We
begin quite pleasantly: I am introduced by the lovely publicist Sue,
Tina complements me on my name and outfit, I tell my Beck anecdote
& whip out my two tape recorders. I am asked why I have two...
Me:
I picked it up from Anne
Rice, actually.
Chris:
Really, Anne Rice does that?
Me:
She wrote about it in "Servant of the Bones"
C:
I haven't read "Servant of the Bones" yet.
M:
It's not one of her better ones.
C:
We started our tour in New Orleans. Some of our group [probably Johnette]
went over to check out her house, which was already all decorated
for Hallowe'en. I guess she really gets into Hallowe'en - not surprisingly.
Yeah, they were having a thing at The House of Blues, a vampire ball,
or something.
M:
The
Memnoch Ball.
Tina:
I learned why she writes. She started writing maniacally when her
eight year old daughter died of leukemia.
M:
Yeah, Interview was written in five weeks on beer.
C:
On beer?
M:
She became an alcoholic for a year.
T:
It's like Andy Warhol describes his work in films as a pre-occupation.
It's really just to keep him from thinking about other things - like
getting into his little daughter's pants. You know, poor Anne. [rest
is lost in static]
M:
Madeline says she wants a child that will never die.
T:
Exactly. I love, too, what she what she says in the introduction to
"The Vampire Lestat". The one where he finally becomes a rock star...at
that point, with the rock star bit, it loses its' reality.
M:
So many people have a problem then...I've always been able to swallow
it.
T:
It's like Jacqueline Susann at that point. Trying to write about the...
C:
The Valley of the Dolls?
T:
No, she wrote a book called Rock Star.
C:
Oh, did she? Oh, I think that's the other one, not Jacqueline Susann,
that's Jackie, uh Collins.
T:
Anyway, they all get it wrong. Rock stars are so stereotypical to
them, such a banality. What were we talking of before? How did we
get on to Anne Rice? Oh, yeah, she said this really interesting thing
through her character Lestat. After being alive for so many hundreds
of years - the longer we live, the more we become like ourselves,
no one ever really changes, we just become more ourselves. If we start
off as liars, we just get to be worse liars. Which I thought was a
very telling observation.
M:
So in the end of Memnoch, Armand's finally found something he can
die for.
T:
That was great, yeah, that was very good. [Jerry says something] Well,
we take it very seriously.
Jerry:
I liked Interview with the Vampire, and I made it through Lestat...
T:
The Vampire Lestat was great.
J:
I thought the beginning, about Ancient Egypt was good, but as it got
closer to modern times, it got worse and worse...that was it.
M:
You didn't even make it through "Queen of the Damned"?
J:
I might've read a little of it. Then there was the Body Snatchers
one...
T:
That wasn't very good.
C:
Did you ever read her erotic stuff? [negation from J, silence from
T] A lot of people getting it in the ass!
M:
The Sleeping Beauty series. [agreement from C & T...I'm such a smart
ass...]
T: That's kinky.
C: Guys taking
it up the bum, right & left! And girls too...interesting stuff!
T: Yeah, but
see, it's one thing to write about it, another thing to actually do
it. It's like a fantasy thing. I saw an interview with the woman who
wrote the "Story of O-". Of course she'd never, ever, EVER carry on
like the person in the book. She was...thirty years in love with a
married man. She was so in love with him that she felt she would lose
him unless she could somehow capture his imagination. So she began
to write these things in chapter form and send them to him as letters
to keep him hooked...but never in a thousand years would she have
done any of the things she described. It was just verbal eroticism,
and of course with her lover she never did any of those things...it
was just to keep him hooked. It's not real. And what horrifies me
is "Pulp Fiction" and the Gimp...I just think, oh my God, Andrew [something
unintelligible]. You just can't get into that.
M: Yeah, there were a lot of
problems with that scene. He was totally superfluous.
C: The Gimp?
T: I think
that the Gimp scene was actually something from "Tales From the Crypt"
or "Stephen King's Cat's Eye"...I have to see all of "Cat's Eye"...but
before that scene was ever in "Pulp Fiction", it was in another Stephen
King movie.
C: Shouldn't
we talk about the record?
T: Yes, let's
talk about the record.
J: I remember
the last time, we never even talked about the record!
T: We're so
pleased to have a conversation!
M: Okay, I've divided the questions
into sections. We'll start with the general?
C: Certainly.
M: There's a curious thing going
on with this record - there's a tie to the past, but also it's not
based in the past, there's also ties to the future. What do you feel
about that, I mean, who do you expect to see at this concert?
