“All I want in life’s a little bit of love to take the pain away.”

“Save your little soul
The music that you played so hard
On your radio
All your dreams and diamond rings
And all that rock and roll can bring you
So long, so long”

Photos by Debi Del Grande

[View with PicLens]

Stream: Electric Children “Judgment Day”

(from the We Are… EP available now from Electric Children)

Electric Children are a band from the Los Angeles area that—prior to hearing this EP—I had never heard of. Upon first spin, I was surprised to hear that this was not a band of Hendrix- or Bolan-obsessed youths but rather another band trying to bridge the gap between ‘60s psychedelia and ‘90s shoegaze—a gap bridged much too often in Los Angeles in the past ten years. Despite great musicianship and production, each of the songs on this four-track EP feels like a carbon copy of groups like the Raveonettes, Spiritualized or the Warlocks—bands who brought this combination of genres into the mainstream in the early 2000s. The band features dueling male and female vocals very reminiscent of the Raveonettes. In the first song, “Scene of the Crime,” the vocals seem to consist only of repeating the title of the song over and over in as shrill a voice as possible and—despite a catchy guitar riff and some distorted leads—the song becomes quite monotonous. The third track, “Judgment Day,” starts with a Davie Allan & and the Arrows-esque guitar intro that’s cut a bit short as the song jumps into the most overtly Raveonettes inspired track. While it’s arguable whether the band is truly trying to emulate the Raveonettes or if they just sounded similar out of coincidence, it’s clear that they have many of the same influences as the aforementioned band—Jesus and Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, Velvet Underground—and have came up with very close to the same result.

—Daniel Clodfelter

(from Nocturama on Anti)

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds delivered a sermon of gospel-drenched crunch-boogid and electrified power to a suddenly saved crowd of Angelenos. From the opening notes of “Night Of The Lotus Eaters,” it was clear that the electric-mandolin-wielding Rasputin doppelganger usually known as Warren Ellis was given free range to unleash feedback freakouts, scratchy blues riffs, and demonic-sounding samples of reconstructed chaos. Ellis has actually developed into a compelling second front man, and though his gyrations seem out of control, they’re actually quite purposefully and beautifully chaotic. During “We Call Upon The Author,” he got on the ground and frantically pawed at all of his effects pedals, unleashing a sleazy porno-funk breakdown. However, the real showman last night was Cave, with his slicked-back hair that made even baldness look bad-ass and a mustache that puts Will Ferrell’s Anchorman ‘stache to shame, and of course that dapper suit. As he prowled the stage, his arms moved like two cobras flailing to find a victim and his fiery eyes searched for hungry souls. During “Deanna” he touched the audience’s hands like an evangelical healer. The rest of the Bad Seeds held their own, too, and seemed intent on adding raw power to every song played. It’s clear that Cave and Ellis did not exorcise all of their demons during 2007′s Grinderman disc—instead, they amplified them, and recruited the rest of the Bad Seeds to spread their message. For having so many instruments and musicians on stage—most of the songs had two drummers—the sound was amazingly clear and balanced. The setlist ran the spectrum from old songs like “Tupelo” and “The Mercy Seat” to a majority of tracks from the recent Dig Lazarus Dig!!! Only a few ballad-like songs were played and even they had added power. They ended with “Stagger Lee” and when the lights faded, sinners and saints alike left with looks of satisfied pleasure on their faces.

—Eric Claesson

(from Nocturama on Anti)

