Interview with Tim Kasher
This is a little behind the times. This was published in TheMagazine in early September.
But it was a pretty fun interview.
I caught ‘Cursifix’ awhile back in Columbus. I may have overheard you outside discussing why you wanted to play smaller clubs. So. What was up with that?
For us it was the first time that we had gotten back together since we had spent awhile apart from each other. It was the first time playing without great for about three years or so. So we weren’t really ready to go out and say, you know, we weren’t really sure what we were doing and we only had a few new songs. It was just aw ay of going out and playing without feeling like we were really representing ourselves as cursive. But we still wanted to dos some shows and get a feel back for what we were doing or why we doing it.’
It was a lot of fun
Still living out in L.A.?
I kind of feel guilty right now. I’m watching the news right now with how terrible the weather is in the Midwest. It’s like 75 degrees here. In that sense I’d say it’s pretty great. But I feel bad. Actually terrible. A lot of flooding and stuff going on. You know, it’s not incredibly … it doesn’t seem like that much of a huge change. Being here, I feel like it’s kind of representative of the largest, the largest American city and it’s obviously … new York city is… but New York is this totally different. New York is unique to itself. There’s really no cities like it. I’m way out northeast of LA and it’s filling out with a bunch of strip malls. It’s not so totally different. Once you plug in the whole Hollywood aspect and the artificiality of the Venice beach people, then it starts becoming a lot different from the Midwest.
Have you hooked up with other Midwest people? I have friends on the west coast who seem to do that.
You know, I think that’s really common. Since I’ve been out here I’ve been so busy with writing I have intentionally not gone out much except to go out and see bands and certain activities that I really wanted to check out. But I haven’t been out here for that much.
So you haven’t joined a gang yet or anything.
I’m working on it. (laughs)
Maybe because of how post-hardcore took off, Cursive is a pretty significant band. Do you ever feel like you get creatively limited by the shadow Cursive casts?
Yeah. I spent a lot of formative years in my 20s concerned about what people’s perception of musician and songwriters and how they’re supposed to be. And I used to, I used to be worried and concerned about – I’ve always written stuff like the good life. Cursive was really something newer that I started writing in my early 20’s or whatever. But yeah they would go over because I was worried that hard rock people would think that was absurd or that was somehow below the vision of who they thought I was. And then it occurred to met hat that was absolutely fucking ridiculous and you are who you are and you do what you do, and after the fact you hope that people are into it.
So obviously Cursive and The Good Life are pretty different. How does your mood differ when you are writing for one group or the other?
I guess I tend to try to work on things that I consider to be a little weirder for Cursive. But I don’t necessarily … I used to like to think of when I sound more aggressive – but I don’t really consider myself like that anymore.
“Help Wanted Nights” is a soundtrack to a screenplay you finished. What inspired you to write a screenplay?
It’s been kind of a life goal, having only lived through 33 years so far – that’s sort of where I started where I was when I was younger. I was playing music is much more immediate and things started happening so fast with music. But you know, we were 15 years old and it was wild and it kind of spurred an interest in what we could do musically. And I think he more I learned about music I’m glad that I spent all these years with music because I love it and it’s just a great medium to work with. It’s kind of fun. That’s why I like playing music. They’re like toys, you know?
But uh, I always wanted to do film stuff. So I kind of kept it in the back of my mind and I think when I turned 30, I finally told myself to stop being a lazy ass and start, you know attempting to write screenplays at the very least. At least take a shot to move into that genre. So I guess that’s what I’m doing now alongside music.
What does writing a screenplay offer you as an artist that’s different when compared to say, writing a song?
Well, it’s just a much wider, it’s a huge palette for narrative and storytelling. That’s what s stifling about songwriting for so long. It’s much more cohesive now that I’m writing screenplays because I don’t feel like I have to turn complete albums into complete stories, although I think that’s still fun to do and I like to explore those ideas. But I think that’s the primary thing. But even though, screenplay I find to be stifling because it’s so skeletal whereas actual story writing is even more complete.
Have you completed multiple screenplays?
Not tons, but I’m finishing a fourth one right now.
What’s happening with the screenplays now? Are you just sort of sitting on them?
(laughs) We’re working on getting Help Wanted Nights done. It’s a slow but positive endeavor and as long as that avenue is being tried then… I get a little frustrated with this… I’d be a little frustrated if it just ended up being somewhere. And I’m totally hoping that that will be the case. But it’s nice to be … we’re working on something that’s very low budget and would be a very small, modest thing if we can ever manage to see it all the through.
