Jello Biafra / Boulder / 14 January 1999

This interview took place over the phone, even though I was in Denver and Jello was up in Boulder, visiting his parents – he was born there in 1958 as Eric Boucher. It was sort of a sad trip as his sister, Julie, had died in 1996 while mountain-climbing in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area not far away. At the time, he’d just released If Evolution is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Evolve, pretty much comprising Biafra’s lawless, Green-Party rants. It was early in 1999, before the Y2K insanity, and we talk a lot about the politics of the hour (including Jesse Ventura and Bill Owens) since this was not long after the Clinton BJ tour, and, of course,  the big story of the day – the little dead beauty queen.


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How has Boulder changed since you were a kid?

Well -- that could fill a few volumes of an encyclopedia, now, couldn't it? The "new prosperity." To start, I saw Boulder go through three cycles when I was younger. First it was kind of a sleepy mountain and college town back when Canyon Blvd. was a four-lane gravel road called Water St. with a railroad track down the middle of it. A babysitter even took me horseback riding in a meadow where Crossroads Mall now stands.

Then by the late 60s and early 70s, it got really wild. The anti-Vietnam war fever was in the air, and there were as many as 10,000 or 20,000 hippies who descended on Boulder each year, and this was back at a time when hippies actually scared people -- and that was the most fun. And by the time I was old enough to participate in things like that, the 70s had hit, and no, it wasn't anything like That 70s Show or whatever, it was more disgusting and more stale in a way, some of the people who were more successful at dealing drugs and what-not began buying up areas downtown and opening their all-natural-$50-candle gift shops and things like that. And it was then that Boulder began to be a snooty, self-absorbed place, but the Aspen-ization has become more intense each time I've been back.

I wrote "California Uber Alles" partly in reaction to Boulder, and the same goes for "Holiday In Cambodia" and "Terminal Preppie." For "California" maybe I was a little off-base on the focus on Jerry Brown, but I stand by most of what the song says as far as escapist new age attitudes and yuppie consumption being a one way ticket to fascism and the terms "new age” and "yuppie” hadn't even been invented at that point.

When did you leave Boulder for good?

I left in 78.

What impact do you think new Republican governor Bill Owens will have on development?

You're going to see a lot more coming in, I think. The last Republican governor was John Love, who ran under the motto "Sell Colorado," and sell it he did. He and his developer friends made a butt-load of money as more and more highways and ski areas went up. To some degree, I suppose that was inevitable -- no one wants to languish in Southern California or New Jersey forever when they have the money to move somewhere else. But nevertheless, the corridor between Boulder and Denver is just one SoCal strip mall after another. And believe, me there's more to come. Even now, when you go on top of Flagstaff Mountain, instead of seeing splotches of light at night from little towns in this big black void, now it's one big soup of suburban street life.

Have you found any music back here in Boulder or Denver that you’re into? Have you heard 16 Horsepower?

One of the most interesting things -- anywhere in the world right now -- is 16 Horsepower. They're one of my favorite bands in the world.

Do you support the recent burning of a under-construction ski resort in Vail?

No. I think it was a colossal tactical error, because now the straight media is painting all kinds of environmental activists and direct-action groups like Earth First! as eco-terrorists. They immediately tried to pin the torching of that ski lodge on a lot of other people who don't work that way. When you do something like that, it sets the public’s support for radical environmentalism back 20 years! You're never going to get a majority of people in a comfort-obsessed country like this one supporting torching ski lodges in order to save wild cats!

What will happen to Colorado? Will the mountains be turned into huge parking lots?

Either that or the canyons will be filled up with the carcasses of SUVs that rolled off the road when their smug, know-nothing drivers who think they’re so tough in their yuppie Cadillacs that they don’t have to slow down for curves on icy roads, that the rules of the road don't apply to them. It's a common illness among SUV drivers.


Have you read about the recent cult member story with the connection to Colorado? You heard about this guy, Monte Kim Miller?

He comes across as the classic messianic con man to me. He doesn’t seem to quite have the sense of fun that David Koresh did, though. I can't visualize Monte Kim Miller defiling young girls beneath posters of Megadeth and Metallica in his bedroom.

Politicians and entertainers are really converging – look at Jesse Ventura.

I'm amused by the whole thing. Granted, Ventura may not be funny once he starts trying to govern -- after all, he's a right-wing Libertarian who doesn’t believe in gun laws or funding projects for the public good. But how strong a message is it that both the Democrats and Republicans are both morally bankrupt, pushing roughly the same corrupt corporate agenda? When people get so frustrated they go out and elect a wrestler as governor! That's a far heavier statement on the bankruptcy of our two corporate parties than the impeachment circus could ever hope to be.

How many years will it take before Americans want to rebel against Tweedle-dee/Tweedle-dum system?

I have no idea how it'll end up. The fact that people aren’t tuning in everyday and sitting on the edge of their chair like they did during the Senate Watergate committee hearings speaks volumes. It's just one more scene in a Fellini movie on the fall of Rome masquerading as the United States government. What really irritates me is that Reagan and Bush got away with so many really heavy bad-ass things -- and they did not get impeached. The same corporate media who are raking Clinton over the coals went out of their way to pat Oliver North on the head and crown him a patriotic hero and a real-life James Bond, and to let Reagan and Bush get away with assassinating hundreds of people in Panama and Nicaragua and turning a blind eye to people running drugs into this country to finance the Contras. Pentagon corruption on a scale that can scarcely be believed.

Maybe the real reason to impeach Clinton was he didn't pursue the scandals after he got in. All the investigation into that kind of corruption was dropped. That's one of 500 reasons to impeach Clinton, but of course, people picked the stupid one. Monica's magic orifice doesn’t bother me a bit. The reason you find his ratings so high in these supposed polls (and I've never met somebody who was actually called by a pollster) as soon as the Monica gets splashed across the tabloids, Clinton's ratings go up -- as if America's shouting in unison, "Sure, I'd fuck her, too."

