INTERVIEW: Edward Rogers

Photo by J.F. Vergal

The “Kaye” record is such a beautiful tribute to Kevin Ayers – can you tell me how it come about and about Ayers influence on you?

It’s funny.  I’ve always been a fan of Kevin Ayers…various times in the last performing years of his life, he came over to the US and was doing these really small rooms, like believe it or not, the back of a vegetarian restaurant.  I caught up with some of his music and bought the original import records that he had out, and he seemed like a person who never really needed anything but just kind of drifted through life.  He was a very gifted individual who never really reached his potential because he didn’t need to – he had the gift of being really good looking and charming, charming to serve his own needs to a certain extent.  He was somewhat self-destructive in a lot of ways, but his music never reflected that.  It was always very beautiful, these English country tunes with a lovely melody.  I didn’t consciously set out to make a tribute record, but something about how work was really inspiring.  He had the Soft Machine in the early days which was really experimental, and I was going down a road where I had all these songs that just kind of lined up with his influence.   I had heard about his passing – he had died about 2 years ago in Spain - and read an article about how he had been found in his room after three days alone, and sadly no one had bothered to look for him.  The last words he had wrote, found on the bed next to him, were “you don’t shine if you don’t burn”.   I dug into the words a little bit more and wrote the song called “Kaye” all about Kevin Ayers.  That song really summarized how I felt about him – that he was sort of a cavalier in his life.   All of a sudden, all of these sings I had written took on a different meaning and they felt like they could relate to his life, and at that point I thought I should cover a Kevin Ayers song.  I had always wanted to do “After the Show”, so it all seemed to make sense and I saw meanings to all of the songs that I hadn’t seen before. 

You pulled together some amazing musicians for the record, working with people like (Bongos guitarist) James Mastro who is a really thrilling player.  Was it a matter of calling up folks and seeing who was interested or did you have certain musicians in mind?

Well, James had played on at least two of the albums I had worked on, and I have known him about 20 years. He’s such a good guy and a really inventive guitarist, always tasteful in what he plays.  Without me initially telling him where we were going with the project, he had already come up with guitar parts and sounds that were very similar to what I was hearing in my head, so I just let him do what he does! (laughs)   When we got further along and I gave more of that (backstory) away, he really didn’t need any coaching at all.  The producer on the album, Don Piper, I had played him some Kevin Ayers songs and told him that I wanted a similar vibe without copying it – I wanted it to still be me, but I wanted him to be aware of that kind of flow of music in the overall performance of the players.  They were all really, really good players, and they understood the simplicity sometimes that’s necessary to make the songs stand out, but at the same time every song has a really great feel to it. 

Oh yeah, the arrangements are all really solid and the playing is nicely understated, servicing the song without really calling attention to itsel, servicing the song without really calling attention to itself.

Yeah, there wasn’t one track that took more than three takes, and so much of it was recorded live off the floor.  I mean, we would go back here and there and fix a bum bass note or keyboard part that we wanted to fix, but we basically recorded the entire album in 4 days.  There’s one song on there called “Peter Pan’s Dream” which we had no rehearsals for. I had a basic structure in mind, but we just jammed out a 28-minute version of the song, which we then edited down to 8 minutes. 

Wow…will the original jam ever see the light of day?

You know what, I listened to it the other day and am thinking about just putting it up on Soundcloud or something. For those who are crazy enough to sit through 28 minutes, here ya go, mates! (laughs)

I would love to hear that.  That seems really in tune with Kevin Ayers’ spirit, though…you work on the song for as long as it takes to find the heart of it, and it may take you 28 minutes to get there.

Yeah, it was cool because everyone stayed on tracked and was so focused.   We moved in to several different kinds of music – there was some jazz going on, some Coltrane, a little bit of everybody hanging on by their coattails.  Even the 8-minute version has that spirit, I think.  You can sense some of the early Soft Machine days in that.  When “Kaye” came along and we were working on the record, I never realized how well these songs held together. 

Aside from Ayers, what other influences do you bring to your writing?  How does your songwriting work?

I always start by trying to put down the lyrics first, but if a melody comes along I will try to put it against the words and see if they fit.  In the early days I would never do this, but now I’ll write the lyrics and have a melody in my head and if it’s still there in a couple of days I will tighten up the words and tighten up the melody and I know we’re heading somewhere with the song.  The great thing is with the advent of Garageband and things like that you can put down a melody really easily with any instrument you want – one part may be a cello and the next part a recorder – and it makes it really easy to get the song flowing. Having the ability to have all of those instruments in front of me really expands the palette a lot. 

Do you find yourself tapping into your English heritage at all?

Yeah. Two albums back, “Sparkle Lane”, was all about what it was like coming to America – good and bad.  My roots are that I was born in Birmingham and I left at a time when England was in a musical explosion, so coming here was really strange at the time. It was kind of like, the world is happening in London and we are going to New York? (laughs)  Songwriters like Ray Davies and people like that are obviously still in my musical DNA. 

