Back in 2012, New York indie rockers The Walkmen released arguably the best album in their career, Heaven, and soon after announced they would be going on an indefinite hiatus. Two years later, the band’s Walter Martin struck out on his own with a solo album made up of children’s songs, We’re All Young Together, which featured guests like Martin’s Walkmen bandmate Hamilton Leithauser, The National’s Matt Berninger and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O and Nick Zinner. The surprise success of the album ultimately paved the way for this year’s My Kinda Music, which sees Martin back in his “kids music” frame of mind after releasing the more adult-leaning Arts & Leisure in 2016.
Written and recorded simultaneously with another “adult” album—which Martin aims to release early next year— My Kinda Music brims with the songwriter’s playfulness and wry lyricisms, and also features another guest turn from Berninger. Here, Martin discusses what led him to writing music for children (and why he doesn’t really like performing for them), his relationship with The National and his part in their massive Grateful Dead tribute album, what caused The Walkmen’s continued (and possibly permanent) hiatus and why being a solo artist has its ups and downs.
Once the Walkmen hiatus began, did you immediately start working on your own stuff at that point, or had you been working on that previously?
I started working on it pretty soon after we finished Heaven, after the recording process. I had a lot of lyrics and stuff like that leftover from Heaven and the album before that, and I really wanted to try to do something on my own. I never really thought I would do it before. So I just started trying to write things that would make sense for me to sing. It took a while, you know, figuring out what sounds right coming out of my mouth. I was used to writing for Ham [Hamilton Leithhauser] singing, and I didn’t realize how different it was when it was coming out of my mouth. It seems very simple looking back on it, what I should have done was just try to write lyrics the way I talk or the way that I think and have jokes the way that I joke around, and try to be as myself as possible. I didn’t realize that at first, so I went the through process of writing a bunch of stuff that seemed kind of cool, I guess, but listening back I wasn’t proud to play it for people because it seemed kind of phony. So I started doing the songs that became that first record, and I was like, “Even though this is kind of goofball shit, it doesn’t feel phony. I’m cool with it.”
And was the intention to create an album of music geared toward children?
No, not at first. I realized quickly that I really wanted to have a lot of humor in it. Every time I put humor in songs, it started feeling much more natural. I had all of these songs and I was like, “These are all kind of funny songs.” They’re all sort of inspired by ‘50s, like Leiber and Stoller and The Coasters kind of music, which is something I was obsessed with. And I was listening to The Coasters, and I was like, “If you put this out nowadays, it would be like a kids record. Oh wow, that’s a funny idea, maybe I’ll make a kids record.” It was a nice way of doing my own thing. I’m not trying to be cool or compete. I’m doing a fun, weird art project.
So with the new album, My Kinda Music, it’s not necessarily aimed at children, but it still has the same playful spirit.
A lot of those songs were written pretty quickly after the We’re All Young Together songs were written. For some reason, as I’m writing other stuff, those kinds of things just come to me, and I think they’re funny so I just feel like it’s my duty to record them. I really get a kick out of them. I’ve been working on two records simultaneously. I’ve been working on this adult record; I’m actually working on it as we speak. I’m almost finished with it. But while I’ve been doing that, it was a nice sort of breather to do the My Kinda Music stuff. Even when we were doing recording sessions when I had the band in the studio, we would like 3 or 4 of my adult songs, and then 3 or 4 kids songs. It was just a nice little balance.
You’ve said that for this new album, you wanted it to be a record that somebody like you would find in a weird record bin. Do you think you achieved that?
I don’t think I was thinking of it that way when I was making it, but, looking at now, I like to think of it that way. I’m such a record-buyer and I just know the kind of things that I like to find. If I found a record that was made by some guy in some band I kind of like, and it has a cool cover and some funny song titles, I’m just going to grab that.
Can you talk about some of the collaborators on the album like Laura Gibson and Matt Berninger from The National?
