Nice interviews to read

Started by SueC, June 27, 2021, 12:49:35

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SueC

Occasionally I'll read a nice musician interview - here's one from someone whose music is not normally my thing, but I always make time to read an interview with him because he's got interesting things to say.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jun/27/elton-john-meets-john-grant-boy-from-michigan-interview

Never heard of the other guy but good value too. And I vividly remember Elton John doing a beautiful job on Candle in the Wind at Diana's funeral - that performance made me cry, and I'm pretty sure he was crying too.

This reminds me of something that happened when I was staying at a school friend's place for a weekend when I was 13. They were nice welcoming people to me, which was a bit of a change in this xenophobic little rural town in which I went to middle school newly arrived in Australia. I remember having a little trouble with the amount of fat in the Australian-rural-style roast - the roast was swimming in the stuff, and it was poured off and kept as dripping to return on sandwiches and to roast vegetables in down the track...

Anyway, we were early-teenage girls and it was 1984, so we were listening to music, could have actually been on Countdown, can't remember, but a Boy George song was on when my classmate's Elton-John-fanatic dad came into the lounge room and said, "Boy George is gay, you know!"

So bloody what. Typical bloody cultural homophobia at the time. But we shot straight back at him, "Hello, so is Elton John!" and it devastated the poor misguided man. Could never enjoy his favourite artist's music the same after that. People are so strange.

At least her father kept it to teasing and unnecessary remarks, which was bad enough. My own father bashed me in the face for having a poster with a "poofter like that" up on my wall the following year.  :persevere:

You'd think we've come a long way in 30-odd years since, but in some ways we haven't.
SueC is time travelling

SueC

Metal isn't my thing, but selected bits of it are in my husband's multi-genre collection, so I pricked up my ears and read this interview:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/oct/09/tom-morello-we-came-within-a-babys-breath-of-a-fascist-coup-in-the-us

I was particularly interested in this part of the interview, which is relevant to a topic on this forum about Killing An Arab, which some people (yours truly not included) seemed to think The Cure should stop performing, not because of what the song was about but because of how it was often misinterpreted by nincompoops:

QuoteEven though you weren't physically present, Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name was chanted at the Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, but it was also chanted by pro-Trump supporters in Philadelphia. How did that feel?
First of all, there's no accounting for stupidity. There's a long list of radical left anthems that are misunderstood by bozos who sing them at events like that, from Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land to Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA to John Lennon's Imagine – those people have really no idea what the hell they're singing about. The one thing that I speak to in all of those instances is that there's a power to the music that casts a wide net, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing. In that net, there will be the far-right bozos, but there will also be people that have never considered the ideas put forward in those songs and are forced to consider those ideas because the rock'n'roll is great. You can either put a beat to a Noam Chomsky lecture – no one wants that, but there's going to be no mistaking what the content is – or you can make music that's compelling.

So you don't try to serve people with a cease-and-desist order when they misuse your music?
When they were using Rage songs for torture in Guantánamo, we sued the state department, but no. My take is: "Go enjoy the rock'n'roll. You look like fools, but go enjoy the rock'n'roll."
SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

Didn't really know where to put this, but it's (kind of) an interview with Mogwai producer Dave Fridman about work on their latest album:

Quote from: undefinedDespite the challenges of producing the album remotely, Dave Fridmann's work on the latest Mogwai album saw the band top the charts for the very first time.

"Mogwai is one of those bands that's ultra‑dynamic, that goes from ear‑bleeding volume to deafening silence. If you go to one of their shows you'll experience a full range of emotions because of those dynamics, and because it's so visceral when they're loud. My job was to try to make the visceral experience of a live concert come out of a pair of stereo speakers, or tiny computer speakers, or earbuds. That's not an easy task.

"In general, it is why I have bands come into my studio and perform their music here, and I'm in the room with them listening, experiencing their music in the way they experience it. I'm not sitting in the control room. When you do that with Mogwai, it's absolutely mesmerising. Capturing that is not as simple as just recording them straight. There's studio trickery involved in getting that across on a home stereo system. I hope that I can bring some added value to the table here, not only with Mogwai, but in working with anybody."

