Live From New York.... It's (Finally) Pavement
We chat with the band's percussionist Bob Nastanovich about his old bus route, drunken drumming and Hammer pants.
By Alex Scordelis
Photographed by Tarina Westlund
(L-R) Mark Ibold, Stephen Malkmus, Steve West, Bob Nastanovich and Scott Kannberg
When Pavement, the oft-deified '90s rockers, announced their first concerts in more than a decade last September, New York fans were flummoxed when tickets for the band's Central Park concerts went on-sale soon after. Year-long waits are usually reserved for events like Christmas and the Super Bowl, not indie rock reunions. In the interim year that elapsed, Pavement barnstormed around the world, playing a string of dates from Tokyo to Milwaukee. This week, the patience of the band's Tri-State fans will finally be rewarded as the band descends upon New York City to play four shows in Central Park (along with appearances on The Colbert Report and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon).
For indie rock aficionados, Pavement's backstory is common folklore: the noisy beginnings in Stockton, California, their years spent as security guards at the Whitney, the streak of five classic albums, and, of course, their implosion in 1999. One of the key figures in the Pavement legend is percussionist/hype man Bob Nastanovich. Hired by the band in 1990 to help original drummer Gary Young keep time, Nastanovich's wild on-stage antics single-handedly transform Pavement's live shows from staid indie rock recitals into wake-up the neighbors rave-ups. PAPERMAG caught up with the garrulous Nastanovich by phone in Des Moines, where he works in the horse racing industry, before he departed for the final leg of Pavement's reunion tour.
The upcoming Pavement shows in New York are sort of a homecoming. How long did the band operate out of New York?
Stephen [Malkmus] and myself lived there from '89 to '93, and Steve West lived there for most of the nineties. Mark Ibold lived there from 1985, and still does. We're more of a New York band than anything else, although we did a lot of work and a lot of recording in Stockton -- that's where the band originated. Then of course, Scott [Kannberg] really never had anything to do with New York. But, you know, we made Crooked Rain in New York, so as much as we're a Northern California band, we're also a New York band. In the larval stages of the band, we were outsiders on the New York indie/hipster scene. Outsiders looking in.
You spent most of your time in New York working as a bus driver, right? What was
your route?
Crosstown 34th, 42nd, and 57th. And then I did a World Trade Center Express that went all the way down the West Side Highway and back up the Avenue of the Americas to midtown.
Have you gotten behind the wheel of a bus since those days?
Well, I was in my physical and mental prime when I was doing that. I don't know if I could do it anymore. I haven't really driven a vehicle that large since Pavement. But I don't miss it. I drove for 50-60 hours a week. I definitely took at least five years off the end of my life doing that.
New Yorkers have had to display a lot of patience for your Central Park concerts --
tickets went on sale more than a year ago. Do you have anything special planned for
these shows?
I'd like to say that we do, and I've asked my band mates to learn some new material. We started the year with about 40 songs and we've pared it down to 32. It's difficult. We played four shows in the same place in London -- Brixton Academy -- and those are the most difficult situations on a tour like this because you've got to be considerate of the fact that people are going to attend two, three, or four shows. I'm concerned that we won't have enough variety. So hopefully between now and then, we'll be able to utilize a few sound checks as practices and learn a handful of songs that we've discussed working on just to spice things up for the New York crowds.
Just to clarify, when you say, "learn some new material" do you mean actual new material or songs from your back catalog that you haven't been playing?
New old songs! There are a lot of old songs that people have been asking for this year that we don't play, and I've made a list of those. It was a list of about ten songs, then we narrowed it down to about five. Hopefully, we'll be able to take an hour to practice those songs. Usually, that's all it takes.
Have you guys written any new material in the past six months? Even just a riff you
jammed on in sound check?
Not that I recall. Sound checks are super brief, and usually fall into the category of "not
important." But we can use that time to practice. Hopefully we'll do that because there's
at least three songs we were playing that we dropped because they were going along kind
of boring. There's no reason not to reinvigorate those or at least give 'em another crack.
We played them ten or fifteen times at the start of the tour and Stephen got sick of them.
He might need them back in his arsenal.
What are some of these songs that you haven't been playing on the tour but that
you'd like to inject back into your set?
