INTERVIEW: Art Alexakis (October 2019)
I can’t seem
to help myself, to be honest – I always want to be cool in these
situations, but never seem to manage it. Upon being introduced to Art Alexakis,
the longtime frontman of Portland alt-rockers Everclear, I ’fess up to him
almost immediately that I’ve been a fan of his for well over 25 years now. “Boy,
that is a long time!”, he laughs - perhaps pondering both the lengthy commitment
and his own chequered career within the music business. With hindsight though,
the admission serves a dual purpose – it immediately seems to put him at ease as
he realises he’s chatting to someone who’s on his side, rather than another jobbing
journo keen to stitch him up with gossip.
Every great band needs one killer trick up its sleeve, and in the 1990s
alternative universe they didn’t come much more potent than Everclear’s
marriage of crunching rock tunes to wry observations of damaged
individuals (it didn’t hurt that they also had a signature vocal tic in the
form of their frontman’s memorable cry of “Uuuuuuppp… Ohhhhhh!”). Following
the acrimonious dissolution of the band’s original line-up in 2003, Alexakis soldiered
on heroically, weathering further personnel changes, relationship breakdowns
and bankruptcy to bring a revitalised Everclear roaring back to life with
2016’s Black Is The New Black. He’s currently out on the road with his
first solo album, Sun Songs - a true individual effort on which Alexakis
plays every instrument and strikes a resolutely more personal tone than his
parent band.
Even in
slightly subdued form, Alexakis projects an undeniable charisma. Ahead of being
introduced to him, I was told that he was feeling under the weather and that I’d likely
get 20 minutes max, but he ends up chatting warmly with me for the best part of
45. A lot gets said during that time, both on and off-mic. At the end of our
interview, he tells me an amusing story about a German reporter who insisted on
giving a lengthy existential analysis of the back cover photo on So Much For
the Afterglow, only to be told that it was basically just a shot of the
three band-members looking really cool. I proceed to tell him that no fucking Beatles
record ever had a run of tracks as consistently good as the entire sequence of
that album (he counters with Abbey Road, which I’m willing to cop to).
What I don’t tell him is that songs like ‘Santa Monica’, ‘Heartspark
Dollarsign’, ‘Everything to Everyone’ and ‘Amphetamine’ are essentially the sound
of my beating heart – formative loves and mainstays from my teenage years right
through to the present day. I think he somehow gets it, though. In concert that
night, he introduces an audience request slot as the “surly jukebox interlude”,
before answering the crowd’s questions with a sort of wry, feigned weariness which
belies the fact that he knows we’re hanging on his every word. Certainly, the
raucous singalong which seems to greet every Everclear classic – and god, there
are a lot of them – suggests that I’m not the only one in attendance who
still feels as passionately about these songs as their author admits to.
So, I read
somewhere recently that Learning How to
Smile was originally mooted as your first solo album – was that the case?
Yeah, it
was – but it was a totally another thing at the time. It was called Song For
An American Movie. And, uh, it was…. I had gotten tired of… it was like, a “being
the writer in the band” job. Just really dumb stuff, and I’m like: “You
know what? I’m going to do my own record – you guys go do something; we’ll
catch up in a year or two”. And, um, I did most of the record – and the record
wasn’t as rock as the record is now, as it became; it was much more
R&B and Pop. It was kind of weird – weird sounds… It was never
finished, but it was three-quarters of the way there. I hadn’t mixed it yet. I
played it for my A&R guy and my manager, and they’re like: you gotta play
this for the band. And, like, they all… all these people showed up at my
house without telling me, and were just like: “We’re begging you to make
this an Everclear record; it’s the right thing to do for everybody”. I’m like: [shrugging
in submission] “Okay…”. And I hadn’t even written ‘Wonderful’ yet – I wrote
‘Wonderful’ after that, because I was going through a divorce with my
daughter’s mom. And, um, yeah – so it became an Everclear record.
And you
were happy to do that?
No, not
really…!
