La Vie En Robe

Mo' Puckett

Sticking with yesterday's theme — my current obsession with the intense creepiness of Gary Puckett's oeuvre — here's a clip from the December 3, 1969 episode of "The Jack Benny Show," which features Gary and the Union Gap running through "The Beggar" (which is now really starting to grow on me, thanks in part to the groovy guitar riff that sounds like a cross between Elvis's "Edge of Reality" and the Mamas and the Papas' "Straight Shooter"), followed by a duet with Nancy Sinatra on Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel."

The latter number is especially interesting, because it backs up what I was saying earlier about how GP-UG could be considered an underappreciated "horn-rock" (or, in this case, "horn-dog rock") band. "Spinning Wheel," after all, is one of the acknowledged classics of the genre, and Gary handles his vocal parts with ease — and minus all the David Clayton Thomas/Jim Peterik "desperately in need of stool softener" grunting that went hand-in-hand with horn-rock.

It's also interesting to note that Gary seems to have no chemistry at all with the lovely Ms. Sinatra — though I guess that's not entirely surprising, given that she was 28 at the time, which would have put her out of Gary's, er, "target demographic" by at least 12 years...

The Curious Case of Gary Puckett

"Have sex with me while my friends watch!"

Sometimes, when the shuffled selections of my iPod intersect with music-geek conversations I'm having with friends in certain corners of the internet, I find myself considering the strange case of Gary Puckett. Born in 1942 in the same town (Hibbing, Minnesota) where Bob Dylan grew up, Gary went on to become a labelmate of the Mighty Zimm's, though the records he made occupied an entirely different part of the musical spectrum, to say the least.

Though one could argue that Gary Puckett and the Union Gap were un-credited/underappreciated purveyors of what would come to be known as "horn rock," their music was never considered to be anywhere as hip as that of, say, Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, the Buckinghams, or even Chase. It was tuneful and commercial as hell, though, with Gary's big, burly, man-tastic voice soaring through one catchy, dinner theater-worthy chorus after another. I remember my aunt playing her 45 of "Lady Willpower" for me when I was 12, and I couldn't help getting swept up in the record's thrilling horn-powered surges. A week later, I heard "Over You" on the local oldies station, and I thought, "Hey, it's 'Lady Willpower'!" — but as I would soon come to realize, all of his hits kind of sounded the same.

What I didn't realize at the time was just how fucking creepy his hits actually were; that particular lightbulb wouldn't go off over my head until the late 90s, when I saw him perform them all in the space of 45 minutes during an oldies show at the Greek Theater. (He also did a medley of Jimi Hendrix songs, which really had to be heard/seen to be believed.) At that moment, I realized that all of his hits could basically be broken down accordingly:

HAVE SEX WITH ME: "Lady Willpower," "Let's Give Adam and Eve Another Chance."

I HAVE HAD SEX WITH YOU: "Over You," "This Girl Is A Woman Now" (the latter of which contains the completely foul line, "This girl has tasted love," which made me laugh so hard at the Greek that I spit beer through my nose.)

DON"T HAVE SEX WITH HIM: "Woman, Woman" (which could have easily been subtitled "Have You Got Cheating On Your Mind") and "Don't Give In to Him". Of the latter's line, "...because he will only ask for more," my friend Jason wonders, "What the hell does that mean? Anal?"

YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO HAVE SEX WITH ME: "Young Girl," which contains the immortal line, "With all the charms of a woman/You've kept the secrets of your youth" — Example A of my long-held belief that "charms" used to be a pop code-word for "breasts". "This Girl Is A Woman Now" would probably qualify as well, if somebody'd bothered to check her ID.

Now, this inherent creepiness wasn't entirely Gary's fault — these songs were all penned by outside songwriters, including his producer Jerry Fuller, who wrote "Young Girl," "Lady Willpower" and "Over You". But Gary sure sold those songs, in several senses of the term. And in the course of today's Puckett conversation, I've discovered a few new additions to the Puckett canon, with some interesting variations on the aforementioned messages.

"His Other Woman":

Or rather, HE'S HAVING SEX WITH HER.

"The Pleasure of You":

The B-side of "This Girl Is A Woman Now" manages to combine the "Have Sex With Me" pleading of "Lady Willpower" and the pedophilic yuck factor of "Young Girl" (Though you were a child, nature had blessed you ahead of your time...") in a tender tale of a girl who has already slept with most of the guys in town before Gary got to her. In other words, THEY HAVE HAD SEX WITH YOU.

And finally, there's "The Beggar," the B-side of "Adam and Eve." It's an odd song that's almost Scott Walker-esque in its baroque lyrics and overwrought delivery, and which comes complete with this equally odd video of Gary moping around on a French Quarter rooftop in a pretty cool fringed-sleeve jacket. The message, perhaps, is SOMEONE, ANYONE, PLEASE HAVE SEX WITH ME.

Puckett reminded us several times that night at the Greek, he's since found God — which, given the underlying (and overlying) themes at work in his classic hits, was probably a good thing for everyone involved...

 

A Face In The Crowd

October is one of my favorite months of the year, as it's always pretty much a non-stop cavalcade of horror movies and post-season baseball 'round here. Catching Hell, the new documentary currently showing on ESPN2, is both things — a horror movie set in the baseball post-season.

Catching Hell discusses and dissects the phenomenon of the sports scapegoat, as exemplified by Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner (who was vilified for letting an easy grounder go through his legs during Game 6 of the '86 World Series), and Steve Bartman, whose life was changed forever (and possibly even ruined) by his impulsive grab for a foul ball during Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series. It's a good film, but it's also a bummer on a number of levels — as a Cubs fan, I'm relieved that I won't have to see "the Bartman play" replayed ad nauseam as part of the perpetual "festival of failure" montage that accompanies any Cubs foray into the playoffs, even though I know it was actually Alex Gonzalez (and Mark Prior, and Dusty Baker, and Paul fucking Bako) who blew the Cubs' best chance in my lifetime to make the World Series, and not some hapless fan. Catching Hell definitely lays the blame for the Cubs' 2003 collapse at the feet of the team, and makes judicious use of several clips from Games 6 and 7 to do so; but seeing the filmic evidence laid out again brought the pain of October '03 back for me in an unexpectedly gut-churning way.

I was back in Chicago during the 2003 NLCS, not to attend the games (they were actually playing in Florida during the weekend I was back) but to attend the memorial service for Bernie Markwell, my dear friend, high school history teacher, and one of the most profound influences upon my life. Returning to the city of my youth to pay my respects to my dear mentor was a heavy experience, but it was mitigated somewhat by the sheer joy that was pulsing through Wrigleyville that weekend. I vividly remember listening to the Cubs' exciting extra-innings victory in Game 3 on the radio with my Mom; equally vivid is the memory of being at the post-memorial dinner gathering the next day, and the waiters coming in to tell us that the Cubs were kicking the shit out of the Marlins in Game 4. I led a bunch of my friends and fellow diners out on a drinking expedition that night, toasting Bernie's memory with one round of red wine after another, finally closing down our bar at 4 am. In the wee drunken hours of the morning, I remember talking with a fellow Cubs fan about the team's chances, now that they were up three games to one. "We've got Zambrano going in Game 5," he said, "and then there's Prior and Wood in Game 6 and 7 if we need 'em. There's no way we're gonna lose!" But even in my liquored-up state, I knew it was too early to start celebrating. I don't believe in sports curses, but still...

