Switchblade Comb

Elliott Smith lost to Celine Dion’s Titanic schlock “My Heart Will Go On”, and Aimee Mann lost to Phil Collins’ Tarzan boilerplate “You’ll Be In My Heart”, but sometimes the good guys do win at the Academy Awards. At this year’s Oscars, Glen Hansard of the Frames and partner Markéta Irglová, aka the Swell Season, aka stars of the indie gem Once, walked off with the Best Original Song statue for their lovely “Falling Slowly”, landing them in the rarified company of past winners Bob Dylan, Irving Berlin, and Three 6 Mafia. We spoke to the pair a few days after their win, and we could practically feel the glow over the phone.

Pitchfork: I won’t be the first to say congratulations.

Glen Hansard: Oh, thanks man!

Pitchfork: Aside from John Travolta handing you an Oscar in front of millions of people, what was the most surreal aspect of that night?

GH: What happened to me…it was the strangest thing. When we played our song, we were pretty nervous, but we felt fairly together. We knew John Travolta was giving out the category, and myself and Mar, we just grabbed each other and gave a little look when he just said “Glen Hansard….” When he first goes “And the Oscar goes to…,” from that point on for about two hours my mind is completely blank. It’s almost like when your electricity trips out. My brain just kind of tripped out! I somehow got through it all. I switched into secondary brain power or something. But I literally forgot two hours of the evening. Now I know why the fucking press wants your reaction straight away! They want you in that state. Somehow in that state you reveal something else of yourself. It’s a very strange thing. The first thing that happens is you get thrown in a press room, and you’re standing on the stage going [babbles]. Like garbling what you’re trying to say.

Pitchfork: It’s wild, coming from an independent music background. Once has made about $14 million at the box office, which in Hollywood is modest at best. But for an independent musician, that’s inconceivable.

GH: It’s insane. We honestly have no idea how this all happened. The original marketing plan for Once was to get one 35mm print made, which was going to cost us like four grand. A lot of money. We were going to drive around Ireland in a car, and [writer/director] John [Carney] was going to introduce the film. We figured there were enough Frames fans in Ireland to fill the cinemas. I was going to play a few songs with Mar at the end, and we were going to sell the DVD on the way out. That was huge. That was our plan to make our money back, and if it worked in Ireland, we were going to take it to the Czech Republic and try it there. In the background, John was sending it to all the festivals. Everybody refused it. The mad irony is that we sent it to Sundance but it didn’t get in! It got refused. You probably know this story, but we showed it in Galway and one guy just happened to be in Galway and saw our film by chance. He said he worked for Sundance and wanted to bring them a copy of the film. We didn’t even tell him that we had been refused! We said yeah, cool, brilliant, take it. And we got in.

Pitchfork: You and Markéta are playing some pretty big places on your tour. In Chicago, it’s the Chicago Theatre [approx. 3,500 seats -Ed.].

GH: A year and a half ago we played the Hideout [approx. 100 seats -Ed.]! [laughs]

Pitchfork: Speaking of changing the cover, am I imagining things, or did they change the Once poster when it got released on DVD? They changed what you’re wearing.

GH: Oh, man. They fuckin’ killed it. You’re right. They have us holding hands, which we never do in the film! Those legs aren’t mine. Those legs are like three times longer than my legs. It’s a completely new body. They literally just used my face. I’m wearing a hat in the original picture, so they Photoshopped my head. If you look at my head, my head looks totally weird, because whoever did the Photoshop job was shit. My head looks really weird, they took my hat off, and they gave me an entirely new body. It’s completely bizarre. And they made Mar much taller than she really is. You can look at the original cover and then what they did to it and spot all the crappy differences. It’s awful. It’s a real shame. But at a certain level you’ve got to let this shit go. I designed the original poster and the cover of the DVD myself. Myself and John like to do things ourselves, and I do a bit of design for the Frames. I designed all the Frames album covers. So I put together the DVD cover and the poster originally. And then they took it and fucking bastardized it. Instead of walking down a street, they stuck us walking down a big guitar.

Pitchfork: Again, it’s a different world. The music industry is sketchy enough as it is, but the movie industry is 100 times that.

GH: Yeah, it’s just blatant. They don’t give a fuck. They want you to look at the DVD cover and get everything from that. It’s the opposite of what someone like Criterion would do. They create wonderful art. With a Criterion DVD, you just want to buy it for the box. They do it right. With the bigger-time DVDs…they could have done such a nicer job. But I’m just complaining from a design point of view.

Pitchfork: Is Markéta around? Could you pass the phone?

GH: Yeah, I’ll go get her. Thanks!

Markéta Irglová: Hello?

Pitchfork: You get a congratulations, too.

MI: Thank you.

Pitchfork: Is it true that Colin Farrell had something to do with getting you back out to make your speech?

MI: I actually don’t know. I don’t know what happened, to be honest. I know that Colin Farrell was a huge supporter. He was so great. He came to rehearsals at 9 a.m. to say hello and say he’d be supporting us there that night. He was so great and friendly, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did, but I honestly don’t know. I also hear that maybe the director of the show was the one who called it, or maybe it was Jon Stewart who called. All I know is that Jon Stewart came up to me and said “let’s get you back on stage.” But who took the initiative? I don’t know.

Pitchfork: It’s nerve-wracking enough when your name is announced. Is it even more nerve-wracking to have to go back out again?

MI: No. I thought we’d be so nervous performing that song, and that I would be shaking all trough the song. That’s what I expected. It’s a big deal! But I was very surprised by myself. I kept waiting for the nerves to hit, and they didn’t. It was just really enjoyable to be part of that, even when I went on stage. Playing for all those people in the room, looking at all the people with their fingers crossed for us. I was just so happy. When we went on stage after our names were announced, I was just so full of joy and so excited. We had agreed that if we went up there, Glen would be the one to get to say something. That was OK with me. So when they asked me to go back on stage and make my speech, I actually didn’t have anything prepared. It was kind of a mistake, really. I had honestly just leaned forward to say thank you, with this big screen in front of me counting down the time and saying “wrap it up.” So I literally just wanted to say thank you, but the mic was off and the orchestra was playing. That was fine with me. It wasn’t like I had some big speech prepared, but I guess it looked like I was in the middle of saying something when they cut me off. But even though I didn’t expect it, I was delighted to get to go back onstage and say something. I had a ball.

READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW HERE