Well, I guess one would be "Embassy Row." People seem to want to hear "Embassy
Row." [pause] I think I'll just leave it at that.
Why? You don't want to get your fans' hopes up for other songs that they might hear?
Yeah, I don't want people to get their hopes up and think that they're gonna hear
such-and-such and such-and-such, and then the lazy jerks didn't play it.
You'll be playing four nights in Central Park. Do you have a favorite memory of Central
Park from your New York days?
I spent, I'm gonna say, less than one hour in Central Park in four years. I spent a fair amount of time in the neighborhood of the Whitney at 75th and Madison, but I'm not a park-life kind of guy. I mean, I like parks, I just never had a reason to go to Central Park. But now I do! It's uncharted territory for me.
I've read that Malkmus and David Berman [poet/Silver Jews front man] used to sneak off to Central Park to smoke joints on their breaks as security guards at the Whitney. You never joined them?
No, I stayed away from them and their filthy habits.
What's the best advice you've ever received?
Well, just because you mentioned him and he's right in the forefront of my thoughts, David once told me to drum drunk. That was when I was about 18. And of all the advice I've ever been given, I've utilized that the most.
How has that benefited your drumming?
You don't really think about how bad of a drummer you are if you're hammered.
Toward the end of Pavement's first run in 1999, communication was famously bad between band members. How are band relations this time around?
Pretty good. [pause] Better. The thing is with any group of five male...anythings, I guess, everyone's got different tastes and different things they're into, and people click in different ways. Sometimes you're in the mood for one guy more than another guy. But when you spend a lot of time in that environment, then everyone's gonna get on each other's nerves eventually. That's happened. But if it's happened this year, people have kept it to themselves. There hasn't been any squabbling. Most of the backstabbing has been lighthearted.
It's mostly in jest?
Yeah, pretty much. It's like, "Can you believe he still does that shit?" That kind of thing. It's not that bad, and it never really was that bad. People at the end of the '90s were just sick of [being in Pavement] at varying levels. I think it was best that we skipped town when we did.
What's one piece of musical equipment that you couldn't live without?
I guess at this point, since I've had it for so long, it'd be my black tambourine. It's pretty
important to me since what I do more than anything else is play the tambourine. I used to
like to try to make it from the start to the finish of a touring year with one pair of sticks. I think I've failed in that regard this year. I play a slide whistle on "Fight This Generation," which is a pretty important $3 item. And it's been a tough year for me and maracas. I've broken like 12 maracas on this tour. So it's been rather brutal in the maraca department.
You should get a maraca sponsorship.
That would have been nice. They get thrashed. I'll use different maracas on different
songs, and that's just pure superstition. Hell, I don't even know if maracas are audible in
the house. I'd have to ask you that. More than anything else, all these toys are just a way
for me to entertain myself. I'm not sure if I'm entertaining the audience with them.
How has fan support differed on the reunion tour from the last time you toured in
1999?
It's about the same. The only difference is that the crowds have been generally larger. And they're younger. And there's lots of dudes. It's been pretty good. No complaints there. Sometimes you play these festivals, like we've been doing for the past few months, and there are really only like 300 people that are charged to see Pavement out of 5,000 standing in front of you. So it's always more fun to play for your own crowds.
Is there any truth to the rumor that Stephen Malkmus made you promise not to spend any of your reunion tour money on playing the ponies? Have you stayed true to that promise?
No, but that's been blown a little bit out of proportion. He didn't want me to take all the money that I would make this year and buy a bunch of racehorses. So I won't buy a bunch.
That was MC Hammer's downfall, you know.
Yeah, MC Hammer and I have a lot in common. I need to get some of those gold, lamé, flowing pants. Hammer pants, I believe they were called. MC Hammer still owns horses. One of the great things about MC Hammer is that he had a horse called Dance Floor that he ran years ago, and in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness he drew the outside post. So he claimed that the draws for post-positions in Triple Crown races were racist. That was pretty classic. That was good for horse racing. I can tell you from some of the draws that I've had as an owner that they're not racist.
At Matador Records' 21st anniversary concert in Las Vegas -- the last date of your reunion tour -- who are you looking forward to seeing or hanging out with the most?
I love Belle and Sebastian. I've never really met them and they're one of my favorite
bands. I'm actually emceeing the night that they headline, so I'm looking forward to that.
