Stephen Malkmus

Beginning with his band Pavement and continuing through a variety of solo and side projects, Stephen Malkmus has spun an unassuming personal style into a catalogue of totemic importance in indie rock and beyond. Born in 1966 and raised in Stockton, California, Malkmus as a teenager played in several punk bands before co-founding Pavement, who went on to be one of the most iconic and transformative bands of the 1990s. On each of Pavement’s five full-length albums, from 1992’s Slanted and Enchanted to 1999’s tantalizing and confounding Terror Twilight, Malkmus’ wavering vocals and slacker-cryptic songwriting helped reshape the genre and earned the band an enduring cult following. After Pavement went on hiatus in 1999, he began releasing music with a group of Portland-based musicians as Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks. His solo records—like 2019’s Groove Denied and 2020’s Traditional Techniques, which hear him explore electronic and folk music, respectively—have widened his aperture in terms of genre and instrumentation. In addition to these and other ventures, Malkmus continued to collaborate with David Berman, his former roommate and founder of Silver Jews, until Berman’s death in 2019.