Interview with Ty Segall on New Album: Possession

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Ty Segall is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist known for his prolific output and garage rock sound which has evolved over the years to encompass numerous styles including psychedelic, progressive and indie rock among others. His sixteenth studio album Possession will be released on May 30th via Drag City.

Along with his solo career, Segall has worked on many collaborations and is in multiple bands including Fuzz, the CIA, Broken Bat, Freckle and Wasted Shirt. His DIY approach is one of the factors that bring a raw and real sound to Segall’s music. As a tape enthusiast, he uses a mix of old and new techniques during the recording and mixing process.

Possession was written by Segall and film director Matt Yoka with whom Segall has worked on several film-related projects. The album features ten tracks, brought to life by Yoka’s storytelling abilities and Segall’s signature sound though Possession features less of the heavy and distorted guitars he is known for. The album’s sound is expanded with the addition of horns, violins and cellos.

Running Man Press was able to briefly catch up with Segall as he arrived in Chicago–one of the many stops in his current North American tour. For many of the tour dates in April, Segall was accompanied by his childhood friend, long-time collaborator and fellow musician Mikal Cronin, who has released four studio albums of his own. Cronin also arranged the strings and horns on Possession.

When speaking of his favorite Montreal venues during the talk, Segall refers to La Tulipe, which was unfortunately forced to close its doors after a decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal last year following several noise complaints. La Tulipe is not the first Montreal venue to go down in this fashion and the city’s decisions are impacting its reputation for supporting the arts.

Also touched on in the call is Segall’s “Eggman” music video which features him eating several hard-boiled eggs–reminiscent of a scene in Cool Hand Luke (1967) in which Paul Newman’s stubborn character, Luke Jackson eats fifty eggs in a row.

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SEGALL: You’re in the van with everybody, everybody’s here.

RMP: Yeah, you guys are on your way to Chicago?

SEGALL: We just got to Chicago.

RMP: How’s the tour going so far?

SEGALL: It’s going well, just cruzin’.

RMP: Love the new album.

SEGALL: Thanks.

RMP: How did working with Matt Yoka, who is not a musician, change the writing process for this album?

SEGALL: Yeah, it was great because he comes from the film world so his whole thing is cinematic storytelling. So that was kind of the idea to do a different kind of lyrical storytelling, so for me, my lyrics are usually more surreal and strange and not as direct in a storytelling way. It was cool to collaborate with someone who comes mainly from telling stories.

RMP: Yeah, “Fantastic Tomb” is very much a story and produces some strong visuals. You do a lot of collaborations, so how did it work this time? Did you work on the music and then meet up with Matt and write together?

SEGALL: That’s not it at all actually. Each song was kind of different, for instance, on “Possession”, Matt wrote the lyrics first and then I wrote the music. For other songs, I would mumble some lines and come up with a line and then craft the idea of the song based on a line or something like that.

Never the music first, fully finished. Always just snippets or sections because you need to have the singing connected to the music while you’re writing it or else it’s really hard to make it work.

RMP: Another project you worked on with Matt Yoka was the movie Whirlybird, which you scored. Have you worked on other movies or similar projects?

SEGALL: I’ve done another film called A Desert, that’s out. I’ve done a lot of TV work for a few shows and yeah I’m actually working on another film right now.

RMP: Are you at liberty to talk about it?

SEGALL: Yeah, but it’s too early in the process to talk about it too much so maybe I’ll just say it’s happening but I don’t really know too much quite yet. It’s not like I’m sworn to secrecy but I don’t know too much right now.

RMP: For this album did you use any new recording techniques? I’m sure by now you’ve taken so many different approaches.

SEGALL: The only real thing for this record was that I was trying to get as classic as possible so I was trying to, you know, do some classic micing stuff–some Glyn Johns drums. So nothing crazy new or different for me, just trying to refine the stuff that I know how to do.

