BECK - songwriter and singer Hansen Beck - Brief Article - Interview

MOULIN ROUGE SOUNDTRACK SPECIAL! BEHIND-THESCENES INTERVIEW WITH

Beck is about as easy to pin a label on as a shadow. Ever since he emerged with "Loser," he's been charting a zig-zag musical path, first with the string of MTV-friendly, white-boy hip-hop hits on Odelay, then with the moody, idiosyncratic song-craft of Mutations, and then with the weirdly venal party music of Midnite Vultures (which earned him a Grammy Award nomination this year). This month, Beck reinvents David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs," for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, collaborating with Timbaland, whose minimalist beats helped launch Missy Elliott's career.

With 30 million CDs sold (and counting), Timbaland Is known for shuddering, sample-free beats that are as eccentric as they are commercial. But Beck's identity as an artist remains oddly unfixed. Jester MC? Punk mongrel? Blues imp? Funk innovator? Beck has the openhearted eclecticism of a junk collector. His eccentricity manifests as a radical inclusiveness: folkies can love skate-punks, he seems to say, and jive-talking art rockers can get down with hip-hoppers, because in his music, they do. The bravery and ease with which he takes musical risks are testimony to his faith in this inclusiveness. Beck's not suggesting that it might be possible to live in harmony and good humor while grooving all the way to the bank-he's proving it.

DIMITRI EHRLICH

TIMBALAND: When are you gonna start workin' on another album?

BECK: Soon, I'm overdue. I really haven't kicked anything new since '98. That's when we recorded Midnite Vultures. Remember you told me you wanted to get together and work on some music by Devo? Are we still gonna do that?

T: Yeah, man we gotta do 'somethin'.

B: What do you like about Devo?

T: Their sound. They're different.

B: Last time I saw you I noticed you had a lotta CDs around. You were listenin' to some '60s French pop singers. All kinds of random shit. How do you gravitate to that?

T: It's basically just different stuff that moves me. If I think it's unique, I buy it.

B: When you perform, what do you have onstage?

T: Just a band. We don't have no props and all that stuff.

B: You don't have any speedboats?

T: Nah.

B: No helicopters?

T: No. Just regular stuff. That's about it.

B: I remember when we met, you'd just heard my record, Midnite Vultures, and I was telling you that you were a big inspiration for it.

T: Yeah, I love that record. You picked some of the same sounds I would pick. I like your vibe on that.

B: You were sayin' that I was goin' on a whole Flintstones trip.

T: Yeah, like Pebbles and Bamm Bamm.

B: See I thought it sounded like Captain Beefheart. You thought it was The Flintstones. That's cool. I like hearing somebody else's take on what I'm doing. I think it's refreshing.

INTERVIEW: Whose idea was it to cover Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack?

B: Well, that was part of the movie. There are these characters in the film called the Diamond Dogs. This is their theme song. I actually did two versions of the song. The one I did on my own is sort of "Al Jolson at the rave tent." With Kurt Weill playing the pump organ.

I: Did you completely rewrite the song?

B: We got in the studio and we were just foolin' around. Tim wanted it to sound darker. I think we kinda turned it into a completely different song; we just kept the lyrics.

There's a coolness in our version that it doesn't release. It just builds and it never lets go. Always holding something back, you know. It doesn't have the big payoff. Which is something I like about Tim's music, that it's always holding something back. It hints at more than it's giving. That minimalism, I really respect, 'cause I tend to go way over the top, and try to do too many things at once, and cram too much in one space.

I: What do both of you think is the most interesting new music?

B: I like the ghetto-tech. I was just down in Brazil and they got some ghetto-tech goin' on down there. It's just completely motorized techno. But it's a little dirtier. What about you, Tim?

T: I don't know. I don't listen to music like that. I just be in my own world.

B: All right. Well good luck, Tim.

T: All right, Beck.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group