Interview: David Pajo of Slint

Few could claim to have such a wide-reaching influence upon underground music and culture in the last 30 years as David Pajo. The influence of Spiderland, the wiry, disconcerting odyssey that he and his band Slint made when they were barely adults can be seen everywhere: from the anxious jitters of early London Windmill Scene bands, to North American post-hardcore, to the noise rock scenes in Asia and South America. The pleasure was all Ria Serena's when she got to sit down with Pajo himself, to discuss everything from his memories of the music scene in Louisville in the 1980s, to his friendship with and memories of the late producer extraordinaire, Steve Albini.

I had the pleasure of interviewing David Pajo, one of the founding members of post-hardcore band, Slint. 

It was Slint which made David instrumental in revolutionising the post-rock landscape; however, my own personal introduction to his music was through his individual monikers, Aerial M and Papa M.  

Having then explored the entire depths of his discography, I concluded David was a true musical chameleon, each of his projects being vastly different from the next. This is what initially plagued my fascination. Unflinchingly experimentative, each creative output is a different manifestation of David and what he wishes to convey.

My first thoughts upon meeting him was how grounded he appeared. For someone whose success involves the seminal album, Spiderland, and stints within other influential bands such as Tortoise, David seemed an incredibly personable, down-to-earth individual.  

Our conversation saw us exploring his evolving relationship with sound as well as sharing personal anecdotes from his life. We touched on his formative years with Slint, fond recollections he shared with the late Steve Albini, and how he nourishes his craft. 

This was indubitably one of the more intimate interviews I have conducted. I saw David transported through time, where nostalgia and present revelations seemingly intertwined. Our exchange provided an in-depth insight into his illustrious musicianship, and self-revelations from the man himself!

Ria: Let’s start with Maurice, the lesser known but essential precursor to Slint. You and fellow Slint bandmate, Britt Walford, were pushing into more angular territory and I read that this type of direction was considered ‘too obtuse’ for the other members? Was there any specific material from Maurice which morphed into the basis for some of Slint’s earlier works?

David: Oh yeah, totally. I guess it was the first Slint song. It came out on Tweez - it's called Darlene. When we showed up with the riffs and the sound, it just became an instrumental because the singer was like, “I don't know what I can do with this”, and I guess it wasn't heavy at all, you know? It didn't have guitar solos, or it did, but it was all clean guitar, it wasn't like shredding or anything like that. It was more like Minutemen-based, which those guys were more into. I guess they just wanted to rock, you know, like more so, and we were just getting into weirder stuff. When Maurice broke up, that song became our first song, the first Slint song. Then the other guys formed a band called Kinghorse, which recorded an album with Glenn Danzig. They went the whole other route (laughs) which is pretty cool it splintered like that. 

I have a recording of later Maurice stuff when we were transitioning and all the new stuff we were writing, it wasn't just Minutemen. We had a Big Black song, we had like a Scratch Acid kind of song - that's the kind of stuff we were into. I think our direction wasn't like a clean guitar sound, it was  definitely getting weirder. Yeah, more obtuse, and that was just not the direction they wanted to go in. 

We didn't have Slint immediately. It was just Britt and I wanting to keep playing together. My best friend Ethan at the time, was just starting to play punk rock, and we were talking, and he was like, “I really want to form a band that's totally different from all the local music; all the local music's so shitty, I don't want to sound anything like any band.” I was like, “You should meet my friend Britt because we were talking about the exact same thing.” They completely hit it off and that's when Slint started, really.  

Ria: Not long after, there was the formation of King Kong. The Louisville scene seemed deeply intertwined, you could say it was ‘musically incestuous’? Did it ever feel as if people were consistently reinventing bands together or was there a more chaotic and spontaneous approach going about that?

David: I think it's just all about relationships and friendships and stuff, 'cause Louisville is not a big town really, and the kind of music scene in the 80s was really tiny, so you had a limited selection of people to play with if you wanted to form a band. There’s also all the small-town drama and gossip and stuff so bands break up constantly because everyone's kind of like (laughs) sharing girlfriends and stuff because it's just a small town, so feelings get hurt. I think it's more of a small-town thing because after Slint broke up, it was practically the next day, all three of us would go and record with Will Oldham. Brian would play drums, and I would play bass, and Britt would play guitar - we'd all switch, instruments we're not comfortable with. When Ethan left Slint and formed King Kong, it was like the next day, we started playing with King Kong. We recorded the EP where Britt played drums, or I played drums, and I think Brian did the ‘wah wah’ with the guitar (laughs). I don't know if incestuous is the right word - it was just limited choice, you know? We wanted to make music.

