Robert Pollard doesn’t talk to journalists any more. Recently, he made a rare exception and granted his first spoken interview in more than a decade to his local paper, the Dayton Daily News. Writer Don Thrasher only got that after years of requests and having the advantage of being a former drummer in Pollard’s long-time band, Guided By Voices.

The 64-year-old prefers to communicate via emailed questions and answers, wryly telling me in a message that his decision to stop speaking was because, “I’ve gotten to the stage where I’d like to maintain a certain mystique, so pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

Robert Pollard puts on a stage show that belies his 64 years.Credit:

In truth, he probably doesn’t have time to hit the interview circuit for every Guided By Voices album because he produces so many of them. He recently put out Tremblers And Goggles By Rank, the band’s second record of 2022. It was the 36th Guided By Voices album, but he churns out so many songs that he’s also released more than 20 solo albums and around 50 albums under other band names and with various collaborators. And then there are multiple EPs and singles.

He calls his publishing company Needmore Songs, which is a reference to the street he used to live on in Dayton, Ohio, but could also serve as a motto for his insatiable desire to make music.

He estimates he’s written between three and four thousand songs. How does he do it?

“I don’t write every day,” he says via email. “I write them in bursts three or four times a year. I just brainstorm and record ideas until I exhaust that wellspring of inspiration.”

As for technology – there isn’t any. He sits in his dining room with a guitar, a notebook and a boombox. “Sometimes I just bang away extemporaneously. Sometimes I start with titles or lyrics. When I’m finished, I transfer all the ideas to a CD and from there I start moving things around until things come together in a more interesting way.”

Pollard is also a prolific collage artist. His artworks grace the covers of most of his albums and he sells prints from his website. He starts each day working on his collages, sourcing images from magazines, newspapers and yearbooks from the 1950s to the 1970s. Pollard’s work has been exhibited in places like Michael Imperioli’s Studio Dante in New York, the Irma Freeman Centre For Imagination in Pittsburgh and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland.

He feels there are strong parallels between the way he makes visual art and the way he writes songs. A good example from the new album is Alex Bell. It has about six distinct sections that lock together, including a late chorus that is such an earworm most bands would have put it upfront, repeated it ad nauseam, and made an entirely new song from it. Pollard buries it towards the end, lets it hang for around 30 seconds and moves on to something else.

He’s also fast. He says most songs take about 10 minutes to write – some take longer, and some take as long as the song takes to sing the first time.

The members of Guided By Voice are spread across the US, recording each of their parts separately for albums.Credit:

After he writes enough songs for an album he sends his home recordings to his band – while Pollard still lives in Dayton, where he was born, guitarist Doug Gillard and bassist Mark Shue live in New York, drummer Kevin March is in New Jersey and second guitarist Bobby Bare Jr. is in Nashville. There have been more than 30 members of Guided by Voices over the years, but this line-up has remained stable since 2016 and recorded a dozen albums. They contribute their parts remotely and then they’re all sent to producer Travis Harrison, “who ‘launders’ them or smooths out the rough edges. After everyone is finished, Travis records my vocals over the completed music.”

To see the band live is a revelation if you arrive expecting a certain kind of laid-back concert experience from men of their vintage. The shows regularly go for at least two-and-a-half hours and they play around 50 songs. Over the years Pollard has approached his performance as a cross between Bruce Lee and Roger Daltrey, performing scissor kicks and leaps and swinging the microphone in big arcs like a lasso. He’s also renowned for his gargantuan beer consumption during a show. At the age of 64, has he slowed down at all?

“I pace myself better now on both accounts,” he says. “My high kicks are down to about four or five per show. I still swing a pretty decent mic. I drink about five beers before a show to calm my nerves. Maybe a small shot of tequila. On stage, I don’t drink as much as people think. Maybe another four or five beers in two-and-a-half hours. It’s very difficult to drink and sing simultaneously.”

The follow-up to the current album is already recorded. It’s called La La Land and Pollard is showing remarkable restraint by holding the release back until January 2023. He’s already writing songs for the one after that.

In a recent interview, Sting said “I don’t think any grown man can be in a band. A band is a teenage gang. Who wants to be in a teenage gang when you’re knocking on 70?”

What does 64-year-old Robert Pollard have to say about that?

“Sting sucks. He hasn’t evolved since the first Police album. He’s gotten steadily worse with each passing year. The first Police album, however, is fantastic.”

Tremblers And Goggles By Rank is out now. Pollard’s art can be found at robertpollardart.com

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