No one is turned on by it more than the Republican Puritans. But they do it all behind closed doors.

I think the majority of America was relieved when they found Clinton had his Monica. After all, look what happens when you have a president who never gets laid: You get Nixon! Vietnam and Cambodia haven't even begun to recover from him.

What’s your current show about?

I call it double-barreled info-tainment. It's very information-oriented and talking in more detail about the stuff we've just talked about already. The slow but sure slide into what I consider to be corporate dictatorship at this point. And to some degree, what each of us can do about it -- or to at least survive it.

How has the internet changed things for Alternative Tentacles?

I’m not a net junkie myself; I don’t even have a computer. For other people it’s a great service. I think the information should continue to flow freely and uncensored but that also means that people have a responsibility to use it intelligently -- as in, don’t believe every damn thing you read on the internet! About a year ago, there was a hot debate on the net about my recent shooting death! All it takes is one idiot when you're dealing with small-town gossip on a world-wide scale through cyberspace. That's where people have to take more responsibility to be more of an equalizing power. If something sounds too good or too wild to be true, check it out! Get a second opinion, confirm it before you blab it to everybody else. Some people abuse it to the point that it reminds me of the CB radio craze in the 1970s. "You know, "Breaker, breaker good buddy! Am I talking to a real trucker?" How different is that from people sitting at home thinking, "Wow! Cool, I'm online with Courtney Love?"

Can you discuss the disagreement Alternative Tentacles had years ago with the magazine Maximum Rock and Roll?

That’s kind of old news by now, but they became much more orthodox, fundamentalist and lock-step conservative, and they didn’t want to advertise anything they didn't think was “punk.” And we were only allowed to advertise DOA after that, so we just pulled our ads. I don't support punk fundamentalism any more that I would support Focus On The Family.

Do you feel compassion for people less fortunate?

Uh, in some ways. Yeah, it's an ongoing battle between compassion on hand and total disgust for the human race on the other hand. Maybe the compassion fuels the disgust, I don't know.

Well, thanks a lot, Jello.

You left out the other big Boulder story!

Well, hey -- unless you did it, what else is there to say about it?

Well, I get asked about it by people who know nothing else about Boulder than Jon Benet Ramsey. They know nothing else about Boulder or Colorado but they're all interested in Jon Benet. I'm waiting for the movie with John Travolta as Pa Ramsey and Celine Dion as the mom! How the hell should I know what happened? They never invited me to their showy party! That's what creeped me out when I first heard about it --finding out how rich they were, and here they were six blocks away from the house I grew up in! I was like, "Oh my god, there goes the neighborhood! These people are loaded and dull! They don't belong here! In a way, they seemed almost too Boulder.

It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here ever again.

You’ve talked about “wealth addiction” before.

The part of it that scares me is the mentality that says, "Who cares if a few people die as long as I make money?" Crack addiction ain’t done a granule as much damage to the world as wealth addiction has. After a while, people who've made a butt-load of money get all paranoid about the people down below, number one, and they get bored, and the only game they have left that's any fun for them is how to screw over more people so they can make more money.







(Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.)

The end of TG? Peter Christopherson 1955-2010

Throbbing Gristle fans may not have been surprised when "leader" Genesis P. Orridge walked away from the band last month -- he used to pull that stunt all the time. But they were likely shocked to find out that Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson died this week. 

My colleague Hans Mogernstern put together a nice obit over on his blog, with some video of a Throbbing Gristle performance. 

It's worth noting that in addition to TG, Christopherson produced some amazing work with his band Coil. Their take on "Tainted Love" is utterly twisted -- they slowed it down and turned the song into a haunted elegy to friends taken out by AIDS. Here's the song, in a Christopherson-directed clip.

Plus, Sleazy's output as a video director was all over the map. The man made videos for Hanson and Rage Against the Machine, The The and Van Halen ... one for Front 242 and another for Barry Gibb.

And what of his album cover designs? During the years he worked for Hipgnosis, he sure produced a few gems (see below).

(Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.)

Mike Patton / Mr Bungle October 99

At the time, I wasn't as much of a fan of this guy as I should have been. I still think California is a monster of an album, a kind of Martin Denny/Les Baxterized slice of the surreal West Coast. It's a nice kiss-off to the Chili Peppers, who get dissed majorly in this interview. Years later, after getting into Fantomas, I realized the composer Patton has become is much more than just a parallel-universe Danny Elfman. He's one-of-a-kind, all right. I wonder if Anthony Keidis is still trying to side-swipe him?
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This new album, California -- more sane and less profane?

I don’t know. The only thing I can really say about it is there are more songs on this record than we’ve ever written together in the past. When we started writing for this record it became apparent that we were all writing in the song form more than we ever had, and we said, Hey, it would be fun to do a record of songs.” As opposed to operettas or jazz improvs, or you know. Noise pieces, whatever the hell you want to call ‘em. And so we thought the stuff seemed really strong and we stuck with it. It felt natural. An electro-acoustic noise piece, or whatever, just wouldn’t fit on this record. I don’t know if you’d agree with that or not but every record is its own universe, we don’t think about whether or not it fits into the grand scheme of what Mr. Bungle is or, oh gee, you know, we didn’t represent with the chaos! Or we didn’t do  this or we didn’t do that. Basically, that stuff doesn’t matter to us. Each record is its own little world and requires its own little special things and you use special tools to get those things. And that’s pretty much it. Another thing that ties this together is that there’s a shitload of vocals, way more than I’d ever done with Mr. Bungle before. The layering and stuff like that, not just the vocals, all the instruments...like the song “Sweet Charity.” If someone was going to try and remix that song, I’d pray for them. One on track alone is a harmony vocal, then all of a sudden it’s a glockenspiel for two notes, then it turns into a hand drum and then it turns into a guitar part that lasts for 30 seconds. It’s a disaster.

