Sufjan Stevens: Not a Boy from Illinoise

Sufjan Stevens is not a nice guy. He's not sweet, nor is he sensitive, even if his tenderly penned folk songs suggest so.

When he softly sings lyrics like, "I'd swim across lake Michigan / I'd sell my shoes / To be alone with you," it's all a façade. Or so he'll have you believe.

"People think I'm a very sensitive, kind, empathetic, emotionally enhanced man," says Stevens, attempting to add an edge to his speaking voice. (It's not working.)

"Well I might be a little bit of that, at my best behavior, but there is so much more to me," he continues. "It doesn't communicate in my songs."

It's easy to assume Stevens is the nice guy he so adamantly claims he is not. On his new album, Illinois (also known as Come On Feel the Illinoise), even a song about mass murderer John Wayne Gacy seems compassionate, and Stevens finds commonality with the convicted pedophile: "And in my best behavior / I am really just like him / Look beneath the floorboards / For the secrets I have hid," he sings.

It doesn't help Stevens' case that he's a regular dreamboat. In every photograph he looks forlorn: his bright hazel doe-eyes stare into the distance and he is rarely captured indulging in a smile. Stevens often looks sad, and his music follows suit.

The multi-talented musician has mastered everything from the vibraphone to the banjo, and his background as a literature major makes him one of the most prolific songwriters in indie rock. And with several highly acclaimed self-recorded albums under his belt, including 2004's Seven Swans (Asthmatic Kitty) and 2003's Michigan (Asthmatic Kitty), Stevens has finally been recognized as such.

Recently, most journalists have focused on Stevens' lofty goal to record an album for each of the 50 states. But Stevens is tired of talking about the United States plan. Right now he's focused on just one state, Illinois, which he heavily researched before beginning to record the album. For such a strange endeavor, he resorted to even stranger methods that could mean you've unknowingly chatted with Stevens online.

"I asked what kind of food they ate in their houses, what was unique to their area, any kind of holiday, or parade they remembered," Stevens says of his experience in Illinois-themed chatrooms. "I was most interested in small town life: family vacations, cub scouts, camping trips, the Hog Queen Pageant. Mostly farming and agricultural life."

These themes are prevalent on Illinois, most often in reference to towns like Decatur or Jacksonville. Stevens even credits Wrigleyville as inspiration for the album in his bio, but he admits that the statement was tongue-in-cheek.

"It's a nice neighborhood and I have friends that live there, but it wasn't really inspiring," he says.

What were inspiring about Chicago, though, were his many visits to the city while growing up in Michigan, which was also his primary reason for skipping over Indiana and recording an album about the Prairie State.

"Growing up in Detroit, I grew up perceiving Chicago with a sense of awe, wonder and envy," Stevens says. "It was vibrant and healthy, and I was drawn to Chicago a lot."

With Chicago as inspiration and Illinois in mind, Stevens began to formulate ideas for the concept album, which he says was a much more exciting experience than recording an album about his home state.

"It was new and fresh, and I was learning," Stevens says of Illinois. "Michigan burdened me with emotional weight. It was all based on memory and recollection, very little research. I felt that my work on that album was about my growing up in Michigan, and it was sort of demystification. I was reckoning with experiences I had in the past.

"I think that Illinois was exciting because it was uncharted territory," he continues. "But it was the mundane sort of detail that appealed to me for some reason."

One element that is considerably consistent in Stevens' work is referential religious symbolism. He often namedrops "the Lord" and mentions a bible. As fellow Christian indie rocker Pedro the Lion might know, being an outright Jesus-worshiper and singing about it to a crowd of overly critical twenty-somethings can often hold a negative connotation. But Stevens says he isn't attempting to preach or enforce his beliefs upon anyone.

"I think labels and terms are our way of understanding and expressing," Stevens says. "Labels are often a way of alienating, and I hope my music can transcend all the terminology control of labels. I think it has. I'm not out to prove anything or convert anyone. I'm observing and writing and singing and writing narrative songs. I have a very particular vision and that involves a lot of different things. Religion is one of them."

Nonetheless, Illinois has received positive reviews from even the harshest and most selective of critics (Rolling Stone gave the album four stars). Stevens is taking the new songs on tour, and just added a second show at the Metro on September 17 after the previous night sold out. However, Chicago and Champaign are the only stops in Illinois Stevens will be making.

"I asked to play in Peoria, but it didn't work out," Stevens says. "I was a little suspicious, but still thought it was a great idea. I thought maybe it wouldn't really communicate well and people would take it the wrong way."

But why is Stevens so worried about what Peorians think? After all, he's not a nice guy.