No…?
That’s interesting.
…I
acquiesced.
So the
second part, that was intended as “the Everclear record”.
That was…
I wanted to make a rock record. I wanted to make a pop record and a rock
record, but originally to make a double record that was: soft song, heavy song;
heavy song, soft song – that basically went back and forth, and told two
stories like this; you could separate them and let go of the heavy song. I just
wanted to do something conceptual and different, and just do a double
record – but my manager convinced me to do it this way, because ultimately
it made more money to do it as the two different records. And I feel like the
second record’s very dire – I feel like the first record, Volume One, is
a pretty good record. It’s one of my favourite records.
That is very
interesting to hear.
It’s the
most successful record here [in the UK], for sure. So that’s the one
we’re gonna play next year. We’re coming on tour and we’ll be here probably in
April – we’ll do the whole album; we’ll do a few songs from Volume Two, and we’ll
do all the hits from Afterglow, and fan favourites… we’ll put on a long
show; an hour and a half, which is long!
It’s
always perhaps the obvious question to ask in these situations, but –
particularly coming off the back of an absolutely killer Everclear album in Black is the New Black, why now for this
solo album? Why this group of songs?
Well, I
started writing… like, I don’t decide to write, I just feel like: hey,
man – I’ll pick this guitar up, I feel like I got an idea, and I’ll write down
ideas and come up with melodies. And I’ll know when my soul and my body’s ready
to start – I know it sounds kind of hippy-ish, and I’m not very hippy, but I
just kind of let my spirit and everything tell me when it’s time to write, you
know? And I was writing; I was already writing songs and coming up with ideas,
but I just did not want to make another Everclear record. I didn’t want to make
another big rock record right now, it just didn’t… I mean, I felt like Black
is the New Black was one of our best records.
…It was
fucking awesome.
It’s a
good rock record, you know? And I just… I don’t know if I can better that. So I
just wanted to do something different and, uh… yeah. I always… when I did the
solo record that turned into Songs From An American Movie, it was different
- but it wasn’t that different, because it was still me calling all the
shots just like I do in Everclear with a bunch of guys, right? And it was
different, but it wasn’t really different – I wanted to do something
different. I’m like, as with most singers who aren’t really good singers – you
know, “vocalists” – I wanted to put my voice out front, because I’d never done
that before. And I knew with an acoustic background, that would be the right
time to do it. And I wanted to do a record where it was truly a solo record: I
played all the instruments, I figured out everything – all the
harmonies, all the backgrounds… everything. I was just going to work with me
and an engineer; an engineer/co-producer who helped me do the whole record,
Stuart Schenk, who had worked on Invisible Stars and had been a friend
for years. So we did that, and it was no set timetable – just like: let’s try
to work two-to-three days a week, minimum two days a week if we can, and he had
others things going on, and I had the band going on, family and all
sorts of stuff… But it took us about a year to get it done, and that was fine –
I told my label I was going to do it, I was like: I’ll probably just put it out
on an indie, but they were like: no, we’ll put it out – we’ll give you some
money. And I was like: okay! I can pay my guys with that, that’s fine. Not a lot
of money, but I didn’t need it – I have my own studio right down the street
from my house, like a mile down the street; my daughter’s school’s a mile the
other way on the same street, so I got a good situation where I live. And now
my wife’s got a space right near mine – she’s doing, like, yoga and hippy
stuff!
I don’t
want to linger too much on the MS diagnosis, as I know you’ve addressed it at
length elsewhere – not least on ‘The Hot Water Test’, which is a really
beautiful song that’s a major highlight of this record. It sounds very much
like you saw it as a defining moment which presented a challenge as to how you
choose to view the world and live your life from this point on. Did it help to
put everything into perspective for you?