In these two paragraphs Dave Fridmann summarises many of the essential aspects of his production and mix work on the latest Mogwai album, As The Love Continues.

Fridmann has worked with Mogwai off and on since the band's second album, 1999's Come On Die Young. He also worked on the follow up, Rock Action (2001), and again on their ninth album, Every Country's Sun (2017), and most recently on As The Love Continues. The latter, which went to number one in the UK (the band's first chart‑topping effort), came into being in a rather unusual way. Fridmann directed the recording sessions via Zoom, which may seems like a rather remote, impersonal, digital approach for someone so fond of the warmth and humanity of analogue gear. However, while countless people the world over are by now absolutely fed up of relating to others via a screen, the American has a different perspective.

"I'd actually argue that even as Zoom is a digital format, it's an analogue experience. We were looking at each other in real time. We were hearing each other in real time. We were interacting in real time. I couldn't pause reality. It was just like being in the room together. If we had been sitting in the room together, we'd have had the same conversations.

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/inside-track-mogwai-love-continues?utm
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/10/28/r-e-m-25th-anniversary-new-adventures-hi-fi-michael-stipe-mike-mills-interview/6137691001/

QuoteQ: Peter Buck has said "New Test Leper" is his favorite R.E.M. song of the band's whole catalog. What still resonates with you from the album?

Mills: I don't listen to R.E.M. records for pleasure, but "How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us" is so eerie and spooky. It was an incredibly organically created song. Bill started playing the drum line, the piano just fell out of me, and in about three minutes we had a framework of the song. It's rare and exciting and when something happens that fast – it's usually pretty good. There's a reason it came out like that. That song was meant to be.

Stipe: I would agree with "New Test Leper." It's a song that I worked very, very hard on. I wrote seven completely different drafts and narrative arcs and through all seven I landed on one after watching a daytime TV talk show and someone we would have referred to then as a transvestite was presenting their idea about why they felt compelled to express themselves. That song followed me. I just couldn't land it. I can remember the couch I sat on when it hit me, and when I wrote that story down on a notebook. That song and "Man on the Moon" (from 1992's "Automatic for the People") are two of the most difficult I wrote.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://undrcurrents.com/interviews-barbara-manning/
QuoteI want to talk a little bit about your life post 90's. That's definitely an era for you that's much less documented. I'm interested to hear about what was going on then and what your life was like. In the late 90's you moved to Germany. What precipitated you deciding to move to Europe?

I started living in the middle of Germany, in Darmstadt. I didn't know it at the time, but it's a huge city for Stockhausen and experimental music. Later I moved to the south, which was more rural. It's more the Black Forest style. That's when I was playing with the twins in the Go-Luckys, and was actually living with their parents. I almost felt like a teenager again.

You're wanting to know about a time that was weird, because at that point I realized I wasn't a success and I wasn't going to be. It was kind of a transition for me to realize that I needed to find a way to make sure I could take care of myself, and music wasn't going to be it. It was sort of that period too, where I was thinking "I don't know what I'm doing, I'm an old woman already." The songs were definitely about feeling a lack of connection, not knowing what's ahead and not knowing how to plan. Not really feeling like I was going to live much longer, really; there's a lot of suicide talk in the songs.

That said, some of the best songs that I ever wrote were during that period. I don't know if you've ever heard "Dreaming" and "Don't Neglect Yourself" and "I Mean Nothing", but those are pretty amazing songs that I wrote when I was really living on the edge back in America, hardly being able to keep it together. When I left Germany I went back to Chico and went back to school. I was living out of my van the first six months, just living as cheaply as I could.

I was doing radio, I got to be the voice of the North State at KCHO radio, an NPR affiliate. I got to be the voice in-between broadcasts for Morning Edition or All Things Considered. I loved it, but at eight dollars an hour how can you survive?

