In Conversation: William Tyler

Noise Floor’s Nick Calvino catches up the veteran Nashville guitarist.

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Perspective is key.

William Tyler followed up several years as sideman to greats like Lambchop and Silver Jews with several albums of solo material drawing on the American primitive guitar tradition, classical music, and new age. And recently, he has expanded into film composition, scoring Kelly Reichardt’s 2020 feature First Cow.

But he is also a student of history and culture with a prescient and broad outlook.

Noise Floor caught up with Tyler shortly after the release of his beautiful new EP New Vanitas – a superb collection of cosmic Americana that meanders and warbles like the best late night AM radio transmissions. We also discussed his work on First Cow, damaging American myths, healthy mistrust of the government, and his recent recommendations.

[Author’s note: This conversation took place on September 18th, a few hours before news broke on the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There is a brief mention of merchandise bearing her image to illustrate a political point and was in no way intended to make light of this recent news. If you haven’t – support organizations trying to both end this nightmarish administration and support the rights of others. Also: as always – no jobs on a dead planet.]

NF: First Cow – what was it like to work on a film score? I know you had been involved in The Trimbin Band project [with Quindar and Nick Hallet], which involved making music for film in some way. I wasn’t sure what working on a film like this would be like.

WT: Well, it was fairly one-on-one with [director Kelly Reichardt]. She was already in the editing stage and she had placeholder music in most of the spots that – actually, all of the spots where there’s music now. Original music, I mean. So I had a pretty helpful roadmap, sonically, for what needed to happen.

I recorded pretty much everything with my friend Scott Hirsch who lives in Ojai, CA. About two hours north of L.A. He has a really cool, kind of backhouse home studio where we’ve worked together a lot. So we had probably four or five days total of recording and mixing. And there were a couple weeks in-between there. Which was actually good, because even though we were up against tight deadlines and I was on tour in the middle of one of those gaps, we were able to send stuff to Kelly and her assistants and then have them go back and say “Oh yeah. Now we’re going to recut this scene to be a few frames longer, so now there needs to be a couple more notes ringing out.”

I know a lot of composers work with directors earlier on in the process. And even though this was kind of an intimidating timeline, because I’ve never done this before and I’m a fan of Kelly’s and was so honored and anxious about the assignment, the fact that it was so far along…everyone had to be a bit more decisive than usual because it was coming along later in the process.

NF: Do you think the notion of “good art is made under pressure” would hold true here? The results speak for themselves, but there seems to be two schools of thought with musicians either saying they like having the space to do whatever, whenever versus having the deadline making one more decisive.

WT: I mean…deadlines make me more decisive. And they definitely make me more motivated. And that’s going back to high school and homework [laughs]. With her, the initial thing was a little bit of a wild card thing. Because I did send her a motif that’s kind of the opening and closing theme in the credits. And she’d give me some reference points, and I’d send her something that was a little appropriate for me but it also sounds like “William Tyler music.”

But she definitively responded to that. We just kind of worked backwards from there. I knew that she wanted it to sound evocative without sounding blatantly old-timey. So it was like “well, we can use a dulcimer, but we probably can’t use a banjo.” Just sonic choices that had to be made along the way.

Yeah. I think working under pressure definitely worked in this circumstance.

NF: I feel like her films, without being overtly so…like Wendy and Lucy, Old Joy, or Meek’s Cutoff, tend to have a focus on America that is a nuanced focus on what it is to be American or even a critique of capitalism in its quiet way. Was that part of what attracts you to her work?

WT: Yeah. She sent me a working cut of the film and I think I picked up on…like, there’s that scene where they’re in Chief Factor’s meeting room and talking about how the beaver pelt trade is not going to go away because the Chinese market is still there…and I was like, “Ok. She’s making some timely comments about capitalism, trade, and imperialism.” It’s subtle in her films.

