The first time Zola Jesus performed in Los Angeles, it was just Nika Rosa and some backing tracks. She crawled across the floor between people’s legs and though she was as small and delicate as a cat, she filled the room with her voice like a big shadow or a ghost. Finding a welcoming audience here, Rosa moved to Los Angeles and wrote her second album, Conatus, dyed her hair and introduced color into her wardrobe. We met up at LACMA to discuss these things. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

So you came to LACMA because you moved in nearby, what would you do?
Sometimes I would go to the exhibition; sometimes I would just walk around to all the nooks. It helps to look at someone else’s work because it made me feel better about everything I was going through. It removed me. Gave me some perspective.
Even if it’s visual art?
I feel more from visual art and music and books than I do from music.
Anything in particular infiltrate this project?
Nothing completely direct, but I was really obsessed with winter when I made this record. I made it in the winter and into spring, but I was living here and it looked like this. And I’m used to living in Wisconsin. I would watch a lot of documentaries of Inuits and look at pictures of ice. I read this book called Ice by Anna Kavan, which for me felt like everything that I was going through. It was the perfect compliment to the music I was making at the time. There were a lot of feelings of isolation. Sometimes I take solace in watching movies and reading books—isolation comes from that.
Do you think isolation is important for an artist?
For me it is. I can’t say this without directly quoting Schopenhauer, but ‘a man is truly himself so long as he is alone.’ When you’re alone you’re free from influence or other people’s decisions and expectations, and you can live freely within your own universe.
Probably if you weren’t entertained by that universe you wouldn’t find anything worth relating about it.
I’ve always felt like being around other people or having the impulse to be around other people is a weakness. If you’re not comfortable being alone then you’re not comfortable with yourself or who you are. It’s always been important to me that I was most comfortable being alone. I think that proves to myself that I have a strong sense of myself and what I want.
If you made this album in your universe, does this music replicate the sounds of your interior world?
The interesting thing about this is that music helps me communicate what is going on in my head. It helps delineate ideas that I have trouble putting in words. It always takes a fight to get it out. I don’t know how to turn something in my head into something you can hear and express to other people. Absolutely this record is so insular and intimate and introspective, everything ‘in,’ everything personal.
I could see that because it made me want to move around weirdly in my room in a way that is uninhibited.
You saying that made me instinctively terrified. ‘Oh my god, you’ve heard the record!’
Yeah, I have. I heard it twice.
I still can’t come to terms with the fact other people will hear this record. I turn myself inside out and we pressed it to vinyl and now people are going to hear it and I’m like, ‘Wait, no, I didn’t … let me change it!’
Why would you want to change it?
Because it’s so raw. It feels so vulnerable. I feel stripped. I feel a little naked. But that’s important. It means I’m getting to a place in what I’m doing that it’s a deep cut. I don’t want to make a record that’s easy to listen to or feels effortless. I want it to feel like I went through the process.
Do you listen to hip-hop?
I do. I listen to everything.
Just curious. You have some cool beats on this record.
Do you like ‘Shivers?’ I hate hi-hats and cymbals. They sound too weak. But I tried to take things I didn’t like and make myself more comfortable with these things that I once avoided. ‘Shivers’ has hi-hats and cymbals and crazy bass like a sound system. That song taught me a lot about the importance of certain drums and why I avoided them. And why I shouldn’t. A lot of songs on the album were about exploring things that made me uncomfortable as a songwriter.
Yeah, I see you exploring but not replicating—staying within yourself.
I like taking things that feel out of context. Everything for me is out of context. I can’t be like, ‘I’m going to make this kind of song.’ There is always this thread of what is intrinsic to me, to my own personal style. That’s always going to be there.
Do you know what that is?
Whatever is on that record. I like extremely specific things. That’s why it took me so long to not wear black. I only feel like I’m a human being when I wear black. And I’m forcing myself to not wear black because I feel like that’s too extreme.
So you’ve moved on to gray.
Yes! Slowly making my way through the spectrum of color. It’s just like weird obsessive-compulsive things that being unmedicated OCD you kind of work through on your own.
Did you start wearing a different color before or after you made the record?
I think it was a little bit after. But it was right towards the end of it that I felt this record seemed ‘white’—cold but not in a dark way, finding warmth in the cold. That feels very white to me.
I think you talked about warmth in the cold to me before.
Yeah, I get into that. I like dualities a lot. For everything in the world there is two extremes and then there is the middle of these. Everything that I do, everything that I am, is about those two extremes and finding a middle ground. I’m drawn to very extreme things, but to be a functioning person in society you have to find a middle ground. You can’t function on the fringes. Even though that’s where I feel more comfortable—on the edges on the world. It would be in my best interest if I try to find a middle ground.
What are some examples of extremes?
Music. I’m only drawn to things that are extreme in one way or another. Things that are just palatable I can’t understand. It needs to be clearly black or white. When I do something, I overcorrect. There’s no subtlety in anything I take in or anything I put out, so this record was about trying to find subtlety, because it’s important. It’s a quality that I would like to learn, to be subtle. Subtle in how I think and make things. I always think subtlety is oppressive in a way. When you try to do things quietly, it’s because you’re being oppressed. And I’m always afraid of being oppressed. It’s strange, I can’t really explain it.
You just walk down the street and you’re like, ‘Hey, don’t oppress me!’
Pretty much. It’s nothing to with politics or feminism. I think it’s important when you exist in the world to know what you’re capable of and to know what you want to do, you can do and cannot be stopped. People set boundaries based on society, social norms, what people tell them, what they tell themselves. I’m sorry to sound like an episode of Oprah.
Oh Oprah, I’m going to cry now! But you are right, people say, ‘I can’t do this, I’m not allowed.’
People don’t want to think about that anymore. They grow older and tired and give up the fight. People think it’s an adolescent struggle but the thing about adolescence is that—I mean, I hated being a teenager and I still hate being the age I am now—but the thing I value is the naiveté, the feeling they can do whatever they want. If people in their forties felt that way a lot more could get done.
Do you want to be an old person or a young person?
Ha! I don’t know. I would like to have time. I feel like I’m constantly running out of time. But I would like to be in a place where I can have more perspective.
How do you feel about the computer as a musical instrument?
I like it. I used to be ashamed that I used the computer, but I’m embracing it. You can do things that are beyond what we understand as instruments of sound. You have the entire spectrum of sound. I refuse to work with a guitar because the guitar has been abused. We understand what we can do with them and people have done everything within their power. Computers can give you anything and you can sculpt the sound.
How do you choose when there’s a million potential drums?
I like things that are indiscernible. I like synth pads, things that can weave in and out of each other, I like layering sounds. I don’t like very defined sounds like ‘This is a glockenspiel, this is a guitar, this is a harmonium.’ Actually, I really like the harmonium. It’s a really thick sound. You can’t really tell where it’s going.
You don’t like words?
I do like words. I appreciate people that can explain things in words, but I have a hard time with it.
Do you make up words?
On ‘Ixode’ I’m not using any words. They could be words in some language but it’s just syllables and consonants. But ‘Ixode’ is the scientific word for ‘tick,’ which is something you get a lot in Wisconsin. I like the way the ‘oh’ sounds. That’s why I use words like ‘throw’ a lot, ‘no’ a lot, ‘road,’ ‘home …’ ‘Road’ is the worst word you can use. It’s like saying ‘teardrops on a windowsill’ or something.
Have you had any good California encounters since coming to the big city?
It’s strange, I’ve lived here a year and been here probably five months.
Three of which you spent in LACMA.
That’s true. I like the resources here, that’s good. But my life hasn’t changed. I’m not a social person. I don’t go out. It’s nice to have a grocery store near me.
Did you have one in Wisconsin?
We did, but it was a drive so I would wind up not eating for a while. I didn’t have a car. Now it’s nice—I can get up, get some food, I can eat now. I learned when I moved away from home that your environment, everyone is the same. Your environment doesn’t affect you after a while when you realize what your priorities are.
But your environment is what gives you the things to do something with.
I know, but I like being able to live in a way where you live like a minimalist. Everything you want you can provide for yourself. I can’t provide for myself without going to the grocery store living in West Hollywood. But as long as your basic needs are met, I don’t need anything beyond that.
What do you need?
Food, a place to shower, a place to sleep, and a little bit of love. And a house.
What about a computer?
A computer is great, but I could always just sing.

ZOLA JESUS WITH LA VAMPIRES AND XANOPTICON ON MON., OCT. 31, AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12-$15 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. ZOLA JESUS’ CONATUS IS OUT NOW ON SACRED BONES. VISIT ZOLA JESUS AT ZOLAJESUS.COM.

Fifteen years ago, DJ Shadow released Endtroducing…, a timeless masterpiece that secured his legacy as a pioneer of instrumental hip-hop and inspired several generation of beatmakers. With his latest The Less You Know, The Better, released last month on Verve, the legendary turntablist returns to his roots after experimenting on his confrontational and polarizing 2006 album The Outsider. He speaks here about recalibrating people’s expectations, performing in the Shadowsphere, and meeting Francois Mitterand in the sixth grade. This interview by Lainna Fader.

You’ve said you have the collector gene in your blood—who else in your family is a collector and what do they collect?
One common thread I’ve noticed among collectors is that many come from lower-middle class backgrounds, where they were often denied ‘frivolous’ purchases, for obvious reasons. I suppose that was the case with me. I grew up collecting baseball cards first, because they were cheap and plentiful. From there I moved into comic books, and then sold them all to buy—new—rap records around ’85-’86.
How do you think growing up when you did and where you did influenced the music you make?
A positive component of the gravitational pull of the tech sector in the ’70s and ’80s was the influx of highly educated dreamers. In some ways, they helped prolong the utopian ideal that California has always represented. Growing up in a small University town—Davis—there were ideas and experiments happening constantly. I met Francois Mitterand when I was in 6th grade. He came to our ‘experimental’ neighborhood to evaluate our solar program. The press trampled our flowerbed. I’ve also gained a lot of respect for Davis since reading the book Our Band Could Be Your Life. There are several examples of bands who gained a following there before anywhere else. I guess the sons and daughters of dreamers had a lot going on upstairs.
You talk a lot about your hip-hop background, but the samples you use show that you’ve got an incredible range of musical knowledge—who first taught you that you should embrace all music?
The very first rap record I ever bought was a Sugar Hill Records compilation that contained The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel. Right there, on that one cut, is the basis for everything I do. Buy it and listen for yourself. No one told Flash he couldn’t mix disco with Queen and children’s records. This is a lineage that goes back to the mid-late ’70s.
How is the new record, The Less You Know, The Better, ‘a return to form’? How does it fit into the DJ Shadow discography?
If it is a return to form, it’s in that I’m back to the sample discipline primarily, and almost exclusively. On the last record, I dabbled into other ways of making beats. And that’s not to say I won’t return to that as well—I may return to that at some point—but on this record, I really wanted to zoom in on taking samples and trying to change my mindset as opposed to ‘more more more’ and ‘faster faster faster’—all the ways you can fool yourself into thinking that you’re doing something interesting as a producer. More cuts. More samples. Throw the whole kitchen sink in there. On this one, I kinda wanted to let the samples breathe a little bit. Thematically, I wasn’t trying to provoke as much as I was on The Outsider. The Outsider was a record I felt I had to do, and I felt I had to do it to clear the slate, and allow myself to start over and start fresh.
What mindset were you in when you went into and came out of making the record?
Going in, I pretty vividly remember—I was poking at collecting a bunch of samples on and off while I was doing other work for the first half of ’09, and then when I finally got into the workspace that I set up, which was away from home and away from everything, within about a day and half of sitting down by myself, with just my records and my gear, I was pretty amazed at how quickly I was able to get back to that level of concentration that I hadn’t really had the luxury of giving myself in quite some time. I felt really thankful for that. I suppose that the overarching feeling during that first session was gratitude at what The Outsider had allowed and had achieved in terms of recalibrating people’s expectations. And I realize that’s a pretty generous way of putting it. I know a lot of people had a lot of problems with that record, but for me, that record was a gift because it allowed me to work on this one. I allowed myself more time with this album to sequence since the first album. In the very end, I think I found a sequence that really worked for me, and I was really concerned with it prior to that moment.
You’ve said, ‘The more music that you make and the longer you’re doing it for, the more you realize how seductive it is to sort of slip back into old habits or slip back into a mode that feels nostalgic or familiar.’ How do you keep yourself from making the same kind of music every time given the success of Endtroducing?
My recipe is continuing to listen to other kinds of music. I grew up on hip-hop—primarily 80s hip-hop, because that’s when I was growing up—and I continue listening to ‘80s hip-hop, the stuff that I didn’t hear at the time, that I’m discovering now because it’s still so rare. But since then, I’ve taken in a number of musical hybrids, whether it’s dance music or rock music or whatever. And also, I’ve allowed myself to explore other styles of old music. That’s one of the reasons I’m not so prolific—I don’t want to put out a record that says the same thing as the last one, that carries the same message or emotion or theme. I like to give myself a lot of time to study what other people are doing and learn new things, and whether it’s contemporary music or older music, that’s what I spent most of my time doing when I’m not making my own music.
You’ve described yourself as a ‘long term artist’—what does that mean?
I sometimes use the term ‘artist’ or ‘musician’ because it’s the easiest term available to describe what I do to other people. But I don’t consider myself a grand artist in the pretentious sense. I don’t consider myself to be a gnat on an elephant compared to most of the people I respect and admire who make music. As far as how long I do it for, I do love listening to other people’s music and attempting to make my own. Whether or not its relevant to other people determines to what extent I share with people what I do. I can continue to tinker around in my lab after I return from my day job, and whether or not that music sees the light of day really depends on other people’s enthusiasm.
Posdnuos from De La Soul said the key to their longevity is a determination to be part of the game—what’s the key to yours?
Probably a desire to contribute. I’ve always tried to put out music that I feel is unique in the landscape and for that reason, often what I put out seems out of step to people, or doesn’t feel contemporary, or like what it’s supposed to. Sometimes when you have DJ in your name, people assume that you make club music—or dance music—and I’ve never ever done that. I can barely even make proper hip-hop. I think sometimes that confuses people. The term ‘DJ’ is pretty loaded, and in 2011, it’s probably as relevant as—well, I’m trying to think of a really cliché metal name, but you know what I mean. Nowadays if you make electronic music, your name is supposed to be two syllables and sound sort of like a shortened text with an ampersand or an A with a circle around it and all that stuff. I totally realize that—I totally realize that there isn’t much about me that says 2011, other than the fact that I’m still here and I’m still contributing and I’m still passionate about what I do.
A lot of DJs now incorporate video into their sets these days, but you took the performance aspect of a show much further with your Shadowsphere. Cut Chemist told me that he’s found it harder for people to see DJs as performance artists without elaborate stage productions these days. Did you feel any pressure to add something more to your concerts to make it more of a show?
I was given the unique opportunity to be a DJ who wasn’t stuck in the DJ tent at all these festivals. When you play the European festival circuit, often the rock bands get the main stage, especially in the late 90s. And I was given the opportunity to show what I do on a large stage, with a large audience, and I just felt it was my duty to make an entertaining show. I didn’t grow up wanting to be a celebrity DJ. I don’t take my shirt off or stage dive. I came up in an era when being a DJ was sort of a solitary pursuit—something you didn’t do to get famous. But I felt it my obligation to put together a show that would be just as entertaining as any band that was going to grace that stage that day. I started doing that in 2002 and continued all the way up to now. The concept is the same—basically to not yet let being a DJ stand in the way of playing next to any performer out there. I feel pretty confident that I can follow most acts, or precede most acts, and be respected, or at least tolerated.

