Stream: The Minutemen “History Lesson Part 2″

(from Double Nickels on the Dime available on SST)

The Minutemen’s Double Nickels On The Dime is one of the several weathered foundations of L.A. RECORD and one of the few albums still alive with the weird outside-inside energy of punk as it was once in California and the world. Exactly twenty-five years later, it still starts bands and makes friends. Minutemen bassist Mike Watt meets for pizza at San Pedro’s excellent Pavich’s Pizza for remembering D. Boon and George Hurley and that guy Mike Watt in the summer of 1984. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

You turned fifty in December and now Double Nickels is having its 25th anniversary.
I was 25 or 26 when I recorded this? Half of my life. The biggest thing about that guy Mike Watt in those days of 25-year-olds was really getting my mind blown by Ulysses. That was the big thing in my mind right then. It had a big impact on me. It made me wonder so much about the world. It’s funny how things come around. That record was a trippy time in the Minutemen’s life. In the punk era. Going back 25 years—it’s part of the past now! It’s a signifier in some ways—my life and other peoples’ lives. Like people knowing us and the punk movement—people who got the record, never saw us live. Keith and Tim did the We Jam Econo documentary. A lot of bands from the older times don’t have things done on them like that. They didn’t know a lot about the band—they knew from the record, but they wanted to find out about us. It became a thing unto itself—a touchstone. Not unto itself because it was obviously a scene—without a scene, there woulda been no Nickels, no Minutemen, no Econo. I don’t wanna get carried away—conceited! It’s just how it works out. We never thought we were a better band than anybody. We were happy as hell to be along with the team. We didn’t wanna be on top of the pile. I think every band had its own trip. There’s enough people to tell what’s right and wrong with music in books and shit. I don’t get into that. One good thing I like about it—is for D. Boon. A lot of times you get killed in your younger days, you get forgotten. I know the reason in my case—I liked him a lot and the fella could pay really good. For other cats to be aware of him—keeping the Minutemen in mind like that—in a weird way, his art is living. Some of his spirit is out there. For me, I owe him everything.
Where can you hear Boon the most on Nickels?
Maybe ‘Anxious Mofo’—that solo he does! Hardly any notes! It’s just great. And he does a great one in the instrumental—‘June 16.’ A lot of the words were influenced by Jim Joyce. The glory of man and all this. On ‘June ’16,’ Boon does a really good guitar solo, too. Hurley plays smoking drums on almost all of it. There’s a lot of dynamics with those two guys. Little tiny song settings. I’m trying to glue things together. I don’t do much bass solo on that record. I don’t think any.
Who drew the anchor on the label?
D. Boon. Punk records only had the writing on one side. With the way the lyrics are on the sleeve, we got the idea from Wire. Just put it out like prose instead of poetry.
Who wrote ‘Arena rock is new wave’ in the dead wax?
Joe Carducci came up with all those. I don’t know his commentary. [Looking at the photos in the gatefold] These pictures—this is Richard Meltzer, this is Joe Baiza. I just cut these pictures out. I had a posterboard. This is our first paid gig at Starwood. These two school buses—we rented these and played in them in Mojave on a dry lakebed. We had to wear sunglasses because the dust was blowing so hard. This is the Federal Building in west L.A.—I think it’s Rock Against Racism or Reagan. Maybe both. The camera people were taking pictures of a girl with a mohawk—they were way more into that than filming bands, so I’m turning it up. You can see how the scissors I used—pinking shears! I like these pictures. I don’t know—so casual. Boon’s got his fist up! And Georgie…
I know you did the record like Ummagumma—everyone got a solo song. ‘Cohesion,’ ‘Take 5, D’…
Georgie’s is ‘You Need The Glory.’ D. Boon never wrote a song with my words. I would write with his words all the time, but they weren’t words he wrote for me. They were little thoughts he put on paper and left around. That shit didn’t have rhymes—it was just thoughts, observations. He would use his words if he had rhymes—‘This Ain’t No Picnic.’ There were some misfires on this, I think. We did another version of ‘Little Man With A Gun In His Hand’—this came out such a lame version!
