Byline: ROB TANNENBAUM

"I hate being tan," Stephen Malkmus said almost immediately, standing in the lobby of a Midtown hotel. His olive complexion, the unwanted result of a vacation in Hawaii with his extended family, was startling -- not unlike seeing Santa Claus, if he suddenly lost 80 pounds. Since the 1989 debut of Pavement, the curious indie-rock band Mr. Malkmus led, he's been an antihero for the brainy, self-conscious and fearful -- the indoor kids, in other words. His music, even since Pavement melted into entropy in 1999, has been jarring and opaque, defined by lyrics that circle around homonyms and puns, or break from generational observations into non sequiturs.

He was raised in central California, in a city he recalls as mundane and obsessed with real estate. At the University of Virginia, he met bohemians for the first time, and heard experimental, absurdist bands like the Butthole Surfers and Can, which led him to move to New York after graduation and start Pavement. The group was frequently crowned, by critics and other elitists, the most important indie rock band of the '90s.

These days, Mr. Malkmus, who is 51, lives in Portland, Ore., where he and his wife, the sculptor Jessica Jackson Hutchins, are raising two children. He and the Jicks, the band he formed after Pavement, are about to release their seventh album, "Sparkle Hard," which is both tenderly melodic and provocative, especially on "Bike Lane," where Mr. Malkmus contrasts bourgeois concerns about transportation alternatives with the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody. Over a brunch of avocado toast, he talked affably about his "terrible" singing voice, the Captain & Tennille and why he rarely discusses his family. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

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No one has the singing voice they wish they had. Who do you wish you sounded more like?

Back in the day, I was a bit boyish, a little yelpy. I can't even believe I made it this far with the singing, to be honest. My first band, we played at a wedding and then we got a board tape and it had my voice really loud. Then the drummer's like, "Why don't you just not sing anymore? This sounds terrible." And I was like, "O.K." [Laughs] But then my voice got a tiny bit deeper. And I heard the Velvet Underground. I heard a lot...