Pavement’s 2022 reunion tour made for the best kind of ’90s indie rock nostalgia. And even if you didn’t make it to one of their dozens of shows, you surely saw some aging hipster posting about it on Twitter. The tour was truly one for the ages as Stephen Malkmus, Scott Kannberg, Bob Nastanovich, Steve West, and Mark Ibold coursed through the classics and then some. For a moment, it was as if Pavement hadn’t disappeared for over a decade (again) and perhaps they were “back” back?
But pump the brakes for a second, because lead singer Stephen Malkmus wants to make one thing clear: There is no way that Pavement could craft new songs today with the same charm and meaning that they had when they were first penned.
“These songs are good, they exist in this present,” Malkmus told NME. When asked if Pavement could be writing new music together today, Malkmus was pretty direct in his distaste for that idea. “It’d be total cringe if we did that,” he said. “I understand the impetus to put out a new record; it makes it seem like the band’s more legit or something and not just like a cash-in deal. But it doesn’t have to be that way if you just own your songs. And people can see if you’re geezers on a cash-in reunion tour or if they’re doing it because they’re having a blast.”
So, temper your expectations for the future, because Pavement clearly don’t plan to adhere to the modern-day formula for indie rock revivals. Malkmus says that’s best left for other acts: “If any band wants to make a new album, they like to do that, that’s totally rad. But, yeah, not happening.”
