Photo: Press
The day before he sits down with Gigwise at The Hoxton Hotel in Shoreditch, George Lewis Jr had a musical discussion with a border guard.
"I took the train out to Paris and the passport officer looked at me and said 'You look like a musician' explains the artist known as Twin Shadow with a smile. When Lewis confirmed his profession, the official made his first mistake. "He said 'Probably R&B right?' I wanted to be nice, as he was an older guy, so I said 'Actually it's more like rock.' He goes: "Oh, more like 'indie', not so much hard rock, eh?"
Lewis Jr laughs at the recollection. For a man who genuinely believes his music is "genreless" it's a curious process to see your sound pigeonholed by someone who has never heard any of your three albums (Confess, Forget and his brand new LP Eclipse).
For Lewis Jr, genre terms have outlived their usefulness. "I think for artists it should feel like those terms are obsolete. I think no artist should ever think of themselves in that way. Leave it to the music business to categorize, to market, to rape and pillage and to label. They will do all of those things. If you're an artist like myself who really produces himself and everything comes from you, you're doing yourself a disservice by trying to catergorise yourself." He pauses for a second. "Unless you're saying 'I want this to sound like an R Kelly record from 1992'. Then thats your artistic decision."
Thankfully for all concerned Lewis third album sounds nothing like the kind of record an R&B lothario would have made circa 'Bump N' Grind'. A stunning, soulful album, Eclipse may defy easy categorisation but it manages that most difficult act: being emotionally intense, extremely personal and undeniably anthemic.
Stream the new Twin Shadow album 'Eclipse' below.
To mark the upcoming digital release of Eclipse, Twin Shadow discusses panic attacks, the rise of Kendrick Lamar and everything that's wrong with award shows.
Gigwise: What's the biggest misconception about you?
George Lewis Jr: That I sound like Morrissey. That's probably the biggest one - I really don't sound like him! I mean all the misconceptions are all kinda true, kinda not true. To be honest I don't read much press or comments anymore, not because I can't take it but because it's such a waste of time.
What lyric are you proud of writing?
I think that kind makes you sound like an asshole when you praise your own writing. All of it I'm really proud of because I feel like I've gotten to a place where I can still really communicate without having to talk in code like I used to. There's a huge part of me that feels like I just don't like being clever any more. I just want to be more direct and say more with less.
You've said before that you were tired of being in bands. What annoyed you most?
Compromise. Creativity as a democratic practice is almost always a very bad thing. Compromising should never be part of creativity. When you're in a band all these small compromises add up to this really big vanilla mush. It just doesn't make sense to me.
I do miss the friendship, the brotherhood, the sisterhood. One of the things I miss most is not be able to celebrate my success with anyone. My Mom and my sisters call me and say 'Congratulations!' But I don't have the people who have created it with me. I also don't think being in a band is a very modern thing any more. It's had it's time I guess. It'll come back.
You're now signed to a major label, giving you more potential for high production tours. Who has impressed you with an elaborate live set?
I think production values really skyrocketed because of low overheads for DJs. I don't think bands should try and compete with DJs: if you're Steve Aoki, your overhead is bringing your laptop on stage - which means you can have the most insane lightshow, cannons, confetti, a cake and a blowup boat.
With other bands, I've seen Metronomy and I like what they've done a lot of times with their stuff. It's really concept driven and helps solidify the music. Obviously I think The Knife were huge years ago in making people understand that you can put on more of a show rather than just being on stage. It's more just about accenting the music for me and less about thinking 'We're going to have this crazy parade on stage." For me it's very subtle: I only want to use it to push the image just that little bit more. And you'd be surprised how much that fucking costs - just doing the littlest bit of production is just really expensive.
Describe your worst gig?
We played Shepherd's Bush once, opening for Warpaint. That was a technical disaster. My amp broke, our drummer's snare drum and bass drum head broke. We basically just couldn't play after three songs. There was one that was sad for me because I'd gotten to that place. I had a crazy panic attack at a show in Texas, I think it was Houston. I played three songs and just walked off the stage. We've had bad shows where we've played poorly but I consider that the worse: I know how people wait forever to see their favourite bands and I always want to give them everything I can. I was just very unhealthy at the time. I just thought I was going to die on stage. I was in a really bad place in my life.
