Ahead of only their third ever gig, we spent time with the quartet to talk about adding another band to their acclaimed discographies. That and formative record shop experiences.

Matt Sweeney, Jim White, Emmett Kelly and Stephen Malkmus.
Photo: Sophie Barloc / The Line Of Best Fit.
Electric Ballroom, Camden, London.
Tuesday 22nd October 2024.

Deluxe: I hope it's not too contentious, but do you recall who said “Hard Quartet” for the first time?

All pointing at Matt.

Emmett Kelly: Matthew!

Matt Sweeny: Steve had the idea of calling it a quartet.

SM: Yeah, you were trying to figure out what kind of quartet it was. It was very hard.

D: Were there any alternative name options?

SM: There was, there was a list.

EK: Yeah, there were like a hundred.

SM: Iron Chads… The Divorce Doulas…

MS: A band name that Emmett had made I think probably before the band existed was Dong Reflection.

EK: (laughing) For some reason it was just sitting in the back of my head. I mean, “We can’t be called Dong Reflection?”

MS: (laughing) It’s more of a concept project. It was never seriously considered…

EK: Wait, you didn’t seriously consider Dong Reflection?

SM: Album two, Hard Quartet’s Dong Reflection…

D: One thing that I thought was really interesting is that whenever there's any kind of bio about who the Hard Quartet band is and what you've all done, each standfirst cites a different band.

MS: That’s cool.

D: I thought it would be cool to dig into the deepest cuts of your musical chronologies. Like, what would be the most underground, unknown or out-there part of your history for the Hard Quartet family tree?

MS: Me and Jim had a band with Tim Evans, who's a great singer and musician from Tasmania. We made an edition of three CDs. But I don't know if we ever had a name?

Jim White: Didn’t have a name. Didn't have a public performance.

D: Like, three copies?

JW: Yeah. I don’t know where mine is.

MS: I don’t know where mine is either! I wonder if Tim has his? Actually, we made four. I gave one to Neil Young.

D: He seems like the sort of guy to hold onto CDs so I am sure it’s safe.

MS: Totally.

EK: I had a band called Charlemagnes with a guy called Jack Name. We played like, every day on the street for like a year or so. We made a bunch of CDRs and sold them on the street, like the hip-hop guys. I doubt any of them still exist.

MS: Where did you play?

EK: In Los Angeles.

MS: What parts of town?

EK: (laughing) 3rd Street Promenade…

MS: (laughing) No shit, really?

EK: Yeah, we played there every day. Every day for like a full year.

MS: Did you do original songs?

EK: Yeah, and I think the longest song was like thirty seconds long, so we streamed them all together and played these shows. It was fun, we had our shit on wheels so we could just cruise in. It was cool, it just totally didn't make sense to any of our friends.

SM: Okay, well, one time I played in Denver, Colorado, with the Jicks and the opening band was either snowed in or they couldn't make it or whatever, so, Bob Nastanovich from Pavement was tour managing and we made this band called The Acid Casualties and we played before The Jicks. Only one show.

D: These are all such deep cuts.

JW: I’m gonna give you one with a record even, The Feral Dinosaurs. Something that we managed to write out of history, I think?

SM: Feral Dinosaurs?

JW: Conway Savage was in it too.

MS: Wow, you and Conway?

JW: Yeah, and also Jim Shugg from People with Chairs up their Noses.

SM: The Feral Dinosaurs are documented on vinyl. Like what year?

JW: … ‘80… uhhh, before Venom P. Stinger.

SM: Is it rare?

EK: Who put it out?

JW: It was a semi proper thing, I think it was called… Major Records?

All laughing

EK: Fuckin A!

MS: So sick.

JW: It was called You've All Got A Home To Go To. When Conway died someone brought me a copy at the memorial.

EK: Was it like an LP or a 7”?

JW: A 12” EP.

SM: (reading from phone) You’re on there. Discogs. You've All Got A Home To Go To. 1985. Major Records. MRLP004. I can get one for $30, Jim.

JW: (laughing) I’m sure I have it somewhere.

D: Who would be collectively an influence on this band?

MS: I was just trying to think if there was a band we mentioned when we started doing stuff.

SM: We talked about The Saints.

MS: Yeah, The Saints.

EK: We talked about a bunch of bands, Slade!

MS: Oh yeah, big time on Slade.

SM: We don’t talk about the obvious ones, you know? People just like to say that everything sounds like something else.

EK: (laughing) Yeah, we don’t talk about that shit.

SM: Someone said that Rio's Song sounds like Big Star, but I mean, I just don’t hear it. That's not how I would copy a Big Star song.

D: It does bum me out a bit when PR just stacks up a load of “RIYL” rather than talking about what the release actually sounds like.

MS: “Sounds like” yeah.

SM: Yeah, I guess you got to include that stuff.

D: But when they say that a new band sounds like both Big Star and mbv… I’m always kind of puzzled, you know? There aren’t many areas where those bands get close. It’s misdirection and kind of… also setting new the band up for a fall?

MS: Right right.

SM: Certain bands have trademarks on certain sounds you know? If you play something that modulates a little bit in a woozy way – on any instrument - that's going to be mbv.

D: I tell you what, there is one noise on the record that I especially love, I think it's right at the start of Hey…

SM: Exactly, that’s what I am talking about. There's only so many things you can do with a Mellotron. You know, to make it sound fucked up, get that seasick feeling… (laughing) that we’re all looking for.

D: I wasn’t sure if it was a guitar or keys.

SM: Do they even call them whammy bars anymore?

