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Kurt Vile on using his words carefully – Metro US

Kurt Vile on using his words carefully

Thurston Moore isn’t feeling chatty right now, so Metro called on his opening act, Philly avant-garde rocker Kurt Vile, to shoot the breeze. Unlike the Sonic Youth frontman, Vile will play utterly solo, without his backing band, the Violators, refocusing his wonderful psychedelic songs. Might there be a chance for some intermingling of the talents of Moore and Vile, we wonder?

“We haven’t talked about playing together. So we probably won’t be,” says Vile, a cautious speaker, it seems.

“Mary Lattimore, who I’m good friends with, she plays in Thurston’s band now. She’s going to sit in with me almost definitely.”

Almost definitely (there goes that cautious thing again). “No, she will. She played on my new record. She will,” he insists.

That record, “Smoke Ring For My Halo,” brought neo-hippie Vile out of the underground experimental rock scene. He claims he’s a shy soul and growing up as one of 10 children means he isn’t desperate for company: “I’ve very much become a lone wolf,” he says.

This is the perfect constitution for an artist, in moderation. This short trek gives Vile a welcome break from prepping his next record: “I’ve been in and out of the studio in a laidback manner, piling up songs and thinking about when I’m going to more seriously go back in, in the spring, and leisurely, but more hard-core make the record.”

Vile doesn’t like deadlines, but says he does need them: “I get things done better with deadlines. This time I think I have enough breathing room, but knowing how it goes I’ll probably be frantically getting something in at deadline.”

Do not overthink!

Creativity can’t be rushed, Vile says, but knowing when enough is enough is the key: “If you’re sitting on one song for two months you’re doing too much. Sometimes you can get stuck in a rut and work on a song too long. It usually comes out worse because you’re overthinking it.”