The following is an excerpt from Spin magazine’s exclusive interview with Gordon Cranwick, former keyboardist for the alt-indy-rock phenomenon, Jumpstart Malady.
Jumpstart Malady was at perhaps the height of it’s success, both artistically and commercially. Your open animosity towards your former bandmates, specifically Kevin Edo, has been well publicized. Why did you choose that time to leave?
A lot of things. Nearly everything. There I was, this camel, and straws were just heaved onto my back. We had just finished the Cradled tour, and if playing Row Your Boat and Happy Birthday seven times each (per concert, mind you) wasn’t enough, Kevin decided that the next album needed to have “less”. By “less” he meant no keyboards. At all. On any track. And since I was paid like a f–king session musician, I pretty much needed to get another job. Basically what it came down to is this: Kevin and I just have very different views on what art and music should be, and while the Jumpstart Malady experience was positive in a few respects for me, the overarching feeling I have is one of soul-sucking frustration and hatred.
Different views on music? Can you elaborate on that?
Kevin makes music for vast commercial success. Vast, unshared, commercial success. He is what I call a Gluttonist. Hook ‘em, exploit it, cash in. He’s not shy about it, and that’s fine for him. That’s where Jumpstart Malady has gone, and probably always was. I, on the other hand, am an Ephemeralist. I believe that my music is a transcendental event, never to be repeated or harnessed in any way. You hear it, and it’s gone forever. Music is an emotion locked a single, specific moment in time. Repetition makes it devoid it of meaning. Meaningless bleeps and bloops and blorps. That’s what I believe. So you can see where Kevin and I might be at odds.
In a recent interview, Kevin Edo described you as thinking you’re “too good for paper”. Care to comment?
Sure. He’s right. I am. I am too good for paper. Look, forgive me for having artistic convictions and not caring so much for the almighty dollar. I mean, I care to a point. Like when I am an indentured f—ing servant for like eight years, I expect to get compensation, yes. But if I’m making art, like actual art, don’t cheapen it with mass marketing, with action figures and albums! I can’t abide that sh-t. Now I call my own shots. It’s incredibly freeing. I’m happier.
That’s right, you’re calling your own shots now. Your solo work has been described as, well, it has not really been described at all.
Exactly! You see? How can it be when it is so fleeting! Describe a life in terms of geologic history! It’s pointless. Just enjoy the life when it’s being lived, y’know? Dig the song. Then forget the f—k about it! Don’t harp on it, don’t waste time wishing to hear it again. It’s gone! Get over it!
So clearly your work cannot be recreated on a recording. Live performances will be your bread and butter.
Yes. Precisely. Grass roots music.
Yet you have recently been banned from Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for verbally assaulting a fan after the show.
Look, that little sh-t was whistling one of the tunes I had just played. Do you understand? Whistling it after the show! He might as well have taken a dump on Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights! I won’t stand for such base defiling of my art. And if venues want to ban me because I have integrity, then so be it. It makes sense, anyway. It’s all just run by the Music Establishment. They can’t let someone like me have a free voice. It would ruin their grip on the artistic pulse of America!
You are garnering great success in Europe. Have you consider–
Are you writing all this down?
Yes. It’s an interview. For Spin magazine.
Yes, I know, but you’re writing it all down! You’re recording my words! What the f—k did I just get through saying? Who the f—k do you think you are! My words are not to be defiled in print, to be ingested by the masses! I am out of here. I am so f—king out of here!
This was unfortunately not the last incident in Gordon’s slide deeper into Ephemeralism. It was a few years before he acknowledged his disorder, but eventually he was able to seek treatment. Gordon reunited with Jumpstart Malady for their comeback album Confronting the Inevitable and the following tour. He is still paid on an hourly basis.