DJ SHADOW WITH THE GASLAMP KILLER ON SUN., OCT 23 AT THE MUSIC BOX, 6126 HOLLYWOOD BLVD. 8PM / $30 / ALL AGES. GOLDENVOICE.COM. DJ SHADOW ON MON., OCT 24 AT AMOEBA MUSIC, 6400 SUNSET BLVD. 6PM / FREE / ALL AGES. AMOEBA.COM

Before becoming a singer, Anika was a political journalist splitting her time between Bristol and Berlin. But after meeting Portishead producer Geoff Barrow, she quit her job as correspondent and released an album she recorded with Barrow’s latest project BEAK> in just twelve days on Stones Throw/Invada. She speaks here from somewhere in the middle of nowhere about leaving journalism to make music and rebelling against perfect music. This interview by Lainna Fader.

Had you been making music before you got the call to audition for BEAK>?
I had been writing since I was really young, and it was something that I did a lot in that year around the time I met BEAK>. I was working all sorts of long hours in music and it was kind of my one way to unwind. Long hours—lots of stress. So yeah, I suppose I did, but it wasn’t at the point where I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m ready.’ It wasn’t like that at all. I kind of just had a load of lyrics and I had jammed with a band in Cardiff and it didn’t work. They just—well I don’t know, it just didn’t work. So my friend phoned me up and he said he had a friend who was looking for a weird singer, and he knew that I was having trouble finding a band, so he said, ‘Hey, you mind if I pass on your number?’ So I said, ‘Yeah, pass it on, whatever.’ We recorded a few things. I didn’t actually think anything would come of it—I didn’t even really know who they were. Just thought they were Bristol lads or something. And then I found out it was Geoff Barrow from Portishead a few weeks later.
What’s the most encouraging thing Geoff’s said to you?
‘It doesn’t really matter.’ He said to me, ‘Nothing really matters. Never stress about anything because it doesn’t really matter.’ If you have a bad show, if you do something—it doesn’t matter. And that’s something that’s taken off so much pressure, cuz I suppose I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so that’s probably the best piece of advice he’s ever given me. ‘Never stress to that extent.’ It was awfully nice. Geoff was the first person I came across who—you know, I’ve worked in the music industry for quite some time and I always thought that I was battling against it and Geoff was one of the first people I ever met who felt like I felt. He was in the battle with me, and that was always a relief. He always wanted to do stuff differently as well. He didn’t want to follow the rule book—we were bored of the rule book. And that’s why I was going to quit the music industry forever and then I stumbled into Geoff and it’s really restored my faith in the industry. It got me interested in taking up a job in music again.
You say you’re a perfectionist, but in an old interview, you said you’re rebelling against perfection in your music.
That was the thing—it was lucky, cuz at the time, I didn’t really know it was gonna be released. Yeah, I’m a perfectionist, but I don’t think perfection should be in music or art. I think music and art cannot be perfect. Music and art is supposed to be an experiment—it shouldn’t ever be perfect. Because perfect is really our perception of what is perfect and in the end our perception is fitting it into preconceived, comfortable box where we don’t feel vulnerable. And it’s the same in the way bands approach making music. People don’t like feeling vulnerable, and that’s fine, but when you’re an artist or writer or a musician, you shouldn’t be scared of being vulnerable, because in the end, if you want to make something challenging—and I think you should, because I think that’s what art should do. Not all art. Or not all music. But I definitely think some of it should. That’s my issue with perfect music—it can never be perfect.
Most of the songs on your debut are covers, from Yoko Ono to Bob Dylan to Ray Davies. Which artist did you feel most comfortable stepping into?
I didn’t really step into them. I did it once, and then I did it from memory, and then it went into production. I didn’t ever want to replicate. I just wanted to appropriate and interpret in a different way. So I don’t know, I didn’t want to step into something, or replicate, or anything in that way.
But they all have political overtones—who did you relate to the most?
The thing is, the record is not just overtly political in terms of the subject matter, the words, the lyrics. To me, one of the most important things is to rebel against the way people make records now.
I mean some of the songs were picked for their political nature—Bob Dylan, for example. But that was because I was working in the music industry as a promoter, and I had a lot of friends in that industry as musicians, as journalists, and it was kind of worrying how they’d never want to speak about politics or challenge the way people made a record but they were also big Bob Dylan fans, and I thought the two should go together. So I wanted to use his song to remind them of how they often reject any song with any political engagement and show them someone they really admire was brave enough to do it and did it in a creative way.
When talking about leaving your journalism job, you said ‘Politics needs more people with life experience,’ and that you hope to return at some point down the road. Do you think the life experience you’ve gained from making music and working in the music industry will help you when you decide to return to the world of political journalism?
Yes. I think that the best politicians and the best journalists are the ones with the most life experience, in the way that the best teachers are those with the most life experience. So I think it helps inform your decisions and opinions. I think a lot of people go into the field without a lot of experience and I think that can be quite damaging.
You got hired to be a political correspondent at a pretty young age though—you’re only 24 now. What made you qualified if you didn’t exactly have a lot of life experience yourself?
Yeah, that’s why I didn’t think it was the right time to do it, and that’s why I decided to do music and go off and learn more. That’s why I did something else. I wasn’t in any rush to do it just yet—I don’t think I have enough life experience just yet. And anyway, you can get life experience on the job, but the problem with a lot of journalists is they’re corned by turning out a certain amount of work and they’re not really given the space or time to learn. They’re just pressured to turn out stuff and I’m not encouraged to investigate—or I’m not given enough time to investigate—because the framework doesn’t allow it. Very few journalists are able to go out and find information from a primary source. They’re often relying on secondary sources. It’s kind of a game of trust and it can be dangerous.
What political journalist do you most admire?
Well there’s a lot. A lot from the older days. Paul McIntyre. Kate Adie. The Russian journalist—Anna Politkovskaya. Her books are really amazing. There’s a lot of war photographers that are very interesting as well. I think—I hope—there’s a new generation of them too.
How is the satisfaction you get from writing a song different from the satisfaction you get from writing an article about policy?
I find I’ve got more to explore, I suppose, as a songwriter. It gives me more room to put in personal thought, whereas when you’re a political writer it needs to be so well constructed and so well balanced. You need to quadruple check everything. When you’re writing a song, you can ask questions but you don’t need to necessarily give any answers. And that’s what I want to do with the songs, really. It would be a badly constructed article. The intentions are different. I just want to question what people think is normal.

ANIKA WITH PEANUT BUTTER WOLF (VJ SET), BLANK BLUE, AND DIVA ON SAT., OCT. 22 AT ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE AVE. 9PM / $8 ADV., $10 DAY OF / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM.

Hanni El Khatib plays bluesy garage rock with a lot of soul and a little folk for Highland Park’s Innovative Leisure label. He destroys live with only an electric guitar and drums played by his best friend from high school. From Café Tropical in Silver Lake, he speaks about preferring amps to humans, a memorable mushroom experience in the snow and his various encounters with strippers. This interview by Lainna Fader.

