Wed, May 21, 2014, Las Vegas Weekly Magazine 

You’re pulling double duty at Punk Rock Bowling with Descendents and All. Is that fairly common at festivals these days? Well, it is happening a little more frequently. Since Descendents are really only able to do a couple shows at a time because of work schedules, we’ll sometimes add a couple All shows around Descendents shows if we can, just for fun more than anything. That way we’re already all in one place except for our singer, and we just fly Chad [Price] in. We just did that in Europe—four All shows and two Descendents shows over a week in Europe. It’s fun.

When you’re playing All shows, do you ever still have to deal with fans who are upset they’re not seeing Descendents? It’s less that way than it used to be. It had more of that feel to it before we started doing Descendents shows again, but now that Descendents are out there playing occasionally, most people have gotten the chance to see us if they’re able. So now, the people who come to see All are people that actually really like All. The shows are smaller, but that’s just fine by us.

If [singer] Milo [Aukerman] said he wanted to give up being a scientist and do Descendents full-time, would you still continue with All? I would think so. But, you know, neither of them are really in a position to take on a full-band form, be a full-time thing. And Milo abandoning science is strongly unlikely; he’s proven far more likely to not play music, though he’s always drawn to do some of it in some context. What we have now is really ideal for him, because he does his science thing, and he still gets to do his music thing, too. We just kind of do it on a limited basis.

I think for a long time it was going to be one or the other, because the rest of us were full-time musicians. Now, Bill [Stevenson] produces a lot of records. I mix records. Karl [Alvarez] has stayed busy playing more—he was in The Real McKenzies for a long time and All Systems Go for a while. So everybody is busy enough now that we can be part-time with Descendents and it’s fine.

I think if Descendents were able to be full-on we would probably still do All shows, because that music just developed differently over time from Descendents. I wouldn’t say it was an active thing, that we were trying to sound different from Descendents. It was just us writing what we write and playing what we play, and it developed differently. There’s a lot of cool songs in there and a lot of things we enjoy playing, so I think it would continue on.

Who’s going to be on vocals for the All show here? Chad [Price] will be with us. We’ve done some things with Scott [Reynolds], who we’re still good friends with and Dave [Smalley], who we’re still good friends with, but I think we will more often be doing shows with Chad if we do shows with All.

All never really broke up. There came a time between us being a pretty small band and not being able to fill huge clubs with people, and children started coming into the picture—families and children. Eventually we couldn’t really justify being full-time with All; we weren’t in it to make money, and we certainly weren’t accomplishing making money (laughs). It just kind of got back-burnered, but the band never really broke up. And Chad really is our singer. So we’ve done a few things with Scott and/or Dave just out of interest or just for fun.

The Descendents documentary Filmage will screen at Punk Rock Bowling. Were you involved in it beyond your interviews that are included? The guys who made it—the two sort of main guys who put it together, Deedle [Lacour] and Matt [Riggle]—are good friends of mine. They’re in a band called 41 Gorgeous Blocks, which is the first band that ever recorded at my little studio here in Tulsa. So I met them when I was doing a stint as crewman for a band called MxPx, and we hit it off and became friends. They’ve always worked in the video and film production industry, and at some point they approached me and said, “We wanna make this thing. We’re huge fans, and we want to get the definitive documentary.” And we said okay. I wasn’t involved in any part of making it other than doing interviews, but it was me that went to the rest of my guys and said, “Hey, these are my buddies, they want to do this, they’re really good, let’s do it.”

What do you think of the finished product? I think they did a fantastic job. They really caught the band in the way that I see us. It’s of particular interest to me, because even though I’ve been in the band a very long time, I am actually a latecomer to Descendents—I wasn’t there in the beginning. I thought I would have already dragged every story out of Bill, Frank [Navetta] and Tony [Lombardo] and Milo that I possibly could have over my years of friendship with them but even I still had a lot to learn about the band and how it came together. So that was really a lot of fun. And to be able to look back and view some video footage I had never seen before, of the original lineup playing, that part was a blast. I love it.

You referred to yourself as a latecomer to the band, but you’re still about to hit 30 years with Descendents. Coming up, yep.

Is that surprising to you? Yeah, you know, it is really strange to still be such a force for people. I am always amazed at that, because when we were starting out there were all these bands, bands playing all over the country and certainly hundreds of them in California, and for all of us that were playing at that time, there was never an expectation of success. I mean, success at that time meant doing the music at all, success meant playing in a club or whatever or maybe going on a short tour and getting to play with other bands in other cities, that was what it was about. There was no money, there was no fame, there was nothing—there was just getting to do it because you were into it. That was the only reason anyone bothered. So for that music to have impacted people enough that they still care about it all these years later is really something to me. And it is incredibly fortunate that we’re in a position to still play it and that we’re all still alive, except Frank unfortunately.

That this can continue in the way it has is amazing to me. I love it, that it can still happen. And the people—we’ll play shows now and there are young people discovering this music. It isn’t just a sea of old punkers. It’s young people being turned on to this music somehow.

Who do you think is more punk rock, 19-year-old Stephen doing it then or 49-year-old Stephen still doing it now? From the core I am a die-hard music fanatic, that’s really what I am. I am nuts about music; I always have been. I’ve never wanted to do anything else. I don’t know how to do anything else. So the punk rock part of it serves a time that I was in. There were certainly myriad reasons that anyone would be interested in something like that, because it was going against what everybody around you was doing.

