David Thomas

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I don't trust listener interpretation: They get it wrong. But that's OK, that's part of the deal; you can't have it both ways. The whole Pere Ubu method from the beginning is the notion that you engage the imagination of the listener in the process — through the use of abstract sound and any other number of the ways we approach things. So yes, you're dependent on the listener to fill in the details, but the stories are quite complex, and there's hardly any linear narrative – it's too far buried. I'm not trying to be mysterious by burying them. What's important is communicating that psychological moment. The details of the story are going to be different for every person, everybody has their own story, the psychological moment forms the context of the language that's shared across different cultures and different languages; psychological moments are the things that are communicatable [sic] beyond language and story details, and listeners, it's just sort of built in. But that's not the important thing; the important thing is that moment, and hopefully, they get that moment right. Somebody will come along and say ‘Oh, this is about this, this, this, this and that,' and I think, ‘No, no.'

Do you approach your different projects with a different working process or method?

Nope. No, as I've explained in many interviews before, it's like standing at a bus stop and taking the next bus that comes along. I work exactly the same way personally and conceptually with whomever I'm working with. So why do I work with different groups? Because the groups are set up differently. 2 Pale Boys is like a subtitled black-and-white foreign film; whereas, Ubu is like some Hollywood summer blockbuster with lots of special effects. One is not a superior narrative vehicle to the other, but with each, you achieve different things. You shouldn't try to achieve with a foreign film what you want to achieve with a Hollywood blockbuster. So I work exactly the same way with every project, it's just each is a different narrative vehicle; it encourages, or forces, you to work in different ways, approach the problem from different angles, rather than just doing the same damn thing over and over.

Do you actually play any instruments?

I can play anything, but I play very badly. I can only play something a couple times before everyone catches on. I generally don't like playing. It's too musical. At this point, I've played just about every instrument. I'm one of these idiot savants on instruments. That's why I just play one a few times then stop before the idiot part overtakes the savant.

Despite that, you seem incredibly involved in the shaping of the sound of each record. On the Ubu Web site, you list some very detailed specs of microphones and recording equipment.

A fundamental part of Pere Ubu is abstract sound. There's two things: musical activity and the sound of musical activity. Musical activity is strumming the guitar, and that's only vaguely related to the sound of that activity. They are two separate things: The sound of that activity exists in the listener's head, it's not an artifact of the real world. There's not a block or blob of sound sitting in the room as I'm talking. It's only happening in your head. Therefore, I'm sort of in charge of the meaning of things. Which doesn't mean everybody else isn't contributing — they are — but in the end, I have to keep an eye on the end results.

(We get in a discussion about Ubu versus popular music.)

Most pop music is crap. Most pop music has always been crap — that's not anything new. I like good pop music — I may be pretentious, but I'm not foolish. But there's no getting around the fact that most of it's crap. People say, ‘Oh, it's worse now than it's ever been.' No, it isn't. It's pretty much the same. But there are interesting people who use interesting techniques. There's not many who use my technique. That's why I use it.

I'm curious about something you said in [British music magazine] The Wire in 2006 : Pere Ubu “are in the mainstream. It's people like Britney Spears or Eminem who are the weird experimentalists. They are avant-garde.”

Yeah. Pere Ubu is a mainstream rock band. Totally traditional, boringly standard. It depends on how you perceive history. If you perceive it correctly, then you agree with me, if you don't perceive it correctly, then you don't agree with me. You know, if you're looking at stuff that's weird and experimental, I suggest that those are the people you should be looking to.