Are you trying to uphold the ideals of Frank Zappa?

I don’t know. I haven’t really got a good answer for the Zappa question yet. I should, because, boy, we get that question a lot. The funny thing is, I mean, I like Frank Zappa, I like some of his records, but he never really blew my head off when I was young or even now. I’ll listen to certain records and they’re really great, but none of us are really huge Zappa fans. I don’t think we’re anywhere near to where that guy got — I mean, that guy worked with everybody and worked in a thousand different genres and he had his own thing going. I don’t really know if what we’re doing is like what he did or what. I don’t really have a good answer for that.

Do you ever feel like a soundtrack composer?

Yeah, that feels natural. I don’t think we’ve ever sat down and said, “Hey, let's try to be composers.” You realize that it’s not just as simple as four rock and roll guys going into a room and jamming out and emerging with a golden egg — it just doesn’t happen like that for us anymore. At least for me, I can’t do it anymore. I prefer to sit down with a cup of coffee on my own and work out a shitload of ideas and then over-layer and over-orchestrate them and that feels right to me. We all did that on this record. There’s something that’s akin to being a soundtrack composer, definitely more than, like, say, No Doubt or something!

That’s almost at odds with playing giant festivals.

It’s funny, because we’ve put this record out and we’ve gone on some tours but we’re going to be playing some festivals in Europe and it’d be nice to get in front of some new people. Which means opening for a bigger band. Gee, who the fuck are we gonna open for? Hmmmm? We talked about doing the Warped Tour over there, playing in front of a bunch of kids. Think about it—Ice T, Suicidal Tendencies, Blink 182, us.... It’s three in the afternoon and kids just want to slam their heads against the wall and fuckin’ drink warm beer! They don’t want to listen to our shit!

Love the ironic/nostalgic Christopher Cross/Pablo Cruise look for the LP cover.

It’s a 70s graphic that we took and manipulated a bit, but it’s not making a specific reference.

Does the title California have a deeper symbolic meaning?

Oh well. Dangerous to over-think that kind of shit, I would say. I think that more than anything that title really sums up sonically what’s going on on the record. It’s very pleasant at times -- and then there’s a lot of little disasters that come up and present themselves, and then blow over and go away like a storm. I would tend to explain it more like that rather than, “Oh, California is this very deceptive place, it’s bright on the outside and a really dark place on the inside.” I mean, let’s let the Chili Peppers do that.

Do you ever read what’s going on, with people talking about you on the internet? Did you know you have your own newsgroup?

I have. I do. It’s a little spooky, to tell you the truth -- I don’t enjoy it. I’ve been on there with my wife who’s said, “Oh, look at this!” We’ve had a laugh for a minute and then it’s like, I’ve got to turn it off. I mean, when it’s about really important things like, “Gee, does Mike wash his hair? What kind of gel does he use?”

Does he really play instruments?

Thirty people discussing the meaning of lyrics. It’s pretty odd. Snooping around and seeing what people are saying about me— I get spooked really easily doing that. It’s kind of like bad voodoo for me, reading that shit.

Um-hmm. Everything that's on the album -- can it all be reproduced onstage?

We use samplers a lot, for the new material we’re using samplers more than we ever have. There’s a lot of instruments. We have four keyboards triggering samples on stage. There’s definitely some Jan & Dean moments. If one cord comes unplugged, certain songs can’t be played. When we write music we don’t think about playing it live, because that’s a no-no. I totally am not into that. So what you do is you make a great records and then figure out how you’re going to play it live. And certain songs you can’t play live, it’s just better to leave them alone. Other ones we did extensive sampling to recreate those sounds, and others we rearrnged for a live context. We had to take out things like 30 vocal overdubs, parts that would be Milli Vanilli we cut out of the songs.

Think there’s a lot of jazz snobs getting into Mr. Bungle through John Zorn?

I hope so. To be honest, I don’t hear from a lot of people like that, no. I definitely don’t get a lot of jazz snobs.

I’ve met some women who are into Mr Bungle, but most of your audience seems to be male.

Seems to be. I don’t like to think about who’s out there. It scares me.

Really?

Really (nervous laugh). Sometimes I would just rather look the other way. I think that sometimes the more you know the more it can really influence what you do, and I’d rather not know. I know for years of playing with Faith No More it was really like a teenage dude thing. And I know there’s a significant amount of that in the Mr. Bungle audience, too. I just hope that there’s a lot of different people out there who all like it for their own reasons. That’s the most I can hope for. But I think you’re probably right — I think our audience is mostly sweaty. pimply-faced guys.

Faith No More is no more – are you proud of how much public interest still remains?

I think it’s strange, because we’ve been defunct for nearly two years now, so it’s surprising. It’s funny. But I’m definitely glad it’s over, It was a great thing while it lasted and it really had to end, I think if it had continued it would have gotten really ugly. No fistfights or bloody noses or anything like that, but I think the music would have been substandard, the music would have suffered. So the line must be drawn there.

Does it feel like there’s been overlap? Or is this a clean slate?

Hopefully, that’s the idea. My 20s were spent with Faith No More, that was a fuckin’ decade of my life. So that was not an easy page to turn. Musically, personally, socially whatever. There were a lot of different levels going on there. I really think that having a band like Mr. Bungle, I feel real lucky to be playing with these guys and I’m lucky that I can write anything and that they’ll fuckin’ play it! I can write a fuckin’ crossword puzzle, some Rubik’s cube music, and they can transcribe it, write it down, and play it. That’s a therapeutic, liberating kind of thing. It’s a good thing. Being around people like that helps you turn the age and get over it. That’s what this year has been about for me -- and probably next year too. I’m releasing a bunch of stuff on my label, my label’s been a great new exciting thing for me. The page has definitely turned for me at this point and I’m glad.

