Lambchop’s songs are filled with gentle, grandiose, soul, alt country and disco that wriggle straight into your soul and stay there. An art school graduate who spent years working in construction, Kurt Wagner has kept the creative bit between his teeth through 14 studio albums and continues to excitedly explore music. Lambchop’s latest critically acclaimed album, FLOTUS, was inspired by crunk, trap and Shabazz Palaces. Exciting times for this guy in his late 50’s whose voice is instantly recognisable. I spoke to Kurt ahead of their show at The Waterfront and we had a right laugh.
W
hy are you called Lambchop?
Ha ha! We were originally called Posterchild and there was a band called Posterchildren. We put out a split 7” of all things and apparently a lawyer had nothing better to do than to ask us to cease and desist. Rather than struggle than that we thought we’d change our name…to R.E.N. And then we realised we’d have the same problem! It got to the point where it was just getting stupid, and then one of the band members shouted out LAMBCHOP and we thought that’s good, no one will bother us with that name. You’ve lived in Nashville and Memphis, and you also spent some of your youth living in Sheffield. Do you feel like your music has been greatly touched by your environments and the music you’ve heard around you? Absolutely, particularly when I was living in Sheffield I was of
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that age when the music was really great, in the early 70s, I was just getting into buying records and watching TOTP, reading Soundz. It had a big impression on me at the time, and British music still does. It was a formative time for me in terms of the type of music I was getting into. I read that your latest album FLOTUS was inspired by your neighbour’s son and also your wife’s appetite for trap, electronica, crunk and hip hop amongst other genres – would you describe it as an experiment? I would like to think of it more as an exploration. Certainly as an artist and a writer, the music I hear in different environments has an effect on, like what we were talking about before. Te fact that this music had been around me for so many years just dawned on me. I like this stuff, I listen to it, maybe I should try to understand it a bit more. FLOTUS stands For Love Often Turns Us Still. What does that mean to you? I was trying to make a record that my wife would enjoy. We have had a long term relationship, and a good relationship evolves, it changes, it does all those things and you have to roll with it. You’re not the same people you were 24 years ago when you first met, and yet it can be enriching – sometimes change can be a great thing and love matures and becomes deeper. I believe you went to see Shabazz Palaces which had an influence on the album. What other acts are you into at present? Just recently I finally got to see Sleaford Mods live. Oh my god. I’ve been into them for quite a while but I’d never had the opportunity to see them living where I do. It’s just amazing, conceptually, everything they do is so honest and artistic and completely on the money. Plus it feels so natural. Te fact that they’re not young people makes me admire them even
more because as we get older and try to navigate our way through modern music it’s interesting to find your own place there. My first introduction to Lambchop was through How I Quit Smoking back in 96, around the same time as bands like Vic Chesnutt, Will Oldham, Tindersticks, Silver Jews and Songs Ohia were popular. Were you into those acts, that I would naturally put in the same basket as Lambchop? Oh, all of that for sure, absolutely. Essentially back then we became friends and acquaintances with most of the groups that you mentioned. We wanted to see how they developed as artists and how that related to what was going on with us. We’d all go about the process of being in a band and making music in a completely different way, and I found that really interesting as well. Tere was a crossover with recording with each other and it was a much smaller world back then. I can’t remember the last time you played in Norwich, or even if you have. Are you bringing your full band? We may not have, which is weird. What we’ve been doing is doing a lot of trio shows which is me, Tony on piano and Matt on bass, and that’s how we’ll be going about it on this tour. Te sound of this new record can be represented well in this way, it’s a pretty sparse sound anyway. It’s also nice when we go back to the older material in this way and it resonates a little louder through this more stripped down style.
LIZZ PAGE Read this interview in full online at
outlineonline.co.uk
INFORMATION Lambchop play the Waterfront on 14th August. Tickets available from
ueatickets.ticketabc.com
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