From the Vaults: An interview with Charlie Murphy… RIP Darkness

Like everyone, I was completely stunned by the untimely death of Charlie Murphy. The man who made his way into our hearts after his roles on the Chappelle Show, Murphy had been doing standup for decades before finally getting the credit he was due, and he still had dates on the books when he passed away yesterday after a bout with leukemia. A Navy veteran and veteran of the comedy circuit, Murphy will forever remain a in our hearts and in the lexicon of great standup comedians. I was lucky enough to talk to Charlie Murphy back in 2009 as he prepared to film a standup special at the Wilbur Theater in Boston. It just seems right that I share it with you now.

The following is the transcript from out interview 8 years ago. Ladies and gentlemen, Darkness.

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Serving in the Navy until 1984, Charlie Murphy returned from the service just around the time his brother Eddie became an international comedic (and action) superstar. Boldly deciding to follow in his brother’s footsteps, Charlie lurked in Eddie’s shadow for more than two decades. Despite several small roles in blockbuster movies, it wasn’t until his recurring skits as the incidental and exaggerating storyteller in “True Hollywood Stories” on the Chappelle Show that Charlie Murphy’s name gained worldwide acclaim and became a household name. Now, five years after his infamous sketches of playing basketball with Prince and receiving the Rick James smackdown, Charlie now hosts a weekly sketch comedy show on Crackle.com and will appear tonight at the Wilbur Theater for a live taping of his upcoming DVD special.

It’s rare for two famous comedians to come from the same family. Was there some part of your family history or upbringing that provided both of you with the tools to become comedians?

No. Not that I can put my finger on. I’ve always been the person I am today. I never had aspirations to do standup. When the opportunity came, it came when I had all of the things necessary to do standup. I’d been writing for over 20 years. I had films, plays, videos and I was writing music. So my writing sensibility was already there. Then I had the experience of being the fly on the wall watching Eddie and Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence develop their routines. So I knew the process.

Did you feel like you had a lot to live up to with Eddie your brother?

Absolutely. When I knew I wanted to do this I knew I couldn’t be mediocre. I knew that I had to maintain a high level of space from the artform in the way he accomplished it.

Did your brother give you any tips when you made your way into comedy?

No, no one gave me tips, except this one: “when you start doing this, you can never stop.”

What are your comedic outlets now that “The Chappelle Show” has come to an end?

Well right now I have a sketch comedy show on Sony’s website Crackle.com [called Charlie Murphy’s Crash Comedy posted every Friday]. I got a movie “The Hustle” coming out in the summer and a book called “The Making of a Standup Guy” which is coming out in August.

How did you get involved with Dave Chappelle?

He called me up. He was a fan of mine from the movies I’d been in and I was a fan of his from the movies he’d been in. He had a show and he had a role for the part of “Tyree” and my name came up.

Do you miss being involved in that show?

I think everyone misses that show being around.

How true are the “True Hollywood Stories” that you became famous for on The Chappelle Show?

It’s every bit as true as every movie you’ve ever seen.

Did you consider yourself a comedian when you were in the Navy?

The Navy is where I became an adult and where I learned to pay attention to detail. The Navy is where I came to realize I was not a stupid person and could do anything I set my mind to. I wasn’t a comedian, but was I a fun dude to hang out with… hell yeah. There’s a distinction. Every crowd has a jester. Every barbershop has a jester. There’s always a classroom clown… blah blah blah. In every situation there’s someone who is the funniest thing going, but that’s not a comedian. You can’t just take those skills and make it as a comedian.

 

Days of Why and How: An Unedited Interview with The Kills

When the Kills were first introduced to the world in 2002, they quickly seduced the rock n roll realm with their sexy swagger and an intimate onstage chemistry. What began as a transatlantic, tape-trade collaboration between newfound friends has since grown into world-renowned force to be reckoned with. The thundering pulse of programmed drum machines and an avant approach to electric guitars elevates the sound of a boot-stomping blues and stripped-down garage rock taking it to new creative heights. With five solid records,  (the fifth, “Ashes and Ice” released this past June), Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince continue to evolve, and while their core dynamic remains in tact, some things have changed.

While Mosshart spent her downtime returning to the studio and stage as the lead singer of Dead Weather, Jamie Hince spent his time soul-and-sound-searching on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and on the island of Jamaica while trying to mend the tendons in his hand. When these two separate paths led back into the studio, the duo brought very different batches of songs to the table. I caught up with Jamie Hince the week before the released of the latest record. The following is the unedited interview with exclusive live photos taken at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston. Enjoy.

Hello is this Nolan. Where are you?

Im in Boston and we are finally haven’t a nice week of weather. Last week seemed a bit wintery.

Really? Oh god, I wish I had this interview the other day before I felt London, because I was trying to work out what to pack. It’s so odd when you’re going away for a month and going all over the place. Do I need a warm jacket? Do I need raincoat? I got this straw colored raincoat and now I wish I had packed it because it rains in Boston.

Where are you right now?

I’m in Atlanta. I woke up really early and went wandering around and I thought, “oh gosh, I really love Atlanta.” It’s great. I really like the vibe and right near my hotel there are three places that I’m really excited about going for food at already.

With the new record, did you come into the studio with songs individually or did you write the songs in the studio?

Yeah, we came together with songs. That’s always, at least since “Midnight Boom” and “Blood Pressures,” it was the same thing where we’ve come together with songs we’ve written separately and we’d get together when we thought there were nearly enough songs for a new record. Normally the way I work is I will come up with a load of things and just discard lots of them and concentrate on the ones I think really work and slowly develop them. When we got together I had about 8, 9, 10 songs and Alison probably had 38 songs. She writes in this beautiful explosion where she just puts herself in front of a mic and writes whatever comes out. Sometimes she goes through a stage where she’ll have 5 Neil Young ballads and then there will be 3 Krautrock songs. So it’s really good to sift through things like that. We sort of met up in LA for the first time and played each other what we had. We never really had a break from each other, but LA was the place where we sort of auditioned our songs in front of our engineer. Alison said “Oh we have lots of songs, let’s go,” and I sort of depressed everybody by saying “I don’t think we’ve got a record yet. I think we need to keep on writing.” So that’s what we did. We kept on working on about 8 of the songs that were going somewhere and then kept on writing.

Did you find that when you came together you were bringing similar stuff, or was it so different that you had to hone it in?

It was really different. It was to the point that I was frustrated to be honest. I’m always going in search of something and trying to find the things that’s like “oh my god, this is it.” I always think I’m going to be super excited about trying to find a sound, find a blend… finding a secret almost. I’d literally, physically gone in search of it and that’s what going on the Trans-Siberian Railroad was all about, or going to Jamaica. It’s always about physically going in search of it. Also, when I’m physically in the studio, I’m desperately hunting for the things that going to be the theme for me. Much of my rhythms were inspired by dancehall and digital dancehall, dub and R&B sometimes. I wanted to make a record that was really forward thinking and not just a retro bizarre record– and then I met up with Alison and her songs were very traditional—bluesy, Neil Young ballad kind of things and it was frustrating to me because, “You’re not doing what I want.” And then it kind of dawns on me that because it’s my job to make these things work and make both of our things to sit right in one place– it kind of dawns on me that that’s what the Kills really was– my lunacy about trying to reinvent the wheel and trying to take guitar music somewhere else, and it’s Alison’s absolute confidence and how sure she is about whatever snapshot is in her life at the moment. Not having crazy changing influences in the moment like I have, but having influences rooted in the Velvet Underground, Charlie Patton, Captain Beefheart– the things she’s constantly inspired by. And that’s the blend, her consistent inspirations and my ever changing, crazy, whirlwind ones.

How was the Siberian Express? Was it as romantic of an idea as movies suggest? Did you bring anything back from it?

It’s like a working train really. It’s not like the Orient Express. It’s like a pedestrian train and there’s a lot of military on there returning from Moscow to their various Siberian villages. Gentry people going to camps and villages along the way. I would say a tiny percentage of the train were taken up by people like me who were doing this TransSiberian journey. I think there’s another version of it you can do on another train, but it takes about 3 or 4 weeks and you stop at places and you have a guide that takes you places and shows you what to do. That wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to ride this retreat where I didn’t feel stuck or stagnant and I was constantly moving.

Did you get anything out of it?

Yeah, I mean I always go by that adage– I think it’s Flaubert… “You have to drink an ocean to piss a cupful.” It’s really true. I think he was talking about writing history, but it’s true with my writing. I don’t just write lyrics to a song. I always just write pages and pages and pages of stream of consciousness and that turns into prose which turns into poetry and then it goes back to stream of consciousness, and at some point I find things that I like and they jump out and I’m inspired to finish a song. And of course “Siberian Nights” was written on that train.

Did you guys do anything differently in the studio?

Our whole approach was completely different. We rented a house in LA, which was different because we used to just hide ourselves away in the middle of nowhere in Benton Park, Michigan. In LA we were excited to make a record in the chaos and noise of LA. I wanted it to be a change as life went on. I wanted to bump into people and have them come over and play… which happened, you know. We had Carla from Autolux play some drums and we had Homer who played on Amy Winehouse records. As opportunities arouse, we made the most of them.

How is your hand doing? Is it fully recovered?

No. I have about ten percent movement in my middle finger on my left hand, so I don’t use it to play guitar. It just hangs out stiff, flicking everyone off while the other three go change the dozen.

Were you or are you nervous that you’d never be able to play guitar again?

Yeah I was. One of the things that came out of it– one of the most impactful things– is I realized I’m really fucking positive. I just thought, “How am I going to make this work?” And part of that was considering I may not be a guitarist anymore. So I immediately started putting a studio together. I bought myself a 1968 Neve mixing desk, which was my dream come true. I knew I wanted to make a record using dub production, so I bought lots of gear like that: reverb units, echo. I just made myself busy by building a studio. I thought maybe I’ll just be a producer.

So is your studio in London?

Well it’s a mobile studio. My mixing desk is a 10-channel desk that wraps up in a flat case and I have all of my compressors and stuff in another unit. Right now they’re in LA, but I always wanted it to be that if I to decide if I wanted to make a record in Jamaica, I could just fly my studio out there.

Would you say this record has taken on a more introspective feel? It seems to have a more tender feeling and the lyrics a little less wrapped in metaphor, maybe?

Yeah. It’s less cryptic. Being cryptic is easy because you can blend meaningless rock n roll clichés with code that means something and people will actually never know which is which, but they might hopefully confuse clichés for something meaningful. I’m not ripping up what we’ve done apart, I’m just obsessed with the way rock n roll music is gong and where electric guitar music is going. I’ve been obsessed with why it’s so retrospective and why it’s so referential and why its so stuck in the 90’s or the 80’s or the 70’s, but never trying to invent something new for itself like hip-hop and R&B, you know. One of those things was maybe I had too much time on my hands because I only had one hand, but I started thinking about lyrics and I wanted to write a guitar record that spoke to people in a language that I was proud of, that I understood, and that other people would understand– and not dip into the skulls and devils and that kind of shit, which has been a sort of staple industry for rock n roll music in one way or another.