But basically there was a transition, where I realized if I didn't do music for love then I shouldn't do it because it certainly wasn't profitable, and I felt like I was taking from people more than I was giving them. As a musician I didn't feel that I could make enough to pay back everyone I wanted to pay back. So I went back to school and got a real job. Can you believe I'm a teacher?

How has it been with COVID? I imagine there are some challenges to teaching drama right now.

Yes. The kids are traumatized from the past few years. I sure do get to know it when I talk to them and get to hear about their hopes and dreams. The students who are taking drama because they want it really didn't have anything for a good year and a half. Then there's kids that have been shoved into the class and are forced to take it, but I think they're getting something out of it. They're going to appreciate theater more, even if they don't want to be actors.

What I see is that the students are traumatized because they aren't as used to being social. And now being social always has to do with technology and phones. I don't really see kids just being together without that.

But what I'm super thrilled about (and if anyone here is from anywhere that isn't California they're probably going to think this is so California) is that our school is embracing what we call SEL: social emotional learning. We are flexible, we don't demean the students, we try to figure out how to work with them and give them time. What I really love is greeting my students as they come in late. Saying "Good morning, you came just at the right time!" rather than making them go and get a note.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/sharon-van-etten-album-music-interview-2022/

QuoteVan Etten began writing We've Been Going About This All Wrong in 2020—aside from two songs, "Darkish" and "Far Away," which she wrote earlier and then set aside because, at the time, she thought they were "too apocalyptic." (I find this funny, I say, because her writing tends to be fairly dark. "Right? I mean, I put jokes in there. I temper it a little," she says. "I have to have a joke in there somewhere, to remind people that I am a human being.") The album does bear an apocalyptic imprint—near the end of "Darkish," Van Etten asks, "Where will we be when our world is done?"—but it's also a sort of reorientation around the idea of home. On "Darkness Fades" and "Headspace," there's a sense of estrangement from a partner; on "Come Back," she grasps again for connection. On "Home to Me," Van Etten addresses her son directly: "Don't turn your back. Don't leave," she sings. "You're on my mind, do you not see?"

Earlier this year, she put out two songs—"Porta" and "Used to It"—which emerged from the same writing period. But she released no singles from the album, which comes out this week. She wanted listeners to take it in from start to finish and assign their own meaning to songs. Like a hand outstretched, saying: This was my experience. Maybe it was yours, too.

If Van Etten's previous album, 2019's Remind Me Tomorrow, was about looking back on her life so far, We've Been Going About This All Wrong focuses on where she's at now.

Van Etten had lived in Brooklyn for nearly 15 years when, in September 2019, she moved to Los Angeles with her partner (the music manager, and her former drummer, Zeke Hutchins), and their son, then 2. She wanted "to try to slow down," she says—to have more space for her family and to build a home studio from which she could write and record herself, and to work on more projects that wouldn't require her to be on the road. She and Hutchins were supposed to get married in May 2020; in February, traveling to Mexico for her bachelorette party, she found that LAX was empty. "That was the first time I remember thinking, 'Oh, this Covid thing might be something," she says.

Then everything shut down. "Here we are in our new home, still unpacking, still figuring out, 'Where are we? Who are our neighbors? What are we doing here?'" Van Etten says. She and Hutchins had to learn to navigate their jobs, her classes (she resumed work on her undergraduate psychology degree in 2020), their relationship, and parenting under the same roof, while trying not to let on to their son how scary the world around had become. It wasn't only the pandemic; it was also the longer, increasingly ferocious fire seasons in California brought on by climate change; rising gun violence; protests over racial justice—all the ways that individual anxieties were exposed to be community ones, too. It comes through in the music. "I wanted to acknowledge what we were going through in our political climate," she says, "and just be able to put into words my frustration and my anger."
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

One might think about Bob Dylan what she/he likes, but this interview proves he's still passionate about music (as a listener and as a songwriter)!

https://www.bobdylan.com/news/bob-dylan-interviewed-by-wall-street-journals-jeff-slate/

QuoteMusic is made very differently now, and your grandchildren are hearing songs for the first time in whole new ways, like via Spotify. Does the way you first hear a song matter? Do you think that has changed the relationship of the listener to the song?