Since this is your first Bowl show do you feel at all like Frank Sinatra?
Well, he played there, did he? I wish I had a toupee like him. I wouldn’t mind a silver toupee like that.
Do you remember what you did on the second to last day you lived in L.A.?
No. Am I supposed to?
Depends what you were doing.
I would have gone down to 6th and Union and scored some drugs.
Is Snoop Dogg still going to cover ‘No Pussy Blues’?
Nick Launay our producer allegedly played it to Snoop, and he really dug it, and made some kind of noises about wanting to rap on it, but it never happened. We sent the stems and stuff of the music but it didn’t happen. These things either happen or they don’t, really. For me I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have sing on that particular song. But it’s a different kind of world, I guess.
How serious were the deliberations when you were a judge the World Beard And Mustache Championships?
To be completely honest I was at sea—completely at sea. I wouldn’t know one fucking mustache from another one.
How did you decide?
I just said what the guy next to me said. All I know is I felt humbled because I had this kind of pathetic sort of thing growing on my face, and I know there were some extraordinary mustaches and partial beards, particularly. You know—‘A man without a mustache is like woman with one.’
How did you first hear Karen Dalton?
A very good friend of mine Mick Geyer who died four or five years ago—he turned me on to her. He was an Australian DJ and a very good friend and kind of an excavator of music. He turned me on to a lot of stuff, actually. But Karen Dalton was a huge favorite among all of us Bad Seeds boys. You know—beautiful. They’ve released the second album which I particularly love. With ‘When A Man Loves A Woman,’ and I think it’s got ‘Katie Cruel’ on it, and—fuck, I can’t remember the name of it but it’s one of the most beautiful songs I ever heard.
What kind of things do you write in your office that will never see the light of day?
Oh, the hardcore porn that I get into?
Would you be opposed to a posthumous collection of all your pornography?
Not at all. I’m just saving it for a rainy day.
What book have you given away the most copies of?
One book I tended to give away quite a lot which I think is extraordinary is The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis. I think it’s great book. I’m actually a huge fan of his. That particular book—The Informers—line for line is just extraordinary. It has this effect—you feel you like you need to read him fast, and if you don’t and you just check out one line followed by the next line, what he’s writing to me is just extraordinary. He’s definitely a contemporary writer that I’ve sort of turned people on to—that particular book of his.
What kind of reactions do you get back from people?
I don’t know.
They just never bring it up again?
I remember giving it to Mick Harvey my guitarist, and I think he found it a little—disturbing. He found it disturbing. But he’s got kind of a weak stomach when it comes to things like that. Go gentle on Mick.
What was the last time you held a pistol in your hand?
A pistol or a rifle? A rifle about a week ago. I was in Italy, and they have rather relaxed gun laws over there. It was like a .22—it wasn’t high-powered.
Was this a formal occasion?
It was at a villa I was holidaying at. I don’t know what they shot with that. Mussolini used to holiday there. His bed was still there. The bottom of his shower stall hung on the wall as kind of a piece of art.
What kinds of dreams does one have in the Mussolini suite?
Well, it wasn’t the Mussolini suite. It sounds a lot more luxurious than it actually was. It was a room but it has Mussolini’s bed in it. I don’t sleep much anyway.
So you’re immune to his power?
Exactly. But I didn’t put the kids in there. Though they bounced up and down on it.
All you need now is a vacation at the Fuhrerbunker.
I slept in Charlie Chaplin’s bed. There’s a studio on a boat owned by Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd, and he has a little bed that Charlie Chaplin slept on when he was over in England at some period in one of the back rooms. It was rather nice to go and lie there. We were mixing Abbatoir Blues—I’d kind of lie there and feel he was sort of… you know. I’m a Charlie Chaplin fan. I’m a Buster Keaton fan even more.
Harold Lloyd?
Fatty Arbuckle. Have you read I, Fatty? You should, man. It’s poignant.
Something you said in the Guardian—who seems to cover you fairly often—
Yes, they just sort of camp on my doorstep.
Have you ever camped out on someone’s doorstep? Charlie Feathers’ doorstep?
No.
Has anyone done that to you?
I don’t know. I don’t answer the door.
You just stay quiet upstairs?
They don’t get past the fucking security. They don’t get past the razor wire.
In your lecture on the love song, you talk a bit about how this quality of sadness—duende—is disappearing from modern music. Do you still feel that way?
Well, it’s in literature, isn’t it? Literature is amazing actually—music would seem to be—or film, I’m not sure—but music is one of the more conservative fields of art. It’s supposed to not be, but you’re actually extremely limited where you can go with music. Lyrically, I’m talking about. But with literature you can go anywhere, and people do go anywhere—no one expects a happy ending from a book. You can write about anything. In music you’re very limited in what people will accept that you can write about. I’m writing a novel at the moment and the kind of freedom I’m feeling with this is sort of magnificent. That’s always been to me the difficult part of songwriting—the actual lack of freedom. If I wanna write a really depressing song—in a song format, it doesn’t actually work very well. Who wants to hear a really depressing song? I don’t. I don’t think anybody really does. But with literature you can go places you can’t go with music. Music has a lot of kind of swagger to it—like we’re on the cutting edge. But I’m not actually sure that it is. Film is a million times worse, of course. We’re working on a movie now—
