LISTENING to Merchandise feels like walking into an old record shop – while dreaming. (The titles of two of their latest singles, Flower of Sex and Lonesome Sound, give you some idea of their brand of nostalgic dreaminess.) They’re a self-proclaimed “old band”, their music evoking the likes of The Smiths, Talk Talk and Scott Walker. Like these artists, what sets them apart is a distinctive vocal power: that of lead singer Carson Cox. Indeed, on any album Cox’s vocals veer between laconic and louche to heartbreakingly naïve. His is the swagger of a lead singer who is acutely aware of his own melancholy – and owns it.
Glass caught up with Cox during rehearsals for their tour for their soon-to-be-released album, A Corpse Wired For Sound.
Merchandise. Photograph: Drew Reynolds
It’s clear that your sound and vocal soundscapes change with each record – and your new album is sure to sound different still. Are you setting out to make music with a different feeling each time?
Completely. But it’s sort of natural to – it’s a reflection of the self. You get older, you look in the mirror, your face changes. We did the last record in a really live way and [for] this record, we wanted to do more with sound and sort of play with sounds, and play with whatever we could to mix conventional stuff with unconventional stuff. We used to be less subtle about it; we used to just have a vacuum cleaner going at the same time as the guitar. And this time we were trying to sculpt the sounds. And I wrote, like, thirty songs for this record and picked nine.
Well, you could do a triple album – Joanna Newsom did Have One On Me and Frank Sinatra did Trilogy: Past Present Future…
[laughs] I like that you’re comparing us to Frank Sinatra because he is one of my favourite singers, but I don’t think I’m up there with Frank yet. People don’t buy regular albums anymore, so I feel like selling a triple album would be very difficult – at least for us.
How do you see Merchandise’s place in the current music scene?
I have a really hard time getting into new stuff – by and large I feel like I can’t identify with most pop lyrics or song structures. I mean, we’re definitely an “old” band. I feel like people even listen to our new records like they’re old records.
I’m into really dense stuff, whether it’s records, literature or movies. There’s a huge part of the story of this record that is ambiguous and I think that people just won’t know – but I’m really into that; that’s exciting.
Merchandise. Photograph: Drew Reynolds
It’s often the way that the longest novels are actually the ones that give you the fewest answers. Think of Ulysses or any of the 1000-pager novels – you finish reading it like, I feel like I’ve grown as a person, but what was the story?
[laughs] Yeah. I’ve been reading The Soft Machine, the Burroughs book, and I was reading a bunch of J.G. Ballard shorts – I just love how cynical all that shit is. I feel like there’s a lot more fact and truth in those works than whatever stuff you read in the newspapers.
You were courted by several record labels but held out to be signed to 4AD – what did it mean for you to sign with that label in particular?
It was just crazy. I don’t think of us like [classic 4AD labelmates] Clan of Xymox or Xmal Deutschland – I don’t think we’re in that league where we signed and we’re “the sound” now.
A lot of classic stuff was pushing towards sounds from outside of the western world; Dead Can Dance being the best example. Looking towards Arab music and eastern scales, and pushing the boundary of music. Not just “dark” or “goth” music, but just pushing everything. So that was inspiring for us from the beginning when we signed with the label.
I would say there’s a lot of challenges with being more visible – I think it was easier when we were operating out of complete mystery! We weren’t accountable for anything. We really weren’t going to sign to anybody. The whole first year the labels asked us to put out records, we didn’t think it was real. I was just young and making music for free. I pretty much spent my whole life when I was younger going to pretty conventional venues, and then a solid eight years of just playing on the street or in a basement somewhere totally improper.
And you recently hit the big 3-0. Would you say your outlook on life has changed since you first started out?
I’m more interested in my own ideas now rather than others’ ideas. If I wanna go down a crazy rabbit hole, I’ll do it. I do think there’s such thing as wasting time artistically; I’ll get caught in really violent cycles, really violent thoughts. Stuff that’s just not productive. So now that I’m older, I’m sort of out of that.
When I was younger I had a typical idea that to be an artist I had to put myself through hell. With how weird the world is today, I’m not interested in spending time being negative, because there’s too much to be negative about.
I’m still a product of that; I still have those destructive impulses that, in a way, fuel a lot of the records that I’ve made. But I know that’s not where the root of my artistic side is – I’d said the root is in love and is in communicating with somebody. The root is a positive thing.
If you had a time machine and went back to Merchandise’s very first gig, what would you think?
I’d just be like … these guys are little nerds with bad hair. It’d be super fun because the first Merchandise show was at this place called Sound Idea, which was this punk rock record store outside of Tampa – that was the place that was most like home. It was the spiritual home of punk rock and hardcore in Florida. And even saying that, I feel like it doesn’t really describe how important it was, or how it was.
There was about one person or two people there, and it was all my best friends, so… Those were some of the best shows ever; we really didn’t have a care in the world. So that would be nice but I’d try not to be too sentimental. Because I’d have to bring the time machine back to the future and who knows what tomorrow’s gonna be like.
If you could eradicate one aspect of what it is to be a musician or to be in the music industry, what would it be? Just wipe it from the planet for everyone.
There’s so many things(!) If I had to pick one … can I just say capitalism? I feel like that’s a catch-all problem to get rid of in music. That’s a problematic answer, too … Commerce is just a big bummer to me. I see so many people with such good ideas – and I feel like money isn’t even the reason they can’t realise these ideas. I feel like you can actually do a lot with nothing; I’ve made a lot of records with nothing. It’s the fear and survival of being an artist or musician – it’s kept a lot of some of the best musicians I’ve known in day jobs.
Another thing is that independent music in the ‘80s and ‘90s versus today is super different. And if The Kinks were around today, I think they’d be struggling super hard. For a weird cerebral pop band, I think it’s pretty difficult now; it’s harder to get to that crowd. I think where we are now is like how it was in the ‘80s, where it’ll take about a decade for people to even hear the record we put out a decade ago.
And that’s not even being negative, that’s just being realistic! Why the fuck should they? We don’t put out music about making money or sex – or even when it’s about sex, it’s not about the commercial idea of sex or selling something sensational. It’s always rooted in some kind of despair.
If 3D is the next stage of cinema, what’s the next stage of music?
Smellable records would be cool. I think A Corpse Wired For Sound would probably smell like metal or tinny blood.
by Sophie Williams
Merchandise’s latest album, A Corpse Wired for Sound, comes out on September 23. The band is touring North America and Europe from September; check their website for tour dates.
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