‘Garfield’ is the debut album from Adam Green of New York anti-folk group The Moldy Peaches that has just recently been released for the first time on vinyl as well as its original CD format for the record’s 20 year anniversary via Org Music.

Adam Green and Kimya Dawson originally crossed paths at an open mic night in Mount Kisco, New York in the early 90s. From there they went on to record a surplus of home recordings with various friends under the moniker The Moldy Peaches, and eventually became staples in the NYC anti-folk scene of the late 90’s/ early 2000’s. After releasing several albums that gained traction in the U.S. and UK, the group broke into the mainstream when their song “Anyone Else But You” appeared in the hit indie film Juno (2007).

ORG Music also recently released ‘Origin Story: 1994-1999,’ a collection of songs, unreleased demos, live tracks, and poems from the early years of The Moldy Peaches, and outline the tale of how the band came to be.

Adam Green | Photo by Amanada De Cadanet

“Walking around by myself and trying to come up with ideas”

What’s it like for you when it comes to solo material? Do you feel the most comfortable working only by yourself?

Adam Green: Mostly I like making the decisions about how a song goes and what the words are. My favorite activity is walking around by myself and trying to come up with ideas. A couple of times in my life I’ve found a songwriting partner, as with Kimya Dawson and Binki Shapiro. My wife Yasmin has edited all my stuff since the Aladdin movie, my favorite collaboration is with her.

Would you like to tell us the main inspirations for the ‘Garfield’ recordings, what ran through your mind when you were working on it?

I started writing ‘Garfield’ after I heard Beck’s ‘Mutations’ album, that was the moment I decided to commit to writing down all my ideas, and become a collector of concepts. I moved with my parents to NYC around that time, and I wanted to make an album that lyrically conveyed what the NYC landscape felt like to me. I was a sort of wide-eyed paranoid kid.

How do you see it now?

I don’t blame myself for trying to make this kind of album. I think I was very aware of sound-texture at that time, and I was really into the sonic intimacy of home recording.

ORG Music has released a collection of songs, unreleased demos, live tracks, and poems from you and Kimya in the early years of The Moldy Peaches. It’s very exciting to hear how it all started. Was there a certain moment in your life when you knew you wanted to become a musician?

My first instrument was playing the tuba in the school band. I got into guitar when I was 12 years old, because I heard people write songs on it. My guitar teacher would teach me the chords to songs I wanted to learn by Nirvana, The Grateful Dead, Beck, and The Vaselines. Pretty soon I started trying to write my own songs. Me and my friend Ben both got 4-track cassette recorders and we just went nuts.

You first crossed paths at an open mic night in Mount Kisco, New York in the early 90s. How did that happen and how soon did you start working together after you met?

I met Kimya at a poetry open mic. I was playing these sad grungy teen-angst folk songs, Kimya was reading a poem about finding corn kernels in her poop. We crossed paths again when she started working at a record store in my hometown. I used to bring my guitar to the shop and we’d write Moldy Peaches together. Before that “The Moldy Peaches” was just the name of a tape I made by myself.

“A songwriter’s goal is to perform emotional surgery”

Working on those early songs, did you ever fear revealing too much of your inner-self, and have you managed to take a third person approach?

I think later on I learned how to offset confessional songwriting by balancing it with other aspects so that it’s easier to take in. In general, you don’t want your lyrics to feel like emotional vomit, a songwriter’s goal is to perform emotional surgery on the listener, so the lyrics have to draw people in.

What in particular did you enjoy in Kimya’s songwriting?

Kimya hadn’t written a song before we started working on them together. I found her to be brilliantly witty, and we would combine our brains seamlessly, it was magical. She already had a big internal universe and a sense of personal mythology that she’d developed as a poet. I was 14 at this time so I was learning a lot from her.

If we were able to travel back to your teenage room, what kind of records, zines, posters and books would we find? On that note, do you feel that influences changes during the years of being an active musician?

If we were to travel back to my teenage bedroom at that time, I had posters of Devo, Meat Puppets, Flipside magazine, records by Pearls Before Swine, Young Marble Giants, Sebadoh, John Davis, The Velvet Underground, Bikini Kill, The Makeup, books by William S. Burroughs, and biography books about Sonic Youth and Nirvana.

How has Covid affected your life?

I have two kids, so I became a homeschool teacher for that first year. During the quarantine I taught my daughter how to read and do math and stuff.

What do you think coined the word Anti-Folk and do you still see yourself as part of it?

I think Lach coined the term antifolk in the 1980’s to describe the scene of punk-folk music that was going on in the East Village NYC. It had been going on for a while before The Moldy Peaches got there. At the open mic at Sidewalk Cafe we found ourselves in the middle of an incredible music scene with people like Dufus, Diane Cluck, Jeffrey Lewis, Turner Cody, Ish Marquez, Regina Spektor, Toby Goodshank, Jack Dishel, Rick Shapiro, Paleface, Barry Bliss, Prewar Yardsale, and many more amazing artists, it was overwhelming. When The Moldy Peaches record came out in 2001, it created some awareness about that whole scene. I feel like I’m still a part of it as I still hang with many of the people from that time.

I really enjoyed ‘That Fucking Feeling,’ your latest solo album. Would you like to share some further words about the material behind it?

I recorded it during quarantine – so it’s a mixed bag. Half the songs are recorded on my kitchen table with an acoustic guitar. The other half was recorded with a big group of friends at a studio in Queens, we kept having to reschedule the sessions because people would get COVID. Those songs are influenced by Phil Spector wall-of-sound recordings. So the final record is both cavernous and tiny at the same time.

<a href="https://capitane-records.bandcamp.com/album/that-fucking-feeling">That Fucking Feeling by Adam Green</a>

How did you first get interested in art? Was there a moment where you saw an image or something and got really interested for the first time? And how did those influences grow? Who are some of the major influences on your work?

My family moved to midtown NYC when I was 17 years old. I started going to the Metropolitan museum, and was drawn to the Max Beckmann triptychs there. I really loved the way he’d incorporate a personal mythology into his paintings, and I wanted to create a myth-based universe for my own songs.

How would you describe your style? What’s the typical creation process like? Do you work on various things or do you focus on just one particular project?

I work on lots of different projects at the same time. Most things with me start as things I write down in my notepad while I’m walking in the city. That’s how I develop most of my ideas just by going on long walks.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Off the top of my head I’d recommend Hubert Lenoir’s ‘Pictura de Ipse.’ Aeriel East’s ‘Rooms,’ Turner Cody’s ‘Friends in High Place.’ The Lemon Twigs just released a song called ‘Corner of My Eye’ that is incredible.

Klemen Breznikar

Headline photo: Adam Green | Photo by Asako Kitaori

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