Hi, everyone! The other day, I got to interview Jonathan Meiburg, singer from the Austin/NYC slowcore band Loma. Though Meiburg has been involved with the Austin-based band Shearwater since 1999, Loma is a collab with the Chicago-based group Cross Record’s Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski. They are currently signed to Sub Pop Records, and they released their self-titled debut last year. I was very fond of it, as slowcore, dream pop, and shoegaze are some of my favorite genres to listen to. Meiburg has also collabed with Jamie Steward of the band Xiu Xiu, and has had the pleasure to perform with such large acts as Coldplay and Sharon Van Etten. After I heard about Meiburg’s music background, I was very interested to learn more about what he’s done.
bazzreviews: Which artists or albums had an influence for you to start a music career? Jonathan Meiburg: I remember when I was very young, I would drum along to a record of Bach organ music by putting the pots and pans on the floor and banging them with a spoon. As far as records that were inspiring for me to want to make music, though, Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock was certainly one of them. Meddle by Pink Floyd was another important one. Some music just makes you stand in awe, and that’s how I feel with Nina Simone. If I had to pick one musician to survive the 20th century, it might be her.
br: I read that you have a degree in both geography with a focus on ornithology, and you’re also a very prolific author. Were those career paths you would have taken if you weren’t in the music industry?
J.M.: Yes, I have written for some different magazines and websites over the years. Currently, I’m finishing a book that I’ve been working on for almost twenty years. I don’t know if I’ll do another one, but it’s a travel/nonfiction book about this weird group of birds that live in South America that are puzzling Darwin. To what you said about career paths, I’m currently trying to crowdfund my next Shearwater album, which is something I’ve never done before. Unless you have a following in the millions, it’s just very hard to make an income off of selling records and streaming these days. On Spotify, if you have 20 million plays of a song, you get paid something around $80,000. Not a lot of musicians have an audience that large. In fact, the record that has sold the most copies for me was only 20,000. If 20,000 people like my music, I feel like I should be able to make a living like that.
br: I understand that you are the lead singer your band Shearwater, but also a member of Loma. How did meet the other members of that group?
J.M.: Shearwater actually toured with Emily Cross’s band, Cross Record in 2016. I really loved working with them, so I proposed that we make a record together. I wrote the songs, but Emily sang them. It was the first time I’d ever written songs for someone else, but it was a lot of fun. Part of what makes a project interesting is you’re given the opportunity to try new things and force yourself into uncertainty. It can be a real risk, too. I did a project a while back with Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu that was a fun musical experience, but we got some of the worst reviews we’d ever had in our careers.
br: Can you tell me a little bit more about your collaboration with him?
J.M.: We got together to write, record, and mix everything with our engineer, John Congleton. It took us one week to make, and the resulting record was called Blue Water White Death. Everybody hated it. I can see why people would think that, but it still remains one of the most artistically rewarding things I’ve ever worked on.
br: Are there any other artists you would want to collaborate with?
J.M.: I admire a lot of musicians, but I’d have to think of someone where I would bring something valuable. Ths collaboration with Loma worked well because we admired each other and we came to the project as equals. It’s very easy to make decisions, because it’s either unanimous or two against one. Maybe one artist that I’d like to work with is Phil Elverum, he’s a national treasure. I’ve seen him a number of times, and I come away feeling inspired and curious about music in a different sense every time. His work speaks very beautifully. I also tried to interview Mark Hollis of the Talk Talk once. I got in touch with him through a mutual contact. I did get an email back from him, but he said that he appreciated my interest and would have to respectfully decline. It’s funny, because he had pretty much declined every interview he was offered in the last twenty years. He’s almost like a modern-day Bartleby the Scrivener.
br: Throughout your career, you’ve toured with bands like Coldplay and Sharon Van Etten- how has working with them helped your career evolve?
