September 26, 2015
Update: March 28th, 2025 – Nearly a decade later, as I go through some of my old written works and interviews I performed for Discogs, I can’t help but comment on my meeting with Tim Hecker in September, 2015. Of all the interviews I did at Discogs – and there were hundreds – my conversation with Hecker stands out more than the others because of what an insufferable prick he was. It’s true what they say: you can have 500 great experiences, but the one bad experience is the memory you’ll ultimately hang on to. In my mercifully brief time interacting with Hecker he proved to be an impatient, unprofessional and rude little asshole, and while I can appreciate artists and fringe pop stars being self-absorbed blobs of entitlement, the vast majority of them still pull it together to act like a decent human being for the sake of promotion. From the very start of communication with Hecker, he proved he possessed no power of decency in any way, shape or form. In recent weeks people have been finding this old interview I did with Hecker, and they’ve been reading it and liking it which I appreciate. However, I think what actually happened with the interview behind the scenes is far more interesting, and as I see a renewed interest in the interview, I’m compelled to commemorate the experience with a detailed account of what actually happened before I completely forget it all. I think you’ll find my new edit here far more readable than what I originally published. My written intro to the original interview was very half-assed, and there’s a reason for it — I had no respect for Hecker after meeting him. I never wanted to publish it anyway, but in hindsight I’m glad it has survived as I can add this commentary to it a decade later.
At the time, Hecker hadn’t released an album for nearly a year, and really had nothing new to promote. He was playing at the Decibel Festival, a now defunct electronic music festival that took place over the course of a week in Seattle. His publicist at Kranky Records had reached out to me and nearly begged me to do an interview with Hecker — his publicist was a big fan of Discogs and assured me that Tim would be a great addition to my series of chats I was having with artists who were performing at Decibel. Of course I said yes.
To be fair to Hecker, I had a host of challenges that were being juggled the day I met him. My assignment was to interview people all day, write the interviews in my hotel room, go to the performances that lasted all night, go back to the hotel room to write more at 3 in the morning — this continued for a week straight. Add to this formula the fact that I worked for an intensely shitty company who didn’t care about my well-being and you had a recipe for a high level of nonsense. It was a rough week, but hey, how many other people get to call this type of work their “career”? I was still grateful to be given an opportunity like this, and I smiled and plowed through it.
I had been communicating with Hecker’s publicist for a few weeks, and he was an extremely nice guy, as publicists usually are. He relayed to me that Hecker would be doing his sound check early in the afternoon, and meeting him at 3PM would be the ideal time. I gathered myself and moseyed down to the club he was performing — he was playing at a venue called The Triple Door which is a very cool location for live music. It has a labyrinthian path to the stage that begins from the street and winds its way to the center of the building through a series of long hallways, stairways and double doors. Kranky’s publicist told me that texting Hecker would be best, and to do so when I arrived at the venue so he could let me in. I arrived a few minutes before 3, and texted Hecker: “Hi Tim, this is Matt. I’m waiting outside, thanks.” 17 minutes passed, and no response (I still have the text messages for what it’s worth). At 3:24, the door swung open, and a man said, “who are you?” Never mind I had been waiting for 24 minutes without a single response from any other human being, this chode wanted to know what I was doing loitering outside the club he happened to have access to. I replied, “I’m Matt, I’m here to interview Tim Hecker.” He looked me over like he was on the verge of frisking me. “You the Discogs guy?” I said, “Yeah, my name is Matt.” He doubled down: “The Discogs guy? You’re here for Tim?” In this moron’s world Tim was Tim, but I was a nameless journo wandering aimlessly amongst the streets of Seattle, seeking passage to his sanctuary that housed his master, Tim Hecker. At that point I remember thinking, “I don’t need this shit. I’m not even a fan of this guy, why am I here? I’ll go get lunch and have more time to type up my interviews that are already done…let Hecker dwell in his precious little ambient/noise bubble and I’ll get on with my life.” I once again said, “My name is Matt, and I’m here on behalf of Discogs. If you can’t let me in, fair enough.” With that, he shut the door. 30 minutes had now passed, and I was no closer to being let into the venue, much less performing an interview. I called the publicist, and politely updated him on the situation. What I really wanted to say was “What the fuck, dude? I’m here because you wanted me to be here, and now I’ve wasted the past 30 minutes when this interview should have been done already.” He told me he’d contact Tim and figure things out. A few moments later, the guy at the door opened up again and said, “Okay, you’re good.” Gee, thanks for your approval, dipshit. Right as I walked in at 3:34PM, I got a text from Hecker: “be like 5-10 mins”. At least he was alive, albeit wasting my time. Once I was in, I had no idea where the stage was. When I mentioned earlier that The Triple Door has a labyrinthian pathway to the stage I meant it — it’s quite a journey getting to the center of the building where the shows are. As I started my quest to the stage, I asked the meathead at the door where the stage was, and he replied with an oh-so-helpful chirp of “I dunno”. What was this guy? Why was he here? He didn’t know where the stage was but he was part of Hecker’s team? Whatever, I just followed the music and eventually found the stage.
