The Mountain Goats - A little bit of self

He’s been described as “America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist” by the New Yorker, had film maker Adam Aiken use his song ‘Slow West Vultures’ to accompany his animated short film, looks like Gary Oldman crossed with Tim Roth, has stage presence and charisma and has recorded over 400 songs on a billion different labels.

Holy fuck, why don’t we just bronze this man and put him on our mantelpieces now?

Yet John Darnielle, main man behind the Mountain Goats, one time nurse and self confessed “recorder of sound media” is happiest when “gobbling Vegemite like a man insane". He would sell his soul for a years supply of Brazil toffee and is apparently unaware of any sort of hype that’s been steadily building around him ever since releasing his first cassette “Taboo VI: The Homecoming” on his friends indie label Shrimper in 2002.

To see Darnielle on stage is one of those rare live performances that lingers in your mind, even long after your bootleg cassette has been played so much that both sides blur into one never-ending lyrical drone. The venue is packed out by a hybrid mix of natural dreadlocks and the hairdresser variety, by those in their carefully deconstructed designer duds and those that just really can’t afford a new pair of jeans.

Cigarette smoke and joint plumes lazily mingle with the rising murmur of a crowd awaiting their first glimpse of the enigmatic Mountain Goat, the beer falling from glasses to the carpet until out walks John Darnielle with guitar in hand. He stands at the mic and says “Hi, we’re the Mountain Goats, I play an acoustic guitar, but I am not one of those guys with an acoustic guitar”. What follows next is a brief sojourn into a world of suicidal bubblegum indie pop infused with bittersweet lyrics and violent guitar strumming.

And you don’t need to worry about hiding the tape equipment on which to record your bootleg either - Darnielle released his first songs only on cassette and still holds them in high regard. But there are no mixes from decades ago quietly melting together in his glove box.

“I don’t think there’s a recipe for ‘the perfect mix tape’ – really ‘the perfect anything’ is kinda different from how I think; every mix tape is perfect in some way, you know? I also think of them as really fleeting and time-bound – I don’t save old mixes, I just let them do their in-the-moment thing and then vanish into history. To me that’s the strength of a good mix! It’s something powerful and beautiful and ultimately weightless.”

With his new album The Sunset Tree being released on 4AD (revered indie musical label behind The Cocteau Twins and the Pixies) Darnielle continues writing songs that are more autobiographical than they’ve ever been. It’s hard to believe that someone who’s written hundreds of songs has divulged so little about himself.

“I have always been a storyteller. Last year I decided to write some songs about my adolescence and it was such a change of pace for me that I found a lot of good work to do in that vein, and those songs became the new album”.

That new album was last years "We Shall All Be Healed", and the more confessional style has carried over to his latest release. The Sunset Tree also features a full band, including cellist and pianist, a change of form from his usual some time accompaniment of bassist Peter Hughes and veers slightly in the direction of a concept album, only the general theme of it is best described in the dedication: ‘This album is dedicated to young men and women anywhere who live with people who abuse them’.

A lot of the songs deal with the melancholy reminiscences of fumbled youth and jaded naivety: in ‘Dilaudin’ he sings If we live to see the other side of this, I will remember your kiss, so do it with your mouth open, and take your foot off of the brake.

His stepfather (who died in 2003, just before Darnielle was due to begin his European tour) has a recurring role throughout the songs, particularly in ‘Dance Music’: I'm in the living room watching the Watergate hearings/while my stepfather yells at my mother/ Launches a glass across the room straight at her head/and I dash upstairs to take cover.

Although most of his songs take on a maudlin tone, there are a few rays of anarchic fuck-yous shining through. The anthemic ‘This Year’ should be the theme song to all disillusioned Gen Xers twiddling their thumbs at their computer screen in their office cubicles.

With so many emotions simmering under the surface and only now being brought to public attention, you’d be forgiven for thinking Darnielle would be one of those musos who snorts cocaine off nubile 16-year-old girls’ chests and trashes hotel rooms on a regular basis. Yet the high-octane Darnielle seen on stage and in writing is quite different from the one people see ‘off the road’.

“When I get a day off on the road, I either stay in my room and read or go record shopping. Last year we had to sail from Calais to Dover at about four in the morning after a Belgium gig and that had a real sort of washed-out too-exhausted-to-think unforgettable beautiful quality to it, the white cliffs getting bigger as the boat pulled into dock in the very faint predawn light – magnificent stuff really, but in the end it’s the story of ‘the nice view I had while exhausted & on the way to a hotel”.

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