Says here you’re playing medium-sized places – most of them sold out.

It’s just like, fuckin’ weird! I mean, we hadn’t made a record in four years or toured in five...it’s like, how the hell is this happening? I ask that question, but I don’t know if I really want to know how it’s happening. I just want to keep doing it. I just don’t know where these fans are coming from, really. But it seems like they’re getting it and that’s important.

Are you worried about what fans are thinking about?

No. That’s definitely the last thing I worry about. That’s the most dangerous thing of all, worrying about what people will think. It’s really nice to be appreciated and have people at your show, but when you start letting that control what you do, you’re in fuckin’ trouble. You’re in deep trouble. It sounds like a crass artistic thing, but we make music for ourselves first, then we record it onto a record and then we hope that it makes sense to other people, but it’s really just what we do naturally, it feels right, and if that can communicate something and people can translate it into whatever their own language is, translate it into their own lives. Hopefully, it’ll make sense to them.

 The Red Hot Chili Peppers used to be your rivals…  are you satisfied that they’ve become a shallow, bloated self-parody...

(laughs) Not me! (laughs)

 And that for the most part, you’ve retained your integrity and are at the top of your particular game, whatever crazy game that is.

I don’t feel happy thinking about them, period (laughs). But we’ve had some recent...well, not really run-ins, but encounters with them, strange encounters. I mean, the Chili Peppers was something that I hadn’t really thought of in years. And I’ll go ahead and tell you this — why not? I haven’t told anybody else yet. We were looking at booking some Mr. Bungle shows in Europe, some big festivals, which is something we’d never done before and we figured it’d be a good thing. We’d get to play in front of a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise hear us, normally. Our agent was in the process of booking these festivals and it was becoming apparent that we’d landed some pretty good ones — one in France, another one in Holland, some big-name festivals. Turns out...someone’s holding a grudge! (laughs) We were booted off several bills, including also a really big festival in Australia. We were booted off several of these bills, specifically because Anthony Keidis did not want us on the bill. He threatened to pull the Chili Peppers if Mr. Bungle was on the bill. Now...(laughs) Rationalize that one! That’s so fucking pathetic! I mean, this guy’s selling a million records; we are like not even a speck of dust on this guy’s ass! What’s the fucking problem? It’s unbelievable.

So this has cost you money?

Absolutely! When it happened once, we kind of shrugged it off and laughed and said, That’s really sad. Let’s get on with our lives, no big deal. But the one in Australia...they basically reached into our pockets and robbed us. And it’s a pretty pathetic thing.

That would spur me to do some investigation, and really get to the bottom of this feud.

I guess. But there’s nothing I can do about it. All I can really do is laugh. Or talk shit in the press, I suppose, which I guess is what I’m doing right now. It’s a funny thing. It’s a very strange thing. Like I said, whatever problems there are—and there obviously are some—they couldn’t be further from my frame of reference, from my reality.

Well, what do you think it is? Have you met Keidis before?

Uh....yeah. I know what it is. It’s exactly what you said before. It’s basically some kind of old grudge. I think what happened was 10 years ago, Faith No More was really big in Europe and we were enjoying a lot more notoriety than the Chili Peppers were. That pissed off them, or him, or whatever, and they started talking shit about in the press, way, way back then. And we laughed it off —  “What’s this guy’s problem?”— and it went away. Then, lo and behold.... There’s still poison in the air! Now you’ve got some dirt.

(Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.)

Robert Pollard Dayton Ohio 10 April 1996

It’s 10 a.m. in Dayton and Bob Pollard was working on a cup of coffee and a couple songs when I called him from Denver. I don't think Bob was teaching 4th grade at this point. He's a great conversationalist; in fact, I could have stayed on the phone a lot longer. Of course, I fauned like the fanboy I was. This was a long time ago -- hard to believe the whole Rick Ocasek chapter had yet to be written in the Epic GbV Saga. I hadn't even seen GbV at this point and was pretty excited about them coming to town -- I think they played the Ogden. I remember the neon sign -- "THE CLUB IS OPEN." Getting those GbV records when I was writing for a college newspaper was pretty fortuitous, 'cause I wasn't much into the lo-fi indie aesthetic at that time, and those old rekkids schooled me good. Anyway, I have another Pollard interview, more than three years later, that I will post here another time.

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I think Under the Bushes is my favorite GBV album so far.

Thank you very much. It’s a little bit different, maybe since we went to a big studio. I don’t think it’s slick or anything. The main thing about us is that we get stuff done fast, don't spend too much time on it, so that it still sounds spontaneous. And which we were still able to do for the most part on this record. Of course, except for the stuff we did with Kim Deal, which we took a long time on. Which is the way she works. You can tell the difference -- it’s better sounding quality-wise. It was time for us to start trying to work with someone else. We decided to work with Kim and Steve Albini.

Was he a good choice?

He has a pretty good grasp of our approach, the way we do things in the basement. The main thing is … our philosophy is that every song sounds different. And some stuff with Kim sounded really good. but we rehearsed for a month and then recorded for two or 3 weeks stuff started to sound the same and kinda lifeless. I like to get one thing done and then move onto the next. But the experience was good for us because it helped us be able to learn the board in big studios and be able to go in and do it ourselves ‘cause we’re used to pretty much only a 4-track. I’m happy with the mixture.

You didn’t include lyrics on this one.

A lot of the lyrics were really good -- they were pretty strange and really cool -- but I’ve been having people come up to me at shows and misquoting lyrics, and I kinda like that. People do these analyses of GbV lyrics. They like to analyze every little line like it means something. And to me, it really doesn’t. I write in this stream of consciousness and it really doesn’t mean anything till sometimes later. I want that to happen on this album. I just finished a solo record and I think I’m gonna include the lyrics. My mind is sporadic -- I’m a spur of the moment kinda guy. We had lyrics on the last three records. Maybe we should do one where people have to figure them out.