You said before you gotta spread a lot of manure to be a farmer.
Well, we wanted to match up to the Huskers because they had a double album. Kind of a challenge. I thought the band always did better when we were challenged. And it caught the band at a great time when Georgie was still writing us words.
At work, right?
He’d have to go in and work a lathe, so they’re kind of abstract. And the band had played enough that we could bring songs together really quick. Me and D. Boon were always quick because we grew up together but it always took time to show Georgie. We never wanted him in back—we wanted him just as involved. We’d spend a lot of time working out. This time, he could learn to feel it. He knew when he’d have a break or pause. The songs were coming real quick. The big problem was how were we gonna put 45 songs in order? We knew it was gonna be four sides. The way a record works, the needle works its way to the label. I kinda figured we’d have the shitty ones on the label and the good ones outside. How is this gonna happen? If we draw straws to find an order—first second third, pick one at a time. And good songs go first and lame ones get left, and the fourth side is nobody. I think Georgie got first pick and what’s he pick? His solo song! If you look at his side—all Hurley! I got second pick—I picked ‘Mike Jackson’ first, and Boon got third and picked ‘Anxious Mofo.’ Here’s a weird one—Hurley/Boon. Not a lot of Hurley/Boon. ‘Two Beads At The End,’ which we used to always crack up. It was always hard to know what Georgie was singing about. Private meanings. So we thought two butt beads hanging out—start you up like a lawnmower! I haven’t looked at this in a long time. D. Boon’s side is a lot of his stuff. And mine—a lot of Watt ones! Maybe we were picking songs from our own stuff—I thought I was picking for good! And it turns out the good ones are kinda on the outside. We didn’t want no favoritism. All divided even. A democratic thing. D. Boon would like that political idea.
How did ‘History Lesson’ end up on the label? That’s one of the very best songs.
Nobody wanted it! Second to last pick. D. Boon’s last pick was ‘One Reporter’s Opinion.’ Liked the guitar, a lotta guitar solo—hated the idea of my name in the song. I did that a lot. And ‘History Lesson’ had my name in it, too. The last two songs picked. The fourth side all unpicked. The Henry song, D. Boon’s ‘Song for Latin America,’ Martin the Reactionaries singer—no one wanted them!
Where did ‘History Lesson’ come from?
I wrote it and I kinda got the lick from Velvet Underground ‘Here She Comes Now.’ Mugger kept playing it over and over. I wrote it kind of for hardcore kids. Velvet music is kind of slow, but I thought everybody should be able to relate to playing with your buddy in a band. I guess some dudes real young think of being a rock star, but a lot of dudes start just to be with their friend. A lot of the idea—we didn’t seem like guys in a band. Kind of strange in a way. But personable! People could know us. They like a song where we talk about each other. A lot of times, D. Boon would be pulled off stage by bouncers thinking he was just some dude in the crowd! Me sometimes but D. Boon a lot—they just couldn’t believe he was in a band!
‘And Mr. Narrator, this is like Bob Dylan to me?’
We didn’t know what words were for in songs when we were boys. We thought it was like lead guitar. We didn’t know meanings and shit. But Dylan seemed like a weird uncle at Thanksgiving, muttering and no one paying attention but here’s these weird kind of words. When we were making music as boys, we never thought of music as being expression. Used to get feelings. We thought it was to copy records. Never had the idea you try to get your own thoughts out! As we got older, it seemed maybe Dylan wasn’t so afraid. And if he wasn’t, maybe we shouldn’t be scared. It was kind of confidence for us. The narrator—like a voice in a movie explaining things. That’s who he was in our life. We were learning by doing. Now cats write tunes all the time! I gave a talk to my sister’s 6th grade—these kids, they’re in bands! Last year I did one here for 3rd graders—nine-year-olds!—and some girls had bands! But it was different in those days—you didn’t do it. Not like lemmings or sheep—though people are like lemmings a little bit. The best guy in town was the guy who could play ‘Black Dog’ the best. It was building models—‘Hey, kind of like the real thing.’ We don’t think soapbox derby—where you can roll around in the thing. Roll, not just look! So Dylan kind of helped us. We didn’t know what his words meant but we knew they meant something. Now we’re gonna write songs—what are words for? By Double Nickels, I’d been doing—I’d written my first ones—terrible ones—in the Reactionaries. That’s thirty years—1979! I made two cassettes. Ten songs. None made it to Minutemen. One I gave to Brendan Mullen—the only time I tried to get a gig. But by Double Nickels, I’d already written like 50 or 60 Minutemen songs. I was kinda havin’ fun. I’d write words sometimes just to hear D. Boon say them. In ‘It’s Expected I’m Gone’—let’s have D. Boon say ‘big fucking shit!’ right now! I just wanted to hear him say ‘big fucking shit!’ really loud like he did! Nothing to do with the song. Something to do with the James Joyce book.