The relationship you have to a song can change over time. You can outgrow it, or it could come back to haunt you, come back stronger in a different way. A song could be like a nephew or a sister, or a mother-in-law. There actually is a song called "Mother-in-Law."

When you first hear a song, it might be related to what time of day you hear it. Maybe at daybreak – at dawn with the sun in your face – it would probably stay with you longer than if you heard it at dusk. Or maybe, if you first hear it at sunset, it would probably mean something different, than if you heard it first at 2 in the afternoon. Or maybe you hear something in the dead of night, in the darkness, with night eyes.
...

Do you think there is anything about the technology used today to record music that would have changed the impact or value you place on the songs you've included in the book, and especially the performances, or is a great song a great song?

I think a great song has the sentiments of the people in mind. When you hear it, you get a gut reaction, and an emotional one at the same time. A great song follows the logic of the heart and stays in your head long after you've heard it, like "Taxman," it can be played with a full orchestra score or by a strolling minstrel, and you don't have to be a great singer to sing it. It's bell, book, and candle. Otherworldly. It transports you and you feel like you're levitating. It's close to an out of body experience.

A great song mutates, makes quantum leaps, turns up again like the prodigal son. It crosses genres. Could be punk rock, ragtime, folk-rock, or zydeco, and can be played in a lot of different styles, multiple styles.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

Today you'll get 2 for the price of 1.  ;)

https://beat.com.au/jj-burnel-on-the-ever-evolving-grip-of-the-stranglers/

Quote"We've had a few 'ends of careers' actually," he laughs. "We've been banned from a few countries and been arrested in a few countries – Australia amongst them."

"Which I now wear a badge of honour – everything's so sterile and safe these days. People are too afraid of f*cking up their careers. Bollocks to that."

Having emerged as a band in the late 70s on the wave of punk rock, The Stranglers were known for their experimentation across a large variety of musical styles, including art rock, gothic rock, pop and new wave.

With his time in a producing role for bands such as ARB, Taxi Girl, Lizard and more, JJ Burnel refined his ear for diverse musicality: "I used to love producing because it gave me a chance to learn new stuff in the studio."

"It's like osmosis. You pick stuff up and you bring it to life. I would learn a new way of singing, a new way of recording the drums, a lick here, a lick there, a new sound or keyboard."

It's this evolution that is at the core of The Stranglers' ethos: "it would be pathetic if me, now, at my age was trying to be my 24-year-old self, or – I won't mention any names – men with very long hair in Lycra who are still trying to be Metal Gods with their beer bellies."

"Make your own mistakes – humility is probably the most important thing to learn. It's as simple as that. Your success is not based on you. It's based on a hell of a lot of networks and help."

"Sometimes you evolve and you fall flat on your face. And other times you try something new and it works. That's what it should be about."

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-hunt-for-the-holy-grail-damned-drummer-rat-scabies-interviewed/

QuoteMost former punks end up touring the nostalgia circuit or cropping up at conventions. Not Christopher John Millar, aka Rat Scabies. When Scabies hit middle age, the legendary drummer with the Damned began to hunt for the Holy Grail. 'We all started off criticising government and I've ended up looking for pixies,' explains Scabies.

In 2005, the music journalist Christopher Dawes wrote a rollicking account of a trip he took with Scabies to the epicentre of it all, Rennes-le-Château, a tiny village atop a rock overlooking the River Aude in the Languedoc. Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail has taken its place as a minor gonzo classic. Dawes lived across the road from Scabies in Brentford and gradually got drawn into a world of odd theories and strange coincidences. 'I knew he'd be hooked and anyway this kind of yarn made me sound interesting,' Scabies tells me.

