White Fence: an accidental self-portrait

(© David Black)

In the wake of his friend Ty Segall and garage rockers Thee Oh Sees, White Fence – the garage vehicle of prolific Californian Tim Presley (35) – is gradually receiving more attention. The lo-fi rocker with the blue suede surname has great albums to thank for this, like Cyclops Reap from 2013 and last year’s For the Recently Found Innocent, on which he polished up his sound a bit.

It’s the first record on which he has used a real drummer instead of a drum machine, and a real studio instead of his bedroom. As a result, he is not coming to a dingy cellar that stinks of stale beer and bulging ashtrays to present his fifth album, but to a first-class club.

“That’s great. Not that I care so much about more success, what matters is how the audience smells,” he tells us on the phone from his LA home about his imminent concert at the Ancienne Belgique. “Success is something I only notice with peripheral vision, it doesn’t really interest me as such. Of course I want to reach as many people as possible, and hopefully they like what I do. But if they think it’s shit, that’s fine too.”

For the Recently Found Innocent is the first White Fence album you recorded outside the four walls of your bedroom. Why did you want to venture out of that enclosed world?
Tim Presley: Simple: I just needed a change of scenery. My bedroom is a place where I can isolate myself, away from all external influences, where I can do whatever I want. I always thought that was more honest. But over the course of time, the oxygen in that space was all used up. Ty Segall’s garage was a good alternative. Ty and I trust each other implicitly. I like his sonic brand, and he knows exactly which sounds I like, without us having to palaver about it. I have friends that I talk to. I don’t talk to Ty; we communicate through music.

“Like that” could have been a track on The Who’s debut, and elsewhere there are echoes of the Grateful Dead, the Kinks, and the Sonics. Are the Sixties your most important source of inspiration?
Presley: I like very diverse kinds of music from different periods in time. I started with punk and punk rock, I listened to records by Minor Threat, the Damned, the Germs... From there it was a short journey to Sixties punk bands like the Sonics and 13^th Floor Elevators. And then on to psych-pop bands like Love. I think those groups are embedded in my brain, just like the West Coast rock by the Grateful Dead – there is no way to avoid them if you’re from California. I grew up with rap in the 1990s. That is the only contemporary music that I still listen to. All the so-called rock ‘n’ roll these days is so fucking watered down. Indie rock has now become mainstream. I don’t even try to go there.

“Like That” expresses deep longing.
Presley: Although it is tongue in cheek, it is a reflection on our generation. How we will never achieve what our parents had, even though we all got good education. Of course I don’t need champagne and limos, just a decent life. And that is not so obvious anymore.

Who are the people in the record’s title?
Presley: The happy few. People that are able to be free of anxiety and worry and fear and pain. Getting older does give you more self-confidence, you shave off some of the pettiness. You learn to distinguish between what is important and what isn’t. But you never become completely Zen, unless you live to be 200 years old. [Laughs]

On “Fear” you sing: “I live in fear of wasting time.” Is that a slogan?
Presley: When my father died in 2008, it was a real wake-up call. Life is short, you have to try and achieve as much as possible. I started writing a lot of songs very fast, partly to process his death, and I never stopped. Not good for my social life. [Laughs]

You drew the album cover yourself. It is reminiscent of Dylan’s Self Portrait.
Presley: I’ve heard that a lot, but it is a pure coincidence, even the fact that it is a self-portrait. It was supposed to be an abstract painting, but it suddenly started looking like me. Call it an accidental self-portrait.

White Fence • 31/1, 20.00, €15.00, Ancienne Belgique, boulevard Anspachlaan 110, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-548.24.24, www.abconcerts.be