Xiu Xiu are special. They were the first band featured in our airplay when Kıyı Müzik’s radio began broadcasting in 2012. They continue to inspire and influence us, and their latest album, 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips, released on September 27, has already secured high spots on many year-end lists.
When we first chatted with the band’s founder Jamie Stewart, we were still in the midst of the pandemic. Since then, Stewart and his best friend/partner-in-crime Angela Seo have been joined by drummer David Kendrick, two new Xiu Xiu albums have been released -one very dark and experimental, the other their most pop-driven work to date-, and Stewart has embarked on a new life in Berlin. When I also moved to Berlin, the stars were aligned, and another interview became inevitable.
You can read our full conversation with Stewart, covering topics like Berlin, cinema, Twin Peaks, watermelon, and beyond, in the following interview.
Our second interview! It’s been three and a half years since the first one.
Jaime Stewart: Thanks for coming back. I appreciate it very much.
How was 2024 for you personally, and how was the tour?
Went by in kind of a blur. We’ve been absurdly busy. I’m amazed it’s already December. I don’t remember this year particularly well other than just being on tour, in the studio, or doing other music stuff the whole time, but I feel really fortunate to have the work to do.
I was at your Berlin show last month, and you were drinking something from a jar in between songs. What was that?
Oh, it’s just some herbal tea I always drink. My throat is always a wreck. So since we started, I always have to drink a little something between songs.
We are now living in the same city. I’m newer in Berlin than you, but we are still pretty much newcomers to the city. How has life here affected you so far?
It’s interesting. It’s a lot bigger change than I thought it would be. I’ve spent a lot of time here, and my bandmate Angela (Seo) used to live here. I thought that it would not be tremendously different, or that I wouldn’t feel all that different. But that’s such a dumb thing to say. Culturally, Berlin is an apple and my previous home Los Angeles is an orange. They’re totally, totally different cities. The things that I like about Berlin are the things that I hate about Los Angeles, and the things that I like about Los Angeles are the things that I hate about Berlin. I had to come to a very adult realization that it doesn’t really matter where you move. Every place has problems. You just have to make the best of it no matter where you are. It was a very silly, a very teenage assumption in my brain to think that it’d be this magic wand and my life would suddenly be totally great. It’s very different, which is good and I needed it to be different. But I still have a lot to learn. A really good friend of mine moved from LA to Prague about 10 years ago, and he said it took him about five years before it started to feel like home. So I have a couple of years to go, but I’m staying for sure. How’s it for you?
It’s going alright. I really feel what you’re saying there about the fact that we need some time adjusting to a new place, even though it’s a city that suits your vibe in theory and in some fields of practice. Obviously, you lived nearly the entire portion of your life in the USA, and now it’s a new country. Although I am younger than you, I still understand getting used to a new place after calling another one home for years.
Yeah, sure.
Just out of curiosity, do you have a favorite neighborhood?
I mean, they all mostly look the same. Either they’re cleaner or dirtier, but they all more or less look the same. But certainly, the feeling around them is different. I don’t think I have a single favorite. There are things that I like about particular neighborhoods a lot that other neighborhoods don’t have, but there’s not one that I’m like, “Oh, that’s the one for me!” or something like that. What about you?
I think I like Kreuzberg, Neukölln, and Wedding more because of their “underground culture” vibes.
Yeah, I get you. Wedding’s a little bit unraveled sometimes, which occasionally I think is interesting, and occasionally I’m just like, “F.ck, I don’t need to see this much trash!” I’m so tired of looking at trash, you know? But then I could just go to Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg or something if I need a break from the trash. It’s not so far away. It is nice that, in this city, when you just go two or three subway stops away, you can have a very different feeling.
Yeah. There are lots of Turkish people too, as you might have noticed.
Yeah. Which is nice. There’s not a lot of Turkish people in Los Angeles. It’s nice to see a different world happening around me.
The obvious reason why we are here right now is that Xiu Xiu recently released their new album, 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips. One of the comments I’ve seen on YouTube about this album reads: “I think we are witness Xiu Xiu’s happiest album.” While I’m not sure if you sound super happy in all of these songs, I definitely have the feeling that you were having a lot of fun actually making them. Is that true? What can you say about that whole process?
It was interesting. I certainly never expected to make a loud-riff-guitar record for Xiu Xiu, and I kind of hate to use this word, but it was fun to do it. I was surprised that it was this fun. I was like, “Oh, I never played anything like that before!” Doing something new is really enjoyable. I mean, not new in the world, but new for us. That’s an enjoyable part of making records. It also came together really quickly and pretty easily compared to the record before (Ignore Grief), which was really difficult to make. I think we’ve made it in just a couple of months. Normally we work on it pretty steadily over a couple of years. I think the muse was just going, “Here is a song, and here’s another song, here’s another song, here’s another song.” Because they were coming so quickly, I didn’t want to pay attention to that gift from space and just accept what it was, even though it was not what I expected. The album being this easy also made it enjoyable. There was very little struggle in this record. The lyrics came easily. The risk came easily. The person who mixed it, John Congleton, did a great job. He would send us a song, and we would either have no notes at all or one tiny thing. He just nailed it the entire time. Anytime you work on anything and it’s just being essentially handed to you, it makes the process enjoyable.