Anyway, we all know what happened next — though if you don't, Catching Hell will certainly fill you in. The one frustrating aspect of the doc is that the man at the center of the storm, Steve Bartman, declined to take part in it, so we never really get to understand his take on the whole thing beyond the public statement he made shortly after the incident. It is, however, pretty fascinating (and in some cases infuriating) to hear the reflections of several of the fans who were sitting near Bartman at the time; they range from one who tried to reassure him that he'd done nothing wrong, to another who tried to pick a fight with him, to another who (in retrospect) missed becoming the game's scapegoat by a matter of inches. There's also a fairly harrowing account from the security guard who snuck Bartman out of Wrigley Field, and had to sequester him in her apartment until the Wrigleyville foot traffic abated.

Catching Hell also makes several interesting points about the concept of scapegoats, and why sports fans (and, by extension, society in general) still seem to require them. But there's one thing that kept occuring to me as I watched the doc, a point that no one in Catching Hell ever really explores: How Bartman's reaction — or rather, the lack thereof — seems to have been part of what inflamed the fans around him (and, of course, the millions who watched the whole sorry scenario on TV). I firmly believe that if Steve Bartman had been a big, fat, Belushi-esque slob who made a big show of slapping his forehead and making other "What the fuck did I just do?" gesticulations, Cubs fans would have been quick to forgive and forget. Unfortunately for Bartman, he looked like the know-it-all nebbish from everyone's high school math class; coupled with the fact that he didn't appear to acknowledge his faux pas (or even react outwardly at all), his "please give me a swirly" mien brought out the collective bully/lynch mob attitude in Cubs fans at Wrigley and elsewhere.

If there is an upside to this ugly tale, it's that Steve Bartman — despite having to live more or less incognito to this day — seems to have handled the incident and its outcome with an impressive amount of personal grace and dignity. He's never cashed in on his infamy, despite being offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to do card shows, endorsements and the like. Nor did he give in to the deluge of anger and hatred baselessly directed at him by countless Cubs fans; under the circumstances, a less balanced person might well have given in to thoughts of suicide. Maybe "Well, at least he didn't kill himself" isn't the most cheerful message you could take away from a documentary, but Catching Hell isn't a feel-good film. It is, however, an absolute must-watch for any baseball fan.

Bobby Fuller: Never To Be Forgotten

Forty-five years ago today, Bobby Fuller — one of my all-time musical heroes — was found dead in his car in Hollywood, under extremely questionable circumstances. It was a tragic and unjust end to a really promising career, and to the life of an enormously talented young gent who truly lived for his music.

I wish I had time right now to write more about who he was and what his music has meant to me, but I'm on a crazy deadline. Still, even though I'd rather pay tribute to my heroes on their birthdays, the anniversary of Bobby's death deserves some reflection. Watch the Shivaree clip above, if you have a chance — sure, they're lip-synching, but it gives you a great idea of Bobby's charisma, as well as the way he fused the '50s rock of Buddy Holly with a contemporary '60s groove and sound. And he was really just getting started.

And if you want to delve a bit into the mystery of his death, this E! Mysteries & Scandals episode from the late 90s is a good introduction — and it features some talking-head interjections from a younger, thinner version of yours truly. (If you have the scratch, you can also pony up for an out-of-print copy of Never to Be Forgotten: The Mustang Years, which I wrote the liner notes for.) The great Miriam Linna of Kicks fame has a book coming out soon that will reportedly shed new light on what happened; I can't wait to read it.

 

Apologies To The Hotel Detective

For lusty anthems of rock n' roll road mayhem, you just can't beat Grand Funk's "We're An American Band." So it was my great pleasure to be invited onstage to sing it last week with my boys The Static Minds — one of the more kick-ass pure rock n' roll ensembles currently treading the boards — during their gig at Kings in Raleigh, NC. Check 'em out in the clip below, and then watch me wander onstage around the 6:50 mark to belt out Don Brewer's immortal jam. Feelin' good, feelin' right, it was Friday night; the hotel detective was indeed out of sight.

I Think I'll Call It Mourning

Gil Scott-Heron died last Friday — which, in our no-attention-span, endless-news-cycle present, means that I'm way late to the funeral party. Everybody's already onto the next big piece of news, like the NBA finals, or that Facebook spam video thang wherein some woman "gives birth" to a grown man's head. A few folks, like Greg Tate of the Village Voice, have already penned some wonderful eulogies for a man who was one of the great poets and prophets of our time; countless others have hung two-paragraph obits upon such easily-digestible (if profoundly limiting) phrases like "godfather of rap" and "spoken-word artist." Why add one more voice to the chatter, this "late" in the game? Well, Gil Scott-Heron's music and message touched me deeply, and I've got a few things of my own to say about him.

But let's start with something someone else has already said. As Tate points out in his fine piece, "Gil knew he wasn't bigger than hip-hop—he knew he was just better. Like Jimi was better than heavy metal, Coltrane better than bebop, Malcolm better than the Nation of Islam, Marley better than the King James Bible. Better as in deeper—emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, politically, ancestrally, hell, probably even genetically." Which is why it tastes like spoiled milk every time I read some obit that calls Gil Scott-Heron a "spoken-word artist"; yes, the man had a gift for words, and he often delivered them with a profoundly resonant speaking voice, but he was also an incredibly soulful singer, songwriter and keyboard player, not to mention a (Tate again) "oracle, troubadour, poet, gadfly, muckraker, and grassroots shit-talker." Yeah, he's the guy who did the brilliantly incisive "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and "Whitey On The Moon," but to consign Gil Scott-Heron to the "spoken-word artist" box is like calling Curtis Mayfield a "soundtrack composer" — it was truly only one small facet of who he was and what he did.

To me, Gil's greatest gift — and perhaps ultimately his Achilles heel — was his humanity, his empathy for other human beings. For all his righteous anger, for all his intimidatingly-sharp intellect, for all his deft wordplay, for all his loose-limbed funk grooves, an open heart was his most important tool. Songs like "Home is Where the Hatred Is," "The Bottle" and "Angel Dust" stared unflinchingly at addiction, just like "No Knock," "Winter in America" and "Johannesburg" faced down The Man, but they were anything but dispassionate journalistic missives. You knew that Gil gave a shit about what was going down, on an emotional level as well as intellectual, and that it hurt him severely to see other people hurting, being exploited, being oppressed. But when you feel that much, when you care that deeply about the fate of your fellow man, when you make your art and your living by communicating those feelings and concerns to the rest of the world — and creating such nakedly emotional songs as "Save the Children," "Your Daddy Loves You" and "I Think I'll Call It Morning" — and you don't have a filter to shut off the hurt and despair...well, the process comes with an eventual price. Who can really blame him for his tragic, decades-long romance with the crack pipe? “Ten to fifteen minutes of this, I don’t have pain,” he said in last year's upsetting New Yorker profile, referring to his crack smoking. The pain he spoke of was from a spinal issue, but there had to be a great deal of psychic pain going on within him, as well.

Still, it's that same open-heartedness — as well as his clear-eyed anger — that has repeatedly drawn me back to Gil Scott-Heron's records over the years. I recall hearing his stuff for the first time in the late 70s, probably through one of my Mom's friends, and I seem to remember that 1984's "Re-Ron" — a typically scathing indictment of Ronald Reagan and those who wanted to re-elect him — got some decent airplay in Chicago at the time. But it wasn't until 1990, when I was a college grad trying to make sense of the world I'd graduated into, that I really started exploring his work, which thankfully started being reissued on CD in the early '90s. And in late 2000, when George W. Bush was handed the keys to the White House in the same way he'd been handed everything else in his life, I spent countless hours curled up with 1971's Pieces of a Man LP; though it was nearly three decades old, it was still the only album I could find at the time that fully articulated and validated my depression and anger, while simultaneously reminding me to live and love life to the fullest, as opposed to becoming fatally consumed by the despair I felt and the bad times that I knew were on the way.