Why do you want to marry Lil’ Kim?
A: She’s fucking nuts. B: She’ll forever—probably when she’s like 60 or 70—will forever play the cutesy Barbie.
It’s not going to be so cute when she’s 70!
No, but it’s going to be awesome. She’ll just get more plastic surgery and more nuts. She’s tight. I saw her recently at the Rrazz Room in San Francisco. It was an 80-person capacity hotel lounge. It was fucking awesome. She came out in lingerie and had backup dancers. It was so bad. I mean good bad. She fucking killed it. She did Biggie songs. All her classic songs.
You should cover Lil’ Kim next!
I know, right? Shit.
Except no one will recognize it.
I know. I don’t know why I keep covering songs that no one recognizes. We just started doing that Kelis one. We started doing it when we were on tour with Florence and the Machine. We would play her after-parties and at Don Hill’s in New York, after one of the Terminal 5 shows—it was like fucking 1 in the morning and I was playing out of some crazy Marshall stack amp thinking, ‘This is fucking nuts.’ I looked at Nicky [Nick Fleming-Yaryan, drums] and just started playing Kelis and he had to figure it out right there. I like playing with only a drummer cuz I can throw a curveball like that at him and I’m not throwing the whole band off; I’m just throwing him off.
Has he ever not been able to figure it out and catch up?
Totally. We used to get really fucking drunk at all our shows and it was always a mess. At some point we were like, ‘Damn, this isn’t acceptable.’ Who wants to see two idiots scream and fall over?
People pay a lot more money than what your shows cost to see two drunk idiots fall over.
We need to get back on it. We kick-started that mentality at the L.A. RECORD holiday party. …That show was something. We got there at what, 6? Nicky and I were just sitting in my car drinking a bottle of tequila. We walked so fucking far in the rain to get that bottle. We invited these dudes that work at the motorcycle shop on the corner. They were working on motorcycles and called us over and were like, ‘Ey, what’s up at that party? Are there any girls? Any booze?’ We said, ‘Yeah, there’s all that,’ and then they were like, ‘So why are you leaving?’ We wanted to get a bottle of whatever. They wanted to know if they could go dressed like that. They were all greasy. ‘Yeah—whatever!’ … Sure enough they were fucking there! I could not believe it. It’s so rare when you tell a stranger to go to something that they actually go.
How can listening to more Black Sabbath solve the world’s problems?
Dude. How can it not? Sabbath in the morning is the best way to start your fucking day. It puts you in the right frame of mind, always. You don’t even have to be a Sabbath fan to feel it. Sabbath is a great band because you have all these preconceived notions about what it sounds like but when you actually listen to it, it actually has a pretty fucking broad spectrum of what it sounds like.
Why is listening to Sabbath in the morning better than in the evening?
It just gets you in the right frame of mind. It allows you to be in whatever mood you feel like. If you feel like being an aggressive dickhead, sure—fucking Black Sabbath. Drive to work and be an aggressive dick. If you want to roll a joint and sit back and relax and sip coffee really slow, Sabbath. It works!
How did you get on Innovative Leisure?
It was really weird. I didn’t make my music with the intent to do anything with it. I’ve always been working as an art director or in advertising as an art director/designer. From there I transitioned into working for this clothing label/skating company called HUF.  I’ve always been really busy doing that nonstop but I’ve always played music and one of my best friends, Marc Bianchi—
Her Space Holiday?
Yeah—he’s one of my best friends and he recorded my record. He played on it. As a creative outlet for myself while I’ve been working, he’s thrown out opportunities for me to play on tour with him. Play guitar. Play keyboards. Whatever. We’re buddies so it’s just adding another body on stage that you’re friends with. I did that on the short tours but it wasn’t until I was itching to make my own stuff and started recording at home. I was making acoustic music—whatever I could make in my apartment—and I started hanging out at his studio and he wanted to record one of my songs. We got into it and he suggested I do it with an electric guitar. I never really thought about doing that because I’d only get to play in my apartment. I thought, ‘Shit—fuck yeah!’ and he had drums and other instruments just lying there so that led to a full recording session which turned into a full album. Then I thought, ‘Now what? Carry on with my normal life?’ This gallery in San Francisco was doing a book fair type of thing. They closed their gallery down for a month and turned it into a kind of books/zines/music store. They asked a bunch of artists to do a bunch of shit so I made a zine—I’ll probably do a small-scale version for the CD but a full version for the 12”. I burned a couple of the CDs and put them in there and gave it away. After that—you know that store Colette? Sarah Colette asked me to send her some—
How’d she find you? That shop is in Paris!
I worked with a person she’s worked with and I guess she heard it over at the studio. From there, that was it. I ran into Jamie [Strong] and he came into the HUF store in San Francisco. I happened to be in the office. My friend said, ‘Jamie from Stones Throw is here! You should give him your CD.’ ‘Whatever! I’m not going to fucking bombard him with a CD! He probably hears CDs every fucking day!’ I went out and turns out I knew him already. We met through a mutual friend months before. We were really drunk, I don’t really remember. … He gave it to Nate, who owns Innovative Leisure, and they partnered up on the record.
You’ve said you write songs for anybody who has ever been shot or hit by a train.
Yes! Though that’s more of a metaphor—but yes, I do. A kid I went to high school with actually got hit by a train and survived without a scratch or a scar. No bruises.
How is that possible?
His car turned into a cocoon. The car kind of crunched into itself. He was perfectly untouched in this whole thing. Also, an accidental gunshot. No, an innocent passerby gunshot. In the leg. A friend of mine. That has nothing to do with that statement though! Just, coincidentally, I do know people who’ve been hit by trains and shot.
What internationally known criminal would have made a genius musician?
One who is a genius musician is Charles Manson. He’s already there. I don’t know that many criminals!
Why don’t you have a bass player?
First, it was out of necessity because Her Space Holiday was going on tour and I didn’t have a band. He was like, ‘You’ve recorded all these songs—you can definitely play a show.’ I told him I’d figure something out. One friend I’ve had since high school, Nicky … it dawned on me that he played the drums. But I kind of forgot because he never had his own drum set. He just stopped playing drums when he moved out of his parents’ house cuz he didn’t have any anymore. I told him, ‘If I get a practice space, will you get a drum kit?’ and he said OK. From there we did it, and he said, ‘Well, where’s the rest of the band?’ But I said, ‘Fuck it, it sounds fine.’ It’s funny cuz Marc was telling me that I don’t need another bass player—just add another amp! That’s a good idea! Next band member is going to be an amp.
Do you consider yourself a minimalist?
I like simple things. Things that are straightforward. It is what it is. For what I do—everything I create or make—function is most important. Song. Lyrics. Guitars. Drums.
What technology do you want invented just for your personal use?
It’d be great to have—this would never exist—a box that you go in and think about the outcome—like the technical sounds—and you go to the other side, and this little disk spits out the music you pictured. You just go in and do a record in a day and that’s it.
What was your first experience with mushrooms like?
I was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, snowboarding, which I don’t really do. I tend to stick to skateboarding. A bunch of friends and I took a bus. We were cooped up in a hotel room. One of my friends did a bunch of mushrooms, and I ate too much myself because I didn’t think it was working. That happens. I thought, ‘Fuck, this isn’t working! It’s been an hour already!’ and we fucking tripped out. The very early beginnings of Pixar movies were out and everything looked like that. I looked like that, my friend looked like that, the room looked like that. We were on the second floor of this hotel. We opened the window and saw a pile of snow that looked about five feet away. I said we should jump out the window into the snow! My friend was like, ‘No way, you’re nuts. I’m not doing that.’ I was totally fucking doing that. I swear I could touch it. The snow was that close. Then I jumped out and it totally wasn’t five feet away. But it wasn’t that bad.
What’s the worst harm you’ve ever done to yourself?
Skateboarding. Wait, you want emotional? Emotional scars?
Sure!
There’s too much self-destruction here.
We love self-destruction at L.A. RECORD.
I’m sure.
What is the best way to charm a stripper?
Food stamps! You know, I think just listening seems to work. I’ve been told about their children—about their dreams as a real estate mogul. What else have I heard? Oh they’re all fashion designers!
That’s the common denominator?
Aspiring fashion designers. Always. It always involves cut up T-shirts. So random. Strippers are weird.
I don’t have as much experience with them as you do.
I’m not a pro!
What was your first McDonalds experience in a foreign country like?
Tastes the fucking same. Oh, shit! Well, this isn’t my first, but one that is really funny. I was in Germany, in Nuremberg. Kind of a blurry trip but I think I was in Nuremberg. We went to a McDonalds super late. It was the only thing open of course. It was me and five guys who also run clothing labels. We were out there for a project with Adidas and we had nothing to do at night so we were getting drunk and running around reckless. Everyone was like, ‘Why the fuck are we in McDonalds?’ The only comfortable thing overseas. They had the most insane uniforms.
What did they look like?
You know that brand Evisu? Those were the pants. But instead of the Evisu logo it was McDonalds on the pants. And they had a lot of flair. Embellishments and shit. Totally looked like Johnny Blaze. That fucking Method Man clothing line. It was like 1998 and we were in a rap video. That’s how they were all dressed and it was so crazy. Nuremberg is a funny place.
You just went out for karaoke. Did you end up doing R. Kelly or Wanda Jackson?
Fuck! I was seriously ready to go—and R. Kelly would probably have been my go to—but I got kinda bummed out cuz this girl did some fucking song from The Little Mermaid. You know, the Disney movie. It totally bummed me out. So I was like, ‘Fuck it—can’t bother with Wanda Jackson or R. Kelly now, it’s over.’
Too real!
Yeah, I was like, ‘That’s it, it’s time to go now, we’re done here.’
What do you think about Wanda’s cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good”? Would you ever cover that?
Yeah, I heard that. I probably wouldn’t but it’s cool that she did.
We interviewed Wanda in this issue too and she said singing is her golf game. Why do you sing?
I don’t even know. Shit, I don’t know why I sing cuz I’m not that good. I think it’s out of necessity for the songs I write. I write songs, and who the fuck’s gonna sing it? No one, I gotta sing it.
Would you write songs for other people?
I haven’t. As of now, it’s just been for myself. I would though.
You say you throw curve balls at Nicky and sometimes he catches on and sometimes he doesn’t. Do you ever do that with your audience? Like the Sonics—when they opened for the Beach Boys, they thought they’d win more fans if Gerry used a British accent.
I’ve never done that, but that’s pretty fucking sick actually. I’ll just start lying all the time. It’ll be my new thing—I’ll just lie constantly.
What record did someone force you to listen to that warped your mind?
Oh, shit. This Comus record. I was forced to listen to a Comus record. It’s psych/folk but
the singing on it is unreal.
Who forced you to listen to it?
My girlfriend. She’s a big record nerd and collects all sorts of records. She was going through a heavy psych/folk/’60s side of her collection and said I needed to listen to this album, and this song in particular. ‘It annoys everyone, but you might like it.’ That’s a hard sell! So the song that blew my mind is ‘Figure in My Dreams.’
Jonathan Richman said he started playing music when he was 15 because he heard the Velvet Underground and said, ‘They made an atmosphere, and I knew I could make one too.’ What kind of atmosphere are you trying to make?
I think I’ve read that too, and I sort of believe that as well. I try to make music to get a feeling as opposed to a sound. Something that sounds like a place in time that’s familiar but make it at least current. I see themes in my mind—I always think of dirty bars, or places I frequent, where if I were to be stuck in the desert with $5, a knife, and a muscle car—what is the music that’s playing? Think of like, ghost towns off Route 66. A shitty weird little ghost town out of Laughlin, Arizona, or something. I want to create a vibe rather than a sound, though the sound is inherent.
What were you like when you were 15?
I was a total skaterat. I skated and cut class and drank beer and smoked weed. I was looking at girls. All I cared to do was skate and lurk around.
How much has changed since then?
It’s exactly the same but now I have a hectic day job. I somehow manage to get the lurk in at work though!

HANNI EL KHATIB WITH WHITE ARROWS ON JAN. 27 AT THE MOUNTAIN BAR, 473 GIN LING WAY, CHINATOWN. HANNI EL KHATIB’S ‘BUILD.DESTROY.REBUILD’ 45 IS OUT NOW ON INNOVATIVE LEISURE. HANNI EL KHATIB’S WILL THE GUNS COME OUT RELEASES THIS SPRING ON INNOVATIVE LEISURE. VISIT HANNI EL KHATIB AT HANNIELKHATIB.COM.

Some people seem transported from a parallel universe, sent here to make this world a little more magical or strange. Like Mia Doi Todd—she seems out of place standing on a street corner. She should be floating on a carpet, leaving a trail of flowers, or accompanied by a river that washes the city clean of all the creeps and malevolent vibes. Listening to her latest album, Cosmic Ocean Ship, a little bit of cosmic energy seems to seep in and that parallel universe becomes visible. Suddenly, you wish you lived in France or Brazil. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

Would you be able to kill a cow?
Single-handedly I could definitely not kill a cow. No. And I’m OK with adopting a more vegetarian diet. I’m almost a vegetarian. I am allergic to shellfish but most anything else I eat.
What about a chicken?
If I could corner it and catch it, I could kill a chicken. Or a rabbit. If I needed to feed my family. I think I could kill a chicken or a rabbit. I’m a rabbit.
You are?
In the Chinese horoscope.
What does that mean about you?
It’s the lucky sign and you know how rabbits propagate so rapidly … it’s known as a fertile sign. I have not produced any offspring but I have made many albums which are like babies sent off in the world. We’re easygoing too. We’re pretty smiley in general. Andres Renteria, who plays percussion with me, is also a rabbit.
How many of your own albums have you released?
I started a label for my third record, Zeroone. I returned to putting out my own records with Gea in 2008. My first record was very limited-edition press, so I reissued that. So Gea, an instrumental record with Andres [Renteria], Morning Music, and Cosmic Ocean Ship. This time I’m partnered up with Virtual Label in New York, so they’re helping me with distribution. This is different because I have a broader independent distributor. Up until now I was with Revolver, which is a great company in San Fran.
And you’re on the radio.
KCRW has been supporting the album so much. I’m so local, they’ve watched the whole process of my singer-songwriter becoming. The new album is the most accessible so far. They asked me to play at the Hollywood Bowl this summer. It’s a soul tribute. I feel honored to be a part of that. My music is super soulful, but with the stereotypical definition of soul … it’s not what you’d think of my genre as.
What is your genre?
It’s hard to define. I’m really multi-genre. I feel very soulful—soul, jazz, singer-songwriterdom is my main category—Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan. I’ve mostly written my own songs but I have started doing more covers and Brazilian music. I’ve gotten more jazzy and more world music. I have also collaborated with electronic musicians over the years. I have songs that are trip-hop—but that’s an outdated term. I even recorded vocals on hip-hop albums. And my meditational music that Andres and I made, that was new age music. You could play it in yoga class—not that I like to hear music in yoga class.
Does your music reflect the interests you’ve taken up in other areas of your life?
Being a multi-ethnic person, I was always looking for myself. I have to keep redefining myself and that has contributed to my interest in world cultures—trying to mix everything together within myself and my music. I’ve been traveling a lot in the last few years, Brazil, Cuba, India and Mexico—gathering those influences and trying to digest and make it more a part of myself. This record is more Latin-music-based than my previous one. There is a song dedicated to Paraty, a town that is between Rio and São Paolo. There’s a song dedicated to Havana, in Cuba. The influence of Cuban music is really strong inside of me. And I had a chance to digest it.
How has this translated into your music?
Working with Andres, we’ve been playing for six years now, and his experience with AfroCuban music and percussion has definitely influenced my songwriting. Going to Cuba and Brazil, it’s all about the drums. All the percussion. Being around that more makes me think differently about music and sing differently, try to play guitar differently. I am stuck in my patterns still and I come from a North American tradition. I’m trying to blend all these things—to try to create a new world culture. See, I imagine … I dream to participate in that and be a source of inspiration to others. Things get overlooked, like nature, with all the development that’s happened in the last 100 to 200 to 1,000 years. There’s a lot of nature here in L.A., but you have to drive through big cities to find it. In Brazil and Cuba nature is still more left on its own. I have been learning Brazilian songs about nature spirits. One thing that’s interesting about Central and South America is that all the cultures have collided there, they’ve all met there and mingled and that creates music that is so inspiring to me. In Brazil, indigenous music has very much mixed with African and European music.
Where are you from?
I’m from right here! Being of mixed culture, I definitely feel like I had to go search for myself and find myself in things. I am half Japanese and half Irish and I identify with both—but being mixed I identify a lot with Latin culture too, being a place of mestizos.
So there’s no Latin in you?
Well, Ireland was Roman at some point. In my family nobody speaks Spanish. But growing up here in L.A., you can’t help but absorb the Latin culture that’s all around. That’s another reason why I identify with it.
Why do you hang out in nature?
Every time I drive to the desert or the mountains at the Angeles Forest I spend just a few hours listening to the creek or the birds in the trees, where it’s free. The birds actually love it here by the L.A. river, but going out farther out of the city I always feel a great release. I can hear myself more and it’s invigorating, refreshing, and helps me come back to the city. It’s about that. I love L.A.
Why do you love Los Angeles?
My family is here, and it’s very hard to leave for long periods of time because we all rely on each other a lot, and so many friends, my musical community. I respect the city and I love my city. I can buy amazing kale and I can also grow it, but there’s so much variety here—culturally, artistically. I like man-made things too. I am such an appreciator of the arts: sculpture and music and film and art. That’s more common in the city. That’s one great factor in favor of cities. That’s where people can see things. You can be out in the country to make those things. I want to find a balance between the city and nature. I have grown up so much in the city and I think it would be great to be among the wind and trees and hear more sounds other than the 5 freeway.
How can a city develop but keep in touch with nature?
That’s a rough one. That’s the crisis of the 21st century—how to reestablish a balance. We’ve become so populous. How can we cooperate with Mother Earth so we can blossom rather than kill each other? And feel nature? Hopefully it’s part of the new culture we’re building—the village. Last summer I spent in France living in a village where I had to bike to get groceries and produce was coming from the fields right there. The meat, the eggs, everything was more local. It’s cheaper.
Do you think civilization will collapse?
It’s possible. It’s very possible but it will take a while. If natural disasters like the tsunamis and earthquakes, fires … if they begin to swallow up coastal cities and destabilize the status quo—if New York was hit by a tsunami, life there would have to change drastically. But maybe those buildings are strong. A friend was in Japan on the 21st floor of a skyscraper during the tsunami, and it shook so hard back and forth for five minutes, and it was terrifying and life-changing, I think. If more things start to rock our cities, they might have to fall down. The U.S. was large-scale built on the car culture, whereas in Europe, agricultural land is still more interspersed within the cities. Once gas prices reach astronomical levels and we haven’t tapped into solar power as much as we need, people won’t be able to get water and food the way they could if they lived in villages. Villages of the world will have a leg up on the cities. They have a smaller structure. All the people coming to the cities in the last 30-50 years, going to cities for work, it’s probably going to reverse. Water will be the big situation in L.A. We live on more of a desert plain. Maybe we’ll sort it out and the cities will be fine—if we can work out water desalinization and solar power. I am always trying to plan my escape route.
Where will you go live then?
Perhaps somewhere in California. I have been dreaming of Ojai, which is still close enough that it’s almost like home. They have a long history as a spiritual center. I imagine Native Americans who lived here before found Ojai to be as beautiful as we did and hung out a lot. Ojai has some of the best new thinking. Krishnamurti has a center there. In Ojai, it would be easier to get food from close by.
Do you find you have become more new agey with time?
Yes, yes. I don’t feel sooo new agey. I am not a burner. What’s it called? I’ve never been to Burning Man. I don’t know exactly the definition of new age but it often pops up that I’m a new age artist so I guess I am.
When you and Andres were sitting in the artist area at the Silverlake Jubilee around all those other people, did you feel that you two came from a different planet?
Yes! And it’s only in situations like that in which I realize that I’m pretty far out. Someone who was organizing the Jubilee came up to me and Andres and she had to tell us some stuff about loading in and schedule and she said just talking to us and being around us for a minute really helped calm her down. Growing up in L.A., people hardly think I am from L.A. because they associate it with Hollywood. Or what else is L.A.? Maybe beachy? Not exactly Andres and I. We are so L.A. though. It’s a bit hidden, our L.A. I worry about people that come to visit for a few days in West Hollywood. Come hang out with me and you get a vision of the secret L.A. It’s all about the secret woodsy parts. We have great parks in L.A. Especially here on the east side. Griffith Park and Elysian Park and the Angeles Forest. Central Park in New York is amazing but it’s man-made. The parks here in L.A. haven’t been as controlled by man. With the big fire in Griffith, they’re letting nature take its course.
At your house you host late-night jam parties with big groups of musicians. Did you ever attend the ones Jonathan Wilson did in Laurel Canyon?
No, I didn’t know anything about that. Laurel Canyon is far from my neighborhood. I never went over to those music jam parties. He came over to my house for a party and I didn’t even meet him that night. He was friends with a girlfriend of a housemate of mine. Money Mark and I share a compound and he was playing drums with him. I have fun parties where musicians come and play together casually, all night usually. I definitely remember saying hi to him.
What led to recording Cosmic Ocean Ship with Jonathan Wilson?
Gabe Noel, my bassist, had been playing with him. He recommended I record at Jonathan’s. I had written all these songs and I needed a place to record. He asked me what size shoe do I wear, and I said, ‘five and a half, six.’
Wow, you’ve got small feet!
Sometimes old things fit me because things used to be quite small. So I go over there to show him my songs and he came out with these cowboy boots that were my size. It was a sign that we should work together. We recorded the whole album all very much live in his amazing room. He is so skilled as a musician and engineer. He plays different instruments on all the songs. He played drums, guitar and bass and percussion, piano, organ, and he just knows exactly what a song needs. That’s his great producer mind and then he can play it. He lives near my house so it was convenient and felt homelike.
What did he bring to the album?
He brought more of an American roots tradition to the record. North Carolina, hippie North Carolina. He brought a more American Southern tradition to the record—to Andres and I, who are more California-Latin based. We synthesized somehow. One track is more doo-wop, doo-wop-a-doo—‘Summer Lover’ is more like that. Jonathan helped bring out a little more country aspect to my songs. He totally understood where we were coming from. Another thing—that first day, I had barely met him. I just said, ‘Can I come over and play my songs?’ It’s easier to play your songs for strangers in a small place. He was a stranger to me then. I played the songs, he gave me the boots.
Why did he have little cowboy boots in your size?
He had gotten them at a thrift store, not knowing who they were going to fit. I think he goes to thrift stores and looks for precious items.
The album cover you’ve reenacted for our poster is very provocative.
[Gal Costa’s] record cover for India was very provocative when it was released, and still is today. Not too many people put a full cameltoe crotch shot on a cover. I am more modest, but I look a lot like her and identify so much with her album, her music, so we wanted to pay homage to her. My album Cosmic Ocean Ship also celebrates American culture. India was very orchestral in parts but it celebrated the Native American. That’s a piece of my record as well, what I was trying to put out in the world. I feel very native to L.A.
Do you feel like a babe right now?
I will probably get fat. I hope I do. So it was a good time to take those pictures and celebrate my womanness, my womanhood, and the universal creative mother spirit and beauty. It’s a good thing to celebrate naturalness—the human body is a part of that.

