now are really charged with something that’s special. Without trying to sound pompous about it.

I would follow it as far as necessary to project whatever message, responsibly, that I have to. I don’t think that there are many bands that approach art in the mainstream in any responsible way, and those that do don’t provide any substance. It’s just really rare these days. Even the bands that do provide substance, they are getting worse than the bands that they were before. Even if they are the same band they were on the Indie circuit, just doing it because they were there to do it and not necessarily because there was any money coming in. I can’t say I know the influence of big money coming at what you do... but I don't really give a shit about that. I’m more concerned with creating something that’s special to me. Whatever else happens is whatever else.

(Talking about Sean Kirkpatrick, who will be playing at Parata's CD release and released his own CD last month...)

Sean Kirkpatrick played piano on the CD that’s coming out, and if I had some foresight I would have asked him to play with us just for that show. He’s all over the place. He’s incredible, his songs are incredible, his playing is just incredible. He’s such an unsung hero. [Certain publications] dislike him… it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It’s just politics. It’s got not place in art.

(After mentioning that he "practically [has another] double album" on top of the one being released on Thursday, I naturally asked...) PN: Double album?

TS: Yes, it’s not recorded yet, but I’m talking about starting in February with Congleton again; putting it together with the aim to be done by May. It’s by far so much further ahead than this album, and it’s just funny that the time lapse is so ridiculous that it’s only now coming out (he finished the album in 2005). I kinda feel like this effort that’s being released right now is pretty mediocre compared to what what’s going on with us right now in terms of writing and the songs I’m bringing to the table, so that’s what I’m really excited about.

PN: So does it worry or concern you at all that the current release is in your opinion, "behind?"

TS: On top of everything, I don’t care. I want people to hear it because it spoke to me. I’ve just heard it so many times now, I can’t get the feelings that I got when I was writing it. But I’m proud of it, so why would I not, why would I just be one of those artists that’s self deprecating and tries to shove it away and just hide it?

See more stories in:

• Arts > Popular Music > Electronica / Bitpop
• Arts > Popular Music > Experimental / Avante-Garde

Comments

Mike Orren Staff

Folks at We Shot JR didn't like some of the Denton talk here...

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8 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )