Tank Interview With David Pajo

The man from Slint delivers a world exclusive between mouthfuls of coffee

text by Stuart Turnbull
photography by Sebastian Mlynarski

He was a founding member of Slint and the guitarist with Tortoise. The man now known as Papa M (formerly Ariel M) also served time alongside Billy Corgan in rock supergroup Zwan. Along with Stereolab and Will Oldham collaborations, heavy metal sidelines, twister-dodging and voracious book reading, the enigmatic Dave Pajo is no slouch.

Pajo is sitting in a coffee shop in Louisville, Kentucky, when we eventually reach him by phone through the fizzing, spluttering aftermath of the power cuts and electrical storms of America's late summer tornado whipping. He kindly exits the coffee shop to sit in a deserted parking lot and talk. Cutting to the chase, we'll say that he leaves it until the last three minutes of a 45-minute conversation to hit us with a confession that, at the time of this interview, was a bona fide worldwide, indie-Valhalla exclusive of seismic proportions. And he delivers it as a trademark laconic afterthought.

"This old band I was in, Slint," he mutters, of the post-rock supergroup that split in 1991, "are doing a reunion show at All Tomorrow's Parties in February, and I think we're gonna curate it. I'm actually not supposed to say anything..."

Through a slurp of coffee, he continues. "We're reforming just for that show. They asked us - Barry Hogan of ATP - and everyone in Slint seemed into it. We won't do any music as Slint after that, or even before then. We never really played live much, and this would be a good opportunity to close the book on the band."

"We really want to do it right," he adds firmly. "This is not casual at all. It's probably one of the biggest, most serious things I've ever done with music. We'll literally have 7 to 10 hour meetings over the [All Tomorrow's Parties] weekend, not even playing a note, just talking about the right way to go about it."

Portrayed as awkward, tardy and elusive by the music press, Pajo is in fact a very obliging dude, one much given to a proper chat. We digress onto non-seismic revelations, like what he's been reading lately.

"I just read a cheesy surf novel called Tapping The Source," he reveals. "It's a dumb, easy read about a surfer who gets beaten up by biker gangs. Lately I've been going for the dumber things. I enjoy dumb comedy. I like Alan Partridge. And I like Rudy Ray Moore, of 1970s blaxploitation film fame. He's in his 60s and he does stand-up now. Rudy considers himself the first rapper. He's still got the edge. He told some joke about raping a deaf and dumb girl and then breaking her fingers so she wouldn't tell anybody - that's so harsh!"

Polite, if warped, but assuredly warm of heart, Pajo does acknowledge the primal side of humanity. "The fact is that violence and sex gets people's attention, so I try to mix the two. I do like violent and shocking lyrics, but I'd rather hear Merle Haggard sing about murder than the Wu Tang Clan. I never liked country music when I was a teenager because to me it was adult music, but if it gets into your system, then..."

Haggard is a notoriously patriotic American singer famed for his vociferous support of US warmongering. Pajo thinks the Iraq situation is "a fuckin' mess and we shouldn't be there," but was on a rooftop in Brooklyn on September 11 and watched the towers go down. "I remember thinking we have to respond," he says of his immediate reaction. "Totally brutally." His response now mellowed, Pajo's new LP as Papa M, planned for 2005, promises to be a country-strafed wander that oozes the pining, lonesome sound of America's white soul, even though Dave describes himself as "an Asian kid," being half Filipino and half Detroiter.

"The record that I'm working on now has country guitar all over it," he continues. "I didn't plan it like that; I got a lap-steel and it evokes such a nice feeling." He's no whining sap though, as a current project with some Big Apple riff junkies attests to. "I'm playing with a metal band in New York called Early Man. It's like street metal, these guys have no money and know no other music than early 1980s British metal. It's fun, there's no fluff. I like how country music is really stripped down and really direct, and it has that thing where you have one message and you drive it home."

Pajo recently completed a 10-day fast - "I had tons of energy and was really lean, and your skin gets really good" - but how does a creative dynamo like him reward himself after a working day? "I download pornography!" he laughs. "Just kidding. I try to spend as much time with friends and family as I can." Any plans to have his own family? "I'd like to have a kid, but it's finding the right partner. I just got out of a brainfuck relationship so I'm just sowing my wild oats, I guess. I'm gonna put myself on a relationship diet..."

- January, 2005