The sex comedy with no sex?
The Road—we’re creating some incredibly beautiful and brutal kind of music, which if we were making a Bad Seeds record or a Grinderman record, we’d just stick on the record and go, ‘Hey, that’s cool. Put it out.’ But here—everything you do, you always kind of know there’s somebody out there that’s going to say, ‘No. We don’t want that sort of music in this particular film.’ And it’s not going to be anybody who’s involved in the creative process of making the film. It’s gonna be some—
Accountant?
Exactly. And there’s an aspect to that that is kind of heartbreaking. I’m very very good friends and in constant contact with John Hillcoat, who made The Proposition and who is making The Road, and it’s fucking heartbreaking. The amount of work that goes into getting a fucking film off the ground, and the amount of kind of—this sort of perpetual chipping away that goes on of your idea by people who… it’s kind of heartbreaking.
What’s the healthiest way to deal with those limitations?
On the good side—there seems to be some truly challenging films coming out of Hollywood these days. Not a lot, but there seems to be a resurgence. I don’t know the word, but people are allowed to be a little bit more challenging recently, which is good news.
What films? The Dark Knight?
I saw that—fucking wild! I saw that with my kids. They’re like eight and it blew their fucking heads off. They kind of walked out with the blood drained from their faces.
Sounds like they’re having an interesting childhood.
Well, I’m not trying to write the book on bringing up on children.
Do you have to ration yourself out when you’re working on music and a novel and a film? How do you know your own limits?
It’s totally instinctual. At the moment it’s gone haywire. I don’t how to say this in other way than sounding really kind of stupid, but it just seems to work. If I say ‘I’ll hand this in within a month or three weeks,’ it seems so far at least I can just do that. It’s an extremely productive kind of period. Or at least I’ve worked out how to be efficient. It’s not the office hours—it’s way more than that these days! It’s like that Steinbeck thing. He said he used to write six days a week and he just couldn’t take it anymore, so now he writes seven days a week. It’s a bit like that. I just enjoy it—love it—and that’s why I do it. Simple as that.
Is it fair to describe you as ‘writhing with unease’?
It depends on the situation. When I’m working, I’m really really happy—I’m not doing anything I don’t wanna do. For me, the whole creative thing—in a way, it always has been, even when it wasn’t—has been a cheerful thing. Even when it wasn’t joyful, it was joyful.
Do you feel your greatest work is ahead of you?
I don’t judge things in that way, but there’s a lot of stuff ahead for sure. I’ve always felt while I’m doing something that it’s the greatest thing that’s ever been done, and very soon after it’s finished, I realize it’s just a record or just a book, and I start the next thing. And then that’s the greatest thing that’s ever been done. I’ve always looked at Dylan, for example—he was an exciting artist. Every record he put out whether you liked it or not challenged you—you had to work out whether you liked Bob Dylan or not. You could never take it for granted that he was gonna put out a record you were gonna dig. It might be a reggae record or who knows? And I think we’ve tried to do that as well.
Do you find things you like instantly doesn’t last as long as stuff you had to study?
Sometimes there’s stuff you don’t like and you can return to it til the cows come home… but there is great music that takes a few plays to get under your skin.
What did you have to study hardest?
Classical music. Bach. Stuff like that. Which I could never really get my head around. And then it clicks and you go, ‘Oh dear.’
Do you remember the last love letter you ever wrote?
Yeah, I do. I’m not gonna fucking quote it to you!
Did you send it or keep it?
Well, look—all my songs are love letters. They’re love letters to the world. Love letters sent out to the world.
Like in your lecture.
Exactly. I think there’s a lot of good stuff in there actually. I don’t know where that came from!
Do you agree with the reviewer who said you’d rather be reviled than lauded?
To be reviled—it gives me an enormous amount of energy. For a long time I operated on a kind of fuck-you! basis. The last time I felt that for example was when we played with Grinderman with the White Stripes at Madison Square Garden. We played two—maybe three shows ever with Grinderman. The first was in some tiny little barn somewhere, and the next was at Madison Square Garden. It was a kind of great leap. And we played for an audience that was there—quite rightly—to see the White Stripes. And we played our set and you could feel this tension mounting from one song to another—of a lot of people who actually dug us and a lot of people who wanted us to fucking get off so they could see the White Stripes. I haven’t felt that in a while but I know that feeling really well. I just know that feeling of suddenly looking at the rest of the band and it’s like, ‘Fuck you.’ And you really go for it. You’re not trying to please anyone. You want to alienate people as much as possible. And there’s an enormous power behind that. That’s how we were raised. In Australia, you had your band and you played and everyone hated you, and that’s the end of it.
