Dave Stacey: So, you guys have been living in New York lately, haven't you?
Jeff Mangum: Yeah, for the past six months.
DS: Now you're going to move again?
JM: Yeah, we're leaving here.
DS: That's cool.
JM: At least for the winter.
Julie Talon: You're moving to Athens [Georgia], right?
Julian Koster: It's really good for the winter, hopefully.
JT: The real estate's great down there, you can get a whole mansion for a thousand bucks.
JM: Yeah, we're renting a two-story house for like $400 with an attic and the heat's paid.
JT: . . . and the dirt's great too; it's this deep red clay, did you notice that? The sky is wonderful too, the sky is huge. The sky is so big. You come out of New York and you see this giant . . .
JK: Yeah. (sound of car passing)
JT: You're from the country?
JK: Ah, yes. I'm from here, actually.
JT: You're from New York.
JK: Yeah, originally.
DS: He lives near Danny [Oxenburg] and Azalia [Snail].
JK: We're actually neighbors. For two more weeks, as a matter of fact. We lived in the twin building to their's. So Dan would come over, hop over the roof and knock on our door.
DS: Oh really? That's great.
JM: Yeah, I'm from Louisiana.
JT: I have this fascination with the South. I can't stop talking about Georgia. I'm so pleased you're moving there. I tried to move there once, with about a thousand bucks. In the form of a check. So, I found myself broke and on the run with a broken car in Athens. The person I was traveling with just had a big freak-out and had to go. Well, I don't know, he just couldn't stand that we didn't have any cash. We was a really cash-oriented person.
JK: Yeah, it was tough, huh?
(Danny Oxenburg of the Supreme Dicks walks up.)
JM: Hey, Danny, what's up man? C'mon, sit down!
DS: Hey Dan, we're interviewing Neutral Milk Hotel. Do you have any questions for them?
DO: Do I have any questions? (bewildered)
DS: . . . for Neutral Milk Hotel?
DO: . . . yeah . . . yeah . . .
DS: You guys just toured together, right, on the West Coast?
JM: Yeah.
DO: The Northwest coast.
DS: When was that? the spring? the fall?
JM: The summer.
DO: Yeah, it was summer. Close.
DS: I used to play with Danny but he kicked me out of his band.
JM: Wow!
DS: I wasn't celibate. That was the thing.
DO: Oh, well that's quite true.
JM: You've got to be celibate to be in the Supreme Dicks you know.
DS: Well, that's what some say. I consider that to be a rumor.
DO: At least probably. That's been problematized.
JM: How long do you have to go before you're considered celibate, Dan?
DO: Seven years.
JM: No, you're kidding. Seven years? What if you go like three and a half years and then you do it like once and you don't enjoy it very much and you do it for another three and a half years?
DO: Ah, I'd have to look up Dick Central Records on that one.
DS: See, I served on some Supreme Dick Councils. It's like if a Supreme Dick falls by the wayside, there's a rumor that, basically, it's based on rumors, that somebody slept with somebody else, then, they convene the Supreme Dicks Council, without the person being accused being there, and they mete out the punishment, which usually is to kick them out for awhile.
DO: What??
DS: That's the way it used to be. I don't know, maybe you guys changed. I think you guys all . . . I don't know. Is that celibacy thing still going on in the Supreme Dicks?
DO: I don't know. I doubt it. I don't know. I didn't know this was interview.
DS: I'm sorry, Dan. I'm actually their historian.
DO: No, that's true. Dave is our historian.
DS: I'm going to write the history and the adventures . . .
JM: (to Julie) I want to know more about your adventure.
JT: Oh, in the South? Actually that was a short-lived adventure . . .
DO: Alright, I'll be back later. I'll be back later.
JT: . . . it's mostly just a fantasy now . . . at least about the South.
JM: Well, how much time did you spend down there?
JT: It all happened within a matter of three days! This person just had flip-out, you know, it was in this Cuban cafe, and we were eating some food, like our last twenty dollars, and I said, "Why don't we take it for a spin around the block." And I think it was the reference to the broken car that made him uh, that triggered some kind of response. (confused giggles)
DS: So you never know. Where you might end up.
JM: Athens could do that to a person.
All: Yeah.
JT: Do you know any good jokes?
JM: No, I always forget the jokes I'm told.
JT: Yeah, me too! How about ghost stories?
DS: Did you ever see a ghost?
JM: No, I've sort of known there were ghosts around. Heard ghosts, I know lots of friends who've seen ghosts.
JT: I had a dream that a green person was sitting on the edge of my bed when I was three.
JK: A green pencil?
JT: No, a green person! But he was a foot tall . . . and he was talking to me and I freaked out and I went to my mom and said, "Mom, there's a green man on my bed, you know, HELP!" and she just said, "Go back to bed" of course, it just didn't register.
JM: I used to wake up and the bed was like concrete. I had this recurring dream that a bomb was falling on my head. It was about to hit my head. So, this old-fashoined bomb would be constantly rolling towards me and I'd wake up and the bed would be like concrete and my hands would be really huge, and I think my brain was in sleep state so it was moving super-fast, but I was wide awake and I felt all rubbery and shit . . .
DS: Like you can't move . . .
JM: Yeah, but you go right back to sleep and it's like, "the bed's still concrete! Fuck! The bed is still concrete!" I went and talked to my mom, and of course she thought I was on drugs, of course, you know. (Laughs) Which was the only reason I was . . .
