There's far more to Zooey Deschanel than the professional kooky girl beloved of Hollywood. There's far more to Matt Ward than the bright-spark producer of Cat Power, Conor Oberst and Beth Orton. Together, they are She Him, a coupling chock full of melodic pop and graceful purrings. They talk to JIM CARROLL...
THE TICKET now knows from experience that Hollywood actors can make a mean mug of tea. In the kitchen at the Domino Records office in south London, Zooey Deschanel is brewing up a storm. If she’s ever looking for a break from her day job, she can always go into business making builders’ tea.
Deschanel, though, already has a few day jobs to keep her occupied. The acting gig has seen her build a rep for kooky roles from appearances in (500) Days of Summer, Elf(where she did a duet of Baby It's Cold Outsidewith Will Ferrell), Almost Famous, and Yes Man(in which she played the lead singer in fantastic fictional synth pop outfit Munchausen By Proxy).
In the last few years, though, Deschanel has become just as well known for her musical turns. The actor is also the “She” in pop duo She Him alongside singersongwriter Matt Ward.
The pair are in London to plug Volume Two, their second collaborative album. Like Volume One, the sequel contains lovely old-school pop and country songs which are slow, sweet and easy like Sunday morning. Every component works: the delightful purr of Deschanel's voice, the graceful sway of Ward's arrangements and the pair's winning approach to melodies.
The partnership first came about when Ward met Deschanel in 2007 to record a cover of Richard and Linda Thompson's When I Get to the Borderfor the The GoGettersoundtrack. "The director thought it would be a good idea for us to do a duet," remembers Deschanel. "We did When I Get to the Borderand we had some extra time so we did Mr Sandmanas well.
“I think we knew instantly that it would work. You know that feeling, you don’t mistake it when it comes along. I saw someone who was using the moments in the studio and everything that happened to his advantage. It was more than artistic, it was athletic. You were taking advantage of the moment, and it was exactly what I had in mind.”
Ward is an experienced performer and producer who, apart from releasing seven albums under his own name, has also worked with Cat Power, Beth Orton, Conor “Bright Eyes” Oberst, and others. Last year, he continued his collaborative roll with Monsters of Folk alongside Oberst, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes).
With She Him, Ward had a very certain sound in mind from the get-go. “I wanted She Him to fit next to my favourite records from when I grew up. Zooey and I have a lot of commonalities in our record collections – The Everly Brothers, The Carter Family and The Beach Boys – and we both appreciate music made by humans as opposed to computers. My favourite producers are Phil Spector and Brian Wilson and George Martin. It was very easy because Zooey writes and sings in a timeless way.”
For Deschanel, She Him happened at just the right time. A longtime singer and performer, she had written a bunch of songs and was holding on to them until the right opportunity presented itself. “I was a bit of a frustrated songwriter and I wanted to figure out some way to release these songs, but I didn’t want to release them in the wrong way.It wasn’t until I met Matt that I found a good way to get the songs out.”
Ward’s approach was simple: just get on with things. “As a producer, I watch where the song goes and try to stay out of the way. Once you listen to a demo enough times, you start to imagine where it came from, where it wants to go and what song from yesteryear that it would look good cosying up to.
“I have a lot of faith in composition and when you’re working with incredible songs, you don’t need to spend three weeks working on one song. If it’s a great song, it’s going to make for a great record.”
“We don’t waste time in the studio,” adds Deschanel. “We do our prep work before we start and don’t waste time ordering pizzas or whatever people normally do in the studio when they run up those huge bills. I’m not too precious about it. We do it, look at it and move on. It’s a very satisfying way to work.”
One of the most satisfying aspects of the She Him waltz for Deschanel has been the live shows. While she's no stranger to the stage – she was part of a Los Angeles cabaret act If All The Stars Were Pretty Babiesfor a few years – the She Him experience was on a much different scale.
“Our first few She Him shows were a bit weird just because, you know, some people were there to see me the actress. But I didn’t want to be this kind of person who goes, ‘hey, here I am’. I wanted to go onstage and earn an audience’s respect and affection, and I think after a few shows, that was the case and people were singing the words. Then again, a lot of people who come up to me know about She Him and don’t know about the acting. I don’t mind as long as they come to the shows.Everybody is welcome, it’s like a church.”
“I think people are seeing you in a very different way to everyone else who’s making music and acting,” chips in Ward. “You’re on your own path.”
“Yeah, but I do think that people know that I’m really a musician at heart,” says Dechanel. “I’ve had a fairly unique career path and I think it should be encouraging to a lot of people that you don’t need to be defined by what has happened before. You can make your own path.”