She has a very unique vision or commentary on America and the west, in particular. I love the way she makes westerns, specifically. Because she turns most of the tropes about westerns on their head. At least in the two she’s made. I guess you could argue that Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy are westerns, as well.

But also, I’m a huge history nerd. So being able to immerse myself in a project that was set in the 19th century was a dream come true.

NF: I feel like her work with [author/screenwriter] Jon Raymond always turns out well. They keep making these fantastic films. Great example of how collaborations don’t need to get stale.

WT: Exactly. Jon is great. He really is such a good and thoughtful writer. The dialogue is so rich even though…the way that it’s recorded is intentional in making you lean in because it’s so quiet. But I feel like that’s all by design.

NF: There’s a quote of Kelly’s in the press release for this new release [New Vanitas] that you mentioned of her suggesting you “be open to the moment.” It seems like the M.O. of the release in some way. Could you elaborate on that phrase or what it means to you? Especially in the…”current situation?”

It’s hard to pinpoint a “situation,” with so much shit going on though. It’s just…”all this.”

WT: Yeah…I mean, Modern Country, just going back to that album I put out four years ago, was inspired by this sense of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with what the “American Dream” had become. Sort of…top-down capitalism models. It was like…”Ok. So Bush was in power. Then Obama was in power. We’re still at war. The bank dudes haven’t gone to jail even though they caused the market crash.”

I just sensed this general disillusionment that wasn’t really being spoken about. And I really felt like one figure on the right or the left could seize the moment. And that’s what was so fascinating about 2016, was that…I think Bernie [Sanders] would’ve beaten Trump. I don’t think he would have beaten Trump this year. But I think 2016 was all about the unknown.

So then this fascinating thing happened. I saw it happening going from the Bush years to the Obama years where if you’re a liberal or a progressive or whatever, when the other party is in power, you tend to be hypervigilant. You read the news every day. You study every scandal and every mishap. And then as soon as the party that represents your interests, at least on paper, gets in power…you clock out. I had so many of my friends, politically, just stopped paying attention during the eight years Obama was in office. And there were a lot of important things happening then. Some good, some bad.

But the point is that in 2016, I was not surprised. I thought Donald Trump was going to win the whole time. So when he did it was like…well, maybe it just says something about my attitude about where we are in America in terms of racism and sexism. That also just has a lot to do with where we are in America in terms of how we view elites.

Every single group in America right now, regardless of whether they are on the right or left spectrum, is against elites. Or they are in word only, even. So there’s this general sense that the status quo model is broken. Everybody understands it’s broken. And there’s these wildly different visions being offered. But I think part of it is that the internet has polarized us in such a fundamental way that we don’t have a shared reality anymore.

Part of me detaching for a little bit, I guess to get back to your question about the new release, is that I keep going back to this phrase of “the end of the American Myth.” Like 2020 is the end of the American Myth. For, at least, certain white people [laughs] who didn’t have to confront things before.

I just felt a lot of things personally this year, where I finally had the space and time to reflect and try to be more self-aware about things I don’t like about myself and that I needed to work on. And also grief. I’ve felt a really profound sense of grief over personal relationships, professional things, political things. And I guess the title reflects a certain preoccupation with death and transience. But I didn’t want it to be too gothy-sounding. But I think it’s good to be aware that right now we’re witnessing and reckoning with a lot of things that are interrelated, in that they are all indicators of what is wrong with our system. How handle health care. How we handle police enforcement. How we handle private prisons and private education, celebrity culture, top-down capitalism, the music business…

It’s so much. It’s kind of overwhelming. But I think a lot of people are conscious, maybe in a way for the first time. Or that everybody’s eyes are sort of open right now.

And then of course…half the country doesn’t even care. So…[laughs]

NF: What interested me about the title was that it reminded me of the classical idea of memento mori – in keeping at functions, or in general, something to remind you of death. And not necessarily in a negative way, but for keeping things in perspective. “You’re going to die…so you probably should appreciate this.”