Your band was named by Colin Blunstone and you recently did some dates with him, so I can see where that influence would be seen in your songwriting. 

He’s a really inspirational person, one of the most genuine men.  He is amazing, because when you think of his abilities to sing and to motivate, he’s always got motivational words for you while you sit there in awe of him.  He has been a great support to me.  And he used to work with a gentleman by the name of Duncan Browne, who is another musician I adore.  Basically, a couple of the acoustic tracks, we had Pete Kennedy playing with us and we were definitely going after a Duncan Browne type of sound. 

Awesome!  So what’s on the horizon for you after the record comes out (July 8^th)?

I’ve been writing for the past six or eight months, and I have the luxury of having about 30 songs in an English country-folk vein.  I have also been writing with another fellow, J.F. Vergel, in a much more challenging way – he’s been pushing me to sing a different style.  So, there are a couple of projects going on right now that I’m looking at.  Yesterday, I had my first session with Don Piper, and I told him to listen to these eleven songs I wrote with J.F. and tell me which direction I should be going.  There’s no lack of ideas at this point, it’s just a matter of finding the right direction to move in and start recording again.

...and we're back!

I could spend the next few sentences writing  some rambling preamble about how busy my life has been and how the world sometimes just gets in the way, but you deserve better than that...so here's a shot of Zip the Chimp and my promise that the rock n' roll tomfoolery will return!   

Peace love and smoking monkeys,

Your intrepid blogger

REVIEW: Peter Murphy w/ Ringo Deathstarr @ Town Ballroom, 6/14

What a difference a name makes.  Playing just last year under the guise of celebrating 35 years of Bauhaus, Murphy had sold out the joint, playing to a sea of black fishnets and guyliner.  Tonight there were MAYBE 150 people in attendance to hear what turned out to be a rather solid run through some of his newest material.  Having forgone a tour in support of 2011’s so-so “Ninth” in order to trot out the Bauhaus (and armed with tunes from the just-released and far superior “Lion”), Murphy’s set drew largely from his latest works.  Opener “Hang Up” roared with the same authority as it does on the new album, Murphy’s voice hoarsely but definitively bellowing in his upper register over the slash and throb of his crack backing ensemble.  New guitarist Andee Blacksugar is a far less-textural player than his predecessor, goth mainstay Mark Gemini-Thwaite; his guitar crunched like a young Daniel Ash, giving the newer material a heavy, glam feel.  Sprinkled amidst the new material were a couple of older gems like “Cuts You Up” and “Deep Ocean Vast Sea” and the obligatory Bauhaus stuff (a brisk “Silent Hedges” and a version of “She’s In Parties” that meandered into dub territory).  To his credit, the newer stuff sounded more vital than the older material, even if it was tougher to sing along with. The songs were good, the band was fairly tight (after some early drum issues) and Murphy himself sounded better than he has in years, but ultimately the set came off as more respectable than incendiary.  Perhaps it was the crowd, or the less-than-balanced setlist, but something seemed “off”.  Even still, it was a fine set.

On the other hand, Austin-based openers Ringo Deathstarr blew the place away with a mixture of volume and melody.  Trading vocals throughout, bassist Alex Gehring and guitar-terrorist Elliott Frazer sounded like the bastard child of Swervedriver and Small Factory.  Sweet harmonies were drowned in waves of Jazzmaster guitar squall and bends and the insistent throb of Gehring’s bass…the band brought a fresh spin to heavy shoegaze and psych without sounding like slavish imitators.  They were loud, thrilling and a welcome surprise!  (And, quite frankly, they showed up the headliner - sometimes overdriven amps and passion speak louder than melodrama.)  

INTERVIEW: A Conversation with Glen Phillips of Toad the Wet Sprocket

The new album is great, and I think the best compliment I can give it is that it doesn't sound like it picked up right after “Coil”…the songs are imbued with 15 years of your and the band’s growth.  How did “New Constellation” come about and have you been surprised by the reception to it?

I don’t know about surprised, but definitely pleased.  We hoped that we weren't deluding ourselves when we put this out and I think we waited long enough that we made the record we had hoped to make and made it worth getting back together.  I think we could have gotten back together a few years earlier and made something that wasn't quite up to snuff (laughs), and that’s why we didn't.  We all needed to be on the same page again and say something new together.  Hopefully we did that.

Were there any expectations you felt getting back together to put something into this album different than you would a solo record or WPA or one of the other collectives you work with?

There are just some major differences with Toad – it’s a two-guitar band, and it has a lot to do with Todd’s guitar tone and his attitude towards writing parts, his melodic sense.  About half the songs, Todd starts musically so there is a different voice involved in the writing, of course.  And there is the way Randy and Dean play, the way they interpret the vocalists. It was nice for me to be able to write for a rock band again, to write for three vocals and harmonies, and to write something that I wouldn't necessarily have to pull off with a single acoustic guitar.  It was a lot of fun…it wasn't Americana, it was a rock/pop band.

