Stephen Malkmus

Stephen Joseph Malkmus (born May 30, 1966) is an American musician best known as the primary songwriter, lead singer and guitarist of the indie rock band Pavement.

He performs with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Pavement, and as a solo artist.

Stephen Malkmus was born in Santa Monica, California, to Mary and Stephen Malkmus Sr.

His father was a property and casualty insurance agent.

When Stephen Jr. was 8, the family moved north to Stockton, where he attended Carpinteria's Cate School and Lodi's Tokay High School.

As a teenager, Malkmus worked various jobs, including painting house numbers on street curbs and "flipping burgers or whatever" at a country club.

At age 16, he spent the night in jail after consuming alcohol, urinating in the bushes, and walking on the roofs of several residential homes.

Later, he was placed on probation for underage drinking, and was also expelled from school "for going to a party in the woods where people were taking mushrooms. I didn't take them, but some guy narc'd on me."

Malkmus learned the guitar by playing along to Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze".

Around the age of 16, he started playing in several Stockton-based punk bands: Bag O Bones, The Straw Dogs, and Crisis Alert.

After graduating from high school, Malkmus followed in his father's footsteps by attending the University of Virginia, where he majored in history and was a disc jockey for the college radio station WTJU.

During this time, Malkmus met fellow WTJU DJs David Berman (who would later front the Silver Jews) and James McNew (of Yo La Tengo) and formed the lo-fi band Ectoslavia.

In the late 1980s, he was employed as a security guard at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, along with Berman and Bob Nastanovich.

Malkmus formed Pavement with Scott Kannberg (aka Spiral Stairs) right after finishing college at UVA in the late 80s.

Their first album, Slanted & Enchanted, was released to critical acclaim, and the band continued to receive attention for subsequent releases.

Pavement, and Malkmus in particular, were hailed as spearheading the underground indie movement of the 1990s.

In early 1999, Malkmus participated in a Sonic Youth side project called Kim's Bedroom that included bassist/vocalist Kim Gordon, guitarist and vocalist Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, and drummer Ikue Mori; they never released an album, but did play a few live shows.

In 2001, following the 1999 dissolution of Pavement, Malkmus released his first self-titled album with his new band, The Jicks (although they were uncredited).

By 2001, Malkmus was performing as frontman of The Jicks.

The couple have two children: daughters Lottie (born 2004) and Sunday (born 2007).

In 2007, Malkmus provided 3 songs to the Todd Haynes' film I'm Not There, based on the life of Bob Dylan.

He contributed on the songs "Ballad of a Thin Man", "Can't Leave Her Behind", and "Maggie's Farm".

Malkmus has admitted that he was never "really a really big fan of Dylan," but noted that his involvement with the film had made him listen "to him again a little closer."

Malkmus's fourth studio album with The Jicks, Real Emotional Trash, was released in March 2008.

Pavement reunited in 2010 and embarked on a world tour, and reunited again in 2022 and 2023 for another tour.

In August 2011, he released his fifth studio album with The Jicks, Mirror Traffic.

In 2011, before the release of Mirror Traffic, Malkmus and his family moved to Berlin.

He played the album Ege Bamyasi, originally by the band Can, in its entirety on December 1, 2012 at WEEK-END Festival in Cologne, Germany.

A recording of this performance was released as a limited-edition live album on Record Store Day 2013.

Malkmus's sixth studio album with the Jicks, Wig Out at Jagbags, was released on January 7, 2014.

In 2016, Malkmus scored the soundtrack to the Netflix series Flaked, which stars Will Arnett.

Malkmus moved to Portland, Oregon, where he met his wife, artist Jessica Jackson Hutchins.

After he submitted the album in 2017, Chris Lombardi of Matador Records, which had released all of Malkmus' records thus far, told Malkmus that it was not the right time to release the album.

The album features Malkmus on all instruments and production and engineering.

On February 7, 2018, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks released "Middle America", their first material in four years.

It was their first single from their seventh studio album, Sparkle Hard, which was released on May 18, 2018.

Malkmus released an electronic album titled Groove Denied on March 15, 2019, after having worked on the album for 12 to 13 years.

Malkmus released Traditional Techniques on March 6, 2020.

The album was produced by Chris Funk of The Decemberists and features guitarist Matt Sweeney and musician Qais Essar.

Malkmus was a member of rock group Silver Jews along with David Berman.