On the time of this interview in August 2019, Tim Presley returns from afar: he has simply put an finish to a protracted habit to opioids. " I needed to be taught to stroll once more ", He explains. To make music, too. His newest album (I Have To Feed Larry’s Hawk, launched in January), which pulls on this expertise, is not like any of his earlier work.
It’s the apparent denier of an artist in perpetual mutation, who has not ceased to reinvent himself throughout an already lengthy profession of twenty years: from hardcore punk from the beginnings to the lo-fi psychedelia of White Fence (aka beneath which he has recorded a dozen discs since 2010 (two of which in collaboration with Ty Segall), passing via the experiments of The Wink, the one album he launched beneath his personal identify in 2016, or DRINKS, the duo he shaped with Welshman Cate Le Bon.
A multifaceted work imbued with class and sharp riffs, awkwardly scratched on a Jaguar – at all times the identical – carried very excessive. Virtually on the chest and just under that ageless mouth of Droopy topped with a light-weight fringe. As a tribute to the mod tradition and the 60s of its (many) idols: Ray Davis, David Bowie, Arthur Lee or Phil Could.
Tim Presley is like The Fall, the group of Mark E Smith, whom he joined within the mid-2000s: he's at all times completely different, he's at all times the identical.
"Larry's Hawk" is an album by Tim Presley's White Fence, you couldn't resolve?
Tim Presley: It began out as a joke. The final report I made was a Tim Presley album (The Wink). And I felt like this album, Larry’s Hawk, didn’t sound the identical means. The factor is, it doesn't seem like a White Fence album both. It’s a type of mixture of the 2. So right here we’re: "Tim Presley's White Fence"!
Musically, it is smart. Some songs could possibly be on a White Fence album and others on a Tim Presley album. However, in a means, it's a little bit unusual as a result of it's most likely your most private album …
TP: Utterly.
I heard that you simply didn't wish to report beneath your personal identify and that it was Cate Le Bon who pushed you to do it.
TP: Sure, she thought it was a good suggestion. I used to be shy, I didn't dare. She gave me the arrogance to do it.
You recorded this album when you had been preventing your drug habit. Do you contemplate music as a type of treatment?
TP: No, probably not. What saved me was the portray. I ended opioids in 2015. I used to be afraid that I’d now not be capable of write music. Actually scared. I grew to become a little bit depressed. I used to be fragile and weak … and I began to color. On a regular basis, all day. It was my remedy. It helped me get again to music, steadily. The collaborations I did at the moment, with Cate and with Ty (Segall), gave me confidence to redo an album on my own, solo.
What had been you drawing?
TP: The whole lot and something, it was completely free. That's the fantastic thing about artwork, for me: I don't plan something, I don't have a plan. I take a brush, some ink, and I paint all the pieces that involves my thoughts. As in a type of aware dream. Music is a little bit completely different: whenever you write a track, it’s important to take into consideration the chords you will use. There I wanted this simplicity, this freedom, to be inventive once more. As a result of, as I instructed you, I used to be very afraid of not with the ability to do this anymore once I stopped taking any such drug.
There may be nonetheless one thing very spontaneous in your music. Apart from, on The Wink, you might have a track referred to as "Kerouac". He labored a little bit like that too …
TP: You imply he received drunk? (laughs)
Sure ! However he was additionally spontaneous, he wrote what got here into his head. Is that an affect for you?
TP: Not essentially within the literary sense. However sure, we are able to say that.
You had been speaking about portray. You painted lots of the covers of your albums, however this one just isn’t a portray. What does it signify precisely?
TP: Ah, the clip artwork? I needed one thing quite simple. Just like the album. What you see on the quilt is an R and an X. In the US you see that on all pharmacies. It’s a logo.
You had been within the English countryside whenever you began engaged on this album. Earlier than that, you had composed a DRINKS album within the south of France with Cate. Did these locations affect you in any means?
TP: Within the south of France, we had been in a wonderful stone home with Cate. A type of navy citadel. There was no wifi, no TV. Nothing however nature. And I discover that this environment is felt on the album. The English countryside additionally radiates one thing very serene, very lovely. It made me consider the Kinks.