"I think it's more of a small-town thing because after Slint broke up, it was practically the next day, all three of us would go and record with Will Oldham. Brian would play drums, and I would play bass, and Britt would play guitar - we'd all switch, instruments we're not comfortable with."

Ria: I wanted to touch on your relationship with the late Steve Albini, who was a close confidant of yours and someone you deeply admired. You were fans of Big Black at the time. What was that like having someone you looked up to record your first album, and how has losing not only a collaborator, but a friend, affected you?

David: Yeah, I have not talked about Steve very much in public, or written too much about him.

I've talked a little bit with friends that also knew him. When I was into Big Black, I was just into Big Black. I didn't know anything about the guys behind it. Weirdly, I was really into Steve's writing because that was my introduction to Steve Albini. I used to read this magazine called ‘Forced Exposure Alive’ - great, awesome, punk-rock journalism back then, and Albini used to write for it. I apparently liked his article. I didn't even know who he was or that he had anything to do with music, just as a journalist! I would cut out his articles and send them to people to fuck with them. One of them was about ‘following some jock guy into a bathroom to eat his shit.’ Just really offensive, shocking, funny as hell. Really articulate, you know? So I cut these out and sent them to people. I just remembered that recently. I shared a sense of humour with Steve as soon as I was introduced to him, but I didn't actually get to know him until we recorded Tweez in '87. 

I'd seen Big Black, and I'd hung out with them because Clark and Dave from Squirrel Bait were friends with them and Brian McMahon were friends with them because they had toured with Big Black, but I didn't know he was special in any way other than that I liked his band. There were tons of people whose bands I liked, so to me, he was just a, “oh, he's another nerd, like the rest of us,” you know? Like, punk nerd (laughs) or like my little crew. 

It was once we recorded Tweez, and we stayed at his house and lived with him for that whole recording time, where I was like, “oh my gosh, he is one of us!” But he was also beyond. Steve just seemed like another freaky character in my life that I really admired, and then as the years went by, I feel like we just matured kind of together. There's definitely like a decade or two where I didn't talk to him very much because I was having kids and stuff, but man, the last like seven years or so, we got really tight and especially the last couple of years, where we were like texting. We’d text jokes throughout the day and stuff, or gossip or something, you know (laughs).

Ria: So many years have passed but you and Steve seemed to have the sort of relationship which evaded time. As you both grew older and the friendship matured, you still maintained that humour and level of fondness for each other. To be an admirer of someone's work and have them then become such a close confidant, it’s an incredibly remarkable thing. 

David: Yeah, it's remarkable because after he passed away, I hadn't realised how much of an influence he was on me and almost every aspect of my life, like even doing the dishes, you know? (laughs)? It's really funny because I was very young when I met him, and he was totally in his full-on shock-provocateur phase which he was a master at. I always say that he was really good at shocking the unshockable, you know? People like me that were so jaded were like, “oh, fuck!” (laughs) around Steve, because he found something that actually did shock me, you know? I think that was part of his art. He wanted to shock people like me that thought they couldn't be shocked. He kind of really hated that edge lord part of him later in life. It seemed like every time it sort of bubbled up when I was around him, he was embarrassed about that time of his life.

I think the last time I talked to him, one of the things he said was, “You know I was in a band called Rapeman for fuck's sake?” I can't remember what we were talking about, but I was like, “yeah, I know! I was at all your parties when you played, and we played together. I was a fan, you know?” (laughs) But to me, it was all just art for him. That stuff…it was supposed to make you feel a certain way. It was supposed to shock you out of apathy, basically. 

Ria: Your friendship with Steve, was that different to who we saw within his projects? You said he would, “shock the unshockable,” but was that far from how you knew him personally?

