MARK KOZELEK: THE SINGER BREATHES SALT

The general consensus is someone who is incredibly beautiful is not also incredibly intelligent or deep. In a culture that fixates on surfaces, this stands to reason. To be lovely is enough, why imagine more? Like all generalizations, it covers a great many, but the ones it misses are often wonderful in ways that shatter easy summations. Mark Kozelek is one of these exceptions. With indie rock faves Red House Painters, in his new band Sun Kil Moon, or as a solo artist, Kozelek has crafted some of the densest, most melodically sumptuous rock in the last decade. His exceedingly pretty tunes are always paired with a fierce, grappling, poetic hand, reaching wide for meaning and some sense in the things we do to each other. But don't ask Kozelek how he does it. He doesn't know.

Mark Kozelek

"It's always been the most difficult thing for me to talk about. I don't know why. When the creative process comes up, a part of me freezes," says Kozelek. "I've been asked to be on singer-songwriter panels like [South By] Southwest, but I don't know what I'd say. I really don't fully understand what happens. It's a moment that sort of takes over. You sit down, and you're compelled to let what's inside of you come out somehow. Yeah, sometimes I get into the craft of it, but overall, I'm trying to create a great piece of art somehow. When I think I've written something good, the payoff is amazing. You just feel so complete when that happens. I just want to make the most perfect, or even imperfect, thing I can."

I kept quiet so you'd think my heart was tough
I never showed you if I loved you enough
The dreams I had yeah I kept but I wouldn't dare
Share with you for fear of things still living in me

The first time I saw the Red House Painters was a CMJ showcase in the mid-90s. Playing to a hometown San Francisco crowd, the club was attentive in a way you don't see much outside of Europe - that is except for a visibly drunk hipster behind me who kept whispering "Horse With No Name" under his breath. Over and over this guy repeated the title of America's infamous heroin-themed '70s radio hit. Kozelek's music taps that warm populist vein, but with a flair for circumventing expectations. Pop songs don't usually have such emotionally arresting electric guitar or extended denouements full of shivering feeling. He cranks it up as well as anybody, but it's his knack for delicacy that put him on the map. The Red House Painters and Kozelek's subsequent work paved the way for today's successful slow rockers like Sam Beam (Iron & Wine), Cat Power, and Sigur Ros. Kozelek gets how music goes together, flirting with classicism while inverting it as the spirit moves him. The result is a quiet space in a world mad with chatter and enveloping noise.

Red House Painters by Carol Irvine

"Growing up I loved John Denver, James Taylor, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel. I grew up with a lot of these '70s singer-songwriters. These were guys that went out and toured. They brought a couple guys on stage, and they played soft, acoustic music for the most part," recalls Kozelek. "On the other side, I grew up with a lot of the super groups like Pink Floyd and Yes. I think that's where a lot of my more intricate influences came from. I think it all sort of merged together into this thing I do. From a really early age, it's something I was attracted to. I don't know if it has anything to do with the world, but I've always been looking for that quiet place."

The ocean breathes salty, won't you carry it in?
In your head, in your mouth, in your soul
The more we move ahead, the more we're stuck in rewind
Well I don't mind. I don't mind. How the hell could I mind?

His latest project is Tiny Cities, a loving reworking of Modest Mouse compositions. It is the second release under the Sun Kil Moon banner, a band name Kozelek says is "just a Korean guy's name with the spelling changed a bit. I like the way the words sound together." He's done interesting cover tunes throughout his career, including the boffo versions of Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs" and Yes' "Long Distance Runaround" on the Red House Painters' 1996 album Songs For A Blue Guitar. However, a song or two is one thing, but nearly a dozen Isaac Brock tunes is another matter.

Being this guy from Red House Painters, I don't know what it is but people get an idea of who I am and what exactly it is I'm about. Sometimes they're surprised that I watch television, that I walk down the street, that I have a pulse and breathe. People get this idea from this band and this catalog and they have an image of how you live and what you do, but the truth is I have sex. I've had the occasional one-night stand like any guy, and I've enjoyed it. -Mark Kozelek

"Sometimes you do something like this and go 'Whoa.' It is very extreme. You don't see artists often covering an entire work of another artist," Kozelek comments. "Sometimes I'll write a song, and I really have no idea what's going on as I'm writing it. It'll hit me later. I see why I was creating it, what was going on in my life at that time. I think probably the same thing will happen to me with this [Modest Mouse] covers album eventually. I'll admit it's a little embarrassing. I'm a little shocked. Five years ago I didn't know who Modest Mouse was, and I happened to go see them at The Fillmore. I ended up immersing myself in their music [Winter] of last year, and I came out of the studio with an 11-song Modest Mouse covers album."

