Pete Yorn has been surprisingly prolific of late. Consider that it was three years between his sophomore outing, 2003’s Day I Forgot, and 2006’s bracingly eclectic Nightcrawler, the latter largely restoring the potential of his brazenly accomplished out-of-nowhere debut, 2001’s Musicforthemorningafter. Another three years between releases, and Montville, N.J.’s favorite boho chick magnet suddenly had a lot more to say. Last year saw the release of Back & Fourth, followed by Break Up, a wispy collaboration with Scarlett Johansson inspired by Serge Gainsbourg’s duets with Brigitte Bardot. Now Yorn has ditched his smokin’-hot muse for Frank Black, who encouraged the confessed perfectionist and overdub junky to strip away the studio varnish and rawk out for the new Pete Yorn (Vagrant). Yorn will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Yorn: What can I say, I love music documentaries. These are the kind of movies that are constantly playing on tour busses. Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage is completely interesting, inspiring, sad and funny. It has so much great old footage that while you’re watching it, you just can’t believe that it exists. One of those moments is when you see guitar player Alex Lifeson as a teenager sitting at his family’s kitchen table telling his parents that he knows he only wants to play music for the rest of his life and doesn’t want to go to college or even finish high school. And they’re arguing with him, trying to talk him out of it. It’s mind boggling to me that there’s actually footage of this. Also, Jack Black gives an especially hilarious interview during the film. I think with a lot of these movies, even if you’re not into the music of the band, their personalities really come through and make for excellent viewing. This and Anvil and Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster would make a great triple feature.
Video after the jump.