Now the need to look a certain way doesn’t hold anything for me, I don’t really care about that, I don’t worry about making some sort of statement in that regard but musically speaking I still do feel exactly the same way. So all of the things that drew me to that are still there.

But now I’m a dad, life changes, we’re 50. Punk rock gave a lot of us a place to work out our issues and figure out who we were as people, It taught us how to be better, and a lot of the smartest people that I’ve ever known came from that scene, and they’re still smart today. They’re still changing the world, and they still see the world in interesting ways.

Full Article: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/ae/music/2014/may/21/punk-rock-bowling-interview-descendents-all-guitar/

Wed, May 21, 2014, Las Vegas Weekly Magazine

How’s the tour going? The first leg was pretty amazing. We had a couple of duds, which would equate to not selling out the venues, but that’s okay. We’ve gone to a couple of places where, as a fairly new band, we’ve still not got a foothold in a couple of these cities. But the shows have all been fun, and all the bands playing with us—Cerebral Ballzy and NASA Space Universe—are fantastic. We’re enjoying ourselves, not bickering like a bunch of teenage girls. It’s all good.

How are you feeling health wise? I picked up something coming out of the Rockies, driving out of the mountains out into the desert of New Mexico, and it’s still with me. It’s hard to describe it, but it feels like someone has a pair of pliers to my Adam’s apple. But it’s all good—when I need to yell and scream I can get that going.

I know you had a big scare last year. Is it tough to control your diabetes on tour? It is very difficult because the problem with diabetes is, one day it can be amazing and the next it can go horribly south. I’ve been extremely fortunate in that before we left on this first leg I was losing sleep and my glucose numbers were through the roof, and once we were, like, three or four days into the tour we kind of settled into a groove and I actually started to feel really great about my diabetes. I mean, you never feel great about having diabetes, but I was feeling really good.

See, I f*cked up royally and missed a couple of meals, and because of that found myself in a diabetic coma a couple of times, and because of that we had to cancel a tour. In my entire musical lifespan, which has been about 38 years, I’ve only canceled two or three shows. So to have to blow off, like, 15 or 20 shows was pretty harsh. So now I’m on a new insulin regimen, and I’m trying to stick to an eating regimen, where you eat every four hours, five hours.

Off!’s new album, Wasted Years, debuted in Billboard’s top 100 …Yes, it did. I don’t normally pay attention to that, but apparently to say that to a record label or a manager or somebody of stature is supposed to be a big deal. So hey, hip hip hooray, good for us. If it wasn’t us it would have been somebody else, maybe some schlocky boy band with an electric guitar player.

But when Black Flag was getting busted by the cops, did you ever think you’d have an album chart? Well, that was so far back, we were playing things by ear. You just live from day to day and hope for the best. Being in Black Flag, we never cared about anything like that; we didn’t even know about stuff like that. Maybe you would go to the music store and there’d be a Hit Parade and a Circus Magazine and maybe next to it would be a Billboard, but Billboard didn’t have Alice Cooper on the cover. They didn’t have The Sex Pistols or The Damned on the cover, or Patti Smith. I believe those types of magazines are industry trade news.

The record feels very live. What was the recording process like? We normally work under a lot of stress. We work under hectic circumstances, because we always set ourselves up for this situation where we book mastering before we’ve even written the songs.

The recording situation is learn and go, one and done—that’s a sports reference for all of those young guys who play college basketball for a season and then go to the NBA—but we didn’t play a season and go to the NBA. We have a couple of days to learn the songs, and because of the way our band is made up of dads we can’t say “Hey, we’re taking two months to record this records.” We don’t get to do that. These guys have gotta have something going on so they can pay their bills.

What type of result do you think you get from that type of urgent recording? You can hear it in the way we play—we’re not going in there and jamming out on a song for 15 minutes. We’re not getting in there and doing a verse and a chorus and a verse and a bridge and a chorus and another verse and then adding all of that on to the end of what we had already recorded and turning it into something radio-friendly, meaning puff and pad things and push things in the proper places and not say expletives and not be so angry. That doesn’t work with us. We know we’re dealing with people with short attention spans; the entire world is that way now. We have the computer in front of us, so we want results immediately. I want my answer right now. I wanna hear that song right now.

The title Wasted Years could be interpreted a lot of ways. It could be the years you’re drinking, or it could be symbolic of punk in general, or your career. What are you trying to evoke with that? All of the above. If you look at the album cover you’re seeing a guy that’s wasted and surfing his life away, you could also equate the guy to Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. There were 30 or 40 of those kids in my high school in Manhattan Beach.

And also, there are certain people who don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with you, and maybe you don’t have the wherewithal to say, “I am no longer putting up with this. I’ve already wasted part of my life doing this. Time for a change of direction. Time to surround myself with new people.”

That’s the reason I’m doing Off!—not being attached to somebody else’s schedule that dictates what you do with your life. When you’re used to a certain pattern, to break that pattern could be a difficult thing. Or maybe it could be an easy thing, depending upon your mentality, depending upon your outlook on life, depending upon where you are in your world.

