Washed Out crashed onto the indie scene in 2011 when the Life of Leisure EP-cut “Feel it All Around” became the theme song for IFC sketch comedy Portlandia. That same year, Ernest Greene rose even further under the Washed Out nickname, releasing his debut full-length, Within and Without. Not only did Greene manage to create perfectly hazy, critically acclaimed bedroom tunes, he pushed himself even further, delivering the surprising Paracosm in 2013. Bridging “chillwave” with his Southern roots and capturing the warmth of the tropics, Greene has continued to feel fresh ever since those first intoxicating, summery tunes. We spoke to Greene about his love for the studio, plans for a new album and being on the same label that first signed Nirvana.
Where are you calling from today? Athens, Georgia. We just finished up an entire tour a few days ago. It feels really nice to be home and sleeping in my own bed.
I read that you’re pretty solitary when you’re not on tour. Is performing in a place like Vegas difficult or overwhelming? I would’ve said five years ago, before Washed Out really took off, I would’ve been completely freaked out. I was really shy. I was definitely the kid in the back of the class with his head down the whole time not wanting to speak up and say anything. But yeah, I guess performing as much as we have over the past four or five years, I’ve kinda come out of that a little bit.
I definitely enjoy my time by myself—and that’s kind of the weird thing about touring, you’re kind of constantly surrounded by people—but I actually do enjoy going out and doing things and being around people. I feel like I can get that out of my system on tour so when I do get home it’s definitely a little bit more laid back.
I’m psyched about Vegas. We did a show at Beauty Bar last fall, but it was one of those situations where we just drove in and we stayed down the street from the venue. We didn’t get to really see anything, so we’re psyched to kind of get to experience Vegas in all of its glory.
When Washed Out first broke onto the scene, everyone was referring to it as chillwave. Do you feel like that term pigeonholed you in the beginning? Yeah, I would say a little bit. It was definitely kind of the flavor of the month in that it was super popular and then also kind of encapsulates a lot of different stuff that was maybe not quite so similar as people described it to be. But yeah, the musicians that I look up to never really do the same thing more than once. If they make a record they kind of move on and evolve. That’s kind of what I’m interested in doing. It was a bit of a challenge to sort of try new things since those first couple of EPs and still try to honor that sound that I’m probably most known for, but at the same time move forward with it. That’s what I hope to continue to do.
The sound has expanded from the EPs to Within and Without and now Paracosm. What drove you to create a bigger, fuller sound this time? At this point I’ve played with a band for a few years and that was a big influence, wanting to kind of honor that and also realizing that we’d be playing these songs practically every night for a year or two. I wanted to make sure that it was an appropriate and fun record to perform. Those were the main kind of driving forces.
You’ve just been playing with a full band during the live shows, right? Yeah, exactly.
Is it just you in the studio? Yeah. I have a little basement studio set up here at my house, and I do probably 80 percent of the recording here on my own. With multi-tracking technology I can play various parts on top of one another. With both of the full length records, I’ve gone into a studio in Atlanta, which is about an hour from here, and brought in a few musicians but still kind of doing most everything on my own with the help of a producer and engineer.
Do you prefer being in the studio or playing live? I think if I could pull a Beatles move and just make records, I think I would be really happy doing that, but as I was kinda touching on before, there are parts of the live performance that are great. It’s really cool seeing the country here in the states; seeing the world. We’ve done a lot of international touring this year. And when the show goes really well there’s kind of a natural high that goes along with that. I feel like everything’s clicking and you really feel a vibe from the audience—that’s pretty special. But I’m definitely probably a homebody. I’d rather make records all the time.
You play the guitar live. Which came first for you—electronic music or the guitar? I actually played the guitar first. Well, I take that back. I took piano lessons when I was really young, like five years old, and I didn’t really enjoy that very much. It was kind of too strict. So when I was probably 11 or 12 I started playing guitar and just kind of taught myself. At the time, guitar-based music was kind of king, the grunge era was just getting over with, so yeah it was guitar first. It was around the time that I went to college, when I was 18 or 19, that I got a computer and started doing more electronic stuff.
It’s funny, I hadn’t played guitar in probably eight years or something like that. For this record, it felt like we kinda wanted to push it further in the live performance direction as much as possible. A lot of the electronic music these days is just kind of tracked off a computer and we wanted to push as much performance as possible. There’s quite a bit of guitar parts on the album. So I picked it up and I was really bad, but it came back after a little while.
What were you into when you first picked up the guitar? Does any of it trickle into your music now? I’m 31 and it was sort of pre-Internet in those days when I was 10 or 11 and there wasn’t as much music sharing as there is today. There was MTV and stuff like that where I was picking up most of the influences. It was like Nirvana and the Seattle grunge bands and some punk stuff. It’s really ironic, I’m signed to Sub Pop now, the same label that signed Nirvana originally. It’s always kind of a humbling thing when I’m at their office and they have all this memorabilia from the Nirvana days. It’s pretty special. I was definitely a big fan of the label.
You write lyrics off the top of your head. Have you ever written a song that made it onto a record, only to hate performing it because you don’t identify with it anymore? I mean, to be honest, I feel like that happens with very single album that I do. It’s mainly, like, the frustration of “been there, done that,” and then having to relive it every night. I like all of the songs that I’ve done, I’m proud of them. It’s more just, like, if you could imagine doing the same thing over and over for a year …
It sounds like burn out. Yeah, a little burn out. And there probably are a few lyrics, especially early on, where they were pretty spontaneous and they probably could’ve been a little deeper, but there’s kind of a magic in that too.
Are you working on a new album? Yeah. The bad part about touring is you kind of have to shut off the creative side for the most part, there’s just not much time to do recording and writing, or at least not the way we’ve been touring. So I have a lot of ideas. We’ve had a few breaks throughout the summer, like two- or three-week-long little sections where we’re not doing as much traveling. And I have written some music, but it’s definitely an early stage where I’m not sure what I’m really going for, I’m still trying to experiment, see what feels right. My favorite part of the process is, at this point there’s no deadline looming or there’s no pressure. I enjoy researching various subjects and that early stage of figuring out what the record’s gonna be. I hope to have something finished—I plan on kinda jumping straight into some writing—and maybe have something out next year at some point.
Paracosm sounds starkly different from Within and Without. Do you have a vision for the next album? My gut is to do something quite different. I think it’s more natural for me to write sadder, more melancholy melodies and with Paracosm I was trying to do the opposite of that, kind of write more optimistic, uplifting songs. In some ways, I felt like I was playing against my strengths a little bit, and I guess having done that, the instinct is to kind of go and do more darker-sounding material. When I’m sitting down and music is naturally flowing, it tends to be more in that world. I try not to guide it too much, though, so we’ll see.
Washed Out September 28, 9 p.m., $15-$20. Bunkhouse, ticketyfly.com.