Were there any two specific songs on this record that stand out, one being the hardest and the other the easiest to make?
The hardest to make was probably the last one, “Pina, Coconut & Cherry”. It has an unusual structure and is probably the least normal song on the record. I mean, there’s still singing and a beat and everything, it’s not totally experimental, but it’s not from a verse, chorus, bridge type of origin. The lyrics on that one were difficult and the singing was a little rough, but it was still easier than a lot of other songs we’ve done in the past. It was the hardest song on this record, but still, by comparison, relatively easy compared to other things we’ve done.
The easiest one was probably “Common Loon”. It usually takes me a long time to come up with lyrics and melodies. They are magical things that happen very rarely to us. But I sat down on that one for ten minutes, and that part was done. It was just sitting there waiting for it. The guitar parts, which are really different kind of guitar parts than I had ever played, just kind of came out of nowhere. That one came together super, super quickly.
Do you dream often, and what do you dream about? Do you often have Lynchian dreams?
My dream life is bananas, especially in the last couple of years. I don’t know why. I’ve had a lot of recurring dreams since I was a child, but in the last couple of years I’ve received recurring dreams in addition to the ones I already had, and almost every single night. Just this incredibly bizarre, epic saga of things that I never think about. They’re very rarely related to my normal life. They’ll just be circumstances that would never consciously occur to me. Generally, they’re not nightmares, but they’re almost always kind of tense. I’m generally relieved to wake up and go, “OK, that’s just a dream, OK, thank goodness.” But yeah, my dream life is not relaxing me in any way. (laughs)
Do you think seeing those extreme things in your dreams ever inspires your music to a degree?
I tried, for a little bit, keeping a dream journal, trying to write them down as soon as I woke up, thinking maybe some cool imagery would pop up that could make its way into a song just for that very reason. But on tour, I was too tired and I didn’t do it, but I should probably start doing it again. It has not happened yet, but I’m certainly open to the idea of that practice and seeing what could happen.
Here is a funny question: There was a place in Berlin called The Black Lodge named after Twin Peaks. Have you ever been there?
I always wanted to go, but I never went there. But I certainly heard of it. Have you ever been there?
No. I just moved here and it’s been closed for months now. The reason I opened this topic up is, of course, that I want to talk about Twin Peaks with you again. So I’ll ask this: Do you have a favorite Twin Peaks character?
Man from Another Place, for sure, is my favorite. Who’s your favorite?
Mine is Albert.
Oh, that’s an interesting choice! Albert’s cool. I think Albert’s a little bit overlooked. Especially in the third season, his character really broadens. Oh, nice. I have to reconsider Albert a little more.
I recently saw that scene from the second season where he tells Sheriff Truman about his philosophy in life, got reminded of how much I love him.
Yeah, it’s great. It’s really cool. It’s funny that’s his philosophy, considering what a dick he is. That’s kind of my philosophy. I’m, I’m sort of crappy and I can be a total asshole, but I’m essentially a left-wing nonviolent pacifist, even though I’m kind of a dick. (laughs)
It’s cool to be like self-aware, recognizing your good and bad personality traits. I think that’s what makes us closer to being better people.
Yeah, if you can understand yourself, that’s sort of the first step to being a real human, I think.
That scene with Albert possibly encapsulates the whole Twin Peaks atmosphere in a great way. It’s moving, funny, weird, and profound. The thing is, I can use the same adjectives to describe Xiu Xiu’s music.
I mean, we’re massively, profoundly influenced by Twin Peaks. So any Xiu Xiu vibe that’s related to Twin Peaks is just us ripping Twin Peaks off. (laughs)
I remember you telling me in our last interview that you’re too influenced by David Lynch for him to be influenced by your music.
For sure, definitely. That makes sense.
What were your favorite films that you watched this year, do you think?
I’m really terrible at remembering titles. F.ck, give me two seconds.
So, The Zone of Interest I really liked, and also The Room Next Door. One thing I do totally love about Berlin is how seriously people take going to the movies here.
Yeah, I get you.
In LA, which is the movie capital of the world -aside from Mumbai-, you can easily go to a gigantic movie and there’ll be two people there. And that is for the movies that have only been out for a week. But in Berlin, a movie can be out for two months and the theater is still completely packed, you even on a Tuesday night or something like that, and they keep the old movie theaters in really good condition. There are also so many different types of movie theaters here, the East side movie theaters and the more modern West side ones. I still am always surprised every time I go to a movie, because I have to buy a ticket two days in advance, for something that’s been out for a long time. I think it makes me like the city and the people in it a little more.