Even beyond the pandemic or anything like that, it seems like the “death of the American Myth,” the death of America’s control over the world stage, it seems like it’s also focusing on asking what it is we appreciate. What is it that was or is still good? What needs to die? What needs to be swept aside? And can you have America without that myth holding it up?

Especially with the recent announcement of The 1776 Commission to combat The 1619 Project. Do we need to really need to keep rewriting this, or can we face the reality of it and still appreciate the good things about it?

WT: Well…do you know that historian Jill Lepore who writes for The New Yorker sometimes?

NF: Not super well.

WT: Well she wrote a book called These Truths. It feels so weird. I feel like every year before an election, I cram all this dense and sobering nonfiction in to my reading curriculum and that while everyone’s freaking out, I’m like “yeah, this is kind of what I expected.”

She has this book that’s like this Howard Zinn meta-history of the United States called These Truths. Came out a few years ago. It’s a unified, thematic look at American history through the lens of the establishment narrative, but also what was going on with African Americans – with slavery and racism, what was going on with women’s rights issues going back to the American Revolution.

So it’s one of those things where you come out of it more cynical about America, but she published this follow-up volume…maybe last year…called This America. It’s like 100 pages and can be read in a sitting. It’s kind of a case for patriotism coming from the left. And that’s something that I’ve been interested in. I don’t think it’s being voiced enough. It is by certain people like Joe Biden [laughs].

To your point about what we do about the myths of America, I think we just acknowledge – as progressives –the myth of linear history and what it has meant to a lot of people who weren’t rich white guys is that that was a myth, in and of itself. The myth that those guys came up with in saying that freedom and freedom of speech should be for everybody, no matter where you’re born. That is a myth we’re actually trying to make real. Which is why I am patriotic. I actually do believe this country can maybe someday uphold its promise.

It just hasn’t.

NF: I think that’s a good example of this weird disconnect with this new…I hesitate “fascistic”…it is fascistic. But I hesitate to say it because I don’t think Trump even deserves credit for it because he isn’t clever about it…

WT: [laughs] Yeah! He doesn’t even have any ideology. I mean…let’s be real.

NF: But the question of why it’s somehow hard to look at, say, the ideals of the Founding Fathers. And see that they make the case for, supposedly, a more progressive or egalitarian society – whether they intended that to extend to people beyond those like themselves is a whole other story and needs to be reckoned with as well.

But it’s strange to see people upholding this myth and ignoring anything getting in the way of it. Almost exclusively due to white men. And trying to reframe the narrative so that things were always perfect from the get-go. Like there’s no issue. “Systematic racism or sexism never existed.” General toxic culture for anyone who isn’t a white man and that it’s been this way forever.

What I find so interesting about that is that America is such a young nation. And yet there’s this feeling that it’s always been this way and worked fine. As if we live in a vacuum.

And I suppose a lot of what more conservative or libertarian ideologies tout might make sense in a vacuum where things like structural racism or sexism don’t exist. That “equal playing field” or inherent opportunity might exist. But I feel like that speaks to just how out of touch with reality they are – they can’t even comprehend the possibility of these issues existing.

WT: And they’re not interested in any sort of intricacies that don’t fit their narrative. I will say this though. And I think this is why social media is so toxic.

There are truths in every thought bubble. I’ve been really amazed with how the mainstream left in this country has just completely disowned WikiLeaks. And it’s like…yeah, Julian Assange is a terrible person. And he should not be celebrated. But putting him in jail and extraditing him is a terrible precedent to set for whistleblowers. Same with [Edward] Snowden. Although Snowden is a much different kind of person than Assange. But it’s because these people were seen as whistleblowing the Obama administration or helping Trump get elected that…I mean, it doesn’t negate the other stuff they did.

I think two things are true: Trump is a psychopathic fascist who wants to be another authoritarian. And also, there is a deep state that’s the intelligence community that’s very much against him. It shouldn’t be “wrong” for people on the left to talk about a deep state because, frankly, that deep state is what overthrew democratically-elected regimes all over the world for the last fifty years.