This "yarn" got me obsessed too and I made the trip to south France to go Grailhunting... (I still do, even in Germany you can go on a Grail travel, seeing Wolfram von Eschenbach was one of the first to write about it, back in 1200 or so)!
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/the-damned-darkadelic-album-punk-1235316798/

QuoteThe Damned's 12th studio album, and first in five years, was "pretty much finished" before the 2022 reunion tour of the original quartet, who were the first U.K. punk band to release a single ("New Rose" in October 1976) and to tour the U.S. Darkadelic reflects the band's continuing musical evolution; its usual gothic-flavored drama is intact, but filled with intricate instrumental dynamics and textures — particularly on "Western Promise," a song with soundscapes that are accented by trumpets and sonic nods to '80s new romantic fare.

"For me, the only criteria was to have this album driven by more pronounced guitars," says Vanian. "The album took on its own identity compared to our last (2018's Evil Spirits). Plus, wanting it to sound sonically inspiring when heard on iPad or phone, a slightly more modern sound, if you will, without effecting or compromising what we do." Sensible notes that, "We always set out to do something a little bit different. We get bored doing the same thing over and over. The first rule of the Damned is there are no rules." The direction, he adds, "Wasn't a conscious decision or anything. We just came together with our own demos and certain tracks got chosen and it did take on a life of its own, as they all do, and that's the album."

Sensible says Darkadelic was very much a band effort by the current quintet, with drummer Will Taylor making his first appearance on a Damned album. "We chose the tunes and started bashing them out, all five of us, just being a band," says Sensible...

Also intriguing is the galloping "Leader of the Gang," a not particularly veiled elegy to disgraced rocker Gary Glitter, who's back in jail after violating probation conditions related to his child sexual abuse conviction.

"He got caught doing some really sh-t things and spent some time in prison — deservedly so," Sensible says. "But the thing is the music was absolutely magnificent and so influential. They don't play his music on the radio anymore in Britain, and for me that's a shame. His band didn't do anything wrong, and they can't get a gig anymore. Do you ban the music or the art? If you ban one person you have to follow that and ban loads of people because some of these creatives have some some pretty sh-t stuff in their lives. [Some of them are] very, very famous people, film directors and politicians... where do you stop?"

After a European tour earlier this year, the Damned come across the pond for a half-dozen U.S. west coast dates starting May 20 in San Francisco before playing New Zealand and Australia during June and the Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, England, in early August. "We haven't done a lot of gigs with this lineup, so it's nice things are opening up again," Sensible says. "Live music's really taken a hit and a lot of venues didn't make it. The musicians are just the tip of the iceberg; you don't see all the support people, the venue staff and the crews and the logistics people. It's having to revive in a way."

He's also amenable to doing more gigs with original bandmates Brian James and Rat Scabies after last fall's five-show run in the U.K. "They were an absolute revelation, to be quite honest — musically and socially," Sensible says. "There was a point about 10 years ago when we all stopped slagging each other off; the fact we all made up and like each other again is just incredible to me because it was extremely bitter. (laughs) But we all got on. It was really strange backstage — everyone's smiling at each other, arms around each other's shoulders and stuff, really great. So I would love to work with them again, in that or another capacity."
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://deadline.com/2023/05/yellowstone-1923-composers-brian-tyler-breton-vivian-interview-sound-and-screen-1235363285/

QuoteYellowstone wouldn't be complete without the sweeping orchestral sounds that open each episode. And naturally, it was all Taylor Sheridan's idea to make the title sequences sound big and dramatic, said composer Brian Tyler, who joined his colleague Breton Vivian at Deadline's Sound & Screen event that focused on the big of both the Paramount Network drama and the Paramount+ prequel 1923.

"He was writing Yellowstone and was thinking that he wanted to do very cinematic kind of approach. He wanted orchestral music and he wanted something very emotional that explored the dark side too, that which reflects dynamically against the beauty," Tyler said. "It's like where tragedy is beauty and you understand one because of the other. "
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://mixdownmag.com.au/features/gear-talks-an-interview-with-punk-pioneers-the-damned/

Quote"The thing about The Damned is that we've still got something to say," says guitarist Raymond Burns – better known to the world at large as Captain Sensible.

"Every album we put out is different to the last. We've been on this musical adventure, this journey, and if we started repeating ourselves then we may as well just become another heritage band. I always look back to The Beatles, who were so big for my generation. I didn't particularly like them at the time, but they did so much in the eight or nine years they were making albums. Let It Be is so different from the nonsense they started out with. I feel as though bands are duty bound to progress, and see how far they can take it."