MIA DOI TODD WITH HANNI EL KHATIB, KISSES, TOM BROSSEAU, SWAHILI BLONDE, AND THUNDERCAT AT THE DUBLAB X L.A. RECORD BROOKS STAGE AT THE ABBOT KINNEY FESTIVAL ON SUN, SEPT. 25. MIA DOI TODD’S COSMIC OCEAN SHIP IS OUT NOW ON CITY ZEN. VISIT MIA DOI TODD AT MIADOITODD.COM.

Director Sion Sono started out as a poet and staged guerrilla experimental poetry street performances with his Tokyo GAGAGA collective before making films about brutal murders, twisted families, and demonic hair. His latest film Cold Fish, a twisted tale about a struggling fish store owner who falls into the dark orbit of a rich, charismatic—and murderous—owner of a successful high-end fish shop, screens at Cinefamily this weekend. He’s also in production on his first English-language film, Lords of Chaos, which follows the Norwegian black metal scene in the early 1990s—a scene which spawned a wave of murders and church burnings across the country. He speaks here about crime and creativity, pervert power, and his own cult experiences. This interview by Lainna Fader.

The serial murders that drive the plot of Cold Fish were over dogs in real life, but in Cold Fish, your characters are murdering over tropical fish—why did you change dogs to fish for the film?
I thought fish would be visually beautiful, and I kind of liked the fact that those tropical fish can be surprisingly dangerous in spite of their visual beauty. I thought it could be a good theme for the movie. A realistic movie like Cold Fish has to be depicted beautifully. If it’s a fantasy, I pay a lot of attention to colors—how to use colors beautifully.
You’ve said you’ve always loved films but felt you were too shy and withdrawn to actually make movies. How did you overcome that?
I started out as a poet, writing poems, but then I stopped doing it. It was boring to write on a piece of paper, so I wrote my poems on different surfaces—on the street walls, lavatory walls, and such—and shoot them with an 8mm camera. And soon I turned the camera on me, shooting myself reading poems as well. So I started making films without even knowing I did at all.
After working in film for a couple decades, do you think you’re better suited to being a filmmaker rather than just a writer?
Next year, I will start over as a poet, once again. I’d like to shoot a film and write poems. I want to do all kinds of things.
You said that with Love Exposure—a four-hour epic about love, lust, religion, cults, guilt, and revenge—your ‘shell exploded’ and now you have no more love nor hope nor god, and all you have is sadness, despair, and darkness. Did working on Cold Fish cheer you up?
Depending on the situation I am in at any given time of my life, my movies become completely different. When I made Love Exposure, I was very much in love. And I filmed Cold Fish when life felt extremely disappointing for me. So, you see, it all depends on the circumstances. And I am happy now.
Are you more attracted to the brutality of the murders in your films, or the artfulness of the murders? What’s the overlap between crime and creativity?
I’ll give you a hint. If I see blood—real blood—I would be shocked and disgusted, but I love blood if I see it in the movies. The crimes committed in the movies are such creative trickery that I enjoy them very much. I would hate the crime in reality, but I love to commit—create—crimes if it’s in the movie world.
How much of Love Exposure comes from your own experiences?
The film is based mainly on a true story, an experience of a friend of mine. He is a real pervert, you see. He loves sneaking shots inside skirts. And it is a fact that his sister actually joined a cult and he did take her back with his own hands, with his pervert power.
How can you use pervert power to rescue someone from a cult?
The funny part of it is that my friend persuaded his sister saying, ‘Come back to my world’—meaning ‘get out of the cult back into the “normal” world—but I know him well enough to know that ‘my world’ in his case is the world of perverts! The cult may be weird, but he is just as weird. That’s the funny part of it all.
The Zero church in the film is a highly structured corporate-like cult—why would someone want to join a cult like that? What are they looking for?
They all say they are in search of God, but I think they are actually looking for something else—happiness, or a ‘connection,’ so to speak. In Japan, all kinds of connections and relationships are falling apart, including family ties. You can’t trust your own father. Nor your mother. Who can you trust, then? You need something or someone else. That’s where a cult comes in, as a link or circle that one can belong to—as a kind of replacement for family.
Why are family relations in Japan so weak these days?
Well, how are they in America?
I wouldn’t say they’re breaking down necessarily—there’s a wide variety. The extremes balance each other out.
In a way, Japan is more or less the same, I think. I hope I am not creating bad impressions of Japanese people by saying these things about them. I am not saying that Japan has lost it all, obviously—what I mean is that the loss of connections—family ties and human relationships can clearly be perceived as a phenomenon—not that Japanese people are all fallen apart in a mess.
You’ve said you’re in the Jesus Christ fan club—but not a fan of Jesus Christ. Why?
I find Jesus Christ very interesting purely as a person, just like I find John Lennon very interesting. I may not join Beatles Fan Club, but that does not mean that I am not a Beatles fan. It’s not like one has to be a member of Beatles Fan Club to be a Beatles fan. Same thing should apply to Jesus Christ.
Your first English-language film is Lords of Chaos, which follows the Norwegian black metal scene in the early 1990s, a scene which spawned a wave of murders and church burnings across the country. Why did you want to make a film about that story?
I thought that it was an event that truly represented all the themes I had worked on in the past. It’s about the boys who burned down the church to the ground. The irony I find very interesting in it is that they actually believed so much in God that they had to do that. They hated God so much that they burned down the church, but the flip side of the coin is that they would not have done it unless they believed in God so much. You can’t hate a God you don’t believe in, and I don’t think there are many people who believe in God as much as they did, to be able to hate God so much. One does NOT resort to such drastic measure of action for something one doesn’t believe in.
Varg Vikernes—who was convicted of the stabbing of metal band Mayhem’s guitarist Euronymous—has been opposed to the book and now to your movie, even threatening to kill you. How do you cope with such threats and do such events impact the filmmaking process?
I’m not worried. The film isn’t just about him—his opinion doesn’t matter to me.
You’ve called Ozu—one of the most revered directors in Japanese cinema history—the anti-Christ, the anti-God—why? How does Ozu’s legacy in Japan impact how you make films?
He is too much of a ‘god’ in Japanese movie history, and the history can not be refreshed unless we become anti-Ozu. I have nothing personal against him, but I have to declare I am anti-Ozu in order to move forward.
How’d you feel when people started drawing comparisons between his work and yours with family drama Be Sure To Share? What were the reactions like in Japan?
People told me that I grew up unexpectedly. I felt like making a ‘normal’ movie for a change, so I made one using standard, typical techniques, so to speak. It’s like a punk band covering a Frank Sinatra tune for a change.
I read about how when you ran away to Tokyo to 17, you met a woman in a park who wanted you to go with her to a hotel so she wouldn’t have to die alone. What did you think when she said those words to you?
I was afraid. For several years, I suffered from the trauma—kind of scared of women and all.
Did you think the woman was really going to kill you?
Yes. She had these gigantic scissors—shears. I really believed it.
And she agreed not to kill you if you pretended to be her husband?
Yes, that’s what happened. I went with her to see her family. I was so patient that I got awarded, as a gift, with some money to go back to Tokyo.
You said at the time you were lonely and wondering whether you were a criminal—what did you decide? And what did you mean when you said you’re ‘prepared’ to be a criminal? Do you think most people who commit crimes go into them feeling prepared to be criminals?
At that time when I was making Cold Fish, there was a possibility that things would get criminal right away, but now, after having made films such as Guilty of Romance and Mole, my heart is a little more peaceful now and I don’t feel that way at all. There are strange cases in this world. I did research when I made a movie called Suicide Club. People who commit suicides are not really prepared—they themselves don’t even know they are doing it until it happens. For instance, someone goes to a supermarket and buys something. While carrying it in a bag, this person suddenly feels like dying. Or someone is having a business meeting. In a corporate building. He walks out onto the veranda during the break. Then, huh? ‘Where is he?’ people ask. He is already gone. Some strange suicide cases happen like that, totally unprepared—totally without warning. Likewise, there must be criminals who commit crimes totally prepared.
When you came back to Tokyo, you’ve said you joined a cult so you could eat. Why did they still let you in when you said, ‘If I believe in your God will I stop being hungry’? Was it not important to them that you shared their beliefs?
It was when I had no money and I was hungry. At the station, if you told them you believed in God, you could get some food. It wasn’t so dangerous. Since that’s not something I could possibly believe in, I didn’t feel that I might be brainwashed so much anyway, regardless of the length of time I stayed there.
Why—and how—did you leave?
It was—well, kind of boring. So it wasn’t easy to stay there in that sense. And in order to get out of the place, I had to go to another powerful place—another cult.
That cult let you off the hook because you said you were joining an even bigger cult? How does that work?
I can’t really explain it without getting into a big trouble.
When you went to Berkeley, why did you only study B cinema?
Until then, I was a typical film student, so to speak, studying classics like Truffaut, Godard, Nouvelle Vague, American historical movies and such, but as I got to see tons of those vulgar, nasty movies in Berkeley, I realized that this was the kind of movie I had better be studying now. I got a chance to absorb and study the kind of movie I used to hate because of the nastiness of it.
You said Suicide Club is your B movie, and that the Japanese public should hate it—why did you hope the Japanese would hate it? Do you want to be hated?
My original intention was to make a movie to be detested. I always intended my first entertainment movie to be detested by people rather than entertaining people. ‘Amanojaku’ in Japanese is exactly what I am … How shall I put it in English? I can think of it only in Japanese. If, if, if the content of Suicide Club was something people would like—if everyone else was making movies similar to Suicide Club, I would have been making love romance movies. I just like to do things contrary to others.

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If you always wanted to know what is actually going on in Downtown L.A.’s high-rises and corporate buildings–apart from struggling mortgage dealers and bankrupt banks–go and see artist Seth Lower’s latest show “Diamonds Are Forever.” What starts as Rohrschach test-like riddle turns into a reflection about living and, most notably, working as artist in L.A. that is as dry as entertaining. Turn on the old Shirley Bassey song and read about his stance on abstract desires, romantic concealments and apophenia. This Interview by Claudia Slanar.

