Lou Barlow is big on truth and honesty: being true to yourself, being true to your bandmates, and being true to your emotions, no matter how uncomfortable or confronting that truth might be.
“I guess when I do sing, it’s important I tell the truth,” Barlow says down the line from Easthampton, Massachusetts, where he’s recently returned after almost two decades living in Los Angeles. “When I sit down and write, I just want to say things that are truthful, and the reality of the truth is very complicated.”
Barlow’s commitment to conveying the truth of his personal situation is apparent on his new solo record, Brace The Wave, his first release under his own name since 2009’s Goodnight Unknown. “I guess songs are my way of understanding [my emotions] in a lot of ways,” he says. “By putting them down and making them into a song is my way of writing a lesson about them. Sometimes I can write a song and realise I don’t know a lot about them. And coming to that conclusion and still being able to sing that song reminds me each time I sing it how much I’ve changed.”
In the album’s opening track, ‘Redeemed’, Barlow sings, “The story of my innocence is brief,” which accurately reflects his assessment of his own humanity. “The way people talk about things, y’know – ‘I don’t know why this happened’ – if you look at it, the reality of it when I became a human being is that I can’t continue to claim my innocence. That’s ridiculous. If I want to be truthful, I can’t talk about things in a helpless way, or claim that I am helpless. So I wanted to start the record out that way. Telling the truth is important, maybe not always for good. It’s better than devising a whole new life that’s fabricated.”
In the early years of his musical career, Barlow was notoriously introverted. His complex personality was the catalyst for his confrontations with Deep Wound and Dinosaur Jr. bandmate J Mascis. These days, Barlow has a better understanding of his own psychological make-up, and recognises the catharsis that comes from exploring his personal feelings.
“I guess I deal with anger a lot in songs, so I’m talking myself down and trying to be reasonable and being truthful about myself,” he says. “The older I get, the more I realise how much of a hot-headed person I am. So I talk myself down from my hot-headedness.”
Brace The Wave was recorded in Easthampton with producer Justin Pizzoferrato, with whom Barlow worked on Dinosaur Jr.’s recent trio of albums – Beyond, Farm and I Bet On Sky. While Barlow says he went into the studio with an “opened mind”, he was hoping to achieve a particular sonic aesthetic.
“I only had a few ideas in mind. I wanted it to sound like it was in a room, but I also wanted it to sound like it was close up as well. And it sounded like Justin got that immediately. I played for about an hour and listened to what he’d done and I was like, ‘That’s it – this is where we start.’”
Whereas Goodnight Unknown featured a range of guest musicians, Brace The Wave is a genuine solo record. “It wasn’t really about my creative vision – I guess I didn’t have anyone else to play with,” he laughs. “The last solo record I did, I was just around people I know and trust. This time I’d just moved back to Massachusetts and I didn’t really have a lot of people around that I could play with.”
In addition to acoustic guitar, Barlow plays ukulele on a number of tracks, adding a distinct emotional vibe to the songs. “I don’t really play the ukulele in a traditional style,” he says. “I play it a bit like a guitar, but it’s not a guitar really, it’s a small four-string guitar. With the heaviest and lightest strings I can get both elements – the heavy stuff and the light stuff. I can do that more directly with ukulele.”
In addition to his solo work, Barlow continues to play with Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh, and juggling the separate projects can be both exhausting and rewarding. “I think it does give me a good musical balance. Bands are really interesting creatures, and the way you’re communicating with people evolves over years of your life. I enjoy very much having these relationships that do change over years and years because it makes it real. And at some point you have to tell the truth to these people you’re working with, and be truthful about what you want and what you need.”
In the lead-up to the record, Barlow has suggested Brace The Wave is a transformational album. However, the same description could apply to all of his releases.
“I think they’re all transformational records. I think saying something like that now doesn’t mean anything more. I know that I’ve said that myself, and I always do, but I don’t know why. With every record I’m trying to reach some other place, so hopefully every record I do in my life will be a transformational record.”