J.M.: Coldplay was funny because I don’t know how they ended up picking us to open for them. We only played four or five shows with them, but they were very kind to us. You suddenly go from playing clubs with 200 people to playing in arenas with 20,000 people. You have half an hour to perform, a ten minute sound check and you’re off. When you’re at a show, you could care less about the opening band. The lights go down, and people applaud because they think something is going to happen. You walk out and it’s not even your applause, it’s for Coldplay. If I were put in that situation now, I would probably handle it better. At the time, it was around 2008, no one had told me what to do. I just feel lucky to have survived it. With Sharon, though, it’s a completely different story. I’ve known her for a long time, and she’s wonderful. She made a dream of mine come true, actually. They put a song of hers on the new Twin Peaks series, and I got to play on it. Twin Peaks really changed my life when I was a teenager, and it blew my mind to hear myself playing piano and organ in the background on the new version.
br: Can you describe how you typically go about making a song?
J.M.: I’ll grab onto a specific musical idea, usually playing something on any instrument. If it has something that sparks your interest, then I’ll sit with it for a little while or record on my phone. I’ll make a few phrases of music, let it marinate a bit longer, and I’ll keep coming back to it until it gives off an emotion. I think it’s really helpful to have an iterative approach to things. You should know what to do and trust it, but you might not know what to do all at once. I think I benefit from approaching something, working on it, then step back from it. I’ll go back again to approach it, then step back. It’s almost like you’re a painter observing what he’s looking at. When I try to make any song, an album, or my book, I realize that stepping back is just as important as standing inside of the project.
br: What is more important to you- lyricism or production value and instrumentation?
J.M.: I don’t know if it’s really the production value that makes the difference. Something that was made expensively might be great, or a song that was made cheaply could sound great. I was on Twitter the other day asking people what their favorite Shearwater songs were. I didn’t want praise, I just wanted to see which songs people really liked. I was pretty surprised to see people responding that their favorite tracks were the most expensive ones. It was gratifying because you feel proud for spending so much time on it. At the same time, you feel disappointed because they stopped me from making a cheap record. Lyrics are really, really important to me, too. I spend a lot of time working on them, but people don’t usually spend time listening to that. For me, it’s very important to have the instrumentals evoke a certain feeling. I don’t want it to just be background notes over vocals. You just have to make them work together, so I’d put equal weight on both.
br: You mentioned earlier about having a possible record with Shearwater, but do you have any projects in the works right for Loma.
J.M.: I haven’t really begun working on the Shearwater record yet, we’re only launching the crowdfunding campaign for it soon. If it works out, then I’ll make it. If not, then I won’t. We’ve actually been working on a new Loma in the last month, though. That is much farther along. We’ve got about sixteen different worlds for Emily’s voice to inhabit. I’m just honing in on the lyrics and vocal melodies to give them more structure. We’re recording it at the same place as the first album, out at a country house in Texas.
br: Can you tell me a little more about what the Loma record has in store?
J.M.: I would say the Loma record will build off of what we did on the first record. I felt like there was a lot of variety that gave us a wide palette to use. Part of what made that record enjoyable was that we worked in a way that any of us had before. For example, if the dogs were making noise while we were trying to record something, we decided to just leave it in. They ended up having a few appearances on that album. As I mentioned earlier, the country environment will likely protrude into this album as well.
br: What music goals do you have for the future?
J.M.: Survival, and the ability to make music. That’s the thing that I’m always fighting for. I recently made a Patreon account. I was afraid to make it for a long time, because it almost seems like begging. At the same time, you run into some financial obstacles. I felt very lucky that people have responded to me and pay me a little every month. It’s almost like a little community of people who support what I do and allow me to keep doing it. I think crowdfunding records is going to be the way of the future. In the absence of a national arts funding, it seems as if that is the only way artists can succeed. I can moan all I want about it, but there are really great things that come with it. Not everybody has to be Rihanna or Coldplay, artists with tens of thousands of listeners can still be successful.
I would like to thank Jonathan again for his time to interview. He was a great conversationalist and one of the nicest musicians I've spoken to. I would strongly suggest that you go add some money to his crowdfunding campaign, because continuing to make music is something that means a lot to him. His music with both Shearwater and Loma is truly great. I'd also like to keep thanking all my readers, more great content is coming your way soon!
Want to hear some of Jonathan's music with Loma? Visit https://lomamusic.bandcamp.com/
If you're interested in donating money to help Jonathan, go to http://Patreon.com/jonathanmeiburg
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