David Lynch, (Non-)Musician: The L.A. Weekly Interview

Yes, but I always say, you take George Lucas or Spielberg: They're doing, in my mind, what they truly love. But what they truly love, zillions of people love, so they're multimillionaires. I'm doing what I truly love, but the audience is way smaller. And Don Van Vliet was doing what he truly loved and the audience is hardly there at all.

But it's OK, because if you do anything that you don't love for money or fame, you die. You can't live doing that. It's hollow. It's a joke. So be thankful you're able to do what you love.

PHOTO BY SEAN TEEGARDEN

"Happy accidents are real gifts and they can open the door to a future that didn't even exist."

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Don Van Vliet, when I talked to him, was a painter. And we would talk about painting. We would not talk about music at all.

Do you have any of his paintings?

No — I wish!

When the Inland Empire soundtrack came out, people were wondering why instead of Angelo Badalamenti doing it, it was credited just to you. Were you trying to be your own Badalamenti?

Angelo lives in New Jersey. And I always say, if Angelo lived next door to me, we'd be making a lot of music, but he lives in New Jersey and so in Inland Empire it just grew in a different way, so Angelo wasn't a part of it. But that's not to say the next one ... I'd probably work with Angelo.

When Badalamenti scores movies for other people, his soundtracks are so different from what he does when he works with you.

Because it's a combo. It's a combo. Angelo would bring some things out of me that would never be brought out, I'd bring some things out of Angelo that would never be brought out. And you feed off each other. And a thing gets born that is the particular result of those two or three or four. It's magic. There's so much magic in music. It's incredible. What gets born and how come it gets born. And so, so, so beautiful.

If I sit down with Angelo, it's always just ... a magical mystery tour. It can start anywhere. It's always the same: I'd start talking and Angelo plays what I talk and if I don't like it, if it's not really happening, I change the words and the music changes, and before you know it, something gets caught. It just happens.

You're describing studio performances. Have you done live performances?

No, no, no. I have one time, but it's a nightmare. I can play something one time, but since I'm not a musician, to play it a second time, that's the trick. That's why I love to jam. In jamming there's possibilities for discovery. It's done in freedom, there's nobody else around. It's me and Dean now, just jamming, and out of that comes, you know, what comes. And it may be 98 percent absolute garbage, but 2 percent is something that can be elaborated on. That 2 percent is worth days of jamming.

Do you collect music?

I do, but I'm not like "a collector." It just happens. These things I showed you [pulls the CD-Rs from his jacket], I'm gonna listen to these. But I don't have time to listen to a lot of ... I listen to KCRW. I listen to "Morning Becomes Eclectic," on weekends I listen to Anne Litt, and sometimes at night I listen, too.

Do you have your old records?

They're in storage next door, but I'm gonna get the turntable out, because Dean played me a 45 and it hit me like a truck. I don't know what the words are to say it, but it's smoother, it's friendlier, it's warmer. Do you listen to records every day?

Yes, absolutely.

Wow, fantastic. You know, my roommate at the Boston Museum School was Peter Wolf. I didn't know, and of course he didn't know, he was going to be in the J. Geils Band. He was supposed to be a painter, but he never painted! And it really pissed me off, so the first day he moved in, that night we went with a friend with his pickup truck and drove from Boston to New York, specifically to get his record collection, which he brought up. Filled the whole pickup.

And this guy would play me, like [in sped-up beatnik voice], "Oh, David, you gotta listen to this man, you gotta dig this," and he'd play 10 seconds of Thelonious Monk or 10 seconds of Miles Davis or whatever, like he was, he wasn't on speed, but it was like he was, so he was totally into it. Music was his thing. He knows music. He's another bluesman, I think. But he wasn't into blues back then, he was into jazz, modern jazz. But if you'd told me, "This guy is gonna go into music," I'd go, "Hello! Of course he is."

Does Los Angeles inspire your music in any way?

A place, definitely. Like painting. I would paint sometimes in Madison, Wis., my paintings were different. The place and the light: That's why I love L.A. The light in Los Angeles, even the winter light. People come here and can't believe it. That's what happened to me. I couldn't believe the light. It was so important. And it feeds into the music.