03.28.00 chat at nme.com
taken from nme

nme.com - elliott has to go now to get dinner. thanks for taking part

elliott smith
thanks to everyone - it was fun

pipey - i just bought 2 goldfish. can you suggest names for them?

elliott smith
sure how about fauntleroy and maybe clifton

smoult - i just bought either/or and it's great (they've taken it down to £6.99 - does this annoy you?) and i was wondering what that tattoo on your arm was of?

elliott smith
one is of ferdinand the bull (a children's story) and the other is the state of texas where i grew up

elmo &the chihuahuas - i find your albums really good to listen to late at night... what is your perfect 2.45am album?

elliott smith
there's several - i think marquee moon by television and the marble index (laughs)

akaliffLee - are you a good typist or are you dictating these answers to some sophisticated broad at this very moment?

elliott smith
i type with two fingers and i'm not typing at the moment. i don't think he (the typist) would be happy being referred to as a broad

stevem - did you ever know jeff buckley? your music and his have very similar effects on me - good ones that is!

elliott smith
i met him one time - long enough to ask him if he was okay

tv's bill juniper - do you have time to take in the british culture while you're here? like tv, papers, radio whatever? if so, anything catch your eye?

elliott smith
i have 3 or 4 days to take in british culture which isn't enough to find out all that much but it doesn't seem especially different from american media except the rise and fall of people who are paid attention to seems to be faster

james l - i'm a big fan of your music from singapore, i've enjoy all your albums. i was wondering, do you have a song title before you write the song or you usually name it afterwards?

elliott smith
rarely - almost never. in fact usually naming the song is the hardest part. but occasionally i do

elmo &the chihuahuas - this isn't a question, but sorry bout the santana comment, i was only joking...

elliott smith
i thought it was funny - i think rob thomas has a monopoly on that particular collaboration

michael j - just like to thank you for the music, the nice songs that save me from tough and boring days.since my girlfriend broke up i just listen to your music and i feel better. do your new record have the same healing effect? hope so....

elliott smith
that's up to you i suppose. i don't know. i just make them up. i don't know what if any effect they might have

elmo& the chihuahuas - would you ever collaborate with santana (how are your axe solos?!)

elliott smith
pleeease are you for real?

kai - are the people at nme.com treating you well?? what are u drinking now?

elliott smith
quite - yes very - it's nice/ this is an unusually fun way of being interviewed

jiffy - any plans for a uk tour, proper in the future.

elliott smith
yes i think in june

james l - hiya, i'm just heard the new song 'son of sam' on this website and i like it! what's your inspiration for that one?

elliott smith
unclear inspiration - there's usually no particular inspiration except a feeling - it's like describing a dream last night but you're having it now when you're awake. it's about two destructive figures but not the serial killer. it's got shiva in it who's

nathalie - who do you identify with ( i identify with hunter) in paris texas?

elliott smith
the thing i like about that movie is that it's easy to indentify with all the characters. i guess harry dean stanton is the main character i identify with. it's one of the few movies without a bad guy - you don't need a bad guy to create the kind of tension

elmo &the chihuahuas - if you could find a secret passage to anyone's head ('being john malkovich style') - whose would it be?

elliott smith
probably nico

aidan - what motown would you recommend to someone who wants to begin a collection?

elliott smith
stevie wonder - but i don't know if there's any good starting point. i'm not really an expert you can dispense advice on this

canary - i have read before in interviews that you compare visual art (painting) to music... have you ever tried your hand at visual art?? if not, is it something that intersts you?

elliott smith
i draw things - but not in any serious fashion - just for kicks. i don't have aspirations to use music as springboard into any art activity

andy king - me and my housemates reckon you sound like kurt cobain fronting simon and garfunkel. do you think that's a fair assessment?

elliott smith
no but what is a fair assessment - no fair assessment is going to come from a comparison.

kai - do u like belle and sebastian?

elliott smith
i guess I have to say yes

nips - how did it feel to sing the beatles' "because"? i thought it was perfect!

elliott smith
thanks - it felt wierd because i don't see the point in covering a beatles song except to take it apart and put it together again. there were four vocal parts - so there was a question of whether i could do it. and i didn't want someone else to do it who

vicky - will you be going to all tomorrow's parties, either as a fan or to do a gig? you looked liked you were having a smashing time at the bowlie weekender last year!

elliott smith
i'll be in france and i won't be able to go - otherwise i'd go

rachel - how about giving us a little sneak peak of the new album? what does it sound like? (i know it's probably hard to describe in words)

elliott smith
it sounds like someone who isn't in a band emulating one i guess - it has no one song that's representative of what it sounds like - in fact if there's any goal i say it would be to make it indescribable

slim shady - is there a specific word you would like to incorporate into a song but haven't?

