Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes is officially off the grid. After two weeks and about a half dozen phone calls, the only response I could get from the avant garde indie rocker was his odd outgoing voicemail message—an eerie instrumental tune—and apologies from his publicist that he had “no service at the place he is staying.”
Kathryn Kenealy of PR firm Life or Death went on to say that Barnes wouldn’t have service until October 1, the very day he’ll start his fall tour in Asheville, N.C. Fans might want to prepare for a late start at The Grey Eagle that night.
My experience was not unique. An interview with Barnes published by Paste magazine on September 24 was done “earlier this month” via “Google Hangouts.” Lester Bangs is officially rolling in his grave.
At long last, C-VILLE Weekly was able to catch up with the elusive Barnes via e-mail interview—and while his answers provided no more concrete evidence of his whereabouts, they did indicate that he’s currently finishing up his next album, making it a prolific 13 LPs for the man hailing from Athens, Ga. And good news: Barnes indeed intends to be at the Jefferson Theater on October 2.
“We’ll probably play a song or two off the upcoming album and maybe a cover, too,” he said of the upcoming show. “We’re a five-piece now; there will also be three theatrical performers on stage. It should get interesting.”
Interesting is Barnes’ currency. His lyrics and songwriting are littered with emotional references to female loves lost, yet his onstage persona is highly bi-curious. He’s often dressed in drag, and legend has it he played five songs entirely naked at a Las Vegas show in 2007.
It’s while performing that Barnes said he feels most open, most interesting. While his inaccessibility over the past month makes one daydream about what he might be up to, he insisted he is a “very boring person.”
“Onstage, I’m sort of bringing a part of myself to the surface that is normally kept dormant,” Barnes said. “In my day to day life, I try to be as anonymous as possible. The last thing I want is to draw attention to myself. When I’m onstage, I do a 180 and get to fulfill whatever performance fantasies I might have.”
A modern David Bowie, Barnes has been bringing such theatricality to the stage since the mid-’90s, when he launched what would be a rotating cast of characters known as of Montreal. On the current tour, he’ll be joined by Clayton Rychlik on drums, Jojo Glidewell over the keys, Bob Parins manning pedal steel and bass, and Bennett Lewis handling the guitar and mandolin.
“I’ve been the only constant, so in a way it is sort of a solo thing,” Barnes said. “Recently I’ve relied a lot on the musical contributions of the live band. It’s made the creative experience really fun and rewarding. For a long time, I just wanted to work alone, but it’s been great recently making it a more communal thing and showcasing the talents of other musicians.”
This is good news for fans of of Montreal, as anyone who’s followed Barnes’ career over the past two decades has likely at some point been concerned about his mental health. He’s notorious for going into isolation, and some of his best work is written from bleak places, both physically and emotionally. Around the same time he performed those songs sans clothing in 2007, he recorded some of his most dejected work, on Hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer? while living alone in Norway.
“I just write about what’s happening in my life, for the most part,” Barnes said. “I guess writers do tend to focus on the more dramatic aspects of their personal life.”
Of Montreal‘s 2013 effort, Lousy With Sylvianbriar, lends some credence to the theory that Barnes is happier these days. Despite its angsty title and some apocalyptic imagery, the record features moments of psychedelic honky-tonk fun, Violent Femmes-like blissful irreverence, and Bowie-esque spacey optimism.
Barnes has never been one to fall neatly into genres. He said he no longer has much contact with the Athens-based Elephant 6 collective, but the label that produced electro-influenced Neutral Milk Hotel, psychedelic rock band Olivia Tremor Control, and a host of other oddballs had a strong effect on his music during the early of Montreal years. And indeed, each of Barnes’ dozen records seems like a departure from the previous.
“I try to always have a project in the works,” Barnes said. “It doesn’t ever feel like I’m working too hard though—I feel like most of the time I’m just spacing out and occasionally I accomplish things.”
Barnes’ musical shape shifting makes it seem the singer-guitarist is constantly running from his past, a sentiment that’s never been so clear as now, in the wake of the of Montreal documentary released this past summer. Named for a song on Hissing Fauna, The Past Is a Grotesque Animal depicts a musician in an ongoing struggle to balance his professional and personal lives.
“It’s hard for me to be objective about it, since it is sort of the story of my life,” Barnes said. “It already feels a bit dated since I’m off on a new chapter and working in a new genre from previous albums. I guess it’s inevitable that will happen when you try to document something that is still growing and evolving.”
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