What, the
diagnosis? Yeah, absolutely – I mean, you know… it’s scary. Like in the
song, the doctors kind of like… What happened, I got into a car accident, and
no-one got really hurt, but like a week or two later, things happen –
like, when you hit something, even if there’s airbags and everything, you’ll
get a pinched nerve. And I called my doctors – they’re like: “Yeah, I’ll just
give you a shot in your neck, but do this MRI so I can see where it’s at”. I’m
like: okay – and I’d done MRIs before, so I went and got the MRI, showed up at
his office, this little examination room, and there was like six doctors in
there – in a room not even as big as that stage. Six men, and they just kind of
turned around and looked at me – I’m just like: “Oh, fuck…”
Well - either
they’re all huge Everclear fans, or…!
[Laughs] Yeah,
that wasn’t gonna happen! These were like old guys with stethoscopes. So they
told me what they thought, and I talked to a couple more neurologists, and they
both had looked at it and they were pretty sure of what it was, but I had to go
to my own neurologist and get my own opinion. But they told me “Multiple
Sclerosis” and it scared the hell out of me – I had no idea what that is; most
people don’t. I know it’s bad – I thought you died from it, you know? It
scared the hell out of me. I told my wife, and by the time I got home after
calling her, she’s got like two or three computers up, she looked like she was
hacking into the government! She’s like: “Oh no, we got this. We can do this”.
And, um… yeah! It’s been a humbling thing, but it’s also… we’ve been really grateful
for good things, and for what I have. Every glass is half-full.
I wanted
to ask you – it’s maybe a bit of an asinine question to ask a lot of people,
but are you a happy person, given everything that’s gone on in your
life? You seem like a really settled family man nowadays.
I am now…
When I was younger, I was never satisfied. I was always trying to… I was trying
to sleep with everything that moved, eating everything… I didn’t do drugs, but
I acted like a drug addict: it’s what we call a “dry-drunk”. [Begins
fiddling with a box of toothpicks] I’ve been clean and sober for thirty
years, but I really exhibited a lot of addictive behaviour. Now, my addictive
behaviour is down to this. [Starts chewing on one] Four months
ago, I stopped eating all meat products, all sugar, all nicotine… everything,
just 100% vegan, clean, and I feel really good.
So you
just put a toothpick in there instead now. Well… why not?!
’Cos no,
that’s the thing: that’s what people are doing - you chomp on the toothpicks. I
was going through a pack of these every couple of days – now, it’s like: I’ve
had this one for two weeks, so… I’m slowing down! When I get that kind of
addictive… like, have you ever smoked…?
No, but I
have kind of an addictive personality myself, so I know what you’re talking
about: it’s either one thing or another. You’ve got to have that one specific thing
at any one time that you sort of fixate on and do to death – and then you move
onto whatever the next thing is.
- Sugar!
Sugar was like, for most junkies who are clean, or even drunks… sugar. It hits
the same brain synapses as cocaine – it looks the same way on an MRI. So to
answer your question, yeah – I’m grateful and I’m happy, and not complacent in
a bad way, I’m… not complacent, but content. I still want to do
things, I still have an edge to me – I’ll never be Mr Sweetness and Light, but
I do experience joy now. And I can find joy in places where I didn’t see it
before. I can see joy in just about everywhere.
Given the
times, it’s kind of obligatory to ask any American artist what they make of the
current domestic situation, particularly if they’re politically active or
outspoken as you’ve been in the past. So, I was going to do that – but then I
heard the song ‘White People Scare Me’, which kind of answered it for me! As an
active liberal campaigner, do the kind of things you’re singing about there help
to strengthen your resolve, or is the overall feeling actually closer to what
you’re articulating in that song?
I always
felt that – it used to be a joke, me and my friends were like: white people are
horrible, man! Every bad thing in this world came from white people,
pretty much…
White men,
specifically.
…White men.
Definitely white men. Yeah, you can’t really blame the women! I agree.
White people just kind of… I mean, the thing about white women too is that
they’ve been complicit. They’ve been complicit.
Women For
Trump – they’ve got a lot to answer for.
You see
some of those pictures, and…
Oh,
they’re grim. But they are the ‘Volvo Driving Soccer Moms’ that you used to
sing about, are they not…?!
