Scott the explorer

Scott Walker's is one of the strangest stories in pop music. Inverting the usual career trajectory, he began as a genuine teen idol and then, over the next thirty years, established himself as a unique avant-garde artist. Walker was born Scott Engel in Ohio on January 9, 1943. A transitory upbringing beached him in Los Angeles, where he cut his musical teeth on the vibrant mid-'60s Sunset Strip scene. In 1965 he left for England, where, as frontman for the Walker Brothers, he sang lead on a string of Top Ten hits, including "My Ship Is Coming In," which shot to number three in December 1965. They were a peculiar presence, the Walker Brothers: Americans beating the Brits at their own game in their own country; conventional beat balladeers with a moody, almost gothic undertow - featuring Scott Walker in the role of the archetypal tortured artist.

Walker's public persona would lead you to believe that he is alienated, difficult, even slightly mad. This has been fed by a complicated, often-interrupted sequence of highly personal albums, beginning with Scott I in the late '60s, on which Walker developed his trademark mix of lush orchestral arrangements and bleak lyrics topped by vocal performances that are at once passionate and disciplined. If anything, Walker's new record, Tilt, his first in eleven years, refines and purifies this vision still further; his latest songs could almost be described as lieder: songs without words, in which both emotion and sense are conveyed through pure sound. But despite all this baggage, it was refreshing to talk with a man who was charming, professional, and serious, his answers as pared and insightful as his music.

JON SAVAGE: Why did it take so long to release Tilt in the States? It's been out for a full two years in the U.K.

SCOTT WALKER: We weren't going to release it at all. It was my manager's idea to do it, not mine. It's just an experiment. I don't imagine we'll move many records.

JS: Do you have any sense of how you're perceived in America today? You were born there, but most of your success took place in the U.K.

SW: It seems like people "in the know" have my records. I guess they get them as imports. But apart from that. I don't think anyone knows who I am. Someone in my family went to get a record of mine a couple years ago at some big place, and the clerk said, "Scott Walker? Oh, you mean that English singer?" So now I call myself the English singer.

JS: Have you gone back to America since you left?

SW: Rarely. If I added up the time, it would be a total of four or five weeks. The last time I returned, it was because my mother was dying and I wanted to be with her. That was last year.

JS: I can't imagine what it would be like to live away from the country where I was born and raised. Do you feel like an exile?

SW: Well, it's funny. I feel like I'm sort of floating, you know? Especially as my family gets smaller and smaller, I remember more and more about America, and I've begun to think more about it over the past few years. I'm not antagonistic toward America anymore; I was when I came to Britain. I was being chased by the draft [for the Vietnam war], really hounded, and that's why I stayed. I was really angry about the war. But I've lost a lot of that.

JS: I wanted to talk about your lyrics - not actually what the songs mean, but the way you create new phrases by taking stuff that's familiar and putting it in a new context.

SW: In the early days, I used to be fairly torn between music and lyrics; but one day I realized that the lyrics really dictate the music. With most people, it's the reverse: They go into the studio and start making music. I can tell you that it takes me a long time to wait for those lyrics, to wait for things to come through.

JS: Most lyrics in pop music are so obvious. Yours seem to leave room for the listener's imagination.

SW: That's certainly what I try to do - pare things down until they open up. More than ever, we have a problem with words. We're at the end, in a sense, of language. There's not a lot more we have to say. Another problem is that a lot of people write lyrics that aren't singable; they sound awkward. I think to myself, How does that sing? Because in the end, I'm a singer.

JS: You mentioned the breakdown of language. Are you trying to make a language of your own?

SW: Of course. I think everybody who takes language seriously is; Joyce was. But yes, I think that's it. It's about looking into yourself and building something that's churning around in there. It's a slow buildup. That's why it takes so long to wait for the words: It's got to be the right one at the right place. It's almost like a little soldier on its own, every single word in an army.

JS: Do you listen to a lot of contemporary music?

SW: No.

JS: Nothing catches your ear?

SW: Quite honestly, I think there's too much music going on now. I kind of like what's happening with the dance scene - you know, Prodigy and Primal Scream and stuff like that. But most guitar bands are just glorified buskers; I've heard people in the subway that are better. It's all too retro.