I just think there’s this whole conflation now with “conspiracy theory” being QAnon and Alex Jones. And when I was coming up, it was more of a heathy distrust of what the government was telling you. Which I still think is a good thing [laughs].

NF: Especially now with liberals…maybe not progressives in that they tend to have a better handle on those nuanced ideas…

WT: Sure.

NF: I think the same people that will, say, buy Ruth Bader Ginsburg mugs, or were ride-or-die for Clinton in 2016…and not to say there aren’t better options than what we currently have…I think people forget things that happened when they weren’t looking.

For example: talking about the expansion of the surveillance state during the Bush administration, but seemingly forgetting that it was the Obama administration that gave unprecedented permissions to the NSA that was then handed off to the Trump administration.

But folks don’t seem to want to hold those on “their side” accountable. To your point of not being as vigilant when complacency is certainly easier.

WT: I think that it’s just part of the emotional attention span for a lot of people. At least white people.

One of the discussions I’ve been having in the past few months…and I can’t ever assume to feel what it is to be anything other than who I am or what I grew up around. But I think there’s this “information exhaustion” for a lot of my friends. And we need to check each other. Balancing this – being hyper politically-aware and staying on your guard – this is part of white privilege [laughs]. Everybody’s kind of fucked right now because of the global pandemic that’s ruining the economy. But let’s be honest.

It gets stuck in my craw when there’s this whole sense of “it can’t happen here” or “Trump can’t not leave office.” Why? That happens in lots of countries. Sometimes we’re the people that instigate that. Like…have you looked at Latin American or South American history from the past forty years?

NF: Have you listened to a Minutemen album?

WT: [laughs] Have you seen any Oliver Stone movie? Even if you hate him?

I guess getting back to New Vanitas, obviously I make instrumental music that’s supposed to be evocative without telling people how to feel. To your point about Kelly, she was really good about being like “I want this note or this moment to land not on the big shot of the sky, but on the guy’s feet walking.” I think it’s all her method of not being so emotionally-didactic with the way she puts her films across. So that’s something I hadn’t really thought about.

Because I’m very much in a sentimental…if I have to pick a genre of music that I gravitate towards most of the time it’s either soundtrack music that’s a little more over-the-top or 19th and 20th century Romantic European classical music. That kind of stuff is telling you how to feel.

So I am trying to walk it back a little bit and be a little less “big moments.” Feels more appropriate for what’s going on right now. It’s a very insular time right now.

NF: Just to counter that from a listener’s perspective, going back to Modern Country and how you discussed the themes that inspired that record at the time, by nature of it being instrumental music…it allows for more meditation on the themes. If you hear something sentimental or landing a big moment in a song, it isn’t being tied to a specific idea or image as it would in film. It gives more space for introspection.

WT: That’s a really good point. I feel like the Popol Vuh and the [Ennio] Morricone and the Bernard Herrmann soundtracks I get obsessed about are powerful in the movies, but they’re almost more powerful on their own because they’re…

I guess you’re right. If you’re using my song in a specific kind of visual montage, it might come across as being way more sentimental than I intended. And for some people that’s a good thing! I mean…have you heard about this new Alex Ross book about [Richard] Wagner and the “cult of Wagner?”

NF: Yeah.

WT: I haven’t read any of it yet, but a friend of mine reviewed it. But I was chatting with someone it yesterday about how there’s a lot of reasons that his weird archetypal thing has carried across so many different genres in spite of all the problematic stuff about him.

Think about it this way: he was talking about mythical archetypes which directly lead to [author/professor] Joseph Campbell, which almost leads directly to Star Wars, and John Williams was trying to make music that sounded like Wagner for those movies [laughs].

Certain things and motifs and major/minor changes…I think there’s an emotional response, at least in the “West,” that people are programmed to respond to.