On Instagram, I noticed a funny post by Angela: A compliation of photos of her with bananas that she keeps sending to her mom.
Yeah. (chuckles)
What’s your favorite fruit?
Watermelon for sure, which is also Angela’s favorite fruit. She likes bananas, but we’re both fairly obsessed with watermelon.
Your new drummer, David Kendrick, was in another band called Live Nude Physics years back, which you were also a member of when you were a teenager. What can you tell about that time and how your friendship with David developed from there?
It was interesting. I was a kid and everybody in that band was adults, and they were incredibly accomplished. David played with Sparks, Devo, his band Gleaming Spiers, and a bunch of other people. The singer in that band was Geza X, who produced the Germs, Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag. He had another really interesting band called the Mommymen. The other singer was Josie Cotton. She had a big new wave hit in the 80’s. The guitar player was Kenny Lyon, he was astonishingly talented and played with everybody you could think of. Paul Roessler played keyboard, he was in The Screamers and they had done all this stuff. I have no idea why or how I got in that band. I was just this very f.cking obnoxious teenager. They thought it was funny, I guess. Anyway, I learned a lot from all of them. I’m sure I would not be doing Xiu Xiu if I had not been in that band. I was going in a completely different direction musically and they were all generally pretty nice to me. I’m sure I was super irritating. I know that I was a very obnoxious teenager.
So I played with David for a couple of years as a kid, and then I moved away from LA and didn’t see him for decades. I moved back to LA, and just completely by chance, I was doing some installation thing at an art gallery, and he happened to be there. I saw him. I hadn’t seen him in I don’t even know how long. He was particularly nice to me even then. (This was right before the pandemic.) I knew his wife and I really liked her a lot too. I just started going over to his house. It was the same house that he had when I was a kid. We went over there for dinner a couple of times and we got to be friends again. He said, “Hey, you know, if you’re doing any recording, just let me know.” He played in a few songs on OH NO. Then the pandemic happened, and we stayed in touch and still talked. He said he was just dying to play. So when it seemed like maybe we could do a little recording, he came over and we worked on Ignore Grief a little bit. He did a great job, and I asked him if he wanted to join Xiu Xiu fulltime. He said he was interested, and we started touring. It’s a funny arc.
Amazing story. Obviously, you were a teenager when you were in Live Nude Physchics, so that’s maybe why he forgave you for your obnoxious behavior.
I’m sure. Totally.
Also, I really could see that he blended in well with the group’s live dynamic during your concert.
Yeah. He works very hard. He’s cool to play with.
I think the muse was just going, “Here is a song, and here’s another song, here’s another song, here’s another song.” Because they were coming so quickly, I didn’t want to pay attention to that gift from space and just accept what it was, even though it was not what I expected.
Jaime Stewart
Fort his next question, I want you to check your streaming platform’s search history and tell me what the last three songs are.
I was at the gym, so I’m sure it’s going to be a Top 40 Hip-hop playlist. Hold on one second. (checks his phone)
OK, I will say also that I only just started streaming music about two months ago. I just figured that we lost. (laughs) Streaming is what’s happening. I submit, you motherf.ckers won.
The last three were “Rookie of the Year” by Moneybagg Yo, “One of wun” by Gunna, and “Patty Cake” by Quavo and Takeoff. I was lifting weights. Then I realized I was running late and I had to leave.
I realized that, apart from going to cinemas and art events, everyone here is also going to gyms. I should start too.
Yeah. I wish I had started when I was younger.
As a closing sentiment, I would like to remind all readers that Xiu Xiu is playing a show in Istanbul at Blind on January 28, and we will be performing an opening DJ set as Kıyı Müzik. I won’t be able to be there personally because the date conflicts with my Master’s semester in Berlin, but I am still very happy that this is happening. So my final question goes: what would you like to say about that upcoming concert?
Yeah! I’m incredibly excited about it. The last time we played in Istanbul was a Twin Peaks show and I was happy with that set, but the time before was the worst Xiu Xiu lineup that ever was. So I’m really embarrassed about that show. So I’m really looking forward to playing. I think this lineup sounds great. I really love playing with Angela and David. I’m looking forward to playing in Istanbul and not sucking. (laughs)
You will not suck, don’t worry.
It’s one of the most magnificent cities out there, you know? I don’t need to tell you about it. One of the most special places in the entire Earth. I wish I could spend more time there. I should. It’s very close. I keep forgetting it’s a short flight. I gotta spend more time there.
You can check out Xiu Xiu’s Bandcamp page here.