…No…
maybe. Maybe! Maybe the older, M.I.L.F. or G.I.L.F. – the G.I.L.F. version!
Maybe. I don’t know: there’s Republicans, there’s conservatives - and then there’s
Trump people. That’s a different thing!
…Right!
Well, we’ve got our own version over here with the Brexiteers, of course…
Oh,
fuckin’, worse than… yeah, I know. It’s grim, man.
But is
that something that keeps you motivated? Or does it kind of make you go:
“…Urgh. I don’t know how I deal with this”…?
Yeah, a
bit of both. At first, I think I’m like: “Really? What the fuck are
you…” – then I’m like: “Fuck you guys. No. This isn’t happening”. That’s
usually how it is – I get frustrated, then I get angry, then I get vocal about
whatever it is, so. And you probably know me well enough through my music to
know that I’m not a guy who sits on the sidelines.
Well, I’m certainly
anticipating the next Everclear record…
Well,
we’ll see. We’ll see what happens - hopefully! But there’s several political
songs on this record – ‘A Seat at the Table’… ‘Line in the Sand’ is more of
just a personal socio thing, but…
‘House
With a Pool’…?
‘House
With a Pool’, definitely. A lot of people don’t pick up on that – it’s like: “I
don’t really like that song, because I don’t really want a house with a pool”.
Oh yes, you do…!
…You’re told
that you do, and you just don’t know it!
Yes, you
do. It might not be a house with a pool, but it’s… you get it, though.
It’s an
iPhone.
It’s that
shiny fucking thing. [Whispers] You can almost get it! It’s right
here…! What’s funny is, I’m building a pool in my back yard right now! [Laughs]
Because… because…
…Because
you want it!
Well… yes
and no! But really, let’s be honest about it: the reason my wife’s letting me
spend $85,000 to build this pool is the fact that with the MS, I can swim and
not get overheated every day. And she loves watching me swim; I’m a good
swimmer. She likes watching me swim, and I love to swim. Seriously - I will use
it every day.
That’s
your reason; you’re sticking with it…!
Yeah!
That’s why I’m spend a shitload of money on it – it’s got a hot-tub; I’ll go in
the hot-tub in the morning, swim for about twenty, thirty minutes… and then at
night, go out and swim for about ten; get in the hot-tub, go to bed. Sleep like
a baby, I guarantee it – I know what’s going to happen. So that’s ironic, but
there’s… I think that ‘Orange’ is political. Orange is like: I don’t know if
you know, but there’s Orange County, which is this southern…
…Yeah, a
real melting-pot. I’ve got family who used to live near there.
In Orange
County, California…? Wow! Well, for years it’s been a sort of conservative bastion
– and it is slowly, not-so-slowly anymore, turning blue. That’s kinda
the whole thing – and it’s also like: you stare at something long enough, it’s
gonna change its shape from what you think is orange. It’s gonna turn blue; or
what you think is blue might turn orange, you know what I mean…? It’s
also that thing of, like: this guy get in this relationship, and he thinks it’s
all this and that – and he doesn’t grow, she grows, and he’s lost. I
think there’s a lot of that that goes on in our society.
Looking at
your body of work in its entirety, it strikes me that there are two overriding
themes – and I was wondering if you would agree with me if I identified them as
the following….
Okay!
The first
is: a sometimes almost David Lynch-esque glimpse behind the white picket fences
of America to explore the broken individuals and forgotten communities which
lurk within. Do you agree with that?