To those critics who've given him heat for building a whole album around a single, active contemporary, Kozelek's answer is succinct and absolutely correct. He says, "I think it's all about people sort of thinking inside the box a little too much. If this was a Modest Mouse covers album with various artists like Iron & Wine and Cat Power, everyone would have a fucking orgy over it. Then you'd hear the songs in an M&M's commercial. Everybody'd be coming all over themselves."

Mark Kozelek

As in his own work, Kozelek crawls inside the furthest reaches of Isaac Brock's lyrics and pulls them into the light of fresh melodies, familiar words drying like a child next to a summer lake, gentle breezes and murmuring trees making the world seem so much larger and mysterious than it was moments before. It's something Kozelek has done before. 2001's What's Next To The Moon focused on ten Bon Scott era AC/DC tracks, unearthing hitherto unknown pockets of acoustic blues and Bon's fractured heart below the sordid tales of limousines, liquor, and loose ladies.

"I was in a weird place where I'd been dropped from a label. I had a couple years with nothing to do. I had a part in a movie [Almost Famous]. I did the AC/DC covers thing. I think I was doing some strange things to be noticed or to rebel against being 'the Red House Painters guy,'" comments Kozelek. "I think with the AC/DC record I was able to explore a real human side of myself. Being this guy from Red House Painters, I don't know what it is but people get an idea of who I am and what exactly it is I'm about. Sometimes they're surprised that I watch television, that I walk down the street, that I have a pulse and breathe (laughs). People get this idea from this band and this catalog and they have an image of how you live and what you do, but the truth is I have sex. I've had the occasional one-night stand like any guy, and I've enjoyed it. And I think that's what's going on with the AC/DC. If I'd written songs about getting a blowjob, it would have been like 'What the fuck is going on here?' But by singing Bon Scott covers where he's singing about riding around in cars and having sex and just that indulgent side of being in a band, I was able to cover that in my own way and kind of get that out of my system in a way where I could get away with it (laughs)."

Besides Almost Famous - arguably the greatest, truest rock drama ever – Kozelek worked briefly with Cameron Crowe on Vanilla Sky and most recently appeared in Anand Tucker's screen adaptation of Steve Martin's novel Shopgirl. He'd like the opportunity to do more than carry a guitar and deliver a few lines in the future, but for now, he appreciates the benefits of working with Hollywood.

Mark Kozelek

"What I've enjoyed about the movie experience is just being around it. I'm in the independent music scene, and it's a struggle. It's very do-it-yourself at my level. In the movie business, there's a car there to pick you up, there's cartons of cigarettes everywhere and food and girls and it's glamorous. You get there, and everything is taken care of."

In each of his roles, the first thing you notice is his voice. Even just speaking conversationally, there's a resonance that's ear-catching. Put him in front of a microphone, add a little reverb, and Kozelek conjures the same instant intimacy as My Morning Jacket's Jim James or the late Elliott Smith.

"I've never had any training. Over the years I've found my own voice. I don't really know who to compare it to. I don't really feel like I sound like anyone. There's no one person I'm trying to emulate," offers Kozelek. "It was definitely a struggle not growing up with any kind of singing training. It's something that's still - and probably with my guitar playing, too – developing. It's still unfolding as my career moves on. I'm exploring different ways of approaching music. With my singing, I'm more relaxed as I've gotten older. I think my voice has matured where I sing more like a man now. On my early records, I sound very young."

I think it's all about people sort of thinking inside the box a little too much. If this was a Modest Mouse covers album with various artists like Iron & Wine and Cat Power, everyone would have a fucking orgy over it. Then you'd hear the songs in an M&M's commercial. Everybody'd be coming all over themselves. -Mark Kozelek on his new album Tiny Cities

Age is a factor in his take on things. Both Kozelek and I are in our late 30s, and as such, grew up with a whole slew of bands like Gang of Four, Patti Smith, and genre-blurring '70s radio – sounds that are being copied, often without credit, by many indie rock darlings both Kozelek and I are too polite to name.

