Modesty aside, that melodic guitar playing is exactly what Built to Spill gave to indie rock-an oft-imitated blend of classic rock and East Coast indie rock, filtered through a laid-back psychedelia. I never really had the greatest tone and skills at all. Mascis was really big for me, and Neil Young, too. “I grew up with bands that had lead guitar players and guitar solos. In a recent interview with Steven Hyden at Uproxx, Martsch expressed, with typical modesty, how perplexed he is at his reputation as a guitar god. At this point, he has inspired as many aspiring guitarists as his own guitar heroes like J. If there were a Mount Rushmore for riffs, Built to Spill would need their own separate Mount Rushmore. Over nine full-length albums and one singles collection, Martsch has etched an iconic sound into indie rock. He wanted to have freedom of movement to new cities, as well as creative freedom, and not locking himself into a specific lineup would afford him that. His band began with a specific philosophy: Each album would be recorded with entirely different personnel, other than Martsch himself. While playing in the influential Boise band Treepeople, Martsch formed Built to Spill and departed from Treepeople shortly after. The beauty and the mystery of what Doug Martsch does is how these humble goals alchemize into such colossal, gorgeous albums. He is content to be an unobtrusive background for the endless supply of kick-ass riffs. He is alternately endearing and heady, but he doesn’t care about being the sage hero of his own songs. He insists that his aim is simple-to create a good melody and to make sure the words aren’t distracting-but his songs often unfold into expansive interrogations of life, purpose, the universe, and how our past informs our future.
His melody first, lyrics later approach is a perfect encapsulation of Built to Spill’s understated power.
To me, it’s important that music has singing, and that the singing is actual words, and that the words, they have to be at least okay. If I could get out of the lyrics game I would. I’m not really a storyteller and I’m not really a lyricist.
When asked in 2015 why he doesn’t talk about the meaning of his songs, Martsch replied, “Well, because a lot already don’t have any meaning, or the meanings they do have are often more subconscious connections than actual meanings. For the three decades Built to Spill has existed, he has insisted that his goal with lyrics is just to make sure they’re not bad or embarrassing. It also means that we are freaking awesome.Īnd whoever else wants to sign this one (please do that in comments under this post and I’ll be updating the list).īig thanks to Kate Terlecka and Andrzej Lorenz who influenced creation of this masterpiece highly.Doug Martsch isn’t a lyrics guy. Or something else.īecause this means that our teams are more effective. Building on that, hereby we declare ourselves Slackers.Īnd here is our Manifesto (you can sign it by leaving a comment under this post if you like to). Another thing we’ve learned is value of slack time. One thing we’ve learned is that pursuing 100% utilization is a myth and a harmful one. We are professionals, we take pride of our work and we pursue continuous improvement.
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