Once Upon a Time in Chinatown:
Pavement vs. Andy Richter

from Raygun, May 1997

photos by Chris Buck

If you stick around show biz long enough, fame and critical acclaim eventually come your way. "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" sidekick Andy Richter has gone from 1993's beleaguered co-host to today's beloved TV fixture, while Pavement's new Brighten the Corners smoothes the edge off of this often-difficult band, moving Stephen Malkmus and Co. closer to the commercially-viable pure pop they've often threatened to play. Ray Gun saw it fit to bring these icons of '90s collegiate life together for an hour of conversation. As the snow fell outside, Pavement's bassman Malkmus and major-domo Bob Nastonovich chatted with Richter over tea and Diet Cokes at the band's downtown NYC hotel...

Andy Richter: So how is the Chinatown Holiday Inn?

Bob Nastonovich: Pretty good.

Stephen Malkmus: It's fine. Actually , I like it. What do I have to say about it?

Bob: I think it's so plain that you don't really think about it.

Stephen: They clean their rooms really late which I find is very civilized. We were just in England and it's always rise and shine.

Andy: They insist on coming in.

Bob: Pretty non-descript room I would say.

Stephen: Yeah, it's easy out, easy in.

Bob: Good location.

Stephen: Quiet actually.

Bob: Reasonable rates.

Stephen: Although there's kind of a sweat shop up there. I found some people like spying on me this morning when I was doing my, um, calisthenics. So that kind of scared me.

Andy: How did you guys feel about last night's show [at CBGB's]?

Stephen: It was nice. I always like playing there. It's like being in a really nice rehearsal space. everything sounds really good at CB's when you're in a band onstage.

Andy: It does sound amazingly good.

Stephen: Our sound man is always happy. He's Dutch and macho, so...

Bob (in Amsterdammer accent): "It is good. They know how to do their room."

Andy: How did you hook up with a Dutch sound man?

Stephen: We've had him for years. There's something about the evolution of their ears, the flat land and the cheese...

Andy: The rain.

Stephen: They're made for it. Like Sonic Youth, four of their crew is Dutch, Sebadoh's sound man is Dutch.

Bob: I think it has something to do with the confidence.

Stephen: And there's a nomadic...I mean, there were here before us, you know? Brooklyn means "broken land," you know? It's not like an English thing, I don't know. They're nomads so they're perfect for this touring thing.

Andy (to Bob): You live in Louisville and I read something that said that was to be close to horse racing.

Bob: Yeah, I live across the street from Churchill Downs.

Andy: Is that passion among the whole band?

Bob: no...

Stephen: We like to win but we don't pour over racing forms for six hours a day.

Andy: Like you?

Bob: yeah. Actually, today I just looked at who's racing down in Florida at Gulf Stream and I'm quite sure that all of us could make a lot of money today if we went to an OTB. There's three horses racing that I'm pretty sure are going to win.

Ray Gun: We've still got some time.

Andy: You've got to tell us who they are. Yeah!

Bob: The first race that just went off I'm sure was won by this horse Sierra Grande who races at Churchill, and it's going to be a pretty handsome prize just because he's never raced in Florida and they don't know how good he is.

Andy: There's gottta be an OTB around here.

Bob: I haven't looked in the phone book. Usually I gotta look in the phone book to figure out where the nearest one is.

Andy: They're kinda depressing though. They're like currency exchanges. In Chicago we used to go to the OTB and it was like a Bennigans with gambling. Actually, gambling and cigarettes are the two things that I sense I have trouble with.

Bob: Yeah, me too. Throw in beer, Do you do all kinds of gambling?

Andy: Well, I avoid it because I'm terrible at it. The last time my wife and I went to Atlantic City, it was astounding how much money I pissed away in such a small amount of time. i was so mad at myself.

Bob: Blackjack?

Andy: Blackjack. Then I got this genius thought about the $5 slot machines, and I got about $400 and said, "This is easy," and then fucked it all away. I was so mad at myself. I was like, "I'm never going to do this again."

Bob: Well, I determined that the only way I could succeed as a horseplayer was to move right across the street from the track and study the same track 100 days-- we have approximately 100 days of racing a year-- and find out everything that was going on there. I don't have a lot of inside information, but I know the trainers...

