photo by Leonard Greco
The last time Dazed Digital interviewed Joe Williams,
he was a near-unknown. Since then, his debut album Smoke has been
released in the UK by Domino, he's toured with Vampire Weekend, and the
24-year-old Brooklyn musician is now gushing noise pop over London like
a beached oil tanker.
Dazed Digital: What's the best thing that's happened to you since your last interview with us?
Joe Williams: We
played in Paris and after the show a guy came up to me and gave me a
tarot reading. He talked about my relationship with my girlfriend. It
was fun.
DD: You used to be a solo act, but now you have a live band.
JW: Yeah, they're Just people that I knew through living in Ohio and New York. Matt from Ecstatic Sunshine, who I went on tour with in the States, is playing bass. But it changes all the time.
DD: You grew up in Cleveland. I've never thought of that as a very musical city compared to, say, New York or Portland.
JW: Yeah,
the culture is different. It's very spread out, and it's not as
affluent. But there's a lot of punk and noise stuff going on, you just
don't really hear about it because the bands there are more interested
in just creating music than in touring. They don't care whether other
people like it or not.
DD: You studied graphic design. What's your favourite font?
JW: I like Helvetica.
DD: Dazed Digital is redesigning its logo at the moment and we're not sure what to do with it. Any advice?
JW: Sometimes
things that aren't designed well look really nice. I saw some flyers
for a Lil' Wayne show, and they were just giant black text on yellow
paper, and they looked great. And the album artwork, too - the baby
with prison tattoos.
DD: Maybe Dazed Digital's new logo should be a baby with "Dazed Digital" tattooed on its forehead?
JW: Yeah, it's all about having a sense of humour.
White Williams plays tonight at Upset The Rhythm! at Bardens Boudoir.