Sufjan Stevens
Stranger Than Fiction
Interview by Marc Spitz
Photography by Pieter M Van Hattem

He hit the headlines with that audacious plan to record one album for each of America’s States. Here, “failed novelist” Sufjan Stevens takes us on a tour of his singularly weird world.

You will know me by my T-shirt: Sufjan Stevens, conceiver of the grand 50 States Project, Brooklyn, 2006. Below: Stevens and pals cheerlead for last year’s Illinois.

The watcher: waiting for a sign to decide on his next project.

Chances are you’ve heard of Sufjan Stevens thanks to his killer calling card, “The 50 States Project.” It’s the kind of nifty, pop cultural newsbite that mainstream outlets love to pick up: precocious rocker pledges to write and release an album devoted to each of the 50 states in the Union (and maybe an EP or two for Hawaii and Alaska?). When Stevens followed 2003’s Greetings From Michigan with last year’s astonishing Illinois, he looked like he was making good on his promise, and a mini media star was born.

Happily,Illinois [ranked second on Uncut's list of the best albums of 2005] was both a novelty and a bona fide masterpiece. Full of literate wit and moving melodies, the album ‘reads’ like a novel, and stands alone as an unmissably rich blend of proggy pop and romantic folk.

Stevens breathy, weary vocals drew comparisons to the late Elliott Smith, each song title had a lengthy subtitle, and the impressionistic lyrics touched on both civic pride and shame (Abraham Lincoln and serial killer John Wayne Gacy are among the natives saluted). As high concept projects go, it was also devastatingly personal.

“I start as a sort of cultural theorist or a critic or an anthropologist but then I put myself in these stories as an omniscient narrator or an observer or a protagonist,” Stevens explains, when he met Uncut in an old-fashioned Brooklyn bar. “Superficially the songs took place in Michigan and Illinois, and they’re about figures and characters and events, but they’re really not about Michigan or Illinois at all.”

This last fact might explain why, despite all the attention, Stevens has yet to be canonised alongside Smokey Robinson, Iggy Pop, Madonna, Eminem or Jack White as a classic Michigan artist (he’s from suburban Petoskey), or even recognised by Illinois’ government leaders. After completing Greetings From Michigan, Stevens mailed a copy to current Governor Jennifer Granholm with a covering letter explaining who he was and what he’d done. Illinois’ Governor Rod Blagojevich received a similar letter last year. To date, neither have responded.

“It’s to be expected,” Stevens explains pragmatically. I feel like politicians stay out of that. They’re not really attuned to culture and art.” But all the same, Illinois has inspired a half dozen obsessive fan sites and forced Stevens to reckon with issues like public image.

“Fame and celebrity are still abstractions and illusions at this level,” he says. “Especially living in Kensington, Brooklyn. Most of the time. I don’t reckon with that stuff. I stay away from the websites. I’m kind of freaked out by all that. I have read some of my press. Interviews mostly. Just to gauge how I come across. There’s a fiction that’s created about you. That’s a really strange phenomenon.”

The “fiction” created and widely accepted is that Stevens lurks in library aisles, devouring the arcane for future Project releases. He reportedly shuns all cultural markers that predate the Moon landing. In truth, Stevens never had any interest in history beyond its usefulness as good writing material. “I never did well in history in high school,” he muses, ” I studied English. The written word is the sacred form for me.”

Stevens does have a few fetishes, though, that are in keeping with the “fiction.” Noticing a stray quarter sitting on an adjacent, empty chair, he snatches it up and immediately flips it over to check which State minted it. “New Jersey,” he nods, then replaces it. I ask him if he’s trolling for a possible subject for album three in the conceptual string.

“I’m just preoccupied with stuff like that,” he smiles. “I collect wheat pennies too. Have you ever seen a wheat penny? They’re minted before 1954, and they have grains of wheat on the back instead of the Lincoln memorial.”

Another of Steven’s unlikely rock-star hobbies is stamp collecting. “I have some from Micronesia,” he says. “And some of the New Zealand stamps have insects on them. They’re really beautiful.”

He’s also a twitcher. Yes, he’s recently started bird watching in Prospect Park, one of the New York’s largest natural preserves (see ‘Doing Bird’, right). And for the record, New Jersey, You Freakin’ Douchebag: Emissions From the Garden State is not in the hopper as State Project Number 3. Stevens has no idea which state, if any; he will use next.