‘I must look like a dork?’
No—I wanted Michael Jackson. If Michael Jackson sang our song, a lot of people would get the message of Minutemen. He had a big audience. A good singer. I sent him a cassette of it—to the management on the record cover. I wrote him a note. ‘This is a political song I think Michael Jackson should sing.’ I never got written back. ‘I must look like a dork’ I got from an interview with Iggy in Creem. They’d have spiel with questions and answers and they’d bold out a quote—‘I MUST LOOK LIKE A DORK.’ That magazine was very cool. Not like Rolling Stone and shit—good sense of humor. So I just lifted from Iggy. I thought Iggy was a balls-out dude—the Stooges a balls-out band. To be in that legacy—be part of a movement inspired by that band—so what if you look like a fucking dork! You tell people you are and you still go for it.
Is Double Nickels your Ulysses?
I try to be black-and-white about what Minutemen were trying to do with political songs. ‘Organizing the Boy Scouts for murder is wrong!’ It wasn’t supposed to be satire. We’re an anti-war band! A working people band! Kind of a weird-kind-of-people band! Dudes who didn’t fit in so much. To us, the message of our band and a little bit of punk, too—start your own band! Say what’s on your mind! Sometimes it was scary—there were skinhead bands and shit who were terribly enthusiastic in their message. But that’s the way the scene was. No rules. People went for it. I talk about Minutemen in two songs on that album—the one I actually mailed to Michael Jackson and ‘Politics of Time.’ I didn’t really sing about the band in ‘History Lesson’—because it was Hurley, too. On Punchline, the song ‘History Lesson’ is very hard-hitting. The story of most human civilization is killing each other. And I thought maybe there might be a part two—we don’t have to kill each other? So I’m gonna take it relaxed—talk about heroes like Richard Hell, Joe Strummer, John Doe. Those are my three songs that ain’t about Ulysses. About the band and my friend. Georgie’s? I don’t know what his are about—a working guy writing them at work. Boon—his tunes are usually about his beliefs. The outside writers—we never asked ‘em. It wasn’t important to us. It might have been like censorship. Just 100% used their words. And some of them were pretty cryptic. Like Dirk’s ‘The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts.’ And Jack Brewer’s cousin Joe—we didn’t even know the guy!—writes a weird one—‘Please Don’t Be Gentle With Me.’ I don’t know what the fuck—that’s a love song?
How many love songs are on Double Nickels?
‘Just wake me up and tug my hair!’ We took these at face value—we didn’t care! We made songs! A love song I got from Ulysses—‘My Heart In The Real World.’ Ulysses was bent a lot on language, so it was actually about language, but it has love song imagery. And war imagery. ‘Do You Want New Wave’ is about language too. ‘The World According To Nouns.’ All inspired by James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Have you re-read Ulysses?
