Tim Rutili of Califone recently joined Katsy Pline on Heartbreak Ahead for a chat about Villagers, drawing musical inspiration from The Muppets, the best album to make out to, country and experimental influences, and much more. Katsy describes Califone as “a long-standing experimental rock outfit, whose music fuses avant-garde, pop, and folk traditions together in a way I find to be hypnotic and deeply moving.” Listen in to Katsy and Tim’s entire conversation here, and enjoy a few moments from their conversation below:

Katsy Pline: Your arrangement style is very unique in the way that you combine instruments and techniques from both avant-garde and folk traditions, which are often seen at odds with one another. What is it about this implosion of styles that is compelling to you as a songwriter?

Tim Rutili: Well, I think putting elements together, either words or sounds, that seem like they are at opposite ends of the spectrum or aesthetically at odds makes something come alive in a different way that appeals to my ears. Sometimes the process feels random, and then it kind of fuses and bakes together.

What’s your songwriting process like? You incorporate bits of noise, feedback, effects…are you typically starting from melody, or do you ever write from the abyss of abstract noise? Where do you begin?

It feels like it’s always happening, like there's always some kind of writing something down or hearing a sound…Sometimes a song starts just with a noise, you know, like playing with guitar pedals and then recording a noise on the phone. And something grows out of that. Sometimes it's like a sentence or a bunch of words. And then, on the last record, a lot of that came from more normal songwriting, like chords and melodies. But before, it's been anything goes, and next time it'll be even more anything goes. The next record, no one's gonna like. [laughs]

What inspired that change in your compositional process? Was it the music you were listening to at the time?

I think it was what I was listening to. I was listening to a lot of, like, really great old music, and then some really cheesy music that was nostalgic, like Muppet songs and Burt Bacharach songs with Dionne Warwick singing…stuff like that. I wanted to try to write something like that, and I don't have the chops, but I thought okay, I’m going to give it a shot. And then it was sort of being patient and taking more time to make sure that songs were specific and finished before [the band] got together.

Your lyrics often skew a conventional narrative structure in favor of a more impressionistic style. What draws you to this more surrealistic style? Are there any lyricists, authors, or poets that were especially influential for you in developing it?

James Joyce or E.E. Cummings and poetry like Anne Carson. But I don't know…it makes more sense for me with songs to maybe try to express something that is not necessarily expressible in just sentences or cohesive narrative. Sometimes throwing a wrench into something gives it another layer of truth for me that might not be quickly, easily evident…And then sometimes it's just like, musically, these words feel good coming out of my mouth. Like the shapes of words feel good with this particular melody.

You’ve also been doing film and TV soundtrack work for a long time. How does that work influence your work as Califone? How is your process different?

Sometimes after a job it will make me want to do something for me. Doing something impersonal makes me want to do something personal next. That's how Villagers came about. I had a crazy job that was immersive and all-encompassing, and then after that, I was like, okay, let's try to do something completely the opposite and something that…hurts my feelings.

Working on a film, what you're working on tells you what you need to do. With Califone and making records, it’s kind of like…you have to keep poking at it and find what touches you. It feels very personal. The other thing, it doesn't feel personal. It feels like, How am I going to help bring this story out? For me, at least, it's harder to do something that means something to me, and it’s easier to do something for somebody else. Like, it's hard to get my feelings hurt when I'm doing a job. If someone goes, “That's not working.” It's cool. [For my own music] I have to go, “That's not working.” And sometimes it's frustrating. It feels very personal and emotional.

On Heartbreak Ahead, I play both country music, like Nashville Sound-era stuff and The Carter Family, and a lot of avant-garde and experimental music. So I was obviously very interested to talk to you because your music seems to pull from both of these kinds of places. What folk or country musicians are formative to you or who are you currently listening to?

I'm not listening to too much country right now, but I always go back to George Jones, just for the singing. Like he’s maybe one of the best singers ever. The Louvin Brothers too for singing and harmonies. Maybelle Carter’s crazy guitar playing. That stuff is pretty amazing.

How did you get into synthesizers and tape machines and field recordings? Was there someone you knew or heard that got you into it?

Hearing Can and Kraftwerk and reading about those people and what they were influenced by…it made me kind of dig a little bit. I was in a band called Red Red Meat when I was younger, and one of the guys in that band, Tim Hurley, started playing with computers, and then we got a sampler. We all started playing with that stuff, but Tim got really deep into it. He was in early versions of Califone, too. He definitely, like, pushed us and a lot of that stuff stuck and still remains.

Listen to the whole episode to hear more about how Tim taught himself guitar, the inevitable politics embedded into the art we make, Satan Is Real, and a round of rapid-fire questions that reveal the last song Tim cried to, the worst dessert, Tim’s favorite filmmaker, and more. Heartbreak Ahead airs Mondays from 11am-12pm. Villagers is out now. We’re excited for the next album that nobody’s going to like.