Do you only get to that feeling in music?
It’s a bit lonely to sit and write a book and put it out and everyone says it’s shit. But there is an energy that you can get—there’s a fuck-you kind of thing, and I’ve always responded to that.
Are you going to be thinking like this onstage at the Bowl? I don’t know if anyone has ever said ‘fuck you’ up there.
Wait for it. It’ll be after the fifth song.
Are we any closer now to a Nick Cave Vegas comeback special?
I don’t know—I’ll do anything that I have to do! To me one of the most honorable things are people who are working, and making life-and-death decisions around their work. And if that means you have to kind of whore yourself in Las Vegas to feed the kids, so be it. I don’t have—to me, going out and making a buck is actually a very honorable thing to do. That’s what everyone’s doing.
When the NME got you and Mark E. Smith and Shane McGowan in a roundtable, Mark said Australians won’t do hard work. Was he incorrect?
Mark… Mark is Mark. What more can be said? I’m friends with Mark.
What do you guys do when you’re together? Sit around on the couch and watch soccer?
No, we don’t. I don’t know what to say about Mark. To me, he is one of the greatest writers of his generation—absolutely. And one of the most original writers. I love his music. And he was always the one for me at that time back then—the one to watch. The one that was doing stuff nobody else was coming anywhere near.
What are some albums you once loved and lost and have now come back to again?
There’s a lot of music I listened to as a kid—fourteen or fifteen or like that—that I was very much into. Then I started listening to the punk rock stuff, and part of that was to disregard that music. There’s a wonderful feeling over the last ten years where you pick up Lark’s Tongue in Aspic—the King Crimson album—and you hear this extraordinary stuff. Because everything was thrown out—talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And it kind of needed to happen. But there was some—in a rather lovely way, the young kids these days don’t have that. There’s no embarrassment to them for ripping a guitar lick off a Pink Floyd record or something like that. It’s all up for grabs.
Who has been the biggest musical constant in your own life?
Year after year after year after year? I’m not saying I’m rushing out to buy his records, but if I hear a Van Morrison song or hear his voice, I still go kind of weak at the knees.
When you do these interviews, what philosophical truths do people seek from you?
I don’t know what they want to know! They assume that I have a certain wisdom about things, which has something to do with my age or something. I think they pretty soon realize I don’t. Then they get down to asking me the standard line of questions.
What’s your best standard answer?
To what question? What astounds me is people are in some way interested in my work habits like its some kind of fucking story. I can’t understand that at all. If anything, it isn’t a story. It’s someone who does the same thing day after day after day.
What is your story? What are you most proud of?
I’m proud of everything! I don’t look back at stuff. I have a basic—a basic good feeling about what’s my life, and the trajectory of my life personally and creatively. I don’t look back and sort of wince. I have a very selective memory and I’m an optimist. I have a huge amount of faith of people and in the individual and I don’t have a lot of faith in governments and decisions that are made in that way. But to the individual—I feel we’re basically a decent kind of species.
Would 18-year-old Nick Cave be proud of you saying that?
I would have felt the same thing then. My basic opinions about things and the way I operate about things have always been that way, or at least they were formed when I was 16 or 17. And they’re pretty much the same. And I think it’s the same with everybody. I don’t know why but certain things are imprinted in your psyche that you love and you’re attracted to, and that never changes. There’s a certain ideal—there’s a feminine ideal that I had as a child and as a teenager that operates today. I don’t know why that is. That certain particular female aesthetic turns me on, but it does. And it’s the same for everything in life.
How does it feel watching this happen in your own children?
It’s vertiginous. I feel dizzy watching my kids. The little ones especially. The capacity they have to absorb information. And you see that’s what’s going on—that’s exactly what I’m talking about. And I have 17 and 18 year olds and there’s nothing—there’s nothing that will change the course of their lives. They might choose whatever jobs they wanna do and whatever, but they are a certain type of people and they’re always gonna be that way, whatever that happens to be.
Did you have to learn how to be a father?
I don’t say that I’m any better with the twins that are seven then I was with the other ones. It’s a whole new set. You wing it, don’t you? And that’s what you learn about your own parents. They were just winging it, too.
What’s something practical you can tell people to help them make daily life a little bit better for themselves?
Right now I’m hearing the most beautiful violin I’ve ever heard in my life being played by Warren Ellis.
You’re breaking my heart by proxy.
He’s unbelievable. I don’t know. Who wants to hear what I got to say? You have to try a bit harder than that to wrap up the interview. You want me to do all the fucking work.

