It's hard to believe Beck is a father, because he still seems like such a boy himself. Talking with the 34-year-old musician in an L.A. hotel room overlooking Sunset Boulevard, one is struck by how fragile and undefended he seems; reed thin and graceful as a cat, he speaks slowly and seems a bit unsure of himself. Beck has a rumpled charm that's irresistible -- there's no arguing that -- but to look at him you'd never guess he's sold millions of records and left a permanent mark on popular music. But he has done that, and he's now a married man -- to actress Marissa Ribisi -- with an eight-month-old son. The changes in his personal life show no signs of slowing him down professionally, however -- Beck is a notoriously hard worker. His new album, Guero, has all the earmarks of a hit, and he's about to embark on an extensive tour -- his first in almost two years -- so he can introduce it to the world personally.
What's the first thing you'd do if you were running the world?
I grew up in neighborhoods where all the houses were stucco, and when I was a teenager I wanted them to outlaw stucco. It's the cheapest way to make a house stand up, but it's just shit that's not O.K. -- those cottage cheese ceilings were constantly snowing, and you were forever picking bits of it out of your hair. I'd probably start up the aesthetic police, institute mandatory museums, and patrol with helicopters to make sure everybody's dressed well and all the architecture is attractive. I say that facetiously, of course, because I actually enjoy things most people consider bad taste, and I'm well aware that there are plenty of people who think I have bad taste.
Your new record harks back to Odelay in that you made it almost entirely by yourself. What prompted you to work that way again?
It just ended up that way. It was time to go in the studio and the musicians I'd been working with were scattered around the world, and I thought it might be interesting to work the way I did when I started out and I was a one-man band. It was great having a band and working with amazing players, and I loved doing that, but there's something interestingly broken about how the songs come out when it's just me doing it. For better or worse, it's my keyboard playing, my bass playing and everything else on this one.
What's the most important thing you learned from punk rock?
Self-reliance, embracing the visceral core of things, that art and humor go together, and velocity.
What was the first concert you ever attended?
That's a tricky question because my dad was playing violin in different bands in the early '70s so I was always around live music. My mom was into the late '70s punk scene and she took me to a lot of shows, too, but the first concert I personally made a point of attending was the Us Festival. Every band in the universe at the time was playing there and I remember seeing David Bowie, Wall Of Voodoo, The Clash -- I think it was one of their last gigs.
What's the most recent concert you attended?
Last night I went to Disney Hall to see The Tristan Project, which is a production of Wagner with video projections by Bill Viola. Viola's stuff was great and it worked really well with the music. With Wagner, time is so elongated and drawn out that it's almost like Kabuki, and Viola's visuals exist in a slow, meditative zone that's a perfect for the music. There a fantastic pay-off at the climax of the first act -- there's an image of two lovers plunging into water together in synch with this musical crescendo, and it's one of the most romantic images I've ever seen. It's just overwhelming.
What's the greatest live show you've ever seen?
Different ones come to mind for different reasons. In the mid '90s we opened for Prodigy when they were at the height of their popularity, and their show was the most bombastic thing I'd ever seen. It was the first time I saw music that actually made the earth around it change. Their show starts out with just a low tone, and even though we were sitting about a quarter mile from the stage, when they started playing everything in the room started shaking and all the glasses fell off the table. We walked down to the stage where the decibel level was like the sound of a plane crash and looked out as the floodlights hit the audience, and we saw 80,000 people jumping up as high as they could -- it was like a human tsunami. I saw Nirvana when they played L.A. before they were huge, and that was an interesting, too. Nobody knew who they were -- they'd just put out their first record -- and they came out and flipped off the audience. I've seen performers do that before and always thought it was corny, but somehow it was different with them. Then they started playing and an incredible electric shock went through the audience.
What aspect of becoming a father weren't you prepared for?
I was fairly prepared for most of it because I have so many friends with kids, and on weekends there are always babies and kids at our house. But the intangible, invisible transformation that turns you into a parent -- that's a very real thing, and it gave me this big feeling in my stomach. Having a child made me acutely aware of the fact that everybody germinates from the same very fragile place, and no matter how they end up, that's how everybody starts. I remember driving home from the hospital after the baby was born and seeing transvestites and people sleeping on the street on Western Avenue, and I felt as though I could almost see their whole lives. You understand that their mother was once looking down at them, and it's kind of heartbreaking.
What's the most widely held misconception about the lives of famous people?
The funny thing about having a song on the radio is that everyone assumes you have millions of dollars and live in a continual bubble of fabulous people, but it doesn't work that way. I'm definitely not complaining -- it's ridiculous the things that have happened with my music, and I absolutely don't take any of that for granted -- but I do see a discrepancy between what people think and what the reality is. As for the rock star lifestyle thing, with drugs and groupies, I have seen people living that way and I marvel at it. I look at them and think, 'didn't you see that episode of Behind the Music?'
Is fame infantilizing?
I don't really know because although I've met many famous people, I don't really know any of them. What are they doing? I'm as curious as you are and would really like to know. There are stars who always have their group around them, but that's never been offered to me so I don't know what I've missed - apparently a page was ripped out of the fame manual before I got my copy. There are people like Dylan who actually can't go anywhere without four or five people around them, but I'm not at that level. There was a point when I was getting played on MTV a lot, and the guy at the supermarket sandwich counter would shout 'Yo!' when he saw me, but whenever it's felt like it was becoming a problem I just retreated -- or I released a record like Midnight Vultures.
What's the difference between knowledge and wisdom?
Knowledge comes from the laboratory or the academy, and wisdom comes from experience and the hard process of learning something firsthand.
What's the most significant change you've observed in Los Angeles over the years you've lived here?
Stuff is constantly being torn down here, but the biggest thing for me was when the mini-malls showed up when I was around ten years old. They replaced cool coffee shops like Tiny Naylor's and little mom and pop businesses, and I remember realizing that they killed something. I've always dreamed of old downtown L.A., and when I see pictures of Bunker Hill and all the old movie theaters and trolley cars it just blows my mind. It recently occurred to me that I have more friends in New York and London at this point, and I don't really need to be in L.A. anymore. I stay because I'm a creature of habit and it's easy to work here. There aren't as many distractions and you're always a good drive from anything happening, so it's easier to stay home and work.
When was the last time you were moved to tears by an artwork?
This probably has something to do with just having had a child, but it would probably be a documentary I recently saw called The Lost Boys of Sudan. Towards the end of the film there's a sequence where this boy talks about how his family was killed and now here he is, a refugee at an American high school who has to work a part time job to support himself -- I think I'll actually start crying if I talk about this for very long. Anyhow, there's a moment where they show him standing alone in a field as the sun sets and it's such a lonesome moment. You can almost feel his parents.
What's the most important historical event that's occurred during your lifetime?
A few years ago I probably would've said the wall coming down in Germany because I was in Europe when it happened and it felt like a huge transformation. Obviously 9-11 was a big thing, and although everyone sees that event differently, it definitely pervades American life now. There's a paranoia and an obsession with safety here now that didn't used to exist. I grew up in neighborhoods that were a little dangerous and I like the world being a bit more open. When you cut off certain things it's like taking antibiotics -- you kill the good things along with the bad.
Are you proud to be an American?
That's something I don't even question, but I think so. America's sort of cut in half at this point, but it's been that way from the start. You had progressives coming to a new land to find freedom, and you had reactionaries coming in pursuit of purity and control. We have these two things in our make-up and always have, but the disparity between the two has increased dramatically in the last few years. And the picture becomes more black and white with each election.
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