Not for the faint of heart, Xiu Xiu [pronounced shoe-shoe] – brainchild of queer artist Jamie Stewart – is a mixture of divergent musical genres including late ’70s/early ’80s British post-punk, experimental, classical, various Asian percussion, Appalachian folk and noise to name a few. As Xiu Xiu’s main songwriter, Stewart’s lyrics express a world full of emotional chaos and catharsis, touching on subject matter ranging from depression to War and sexual exploitation. By mixing the two – disparate sounds and emotionally intense lyrics – Stewart has created a challenging form of new music that has both fans and critics. On tour to support Xiu Xiu’s new album, Dear God, I Hate Myself, Stewart spoke to Gay & Lesbian Times Staff Reporter Rick Braatz about Xiu Xiu, Dear God and his love of Morrissey. Xiu Xiu will perform live at The Casbah on Wednesday, March 17.

Gay & Lesbian Times: What do you try to do with Xiu Xiu musically, lyrically or as a piece of work?

Jamie Stewart: There’s a side to Xiu Xiu that’s for myself and there’s a side for those who buy our records and go to our shows. For myself, it’s largely to keep from going crazy. It’s about the only thing that keeps me from jumping out the window, basically. For our people, who might be interested in us, we write about real things that are happening to people in the band, our families and politics in the hope that they can find something for themselves in that.

GLT: Would you like to elaborate on what in your life is making you go crazy?

JS: I just have a lot of things in my life, emotional and mental difficulties. Some of them are the result of events. Some of them are the result of physiology. Xiu Xiu is a way to pull that negative energy out of me.

GLT: Xiu Xiu has a distinct sound from other artists. When I think of Xiu Xiu I think of a kaleidoscope, at times a cacophony, of sounds and noises. What makes you interested in continuing in that direction of sound?

JS: It just comes from music that has touched me.

GLT: What artists have influenced or inspired you?

JS: The Smiths, Arvo Part, Dock Boggs, Prince, OMD, Cecil Taylor

GLT: Your use of voice is also distinct from other artists. The sound of your voice on many of your records has an echoing quality to it. Is it intentional? What do you like about it?

JS: It think it’s partially my voice and partially – before I got interested in playing music, I was more interested in engineering. I’m not the greatest recording engineer. I think I have like a thing I guess. It’s just partially a result of liking to turn things up all the way, all the time and partially the way my voice sounds.

GLT: On each of your albums, you sing about painful subjects like death and depression – what is it about these subject matters that continually reverberate with you?

JS: It’s unfortunately been the dominant events of my life. And you know the point of the band is to write about real life.

GLT: If you are one to talk about your lyrics and discuss their meaning, could we discuss a few?

JS: Yeah, I mean, there might be some that I would rather not, but if its one that I’m OK with, then I’m fine.

GLT: The first song on the new album is called “Grey Death”. What is Grey Death and who is Jimmy, a name you keep referring to in the song?

JS: When I’m being self-deprecating, I then refer to myself as Jimmy. The song, for me anyway – and I don’t mean that this is the way it should mean for anybody else – is about going through a period of really intense confusion about the point of my existence, not in an existential way but more of a pragmatic way, like what the fuck am I doing? Like for a long time I felt really clear about it and like now not knowing what-so-ever, like the stress of being self-destructive. And it’s not really an intense feeling. It’s more of a gnawing, really kind of low frequency, negative pressure. You know, its not a rainbow death [laughs], if that makes sense.

GLT: Another song on the album is “Falkland Rd”. A lot of violence is described in the song. What is it about?

JS: I read a couple of books about the sexual trafficking of young girls from Nepal into India and my band mate actually went to Nepal and did some research on it. So there’s a street in New Deli called Falkland Road where sexual trafficking of underage girls take place. Some of the lines from the song are actual quotes from the books I read where young women talk about it having happened to them.

GLT: What makes you continually change the line up with each new record? What do you like about it?

JS: I don’t want to! I would love to have a band were we all stay together but it never seems to work out that way. [laughs] I find it really irritating. I’m now playing with Angela [Seo] and she’s totally great. But she’s only going to be able to play for a year. But I mean I’m glad to have her but I’m going to have to start looking again. If it was my choice, I would have her be in the band forever.

GLT: Why do you think that is? Is there a pattern that you see?

JS: No, everyone who has split or asked to leave have done so for different reasons. And there’s been no consistency. Its just bad luck.

GLT: What do you think of Dear God, the album, as a piece of work?

JS: I’m the wrong person to ask. I just finished it. Like I can maybe answer that question in ten years. I do know at the time we were working on it that we did our best but that’s the case on every record.

GLT: What has the response been like to Dear God?

JS: I do my very, very best to not listen to what other people say. I’m way too crazy sensitive about it. I’m literally too crazy sensitive for me to read anything that anybody says about it. Even if its good generally I’m like, ‘Oh they said something good about that, but why is there something good about that?’ I use to investigate it thinking that I might learn something, but it really only made me feel terrible.

GLT: Did you have any unique motivating ideas while creating the album? New sounds you wanted to create or explore? Anything different about the album from your previous work?

JS: There were some instrumentation and arrangement things that were different. I was living in this little town in the South and there was this Catholic junior high that has like a youth symphony. So I had a couple of kids from the youth symphony come and sing a few songs. I also rented these pre-synthesizer keyboards called Octagam, which are these super bizarre mechanical keyboards that have samples on these flimsy plastic disks. So I rented a couple of those.

GLT: I read an interview with you and you mentioned Morrissey as an influence on your new record. Tell me about that?

JS: I mean Morrissey is present on every record. He’s my fav. He’s my true father. I really love the newest Morrissey record, and I really like how it was a very tight collection of up-tempo pop songs. And we had never done a record of up-tempo pop songs. But I’m not, in any way, attempting to sound like him.

GLT: You will be coming to San Diego this coming Wednesday to perform at The Casbah. Have you been to San Diego before? If so, do you have any memorable experiences?

JS: A few times. Actually the last time I played there was with another band I play in called Former Ghost. During the last song of our set, a guy ran into the bar with blood gushing from his head and screaming, ‘He is trying to kill me!’ over and over again. As we were loading our truck outside, we saw that there were like five cop cars and the guy was being interrogated in an ambulance. We had to ask a cop to move his car so we could fit our speakers into our truck.