To a certain extent, yeah – I’m definitely… Well, you gotta understand, I grew up very poor. I grew up in a housing project, which is government housing – long rows of buildings with poor people living there. So, “middle-class” is what I’ve always wanted to attain. The white picket fence is what I’ve always wanted: Mom, Dad, kids… security, yard… pool. House with a pool! You know, that thing – that’s all I wanted. I’ve never wanted to be rich; I still don’t. If I won, like, five or six million dollars, like in a lottery, that’d be great. If I won, like, forty…? I’d be bummed – because your life’s gonna change. My life’s great right now. Would I like to have a little bit more financial security, like everyone? Yeah – especially since if this thing ever progresses, I’m not gonna be able to work. I’ve got life insurance if I die; I don’t have life insurance if I can’t work. So there’s that fear – so yeah, I would like some money, but I’m just not… I’m not a money guy, you know.
Obviously growing up being poor is one contributing factor, but do you think that theme might also be a product of the 70s divorce culture in America? It strikes me that a lot of people who were affected by that started to come of age in the 1990s and ended up forming successful bands which ended up resonating with a lot of people – yours being one of them.
To a certain extent, yeah – I’m definitely… Well, you gotta understand, I grew up very poor. I grew up in a housing project, which is government housing – long rows of buildings with poor people living there. So, “middle-class” is what I’ve always wanted to attain. The white picket fence is what I’ve always wanted: Mom, Dad, kids… security, yard… pool. House with a pool! You know, that thing – that’s all I wanted. I’ve never wanted to be rich; I still don’t. If I won, like, five or six million dollars, like in a lottery, that’d be great. If I won, like, forty…? I’d be bummed – because your life’s gonna change. My life’s great right now. Would I like to have a little bit more financial security, like everyone? Yeah – especially since if this thing ever progresses, I’m not gonna be able to work. I’ve got life insurance if I die; I don’t have life insurance if I can’t work. So there’s that fear – so yeah, I would like some money, but I’m just not… I’m not a money guy, you know.
Obviously growing up being poor is one contributing factor, but do you think that theme might also be a product of the 70s divorce culture in America? It strikes me that a lot of people who were affected by that started to come of age in the 1990s and ended up forming successful bands which ended up resonating with a lot of people – yours being one of them.
Yeah -
but, like, Kurt, and Billy [Corgan] and a lot of the 90s people, they’re all
fucking broken. Kurt was broken; he ended up putting a gun in his mouth.
Billy’s broken – all those people who grew up, and all of us that made music in
the 90s grew up in the 70s, and it’s very aptly said: a divorce culture. In my
case, my dad refused to pay bills, so my mother was not… a lot of these women
came out of this divorce culture – men didn’t help subsidise them, so they had
no idea how to support a family; that wasn’t their “job”. They weren’t
raised to do that, and so we ended up living in government housing. It broke my
mom’s heart, but she did it; she did it for her kids. And you know what, I’m glad,
for a lot of reasons: because it really made me appreciate things, and it made
me very open-minded racially, you know? I’m colour-blind in many, many ways.
I’ve
always wanted to ask you, actually – I’m not sure if it’s something that’s been
covered in interviews previously, as it’s quite difficult to get old American
press over here - ‘Heartspark Dollarsign’ has such an emotional message,
articulated in a really heartfelt way; was that a true story?
Yeah. When
I was, um… you know, I grew up in a housing project, man, I was just a horny
boy, just like every teenage boy…! And driven, and over-sexualised younger – I
was abused and raped when I was a kid, and instead of turning it into abuse, I
just became overly and overtly sexualised. And addictive – I think that really
opened up the door for addictive behaviour. An, um, I liked all… I never had a
type; I liked all types of women. I like all types of women that are my wife
now! [Laughs] Because that just seems to work better. But yeah, I dated
girls and would bring them to meet my mom after I’d been dating them for a
while. My mom was from the Deep South, and consciously she didn’t think that
she was racist – I never heard her use the ‘n’ word, not once in her life. And
if others used it, she’d chastise them – she’d smack ’em for that, so. But
seeing her boy with a black woman…? [Grimaces] It was worse with a
Jewish girl! She just… didn’t like it. But I loved my mom, she was wonderful –
she died about twelve years ago. She had a lot of love in her heart; she just…
she was abused.
- Another
product of her environment.