I watched you headline Punk Rock Bowling last year with Flag. What was that like for you? Well, I have a certain mentality where I feel that there’s too many of these punk rock events—Punk Rock Bowling, Punk Rock Garbage Disposal, Punk Rock Picnic, Punk Rock Cruise—and I was adamantly opposed to it until I actually went and experienced it and saw it firsthand.

When we started Off! we were gonna sign with Epitaph Records. Brett Gurewitz was super-jazzed, super-psyched out of his mind, going completely ape-sh*t over Off! … We were in the process of signing a deal with them, and one of the guys in the band said, “Hey, I think what we’re creating is pretty happening. We would be selling ourselves short if we didn’t go out there and talk to anyone else.” So he talked to one of his friends, who happened to be one of the owners of Vice.

A lot of people dislike Vice, because they say it’s a trendy, hipster, cooler-than-thou label, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyways, during this process one of our guys went to his friend, his one and only friend at Epitaph and said, “So what are you gonna do with us? What is your strategy?” And the first words that came out of this guy’s mouth was that they wanted me to contact Kevin Lyman at the Warped Tour to see if we could be one of the bands at the Warped Tour.

That was the trap door answer, the boiling vat of hot oil answer. We didn’t want to do the Warped Tour. I’m not dissing the Warped Tour—it has its place. and there are some good bands on the Warped Tour—but that wasn’t the crowd we wanted to play to. That’s one of the reasons we’ve avoided going on tour with Pennywise and any of those types of bands. We chose to travel a different path, and we caught a lot of flack for it. “Oh you’re playing with them? You’re playing that festival?” We played Coachella, and it was pretty f*cking amazing! We played in a giant tent, there were like 6,000 people in the tent, and they were all going ape-sh*t. The majority of them were just girls who needed to get out of the daytime sunlight. It was pretty awesome. So here we are playing in front of 5,000 girls, nothin’ wrong with that—that’s almost like The Beatles.

Who’s more punk rock: 20-something Keith Morris screaming in Black Flag or 50-something Keith Morris still screaming in Off!? I’m just as angry now, if not more angry, because there’s just more stuff to be angry about now. As citizens of the United States we have let a lot of things slip away, and a lot of these things that we allowed to slip out of our grasp have turned around to bite us in the ass. I’ll never be president of the United States, but the first thing I would do is bring back all our troops from all of these different places in the world, so they would all be here—they would all be doing work here. And I would take every politician that has any dirt under their fingernails—and I don’t mean dirt from going out and working on roads or digging ditches—I would take them all out to the desert and dig a giant hole, and no one would ever see from them or hear from them again. Hooray! For the working class people of America.

Full Article: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/ae/music/2014/may/21/punk-rock-bowling-interview-vocalist-keith-morris/

Monday, December 3, Las Vegas Weekly

When you’re playing a club like House of Blues versus an arena, does it produce different results?When it’s a club, you can see people better. To me, that makes for a more fun show. I get off on seeing people have a good time. I’d like to do it in the middle of the crowd if I could.

Do you pick different songs for smaller shows like these? Sometimes, yeah. It depends on the mood. Being a three-piece, we have a lot of options, a lot of freedom for what we can play, versus a large band with a lot of people. If we want to change the song in the middle, you can just go—that’s the fun thing about it. Same thing with the set. The songs are arranged, but we can always change them as we go.

What was it like working with producer Rick Rubin on your new album, La Futura? We’ve been together a long time, and we’re kind of used to doing things one way, so it’s nice to shake it up a little bit. Putting Rick into the mix—you’ve seen him, he’s already got the beard—so, he fit right in already (laughs). It took us a little while to find a groove, but Rick is a very talented fella. He knows how to pull things out of you or when things aren’t going in a certain direction or aren’t working. I enjoyed it very much.

I read that you guys recorded it live … Yeah, we did a lot of it … I don’t know if you want to call it “old school,” but we definitely did some more basic stuff. … It’s not just three people playing live circled around one microphone, but it does have a strong element of an old-school type of recording. We used anything available or we don’t use things available, according to how it feels.

The latest video on your website has the tagline “New Video, Same Formula: Cars, Legs and Beards.” Have you ever toyed with changing up the formula? I promise you, if we did “Fly Me to the Moon” it would still sound like ZZ Top. It’s just the way we play. It just comes out sounding like that. I hope that’s a good thing. I don’t know what it is, but it is what it is. I’m talking in circles here, can you follow me? (laughs)

ZZ Top was just honored with the Living Legend Award from The Classic Rock Roll of Honour in the U.K. What do you think the band’s legacy will be? I’m not sure that’s for me to say. That’s like picking your own nickname; I think that’s against the rules (laughs). For our legacy, I hope people would listen to the body of the work and not just one segment. Most people have their favorites or don’t like us at all, and any of that’s cool. But I hope that people would listen to all of it. When I listened to Muddy Waters, I listened to early and later Muddy Waters. When I listened to Elvis Presley, same thing. When I listened to The Beatles or whoever, I try to listen to the body of work before I start thinking of their legacy.