Would you say the general dynamic of the Kills has changed?

Not really. I mean we’ve never really had a mission. I remember saying that in 2002 when we were doing interviews that I don’t think its really smart to make a mission statement or have a plan because when we started a band it was at the beginning of the cyber revolution which changed the fucking world. And it changed it so much that it was apparent even then that to have manifesto you were going to have a cult that was like the dinosaur. You know? It changed so much, capitalism was going to implode on itself back then and a new thing was going to work out. I think we’ve always just changed with what’s going on. People have always told us that we’ve done our own thing. Well, it doesn’t feel like that. It really doesn’t. It’s always when you look back and say, “Fuck, I always think we’re hindering ourselves by doing this and not doing that,” but I guess we’re proud of what we’ve done.

The single is a song called, “Doing it to Death.” You obviously don’t think you’re beating a dead horse when it comes to the band?

No, I don’t think that. It’s not a song about the band; it’s about constant pleasure-seeking. It’s about partying and addiction and having so much fun that it’s boring. You get so high that you’re low. That sort of shit. That’s “doing it to death.”

The Kills live vs Recording? What do you have the most fun doing?

It’s funny because we always used to say, “We like them both.” One was a good anecdote to the other. These days the studio is my domain and it’s what I’m most excited about and the band’s moving forward in terms of writing new things. That’s what I’m most inspired by—that’s where my heart is… making new things. Also I’m the King in the studio. I’m the king of the Kills. I’m the boss and I like it. When we play live I’m completely usurped and Alison is the King or Queen or boss. That’s her domain. It works really nicely like that I think. I get more out of the studio, and for Alison, her place is the stage.

Do you guys still tour with the drummers in the background?

We have a different setup now. We have one drummer and we have Scott who is playing bass, keyboards, sub-bass and reverbs.

Would you say it’s a more live band set up?

Yeah, I guess. But we’ve always got heavy drum machine and sequencers. I never want it to be live where there’s no sequenced drum track. That’s what I love about it– it doesn’t speed up or slow down.

You guys seem to have an affinity for Boston. Last go around it was one of your only US dates, and this time you’re doing two shows in one week.

We always say that. The last time around we got really superstitious about Boston because the last couple of times it’s been the show that has completely woken us up and turned it up a gear. I don’t know what it is. I have no idea, but this time around, because we sold the first show out, we wanted to do a second night. There were bands playing the next night, but we were so superstitious and concerning that we decided to come back a few days later.

Alex Ebert on his new “PersonA”: An Interview with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

After witnessing Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Field perform live, you get an almost cultish vibe from the cast of characters… but founder Alex Ebert prefers the word “communal.” Earlier this year, this community of musicians released their fourth studio album– the first without Jade Castrinos, and their first in Ebert’s recently acquired Piety Street studios in New Orleans.

From record-to-record and song-to-song, the Magnetic Zeros’ sound varies immensely. Their recent release, “PersonA” is no different. From sunny 60’s psych-pop to somber, sensitive serenades, their music continues to run the course of emotions.

I caught up with Alex Ebert over the phone just before the album’s release. Below is the unedited interview, portions of which appeared in the Boston Herald. Enjoy.

Where you at right now?

In New Orleans.

That’s where you have your studio, right?

Yes.

Is this the first record at your new studio?

I mean not the first record ever, but the first record we’ve ever made there.

How did you decide on New Orleans?

I just wanted to move here. I didn’t know we were going to record here necessarily. I was having a kid and we wanted to move away from LA and I had wanted to move to New Orleans for a while. So about four years ago we just up and left and moved to New Orleans.

What’s the history of the studio?

Yeah, it’s called Piety. It’s where I am right now and where I live right now. It’s amazing. It was the Post Office for the Bywater Area, then it was the “Center for Retarded Citizens” for a long time. Then in 1994, I think, the Piety Street Studio started. Since then it’s been a mainstay and institution. Every day I am in it I’m just in awe. I was going to buy a house right down the street and found out this was for sale and got this instead. It was half-selfish because it’s a studio and I’m a musician but also because this neighborhood’s experiencing that typical gentrification, you know, and this particular building would be a lynch pin. Like if American Apparel bought it I feel like it would all crumble. That was the other reason. I allowed a lot of the graffiti to stay up and I guess I get in trouble for it. It’s a giant old building.

I’ve been reading that the approach was totally different on this new record.

Yeah, yeah. More or less we really tried to. We had always talked about being a communal entity that shares its money and all that, but I had always put in and written 80 percent or more of most of the albums and carried most of the weight when it came to the recordings and the writing and all that. Yet we had become a band that was capable and ready to take that step and making music all together. So everyone came with that in mind. Writing songs with ten people in the room can be difficult because it’s not like everyone can write all at the same time. Some people have to just sit there for quite awhile. It takes a lot of patience when someone is hacking away at chords incessantly. But that’s what we did and it was really great man. It brought us together and it really felt good. I think some amazing songs came from it. About half of the songs on the album we wrote all together.

So it was more spontaneous instead of everybody bringing something with them?

Yes, the songs that we all wrote together were all spontaneous. No one had brought any ideas in and we would just start playing and I would start arranging—everyone was arranging—but that was my main role. People would start playing something. Then someone else would start playing something and we’d say ‘okay,’ and started working through it. I mean we really have gotten so close together that there was no glass on the floor. There was very little ego in the room and rare that any ego popped up at all. We all sort of knew that the whole premise was the songs themselves and try and chase down little leads. And it was really fun man.

The record title has an obvious double entendre there. Do you want to talk about that a little?

Yeah sure, I guess its sort of begging to be asked. It’s several things. It’s a transitional period in our band and from ourselves, and the death of one thing being the rebirth of something else. But probably more importantly for me is confronting this notion in an artistic way that a performance is a postured thing and everyday experience is the real thing. I, in fact, think it’s the opposite. Every time you’ve ever seen a show that you subjectively considered a great performance I would bet that that performer was probably relaxed and far more so than they are in real life. Allowing whatever it is to flow through them. When you go to an acting class, the main technique or methodology of method acting is relaxation. I remember the first time my mother took me to an acting class—she was a stage actress—and it was like being in a loony bin. I was 15 and I was totally shocked. Everyone was on the floor grunting and groaning and pretending to be a different animal and that’s all about losing your inhibitions. If you did that in the street, you’d get arrested. There’s a certain irony there that I experience in particular that this guy Alex Ebert is untrustworthy because of this idea that I’m wearing a mask onstage and the messiah thing– this persona. I just wanted to address that regardless of the name and that the band is not called Alex Ebert and the Magnetic Zeros. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros was just a joke name. I didn’t mean anything by it. I in fact tried to change the name early on to something far more memorable and easy to remember, but the rest of the band loved it. It all came from a story I had written and more or less it ended up this presupposition that I was putting on a character when I was on stage. It’s not that that bothers me that the entire thing is postured thing. You can’t trust someone who went from IMA Robot to Edward Sharpe because those are just too different. I’m not Tom Waits and the band isn’t Tom Waits. We’re not a band and I’m not an artist that’s remotely interested in each song sounding the same, let alone an entire career where everything is relatively identical. I appreciate those artists and I love them dearly, but I don’t find it artistically fulfilling, not even on a single album, let alone a career. So yeah there’s all that.

The first time I saw you was at the Newport Folk Festival and there was definitely a cultish vibe about the band. You used the word communal. Then I read about the book and it seemed to add to the mystique.

It’s almost by happenstance, but the book and the cultishness of the band, as much as anything can be, is coincidental. Obviously my mind was on that kind of thing. Growing up in LA, which was an intentionally uncommunal city where they made it a sprawl and you don’t have pockets of community at all. You have to drive to a coffee shop. There are no neighborhoods. I mean there are some. You had Echo Park. You could call Silverlake a community. Venice is a community. But where I grew up in the valley there was very little in the way of that. My mother showed me this thing that I wrote when I was six that said, “Once there was a boy who had a crew” and the second line was “and he also knew Kung Fu”. It’s funny that she showed me that because I guess all I ever wanted was a crew because I didn’t have one. I didn’t have a community. That’s all Edward Sharpe is for me is. I wrote these songs with all of these parts because I had this idea of a crew, like a traveling band of troubadours and friends. That’s all it is. Not a cult, but a crew. I think it goes all the way back to that story I wrote when I was six, maybe even before that.

How does it feel to have a song like “Home” that has such staying power? Did you ever dream something like that would come to be?

I knew as soon Jade and I were making a demo of that– or singing over the demo I should say– I knew there was something. As an artist you look for these holes that you might be able to fill in culture. I instantly felt “wow, there is a giant hole that this is going to fill that hasn’t been filled for a really long time—for deacdes.” The un-ironic, un-darkened, un-tinted love song that isn’t overtly sexual and has a very naturalistic approach to a love song– and a back and forth at that. And that being said, it took years for that song to catch on. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song on the radio. It wasn’t a radio hit… it was a cultural hit. And in fact, by the time it was a cultural hit big enough we tried to go to radio, but radio wouldn’t play it. Triple A would play it, but the big stations wouldn’t touch it. It didn’t sound like anything else, it had a lo-fi sound, and also back then no one else was doing it. By the time it was to go to radio and we did a campaign with a radio company that wanted to help the album had been out for four years and they were like, “we would but the albums been out for four years.” So it was an ironic thing. It was more than just a cultural hit. I mean I love it. I absolutely love it. I’m absolutely honored by it. Just the other day we were at dinner and someone came up to me and said, “My sister-in-law killed herself and we would sing “Home” together and it was one of the only things we could do where we would feel great.” There’s a lot of stories like that. People got married to that song or had their first dance. To be a part of people’s lives in some sort of integral way like that is pretty magical.

When you play it now, without Jade, what do you do? Obviously the audience wants to here that song.

I just sing it back and fourth with the audience. In fact we do it almost entirely a-cappella. I count on the audience to sing the whole thing and I’ll join in on the chorus. It’s sort of like a sing-along in elementary school. I sing the first line just to remind them and we all sing it together. The reality is, and always has been, that this is a universal song and it’s meant to be shared and it’s about the big YOU. It’s not about her and I. Her and I wrote it as friends. We weren’t together when we wrote that song. And yet we loved each other. To me that song is even more potent and much more pure now that it’s not actually a duet between me and1 person. It’s a duet between me and all of us together as one. It’s pretty special.

On the new record you seem to mention “Home” a lot too. Or am I imagining that.

Home does rhyme with a lot. It was started happening and when it started happening, I just let it happen instead of avoiding it. I don’t have a clear answer for you except I didn’t want to run away from what was coming out of my mouth.

You have been on the road nonstop, not to mention scoring movies? Now that you’ve had a kid, do you think you’ve finally found a place to be?

It’s interesting. In a way, yes. I have to modulate the intensity with which I create so I can spend time with my family and myself and not constantly be on the move. So, in that sense, yes. But I’m just getting my feet wet in that realm. I don’t even think I know what that’s like to let go enough to just be there and not have a creative impulse that distracts me from just hanging out. So I’m working on that. I’m working on trying to suppress that.