Well, Matt sang on the first record, too, and we’re buddies. He’s just a really funny guy. That’s also true about reaching out to Randy Newman [On “Hey Matt,” Martin admits to Berninger that Newman was his first choice for the collaboration]. All the stuff that’s in the song is all true. I reached out to Randy Newman—two times—through my lawyer. I don’t know if Randy heard this or not, so I don’t know if he rejected me or his people rejected me. But anyway, I really liked the song, so I was like, “I’ll get somebody else to do it.” I thought I could get Matt to do it, but then I felt kind of bad not telling him that I already asked somebody else. Then I got really into the idea of the full disclosure.
I’m curious about your relationship with Matt and The National guys, because you were also a part of the Day of the Dead band, that huge Grateful Dead tribute project.
I’ve known them for a long time. We [The Walkmen] started right about the same time as them in New York. We toured with them. They opened for us very early on, and we’ve just been pals forever. Then I hadn’t seen them for a while, and I ran into some of them and they asked me to do that Grateful Dead stuff, which was really fun because I love the Dead. It was nice to play other people’s music for a while, and to just be a sideman, which is kind of great. I love doing that. I play on the new National record—I think, since I haven’t really heard the full record. Yeah, we’re just like old buddies.
So you were a Dead fan before that project?
Right, yeah. I mean, I love the Dead. I’m a serious, classic-rock roots kind of person. In high school, it was Rolling Stones, Beatles, Velvet Underground, so I was a little bit of a snob about the Grateful Dead because I was more into the Velvet Underground kind of stuff. I fancied myself a little, like, cooler. But then in college, I got really into the Dead. The Dead are fantastic, but it did take me a little while. I just had, like, hang-ups, you know? Once I realized that and I got over all those hang-ups, I realized that there is just so much great stuff.
There’s definitely a kind of stigma there, partly because of them basically launching the jamband scene, which has its own stigma.
A lot of that live stuff, it’s such a big part of their reputation. I just don’t love that live stuff. I love studio albums. The early studio albums, I think, are just as good as anything. But it’s funny how they’re becoming in style now. I feel like they’ve always been the most out-of-style band. I feel like you see hipsters in their 20s now and they’re wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirts and I’m like, “Wow, alright.”
When you were working on that Dead album, being a fan yourself, where there any songs that you were super excited to work on? Or maybe afraid to work on?
All of the singers sort of decided what they want to sing, and singers gravitate towards slow, Jerry songs, which is my favorite stuff too. So it was really nice to play so much slow Jerry. I think that’s the heart and soul of the Dead.
So you’re working on both children’s songs and adult songs simultaneously. When you’re writing a song, does it just naturally fall into those different categories, or is it something that you try to do?
I have a lot of musical things floating around, like little instrumental do-dads that I refer to once I have a lyric idea I like. Like if I’m washing the dishes, I’ll think of a title that I like or a topic that I like, and I have a title line. Usually I can tell pretty early on if it’s going to be a funny thing I could use on a kids album. For example, the “Hey Matt” song, I thought it would be funny to sing about being a bad singer and have somebody teach me and give me singing lessons. And I thought that would be more funny on my kids records. So it’s really subject-matter-dependent. I have songs on my new adult record that aren’t as overtly silly, but there’s still a lot of humor in them. I don’t really do it intentionally, but I definitely put a lot of humor in my songs.
Can you talk a little bit about the recording process? As a listener, when I hear the album, it sounds like you had a lot of fun recording.
Definitely. I do a lot of it myself in my own studio. I think there’s only one song on that that was done at a real studio with a live band, so a lot of it is me doing it alone, pretending that there’s a great, fun vibe in my little studio. I try to get the song really solid, lyrically and musically, and put together really well. I try to record it fast and keep the first takes of everything, just so it all has a loose kind of feel. I was actually talking to my mom about one of my songs, and she was like, “You’re such a perfectionist.” And I was like, “I’m not a perfectionist. I mean, listen to what I do. It’s incredibly sloppy!” And she was like, “Yeah, but every single sloppy thing is exactly how you want it.” And I never thought of it that way. I found it very insightful of my mom to understand that about my music. I think that it was actually true that there’s a level of sloppiness. It is sort of a fine-tuned thing. It usually takes a bunch of tries for me to get the tone or the vibe of the song exactly right on the recording. But I do like keeping it loose and sloppy.