I did in my forties. It seems a lot sadder book. Those days, when I wrote songs from that book, it was a big celebration! The glory of man! Now it’s more like—the glory hole of man! It seems like I could hear Joyce’s voice stronger. It seems like a lot of sadness with his mother and just the general condition of humans sometimes. So much failure. The only victories are tiny things between people in everyday stuff. The big joy is in the small middle things, because the big things are all fucking nightmare. ‘One Reporter’s Opinion’ seems like love, but it’s not. What struck me as trippy about Joyce was the technique in Ulysses changing the style with each episode—very scientific, dry, baby talk, opera, all these different trips. A lot of our shit was so… inside. It never got out to people. But it was very clear to us. Like the title. And the meaning of our lyrics. During this time, Boon worked in the van pool—one time the police were called on him—they said there was an insane man attacking the weeds! He was just a utility guy using the weed-whacker! But he had a mohawk! ‘The guy’s attacking the building!’ He’d write stuff while working and driving on little papers—this is what he would write and why there are no rhymes in them. And I’d find ‘em and make songs.
Did you ever talk to him about that?
No—I’d wonder if he would leave ‘em for me! I’d just find these things. Find ‘em in the van, in the car, all over the place. Just thinking about stuff.
How do you feel when you listen to Double Nickels now?
I didn’t listen for a long time. I listened around We Jam Econo. It was amazing! George said the same thing—‘How could I play that shit?’ It holds up, I think, for the most part. It doesn’t sound like, ‘Here’s my lame young days.’ It sounds like maybe the best thing about it!
Why?
I don’t know! Just listen! Goddamn! The way we played together—the way we were in our history. A lot of things happening at the right time. The way we were with other peoples’ lyrics and our own. We didn’t try to refine it or water it down. We just grabbed it by the bull horns and went for it, and the spirit shows through! It doesn’t sound forced—doesn’t sound fake. It’s very un-self-conscious. We did it without thinking—we wanted one because the Huskers had one! ‘We should, too!’ We just let it be it—we never thought in bigger terms. Now look—if you wanna know what was good about Minutemen, a lot of it’s in that record. We didn’t know at the time. But you ask perspective—like when I re-read Ulysses—that’s what I see. When I read it, I heard a different voice. The words were the same but I had changed. And maybe I identify more with the man. It seemed sadder. A lot of books from my 20s I’m re-reading seem a lot sadder. Kerouac—On The Road—very sad! These days it’s not a total ‘Yeah! Yeah, go for it!’ celebration firecracker. Dean Moriarty leaves him in the hospital with dysentery—that’s lame! It’s beat like ‘beat down.’ Minutemen—that is a young man’s record. And the spirit of young men is in that. It’s like—‘Wow, we got a chance to make a record! A chance to play together! To play a gig with Flag and Huskers! A chance to write music to Jack Brewer’s cousin Joe’s song about whatever the fuck tug my hair in the morning!’ We were just fucking lit about everything—all lit! Sometimes a young person is like that because they don’t have the worries of an older thing or a bad experience to keep them all wallowing or too safe. It has that spirit in it. And I can identify it because I was there. And I think about George and Boon and myself—man! That more than probably any other—we were all there with everything we had! More than any other of the Minutemen records. Buzz or Howl was actually two different things. I don’t think any Georgie songs are on it. One side Spot, one Ethan. No Georgie songs on 3 Way Tie or Project Mersh. What Makes A Man Start Fires, I had to write all the music—the only time D. Boon didn’t live in Pedro. Paranoid Time, Georgie wasn’t there with the songs. He came in later. Punchline was kind of Double Nickels. A little bit. An early version. Built on almost the same template except one or two outside writers. When we had the one album, most of the outside writers came on the second album of Double Nickels. The first was almost Punchline part 2—it actually was! And Punchline—goddamn! We make that—in the first year—December of ’80! Before we’d even been a year old. It’s not like Nickels—that’s why it holds up. It’s our signature. If you wanna know about the band and you only hear one record—that’s the one.

THE MINUTEMEN’S DOUBLE NICKELS ON THE DIME IS AVAILABLE FROM SST. VISIT MIKE WATT AT HOOTPAGE.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/WATTFROMPEDRO.

Download: Sean Carnage’s Mondays mega-mix

(full tracklist with liner notes here!)