A lot of your work is based on personal observations, strange encounters, and surprising coincidences. How do you get into these situations? Do you think you attract them?
I have to think about how the work develops over time according to a trajectory, and I’ve got these previous projects dealing with the uncanny, so now I tempt fate a bit in order to gather material, almost as a researcher. Despite that, I do feel like some mystical forces naturally surround me, more so than most people I know. This magnetism peaked in 2008, just in time for my thesis show, when I had a series of encounters revolving around a raccoon t-shirt. There are words for this sort of personalization of external or unordered events. Some people refer to it as being in the zone, which is also a great basketball term, but basically it’s a state of mind from which freaky things naturally happen. There are also “apophenia” and “patternicity,” which are the processes of applying meaning to random or disconnected events. It’s human nature to make these connections, in the same way that it’s difficult not to see a smiley face in two dots and an arc. It’s easy to let that consume you, too, so I try to focus on the ways in which meaning is constructed, with a somewhat detached perspective. More recently I started to see the invitation of chance as a way of giving up control in the creative process. And because I often walk around with a blank look on my face, maybe people project odd energies onto me. But the questions of sustainability and intentionality are always there, as an artist. For example, how can I consistently make work about coincidences and still maintain a balance of objectivity? At a certain point it has to become self-aware, because ultimately any grouping of disparate photographs or art pieces relies upon many of those same tendencies toward meaning-making.
Can you describe the particular situation that led to the Diamonds Are Forever project/show?
The diamond project was possible because I wanted to make the issue of coincidence less of a personal problem and more of a global side effect. In other words, I have a feeling that uncanny encounters are coming more quickly and more often, thanks to globalization and blanket capitalism, not to a divine source. I also didn’t plan to get involved in the diamond trade, I just needed a job, so I started working for this company trading diamonds, watches and jewelry in Downtown L.A. I’ve been trying to get out of it for a year now. What got me interested in doing a project was thinking about the history of particular diamonds, and everything involved in locating, extracting, cutting, transporting, buying, and selling them. But the freakiest aspect was something I didn’t expect at all: the physical overlapping of the immigration courtrooms with the showroom, as well as the miraculous appearance of the Rauschenberg ring.
What’s that story about Robert Rauschenberg’s ring?
Occasionally the company buys used jewelry, including rings worn by famous athletes who have gone broke. I overheard one of our buyers talking with an affiliate of the Rauschenberg estate, who compared the artist to Picasso, and the company ended up buying a diamond ring that was apparently owned by Rauschenberg himself. It’s a cheeky move but it was too synchronous of an acquisition to ignore, so I did my one-up move by erasing that piece from the photo.
The Removal pieces as well as Erased Rauschenberg basically show empty silhouettes of precious objects (jewelry, diamonds), voids that can be filled with various fantasies and desires about the missing object(s). Through erasing these, you make the libidinal relations with these objects in our capitalist society only more present. Is this something that interests you?
The blankness of the removals does invite a kind of projection, I think, following along the lines of romantic concealment or veiling, not to mention imagination. And what is the appeal of sparkles, if not as tiny, passing seeds of potential? As for the images themselves, when the things go from physical objects (representations of the abstract desire) to images (representations of both the object and the abstract) to abstracted image-objects, they take on a new set of weird presences (and, yes, even absences) that seem to house many different imbalances. And maybe part of that is the translation process into art. I initially viewed them as telling accidents that spoke of human error, in opposition to industry. Later they became proxies for the distribution of wealth and the desiring of luxury objects.
Are there other artists dealing with these things whose work you like?
I was thinking a lot about Walead Beshty’s X-ray pieces (Passages, A.N.), about Sophie Calle’s L’Hotel, about Amanda Ross-Ho, and also the tendency in late American Modernism to intentionally stunt expression. For example Ryman’s or Rauschenberg’s White Paintings, and all of those denials which were not intended as such, but inevitably became as much in the eyes of the public.
Diamonds Are Forever stages the tension between a very playfully narrated personal story and the attempt of almost vigorously structuring your visual environment? How did you balance these elements?
I didn’t really intend to make a playfully narrated story. I’m always afraid of sounding too truthful or cathartic in these text pieces, so I often fudge them a little and include dialog or texts from other people, without necessarily giving them credit. But, I guess maybe part of that move toward lightening, or cheapening the text comes from a fear that people won’t read it. So I’m slowly trying to find ways of making text digestible, through music and movement and quickness, both in the use of language and in the actual presentation. It’s always hard for me to represent conceptual frameworks visually, and conversely, to figure out how the things I’ve responded to visually may relate to objective information. The ultimate goal is to lump them together almost seamlessly with an economy of means, while still preserving something that isn’t there.
Another contrast is that of these framed fantasies and the images of your workplace, its economies of production, labor, corporate power, and control. Do you like to explore the boundaries of these structures?
Well, the company isn’t corporate, it’s essentially a family business, but it’s one that certainly makes up for it in terms of mind games. I do like to play into that, but I have a feeling that once the show comes down my tolerance for it will diminish. My somewhat subversive inquiries there stem from thinking about how the company plays into the larger, more nebulous industry that both reiterates and necessitates these problematic economies and power structures, to say it in the broadest and blandest of terms. There’s an implicit coding in the security systems of the office, in my case, which is one of either entering into or being denied from a certain lifestyle. But more importantly, there’s a coded understanding, or acceptance, that success and intelligence aren’t personal qualities, but rather learned behaviors used to dominate. I guess it’s the constant cycle of becoming the man, by which you fight to pull yourself up, accept the norm, and then become the norm.
The video piece seems to play an important role in the overall installation as it “activates” the other parts and almost creates a dramaturgy for the audience?
Yes, the video is the key. I needed to translate the back-story, as well as the conceptual frameworks for each piece, into some kind of text, without just laying out an artist’s statement. At first I thought I could do interviews with people on location, follow the thread of conversations I’d had in the elevator, or collect artifacts from the courtroom. I even thought of breaking into the dumpster and stealing the scraps of paper that had been swept up by the cleaning crew. But at some point I felt like that was trying too hard to prove something, and then I had the idea of making really bad jokes, ones without punchlines, that could present some of the challenges of the project in a somewhat less haughty way. So that became the basis for the video. I also wanted to use music that might be heard in the actual showroom, to place that feeling. As I started to curate the video with other pieces it began to have a nice dialog with the floor sculpture and the photos of the office. It also started to deal with time in a way that was interesting, time being so crucial to the job itself, both in terms of punching in or out and also in terms of staring at watches all day.
So the uncanny-ness of some of your encounters is also triggered by spatial relations?
One of the strangest spaces I’ve ever encountered is the foyer that leads into the showroom. When you stand between the two locked doors you see video cameras, convex mirrors, a rock garden, and fake orchids on a polished black flooring. It’s a very psychological space, and it makes the antiseptic lushness of the showroom that much more astounding and bizarre once you pass through the final door. So I wanted the video to get at that space a bit, to give the viewer just an approximation of that feeling, and also to lay out all of these conceptual frameworks and information overlaps.
Diamonds Are Forever is also the title of the 6th James-Bond-movie starring Sean Connery as the agent, Do you feel like a secret agent-artist now?
I do feel secret, yes, but more like a secret non-agent. Sometimes I hum the theme song while I’m formatting my memory card. Incidentally, I dated a woman named Tiffany Case… .

Dale Crover of the mighty Melvins will do a special DJ set at Big Freak tonight, so in honor of this momentous occasion, we are redeploying our gigantic Melvins interview by Chris Ziegler.