But mostly, I'm just looking forward to hanging out with the Matador Records crew. It's
gonna be a party.
When Pavement, the oft-deified '90s rockers, announced their first concerts in more than a decade last September, New York fans were flummoxed when tickets for the band's Central Park concerts went on-sale soon after. Year-long waits are usually reserved for events like Christmas and the Super Bowl, not indie rock reunions. In the interim year that elapsed, Pavement barnstormed around the world, playing a string of dates from Tokyo to Milwaukee. This week, the patience of the band's Tri-State fans will finally be rewarded as the band descends upon New York City to play four shows in Central Park (along with appearances on The Colbert Report and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon).
For indie rock aficionados, Pavement's backstory is common folklore: the noisy beginnings in Stockton, California, their years spent as security guards at the Whitney, the streak of five classic albums, and, of course, their implosion in 1999. One of the key figures in the Pavement legend is percussionist/hype man Bob Nastanovich. Hired by the band in 1990 to help original drummer Gary Young keep time, Nastanovich's wild on-stage antics single-handedly transform Pavement's live shows from staid indie rock recitals into wake-up the neighbors rave-ups. PAPERMAG caught up with the garrulous Nastanovich by phone in Des Moines, where he works in the horse racing industry, before he departed for the final leg of Pavement's reunion tour.
The upcoming Pavement shows in New York are sort of a homecoming. How long did the band operate out of New York?
Stephen [Malkmus] and myself lived there from '89 to '93, and Steve West lived there for most of the nineties. Mark Ibold lived there from 1985, and still does. We're more of a New York band than anything else, although we did a lot of work and a lot of recording in Stockton -- that's where the band originated. Then of course, Scott [Kannberg] really never had anything to do with New York. But, you know, we made Crooked Rain in New York, so as much as we're a Northern California band, we're also a New York band. In the larval stages of the band, we were outsiders on the New York indie/hipster scene. Outsiders looking in.
You spent most of your time in New York working as a bus driver, right? What was
your route?
Crosstown 34th, 42nd, and 57th. And then I did a World Trade Center Express that went all the way down the West Side Highway and back up the Avenue of the Americas to midtown.
Have you gotten behind the wheel of a bus since those days?
Well, I was in my physical and mental prime when I was doing that. I don't know if I could do it anymore. I haven't really driven a vehicle that large since Pavement. But I don't miss it. I drove for 50-60 hours a week. I definitely took at least five years off the end of my life doing that.
New Yorkers have had to display a lot of patience for your Central Park concerts --
tickets went on sale more than a year ago. Do you have anything special planned for
these shows?
I'd like to say that we do, and I've asked my band mates to learn some new material. We started the year with about 40 songs and we've pared it down to 32. It's difficult. We played four shows in the same place in London -- Brixton Academy -- and those are the most difficult situations on a tour like this because you've got to be considerate of the fact that people are going to attend two, three, or four shows. I'm concerned that we won't have enough variety. So hopefully between now and then, we'll be able to utilize a few sound checks as practices and learn a handful of songs that we've discussed working on just to spice things up for the New York crowds.
Just to clarify, when you say, "learn some new material" do you mean actual new material or songs from your back catalog that you haven't been playing?
New old songs! There are a lot of old songs that people have been asking for this year that we don't play, and I've made a list of those. It was a list of about ten songs, then we narrowed it down to about five. Hopefully, we'll be able to take an hour to practice those songs. Usually, that's all it takes.
Have you guys written any new material in the past six months? Even just a riff you
jammed on in sound check?
Not that I recall. Sound checks are super brief, and usually fall into the category of "not
important." But we can use that time to practice. Hopefully we'll do that because there's
at least three songs we were playing that we dropped because they were going along kind
of boring. There's no reason not to reinvigorate those or at least give 'em another crack.
We played them ten or fifteen times at the start of the tour and Stephen got sick of them.
He might need them back in his arsenal.
What are some of these songs that you haven't been playing on the tour but that
you'd like to inject back into your set?
Well, I guess one would be "Embassy Row." People seem to want to hear "Embassy
Row." [pause] I think I'll just leave it at that.
Why? You don't want to get your fans' hopes up for other songs that they might hear?