—Chris Ziegler

NICK CAVE WITH SPIRITUALIZED AND CAT POWER ON WED., SEPT. 17, AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL, 2301 N. HIGHLAND AVE., HOLLYWOOD. 7:30 PM / $25-$55 / ALL AGES. LAPHIL.COM. NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS’ DIG LAZARUS DIG!!! IS OUT NOW ON ANTI. VISIT NICK CAVE AT NICKCAVEANDTHEBADSEEDS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/NICKCAVEANDTHEBADSEEDS.

White vaulted arches of the Mojave tent soared into the technicolor blue desert horizon. I awaited the rapture like a novice on the anxious bench of a drone revival church. My prayers were answered in the still Indio air as Spiritualized took to the stage, J. Spacemen not unlike a pretty mod Melanie Safka as backed by the Edwin Hawkins Singers. Spiritualized certainly triumphed over the final horseman of Coachella: PA feedback. The sound difficulties that plagued their early set were forgiven and forgotten like a white lie or other passing sin. Shy and frail limbs were tentatively held aloft for the first time to new classic ‘Baby I’m Just A Fool’ and old favorite ‘Walking With Jesus.’ We were bitten by syringe serpents in a Pentecostal blues explosion and our souls saved by the sudden paralyzing glossolalia harmonies of a single line from Fools Rush In: ‘I can’t help falling in love with you.’ Can I get a witness?!! Praise Songs in A&E!

— Zelda Zap

Spiritualized “Soul On Fire” | download

Spiritualized will release their Songs In A&E album next month. Jason Pierce speaks between other interview from the Standard Hollywood.