DS: So she wasn't a hippie?
JM: They were sort of . . . hippies. They were really eccentric in their own ways. I thought they were really normal. I thought they were like, sweet mom and dad. They didn't like each other very much. I thought they were both pretty straight people, but I found out down the road, that . . . my mom raised me in the Episcopal Church, but it turned out later that she wasn't . . . not an atheist but more or less believed in an overall force, you know, which was really weird. So she didn't really believe in Christianity, she believed more that there was a force that held the universe together. And my grandmother thought she had a weird connection with angels. So I was raised as a sort of alter-boy, with these weird grandparents and parents that never really expressed their beliefs until I was older and then I realized that the weird version that I got of Christianity through them . . . none of the pieces really fit together until later on.
DS: Did you leave the Church or something? Were you part of the Youth Fellowship or something?
JM: Well, I was an alter-boy and I would go to this church camp, and we would listen to this meditative music, and like, weep and sing about God and uh, stuff like that.
DS: Wow, and that was in Louisiana.
JM: Right, but it wasn't like Southern Baptist, it wasn't like about Hell.
DS: It wasn't any fire and brimstone . . .
JM: It wasn't like Southern Baptist. It wasn't a Hell.
JT: I missed the whole, uh . . .
JM: So it was sort of hippie, you know? They were like, "Hey, God's groovy! Have a smoke, and like, let's listen to Cat Stevens, and get all freaked out." But it was like a good freaked out. It was really amazing. Marijuana and Jesus . . .
DS: Marijuana!
JM: Marijuana and Jesus Christ and the Minutemen were like, my childhood. That was me growin' up.
DS: That's pretty extreme.
JM: Yeah.
JT: Do you have any religious slants now?
JM: Well, yes, I do. I'm very religious but I'm just not sure of the religion at this point. I'm a little confused. For the first time in my life, I'm confused, and my friends would always be like, everyone was an atheist, and they'd be like, "You're so, you always stick by your beliefs and shit." Everybody's like, "oh God, we're all gonna die and rot and shit," but now I'm kind of confused. I still believe, like seeing ghosts and shit. Well, I haven't seen ghosts but I've experienced ghosts . . . this woman at my grandmother's funeral was telling me this story, about this guy that was sitting in his hospital bed and he was dying and all his family was around him and his two children were around him and he had struggled to live because he didn't want to leave his children and she said that the room sort of filled up with light. And this little four year old kid was sitting there going, "Oh, the angels are comin', the angels are comin'. You can go Daddy, you can go Daddy!" and he opened his eyes and he said, "I'm going!" and his heart rate went EEEEEEE and the light went out.
JT: That's great! I've got goosebumps!
JM: Yeah, she was pretty cool. I'm in like, East Texas, and she's like (imitates old lady voice) "Yeah, I remember when old Jimmy passed away . . . the angels came in the room and took 'im!"
JT: Do you have any religious laws that you live by? Like religious laws?
JM: Well, I have personal laws that I live by.
JT: I mean like, Jesus was really big on being good to other people . . .
JM: Yeah, I just try to, um . . . I refrain from sexuality most of the time. Not because of Jesus. Just because of myself. And we're talking about it in this context and this is an interview. So I'm like, "Hey everybody! This is how I feel about screwing so this is how you should feel about it." You know what I mean, or some kind of self-righteous thing.
DS: (taken aback) Well, maybe . . . no, not in this magazine. Noboby's self-righteous.
JT: Yeah, this is a bonafide shootin' the shit magazine!
JM: Okay! I'm not into having sex because, rarely was it in a situation where it was, okay, we're all okay and we don't have to change so we don't have to do it, you know what I mean? I just don't want to get into that, gettin' all hot and heavy and then bein' all confused about it and stuff.
DS: You've been movin' around a lot, haven't you?
JM: Yeah, the last four years.
DS: You lived in Denver . . .
JM: Denver, Seattle, and New York City, Athens, Georgia, and Ruston, Louisiana.
JT: Do they still have that Bluebird cafe down there in Athens? I remember that, and they had pictures of birds on the ceiling.
JM: Yep, yep. That's a cool place.
DS: That's the land of Michael Stipe down there. One friend of mine moved down there and ended up working in a food co-op Michael Stipe owned. Another person went and he owned the building she lived in. It's like he's everywhere.
JM: Yeah, I met him once. He said something weird. We were at this party and this friend, Bill, did this total noise version of "Losing My Religion" and they played it for him, and he said something like, "Man, this is giving me a hard-on! I'm gonna be fuckin' me some talent tonight!" . . . and I was just like, "What!?" That was weird.
DS: Julie has some Michael Stipe stories to tell . . .
JT: Well, no, David, that's not for the press, we won't get into that.
DS: See, everybody's puttin' their shit on the table, except for you, you know . . .
JT: Well, that's my perrogative!
JM: Yeah, see, we're the only ones who get to say that, "This is me!" I'm the only one who gets to open up and go: "Oh my gosh! My mom! My sexuality! Oh my gosh!"
JT: Are you gonna vote next month?
DS: Absentee ballot?
JK: I can't bring myself to vote for anybody.
DS: We both decided we'd vote for Ralph Nader.
JK: I would like to vote for Ralph Nader. Although it would be completely irresponsible. I have no idea what he stands for, so I imagine it would be irresponsible. I have been curious, but I haven't actually seen the Ralph Nader platform anywhere.
JT: Seatbelts!
DS: He's kind of like a reform guy.