Jonathan Meiburg loves birds. The Austin, Texas, resident is a post-graduate ornithology student who named his band, Shearwater, after one, and his fifth album, Rook, after another. Recorded in Denton, the record continues Shearwater’s musical evolution, Meiburg's intricate songs and keening falsetto recalling quietly-experimental, orchestrally-rich rockbands like Radiohead and Talk Talk. On the eve of its Matador release, Meiburg fielded some polite inquiries.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
“I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was really small, because I thought it’d involve a lot of scuba-diving. But, I also had fantasies about being in a rockband. So, I’ve really stayed on both tracks: I didn’t end studying the oceans, but did end up studying birds. And the music has overwhelmed my life in ways that I never thought it would.”
What were your musical beginnings?
“My first bands that I was in were in high-school. The idea of going into Dallas and playing in club was really exciting when you’re 15, and they’re sneaking you in the back entrance. But, If I heard myself from then, now, I’d be absolutely horrified. We were like a Pink Floyd metal-band with the super-fast drummer.”
But you played in front of members of the general public?
“Several of them. I’d say 15 or 20.”
And what was the name of your band?
“Oh, no, you’re not going to get that out of me. Sorry. Suffice to say that it was a learning experience.”
When did your music start to resemble how it sounds now?
“After college I had this strange travelling fellowship, the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, where I went around the world for a year studying people in remote locations, ‘community life at the ends of the Earth.’ When I came back from that, a lot of my ideas about music and the world and what’s in it had really modulated, changed. I didn’t really know what to do when I got home, so I decided I would try to move to Austin and start a band. That was about 1999. And, shortly after that I met Will [Sheff] from Okkervil River, and we started working together.”
What came first: Okkervil River or Shearwater?
“Both at once. Okkervil had played two or three shows when Will and I started working together as Shearwater, and then I joined Okkervil a little later after that. We had a lot of time on our hands, then. Nobody wanted to see us play, so there was time to write songs, try out things; a lot of trial and error. And I’d gotten interested in birds whilst travelling the world, so a band seemed like the perfect way to explore ornithology.”
Is Rook a bird-themed record?
“There’re birds in it, but it’s not a concept record. It’s a mistake to get really myopic about a species that you’re studying, and not see it in relation to the entire environment of the world. I enjoy looking at birds, but I especially enjoy seeing them in the context of where they live, and why they live the way they do. So, in the record they’re the supporting characters.”
The Latin genus names in the LP's thanks list, they're birds?
“One is. The others are some critters we had close encounters with when we were making the record —like a beautiful little wood-boring bee— because we made it out in the country.”
How much can environment actually translate onto tape?
“That’s really hard to say. I know that it does, but it’s difficult to discern exactly what that influence is. With this record, there was a ravine behind the studio, trapped between some encroaching development from Dallas and where this studio was. And a lot of wildlife was moving through there; you could hear the coyotes at night. One night I walked out there and there was a barred owl out there, calling: woo-whoop-woo-wooooh. They like to talk to you, so I called back to it, and it called back to me, and we did that for a while. Then I went back in and kept working, owl-inspired.”
With this studio, were you searching for a rustic, woodland vibe, or just escaping the trappings of home?
“I liked the idea of being in a place that wasn’t home, so that I’d be focused on it and nothing else. But, I think I’m making it sound more pastoral than it was. In that encroaching development you could hear, every single day, them drilling natural gas wells, and bulldozers, and giant saws, not too far in the distance and getting closer every day. Even though I’d wake up to the sound of a rooster, and see foxes in the trees, there was also this enormous machine coming closer and closer. That fits in well with the way the record feels.”
Are there recurring themes in the songs on Rook?
“Absolutely. It’s really important to me that all the songs on a record talk to each other, and have a common purpose. When you’re working on a record, eventually you get to the stage where you’re crafting the whole thing; altering lyrics here and there, trying to quietly tie the songs together in a way that makes it feel like they all belong. You don’t want to get too linear, too literal with that; you want to more conjure up a world that has its own rules, its own problems, its own virtues.”
But wasn’t Palo Santo a whole concept work?
“Actually, yes. It’s based on the life and death of Nico, each one of those songs relates to a moment, an event, in her life. I didn’t want to talk about that too much at the time, because I didn’t want to turn it into a treasure-hunt; it was more important that I used that framework to create the wholeness of the record.”
Did anyone discern the subject-matter at the time?
“Not that I noticed. Certainly not in any particular reviews. But a lot of people talked about the ‘mysterious’ quality that the record has, which was what we were going for. Because she, in her music, is absolutely opaque; but at the same time it reaches you in a strange way that’s really effecting.”
Do you still take inspiration from other people’s records?
“Oh, heavens yes! I think one of the worst things you can do is slip into your own world, where you’re not listening to anything else. With Rook, obviously there’s Van Morrison. Touring with Bill Callahan was very inspiring; he’s so patient in the way he approaches his music. Sometimes, when you’re writing a song, it’s fun to think: ‘what would so and so do?’. Like: what would Bill do?”