Have you guys ever thought of approaching the Movember charity about becoming spokesmen? Oh yeah, we got a head start on everybody on that (laughs). I’ll tell you, if I don’t think about it or walk past a mirror, I’ll forget I even have it—it’s just so much a part of me. There’s a show on TV called Duck Dynasty, these guys in Louisiana, and its a hilarious show. They call themselves rednecks and say, “That’s like shaving my beard, I’d never do that.” I would have this thing, with or without the band. My wife has never seen me without it. I’m not sure I’d wanna take that chance.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/dec/03/weekly-interview-zz-top-bassist-and-co-vocalist-du/

Wed, Oct 24, 2012, Las Vegas Weekly, Entertainment

Will you prepare for a 12-show residency any differently than you prepare for a tour? Probably a little bit, because I think we’re going to have to alternate sets and do different things. Whereas when we tour we kind of tweak the set as we go and then kind of get in a mode of it being a certain way, with a few audible changes as we go along. I think with the Vegas sets, we’re going to try and make some different things happen to kind of keep each show a little bit different.

Like, keep a basic set and mix in a few songs? Or will you have multiple setlists? I think we’re really going to have to think about that. And as you just say that … (pauses) … an idea came into my mind … to really, drastically change the set. I can’t share it with you, but I think would be really good. I think there’s a couple different ways we could go about all this, and I think we should.

Is there you’ll be able to do, production-wise, to make these shows special since you won’t have to tear it all down every night? I’ve got a couple of ideas, and I think everyone is going to have to use their noggin to try to figure it out. I know Axl [Rose] is going to try and make every show different from one to the next. I think that would be the way he thinks.

Sounds like there’s still a lot up in the air. Do you think it will mostly happen spontaneously? Ya know, I don’t know. I think that we’re probably going to have to talk about how different we want to make the shows, then once we do that and we all get on the same page it’ll be easy to say, “Hey, how ’bout tonight we do it this way?” That way, people aren’t gonna go, “Wow, I saw them last week, and I saw that set.” It would be good to have them see a different set each time. To make people go, “Wow, that was totally different.” It might be totally acoustic for half the set tonight. Or maybe we’ll do half the set on f*cking kazoos! (laughs)

The residency is called Appetite for Democracy. Does that mean it will mostly draw from Appetite for Destruction and Chinese Democracy? I just think somebody came up with a cute term (laughs). I don’t really know where that came from, but it is definitely going to be more than just Appetite and Chinese Democracy. It’s going to be a lot of things—as much as we can throw out there.

You’ve been in Guns N’ Roses almost 15 years, right? Yeah, ’98! F*ckin A!

I know you played on Chinese Democracy, but were you involved in the writing process or was the album already written by the time you joined the band? I came in sort of … in the middle of the record, but there was a lot to write and a lot to put together still. So I was pretty much involved in helping put all that stuff that you hear on Chinese Democracy together in one aspect or another.

When you took over GNR bass duties, did you try to play like Duff McKagan? Or did you try to make it your own? I think, other than him being more riff oriented than I am, we’re not all that different players. We both kind of came from a punk-rock background, and it wasn’t all that much of a stretch. I did, however, tweak my sound a little bit so that it would fit sonically with what was going on. I didn’t really try to sound like Duff necessarily, but to make it sound as powerful as I could while still fitting in to what’s going on.

Did you switch amps or basses? I tried all sorts of stuff, but eventually I went back to what I know. And that’s Ampegs and P and J basses.

I read that you and Paul Westerberg are working on new Replacements material. Yeah, we recorded some songs live in the studio a couple weekends ago to benefit Slim Dunlap, the guitar player that took my brother’s place. He had a massive series of strokes this last spring, and he’s pretty laid up, so we’re trying to raise some money for his recovery. We did, like, four songs. [Ex-Replacements drummer] Chris Mars did a song to throw on there, and we’re going to release a Replacements EP at some point. The proceeds will all go to Slim.

That will surely feed Replacements reunion tour rumor mill … You never know. We certainly had a f*cking ball doing it, and it was fun to get in the f*cking mud and just kind of sling around until it kind of warps into something and you’re just like, “Wow, we can actually still f*cking do that.” I think some time, maybe end of December or early January, we might try to just record some songs together, not for any purpose for The Replacements necessarily but just do some recording just to have that vibe, whether it’s for his record, my record, whatever. That’s just something we talked about. It could fall apart at any point. We both had enough fun with it that it seemed like it would be a good thing to try and do.

During the ’80s, The Replacements exemplified anti-mainstream music. Now, you play in Guns N’ Roses, one of the most popular bands from that period. Was that a strange transition, mentally? Ya know, they’re totally different things, but they’re both totally the same in a lot of ways, in that its rock ’n’ roll. It’s what I’ve always done. Axl is about as anti-corporate-rock as anyone I know, Paul [Westerberg] included. It just so happens that their model of anti-corporate-rock got through and people liked it. People bought it. I can’t speak for the whole band, but I can speak for me getting down with Axl, and he comes from the same place as all of us.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/oct/24/appetite-residency/

Wed, Oct 17, 2012, Las Vegas Weekly, Entertainment

Why are you playing 51 shows—all 50 states plus Washington, D.C.—in 51 days? Dale: We wanted to do something big and dumb (laughs). We had heard George Thorogood attempted [50 shows in 50 states] but never completed it, so we thought it sounded like a cool idea. I guess George’s people got wind that we were attempting it and said “Oh, no, we finished it.”