I mean, she
came up with a household of kids - they were all fucking everything that moved,
you know, up in the mountains, the Smoky Mountains… abuse was rampant, it was
just everywhere. Ask Dolly Parton, she’ll tell ya! That’s what happens growing
up poor with a big family. You know, you gotta look out for yourself! [Laughs]
Dolly Parton’s awesome. I love Dolly!
We all
love Dolly…
How can
you not like Dolly Parton? She writes phenomenal songs.
It’s true.
We have a huge poster of her hanging on our wall at home.
Oh,
really…?
Yeah.
Because she’s… well, she’s fucking Dolly, man…!
She can
play any instrument better than most people. Definitely better than me.
And she’s, what – a hundred and forty years old…?! I went and saw her with my
wife, and I think we were the only straight couple there! [Laughs] It
was all gay people, and just… man, she was so good! Anyways, back to your
question. What was your question…?!
…Was ‘Heartspark
Dollarsign’ a true story? You’ve kind of already answered it.
Yeah, so
then in my twenties I dated this girl - and boy, we just fell for each other
really hard, but her parents… actually, she had a half-white mom and a black
dad, and her dad was cool with it, but her mom was not cool with it. And
my mom wasn’t cool with it, so… we tried, but it was hard to do it with people
against it. Anyway – she ended up marrying a couple of white guys and had
babies with them and stuff. I see her… I haven’t seen for a for a few years, but
she used to come to shows with her kids. But yeah, it was one of those things.
So the
second recurring theme is: a refusal to let the trauma of the past encroach
onto or inform the present. This is particularly evident in ‘Father of Mine’,
which I personally think is probably your finest song – I’ve always found it
very moving that you speak so openly about your desire not to make the same
mistakes with your own children.
Yeah –
well, it’s a conscious thing: I think you can’t avoid it doing that. But you
can be aware, and conscious, and woke and present about it, and make a decision
like in that song: refuse to let it as much as possible. But it’s still
going to affect it, you know what I mean? I don’t think you can get away from
trauma – you just have to be aware of it, and aware that it’s happening, like:
why am I doing this? Why am I thinking this? Why am I reacting like this? Okay,
it’s because of this, and this, and this. “Let me walk that back” – you know
what I mean? You have to be conscious of it, because I think it’s a sort of
programming; we’re all programmed by agreements we make, and agreements that we
disagree with.
But yeah,
those are themes – I think escape is a theme, too: like, getting out of this
situation and making something better; finding something better. I think that
comes up a lot.
I follow
the band on social media, and you’ve got what I think is quite an interesting promotional
strategy – I saw one tour advert that said “Hey, we’re Everclear – remember us,
from the 90s…?”
[Pulls a
face]
Ah, okay –
not something you authorised…!
[Laughs] I didn’t
see that…
When you
do things like the Summerland tour though, are you happy to position yourselves
as riding a bit of a nostalgia wave, or do you just see it as a way of acquainting
people with the present incarnation of Everclear?
Well, okay
– to answer your question: if there’s nostalgia: god bless. I mean, what is it?
I don’t care. That’s fine, if it brings people out. What I’m doing is: I love
these bands; I love the music from the era that I came up in. It wasn’t
nostalgia at the time – [indicating to me] when you were twelve
years old, it was relevant and present. It still is to me as well. It’s rock
and roll! It’s just good rock and roll. And I think there’s really good bands
that are still trying to work – and if they’re working, I wanna work with them.
It’s kind
of the paradox when it comes to bands who were big at any one time – some of
them never actually split up, and they stay really great; the mainstream just
moves in a different direction.
Well, it happened to us – we can’t all be the Foo Fighters, you know, or
Radiohead. It’s just – for the most part, a lot of those bands are just not
doing what they used to do. They’re not playing arenas – we used to play
arenas, we’re not playing arenas anymore. And… that’s fine! I’m not… like,
someone asked me if I’m bitter. I’m like: “What…?!” I make a pretty good
living, and I get to play music. And I’m very grateful.