When I finally discovered my goal, I was greeted with a rather beautiful venue with multi-layered seating and flooring arrangements, and some fantastic acoustics. On stage was Tim Hecker, performing some music for absolutely no one other than his sound guy. It was the only pleasant moment of this entire experience — not a lot of people get the opportunity of having the feeling that someone is performing only for you in an otherwise empty building. It’s one of the perks of jobs like mine, and I remember sitting down after nearly an hour of nonsense and letting Hecker’s music wash over me, and only me. The image you see above was taken by yours truly during these moments. As it turned out, it wasn’t “like 5-10 mins”, but more like another half hour — It was well after 4PM when Hecker finally wrapped up his sound check. He mumbled a few words to his sound guy, tinkered with his synthesizers for a few more minutes, then fixed his eyes on me. He ambled over, squinted at me, and said, “You ready?” Not “Hi Matt, nice to meet you”, not “Hey, sorry for being over an hour late” and not “Thanks for your time”, but rather a two word grunt that would set the momentum for the next 15 painful minutes. My mind raced with possible responses. Responses like, “Uh, yeah, fuckhead, I’ve been ready for over an hour”, or, “Ya know, your publicist set this up, I’d rather be eating lunch right now rather than putting up with your histrionics”, or, “My time is valuable too, oh, beloved pop star”. Ever the professional, I said, “Yes indeed, thank you for your time, Tim.” I extended my hand for him to shake, and he looked down, avoided all eye contact, and took a seat. Oof. This is really gonna suck, I thought to myself.
My first question was about his earliest work as Jetone when he released an album called “Ultramarin” on the lovely label Force Inc. He immediately shut down, gave me dirty looks, and acted completely annoyed with every word I said after this initial question. My goal was to first talk about his early work and move through his catalog until we got to his most recent albums. It’s a pretty standard way of doing things, and not at all out of the ordinary. He proceeded to grunt out monosyllabic answers where I was constantly scrambling and following up to try and get coherent sentences and thoughts from his mouth. As I read the interview now I have no idea how I was able to string together the already brief interview the finished product ended up being. I mean, this motherfucker gave me nothing. In fact, as I read the interview a decade later I’m pretty sure I embellished his more wordy answers because no one would have read the absolute toss he actually gave to me. Picture the most arrogant and impatient person you’ve ever had to deal with and then multiply the uncomfortableness by 10 — Hecker was beyond that. After 15 minutes of him grunting and giving me the stink eye, I asked him what was going to be the final question: When can we expect a new album? Before I could even finish the question he cut me off with “How long is this interview gonna be anyway?” I said, “Oh, it’s over now. It was pretty much over the moment you sat down 15 minutes ago.” It just came out. After a week of scrambling after artists, dealing with their schedules, harassment and pressure from my employers, not having time to eat because of artists delaying my schedule, and now I’ve got this cunt giving me an attitude for no fucking reason that I have remotely given him. Hecker was probably having a bad day, too. I can respect that. But buck up, dude. This is the medium you’ve decided to be a part of. And to me, you’re just another human being, and not the megastar you seem to think you are. When I spit out this response, he all of a sudden found a respect for me. He kinda stared at me for a second, which was more than what he had done the entirety of the interview up to that point. It took me standing up for myself for him to realize, at least for a microsecond, that he was being a complete and irretrievable douche. We both stood up, and he went to shake my hand. I shook it, but to this day I don’t know why. I really didn’t want to, but again, professionalism.
We gathered up our shit, and both walked for the exit. However, neither of us knew how to get out of the building due to the labyrinth of doors and hallways leading to the street. The intensity and awkwardness of the interview wasn’t enough as we both walked in silence around the hallways of The Triple Door, bumping into each other, trying to find relief by exiting into the open air of downtown Seattle. I remember thinking to myself, “this is gonna be a funny story someday”. I finally found the exit, and Hecker was lost behind me, bumping into walls in a hidden corridor, like a lost pinball getting knocked around a long-abandoned arcade. I opened the door to the street, and from behind me I heard, “Hey Matt, where are you?” It was Hecker, trying to locate where the door was. It struck me in the moment that this final act of vulnerability he displayed was the only motivation he could muster in his geographic discombobulation where Hecker finally saw fit to call me by my name. “I’m over here, Tim.” He emerged from the darkness, shambled over to the triple doorways, and as I held the middle doors open for him to exit, he chose to open the left side doors to let himself out. Hecker couldn’t even allow himself to let me hold the doors open for him in his last statement effort to embarrass me, the annoying journalist, with an ultimate act of passive aggressive abatement. Hope you felt better after that, Tim.