Sean Carnage has done so much for L.A. music that there had to be a movie made to help document it—40 Bands 80 Minutes!, now recognizable as early home to much of the most vital actives still performing in the city. He’ll be celebrating four years of DIY shows (across six venues!) all this month at Women during his traditional Monday night residencies, and he’ll have the official Sean Carnage birthdayversary spectacular on July 27. This interview by Drew Denny.

The first time I attended a Sean Carnage night was at Il Corral—Is that where it all began?
That’s cool that you were there! Il Corral was really special, and that’s where Monday Nights began—on August 1st, 2005. I covered the back story of the Il Corral and the atmosphere of the times in my movie 40 Bands 80 Minutes!, so I’d recommend checking that out. Il Corral was everything a Rust Belt kid like me hoped California would be—wild (but still innocent) punk rock fun. Stane (Il Corral co-founder) installed a rope swing in the music area, so that gives you an idea of the venue’s play zone atmosphere. I was really lucky to be able to host shows there. A high proportion of the performers who played there were bona fide geniuses, and for once in my life, I realized what was going down as it was happening and turned on the video camera. People doubted my selection of performers for 40 Bands 80 Minutes! when it came out over two years ago. (Including L.A. RECORD—LOL!) [LOL @ us—ed.] But damn near every person who appears on the screen in my movie has gone on to do important stuff. The Los Angeles artistic and musical community is something to be proud of.
How did you get started?
I love underground music as a style and as a craft, and I had been involved as a musician, promoter, writer and fan for about thirteen years in Cleveland, Ohio. I moved to L.A. to retire, but couldn’t shake the music. So I started booking again after taking about three years off.
Did you know when you began that it would last this long and be so loved?
Derek Hess did Mondays at the Euclid Tavern for 8 years. Speak In Tongues also lasted 8 years. I knew if I could bring regularly scheduled music into the D.I.Y. and all-ages realm, it would work.
What was Speak in Tongues? I’m researching Pentecostalism and speaking in tongues for my thesis right now, so I have to ask…
Speak In Tongues—and the guys who lived there—changed my life. It was all-ages D.I.Y. for eight years—an amazing run. I learned that you don’t need to do shows in bars. You can strip away another layer of mediation and do it yourself. Not an original concept, but it was new for me in the mid and late 1990s, and it informs everything I’ve aspired to since. (SIT hibernates at speakintongues.com)
It seems that at any location—Il Corral, Pehrspace, the Smell—you create a space that fosters a family of bands that might not have otherwise had any place to play, or at least not any other place where they’d feel quite so at home. Was this always a goal of yours?
I was seeing a ton of excellent shows around L.A. in the early 2000s and that was tremendously inspiring. So I just started asking bands if they wanted to play my night. All the attendees of those initial Mondays were way turned on by the energy of it all. When we moved to Pehrspace in 2007, it only got better.
Which bands did you start out with?
The first show was Haircut Mountain Transit, FM Bats, Buko, Ugly Shyla, Szandora… and Jell-O shots. Jon San Nicolas and my boyfriend at that time, Richmond Tan, helped me so much. We were noisy and gay right from the start! Now Mikhai Tran helps me tons with the shows—taking photos and weaving our distinctive bracelets, which are unique for every show.
How political is your programming process? By that I mean, how much—if at all—do you concern yourself with representing or attracting a certain group?
A lot of the people behind Mondays’ success are gay, and I’m proud of that. It’s emblematic of a new non-political phase of the gay rights movement. Young people can now be themselves and not worry what people think about their sexuality. That said, I bring up sexual orientation because with the passing of Prop 8, we still have so far to go. I suppose this is preaching to the choir—musicians are usually pretty progressive—but Mondays have been my modest way of saying ‘we’re here, we’re queer,’ and building something positive and constructive that every music fan can enjoy.
Is there is a unifying factor among the Sean Carnage bands—in terms of genre, style, or scene? If not, what is it that you consider when choosing bands to book?