Which is, unfortunately, much more than I can say about 2010's I'm New Here, his final studio album. A haunted, haphazard affair recorded after he was released from his second prison stint, the album lasts only 28 minutes and contains far more of Gil's parched-voiced reminiscences than actual new songs. While XL Recordings head honcho Richard Russell is to be commended for trying to get Gil back into the studio, the results are hard to listen to; though many buckets of critical jizz have been spilled over I'm New Here, Gil frankly sounds like a reluctant guest on his own album. “This is Richard’s CD,” he told the New Yorker. “My only knowledge when I got to the studio was how he seemed to have wanted this for a long time. You’re in a position to have somebody do something that they really want to do, and it was not something that would hurt me or damage me—why not? All the dreams you show up in are not your own.”

The Gil Scott-Heron who shows up in my dreams is the one of "Lady Day & John Coltrane," a song from Pieces of a Man that I have put on countless mix tapes for friends over the years. Quite possibly the best song ever written about the transcendent, transformative, healing and uplifting power of music, "Lady Day & John Coltrane" also manages to be remarkably healing and uplifting in its own right. It's a song that will stay with me for the rest of my life, both as a reminder of why I care so much about music, and as a reminder (and a means) to "let the sun shine through" and keep my heart open during those times when living all of my days in darkness seems an easier option. It's a complicated, maddening, fucked-up world we live in, and Gil saw that clearer than most; but he also communicated its beauty (and the beauty of existence) more effectively than most, and for that I will always be grateful.

Peace go with you, Brother. Thank you for helping to wash my troubles away.

Mastodon: Lost In Space

I first met the dudes from Mastodon during the summer of 2004, when I interviewed them for Revolver shortly before the release of the mighty Leviathan album. Our paths have crossed numerous times since then,but I've never seen them as utterly fried as they were on this April 2010 day when I did this interview for ShockHound. Not fried as in wasted, but fried as in completely worn-the-fuck-out from touring; they had one day "off" before heading to Coachella, and they were spending it shooting their "Oblivion" video in a sweltering studio in the Valley. Happy campers, they were definitely not...

Mastodon: Lost In Space — Interview by Dan Epstein

Brent Hinds can barely move. While Mastodon’s red-bearded axe-man does have a rather colorful history of recreational pharmaceutical usage, and did suffer a life-threatening brain hemorrhage in 2007 after hitting his head on a sidewalk during an altercation outside an MTV Music Video Awards after-party, Hinds isn’t to blame for his current state of semi-paralysis. Rather, it’s due to the tight-fitting space suit that his burly frame has somehow been shoehorned into, a realistic-but-uncomfortable costume requisitioned for use in the video for “Oblivion,” which the band is shooting today at a San Fernando Valley soundstage. “This fuckin’ sucks,” Hinds mutters.
    Hinds’ bandmates, guitarist Bill Kelliher, bassist Troy Sanders and drummer Brann Dailor, aren’t in substantially better moods. This was originally supposed to be one of the rare days off on their tour supporting Crack The Skye, their latest mind-boggling prog-metal epic; but their mangement and record company figured that, well, as long as they’re in the LA area, they might as well use the free time to bang out a video. And while Dailor at least expresses some genuine enthusiasm over the fact that he’s getting to sit at the same spaceship console that was originally used in the sci-fi flick 2010, his weariness is thoroughly palpable.
    Still, these guys are total troopers — and, having spent years touring the US in a cramped van known as the “Fart Box” before making even the barest of radar blips outside of the metal underground, they’re not gonna let a little thing like exhaustion get in the way of carrying out their mission. During a break from filming, Dailor and Sanders sat down with ShockHound to give us the scoop on the “Oblivion” video, and how it fits in with Crack The Skye’s complex concept involving space travel, mad monks, and the Russian Revolution.

SHOCKHOUND: Let’s talk about this video that you’re shooting.

DAILOR: We’re shooting a video for the song “Oblivion,” and the video’s basically a 2001-ish vibe where there’s a destroyed planet Earth and a now not-functioning space station. The crew members — the guys in the band — start to die; something is luring us off the ship to get us to take our helmets off. There’s one part where there’s something wrong with the outside of the ship so it needs to be checked out, and one of us goes out there and pulls a panel back and sees that there’s vines and things growing all over, and some giant moths start to fly out. It’s a hallucination, but it makes you think there’s breathable air, so you take your helmet off and that kills you. There’s another scene inside the space station where we’re kinda floating down a hallway, then the hallway suddenly turns into this old wallpaper and you see a normal door, so it’s this hallucination that makes you think you’re back at home, or something like that. Then you open up the door and it’s the hatch that leads to space, and you get sucked out and killed that way.  

SHOCKHOUND: How much of what’s going on in the video actually has anything to do with the song?

SANDERS: If anything, if you’re lost and dying in outer space, you’re gonna feel like you’re lost in oblivion and this is nearing the end.

DAILOR: That’s a real fear for me, being lost in space. I do not want that. That’s why I don’t ever go near space. You know what I mean?

SANDERS: He doesn’t even jump on a trampoline, ‘cause he’s scared he’ll get sucked up in the atmosphere. It’s like, “Dude, c’mon.”

DAILOR: You never know. You just don’t.

SANDERS: Diving boards? Forget it.

DAILOR: That’s not gonna happen.

SHOCKHOUND: You’ve said that Crack the Skye was a hard record to write, but an easy record to make. Can you elaborate on that?

DAILOR: I guess it wasn’t necessarily hard to write it, but it takes a long time. There’s ups and downs in the writing process where you’re like, “I don’t know if this is good enough,” ‘cause the songs aren’t fully realized yet. It took a while for them to get to where we were all really happy with them, but I’m glad that we decided to really just wait until they were done cookin’. That was the main difference that we wanted coming into this record. I think when we signed with Warners initially, we kinda wanted to get in there and [record 2006's Blood Mountain] and put it out and get back on tour immediately. With this one we were like, “It doesn’t matter how long it takes, it’s gotta be perfect and everybody has to love every moment that’s happening on it” — the four of us in the band, at least. I think that we achieved that, and that’s what I’m most happy about.

SHOCKHOUND: Let’s talk a bit about the theme of the album, and how you came up with it. I remember running into you after your London show in early 2007, and you were already talking about how your next record was going to be space-related.

DAILOR: Ether?

SHOCKHOUND: Ether, yeah.

DAILOR: I think at that point we must have had the astral travel thing already happening. That was the first main subject matter. We definitely wanted to use ether, the fifth element of the occult, and we wanted to have some kind of astral travel-lost in space-wormholes-Stephen Hawkins [thing] — we just didn’t know how it was all gonna tie in. I went to Russia for a couple weeks for vacation, and I came back and met up with these guys. I was like, “Rasputin and this group called the Khlysty had a wrought-iron spiky collar on a bear and [Rasputin was] a dude with a huge beard and a crazy black robe.” It seemed to fit our aesthetic, so we kinda shoehorned them in together and it worked out.

SHOCKHOUND: For those out there who don't know their Russian Revolution-era history — who was Rasputin, and what about him did you find so fascinating and inspirational?