Much of the rest of this year will be spent touring, with the pair promising Irish dates for She Him. Deschanel spent time last year in Belfast filming fantasy comedy Your Highness, but didn't get out of the city. "I really wanted to go to Dublin, but I didn't know anyone down there."
Ward, on the other hand, is a frequent visitor to these parts. "I've played Ireland quite a few times. I love Irish literature – I've just read Ulyssesfor the first time and it made me want to go back to Dublin. It looks like a novel and sounds like a poem. A very strange, amazing, magical read."
A few weeks after that interview in London, She Him were amongst the stars of the South By Southwest ball in Austin, Texas. They played gigs all over town, from pokey, stuffed bar-rooms to big, open-air stages, and charmed everyone they met. The songs were crisp, cute and wholesome, the performances as glittering as they come, and the star wattage was considerable. It’s plain to see that there are many more episodes to come in this likeable drama.
Volume Twois out now on Domino.
Stars and bars
There are two kinds of actor in the world; those who can make music and those who can't, writes TONY CLAYTON-LEA
WILLIAM SHATNER
The head honcho of the original Star Trek series began his musical career in 1968 with The Transformed Man, an exceptionally odd record that features his archly delivered spoken word interpretations of Bob Dylan's Mr Tambourine Manand The Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, each of which instantly became camp classics.
Shatner's subsequent recording career has been erratic, and he is perhaps best known for one-off readings of songs rather than albums. For instance, his spoken word rendition of Elton John's Rocket Man(first televised in 1978, during the Science Fiction Film Awards) is a warped scream, while his belated second studio album, 2004's Fear Of Pop, includes a truly bewildering version of Pulp's Common People. A perfect example of bad celebrity singing?
Best Movie: Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country(1991)
BRUCE WILLIS
Despite being best known, initially, as the guy out of
Moonlighting, and then as Detective John McClane in the Die Hard movies, Bruce once had a sizeable recording career via success with
The Return of Bruno(1987), a covers album that was released by the Motown label, and featured a wish-list cast of musicians that included Booker T Jones and The Temptations. It's a stodgy mix of R'n'B and ego, but Willis was energized enough by the hit singles of
Respect Yourselfand
Under The Boardwalkto continue recording and guest appearing (his latest being in the recent Gorillaz video Stylo).
Best Movie: Pulp Fiction(1994)
SCARLETT JOHANSSON
Despite being so amazingly enchanting in Sofia Copolla's
Lost In Translation(where she seemed tailor-made to sing along to My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain), moonlighter Scarlett Johansson's (right) subsequent forays into singing have been woeful. Her first album (2008's
Anywhere I Lay My Head) comprised mostly cover versions of Tom Waits songs. Irrespective of its indie-cult chops (it was produced by TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek, and featured a rare appearance from David Bowie), it highlighted Johansson's insipid voice, which was described by
Rolling Stoneas "a faintly goth Marilyn Monroe lost in a sonic fog". The 2009 follow-up,
Break Up, a collaborative album with US singer-songwriter Pete Yorn, was, frankly, an exercise in sleepwalking.
Best Movie: Lost In Translation(2003)
TOP DOGS
JULIETTE LEWIS
Many have worshipped at the altar of rock'n'roll but very few have tried to smash that same altar to pieces. Say hello, then, to Juliette Lewis, once with The Licks and now with the New Romantiques. Lewis is a bit of a hellraiser, but more importantly, she means it when she says she'd rather make music than movies. Her shtick is loud, unadulterated, gonads-in-the-zone rock'n'roll, while her onstage antics mirror the music's energy. Here is what Blendermagazine said about her. "She delivers sonically varnished melodic punk replete with purring vocals and lyrics that bash porn, pharmaceutical companies and rotten lovers – in no particular order." Quite.
Best Movie: Natural Born Killers(1994)
ZOOEY DESCHANEL
Yes, we know she's the subject of the main feature, but she's so good it would have been silly not to list her here. Basically, Deschanel lives and breathes music, from a background of theatre school to her work with She Him, and on the large and small screen (her latest television role being a portrayal of über-groupie Pamela Des Barres in
I'm With The Band: Confessions Of A Groupie).
Best Movie:(500) Days of Summer(2009)
JASON SCHWARTZMAN & COCONUT RECORDS
We know Schwartzman from movies such as
Rushmore, Marie Antoinette, Shopgirland
Funny People, but not many people are aware that his solo musical project, Coconut Records, is way above average indie-pop. Two albums,
Nighttiming(2007) and
Davy(2009), evince a skilful level of songwriting (think Elliott Smith fixating on The Beatles) that succeeds purely through lack of ego in a guy that knows how to fashion snappy hooks.
Best Movie: Rushmore(1998)
