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Master of the Low End of the Street
One of the things that intrigues me about this project is that you’re not known as an experimental composer, but based on what’s in your bio, this seems like a natural progression after all. I wondered how the whole thing came about.... I’m glad you see it that way; a lot of people don’t! [laughter] Well, I was aware of Diamanda’s music since about 1983. The “Wild Women with Steak Knives” album [b/w “The Litanies of Satan” with text form de Sade]? Yes. My wife brought it home, actually. Oh, my! [laughs] The kids fled when she played it, but I thought it was pretty impressive. And we went to see her about ‘89 as well, when she was in London. And then a mutual friend suggested we should work together. I think she’d told him that she fancied doing a rock album. “Be very afraid....” Oh, no, I was very excited. I thought, at last, a little bit of life in rock ‘n’; roll. I didn’t quite realize how much, but.... [laughs] So you weren’t sure what you were getting into? Life and death. Well, I wasn’t quite sure... As soon as somebody merntioned it, I knew sound-wise, sonically, how it would come together. I envisaged originally at least two or three numbers of her singing and speaking over basically a heavyish rhythm track–if you’ll forgive the phrase! [laughs] What I didn’t foresee was what the lyrics would be. I mean, I did say “What on earth are you going to write about? This is rock ‘n’ roll here.” And she said, “Love songs, in a homicidal sort of way.” [laughter] Well, I said, “Good! That sounds fine.” That just sorted that one out for me! “Let’s get on with it,” I said. It was a match made in hell, in some ways. I think so! It comes off marvelously, I must say. Thank you. I was curious what it was like actually working with Diamanda Galas during this project. I mean, the whole recording process–I imagine it was fun... Well, it was fun. It was also musically easy, because we both have very common music backgrounds. We both played in our father’s bands, and we both play everything, and both have a lot of jazz, blues, middle eastern music. And we also both have an understanding of all these musics, and therefore we can relate on many levels. So nothing has to be explained, you just start something, and it goes.... There’s common ground, then, really. So much common ground, yeah. There’s a couple obvious middle eastern rhythms and melodies thrown into the album in spots, but I heard a lot more gospel and and blues influence than I expected. I found that very intriguing, and I wondered where that was coming from. Well, she did some blues on The Singer [Mute Records], her last album. My rock ‘n’ roll tends to be blues-based, anyway. And so, if I’m writing in riff style, they tend to be bluesy-type riffs, and she just naturally picked up on those things, and phrased accordingly. Did you compose on the fly in the studio, or plan things out? We met very briefly, for one evening in London, and agreed we should work together. Then she went back to New York, and we just sent each other tapes. I sent riffs with eight-string bass guitar, and she sent me stuff for the organ, like “Tony” and “Baby’s Insane,” and stuff like that. I’m really pleased the way it’s all come out. It’s got a bnice balance of styles, as well. Yeah. Tracks like “Last Man Down” really harked back to some of Diamanda’s earlier work. Yeah. Was doing that piece in that way a conscious choice on both your parts? No, that one actually just came together in the studiuo. I just said, “I’ve got this rhythm instrument with a track I like.” It’s the only guitar on the record, in fact, a little lap steel guitar. And I just started playing, and she said, “That’s great, I can do something to that.” She immediately did, so we had to do it again and record it. Like a lot of the album, it was live. A lot of this was done direct, not a lot of takes? No. On some we did the rhythm tracks first, because it’s really difficult to separate the voice out with the drums and rhythm going in the same room. On things like “Skótoseme,” we did the rhythm tracks first, and then she came in, and she did one take right the way through. And similarly, “The Sporting Life,” it’s one take right the way through. Oh really? First take? Yeah, it’s just stunning stuff, I have to tell you! When you’re actually there while she’s doing this sort of thing–well, it’s great! Again, it’s easy for us to do this onstage. There’s only three of us, anyway. Will [drummer] Pete Thomas be on tour with you? No, he won’t be, actually. He’ll be out with Elvis Costello & the Attractions. I found out he couldn’t