It seems like your solo records fill the gaps between GbV albums.

We write so many songs that it’s hard, at the sales level we’re at, to be able to market and promote that many. It’s hard for us to put out albums less than a year apart. The way to get around that is to put out solo albums, and they’ll be lower priority, but the songs will still be out there and our fans will still buy ‘em. We finished this album and then I wrote 16 more songs and they were all really cool, so we went and recorded them and they sounded good. Then thought ‘Man, I can’t sit on these for a whole year.’

You’ve said you suffer from an “addiction to songwriting.”

There’s people who like to play softball all the time or basketball or darts or whatever. I like to write songs, so when I’m home, I get up in the morning and make myself some coffee and just get my guitar and turn on my tape recorder. My philosophy is just to write a lot of songs and then choose the best ones and the best pieces of songs, and then just work on ‘em, elaborate on ‘em and revise ‘em. It’s a collage form, I really love to write songs. And another reason is... I’m kinda bored with music for some reason. I don’t know what it is I don’t know if it’s because we’ve become part of ‘rock’ now. When I was just a fan I was just an avid enthusiastic record buyer and listener. Now I’m just bored because I think I’ve found everything. I think rock is dead.

You believe that?

(laughs) I dunno. If you’re looking for a particular type of song that’s not around or that doesn’t exist anymore -- that you really wanna hear -- the only thing you can really do is go try to write it go try to find it in your own mind. So that’s why I write, ‘cause I’m addicted. And when you write short songs you can write more of ‘em.

You just bang ‘em out.

A lot of bands like to labor over a song until they get it perfect for whatever reason, but I can’t stand it. I don’t have the patience you try to make it perfect, because it’s pointless to try to labor over it. You can always make it better. The only important thing is that you capture what you heard in your head it doesn’t matter if it fits any kind of standard, TV standard or radio standard or whatever, you do the song then you move on to the next one. That way you get a lot of em out and it’s more fun.

You must have a huge stockpile of songs.

I’ve got thousands of songs. I’d say there’s 200 90 minute cassettes. I kinda catalog these things, not only on cassette, but in my mind. I keep all the songs that got bumped from records and if I ever need a bridge or an intro or a little lyric or melody I go back to that catalog and get a little scrap.

I’ve read you really love The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis.

Yeah, that album and Ziggy Stardust are probably my two favorite albums.

Both concept albums. Were you planning something like that?

Something autobiographical about the band, how we dwell in obscurity. Are they gonna sell out or stay the way they are? But it got way too complicated and I abandoned it. I don’t have the patience I used to. I’d like to make some songs that are much more like Lamb Lies, but it’s not gonna be so obvious. Not overblown keyboard music. We’re like prog rock, only where Genesis would have a 20 minute song with 10 parts, we just break ‘em down and separate ‘em. We could just put a bunch of ‘em together and turn ‘em into big long song. What would you think if I did that?

Oh, I’d buy it, Bob.

Like Alien Lanes -- it’s like one song.

You guys sure have a reputation now – “See ‘em before their livers give out.”

The thing is, I drink Bud Lite. People see me drink a lot of beer on stage. I mean, there’s the cooler full of beer up there. We get up there and we have a party. It’s actually part of our stage thing -- we drink beer and we like to party, but we’re not ridiculous. I like to run and play basketball also. Plus I drink Bud Lite, which is basically water. Of course we get drunk and it is alcohol and everything, but not as bad as people would say. I really 'em pound on stage, but it’s part of the image — “Look at that guy pounding those beers, man.” I don’t know, everybody’s gonna be dead from something eventually. I’m not that bad. I don’t drink on my day off. I like to drink beer here. That’s what we do in the Midwest -- you drink beer and eat pizza. I called it backbone juice. At first it was like liquid stage fright reducer, and so we relied on that. It’s not so bad now but people expect to see us do it. I told the drummer for the Amps I was gonna not drink one night. He said, “I’ll boo you, man.” If I don’t get up there and spit beer on people, I think they’re disappointed. 

(Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.)

Nikki Sixx Thursday December 10, 1998

This summer I had the chance to read The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx, bassist for Motley Crue -- a band I've never been a fan of. It's pretty much all the debauchery and insane hedonism you'd expect, except that he also stole Vanity away from Prince (not Appolonia, though). Nikki (born Frank Ferrana Jr.) did so many drugs and drank so much liquor that he's actually supposed to be dead, according to the book. 


What's funny about this interview, which I did while working for The Onion, is that I have no recollection of it whatsoever. I read that entire book, never once realizing I had spoken to this guy years ago. When I got home and dug through my archives, though, here it was. Because it's Nikki Sixx, he's got more than a few scandalous quotes here.
__________________________________________________________________

Man, I’m sorry to call you so early.

Hey, don’t worry about it. That’s what I’m here to do.

What’s new, Nikki?

Well, I’m working on getting my clothing line over to Japan. I’m promoting my solo project, 1958, and getting together the next leg of the tour, getting a live album and some remastered stuff together and writing songs for a new record. I’ve been offered to score a couple movies and my label, Americoma, has just signed a new band, called Laidlaw, and we’re finishing their record. So I don’t have a lot of leisure time. I don’t know what that is-- me and a golf a course? I don’t really see ‘em together.

So, instead of fighting the man, you are the man?

Yeah, we can’t fight the man, we are the record company. The record business now, without a doubt, it’s not based on loyalty or longevity. It’s based on a budget, how much airtime you can buy and it’s not based on fanbase anymore. It’s a sad world out there. Some people’s best records were their third records, and record companies in the 70s would stand by a band for 3 or 4 records -- and if they didn’t pop, then they’d make a decision. Not everybody wants a single these days. But it’s the fast-food generation and what MTV feeds you digests so quickly that you’re immediately hungry for more. There’s nothing filling there.