T: Everybody.
Just like it always was. All ages. This is a transitional album for
us, true. So it's got to be tied to the past, but we have an eye to
the future. We're very excited, because we think that we may be pioneering
something - we're not the only ones, but we'd like to pioneer something
for the future of musical groups and bands in general, where you don't
elevate the lead singer to this pedestal from which he - or she -
becomes this slightly removed god or goddess...
J: Like an
icon, sort of.
M: I don't think you'll have that
problem with Johnette. I was watching her last night, having ice fights
with Doug [McKean, who recorded the album].
C: Good!
T: With Johnette,
she doesn't want a pedestal, it's the opposite.
M: Do you retain the early sound
or attitude?
J: Well, we
think that it would be silly to throw away things that still sound
good. But we're still always exploring new ideas and new sounds and
new ways of doing things. I don't think that this album sounds like
the past. One of the things about the album is that we enjoy playing
together and want to play together. We've all done solo records. But
there's a quality when we play together. It doesn't sound like Tom
Tom Club, it doesn't sound like my stuff, it sounds like the Talking
Heads. And you recognize that there's something unique and wonderful
about what happens when we play together. It's kinda the way that
connections are made. We certainly didn't study our old records. A
lot of the sounds, like on the keyboards, the instruments didn't exist
back then. So it wasn't going to sound like Talking Heads. But I still
use a wah-wah clavinet sound, because it's something that I like.
T: The only
song that may sound like something from our past is "Indie Hair",
and that's because you're playing guitar, and we've never switched
from our Fenders. Chris still plays a drum kit when he's not trying
to get that sample sound. If you want to get a certain sound, you
have to use those instruments, that's all there is to it. The sound
of Fender and Gibson guitars that we use have a quality that has not
been replaced by the sample yet. Jerry's keyboards - I love what's
happened, because he still uses the good old sounds, like organ that
are great, but he's also started to...Jerry's very technical as well
as artistic, and he combines the two really great together. I love
some of the new stuff, it sounds way cooler that a lot of the old
keyboard sounds.
J: The weird
thing about playing these things on stage is that it takes so long
for some of them to develop. I have so many parts that go bcch (pause)
bch bm. They're like bm chickachickachicka bm bm bch. (laughs) But,
like, you won't hear it unless you hold down the notes longer. Um,
anyway...that was something that is very contemporary.
T: Plus, the
way that we work in our studio, we like to use both modern and old.
We use analog recording because we love the warmth, whereas digital,
there's drawbacks, there's only so much you can get out of it. Whereas
analog, you can really push it. So we use...it's kinda like computer
hackers who use new and old technology together to accomplish the
task better than if they only used state-of-the-art. So we have computers,
which were really useful when we were working with Shaun Ryder. Because
he did a funny thing: we sent him the tape, and he and the Black Grape
guys totally replaced all our music, except for the drum loop, with
George McRae "Rock Your Baby" samples. And it sounded wonderful, but
we're the Heads, we don't use George McRae "Rock Your Baby" samples.
So were able to use the new technology to fly Shaun's vocal off into
the computer, re-create the music at the same tempo, but with a whole
new musical track, a whole new musical bed, and put the two things
back together, with one another, and it was the perfect marriage.
We just said "this is how his vocals feel to us," and we just mashed
it back on. And that worked out great. And then Maria McKee, there's
no way we could've done it without the new technology. Because that's
what she wanted to do. She said, "Oh! I want to do something...techno!"
So it turned into a hybrid.
J: Which was
what was so fun about it. It was so much fun to be open to different
directions. First of all, we wrote this music, that would inspire
someone else, but then what they did would re-inspire us to continue
the process. The album is like a beautifully programmed radio station.
There's this great continuity - that's us - but there's also this
great variety.
T: Plus, we've
always made this really emotional music that has both an intellect
and a sense of humour and a depth to it, and then working with these
various singers, they all came back with wonderful emotional responses
to our music. Which was wonderful and revelatory to us.
M: I'm just wondering if you ever
tailored the song to the artist's particular work.
T: Not at all.
We made our music without knowing who we were going to send it to,
for the most part.
C: With the
exception of Shaun...
T: and Maria
McKee.
C: What we
sent Shaun originally was actually the song that ended up being used
by Richard Hell.
T: Because
it was too beautiful to throw away.
C: We didn't
want to throw it away. But 95% of the time or something, we had the
music written and then when it came time to send these people cassettes
to see what they would be interested in, we kinda said, well, maybe
Ed - Kowalczyk - would like this, but he might like this, so we sent
him the two.