David: He was kind of playing that myth, you know? People kind of create their own mythologies. A lot of people do that at a young age. I feel like Will Oldham was good at that when he came out, and Steve kind of lived that shockmeister. I saw a sensitive, more tender side of him. Back then, even though he was older than the rest of us, but not by that much, he was adulting way beyond any of us. He already owned a house. He was paying a mortgage. He had a good paying job. He had a credit card when fuckers had credit cards in the 80s. He had a computer. I remember seeing some of his mail lying around in the late 80s and he'd already formed Steve Albini Incorporated. I mean, he was so smart about life. I didn’t really have those instructional parental figures of my life to teach me how to adult. So I learned from people like Steve, which is kind of weird. Like, I learned how to be an adult from Steve Albini (laughs).

Ria: The way you reflect about him is beautiful; it's done with such grace and compassion. 

David: Oh man, that's the thing! I've been talking to Todd Trainer a lot and his widow, Heather, quite a bit. We’re just always messaging each other and seeing how each other's doing and stuff. We are always laughing because there's a bottomless well of Steve's stories and one-liners. Heather's not handling it well as she probably shouldn't be. I've never had the love of my life die in my arms, I can't imagine what kind of trauma that is, you know? But  Todd, and Bob, and everybody…I just feel super blessed and lucky to have met somebody like Steve, and to have had him in my life. I'm like, not me? I feel robbed, you know? (laughs). I mean, I do! I feel that way. It was just such a shock, because he was just such a stable rock. It seemed like, “Oh no! People like him don't die!” 

Ria: Steve had such a larger-than-life presence with the people he surrounded himself, not only within the music  scene but also amongst his loved ones. You said he even inspired you to do the dishes? 

David: This sounds like I'm name dropping, but in relation to the ‘doing the dishes’ analogy, one time, I was at Electrical and because you had all the beds there, you could crash there. It was like, whenever you were in Chicago, you could stay there for free. When I got there, Kim Deal was staying there, and so, in the morning, Steve was making his famous coffees for Kim and I and Kim was like, “Wow this is really good, Steve. I didn't know you were a barista too!” While he was making mine, he had his back to us, and he was working on the espresso machine, he was like, “Kim, by now you should know that I can do anything." And he would say stuff like that all the time. I could tell by the tone of his voice, he believed it too, like that was his attitude. If another human can do this, I have the potential to do it, too. So I think he really had that ‘I-can-do-anything’ vibe, and it was really positive and empowering. 

Sometimes, when I'm doing the dishes, even though I feel like I've been doing this my whole life and I'm probably gonna die still doing my dishes (laughs) and I'm going to wonder, “what have I done with my life?” and all this stuff, I always think about how Steve could do the dishes or make a coffee, and in his mind, he was still this giant that could do anything, you know? He just chose to be doing the dishes right then. Sometimes, I feel like I can't do everything, which, you know, I'm pretty hard on myself, and constantly scolding myself. Even something little like, “Oh, I placed this in the wrong way!” I mean, it’s sort of OCD. I'm just like, “Fuck, I always fucking do that. When will I learn my lesson?” I expect a hell of a lot from myself. I expect perfection all the time. So to hear that someone has the potential to be able to do whatever it is that he wants to do, that definitely gives me hope and keeps me pushing on.

Ria: These anecdotes you're sharing, it makes all these musicians so much more relatable, you know? It’s funny to imagine you, Steve and Kim having coffee with each other. I love that!

David: That's the one thing I've learned. All those people are really special. They're all talented. I'm really lucky to be around such talented musicians, but the scene and the dynamic is no different than, like your scene and your friends. We're all just horsing around and fucking with each other (laughs). That's the thing about Steve, and we talked about this the last time I saw him, was our shared sense of humour and how he seemed to understand the Louisville humour better than anybody. I told him he was like an honorary Louisvillian without ever having lived there, just because he understood the bands and the people so well. Everyone else seemed to make fun of us or would think we were pretentious or this or that, but he just got it. He knew that we were just weird rednecks (laughs). He loved barbarianism and when we tried to be intellectual, you know? He loved it all. He loved Louisville, and we talked a lot about that the last time I saw him. 

