French electronic outfit Stereolab made a name for themselves on college radio in the early ‘90s with a sound too eclectic to pigeonhole. Since then, they have quietly risen to the status of indie veterans, having carved out their own niche with an impressive catalogue of records that combine harmonized ‘60s lounge pop and ‘70s krautrock rhythms.
Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier founded Stereolab in 1990 and have entertained an ever-changing lineup of musicians over the years. In 1996 they released their magnum opus, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, easily one of the most distinctive and influential pop records of the 1990s.
The band has faced more than its fair share of adversity. In Dec. 2002 vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mary Hansen was hit and killed by a truck while riding her bicycle. After mourning for several months, the band bounced back and in 2004 released Margarine Eclipse, a comeback record of which the band is extremely proud. Despite the record’s musical strength, it only sold around 40,000 copies, prompting Warner Music to drop them from the label. This didn’t stop Stereolab, and they have since released one retrospective compilation and are set to release another, Fab Four Suture, on March 7.
Looking ahead to their show at D.C.’s 9:30 Club on March 21, Stereolab’s co-founder Tim Gane recently contacted The Voice from Germany to talk about French politics, the loss of Mary Hansen and the media’s tendency to label the band as Marxist.
You guys have had quite a large cast of characters helping out with the band, most notably Jim O’Rourke and a couple guys from Tortoise, David Pajo and John McEntire. How do you think these collaborations have helped you evolve and grow as a band?
It’s really a collaboration. They’re not just recording us. I mean, getting to work with John, it’s really great to learn stuff from him. It was already a great period and the records really leaped forward a lot, and that’s mainly [due] to him. We never rehearse. We rehearse when we go on tour, but we don’t rehearse before going into the studio. So we’re being kind of open. It’s like all hands on deck and anyone can come in and try out new things. It’s a bit more interesting for someone like John than your basic “The Somethings” band who has all their songs rehearsed and they just want to bang it out.
Does this looser, more spontaneous approach to music translate into a live show with songs that vary from the studio versions?
They’re often very different. We don’t try to reproduce them in the sense of trying to get the sounds all exactly right, just to get the essence. And obviously live it’s a lot heavier and a lot faster. I think over the years people have preferred the versions we play live because they’re the versions where we really play together as a band, because when we record them we often don’t know what it’s going to sound like. I think a group of people playing live, spontaneously is one of the most exciting things you can see. It’s the combination of things which make it interesting.
I’ve heard that publications write you guys off as Marxist, but I read that Laetitia Sadier aligns herself with the French situationist movement.
[laughs] I don’t know. I don’t think so!
Could you clear that up?
I mean, neither of us or any of the band members has ever even read Marx. I never have been interested in Marx or anything like that. If you read some of the lyrics that are critical of some government or something that’s happened, people will say that. Once someone said [the lyrics] were Marxist, and it kind of stuck, you know? I think it’s sort of a stupid thing. It’s not true.
What’s your take on French politics at this moment?
It’s very, very bad at the moment. It’s quite stale. And also with the recent staff and the riots that happened in the suburbs, you’d think people would wake up to the fact that the government isn’t really doing anything to help the citizens of its country. It’s quite the opposite. It’s like, “Let’s blame the teenagers or the people who haven’t worked for 10 or 15 years.” The government is suffering from their failure to solve problems they should have solved over the last 30 years. They’ve tried to do silly, strange things to solve it. Things like revisiting their colonial past and saying you need to teach it like it was a good thing.
The band has obviously had to overcome a lot of adversity in the past. What does it say about the band that you guys are still together and making music after the death of Mary Hansen and after Warner Music dropped you guys from the label?
I think it really proves that we’re there so we don’t have to get jobs [laughs]. I think that’s the main thing. Some things don’t matter, like the fact that the label dropped us. It doesn’t make a difference to us. It’s just a circumstance. And obviously Mary’s death was a big impact and you question if you should [make music]. We never had a deep conversation about it. We gradually, over a few months, became really excited to do music. You have to follow this kind of intuition. I think that the record we did was a good one and was probably my favorite one to record. It was a bit of a release when we did it. And that’s good enough reason to continue making records.