DAILOR: Well, he was a supposed healer and holy man that came from the middle of nowhere in Russia and Siberia [in the early 1900s], and really he was just kind of a drunk crazy person. [He was] always in fights, but then he found God and he went and observed all the fasts and spent a lot of time with this particular sect of the Orthodox Church called the Khlysty, who’d have these crazy orgies out in the middle of the woods. He ended up gaining access to the Czar and Czarina, because their child came down with Hemophilia. The Czarina heard about Rasputin and Rasputin came over, spent one night with the child, and the next day he was miraculously healed and had no more symptoms of Hemophilia. She thought that he really had some kind of magical powers that could heal her son, so she kept him close by at all times…
    He was with a lot of different women. He would tell them that if they had sex with him that he’d he purifying their womb and all this stuff. He had some really good pick-up lines. [Laughs] But yeah, he got stabbed in the chest by one of his women, and he was in a lot of discomfort so he started drinking heavily again and hanging out in bars talking about his relationship with the Czar and the Czarina. The Bolshevik Revolution was bubbling under at that particular time period, and [Russian count] Yusupov and his cohorts got together and decided that they had to kill Rasputin. I guess he had too much influence and was just making everybody look really bad.

SHOCKHOUND: Is this where he appears in Crack the Skye — right as he’s about to be murdered?

DAILOR: Kind of. Basically, he’s part of a divination séance that’s being held by the Khlysty. None of it is specifically, historically accurate in any way, shape or form — we’re just using characters. We’re using the Khlysty as a group that we can pull [in] this spirit that had gone up traveling; the umbilical cord that ties you to the material world was burned off, and he got sucked into a wormhole and put into the spiritual realm. In an attempt to get it back to his body, they put him into the divination being performed by the Khlysty, then the Khlysty decide to put his spirit inside of Rasputin because they know that Rasputin’s gonna be murdered. Rasputin’s kinda like the wise man and the martyr of the situation. So yeah, all that. [Laughs]

SANDERS: It’s pretty basic stuff.

SHOCKHOUND: In the past, a lot of the main riffs for your songs have come from Brann singing into a Dictaphone. How much of this record was written that way?

DAILOR: None, really. It was more Brent’s guitar stuff. Once we all get in a room together, we chip in and go, “Hey, maybe we can play a heavier version of that,” or we just start working off of each other to make it the best song that it can be. Brent was at home with his acoustic guitar; then he would take it down to the practice space with us and we’d sit down there and learn it and go through it, and from there it was just a lot of rearranging.

SHOCKHOUND: Was this all stuff that Brent wrote after his head injury?

DAILOR: Well, there was a bunch of it that was from that, but none of us ever really stop writing. There’s stuff on the record from when we were recording Blood Mountain. “Bill! What’s that thing you had?” or, “Brent, what’s that?” and some stuff that Troy had as well. We just throw everything we can into the pot and see what works the best. There was a lot Brent going over to Bill’s house in the beginning stages of it; Bill had his Pro Tools thing hooked up, and Brent would just sit there and play guitar forever. Bill would listen to it later and come in the next day [and say], “Hey, you played this really cool thing.” I think that’s where the main riff for the song “Oblivion” came from.

SHOCKHOUND: You guys really paid your dues for years; how does it feel now that all of your hard work is paying off?

SANDERS: You know what I think is best about it, is that it’s all been very gradual. We’ve been together for over nine years now, and we’ve toured like crazy. We’ve done about a thousand gigs, and this is our fifth record. We started out with nothing and played for nine people. We were like, “Dude, this rules.” We’d sell like three t-shirts and be like, “Hell yeah, that’s awesome. That’s thirty bucks.” Slowly, in little baby steps, it just continued to get a little bigger and a little better every time. I think that gradual process is really important for us, because none of this shit was just handed to you. It was far from an overnight success story, and I’m really glad that it’s been that way.

New York Dolls: Talkin' Trash

When I was eighteen years old and learning to play guitar by bending strings to the tune of the first two New York Dolls albums, the notion that I would someday be shooting the shit with David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain — and getting paid for it — seemed as remote as landing on the moon probably would have seemed to a teenaged Neil Armstrong. So I was pretty stoked for this ShockHound assignment, which was rather surreally paired with Tori Amos, who I interviewed about two hours before I sat down with David and Syl on a May afternoon in 2010. Actually, it was a pretty weird day in general, and David turned out to be cranky as fuck, but it was all worth it...

New York Dolls: Talkin' Trash — Interview by Dan Epstein

One of the more unexpected (and unexpectedly gratifying) comebacks of the past decade has been that of the New York Dolls. Like the Velvet Underground, the MC5 and the Stooges before them, the Dolls were prime movers in the pre-punk US underground who profoundly influenced an incalculable number of punk bands at home and abroad, despite selling relatively few records back in the day.
    Formed in New York City in 1971, the Dolls released two crucial albums of raw, gutter-flavored rock n’ soul — 1973’s New York Dolls and 1974’s aptly-titled  Too Much Too Soon — before drug problems and diminishing commercial returns splintered the band in 1975. Though the Dolls’ legend grew more lustrous through the years, the deaths of iconic lead guitarist Johnny Thunders (heroin overdose) and drummer Jerry Nolan (bacterial meningitis) in the early ‘90s seemed to rule out the possibility of a Dolls reunion.
    But in 2004, lead vocalist David Johansen (who went on to achieve a fair degree of solo fame, both under his own name and as irrepressible lounge lizard Buster Poindexter), guitarist Syl Sylvain and bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane reunited for an appearance at the UK’s Meltdown Festival, curated that year by Morrissey, one of the band’s biggest fans. Kane died of leukemia soon afterwards, but Johansen and Sylvain decided to soldier on; abetted by lead guitarist Steve Conte, drummer Brian Delaney and former Hanoi Rocks bassist Sami Yaffa, they’ve now toured the world and played for far more people than they ever did in their original incarnation.
    But as their latest album, ‘Cause I Sez So, proves, the Dolls are far more than just a nostalgia act. Produced by Todd Rundgren, who helmed their debut album 35 years earlier, songs like “Exorcism of Despair,” “This Is Ridiculous” and the title track show the band aging gracefully while still retaining their wry sense of humor, their bluesy roots and their will to rock. ShockHound sat down with Johansen and Sylvain on their recent swing through Los Angeles, and asked them about their new record and their lasting legacy.

SHOCKHOUND: You guys got Todd Rundgren to produce your new album. What made you decide to work with him again after 35 years?

SYL SYLVAIN: We had a date. We set it like in 1973.

DAVID JOHANSEN: It was kinda like William Holden and Shelley Winters. You know they used to meet every Christmas?

SYLVAIN: Is that true?

JOHANSEN: That’s what I heard.

SHOCKHOUND: How did working with him in 2008 differ from working with him in 1973?

JOHANSEN: I don’t remember much about the ’73 one, but I don’t think it was that different, except that when we did the first one we would be walking down St. Mark’s Place with guitars going to the studio — I guess it was the Record Plant, right?

SYLVAIN: Mmm-hmm.

JOHANSEN: We’d be going to get the BMT and all the kids in the street would be sayin’ “Where you goin’?” We’d say, “We’re goin’ to make a record,” and they’d say, “Oh, let me come!” So, there would be a lot of people in the studio drinking beer. [Laughs] This time it was just a few of us out in Hawaii — in Kauai.

