Originally from New Haven, CT, Quinn Walker has been rocking the music scene in New York for years now.  He recently released his first album, “Lion Land/Laughter’s an Asshole” on Voodoo-Eros and will be touring with Cocorosie and Rio en Medio this summer.  

Linnea Covington vs. Quinn Walker (in a delightful tea time chat)

Chief Magazine: You described your music as a mixture of everything like jazz, reggae, pop, rock…

Quinn Walker:    Yeah, just a little bit of everything infused.  Sometimes it’s not even a specific style of music.  I will just garnish a few of the sounds I see on the street. I would like to have more access to portable recorders.  I usually just stick a microphone out the window to see what I get.

I know you come up with a lot of albums, but how many have you actually done?

20 something, but only 12 to 15 that I can tolerate

Is that like you make them and then you get over them?

I make them and then just move on to a whole other project or revisit them if I play them live.  But a lot of stuff I am just like “God…was I really that guy once?  Why was I doing that?”

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So how old were you when you made your first album?

Probably 17, 18…maybe junior year.  I started doing Dictaphone recordings with my cousin Austin and my best friend George. We used to come up with spontaneous songs, and then pick the ones we liked and compiled them all to a tape.

Tapes…

Tapes, all tapes.  I think at 18 George and I purchased the digital 8-track that I still use to this day.  We went in on it together and I still owe him for half of it because he’s never used it.  But he said “Ah, just use it and record music and send it to me.”

You said that you started doing music when you were 3 or 4, with piano lessons on a Suzuki…

Yeah, I sort of dropped off the face of the map until I was probably 12 or so -- Austin and I.  My other cousin wrote us guitar scales and these compositions.  He taught us to play guitar at the same time and we became sort of infatuated with it.  We continued doing that.

Did you and Austin have a little kid band?

Actually yeah, we used to record songs about his dog and things like that on the keytar that we still use to this day for Suckers.  That was one of the initial instruments that he has and we used to toy around with it.  It has the demo song in it, “Last Christmas” by Wham! : Singing: ‘Last Christmas I gave you my heart…’ – we would use all the different sounds and then we found out that was actually a song.

So were your parents musicians?

There isn’t really any musical history in the family.

Then when you were younger you were just like “I want to make music?”

Well my cousin taught us guitar and he fiddles around and loves music and playing Dead songs, you know stuff like that.

I’m curious about how Bianca Casady found your CD…I read it rolled out from behind a bookshelf, is that true?

I am not sure. I have no idea.

Did you send it to them?

I never sent anything to them.  I used to leave CDs at venues and hand them out.  I used to be ambitious about getting my music out so people could hear it.  It felt that at some point somebody was going to like it enough to make it bigger then it was.  I had to get it out of my head and into my hands.

I feel more confident these days knowing people are more behind what I am doing and more interested.  I think that’s going to lead to better stuff.  A lot of the time, this sort of corrupts peoples imaginations and they tend to just fall prey to thinking ‘oh well people like me now so I can do anything.’ Above all else, I want to impress myself.  But, I do really enjoy impressing other people.  Especially people close to me.

What was it like to get signed by Voodoo-Eros?

It was wild.  I just felt I had being initiated into the up and coming -- the “now” art world.  I have always had a lot of appreciation for Cocorosie and what Voodoo-Eros does. I never assumed they would take the interest they did in my music.  I always felt that it was sort of for a smaller label or something.  

This is actually where they signed me – over there (points to the couches at the Roebling Tea House in Brooklyn.) They called me out to dinner and I showed up here and it was Melissa, Bianca and Sierra and they introduced me to the their friend Michel from Paris who turned out to be Michel Gondry who was in the process of recording their new album.  It didn’t strike me until later when they told me it was him and I was sort of awestruck.  We all went out to a gay bar afterwards and he would come out and join me while we smoked cigarettes.  I would give him my coat to keep him warm because he kept talking about how cold he was.

But really, it’s just open and free. The music belongs to me.  It was a handshake contract basically.  It’s just, “We are into what you are doing, we want to be a part of who you are, and we would like you to be a part of us.”  It’s kind of like gang initiation.