Do you sing to your daughter a lot?

Yes, and I love singing to her. And sometimes she’ll tell me to shut up, but whatever. It’s one of my favorite things. I started singing to her early on and there were some times, I wouldn’t say times were rough, but there were some great moments where she needed to be sung to and I’d have her in my songs and just sing to her. It’s nice, just making up songs and singing to her. It’s fun. She calls the band “the guys” and asks “where’s the guys?” It’s really sweet and the band has a bunch of babies in it too, which is great.

Did she participate on the record?

Not directly as I would have liked to. But certainly “Lullaby” is about her and every time I’d sing “Somewhere” she’d come in and start twirling around. We recorded the song for two months and then mixed and then I wrote lyrics for the next nine months with Nico We live in the studio so she was constantly coming in when I was singing that song… constantly coming in to bother me. It was great.

An interview with Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats

After 16 years and five records as Fruit Bats, Eric D. Johnson decided to retire the moniker in 2013. Continuing to make music, the multi-instrumentalist, and former member of Califone and the Shins, stayed busy scoring films and released a solo album under his initials EDJ in 2014. But it wasn’t long before Johnson realized how much weight remained in the name of his previous project.

I was lucky enough to chat with Johnson over the phone for the Boston Herald the week before his album Absolute Loser was released. Below is the complete interview for all of the Fruit Bats fans out there. And if you haven’t heard them yet, keep reading, and give them a listen—you’ll love it.

photos by Annie Beedy

I remember when you announced when you were retiring from Fruit Bats. What led to that?

That whole thing was kind of weird. I know a lot of bands breakup and they get back together to headline Bonnaroo or something like that. That’s obviously not the case. Fruit Bats is not like that. It’s not a money grab because Fruit Bats never had any money, so there’s no money to grab. I’m a total hundred-aire. I always said Fruit Bats is a band that came out at a weird and interesting time in that five year period after accessible indie rock, but before the digital age. We were a lucky little band and we got to get signed to Sub Pop out of nowhere really and got kind of lucky with the timing. I think I was living in this bubble at the time and had some tragedy in my life and the Fruit Bats have always been me with a rotating cast and it’s always been me. I knew it wasn’t working for me anymore. I was doing film scores and thought maybe I should just record under my own name, and nothing happened with that. Basically I copped to the fact that that was a completely dumb move. And I was going to experiment by coming back as Fruit Bats and see what happened– and a bunch of stuff happened immediately. It really came down to coming back with my tail between my legs and really just changing two words back to something and being able to resume this modest career that I’ve been building for the past 20 years. I don’t know if that’s the world’s most boring reason or what. I think I came back and this friend of mine said when you say it’s an EDJ show you have to have Fruit Bats in parenthesis just to get five more people to buy tickets. This is the removal of the parenthesis.

I remember seeing you at TT’s in 2002.

I bet we were terrible! That was super early on. That may have been the first Fruit Bats show ever in Boston. Who were we playing with? We played at TTs a million times, but I bet you could Google that.

Speaking of the Fruit Bats being only you and the band constantly changing, did the cast of characters affect the sound from record to record?

Yes and no. Definitely with The Ruminant Band. I had put together a band and it was very much all recorded live and it has a band sound and we toured on it in that way. People really loved that and I was surprised how much people responded to that. I think it’s just being a product of being a child of the 1990’s indie rock stuff. I liked bands like Guided by Voices and Palace, where it’s a dude, but it has a band name. That’s kind of where it all came from for me. When I went back to Tripper I was kind of still using these guys, but returned to that veteran type of recording method. It’s more of a headphone record. I think with this one we did a bit of both. It was very organic, but it was also very digital at the same time. I come from that late-night 4-track realm. I like to be by myself for a lot of it. I like to walk down a path and walk down the wrong way before coming back. I don’t think a lot of people have patience for that. I think weirdly the digital age has been good for people like me because you can make a million mistakes and still come back and honing things.

Tell me about the title of the record what led up to such an eerie sort of title?

It’s sort of a play on words. If you call someone an “absolute loser,” it’s a pretty big insult to somebody, but it’s sort of designed to trick you into hearing that, but really it refers to an absolute loss and someone who feels that absolute loss. That’s the title track and it has some darkness in the lyrics, but it has some positivity too. It’s a lot about this whole fruit Bats thing and this clean slate and blowing something up, being let down to zero, an absolute loss and burning down into nothing and the person who has the absolute loss is an absolute loser. It’s not intended to bait people or a bait and switch where they say “Absolute Loser” is an “Absolute Winner”.

I bet you’ll get a few of those.

I hope so. And not “Absolute Loser is an apt title.” The title of the album was up for debate. I was hesitant to call it that, but I polled people and they thought that should be the title.

Do you think it was a rebirth of sorts?

For me I didn’t realize what a rebirth it would be. When I was doing the solo record I just kind of believed that that would just be a continuum. That EDJ thing didn’t get out there much, but I’m really proud of it. I’ve always been in love with the lost classics and now I’ve made my own lost classic. Hopefully it’ll be classic, but it’s definitely a lost album. So, it feels like a rebirth in a dumb sense. After doing that solo thing, I lost a lot of things. I wasn’t in the game anymore, I wasn’t in a band anymore. It was very much a DIY thing and I’m a DIY type of guy, but there were things I couldn’t do. I was curious if there was even an interest in this, and there was. As soon as I got it going again, I got a new manager and everything starting coming together—again proving that it was just those two stupid words of a name that seemed to make a difference. It is a rebirth and I’m super humbled and feel very lucky.

Would you say this album was cathartic?

I had always written from the heart, but it was impressionistic and universal. I always had that way of projecting lyrics out there. They were about me, but I like telling vague stories a little better. It felt super cathartic and it was fun to get a little anger out and a little sadness and a lot of stuff that I haven’t had before in writing. It was fun. It was me throwing some stuff out there. It’s me comforting myself in a lot of ways.

You have a good way of hiding the sadness through the music and your voice. You can make a sad song sound happy or hopeful.

I’ve been told that many times and I think that’s good. It’s weird because on previous records people would say that I was happy all the time, but not really. But this record is about some really heavy topics and some really heavy shit that happened to me. Hopefully it just doesn’t sound like sunshine and rainbows all the time.

Would you say you made this out to be your most personal Fruit Bats record?

Definitely. No it is. It’s always personal. It’s always coming somewhere from your head, but this was certainly the most confessional. It’s personal and I’m being a little more blunt and candid in the lyrics. I’m not really hiding them behind any sort of abstraction. Sometimes songs mean nothing too, but on this record every song very specifically means something.

When you were scoring films did that influence how you wrote songs after that?

Definietly the EDJ solo record was very cinematic. There were some very score-y pieces in it. At the very least, when you’re a singer/songwriter and your scoring films you very quickly have to learn how to engineer and how to use the studio as a tool. That right there informs my music a little more than just sitting down with a tape recorder and an acoustic guitar. I’m starting with a more expansive palette now in what I’m thinking about and I can sit down and use the studio as a tool. But yes and no. I’ve always thought cinematically in a lot of ways and have always been obsessed with making movies and mini-movies with my songs. So that’s always been there. That’s probably why I got film work in the first place, even though I’m not doing orchestral arrangements or anything. Well, actually I have done a few of those now, but they didn’t come from a classical background or anything. I think the first few filmmakers that hired me heard that in there, even in the earlier stuff. It’s always been in there, but it’s had a bigger effect now.

 

Skateboards and Guitar Chords: Tommy Guerrero Reflects on a life of Skating and Music Making

Skate legend Tommy Guerrero was one of the biggest names in skateboarding in the 1980’s. As one of the Bones Brigade, Powell Peralta’s famous skate team, Guerrero would go on to head up Real Skateboards and produce instrumental California chill records on his own label, TOO GOOD. Blending rock, soul, jazz and funk, his albums contain some of the best, soothing summertime grooves you’ve ever laid ears on. This past year, Guerrero released his latest work, “Perpetual” which just continues to prove his prowess in the music world. Ladies and Gentlemen, Tommy Guerrero.

On your website it says Perpetual is a continuation of a Japanese release. Could you talk more about that?

“Perpetuum” ( ficticious word) is an album that i released in Japan
exclusively in 2014. “Perpetual” has a few new tunes and a  different cover design-by Chris
Johanson.

Are there certain moods or thematic threads that tie each of your records
together? What were you thinking about when you went into this record and
what ties it together?
There are no conscious threads but my style is what binds them all.
The intent was to strip the tunes down and create more of an atmosphere
than being concerned with writing “songs.” Though there are some
constructed tunes the album is about the journey and not the destination.

Do you see the album as one complete product, or a series of songs?
As a whole, all the tunes have a similar feeling/sound/energy.

How long were these new songs in the works?
It’s hard to say as I don’t block out a window of time when starting a new
project. I don’t have that luxury. Does it matter? It’s where i’m at now.

Would you say this record sounds a bit more sinister than the others?
Not even. The last one, “No Mans Land” has a dark feel to it.

You are the only musician on the record besides an occasional addition? Do you
always record alone?
Yeah, because I don’t have a band. I’m all I have!!!

If so, how do you know when a song is done? How many layers do you
traditionally put down? Is it harder to record alone and know when a song
is complete?
It’s all about the feeling of the tune. It will tell you what it needs and
when to let go. There are no set rules/approach etc. It’s the same as any art-it’s about
the moment and your mood.

Is this your first album with your own studio? How does having your own
studio change the recording process? Do you have to set personal time constraints so you don’t get in too deep? Do you tend to labor over the final product more than if you were had a set
schedule in someone else’s studio?
I have always recorded in my own space, whether it’s a bedroom or rehearsal
space -it has to be on my own time/terms/wallet. I don’t make demo’s or layout rough idea’s. it’s all in the moment. What you hear is where i was at at the time of the recording.
Now that I have an actual studio i can be loud…! So this changes the way I record as well as the tones of the instruments and setting up mic’s, amps, percussion, drums, etc is a more recent challenge. It can be creatively draining as it takes a good deal of time.

How do you go about starting a new record? Your albums seem very cinematic.
Do you have visualization in your head of what the sound will be?
Man I never know how it all starts. it’s usually a spark of inspiration. It can be a song or the tone of an instrument or just the need to be creative. The cinematic aspect comes from an emotional space, in the moment at that time. The visual  comes after the recording.
How often do you tour? Who do you bring along? Do you/will you ever hit the
east coast?
Very rarely! No band- no label for tour support- no funding etc. It’s all very DIY.
I have to hire friends to play so it all costs me $$$. Lately it’s been Josh Lippi-bass, Chuck Treece-drums… a trio. I usually go to Japan every year as i have a label that supports me there. I bring whatever is necessary for the gig. i try and keep it as minimal as
possible. I travel light.

