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 THE VIOLENT FEMMES: WHITE BOY GOSPEL GONE BAD October / November 2000 By David Ensminger
You've been playing new material that ended up on Freak Magnet for a few years—trying it out on audiences? No, actually, on this record we weren't doing a lot of the songs in concert. We were waiting until we got the record out and then do a lot of them. We do six or seven new songs per concert. Some of them shift a little bit when we play them live, as they do anyway. What's been the general response to the new material? The longer the record's been out, the more people hear about it, the more they will respond to those songs. But it's more of a minority. The majority of the people that come out to see us, going back for years, never have cared if we had a new record or not. It must be, in part, how Lou Reed feels when he pulls out the old Velvet Underground songs at the end of the night. We have never done it like that, we always mix in the older songs. I know a lot of people—well, when I think of Lou, I can think of a couple other people I've seen who do that. But with us, we've always mixed in the older stuff throughout the show. Even on Why Do The Birds Sing? the songs weren't new. Some were 10 years old, fan favorites. It's all mixed up. There's very little that's chronologically pure. This new record, I think it really is the first record that doesn't have a song on it that I wrote when I was 15. So, if somebody's going to go, "Okay, the development, or lack of development...." Songs on the records are from so many different years. I think the Freak Magnet songs, except for one exception, are all from within the last five or six years. In the reviews of every new record, at least one critic points out your "teenage angst." I think that there's a stretch of records where there was one song written when I was 15. It's definitely one thing that people say about the first record, but all the songs on Hallowed Ground, the second record, were also written around the time I was a teenager. But the record isn't thought of in that way. Why is the record 3 always given the backburner? I got the beautiful answer for you. The band, you know, we don't agree on things. Brian calls off the sets, and I think he does a brilliant job with it, so every night's a little different. We don't know what we're going to play when we walk up on stage. He'll call as it goes, which has been a great thing for us, in terms of that kind of spontaneity. You've never used a set list? Right, and that's Brian's least favorite record. He really dislikes that record. I disagree. But it's like, he's flying the plane at that point. But it's the one record where you mix gritty punk, impromptu free jazz, and very quiet ballads. I think the thing he doesn't like about that record is something that I do like. He feels like it's woefully underproduced, because it was so spontaneous and so created in the studio...opportunities were missed to make the songs as good as they should have been. It's just a different perspective on it. But, interestingly, a lot of people told me it was their favorite record, but they're Europeans. I've almost never heard it from people in this country. "Nothing Worth Living For" is difficult to pull off live? When we went on tour for that record, we had to stop playing that song because they were so obviously bored. In the US, people were talking to each other, going to the bathroom, getting drinks, anything but being able to sit, listen, and pay attention to that song. In Europe, people would give incredible applause and ovations for that song. Sometimes, with certain songs, consistently and over a period of time at different venues and different places, one can really notice a difference in one country compared to another. It can be enormous. The differences in response to that song were incredible. I think it's because that song is more a listening, intimate kind of song. The US is different than anyplace. To many American audiences, we're a party band. Do you ever feel lumped in with that '80s retro party nostalgia, like the Go-Go's, the Psychedelic Furs, and the B-52's? Are the people you know mostly teenagers? No, mid-20s. But people who are teenagers now keep finding out about the group and keep getting into us. Those people don't think of us in that way. They think of the Violent Femmes as something that's a current thing, and not having anything to do with the '80s at all. You transcend nostalgia? In a sense, that's a pretty wonderful thing. They wanted to do a VHI Where Are They Now? on us, and we told them no, because we're more popular now than we have ever been. It doesn't make any sense for to them keep putting us in that view. I tend not to like that, but it's nice to be remembered and thought of in any context at all. How underground can you be when the first record sold over a million copies? Well, it's about two million now. But it just went out of print. But we'll have to look into that, because that's absurd. Hopefully, that's just a glitch. How much was the band shaped by Milwaukee? I know this question came up like, 10 or 12 years ago, maybe more. At that time, I felt that it had nothing to do, I still do, nothing to do with that at all. It had to do with the people making the music. We were more influenced by national and international kinds of music, or what we listened to in our record collections and by people touring through town. That's how I feel. But at that time, Victor De Lorenzo, our original drummer, and Brian felt that, no, it was really important that we were from Milwaukee. But I think that if we had hooked up in some other city, the music would sound the same. You've said for low-level celebrities like yourself that technology can be scary. I didn't say low level, I said low life. [Laughs] I'm kidding. But what does that mean? What's low-level celebrity mean? Ask your daughter. [Laughs] A lot of six-year-olds like you? [Laughs] Uh oh. Why are you scared of technology? Hey, did the red button on your cassette recorder just come on? Did it just shut off? It's okay if it did. [Laughs] Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Brian has said that the band has often taken the path of least success. But you regularly play 1,2000-seat venues like this one. Does that prove or disprove what you just said? [Laughs] You know, we're a little light on ticket sales tonight! Isn't this a measure of success? I know people who have made worse choices as far as a career goes, definitely. But I've known people who have made better ones as far as related to popularity. At one point, you wanted to make a record a year, and felt it was a struggle with Slash, your label, to make any record at all. Has that changed with the new label? Well, it has changed in that we have been able to get out a few records. But I have no idea now. We're not in any long-term relationship. My guess would be, if it's been difficult for this many years, then it means that's how it always will be. There are no plans to make another record. But I really like this new record, I really do. But you have other interests, like the play you staged in New York. I staged two. There was another one that was done, but officially wasn't done because it's not allowed to be done. Picasso wrote a few plays, and I ended up setting one to music. So far, the Picasso estate years ago said, "You shall not." That's something I'd like to get back to. |
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