Did you have to beat someone up?

Well I had to go out to the gay bar with all of them afterwards.

That’s an initiation.  So you’re the first male that they have signed right?

Yeah. I am also the first person I think they have signed that had no connection to them.

This summer you toured in Paris with a fellow Voodoo-Eros band, Bunny Rabbit.  What was it like to play in Paris?

That was wild.  That was sort of my first big anything. I was really scatterbrained.   But it was incredible.  I was just there to play music and not having to pay my way and stuff. It felt like living the good life.

Did it ever hit that you were actually playing in Paris?

Yeah it kind of did. I was disappointed I didn’t get to the tourist attractions.  I would have really liked to see more, but I am sure I will be back.  I am planning on spending more time there and in Europe in general.  I want to see more instead of always the “fly-by-night” playing shows.

I would say you’re one of best multi-taskers I have ever seen.  When I saw you at your CD release party you had one foot on a tambourine, the other on some peddles, strumming a guitar, banging on a drum and singing…do you do this for all your music?

Well I never practice it.  That’s not how I record at all; I just have been in a sort of rush for a solo show. I never make it the same. I just kind of do that on a whim without knowing exactly how that’s going to turn out with the keyboards, samples, loops and guitars at the same time. It’s really difficult actually – really annoying. I think I am going to minimize a little bit and do a couple things like that but then stick more to the task of getting a song across instead of musicianship and multi-tasking across.

It is hard to hear your lyrics when you play live.  On the album your voice is clear and you can hear the words.  I noticed that some of your music also has a little bit of a political twist.

Occasionally, yeah, but usually just when I’m pissed.

Pissed at...

The state of things, or people, or myself, or whatever.  That’s usually when my protest side comes out.  Though, I am almost completely opposed to protest songs in general because I find them to be bull-shitty and self-righteous.  One thing I really detest is self-righteousness.

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I was listening to the song “Plenty of Water for Mud” and I realized one of the lyrics cleverly changed to “plenty of oil for blood.”  It was neat; you didn’t hear it right away.  I had to listen to it a few times.

Yeah, but it was sort of like stating the obvious.  Not obvious in the song.  I feel if you are going to rail against something then it’s best to stick to the task at hand and make it about what you are saying and not come up with all these metaphors for, you know, not liking the president or the state of the economy or people’s behaviors in certain groups and certain sects.

So you are never going to play a show draped in an American flag?

I might, as a joke.  My American pride is more on the amusing side and has come more from the music, art and culture that has come from America.

Why did you only play one of your songs at the CD release party?

Because I am sick of them. I just prefer to play as a band. It’s bigger and it seems more extravagant.

How could you be sick of them?  

Those two albums are fresh to everyone except me and my immediate friends because I recorded all that stuff in 2006.  And Voodoo-Eros didn’t come across it till 2007 or so.

If you could, would you make music for a living?  Be a rock star?

Yeah I would.  But I wouldn’t consider myself a rock star, no.  I mean I would just continue doing it the way I am doing it now but with playing out more, more publicity.  These would be the only things that would differentiate from how it goes now.

There are a lot of levels to your music that you can’t really hear live.  I noticed some bings and almost like, well I heard a sound and I thought it was happening in my house but then it would repeat and finally end.  Then I realized it was part of the song.

I trick myself into that too.  I initially do it to myself and then fool myself that my cell phone is going off or someone is opening the door.  I use anything to my disposal, doors opening and closing, shoveling, and walking as the percussive instruments.  

Do you record the sounds in layers?

I do record in layers.  Sometimes, the one-man band thing, I used to do as much as possible in the same time and record it all in a tape.  I just became more and more used to putting down one thing, constructing it so it sounds the best.  A lot of time I will record one instrument and vocals at the same time.  The rest of the time I usually do everything separately so you have more distinction in panning effects and keeping things separated.

And you do most of it in your bedroom…

I do.  I need a lot of privacy when I do stuff.  I like privacy most of the time.  I have been doing some stuff at the practice space – drums, loud things.