How did you develop your style? When you started out you were playing more
punk rock, but certainly developed a completely different signature sound
over the years. Who were your influences and inspirations?
It happened over time. There is endless inspiration out there-just be receptive.
Musically, for this album, I’d say these artists are some of what inspired me. I’m still on the same trip now. Gabor Szabo, Mulatu Astake, Marc Ribot, John Zorn, Coltrane

How much do you think your setting influences your sound? In Boston right
now it’s cold as hell and I listen to your records and dream of the Cali
Coast. When I play your music while I’m driving the Cali Coast it seems
perfect. Does it just seem natural to you based on your roots and setting?
I have heard that you are a product of your environment-i tend to agree.
You are influenced by everything around you even if you are unaware.

How long have you had your own label? Is it primarily formed as a way to
release your own records, or do you have any other bands on the roster (I
couldn’t find any info on it)?
It’s just a vehicle for my stuff-for now… ( TOOGOOD )
But i did release my brother’s band( EL DIABLITO’S) album-“COME HELL OR
HIGHWATER” earlier  this year… killer surf rock. I have some plans/possible release’s in the works but it depends on other’s and that’s always a difficult position to be in.

What kind of guitars/gear do you play?
Fender tele’s now-80’s Japanese models. Fender amps. I have way too much gear to list!
I’m going to have a flea market gear sale soon… need to divest.

What do you envision as the ideal setting for listening to this record?
Anywhere and anyone who wants to lend an ear.

As an instrumental artist with a certain playing style, is it harder to
develop new songs whereas rock bands can play the same chords and can just
vary the tempo and change the words?
YES! I am constantly trying to shift my approach as I get tired of myself.
I was over the standard rock chords years ago- I don’t even know how to
play em! It’s to ensure that I don’t write crappy 3 bar chord tunes-the
greats have already shut it down. Many do it well though-it’s just not my
thing.

I feel like I first heard your music from a Thomas Campbell surf movie. Is
it true you don’& surf or even swim?
Can’t swim so i have never surfed-never snowboarded either.

My friend’s first deck was a Tommy Guerrero and he wanted me
to ask you who your favorite skaters of all time are.
Jay Adams-Tony Alva-Duane Peters-Steve Olson-
Christian-Lance-Gonz-Natas-Julien-Curtis Hasiang
Ethan Fowler-Tony Trujillo- Grant Taylor-Raven Tershay-
Dennis Busenitz-so many rippers now.

There’s a picture of you skating on the album jacket. Is that
still very much a part of your life?
I skate when the body permits… a couple times week if it holds up.
Always roll my zinger. I have been at dlx for 25 years so i’m surrounded but skating on the daily.

Are there similarities btw skateboarding and guitar playing? Do you see a
similar way in which you approach both?
They both keep me sane… it’s my way of escaping the world.

Nikki Sudden: Ten Years After His Death… an 8-year old interview emerges

Nikki Sudden says he was born ten years too late. After his post-punk outfit, Swell Maps called it quits, Nikki worked his way through the underground and watched as much of the world turned their focus to the miserable mainstream of the 1980’s. Through various side-projects, solo endeavors and his work in the Jacobites (a band he co-founded with his brother, the now deceased Epic Soundtracks) Sudden has been making music continuously since he began. Though he’s earned the respect of his heroes and influenced many present day underground success stories, his music still remains under-the-radar to much of the listening world. With a series of reissues released brought on first by Secretly Canadian and Sudden’s a self-proclaimed masterpiece on its way at the time of our interview, we thought all this would change.

Two years later, on March 26, 2006, Nikki Sudden died while writing in his journal. Luckily, Easy Action in the UK has put out a 3-album compilation and some LP rarities, while the Numero Group has recently released Sudden’s Jacobites records and some of his best solo work in a beautifully packaged boxed set.

I caught up with Sudden back in 2004 over the phone as he enjoyed a day off in the UK and readied for one of his last tours to America. I remember watching Scout Niblett play the Middle East that night. Back then she was his labelmate and fellow countrywoman. Mid-set the soundman told the crowd Nikki Sudden had died. It was a sad moment for all of us informed enough to care. Ironically enough, he died of a heart that was too big. Below is the interview from 2004.

I heard you broke a rib. What’s that all about?

I haven’t broken my rib; I thought I had. I only bruised it. I fell off the top bunk three times in one night on a sleeper car from Moscow to the Ukraine. I kept climbing back up and then I’d fall back down ten minutes later. The guy I shared the compartment with said ‘I think you should sleep in the bottom bunk’. I was drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk. There were two mattresses on top of each other, but there was no friction. They just kept sliding off. Russian sleeping carriages don’t have any safety rails. My bass player says I’m lucky to be alive. I’m always lucky.

I’m writing from the States and for us most of our Nikki Sudden access is through the Secretly Canadian reissues. How did this come to fruition? Were you searching for labels or did they find you?

Chris Swanson, the guy who runs the company kept calling me and I never called him back. One time he rang me and I actually answered it and we got to talking. He seemed like a nice guy and I figured anybody with that much perseverance was worth doing something with. Usually when people write to me I tell them that I don’t need another label. I don’t know why I thought that.

Were you in total control of choosing what records were chosen?

Everything was totally up to me. I compiled all the reissues, remastered the tracks, did the sleevenotes and the layout. The only thing they insisted on was the back cover of the tray, which I think looks pretty bad.

 You’ve been recording for over 20 years, but have only toured the states a couple times. How many times? Why is this?

I’ve been on four or five American tours. Every time I come to the States I play a bunch of shows. I’ve driven across the whole country, which is more than most Americans can say. I first played there in 1985.

Would you say you’re more popular in Europe than in America?

In LA, San Francisco, New York people always come see me, as much as any German city anyway. It’s the small towns you never know what’s going to happen. I’d say America’s my second biggest market. Germany seems to be my biggest which is why I live in Berlin. I’ve got to leave Berlin soon. I’ve been here for six or seven years and that’s too long. The problem is I don’t know where to go. I fell in love with this city in the Ukraine the other day called Ternopil. It’s a beautiful place. It’s like the 1950’s. There are hardly any cars, most of them are totally fucked up wrecks falling to pieces. There are big potholes everywhere, never a traffic jam and you can walk down the middle of the street in the middle of the day. I think this is the kind of place I can live. I was asked yesterday by these Italian publishers if I could write a book. I was like ‘I have nothing to do in June’, so I could go there in June and do it. Then I found out that my new album is being released in June and I won’t have a chance to do it in June. A whole book in one month—10,000 words a day. It shouldn’t be a problem.

What’s it on?

It’s kind of my journal mixed with my autobiography—a diary with flashbacks to the Jacobites and various friends of mine like Johnny Thunders. That’s what the publisher suggested to me. I don’t think that would be hard to write, but I’ve tried to write a novel– 130,000 words and I haven’t even looked at it in three years. Then there’s this book I’m writing on Ronnie Wood. He knows I’m writing it cause I’ve told him several times, but I haven’t even gotten an interview with him yet.

 Why Ronnie Wood

I was always fascinated by his first solo album and no one had ever written about him. I thought I should do it. Now I wish I hadn’t even started. I’ve got 120,000 words and I still haven’t interviewed Ronnie yet.

Would it be correct in saying you’ve been making music non-stop since you began? Have there been downtimes, hiatuses?

Only when I can’t get gigs. If I’m not playing gigs I’m not making money. I wrote in my diary a couple days ago: all I ever do is make money to pay for a flat I’m never in and pay phone bills for a phone I never use. I think if you’re a musician you should either be playing gigs, writing songs or in the studio. I wish I could play 200-300 gigs a year and spend a couple months in the studio. That’s the ideal life I think. Being on tour is a totally surreal experience. You never have to think about anything. You just have to get on a bus and hope you get something to eat. You do a soundcheck, do a show and talk to some girls. Then what happens, happens; what doesn’t, doesn’t.

How do you account for the fact that after playing music for the past 20+ years you are still somewhat under-the-radar?

Bad luck basically. I’m sure if I’d been born 10 years before we’d be as big as Dylan, the Stones and people like that. But we’re not. That’s the trouble. I can never explain why. I still don’t understand why I’m more popular. It doesn’t make any sense at all. You just see all these useless bands come along like the Strokes. They get so much press and you hear them and they’re so average. And there’s the White Stripes. I’ve heard Led Zeppelin III, I don’t need to hear the White Stripes. Something is going wrong.

 In your mind what is the best record you’ve ever made?

I know musicians always say this, but my favorite album ever is my new one, Treasure Island. I’ve heard it about 500,000 times now and it still sounds great. Everyone’s been telling me this is the best album I’ve ever made.

Will you be performing solo this time?

Yeah, I can’t afford to bring the band over. Basically I want to release this new album in America. When you play solo it’s different thing than with the band because the band doesn’t know all the songs. Solo I can play whatever I want.

Obviously the Stones are one of your favorite bands, do you enjoy what they’re doing now? Is there ever a time when bands need to stop?

I think as long as you’re playing from the heart and soul you can do it until you die. The Stones are still doing it from the heart and soul. There’s no way they’re doing it for the money because they don’t need the money. I don’t think they ever need to stop. The only reason people say that is because they’re jealous of them. I saw them 22 times on their last tour. I think they’re the best band ever and that ever will be. I just wish they’d get some of the background people out there.

 Another of your favorites, the New York Dolls, are reuniting? How do you feel about that?

My take on it is this, if Johnny and Joey will be there, I’ll be there. Chrissy Hines is gonna take Johnny Thunders’ place. She plays nothing like Johnny. It should either be Steve Jones or Kevin Key. Kevin is a total Johnny wannabe and he does it quite well. Steve Jones basically saw all of Johnny’s leaks and he could do it quite well.

Are there any new bands out there that you find intriguing?

That’s the question I always hate because I don’t like any new bands. I like Primal Scream, but they’ve been around for 20 years.

You’ve worked with members of several American bands, some of whose music you do not like (like Sonic Youth). How did you end up working with people from bands you don’t like?

That’s a good question. I like them as people. I get on fine with Thurston, Steve, with Lee and Kim. I think Steve is a really good Epic Soundtracks inspired drummer and I think Steve would agree with that. I didn’t say I didn’t like their music. I just said you can’t blame me for Sonic Youth being influenced by us. I wouldn’t say I dislike them. I just don’t go for what they do, but they do it well.

Anything else?

Just make sure you use a cool photo.

 

Like Bubblegum Wrapped Around Razor Blades: Jim Reid Reflects on Psychocandy’s 30th anniversary

As the Jesus and Mary Chain wraps up a year full of shows celebrating the 30^th anniversary of Psychocandy, I bring you an interview with Jim Reid conducted earlier this year.

The record was the band’s debut release– and most continue to say– their definitive recording. Jesus and Mary chain was founded by brothers Jim and William Reid and Psychocandy combined their love for 60’s girl groups, the Velvet Underground and the up-and-coming generation of noise bands to create a unique juxtaposition that would not only define the band’s sound, but become a sonic blueprint for the next several generation of psych bands to come.