Do certain shows stand out, or is it all just a blur at this point? Dale: Well, we’re getting to play all these places that we’ve never been before, like Casper, Wyoming. We played like a VFW there, which was a little odd but it turned out to be a great show. Last night we played in this old theater in Charlottesville, Virginia, and obviously we love playing theaters because the sound is so good. Overall, it’s been a really positive experience. When we get to Vegas, it’ll be Vegas, LA, Hawaii and then we’re done. Oh, and the Vegas show is on my birthday, so that should be fun—a Vegas birthday. The show has been moved, like, three times, because for some reason we started selling tickets. Vegas is usually a bust for us, so that’s great news.

Has the way you guys write changed through the years? Buzz: Nothing stays the same, thankfully. I try to remain as open-minded as possible in all areas and not concern myself how it will be perceived by the general public. I make things that I like, and I don’t particularly care what our fans think. I think they should like it. That doesn’t mean they will like it, but I can’t concern myself with those kind of details.

Buzz, you’ve described the Melvins’ sound as “Captain Beefheart, playing heavy metal” stemming from a punk background. What do you think makes music punk? Buzz: Attitude. That’s it. There’s a lot of bands that consider themselves punk rock that I don’t think are at all. But that’s me. I’m a different kind of person. I see things differently. Honestly, I have no idea what motivates people or why they do what they’re doing. I usually don’t trust their motivations, whatever they may be. I can’t fully explain it. I know it when I see it, but we are definitely [punk] more than anything else. In the grand tradition of it, like the Sex Pistols or whoever.

Dale: Punk is doing something completely outrageous and against the grain. It’s as simple as that.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/oct/17/chatting-melvins-mainstays-buzz-osborne-and-dale-c/

Wed, Sep 26, 2012, Las Vegas Weekly, Entertainment

Your August release, Mondo Sex Head, remixes tracks from your catalog. Where did that concept come from? I just thought the music I made had enough of a groove that it worked for remixes. I’ve always liked that sort of music—electronic music—even though I don’t play it. And I liked having them take my songs and rip them apart and see what they come up with.

Did you oversee any of the remixes? No, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, because it kind of defeats the purpose. We would farm out the songs to the mixers—I would just let them run wild—and I would pick the ones I liked.

You’ve got a new album coming out soon. Did Mondo help inspire the songs or styles for that? Strangely enough, no. I thought, “Maybe some of these mixers will get involved with this record,” but it just didn’t happen that way. It’s actually a very band-oriented, live-sounding raw record—a crazy record. So yeah, sort of the exact opposite of the remix record.

You recently directed a new film [The Lords of Salem]. Are there any similarities in the way you approaching making a record and making a movie? The actual work is obviously very different … but the creative process is the same. I mean, when you just boil it down, it’s just you and your brain trying to think of stuff, whether it’s lyrics or a script or just how to visualize anything. So there’s a basic element that’s exactly the same.

How did making a low-budget film like The Lords of Salem compare to making large-production films like Halloween? The funny thing is, when you see the movie, it doesn’t appear to be a low-budget movie. In fact, in a lot of ways it looks like we had more money than we did on Halloween. With each film, I become craftier on how to stretch a buck. Money equals time on a movie—less money means you have less time, and it’s harder because you have less leeway for mistakes. On a movie like Halloween, I think we shot it in 40 days, whereas Lords of Salem we shot in 23 days. And 23 days is pretty fast, especially for a movie of this scope. It’s almost as if every decision has to be right the first time, so there’s a lot pressure in that sense.

What keeps you switching up what you do as much as you do? You never just want to give the fans what they expect. You should always be challenging them, because that’s what makes it interesting. You’re supposed to be the one that takes them on a journey to somewhere else; you don’t want to just keep giving them the same thing, because they will get bored with that. So that’s why I like to mix it up. Sometimes it may upset them for a while, but eventually it always works out. You don’t want 10 albums that are exactly the same and 10 movies that are exactly the same; you’d lose interest. I’ve seen it with a million bands. You just come to expect the same thing all the time and people get bored with it.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/sep/26/ripping-it-rock-vegas-headliner-rob-zombie/

August 8, 2012, Las Vegas Weekly, Noise:

Let’s start by talking about the new record. I’m sure when the record comes out review headlines will read: “Bloc Party returns to rock roots,” or something to that effect. Is that how you feel about the album?

Yeah, I mean I think it is a more rock record than our last record. Personally, I don’t know if it’s a return to anything, to me, it all feels like new ground.

So you didn’t set out to make a more rock record, it just kind of happened naturally?

I think that it’s a more guitar-orientated record, but I think the way that we are playing our guitars on the track is something that we’ve never really done before. So I don’t know, the original game plan that we had was to capture the direct sound that was coming out of the studio.

When you go in to record, do you set out to write danceable rock songs?

Danceable rock songs … I don’t know if that’s a goal. I think that every song is different. You go in trying express whatever is in your head at the moment.

Why did you choose Alex Newport to produce the record instead of Jackknife Lee (who had produced the last two)?

Well, it wasn’t a case of either/or. We wanted to work with someone new, more of an engineer. Someone that was gonna capture the sound and actually show everyone that it was very good.

Your website had a blog post from you about how much you dislike the recording process and in particular how “definite” it is. Does that come out in the finished product?

