20 Questions with Beck

Ahead of releasing Ride Lonesome, Beck’s first album in seven years, the musical shapeshifter reveals his mantras to live by, his best onstage experience and the ultimate goal of his music

When Beck crossed over in 1994 with the undeniable Loser single, few could have predicted the trajectory he would take. By that point he’d already managed an unlikely transformation from the lo-fi underground folk scene to being an undefinable major label artist at once channelling Gen X’s disaffected angst and MTV-fuelled rapture. In subsequent years, Beck went on to release the era-defining, sample-based Odelay before expanding his conceptual horizons with experimental sheet music project Song Reader, and winning a Grammy for his 2014 chamber pop masterpiece Morning Phase. This September sees the release of Ride Lonesome, his new album and a counterpart of sorts to Morning Phase and its spiritual predecessor Sea Change. Like those LPs, Lonesome starts on an E chord and immediately pulls you into the mist, with exquisite songcraft, thoughtful lyricism, and production par excellence. In a larger sense, the album solidifies his place as one of the greatest songwriters of our age.

On a brief visit to the UK, Beck was looking every bit the consummate rockstar in leather jacket and blue jeans, while he answered 20 questions for AnOther.

1. What’s your earliest memory?

One of my earliest is a giant earthquake. I have this memory of being in the crib and it’s an afternoon and I am anxious because nobody’s coming to get me.

2. What one thing could you not live without?

Probably my guitar. My main one is a prewar Martin D-28, which is kind of like the classic car. It’s the guitar that Hank Williams played, that Neil Young played, that Joni Mitchell played. It’s the one.

3. Describe the past few days?

Travel; airports; time zones; starving at four in the morning. Y’know – the madness of travel.

4. What’s the most important thing for us to know about your new album Ride Lonesome?

It’s mainly a record of musicians in a room playing together live – so very much like a performance. It’s got a kind of twilit atmosphere of day going into a long night …  Like a sort of nocturnal, cavernous place you can go visit.

 5. Has your process of making music changed over the years?

I’ve always jumped all around – I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to make a song. It’s just whatever the song needs or whatever means you have at hand, y’know? The way that the songs reach you and elicit some kind of recognition or kindredness in the listener – that’s the ultimate goal.

6. Your father, David, has arranged the strings on Ride Lonesome. What’s it like working with one of your parents?

He’s very professional, he’s very thoughtful, and he just wants to serve the music. He has almost no ego at all about it.

7. Denis Lavant is in the video for your new single In the Night. What’s your favourite movie of his?

Lovers on the Bridge and Holy Motors.

Has your process of making music changed over the years? “I’ve always jumped all around – I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to make a song. It’s just whatever the song needs or whatever means you have at hand, y’know?” – Beck

8. Is there anyone you’d love to work with but haven’t yet been able to?

I would love to work with [ELO’s] Jeff Lynne. I’m surprised that I never did. I’ve introduced myself a few times to him. I don’t think he knew who I was.

 9. To my ears, Ride Lonesome feels like part of a trilogy with Sea Change and Morning Phase. Was this the plan from the very beginning?

I think it happened naturally. I’ve spent so many years playing and travelling with the musicians from Sea Change. It’s something that resonates stronger with each decade. And so I’m always curious to see what it’s turned into. It’s sort of like a garden that you’ve planted and revisit every once in a while – just to marvel at how it’s grown and changed.

 10. What's your best on stage experience? You talked recently about South Korea …

Yeah, that was probably the best audience we’ve had in the last 20 years. We’ve rarely played Korea and I don’t think I ever sold any records there. They asked us to headline this festival, and I said, ‘They must be crazy … we’re going to fall on our faces because nobody cares’. From the second we came out, it was like the Beatles reuniting.

11. Are there any mantras you live by?

I think one of mine would be ‘life is long and strange’. So whatever’s happening here and now is a very small part of a much bigger picture. We can see our entire lives through the lens of today, but time, perspective, life – everything can change radically as you go.

12. What makes you happy?

Being with my friends and family. We go down to the beach, down to the shore, get in nature.

 13. What makes you sad?

I remember the first time I sat in a room that was full of people all looking at their screens and this immense feeling of sadness – like the world had just changed.

Anything else you’d like to add? “I think it’s OK for us to have some respites from reality – some superfluous trifles that take some of the weight off our backs” – Beck

14. What’s your favourite place, room, or locale in the world?

I love going to Paris. For years I went there in the summer – rent an apartment, just knock around. It’s a place for me to untether myself from life and responsibility.

15. What are you most proud of?

My kids. We somehow got very lucky [laughs]. They’re wonderful people. I would want to hang out with them even if I wasn’t related to them.

16. What do you wish you could do more of?

I wish I could have written more songs.

17. What's the best album ever recorded?

I find myself listening to, over the decades, Music for Airports [Brian Eno], Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, Chet Baker Sings.

18. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

It has something to do with finding your way into confidence and moving towards that – because that will be the key to doing the things you’ve always wanted to do.

19. What’s the most important thing for people to know right now, in general?

I think most of us have no idea what we’re doing. We’re just doing the best we can and kind of making up about half of it as we go. And once you realise that, this sort of vibe, this sort of edifice of everything, becomes a lot less daunting and becomes a little bit more human.

20. Anything else you’d like to add?

Go indulge in some art; some music; some films. Allow room for things that don’t necessarily have the weight of the world on them. I think it’s OK for us to have some respites from reality – some superfluous trifles that take some of the weight off our backs.

Ride Lonesome is out now on Capitol Records