When the album was released in 1985, no one had heard anything like it. Like bubblegum wrapped around razor blades, Psychocandy had an inherent pop sentimentality that shined through even the darkest, most turbulent moments. With 14 songs clocking in at just under 39 minutes, the album began with the devastating and now iconic “Just Like Honey,” only to be followed by an onslaught of distortion– heavy at the time, and still seething today. Bouncing back and forth between a reverbed quietude and the angry hiss and haze of lo-fi fuzz pedals, the record sputters, slices and shimmers into a controlled chaos and impending sense of danger with an intriguing nonchalance.

While this bond and band of brothers eventually led to constant feuds and the band’s ultimate demise, the Jesus and Mary Chain are back and touring the world to celebrate their seminal record in its entirety. We were fortunate to catch up with founder and lead singer Jim Reid to talk about the making of Psychocandy and the legendary highs and lows of the Jesus and Mary Chain.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jim Reid…

Hello, is Jim Reid there?

Yes, speaking.

Where are located nowadays?

I live in the southwest of England in Devon.

Besides your solo project, what have you been up to from the end of the Jesus and Mary Chain until the revision?

What have I done between the end of the Jesus and Mary Chain and the getting back together? I had children. I made two human beings. So that’s something. To be honest with you I didn’t do a whole lot. When the band ended in 1997, I just didn’t want to do anything with music for a while. Then after 2 or 3 years I started another band with some of my friends, but it was more of a drinking club than an actual band. It was three alcoholics in the band and we would go anywhere where people supplied free drinks. That band was called Freeheat. And that was it. It’s funny, I toyed with the idea of getting a solo career off the ground, but I’m just the laziest man on earth. I had one gig every two or three years and expected great things. That’s not really the way it works.

How hard was it to get the band back together? Was it something you even wanted to do or was touring again a necessary evil?

Well in 1997, I couldn’t have even believed that would ever be imaginable. When we walked away in 1997, it was forever. I really, really could not have envisioned a time when the Mary Chain would tread the boats again. You know, time heals as they say. Ten years went by and everybody kept trying to get us back together. It had been going on for several years and I think Coachella was the most persistent. They just kept coming by and making one offer after another. By this time, me and William were talking again. There was a period that lasted a few years where we wouldn’t speak to each other. That time had passed. I wouldn’t say that we were best buddies. When we weren’t talking I thought he wouldn’t want to do it, and he thought I wouldn’t want to do it. And we discovered we were each into it. So we thought, “Christ, let’s do it. It should be a bit of a laugh.” So we got back together.

Did you enjoy touring early in your career? And do you enjoy it more or less nowadays?

Well, it’s different now. I enjoy it in different ways. In the very beginning I was very nervous on stage and lacking in confidence. I never felt good enough. I always felt like someone was going to jump on stage and say, “Look at this. He can’t even sing.” I felt like I was going to be exposed at any second. My way of dealing with that was that I would get very fucked up on stage. It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride back then. But I did enjoy the traveling and seeing various places. Now, I am a bit more comfortable being on the stage, but the traveling around can be a bit tedious. Driving around anywhere when you’re 53 years old can be a drag to say the very least.

When you went into making Psychocandy, did you know it would be well accepted? You went from not being able to get shows to having a record that people liked? Did you know it would have staying power or that it would even be successful when it came out?

We felt quite quietly confident. We were listening to a lot of bands from the 60’s when we made the record. We kind of hoped that we would have that kind of appeal to generations down the line. We thought it was going to be around for a while, but 30 years? It’s kind of hard to imagine those kinds of things when you’re 23 years old, which I was at the time. It just seemed unthinkable that in 30 years people will still be listening to your record.

When you wrote “Just Like Honey” did you know you had a hit. It seems to stick out from the rest of the record, and it even begins the record. Was it as big then as it’s come to be? It’s become iconic over time.

Well, my brother actually wrote that, but yeah you don’t know anything at the time. I remember recording it and feeling good about it at the time, but you don’t really how it’s going to affect people until it gets out there. Then you can test people’s reactions, you know. It hit pretty quick, that song. This was during a time where there would be riots at Jesus and Mary Chain shows. There would be people knocking seven kinds of shit out of each other and then we’d start playing “Just Like Honey” and people would stop for a couple of minutes and it would be like “ah, isn’t that nice.” And then we’d start playing “The Living End” and it would be back to the baseball bats again.

So those shows were as violent as the legend tells?

It was getting that way. Not all of them. Towards the end of ‘85, it became the thing to do—go to a Mary Chain show with a metal bat up your sleeve. It was getting silly. We didn’t want that. It’s not something we had planned and we were worried someone was going to get seriously hurt. So we went away for a while and hoped that people would forget about the riot shows. And it worked. We came back in ’86 and it seemed like a different thing.

Is it interesting now to play to more mellow, older, mature audiences 30 years later?

Yeah, but it’s been that way for a while. On non-Psychocandy tours, we’d gotten used to the fact that it wasn’t just a bunch of little lunatics running around. That’s long since gone.

What did you use to create that distorted sound that made this album so different and distinctive? Did you have an arsenal of guitar pedals?

There was one particular fuzz pedal that we had at that time. There was this guy who lived up the road from us and he sold us a fuzz pedal for a fiver and he thought he was ripping us off. It seemed like it was broken and then when we plugged it in it was like 15 jumbo jets. He was kind of running away with his five quid thinking “oh I sold these idiots a broken fuzz pedal.” But we were like, “fucking hell.” You plug this thing in and it would start to play by itself, you know what I mean? So we immediately went out to try and get as many of these pedals as we could. I think it was called Shin-ei. It was some kind of Japanese pedal. We snapped them up and that became the Jesus and Mary Chain sound for years.

With all the new technology out there, do you play it differently now?

It’s more or less the same. All of the old ones more or less bit the dust. But then we bought some more of those Shin-ei pedals online and we’re using them now.

Did you guys really flip a coin early on to see who would be the singer? Is that a true story?

[Laughs] Yes, that is actually true. I didn’t want to do it and he didn’t want to do it. We are both really quite shy people. People always had these assumptions that we were pretty outgoing and things like that, but we were quite timid and shy. So I didn’t want to do it; he didn’t want to do it. So we flipped a coin and I lost. So I became the singer. Then when I started to get a lot of attention, shall we say, he became very jealous of that and we had another fight over the singing thing again. Of course now he wanted to do it. I was like, “no I’m the singer now so bugger off.” And that was that.

Lots of people say you paved the way for distortion and the waves of bands to follow. Who did you get your initial inspiration from?

The obvious thing to say is the Velvet Underground. We were listening to the Velvets quite a lot at that time. But the big influence on us at the time is we were listing to 60’s garage music. We’ve said it before, but we were listening to Einsturzende Neubauten and the noise bands, but we were also listening to 60’s girl bands like the Shangri-Las. I remember having a conversation with William and saying, “wouldn’t it be great if Neubauten had songs like the Shangri-Las. We thought, “Whoa let’s do it.” And that became the blueprint for the band.

Does it give you a sense or pride to hear that bands are influenced by you? Or do you feel like you have been ripped off?

I haven’t heard anyone that is an out and out pastiche. That would be pointless and I would find that rather irritating. I hear bands sometimes that have picked up some of our influence, but that’s fine. That’s what it’s all about. We got ours from the Velvets and the Stooges. It’s all there for the taking. You have to be careful that it’s not an outright emulation. You have to put your own personality in there as well.

Tell me about what John Peel meant to the band and his role in your initial success.

At the time there was nowhere to go with music. There was nowhere to take it. With the way record labels were, it was hard to get exposure anywhere. Here you have John Peel on national radio that would get a band like the Mary Chain a session. He would bring you in, you’d play four tracks and he would play them for several nights in a row. It was just amazing to us. We had no record deal. We played a string of shows, but basically nobody knew us. And this guy gives you an opportunity like this. John Peel… there was no one like him and there’s been no one like him since. He was incredibly important to the British music scene at that time.

Do you remember the point where the band went from being a hobby to a career?

It kind of happened over night for us. From the get go, Mary Chain gigs were not the kind of shows you went to and forgot about the next day. There was an extreme reaction. The old love or hate thing. Very few people went, “That was okay.” People either thought we were the best band in the world or they’d be waiting on the side of the stage to beat the living shit out of you. There was no in between it seemed. With that in mind we thought we had kind of hit on something here. I remember there was one gig we played in London. The usual chaos and confusion occurred and we buggered off to do this Creation Records tour of Germany. When we got back, that gig had been reviewed in both the NME and The Sound. The Sound said we were the worst band they’d ever seen…ever. And NME said we were the best band since the Sex Pistols and a mix of the Sex Pistols and Joy Division. That was it. We knew there and then that there would be guys in Armani suits coming with checkbooks. Sure as hell, there were.

When I look at the old interviews you guys did for TV, you had a very disenchanted demeanor. Was that an act? Was it youth?

It wasn’t staged. It had to do with being young and being awkward. It was lacking confidence and trying to look incredibly confident. That’s what it was really. We didn’t know how to present ourselves. We just compensated for that. When I look back at those old videos now, I cringe quite a bit. It’s part of growing up.

Early on, with the volume and noise, did you have a negative reaction from venues? And did that change when you became accepted into the mainstream?

There was no kind of period where we were playing and then we were successful. On the Psychocandy tour, I remember there were a lot of PA companies that wouldn’t rent us any equipment because there had been some incidents.

When you look back at the songs now? Are you still excited about them? Are there ones you don’t like play? Are you nervous that you will you get tired of playing these songs every night?

It may, and if it does we’ll stop doing it. But I imagine there’s a ways to go before we get to that point. I remember for a while we used to do “April Skies” at every show. We did it because we thought people expected us to. After awhile, I couldn’t stand the fucking song. So one day I said, “Let’s not do ‘April Skies’” and everyone agreed. Now I quite enjoy doing it again. If it gets to that point we’ll move on and do something else instead.

What’s your favorite Jesus and Mary Chain record?

I don’t know. I don’t have one. Although I don’t have a favorite record, I feel like I still want to bring Munki to people’s attention. It’s the one that got overlooked. It came out at a time when the Mary Chain were falling apart. It came out at a time when we were considered to be uncool. We were considered to be yesterday’s news… at least in the UK. But that one got overlooked and I think it’s at least as good as the other records. I would just love it if it picked up some momentum.

Right after Psychocandy and pioneering that distortion, you immediately went with a quieter sound. Did that have any backlash? When you considered following up Psychocandy was that always how you imagined you’d do it?

At the time we just didn’t know what to do. There’s a two year gap between Psychocandy and Darklands and we just thought what next. There was a vibe in Britain at the time where people thought we shouldn’t ruin it and we should split up and just leave it at that. I thought, “Fuck that.” We want to make more records. But we were generally confused as to what direction to go it. We just knew we didn’t want to make Psychocandy 2 if you know what I mean. So we did something totally different, something that absolutely, unmistakably is NOT Psychocandy. So that was that one. Plus people were always talking about the guitar sound and not the songs, so we thought we should push the songs. That was the thinking really. It was also the bold thing to do. The easy thing to do would be to do another Psychocandy. And we did take a lot of flak for that at the time.

