Don't Think, Do

Not content with already having released two albums this year – a split record with Patinka Cha Cha's Natasha Rose and his own Little Milk – Lehmann B Smith is about to launch another for 2012, Girlfriends. After that, there's another record planned for release in December, and three more (plus an EP) in 2013, and then a triple album in 2014 (yes, triple). The upside is that he looks like the hardest-working songwriter of the 21st century; the downside is that he will most likely experience “launch fatigue” in the near future.

“It kind of became a backlog. I guess I've been working on stuff from like 2010 or something and then everything just got held up until this year, so it made me seem more prolific than I am,” laughs Smith.

“It seems natural on some level; I like playing music and stuff and albums are just like artifacts of the hobby of playing music. I think more people should have more albums out, or maybe I just take my own ideas more seriously and every dumb thing I do I think I should put out, while other people kind of have better quality control than I do! I'm not sure.”

Sometimes Smith has to be held back – there are 40 tracks on Little Milk, with the shortest being a mere 14 seconds in duration and the longest two minutes. He originally planned to have ten songs on the album, but then after they were completed he “just kept going”.

“There's a certain point where you do enough work to justify the kind of stupid nature of it, and I had to ask people when I should stop. I was gonna keep going to 50 or 60, but I think they cut me off at the path at the right time. I remember the first time I listened to it, I was like, 'What have I done?' So that was the idea behind that, just a fun challenge.”

In a self-deprecating way that people are wont to use when talking about themselves, Smith says his songs stem from “dumb ideas”. To clarify, his preferred time to compose is when hungover and experiencing “brain vomit” (but not literal vomit). He will record all the ideas he comes up with in this time, and listen to them later with a serious ear. “It all comes out of just not using any sort of thinking part of my brain to do it a lot of the time,” he says.

There was a different motivation for Girlfriends, however. After releasing a couple of more melancholy records, Smith wanted to try his hand at something positive. He wanted to create a joyful album, and what's more joyful than including a choir? “The logical thing, if I was going to do a happy album, was to get everyone in and feed off their happiness. Also it's just fun singing in groups. But it was a logistical nightmare; never again. So many people.”

As hard as Smith tried to make the music upbeat and jovial, his lyrical content betrayed him. He confesses that sad songs have always been easier for him to write. Reflecting on the songs on Girlfriends, he says, “I was trying to make happy songs. It makes me nervous thinking that I'm gonna write 'I love you' kind of songs. I want to eventually; I'm leading up to it, I'm working on it. I missed the mark terribly. I was thinking about it a couple of nights ago, going through all the songs in my head and what they're about and they're almost all break-up songs and almost all of them have some reference to being drunk or something in them. I dunno, I think there's gotta be something happy in there, I'm sure there's something! It's still dark, but I thought I fooled everyone with the tambourines.”