RMP: Are there any recording techniques that you’ve used in the past that you think are probably a little crazy and you maybe shouldn’t have done them?

SEGALL: [laughs] I probably should have tried a little harder, you know. Yeah, there’s a lot of crazy stuff, yeah–a lot of harshness. I should have been more critical of some songs and maybe tried a little harder when writing them.

RMP: The new record is recorded on tape right?

SEGALL: The new record, yeah.

RMP: What are your thoughts on modern recording techniques with almost everything being done on the computer? I was listening to “Zig-zag Wanderer” by one of your influences–Captain Beefheart–and when the song breaks down to just drums, bass, and vocals, it’s such an amazing bass sound. I was wondering if it’s even possible to get that sound using a computer.

SEGALL: I think that there are a lot of things you can do on the computer to replicate old sounds for sure, but I don’t think you can ever fully get the tape sound without tape. Especially for the low end and for symbols and certain aspects of it, it really cuts some of the weird highs and emphasizes some of the really nice lows. And when you hit tape a certain way it just has a special sound, so.

I’m a tape head, I’m a tape freak, I’m gonna promote and be down for tape forever. But I’m not gonna hate on computers, I use them to mix down too and to do editing and stuff like that. So I’m down, you know, but I’m way more into tape for sure.

RMP: What is the tape machine you record on? Your tape machine of choice?

SEGALL: I have a Studer A827, it’s a 24-track two-inch machine. It’s kind of the gold standard of tape machines. It’s kind of the cleanest tape machine you can get so you don’t get as much of that tape saturation or production vibe in that sense. I do miss kind of hitting smaller format tape but I’ve done that a little bit recently and then I’ve missed the big format tape but I’m a total conundrum catch-22 person so I’m never satisfied.

RMP: Has Neil Young been an influence since the beginning?

SEGALL: Since I was born?

RMP: [laughs] Since say, your first album.

SEGALL: He taught me to speak.

RMP: So he’s a big influence.

SEGALL: Well, wait, when was my first record 2008, 2009? Yeah, I think I got into Neil Young when I was nineteen or twenty, so yes. I’d say when I was maybe twenty-one I became obsessed with Neil Young.

RMP: I ask because I only hear what sounds like a Neil Young influence in your later stuff. At least a few albums in. Have you ever met him?

SEGALL: Yeah well you know, I’m not the kind of guy that has one influence and then kind of tries to make one thing, you know what I mean. I’ve never met him, no, I’ve seen him walking down the PCH in Malibu. It was cool.

RMP: You didn’t run up to him?

SEGALL: I was in a car. It was kind of like seeing Bigfoot or something. You’re like, What? Was that real? I think it was real. No, but he’s a big influence for me.

RMP: I’ve seen your recent dog paintings. Is that gonna happen again? Those are pretty great.

SEGALL: Thank you. I’ll think I’ll do those once a year until I can’t do it anymore. Which, who knows? Maybe It’ll be next year that I won’t be able to do that anymore [laughs]. It’s fun, it’s a nice thing to do, you know? They’re fun.

RMP: I think we’re almost out of time, but I was wondering, have you seen Cool Hand Luke yet since you released your “Eggman” video?

SEGALL: [laughs] No, but I did watch that scene because I actually had no idea about that scene until I posted that video and I watched it and I was like, oh, it is pretty similar, whoops.

RMP: Well you did the real thing, so good job.

SEGALL: Wish I could have eaten more eggs.

RMP: And one last question, do you have a favorite venue to play when you’re in Montreal?

SEGALL: What was that place that we were at last time?

BACKGROUND VAN PERSON: Tulip? Is that right? (referring to La Tulipe)

SEGALL: Tulip, yeah.

BACKGROUND VAN PERSON: Metropolis? (Now MTelus)

SEGALL: Oh yeah. We’ve played a bunch of good spots.

RMP: Thanks for taking the time to do this and enjoy the rest of the tour.