Stephen: He looks like a racing guy, too, like when he's out there.

Bob: I fit in pretty good. That's one great thing about it, you can be as absolutely scruffy as you want and not be self-conscious.

Andy: A guy that I work with, his dad won something like 11 grand and insisted on getting it all in cash, and then got out to his car and immediately had three guns on him.

Stephen: What about your making big bets at three different places so you don't have to pay taxes...

Andy: Yeah, that's a Vegas trick.

Bob: I just had to fill out a tax form last week. They changed the rules on me. It used to be any winning bet that was 600 to one you had to fill out a tax form, now it's any ticket that pays more than $600.

Stephen: That's why you save all of the losers.

Bob: Yeah, I've got boxes of losing tickets. Tax reasons. I'm scared that one day...

Andy: (Laughing) For the IRS you have evidence of your patheticism.

Stephen: In shoe boxes!

Bob: It cancels out. You get a W2 for gambling winnings, and if you can produce 12,000 tickets that haven't been stepped on, like supposedly if they have a footprint on them obviously it doesn't count, so I save every one. I probably have a box of like $25,000 of losing tickets from last yea, but I had a winning year last year. I won 3000 bucks.

RG: What's more profitable, the band or the track?

Bob: The band is at this point but hopefully it will reach a point when... my goal is just to not have to work anymore. Supposedly there are 250 Americans that make $50,000 a year or more at the race track, and I would like to be 251.

Andy: Really? It wouldn't be bad. It is just like a job, I guess.

Bob: It's high stress and it cuts you off from a large sector of...

Andy: Life?

Bob:...the world. I can only really talk to one guy and he's pretty insane.

Stephen: Jack?

Bob: Yeah, one of my best friends, my horse racing friend. sometimes at parties we'll just become unbearable.

Stephen: Sometimes Pavement fans will come up to Bob and be like, "Yeah, I really like you," and he'll be like punishing them with horse racing...

Andy: A therapist would have a field day with that. Punishing your fans. Actually at your show, we didn't stay until the end because we couldn't see and my wife gets frustrated.

Bob: You shoulda put her on your shoulders.

Andy: She didn't wear a tube top, so...

Stephen: Did you go to any old school metal concerts when you were a kid?

Andy: Not so much when I was a kid. It's weird, because I've done stuff on the show, like I was talking about KISS, people think I'm some sort of crazy KISS fan, but there's a thin frosting of irony on the cake of my appreciation for KISS.

Bob: Did you draw KISS when you were young?

Andy: Oh yeah, I did draw them, but I think that I was just too young. They scared me.

Stephen: I was afraid of KISS until like Destroyer, then they became more cartoony. When they started out, you'd be like, "Whoa, this is really dangerous." Then it kinda just...

RG: Turned into the Marvel comic book of the same name.

Andy: Also, I lived in a small town and I was the lone new waver, In that kind of teenage way. If it was popular, I didn't like it.

Bob: Did you have that hairstyle?

Andy: No, no, I was never outward...

Stephen: Like Cure and Elvis Costello type stuff?

Andy: Like Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson and the Clash. You know, like Flash and the Pan. Just odd obscure stuff.

Stephen: That's obscure. There hasn't really been a spawn of re-interest in that band.

RG: Flash and Pan were actually the Easybeats,

Stephen: Yeah, they were.

Andy: Well. it was the producer, and that guy, Angus Young's older brother, and he produced AC/DC albums, too. But I remember nightmare parties were, you know, that high school-- "Why am I here getting drunk? I could go home"-- but you can't go home because why go home? And somebody played "Jamie's Cryin'" literally 20 times in a row and just thinking, "Oh my God. Get me out of here."

Stephen: I might have been one of those guys.

Bob: Did you have zero friends?

Andy: No, I was actually fairly popular, but in terms of my musical taste....

Bob: See, I had one guy.

Andy: That you could talk to about music? I have an older brother and I could talk to my brother, but I kind of was the one who went out and found things. I just don't have the energy anymore.

Stephen: It's hard.

RG: You're still like that, though.

Stephen: Oh, I am sort of a fanboy, but maybe not for, like, the new REM album or something. I'll be happy about it, but I'm more into finding things, just weird things. It's like a hobby, I guess.