T: Give him
options.
C: Take his
pick, which one he liked best.
M: It's just kind of funny how
much Johnette's song sounds like something from her past, I mean she's
so into it. It's really distinctive.
T: Well, vocally,
yes. She has a vocal quality of a kind of talkieness, a kind of spoken
word thing in the verses, and then belting out anthemic choruses.
And so we thought that this song would be perfect for her. Although,
frankly, I don't think we sound anything like Concrete
Blonde.
M: It's actually kind of funny,
because the first time I heard the song on the radio, the DJ came
on and said, "if you thought 'oh, cool, Concrete Blonde - no, it's
The Heads, with Johnette Napolitano.'
T: Yeah, well,
I don't think anybody thought that it would be Concrete Blonde or
Johnette. Or us.
M: It just that her voice is so...
C & T: Yeah,
her voice is distinctive.
T: And that's
what why we asked all these people. They're all distinctive. Johnette
is one of ten people that we asked, who we feel are very distinctive,
that you would make no mistake, that you would know who this person
is. Except, I thought Gordon Gano sounded really different
on what he did, from what I know of the Violent
Femmes.
C: Well...
J: Well, it
didn't surprise me.
T: No, it didn't
surprise me, because I knew that he had, y'know...
J: Well, he
was trying some new stuff.
T: Anyway,
every one of these artists are wonderful people, and we're just extremely
happy & grateful to them for joining us, for putting so much of their
heart into it, you know. And some wonderful lyrics. I thought
Michael Hutchence's lyrics, ore Johnette's...even Ed's...Johnette
might disagree, but I think that the way we are as people is that
we are very supportive of the people that we work with in production,
and the band, and we're the kind of people who don't have a fixed
idea, or a purist idea of what we're about. That's why we've always
been very flexible about directions, and that's why we've been able
to move from a 3-piece to a 9-piece back to, you know, a 4-piece.
We always thought our audience was so far beyond your typical mosh-pit
crowd. Mind you, we like the mosh-pit crowd; they have a level of
energy that we're totally with. It's not strictly one-way with us.
We appreciate a very large variety of things. And I think that it
shows in our music, and how we've taken left turns at various junctures
in our career.
M: I was thinking about the New
York scene in the 70's, how you we're all working together as a community,
and being very inspired by each other, and then this band blows over
from England, makes one album, and totally defines the sound for 25
years.
T: And breaks
up after 10 days.
M: Absolutely.
C: You're right,
we were kind of pissed off at the Sex Pistols - that was who you're
referring to?
M: Absolutely.
C: Because
we were working, working, working, and then this band came over...
M: Yeah, you had this community,
and they were just...
C: I loved
"God Save the Queen," and "Pretty Vacant," I mean, they were really
fun songs...but here these guys got so much attention, they
couldn't even like handle, one tour...
T: Not even
ten days, and they broke up. But you know what? What was terrible?
C: ...we were
busting our ass, all across the US and Canada and Europe...
J: It bothered
the Ramones.
T: It bothered
the Ramones, because the Ramones...
J: The Ramones
never got the due that was...due them.
T: They didn't.
J: Whereas
we didn't feel that we were doing anything remotely like the Ramones
or the Sex Pistols.
C: But we were
both under the Warner Bros. umbrella.
T: And they
were stealing our ads.
C: We could
see the record company spending all this money on the Sex Pistols
and none on us.
T: Do you remember
that billboard ad, where they totally ripped off Talking Heads? That
husband & wife team, and they said, 'we don't think your ad is good
enough, so we have a better idea.' And then the billboard comes out,
and it's our ad being used for the Sex Pistols.
J: Actually,
I don't remember that.
T: Well, yeah.
Chris designed it.
C: I did it
myself. I thought it was a good idea.
T: It was a
brilliant idea...
C: And they
said, 'no, we've got another idea,' and they used our idea for the
Sex Pistols.
T: It was such
a rip-off...
C: That type
of thing happened...
T: You know
what made us really angry, [Tisiphone]? Was not the Sex Pistols themselves,
because, you know, they were kids. We were young adults, managing
ourselves, doing everything ourselves, and then there were these adults,
manipulating these kids for their own gain. Johnny Rotten's book starts
out "I felt cheated." He was. He was cheated by Malcolm McClaren.
We've never had anything against the band, we were all for the band,
and their ideas, but what we hated was how the New York bands were
young adults, who were creating their own thing, and not being exploited
by other adults, and they were kids. The Clash & the Sex Pistols,
they were much more about fashion than about music, and they were
totally manipulated and used by these adults. And we hated that for
them.
