“There isn’t all the baggage that comes with, ‘This is forever’.”
Jimmy Lavalle, Desertshore, Justin Broadrick, Ben Gibbard? Kozelek on collaborations…
“They do the music, I do the vocals. Jimmy [Lavalle, with whom he made 2013’s Perils From The Sea] and I recorded the entire album with only one phone conversation. It doesn’t get much easier than that. There was talk of him and I doing an EP, but he had a child since then, and you know how it is, he got busy with his things and I got busy with mine. But that guy made music that inspired me to sing at my very best. Maybe someday we’ll do it again.
“With Desertshore [the San Francisco instrumentalists who backed him on an eponymous 2013 set], I would just show up, listen to what they had recorded and write words and melodies on the spot. Easy stuff. When something is a side project, there isn’t all the baggage that comes with, ‘This is forever’. You’re just working on one thing to see how it all turns out.
“Ben [Gibbard, The Postal Service/Death Cab For Cutie frontman] and I will make some music someday, I’m sure. I don’t know how or when. Maybe him on drums, both of us singing and doing overdubs. He’s a great drummer. Justin Broadrick [The British avant-metal musician, best known for Godflesh] and I are working on something, as we can, here and there, as we’re both so fucking busy. It’s going to be something, though, that album. It’ll probably be released in 2016.”