Andy: A lot of bands don't give you any reason to listen to them. There's so many bands that I just feel like, "Why do you think I should listen to you? You don't really give any sort of personality and the singer doesn't really sing very well..."

Stephen: Sounds like us.

Andy: We went and saw Man or Astroman? and there were two opening acts, and the first one, I don't remember their name and I wouldn't say if I did, but they were sort of plaintive, heartfelt, strum, strum, strum, strum, strum, change, strum, strum, strum, strum, and there was a girl guitarist who would turn her band to the audience when she had to play a solo, and I was just like, "Now that's just not right! Come on! Don't hide that from me!"

Stephen: Wait a second.

Andy: Why?

Stephen: I tend to do that myself.

Andy: Oh really?

Stephen: But it's because I'm trying to hear, actually.

Bob: The Jesus and Mary Chain started that.

RG: It's a Miles Davis thing, too.

Stephen: Yeah, it's related to some classic great musicians. Sometimes, though, the front row just scares you.

Andy: But don't you feel guilty that you're not giving a show?

Stephen: Um, that's why we have five people in our band, I feel like...

Andy: You can share the focus.

Stephen: Yeah, I just figure if I'm turning my back for awhile, someone else in the band is doing something weird. When i watch bands I watch drummers anyway. I really think singers are kind of boring to watch. For me, I have so much to do. I mean, it it's Johnny Cash, he just strums G and C, you know, it's all plank, plank, and it's really in the voice and the singing, but I'm just trying to survive up there, you know?

RG: I'm always amazed by how much you're doing. How do you pay attention to all of it?

Bob: He's doing like two-thirds of it. I don't do anything, so that's why I'm supposed to be the visual. I have no responsibilities.

Andy: Your role in the band, I think, is sort of like my role at my job.

Bob: Sit back and gauge what needs to be done.

Andy: Yeah, I mean, and it's not even so much the stuff that actually happens in the hour we're taping. It's like, I feel it's part of my job description to, you know, throw trash cans into important meetings, and to...

Bob: Keep it wacky.

Andy: Yeah.

Bob: You've been with that show from the very start of it...

Andy: From the very beginning yeah.

Bob: Which was what year? '92?

Andy: '93. Actually, i was the first writer hired. I was hired originally as a writer, so I was there for two weeks, sitting in an empty office.

Bob: Was it your idea to go onto the show?

Andy: No. Well, I had been acting and there was this implicit promise, kind of, "Well, we'll find something for you to do."

Bob: Are you pretty good friends with Conan?

Andy: Yeah, pretty good.

Bob: Were you before the show?

Andy: I had never met him. We had a lot of mutual friends, and eventually I'm sure I would have met him, just because there isn't that many people producing comedy. (laughs) You know, it's like the same very select gene pool that just kind of floats around. When I was sort of wondering whether you can make a living at this, I thought, "Wow, there's so many people out there clambering," but, no, it's sort of the same list of 20 just filtering around in the backwash.

Stephen: Were you a comedian or an actor?

Andy: Actor, improv. I started out in improv. The main thing to me was that, "Oh, wow, there's all these funny people that are spontaneously funny. Funny in the way that I'm interested in being funny."

Stephen: Right.

Andy: "And they're serious about it , you know? Serious about being funny, and, hey, I get to hang out with them."

(Stephen peels a Levi's sticker from his jeans and sticks it on the table.)

Andy: New Pants!

Bob: This is our Levis sponsorship. (Laughs) I'm doing my part. I'm wearing my new Levis pants, 505s.

RG: You are kidding, right?

Stephen: No, we just pulled that off. Just in Europe. They're just going to put Levis on the side of our tour bus. And on the flyers.

RG: They should paint the whole bus.

Stephen: Yeah...like those jeeps that are painted like denim with stitching.

RG: I hate to bring this up, but isn't it kind of like a sell-out, man?

Bob & Stephen: Yeah.

Bob: So what?

Stephen: It's in Germany.

Bob: It's Levis.

Stephen: There's nothing to sell out in Germany, because we don't make any money there.

Bob: The government takes all your money there anyway, so you might as well get some free pants.

