John Cale walks into the Big Ears Festival like it’s his natural habitat—because it is. The avant-garde legend, Velvet Underground co-founder, and eternal sonic experimenter looks around at Knoxville’s gathering of cult icons and left-of-center innovators and nods in approval. “It’s refreshing,” he says. “Other people pulling things apart and putting them back together in a different way.”
He’s been doing that his entire career, blurring the line between pop and art long before it was fashionable. The last time he made headlines was 2012’s Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood, an album that saw him dive headfirst into electronic textures with a fascination for hip-hop production techniques. “I’ve grown that,” he says, deadpan. “It’s getting bigger.”
Cale has never been one for staying in one lane, and as always, his influences are coming from unexpected places. “Pharrell is astonishing,” he says, genuinely impressed. “You scrutinize it and there’s nothing there—just one or two things happening, and it’s kicking.” Hip-hop has been a major inspiration for him over the past decade, especially the minimalist genius of tracks like Drop It Like It’s Hot. “That rhythm track had a spray can in it,” he says, still a little delighted by the idea. “They were using it as a percussive element. That’s urban art.”
This is where some people might start questioning whether an art-rock pioneer in his 70s should be nerding out over hip-hop production. Cale is having none of that. “I hear you talk about it poetically,” I tell him. He smirks. “Because it grabs me.”
For someone whose catalog spans decades of constant reinvention, the biggest challenge isn’t keeping up—it’s keeping himself interested. “For years, I had a bad reputation for not doing the same things twice,” he admits. “Really with a vengeance.” If you walked into a Cale show expecting to hear a faithful recreation of your favorite record, you were in for a surprise. “People got to expect that. It’s a little different now—I’ve worn a groove there where you don’t quite know what’s going to happen.”
That unpredictability is what keeps him going, whether it’s in the studio or on stage. “Live, it’s much more fun than being in the studio,” he says. “There’s always going to be a fly in the ointment, something loose you can’t put back in the box. That’s the magic.”
So what’s next? Cale is already deep into a new album, though don’t expect him to commit to a timeline. “I’m in the middle of it,” he shrugs. Meanwhile, he’s been working on revisiting his back catalog, overseeing reissues and remixing his older material from a fresh perspective. “I know what I did at that time, I know the state of mind I was in. I don’t want to be in that state of mind now,” he says, making it clear that nostalgia has no place in his process. “So let’s see what we can do.”
As far as Cale is concerned, it’s all about moving forward. “Rock and roll is always young,” he says. “There’s always going to be a young person discovering it.” Then, in classic Cale fashion, he drops the perfect sign-off: “How old is Bieber now? Too old.”