Do you do any other writing? I think I read somewhere that you studied English in school.
I have a creative writing degree. I haven’t taken up a short story writing since college, but that’s what I used to do, besides music. And then I kind of got lazy and just did music for awhile and I think that brings perspective and I just got pissed at myself and said that you should get back into writing something bulkier than juts songs.
What was the inspiration behind the characters?
Well, you know, it’s not totally new in the context of The Good Life for me. It’s men and women, you know, battling with each other and struggling to maintain relationships. You know, primarily it is the battle of the sexes wanting to get a long but struggle with monogamy.
You present a very negative view of relationships. Does love suck or what?
It’s only one aspect. That’s just, — I don’t think that – I just don’t think that I set out to lay out a fair assessment of what relationships are. I don’t think I’m ever going to do that. It’s just there’s certain dour moments in each relationship. There tends to be bad parts of a relationship that people tend to talk about. They aren’t going to talk about the good night they spent watching TV.
The Midwest kind of has a reputation for being a cultural wasteland. Do you think that’s fair?
(laughs) There’s not as much culture, but I think calling anywhere a cultural wasteland is in some way unfair. It’s unfair to anyone who’s in any given small town who’s still into old French cinema or something. But if the town’s not offering anything then you know, then that’s a problem. I’d say if anything America is a cultural wasteland.
Do you think that there is a unique Midwest experience?
I love where I was raised. So yeah. I really like reading things like Sam Shepherd and even you know like Raymond Carver stories that are very, mostly plain people. Nothing very exotic. And I think that’s kind of a Midwestern thing. I grew up in a small town and I guess you try to take advantage of what you grew up around. I grew up in Omaha and took weekends just being fascinated by the small towns around. Checking out a local bar, eating in a restaurant and staying in a cheap hotel or something. I generally like that. And that must be different than growing up in different areas. It’s a totally different … you know, you’re saying it’s the Midwest is unique but I really think it’s the same thing all over the place.
Looking forward to going on tour?
We haven’t gone out – The Good Life hasn’t gone out for a long time. And we’re pretty excited about it and we’re looking forward to it.
But it was a pretty fun interview.
I caught ‘Cursifix’ awhile back in Columbus. I may have overheard you outside discussing why you wanted to play smaller clubs. So. What was up with that?
For us it was the first time that we had gotten back together since we had spent awhile apart from each other. It was the first time playing without great for about three years or so. So we weren’t really ready to go out and say, you know, we weren’t really sure what we were doing and we only had a few new songs. It was just aw ay of going out and playing without feeling like we were really representing ourselves as cursive. But we still wanted to dos some shows and get a feel back for what we were doing or why we doing it.’
It was a lot of fun
Still living out in L.A.?
I kind of feel guilty right now. I’m watching the news right now with how terrible the weather is in the Midwest. It’s like 75 degrees here. In that sense I’d say it’s pretty great. But I feel bad. Actually terrible. A lot of flooding and stuff going on. You know, it’s not incredibly … it doesn’t seem like that much of a huge change. Being here, I feel like it’s kind of representative of the largest, the largest American city and it’s obviously … new York city is… but New York is this totally different. New York is unique to itself. There’s really no cities like it. I’m way out northeast of LA and it’s filling out with a bunch of strip malls. It’s not so totally different. Once you plug in the whole Hollywood aspect and the artificiality of the Venice beach people, then it starts becoming a lot different from the Midwest.
Have you hooked up with other Midwest people? I have friends on the west coast who seem to do that.
You know, I think that’s really common. Since I’ve been out here I’ve been so busy with writing I have intentionally not gone out much except to go out and see bands and certain activities that I really wanted to check out. But I haven’t been out here for that much.
So you haven’t joined a gang yet or anything.
I’m working on it. (laughs)
Maybe because of how post-hardcore took off, Cursive is a pretty significant band. Do you ever feel like you get creatively limited by the shadow Cursive casts?
Yeah. I spent a lot of formative years in my 20s concerned about what people’s perception of musician and songwriters and how they’re supposed to be. And I used to, I used to be worried and concerned about – I’ve always written stuff like the good life. Cursive was really something newer that I started writing in my early 20’s or whatever. But yeah they would go over because I was worried that hard rock people would think that was absurd or that was somehow below the vision of who they thought I was. And then it occurred to met hat that was absolutely fucking ridiculous and you are who you are and you do what you do, and after the fact you hope that people are into it.
