Interview: Matt Sharp of The Rentals on Lost in Alphaville and the cult of Pinkerton

Matt Sharp owned a good chuck of the 90’s alt-rock landscape. As 1/4 of the classic Weezer lineup on the Blue and Pinkerton albums, Sharp helped craft two of the most influential rock records of a generation, before being booted due to his ongoing commitments with The Rentals.

The Rentals began with Weezer mania in full swing, following the smash success of the Blue album. Sharp released Return of the Rentals in 1995, the debut of his moog-driven side project that spawned “Friends of P,” an insanely catchy bit of buzz-pop ear candy that provided the band with a legitimate hit right out of the gate. After returning to Weezer to record Pinkerton, Sharp released his own personal album of growing pains, Seven More Minutes. When that album sold a fraction of The Rental’s debut, and with his expulsion from Weezer, Sharp remained fairly low key, recording a solo country record, collaborating with Tegan and Sara, and eventually, releasing a number of EP’s under The Rentals moniker.

With 2014’s excellent Lost in Alphaville, Sharp has delivered the first proper Rentals album in 15 years, a concise collection of fuzzy pop songs buoyed by the band’s patented male/female vocals, and filled with Sharp’s bittersweet recollections, and a hopeful longing for the future.

We caught up with Sharp by phone to discuss why the timing was right for a new album from The Rentals, what South Park gets right about today’s music industry, and the continuing cult of Pinkerton. Lost in Alphaville is available now via Polyvinyl Records. For all current tour dates, visit the band’s official site.

This is the first Rentals full-length in 15 years—what made this the right time to put a new album out?

I guess you just make the records you want to make when you need to make ‘em [laughs]. I just write and make records when I feel like there’s something I want to share. This particular record, I went back to Barcelona to see an old friend of mine, and the last Rentals record [1996’s Seven More Minutes] was more or less sort of written there, or written about my friends there, about my experiences there when I was sort of first discovering things in the world. I returned there to see someone, and the songs kind of came quickly while I was there. Just thinking about where I was in those times, and where I am now, and all the little adventures that happened in between, thinking about where you’re going. And the record just kind of came out of that, you know?

What is Alphaville to you? Is it a positive or a negative thing to be lost there?

[Laughs] Well, the thought is basically just being lost in the place where it all started. That’s the way I look at it. And at the time I was writing the songs, that’s essentially where I was. I was lost in that place I guess. So it’s not a negative thing.

You were apparently very protective of the album before it came out; has that always been the case? Or was it harder to let go of this one?

I guess the main thing is that I wanted people to hear this record in the way that I intended … to have it be heard in a certain way. I just wanted to make sure that everything was the way I hoped it would sound, and those kinds of things. So today, with the way stuff gets out, little things start leaking out in mid-progress, and people are hearing all sorts of renditions of it, and I wasn’t interested in that. I think it’s in many ways the artist’s job to say, “This is what I want you to hear. This is what I want you to experience.” That’s my part in this. So I’m not one of those people that’s very keen on fan interactions, like, “Hey, what do you think about this or that?” It’s not that we don’t appreciate the people that listen to us; I do greatly, and I have a ton of gratitude for all the people that continue to support us and support what I do, I’m endlessly grateful for that. But when it comes to the actual creative process, and what we’re sharing with people, I really believe that that’s my part in this thing. I’m very hands-on with all those things, and saying “This is how the record should feel when you hold it in your hands, this is what it should sound like, this is the intent behind it, and this this is the story I’m trying to tell you.”

I know at certain points people were doing like “Hey, you pick this or that,” different bands were doing this kind of thing, or, “You pick the artwork!” It’s like, “No, that’s your freaking job dude!” “You tell us what songs are good,” or any of that kind of stuff. That was happening a lot. I think it’s fading. That was happening a lot at the beginning of social media just starting, or in its infancy. People were figuring out, “Oh, we can talk to people directly.”

So then people started to think, “Well, maybe everybody should have this big democratic say, so the fans feel connected to the band more,” but that’s a philosophy that just doesn’t sit with me very well, the fact that they are contributing to the creative part. I think it’s really up to the musicians and the artists and the singers and the guitarists to think about what they really want to say. And to put it forward, whether people love it or hate it, or if it’s the best thing you’ve done, or the worst thing you’ve done, or somewhere in the middle. Whatever you’re presenting to people, you’re saying, “This is where we’re at right now, and this is the best we could do.” And I really believe in that with this album. That’s a very essential thing that the people that support us know, is that we’re giving you something that was put together with a lot of care, and it represents where we’re at right now.

