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Music

We Eavesdrop on a Phone Conversation Between Ariel Pink and Ben Montero

The two pop buddies catch up and talk about Ariel’s new album “Pom Pom”.

Ariel Pink is returning to Australia this summer to perform shows around the country including Melbourne’s Sugar Mountain festival. We had Ben Montero, musician, artist and a good friend of Ariel, give him a call to find out how he’s been.

I’m not a music writer so this is the only time I’ll be doing any interview like this because it gives me great anxiety putting words and questions together. I don’t really have any verbal questions for anyone and my writing is off.

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Imagination is the only sense I have that I can trust because you can’t fake imagination without it smelling like a junk heap. Those without imaginations were like: “Oh I was into A.P when he put out his first 8-track blah blah”. But I don’t give a toss. I’m not here to do homework, I’m just here to move forward, explore and get work done.

Mr. Ariel Pink and his gang (Don Bolles, Shags, Matt Fishbeck and many more) are getting imagination work done BIG TIME on Pom Pom. It’s a double album full of cosmic cartoons and strange scenes from weird L.A and it’s huge. It’s vivid, personal and funky. Grouse. I’m loving this shit.

Rosenberg is, as always: sweet, polite, wired and funny. As we say here in my old neighborhood: a sick cunt.

Ariel Pink: Benjamin Montero you scallywag!

Ben Montero: Hi Ariel, The album is a masterpiece.
It’s for you. It’s for you in mind.

Thank you. A double record! It’s like your White album except multiplied by two Sgt. Peppers. I’m blown away. There’s a battle going on here between baby Ariel and adult Ariel.
Yes! I have to put the 5-year-old to bed! My life project is to put down 5-year-old baby Ariel, who is the biggest genius that ever lived, to bed, and I can’t let him go. I’ve been holding onto him for so long, throwing him up in the air saying “Hey!! Don’t forget Ariel!” I don’t want to be a bad parent.

You’re lashing out with sex and violence because you’re subconsciously yearning for domestic bliss, which will be the ultimate disconnection to the baby Ariel hotline.
Well I’ll be much smaller then. Child is father of the man and by then I’ll be retarded again. Once I have a real thing to do and some real responsibilities in this world like a family and adult things it will just be me and my progress as a person. Whether I die or commit suicide or whatever tragicomedy my life amounts is … Not that much of a tragedy if I die now. I mean it’ll be sad…

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It’ll be quite sad.
Well if I commit suicide ill make sure I do it for a cause. Like, I'll be a martyr for a jihad.

Ebola or something really important.
Yeah for something! I don’t want you to think I did something so wrong in my life that was seen as so promising amounted to something as pathetic as depression “oh he’s battling depression” I was in a bad mood and I didn’t miss!

Bang! Well the outcome of it is you’ve made it that far and you’ve got this record. You have to be like “Phew!”
Well I’m happy and humbled and grateful that we recorded a record and people like it and people take it into consideration. I’m happy that I get another year in this thing.

I love hearing Australian voices on this record. Are you going to show Australia how Shags really shags?
Yeah I’m going to show Australia who Shags is!

What did Shags do on his day off?
There weren’t any.

What’s the goth scene like in LA?
Same as everywhere: Invisible to all beyond those who actively take part.

Are you being a George Clinton on Pom Pom? Are you conducting it, or, are you writing songs painfully, or both?
No not painfully, joyously. I’m not writing this stuff down on pen and paper by any means.

You mention a couple of times on this record your frustration of not being able to write the words down.
Yeah right, but the frustration is part of the whole shtick. It’s the reason why the words come last and can’t be changed, if they’re not set in stone by the recording process. I’m still locked into the same formula that I was locked into when I was a wee teen.

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Wee teen! Like when you first hear adult music. That moment when you don’t actually understand it, but you feel your own version of what’s going on?
Well I think I look externally for my cues about whether I should be doing what I’m doing, which I never did before when I was younger because I was still receiving. Everyone thinks they’re young for way too long and so they carry these impressions of their youth and remind them of why they’re alive. And you get into a fistfight with someone, who at 35 is like “I’m not an old man! I write for VICE magazine!" No, you’re taking your cues from a bunch of 14-year-olds, and you’re trying to back up some rationale behind it. You need to because that’s what they decide and they’ve totally replaced you and they don’t like your Death Cab for Cutie. They want to drag you out into the street!

You can give an impression about not giving a fuck about that but…
Oh I give a fuck, I like that the kids run the show. As long as the kids like what I do. We don’t want to be yuppie rock, fat dresses with sling babies going to meet bearded husbands.

You’re flying the flag for those of us still marching in the pig parade. Those who still don’t have kids, still can’t grow beards and don’t want to listen to indie coffee rock all day in a hat. Retards that still want to impress the grown ups!
Yes! That’s because we’ve been kids longer than most people! To be a good kid you have to be a bad grown up. Every good kid, that’s told all the right things about himself and excels at all the right things, this kid does not make the transition well. He becomes much more timey, much smaller.

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Well, it’s for everbody.
No, right. But it’s not ‘the dream’ he’s living. A bad kid on the other hand is designed to be the best adult ever! He figures it out. He’s got the confidence and the right amount of irreverence and disregard for others opinions to really be forging some single-minded pursuit that amounts to something in this world.

The system wants good kids?
Yeah but you can’t train an artist.

An artist can’t train an artist.
No! An artist can’t really say he’s an artist if he’s being honest with himself. But that he does is the key to his mental retardation you know what I’m saying?

Cherish the retardation?
Well he’s a mental case and you wouldn’t want him to run the country. You wouldn’t give the keys to the car to the retard.

Catch baby and adult Ariel Pink in Australia this summer:
January 24, Melbourne at Sugar Mountain Festival. Tickets available now.
January 25, Brisbane at The Brightside
January 27, Sydney at the Oxford Arts Factory Tickets available thorugh Moshtix.
January 29, Perth at The Bakery. Tickets available through the Bakery.

Keep up with all things Montero here.