Are you going to tour this record at all, any kind of solo run?
Not with this record. I really don’t love touring for kids, you know? I’ve done some of it. Like when my first one came out, I did a few shows. It’s just a very different thing, performing for kids versus making an album that might entertain them in a car or something. It’s not really my thing. I really enjoy making the records, and I really enjoy getting notes from people who say their kids love listening to the music. I just don’t like actually being on stage in front of a bunch of children. They’re hard as hell to entertain, too. They want to hear songs they know, and they also just want to scream and go crazy. So they don’t really get my little jokes and stuff like that, so I sort of stopped doing it.
What are some differences between being in a band like The Walkmen and doing your own solo thing, especially regarding writing, recording and playing live?
The performance of it is so different. When I was with The Walkmen, especially at the end, there was no nervousness at all. When you’re with a gang, with your five best friends, and you get up on stage in front of a room full of people and there’s a shitty, embarrassing moment and you just play badly, you go off stage and laugh about it and have a beer and just don’t think about it. But if it’s just you alone on stage, it’s hard. It’s a very different feeling. You can’t spread the blame around. You can’t just laugh about it. It’s hard, but when things go really well, like when I get off the stage after a really great show, when I’ve been up there by myself on stage, I’m like, “Fuckin’ hell, this is the greatest thing ever!” The highs are very high and the lows are very low.
I talked to Hamilton pretty recently about his project with Rostam from Vampire Weekend. He was talking about how going on the road is very different, like you were talking about, and how when you guys went on the hiatus, it wasn’t like there was any bad blood. It was just kind of people wanting to do their own thing. You guys had been playing together so long, basically since you were kids, and logistics and people starting families and things started to get in the way. Do you have the same feeling towards the hiatus, and have you guys ever talked about getting it started up again?
I feel the same way about the hiatus. We did it for so long with all of us. It was just so much touring. And before that, I was in another band with basically the same guys, and we had been touring too, so it was just so much of it. And I had kids. My first daughter was born in 2012, so I didn’t want to go and tour anymore. I just desperately didn’t. What I do now is I have my studio, and I go to my studio every day and just write and release as much stuff as I can. Thankfully, I’ve gotten really lucky with syncs and licensing stuff, so it’s kept me going. It’s allowed me to do that without going on tour. So I’m just hoping the keep doing this and to keep getting lucky with stuff. Because right now it’s working, and I’m kind of shocked that it’s working. I’m excited. It’s good. As far as us getting back together, I’d be shocked if we did it again. Maybe when we’re in our seventies.
I>Heaven was one of my favorite albums of that year, and I guess I’m just interested that you guys called it quits when you had just done something that was so good. Is there ever any twinge of wanting to go back to that?
No, there’s really not. I’m never nostalgic about it. I probably will be at some point, but no. I don’t really have any longings to go back to it. We always felt like we were struggling. We were struggling throughout the whole time that we were working. There were periods that we felt like we were really cookin’ and things were going great, but there’s a lot of it that was a real struggle.
You mean like financially or just creatively?
Yeah, financially. Not creatively. Creatively, we were always feeling pretty good. But financially, keeping the band moving forward is hard. We were always shoved in a van and driving all over the place and getting flat tires. People look at The Walkmen and they’re like, “Oh, The Walkmen are a successful band.” I guess we did pretty good, but doing it, we always felt like we were struggling. So we recognize that we did better than other people, and that we had a career we can be proud of. With Heaven, we realized we have kids now, and our lives are suddenly not a lot easier. And we just decided to explore not doing it anymore.