Yeah, you’re right. Using that in the context of film music…you’ve got to be careful. I always think “less is more.” And so I’m glad Kelly had that viewpoint as well.

NF: In separating music from those visual cues, using Bernard Herrmann as an example, listening to the Vertigo soundtrack separate from the film doesn’t take its power away. Listening to it while folding laundry, or whatever. You might not recall the visual cues, but they’re fantastic pieces on their own. Even though they’re very sentimental or designed to be on the mark in the film. Telling you how to feel.

But it’s always good to see them hold up on their own when they’re not serving that direct purpose. As opposed to the scores to other blockbuster movies that are entirely forgettable.

WT: I’m glad we did it, but when Merge [Records] and A24 were first talking about putting the music from First Cow out as an actual release, I thought it was just part of the movie sound. I didn’t know if it worked on its own.

But we came up with the solution. Scott, my engineer buddy who recorded it, suggested we try and see if we can get permission to incorporate some background noise and dialogue from the movie and give it context. And I was like, “yes. That’s the way to do it. That’s the bridge.”

NF: I think the release holds up on its own for that reason. Not that the music wouldn’t be enjoyable, but it’s elevated and creates its own little space because of those sounds. The ambient quality livens it up and broadens the space it might suggest. In that world for a few minutes.

The collaboration aspect of your career over the years: Lambchop, Silver Jews, Hands Off Cuba, Steve Gunn, Mary Lattimore, etc. You’re now known, mainly, for your solo work. But has this time separated from others in general made you more open to future collaborations or changed your perspective on collaborating itself?

WT: That’s a good point. Before the shutdown happened, I was thinking that I wanted to collaborate more. Just in general.

I spent ten years as a side person. And then spent ten years as a solo artist. And I know how to work in both worlds. I’m not the best side person, but I have a thing and I know how to work well with other musicians.

And when it’s just you, it’s kind of liberating. It’s kind of good for your ego. Sometimes it’s terrifying. It’s different. It’s like playing golf rather than playing baseball.

I’ve really missed personal interactions but, my god, I’ve missed interactions with other musicians. That’s a language that you need to be able to speak. This year’s been so crushing to so many people. I don’t even care about playing a gig. I just miss playing with other people. It’s a motivator.

I would definitely say that, moving forward, I’d be interested in collaborating more. I feel like I can make solo records that “live in a certain space” and fulfill a certain emotional need for me. But it’s not enough.

I’ve always been aware of how “monochromatic” indie rock is. Which is, for better or for worse, the genre that I’ve sort of been in for a lot of time. And it’s just…not very representational of what most people are listening to [laughs]. I’m also very aware that I’m doing a certain kind of music and it’s what comes to me naturally. But I’m just always looking for ways of broadening the audience and the participation. It means a lot to me.

Maybe when I was a teenager, I thought it was ok to be in a little scene. And you get a pat on the back and that’s it. And you fit in that scene. And now, I feel the opposite. I don’t like scenes. I’d rather more inclusive environments.

NF: I feel like your presence on the touring circuit speaks to that, too. Sharing the bill as a solo instrumental artist usually opening for a lot of indie acts, for example. I think you’ve spoken about your awareness of how different or unexpected it might be to get that before a more “typical” indie show.

It’s a good sign of things to come. At least personally, it’s so boring to go see something like an indie band and the opener is pretty much the same but probably not as good. Busting that part and pairing different genres would make more a more interesting evening or general perspective.

WT: Exactly. And that’s one of things that Mary Lattimore and I always bonded over. I think we share a lot of things spoken and unspoken. But one of those things is the attitude of “I don’t care if it’s a house show, opening for a punk band, playing in an arts center. I’m going to do the same thing and people can either get into or not. And I’m not going to change what it is based on the environment.” I think there’s something really cool about that.

NF: Mary Lattimore is an interesting artist. Because I’d assume this classical background and then have heard her mention her love for The Cure. It’s good to keep reminding myself that it’s never one or the other. It’s always deeper.