All laughing.

EK: If you say anything else, you’re just a dick.

D: Am I right in thinking that tonight is your third live show?

MS: Correct!

D: Far out. So early days for live shows. Are you finding that you’re evolving the songs? Like playing them differently to the record?

EK: Oh, we’re definitely seeing it change in real time. It was kind of a strange feeling to do it the first time, then the last one was more loose and felt freer.

SM: It’s fast changing. Like an alien in Ridley Scott’s Alien. You know? They don’t have enough time in the movie for a slow progression of the monster. I really felt that in LA on a few songs.

MS: (laughing) I was thinking about it as I fell asleep the other night. The first show I was totally terrified. The second show I felt a little better because the venue was a block away from my house. So the third show, maybe we’ll kick ass… but maybe we won’t?!

EK: (laughing) You spooked yourself.

MS: I woke up early this morning and made sure I could still play it all real quick.

D: What's been everyone's favourite track to play live?

SM: I mean, maybe the ones I play bass on, but that wouldn't be entirely true. We're really trying to be like, “We love bass”.

All laughing

MS: But we're using that as an angle, as a reactive thing because there's this weird vibe where people relegate bass to a sort of a second-hand thing. I don't know a single guitar player that feels that way. I’m fucking psyched to play bass.

EK: Everyone’s always saying like, “You’re a band of three guitar players”, but actually we’re a band of three bass players!

MS: It's fun because of the newness.

EK: The bass has a line that runs through the album, we're three guys that made up that bass player.

D: Let's talk about first record shop experiences.

SM: Well, the second Tower Records ever was in my hometown. When I was getting into music, the first things I bought were like, Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds. I also bought Gene Vincent.

MS: Really!?

SM: Yeah, for some reason he was cool.

EK: That’s a very cool record to buy.

SM: (laughing) I don’t know why I was into that. I'm talking adolescence, not early early. I mean, I liked disco. I liked that song Convoy…

EK: Fuck yeah.

SM: CW McCall.

EK: You know that song he does about Aurora Borealis? It’s amazing.

SM: I got to hear that.

EK: It's like him at a campsite and he goes “...and then there was the Aurora Borealis…”

All laughing

SM: With the Stones it was the really early stuff and it was really cheap. It wasn’t like Exile, it was all those R&B records. What have you guys got?

MS: My memories are being at Sam Goodie in the Livingston Mall in New Jersey, and Kiss’s Love Gun had just come out, so that would mean I was about seven years old. I insisted to my mom - and she was like, “no” – and somehow I got my way, but it was like a flat fucking no at first and it was clear that it wasn't about money. But somehow I got it and brought it home, and it had all this cool stuff inside of it, including a foldable gun. (laughing) A love gun. You folded the cardboard and it kept on saying “insert the bang section”. And I was like, “Where is the fucking bang section?” I couldn’t’ work it out so I finally asked my mom and she goes, “I think it's some sort of sexual joke”.

All laughing

…And then like, five years later, the bang section just sort of slid out of the sleeve and it was a thin piece of paper that was like stuck inside of the record. Turns out it was not a sexual joke…

SM: Thank god.

JW: Mine was in Queens Parade in Melbourne, and it was Rock 'n' Roll Animal by Lou Reed.

EK: That’s the first thing you bought?

JW: Yeah, the first one with my own money anyway. I think I had heard it at a friend’s older brother’s house.

D: I remember so clearly the stress of hearing something at that sort of age and not being able to clearly ask what it was, or certainly ask twice.

MS: Oh god, yeah, I know that feeling.

D: Emmit?

EK: The shop was called Music Plus in Van Nuys Blvd. and I think my first purchase was actually two cassettes: Appetite For Destruction…

D: Same!

MS: Really?

D: I think I actually had a taped copy, but I learned a lot of shit from that record.

EK: (laughing) … and a cassette single of Young MC’s Bust a Move.

D: I’m just laughing about how good Welcome to the Jungle is and thinking about how good that must have felt as an eight year old…

EK: Oh shit, the greatest thing ever. A portal to nasty.

MS: They were all like superheroes on the sleeve with the skulls.

JW: Once I heard this song on the radio. This guy had a show every week called "Gumbo" or something like that, playing New Orleans pop music. So I heard it and loved it and rang up the radio station and asked them to play it again so I could tape it. So I taped it, but then my house burned down a few days later…

All laughing

MS: What the fuck?

JW: So I was a little preoccupied with other things, but when I thought about it I was like “Fuck, I lost that tape and I just got it”. So years later when travelling around I would always be looking around for this piano player, hoping that if I heard it or saw it I would remember it. But I never found it, so I phoned up a friend and said “Who was that guy who had that radio show?” and he remembered and gave me his number

MS: “… 15 years ago”.

JW: (laughing) Exactly, “I am Jim, what was that song you played 15 years ago?” And he goes “Wow, that’s a blast from the past. After a few years I got divorced and had to sell most of my records but I think it was this!” and he told me and I went out and bought it.

SM: And what was it?

JW: I can’t remember…

All laughing

D: So whilst we’ve all got nostalgic, what do record shops mean to you guys?

MS: I think they're everything. I think they're awesome. There's a great record shop right by my house called Academy Records in New York, and it's still the spot man. Like, I think everything would collapse if that place went away.

EK: It seems like stores have made an interesting resurgence too though and have solidified their position.

SM: We did a show at the store Emmit works at on the day the Hard Quartet record came out. Arroyo Records in Highland Park.

MS: It’s a fucking cool store.