A decade between chats TIm Kasher is wiser, but still finding No Resolution
The first time I interviewed Tim Kasher I was seventeen years old. My mom had driven me across the American border into Buffalo to talk to the Cursive/Good Life frontman in the hotel lobby of a Best Western. PR had put me on the guest list for Kasher’s show later that evening, but I wasn’t able to stick around. This was both because I was not twenty-one, and because my mom had to work in the morning. The fact that I wouldn’t get to see Cursive play didn’t phase me. I was just excited to talk to Kasher.
Cursive was one of a handful of bands that hit me in that all consuming overwhelming way things can hit you as a teenager. Musically they were my bridge between the aggressive hardcore I had been drawn to with my first wave of adolescent hormones, and the sad-sack introspective indie I had been drawn to during my second wave of adolescent hormones. Kasher lyrics struck the same chord that I found with my first Bukowski novel. He hit on the angry young man/drunken romantic thing in a way that seemed a little more brutal and a little more sincere than many of his label mates and contemporaries. I was convinced the personal narrative found in records like Domestica and Album of the Year and the circus of introspection that was The Ugly Organ held all the answers for adult life, so much more than the anarchist punks who had sold out their values, or that week I thought brit rock was a thing I enjoyed.
I came into that first interview with a fanboy enthusiasm that lead to sloppily asked questions and a lot of fumbling with technical equipment. For his part Kasher was polite and well-spoken, he tried to decipher what I was telling him and spoke elegantly about a screenplay and accompanying record he was writing called Help Wanted Nights. We snapped a photo together, and a month or two later I joined Saddle Creek Records Street-team, my first gig within the music industry talking up Kasher and his label mates while littering my University Town with flyers and stickers announcing upcoming gigs. When Cursive came through Kasher was nice enough to pretend that he remembered me and thanked me for putting the word out about the label.
Recently, eleven years after the fact, I was asked if I wanted to interview Kasher. He was doing the round promoting his latest solo album No Resolution. The record is an accompaniment to a film by the same name. Getting the chance to speak with one of your heroes of yore seemed like a daunting task, but I was relieved to find that after all that time we’ve both mellowed out a bit. Below is a conversation we had earlier this year. Reading back, I think I still geek out a bit.
Graham Isador: Thanks very much for taking the time to speak with me. Cursive, along with your solo work, and work with the Good Life, came to me in my mid-teens and left a giant imprint on a growing mind. The first time I got the chance to speak with you I was seventeen years old. You spent a half an hour answering poorly thought out questions in the lobby of a Buffalo Best Western. Shortly thereafter you released Help Wanted Nights, an album that was meant as the soundtrack to a stage play. Was the play ever produced?
Tim Kasher: For starters, thank you, glad to hear it! And that Buffalo bit sounds vaguely familiar… Help Wanted Nights was never produced as a stage play nor a film, I regret to inform. But still available for stage, wink, wink, if anyone cares to put it on! And there is currently a production company that has picked up interest for the Help Wanted Nights film, so, who knows, perhaps it will have a second life.
What do you think you learned from writing Help Wanted Nights?
Help Wanted Nights is close to my heart, as it’s the first script I ever completed. It has gone through many edits/revisions by necessity of being the first thing I tackled, and I have written quite a few scripts since then, an odd practice, as they just sit on shelves for the most part, but “practice” all the same and something I truly enjoy doing. So, what did I learn? In a very general way, it was merely one of many scripts that have helped me to (hopefully) grow and develop as a writer.
Do you think that experience prepared you for No Resolution? Can you walk us through the basic plot?
It absolutely prepared me. Another thing HWN taught me was to stop relying so much on others for help/guidance and most importantly finances. I took on a new format of self-release/self-production for No Resolution, and without that, the record would never have been made.
In a Pop Matters interview you said that you end up writing an album because you can’t get an idea out of your head. What would be the idea for No Resolution?
Hmm, I’m not sure that quote is quite right, but sure, I get ideas stuck in my head that end up surfacing and resurfacing over an entire album. For No Resolution, I wanted to develop bigger and alternate stories for the characters from the film, characters that are essentially just extensions of myself. There is also an existential pursuit throughout the album of what our roles are on this planet and whether any of it means anything or is worth a damn, haha.
You’ve achieved a lot of success as a musician, what is the desire to pursue film and script writing? Did the move to LA have anything to do with those desires?
The move to LA was merely me following my wife for work reasons, though I am quite enjoying my time out there. I feel our lives on earth are short and I want to do as much as I can with my time here; film has always been my first love, and though I’ve had an amazing, privileged experience through music, I owe it to myself to explore ideas in film.
Do you feel like there are things you express in your scripts that you’d be unable to talk about in your music?
Yes, only because there is so much expansion of thought in screenwriting. Stories can be fleshed out a lot more. It’s great.
You’ve addressed this slightly in the excellent Noisey Interview you did recently, but how do you differentiate between writing characters and writing autobiographically? What does that difference look like?
Sometimes I write fictionally with characters that I don’t necessarily relate to and I do this as a sort of practice in fiction writing. I like that challenge. But more often than not, I create characters that are merely extensions of myself. This gives me more confidence in depicting them with some semblance of honesty/universality.
I’ve been guilty of this many times: I think a lot of fans assume the artist’s songs are all a reflection of their personal life. There were certain assumptions made about you and Connor as these drunken romantic characters. Did those assumptions ever feel limiting? Do you think there was any truth to them?
There is a certain truth to them in the sense that we definitely grew up in a heavy drinking environment over our teens and twenties, and I romanticized a lot of those previous sad drunks, á la Bukowski, when I was a young man. But of course, that would just be a small facet of who a person is.
Do you think people expect you to be a sad?
Ha, yes, some people seem so surprised to see me smiling on stage.
As I’ve mentioned before, you’re one of my favourite artists. I think your work has had a huge impact on a lot of people, but I was wondering if you consider yourself successful? Why or why not?
Sure, I consider myself successful — it would be rude to so many artists trying to make it day to day if I were to consider myself unsuccessful! I’ve had a small but fulfilling career for so many years now, and with each album I manage to afford the right to make the next. So that’s an amazing success!
To finish up. You’ve said before that you’d like to retire as a Jazz Drummer. How are those drumming chops coming along?
Going well! I started a band called BattlaX with some friends in LA ( including Stef from The Good Life and Dylan from my solo and Cursive tours, as well as our old bud, Dave Osborne) where I play drums, so I’m really learning on the fly these days, thanks for asking!
Graham Isador is a freelance writer living in Toronto. @presgang
Tim Kasher is currently on tour. Dates can be found here.