do it while I was in Seattle working on a live acoustic album with Heart. And the drummer that was with them, I’d already played the record to, and he really loved it.... So, Denny Fongheiser is our live drummer. How did the thing with Pete Thomas come about, then? Well, somebody recommended him, and as people have since said to me, he’s not known for that sort of playing. But he was very enthusiastic, and I knew he had two important things, which were feel and experience. I needed somebody who knew how to play a country waltz, you know? Although I told him pretty much what to play, and he worked out the parts, we still needed somebody who could feel. That, and like “Dark End of the Street,” which is like a Stax/Motown sort of thing. Yeah, exactly. So I needed somebody who knew this. So eventually I just got him down to my place and said, “Well, look, here’s the riff. Play along and see how you feel with it.” And he seemed very excited. He doesn’t get to play this sort of thing very often, and he really worked very hard. But Denny’s also just slotted in really easily. He’s an ace session musician, he plays with Springsteen and some others.... I wondered about all that because you seemed so tight on the album as a rhythm section, it seems like a natural connection there. Right. Well, drummers and bass players recognize each other, you see, for what they are. I’m used to working tightly with a drummer, and when I write a riff, I write it in tight with the bass drum, so that the drummer’s usually got quite a lot to do in my riffs. [laughs] He’s got to spot a lot of things rather than just lay a rhythm over the top of the whole thing. That’s how I write my stuff, so it’s usually pretty interesting for a drummer to play. So you work on actually composing part of the drum part, then. Yes. It’s on the demos. I programmed a machine originally to do that, then I just set it up how I want it. It grows from there, but at least the basics and accents are the same, and the feel’s the same. That leads me to one of the interesting things I found in your musician’s bio. You’re such a well-rounded studio musician and producer and so forth. The first question that came to mind is, how do you fit it all in? [laughs] Well, I just keep doing it, really. I just seem to stop one thing, and think there’ll be nothing ever again, and then sure enough, something comes along. I was called up in June, and they asked me to put this album together for Heart. Which basically involved rehearsing for a couple of weeks, and then we went down to a club for five nights. A little club in Seattle, and we had a string quartet. I played a bit of mandolin and piano, and a bit of bass, and it was great. So that’s all mixed, and I’m back and ready to do our first date in Hamburg in a couple days time. I read in your bio that you’ve done a piece, Maastrich Time, for the Mondrian String Quartet, as well as some other chamber music. Right. I’m interested in that part of your life. It seems to be very important to what you do as a composer/musician, but it doesn’t seem like these pieces are available here! Well, most of that stuff isn’t recorded. There’s a few things for a group called Red Byrd [Amores Passados] which came out on Factory Records, but that’s gone down the tubes now.... But somebody told me it’s played on the radio occasionally in New York, which is unusual. A lot of it was basically with small groups–several musicians and prepared tapes–and they just go around and play this stuff as part of their repertoire. So, I haven’t really got much. I mean, there’s nothing released of it, just the odd recording. It’s also nice not to have to make a record every time! Yeah. It’s great. They call me up and say “We’re playing in Mexico City” or something like that, so it’s an excuse to go visit my piece being played! It’s great–you know how it is, you get called up on stage at the end, and you take a bow–it’s really nice! You have a great dinner, and meet a lot of nice people. It’s a great way of spending time, you know! [laughs] Sounds like you’re really having fun, which is important. Well, yeah, I think it’s very necessary. Otherwise you tend to stagnate. And that would be awful, to hate music. [laughs] I got nearly to that point when I was doing sessions, which is what caused me to join Zeppelin in the first place. Oh, really? Yeah, just to give up the session world. Just to do something different and not to stagnate. You made the choice to do live rock partly as a break, then? Yeah. And in fact, part of the attraction of this new projrct was the fact that we could do it live. I mean, this is the first time I’ve been out on the