But not everybody can write music. You’re writing songs, instead of relying on L.A. hacks…

Yeah, I believe so. We’ve evolved into a pretty damn good band.

What does 1958 sound like?

It’s like Diamond Dogs-era Bowie. It’s glam pop with a seedy underbelly, it sounds like Brian Eno got in the studio and fucked up all the mixes.

Brian Eno! Who are your favorite bass players?

I can’t even name any bass players, ‘cause I don’t listen to bass players. If I like the band, I like the bass player. If I don’t like the band, I don’t care how good any one musician is. For me , Eddie Van Halen is one of the greatest guitar players in the world, but you couldn’t pay me to listen to a Van Halen record anymore. Musicians don’t really impress me, but teams do. It’s like having an amazing quarterback in a shitty team. I want to know that the teams all working together and we’re going to the Super Bowl, and that’s what Motley Crue is -- a group effort.

I imagine your shows being these total babefests. How often do dorky, pimply guys come up after shows to ask you questions?

The other night, this kid came up backstage and said, “In the last 90 days I’ve seen 60 concerts.” And I went, “Damn, bro.” He goes, “I’ve seen everybody from the Pumpkins to Kiss...” He just went down this long list. And he goes, “You kicked all their asses! You’re the only ones who didn’t look like you were faking it!” And I went, “Wow, dude -- that’s a pretty harsh compliment. Those are some pretty big shoes to fill!

What bands do you still look up to?

There are some bands, like the Ramones, the Pistols, Aerosmith in the early days  -- and you just knew they really meant it. And that’s how I feel, when I’m on stage, I mean it. I fuckin’ live it and I breathe it. I’m not a businessman playing rock and roll -- I’m a rock and roller who has to run a business.

I’m pretty scared of you guys, you know, being Satanists and all.

(Laughs) Just like the Stones with Goat’s Head Soup—they’ll always be Satanists won’t they? But that’s not as scary as when you don’t know what’s going on. I always questioned whether Mick Jagger was having sex with men or women, or whether Keith Richards was mainlining cocaine or heroin, or whether the orgies had midgets dressed in SS uniforms backstage, or whatever! But you never knew--it was never confirmed. When a guy goes, “I’m a Satanist! I’m evil!” You go oooh -- I’m scared-- not. I mean, how scary is that? I think mystique is scary.

With the age of the video camera, it’s hard to have secrets anymore.

(dryly) Yeah, so I’ve heard.

That whole incident overshadowed the band.

Yeah. If someone dies in a car accident or from a heroin overdose, that’s all people will talk about. Get caught with your britches down? It’s like when we play live, no one talks about that. It’s just fuckin’ music!

Hey, Motley Crue has a lot of detractors.

Yeah, they love to hate this band. We walk on stage, and if a guy jumps on stage and attacks my guitar player, I beat the fuck out of him. They don’t think that’s politically correct. If a security guard beats up a fan, we stop the show and reprimand him. They don’t think that’s politically correct. We talk about how many times we’ve gotten laid in the back of the tour bus -- and they don’t think that’s politically correct. We talk about our escapades with drugs and they don’t find that politically correct. You know what? I’m not gonna stand on stage and talk about planting a fucking tree. I’m sorry!

Well, you have been packaged and sold as pretty bad characters.

It’s like we came out and said, “We’re a fuckin’ biker band,” and they wanted to package us as Honda riders. And we’re like no; we’re the Hell’s Angels of rock and roll. We’re gonna do what we want to do, they way we want so we’re always gonna be the outcasts! I’ve always gonna have an opinion and if I wanna say something, I’m gonna say it! And if you don’t like it, it’s like, fuck off. And that’s what our fans love about us -- and I don’t know any other way to be! It’s not that I’m full of myself, but all we’ve ever been has been totally honest.

Is Motley Crue a drug-free band?

No, because I don’t follow the rules very well. Whether or not I want to be sober is based on my center of beliefs, not God, or the AA book or my counselor or my therapist. I don’t play that game. I’m not saying it’s bad game to play. I’m not saying I’ll be sober forever, either. I’m saying I’m sober 99.9 percent of the time. Every now and then, I need to crash a car. I mean, it’s just something I need to do now and then.

Sure. I mean, we all do…

I’ve got a lot of things going on, and the band’s very busy and we’re very tight. Vince and I are overseeing a movie soundtrack. I need a clear head to work, but I have to jump off a cliff.

Motley Crue was recently called a homophobic band by a national gay rights group…

There are gay activists. And if that’s what you’re into, that’s OK, but we happen to like breasts -- and not pipe.

The band likes titillating video before shows. A lot of girls lose their t-shirt virginity at Motley Crue concerts.

It’s still like that, isn’t it? There’s a lot of footage. Tommy started it a couple tours ago -- getting the girls to do that, and it’s sort of a ritual at the shows. The girls pull up their tops, and it gets pretty nasty, but it’s all good. Family entertainment! The thing is, my wife has the nicest rack on the planet -- so I’m all good there, man.


(Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.)

 (Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All right reserved. This material cannot be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission) 

Jason Pierce New York City

I'm not certain when this interview took place. Probably in 1998, when Spiritualized were touring to support Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space. That album and subsequent tour found the band at the height of its powers, even though Jason Pierce would usually stand there in some narco-trance, completely dazed, eyes closed, hand barely strumming the guitar, the words blurred, shadowy whispers. The guy's alluded to being a junkie so many times in his lyrics, but in this interview he comes across as serious, boastful, and just shy of cranky. At the time, Ladies and Gents was available domestically in a jewel case, or as a pricey import with the disc sealed inside a foil sleeve like a pill, tucked inside a box that also contained a "patient product information" sheet telling you how to adjust your dosage, etc. The band's previous album Pure Phase, was also available in a glow-in-the-dark plastic case. Fun times.