elliott smith
that's a good question - no but i thought it was pretty funny that the word conquiestador ended up on figure 8 - i wanted to remove it but my friends made me keep it

sertaç - what makes you so sad especially in your songs?

elliott smith
i'm not so sad - there has to be a certain amount of darkness in my songs for the happiness to matter - just 'cos I'm not singing about sex and sports doesn't mean I'm sad

mark harris - why don't you try to get these songs released in a similiar fashion to beck, on several labels.

elliott smith
well, because i'm not beck and i don't feel like it

neil - probably the best concert i ever saw was mark eitzel in london in 1991. what about yourself and do you like mark's stuff ?

elliott smith
i have respect for mark eitzel - the best show i've seen were local bands from portland, oregan because of the energy and the locality - people were so into it.
some went onto record crackerbash, quasi - there were a million bands for a while in portland

charlie - i hear u have tons of songs you never release and some have said a lot of it is your best work. ever think about making plans to release more often or even double albums for all the material you make ?

elliott smith
i thought about making a double album the last three records and if i could put out a record every six months i would. people used to. but it's not how the monster to operate.

goddess - will sam and janet from quasi be your band on thursday? i think they're fantastic

elliott smith
i think they're fantastic - sam will be on tour with me but janet will be busy

rachel - elliott- are you working on any collaborations with any other artists? if you could work with any other songwriter who would it be?

elliott smith
no, not really - probably sam coomes from quasi. we haven't written any songs together yet - but i doubt we'll be doing it soon.

peter - whats your opinion on new heavy rock acts like korn and slipknot?

elliott smith
i have no opinion

mickey - what are you favorite artist painter?

elliott smith
probably mark rothko

h... - what music do you like that your fans would least expect???

elliott smith
maybe flameco and motown. i used to listen to flameco a lot. i used to try and play it and end up with a bastardised version of it

nathalie - what are you favorite books? do you love bukowski?

elliott smith
i don't care too much for bukowski - i like beckett and dostoevsky and a lot of russian novelists. bukowski is american and seems too much like he's telling me stuff i already know.

stephen biggs - at what age did you realise you wanted to be a musician

elliott smith
probably five as soon as I heard the white album. it was pretty much my inspiration - that and ac/dc

richard - what's your favourite movie?

elliott smith
paris, texas

ian - why did you decide to not put 'figure eight' on your new album?

elliott smith
well there were about 25 songs that could have been on it and it was on there until the last minute when it was replaced by a song called easy way out. it seemed to fit better and it was not a cover

h... - sorry if i'm being annoying...but is it true that you and lou barlow were thinking of working together.

elliott smith
sometime he might sing on a song of mine but there's no plans for any more than that... we've mention it. i like to play everything myself (laughs)

chris birch - what is your opinion on radiohead?

elliott smith
i like them i think they're very talented

j-me - does it ever strike you as surprising or maybe odd that at a given show of yours, which is normally a very soft one, that people are so boisterous in their clamor and applause?

elliott smith
yes, but i think it's odd any time there's a bunch of people in a room only paying attention to one or four of them. it's kind of fun but odd

andrew - who is your all time favourite vocalist (i know its hard!!)?

elliott smith
there's several of them - john doe, stevie wonder, sam coomes, nico

ian - whos better, bob dylan or neil young, in your opinion

elliott smith
there's no real answer to that question - why make a hierachy of people they're both great. neil young's more oblique but I like them both

chris birch - how come miss misery wasn't on an album?

elliott smith
because it seemed to belong to the movie it was in - it would have taken up too much attention space - it would have distracted from the album

maarten schiethart - goodmornin, what do you listen to in the morning, if anything at all

elliott smith
the same thing as at night i usually listen to one record for months - it's the marble indrx by nico at the moment

george henry dickie - are your lyrics more about feeling than story telling?

elliott smith
yes i would say so if there's a story it's usually a fragmented one

libby - what is the significance of the leather band you wear on your wrist?

elliott smith
oh it must have some deep meaning I'm not aware if - someone gave it to me about five

haukur... - do you have any connection with kevin smith, other than you having supplied music for that genius movie that i don't really remember what was called?

elliott smith
i don't have any connection with him - i know his name

duncan macphee - on some of your songs from xo, your voice sounds a lot like george harrison, circa the white album. have you ever noticed this before?

elliott smith
i haven't noticed it but to me that's a complement

stephen biggs - which album are you most proud of

elliott smith
not really any of them more than the others - the self-titled one was a turning point. at the time i felt it was fully what it was and i had no concern about what people would think of it