Do you still have those charred roof tiles from Hiroshima?
Buzz Osborne (guitar, vocals): How’d you find out about that?
Decades of Buzz-o-graphy.
BO: I have bunches of that kind of stuff. I’m a big history of World War II fan. When I finally went to Japan with the Melvins in 1998 or around there, we made a special trip to Hiroshima because I wanted to go to the Ground Zero Museum. There’s a museum where you learn about the peace-loving Japanese, which is interesting. They said school kids have been going down to the river and digging around down there and finding things. It doesn’t take much to find it. They show pieces of what these kids are finding—pottery or whatever. You could walk right down to the edge of the river without having to jump over a fence or anything like that. So we start digging around down there and found all kinds of shit. Old pieces of pottery, all kinds of busted-up pieces of ceiling tile—
—all charred-up?
BO: Not necessarily—it’s been like 60 years. But chunks of building material. Blasted. So then we went to the museum and in the museum that exact same kind of tile. So we knew we were on the right track. I just threw it in my bag and brought it home. Hand-sized pieces. Easy to find. A few inches underneath the silt at the edge of the river.
Is that on prominent display in your house?
BO: I have a huge amount of stuff. That’s just one of my vast interests. I got everything from Japanese battle flags, U.S. propaganda stuff to get people pumped up to fight, a couple of SS daggers I bought in Austria … A WW2 helmet I found in Austria at a flea market.
You said once that being in your forties is the ‘ultimate age.’ Why?
BO: You’re smarter than ever, and you’re still young enough to do whatever you want.
Fitzgerald said, ‘If you get success when you’re young, you think it’s destiny. If you get it when you’re 30, you think it’s work and luck. If you get it at 40, you think it’s nothing but willpower.’
BO: Maybe. When did he get his?
Too early.
BO: Apparently. I haven’t read a whole lot of his stuff.
Why have the Melvins been so energetically hated? Beyond what you’d consider normal hate for a band.
BO: I dunno. We did a lot of different things that put us in the position of playing for an audience that’s by no means converted. I’m pretty much over that except in really special cases. I’m not interested in trying to sell the band that way. It’s really hard to do, you know? We’re not a bright and breezy pop-tune band. We don’t sound like the bands that we toured with like White Zombie and Nine Inch Nails or KISS. Actually the KISS audience wasn’t bad to us. They were all mid-thirties people who couldn’t be bothered freaking out. They’re credit-card wielding adults. They sat peacefully. Politely applauded.
They’re used to confusion?
BO: If I was at a show and a band was playing I didn’t like, I couldn’t be bothered. I just went outside. From a very early age I was interested in underground music. I never appreciated the big stadium shows in the first place—I cut my milk teeth musically on smaller shows. A much more intimate basis. That’s the lessons I learned from punk rock that I never forgot. That extends to today.
Dale Crover (drums): Our first experience in the South in like 1986—people just hated us. Supposedly open-minded punk rockers who weren’t very open-minded at all. It’s funny. I’ve never really seen it with another band. Usually, if you don’t like ’em, you’re like, ‘Eh, they’re not very good.’ But I’ve seen people really have a violent reaction to what we do. Not so much anymore because people know about us right now. And kind of like us. We got pulled over a bunch. I guess we were asking for it. We had a mural of KISS all over the van done in Sharpie. It was a band van, you know? Hassled by the locals a lot. Since they realized we didn’t have any drugs on us, they let us go. We’d get more hassles by skinheads than cops.
What’s the most positive experience you ever had with a drunken skinhead?
DC: None? I don’t think they wanted to have anything to do with me. I don’t know how this happened but on that first tour, we played with R.K.L. and ended up playing with some skinhead band in Florida. They’d seen us a couple nights earlier—they were putting on the show and were like, ‘Those guys can’t play.’ Oh … really? Since the drummer from R.K.L. was a former skinhead he kinda convinced them to let us play—on the inside of his lip he had a tattoo that said SKIN. They actually had a black bass player. That didn’t bother them, but us playing? No fucking way.
So you conquered racism?
DC: We did, and then there was no place else to go after the show to stay except their house. And they lived basically in a black neighborhood and had swastikas in their house—on the outside! We were like, ‘What the fuck? What are we doing?’ But we were young and it was our first time in that part of the world and no place else to go and no money, so we just kinda went for the flow, I guess.
Is it more gratifying to be adored by millions or hated by millions? Like a bad guy wrestler?
DC: Yeah, but that’s all an act! I’m happy people like us. Who woulda thunk? After this long!
Who was the first person to lead you away from arena rock shows?
BO: Nobody. I did it all myself. I lived in a very oppressive place. It’s still an oppressive place.
DC: Fuck, where we come from, there’s no place to play. You’re lucky if you can play a house party. So getting to play a gig that’s halfway legitimate was really cool. Especially if you got paid. Maybe enough for some gas and a 7-Eleven diaper burrito after the show. That was living! A beer in hand and a burrito—everything’s OK!
But what about your gastrointestinal tract?
DC: Fuck, it was nourishment.
What’s your favorite vegetable?
DC: Asparagus.
Because of the psychedelic urine effect?
DC: Oh yeah! I love the smell of asparagus pee. I can’t get enough of it!
BO: In the mid ’70s—I turned 12 in 1976 and at that point I was very interested in rock music. At that time, there was Creem magazine, and along with the bands I liked—Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, KISS, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple—there was also a lot of pictures of bands that I had no idea who they were. The Clash, the Sex Pistols … to a lesser degree, Iggy Pop. Through that magazine I saw these bands that were interesting to me solely on the way they looked. Like the Sex Pistols especially. In the back of those magazines, you’d get big lists of mail-order stuff. So I’d mail-order those records. The Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Damned—all that shit! In the ’70s! I got all that shit myself. I was also really into David Bowie. Like 7th-8th-9th grade, we had an exchange student who was a senior—our school was very small; it was 7th through 12th grade—and he saw me carrying around the Heroes album and he just about shit his pants. He couldn’t believe that—he was from Sweden or somewhere. ‘I can’t believe you have that record!’ Nobody NOW would have that record. So I was just an anomaly, you know. I was too young to go up and see any of the big punk bands in Seattle. My parents were by no means gonna take me. It was about 150 miles from where I lived and it might as well have been 150 million miles. So then from that—I’m a musical anthropologist, basically. An archaeologist. From the Sex Pistols, I realized they did a cover of this song ‘No Fun,’ which is by the Stooges … so I just took it on that, and that’s how I learned about the MC5 and all that—all before 1980. All before I’d ever even seen a punk rock show! So then I realized finally in the early ’80s—10th, 11th grade—all these bands I liked, like Black Flag blah-blah-blah—were all playing in Seattle. Then it was a matter of trying to figure out how to get to those shows. By then I’d been to a bunch of arena rock shows. I never saw the distinction between—since I never grew up around people who gave me any indication of how one was supposed to act, I was equally excited seeing the Kinks as I would be by seeing a punk rock band. Or Cheap Trick—I saw all those bands. Van Halen. Van Halen in late ’70s/early ’80s were raging. RAGING. Everything Metallica wishes they were, especially at that point. I don’t care if people don’t think it’s cool. They were great. I liked all that stuff and the Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols to me just sounds like heavy metal. It wasn’t hard for me to go from listening to Aerosmith to the Sex Pistols. It was a really easy jump, once you got around his vocals. And there was no going back. When you’re thinking 30 years ago, when I developed all my ideas about how all this stuff worked, I didn’t have much tolerance for arena rock shows after that. Now that I’m a little older, I missed out on a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have. I didn’t get to see the Clash—I didn’t get to see the Clash till they opened for the Who! Oh, I love the Who. I always loved the Who.
You said the Who were the weirdest band of all time. Why?
BO: Just listen to the Sell Out album. They are a HIGHLY underrated weird band. Very very strange. Fantomas played in South America at a festival show with the Stooges and Nine Inch Nails, and the promoter was putting everyone up in the same hotel. So I’m down in my music-archaeology thing in my brain and I see Ron Asheton walking around—‘Hey, man, blah-blah-blah—when you guys first started the Stooges, what bands did you like?’ And he’s like, ‘The band we were into was the Who.’ He told me he saw the Who in Ann Arbor in the mid-’60s. He said he still had a piece of one of Pete Townshend’s broken guitars from that show. So when you think about the Stooges, you figure those guys cutting their milk teeth on the Doors and the Who—that makes perfect sense. To be as weird as the Who were in the mid-’60s—like their live show—I don’t know what you’d have to do now. I have no idea. But they are and will always remain one of my favorite bands. Without question.
What’s the common thing across all the music you like? Anything you can isolate?
BO: I’d say no. It has to speak to you somehow. I’m not generally interested in by-the-numbers bands. Hip-hop to me is one of the most played out … and alt. country in general is played-out horseshit. ‘I’m gonna play new country with a rock edge!’ ‘Wowwwwwww! What an incredible idea that the Allman Brothers came up with in the FUCKIN’ ’60s! And they did it better than you’ll ever do it!’ Shit like that, I can’t stand.
You once said ‘rock bands are the most conformist people on planet Earth.’
BO: Oh, absolutely.
Is that what we’re talking about here?
BO: 100 percent. Once in a while you’ll find something like, ‘Oh, wow, this is really cool. I’m into all kinds of weird shit and normal music as well. I never got the memo about not liking heavy metal, about not liking whatever it may be. I like plenty of hip-hop but most of it now … I just don’t have any interest in it.
What’s your favorite rap record?
BO: Oh, my all-time favorite rap record is Raising Hell. By far. I actually saw Run-DMC on that tour. It was fucking amazing. It was really good, and there were no tapes going, I’ll tell you that. I saw a shitload of hip-hop bands, especially then, and most of ’em were crap. I saw Paris, Too Short—all crap. Live it was the worst shit you could ever imagine. They’re not bands! Shit just falls apart. I never saw Public Enemy. I saw lots of little rap bands.
Is it true people were rolling around on the ground pawing at their ears when you recorded Colossus of Destiny?
BO: I don’t know if that’s true! I have no idea. We have hardcore Melvins fans who can’t stand records like Colossus of Destiny. I don’t think that record’s that weird, personally. Was it weird? Compared to what? That’s always the ultimate—compared to Whitehouse? To Throbbing Gristle and all that shit?
At what point did you decide the Melvins was you and Dale no matter what?
BO: I never decided that—those things just happened! I never wanted to kick out anybody who was in our band. It just became obvious that that’s just what had to happen. For a million different reasons. I wish people would just understand that I know what I’m doing. Judge me by my enemies! Who hates my guts? Think about that. Judge me by who hates me, not by who likes me.
Have you ever had any people tell you that you were right after all?
BO: Like who?
Anybody in human history.
BO: I don’t know. I don’t worry about those things that much. I just rest assured that I’m not wrong about anything. I know what I’m doing. If people don’t wanna come along for the ride or think they know better what I should do with my own life than I do, then more power to ’em. I don’t see the world that way. I actually have a really open mind about those kind of things. Like the guys that I play with—if I write a song, and they think of something better, I’m not like, ‘No, this is wrong!’ I’m smart enough to know—‘Wait a minute, their idea is really good for this!’ I’m not single-minded. There are people out there who are. I always think I haven’t thought of everything. But I’m not WRONG when it comes down to that stuff. I trust musicians I play with. I give them a huge amount of freedom to do what they want. I’m not at all—how would you put it? I’m not threatened by their musical instincts.
Why do other bands work in a different way than this?
BO: Because they’re conformists. Massively conformist in their non-conformity. It’s just like the thing—nobody talks about God more than atheists.
But why conform? What do you get as a reward?
BO: I have no idea. If you take a typical stoner-rock band, why—just on the simplest level—do you never see one that shaves their heads and wears pink tutus? Why? That would up their worth in my book. It never happens. It’s never gonna happen! I never understood it. My rule with punk rock is that there’s lots of different things you can do. But that’s never really been the case, you know.
What’s something you want to learn how to do?
BO: No idea. There’s nothing I couldn’t do.
Pedal steel?
BO: If it’s a musical instrument, I can make it do something. One way or another. I never took guitar lessons.
You said once that if you couldn’t be a musician, you’d want to be a paid philosopher.
BO: That was a joke!
But you’re pretty close.
BO: It’ll never happen. Someone will pay me for talking? That’ll be the day.
They pay you for singing.
BO: Uh—yeah. I suppose. I won’t borrow any money against that.
DC: If I didn’t have this, I couldn’t get a job at a fucking Burger King.
Sure you could. You got people skills, you’re organized …
DC: They’d look at my resume and go, ‘Uhhhh, no.’
Is it just ‘MELVINS: 1983-PRESENT’?
DC: Pretty much. I had a couple jobs. The only jobs I really had before we were able to make money was working at a pizza place. Both me and Buzz, our last jobs were working at a Round Table Pizza in San Francisco. It was a drag. We tried to make the best of it. Buzz was a delivery driver and I was a prep cook.
Do you have a coherent philosophy of life?
BO: Me? A coherent philosophy of life? Rock musicians should work on farmer time.
What non-musical things help your music?
BO: The World War II thing is just one tiny aspect of things I’m into. I just try to play my instrument and plow through a lot of stuff to find little gems. It’s like a gold miner. They shovel a lot of shit to find just one little nugget of gold. And then they realize they’re basically working for minimum wage.
And they’re in the dark all the time. I’m from a mining town.
BO: Then you have the tailings to deal with.
And they break and poison the water supply.
BO: Good! We have a big planet. We have nothing to worry about.
You don’t have a hide-out planned for the Apocalypse?
BO: For what? You mean 2012? You know someone who’s actually made a hovel so they can live like the Unabomber in the middle of nowhere? Ugh, fuck that. I’d rather blow my brains out. Why would you wanna do that? Why would you wanna live like in the Stone Age? If they wanna do that, why don’t they just do that now? Why wait? And what makes them think they’re gonna know exactly when to go there? If there’s a catastrophe, do they think they’ll just breeze along the freeway to their little hide-out?
They’ll have bicycles.
BO: Yeah. Get to Northern California on that. I’m not a big believer in the world’s gonna end. No. Are you kidding? We’re not done suffering yet. Only in a country where people have it as good as we do could we possibly think that the world’s gonna end. That’s just fucking crazy. Then you have far too much time on your hands dreaming up things like that—life on the planet is better than it’s ever been, and we live longer than we ever have ever, despite what anybody says. People are living longer across the board. In every country. The quality of life is better than ever. The ability to transfer information is better than ever. The ability to transfer one person to another part of the globe is better than ever. Nonetheless, there are people who insist that everything’s getting worse. I’ve never understood that. It’s insane. Staring into the face of optimism, we are obsessed with the idea it’s all gonna end.
Why?
BO: Insanity. People refuse to look at the world as it really is. Why don’t they just be happy with what they have? Because it could all be gone. I honestly believe that life is beautiful and the streets are paved with gold. Having said that, I have no faith in humanity. I have faith in the individual. Individual rights. Not a collective. I don’t run a collective here.
What makes you suspect of the collective?
BO: I have no idea. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had no interest in being a hippie! I have no interest in it now! I’m an industrialist! I like cars and computers! I’m not gonna badmouth corporations when I use ’em every day of my life. You can’t pick and choose—‘Oh, the oil companies are evil, so I’m gonna drive my car to the anti-oil company rally!’ Fuck that.
We have more irony now than ever before, too.
BO: It’s like—I hate conservatives, but I really hate liberals. Here’s the thing. I have my own opinions about everything, and it’s basically classic liberalism. But—I also don’t believe that as an entertainer, I have any business making social commentary. None whatsoever. That’s your job. And I think you should look to higher sources than somebody like me or somebody like Jello or somebody like Noam Chomsky—people who step outside of their area of expertise. Noam Chomsky is a linguist. That’s what he does best. Why anybody listens to him on politics is beyond me. Or anybody—Brad Pitt—when anybody like that starts to get political, they can shove it up their ass. Or Bono. Any political leader that would spend time talking to Bono is fucking out of their mind.
Maybe they just wanna impress their kids.
BO: If I was the President of the United States or the Pope or anything, do you think I’d have time on my fucking schedule to talk to a fucking rock ‘n’ roll singer from Ireland? No fucking chance. I’d just laugh. ‘Are you kidding me? I don’t have time for you.’
This strikes me as very Eisenhower-ish.
BO: Eisenhower walked through a whole lot of hell before he was president. I don’t know what my attitude would be like if I’d seen the things he’d seen with his eyes. Until I’ve walked in somebody like that’s shoes … until my family is hungry, how can I tell someone else how to live? That their children should be hungry? It’s none of my fucking business.
You said once ‘music is communication’—
BO: Yes. All art. All art is communication. What I’m trying to communicate is raw emotional energy. In one form or another. That doesn’t mean it has to be explained. All I know is when I see it done right, it makes sense to me. How you get to that point, I have no idea.
How close are you?
BO: I think I’m much better at everything I do musically than I’ve ever been. Better singer, better songwriter, better guitar player—but that just comes from experience. I’m still happy about what I’m doing and I still put a great amount of effort into making it as contemporary as possible. I refuse to be an oldies act. I don’t wanna do those sort of things.
So how does it feel to go back to old stuff at the residency?
BO: We’re very much about our new stuff, but we’ve never done anything quite like this, and we thought the residency idea was good. If you’re gonna do a residency, then you should make a reason why you’re doing it. We wanted to make the shows as different as we possibly could. That’s a good idea that the music industry’s hit upon—like ‘play the whole album.’ I think it’s kinda cool. I don’t apologize for anything I’ve ever done musically, but I also don’t like everything I’ve ever done musically. But I’m in a different, weirder position than everybody else. I’m too close to it so I don’t enjoy it. Once I make the records and walk away from them, it’s none of my business what people think.
What’s it feel like to pull out the old records and re-learn these songs?
BO: Most of them—except in rare cases—I didn’t learn them off the record. I just tried to remember them as close as I could.
Well done.
BO: We’ll see. And some of it is different. But I’m not married to any of those arrangements or chord progressions. None of it! I’m not trying to make carbon copies of any of it. We’re not a jukebox.
You said once you were ‘an uncommercial vehicle not to sell records.’ Is that still true?
BO: Ah—I don’t remember what I was speaking in relation to. I rarely tell the truth about those sorts of things. The best journalism is always pure fiction. I don’t go into a lot of personal details. If you think about it, I haven’t really told you anything about myself. And I won’t. People don’t need to know those things. As a music fan, I don’t have personal relationships with a lot of people I’m big fans of musically. I’ve had that be the case as well—you become friends with people who are super into your band, but by and large they’ve already made up their mind about what you’re about, and all you do by getting close to them is destroy that vision. I don’t have a really good experience with that sort of thing.
Why do you wanna meet Nick Kent?
BO: I would like to! I just finished his new book—Apathy for the Devil. The thing about it is his ability to deconstruct what is going on with these people—he doesn’t overshadow it with his own superiority complex because he is a fan of this stuff regardless of how realistic he writes about whatever horrible shit’s going on. He has a really good take. And the way he writes is great. Rock journalism, for what it’s worth—it’s not gonna stop the world or anything. Most rock journalism is absolutely unreadable garbage. I can’t make it through it. I can’t remember the last time I ever made it through a Rolling Stone article, and I haven’t looked at a Rolling Stone in twenty years. If I’m in a recording studio, I might thumb through one. I just can’t believe anybody cares about that shit. SPIN or any of that crap—it’s just crap! Not interesting. Kent had a way of doing it that personalized it in a way that didn’t make him look like he’s acting like a big shot. And he’s a good writer. He knows what he’s talking about. I would love to have met Nick Kent.
Ever think about writing a book yourself?
BO: I’ve thought about all kinds of things. I have a couple interesting things I’m working on, none of which is anywhere near completion. The music industry’s changing so much. Maybe it’s for the better? I don’t know. I don’t know that a lot of people have thought out how this is gonna work.
You mean an exit strategy?
BO: No, it’s not gonna end. It’s just gonna change. And I don’t know that it’s necessarily for the better.
You once said selling 10,000 records is ‘punk rock gold.’ What would that be now?
BO: Do people sell records? We got in the top 200 by selling about 3,000 records. When we were on Atlantic, we used to give that many records away. So … is that good? It’s not good for bands, it’s not good for the industry itself—it’s not good for people who make records or record records, for producers, people who make recording machines, any of that stuff. It’s clearly not good for any of that. But communication and the transfer of information is better than it’s ever been. So then—what are we going to do? This is what’s gonna separate the men from the boys in that department.
What do you think is gonna happen?
BO: It’s gonna collapse!
But what crawls out of the ruins?
BO: Not musical quality. It could get worse. For the first time in history, every geek on Earth can express their opinion about anything instantly. Whether that’s good or bad, it’s anyone’s guess. For me musically, I wish I woulda had something like YouTube when I was a kid so I could go, ‘Oh, what’s this Captain Beefheart?’ You could find that all out instantly, which I think is absolutely amazing. And ultimately, I think we’ll have to get more artistic. For me, my focus is gonna be on things that aren’t manufactured on a huge scale. We’re gonna get attention to detail on a small level. For more money. I think there’s still people out there who wanna buy cool shit. I’m in the position that I’m capable of making really cool stuff. That’s what we’re looking at. The day our music’s no longer in a jewel case is coming. We might be able to do one more record traditionally and then I don’t know what’s gonna happen. No clue. People don’t really realize—it’s gonna be different than they think. I still like CDs. I think they sound great, they don’t take up much space, and I don’t wanna trust my whole collection to a computer. I had a huge collection of albums I got rid of. Oh, God—I hate vinyl. I sold them to a friend of mine who collects vinyl, with the idea that he had to buy all of them. He couldn’t just cherry pick and leave me with a bunch of crap. He had to come over and get ’em out of here. The thing you need to consider is this—we should not be concerned with what vehicle music is on. That has nothing to do with what I’m doing. I don’t care. CDs or mp3s or start making 8-track tapes—I don’t care! I don’t wanna get hung up on those kinds of bullshit. ‘We’re only doing vinyl.’ I don’t give a fucking shit about vinyl! I don’t give a fucking shit about any of that stuff!
What mistake have you most often seen kill a band?
BO: What happens when bands sign to major labels is they wanna sell millions of records. I would have loved to have sold millions of records but I never thought it would happen. So they start gearing themselves up to sell millions of records, and doing things like they’re going to sell millions of records, and when it doesn’t happen, they’re left with nothing. But if you don’t go into it thinking it’s gonna happen, and more than what you thought happens—then you can be pleasantly surprised. You need to have realistic ambitions with whatever it is you’re doing. All I had to do was look in the mirror and listen to our music to realize we were never gonna sell records like that. The time we got signed, that band Sugar Ray got signed. If you look at the singer of Sugar Ray and look at me, it doesn’t take a detective which one the chicks are gonna like, you know?
I hope that never kept you up at night.
BO: Yeah, I’ll tell you—I would like to have done time with him. If I had to do time with a dude, might as well be one that looks like a chick.
If you had to be chained to anyone on a prison work gang, who would it be?
BO: Rosey Grier. I don’t know.
What a utilitarian answer.
BO: Let him do all the work. He’s a big mother. I like Rosey Grier.

