Music-Brad Meiltau: Liebeste and Fuck-You-All

In an old article about Elliott Smith it says that his songs are full of “losers, drinkers and ghosts that drive through life and crash”. With alleviation, Mr. Mehldau, who has read her autobiography, I might think that she and her life were meant in the early 1990s.

Hopefully I wasn’t that bad. But it is true that I went through difficult times at the time, had drug problems. In 1995 I started again in Los Angeles. It was a productive phase; I stopped the drugs and met my later wife. When I met Elliott, I noticed that he was still in this swamp. I could see that right away. Unfortunately, he never really came out of the dark.

Do you remember when you met Elliott Smith for the first time?

It must have been in the “Largo”, probably in 1996 or 1997. I was new to Los Angeles at the time and discovered this club. Elliott performed between others, sang three or four songs, which took maybe 20 minutes. He played his songs, some in the audience were moved to tears – and then he just went back. He was really very fragile, and he had such a special energy, completely self -contained. But he felt comfortable, it was a very productive time for him.

Did you talk?

Not really. There was a mutual appreciation, he knew my records and I told him how much I love his music. But we never built a real friendship, he was always very withdrawn.

Has his music accompanied her since then or did you rediscover her later?

I always heard his music. But then something happened. I had to struggle with depression again and again throughout my life, as Elliott probably probably. I was stable for a long time, but four years ago, maybe due to Corona, I had a severe depressive episode. I had to cancel everything for a year. When I came out of it, I heard Elliott’s music again – and had the feeling that I understand her even better now. On another level. At that moment I thought: Now I could really do something with it, now, at 54, the time is ripe. Let’s do this! Before something like that happens to me again (laughs)

Music is timeless – it moves us when we are 20, but also at older age.

Absolutely, this applies to all music: Schubert wrote with 17 some songs in which there is so much wisdom – how did he do it? Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix were also young, many jazz musicians … music works according to a different logic.

What is so special about Elliott Smith that you immediately recorded an entire cover album?

What makes many of his songs so beautiful are the harmonies. There is a deep harmony in the pieces that you shouldn’t simply “sweeten”. I wanted to strengthen her. I actually wanted to make the whole album with a band. But some songs called for orchestral accompaniment. I recorded others in a rockier setting with Chris Thile and Daniel Rossen, other solo piano.

Chris Thile is a well -known mandolinist, Daniel Rossen is a singer and guitarist of the experimental rock band Grizzly Bear. How did you get him?

I knew Grizzly Bear, but her albums didn’t really reach me. Then I heard Daniel’s solo albums – you can tell that he dealt with Elliott Smith. It sounds like that too! The guitar is very strange and he has this special finger picking; An almost aggressive way. Daniel said on the phone that he was more of the studio type and would hardly improvise. I didn’t know if that worked. He has something darker – Chris is rather open and happy, that was an exciting contrast. But it worked.

In the accompanying text of the album, they refer to Immanuel Kant and write from the contradiction between life and death. Both would dance together in Elliott Smith’s songs.

In aesthetics, Kant distinguishes between beauty and sublime. Beauty is what welcomes us, warm, motherly, life -affirming. The sublime, on the other hand, is dark, dangerous, associated with fear. And yet that attracts us, even in music. This game of beauty and sublime can be felt very much with Elliott. Or also at Radioheads Thom Yorke, many spoke to that in the 90s. Because you feel that he is on an abyss. This is also available in late Schubert sonatas, at Wagner’s “Liebeste”, just everywhere. There are people who need this dark. That has a universal attraction.

The title of the album, “Ride into the Sun”, also transports this ambiguity: there is a cowboy romance in it, but also something dark. How did you get it?

This is a quote from Elliott’s »Colorbars«. In the song he sings “everybody wants me to ride into the sun”. You don’t know, does he mean that ironically? Or defiant – is that actually a “fuck you all”? Is the sun a symbol of death that is approaching? I found this ambiguity exciting.

The song “Ride Into the Sun” is one of the few songs that have been composed by them. Why does it belong on the album?

It is my own topic. It appears in various places in the orchestra so that it looks like a cycle. I am influenced by western classical music. Whether Brahms or Beethoven, they have motifs that keep returning. They affect you over the entire duration one evening.

Chris Thile says about her that there is no one in which the path of a thought until the musical execution is so free.

How nice of him! I always had this ability to get into this flow state where ideas just flow. I had to work hard for other things, but it always felt easy for me. I recorded Bach and Fauré myself, but I’m never as relaxed as I improvised. Classic pianists like Víkingur ólafsson have the talent to internalize a piece and then play error -free in the highest concentration. I will never be able to do that. They are completely loose – and it is still perfect. I’m already a little jealous. But that’s not my talent.

Brad Mehldau: Ride into the Sun (Nonesuch)