He died two weeks later, after I saw him. I was playing drums with the Children's Hour in Chicago, and I invited Steve and Heather, because I thought it would be a great band for a date night. I know that Steve worshiped Heather, and I know they loved each other like crazy, but I rarely would see them together. They're both so busy. And so I was like, “this would be a good date night.’ I texted both of them so that they would kind of each have to commit (laughs). They both showed up at the place where I was playing. ‘The Hideout’, is really tiny, and I told a joke to Steve from the stage, it was really funny and afterwards, we talked, and we hugged, and told each other that we loved each other, which we'd never done before. That was the last time I ever saw them. It was kind of the best, but it was such a bummer too, because I was like, “Ah, man, we just turned a page in our relationship. I can't wait for the next couple years when we're going to get tighter!” It’s been over a year and Heather's still shattered, and I still feel too shattered to write about it. I keep wanting to write something about him, but I just can't. 

Ria: You saying you both loved each other for the first time, and that also being the last time you encountered Steve, I think that is a lovely final memory to have shared with him. 

David: Me and my guy friends, we don't say, “I love you” (laughs). I think it would be like, “Shut up, I know.” But with all the crazy changes and having kids and stuff, like,  I just say it now when I feel it. Sometimes, when I'm hugging somebody a goodbye or something, it comes out like a burp (laughs). 

"That's the thing about Steve (Albini), and we talked about this the last time I saw him, was our shared sense of humour and how he seemed to understand the Louisville humour better than anybody. I told him he was like an honorary Louisvillian without ever having lived there, just because he understood the bands and the people so well. Everyone else seemed to make fun of us or would think we were pretentious or this or that, but he just got it."

Ria: Those moments are so fleeting though because you can never predict when your last moment with someone is. I think we should make it a common practice for the people we surround ourselves with, to know that we love them. To show that gratitude and appreciation for these people in your life, I don’t think you could ever tire from hearing that. I  suppose it's made you more conscious as well in relation to how and when you say it because you never know when that could the final moment?

David: Oh my gosh, you never know when it's the last time you'll see them. I think it's funny when it does come out like that, like, sometimes I'm just like, “oh, shit, how are they going to react?”  because I don't know if they think that it's like, I'm hitting on them? (laughs) Everytime it's happened, it's always been positive, and they've always been psyched. It's never been a bad idea. Have you ever seen the film Idiocracy?

Ria:  No, I have not.

David: You have to see that movie. I feel like it came out in the early 2000s/ It totally bombed in the theatre. It's made by the guy that made Beavis and Butthead. I mean, at the time, when we would watch it on video, it was like a cult movie for us. We just thought it was the funniest, most outrageous film ever, and I would watch it once a year. And then everything started to come true. And then shortly, the guy from Touch and Go was like, ‘Idiocracy’ is a documentary, and I was like, “Oh shit, you're right!” As time goes on, it is more and more ‘Idiocracy.’ 

There's one point, I don't know if you know what Costco is here in America? It's like this massive airplane hanger of just junk, really cheap, and somebody greets you when you walk in. In ‘Idiocracy,’ when you walk in, there's this stoned guy who's like, ‘we're in a Costco, well, Costco, I love you” and that's like the future. That’s kind of how I feel I'm going to end up with the sentence, “I love you” (laughs).

Ria: Tweez was rehearsed in Britt’s basement. Did that sort of basement-band environment help shape the raw, DIY sound we hear, not only within Slint but amidst your later works too?

David: Oh yeah, totally. I think the basements are where punk rock was born. I don't know how you guys do it over there when there aren't really basements. I feel like, especially in smaller towns like Louisville, it is so easy to have band practice because there's always somebody that has a basement and some parents that'll put up with it. Then all of a sudden, every band practice is there, and that's just how everyone would do it. But like, in London or LA or New York or any of the bigger cities I've been to, it's really hard to have a band practice. It's like, “Oh, we have to run out this space,” and “we have to share this whole hallway with 20 million other bands that are excruciatingly loud.” You had privacy in the basement (laughs) and you could do anything you wanted down there. The parents were happy because they knew you weren't getting into trouble somewhere else. That basement vibe was 100%. I don't know if I should say this, but I think if Britt Walford had his choice, he’d probably just have band practice in that basement and never play shows. 

Ria: The basement was sort of the vessel for your creative output.

David: Yeah. It's a place of total musical freedom and Britt could try any crazy idea down there and he did! We'd show up to practice and he always had something bizarre. I should share those next time, those stories about Brit’s band practice surprises (laughs). I always showed up late and he'd have some sort of passive aggression.

