[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. After a decade-long hiatus, the beloved indie band The Walkman returned to the stage last week at New York's Webster Hall for five nights of sold-out shows. The band emerged from the city's late 1990s and early 2000s rock revival and released a string of acclaimed albums until disbanding in 2013. Music website Enemy called the shows A Triumphant Return from the Big Apple Indie Heroes.

During the band's hiatus, frontman Hamilton Leithauser kicked off a solo career that is included several albums, Residencies at the Local Venue Café Carlyle, and Scoring Podcasts, and an HBO Series, but last week, 20 minutes before the doors open at his third Walkman gig, he stopped by our Get Lit event at the New York Public Library to talk about the band and his solo work and perform a couple of tunes for us.

Since our Get Lit selection, Mona Simpson's Commitment is about a family going their separate ways and finding their way back. The idea of a reunion seemed like a good fit. You'll hear my interview with Hamilton in a moment but first, we'll kick things off with a song. He was joined on stage during the event by a special guest, his wife, Anna Stumpf, on backing vocals. Here's their version of the Walkman song, Blue As Your Blood.

[music]

I'd give you all my love

I'd give you all my love

But my heart itself is broken

How many nights must lumber by

I sit alone and I wonder why

Oh hazy, lazy days

I could dream of you forever

Under the shade of a Juniper tree

I sing a sad song of you and me

The sky above, the sky above

Is blue as your blood

Black is the color of your eyelash

Spanish is the language of your tongue

Life rolled us over like a town car

Bruised up and busted to the ground

The Lord came down and said to me

Throw off your worries and be at peace

The sky above, the sky above

Is blue as your blood

In a hazy, lazy daydream

Alison Stewart: That was Hamilton Leithauser in his wife Anna Stumpf with a special performance of The Walkman song Blue As Your Blood from our Get Lit with All Of It book club event. Now, here's our conversation.

[music]

[applause]

Alison Stewart: All right, you just kicked off this reunion tour. Your third show is tonight, what's been surprising about the experience so far?

Hamilton Leithauser: That we sound exactly the same as we did 10 years ago.

[laughter]

We played on the Colbert Show the other night and one of our guys lives in LA and one lives in Spain, and we all live all over the place. We decided to not practice and see if we could just do it, and we showed up and played our song for the first time in 10 years, and it sounded so great.

Alison Stewart: That's so funny, because one of the reviews said, The Walkman's first New York City reunion show defied the concept of time. Did it feel like that?

Hamilton Leithauser: I'll take that. Sure.

Alison Stewart: Yes. It felt like that?

Hamilton Leithauser: Like exactly the same, yes.

Alison Stewart: All right. [laughter] We were talking about reunion, a theme in this book, make a case for reunion, since you got to get back together with your colleagues.

Hamilton Leithauser: I would say, taking a break, was a great idea, and it makes coming back together all the sweeter, and it was good to give it a little space.

Alison Stewart: What did the space afford you?

Hamilton Leithauser: Well, I started a solo career and I never stopped playing music, so I've been all over the place. I've worked with different people. I've played with different musicians, and so did a bunch of other guys in my group. It has made me a lot better musician because I always had my friends to rely on to play a lot of music for me, but now I had to figure out a lot, how to play a lot of stuff.

Alison Stewart: You think you're a better musician?

Hamilton Leithauser: Yes, I think working with different people has broadened my horizons a little bit.

Alison Stewart: We heard Mona talk about writing every day. Is that something that you can do?

Hamilton Leithauser: I do it every day.

Alison Stewart: You do?

Hamilton Leithauser: I try to keep regular hours. When you have to stay out till 1:00 AM in the morning or later every night, it's very easy to slip into a dangerously unproductive schedule. We have kids and stuff, so during a normal week, we got up and try to work while they're at school.

Alison Stewart: One of the characters in Mona's books, Lisa comes to New York to be-- Lina, excuse me, come to New York to be an artist, and your father is an artist and worked as a curator, the National Gallery, and we found a Washington Post article from 1988, which mentions you, little you.

Hamilton Leithauser: Oh, it does? Is that when I met Prince Charles?

Alison Stewart: Oh, I didn't--

Hamilton Leithauser: He was just walking through.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's a whole other story. You met Prince Charles.

Hamilton Leithauser: Yes, I got a picture to prove it, with Di.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Hamilton Leithauser: Yes. Shook his hand.

Alison Stewart: Did you have any idea that this was royalty or was just like, "Hey, tall man with beards."

Hamilton Leithauser: Yes, there's like 100 people with cameras following him wherever. He was just walking through the museum.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Hamilton Leithauser: Yes, but no. I guess it wasn't that, no.

Alison Stewart: It's not as exciting, but it's interesting. It says, "With his wife Brian out on an errand Leithauser, your father was trying to fry up something for dinner while two dogs tugged at his trousers and a New York reporter phone for an interview, Hamilton nine, Anna seven, were playing on the floor nearby. Anna was already a celebrity, having landed on the front page of several newspapers after presenting Raisa Gorbachev with a bouquet during her recent visit to the National Gallery." Boy, you kids had a life, huh? Prince Charles Gorbachev. Do you have any remembrance of this particular moment?

