Q&A - Mary Timony

Indie rock's taken massive upswing in popularity in the past couple years, and with it, brought along a lot of listeners who think the genre was born the day Modest Mouse broke mainstream radio. Mary Timony should be able to give them a little perspective.

Timony, who joins with bassist Chad Molter and drummer Devin Ocampo for The Mary Timony band's debut effort, The Shapes We Make (review) (2007, Kill Rock Stars), is anything but an indie-rock upstart. A seasoned D.C.-scene vet with a string of releases fronting Autoclave, Helium and a few solo efforts under her belt, Timony's been rocking the underground longer than many modern fans have even been aware of it. The Shapes We Make is a reminder of that, too: Timony bounces between angular indie rock and prog, reflective and abstract lyrics. It's the product of a lifetime commitment to the underground's artistic ethics coming out.

With The Shapes We Make landing in stores earlier this week, we caught up with Timony to talk rock, past present and future.

You put The Shapes We Make out as The Mary Timony Band instead of just under your name. Was that a hint that this album has more of a band dynamic going on than your previous efforts, or was it more of a semantic change?

The change in the name of the band did have to do with this project being way more of a collaboration than earlier solo records. The band had a lot to do with how songs were written and arranged, and it really feels like everyone plays an equal part it in. Both Devin and Chad are amazing players, and had an equal part in making this record one that we all were happy with.

From your days in Autoclave and Helium to now, you've been around as the underground bubbles up as the alternative thing from the '90s and what's happening with indie rock now. How similar and different are those two eras or phenomena?

This is hard for me to really have that much perspective on, because I don't know what it's like to be just entering the rock world right now as a younger person. The music scene that I grew up around was the '80s hardcore scene in D.C. It really felt like the scene was an island unto itself, and not at all connected with any kind of mainstream culture. I felt really lucky to have gotten inspiration from this scene, and also to have been around when the whole early '90s indie-rock thing was happening. Again, the indie rock scene felt very independent, and removed from the mainstream music business to a certain extent, although there were bands who moved to major labels.

To be honest, I don't really know what is going on with indie rock now! I think I'm kind of removed from what's happening, living here in D.C. There are great, great musicians here in town, but most of them are a bit older, and have been doing music for a while, there's not really too many younger kids from the freak folk scene or anything, so I kind of miss out on what the latest hip things are.

I do notice two things: That there is not really a stigma against signing to a major label anymore, and that bands can be more of their own entity now, put out their own records, have a MySpace page, etcetera.

As the mainstream becomes more aware of the underground, it seems like what's heralded as "indie rock" has become a lot more codified and, generally, less challenging than it used to be. You don't seem to fit into that form -- how important to you is it to keep your music artistically and ideologically edgy?

Is the mainstream becoming more aware of indie rock? I had no idea. I'm serious. All I can say is that in my experience most of the music that becomes popular in general is pretty derivative, and same-ish and watered down. There are always exceptions, but people seem to be drawn towards things that they recognize, and major labels usually try to sell music that they think people will like. I don't know, it's really hard to generalize this much. I do know that the music that I end up liking is music that is fresh and original, totally different. I really can't stand things that sound cliche, so I try to stay away from writing things that sound chiche. I just do the best I can. At the end of the day all music sounds similar, and I'm sure I'm ripping someone off, but I just really try not to, and try to keep things interesting.

Your last album, Ex Hex, was put out by Lookout! Records. Did that label's collapse make it hard to pull this album together, or was it just another case of moving on to another record company?

It was just something that happened. Since I hadn't worked with them for too long, it didn't affect me too much. I am very grateful to Kill Rock Stars for putting out this record. I feel very very lucky to be working with them, and very. very at home on the label.

-- Matt Schild