“I think our voices and spirits blend well together. When we played together, it just felt natural,” James wrote in an e-mail message. “His music is eternal and people will be listening to it as long as they have ears.”
Through it all Ward has maintained his own distinctive style, built equally on his croaky, plaintive voice, his fingerpicking musicality and his throwback aesthetic sense. He doesn’t listen to much contemporary music or read newer books. He watches movies, but as for TV, he said, “I’ve never taken the plunge, except for Twin Peaks.”
It’s not that he’s a Luddite — he buys songs on iTunes and does late-night YouTubing like everyone else — or a misanthrope who believes that art was better in someone else’s day. “I know there’s great stuff out there,” he said. “But I don’t want to be influenced by stuff that’s going on around me. I’m more interested in consuming stuff that’s stood the test of time and the hard work of filtering has already happened.”
Is he just a little bit lazy? “I think lazy isn’t too far off,” he said. Even so, Ward is not out of step; contemporary indie music has caught up to his brand of revivalism. And he’s more diverse than he lets on: He likes the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall and grew up, near Los Angeles, on KROQ, then home to British new wave and acts like Sonic Youth and Firehose from the punk label SST.
“Listening to something that’s brand-new, I get a little bit excited about it,” he said, mentioning Fleet Foxes, a young harmonizing Seattle band, as a recent discovery, though he doesn’t yet own their album. “But I get more excited about stuff that’s obviously weathered storms.”
In concert he’s not into working the crowd. “I’ve never said, ‘Hello, Milwaukee!’ or ‘Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care,’” he said. “It’s not my world. I’m much more interested in finding some common ground with myself and the musicians onstage.”
Ward’s ability to cede the spotlight may be one reason he has managed to collaborate with so many star players and tour so consistently, both choices he called “no-brainers.”
“I sincerely believe that he does not care how much attention he gets,” James wrote. “He makes his records in his own quiet and beautiful way and he always will.”
McCaughan, who is also the singer for the indie group Superchunk, said: “He’s a patient artist. I think you have to be on board with growing gradually to make it happen. I think the way he makes records is indicative of that. He’s not someone who just bangs out a record in a week. He works on stuff and goes back and thinks about it.”
Though he is rarely hurried, Ward now has the luxury of having extra time. His recent success means he can build in more significant breaks between tours, be choosier about where and when he plays, and even turn down projects. What would he do if he weren’t pursuing music?
“It’s something I think about all the time,” he said. “It’s more of a question of what wouldn’t I do than what would I do.” A sabbatical, he said, is in his future, but not the near future.
“Is there a word that means weighted down, but not in a bad way?” he asked. “I’m weighted down with musical ideas that keep me writing and recording and doing my job.”
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