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Q&A: Yo La Tengo bassist speaks with The Kansan

By Alex Garrison

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

James McNew, bassist for Yo La Tengo, spoke with Jayplay in a phone interview last week. McNew joined the husband and wife duo of Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley in 1992 to form the band.

What: Yo La Tengo and Times New Viking

When: 9 p.m.

Where: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts St.

Tickets are $17 in advance from the Granada box office and Love Garden, 822 Massachusetts St., and $20 at the door

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Indie rock band Yo La Tengo recently released its 12th studio album, "Popular Songs." The group will be performing at the Granada on Tuesday.

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Yo La Tengo - You can have it all

“Popular Songs” is Yo La Tengo’s 12th album. After working with Ira and Georgia for so long, how do you keep going, keep things fresh?

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Yo La Tengo - Sugarcube

I wish I had an answer, but I don’t. And I think the fact that I don’t have a ready answer to that question we get asked a lot is the key. To have no answer to such a broad, obvious question — I’m all in favor of that. It’s really more fun to attribute it to magic.

Yo La Tengo is referred to as a so-called “indie super-group” — a popular underground band. How do you like this seemingly oxymoronic reputation?

It’s not as though we’re not happy when people like what we do. It’s awesome when that happens. We are well known in certain circles but, then again, we’re not known at all. It just kind of depends on who you’re talking to — with the staff at KJHK, we’re practically Lady Gaga, but with the people who work at the grocery store in my neighborhood, they don’t know who we are. So maybe that’s something to work for.

Yo La Tengo has been around a long time and garnered a lot of critical acclaim for each one of its albums. How do you find your music changing over time? Do you try to keep relevant to trends going on now?

We like to make music that’s kind of challenging to us and we like to move outward when we’re writing songs and playing songs, but we don’t try to keep up with other people. It’s fun and satisfying to work that way. The notion of reading blogs and music criticism under the guise of ‘What are people doing now? We have to do that, too.’ That just sounds like a nightmare. That doesn’t sound like any fun at all. I think I would rather work at the post office than have to do stuff like that to stay afloat in music. Because I don’t think there are too many postal blogs to keep you abreast of what younger postal workers are up to.

You’re known for having a great record collection and not only being influential to younger bands through your work but through your extensive cover versions of lesser-known bands. Do you try to educate people about music history through your work?

We like a lot of music, we play a lot of cover songs, but we don’t play them because we want people to know who the Urinals were, we play them because we love them. We love a lot of music and love a lot of records and we love making it, too. That’s really the driving force behind what keeps us together and keeps us going.

What’s your creative process for writing songs with Yo La Tengo?

All the songs come from playing together. None of us really sit at home and craft songs to teach to the others, we just get together and play. Music is an extension of our conversations and of our friendship. It feels natural. It’s more fun just to get together and play for the sake of playing. In a fancier way, we could say we experiment and improvise, but really, we just mess around.

Lawrence is the smallest city on your tour. Why come through?

We’ve been coming to Lawrence for pretty much the total history of the group. We’ve played at the Bottleneck for, good lord, a long time, and it’s part of my permanent touring memories. The first tour I ever did went through Lawrence and I knew about the city because of the embarrassment of that. It always seemed like, ‘Why wouldn’t we go to Lawrence?’ It seemed like a no-brainer.

Other than the musical history, what do you like most about Lawrence?

Love Garden, mostly. I think it’s one of the better record stores I’ve been to my whole life. There’s just been something about that place that makes me feel proud to have what we do sold there. There’s few record shops that make me feel that way, but Love Garden does.

What can we expect from your show tonight? Can you give us a preview?

Nope! I wouldn’t spoil the surprise. We’re psyched to be coming back. They’ll be new songs, they’ll be old songs, we’ll play for a long time. We’ve been on tour for a few months now and a lot of the things we’ve been working on have really come together well.

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