THE MELVINS’ DALE CROVER DJs AT BIG FREAK WITH SHANNON CORNETT (FULL TIME PUNKS) + SHORT SHORTS + CHRIS ZIEGLER (L.A. RECORD) ON MON., JULY 18, AT THE BLACK BOAR, 1630 COLORADO BLVD., EAGLE ROCK. 10 PM / FREE / 21+. THE MELVINS’ THE BRIDE SCREAMED MURDER IS OUT NOW ON IPECAC. VISIT THE MELVINS AT THEMELVINS.NET.

Before they were Luis & the Wildfires they were Lil’ Luis y Los Wild Teens, a band built then as it is now: on rock ‘n’ roll too Wild for American ears. Now, as Luis & the Wildfires, they have more than earned their spot on the wall of Pasadena’s Colorado Bar alongside the Rolling Stones. They will play Saturday with live Mexican wrestling (and you can win tickets here!) so enjoy this reissued interview by Lainna Fader.

You’re both quitting your jobs to play music full-time at a time when people line up for blocks for the shittiest of shitty jobs. Are you scared?
Luis Arriaga (vocals/guitar): Oh yeah—there’s a big fear factor there, absolutely. But I think it’s one of those things where you have to make the leap. You have to take some baby steps before you make the leap. I think at my age I’m well aware of that but I am frightened for the struggle. I’m very lazy.
What baby steps have you taken to prepare yourself?
LA: I don’t know—what do you think, Victor? I think for the first time as a band we’ve been prepared, musically, and with that came the mental aspect of it. Plus there’s the fact that we’re getting fucking old! Might as well do it now while we’re still able to move!
I’d say you have more than a few years left before you’re unable to move.
LA: Sweetheart, the life that I live—Jesus!
What’s something about recording at Wild’s studio that can’t be reproduced in any other studio?
LA: I think the camaraderie. There’s a bit of respect between all of us because we all started together and since it’s such a DIY label. You can be goofy and it’s okay. You can possibly make a mistake and be encouraged.
What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?
LA: Recording for Wild. Just kidding! Reb, I love you. I’ve had quite a few fumbles but I wouldn’t necessarily call them mistakes. Quite a few fumbles where I’ve possibly been way too inebriated to even record—and the evidence is completely there on record!
What’s the drunkest you’ve ever been in the studio?
Victor Mendez (bass): Well, Luis can handle his alcohol really, really well. No matter how much he drinks, he’s usually OK. And when he records, it doesn’t affect him at all. He does OK.
LA: That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.
VM: Well, you don’t sound any better sober.
What’s the one instrument or piece of equipment you’d love to put in the Wild studio?
VM: An organ. That would be something I would love to have. A really cool Hammond organ.
Would you bring those sounds into the Wildfires? Would it have to be saved for another band or a solo project?
LA: Our sound at the moment is entrenching on being eclectic. We’re experimenting with different sounds, expanding to different types of sounds. And I think actually an organ—if this man is playing it. He can play anything.
I saw that YouTube video of you playing Lady Gaga on the piano.
VM: Ugh! It was when I was drunk. We were just messing around. It was like 4 AM, and we were going to Europe, so we were staying up all night.
LA: This guy’s got a talent to actually hear a song—a random song on the radio—walk into the studio, and just start playing it. And he doesn’t even know what it is. He’s like, ‘I just heard this on the radio just now.’ I’m like, ‘What?!’ It’s unbelievable.
Are you the same way with books? Can you remember everything you read as well as everything you hear?
VM: No. I’m a retard with books. I don’t want to talk about myself!
I’m interviewing you! The point is for you to talk about yourself.
VM: When I hear notes in my head—like the music playing right now—I can hear the chord progressions and just know where the song is heading. When I was a really little boy, my mom bought me a little keyboard. I started learning songs on my own, like ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and ‘Old MacDonald.’ I started thinking about the notes that I was playing. I got this, then I got that. When I was like 11 I would play these little songs, and I already knew where the next note is.
Can you see the future?
VM: No, no. Somebody taught me after that—the basics. After that, I just picked it up from there.
What’s the first instrument you feel you ever completely learned?
VM: Piano. The other day at work I actually wrote a song in my head. I literally wrote it in my head. I already knew the chords and stuff and the melody. Back home is the only place where I have a piano. In my opinion I’m a very mediocre musician. I can play music but I’m not an amazing musician. For somebody to be amazing, they need to have everything there is to know. The technical stuff.
LA: Who do you like that has the technical aspect?
VM: That’s the thing—I don’t know! I’m not into music. There’s tons of them. That’s the weird thing about me. I love music, I really do. But never in my life have I ever gotten into music. I love all the ’50s rock ‘n’ roll rockabilly type stuff. That’s what I love. I’ve been listening to music for over ten years now and this is the only kind of music I’ve ever played. But at the same time I’ve never been the type of person to learn about things. I don’t know anything about rockabilly. I cannot tell you—
LA: He loves the infectious beat and that’s it.
VM: Yeah! I hear music and I love it but I won’t go read a book about it. I honestly can’t sit here and name tons of bands I love but I’ll hear a song and say ‘Oh, I know this song, I love this song, I can play it for you right now.’ I’m weird. I’m not like everyone else.
What instrument have you never touched but you know if you picked it up you could totally kick ass?
VM: Mandolin. I picked up a violin because Reb wanted a violin on a song. So I went out and bought one and learned it. I did a full violin line through the song. It doesn’t just come naturally, I don’t just pick it up—
But you did! You just did!
VM: But it takes time. I can understand an instrument. As soon as I pick it up and sit there for a little bit and figure out where the notes are, I can pick it up after that.
What does it mean to understand an instrument?
VM: When I hear music, when I play music, no matter what instrument I learn it in—when I play it in my mind, I always see weird things like mountains and the sky. Ever since I can remember, when I was like 11 and a half or 12, it’s been that way.
LA: It’s funny that he said that because we just had this conversation. I see colors. Every chord is a color. That’s how I learned how to play. I’m not skilled in any instrument very well. I can pick up and strum my guitar, but nowhere near the skill of this man. But the way I learned, I saw people’s fingers, and for me to remember that key or chord, I gave it a color representation. Like an A is green. Whenever we write a couple songs, I’d be like, ‘Man, we have too many songs in red.’
Does the band know what you mean by that or is this Luis-language?
LA: Roughly, yeah. We are on a similar wavelength. If you were to sit in when we’re building a song in a rehearsal and trying to communicate musically, it’s the most pathetic, stupid way of communicating but we understand each other. If anybody else were to step into the conversation, they’d think we’re monkeys. Basically this band here, it’s been me and him, and I think we gel really well. He’s got the technical aspects and I’m more easygoing. I’ll bring an idea to him and he’ll fix it up and I’ll put the bow on it at the very end. Kind of a duo here. The new Lennon-McCartney here. Just with worse songs!
What do other chords look like?
LA: They’re all represented by the key that they’re in. A G is red. A is green. C is yellow. D is white. B is brown. F is black. Flat keys I don’t really see colors on those but people tend to not play flat keys anyway.
What would be a beautiful song in black?
LA: He would have to hear it and tell me what key it’s in. Then I could tell you. ‘Beast of Burden’ sounds like it’s in black to me.
You do some covers on the new album—which singer, Tom Waits or Ian Curtis, felt weirder to step inside of? Which felt more at home?
LA: I don’t think I thought about it that way. We decided to do these songs because they have a bit of meaning to me. I don’t mean anything specifically—not like they pulled me out of a hard time or anything—but they somehow caught my attention and stuck with me. One lyric or a melody. I think it was very easy for me to try to fill those shoes, though of course that’s impossible—even attempting to lace those shoes up, because I’m a huge fan of both of them. It became really easy for me to follow them. I don’t know if I do any of those songs justice, and I’m not necessarily concerned about that.
Are there any covers that you wanted to do that didn’t make it on the record?
LA: No, I don’t think so … We kind of prided ourselves on never doing covers, always doing our own material. But again, this record allowed it to be half covers because they weren’t typical to what we played before. We enjoyed playing them so that’s why they’re in there. But everything we wanted is in there.
Why are you ready now to sing other people’s songs?
VM: I’m just a bass player—this one’s on you.
LA: Son of a bitch! On the spot. I think it goes back to what I said before. The fact that we were expressing ourselves differently with different songs. There were some songs that were very attractive to me and then I brought them to the band and said, ‘Wildfire it up!’
What does it mean to ‘Wildfire it up?’
LA: Not play it as good at the original!
VM: Downgrade it!
What’s the longest conversation you’ve ever had with a stranger in a bar? Who was it with, and what did you learn?
LA: Everybody here. The Wildfires’ first album is actually hung on the other side of that wall there [in the Colorado Bar]. Every single person in this bar I’ve sat down with and spoken to for hours and hours about everything in the world. I spend a lot of time here. They’re very supportive of the Wildfires. They even have a Hives album up from when the guys were in town doing Dragtones stuff and they signed it. Wildfires and the Hives are up.
Are you in good company?
LA: Well, they have a Bob Dylan record and the Rolling Stones. I think I just spend a lot of money here so … I earned my spot.
VM: Somebody else had paid for a drink for him too. Remember that? When we were at the other place, someone walked in here, and paid for a drink for you?
LA: Oh yeah, that’s right. Yes. The owner called me up to see if I got home safe, or if I was nearby—if I wanted to come back cuz somebody wanted to buy me a drink. He said, ‘Where is he? If he’s here, I want to buy him a drink, or if he’s coming later, of if he comes in and I’m not here, tell him his tab is on me.’ Maybe he thought I was looking dry.
Who was this guy?
LA: I have no idea. It could be any of the usuals. I don’t like to drink alone. Even if it’s a stranger, I’ll buy a stranger a drink and say, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ And sometimes I don’t even want to talk necessarily. I’ll buy someone a drink if he looks like he’s in need of one. ‘Hey, I want to buy that man a drink. I don’t care to talk to him. Don’t even tell him it’s from me.’ It’s the old alcoholics code.
VM: I gotta go to bars with you more often.
LA: That’s how it goes. Alcoholics code.
You don’t even want to know who’s buying you drinks?
LA: I’m curious, but I’m sure it’ll pay it forward again. I’ll do it to someone else in the future. Or maybe I’ve already done it for him. I don’t even know. Maybe I’ve stupidly picked up his tab before. Maybe that’s why I don’t have any money. I go picking up people’s tabs!
It’s pretty cool that you’re finally able to quit your job to do what you want to do full-time. Most people can’t do that—ever.
LA: I think we’re in a position where we’re ready to be bruised up. The old 9 to 5 isn’t quite working for old Lu anymore. I have to make a change and why not something I truly love and enjoy?
You seem confident about it.
LA: Oh no, I was in a ball crying outside earlier. ‘Are we really doing this?’ I was holding on to Victor and he was just sitting there with his arms crossed. I take some convincing. You always have to confide or talk to the special people in your life and they usually can encourage you the right way.
Who are the special people in your life right now that encouraged you?
LA: These women shall remain nameless!
What has being in the Wildfires taught you about love?
LA: Actually—that question can be answered without being about the Wildfires, for me. I thrive on love. I thrive on passion. I don’t just mean carnal passions, even though that’s very amazing. Anything I do in the band, anything I do outside of the band, I do with passion and love. Love is the key phrase, always. I’m an extremely limerent person. I actually drown in limerence—
Where did you learn that word and how did you know it applied to you? You’re the only person I’ve ever known who’s described themselves that way.
LA: I don’t know. There’s no specific moment where I said, ‘I’m limerent.’ I don’t even know where I ever heard that word. I don’t know. Maybe I heard someone say it and looked it up out of curiosity. I probably saved it in the back of my head and as I got older and older and then through the down and outs of love I slowly started applying it to myself. It wasn’t just overnight, just after years of some pains and some sufferings, certain happy moments and certain sad moments.
What woman has taught you the most?
LA: My mother. Stubborn woman.
Is that a good quality or a bad quality?
LA: I was going to say it was a very bad quality when I was growing up. As I get older, I realize there was truth in what she was saying.
What was she saying?
LA: I don’t think I have enough drinks in me yet. We’ll get there. Hold that—one for Victor, I’ll be right back. Shots anyone? I’m getting my favorite tequila.
What is it?
LA: It’s called Teteo. Aztec tequila and it means ‘of the Gods.’ I think that’s a very appropriate name.
I think you’re my favorite person to have a late night drunken phone call with.
LA: I think I’m everybody’s favorite drinking buddy.
Who’s your favorite drinking buddy?
LA: Myself! You wanna know why? Cuz I never say no! ‘Cheers to you, cheers to me. Friends we’ll always be. And one day if we disagree, fuck you and fuck me.’
This is good tequila. How’d you find this?
LA: I used to live behind this bar. And when I lived there, I didn’t know there was a bar here till I told some friends where I was living and they said, ‘Oh, right by the Colorado Bar.’ I said, ‘What the hell is the Colorado Bar?’ So I ventured out to those beautiful golden doors. It’s been a love affair, me and this place. This place is haunted actually. Pete comes and visits now and then. He’s a ghost.
How do you know there’s a ghost here?
LA: You hear him. See him sometimes. Sometimes he touches you.
Where’d the ghost touch you?
LA: In the restroom. Where most men touch me! It’s true, actually. There was a regular here—this bar used to be open at six in the morning—and this guy used to be such a regular here that he’d never leave. He was such a bum that they gave him a job. ‘Since you’re always here, just pick some shifts up—we might as well pay you!’ That’s basically what happened. He’d come in at 6 AM and stay til 2 AM. The man never slept. He was slowly killing himself. He passed away a couple years ago and shortly after we started hearing some noises around here.
How did he die?
LA: I think he had a heart attack. He was already in his seventies, and he was an alcoholic. That’s just how it goes. First time I ever felt him was when he was in the restroom. I got chills up and down my spine. ‘Pete, is that you?’
How did you know it was him?
LA: Because of what I was told. Some random strangers were like, ‘Hey, I think there’s a guy standing over there. He looks a bit confused.’ But nobody was there. ‘What did he look like?’ ‘An older man, with a white shirt on and jeans.’ And I think it was Pete. He continues to come around. I tell him, ‘Hey boy, this was yours, and now it’s mine.’
Whose ghost would scare you?
LA: I think if I saw Elvis walking through that fucking door! He’d be 73 now and probably look like a zombie and deteriorating already. The thing that would probably scare me is my best friend who passed away in my arms when I was a teenager. I think that would scare me the most, above any other friend or family member. We were involved in a drive-by shooting and he got shot. I held him until he took his last breath. And that was that. That happened when I was 16.
Keith Morris was saying younger bands can’t make great music because they haven’t accumulated the life experience to have anything to say. What do you think?
LA: I do agree—to some extent. I think it’s really hard for a 16-year-old kid to write about heartbreak when the only thing he’s ever had is a girl who’s stolen his lunch ticket. But you also can’t immediately disregard younger musicians for not being talented enough. I mean—you got a savant right here that could do everything ever since he was 9.
In terms of writing a good song, what’s more important—technical skill or lived experiences?
VM: Maybe experiences. Those are two things you’re talking about there. The technical part has nothing to do with personal experiences. But if you’re talking about writing a meaningful song with meaningful lyrics, the experiences are important.
LA: Since he’s the technical one, and I’m more the punching bag, the one that takes the most emotional blows … He can make his upright bass gently weep and write a beautiful ballad if he wants to. For me, I would strum three chords, in very bad rhythm, and probably out of tune, but I’d probably sing something that really hurts to repeat—because it makes a song that represents what I’m feeling.
Do any of the Wildfires songs still hurt to play live?
LA: Well—performing is an absolute rush, and I do lose myself. What did I just do? What did I just say? But I’m using all the emotions from when I wrote the song when I perform it. Everything’s written for a specific reason and I use those feelings to get lost on stage. When I’m done I’m either drunk or really tired.
What would make you happy?
LA: I’m a puzzle with many missing pieces. What they are, I don’t know because I haven’t seen them. I might be placing them in upside down or something. But there are pieces missing. It doesn’t necessarily mean love or a specific person. I don’t know. I think that’s the reason why I drink so.
Yes, me too.
LA: Thatta girl. Anyone want another drink?