From the get go we knew we wanted to capture more of a live sound, more of a kind of rough and ready sound. That was always from the outset. And I think the producer was super-conscious about retaining the aesthetics. Unbeknownst to us, he was recording all of the sound in between the takes and all of the random stuff that we were saying, which added to the whole feeling of it put together.

You did keep the album fairly under wraps, you told press that Bloc Party was auditioning new singers and that you had no plans to record any time soon, all while in the midst of this album. Why?

(Laughs) At the time of us working on it, we weren’t even sure what was gonna happen. We hadn’t made music together for three years, so we didn’t want to go in with a whole agenda. We didn’t want that kind of pressure. So when that came out it was just a joke, a way to throw people off the scent. And it blew up, I feel like it became a huge story—which, in itself, is quite funny. I think it’s quite funny.

So you guys are playing Lollapalooza Saturday, right?

Yeah, we are.

Are you guys in Chicago already?

No, right now we’re in Los Angeles. We’ll fly out to Chicago tomorrow morning. Its gonna be a super-intense day.

So when you play a festival like Lollapalooza versus a headlining show where everyone in the crowd is there to see you, do you tailor your set any differently? To catch foot traffic or anything like that?

No, not really. I think that every performance should feel spontaneous. It should feel like you’re tapping into what’s there in the room or what’s there in the field, you know, for that evening. So you just try to be open and perceptive really, to whatever you’re getting from the crowd and that’s the only thing you can be. You don’t cater your set. You know you might change a song you play, but in terms of your performance, it should be pretty comfortable.

You announced that you are going to be touring in shorter spurts, three weeks or less. Why is that?

I think it’s just about sanity, really. Part of the problem we had in the past was that we did a lot of work, we kind of worked non-stop. We’d go from touring for a year, touring the world, to come back to make a record, to touring the world again. We did that, like, three times without any break, we worked really hard. But at the end of that process, maybe the rear end of it, I think we were in a bit of a dark place at the end of that period. And I think, in order to not relive that, we are trying to be a bit more sensible about making sure we have lives outside of the band.

Have you played Vegas a lot?

We played it twice, I think.

Is there anything you look forward to or have to do when you’re in town?

Well, I used to have a really big problem with gambling. And I had I to have a form of rehab for people with gambling problems. So whenever we come to Vegas it’s always a really big test of my strength and my recovery, but I’ve been good—I mean, I’ve been good the last couple times. And it’s always a real challenge for me, but its important to be challenged, that’s how you know you’re doing good. So I’m probably just going to be staying in my hotel room.

Well, I’m looking forward to the show. Are you going to be playing the new record?

Yeah we’re playing the some of the new record. Definitely. I’m looking forward to it.
Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/aug/08/q-kele-bloc-party/

August 8, 2012, Las Vegas Weekly, Noise

Writer’s note: Just before our interview, Peter instant-messaged me: “Just a moment, I’ll turn off the Olympics.”

So, you are watching the Olympics?

Yeah, I’m on the Olympics, yeah. I just spent a couple of weeks, well 10 days, down on the Aegean. I’ve got a little hamlet, a very lovely hamlet that we’ve used for years, we’ve been there every summer with the family. Now, the children are adults, so they’re long people, but I get it in Turkish here, so luckily I speak Turkish. But I’m gonna do LA tomorrow, so I’ll be picking it up in the morning, your time there.

Well, you’ll get the tape-delay feed out here. We get very little live coverage.

You’re kidding! Really? That is not good, is it? Why not? It’s America.

NBC airs it in the U.S., and they made a programming choice to show it that way. It feels like a highlight reel.

That is not on, is it? Someone should really tell them. So how is Las Vegas? You know, I did couple of shows over the past year or two, but I also did this special one-night show called Miracula Weekend, about six months ago. And it was a special, like 25 people maximum, and I offered them a full weekend with me. We put them up in a great hotel and we hired a world-class chef to cook and gave them a reception and basically I swarmed around looking marvelous and being very genial. And played a three-hour set in this amazing house we hired. I thought it might be a little bit too much to ask of my fans. It was just for a one-off special occasion. There are ways that we need to make money to keep our albums funded and all that stuff now. So I was persuaded that it was a really nice idea, and it did work out really well. It was actually quite amazing. So I’m gonna repeat that I think here and there. The next one is gonna be LA, but then I want to move it elsewhere, like London, Paris, who knows wherever. It was great to be there.

Why did you choose Vegas for the first one?

Well, my partner who really broke my teeth with the idea started this a couple of years ago on a very small scale, and he thought why not offer a weekend in Vegas. He called it Sin City All Access. And this was with a very mildly known person, and it sort of started to work. So he then offered it to Daniel Ash, and I just happened to, for the first time in ages since we split, went to Ojai, because I love it there just to have a couple of days off. And I know that Daniel lives there, and that’s where Bauhaus recorded their last album. So I popped a text to Daniel and said I’m going to be in town, you know there’s only one small high street there so we could easily bump into each other and he could get a bit of a shock. So I warned him I said, “Listen, if you don’t want to deal with me or whatever, or I’ll be in town, you might want to be aware of that.” So he texted me back, we had a great time, and I’m thinking, “Wow, he has like no idea what went down.” Well he does, but he’s kind of forgotten it, which is good.