Hamilton Leithauser: I don't think I've ever seen my dad cook anything in his life.

[laughter]

I don't know if I believe that part of it. Yes, but the rest of it sounds possible.

Alison Stewart: How did your growing up around the arts influenced your career and the way you approach music?

Hamilton Leithauser: Well, my dad was in a band, so I used to go see him at like the chili cook-off in Arlington, Virginia, and stuff like that. They played cowboy blues rock. When I got older, my older cousin started a band, he lived right across the street from me, and I really looked up to those guys. When I got to be about 15, or something, it just felt so natural to be the same, my dad was a singer. It was kind of like we all looked at each other on the first day of beanbags. The only guys were like, "Well, I'm not going to sing. I'm not going to sing." I was like, "All right, I'll sing." Then that was that.

Alison Stewart: When you first came to New York to be a musician, what was the draw?

Hamilton Leithauser: I grew up in DC. I lived in Boston for two years, and I played every single nightclub there, which was about three.

[laughter]

One day got a concert at the Continental which used to be on Third Avenue in St. Mark's.

Alison Stewart: That was a great place.

Hamilton Leithauser: My slot was midnight on Easter Sunday.

[laughter]

We were paid $25 and we drove down from Boston, played, and that one show was better than any show we'd played in Boston. I realized that this was a much better place to be.

Alison Stewart: Now, playing together alive again, are you going to write together, do you think?

Hamilton Leithauser: I have a record that I'm working on on my own.

Alison Stewart: Oh, tell us about it.

Hamilton Leithauser: It's pretty far along now. I was working on it this morning. That is keeping me busy. I just scored a HBO series about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and I'm doing another one right now. Another documentary series.

My wife and I do a lot of scoring podcasts. We do theme music for podcasts, and there's a new dramatic series that's going to come out that is the retelling of the Roe v. Wade argument. The woman who argued the case. It has a lot of famous actors playing all the roles and stuff. That's fun because it really, with doing a movie, you got the visual, but with the podcast, you just got the audio. The music really has to help tell the story, so it actually becomes the whole other thing that is really fun.

Alison Stewart: Is it the attorney, the one that everyone knows, or the other one?

Hamilton Leithauser: It's, what's her name?

Alison Stewart: There's one with the big blonde hair.

Hamilton Leithauser: Her name is Weddington.

Alison Stewart: Cool. What do you like about scoring?

Hamilton Leithauser: Well, I don't have to sing. I really enjoy playing lots of different instruments and recording. I have a recording studio in my house now. It's something I can do from home. I spent 20 years traveling around the world because everybody stopped buying records so the only way you could ever make a buck was to tour. Then COVID hit and then you couldn't even tour anymore, which is just a bummer. I learned how to just record. I don't know. It's just recording and writing is what I spent all my time doing really

Alison Stewart: Well. Somebody Google if it's Sarah Weddington.

Hamilton Leithauser: Sarah Weddington. That's it.

Alison Stewart: It is Sarah. Oh, yes. I have to ask you about a story you were featured in earlier this year. We got so many DMs about this on our Instagram.

Hamilton Leithauser: I got a feeling I know what you're going to say.

Alison Stewart: About receiving a stranger's ashes in the mail. The ABC7 report led with, "A man from Brooklyn was shocked when he got a package in the mail, containing the ashes of someone he's never met." That was February.

Hamilton Leithauser: This is true. The funny thing is that yesterday morning I was taking the recycling out in my bathrobe and this old man was walking down my block. I don't know him. He looked at me and he said, "Hey, I just saw you on TV." I had just played the Colbert Show and so I just assumed he'd seen the Colbert Show. I was like, "Oh yes, that's cool." He was like, "Yes. You got mailed that dead guy, right?"

[laughter]

I realize it's the first time I've ever been recognized as the guy that got mailed the dead guy.

Alison Stewart: Is there an update on the ashes?

Hamilton Leithauser: The funeral home refused to take them back. Hung up on me. Then the New York Post called me. I was a little wary of talking about it because they weren't very friendly people and they have my address. I didn't want to get into something, but I did tell the New York Post enough information that they called the funeral home and scared the living hell out of them. This woman came to get the ashes and she was even ruder than the guy who'd been on the phone. I couldn't believe it. This self-righteous, "This is a dead body that we're talking about." I was like, "Yes, you mailed to me." I know.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Once again, here is Hamilton Leithauser and his wife Anna Stump, with a special live performance of Hamilton's song with Rostam, In a Black Out.

[music]

I live in a nameless town

No need to wander around

I live in a nameless town

In a blackout

Many friends have said goodbye

Paraded out in one proud line

I say they all just lost their minds

Midnight where we used to dance

Underneath the ugly halogen lamps

Oh, it all went away so fast

In a blackout

We'll wait for the year

When the tide comes

Rolling over the rails

From here 'til the end

Of the island

Washing away

I rent a room with all our stuff

When you come home I'd lift you up

And there's only the two of us

In a blackout

Now you're sleeping in the back

Of a speeding yellow cab

Throw a kiss goodbye to all of that

[music]

 

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.