SYLVAIN: I was the only one drinking beer this time. [Laughs]

JOHANSEN: That was different. The environment was different, but the technique wasn’t really. We just play. Todd records us and he does what he does really good, and we do what we do as best we can.

SYLVAIN: Yeah, we basically did it live. The recording itself went just for two weeks, from the day that we started to the day that we finished. That’s basically how we recorded the first album — it was done live. That’s the nice thing about Todd. He lets you be yourself, actually. I don’t know what it is. I’ve heard other stories with other people, but with our band, he lets us be ourselves, I guess?

JOHANSEN: He throws his hands up in disgust and lets us be ourselves.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] And we take over.

SHOCKHOUND: Even with three new-ish members, you’ve managed to keep the sound on ‘Cause I Sez So very similar to the original Dolls template.

SYLVAIN: We don’t know anything else. [Laughs] No, actually, when we get together, that sound comes out.

JOHANSEN: To me it just sounds good, because it sounds to me the way I think rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to sound… what we try to do is make rock ‘n’ roll the way we think it’s supposed to be. We plug in and we start playing and everybody in the band has got the same idea about rock ‘n’ roll. It’s easy to do, it’s not like you have to tell anybody what to play or talk about it. We just do it.

SHOCKHOUND: Steve Conte has pretty big shoes to fill, subbing for Johnny Thunders. How did you guys first hook up with him?

JOHANSEN: Well, when we first got [back] together we were just gonna do one show in London, so we weren’t really thinking about gettin’ married or anything. We had Brian Delaney playing drums for us when we rehearsed for that show in London that we were gonna do. Anybody I asked, “Who should we get for this Dolls’ gig?” said Conte. I didn’t know Conte. They weren’t saying, “Let me have that gig” — everybody thought Conte’s the guy. I thought, “Well, he must be somebody.”  I went and met him and thought, “Well, for a gig it’ll be good,” but now here it’s like five years later, and we’re still playing. It was instinctive in a way, but it was good. I think if we were thinking about it, it would’ve taken forever. We would think, “We’re gonna be doing this for a long time.”

SYLVAIN: We have a very natural way of doing things. If it feels good, it’s a keeper, and that’s across the board. If it’s not, it doesn’t happen. We rarely trash anything besides our music. [Laughs] Anything else is like a little baby handled with care.

SHOCKHOUND: Speaking of trash, why’d you guys decide to do a reggae remake of the song “Trash”?

SYLVAIN: Well see, that’s one of the things we planned on in 1973 — when we get back together 300 years from now…

JOHANSEN: There’s a couple of reasons why we did “Trash” again.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] We never planned it.

JOHANSEN: Can I tell the truth?

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] You wanna hear the truth? Talk to this guy.

JOHANSEN: We had another song we were workin’ on, but it sounded too much like the Doogie Brothers (sic).

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] The Doogie Brothers!

JOHANSEN: So, we decided, “Let’s not do this song anymore,” then we said, “Yeah, but we’ve only got 11 songs.”

SYLVAIN: “We need music!”

JOHANSEN: Yeah, so when we got to the studio one early afternoon and everybody’s like, “Ugh,” trying to make their arms move, Syl started playing “Trash” like that and we all started playing along, just warming up. Todd taped it and we heard it and we’re like, “There’s our song! Hello! I think we are contractually fulfilled!” [Laughs] We’re making all these masterpieces and it’s exhausting.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] These epics, they take time.

SHOCKHOUND: I got into your first two records when I was 18, which was 1984. I’m talking to 18 year olds now who are just getting into your records. Why do you think those two albums have had such an extended shelf life?

JOHANSEN: Well, because if…you take a bunch of 18 year old kids who wanna play guitar or something, and you play them the Dolls’ record and the kid doesn’t like it, then he should probably not be a rock n’ roll guitar player, because it’s not gonna work out for him. He’s gonna be technically proficient and use a lot of machines with his guitar, but it’s not gonna be rock n’ roll. We play rock n’ roll and that’s a visceral thing. People who like it are of a certain ilk. [Laughs] There’s a lot of ‘em, though.

SYLVAIN: I think on our new album, ‘Cause I Sez So, the song “Trash” says it all. I think if you write a good song, it could be interpreted over and over again, in many different styles of music. I always knew that song, by the way, was a love song. Not many people — well, some people did get it, but now in the state that it’s in on this new album, where David has this deep voice, I think it’s beautiful. It makes a really beautiful piece. Recording is a great thing. When you get whatever format you’re recording on, it’s empty, and it’s like everybody has a chance to fill that void and that emptiness, and you can do whatever you want with it.

JOHANSEN: Out of nothingness.

SYLVAIN: Out of nothing comes…

JOHANSEN: Manifestation arises!

SYLVAIN: Yes! [Laughs] Thanks you.

SHOCKHOUND: When you’re playing, do you ever look over and think for a second that you’re gonna see Arthur or Johnny or Jerry?

JOHANSEN: That would be spooky.

SYLVAIN: Yeah, I think they’re more in our hearts and in spirit.

JOHANSEN: I see a lot of fat people, but I don’t see dead people.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] Are you trying to say our audience has to go on a diet or something?

JOHANSEN: No, I’m just saying in my life, walking around. Just out walking around, Syl, minding my own business.

SHOCKHOUND: Is it vindicating at this point to be able to play big venues all over the world?

JOHANSEN: That all depends on what you’re gonna get vindicated from, but if the cat ever got out of the bag about us, we would be ruined.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] No, we’ll play whatever houses, as long as they’re filled. It doesn’t matter. We give that as a passing down of the torch to anybody that hears their calling and wants to do something in entertainment. You learn your craft and you learn it all onstage.

JOHANSEN: Are we almost done? ‘Cause this is like a root canal.

SHOCKHOUND: All right, last question: What’s the best record to make sweet, sweet love to?

SYLVAIN: Best record to make sweet, sweet love to? Let me see, I gotta think about this one. Oh! I would think the theme song of the movie Barbarella.

JOHANSEN: On that note, we wish you all a good day.

Motorhead: Lemmy Tells It Like It Is

The first time I interviewed Lemmy was in 2002; what was supposed to be a 45 minute interview turned into a 9-hour marathon that saw us empty a liter of Jack Daniels (to be fair, he drank much more of it than I did, though he did tell me "you drink pretty good for a journalist") and get kicked out of a West Hollywood hotel for singing Walker Brothers songs from a second floor balcony. This interview, which I conducted for ShockHound in January of this year, was a decidedly more sedate affair — but the man still held forth with some pretty righteous answers and opinions...

Motherhead: Lemmy Tells It Like It Is — Interview by Dan Epstein

He was born Ian Fraser Kilmister, but rockers everywhere from 8 to 80 know him by a single five-letter name: Lemmy.
     Lemmy would be a legend in certain circles just for boasting a resumé that includes membership in popular Blackpool beat merchants the Rockin’ Vickers, as well as psychedelic freaks Sam Gopal, Opal Butterfly and Hawkwind — not to mention his short stint as a roadie with the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
     But it’s Lemmy’s 35-plus years as the wart-studded, leather-sporting frontman of Motorhead that have assured his immortality; while Motorhead never sold enough records or kissed enough asses to make it into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, a new documentary called Lemmy (and appropriately subtitled "49% Motherfucker, 51% Son of a Bitch") does a bang-up job of explaining why so many music fans would put his weathered visage on their personal rock n’ roll Mount Rushmore.
     Ditto for The World Is Yours, Motorhead’s new full-length — their 20th studio album, and their most ferociously focused effort in years. With Lemmy’s lycanthropic growl and punishingly distorted bass guitar leading the way, rampaging tracks like “Born To Lose,” “Brotherhood of Man” and “Outlaw” amply demonstrate why both punks and metalheads alike have long claimed Motorhead as their own.
    Always a gruffly engaging conversationalist, the 65 year-old embodiment of rock n’ roll recently sat down with ShockHound for an exclusive interview about his long career in music, the future of mankind, acid, romance, Little Richard, Lady GaGa, and the difficulty of getting good cheese in the States.
   