Stephen: Yeah, so we're just trying to like break even on our tour by using this.

Bob: And we got free clothes. We needed the clothes.

Stephen: We definitely do.

RG: You can't go wrong with Levis.

Bob: Yeah, they're solid.

Stephen: The cords are nice.

Andy: There is that amazing kind of rock thing about selling out or not selling out.

Stephen: British people don't care at all.

Andy: When you try to do some sort of creative endeavor, to me, it always seemed like the whole point is communicating it. And. you know, there's a balance between being...

Stephen: Crass about it.

Andy: Yeah, between being Jonathan Richman and being Michael Jackson. But still: so you get more people to hear what you're doing, what's so wrong with that?

Bob: It does cheapen it. Let's say you've got a song, say, I really like that song by Canned Heat, "On the Road Again" or something. But you just start associating it with a beer commercial and it does ruin the song.

Stephen: If you ever play that album again, it's like totally ruined, so, if you do something like a major-league commercial, the associations can be awful. And so it goes down to like, a fan, they see you getting bigger, and they see this person next to them that wasn't at the earlier shows, and it's like this dumb person in their eyes, like not from their social background, with Copenhagen and a backwards baseball cap, and they're going to be mad.

Bob: All we've ever gotten are a couple of free pairs of Converse shoes. Well, actually we got five or six items each from Levis, and most of them are all the wrong sizes and colors (laughs). So I certainly don't feel like a sell-out.

Andy: Well, if they're from Germany, you probably got lots of salmon Levis, you know. And mauve denim jackets.

Bob: Black actually. Everyone just wears black in Germany.

RG: Or brown shirts.

Stephen: And tight, high-crotched pants.

RG: One last note on the commercial thing. I don't know if any of you watch "Friends," but they sort of stole part of "Rattled by the Rush" for incidental music. It's really disconcerting.

Stephen: I heard it, too. I'm guilty of watching "Friends".

Bob: What is it, just like in the show somewhere?

Stephen: You know how like on "Seinfeld" -- boom bloom boom...?

Bob: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephen: It's like one of those things.

Andy: Transitional music. Well you should get your high-powered lawyers on it.

Stephen: Have you done any commercials or anything?

Andy: Well, I do voice-over stuff. I won't do any Arthur S. DeMoss foundation commercials. But, you know, I've advertised GMC Auto Parts, I've advertised Reach toothbrushes, and I just feel like, you know, I read this thing, and I make and absurd amount of money. Not like a million dollars, but an absurd amount of money for stopping off for half an hour on my way to work.

Stephen: It doesn't feel like work.

Andy: You know, there is a downside to it, and there is work involved.

Bob: Is there a lot of pressure? Like, if you don't mind me asking, how are you guys doing?

Stephen: They're doing well.

Andy: We're doing real well now. There was a tremendous amount of pressure, but I don't let that kind of thing...To me, I feel like I'm a hired hand.

RG: You were kind of the focal point of criticism at first, weren't you?

Andy: We all were. You know, the entertainment media, no offense, is a real smoke and mirrors show of making something out of nothing. And when the late night wars started, I think that there was this collective, "Oh my God, something to write about. Oh thank god." And so they focused on it. And then when we went on the air, one of the most telling things to me was that they were writing shitty things about us, but they were also submitting writing samples to our show, trying to get a job on the show.

Stephen: That's the music problem, too. A lot of interviewers, you know, they want to be in your band secretly, or they're just frustrated musicians...

RG: I gave you my tape, right?

(laughter)

Andy: One thing I wanted to ask you guys about: there definitely is a wordplay kind of thing that you guys do. And it seems to be like making connections based on words, sort of sounding alike, and sort of fishing around for a meaning. How much conscious effort is involved in that kind of stuff? Is it just kind of like casting a net?

Stephen: Yeah, it's not like Lewis Carroll anagrams and stuff. For me, rock shouldn't be that intellectual. It should be fun, it's more of a thing to think about when you're drinking or talking. You don't want people to write dissertations about what we're doing or something.

RG: By making things as complex as you do, don't you sort of open yourself up for that?

Stephen: Well, yeah.

RG: They will be writing term papers on you someday.

