Photo by Ruvan Wijesooriya
LCD Soundsystem
Issue #34
Whatever you do, don’t call James Murphy’s music ‘electronic’
By Laura Leebove
Published: December 1st, 2007 | 2:21pm
LCD Soundsystem’s tracks fuse intricate beats and bleeps with half-spoken vocals and sometimes a cowbell, but James Murphy will politely correct you if you refer to his music as electronic. “No no no! It’s not you!” he says on the phone while driving from Malibu to Hollywood in September. “The term electronic music always makes me think of synthesizers and stuff, but I play drums, bass, and everything. I play the same instruments as everyone else, record them kind of the same way.”
Even if it’s not electronic music per se, there’s no doubt that Murphy — the mastermind behind LCD Soundsystem — is out to make people dance. “I think dance music can be kind of like rock,” he says. “It’s body music. So it can be made with computers, or made with guitars and stuff.”
Critics picked up on LCD after the band’s 2005 self-titled release, which was nominated for two Grammy Awards in the dance/electronica categories. He followed it up with 2007’s Sound of Silver (DFA), home of the hit “North American Scum.”
But before Murphy started making dance music, he was in the post-hardcore band Pony and also Speedking. Somewhere along the line in the 1990s, he turned down a writing gig for Seinfeld, but ended up building a studio, producing bands, and meeting people who were into dance music. He also says he did some ecstasy and danced. “I thought it was fun and decided it’d be a fun thing to do ‘cause I didn’t like most of the music [being played at the time]. Most of the music didn’t speak to me.”
Making music is something Murphy says he does partially because he thinks it’s funny. Not funny at anybody’s expense or “ha ha” funny, he says, but because he likes surprising people and being surprised. “I like feeling that things are a little bit, I don’t know how to say it, like just a little bit wrong,” he says. “It makes me feel good, makes me feel like I’m doing something.”
Another example of something “a little bit wrong” is that it’s hard for fans to track Murphy down before or after a show, but he’ll respond to posts on the DFA Records message board. “I just think it’s a funny idea to be really casual in that particular venue,” he says. “It’s not normal usually, and so people will come on and say something, and I can just respond. It’s funny when people get surprised.”
On top of his LCD work, Murphy also co-owns DFA Records, produces albums, and DJs — jobs he says are very different from one another. “I want to spend more time on each thing, but there’s just 24 hours in a day,” he says. “You gotta sleep some of ‘em.”
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