What was the last time you read ‘Politics and the English Language?’
I’ve not read that. Somebody asked what I was reading recently and I happened to be reading Down And Out In Paris And London.
To get ready for the coming hard times?
For that downward slide. The slide’s always the good bit. The climb back is the laborious bit.
Are you ready for the food shortages?
I’m not eating much—I don’t know if that’s helping.
What is your favorite song on the Life Is A Problem compilation?
I can’t remember—I haven’t got a copy, but Elder Charles Beck did an anti-rock ‘n’ roll sermon that kind of praises rock ‘n’ roll. ‘You rock rock rock around the clock, and it brings all the evils in the world!’ And the whole congregation goes, ‘Yeah! Yeah!’ It’s fucking exciting. ‘You roll right into the penitentiary!’ ‘Yeah! Yeah, we wanna go there too!’ Somebody bought me the Washington Phillips one—I don’t know if that’s the first one Mississippi Records did, but it was the first I heard, and I got hooked from there. The way they put them together is very beautiful. I really like I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore—it’s music from immigrants to the U.S., kind of barely touched by American music at all, barely tinged by the blues. There’s a Greek track I absolutely adore—it’s not like Greek orthodox music, but Greek music out of New York. Almost the whole history of American music is on tape—that’s a rarity in itself! And also this early exploration of tape—a lot of it sounds like it was recorded by accident, like some guy just had a machine in the back of a church. It’s kind of endless—it’s not like stuff you’d find now and you can understand why it never surfaced. Those records are full of stuff—you wonder where it’s been!
Is there a British equivalent of this kind of thing?
I should say no, shouldn’t I? There was an influx of Jamaican music in the ‘40s and ‘50s—I guess that’s kind of similar. And a lot of American gospel—‘Amazing Grace’ is an English tune, this pious thing taken to America.
What’s the best Roky Erickson love song?
The first one that comes to mind is ‘You Don’t Love Me Yet.’ We saw him recently and I was in tears! It seemed like when he was singing ‘Splash One’—‘Now I’m home…’—it seemed like he really was home! He’d been the furthest out and he came home. But the ones that really stood out were the ones where he sounds like Buddy Holly—and ‘Don’t Slander Me’ and stuff.
Would you ever do a song with him?
I don’t know how easy that is to do, you know? I was thinking—when we were kids, so many people in England wanted to be the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. But that’s an unattainable thing. Nobody’s been that! When we kids looked at Roky and Alex Chilton, it was like—‘I can do that!’ They were iconic figures to me—the kind of failure in that music, and I don’t mean that in any detrimental way, but this glorious failure—I thought, ‘I can do that! I can keel over.’ There’s sort of a huge honesty there.
With Chilton, it’s almost more refusal to participate than failure.
It’s almost like you should turn your back! All the success in music—it’s nothing to do with music, and it was then and still is now. You don’t have charts where number two is musically better than number three. It’s all the amount you sell, the airplay you receive—it’s all bullshit, you know.
How are we supposed to use the Pure Phase Tones records?
You need to get a few of them and build a few chords up. You should have them on another deck—have it on between every record.
Are you ever going to play the Integratron?
We nearly played the CERN collider. They asked us to do it! We were gonna play in it before they’d thrown the switch. But it was a timing thing—their timings didn’t coincide with ours.
So you never got to tear a hole in the fabric of space-time.
Yeah, they were already doing something—there were too many tiny objects whizzing around in there!
How do the different backing bands affect the Acoustic Mainlines sets?
Immensely! In New York, we had people from the Queens Choir—a 250-strong choir. And in L.A. it was more like Ray Charles’ country-and-western—but that’s good! Some of the shows have been deeply reverential and kind of hushed, and some of them are like those snake churches where they speak in tongues—jumping up and sitting down!
Alan McGee said you make a classic every ten years—is that a good rate?
It’s hard to grade your own record, you know! But Sly Stone did four in a row, didn’t he.
You said before how you admire bands like the Cramps and Gun Clubs for informing people about the music they listened to—why is that important to you?
I think it’s important because it’s kind of an homage—Tav Falco did as well. So much music is people trying to pass of other ideas or cop other people’s style and pass it off as their own. Those bands came with an incredible amount of style and said ‘This is where it’s from—if you like us, you’ll like this.’ Hasil Adkins or whatever. There’s a lineage to it. It didn’t just drop out of the sky. I think that’s really important. Most people are too scared that if you find out where they’re from, you’ll find out how narrow they really are. Most people just cop a few ideas. The thing about telling people about music is important. There’s that Duke Ellington thing—‘There’s only two types of music—good and bad.’ There’s music you like and stuff you don’t like. And if it doesn’t touch you now, tomorrow it might be the most meaningful thing, or in ten years.
What’s something like that for you?
Alex Chilton’s Flies On Sherbert. Somewhere in my life that got lost. I had it and I never really listened to it—there was always other Chilton stuff I was getting off on. Then I was digging through records and found that again, and suddenly it crashed into my world.
What do you think of Mark E. Smith’s quote about how there are more ideas on the back of a Fall LP than in half the songs on the charts?
Yes, I agree with that! Most records aren’t full of ideas. On A&E, there’s no reverb on our record—I got sick of people applying a technique of production to something where there was no song, no idea, no clue, but you could still produce it—‘This is how people like to hear music!’—and you could sell it that way. I wanted to willfully avoid that—just make music that speaks to the source of it. It’s all trying to make the thing work—a whole exploration of ideas and concepts. I tried that with some of this record—I tried to produce it in that kind of sounds, but it sounded like something I’d already done. It seems foolish—producing it in the manner of Phil Spector, or the style of the Cramps. What’s that got to do with it? The space and atmosphere is unique to that record—it’s not just a collection of ten or eleven songs.
How do you feel about the falling dollar affecting the American ability to purchase limited-edition Spiritualized vinyl?
I think that’s a major issue they’ve got to resolve, isn’t it?
What have people asked you about what it’s like to be dead?
I don’t know—you hadn’t asked about that, which is a relief on my part. It sounds like all I talk about is my illness—but that’s gone, that’s over. But they ask—everything. Like I have a message.
Like you came back from the next country over?
I don’t have much to report. I lost my camera!
And there will never be a Spaceman 3 reunion, correct?
We call it ‘battle re-enactment.’ Civil War guys fighting it out on a field. That’s not something I’m into music for! I’m not motivated by money or a ready-made audience. If the audience wants to come where we go—we’re not sitting and waiting for you.

SPIRITUALIZED WITH ROGER WATERS, LOVE AND ROCKETS, SWERVEDRIVER, MURS AND MANY MORE ON SUN., APRIL 27, AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81-800 AVE. 51, INDIO. 6:20 PM / $90-$269 / ALL AGES. COACHELLA.COM. VISIT SPIRITUALIZED AT SPIRITUALIZED.COM.