Ria: The Spiderland cover shot by Will Oldham has become such a thing of its own. When people think of Slint, those four heads above water is what immediately comes to mind. Was there a specific concept behind that iconic image or did it come together more intuitively?

David: It was intuitive. We just shot two rolls of film one day, I think, in three different spots. Towards the end of the day, we all jumped into the quarry. Will did too, with his manual camera. You couldn't touch the bottom, so he's like treading water (laughs), that's why we're all laughing, because his head's going under while he's holding the camera up. That's why it's blurry, too. There are some great photos from all those two rolls, a lot of them are hilarious. Brian McMahon chose that one as the cover art, and I really did not understand it (laughs). I was like, “this one out of all of them?” I was not into it. I was like, “We're smiling, that doesn't look punk!” Brian definitely had some kind of vision that I did not see at that time. I have to credit Brian for sure for that. 

Ria: There’s a rumour PJ Harvey responded to an advertisement you guys had placed when searching for a female vocalist. Is there any truth to this or is this just another extension to the plethora of Slint myths floating around?

David: It's true! I think we talk about it a bit in the ‘Breadcrumb Trail’ documentary by Lance Bangs.

Ria: Aerial M is one of your more obscure monikers, but still feels artistically significant. It is most definitely one of your more abstract solo projects - purely instrumental, minimalist and ambiently textured! Did Aerial M ever feel like a direct stray from Slint’s legacy? Were these subtle compositions a reaction to the tension-and-release dynamic that had defined your earlier works?

David: Not intentionally, but I was pretty tired of the quiet section / dude steps on a distortion pedal motif by then. I remember wanting to make music I could get lost in. Moreso, I think it was a reaction after being in Tortoise - to simplify, back to basics. Two guitars, bass, drums, no effects, no vocals, standard tuning… orchestrate them and see what happens!

Ria: With Aerial M, the project feels as if you were creating an anti-identity. Very few photos, a lack of vocals and minimal packaging, there is a fleeting quality towards it. We are allowed to hear the music, but nothing remains after. It’s there, then it disappears. Was this intentional? Were you deliberately stepping into the background to creating something more anonymous?

David: That was deliberate, I’m glad you noticed! I wanted complete anonymity. I didn’t want the music to be judged as ‘the guy from Slint’ but on the music alone. Originally, I wasn’t going to have my name anywhere on the credits or press releases, but I also didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t proud of it. I still want to sell records - they fund future records.

Ria: This leads into my next question about Papa M. As a follow-up to Aerial M, it’s a very different type of project, especially sonically. There is more of a folky essence to it and the vocals feel almost conversational. What made you decide to introduce your voice after having kept it out of your previous project?

David: I went full-on with Papa M Sings, which I consider an encouraging experiment. I wanted to put out a record that was more similar to the music I was actually listening to. I was also so excited about my discoveries, in folk, blues, and country music especially, that I hoped it would turn other people on to this music. I think Slint had one foot in the future, one foot in punk rock, and the other foot in tradition. Slint had three feet.

Ria: Have you found your later projects to be a dialogue with your past self?

David: Not really, to be honest. I don’t have a lot of interest in past songs when I’m working on new songs. I might be like “I’ve already done that,” but I hear what you’re saying. We all gather experiences and make current choices based on what we already know. When those experiences are packed to the gills after decades of dumbness, it might seem like everything’s a reaction to the past.  Lyrically, I’ll sometimes write for a friend and find that it’s a good reminder for myself as well, or that, maybe I’m projecting? I’m thinking of the song ‘Ode To Mark White.’ It comes up sometimes, when I’m singing it, that maybe it’s not just a song for someone I know, but maybe I’m talking to myself?

Ria: Do you find creative power in emotional solitude?

David: I’m a loner, Dottie! Yes, the productive power of silence and isolation is bananas. I don’t recommend the extremes that I prefer, as I’m a basketcase. When I was 8, I announced that 4am is the best time of day and honestly, it hasn’t changed!

Ria Serena

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Edited by Liz Clarke

Images one and three provided courtesy of Slint and David Pajo; Image two courtesy of @pjmotdpunkphotos on Instagram