_________________________________________________________________________

You know, I've seen Spiritualized three times. Why do you only play "Walking with Jesus" from the Spacemen 3 days?

We vary it, I guess. Basically, we just don't remember what we played the last time we came out there. So occasionally we replicate what we did before. We haven't been doing that song for a while, but it's still relevant. It's still very timely. I've never seen the Spacemen 3 stuff as being crowd-pleasers, but I loathe that old way of working --- that we could possibly turn into some weird cabaret act where we just go through the motions, or sort of an American idea of just playing your MTV song as faithfully as possible, so people can see it on MTV. There's no point in us faithfully reproducing it cabaret style.

Your glow-in-the-dark t-shirts and limited-edition CDs seem to have people wondering what you're going to do next.

I think people were waiting on the music, actually, not just the packaging. We just didn't want to put our records out in cheap plastic jewel boxes that everybody was using. We wanted to make a statement that music's too important to just throw out in the cheapest available box you can use -- and I guess it's gone on from there. These things are not limited in England at all -- they're only limited by people's imaginations in America. They couldn't work out how to rack them or how to stick security devices on them, so they were largely ignored.

The packaging on the limited-edition CD is easy to ruin accidentally.

You can always buy another one.

The booklet kind of carries your fascination with pharmaceuticals to a logical end.

Kind of. As it says on the literature, this music is medication for the heart and soul -- rather than abuse or the misuse of pharmaceutical drugs. Like I say, it's not encouraging prescription dug use, it makes a statement quite clearly on the packaging that music is the medication involved here. The thing that comes out of it is a CD, for chrissakes! So I think that's made very clearly.

I'm glad you are working with Dr. John. I understand how New Orleans music must affect you.

We were getting a piano player in England to play in the style of Dr. John, and that seemed kinda foolish, when he was only a telephone call away. So I sent a tape out to him and gave him at telephone call and he came out immediately and said, yeah, he'd love to get involved with that. And he's become more involved. He just seems to really understand what we're doing. There's a musical link between what he does and what we do.

The soul and gospel link.

But not just that - there's no compromise within the whole of his life's work. He's never done anything that seem to be compromised him as an artist. And we've always had exactly the same attitude, that we're not gonna compromise. There is no compromise in our music - it's honest and there is no compromise to anything. Whereas a lot of stuff seems to buckle under the weight of marketing or the idea of getting all successful -- by listening more to what the record company wants to do.

What would Spiritualized do, if the band was suddenly to become much more successful?

I've always seen the registers of the success as being pretty abstract, unless you're in the business of running a record label. The charts reflect the speed of record sales, not the quality of the music, so number 4 or 5 in the charts doesn't mean 4th best, it just means 4th fastest selling record. I've always seen success as putting out the record you want to do, and for me so many bands aren't successful because they put out record they aren't happy with. They only find, with subsequent releases, when they talk about how "this is the album were happy with" or "These are the songs we can listen to" or "We've reinvented ourselves" -- all these dumb lines come out. But I can't say that of any of the records we've released. I'm understandably happy with all of them. They're all finished projects. They're all taken as far out as way out as we could possibly take 'em.

You find that many groups won't stand by their first record?

Unfortunately for too many people, that's the shame of it. I was given a couple of records a couple of days ago by somebody who said, "This one I can kind of live with" -- and it just seems weird to want to do that - it's almost like you have to wait until your fifth release before you've actually got it together.

Live, Spiritualized presents a dynamic, gigantic, overwhelming sound.

We've always have that kind of thing way back from Spacemen. It's always been emotive. It's always been soul music. It's always been to do the highest highs and the lowest lows. It's not about getting a mediocre response - we're not dealing with mediocrity. We're not dealing with that middle ground. We're dealing with subjects like "Broken Heart" or "Electricity" - they're extremes. I think that's the way you move people, by dealing with things larger than life. You don't say, "Hey, I'm kinda sad today," you write "Broken Heart" or you don't say "Hey, this is exciting," you write "Electricity."

In dealing with the concept of music as medication, have you found that music can help bring healing to listeners?

I think all music does, not in a literal way but in a primal way. I think good music floors you. It's physical. I think most people have had a time in their life when they've heard that. They've felt it down the back of their spine or in their belly or felt it in their head or the back of their neck -- that's what the best music is about. It reaches out to people that way.

(Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.)

Donovan Leitch Monday, March 10, 1997 New York City

So, here we have self-described legendary 60s icon Donovan, known for his hits "Mellow Yellow," "Sunshine Superman," and "Hurdy Gurdy Man," in a phone interview back in 1997 when I was working in Boulder, Colorado. Donovan had just released a new album with Rick Rubin that was supposed to do for his career what American Recordings did for Johnny Cash's. It didn't, and Donovan went back to slumbering retirement in Ireland. As far as interviews go, it's pretty tasty to talk to a guy who's rubbed shoulders with Dylan and the Beatles. Here he is, though, talking about Led Zeppelin, Nick Drake, and some rather new-age drippiness.

__________________________________________________________________

How does it feel to be in the music business for nearly four decades?

Well, I seem to be a legendary 60s icon, so if you see a 60s icon walking down Main Street, it'll probably be me. When I started, there was nothing legendary about me, but now I seem to be part of history. My music has settled into the ambience of the last 30 years. In the beginning, of course, no one knew how long it was gonna last. We thought it was going to be one season and we'd move on to doing something else, and I thought I was hitchhiking to India and beyond after my second record.


A few years ago, you worked with producer Rick Rubin. How did that project (Sutras) come about?