SHOCKHOUND: So, the world is yours, then?

LEMMY: No its not, the bank owns it. They’ll lend you a bit if you’d like.

SHOCKHOUND: Can I rent it for a short period of time?

LEMMY: Then they’ll foreclose on you.

SHOCKHOUND: Is the title of the new album optimistic or sarcastic?

LEMMY: Whichever way you prefer it. The book’s open to the reader for interpretation isn’t it, so why shouldn’t this be, as well?

SHOCKHOUND: You, Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee have had, by far, the longest working relationship of any Motorhead lineup. Why do you think that’s been the case?

LEMMY: ‘Cause we don’t very live close to each other, probably. I dunno, it works. That’s all it is. It’s been 15 years with Mikkey and 26 years with Phil; it’s ridiculous — I’ve seen more of him than his family has. His mother doesn’t know his face as well as I do. So yeah, we’re pretty set. So far, so good.

SHOCKHOUND: Does the creative dynamic differ in any way from say, the Ace of Spades lineup with Philthy and Fast Eddie?

LEMMY: We were much younger then. We were more optimistic! [Laughs] The dynamic hasn’t changed; it’s just the people within it changed.

SHOCKHOUND: Los Angeles has been your home for how long now?

LEMMY: 20 years now. You wouldn’t have thought, would you? I like LA. I mean, there’s a lot of bullshit and preconceptions about LA: It’s like, it’s supposed to be full of phonies, but I haven’t found it. No more than anywhere else, anyway. The fact that there’s the music business [here] seems to attract phonies, but at least the American ones you can hear them coming from further away. The English ones are sneaky.

SHOCKHOUND: Is there anything about England that you miss?

LEMMY: Cheese — good quality cheese. You guys can’t make cheese; I don’t know why that is… [LA is] where I hang my hat; that’s all you get when you’re in a band. You’re not home long enough to be “home.” It’s a place where you leave your stuff, you know?

SHOCKHOUND: The song “Brotherhood of Man” on The World Is Yours paints a pretty caustic and unsympathetic picture of the human race. Do you think there’s any hope at this point, or are we just completely fucked?

LEMMY: Completely fucked. Doomed. It’s too late; all this running around “being green” don’t mean shit. You can drive all the electric cars you want, but they can’t make that many of them, and there aren’t that many places to charge them up. It’s not going to happen, it’s ridiculous. All them big rich guys like BP Oil — look at that, prime example! They’re still doing exactly the same thing they did 30 years ago, and they’re not going to stop doing it as long as the money comes in. That’s what sort of bastards they are; because even their own grandchildren are going to be walking around wearing face masks in about 30 years, right? And they don’t care. Isn’t it great? You can rely on the human race. The internet, the greatest communication vehicle known to man, what do we use it for? Child pornography! Yes, another winner from the human race, good job boys! [Laughs] You have to have a sense of humor about this shit…I mean it’s hilarious, you know? If you can’t laugh at it you’re gonna spend the rest of your life crying, while you get the rope ready and hang it in the wardrobe.

SHOCKHOUND: How was it for you, watching the Lemmy film and seeing your life story up on the screen?

LEMMY: It wasn’t too bad — it didn’t make me want to leave the theater before the lights came up. It wasn’t that embarrassing; it was alright. They did a good job, them guys — not quite embarrassing enough, but quite embarrassing. It’s not too hard to have all these people saying you’re a nice guy. As long as you don’t believe it.

SHOCKHOUND: In the film, you talk about what Little Richard means to you. Can you expand upon that a bit?

LEMMY: He was the first one that really…That’s when I realized you could sing that way and people liked it. [Laughs] You have to remember at this time Elvis was the big one, but even he did shit b-sides and stuff. You had people like Pat Boone, god almighty — [sings in uptight white guy voice] “Tutti frutti, all a rootie!” Little Richard was the one that people listened to when they were on their own, when mom and dad weren’t around. [Laughs] Little Richard was the best; he still is the best. That’s the best rock and roll vocal I’ve heard — him and John Fogerty.

SHOCKHOUND: The guy obviously had a very flamboyant look and personality to go with his music. Did that freak you out at all when you first discovered him?

LEMMY: Consider this: How would you like to be black and gay in Macon, Georgia in 1956? [Chuckles] He’s lucky he made it alive in the mines singing like that. He was brilliant. You don’t get that sort of personality now, and if you do it’s carefully planned, like Lady GaGa. She could be Little Richard, but she’s not because she has to plan everything with all these assholes all around her going, “Oh, you can’t do that!” She has fought for it, obviously, because she is outrageous and that’s good. I like that, good for her.

SHOCKHOUND: Let’s talk a bit about Jimi Hendrix. You roadied for him for how long?

LEMMY: About 8 months. Something like that.

SHOCKHOUND: Had you seen him live before that?

LEMMY: I saw him on a strange tour, which was the Walker Brothers, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jimi Hendrix and Cat Stevens. Is that odd or what? They were hoping to get the whole audience, they got nobody. They got all the screamers for the Walker Brothers. But they crucified [Jimi]. They didn’t know what to do with him. Here’s another flamboyant one, and he wouldn’t listen to anybody. Those are the only ones that you remember, the people who didn’t listen to what you “should” be doing. That’s what breaks the mold, that’s what makes you great. “You can’t do that.” All these people in your ear constantly. Oh, and then you’re wonderful: “You’re the tops, baby!”

SHOCKHOUND: You seem to have a pretty finely-honed sense of self: You know what’s right for you and what’s not right for you. Has that always been the case?

LEMMY: Yeah, because I was surrounded by junkies, I never did heroin. Ever. I see a geezer face down in his lunch, my girlfriend died on it, a couple of my friends died on it, so I probably wouldn’t do that. I can’t believe these people, aren’t there enough dead bodies yet? There’s a trail of dead bodies you’ve left through the 1920’s. People still, “Oh, it won’t get me.” It will get you man, it’ll kill you. First it’ll make you into a dog and a thief, and then it will kill you.

SHOCKHOUND: But even on a musical level, you’ve always seemed to have a pretty clear idea of the kind of music you want to make.

LEMMY: When you look like a dick, you know. I’m trying to avoid that. You may think I look like a dick just like this, and I can’t help that; but I wouldn’t be a voluntary dick.

SHOCKHOUND: Back to Hendrix — what’s your favorite memory of working with him?

LEMMY: It’s funny, ‘cause there was a lot of acid around in those days. My memories are not really up to that. I mean, we were just blitzed all the time. Everybody was. Everybody I knew in the world was taking acid. You’d get bands of roaming freaks wandering around London, giggling across the street at each other cause they knew, man. [Laughs] It was all great fun. Heroin hadn’t started yet, so it was just white flashes. There was this place that made clothes for [Jimi] and for other rock stars at the time — four chicks up in Kent Terrace in London, I remember that. [Jimi and I] used to go up there and hang out and lie around cushions and [there were] shawls from the ceiling and all that trippy Indian stuff. We’d take a lot of acid, lie there and just babble. I couldn’t tell you many of the topics, but it wasn’t music usually. It was just stoned out talk, garbage. “Look at the wallpaper… Do you see that thing?” “Yeah. No. Yeah.” “There it is again!” And the wall was painted white. Great times, you know?