Yeah, I don't want people to get their hopes up and think that they're gonna hear
such-and-such and such-and-such, and then the lazy jerks didn't play it.
You'll be playing four nights in Central Park. Do you have a favorite memory of Central
Park from your New York days?
I spent, I'm gonna say, less than one hour in Central Park in four years. I spent a fair amount of time in the neighborhood of the Whitney at 75th and Madison, but I'm not a park-life kind of guy. I mean, I like parks, I just never had a reason to go to Central Park. But now I do! It's uncharted territory for me.
I've read that Malkmus and David Berman [poet/Silver Jews front man] used to sneak off to Central Park to smoke joints on their breaks as security guards at the Whitney. You never joined them?
No, I stayed away from them and their filthy habits.
What's the best advice you've ever received?
Well, just because you mentioned him and he's right in the forefront of my thoughts, David once told me to drum drunk. That was when I was about 18. And of all the advice I've ever been given, I've utilized that the most.
How has that benefited your drumming?
You don't really think about how bad of a drummer you are if you're hammered.
Toward the end of Pavement's first run in 1999, communication was famously bad between band members. How are band relations this time around?
Pretty good. [pause] Better. The thing is with any group of five male...anythings, I guess, everyone's got different tastes and different things they're into, and people click in different ways. Sometimes you're in the mood for one guy more than another guy. But when you spend a lot of time in that environment, then everyone's gonna get on each other's nerves eventually. That's happened. But if it's happened this year, people have kept it to themselves. There hasn't been any squabbling. Most of the backstabbing has been lighthearted.
It's mostly in jest?
Yeah, pretty much. It's like, "Can you believe he still does that shit?" That kind of thing. It's not that bad, and it never really was that bad. People at the end of the '90s were just sick of [being in Pavement] at varying levels. I think it was best that we skipped town when we did.
What's one piece of musical equipment that you couldn't live without?
I guess at this point, since I've had it for so long, it'd be my black tambourine. It's pretty
important to me since what I do more than anything else is play the tambourine. I used to
like to try to make it from the start to the finish of a touring year with one pair of sticks. I think I've failed in that regard this year. I play a slide whistle on "Fight This Generation," which is a pretty important $3 item. And it's been a tough year for me and maracas. I've broken like 12 maracas on this tour. So it's been rather brutal in the maraca department.
You should get a maraca sponsorship.
That would have been nice. They get thrashed. I'll use different maracas on different
songs, and that's just pure superstition. Hell, I don't even know if maracas are audible in
the house. I'd have to ask you that. More than anything else, all these toys are just a way
for me to entertain myself. I'm not sure if I'm entertaining the audience with them.
How has fan support differed on the reunion tour from the last time you toured in
1999?
It's about the same. The only difference is that the crowds have been generally larger. And they're younger. And there's lots of dudes. It's been pretty good. No complaints there. Sometimes you play these festivals, like we've been doing for the past few months, and there are really only like 300 people that are charged to see Pavement out of 5,000 standing in front of you. So it's always more fun to play for your own crowds.
Is there any truth to the rumor that Stephen Malkmus made you promise not to spend any of your reunion tour money on playing the ponies? Have you stayed true to that promise?
No, but that's been blown a little bit out of proportion. He didn't want me to take all the money that I would make this year and buy a bunch of racehorses. So I won't buy a bunch.
That was MC Hammer's downfall, you know.
Yeah, MC Hammer and I have a lot in common. I need to get some of those gold, lamé, flowing pants. Hammer pants, I believe they were called. MC Hammer still owns horses. One of the great things about MC Hammer is that he had a horse called Dance Floor that he ran years ago, and in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness he drew the outside post. So he claimed that the draws for post-positions in Triple Crown races were racist. That was pretty classic. That was good for horse racing. I can tell you from some of the draws that I've had as an owner that they're not racist.
At Matador Records' 21st anniversary concert in Las Vegas -- the last date of your reunion tour -- who are you looking forward to seeing or hanging out with the most?
I love Belle and Sebastian. I've never really met them and they're one of my favorite
bands. I'm actually emceeing the night that they headline, so I'm looking forward to that.
But mostly, I'm just looking forward to hanging out with the Matador Records crew. It's
gonna be a party.
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