Stephen: Yeah, well, it doesn't seem that...

Bob: Yeah, it's not that complex.

Andy: Do you have a little thing in your ear?

Stephen: It's not a piercing, it's for my sore neck.

Andy: Okay, sorry to interrupt.

Stephen: I went to an acupuncturist, she stuck it in there. She says it'll help my back.

Bob: I thought it was a new diamond.

Stephen: I know, that scares me, actually.

Bob: You look like you work in a machine shop, and a flying shard caught in your ear...

Stephen: Or the sociologist is doing a little thing about rockers, and, uh, she's like got me right now. It's hard to get away.

Andy: They're tracking you and Trent Reznor.

Stephen: Exactly.

RG: Do you think what you're doing is comedy, in a way?

Stephen: I think so.

Bob: It's his kind of comedy.

RG: Like you said before, both of you (Bob and Andy) play similar roles, the foil to the comic genius...

Andy: Yeah, I think that part of my job is to, at the most terse moments, say something really rude, you know. Something that borders on sexual harassment, or scatological comments, or just, you know, take my pants of or something. I feel like definitely there needs to be somebody...

Stephen: Like Ed McMahon?

Andy: No, please, no, please god, no. But...

RG: Does that worry you? The curse of the sidekick?

Andy: No, no, no. Not really. I mean, I suppose if I...

Stephen: You don't really seem to like that though. You guys just seem like you're two buddies that are just sort of double-teaming your guests...

Andy: You know, there's all this sort of gross broadcast archivism. People want me to talk about my role in a historical context. Ed McMahon, Hugh Downs, Regis Philbin...

Bob: Ed McMahon would be the one I think in all this that would be the irritating one.

Andy: Well he's not irritating.

Bob: I'm not saying anything against him, but I just, it's so obvious like that, "Oh, he's the Ed McMahon guy on the show."

Andy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, people do say that. And I've even said that to sort of...

Bob: Reference it?

Andy: Yeah. "What do you do on that show?" "I'm sort of like the Ed McMahon."

Stephen: Well, that's what I tell people. We're kind of like Nirvana, you know?

Andy: Yeah, yeah. Like Nirvana, but less trouble.

Bob: Ed McMahon came to one of our shows in Los Angeles one time, this festival that we played...

Stephen: Which one was it?

Bob: The KROQ Weenie Roast thing. He was wearing like white tennis shorts and combat boots, and then he was on David Letterman a few nights later, and Letterman asked him what he'd been doing, and he mentioned that he went to this KROQ Weenie Roast and saw all these great bands, and David asked him who he liked, and he said, " Well, I liked The Pavement..." (laughter)

Andy: It would even be better if it was "The Pavements."

Bob: Steve West and I met him, and he was just, "I really like what you guys do. What band are you in?"

Andy: The Pavement.

Bob: Yeah, it was classic.

Andy: Yeah, the first time he was on the show, the first impression I had was that, here he is, Ed McMahon, dat dat dat dah dah [sings the "Tonight Show" theme] and he walks out, and I held my hand out to shake his hand, and he, sort of almost in his periphery, he hadn't even looked at me, and his hand shot out like it was a pneumatic piston and gave me like the perfect pressure handshake, like the perfect shake. And I was just like, "Oh, that's what you do for a living."

Stephen: That's what he does.

Bob: He's gone a long way with that.

Andy: You've gotta make a living somehow.

Bob: What are your goals in terms of television? Would you ever like to have your own deal? Is that a priority?

Andy: Oh, no. I think about it, but then I really wonder if I'll ever be able to be in charge of anything. Because there's so much bullshit involved with being in charge. Just so many interminable meetings and phone calls and all these people...

Bob: So you're in like an ideal position.

Andy: Sort of. I mean, there's times when it can be frustrating and I feel like there's been this sort of good fortune laid on me, that I would be disrespectful if I didn't devote some energy to seeing how far I could push it.

Bob: It's like I'll never be in another band, I'll never have like my own band.

Andy: Now, what if the band goes away, and the horsetrack thing doesn't work out? Bus driver?

Bob: Then I'll make do, yeah. I don't know what'll happen, actually.

Andy: What about you, Steve?

Stephen: Oh, me? I don't know. I might be dedicated to music in one way, shape, or form.