What's your tip for surviving touring?
The last tour was the first I really enjoyed. Performing in front of an audience is the best 45 minutes of your day. Everything else is kinda shit compared to that. But I think it's about the family on the bus, the conversation and vibe on the bus. We really get really tight on the bus and I think that helps us stay sane. I hear a lot of bands who go out on tour and kinda separate: everyone goes off and does their own thing. But I've found with my band we get closer when we're on tour.
We had an amazing moment on the last tour: we ended up in this town in North Dakota and all that was there was this bar. We were like "If we play for you guys will you give us free beer for the entire day and night?" So we sat up in the bar and the band played covers. We don't even know all these songs! We were like "I think I kinda know this Rolling Stones song..." That was really cool. That was an amazing experience something I'll remember forever.
Describe the very first big gig when you were growing up in Florida?
My first real concert experience was when I went to go and see Pearl Jam. When I was about 14 or 15 my friends picked me up in this truck and it was one of the first times I'd ever gotten really blackout drunk. I got drunk, they threw me in the back of the truck, drove up to Tampa which is about two hours. I don't know how they got me in the show because it should have been 17+ but they got me in somehow. We had terrible bleachers seats and I watched Pearl Jam from the footbed of the bleacher, watching it through a tiny little crack in the chair, while I'm puking. I don't really remember much of it but that was my first concert experience.
After that I would watch anything basically - more embarassingly I went to two or three Dave Matthews band concerts. Then I had a friend who was really into Ani DiFranco so I went to two of her concerts: my mind was blown. I thought she was incredible. She had a band and a horn section and I thought it was the coolest thing.
One of the coolest concerts I went to, my father took me to: we saw Richie Havens. That was a really cool experience, which is funny as I've tried to find good live footage of him other than from the Sixties and Seventies - I find him really flat and don't really love his open chord renditions of other peoples songs. But that concert really was special. It was really powerful and he told a lot of good stories. He told some story about Bob Dylan hanging from some monkey bars in a park in New York. 'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child': that song was really powerful. And just seeing him with all this jewellery on his hands, and the sound of the jewellery hitting the guitar, it really affected me, in a way.
Can you tell me when you were last starstruck?
I'm not starstruck easily. I went to a Grammys party and in front of me was the entire Kardashian/Jenner family and behind me was Calvin Harris, waiting on the red carpet to get in. I was like 'I'm not starstruck at all by this." So what actually wowed me? Dave Chappelle. This is what makes it even weirder: I get a tap on the shoulder in a sushi restaurant in a hotel and it's Mos Def. He was picking out songs from my record. Then he said "Oh this is Dave..." I don't even think a word came out of my month. There are some people I think who are almost holy.
Standup is to me the ultimate art form. You can tell me all you want about the greatest painters, musicians and architects but I wil never respect anyone more than standup comedian. [Dave Chappelle] did this great thing for culture, for humanity, making us laugh in the way he did - and then he went and led this very private life. When you meet him you can tell he's private and very much not his persona. And you don't want to disturb that peace.
Comedians are more so my heroes than bands. I would have given some part of my body to meet Richard Pryor. Even when you get these comedians who are self deprecating and everything is negative, it's still that they are sacrificing themselves to make you laugh. Tell me what's better than that, tell me what's more divine than that. I don't think there is anything.
What hip-hop do you love?
Kendrick Lamar without a doubt is the most exciting contender. There are so many people doing so many amazing things but again in music - I don't want to even call it 'rap'. I think Kendrick is the leader. He could go anywhere on the new album. he's genreless. He's on another level. I haven't seen him live which bummed me out I keep missing him. I wasn't super fond of the last single but I get it. And when he performed 'i' on Saturday Night Live I was like "I definitely get this".
You've been writing with Billy Idol recently. What would you said surreal conversation?
They were all a bit surreal. He told me about getting stabbed and not knowing it, because he was wearing all leather. Some guy had jabbed him in the leg and he was showing me how they used to hold knifes with just the blade barely sticking out. He thought the guy was just nudging him in the leg and really he'd been stabbed a bunch of times. That was pretty bizarre. But we had a lot of surreal conversations. One of my favourite ones we had was talking about how you'll be dating someone and you won't realise till much later that they're actually incredibly conservative, Republican or highly religious - and for some reason you never saw it.