How were the songs written? Did you have your songs and he had his? Did you collaborate?

Well we never really wrote together. We would write together on the b-sides at the studio. He had his songs. And he was always more prolific than me. By the time we got to Darklands, he was in the driver’s seat and I was happy about that. For a long time, I thought as long as a good Mary Chain record is coming out, I don’t care who writes them.

You guys released one song called “All Things Must Pass” back in 2008 with the tease of a potential forthcoming Mary Chain record. Is there one in the works?

We are closer now to making a new Mary Chain record than we ever were. When we got back together we just didn’t know where and how to record a new record. At that time my kids were quite young and I didn’t want to disappear for months on end to make a new album. Then there was also how to record it. William wanted to do it in a studio and I thought we should just make it ourselves with ProTools. Now my kids are a little older and its not as nightmarish as it once seemed. It’s looking good.

What do your children think of you music?

They’re still quite young. They are 8 and 12. They’ve gone from being quite embarrassed to—I wouldn’t say proud—but kind of getting that way. They don’t really get it. They came with me to a festival in Spain and they were astounded that anyone would ask for my autograph.

Jeff Bridges Abides: The Unedited Interview

With the recent release of his new movie, “Seventh Son” and his strange series of zany zen-like internet ads advertising his “Sleeping Tapes,” it seems to be the perfect time to share this unedited interview with the one and only, Jeff Bridges.

Most of us already knew Jeff Bridges as the coolest, most humble mofo in the movie industry, but then he went and added to that image by proving he’s a great musician and songwriter as well. After playing the tragic country music hero and winning an Oscar as Bad Blake in “Crazy Heart,” he soon after presented the world with a stellar self-titled country/folk album. A positive collection of well-constructed songs, Bridges teamed up with producer T. Bone Burnett and proved that he had even more to offer his fans. Hot on the heels of the recent movie, “The Giver,” Bridges somehow found the time to take his band of Abiders on the road this past fall. The show was immensely entertaining and if you were already curious about just how damn cool Bridges is, lets just say that in addition to performing his own songs, he covered Townes Van Zandt’s “To Live is To Fly,” “Looking Out My Back Door,” by Creedence, and sat down at the keyboard for an emotional rendition of a rare Tom Waits song from the “One From the Heart” Soundtrack. Not even Tom plays that one anymore. I was blessed to talk to Mr. Bridges over the phone just a few months ago to ask him about the music and more. Included are exclusive photos I took at his recent performance at the Wilbur Theater in Boston. Ladies and gentleman… Mr. Jeff Bridges….

JB: Hello. Jeff Bridges here. Hey Nolan. Is this Nolan? Hey Nolan, how are you doing?

NG: I’m doing all right. How about yourself?

I’m doing alright.

Gearing up for the new movie I assume?

That’s right. We’re doing a lot of press for that. And we’re prepping for the next tour which is coming up.

When did you start making music? Was it something you did before movies and did you ever have to choose between movies and music? Or was it something that came after?

I’ve been playing since I was 13 or 14, and as far as a time when I wondered if I wanted to go into that, I seriously questioned and asked myself whether acting was going to be my path. And as I grew older it became the path of least resistance. I took that path with the most energy, but the music has always been part of my life. I have a little studio and I like writing music and playing with my friends.

Tell me about the timeline of your self-titled album and your role in “Crazy Heart”. Which came first and did one inspire the other?

“Crazy Heart” came first and it certainly inspired my record. T-Bone Burnett and I have been friends for a very long time and I met him, oh about 30 years ago on “Heaven’s Gate,” and we played a lot of music on that. And that in a way gave birth to “Crazy Heart”. And after “Crazy Heart” was over, I became deep into the music and kinda restarted my musical thinking there and I thought if there was ever a time to live my teenage music dream, that would be the time. So I called up my buddy T-Bone and gave him a bunch of songs that I thought would be good and he liked them and that was that.

 What kind of advice has T-Bone given you over the years that has helped you along the way musically?

He gave me some great advice during “Crazy Heart” that stuck with me through the album as well. T-Bone really likes to make a universe that comes from an alternate universe. When we did the music from “Crazy Heart” he didn’t want to copy anyone’s style, he wanted to make music that was fresh, familiar, but different. He didn’t want it to sound like anyone else. He made me a list of all of the guys that my character Bad Blake would have listened to while growing up in Fort Worth. He knew what he was talking about because that’s where he grew up. He said “you’d be listening to Merle Haggard, Hank Williams and those guys, but you’d also be listening to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the Beatles.” I asked if I’d be listening to Captain Beefheart? And he said “Oh yeah! You’d be listening to Ornette Coleman too.” That was also for the idea for the Jeff Bridges album too. It didn’t have to be a pure country album or a pure anything.

You were also on “Heaven’s Gate” with Kris Kristofferson, and he was someone who went the opposite way—from music to film. Did you learn anything from him? Did he have an impact on you? Was he someone you looked up to that merged the two careers?

He’s a big inspiration as a songwriter. He’s just phenomenal. Getting to act with him is just wonderful and he’s just great in that movie. We saw each other not too long ago at the Austin City Limits 40^th anniversary and we had a great time together.

I read somewhere that when you envisioned the Bad Blake character you envisioned him. Is that true?

That’s not true. He’s certainly one of the guys. I didn’t model it after Kris or anything. Our director Scott Cooper said that Bad Blake was the fifth Highwayman. You know, Willie, Johnny Cash, Kris. Merle Haggard? No, not Merle.

Waylon?

Yeah Waylon! Waylon was it. He was a great, great one.

Bad Blake plays a character who has a rough, rough life and that’s where his songs come from. And I feel a lot of great country musicians get their inspiration from that as well. I don’t want to assume, but I feel like you have a pretty great, relaxing, exciting life. Where do you get your inspiration from? Do you feel the blues? Where do you get your songs from?

Well, I think everybody suffers man. You know, that’s just a part of life. I just kind of pull things from my own life. And things don’t always have to be about struggle. They can be about happy things. I also like working with my friend John Goodwin (misheard as John Goodman for obvious reasons). And we bounce stuff off each other. And things don’t always have to be about struggle. They can be about happy things.

So John Goodman helped you with your songs?

Well no. It’s not John Good MAN, It’s John Good WIN. Yeah those are two different cats.

So how long were these songs in the making? Were they written all at the same time? Were they culled from all over your life?

What songs? From the Jeff Bridges album? Yeah, I don’t remember all the songs on there, but a lot of the songs are older songs that I wrote in the past and I think I did some John Goodwin songs. There’s a song I wrote with T-Bone on the album. I was trying to write a song for Bad Blake, but it didn’t quite work for Bad Blake or that album. It was called “Slow Boat”. I did the lyrics and T-Bone did the lyrics for that.

Were you upset in any way that they didn’t use any of your original songs as the theme to “Crazy Heart”

No, not really. They use a lot of really great songs.

Your first record was very different then your most recent self-titled record? What changed in your songwriting and how do you see the overall change in style?

Well, there are some songs that I wrote on the Jeff Bridges album that are from the same period as the “Be Here Soon” album. With that album a lot of the difference was in the casting of the album. I produced the album with my dear friend and current musical director of the Abiders, Chris Pelonis and Michael McDonald. And both of those people influenced the record quite a bit. And with T-Bone, the band that he uses often became the sound of the Jeff Bridges album. For the “Be Here Soon” record, it was an eclectic mix, it wasn’t any of the people in the Abiders except for Chris. But there are some similarities, but overall the tone is much different on those albums.

Do you remember your first show and what year was it? How old were you?

My first show? The first thing that pops in my head is probably a hootenanny at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. It was with my buddy David Greenwald.

Were you in anyway nervous? Was there a feeling different than being onstage acting?

I find most often that I’m most nervous right before I get on stage and while I’m on stage I’m kind of relaxed. I’m kind of in character.

You’ll always have this place in people’s heart as the “Dude” and I was wondering if that gets old or if you relish it. Then I saw that your band is called the Abiders and realized you must find joy in that.

Hahaha (laughs). Yeah I’m very proud to be part of that film. It’s a wonderful movie. It would be one of my very favorites even if I wasn’t in that film. The Cohen brothers… they’re nasty.

Speaking of the Abiders, do you always tour with the same band or does it change over time and become about who is available?

It’s pretty much the same. Occasionally I tour with T-Bone, with the “Speaking Clock” tour, I toured with Elton John, Leon Russell and Elvis Costello among others. We toured a bit. But I love playing with the Abiders. They’re my homeboys. They’re the cream of the crop.

How many are in the band?

Five all together.

Do you have a favorite person you’ve felt blessed to shared the stage with?

Ah, yeah. A couple come to mind. John Fogerty invited me onstage at Sturgis– you know the big motorcycle festival. That was great. And then I did a movie with Bob Dylan and got to do stuff with him, which was fun.

How do you compare film and music performance? With film its almost like you put it in the oven and see what develops, while with music you get an immediate response. What do you like about each? Do you prefer one over the other?

In a way I look at performing sort of like doing an improvisation with the audience… like we’re working on something together. If the audience enjoys the music it makes me enjoy it more. And vice versa, We feed off each other like that. And that’s like working on a scene with somebody. Because that’s my realm, the acting realm, I think of it in those terms. But it is great to get that immediate feedback.

You’re obviously not Bad Blake in real life. Who do you think most resembles you in a role you have played?

Well, gee I think physically, between movies I let my hair grow and my beard grow because I can always cut it off—so physically it would probably be the Dude. Inside, gee you know I think about the ethics and myself parallel to the character I’m playing. There’s an element of myself in every character. If there are things that are unshared in between me and my character, I kind of kick those to the curb.

You’re playing the Ryman and pretty amazing places like that. Do you feel like you’ve been accepted by the country and folk communities, or do you not even care about that?

I have in my mind been accepted. People I admire dig my stuff. I’m not sure about the whole community. I try not to think too much about that. I try to enjoy myself and have fun.

Is there anyone you’d like to sing alongside that you haven’t been able to yet?

I don’t really don’t think in those terms really. There are so many wonderful artists that I like and respect. I kind of take it as it comes. I’ve been talking to Judy Collins. She’s invited me to sing on an album of duets that she;s putting out.

You’ve been in Boston a bunch for movies. Are there things you like to do while you’re in town?

Boston, oh wow. Boston’s a wonderful place. Unfortunately on tour we don’t have much time to hang out, but there’s that wonderful little park. I’ve made a few movies there. They have swans. It’s not too big a park. I dig Boston a lot. Even when I was making movies I didn’t get to tour around as much as I would have liked to.

So, I read the William Hjortsberg biography of Richard Brautigan…

You read that whole thing. Wow! [Note it’s 864 pages].