A few days after the Decibel festival was over, the publicist emailed me and asked how the Hecker interview went. I lied and said it was fine, and thanked him for working with me. But I want to tell the truth about these things now. It wasn’t fine. Tim Hecker was a total fucking bastard, and I did nothing to deserve his ire. He was having a bad day, he was feeling pressure, blah blah, whatever. I don’t want to hear it anymore. I have bad days just like anyone, and I don’t take out my frustration on innocent bystanders. As I get older, I find myself wanting to tell these stories. I’m at a stage of my life where I’m not interested in being “professional” anymore because it has gotten me absolutely-fucking-nowhere. So here’s the real story for anyone who cares. Hecker chose to not function in a professionally human capacity that day by creating a hostile atmosphere, and now I’m returning that choice. Fuck professionalism. And fuck Tim Hecker.
Here’s the original interview!
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Tim Hecker really needs no introduction. Originally from Montreal, now based out of LA, Hecker started making techno music about 15 years ago as Jetone, evolving into the genre-defying electronic excavations that we know and love today. His work only receives more and more accolades as time goes on, his sound and approach always changing while only amassing additional fans as he evolves. Late Saturday afternoon, ears still ringing from three nights of non-stop music accosting my ear drums from the five-day Decibel Festival, I had a chance to hear Tim Hecker’s sound check down at the Triple Door, and he had a few spare moments (about 10 minutes) afterward to chat a little about his music, and what we can expect from his Decibel performance Saturday evening.
On the way over here I was trying to think back to when I first heard your music, and it occurred to me that it was your “Ultramarin” album as Jetone on Force Inc..
(Laughs) That was definitely a product of what was influencing me at the time. I made some quasi-IDM with more linear beats, and I was listening to a lot of Berlin techno at that time as well as whatever else I was into, so I just put it together in a really haphazard way. Even on that record, though, there were about three or four segue-way pieces that represented more of what I was into opposed to the more straight-up techno ones. That was the beginning of me wanting to do work under my own name, so I just let go of that sound and have wanted to dedicate more time to have one single object under one name instead of having all of these multiple projects — I want to bare it all under my own name.
I love the album you did for Mille Plateaux back in 2003 — I’ve always felt like it was a great pre-cursor to what your sound is today.
There weren’t a lot of people working for that label in North America back then apart from a few people in San Francisco. I felt that record had a very raw and rugged feel, and the label really liked it. I also wasn’t committed to the digital rigor opposed to some of the other people that were involved with the label, as well as the ideology of the label founder which I was in opposition with. I ended up just doing my own take which was a dirtier version of digital aesthetics, like with analog for instance, or running computers through tube amps, granulating a guitar — it just felt more fertile for me at the time.
It’s interesting to read what reviewers have to say about your newer stuff, particularly your last few albums. A lot of people seem to be pre-occupied with trying to compartmentalize your sound into a neat and tidy genre, and they aren’t having much success. Do you pay much attention to this?
Yeah, you can’t help but think about it a little bit, but it’s also asphyxiating and a chokehold on the potential of becoming something else and just growing. That’s the fundamental need to survive in which to be able to do something for over ten years. You can’t be happy just feeding people the same easy, minor key drift that you’ve been doing forever. For me, I’m more interested in schizophrenic ways of doing what I’ve already been doing. I mean, there is certainly a continuity to what I do — I’ve been using the same tools forever. I just can’t do it in the same way. I’m definitely not as radical as some people who reinvent their sound with every album. For me it’s a journey and needs to change up on each record a bit.
The obsession people have to categorize your music seems to have started with the Ravedeath album with people arguing whether it’s ambient or noise or whatever.
To me, that’s success. I want to skate on the periphery of all these well-established zones. Otherwise you’re just guarding some “noble” form. I do think of genre to some degree, but if it’s too easy and satisfies those who want to compartmentalize music then it’s got to be fixed somehow.
So genre pigeon-holing from others does cross your mind to a certain extent?
Yes. It’s not about some proverbial listener who’s worried about record store bins, it’s just about finding your own path in the world, and that’s through rejecting those types of zones.
Sometimes understanding music is better interpreted through non-musical influences. Can you share what a few of those might be?
Yeah, definitely. Mostly life influences me in ways that are unclear, and you can’t really quickly put your finger on it. It’s interesting to think back, and consider how stuff leads you to put emphasis on certain things. When I’m making a track with 15 different elements, I’ll think about what should be the most prominent, you know? It might be because of your day, the sun vs. the rain, who knows?
What can we expect from your performance this evening? Do you DJ or is it mainly live?
It’s live. I do use a lot of sculpting tools and computer audio. I’ll be playing portions of unreleased tracks as well.
Occasional Feel Good 