Stephen Malkmus on Pavement’s legacy, the Jicks’ ‘metrosexual revolution’ and his favourite guitarist

I've occasionally read the comment sections on the Guardian online. I'm glad to control the narrative for a second instead of being swallowed up by Tory trolls. Thank you. Goodnight.

It does not annoy me. Maybe if people are calling out for them during the whole set, we would ask you to refrain from that so we could focus on the present moment, which is playing our album. But an encore is a time of just to mess around. There's supposed to be some different field to it, I think, a cover song or something unexpected. So as we started doing them, it's seemingly unexpected, but of course with the internet everyone knows what's coming. So really it's a little golden Easter egg we're throwing out at the end. And it's fun to play for the band, I think. At least, they tell me that. They can play anything, the Jicks. Like I've said, we might as well play our own songs and get the PRS. Ha ha.

I like Bert Jansch a lot, old folkie Scottish guy. Steve Gunn, a young gun. He's amazing.

Yeah, cos I know those guys. Around that time they came around some Pavement shows and Graham especially has always been open in digging Pavement. And mutual fanclub, cos I think he's cool. I think Damon's awesome at music, golden voice, golden boy, makes it look so easy to be like, in all the genres.

No, not really. Their first album, we played at that festival in Holland, it could be Pukkelpop, and they were on right before us in a tent, and on they went. And I thought they were playing so slow, and like, bar chord-y and lead, it sounded like, sawed, I had no idea that it was gonna take off like that. I've seen them three times since and the concerts were just atrocious. Their albums are good, I like their songs, I think they have beautiful songs. This everyman, Fred Perry, Beatles catchiness, I relate to it. But the shows, I couldn't believe the mediocrity. Maybe I caught them on an off night. Three times.

Once at my kid's school, there was an auction, and I auctioned my services and the dad showed up. He was like, just beginning. So he had his acoustic guitar and I wanted to give him something that sounded hard to play that wasn't. That's usually a good way to inspire somebody to wanna play. Like, it's not that hard, I can do it. So I taught him the chord to Purple Haze, his first minor seventh. And he couldn't play it.

Nothing behind it, it's right in front of you. It's from the era of cryptic Pavement, when that's the kind of lyrics I wrote. The music itself is straight ahead, I think. It's got a little bit of emo in it.

I never have considered to collaborate with him. When has he ever collaborated? Doesn't need it. He's awesome at what he does. I don't think I could add anything. It's a universe in and of itself. We don't need another universe where it's like, me and Bob. He's great.

Yeah, been there like four times. To me it's an institution. It is just a dance club and its great for that but it has an added - where I live in Portland, there's these places people visit like Voodoo Donuts, and actually the donuts are terrible, but people wait in line and it's something you do when you visit. It's something you should do in Berlin. Not every tourist should go to Berghain - you'll get turned away - but everyone reading this, you're all going to get in if you're not off your head. Great soundsystem. Really fun.

I wouldn't be the one to accuse anybody of imitation. Imitation is a pejorative, so it's like, how do you - inspiration, imitation, we're all in a hall of our heroes when we're playing music. Sometimes when I'm playing concerts, I actually embody, symbolically, I'll pretend I'm Keith Richards for a second when I do a song like that. I'm not me any more. It's like play acting. And even if I'm not embodying a specific person, just the images I have in my head are taken - they're not my images. The visions I see, I don't see myself. We're all doing that, it's no big deal. And it's an honour - the fact, more concretely, if anyone bothers to listen to you, it's an honour. And they're not making any money off it so I don't have to be jealous about that cos no one is.

Not lyrics. I mean, the concept of a book is a bullet that you have in your belt if things get really desperate. I know that there is a publishing house that would do that - like a memoir - but like I say, it's kind of a cyanide pill you have at the end. If you're a secret agent, you carry it in a little locket. What's my resistance to it? The work. Self-consciousness and how to develop your voice and not have it just be another one. Fear. Everything like that.

Yes. It's in the pipeline. Don't get your hopes up for major, major, major experimental, but you know, no guitar solos. It's different. It's amazing. Just gotta get that out there.

I don't think so. There was but I think the show just kinda got lost in the bittorrent universe of too much content and its averageness. It's just another show to be honest, no disrespect to everybody who all worked on it. But some things people take to and... I did see the show, when I was watching Better Call Saul, there's a show called Lot 49 or something that comes on right before, and I watched an episode of the show and it's basically Flaked done again with a slacker dude, Southern California climate. So the idea of Flaked was one that male screenwriters continue to fantasise about.

I feel kind of like lyrically, it's always lurking. And as I get older, for better or worse, it continues not only because you've painted a lot of the rooms already in a certain way and don't want to repeat yourself. The world continues, and lots of other avenues and people have taken what you did or bounced off it - they're not just listening to you - but in the field, lots has happened and it becomes tired, what you did in the past. It loses its glow. And combine that with my mind itself becoming - whatever's happened, I'm either more picky, or less, it just doesn't flow out. You have to dig harder. And beyond that, the times themselves - not only just history passing but the actual times of now, what works now is difficult, I think, to find a language that can connect or glows, at least to me. So all that leads to writer's block. If you think that, like I just said, how are you not gonna be, right?

You can even call cocaine "a tool" to keep you up for a good party night or something, but let's say marijuana, you listen with a different perspective to your music, I think it's useful. I think it's worth exploring to listen, to at least run your tracks through a stoner test. The proof's in the pudding. I know a lot of hip-hop is created completely baked, and the data is in - people love the stuff.