Mark Kozelek

Are you excited about the venues you’re playing this tour? You’re booked into some pretty nice places: ballrooms, theaters, even a church. Do you ever miss playing the hot, grimy clubs?

I don’t know if I’m “excited” exactly, but I don’t miss the grimy clubs. I need a backstage area, protection from the nutcases.

Your line-up on this tour is pretty stripped-down. Do you miss playing with a full band? Any plans to tour with a bigger line-up?

I’m trying to put a band together, but it’s a logistical nightmare. I like going out alone—no rehearsals, nicer hotels, and I come home with some money.

You’ve professed a love for classic rock, and it shows in some of the songs you’ve chosen to cover. What do you suppose those older bands have that newer music lacks?

Those guys played guitar or sang and that’s all they did, they gave one hundred percent. Bands today spend their time pecking away on MySpace pages, hoping some redneck will tell them they’re good. For the most part, I don’t think bands give as much anymore.

Are there artists today who are capturing some of that magic?

Modest Mouse are doing it. Lonesome Crowded West blows my mind, how good it is. Now and then, there’s an album like that. The Soft Bulletin, by the Flaming Lips. That’s a great example of capturing the old magic.

Tiny Cities, your album of Modest Mouse covers, was met with mixed reviews. Some people seem to consider certain beloved artists sacrosanct, as if they should be exempt from reinterpretation. How do you surmount and respond to this kind of narrow-mindedness?

You nailed it, narrow-mindedness. Modest Mouse are just as worthy of being covered as Elliot Smith or whoever else wrote some songs.

Do you have plans for another full-length cover album?

Not at the moment.

We’ve recently been treated to a Tom Waits tribute album by actress Scarlett Johansson. As someone who’s on the other side of the equation—a musician who occasionally does movies—what do you make of this latest high-profile music/acting crossover?

I haven’t heard the Scarlett LP. I assume it sucks pretty bad. Maybe not. I don’t care. I don’t like Tom Waits’ music, and the idea of her singing his songs, frankly, sounds like my worst nightmare.

Place plays a prominent role in your lyrics. When you write a song about a place, is the song composed on-site, and directly inspired by your surroundings?

Your surroundings end up in your music. It’s called poetry. People keep asking me this. I don’t know why.

What are some of the major ways that living and making music on the West Coast differs from doing it in Ohio, or any of your other former home bases?

I wouldn’t have survived in Ohio as a songwriter. San Francisco and where I grew up are vastly different. San Francisco has been a wealth of inspiration for me that I would never have found, had I stayed [in Ohio].

In fact, a recurring lyrical theme for you, particularly on April, is the past. Are you ever afraid of dwelling too much in the past, especially since your past has had plenty of struggle and setbacks?

There are plenty of nice memories in my past. I did some fun things with my dad, had a wonderful mother, learned guitar when I was really young. I just got into drugs and things got hazy and fucked up a little bit. But my past, in many ways, isn’t a bad place.

How do you reconcile the recollective aspect of your music with the desire to break new ground, musically or thematically?

What is this, an exam? Questions like this are the reason I didn’t go to college. I just play guitar and sing. What do you want?

What themes does April explore that Ghosts didn’t? Did you make a deliberate move toward a certain subject in certain songs; did you have a thematic mission?

Thematic mission? What are you, a professor? I’m just trying to write some nice songs.

COMING UP: Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon performs on Friday, June 6th, at the Varsity Theater. With opening act Retribution Gospel Choir (previously featured on Reveille). 8 p.m. $15 adv/$17 door. 18+.