Adam Goldberg, Dilettante?

His own website, and hub of information for all that is Adam Goldberg’s multi-medium creative output, refers to the actor/filmmaker/photographer/musician as a dilettante, but to what extent is that a fair description? "I don’t know. I just think it’s kind of funny, to me it’s just a good way of beating people to the punch," he says. "I think there’s some things I definitely dilettante about more than others but probably not music." With the release this month of his second album, the first under new name The Goldberg Sisters, he is on the phone from a New York hotel to talk about his music career and how he balances the various projects vying for his attention.

Following the release of his debut album, Eros and Omissions, under the moniker LANDy, Goldberg found that a quick Google would lead to the discovery of a number of other proponents of that name including Taiwanese pop sensation Landy Wen, Landy Cognac, Snoop Dogg’s song about Landy Cognac, and a MySpace rapper. Troublesome, as the latter’s potential hit-in-waiting I Just Wanna F**k is about as far removed as is possible from the musical endeavours of the character actor perhaps best known for his roles in films and TV shows such as Saving Private Ryan, Dazed & Confused, and Friends. Though disappointed at having to give up LANDy, changing to The Goldberg Sisters allowed for a new approach. "I also think of LANDy now as the culmination of many years of recording stuff, and calling it something in a post-facto way. It wasn’t as though I existed as a band necessarily" says Goldberg. "I was just recording in a variety of different settings with a variety of different people and then had to call it something when I put it all together."

The Goldberg Sisters is a record that demonstrates a quiet confidence in terms of songwriting and instrumentation, sounding at times as though influenced by the later albums of Elliot Smith, and with a thematic lyrical sensibility that evokes the cinematic background of its filmmaking creator.

Yet Goldberg does not classify this as a side-project, considering that those are "things that you do on the side, after, or in concurrence with something else," and rather, as he says, when it comes to music he doesn’t dilettante. "When I’m working on music it’s consuming probably as much as, if not more than anything other than having directed movies – that would probably be the single most consuming thing I’ve ever done – but music I think would probably be a close second."

The interconnection between film and music is obviously a subject on which Goldberg has first hand experience, yet it appears as though the initial romance of acting has worn off as he has explored his other creative endeavours. "I definitely think of acting as a job that I have, and that’s what I need to do in order to make a living. I don’t know that the actual call to perform as an actor is even remotely similar to what it was when I first began." Whilst this aspect of his career may seem separate, he views music and filmmaking as being "extremely meshed in one another," claiming that he thinks of music, writing, and film as "under the same umbrella."

Directing his own film I Love Your Work led to a change in Goldberg’s approach to music and ultimately to LANDy. Relying heavily on musical sequences, the film draws upon songs written by the filmmaker and arranged in collaboration with Flaming Lips multi-instrumentalist Stephen Drozd. This relationship has clearly influenced Goldberg’s songwriting, which he admits was impacted by the Lips’ orchestral and psychedelic sensibilities after hearing their critically acclaimed album The Soft Bulletin.

Whilst he seems to have a clear understanding of his intentions in each medium, Goldberg muses: "I actually get concerned that there’s a certain lack of cohesion in the stuff that I’ve been doing."

Though there is a clear progression from I Love Your Work to The Goldberg Sisters in terms of influence and style, things become confusing thanks to Goldberg’s insistence on mischievous distractions, such as the purported existence of his bearded twin sister and bandmate Celeste. (This may seem familiar to those who recall Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother Donald with whom he apparently co-wrote Adaptation.)

Ruses like these are exemplary of Goldberg’s preoccupation with questions of identity, a recurring theme present in much of his music and film work. "There’s this underlying thing that intrigues me in almost everything whether it’s a photograph or a film, which is this idea of there being some kind of identity confusion." Considering to what extent these concepts express themselves in his songwriting, he elaborates: "I end up having these sorts of narrative devices that end up working their way in there almost unconsciously. Even if the actual subject matter has nothing to do with issues of identity, I think that I like that narrative device because to me it reflects my take on existence a little more than your basic “I this” or “you that”.’

Songs such as Erik Erikson and Third Person Blues explore this theme with a self-aware playful touch that elevates the record out of naval gazing intellectualism and into the realms of idiosyncratic pop. Goldberg jokes that it is this quality that differentiates himself from Adrian, the ambitious overly cerebral curmudgeon, and arrogant musician/sound-artist he portrayed in (Untitled). "The major difference between me and him, is that he didn’t have any self awareness… and that’s something I actually have lot of to the point of almost complete debilitation."

So is Adam Goldberg a dilettante? Though it would be easier to label him as such and cast him into the same role as numerous other actor/musician triple threats, this would be unfair. Goldberg has more in common with those more credible in each field such as Jason Schwartzman or Zooey Deschanel, committed to the project at hand regardless of the medium.

Though he may consider one more like a day job, Goldberg slips comfortably between discussing both his music and film careers. On his rumoured attachment to David Mamet’s The Prince of Providence, seemingly stuck in development, he clarifies: ‘Every year they put it to the top of the IMDb page saying 'in preproduction.' It was this script that came to me a long time ago, that actually officially I was never even signed on to. I was interested in doing it and they offered it to me, but it has still never been made. It was a fantastic script and a really great story; I don’t know what the problem in getting it made is.’

As for the future of his music career Goldberg affirms that The Goldberg Sisters is a unique project but for the sake of continuity he may stick to the name for his future releases. "I suppose I probably should so that you can find my records in one place. I’m fairly sure I’ll approach the next album in a different way and maybe feel compelled to call it something else, I don’t know."