News / / 07.08.13

Jeffrey Lewis

The NY folk figurehead and cartoonist explains why acoustic is the new punk

Jeffrey Lewis is spending Independence Day indoors. He’s working on the latest installment in his low-budget films series. It’s a biography of the great comic book artist Alan Moore, who has been one of his heroes and greatest influences since he started putting his illustrations on paper.

Lewis has been a prolific artist for years. He’s found the time to churn out dozens of brilliantly vivid comics alongside his musical output with bands The Rain and The Junkyard, becoming a definitive figure within the loose New York ‘anti-folk’ movement thanks to his deeply idiosyncratic acoustic narratives, delivered in a reluctant, nasal croak. And that’s partly because he does things like spend Independence Day indoors. The fact the sun is shining over Manhattan and he “might head over to a barbecue later” shows a commitment to his art far stronger than most of the uninspired indie rockers that permeate many facets of popular music today.

What really gives Jeffrey Lewis a few inches over his peers, though, is the fact he’s not afraid to be frank. He admits he wouldn’t consider himself overtly political as an artist, even though his opinions inevitably seep into his work from time to time. He has recently contributed to a collection of creative responses to the trial of Pussy Riot entitled Let’s Start A Pussy Riot, which was released through Rough Trade Books earlier this year. “I don’t remember when I heard first about the whole case” he attempts to recall, “must have been the same time everybody else in the world did. Maybe a year or so ago. I found it an immediately compelling story. There are people in Russia who are engaged against the current power structure. That could lead one to argue that the transfer to capitalism might not have been a good thing. That someone has managed to convey that through this colourful, over the top punk rock
is an incredible thing.” When it’s suggested that genuinely potent politically motivated songwriting is become an increasingly lost art, he agrees, arguing that while people might still care, “the quality has diminished. The idea that a song having good morals makes it strong is not true. Artistic quality has a lot to do with it. If people are making protest music and not getting noticed for it, it’s not so much that the sentiment of protest is dying, it’s that it’s not coming from the greatest artists. I think the public and the mainstream are numb to music that doesn’t interest them, regardless of what the content is.”

For his latest release Lewis has collaborated, for a second time, with oft ignored but highly influential folk rocker Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders on Hey Hey it’s … The Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel Band. The pair met in Brooklyn some years back and discovered a mutual interest in comic books – what else – and so decided to record and release some songs together. We’re a little confused as to whether the record is actually out or not, so ask Jeff to elaborate. “It’s out to the extent I’ve put it out myself ” he clarifies. “Nowadays the pros and cons of going through a label are completely different. In some ways you get more exposure, but then you end up splitting the licensing and you don’t have control over the manufacturing, so every time I wanted to print more I would have to go through the label at a substantial mark up. If I get it manufactured myself I can do it much cheaper for the audience than I could going through a label. CDs are like 15 dollars in stores but they cost two dollars to make.” It’s a refreshing sentiment, which makes so much sense when you consider today’s audience: mostly cash strapped, mostly young and mostly pissed off with the people at the top taking off with their hard earned wedge.

While Lewis’s forthcoming London date for Visions festival will be under his solo guise, there’s still a sense of intrigue around his bands The Rain and The Junkyard and the constant fluctuations of Lewis’s collaborative itch. “With The Rain,” he tells us, “I have a couple of new recordings which will be coming out shortly. With The Junkyard ensemble?” He pauses. “It’s hard to get work done with Jack [Lewis, Jeffrey’s brother and bassist] living in Oregon, I’m still living out East and the drummer Dave is still living in England, so it’s kind of impossible to write and record. I’m intending to work with them again in the future. But right now I’m planning to work with different musicians that are here in New York City.”

New York is, of course, a city with which Lewis has become intrinsically associated. Born and raised there, he took his tentative first steps in music by spending days at the East Village’s legendary SideWalk Cafe, playing open mic nights alongside contemporaries like The Moldy Peaches and Devendra Banhart. “Without the SideWalk” he tells us, “I probably would never have ended up making music at all.” The venue was, in many ways, the birthplace of the confusing, meandering genre referred to as anti-folk. “Through [being involved with the SideWalk] people were like ‘Oh, you’re part of the anti-folk scene’ and I’m like, ‘what’s anti-folk?’” he exclaims. “I kind of feel like I’m the only one who gets labelled with that, anyways. I don’t know if that description makes sense or not. There’s an underground acoustic scene around America. In a lot of ways acoustic has become the new punk. It’s more of a DIY approach, because it’s so much easier to set up a show when you’re not dealing with amplified equipment.

“You can have house shows and shows in thrift stores and wherever else,” he continues. “I feel a kinship for those bands, because they are people figuring out ways to make it work without having other people making it work for them. It kinda became more punk that punk itself.”

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Words: Billy Black

Jeffrey Lewis headlines The Brewhouse for Visions Festival on August 10th. For more information visit visionsfestival.com

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