Six things you probably didn't know about Beck

Photo: Autumn De Wilde

This week, Beck will release his new album, Guero, his first full-scale collaboration with production team the Dust Brothers since his landmark 1996 release, Odelay. As such, this is one of his "collage" records, with juicy dance beats and absurdist raps. But while Odelay came saturated with recognizable samples and jokey rhymes, Guero obscures any borrowed sounds in a smooth, minimalist funk.

The road that Beck, 34, traveled to get to Guero is well documented: He burst onto airwaves in 1994 with a fluke hit, "Loser," and has subsequently bounced from folk to hip-hop to an inimitable middle ground. Last year, he married Marissa Ribisi (the twin sister of actor Giovanni), who recently gave birth to a son. The new parents subscribe to a strange, perplexing religion, Scientology, and live in a strange, perplexing city, Los Angeles. But what do most people not know about Beck?

Beck is a sensitive being.
Before talking with the singer, TONY dialed up John King, one of the two Dust Brothers. We asked one lonely question about Beck's mounting reputation as a diva. (King says it's unwarranted, though he acknowledges that the musician is often late and, abiding by some secret celebrity code, is fussy when ordering food.) Regardless, this is how Beck began our interview:

Beck: [The Dust Brothers] said you were trying to get them to say mean things about me.

Time Out New York: What are you talking about? No!

Beck: Maybe it wasn't you. They said it was the Time Out guy.

TONY: Right, the Time Out guy... You know, that must have been somebody else.

He really wants to live in a real city.
"Moving to New York is a perennial thought for me," says the L.A. native. When Beck was 18, he scraped together some money and hopped a bus to the Port Authority. He stayed with friends for about six months, playing folk nights at spaces like the Chameleon and ABC No Rio, but his experience ended sourly. "I got jumped and beat up," he says. "I had saved a little money working at the YMCA, and this woman took it—she was a crackhead. It was winter and I ran out of floors to crash on. I think New York was pressing the eject button on me."

Wayne Coyne hurt his feelings.
After releasing Sea Change, Beck embarked on a tour with the Flaming Lips as his opener and backing band. It went well until Coyne, the group's singer, gave interviews painting Beck as pampered and finicky. "It was surprising," Beck says. "I found out when Wayne sent me the articles with an apology letter. The tour had been very brotherly and easygoing, so when I started seeing this stuff, it was bizarre. Later, I confronted Wayne. He said, 'Aw, you don't believe this bullshit, do you?' I was like, 'I read it, and it's upsetting.'"

There's more than one loser in his repertoire.
In 1999, Beck released Midnite Vultures, a cartoonish funk record maligned as an irony-drenched Prince spoof. Beck says he shares his critics' aversion to it. "I have a love-hate relationship with it," he says. "Mostly hate. Around the time I made it, I'd go into a store and the sandwich guy would yell [Vinnie Barbarino voice], 'Aaaay! Mr. Beck!' I wanted to kill some of the success and recognizability. The record was done as a bratty 'fuck you.' A lot of the songs are sung in this weird annoying voice. The music's zaniness and the squeaky voice made it like a farce with no straight man."

You'd better wait for him to finish.
Beck tends to prattle on methodically about a topic, then goes silent for up to ten seconds. Just as the person he's talking to begins to speak, he butts in to continue a thought. Case in point:

Beck: I had been moving away from rapping. Some of the rapping I'd done was embarrassing to me—I think of myself more as a songwriter. But I was talking to [producer] Nigel Godrich, and he said that the rap stuff was by far his favorite. [Long pause]

TONY: Um...I was interviewing John King and—

Beck: He just thought it was cool and dorky and free-form and unpretentious. When I looked at it through his eyes, I could see it was something different from the world's Eminems or Dizzee Rascals. [Long pause]

TONY: I was talking to John about—

Beck: So then I went and I wrote about 15 rap songs.

TONY: [Very long pause]

If Beck were writing a parody of himself for Saturday Night Live, it would include...
"A guy playing acoustic guitar. Then he runs over to a keyboard and plays a funk solo and starts beat-boxing. Then he pulls out a cello and starts playing it—but he also has a laptop and starts kicking some techno. But then he's got an accordion and he's doing the polka. There's the parody. But you know, I just came back from rehearsal—and that pretty much describes it."