I’m looking for the best music. I don’t pay particular attention to style. I listen more for general musicality. And the execution is important. I really cherish the Monday audiences so I am always trying to find new ways to thrill them. What’s nice is that most of the bands are already friends, but because they operate in different areas of the music scene, my shows bring them together—often for the first time. The other unifying factor is the between-sets music of Kyle H. Mabson. Kyle’s become my partner in the shows since I met him fall of 2005. I feel like Kyle’s really changed how underground music is experienced. He brings the dance party and that amps everything up.
Who are some of your favorites right now?
I love the new Amazements album. I like American Gil and the Major Dudes a lot. Certain performers like Billygoat, Birth!, D. Bene Tleilax, I.E., Whitman, Nicole Kidman, Moment Trigger… they’re all Monday superstars.
My best friend and band-mate, Geoff—Pizza! and Big Whup—and I just made a compilation that includes tracks from both American Gil and Nicole Kidman. We love them! What is it about those Inland Empire kids that makes them so amazing?
Haha—good question! It astounds and humbles me the people from the I.E. drive so far to attend shows like mine. I don’t 100% understand the local culture there, but I’ve always gotten a good feeling from both the music and the personalities of the Inland Empire folks. Maybe there’s something about living in the 909 that is similar to living along Lake Erie? I’ve always related to people with backgrounds that are similar to mine, but for lack of scientific evidence, I can’t really say much else except: I like what I hear.
Tell me the craziest-best-worst-funniest-most-miraculous-most-tragic Sean Carnage night story. Please?
This past Monday, people were freaking and beating each other with pool noodles on Women’s front lawn for 20 minutes after the music ended—that was pretty crazy!
I heard the police came a few weeks back and threatened to shut down Pehrspace—have there been any recent developments in that story?
I don’t have anything new to report, but Pehr is continuing to host a small number of weekend shows, so please support them every chance you get.
How are you getting by in the meantime?
I’m proud to be hosting at Women. They’ve given me the space to do some really ambitious programming, like the four-week 60 Watt Kid residency in July which features a ton of new bands.
Is there anything we—as Sean Carnage and Pehrspace fans—can do to help in this struggle?
No matter what venue you see live music at, be mindful of the neighbors when you are outside the space. It’s hard—I’m trying to inspire people to be free, but on the street you have to be low key.
What will you do if you can’t continue booking there?
I’ve been lucky to have done Mondays at Il Corral, Pehrspace, the Smell, Zamakibo, House of Vermont and Women, so if I have to find a new home I will. I figure that after 200+ shows in a row, I’ve earned some vacation. So I’m taking this August off to prepare the new Monday home and I’ll be back the first Monday in September.
Sounds like a good plan… And finally, I’d like to say CONGRATULATIONS! What are you doing to celebrate your anniversary?!
On Monday, July 27th I am hosting some truly amazing bands—60 Watt Kid, Shirley Rolls, the Seizure, Mikki and the Mauses and Single Mothers. Then I’m going to take August off and figure out where the heck Mondays are gonna live in the fall. Then I’ll be back on Monday, September 7th with… I.E.! I will be keeping everyone updated through facebook.com/seancarnage and seancarnage.com.

SEAN CARNAGE’S ANNIVERSARY MONTH BEGINS WITH 60 WATT KID, HIGH CASTLE, ITALIC INDIAN, SKULL KISS AND GARRETT PIERCE ON MON., JULY 6, AT WOMEN, 1852 CRENSHAW BLVD., LOS ANGELES. 9:30 PM / $5 / ALL AGES. SEANCARNAGE.COM. 60 WATT KID WILL BE IN RESIDENCY EVERY MONDAY IN JULY. FOR COMPLETE LINE-UP AND MORE INFORMATION VISIT SEANCARNAGE.COM.

Stream: Public Enemy “Fight The Power” (12″ Mix)

Public Enemy rattled the apathy out of a nation of millions during the rottenest years of the Reagan-Bush transition and had enjoyed a surfeit of reality that reality shows eventually came calling. Founder Chuck D speaks before his performance at Coachella. This interview by Dan Collins.