Now, you’re
quite notable in the history of rock as far as I’m concerned for being someone
who wrote a song about their child which wasn’t
complete rubbish! To that end, I’ve always wanted to know what your daughter
thinks of ‘Annabella’s Song’.
Um… I
haven’t talked to her about it in many, many years. You know, when she was
little, she loved it. It started as a lullaby - like, she’d be crying, I’d go
into her room at night, lay her down and rub her head and just: [singing
softly] “Anna… Anna… tell me what you want… baby, tell me what you need…
Anna… you are never alone”. And that was it, right? And then I wrote the song
from there. And I wrote it for, I think, Sparkle and Fade – a more
“rock” version of it that you can still hear online – but it didn’t really fit
the record. Which pissed off the label - they wanted it on the record, and I’m
like: “Creative control, you gave it to me – fuckers…!”
…Yeah, you
get ‘Heroin Girl’ instead!
‘Heroin
Girl’s a good song. They wanted ‘Heroin Girl’. I love ‘Heroin Girl’! Um… But
then I had the idea to record it with the big band like a Sinatra song. And I
actually recorded it in the same room where Sinatra did all those Capitol
records: Studio A of Capitol Studios, underneath the Capitol building, the
round Capitol building. So that was pretty cool – I sung the vocal in that
vocal room where he did that.
So she
likes it, then? Because I suppose she could be like: “Aw, Dad…!”
Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. There’s a song on my new record for my
new daughter – “my new daughter!” – my twelve-year-old. She loves it.
Is that ‘Arizona Star’…?
Arizona, yeah.
That’s a great song. I presume you’re going to
be doing that later so that we can all do a bit of “Ayyy, ayyy, ay!”…?
No, actually! I’m just… I’m still working into the new songs and getting
comfortable with them.
So, here’s
another one that I’ve always wanted to ask you: in ‘Everything to Everyone’,
what is the instrument that does the siren hookline at the beginning of the
track?
That… So, we
had recorded the record in the fall of ’96, and it was called Pure White
Evil. And there were a bunch of songs that are not on it now – it was
missing a few songs. It had ‘Everything to Everyone’, but it didn’t have the
intro – it just came in with the “Dum-dum-dum… dum-dum, duh-duh, dum-dum-dum…”
with me singing, and then the drums came in. And we mixed the record, and we
played it for my A&R guy at the label and he’s just like… I knew it
wasn’t as good as my last record; I knew it. I knew there were some really
great songs on it, but I knew it wasn’t ready. And he’s like: “It’s good, but
it’s not great. It isn’t going to do what you want it to do”. He goes: “But
there’s a lot of great songs on here; it just does not sound like a
record yet”. He was right, but I was kind of devastated.
I spent two weeks in New York by myself, just walking around and sitting in my hotel room – I went and saw this movie called Jerry Maguire like, five times, and that’s where I got ‘Song From An American Movie’, ’cos there’s a Bruce Springsteen song in there called ‘Secret Garden’. And I would go back to my room and write and write… I went to the drug store and bought of notebooks, and one notebook was just how to make every song on that record better to fit these new songs. And if I couldn’t figure out a way to do it, the song would be left off the record. I spent, like, two or three weeks doing this, and then I called my A&R guy, my manager, the guys in the band – I’m like: “I know what we’re gonna do; we’re gonna do this, and this, and this, and this – we’re gonna go to this studio and do this, we’re gonna do this…” and they’re like: “Whoah!”. And I’m like: “And I want Andy Wallace to mix it”, and Perry’s like: “I’ll take care of that; I will make it happen”. Perry’s my A&R guy – he’s a Brit. Perry Watts-Russell. Landed gentry! Stuffy. So we went in and finished it in, like, June, and it came out great!
So what is it, then? Some kind of synth, I presume…?