LUIS AND THE WILDFIRES WITH DEATH HYMN NUMBER NINE AND GUESTS TBA PLUS LIVE MEXICAN WRESTLING ON SAT., JULY 16, AT NOMAD GALLERY, 1993 BLAKE AVE., LOS ANGELES. 7 PM / $10 / 18+. GET TICKETS HERE OR WIN TICKETS HERE! LUIS AND THE WILDFIRES’ HEART-SHAPED NOOSE IS OUT NOW ON WILD. VISIT LUIS AND THE WILDFIRES AT WILDRECORDSUSA.COM.

Darker My Love’s Tim Presley delivered one of the most unexpected and impressive LPs of last year with his solo project White Fence’s self-titled debut. At the time, it was one of the best records L.A. RECORD ever randomly received; about a year later, it is still completely fascinating. White Fence plays Friday at Blue Star with Cold Showers, the Urinals and Night Control (win tickets here!) so we are re-printing this interview by Daniel Clodfelter now!

Was it your intention, when making the first record, to make the listener wonder if their record player was broken?
Ha! No! I grew up listening to tapes so it just sounds right to me. I haven’t really thought about this growing up but I’m pretty sure that possibly my ears—and maybe a lot of people are on the same boat—have just adjusted to hearing music from a cassette. Like that’s what music’s supposed to sound like—like an old cassette or music you’ve already known. If you listen to—not to get all Steve Albini or whatever—a tape, it just sounds good to me, like a mixtape that has been dubbed a million times. That’s what I’m trying to do.
How did you create that warped cassette sound on the first LP? Is it a delay effect?
No, that’s just because it was dubbed from cassette. It’s just from bouncing it back and pitch-shifting things. My 4-track recorder does a weird almost pitch-shift thing on its own sometimes. I don’t know why it does it! And from bouncing the tracks so many times some natural warpage occurs as well.
How do you reproduce the delay effects and warped sounds that appear on the record in a live setting?
I try not to think about how to recreate the record live, but I think in the future I’m definitely going to try to incorporate some weird loops or something. It turns into a big thing. Since I don’t really have a solid group to practice with all the time, as Sean [Presley, of S.F. band Nodzzz and Tim’s brother] and the guys live in San Francisco, so far it has been more of a straightforward rock show.
Last time you talked with L.A. RECORD—as a member of Darker My Love—you stated your distaste of genre labels like ‘punk’ and ‘psychedelic.’ How do you feel about White Fence being tagged with genre labels like ‘lo-fi’ and ‘DIY’?
It’s hard to say. I feel like ‘lo-fi’ is more of a technical term, whereas ‘psychedelic’ is just a perception of what a kind of music is. The ‘lo-fi’ thing doesn’t bother me as much, though there is a lot of that going around, and that’s fine. My whole point was that the label ‘punk’ can be used to describe so many things—all the way to Blink-182. It’s just so wide that it doesn’t get down to what it really is. It doesn’t mean anything. As far as ‘lo-fi,’ you can call it whatever you want but it’s a matter of whether the music is any good or not. Maybe you could just file it under ‘good music.’
I’m ready for the ‘good music’ copycats!
I’m not that bummed about the genre thing. But I feel like if you get stuck in some genre you keep making the same thing. In a weird way, it seems like that is what people want. With the new Darker My Love record, it’s not very psychedelic, and I feel like a lot of people are like, ‘What happened to the psychedelic-ness, man?’ I dunno—it’s all just music.
What made you want to start White Fence when you were already doing Darker My Love and touring with the Strange Boys?
I had recorded the songs at home and they sounded fine to me. I didn’t want to re-record them or nitpick them. There’s something special about recording a song right as you write it. The thing is, I never expected these songs to ever be released. My brother, Sean, was over one night and asked what I was doing recording-wise. I played him some tracks and he asked me to make him a CD. Later he was playing it in his car and his buddy Eric—of Make A Mess Records and at the time the drummer of Nodzzz—heard it and decided to put it out.
What inspired you to record by yourself in the first place?
I think I just all of a sudden had the guts to do, say and write exactly what I wanted.
When you’re writing, what makes you decide whether you will use it for White Fence or Darker My Love?
I don’t know! I have no idea! I guess I just had a bunch of songs written and didn’t think some of them would work with Darker My Love. Not to sound selfish or weird, but I didn’t want to go through the whole band process, which is dealing with a democracy of five guys. When I write a song for Darker My Love I have four other guys in mind. It’s like writing a play and having the actors bring it to life. White Fence is just me.
Who is White Fence when it’s not just you?
So far all the recorded songs are just me. Live, my brother has played every show. He’s been the ringleader at getting the group together. His roommate, Moe, has been playing drums and we swap two different bass players.
I really enjoyed the Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers cover at the end of your upcoming LP, …Is Growing Faith—the toy keyboard you added is a great touch!
Between 18 and my early twenties I was obsessed with Johnny Thunders. Don’t ask me why.
I went through several years of Thunders obsession myself!
I revisited his stuff again recently and was blown away by how great of a song ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory’ is. New York Dolls cheesiness aside, it is a really amazing song. The lyrics are insanely well-written.
The first song on …Is Growing Faith seems to be simply someone answering a phone with ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands’ playing in the background. What recent phone call made you the happiest?
Probably when Ryan from Strange Boys called me last week to come down and record some vocals for their new album. That was a good one. I’m generally pretty afraid of phones. When the phone rings I can’t answer it; I hate it. Phones freak me out. I try not to answer the phone as much as possible.
I just picked up a copy of the Nerves tribute album on Volar/I Hate Rock ‘n’ Roll, which features your art and a White Fence track. [And a track from the interviewer’s band, Shark Toys!—ed.] How does being a graphic artist affect your music?
It’s kept me humble—because I don’t get paid. For anything! I’ve done so much art for a lot of people and I never get paid. I don’t really ask for money, though. It doesn’t really do anything for the music. However, it is fun to listen to the music and to try to apply some visuals to it. I get a real kick out of that.
You have an art opening this month—with Ryan from Strange Boys and a few others. What kind of art will you be showing?
I’ve been trying to focus on art and showing it in galleries. The work displayed at this show—opening January 8th at Family bookstore—is the cover art for the new White Fence LP, …Is Growing Faith. I have also recently written a book called You Don’t Have Your Eyes Yet. It’s mostly prose and poetry.
Who are some of the musical—or nonmusical—influences for White Fence?
Maybe Ben Franklin. He was an ideas man. I admire that. For one man to accomplish all that he did—he invented a lot of strange and important things. I really admire Frank Zappa. I don’t really enjoy half of his music but there are some records that I really like. I’ve read two books on him already and I like the way he thinks. He can be kind of an asshole though. I have a weird thing with him and his personal politics. I’m 50/50. There are songs I like and the others I just forget about. I’ve been infatuated with Darby Crash lately!
In your last L.A. RECORD interview, you mentioned that you and Mark E. Smith jumped somebody. Who would you want to help you beat someone up next?
As an older brother I’d like to beat up anyone who messes with my little brother, Sean. I haven’t been feeling very violent lately, though I do go through spurts where I feel like I want to just kill everybody. No, I’m a peaceful guy!
Do you feel like this is a good or bad time for ‘good music’ in LA?
The state of music right now is actually amazing in Los Angeles. But when people start realizing it then it will probably get really weird and bad. For example, the Best Coast phenomenon—that’s awesome, but how about all the other bands that are just as good? I dunno. I think there are amazing musicians and great ideas in a lot of people in L.A. right now and I feel like I’m just waiting for it to pop. We have a lot of great bands here. You see what No Age did was kind of set a really good precedent for really good DIY bands to just do their thing. So now it’s in the toddler stages. I think No Age kind of kicked it all off.
Someone posted a comment to the Darker My Love L.A. RECORD interview claiming you sounded like ‘a corner in Silverlake.’ In what realm of Los Angeles does White Fence truly dwell?
It would have to be Echo Park because that’s where I live. I think it’s more domesticated than that—the four walls of my room! But when it’s the live band in San Francisco, it’s basically a party. It’s everywhere. What do you think? Does it sound like it’s from L.A.?
I think Dan Collins described it best as ‘a multi-colored slug sliding through your brain.’ And that slug could be crawling through our brains anywhere.
That’s good! That’s my new answer! I don’t really get the ‘Silver Lake’ and ‘Echo Park’ thing. You couldn’t really say that about L.A. punk really; for instance, in the 1980s, X sounded different from the Germs—etc., etc., etc.!

L.A. RECORD PRESENTS WHITE FENCE WITH COLD SHOWERS, THE URINALS AND NIGHT CONTROL PLUS DJ TOM PILLA ON FRI., JULY 15, AT THE PSYCHO BEACH PARTY AT BLUE STAR, 2200 E. 15TH ST., DOWNTOWN. 9 PM / $10 / 18+. GET TICKETS HERE OR WIN TICKETS HERE! WHITE FENCE’S … IS GROWING FAITH IS OUT NOW ON WOODSIST. VISIT WHITE FENCE AT WHITEFENCEARTCOLLECTIVE.BLOGSPOT.COM.