TRANSCRIPT - interview

Dory Previn has such a unique ability to verbalize the insecurity inherent in being a human in this world, along with all the need and hurt and joy. The openness and humor with which she lays bare the madness of her own life is unto her and her alone and it is such a shame that more people don't recognize her genius. You listen to her and you just feel understood, or at least I do.

This song just does it for me, I don't know what else to tell you. It's one of those songs that puts everything else in your life on mute when you hear it. You're in it with her. The world gets hazy.

I mean, Diamanda. She's unreal, she's fucking unreal. Her power genuinely must have come from Satan because I don't know anyone working who is as much of a fucking force as she is. People tell me she's an acquired taste but I don't understand how you could hear her and not be cowed by her presence. If she ever wanted to lead a cult, I'd be her first disciple.

Have you ever read the youtube comments on a Lewis video? It's so interesting, it is all these people trying to figure out he if he is a joke and complaining that you can't hear the lyrics but no one is just taking him at face value and saying fuck, I feel what he feesl. Because I think that really is his magic, that he can communicate the depth of his emotion without a single coherent word. He can transport you without saying anything you can dig your teeth into. Actually, his talent in that regard kind of terrifies me because I can't imagine being able to get anything across without words.

This is such a Los Angeles love song. I think anyone who knows actresses knows one or ten like Suzie Lightning. But I don't know, to me it feels like such a curio in Warren Zevon's catalogue. He never wrote anything else quite like it in terms of earnestness and simplicity. Just that little detail: "she only sleeps on planes" is so impressive to me. It says so much about the woman he is talking about but at the same time you're not quite sure what. Zevon and Previn are of a kind in my mind in terms of the lack of recognition their talent receives. When they have their day in the sun, I'll be the guy smoking in a cigarette in the corner bitching about how he liked them before they were cool.

I'm not sure anything confirms your status as an aging white man like viscerally relating to a National song but there it is. But really I've got them here because I am consistently impressed by their deceptive simplicity on this album. Simplifying Honeybear was such a fucking battle for me and this was a real inspiration. After High Violet it sounds so clean but it's so elegant and complicated and for my money, they've got the best fucking drummer in the game. Can we talk about that? Bryan Devendorf is so good and they use him so smartly. I might still be a drummer if I was in a band like that.