The first teaser has arrived for Range Life: A Pavement Story, director Alex Ross Perry’s unconventional pseudo Pavement biopic/documentary that has confused and/or enraged some early viewers. It stars Stranger Things actor/musician Joe Keery as Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, who is shown in the clip struggling to fend off imposter syndrome as the band become ’90s indie rock figureheads.
Range Life screened last October at the New York Film Festival in tandem with what is expected to be Pavement’s last concert for the foreseeable future (the group broke up following 1999’s Terror Twilight but reunited in 2010 and then again in 2022). Afterwards, group member Scott Kannberg let the news slip on a podcast that the movie will include the band’s first new song since 1998, no further details about which have since come to light.
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Dates have yet to be announced, but the movie will be released theatrically in the U.S. by Utopia and on streaming platforms through Mubi. It also stars Jason Schwartzman and Tim Heidecker as Chris Lombardi and Gerard Cosloy, the respective heads of longtime Pavement label Matador Records.
Malkmus told Vanity Fair last year he actually thought the initial Range Life footage he was shown was a “prank,” but that he was “good” with subsequent edits. For his part, Ross Perry told Vanity Fair in a separate interview he thought Malkmus “was less charmed by seeing himself fictionally depicted in ridiculous cliché terms. Anyone who’s not an egomaniac or a sociopath would have to be. All I could say for two years was, ‘Guys, I really think people will see this for what it is. And I am begging for that trust.’ But I realized, oh, you guys are too cool to watch these terrible movies. You don’t watch Rocket Man or Elvis or any of these things out of even idle curiosity. You just don’t care. So the buffoonery of this writing and acting is kind of lost, because you don’t hate-watch five music biopics a year as some of us do.”
Meanwhile, Malkmus has released a new single, “Lies (Something You Can Do)” b/w “Coreopsis Trail,” with his band the Hard Quartet, which also includes Matt Sweeney, Jim White and Emmett Kelly. The combo’s self-titled debut album was released last October by Matador and will be supported by their maiden North American tour, which begins March 21 in Nashville.
“‘Lies (Something You Can Do)’ is a credo that states that one must NOT only be a complete dick in the quest for modern survival,” Kelly offers. “I guess ‘Coreopsis Trail’ is a reflection of this phenomenon. On morning runs, excessive cellular oxygenation permits a natural euphoria akin to a glandular spasm famously described as a ‘micro death.’ Similar results can be achieved by the murder of one’s ego, mental disorder and/or the ill-advised usage of drugs.”
Watch the Kevin Spanky Long-directed video for “Lies” by clicking here, and check out the Range Life teaser below.
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.