In the desert this weekend, right near where Coachella is going to be, I saw a billboard that said ‘Legends of Hip-Hop: MC Hammer, Slick Rick, Coolio, and Tone Loc,’ coming this May to the San Miguel casino. Does that kind of thing make you feel like, ‘Wow, hip hop has come a long way, like Wayne Newton!’ Or does it make you kind of sad?
Chuck D: I think the same question was something a journalist might have asked thirty years ago. ‘Wow, rock and roll has finally made it! So and so on the Vegas Stage!’
Speaking of Vegas, I understand your opinion of Elvis has changed since you called him out in ‘Fight the Power.’
Naw, well, it’s always been that, of course—how can you not think Elvis is a part of the whole rock ‘n’ roll foundation? My point has been that I thought he had to share with other key founders. America always held him high above everybody else. It’s almost like how sometimes the hip-hop mainstream looks at Eminem as being a great contributor, but the media looks at him as being this novelty figure, which is going in a wrong direction.
You once said in an interview years ago that you love virtually all rap music, and even said nice things about Vanilla Ice. It’s like almost any flavor of hip hop, you were an advocate of.
There was a value in diversification. I think nowadays we’ve given into the corporate definition. And radio station conglomerations certainly have defined hip hop, and I think that’s kind of unfair, because at the end of the day… You know, we had Run DMC inaugurated into the rock ‘n’ roll hall of fame. And you had people like Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck and the E Street Band—they still carry relevance, and their magnitude is great because they understand the meanings and definitions from an artistic standpoint, and not just from a record company accountant standpoint. That’s the difference. Where nowadays we’ve let other situations define the music, and that’s kind of out of wack.
Who are the artists you do like, even if they’re not popular?
All the artists on my label, Slamjamz.com, and all the artists on my iPod. There’s over 10,000 songs on there.
I was looking at the 12” single for ‘8 Ball’ by N.W.A., and some of the guys on the cover are dressed like Public Enemy, wearing clocks and whatnot. Do you feel like you spurred on a genre of gangsta rap that didn’t go in the direction you would have liked the music to go?
My job was just to be able to make the music transcend all genres, and influence other genres as well. That was my job, and the Bomb Squad’s.
Particularly the Bomb Squad did an amazing job of using the sample as a way to structure a new song out of lots of elements. Do you think modern hip-hop has dropped the ball on that side of things?
Legal departments made it kind of difficult to use some of those techniques. I wouldn’t say hip-hop has dropped the ball, I would say it’s conditioned itself from fitting its square-ness into the round hole of the industry. I think that’s the problem. It’s shaped by what the mainstream media and the industry would bless. But hip-hop is across Myspace pages, and a person today can check out a Public Enemy video from 1990, or 1988, and it was kind of difficult to do that five years ago. Now it’s YouTube and Myspace and Facebook… a lot more material can be checked out and loved. And hated.
Didn’t you bring suit against the estate of Biggie Smalls in the nineties for sampling your voice?
Yeah, a songwriting dispute. It wasn’t that they used my voice. It was that my voice was on a crack record. It was more than an infringement. It was a defamation of character. I hate drugs and drug dealers and stories about it. You can’t go about bragging about it. Much respect, but if that’s going to be your angle…
I understand when you first started Public Enemy, you were told they wanted to sign you just by yourself, without Flavor Flav. But you insisted he be part of the group. Even now, he seems to represent something much different from you.
From day one, he was always something different.
On a friendship basis, do you still hang out? Or is it purely that you see each other on stage?
When you’ve lived with someone for 21 or 23 years, you pick up from where you left off. Of course it’s a friendly basis—it’s not like Sam and Dave, and those guys who never talked to each other. And Public Enemy, it’s not just us two. It’s a bunch of us, and we all live in different parts of the country, so we definitely pick up where we left off.
But when he got roasted on Comedy Central, you weren’t part of the roast.
Yeah, well—I really didn’t want to be around for that!
Do you feel like his being a television celebrity and being on all these reality shows has weakened the brand?
No—why would it? It’s not like he’s going on and being anything different than he’s ever been. I don’t think anything weakens the band, or the brand, unless I actually do something kind of crazy.
It might be considered crazy that you let Vanilla Ice cover ‘Fight the Power’ on his 2008 album!
