Interview

Kurt Vile, Philly's self-ordained "Constant Hitmaker," emerges from the City of Brotherly Love with his first proper full length after unleashing a bounty of folk pop nuggets under the apt billing Constant Hitmaker (Gulcher). That record began with the impeccable opener "Freeway," a road song so intuitive, deceptively simple, and instantly pleasing to the ear, it would have been AM gold in a past era. (PHOTO CREDIT: SHAWN BRACKBILL COURTESY OF MATADOR RECORDS)

"Freeway" led to a dream come true for the Philadelphia-born guitarist. Plucked by Matador Records on the heels of another notable signing–an obscure, distorted rock band called Sonic Youth–both are worthy of being celebrated as hallmarks of the label's 20^th anniversary renaissance. His latest album, Childish Prodigy, came out earlier this month and can be streamed in its entirety here.


ALEX SHERMAN: Do you get a lot of people asking if your name is made up?

KURT VILE: Yeah I do. People seem really insulted when they hear it's not. That other Kurt Weill doesn't even spell it the same way.

SHERMAN: It's kind of a beautiful pun.

VILE: Well, thanks. But like I said, it is my real name. And I always thought it was a good name. But then some people think it's too good, so it's bad. They think I'm making a bad joke.

SHERMAN: Maybe your parents were making the joke?

VILE: No! They didn't know anything about that guy until I was a kid and their friend told them they heard someone on the radio with my name.

SHERMAN: OK, so you're not a jokester. But you were a hitmaker and now you're a prodigy. Are you also maybe a little arrogant?

VILE: There's supposed to be humor in both of my album titles. I put out Constant Hitmaker on the tiniest label of all time, Gulcher. It is like a step above putting out a CD-R. But I try to write hit songs in my mind and calling the album that probably makes people pay more attention to it. But there's definitely supposed to be humor in it. I thought of the title for Childish Prodigy around the same time. I guess it's like a little challenge.

SHERMAN: You're being cheeky, but there are definitely hits here but they're not always instantly gratifying.

VILE: You mean like a grower?

SHERMAN: I guess you could call it a grower. I think what I'm saying is that a dirty production quality generally asks a listener to work a little harder to get to the essence of the song. It's not perfectly varnished for them.

VILE: Yeah, totally. But I feel like certain songs aren't as lo-fi as a lot of other recordings out there. Certain songs are kind of instant. It's hard to say on Childish Prodigy how many there are. People say it takes a few listens to notice more and more stuff. But you're right, that's why the title is kind of a challenge. I mean, I just try to make my music as good as possible. Some people will respect that and see the difference it offers. Certain songs do that, like "Freeway" or "Freak Train," which is so in your face right away.

SHERMAN: Are you married to that dirty sound? Would you ever want to you want to record an album that sounded like it was produced by Jeff Lynne, something that sounded super clean?

VILE: Yeah, definitely. The music just has to be good. It doesn't matter how it's recorded. You can overproduce something and that takes away from the song. I definitely plan to go into a studio. I've just recorded at home mainly because I didn't have the money, and then when I went into the studio with Jeff, it was still noisy and twisted. We were working pretty fast. It wasn't like we were spending weeks and weeks on a song or anything like that. Childish Prodigy is definitely a combination of different quality recordings. It's not really lo-fi, but it's just not mega hi-fi either.

SHERMAN: Do you think there's a danger in moving forward into something that sounds cleaner and better produced?

VILE: You just have to not lose track of the music. You can't worry about the production. Sometimes it might sound too good, so you screw with it a little bit. Sometimes it sounds super good and that's the way it should sound. But I'm not really the one to say it's supposed to sound twisted or lo-fi. There's a certain sound I go for, but I'm not really interested in it sounding one way or the other.

SHERMAN: Are you looking forward to touring the world with your band, The Violators?

VILE: Yeah, this is the first time we'll be doing that. Mainly we've just played New York and Philly. It's going to be all the original members, and once we get going we get really tight. It's exciting to think about how tight we are going to get after we're on the road for a month.


Kurt Vile and the Violators tour the U.S. and Europe this fall and will open for the reunited Big Star at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in November.