During that time, his little devil horns come out, he’s says, “Hey Pete, there’s this guy who’s offering this extended weekend.” And I’m like, “Wait a minute, who is this guy?” And then, we were going to do it, I wanted him to do it. I said, “I’d love you to do it.” He doesn’t feel comfortable leading that, he’s not that lead man, if you will. So you know, the conversation went that way, and I’m thinking, “You know if you’re talking about Danny Ash and I, that’s like Jimmy Page, Robert Plant basically.” So we’re knocking around the idea and he comes back and Danny gets very tentative and sidesteps and takes forever to make up his mind. He was very uncomfortable about the expectancy of us or him having to play Bauhaus songs. I have no problem, but that’s because I play them anyway.

To me the value of us getting together as well, he’s that powerful of a lead guitarist. My thoughts with Danny are, “You should really value who you are. You are one of the iconic guitarists ever.” Which he can’t handle. And two, “Never mind the other members of that band, there were problems with it. So you and I should make a record. Just think on that.” So there we are, it was a nice meeting and suddenly he gets very worried about it and I understood. It was just about revisiting the Bauhaus songs in his head. So I went to him and got in contact with the guy and that’s how that came about. So we’ll be coming there soon again.

This is like a last little underplay, I just played to 6,000 people in Chile and 4,000 in Argentina, but I don’t care about having to play massive sizes. The reality of the industry is not a lot of people are going out to shows now, even in America. I’ve toured it three times in the last 18 months, and what I do love is to connect with the sure-fire hardcore audience. And it’s one last, little nod to the Ninth album, this little spat, which is like a West Coast run and one in New York. So I’m gonna take Ours out with me.

It’s gonna be close up, you can see my tits and all that. (Laughs) ’Cause I’m old now. I’ve got tits. (Laughs) I’ve got 50-year-old tits! It’s terrible. No, no, I’ll get them raised up a little bit. I’m just gonna start that awful macho thing where you have to lift sh*t, terrible really. I’m English! I shouldn’t have to do that. Somebody should lift them for me. (In proper British Accent) You come here, lift these, then have yourself washed, oiled, scented and brought to my room. (Laughs)

That’s hilarious.

Well, the English are completely bonkers so, just admit it.

Yeah, who isn’t?

We do everything f*cking brilliantly, in a really odd way.

You’ve lived in Turkey for years. Do you root for Britain or Turkey in the Olympics?

Well, England if they’ve got a shot at it. But I root for—for instance Michael Phelps is brilliant, or was. Eight medals last time, come on, he’s brilliant. And then there’s China, they’ve got the demographic of like Mars, so why wouldn’t they win a medal? It’s ridiculous. They’re kind of automatons anyway, aren’t they? They’re all one person. It’s kind of boring. “Alright, another Chinese, well done.” They just seem to be the inscrutable Chinese. But it’s cool. The Americans are bastards again, they keep winning sh*t and the Brits are like “Uh, we invented everything and we’re third at the most.” It’s like f*ck off. The Americans are brilliant though, it’s like swimming is brilliant. I mean, basketball, yes, you’re on. Boring. But things like women’s handball, it’s brilliant, and then volleyball. Anyway … Yes, I’m still marvelous, really good looking. I was in that band once, but I’m much better. I’ve outsold the band multiple times, but they still keep calling me Peter Murphy of Bauhaus. And I keep saying Bauhaus of Peter Murphy. I’m a really good singer, I can make really good music and I’m up for it still. So that’s basically the short and tall of it. (Laughs)

What do you think of being known as the “Godfather of Goth”?

Well, you say it. But anybody who comes fresh to the show, and if they break through the barrier of this label, they think, “Oh my god, I don’t want to go to a Goth show.” They come, they go, “What the f*ck? This is amazing.” This is nothing to do with what they thought it was. So that’s the only thing, which is a bit of a lead weight, this moniker, although on the other hand if somebody is paying attention, very good. Because once I get them in the door or under the headphones, they’re fine, they’re cool, they’re all good. But then, it’s just the persistent math of myth, isn’t it? And labeling. I’m sure everybody has a kind of “tag,” actors, all sorts of people. So I am very philosophical about it and I must say, I’m very honored to be considered a legend. Which is kind of like, I can’t really see that. If you’re gorgeous and look in the mirror, you don’t really say, “Wow, that’s f*cking awesome.” Well, maybe you do, if you’re Marilyn Manson. But the English are very modest really, you wouldn’t guess it with the way I’m talking. We’re quite understated, we like to be understated. So, I don’t get angry about it. I just say “Well, thank you. You’re quite kind.”

Do you think the music you are making now, like Ninth, do you consider that Goth?

I never considered Bauhaus Goth. Remember, the culture was germinated after by such bands who were kind of copyists almost. Sisters of Mercy, that stuff and Alien Sex Fiend and all those kids, they kind of spawned out of a spark that I think we kicked ass at. But it was only one element of what I do, I’m more of a theatrical. I’m one of those one-off’s I think. I’m like a Mick Jagger. I’m more like a Doors, Morrison or Jagger, Sinatra, those people. But I do think that I can make a dance record and it’ll be good, hopefully, I mean if I make it well, of course. I think what I’ve got is very rare, and it’s a great voice and lyricism. And I am one of those people who tend to be overlooked. They called me the new Bowie in 1980 and I’m like, “F*ck that.” I thought, “No way.” Ya know? Great respect. But actually it’s true in a way, but I don’t think I’ve reached that point of mass recognition, in the way you might have expected to.