Mark Kozelek

"I think because of our age we hear today's music and we're just so aware of what came before it," says Kozelek. "A perfect example is I remember seeing Tortoise around six years ago, and there were all these little chicks there with tattoos and dudes with chain wallets. But I remember seeing Mahavishnu Orchestra when I was a kid, and there's really not that huge of a difference. But you tell that to a kid, that this band they like sounds a lot like Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart or UFO, and they don't give a shit."

While there are no plans to regroup Red House Painters in the immediate future, Kozelek works regularly with the other guys. The gracefully powerful Anthony Koutsos drums for both the Painters and Sun Kil Moon, and guitarist Phil Carney played a series of shows with Kozelek this winter. He seems upbeat about a follow-up one day to 2001's Old Ramon.

"Though the four of us aren't out there as the band, we're closer than we've ever been. We're a little older. We're a little more relaxed. We're a little more able to let things go and let ego things go," Kozelek remarks. "At the same time, we're able to look at each other and say, 'I have other priorities in my life besides hanging out with you.' We're able to look at each other and know now isn't the time for us to be out there. We've always been that way. We'd make a record, do a tour, and then not do anything for two years."

All the pretty houses
Decoratively colored
Tonight, I want no other
Than my own

The man himself will be out on the road, earning his daily bread the way any other working musician does it – one stage at a time. The strain of the touring life, especially after 13 years of it, can sometimes wear him down.

Mark Kozelek by Torbjorn Persson

"People think it's a big party. It's not. It's a lot of work to go to the airport everyday and go through the security check and something's wrong with the plane and there's a problem with a connection between this place and that place (his voice trails off into a small sigh). It's taxing," laments Kozelek. "I got to get up at six in the morning the next day. I got sound check. I got to drive. I got a show. I'm hopefully going to eat dinner somewhere. I just don't have time to entertain."

"Sometimes out on the road, occasionally there's a little pocket of time. If everything connects perfectly, you'll get about an hour of time before you play where you might be able to take a bath, chill out in your hotel room, and just have quiet time. But that's like every other gig where you'll have that. For me, a lot of times the only time I'm out on the road where I get a chance to be alone is when I'm standing in front of 500 people (laughs). That's my quiet time."

He's careful to point out that he still loves performing and there's still nothing like the feeling when all the elements align in front of an audience. But the pressure to be "on" all day long is one of the most wearying aspects of being a professional musician with a dedicated cult following. The days are full of interviews and endless interaction, the nights full of music and sleepless nowhere hours before the dawn.

Mark Kozelek

"My friend Alan Sparhawk from Low is very driven. He's one of those rare artists that's an artist 24 hours a day. He wants to be making art and creating and performing all the time," Kozelek comments. "Where I just like being Mark most of the time. I just want to be Mark at a sushi restaurant, going to see Capote or whatever movie's playing. I just want to be Mark. And Mark from Red House Painters, Mark from Sun Kil Moon, I can turn that on, but I'm not Mark from Red House Painters 24 hours a day."

Last year, Sparhawk corralled him for a new side project, The Retribution Gospel Choir, that spans both their catalogs and "ups the sonic ante with Steve Vai vs. Ralph Macchio-influenced guitar solos" and a vast array of covers from Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Flock of Seagulls, and Pere Ubu. The new band toured last September and will hopefully collaborate again.

In the meantime, Kozelek is active as ever, popping up everywhere. Recent efforts, besides Tiny Cities, include several cuts for Crowe's Elizabethtown, including an especially sweet version of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman," and standout appearances on I Am a Cold Rock, I Am Dull Grass: A Tribute to the Music of Will Oldham and a grand collection of children's music coming out in March called See You On The Moon!, which features Sufjan Stevens, Broken Social Scene, and other alternative notables. He hits the road again in May for a tour through the South and Northeast. Never idle, the man is a musical lifer. While he may be unsure of where the wellspring that feeds his rapturous musings lies, there's no question that he'll keep drawing from it.

I feel the rain fall down my back
I'm going back to my place of work
To get things done, to get them right
But I'll mess them up
I always do

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