When indie pop band Xiu Xiu plays at the Cooperage on March 7
through Campus Events, it will be one stop on a tour that begins in
the United States but will eventually lead the band overseas to
countries such as Austria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Hungary and
Italy.
Singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart acknowledges that a tour of
these Central and Eastern European countries is a little unusual
for a small indie band, but says he could not turn down an
invitation to play somewhere he has never been.
“We got invited to play and it will never happen again in
this life,” Stewart said. “It will be nice to see some
new places.”
These tours come on the heels of Xiu Xiu recording a new album,
which is called “La Foret” and scheduled to hit stores
on July 12.
Stewart describes the album as being half experimental, half pop
with a heavy dose of politics in the lyrics, which he credits to
the re-election of President Bush last November.
“It’s difficult to think about anything else,”
Stewart said. “Obviously the war in Iraq will be mentioned,
and also the environmental policies of the Bush
administration.”
Lyrically, this is a departure from last year’s more
personal record “Fabulous Muscles,” which concentrated
on tragedies in Stewart’s life, including the suicide of his
father. But emotion, along with Stewart’s haunting voice,
will still play a key role in the new album.
“We’re always trying to write about either stuff
going on in my life or in people close to me,” Stewart said.
“The point is to write about real life, which in turn … is
going to have emotion attached to it.”
Stewart plans to play five of the new songs live, along with
material from the band’s previous releases, such as
“Fabulous Muscles,” which shows some of the
experimental music the singer eventually explores more in “La
Foret.”
“Our last album was (mostly) pop-oriented, with some
experimental music.” Stewart said. “With this album, we
just tried a whole bunch of new things, and about half worked and
half were terrible, and those bad ones were tossed from the
record.”
Monday’s show represents a homecoming for Stewart, who
grew up in San Fernando Valley and went to a magnet high school in
Hollywood.
But the singer does not know whether there will be a large group
of supporters, and he does not plan to wonder about it.
“I found it best not to think about the amount of people
in the crowd,” Stewart said. “If there is five or 50
people there, we still plan to play the same way.”
Stewart has a similar attitude toward the press. He knows that
many album reviews are going to come out due to the release of
“La Foret,” but he plans to ignore all of them, despite
the fact that “Fabulous Muscles” was critically
acclaimed.
“I really get freaked out and overanalyze everything, even
if they say something good about me,” Stewart said. “I
take everything too personal, so I don’t plan to read any
reviews.”