Swervedriver “Last Train To Satansville”

Swervedriver collided ‘Sister Ray’ into Ennio Morricone and released four full-lengths before breaking up after an unfair share of debilitating circumstance. They will be reuniting (with Adam Franklin, Jim Hartridge, Jez Hindmarsh and Steve George) this Sunday at Coachella, and will also be playing L.A. at the end of May. Adam Franklin speaks now from his home in England.

Was the decision to reunite actually made over pints in a pub?
Pretty much—I was in the states again and Jimmy had called, and had mentioned it. It would periodically get mentioned, and this time around it seemed like everyone was up for it. So we met up, sat down, and decided what we wanted to do.
What did you want to do?
See what happens, really—there’s never been that much of a career sensibility to this band. I don’t think rock ‘n’ roll bands should have that outlook, though it can be a career. The reasons we broke up in the first place was because we weren’t really enjoying it. This time around—it’s ten years on, and the people who saw us ten years ago would love to see us again, and a bunch of people have sprung up in the interim—it could be a good time!
Did your old drummer Graham really leave that first tour in Niagara Falls by saying he was gonna get a sandwich and then never coming back?
That has a basis in fact—maybe the story’s become slightly exaggerated. We were at the border waiting to go into Canada, and waiting for our papers to be handed in, and he said he was going to go out and get a sandwich. And he didn’t reappear. And Canadian immigration came in and said, ‘One of your party has defected.’ We found him wandering in no man’s land—he didn’t want to get back on the bus, so we left him at the border and left him money to get where he needed to go. A week into the tour and the drummer had left.
Did that prepare you for further inconveniences?
You’d think so. We managed to not miss any shows on that tour.
Is it true that you and Jim are so psychically linked that you’ll be playing complimentary guitar parts in completely different rooms?
I think that came from a song on Mezcal Head—the way we ended up doing it, Jez was in one room, I’m in one room and Jim was in a third room playing guitar. That might be from Jez hearing me on the right hand headphone and Jim on the other, and us playing off each other in different rooms. But we must have rehearsed the song in a room all together at some point! What’s always been good about Swervedriver—we can intertwine those guitar lines, but live we realize we can’t play them that conveniently, so we swap parts around. And when we get together, it’s like—‘Who actually plays that solo?’
Do you finish each other’s sentences, too?
The rhythm section had a nickname for us—‘the man with two brains.’ And we came back calling them the ‘prog-rock brothers.’ They’d be playing some prog-rock monstrosity in the back of the bus.
What’s your own favorite prog-rock monstrosity?
Oh, that wouldn’t be me—that’s them! I could be misquoting Jez, but I think he’s quite a big fan of Phil Collins. Sort of the early Genesis.
What’s the best record you ever borrowed from your brother?
He was always very up on the kind of late-‘60s psychedelic punk stuff—13th Floor Elevators, Chocolate Watch Band, all those Pebbles albums and the U.K. equivalent—Chocolate Soup for Diabetics. It was definitely outside the mainstream of what I would have heard otherwise. I guess the mainstream for a 14-year-old kid then was Echo and the Bunnymen, and then you find out the Bunnymen were influenced by the Elevators. So my brother’s record collection was a big influence for sure.
What does he do now?
He DJs an online radio show—he used to do it in London, but now he has all the gear at home, so he just sits in his bedroom. It’s just like being back in his bedroom ages ago!
So the entire world is now his little brother.
Exactly.
Are there any other hidden sounds in the songs besides the Harley on ‘Last Train To Satansville’?
There’s a lyric in ‘Satansville’ about ‘my drink’ or ‘having a drink,’ and you hear the clink of glasses. We were quite into the sort of subsonic things you’re not quite aware you’re hearing—I can’t remember if it’s ‘Duress’ or ‘Never Lose That Feeling/Never Learn’ but there was a sound we used a lot of church bells at a certain point. All at a level you couldn’t make out what you’re hearing, but you’re definitely aware of it. Pianos and things—sitar on ‘Lose That Feeling’—I think that’s the great thing about having the studio different from the live things. The bits of sound hidden under the mix.
What do you think of the idea that Swervedriver didn’t sell records because everyone who liked you was in the industry and getting them for free anyway?