Do you think dribbling things out takes away some of the mystique of receiving a fully delivered album?

No, not particularly. I think music is just all over the map. It’s certainly not one thing, and records do not have to be conceptual. This record isn’t what I would consider to be a full concept record, it’s not like some knights on horses and they’re riding to get a scepter out of the ground, and that scepter is going to turn into a guitar. So that’s not what this is, you know? But I do think, for me particularly, I think music is sort of—and this is going to sound super pretentious— but I think about it more in a movie form, in a cinematic form or something like that. The way I contribute to these records is sort of more in the idea of how directors contribute to a movie. Just bringing people together people from different bands, like with [Black Keys drummer] Patrick Carney, and trying to figure out that thing that I like about how he plays and who he is, what his aesthetic is, and all that kind of stuff. And then trying to figure out how that makes sense with Jess and Holly from Lucius, and trying to take those voices and how he approaches drums, and figure out how to tell this story, our story. I mean story as more of the tone of it, you know?

But on the other hand, there could be a great pop single that’s in some club at three in the morning, that’s a stand-alone thing, that’s an amazing song … I think the only thing that’s important is, whatever kind of music it is—if it’s making people’s lives better, or they associate good memories with it, or they’re connected to it emotionally, then it doesn’t really matter what form it’s in, how you get there, if it takes you a long time to make it, like it does with me— sometimes I work very slow. Occasionally I work quicker, but it doesn’t make a difference to me. If a jazz saxophonist walks into a club and they set up two mics, starts playing with his band and like two seconds later he has an album, and it’s a great album and it’s emotional, that’s no different than somebody working on like, whatever records you think are meticulously done, like some Pink Floyd record or Radiohead, or whatever record where everything is in its right place, so to speak. Or it can be dumb pop if you’re in the mood for that. I love good music, mindless dance music … I love old 60’s and 70’s country music a lot. I’ve been really into that recently. I’ve had a little bit of a period of just diving into that. Stuff that was coming out of Nashville and Texas in the 60’s and 70’s, and all those artists, all those country artists, the classic guys like Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard and those guys, and Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, they’re all completely, completely different from each other. They all have totally different approaches, and some of it, like Willie Nelson, is super conceptual, writing about the dissolving of a marriage or something, actual concept records about marriage, and some of the other guys are just doing “We’re just mean boys from Texas,” and whatever. So what the hell does that have to do with Lost in Alphaville? Nothing, but whatever.

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What do you like about working with female vocalists? Is it easy for you to write for someone else’s voice?

You know, it’s interesting. When we were working on Lost in Alphaville, I had a friend of mine who had done some vocals on some of the original early versions of these songs; I told her I was looking for something really specific for the way we’re going to make this album. So I started looking for the right voices to kind of be the last part of the album, the icing on the cake kind of thing. The sweetness to kind of go against the barbaric aspects of the record, and it took me a very long time to figure that out. I ended up being fortunate enough to meet Jess and Holly [of Lucius], who I’m so crazy about. I adore them to pieces. And their first record is just such a stunning, stunning album. When we had an actual opportunity to meet, I just sat on a plane and two seconds later was in New York, basically just to have the opportunity to be able to sit in a room with them, just to play them songs from the album. And from that, I realized what you’re asking me about, which is how important that chemistry is. I just enjoy that interaction, that idea of chemistry and how much it changes by the people that you’re surrounded by.

I guess that really all started with the Hayden sisters, when I started working with Rachel first, on the very early versions of the songs on The Rentals’ first album. And then we kind of shelved that for a while, and ended up going back with her sister, and working with Petra on violins and vocals. And since then, I’ve had that limited work I’ve done with Tegan and Sara, just out of pure admiration for them as artists, and just an opportunity to be with them is something I always cherish. And after that, working with Jess and Holly, and countless other really super talented women. On this tour that we’re doing, I’m working with Radiation City, and they are just totally a whole other thing. I guess it just has to do with curiosity about chemistry between people.

When Return of the Rentals started taking off, how difficult was it to be in The Rentals and Weezer at the same time?