SHOCKHOUND: When was the last time you took acid?

LEMMY: ’75 — a long time ago, now. I did it fairly intensively when I was doing it, so I got to the point where I’ve done it. It’s not a thing you get addicted to, a habitual thing. It’s too awe-inspiring for that. It’s like, “Bazoom!” and you go, “Oh shit, look at that…Now I understand it!” [Laughs] Some of it’s like drug freakout, but some of it’s really true. I’m a better person for doing it, but you can’t get the good stuff anymore anyways, so I don’t advise it. You’ll just be buying speed. [Laughs]

SHOCKHOUND: How long did it take to learn to be able to play onstage while tripping?

LEMMY: I dunno — we always did. It wasn’t awkward. [Hawkwind] got spiked once in Cleveland by two separate people with angel dust, two doses of it. I get on stage and I’m going, “Wow look at this shit… Oh, what’s this? I hit it and it makes a noise? Good!” We recorded most of thme shows, and you can’t tell which ones we were blitzed and which ones we weren’t. 

SHOCKHOUND: In the movie, you talk about how you would never have left Hawkwind if they wouldn’t have kicked you out.

LEMMY: Right, it was great fun on stage, but it wasn’t much fun off it. Then again, I didn’t hang out with them guys.

SHOCKHOUND: Do you think, from a musical satisfaction standpoint, you would’ve been happy remaining in Hawkwind?

LEMMY: Yeah, Me and Dave Brock had this amazing rapport. I’d be facing the opposite direction from him, and we’d change at the same place, at the same chord. It was like telepathy. I’ve never had it with anyone since or before; so yeah, I would’ve stayed with them. Things don’t work out that way. Just when you think it’s safe to go back in the band room…

SHOCKHOUND: Why do you think “Ace of Spades” continues to be the song that Motorhead is most commonly associated with?

LEMMY: Go ask someone else, I have no idea. I didn’t think it was particularly that great of a song as it’s become. It’s become a very good song now. [Laughs] When we wrote it and put it on the album, we must have thought it was better than the others, ‘cause we called the album after it; but apart from that, I didn’t think it was any better than the other songs.

SHOCKHOUND: People seem to…

LEMMY: Latch onto it a bit, yeah. They’re still doing it. 15 year-olds kids are coming up going, “Ace of Spades!” You weren’t born, what are you talking about?

SHOCKHOUND: You obviously have several generations of fans at this point...

LEMMY: It’s nice. It proves we’re doing it right. If a 60 year-old geezer is coming to see us still, that’s good. If a 15 year-old is latching onto it, that proves we were correct. This is music that stretches it a bit; you come wail your face off, and you don’t stab anybody.

SHOCKHOUND: Are there ever any nights where you don’t want to go onstage, where you want to say, “Fuck it. I’d rather just sit here.”

LEMMY: I think there’s more nights when you’re a plumber where you don’t want to “go onstage.” I can’t be up to my knees in any more cold water. [Laughs] I’m really lucky, man. I’ve got a gig. This isn’t even a job anymore; this is my life. I get to go around the world where people only dream of going, and sleep with women of every size, shape, color, persuasion. And they pay me for it. [Laughs] It’s brilliant, you know? Tell me a better job, and I’ll tell you when I’ll retire.

SHOCKHOUND: Would you describe yourself as a romantic?

LEMMY: Yeah.  Foolish, hopeless romantic. Why not? What do you have that’s better?

SHOCKHOUND: What’s the smoothest romantic move you’ve ever made?

LEMMY: Hmmm. I’m not going to tell you, am I, or else you’ll pinch it.

SHOCKHOUND: Don’t want to share the wealth, then?

LEMMY: No, not at all. They say you can’t take it with you — I’m taking it with me. Make your fuckin’ own, you guys.

SHOCKHOUND: Let me turn it around, then. What’s the worst pickup line you’ve ever used?

LEMMY: That’s easy. I was with [Girlschool lead guitarist] Kelly Johnson, we were in this lobby in Edinborough. It was me, Eddie, Kelly, Kim [Girlschool vocalist] and Kim’s then-boyfriend, for the next half hour it turned out. I told Kelly, “How’d you like to go up to my room and watch the Old Grey Whistle Test?” She said, “Yeah!” It wasn’t that bad, right? It worked! [Laughs] A lot better ones that I’ve used haven’t worked…that was the most stuck for desperation line I’ve ever done. Funniest shit. Apparently, when we went up to my room, Kim leaned over to Eddie — in front of her boyfriend — and said, “Why don’t we go up to your room and watch the Old Grey Whistle Test?” They ran out the hotel, got in the equipment van and drove back to London.

SHOCKHOUND: So did that become a Motorhead euphemism, “Watching the Old Grey Whistle Test”?

LEMMY: [Laughs] No, but it should have.

SHOCKHOUND: If it all ends tomorrow, would you feel cheated in any way?

LEMMY: No, I’ve had a great time.  Can’t complain. I’ve already dreamed that dream five times over. The only other things I’d want is a hit in America — not going to happen, bad luck. Stay hungry, right? I’d like to play China, Africa and India; we’ve never played any of them. We’d like to see what they’d make of Motorhead music.

SHOCKHOUND: Looking back at the career are there any regrets? Anything you would’ve done differently?

LEMMY: Only Iron Fist, and that was only because we got stopped doing it too early; two or three of 3 of the songs weren’t finished right on that. Those are the ones that will stick in your head, it’s weird. More or less, life’s too short for regrets. You’re not going to spend the next half of your life worrying about the last half, right? Fuck that shit. Learn and move on. Learn to apologize and move on. [Laughs]

Moby: Going To California

As with OMD, I'm not a big fan of Moby's work — don't hate it, but it just doesn't move me — and yet, I found the guy truly enjoyable to talk to. Definitely one of my favorite ShockHound interviews from this year's SXSW...

Moby: Going To California

Interview by Dan Epstein

One of the most ubiquitous and successful artists in electronic music over the past two decades, Moby has always seemed like a quintessentially New York individual: intellectual and introspective, yet also completely plugged into the night life. The romance of NYC has always been an important part of his musical and visual aesthetic, as well, which is why it came as something of a shock to learn — in the middle of this ShockHound interview — that he's recently upped stakes and relocated to Los Angeles, the very antithesis of everything New York City supposedly stands for.
      The idea of Moby ditching Manhattan for the City of Angels may be a bit jarring — but as with everything else in his life, the man born Richard Melville Hall has put a lot of thought into the move, and he lays out his reasons behind it in our interview, which also covers his forthcoming album and book project Destroyed, the Japanese aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi, and the artistic inspiration that comes from emptiness. 

SHOCKHOUND: Destroyed is both a new album and a new photo book. How do the two relate to each other?

MOBY: The music was written on tour, and the book is a bunch of tour-based photographs, but it’s a really unconventional touring book; a lot of music touring books involve pictures of guitars, pictures of set lists, and grainy black and white shots of a musician on stage looking soulful. This is more about the disconcerting aspects of tour — hopefully from a fairly formal perspective, because I’ve been taking pictures since I was 10 years old. I finally have sort of worked up the courage to put out a photo book.
 