Bob: I can't imagine that you wouldn't be, really.

Stephen: Because, like you say, you're sort of blessed with an opportunity. We've had to work hard and stuff, but just knowing what my friends have to do to earn a living, it's just like, much more exciting. I mean, one of my cousins is a doctor, and it's like "Oh, I can't see how you can do that, traveling all the time." There's plenty of people who think it's terrible.

Bob: There's plenty of people that think it's like the greatest thing.

Andy: And it's somewhere in between, isn't it?

Bob: Yeah, totally. See, for me, I never at any point even thought about ever being in a band, and never would have been if it wasn't for my talented friends. Pretty much the only reason I ever ended up in the band was because the first little tour that we ever did, I wanted to be like the roadie, just because I'd gone and seen bands for year, and I always wanted to experience what a tour was like.

Stephen: They're boring.

Bob: Yeah. And our drummer at the time was incompetent, I don't know if you ever saw us or know anything about him.

Andy: Last night was the first time I ever saw you guys.

Bob: And he, well, basically he was inconsistent...

Stephen: He was a raging alcoholic.

Bob: ...and Stephen mentioned, "Well, why don't you drum?" So it was like, I'll bring a floor tom and a snare, and then when he can't hold his sticks because he's had 23 cocktails, at least there'll be somebody there keeping time. So that's the only reason I'm in the band.

RG: Those were good days.

Stephen: We just don't want to be sort of a down-sized thing anyway. Everything's like - this whole techno thing even - is like, to it's great, some of the music that comes from it, but it's also like this down-sized `90's thing: one guy with this computer. It's so practical and makes sense, it's the most efficient way to do it, blah blah blah. I like this music thing that we do. It's sort of inefficient, it's like blood and guts. And people can see him [points to Bob], or anyone in the band, and say, "What's he doing up there? I could do that."

Andy: You're the audience surrogate. Yeah.

Bob: By default.

Andy: You guard the low rung of expectations.

Bob: I always get the slobby, beer-drinking guys that want to talk to me. They have questions, horse racing questions...

RG: But then you start to answer them.

Bob: Yeah, yeah, and then I punish them. (laughter) They pay the price.

Stephen: How about fans? Do you have any?

Bob: How often do you get stopped?

Stephen: I mean, TV's got to be way more...

Andy: Oh, it's crazy. All the Internet shit, you know, it's flattering, the first wave that you get is flattering, and the second one is kind of like, "Good Lord, people!"

Stephen: Yeah.

RG: "Get a life!"

Andy: Like there's a real sweet guy that keeps a web page of me. And it's weird.

Stephen: Just to talk about what you said every night?

Andy: I think so, yeah. I visit it every once in a while, but...

Stephen: Nothing like that exists for us. We have just a mailbox type thing that I've never seen, and friend of mine occasionally sends me like...

Andy: Printouts of....

Stephen: Yeah, like, relationships that I'm having with men in Ohio, you know, that they've seen me. (laughs) Like that. I would never want to think about it, it just clutters my mind.

Andy: Yeah, and I can't think of anybody that I have had enough admiration for to do that kind of work. And, like I say, it is flattering, but on a certain level it's weird. My mom will say, "Those are you fans," but I don't ask `em to do anything more than watch the show; that's all I expect people to do. (Stephen looks at his watch and explains he's scheduled a massage to get over some kind of ailment picked up in England.)

Andy: The last album was...there was a lot of un-nice things said about it. Do you think this is....

Stephen: Yeah, they're being a little bit....

Bob: ...like we've made a comeback.

Stephen: I think our other record was just misunderstood and it got a bad rap.

Bob: I thought it was better than this one, personally, but....

RG: Do you expect that five, six years down the line it becomes the "lost classic" Pavement record?

Stephen: That'd be fine with me.

Bob: I think it'd be a good way to find out what we were like. For kids who are like, "oh, man, you should check out this band Pavement. They were pretty good in the '90s."

RG: The thing about Wowee Zowee is that it's just so all over the place, and this one sort of doesn't have that quality.

Stephen: Yeah, it's in one place.

Andy: You know what? I like that one place, too.

Bob: Yeah, we like it, too.