On Darkadelic, the band explore a potent blend of their tried-and-true punk background with garage rock and psychedelia.

"We decided to take more risks this time around," says the Captain.

"We don't make an awful lot of albums, so it's exciting for us to veer off in another direction – especially with the lyrics."

He points in particular to the song 'Wake The Dead', which was written in response to the band discovering that their music was being played at funerals of those that loved The Damned.

"We raise two fingers to the Grim Reaper on that one," he laughs. "The punk generation aren't gonna go quietly, that's my take on that."

Burns also prides the band on tracking everything in the studio themselves, which they did with producer Thomas Mitchener across sessions at London's Kore Studios and Watford's Broadfields Studios. At a point in time with technology that can quantise and perfect everything down to a spotless T, The Damned still want their albums to sound like "five blokes in a room together bashing the songs out," as the guitarist so succinctly puts it. "Our first album [1977's Damned Damned Damned] was recorded on an eight-track recorder with one-inch tape," he recalls.

"We then moved onto 24-track, which took up two separate machines, and then it all went digital. There's all these insane plugins now that people can create those horrible AutoTune effects with. You can make anyone sound good in a studio now, and that's a frightening thing. Any plastic surgery TikTok influencer with 10 million followers can get a top-10 single now. Without the AutoTune, it'd sound absolutely appalling. We still wanna do it the traditional way. ...
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://www.nme.com/features/music-interviews/nick-cave-interview-hope-faith-carnage-new-bad-seeds-grinderman-cancel-culture-coronation-3448005

QuoteNME: There's a quote where you're talking about Faith, Hope & Carnage where you welcomed the privilege of being wrong, which was refreshing as it's not a privilege that a lot of people allow themselves...

Cave: "No, it isn't. I like being wrong. I'm always wrong. The thing about a wrong idea is that you know. The thing with Seán is that I would start talking about what I call in the book 'my cherished ideas' – these are the ideas that you think are really good, they rattle round in your head, you talk to yourself, and you have the conversation as they come out of your mouth. You're saying them to someone that's not afraid to push back into them a bit and you can hear that they're not good ideas. That is the corrective value of a conversation. You find out your good ideas, they get firmer and better, and your bad ideas drop away.

...

"There's also a corrosive, pathological, relentless pessimism coming from the media and social media. It's just eating away at ourselves and what we are as human beings. Personally, I don't see the world like that. I think terrible things can happen but what we are missing is the beauty of the world – the systemic loveliness of things."

It's no accident that the really great stuff is often made by the most problematic people. I don't quite understand it, but there's certainly no metric that says that virtuousness makes good art. If you start looking around for the good people who make good art, the conversation shuts down very quickly. All the great stuff seems to be made by people who are in some way, out of order in some way or another.

"I just value art and see that the need for it is too urgent to be f*cking around and taking this stuff down. That's where my problem with the cancel culture business begins and ends. It's not some great fight I'm having with these people. I just worry about the world and we need as much good stuff as possible."
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://www.clevescene.com/music/xs-john-doe-and-exene-cervenka-explain-how-theyve-kept-their-creative-juices-flowing-41991275

QuoteFormed in 1977, X quickly established itself as one of the best bands in the first wave of L.A.'s punk scene. Featuring singer Exene Cervenka, singer-bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer DJ Bonebrake, the band released its debut single, "Adult Books"/"We're Desperate," and then steadily toured and recorded. Rolling Stone rightly ranks X's first two studio albums, Los Angeles and Wild Gift, among the top 500 greatest albums of all time.

The band continues to tour with the original line-up fully intact, and X's current trek brings it to House of Blues on Wednesday, July 5.

In 2020, X celebrated the 40th Anniversary of Los Angeles and then delivered a surprise release of Alphabetland, its first new studio album featuring the original line-up in 35 years. The group is currently working on new material.