No. You asked! So, it’s four vintage keyboards – electric keyboards called, uh… I don’t know! And it’s me playing it and doing harmonies and stuff, and putting it through a distortion pedal, and through different effects. I’m like: “Try this – bring it back a little bit… pan this over here…”, because I had this sound I wanted to get, and finally I got it – I’m like: “Phew!” And Perry’s like: “I don’t know how you did that, dude, that is amazing”.
I spent two weeks in New York by myself, just walking around and sitting in my hotel room – I went and saw this movie called Jerry Maguire like, five times, and that’s where I got ‘Song From An American Movie’, ’cos there’s a Bruce Springsteen song in there called ‘Secret Garden’. And I would go back to my room and write and write… I went to the drug store and bought of notebooks, and one notebook was just how to make every song on that record better to fit these new songs. And if I couldn’t figure out a way to do it, the song would be left off the record. I spent, like, two or three weeks doing this, and then I called my A&R guy, my manager, the guys in the band – I’m like: “I know what we’re gonna do; we’re gonna do this, and this, and this, and this – we’re gonna go to this studio and do this, we’re gonna do this…” and they’re like: “Whoah!”. And I’m like: “And I want Andy Wallace to mix it”, and Perry’s like: “I’ll take care of that; I will make it happen”. Perry’s my A&R guy – he’s a Brit. Perry Watts-Russell. Landed gentry! Stuffy. So we went in and finished it in, like, June, and it came out great!
So what is it, then? Some kind of synth, I presume…?
No. You asked! So, it’s four vintage keyboards – electric keyboards called, uh… I don’t know! And it’s me playing it and doing harmonies and stuff, and putting it through a distortion pedal, and through different effects. I’m like: “Try this – bring it back a little bit… pan this over here…”, because I had this sound I wanted to get, and finally I got it – I’m like: “Phew!” And Perry’s like: “I don’t know how you did that, dude, that is amazing”.
Honestly,
for years now I’ve wanted to know that, because it’s such a great
sound…!
Four
keyboards, and a bunch of effects! My guitar player now plays it with just a
guitar, but nothing sounds like it. You can never recreate it!
So, finally:
what are your Top 5 favourite songs that you’ve written, or what are the five
that you’d most like to be remembered for?
Wow. Let
me just answer this: I really don’t care what I’m remembered for. I know what I
did; I know what I like. So I think that’s a better question, is like: what do
I think represents me… represents me in the way I want to be represented. What
people remember…? I can’t control that, and I don’t really care.
Um…
‘Learning How to Smile’… I’m really proud of ‘The Hot Water Test’ and ‘Line in
the Sand’ off the new record… ‘Summerland’… there’s a song on just about every
record. ‘You’, the song ‘You’ that’s on Black is the New Black… I think
there’s a song on just about every record that is like that. That’s five. I
mean, I could go on – there’s about ten songs that, like, I’m really proud of.
I can’t say… I’m proud of all my songs. I mean, there’s some songs I
don’t like as much as others – I can tell you what those are…!
Well,
then! Which ones do you hate which you can’t escape…?!
Well, I
don’t hate, but… ‘Unemployed Boyfriend’…
…I love
that song. I LOVE that song!
You’re
such a sap! Such a sap…!
But you’ve
done that one a couple of times – you recorded it, then you re-recorded it as
well!
No, I did
it because they paid me money…! I did that fucking stupid “re-record”
record so that I got enough time to record - in the same studio time - Invisible
Stars.
Ah, right.
Still, I really do love that song. It’s funny, isn’t it, how there’s always
going to be someone who likes the songs you hate!
Don’t like
that song very much… ‘Good Witch of the North’…
So it’s
none of the big ones – it’s not like: [resentfully] “We could live
beside the fucking ocean...”
No, I love that song – that’s a great song. No, I like my hits; I love my hits, they’ve been good friends to me. They’ve got me through hard times.
Sun Songs is available now on The End Records/BMG.
No, I love that song – that’s a great song. No, I like my hits; I love my hits, they’ve been good friends to me. They’ve got me through hard times.
Sun Songs is available now on The End Records/BMG.