So obviously Cursive and The Good Life are pretty different. How does your mood differ when you are writing for one group or the other?
I guess I tend to try to work on things that I consider to be a little weirder for Cursive. But I don’t necessarily … I used to like to think of when I sound more aggressive – but I don’t really consider myself like that anymore.
“Help Wanted Nights” is a soundtrack to a screenplay you finished. What inspired you to write a screenplay?
It’s been kind of a life goal, having only lived through 33 years so far – that’s sort of where I started where I was when I was younger. I was playing music is much more immediate and things started happening so fast with music. But you know, we were 15 years old and it was wild and it kind of spurred an interest in what we could do musically. And I think he more I learned about music I’m glad that I spent all these years with music because I love it and it’s just a great medium to work with. It’s kind of fun. That’s why I like playing music. They’re like toys, you know?
But uh, I always wanted to do film stuff. So I kind of kept it in the back of my mind and I think when I turned 30, I finally told myself to stop being a lazy ass and start, you know attempting to write screenplays at the very least. At least take a shot to move into that genre. So I guess that’s what I’m doing now alongside music.
What does writing a screenplay offer you as an artist that’s different when compared to say, writing a song?
Well, it’s just a much wider, it’s a huge palette for narrative and storytelling. That’s what s stifling about songwriting for so long. It’s much more cohesive now that I’m writing screenplays because I don’t feel like I have to turn complete albums into complete stories, although I think that’s still fun to do and I like to explore those ideas. But I think that’s the primary thing. But even though, screenplay I find to be stifling because it’s so skeletal whereas actual story writing is even more complete.
Have you completed multiple screenplays?
Not tons, but I’m finishing a fourth one right now.
What’s happening with the screenplays now? Are you just sort of sitting on them?
(laughs) We’re working on getting Help Wanted Nights done. It’s a slow but positive endeavor and as long as that avenue is being tried then… I get a little frustrated with this… I’d be a little frustrated if it just ended up being somewhere. And I’m totally hoping that that will be the case. But it’s nice to be … we’re working on something that’s very low budget and would be a very small, modest thing if we can ever manage to see it all the through.
Do you do any other writing? I think I read somewhere that you studied English in school.
I have a creative writing degree. I haven’t taken up a short story writing since college, but that’s what I used to do, besides music. And then I kind of got lazy and just did music for awhile and I think that brings perspective and I just got pissed at myself and said that you should get back into writing something bulkier than juts songs.
What was the inspiration behind the characters?
Well, you know, it’s not totally new in the context of The Good Life for me. It’s men and women, you know, battling with each other and struggling to maintain relationships. You know, primarily it is the battle of the sexes wanting to get a long but struggle with monogamy.
You present a very negative view of relationships. Does love suck or what?
It’s only one aspect. That’s just, — I don’t think that – I just don’t think that I set out to lay out a fair assessment of what relationships are. I don’t think I’m ever going to do that. It’s just there’s certain dour moments in each relationship. There tends to be bad parts of a relationship that people tend to talk about. They aren’t going to talk about the good night they spent watching TV.
The Midwest kind of has a reputation for being a cultural wasteland. Do you think that’s fair?
(laughs) There’s not as much culture, but I think calling anywhere a cultural wasteland is in some way unfair. It’s unfair to anyone who’s in any given small town who’s still into old French cinema or something. But if the town’s not offering anything then you know, then that’s a problem. I’d say if anything America is a cultural wasteland.
Do you think that there is a unique Midwest experience?
I love where I was raised. So yeah. I really like reading things like Sam Shepherd and even you know like Raymond Carver stories that are very, mostly plain people. Nothing very exotic. And I think that’s kind of a Midwestern thing. I grew up in a small town and I guess you try to take advantage of what you grew up around. I grew up in Omaha and took weekends just being fascinated by the small towns around. Checking out a local bar, eating in a restaurant and staying in a cheap hotel or something. I generally like that. And that must be different than growing up in different areas. It’s a totally different … you know, you’re saying it’s the Midwest is unique but I really think it’s the same thing all over the place.
Looking forward to going on tour?
We haven’t gone out – The Good Life hasn’t gone out for a long time. And we’re pretty excited about it and we’re looking forward to it.
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