Honestly, that was an extraordinary time, as far as just moving from one thing to the other. Literally being in the studio with Weezer, going on the road for a bit, playing some shows—the second I got off the road I went into the studio with The Rentals, then Weezer would go back out on the road, back into the studio with The Rentals. We did that back and forth for a while. And the two things were completely different experiences. Weezer was a completely traditional, couldn’t be more traditional in my way of looking at it, type of band. Like four guys, who are all sort of coming up at the same time, in a little garage, some guitar, bass and drums and vocals, and off you go. And so, we weren’t inventing the wheel with that kind of stuff, we were doing this really traditional thing, which I loved doing. And when it came time to do stuff on my own, I was already in a band like that, so I didn’t have any interest in re-doing or trying to re-create that with other guys. We had our special chemistry, whatever that was between the four of us, and I was never looking to re-create that with somebody else. I was writing songs, and thought like, “Who am I listening to now? Who are the bands that inspired me?” And at that point, we’re talking about That Dog, which was a band that was like the main band I was really into, and always tried to bring them out on whatever tours we were doing. I loved the way the three women in the band sang together. They were a band I looked up to, and was a huge fan of. And so the first Rentals album came out of that kind of thing, and then later on with the second record, I was spending more time in Europe, I had fallen in love with a woman from Barcelona, and I had a lot of friends that were making music over in England at the time, so it was like, “Alright, I’m going to go to Europe and work on a record there!” Because Damon Albarn was an inspiration to me, for the songs he was writing and the way he approaches music, and so to go there and have him sing on a song, and with my other friends in bands that were living in London at the time, it gave me that freedom to do that.

How do you feel about the continued fascination with Pinkerton?

I’m extremely proud of all those—we only made two records, but I look at those four records as being inter-linked—The Blue Album, Return of the Rentals, Pinkerton, and Seven More Minutes. At the time, I think when you’re right in the moment, and you’re looking at things super close up, each one of those seems like very, very, different experiences, and I probably wouldn’t have thought so at the time, but with a little distance you can see similarities between those records, and the way that they influence each other. And I’m proud of all that music from that time, and Pinkerton is definitely something I’m super proud of. It’s just kind of something that feels more and more … unique is not the word, but it just seems much more unbridled than the way a lot of records are made today, because technology has changed the way you look at stuff. So that record is really like the four of us in a room. We were putting everything we could into it, we put a great deal of care into that album for sure, but it doesn’t seem so precious that its like, lost its spirit, you know? It’s so easy to fix everything now; they make things kind of perfect. I don’t know if you saw that South Park where the character is actually Lorde? It shows him working in Logic or Pro Tools, one of those systems, and that’s funny because it’s kind of the truth, right? You can sort of do that now. And that’s what I like about Pinkerton, is that it’s not that.

This is kind of a nerdy question, but are there any plans to release those first two Rentals albums on vinyl?

Yeah, you know, I’ve been trying to do it for some time now, we’re trying to figure it out. The problem is that the first two Rentals records were done on Madonna’s label [Maverick], so it was under the umbrella of one of these huge corporations. And if you can imagine what it’s like trying to get a bill passed in government, it’s like all this weird … it’s impossible, it’s like going to DC and there’s a million people, and that’s what it’s like dealing with corporate entities. And so for us to get the record out of there is so daunting, but we’re trying, and I think we’re going to be able to do it. I just actually got a message from somebody [about it], so we’ve got some progress. The first one I definitely want to do. The original intent of Seven More Minutes was to have it be a longer record than it is. It’s already long, [laughs] so I was trying to figure out if we would actually release some sort of like, “Director’s Cut,” a version of the album where there’s like three or four more songs. So that could be fun to look into as well. But it’s the same thing—it’s trying to figure out who to talk to.

What’s up next for you and the band?

Well, I’m trying the best I can to figure out how to bring as much attention to this album as possible. It’s something that I care deeply about, and we put in an incredible amount of love into the record, and you just hope that you can share it with as many people as possible. And that is where we’re at now, that’s what we are in the midst of. So hopefully, playing and playing and playing, in front of as many people who will listen.

The Rentals with guests Rey Pila and Radiation City play Toronto’s Lee’s Palace on May 19 and Montreal’s Theatre Fairmount on May 20.