road in fourteen years, since 1980 in fact.... I’ve played live in the odd reunion, but I haven’t done a whole show. And you’ve done the odd gig every so often too. You did the MTV Awards with Lenny Kravitz, didn’t you? Oh yeah, right. That was only one song, I haven’t done a whole show. And not your own stuff.... Right, not my own stuff. Do you think of yourself mainly as a composer, or producer, or what? Well, I don’t know, really. As a musician. Yeah, I like composing, but then it’s pretty nice to make a record, and it’s really nice to play now and again. Sometimes you just want to sit back and tell somebody else what to do. [laughs] I think the main thing is, I wouldn’t want to do any one of those things to the exclusion of anything else. I just like to keep interested and keep awake. Meaning...? Keep mentally awake, and musically awake. I try not to repeat myself. It’s something Diamanda is also concerned with. Because otherwise you just give up, you just go through the motions if you don’t keep going. It’s partly just to keep yourself musically alive, in some ways.... That’s right. But also, you get to meet a lot of interesting people, and it keeps you alive as a human being as well. Everything’s a challenge, you know. When I did the Heart thing, I’d never actually produced a rock band in a live show for an intentionally live album. So that had all sorts of problems, and it was usually interesting. So you like the problem-solving aspect of this stuff? Yeah, pretty much. As long as I’m not up against, you know, stupid people. [laughs] They depress me! But if you’ve got nice intelligent people around you, everybody has fun. It’s what we do, you know. Music is what we do, and putting it on is what it’s all about, so that folk can listen to it. Providing it’s a nice bunch of people, and everyone checks their attitudes at the door, it’s really quite pleasant. And you get paid for it! [laughs] Which is even better. Much better than working! I completely agree! It’s not easier than working, but it’s certainly better. More fufilling. Yeah! To sort of take a ninety-degree turn here... We’ve gone through this “guitar hero” thing for twenty or thirty years now, and now there’s this “bass hero” thing coming up.... Really! Yeah. Bass Player Magazine is an obvious focus of this, but there’s this trend I’ve been noticing, for people to go “Who’s your favorite top three bass players in the world?” I wondered if you’d run into that, or had any thoughts on it. Well, no, I hadn’t run into it much.... It’s interesting how many bass players are also composers. It seems to be part of the mentality.... It’s a necessary part of the whole equipment. Really, in order to play bass successfully, you need to have a good understaning of “the Big Picture.” And also generally of harmony and melody. I mean, you have a lot of things to think about.... Yeah. Which I don’t think people have perhaps realized before. Not that I want to go on about the unsung bass player, but.... That’s fine! Go ahead! I don’t know so much, really. I think maybe there are just a lot more musicians out there, and they’re not afraid to say they’re bass players. [laughs] But as I said, there’s a lot of composers who were bass players. You really have to understand rhythm, you have to understand harmony, and melody to I think a greater degree than say a guitar player, who just plays his instrument.... I’m not saying guitarists aren’t good musicians, but they just have a different job. I think a good bass player is more of a composer, sort of on the fly, and an arranger. You’ve got to choose the right notes very carefully, or you ruin the whole thing. It does seem to draw more well-rounded musicians, or perhaps people become more well-rounded by becoming bass players. But also you have to be more of a team player. You have to sit at the back and be quiet when necessary. You really have to take the back seat and just make everybody sound good, rather than standing out front going “Look at me,” that type of thing. Even though there’s all sorts of musicians playing all sorts of instruments now, so there’s no hard and fast rules. But you know, I have a fondness for bass players. [laughs] That’s pretty much all I had to ask. Was there anything near and dear to your heart that you wanted to broadcast through the medium of newspaper? [laughs] Only that everybody should come and see the show. That’s very near and dear to my heart! [laughs] I don’t care what people think, as long as they’ve made an informeed opinion! Seen it and heard it. That’s really what it’s all about for me. Interview ©1994 AP Durkee
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