SHOCKHOUND: When you’re talking about more of the disconcerting aspects of tour, what are you referring to?

MOBY: When I was growing up, I never expected to have a career as a musician. I thought I’d probably teach community college somewhere in upstate New York and get a job at Kinko's. I never expected to have a career as a musician, and I certainly never expected to go on tour, so at first traveling was so exciting; the strange aspects of traveling just seemed glamorous and interesting. And then as time passes, you just realize there’s not a lot of glamour on tour, which is not the complaint. I have to be really clear: I vowed a long time ago never to be a complaining musician, because when a musician complains about the rigors of touring they’re just being a douchebag. If you wanna not be a touring musician you can quit, so I’m not complaining about it. But being on tour...I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences where you live in these environments that ostensibly look familiar, but they’re not. You check into a hotel room and it’s structured to be sort of reassuring and familiar, but it’s also the most anonymous place in the planet. You can have this odd juxtaposition of being backstage by yourself in a soulless empty room, and then all of a sudden you’re on stage in front of 50,000 people having this big emotional experience, then you’re back by yourself in this weird basement room. On a cognitive, neurochemical level, it does really strange things to you. I think that’s one reason why a lot of musicians turn to liquor and drugs, just to try and manage their neurochemistry and sort of offset the strangeness.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Not to mention the high from performing and the inevitable low that follows.

MOBY: For a lot of musicians, you’re on stage, you’re pouring your heart out, and it’s passionate, and the audience loves everything. And then you’re on the tour bus watching Arrested Development Season Two, which is fine; but even though the brain is pretty adaptive and intrepid, it’s just not built to process these extreme highs and extreme lows in such a short period of time.

SHOCKHOUND: Musically, how does Destroyer relate to that? Is the music redolent of those experiences, or is it built to take the edge off those experiences?

MOBY: The music on Destroyer is electronic music that’s made with broken down, old pieces of equipment because I really love old equipment. Not too sound too pretentious — I already do — but there’s this Japanese concept “wabi-sabi” which means, essentially, as things start to fall apart they become more interesting; an old bucket is more interesting than a new bucket, an old photograph is arguably more interesting than a new photograph, and it’s one of the reasons why I love old equipment. So all the instruments on the record are old synthesizers, old drum machines, old effects pedals, old microphones, to make an electronic music record that doesn’t sound like a very modern electronic music record. It’s more atmospheric and emotional; but because a lot of the music was written in hotel rooms when I have insomnia, it does have a slightly disconcerting quality to it. So even if it’s emotional, and hopefully warm and atmospheric, it’s still a little bit disconcerting. It’s an experience I have a lot, where it’s 4 o’clock in the morning, I haven’t slept in a long time, I have insomnia, I’m looking out the window...Some cities are awake at four in the morning, most cities are not, so you’re in your hotel room looking out the window, and you feel like the world has always been empty. That moment where you’re like, "The sun's never been up, it’s never going to come up again, there’s no other people on the planet," it’s like this odd solipsism. I think the album, at least from my perspective, is fueled by that.

SHOCKHOUND: Are you familiar with Giacometti's sculpture, The Palace At 4 A.M.? The moment you describe reminds me of the feeling I get from that piece.

MOBY: It’s funny you say that, because one of my favorite painters is Giorgio de Chirico; it’s a similar aesthetic, where it’s just a lot of emptiness and it’s not scary emptiness, not off-putting emptiness. Even Edward Hopper to an extent was just saying, "Oh, here’s the world at its emptiest, and it's beautiful but off-putting at the same time."

SHOCKHOUND: But New York, where you live, almost never feels empty...

MOBY: Oh, I live in LA now. Look. [Pulls out LA Dodgers cap.] I even got the hat.

SHOCKHOUND: When did you make the move to LA?

MOBY: Three months ago. I was born in New York and grew up in suburban Connecticut; moved back to New York in the mid-'80s because I always fetishized Manhattan and New York. It’s where the Velvet Underground were from, and where Dylan Thomas had lived, and Leonard Cohen wrote “Chelsea Hotel.” Like, New York to me was the epicenter of everything sort of crumbling and fantastic in art and music and literature. It just isn’t, anymore. My neighborhood, the Lower East Side — by day, it's now a shopping mall for hedge fund managers, and at night it’s where drunk Europeans and hedge fund managers can throw up on each other. I moved to LA because LA still has that crumbling strangeness to it. I’ve spent my entire life traveling, and I can say LA is the weirdest, ever. There’s places like Hong Kong are strange, but LA is strange in its strangeness. Like, New York in the '80s was strange and unrelentingly rough. LA is weird because where I live in Hollywood, you go one mile this way and there’s methadone clinics; you go one mile this way, it’s ten-million dollar houses; you go one mile this way, it’s cougars eating house cats; and you go one mile this way and it’s people drinking organic coffee, listening to KCRW. So the fact that one city, one little radius can incorporate and accommodate all this different weirdness, I’m fascinated by it. Going back to your question talking about how New York is not an empty city, I think that’s another reason why I moved. Being in LA there’s so much emptiness. For a city of 12 million people, you can find an awful lot of emptiness. Whether it’s being on the 101 at 3 o’clock in the morning, or up on Mulholland Drive at midnight on a Tuesday, it’s the same thing — there’s just this sense of entropic space which I really like. It freaks me out, but I really like it.
 
SHOCKHOUND: It’s interesting you say that, because I'm originally from New York, and I’ve lived in LA for seventeen years now and I’ve never gotten bored. There are always new things to discover.

MOBY: Yeah, I went to dinner the other night; it was the coolest dinner I think I’ve ever been to in my entire life. It was a dinner for Tadao Ando, the architect. He’s a Japanese architect; he’s almost like a sculptor who works with concrete — except he makes buildings, and they’re really empty. Really, really empty. So, it was a dinner in honor of him, and it was at this famous John Lautner house called the “Chemosphere,” the round one that Troy McClure lives in on the Simpsons. I was talking to this man who edited the Taschen book on Los Angeles, and he’s like the most renowned historian about Los Angeles’ strangeness. He knows the history of LA but he especially knows about the weirdness of it. We just sat there and talked and talked about how LA can be irritating, and how LA can drive you crazy, it’s never boring. And that is amazing, because I get bored pretty easily, and I have to say it’s one of the reasons I left New York: New York started to bore me. There’s too many rich people, and all they’re doing is spending money and throwing up on each other. It’s like spring break for entitled hedge fund managers.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Have you made any music in Los Angeles yet?

MOBY: Well, I moved into this crazy old house in Beachwood Canyon, and I’m building my studio right now. I play [Led Zeppelin's] "Going to California" on the acoustic guitar, but I haven’t actually been writing too much of my own music because the studio is under construction. It’s this weird old house that’s one of those legendary Hollywood houses. The Rolling Stones lived there when they made Cocksucker Blues. Marlon Brando lived there for a while. Weird stuff has just happened there...Not to keep rambling on about LA, but when you drive around the Hollywood Dell, or Beachwood Canyon, or Old Hollywood, it’s just so random. You see these houses, these big beautiful palaces next to weird mid-century houses and they’re inches apart from each other. I love the fact that every night when you go to sleep in LA, you’re not sure if it’s going to be there when you wake up. You just wonder how this city still exists. It’s barely functioning, especially Hollywood. The rest of it, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, they have good streets, they have stoplights that work; and Hollywood is like this crumbling disastrous mess that reinvents itself every day.