M: So there was no actual animosity
between you?
T: No, there
was none, in fact, Sid Vicious couldn't have been sweeter.
J: And there
were all these rumours that they weren't playing their own guitars.
T: Well, Chris
Thomas told us, no lie, that he did it. Well, rumours are like that.
For instance, with Talking Heads, we always played our own records.
But because we would tour with the big band, everybody assumed that
the big band was on our record. Robert Fripp played 8 bars on the
record...we did the Tom Tom Club, and everybody thought Sly & Robbie
played all our bar chords.
C: (Laughs)
Drummer & bass player Sly & Robbie, and it was me & Tina. Who, I guess
were the white Sly & Robbie, but they're the black Chris & Tina. (Laughs)
M: I was listening to an early
live show, I think it was before Jerry even joined, and it was...so
punk, like not even what you would expect punk to be, but...
T: It was very
edgy. That was something that we kind of nurtured, was our edginess.
We would say that this is more exciting for us, to be edgy.
M: It was so wonderful, and it
was so neat, that we would've been about the same age...
T: How old
are you now, [Tisiphone]?
M: I'm 20.
T: Yeah, we
were a couple of years older. It took us that long to grow up. We
were very immature. (Everyone giggles)
M: I don't think I'll ever be
that mature...uh, let's talk about a dream album. Did you ask people
like Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits...
T: Tom Waits
was on the list, but we never actually got that far.
J: We never
got to ask him.
C: I did have
a conversation with Leonard Cohen. I placed the call, got his number,
called him up, and he did, uh...[looks uncomfortable]
T: [quietly]
Don't tell her that.
M: We can just move on to another
question...
C: No, Leonard
Cohen called me back, and said, 'I'm very flattered, I've always liked
the Talking Heads a lot, but I've entered this Zen Buddhist monastery,
and I only come out of the monastery once in awhile to use a pay-phone.
And I had only came out this time because...' his daughter was mixed
up, or something, and he came out to help his daughter, and was taking
down his messages. There were a few people like that, who had really
good excuses not to do this.
T: Well, you
know...it wasn't meant to be at that time. That's kind of how we see
everything we do. The Chaos physicists are just starting to realize
that the Buddhists had it right all along, when they said out of chaos
comes order, and out of order comes chaos, we've discovered that what
our mothers told us was absolutely right...
M: Oh, God...[I roll my eyes]
T: Hey, you
have a lot of sex, you're going to risk getting pregnant or some venereal
disease. And sure enough, that's what happens. And you never believe
it. You never believe these old sayings from the old-timers like take
things one day at a time, but all of these things have been proven
to be true, and one of the things that we've learned from all of this,
is that we've all given a great deal [indistinguishable]. Yes, we've
had our hearts broken, and if you've ever been in love and had your
heart broken you know it's very difficult to let go. All of life is
a process of letting go, and we're learning from experience that that
is exactly what life is all about - letting go, and learning that
things that happen are actually meant to be in the long run. If you've
done things kharmicly right, as much as you can, not to worry so much
about everything, and maybe this is the beginning of something else.
And not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing that our singer left us.
What was bad was how he left us. But we have no hard feelings
against him now, that we're able to work again. So it was like a revelation
to us, working with these new artists. They're so emotionally responsive
to our music which was really different from working with David.
Which was interesting. We loved working with David as an artist, because
we would make this really emotional music, and he would come in and
play the role of Alien Man on top of it.
M: He's very cerebral.
T: He wasn't
an intellectual when we met him, but me and his girlfriend at the
time, used to adore having these intellectual conversations, and David
picked up on that enjoyment, and dug it.
C: That's
where "The Girls Wanna Be With the Girls" came out.
T: A lot of
things.
C: Did you
ever hear that song?
M: I don't think so. I've been
listening to "Sand In the Vaseline".
T: That came
out of a conversation that I had...
C: (chuckles)
Such a good title...
T: He was so
good at taking catch-phrases and clichés, and things that he found
in books, and not understanding what they were about, and putting
them all together into this really interesting art collage. And we
loved that. But now...we were very bonded, because if having been
young people, you know when you're young, you form friendships, and
they'll very likely last your whole lifetime. Because I think that's
how we're meant to be as human beings. We have this built-in, hard-wired
ability as human beings to bond with one another, and because we were
so well bonded; it was a shock to us - like a divorce is a shock to
some people. But we're very, very happy now. Maybe we'll show him.
We're not snobs...
The
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