Look. Without Vanilla Ice, there’s no Eminem. Without the Beastie Boys, there’s no Vanilla Ice. And you know, Vanilla Ice, his was a regional breakthrough. He broke through in the mid-south, in a southern area in Texas, in something that was kind of indigenous to that hip-hop culture down there. He just doesn’t get credit for it.
When I was a kid in the South, I realllllly loved it when you did ‘Bring the Noise’ with Anthrax. It blew my mind. It was such a great hybrid! And then came Ice-T’s Body Count, and the Judgment Night soundtrack. But around the mid-nineties, suddenly I saw terrible nu-metal bands with turntables on stage—like Limp Bizkit. Do you think you can draw a straight line between your rap-metal hybrid and the terrible music that came later?
Well, yeah. But I would say that Scott Ian and Charlie Benante, the whole figment of that imagination comes out of that, and probably they was influenced by the combination of rap-rock in Run DMC and the Beastie Boys.
It seemed like every rap album had a rock crossover song, like Sir Mix-a-Lot and Metal Church.
‘Iron Man.’ Did a good job!
You also contributed to Sonic Youth’s album, when you did ‘Kool Thing.’ How did that happen?
I was sharing the same studio in New York, and sharing the same venues. And then Kim and Thurston asked if I could check out their session. I’d always see them in the hallway. ‘Kool Thing’ was a real cool thing, and it was easy.
I heard you were recently on Henry Rollins’ radio show. Do you still chat with him?
Yeah, Rollins is somebody I always wanted to be when I grow up.
But you kind of are. You have a radio show on Air America. And I also saw you do the Wattstax commentary, where you talked about sampling bits from that performance.
Yeah, and a lot of those samples were basically voiceovers, you know what I’m saying? That was really important. From the Rufus Thomases to the Jesse Jacksons.
And the Bar-Kays’ speech before their set still knocks me out. Would you be willing to organize a concert of similar scope with new artists who are out today?
I don’t know. It just seems like the rock festivals have been done really well in the United States for the last ten, fifteen years. I just want to hope that there would be something possible to do from a black standpoint. I’ll see, you know? I’m so envious of the rock world, because they organize their infrastructure well. The rock infrastructure is really tight, and in rap music, the lack of infrastructure is really kind of bothering me. And whether it’s the media in print, television, or radio… I mean, look—in rock and roll, there’s such a thing as classic rock. Bruce Springsteen just performed at the Super Bowl. He’ll never go away. He’s up there. But even in the hip-hop community, there was a lot of silence, even with the induction of Run DMC, the greatest hip-hop situation of all time.
And it broke my heart to see Slick Rick on that billboard in the desert! It’s like, he’s such a lyrical pioneer, and he has such great style. Does he have to be on a showcase with all these other acts?
I mean, they’re rap, and they come from different angles. And the truth of the matter with MC Hammer is that they’ve toured before. With rap and hip-hop there wasn’t that separation.
You say you’re envious of rock and roll, but through the years, a lot of rock artists have tried to cross over and do hip-hop. Did you hear Dee Dee Ramone play hip hop? He said later that he couldn’t do it right.
I met this lady on the bus, and she asked what I do. And I said I publish songs. And she said, ‘What kind of songs?’ And I said, ‘Everything, from rap to country.’ And she said, ‘Well, that’s a flip!’ As if they’re two extremes. But they’re a lot more similar than different! The stories, and the way they come apart beyond the music itself. It’s all human communication.
On that same trip back from the desert this weekend, I saw the billboards for Coachella. And they all just said ‘Paul McCartney: Coachella,’ you know? It’s weird. He’s the headliner. A guy who did his best work before 1970. Is there a Beatles of hip hop? Maybe it’s you guys?
Run DMC was the Beatles of hip-hop.
If they’re the Beatles, what is Public Enemy?
The Stones. The Rolling Stones of the rap game! I don’t know if I’m Mick, or Flav is Mick and I’m Keith, but we’ve never quit, never broke up and never split up. It keeps going on.

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