Can you recommend a good book?
I just read Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis. Of all his books that one left me with something really heavy and good that I didn't expect. It's a really strange book, especially if you're someone who has been through anxiety attacks and paranoia. There's something incredible about all of his books - there's so much dialogue that first seems meaningless, and the repetitiveness of the same ideas. At times you feel like the tyres are just spinning - and then something is delivered. This book does that: the entire last few pages of that book, it all comes at you at once. Understanding paranoia... because if you haven't experienced true paranoia you can't understand how someone gets so lost. It leaves you with a sense of calm - but no real redemption.
What small festival can you recommend?
There's a festival in Montreal that's really incredible: Osheaga. They treat the artists really well, there's amazing food. I just remember with festivals looking out into the audience and being like "These kids have been on Molly for 15 days straight and someone needs to give them a glass of water". Which is great but Osheaga was much more chill and much more about the music and not about being seen there.
But I'm not a huge festival fan in general: that bubble should probably burst any moment now. I think we need to get back to is instead of having every kid from Omaha beg Mom and Dad for tickets to go out to Coachella and go get blasted and lose their minds for a week. It would be better for the smaller towns in America if more young people were motivated to become promoters to get bands. To get bigger acts to those small towns.
But we'll see. There's a lot about festivals that's a scam for the bands and a scam for the people attending. I think it's a thing the older you get, the more I hear people in their early thirties "Yeah it's just not the same". Part of that is your gettting older you're looking for another experience that's maybe a bit more fulfilling. But also part of it is that all these festivals are getting so similar: you've been to one you've been to all of them. Same lineups: EDM on one half of the festival everyone else on the other. It feels like lines are being drawn instead of people coming together.
Where's the strangest place you've heard a Twin Shadow record?
It's always funny when I hear it at the airport in LA, which I hear it a lot. When I'm in security I'll hear it - I'm on some playlist. But my friend just told me apparently there's some Korean BBQ spot in LA that has my first record in a jukebox. I saw a picture of it: the tracklisting on it is all wrong and it's about 20 songs long. Ten of them are not my songs! It's like my song titles rearranged. I have to find it: they might be Korean remixes.
Where do you stand on the idea that Beyonce is any more or less of an artist than Beck because she has a number of songwriters on her album?
I think that's bullshit. Look at Michael Jackson. I think people forget that part of artistry is performing. I will watch Beyonce any day over Beck. If you bought me tickets to a Beck concert I'd be like 'Ahh I think I'm going to sleep in tonight." And it's not because I don't like Beck - because I actually saw him in Mexico, but it was truly boring. And I don't need to burn any bridges in that sense - but Beyonce puts on a fucking show.
People should never forget that artistry is soaked into everything that we are. It's how you present yourself in the interview, it's how you treat people around you as a person, it's how you perform on stage, it's how you interpret what a songwriter has given to you. There's tonnes of artistry in that. But let's be honest: that's why awards shows are bullshit. Because a measurement of what someone's achieved is so irrelevant when you think of the number of opinions of what deserves accolades.
The fact that Beck and Beyonce are even competing for the same prize seems bizarre....
But then that's exactly the problem you get with the Grammys! Now we have to have: "Best Male Pop Vocal Performance In a Tank Of Water". "Best Male Pop Performance Standing on Stone". When does it fucking end, y'know? Yes if you're going to judge people, judge them on the same platform. But let's be careful about throwing our opinions at it so much. It's about what's effective.
You ask me if Beck should have won a Grammy? Of course not. You ask me if Beyonce should have won a Grammy? I'd say 'How about we rewind time and give it to Kendrick Lamar for his album. Because that album still means more to me than any record that's come since." Within the rules, I get it. And then there's always some old guy making decisions in the background. Kanye maybe shouldn't have given it so much [attention]. Kanye should start his own award show! Can you imagine that? Incredidble artists would come out of the woodwork to be on it. He should start his own Grammys: you heard it here first.
Eclipse by Twin Shadow is available to download on 16 March . For tickets for his UK shows see below.
