Category:

Guide

Duration: 28:22

514 views

6

Want to hear more? Subscribe to Bullseye now via Apple Podcasts:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/npr-bullseye-with-jesse-thorn/id73331298?mt=2

The last installment of indie pop band Belle and Sebastian’s EP trilogy "How to Solve Our Human Problems" is out this week. Stuart Murdoch is the band’s founder and lead vocalist. Belle and Sebastian's records are on hundreds of top 10 lists and their second album “If You’re Feeling Sinister” is considered by many critics to be one of the best albums of the ‘90’s.

Murdoch admits that when he was young becoming a musician was never part of his life plan. His path to founding Belle and Sebastian actually began with an illness. In the 1980’s, Murdoch first discovered his continued struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome. He dropped out of college, spent a lot of time in the hospital, and moved back in with his parents. It was there in the quiet moments that he began to write tunes on his piano. On the suggestion of his doctor, he joined a class for unemployed musicians where he met Stuart David, Belle and Sebastian’s co-founder.

Murdoch also talks with Jesse about his passion for baseball, why many of the songs in the latest EPs are ones your uncle would want to dance to at a wedding, and how his interest in Buddhism and meditation play a part in the overall concept of “How to Solve Our Human Problems.”