So you are mentioned in that book a few times as being part of the Montana Gang when Brautigan was hanging out with the Fondas, Jimmy Buffet, Harry Dean Stanton, Warren Oates and a lot of notable people in Montana. Since I may never get to talk to anyone else who has met Richard Brautigan, I wanted to ask you what he was like.

He was such a great talent. Man those were some times. I met my wife during that period.

What’s your favorite of his books?

I really love the Tokyo-Montana Express. I feel like he fits so much into just a few words and simple sentence structure.

Oh yeah, that book is like poetry. He was just such a great talent. I always thought me and my brother would make a movie out of “Hawkline Monster,” but we might be getting too old at this point.

Ok, last question. I have to ask… What are your true feeling about the band the Eagles. Do you really hate the f**king Eagles?

That’s not me. That’s the dude, man. I ran into those guys at a party and those guys gave me a lot of shit. I said don’t take it personally man. It’s a movie man. The Eagles are fine. I dig Creedence too.

Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s… The One That Got Away in 2014

When the end-of-year “Best Of” lists came out in December, every publication seemed to have the same mediocre picks at the top. For the most part, it was a year where middle-of-the-road reigned supreme. It seemed every publication felt the need to put the same records in the top 10. Not that those records aren’t good… or even great, but very few of them got stuck in my head… certainly not the way Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s “Slingshot to Heaven” did. The band’s records have always combined infectious pop hooks with an inherent evil and riddled lyrics that you may not understand, but you also cannot shake. Nobody ranked this record at the top, but it never left heavy rotation in my 2014. I think it’s time the record got it’s due.

I interviewed Richard Edwards back in early 2014 for the Boston, NYC and Philly Metro Newspapers to talk about “Slingshot to Heaven.” It was an interview long in the making, While the conversation is dated, it still seems relevant, and these exclusive photos live from the Middle East in Cambridge should provide some proof of the band’s prowess. Enjoy.

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Richard Edwards makes music on his own terms. You could see it early in his career, but his hands-on, no-compromise mentality toward his recordings and releases has only become more pronounced over time. As the founder and lead singer of Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, Edwards took the money from the advance on his debut record and built his own studio. He signed to Epic records for his second album in 2008. When the record company didn’t like his song selection, he convinced them to release two records simultaneously. “Animal” was his ideal release, while “Not Animal” was Epic’s chosen offering. From then on, Edwards and the band have gone on to self-release three records on their own label, Mariel Recordings. This interview was conducted shortly before the release of their latest, “Slingshot to Heaven.”

How far along is the record? I know the songs are done, but as far as putting it out do you have a precise date?

April 22.

So you’re doing special online release options where you can pick and choose some rare treats. Do you want to talk about that at all?

Well we finished the record almost a year ago. That usually happens with us and we just figure we’ll have to sit on it for a minute. We release our own stuff, but we go through a distributor and all, so there is a long process of getting records set up that maybe doesn’t exist for other bands who just hand it to the label. So I think we were just going to think of projects to keep that momentum and to keep boredom from setting in. The idea was to shoot these songs in one-take performances that were stripped down and taken with 16mm. I have a friend in Chicago who has these cameras and he’s also very generous about letting people use them—especially people who don’t know what they’re doing–which is a dangerous thing when you’re talking about an old Éclair. So he lent us these cameras and it sort of snowballed into being almost the whole record performed on 16mm… which turned into a 40 minute set. It was just colored in Chicago at Film Workers. So yeah it’s done. It turned into a much bigger project than making the record, which it wasn’t supposed to but…

Is the cover of the album a still from the movie? Or something else?

No, I wish it was. I just decided that this was the cover I wanted. My friend Bart, who is a really good photographer, just decided to go out there at the Golden Gate Bridge every day for a couple of weeks–just waiting for it to be an overcast day, which can be hard to find. He just had a bunch of rolls of film for me on a day that was overcast and we put together that cover which is the first image we had when we started recording.

And you guys recorded again on tape, right?

Yeah, which we’ve done before, but this time we didn’t use any computers at all, which made it different than any way we’ve recorded in the past.

Between that and the 16mm film and the cover photo, would you say you have an affinity for the analog and beauty of the old style?

Yeah we do. I don’t think it’s political or anything. The idea to not use computers was Tyler’s idea. We always like using tape because I’m one of those people who thinks you can tell the difference. Tyler, the bass player and engineer, wanted a challenge– which we always try and do to sharpen our focus. His idea was that we finally have this studio set up to do primarily analog recordings so why are we fucking around with the monitor and sending that into ProTools. So he just wanted to try it and it was my favorite way of recording so far. It definitely makes a difference on focused performance, I think.

So, from what I remember, when Rot Gut Domestic came out, you had said it was going to be part of a 3 record trilogy. Is this record the third part or was that idea sort of abandoned?

It was supposed to be; I think it kind of works out that way because this record happened in my 20’s right before I turned 30. It feels that way to me, but sonically they don’t hold together as a trilogy so much. With the musical vibe I think it’s important to make records that radically depart from one another. Thematically I think it works like that still, but sonically if you put Buzzard on and then this one it wouldn’t make sense I guess.

What would make them a trilogy? Is it just times and age?

I just considered it when I started doing it…. It’s like a growing up trilogy. The first 2 or 2.5 records seem like their own thing to the extent that the band name could have even changed after that. I like the idea, whether good or bad, from when you’re young to when you’re older, of housing it under one name. But after those records, starting with Buzzard, the band was moving on. We weren’t living in a flophouse anymore. I had a baby in 2009. Then this one ends and I just turned 30, which isn’t a big deal, but it did seem like a growing up or that something else is starting.

These songs all sound a little more quiet and stripped down than some of your other records. Would you agree with that and was that a conscious decision or the evolution of songwriting for you?

It was just the evolution of songwriting for this one. I’ve already written the next one– and it’s rowdy– not as rowdy as Buzzard is– but it’s pretty up-tempo and a pretty pronounced pop thing, which I like. With this one, I think the reason it ended up that way– it was constantly brought up while we were recording– that this was becoming a pretty mid-tempo affair. At some point you just have to say, “this is what it is.” My friend Cami and I sat around a lot and played the songs on acoustic guitar and sort of arranged them before we started, and that really set the tone for what ended up happening in the studio. We were listening back to the demos done that way and we were encouraged to keep writing. I sort of unconsciously continued to write songs that I thought would feel nice to play with my friends in my living room. That’s the only thing I think that would have pushed the songs in that way. There’s definitely not a place in the writing process to take a sharp turn.

I’ve always found your lyrics very intriguing; this album seems a little more straightforward, maybe a slightly less riddled…

I’m not sure. There’s not “out there” stuff like “Tiny Vampire Robot,” but still when I hear “Long-legged Blonde” I am reminded that I’m always getting yelled at by the publishing company at how unplaceable my lyrics are, so it’s hard to differentiate between weirdness. But yeah, it’s a little bit narrative based.

There are references to San Francisco and Los Angeles, but you’re still in Indiana, right?

I was in Chicago for 5 or 6 years, but yeah, now I’m in Indiana.

Are these travelogues? Are you inspired to move to California?

I don’t know. I think I’m still figuring out stuff about what I write. It’s like “oh shit we have like 5 songs referencing how I want to move to California.” And the first record I did was always New York, New York, New York. When I wasn’t on tour, I would just fly to New York and stay on people’s couches. Maybe with this one it’s because the winter was so bad. I listen to a lot of modern country radio when I’m driving, like Hank FM. Really, really modern, “country” in quotes. And so, for a long time, I thought, I’ll make a new record, and if this one does okay I’m going to move to LA and write songs for Kenny Chesney or something like that. It was actually something I really wanted to do. It would also be nice to be a little warmer than I’ve been for the past few weeks.

Yeah, you guys have been getting hit pretty hard up there, huh?

Yeah it’s been rougher than I can remember.

Tell me about the evolution of the band personnel-wise. I hear a female singer, but haven’t seen any women on stage when you perform. Is there a recording band versus a touring band?

There’s a girl coming back in, but I’ve been musically very promiscuous when it comes to touring since that first band dissolved. By design– I guess just like getting divorced– I want to do what I want to do and whomever I want to do it with. This time around I sort of stumbled on my dream band, but I’m sure that will change because everybody’s got to do there own thing. But I’ve had a pretty steady group of touring musicians since the old band and a lot of those people play on the records too. I generally bring in one other guitarist, and usually a female singer that I collaborate with the harmony treatments. But I think the next record will pretty much be the same band as on this record, but will be a faster tempo record.

How has self-releasing been going and does this all go back to the bad experience early on with Epic?

I think it’s a mixture of things. There aren’t very many people knocking on our door. You know what I mean? We are in a position where we have a small, passionate fanbase, but it’s not certainly big in the traditional sense. I never really considered the Sony thing that bad. They released the thing that I wanted them to release. I know some people get really pissed off when they don’t think the label is doing what they can to promote the record. I just don’t really care about any of that. As long as I can make it. So that’s fine. But as far as self-releasing, I really wish we had done it from the beginning, because I really underestimated the pride in owning the shit that you do. When I have a stack of things that I’ve made, even if they’re not really worth that much, it’s really, really important for me to own it. It’s amazing to me that there was a period in my life where I thought ‘Yeah $50,000 it’s yours.” It’s so little money and what does it last 8 people? A year maybe? So that side of it, I wouldn’t be opposed to working with a label. We almost did with Rot Gut, we almost did with Buzzard, but I can’t see us ever again where I wouldn’t want to own it. That means a lot to me as I get older.

Is it an added difficulty when you’re self-releasing? Is there an added amount of personal work you’re doing it on your own, or even just for it to get heard or distributed?

Yeah there’s a part of that for sure. And this time there’s been more than I’ve ever had because the guy in the band who always helped us with that is sort of a grownup now and has a job. So a lot of it is on me now, but at the same time, I sort of like that work. I like boxing those records as much, or more than I like making records. My head hurts so much that I just want mindless work where I don’t get stuck inside the pattern of thought that I’m always in. Some of that mindless stuff I sort of enjoy and I find gratifying. It’s super, super cheesy, but it’s like I have a small business and the act of transporting these records to people has some sort of meaning to me as I get older. You get meaning from a lot of lame stuff as you get older.

Where did the title of the DVD portion of the record come from [“Tell Me More About Evil”]?

I think I told my friend– the movie ended up demented and scary in this way and I told my friend Heidi who is simultaneously trying to make her own record. She’s a really, really good songwriter who always has trouble finishing a record. She’ll always have mixes and she always needs one more song mix and that’s enough to derail the whole thing. I think I told her something like her record needed a little more evil in the songs.

I found the title intriguing because your songs have always had this strange inherent evil to them. So that must be something your aware of?