“Nothing is planned,” he swears. “I’m very nearsighted. I just work up to the tasks at hand. I’m going to wait for a sign. I will say that I’m interested in taking greater risks in the future. One way is to let go of the reigns, and not self record next time. I’m open to sharing some of the creative decisions.”

With the exception of 2004’s Seven Swans (which was produced by Daniel Smith of indie collective Danielson Familie), he’s remained autonomous. He even writes promo copy for releases on his Asthmatic Kitty label and sews the costumes he and his band wear on stage. And Stevens remains bemused by his status as a musician, partly because, in his head at least, he isn’t one.

“I still consider myself a failed writer,” he says. Stevens studied fiction writing at the New School, a liberal arts college in Greenwich Village in the late ’90s. “I’m definitely making a living as a musician, so on those terms I’m successful. But until I get published I will consider myself a failed writer.”

As yet there haven’t been offers to publish his fiction, but he’s received other solicitations in the wake of Illinois’ success. Each of these dangling prizes place Stevens in another unlikely position, as someone who now has to defend his creative vision, and resist temptation.

Stevens was raised by his mother and stepfather (who co-runs Asthmatic Kitty) with strong Christian values and faith, ethics which inform his decision-making. “I’ve been solicited by bigger labels,” he acknowledges. “And I’ve been offered a lot of money. I was offered a quarter of a million dollars to license a song for a beer ad. I don’t even have to think about it. It’s very obvious that this is not a good creative decision. I have a lot of rules that I live by and one of them is don’t do something just because there’s money in it. Biblically, there are more dangers mentioned in terms of money and finance than anything else.”

His resources will instead be invested in an ambitious tour to support The Avalancbe, the recently released collection of out-takes and alternate versions from the Illinois sessions. He hopes it will finally present his entire output the way he always intended it to be heard, the way he hears it in his head, while steaming envelopes, watching birds or flipping coins.

“There will be 14 people on stage,” he confirms, “And a lot of new arrangements of old material. I’m going to be playing a lot more piano. We have a celeste. And my drummer’s going to be playing a gong. We’ll be using projections for every song. I’m playing in formal settings. Sit-down theatres.”

Then, in the New Year, it’s off to a Tennessee or a Texas or a Delaware of the mind. Or just another struggle that starts in a Brooklyn bedroom and leads… maybe nowhere at all. It’s occurred to him that perhaps Illinois was his moment. It certainly could stand forever as such. Along with the Arcade Fire’s debut, it’s one of this decade’s few new classics.

“All musicians have that anxiety about a shelf life,” he shrugs. “‘Am I going to be outdated?’ And I think that’s a good fear to have. It’s also because for some reason the music industry and the audience really romanticises youth, and rock n’ roll is based on a rebellion that happens when you’re a teenager. But there are people that have staying power. Dylan, and Neil Young and Willie Nelson. He has a lot of class. David Byrne, too.”

“Creatively I’m not sure where I am,” he admits. “I’m still dissatisfied at times with my writing. I think that’s something you determine much later in life. You look back and retrospectively decide if it’s valuable music. How it resonates with you. Did I have that moment when I turned 30? No. No, I haven’t had that moment yet.”

DOING BIRD
Sufjan’s guide to New York City’s feathered friends

“I’ve been getting into bird-watching. I have the Peterson Field Guide and a pair of binoculars. Isn’t that weird?”

Well, yes, in that you don’t find many amateur ornithologists among the indie rock star community, but no, in that New York City happens to fall along the migration pattern of literally dozens of visually arresting and aurally pleasing winged things. Here are a few of the highlights from Stevens’ local excursions:

“I saw a black capped heron. It’s a waterfowl. Very exotic. Almost erotic looking. Very slender and long. It looks like Queen Victoria the way it’s postured.”

“Easter meadowlarks are cool…the cardinal (above left). The catbird (above right). The grackle, I can recognise now. I’m starting to know all the calls. The robin has one of the most beautiful songs, even though it’s the most common bird.”

“The European starling was introduced into Central Park in the turn of the century and took over as there were no predators. They have a very beautiful song, too. It sounds very electronic. Like C-3PO.”

“There’s an honour system among bird watchers. You never make anything up. Enthusiasts say it’s wrong to talk about it.”

“For me, bird-watching is existential… you’re in the moment and you have nothing to take home but the experience.”

“It’s like you’re a voyeur. You’re spying on these animals. It’s so exciting to see them watching themselves. Are they
oblivious? Maybe they’re watching us. You never know.”