Road Journals: Cold War Kids In Rome (The Lost Interview)

Since the Cold War Kids show at the Orpheum in LA a couple weeks ago I’ve been on a bit of a kick, digging up every live performance I could find, including their excellent, if brief, Live From Soho EP. While capturing a great live energy on record, an actual Cold War Kids performance is another matter entirely. 

Here’s the band doing the best version of Relief that I’ve seen yet, on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last Friday:

Another performance, this time of Saint John... while being wheeled around on a dolly of some sort. 

Videos like these are precisely why I’m so excited for CWK’s upcoming tour with Death Cab For Cutie.

This is an interview from November that was never published, for reasons entirely forgotten at this point. But it’s a good one.

Antiquiet: Can you describe your surroundings?

Nathan Willett: Dressing room in Rome. Tonight is our first Italian show! Yesterday we did it all; Vatican, Sistine Chapel, Coliseum, and an incidental jump into a Basquiat exhibit. 

This city has triggered unanimous gushing awe like no other we have been to. 

Antiquiet: The song Relief seems to be told from God’s perspective- and if I’m right, God appears to have a bit of an ego. Can you elaborate?

Nathan Willett: I wrote it and I wasn’t sure what it was about. I wanted it to more from the perspective of somebody’s interpretation of why God allows/inflicts catastrophes. Somebody affected. From The Flood to Columbine, individuals believing and non-believing make large assumptions about the meaning of events that may or may not have any moral. Of course last year there were so many large scale tragedies. I guess it aimed to kinda challenge ideas of puritan punishment

does nature communicate with us, (God or no God). That kinda stuff. It is totally over-ambitious but I hope it comes across to some people. 

Antiquiet: I still get excited hearing Every Valley Is Not A Lake on the radio- It’s another example of different characters that you inhabit in songs, a concept that fascinates me, having spoken to so many artists who insist on an autobiographical take on lyrics. It’s also just one of those songs that can pull me out of any foul mood. Thanks for that. That’s even more the case with Something Is Not Right With Me.

Speaking of the latter, the breakdown in Right With Me where you’re singing “reach behind, they can hardly find their spines-”  first off, did you mean to sound so much like David Byrne right there? It’s perfect. Love it. Secondly, what in the hell is the song about? I can’t put it together.

Nathan Willett: Ha. It is very Talking Heads. It’s kind of funny and kind of serious. People in metropolitan areas being without cellphones, buying the wrong stuff, trying to keep up with what’s cool and good for the environment but totally failing. We have friends like that. Somebody who wants to dance and puts on the Jonathan Richman song Girlfriend. Just out of touch.

The “passions of the people were sleeping” part is a Walt Whitman line that I like.

Antiquiet: Congratulations on your marriage- I wish you the best. I know precisely what you mean regarding coming from a broken family without the kind of nurturing environment that would encourage healthy, linear development and productivity. I’m truly in awe of the kinds of people who were raised in such fertile soil that extroverted positivity and social magnetism are just ways of life. Coming from divorced households where the focus is inevitably much less on child development, it’s necessary for a kid to develop his own coping mechanisms and figure out his own answers to questions and life lessons that are otherwise considered fundamental building blocks. I think a sense of mistrust about the world comes of that sometimes.

Nathan Willett: Thanks!

Antiquiet: Does any of that factor into your writing?

Nathan Willett: Well said! Yes, it plays out into the writing. I don’t ever want it to be angry though. That is the real bummer about everything from Linkin Park to most popular stuff. Kids relate to the sense of alienation from their dysfunctional parents and that’s important, but it usually just comes off as anger. Anger was a valid expression during grunge days but now it’s empty. We have to harness those emotions and put them into stories. Good writing, as in all mediums, has to have context, otherwise it’s all whining.

It plays into the lyrics and I think that I only realized it more recently. The song We Used To Vacation is a song about my dad’s alcoholic father. The song Every Man I Fall For is about what it was like to be living with my mom as a teenager and watching her be a single woman and my fears for her. Avalanche In B is about loneliness creeping up and dumping on you out of nowhere in the form of big white noise.

Antiquiet: Unrelated: how have the Europe shows been? How have the crowds been, show to show? Do they sing along?

Nathan Willett: Shows have been good. Being in Prague for the first time- it was such a punk show. Every kid was singing every word and it was smokey and loud and everyone everywhere.