WT: Mary’s in a really interesting place in that she is classically-trained. I actually just got done doing a project with Marissa Anderson who I’ve always had a lot of respect for but I didn’t know a lot about her background. And she started out, for years, as a classical guitarist. She has this whole skillset and reads music. I’m basically self-taught. We were talking about the irony of landing in this place where we’re not playing neoclassical or academic music, but we both have different aspects of that in our background. How you incorporate that into your discipline in a way that’s different from rock and roll.

It’s like rock musicians don’t think like that. And it’s not bad. Because, a lot of times when rock tries to be like that, it’s just bad. It’s like Frank Zappa and it’s stressful. It’s just a different skillset.

I think the ideal place, and the reason I look up to jazz players the most, is that you have to be able to understand theory and sight-read and all that. But if you can’t improvise and latch onto rhythms and melodies, then you’re just waiting for sheet music to be in front of you. You’re not actually an intuitive musician. They are very different disciplines.

NF: It maybe broadens the possibilities of what you can physically and mentally do in that moment. If you wanted to, say, try something out with a different rhythmic swing to it. If you haven’t practiced or drilled, your options to execute the idea are likely few. I guess the focus on the academic or the feel. And being classically-trained in some way gives you more to play with.

WT: I think so. I think having that vocabulary is pretty important. I took piano lessons for years before I started playing guitar. That’s like learning Latin or something. Maybe if you don’t use it all of the time, you see how French or Spanish might work better.

NF: Being an avid reader and appreciator of art, often sharing your current favorites on social media or even with your “radio shows” on Soundcloud, do you have any recommendations for readers to check out in the coming weeks or in general?

WT: Do they need to be contemporary?

NF: Not at all. “It’s only new to you,” works.

WT: I would say…there’s a few different things. Because they’re really pertinent to the election and where we are as a country.

There’s a documentary on Netflix that’s based on the Thomas Piketty book Capital in the 21st Century. Everyone should have to watch that. That kind of gets to the root of why I think there’s this cross spectrum dissatisfaction with the status quo. It basically traces capitalism from The French Revolution ‘til now. And the arch of the level of inequality in the “Western world” being as great as it was now as it was before The French Revolution. I think that’s a really good watch.

There’s a book by this author Greg Grandin called The End of the Myth, and that’s kind of where I got the idea for that phrase. It’s a history of the American fantasy of the frontier and Manifest Destiny, and how it’s come full circle with Trump. That’s one of those books I can’t recommend highly enough.

This a longer read, but it’s worth reading if you can get through it. W. E. B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction in America. I think that, to understand what’s going on racially in the 21st century, you have to understand what happened in the twenty years after the American Civil War. Ken Burns doesn’t really talk about it. And I love Ken Burns. But it’s about what actually happened during Reconstruction. Sort of what what we’re still fighting about, so to speak.

That’s all pretty heavy [laughs]. I’m trying to think of something light.

Mary Lattimore has a new album coming out! Oh, there’s this podcast. So there’s this DJ from Minnesota Public Radio called Garrett McQueen who was like the only African American classical music DJ on MPR, I believe. But he has a podcast that’s called Trilloquy. It’s a classical music podcast, but it also frames the sort of white, Western canon in context with other forms of world classical music and contemporary music in a way that’s really invigorating. For someone like me who’s actually a nerd about classical music, it’s cool to hear it in context disassociated from it being almost a “museum” piece.

The Albert Brooks stuff is on The Criterion Channel right now. Profound and funny.

Oh! On Twitch is this…I don’t know who it is. This Twitch channel called MoviePassed. And it is fucking incredible. All the programming they do is like thematic blocks. You know…”Movies about L.A.!” “Movies with Drew Barrymore!” “Movies about The Grateful Dead!” It’s all over the place. It’s my favorite Twitch channel. I watch it every night when I can’t find something else to watch, and get stoned and zone out on that [laughs].