I think I am deafening myself listening to loud music and using my headphones.  I exclusively mix down albums in headphones a lot of times because I don’t have access to speakers.  So I will do everything in there and find out when it’s already in the hands of other people.  Outside of the ears.

One thing that intrigued me was your desire to keep Suckers going now that you have signed a solo deal.

I want Suckers to be recognized for what we are doing. I enjoy the process of writing songs with other people who I really approve of and admire as their own individual musicians.  It’s just more enjoyable because I know what I am capable of for the most part.  It’s fun to have your friends around and make a bigger, more grandiose sound then what you have.  We are all our little one-man bands.

Do the others have side projects?

Austin does, he has recorded music forever but never showed it to anybody but me for the most part.  He just finally made his own myspace page and put his music up – finally.  And it’s getting a lot of good response.  

What Pan does, I want him to incorporate more Sucofindo stuff into what we do.  I would like to record an instrumental song here and there.  I like a lot of variety and I constantly need a lot of variety.  

Brian writes stuff too.  It’s very pop oriented stuff.  

Didn’t you an Austin have a band together called “Cousins” or something….

Cousins and Friends, yeah.  That came about 2000 or so.  We just decided to call it a corny appropriate name.  We wrote spoofs on our friends.  There is a lot of material for it but it has never been recorded.
 
The songs would make fun of our friends, their nicknames, what they did.  Then we would play them and make them uncomfortable.

Maybe you should play some of those songs since so many of your friends go to your shows.

Yeah, well we just recently came up with spur of the moment lyrics for a song we were doing so we decided to sing “little did you know this one time Wayne and Cameron kissed.”  And we just sang it over and over again and they turned to each other with a look of “what the fuck is going on.”  

It isn’t true at all. But it’s really hilarious to imagine that it is or that other people would believe that.

Well you have some themes; I noticed that a few of your songs talk about porcupines.

I just used it in one thing and then revisited in something else.  I have been around animals all my life.  They play more of a role and one of my favorite places to go is the zoo.

When you were a kid or now?

Then and still.  

So what’s your favorite animal?

I don’t have one. I kind of like them all.  But I could sit there and play with the baboons forever.  

Have you actually played with one?

Not hands on but behind glass. They do some amazing tricks.  The Prospect Park zoo has a chart that tells you the particular face a baboon is going to make and how it’s responding to you. Like, “Stop messing with me,” “I am getting angry now,” and “if you were in here I would rip your head off.”  The baby baboons will want to play with you, the teenage ones will get pissed and the elder baboons will just crouch in the background looking on omnisciently.  

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And they have really weird butts.

Yes, yes they do.  That’s about as much as I know about baboons.
 
So what about your musical influences?

Growing up two songs I remember being really intricate to my liking were “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2 and “Blue Jean” by David Bowie.  Other then that it was Beatles, Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix. Everything from the 50s to popular 60s to 70s stuff.

You still listen to that stuff?

Yeah.

And you have over 15,000 songs on your iPod!  How many can you fit?

I have a 60-gigabyte so I think that’s how many.  I just got a computer for the first time so I have more music in there.  I am a big music collector.

Cluster was the last album I got off the Internet and I am currently downloading some Blush, which is like the Cocteau Twins or My Bloody Valentine from the late 80s and 90s.  

How do you know about these bands?

I am endlessly finding new bands.  I would guess you know a lot of different bands then I do – it’s the same with everybody.  It depends what you are exposed to, your interests, what you find out researching.  If you are interested enough in music to research what is considered good and actually take it into consideration then you open up into a world of endless possibilities of things that are really great.

It’s really nice to track other music through affiliations through projects and bands that you really like.

So  have you gotten more traffic since getting signed?

Definitely.

Has Suckers gotten any offers?

Yeah, but we haven’t been too interested. I wasn’t interested until Voodoo-Eros.  I turned down other labels that either had bands I didn’t like on them or seemed full of crap.

And now you are surrounded by lesbians.

Yup. Kind hearted, artistic lesbians.






Website
Quinn Walker's Myspace


Interview by: Linnea Covington

Photos courtesy of: Quinn Walker