I actually think I’m quite avant-garde in a way. Sort of artful music, which is also quite eclectic. It can be beautifully symphonic, it can be beautifully atmospheric, charismatic classic ballads. It can also be hard as f*ck, it can be hard as Metallica or even harder because it’s more spikier. It’s hard for people to place me except to say “Oh, he’s got high cheek bones, he’s the father of Goth.” Ya know? But I’m working on it and I’m patient to it. Everything has its own reason and we can never see the four-dimensional aspects of any situation, we can only ever see it front on. So I’m not one to moan really. I work bloody hard. I’ve done over 150-160 shows since Ninth.

I think if I were a fan, I would really want to be at a Peter Murphy gig, because there’s not many like it. It’s not about grandiose, massive hits. Although, I’ve got my own amongst my audience. Of course, many people really know my work and my name, so much that I’m amazed by it really. Outside of what one might imagine. And I think my early music was like a seed for later things like Radiohead, that British independent thing. I think we were closer to Joy Division than Siouxsie and the Banshees. We took that and introduced intelligent art surrealism and in our case f*cking mind-blowing theatrics, and I don’t think anybody’s really matched it. So I am a bit mad, so I thought I’d be perfect as an actor, because I’ve acted all my life on stage. So I’ve been going to LA a lot, meeting people who are these major players and are like, “Peter Murphy? Wow.” And I’m like, “Well thank you. Give me a part.” And they say, “Alright then.”

Is that how you landed a part in Twilight: Eclipse?

Well, I was trying to pitch my music to New Moon … A couple of months later I get this email … from David Slade, who’s been brought in, English director, to do Eclipse. I knew his work from Hard Candy. And he said, “Would you please consider a cameo role?” He was a great fan, he said of my work in the ’80s and in his formative years. He listened to Bauhaus up in Leeds and da da da da. And I said, “Well, yes please.” He said himself that it’s like a bookend to my appearance in Hunger, which is where I opened the Tony Scott film starring David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. So that was great.
Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/aug/08/chatting-peter-murphy-about-olympics-bauhaus-and-t/

August 1, 2012 Las Vegas Weekly, Noise

Winter is coming. Johnny, that is. And his band.

You’ve been playing blues for 40-plus years. Do you ever feel restricted by the genre? No, I love the blues. This is all I want to do. I have no desire to do anything else.

Was it tough to break the “white kid playing the blues” stigma when you started out? You couldn’t really play blues for white people back then. It wasn’t till those English guys started playing it that white people wanted to hear it. … When The Rolling Stones made it, I said, “I have got to be able to make it, because I’m 100 times better than those guys (laughs). They got good, but they weren’t too good when they first started.

Who were your early blues heroes? Muddy [Waters], of course. And B.B. King and T-Bone Walker.

You were credited with reviving Muddy’s career when you produced 1977’s Hard Again. What was it like working on his record? So much fun. … Muddy said in an interview [that] I knew all his music better than he did. I don’t think that was true, but it was nice of him to say it.

Any up-and-coming blues artists you keep an eye on? Jason Ricci. He’s a harmonica player, and he’s real good.

I read there’s a documentary in the works, shadowing you on tour. Yeah, we’re in the process of making it right now. It’s fun, and it’s overdue. This sh*t should have happened a long time ago.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/aug/01/trading-licks-bluesman-johnny-winter/

June 20, 2012 Las Vegas Weekly, Noise

Primus went 12 years between albums. What motivated you to record 2011’s Green Naugahyde?

There’s always that “What are we doing next?” when I look at all the pots on the stove. I got to talking to Ler [guitarist Larry LaLonde], and he was very anxious to do it, so we got together and played with [drummer] Jay Lane, and it just felt good and sounded amazing. [But] I didn’t want to do another nostalgia tour; if we’re gonna tour, we need to make a record.

You’re playing with Fishbone in Vegas. You’ve toured with Slayer. You’ve toured with Portugal. The Man. What do you think it is about your music that allows for such flexibility?

Well, when we toured with Slayer it was with the Ozzfest, and Sharon [Osbourne] was very hesitant about putting Primus on the bill. But we did it, and it ended up being great. We’ve always been that band that you can’t really get under your thumb—nobody knows what the hell to call us. We opened for U2 back in the day; we’ve opened for Rush, Jane’s Addiction … tonight Gogol Bordello is opening for us. I personally like to bring pretty obscure bands out with us. Not knocking Slayer, but when it’s my choice of bands that open for us, they tend to be pretty eclectic.

The concept of working-class America runs through a lot of Primus’ catalog. What about that inspires you?

I come from a long line of auto mechanics. My dad was a mechanic, my step-dad, my uncles, my grandfather were all mechanics, and I grew up in semi-rural suburbia. We were trained to be worker bees. Most of the guys I knew in high school went on to work at Standard Oil. I [also] tend to have a soft spot for old cars.

What do you drive?

I’ve got a big yellow truck and a green bronco, in various stages of repair or disrepair. It’s a little bit like Sanford and Son around my house.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/jun/20/four-questions-primus-les-claypool/