I couldn't have hoped for a better friend and ally. He's a great fan and a great talent. The way the record was made, we decided to make an album that wasn't all guns blazing and pop rock, although I have written a lot of pop and rock. I wrote 100 songs for this project, and out of those selections we made an album that is very personally me. I'm feeling quite comfortable returning. I knew I was part of things and I knew I was at the forefront of a lot of fusions and creating avenues for other musicians to walk down. I was very aware of that. There was quite a lot of groudbreaking going on. I knew what I was doing but I never thought of the future. One doesn't wake up every morning and say, "Good morning, 60s icon, how you doing today?"


It's pretty funny -- you, folk troubador, working with the guy who produced Slayer and the Beastie Boys! How did you meet Rick?

In the beginning I didn't know he was into hip-hop, rap or metal. In fact, the Rick Rubin I met was into Johnny Cash and Tom Petty and Mick Jagger. The guy I met was a big fan of mine, and he'd played my CDs to his artists for 12 years. He tried to meodel his way of recording vocals and instruments the way I made my records and the way the Beatles made their records. He was on his way to recording me a long time ago, but I didn't know which background he came from. So when I met him, I met the analog guy. He was into acoustic guitars and perferred making record in old studios with 60s equipment. On the outside, I guess it's an extraordinary match, Donovan and Rick Rubin -- but it's a good one. I wasn't sitting around twiddling my thumbs, waiting for somebody to call. But I wanted to make a record and Rick called in '93. He called and I asked my manager, "who the hell is Rick Rubin?" Like a fool, I didn't know. As it happened, he wasn't only the owner of a major independent label releasing records through Warner Brothers, but a guy who resembles in more ways than one George Martin or Phil Spector -- he's that kind of producer. He's a classic producer. But not only that, he's a meditator, a vegan, a student of kundalini yoga, and he owns two libraries of mystical books. I went, "BIN-GO!" How close can you get? He'd been wanting to make a record with me for years. I'd been looking for someone like that, but I thought those guys had gone.

You're incorporating more 'world music' influences than we heard on your early albums.

I feel like I'm responding again to the movement of the music of the day. On "Sunshine Superman" I was probably one of the first to grab hold of the world music sound and fuse it with harmonica and electric guitar. Peter Gabriel has to be credited for beginning WOMAD (World of Music, Arts, and Dance). In 1995 in England I played WOMAD with the Master Musicians of Jujuka, Joe Strummer and Iggy Pop. You have to feed from the roots.


From your perspective how has the music business changed? Was it hard to get back in the game again?

It's corporate to the max now, it's like Shell and IBM. It takes 30 people to say hello on the phone. It's a nightmare. But I wanted to be in the rock mainstream. All seven majors were contacted, and they were all fans, believe it or not. But they said, "Well, we just don't know where to put you." It was very nice "no." And that's why Rick is perfect, someone like a George Martin or a David Geffen, somebody who's got there own little empire within the corporate group. But the corporations didn't know where to put me because I made my own slot. I moved into a place where nobody else was.

How do you feel about contemporary artists covering your old material? The Butthole Surfers did well with "Hurdy Gurdy Man."

I'm fascinated. There's also a wild version by a band called When People Were Shorter and Lived Near The Water. I can only be flattered when the Butthole Surfers can do "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and make it to #1 in the indie chart, it's a great honor no matter how they're doing the song. That version might be hard to beat. The greatest fame is to be emulated and for your songs to be covered. And, you know, the lineup on the original session when I recorded "Hurdy Gurdy Man" was Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. John Paul Jones arranged that song. So any young band listening to that were actually listening to Donovan and Zeppelin, I suppose. But for "Hurdy Gurdy Man," I actually meant for Jimi Hendrix to record with me when I came back from India. I was there six weeks with the Beatles and Maharishi. You know the rest. It's history.


Did you know Nick Drake, or feel any kinship with his music? It wasn't quite as optimistic as yours.

Maybe one night I brushed past him in a folk club. I guess there may have been a Donovan influence there, I don't know. Optimism? Read Buddhism. Come to some terms with your own angst. We're all damaged and it's not our parents’ fault, not really. We're here and we've got this obstacle course, this adventure, and we're all heroes and heroines of our own myth and legend. And we've go to find out which stage of the journey we're on. This life is a story and you're on it. This has not been an easy path, it's been rocky. I've been off and on the path. I've made things as difficult for my partner as well as any man can. But optimism, what else is there? You either call it a day, like poor Nick, or you say, "here comes another day -- let's see what we can do with this?" And it does help to have a partner. A lot of people get lost because they don't have a friend, it's true. Are you about to meet the goddess ... or are you a goddess about to meet the prince? I'm still on the path, I'm still questing away here, a knight in tarnished armor. I keep slaying the same dragon every day.

Will you be publishing a biography anytime soon?

They say if you remember the 60s you weren't there, but I remember a lot of things. Putting on one of my old songs -- or anybody's -- is great way of jogging the memory.


(Copyright 2010 by Jeffrey Charles Stratton. All right reserved. This material cannot be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission)

An introduction, of sorts

During the halcyon years of the early 90s to the crank-turning of the millennium, I interviewed a lot of rock musicians. In the weeks to come, I'm going to be dishing out unexpurgated Q and A interviews with some of rock's craziest and most disparate weirdos from that era.

As a nibble-licious dangling carrot, most of these interviews are from the mid-to-late 90s, before I moved to Florida, and a lot of this stuff has never appeared in print or on the interwebs -- ever.

I am transcribing/digitizing/blog-friendly-izing these things, but suffice to say, you're going to get the full spectrum.

Week one, you'll get to graze upon never-read-before quotations from 60s pop icon Donovan, metallic drug refugee Nikki Sixx, and psychedelic/gospel guru Jason "Spaceman" Pierce of Spiritualized.

And it's only getting crazier from there: I mean, I'm going to give you Michael Gira and Duncan Sheik; Casey Kasem and Jim Thirwell; Robyn Guthrie and Mojo Nixon.

Yes. It's going to be a party.