“We just felt likeexpectations were really high,” Nastanovich says. “There’s that pressure youhave on yourself, because you care about your band a lot, and you want yourband to be the best it can be. We really wanted to back up a lot of the nicethings that were said about us by critics, but there was a lack of preparednesson our part that was due a lot to the fact that because of where we all lived,we didn’t have any normal rehearsal schedule. And, of course, whenever a bandis trying to sell a record, you don’t want to let down your record label. Wedidn’t want to disappoint anybody.”
Playing Pavement’sreunion tour a decade after the group broke up, Nastanovich no longer feels theweight of expectations.
“There’s just this vibearound the whole reunion where there’s not as much pressure,” he says, “maybebecause it’s a celebration of what was.”
Make no mistake aboutit: Pavement’s reunion tour is about the past, not the future, and it comeswith an expiration date. Where the reunited Pixies continue to tease fans withever more tour dates and even vague talk of a new album, Pavement announcedtheir return with an explicit warning to those who might read too much into it:"Please be advised this tour is not a prelude to additional jaunts and/ora permanent reunion."
After having toured onand off since March, Pavement will play a spate of shows this month, whichthey’ll chase with a handful in October and a couple South American dates inNovember, then they’ll go their separate ways, as frontman Stephen Malkmuscompletes a new record with his band The Jicks, drummer Steve West finishes anew album with his band Marble Valley, guitarist Scott Kannberg cuts anotherrecord of his own, bassist Mark Ibold likely returns to Sonic Youth, andNastanovich picks up where he left off in the horse-racing industry, where he doesstatistical analysis. So long as Pavement’s booking agent does his job, therewill always be the possibility of additional shows, but given Malkmus’reticence about the reunion, nobody’s banking on it.
Malkmus was the lastmember on board for the reunion, and in the handful of interviews he conductedabout the tour, he was unable to muster even cursory enthusiasm aboutitunsurprising, given how little nostalgia he’s shown for the band since itbroke up. It was Kannberg, not Malkmus, who tasked himself with keeping theband’s legacy, curating Matador Records’ exhaustive reissues of the group’salbums.
On stage with Pavementagain after all these years, Malkmus can sometimes appear disinterestedno realchange from the band’s initial run togetherleaving Nastanovich to fall backinto his old role. He joined Pavement as a second drum player, covering for thegroup’s unreliable original drummer, Gary West, but after West’s departureNastanovich took on a more iconic role, supplementing not just the drummer, butalso the frontman. In concert he works the crowd with shouted backup vocals andtakes the lead on rowdier songs, delivering the energy that Malkmus can’tmuster.
“Entertaining the crowdsis a pretty easy, fun part of the job,” Nastanovich says. “The fans we have arevery receptive, and they just want to have a good time. The pressure for me isthat I was not a musician before Pavement and I really haven’t been since, andmy skills are pretty rudimentary. I remember playing with bands like Stereolaband the Dirty Three and The High Llamas, and getting to know these people whowere so advanced musically that whatever they were doing in the context oftheir own bands was easy to them, almost boring. For me, though, I was alwaysterrified that I might screw something up even though our songs aren’t thatdifficult.”
Though Nastanovich’senthused, sometimes imprecise contributions can lend to the ramshackleaesthetic that Pavement fans generally celebrate, he says the goal is never tobe deliberately sloppy. Despite their reputation, Pavement cares about how theysound.
“Occasionally I’ll drawthe ire of my band mates when I’m overstepping my boundaries, because I’ll tryto over-embellish songs, and I think I overindulge, and that can be to thedetriment of the songs,” Nastanovich says. “Some of our songs are pretty, andyou don’t want to make them sound ugly.”
Pavement plays the Pabst Theater onTuesday, Sept. 14, at 8 p.m. with openers No Age.