I haven’t heard that one! That’s sort of the same story for every band. In some ways, Swervedriver could be seen as a musician’s band. But I think it’s a myth when people say Swervedriver were the unluckiest band in the world. I think there are plenty less fortunate. Everything we recorded did get released eventually—plenty of bands did records and the label said ‘not good enough, more vocals, less guitar,’ or there were bands that had people standing over their shoulders telling them how to mix. We never had anything like that. And it’s not like there’s a hidden album we can’t get released.
What’s the rarest release? Is there anything you don’t have?
The biggest thing that sucks is that back catalog isn’t out there because of signing with a major. If you sign a stupid contract to get the music out there, at some point you might get bitten in the ass later on. Which kind of happened now.
How are you deciding what to put in the set?
If anything, getting back together after ten years encourages you to streamline everything—‘We don’t really need to play THAT song!’ There are enough good songs to play that if you start making a list, you fill up the time allotment quickly. We aren’t gonna go play all obscure b-sides—but there are songs we never played back in the day, like album tracks that only ever got a few outings. ‘Why didn’t we play that very often? That’s a great song!’ There’s some we probably haven’t played for fifteen or twenty years.
What song have you missed the most?
The first that come to mind are probably ‘Birds’ from the third album and ‘Sandblasted’ from the first—those two are in the pocket! It’s great to play those again.
What was the last song of the last Swervedriver set?
I’m not sure—I remember the last but one, we played ‘Mustang Ford.’ I wanted to play that at the last show but the moment passed by. It may have been ‘Duress’ or ‘Kill The Superheroes.’ I’m not sure if anyone has the set list from the last show.
You have your song ‘Ramonesland’—what would ‘Swervedriverland’ be?
The thing about ‘Ramonesland’—the song is almost Leonard Cohen-y, and the guy in the song finds himself in a Cohen mood, but wants to be in Ramonesland! People expect it to be a punk rock end to the album—it confuses them! I guess Swervedriverland would be like the earlier driving songs.
Like the desert in the movie Duel?
That’s a big influence on the mood of the songs—I don’t know how we settled on that. There’s a great Butthole Surfers track on Hairway To Steven that has this psychedelic Latin American skies thing going on. It’s cool taking the imagery of those early songs—there’s more to it than driving a car in the desert. ‘Son Of Mustang Ford’ is all about wanting to escape things—about boredom, really, kids not enjoying the small town they’re living in, and wanting something else, and not knowing exactly what it is. As a band, one time someone lent us their Mustant, and the four of us drove around in it. Like I was telling someone before—the writer from L.A. WEEKLY—the first time we drove through Arizona, we were playing Kraftwerk’s Transeurope Express. I don’t know if we were trying to be perverse! Things I remember—driving into Berlin, and as we drove past the Brandenburg Gate, ‘Star Spangled Banner’ by Jimi Hendrix came on. And driving in Belfast past barbed wire and 18-year-old British soldiers—we had one of those CDs like the recording of ‘Good Vibrations,’ and that was playing as we were basically driving around a war zone. It’s always good to throw those things on their head a little. All music can sound great in all kinds of situations. Like ‘60s Indian pop music while driving around London.
How did you get free dental work from playing in Swervedriver?
You heard about that one? I was playing a show in Hamilton, Ontario, and a guy said, ‘Hey, Adam, can I interest you in a drink? And by the way, I’m actually a dentist, so if you ever want any dental work for free for all the music over the years, give me a call!’ I said thanks, but didn’t think I’d ever take it up. And then a few months later, I was eating my dinner and felt my tooth getting a bit weird, so thought maybe I’d get that dental work done. I was living in the states then and I didn’t have insurance, so I flew up to Buffalo and he picked me up and sorted out my teeth. As it turns out, there were a whole bunch of guys following us around then—all in dental school, and the guy who sort of runs our web page is one of them. So all these dental students were back in the day listening to this music with harsh searing guitar sounds.
Because they loved that dental drill?
Exactly. There’s something in that!

SWERVEDRIVER WITH ROGER WATERS, LOVE AND ROCKETS, SPIRITUALIZED, MURS AND MANY MORE ON SUN., APRIL 27, AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81-800 AVE. 51, INDIO. 5 PM / $90-$269 / ALL AGES. COACHELLA.COM. VISIT SWERVEDRIVER AT SWERVEDRIVER.COM.