I think it gets more skillfully articulated as I get older, but there’s always sort of like a Catholic/Christian guilt thing, a mixture between that which most people don’t shake, even as they get older and cast that stuff aside. I’ve always just sort of said that I like writing hit songs for the same reasons that I admire Robert Crumb. It doesn’t mean that I like everything that he draws, but I like writing songs that feel, both better and worse, are real reflections of how young men think and behave. Not all of those, not most of those, especially now are pulled from my life. I have a 4-year-old daughter and I’m very much in a situation where I’m a dad. But I also don’t ever want to mellow that stuff because I’m not somebody whose brain changed when I had a kid. Of course it did in tons of ways, but it did not change that part of me that’s super fucked up and gross. Part of the problem with the world, like the problem between men and women, is I think that I think just this thought is doing harm to like …the times. You know? I embellish a lot of things too. I always wanted to make songs that… I just never wanted to make myself look good, but maybe I should do more of that. I want to try and be honest, especially now more than ever, every problem with society is boiled down to “10 things you need to know about a failed something”. You know, “mean culture.” I feel like its changing actual meaning… I’m just rambling now. I’m saying something I don’t have words for. I just think it’s important, now more than ever, to just be honest and stuff. People need to be honest with themselves before they get on a soapbox about what’s wrong about the rest of our culture. If I was a little less shitty of a person, some of this would be better just by that.

Does your daughter like your music?

My daughter– she likes it a lot, but the two songs I’ve written that have any meaning are “Getting Fat” and “Prozac Rock”. For whatever reason, those are the two. She likes them and she likes hearing them in the car and she gets a kick if she’s at her friend’s house and it comes on Pandora she gets excited. She likes a lot of music. She’s pretty well-rounded. She can listen to Merle Haggard and she can still listen to the Frozen soundtrack. I suspect in 3 or 4 years it’ll be no more Merle Haggard.

For more info: http://margotandthenuclearsoandsos.com/

A John Waters Christmas: The Complete Interview

 

Over his career, John Waters accomplished the seemingly impossible. The cult director and lo-fi shock artist with a focus on exaggerated filth and humor has, in time, gained a following so large that he’s become a reference point for the mainstream. With a cinematic resume that includes infamous works like “Pink Flamingos” and more accessible, but still edgy films such as “Hairspray,” “Cry Baby” and “Pecker,” John Waters’ films have made him a pioneer in well-crafted unsavory cinema.

Granted the public perception of filth has gotten filthier over the years, Waters has always been a reference point in the irreverent arts. In addition to his 16 films, Waters has written five books, the most recent was a New York Times Bestseller called “Carsick” in which documents his cross-country hitchhiking trek from Maryland to California. Every December, Mr. Waters makes his rounds for “A John Waters Christmas” where he combines storytelling and stand-up comedy as a way for fans to brace and embrace the upcoming holiday season. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. John Waters.

Mr. Waters?

Yeaaasssssss.

This is Nolan from Boston. How are you?

I’m well. From the Metro right.

Yes sir. How was your Thanksgiving?

It was very nice. I just got back from visiting my sisters in Virginia. It was very nice. Then tomorrow I start 17 cities. So the calm before the…. You know you and I may be the only ones working today. I’m getting ready and trying to get all Christmas-y even though my first shows are in Southern California, which makes it all the more surreal. I love to the Scientology Center on Hollywood Boulevard because they decorate with fake snow.

What does Christmas mean to you and when did you decide to take it on? Some people consider that the Holy Grail of the entertainment industry.

Well I took it on the way Johnny Mathis took it on– only the opposite way. I wrote a book called “Crackpot” and I had a chapter on why I love Christmas, and I think it sort of started there. I mean I DO love Christmas. Now I love it because I have 17 jobs. I’m always like a drag queen on Halloween; if it’s Christmas I’m working. I tour up until the night before I throw my annual Christmas Party which I’ve had for 45 years. It’s a busy month and then I’m always shocked when I’m on the road when it really is Christmas. I think of Christmas now as my material. Then I think, “oh you have to go shopping. You have to do it too.” So I give advice to everybody about how to get through it, the only person who I don’t give advice to it is me. But somehow I manage.

Is there a fine line between reverence and irreverence?

My show is. My show is for people who love it and who hate it. I understand if I wasn’t Christian that I would be pissed off looking at a Nativity scene in front of the State Capitol. And I am against that. But I do go, like a crazy person goes to haunted houses on Halloween, I go to living crèches because they are the scariest things in the world to me. I’m a connoisseurs of bad human crèches.

Do you have fond memories of Christmas growing up? Was it a big deal for you?

Yes it was a very big deal. Nothing bad ever happened on Christmas except a Christmas tree did fall on my grandmother. But that turned out to be good because I based a scene on it in “Female Trouble,” a very popular scene. My grandmother eventually thought it was funny that it left such a memory on me. People around the country tell me how that happened to them as well. It turns out that happens a lot. I didn’t realize this. I thought we were the only Christmas where the tree fell on my grandmother. But the tree falls over a lot. It’s a common trauma. I tell people they should rig the tree so it falls at the height of opening presents so you can all embrace for a Kodak moment at the fallen tree.

Do you every have problems with audience members?

No, the only problems are with people that are such fans that they’ve been there for hours waiting to get in and they’re drunk. Then they’re in the first row and they applaud too much at what I’m saying and then at the time it’s supposed to be funny they’re passed out. But they’re not really a problem. I’ve never had a problem. If people are coming to see the John Waters Christmas, they pretty much know what they’re getting in to.

Do you have any standout Christmas memories outside of the tree falling on your grandma?

For me it’s for when I sell out a show. I sold out the Sydney Opera House one year. When it comes to Christmas when I was young, it has to do with photographs. If your parents kept photos of you—and during the radical 60’s nobody took pictures of their children because they hated how you looked. So I wish I had pictures of me in front of the stockings that I did with my brothers and sisters when I looked like a yippy. They never took them then. I like those pictures in front of the mantle with the stockings. One year I got “The Genius of Ray Charles” album when I was really young and a hand puppet. So that was exciting. I used to get a carton of Kool’s in my stocking. That was exciting. My mother was very strict and that was thought of as normal? I wish I had a picture of that. It’s really like an art piece. Can you imagine that? Giving a child a cartoon of Kool’s for Christmas. She’d probably be arrested if she did that today. I’m also so amazed that they still have candy cigarettes. I like giving those to children around Christmas. I can’t believe they still allow those to be on the market. It is really like training. They give out that smoke from the sugar. I’m shocked that they still allow that. Michelle Obama missed that one. You can’t even have large sodas, but you can have candy cigarettes. It’s like why gay people can’t be married in 13 states, but Manson can.

So you go right up to Christmas and then have a proper celebration?

Yes I do. I have two sisters and a brother still living and we switch turns. It’s not my turn this year. I like hosting it though. I cook a dinner and do the whole thing. Sadly, and you’d probably be shocked, but my Christmas can be very traditional.

What are your thoughts on Christmas music? I know you curated a Christmas album. But do they get to you? Do you really deep down like Christmas music?

Yeah those have always been my favorite Christmas songs. “Happy Birthday Jesus,” “Santa Claus is a Black Man,” “Fat Daddy” by Fat Daddy, who was a big black deejay in Baltimore when they first did Negro day and the show that I based “Hairspray” on. I still love Christmas songs. There aren’t enough of them. Why doesn’t Future Islands have one? Just think how great Sam Herring would be singing “O, Little Town of Bethlehem.”

So you had a children’s Christmas movie that you were going to do. Has that officially been abandoned?

No, I’m still pregnant with it for five years and I still don’t want an abortion. That’s the only time I’m pro-life.

Can you talk a little bit about it?

Oh, it’s SO boring. I’ve talked about it for five years so it’s such old news. But I will talk about it if you want. It’s about a happy family of meat thieves in Baltimore on Christmas Eve when they’re out stealing. It’s a terribly wonderful children’s Christmas adventure. We’ll see; it could get made.

Are you stepping away from movies in general? Is there a reason you haven’t been focusing on that medium?

Well, there’s one main reason and that’s that no one is giving me the money to make them. It’s not about stepping away, it’s like unemployment, but they don’t have an unemployment line. I’ve always had many careers and I’ve done books. My last book was a best seller, all of my other books are still in print and I have a spoken word show the rest of the year called “John Waters’ Filthy World” as well as my Christmas show. So I’m fine. If I never make another movie, I’ve got 16 of them, it’s not like I haven’t spoken. But I am still in the middle of trying to do a TV show and another movie. We’ll see.

What did you learn from doing the hitchhiking book?

Well, I learned I’ll never be stuck, because no matter what– if I don’t have any money, if I lose my passport, if I lose everything– I will be able to hitchhike. It reinforced everything I’ve ever believed, that people are good people. I had a great time. It was more insane thinking up the fictional parts of the book about the worst that could happen and the best. It was definitely more extreme than the part of the book of what actually happened. The cliché of middle America was completely belied by all the people I met. Yes they were middle Americans, but the things they believed were sometimes so unpredictable. The kinds of people who pick up hitchhikers are a special breed of people.

Did doing the hitchhiking book lead to any inspirations as to what you’re going to do next?

I joke in the book that for the next book I’m going to take every drug I’ve ever taken in the order I took it. But I really don’t think that’ll happen. I really can’t imagine tripping at 70. Although… the idea itself is intriguing. I never had a bad experience with LSD so I don’t why I would now. I always say I’m not going to tell young people that, but I just did.

Do you have another book in the works other than that one?

No I do not. Not yet. I just came back from the London book tour. I have the Christmas tour. I have a big art show in New York, and after that I will determine what happens next.

Does Baltimore still inspire you?

Oh completely. I live a couple of places, but it’s more than ever my favorite. I get good ideas here. It’s the last city on the East Coast where it’s possible to be a bohemian anymore.

I lived in Phoenix, Maryland, but I was too young to have never seen Pink Flamingos or even know it was filmed there…

Oh I thought you were talking about Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, if you follow the directions in the movie, it’s exactly where the trailer was and I went there recently. It’s now the lawn of a big mansion. But you can see in their lawn, it’s discolored where the trailer was and it’s like an Indian burial ground. I went up to the door to tell them. Little do they know that the fumes of filth are still on their lawn coming out. I want people to make little spiritual visits. My friend Bob Adams used to live there, but if you walked up into the woods behind it– we had to build a path– but that’s where the trailer was. Now in the woods where that house was there’s a suburban development of McMansions.

Are you surprised as a cult director that the cult would become so big that it’s even part of the mainstream repertoire?

How long it lasted? It has made its way into the mainstream. I’m an insider now– the final irony in my life. Am I surprised? Yes, I’m surprised Pink Flamingos is shown on television. Yes I’m surprised that I got a check for Pink Flamingos playing in Venezuela. What do they tell people? “This is capitalism and people eat shit there?!” I don’t know why. It’s a hit in Venezuela, on television. I don’t understand that. But I’m happy.

Do you have your own idea of what your legacy is?

My legacy? Just hope you have one is what people say. History will be the judge of that. Who knows what will last. It’s amazing the things from when I was young that people don’t remember now. You don’t know what will happen. But by then I’ll be dead so it doesn’t really matter. I’ve already bought my grave. It’s in the same graveyard as Divine. Mink bought one… Pat Moran. We’re all going to be buried there and it’s Disgraceland: my final dissipation.