I recently interviewed James Murphy and Nancy Whang of LCD Soundystem and the full transcript of this conversation will soon appear on Exclaim! Magazine‘s web site. We’ll also be airing the whole thing on the Mich Vish Interracial Morning Show! in the next couple of weeks. Here now though is an excerpt of our chat, where we discussed why This is Happening is the final LCD Soundsystem record.
There’s been much made about how This is Happening might mark the end of LCD Soundsystem as a band. Is this actually true?
Murphy: Well, it marks the end of an era of what the band is. It’s three albums that are professional rock band albums where you go on tour and you make singles and videos and stuff. I think it’s a nice trilogy and I think that’s the end of that because it’s a full-time job in which you can’t do anything else. I’m 40 and these guys have things they gotta do and people have kids. It’s the most fun job with the best people but, as awesome as it is, it doesn’t seem to be worth doing at the exclusion of everything else. So, it might as well go back to it being a fun thing that we can do different things with.
So, it’s not simply a moniker change or something?
No, I mean that would just be a surface change; that would be meaningless. Then I’d just start another stupid band with another name. There’s no reason to do that. It just means I don’t wanna be a professional musician anymore.
Whang: At least not that style of professional musician.
Murphy: Yeah, like make a record, go on tour, do interviews, make videos. I wanna just go back and produce other people again, keep running DFA, work with my friends, make singles—things like that.
Okay, well do you have any plans to score more films? How was your experience scoring Greenberg?
It was great but that’s because I got along with Noah [Baumbach], the director, really well. I normally don’t think I’d score films. That industry is really kinda horrifying. So unless I could deal with a director one-on-one, as if they were just my friend, I wouldn’t probably touch it with a ten foot pole. They’re kind of a bunch of morons. They hate music! (laughs)