You have been working on new music. Talk about when you started developing the new material?
Cervenka: We put out Alphabetland during the height of the pandemic. We couldn't tour, and we waited so long to do a record, and then, everybody's life got postponed. If that pandemic wouldn't have happened, the record would have come out in a more timely fashion, and we would have toured more behind it. We could have just said, "Ok. We made a new record, and that's that." Because we couldn't really say that, we have to make another record. We are working on songs, and they're going very well. We did four of them live at the last set of shows. Everyone liked them a lot. I had people telling me they really liked them and that they fit in. I We have more confidence now that we did that last album and can write songs all day and come up with good ideas. We're not worried or inhibited or thinking they won't be as good.
Doe: At first, I was daunted. I thought, "Why? What? Who cares?" But that is what all artists go through even if you're at the top and did the best record ever. I thought nobody would want to hear a new album. Once we started writing songs together, I thought oddly enough that they're very catchy. This group of songs is much catchier than Alphabetland. That's unexpected. I don't know what happened. The choruses came together in a better way. It's exciting to have new material. Then, you don't feel like you're just an oldies act, which we have never been. We haven't had the luxury of playing casinos and county fairs.

You've toured really regularly post-pandemic. What keeps the band going nearly 50 years into its career?
Cervenka: Can I answer from Billy? Nobody has quit or died from drug overdoses. Basically, that is true. Success can be a problem. But we are still alive. If the Ramones were still alive, they'd still be playing and traveling in a van. You know they would. It's a tragedy that they're not here. Same with the Cramps. I would give anything to see the Cramps. It's the luck of the draw. We're lucky to be here. Overthinking things can really be a problem for an artist if you want to be this totally intuitive artist, and you don't care what people think. Sometimes, you have to be smart enough to know what's going on and how to keep doing it. It's a combination of so many things. We're on Fat Possum Records and have great management and good booking. We have a good bunch of people who really promote what we do and believe in us. From our accountant to our lawyer, they're all fans. They do what they need to do to make sure we can keep playing. That is really amazing. In turn, we can help other people. It's what happens when you do something long enough.
Doe: I would add to that that we still have creative juice. I don't say that to brag, but I feel like we still want to create things and maybe that's ambition or stick-to-it-ness. If it wasn't for the fact that people came to see us, we wouldn't do this. If there were 100 people, and we made $1000 a night, we probably wouldn't do it. That's not the case. We're fortunate that we're here and that people still give a shit. If they didn't, nobody has that kind of determination. We make a good living and people love to see the band, and we love to play. We don't sweat the small stuff. We're probably better friends now than ever because we have been through so much together.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich

https://inreview.com.au/inreview/music/2023/06/16/carla-lippis-feels-the-rage/

QuoteOn the day InReview talks to singer Carla Lippis, a shipment of her new album Mondo Psycho has just landed, literally, on her doorstep.

"I'm trying to get them all inside before it rains," she says.

It's a momentous occasion for the native South Australian, given this is her debut album after more than 20 years in the business.

During that time, the 42-year-old performer has lived and worked around the world, including in London's West End, touring Europe with Italian post-folk band Sacri Cuori and back in Adelaide as a regular performer at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Lippis's depth of talent and diversity have culminated in Mondo Psycho, which sees her stepping away from her cabaret roots and morphing into a dramatic, looming character – a "rabid Liza Minnelli", as she puts it.

"As a late bloomer in music, I've constantly been told 'You're too old to foster industry backing', because few in the industry here want to take a risk on an artist that isn't young, impressionable and easily manipulated into fulfilling the commercial interest of others," she says.

"I feel like we're still living in this weird ageist world with musicians where music is about being young and beautiful. Whereas living in Europe taught me that being a musician is for life.

"I was feeling kind of sad when I came back [from London], because we're still really driven here by youth culture and I feel this is something we need to change."

On a sidenote: I haven't heard her debut album yet, but I own an EP she recorded with Sacri Cuori (bought at a live show of them in Stuttgart back in 2016, where she delivered vocals on a few songs)!
The holy city breathed like a dying man...