I thought that it was very interesting that you revisited “Enough” from the solo thing and repurposed Todd’s song for “I’ll Bet on You”.   What made you think to salvage those for the Toad album?

I didn't really fully release “Coyote Sessions” – I've just been selling it at shows and it’s really the kind of album you just dump out the back of a truck (laughs).  I needed to get it out of my system, and I like the version of “Enough” on there, but that song was kind of conceived as a little larger and grander and more dramatic.  And I also felt like I hadn't finished writing it to some degree…I wrote the song with this guy John Taylor, not the one from Duran Duran, and the ending went on for a bit but it didn't reach the crescendo that it does on the Toad version.  I felt like we had a lot of mid-tempo, pop-ish songs, but most Toad records have had a strong song that hits a little harder emotionally, and we were lacking that moment.  I knew that song would fill that space properly.

Sure.  You have songs like “I Will Not Take These Things For Granted” or “All Things In Time” that wind up their records in really defining ways, and “Enough” does that for this one. 

Yeah, I agree. 

Your band has been kind of unfairly lumped in with some lighter-weight bands…the album “Pale” is as bleak as anything by Joy Division!  There is some pretty dark stuff that you very deftly balance with the more uplifting or romantic ideas in your songs. Is that something that you do consciously?

It’s part of the writing, and it’s part of me, so it shows up.  I’m prone to melancholy, but I tend towards the more subdued expressions of that instead of pull on angst and edginess.  Talk to a goth…part of being depressed is seeing how much beauty there is and how much people stomp on it, how vulnerable we are.  There is a fair admission of beauty, but I tend to balance that with an admission of darkness.  Even on this records, the song “Life Is Beautiful” – Todd came in with the music for that and he had the chorus, “Life is beautiful / Life is beautiful”.  I tried really, really hard to get rid of that line, and I couldn't come up with something that sang well, and as much as it sounds like a happy chorus, the song is pretty close to suicidal. It’s kind of poised in that moment of choosing to re-engage and not totally give in to despair.  I think that’s what makes the chorus forgivable, because the verses are so heavy. There were alternate lyrics on the second verse, one of which was “Love will fuck you up”, but we chose not to go with that (laughs). 

Our other records, we put those out before Elliott Smith made it ok to be mellow again.  In the ‘90s, there was a sense that if you weren't screaming then you weren't really feeling anything…which is not to say I don’t love bands that scream, but I’m not a screamer myself, and I think we got lumped in with lighter bands because of that.  And you have to look for it.  If you listen to “All I Want”, and all you listen to is the chorus, you think it’s about happiness instead of about how quickly happiness disappears (laughs).  It’s the price of subtlety, I guess.  I have a lot of ham-fisted lyrics, but I’m trying to get better. 

You’ve been at this now almost 30 years…did you ever think you would still be at this, working with some of the same people that you were as a teen?

Uh, no (laughs).  Absolutely not.  I’m as shocked as anyone, and happy that Toad managed to get it together again.  We found ourselves able to get on the same page, which a lot of bands can’t do or force themselves to do when clearly there’s no soul in it anymore.  It’s not to say it’s always been easy, but we were able to meet and able to all want to make this work. We went through the same thing every band went through…pick your episode of “Behind the Music”, and we did something like that.  But, it’s been good to get to go back and do that but I’m also excited about continuing to have the variety I've become accustomed to, so I’ll keep doing other things as well.  I’m just starting writing for my next project. But I’m also really excited to be going out this summer and doing the tour with Counting Crows.  It’s good days. 

You and Counting Crows have a lot of similarities lyrically and aesthetically – how did the tour come about?

I just gave Adam a call and checked in and asked what they were doing this summer.  He said he had gotten the record and how about we tour together, and I said “I think that’s a great idea” (laughs) 

You mentioned that you are in the early stages of writing for your next project, so what’s on tap next for you and for the band?

I don’t really know.  We haven’t really talked about it.  I am sure that we will play shows here and there. It’s been a really long time since I have done a proper album, so I am excited about pursuing that and getting back to some of my more obscure projects.  John Askew and I want to do another Remote Tree Children record and that is something that we can kind of send back and forth to each other because it’s a lot of samples and electronics.  There is a lot I like to do.  The strange thing about Toad is that once it gets moving it’s kind of all-encompassing, so when I get home it’s the last year that two of my girls will be home – they’re starting to head off to college, so I’m trying to be available when I’m home and soak up these days when we’re still a family of five living in the same house.  For me, it’s just trying to satisfy the other parts of my creativity.  I really like variety, and I have become pretty accustomed to that.  I like having a project to write to and a palette to write to, and it’s been really cool to think about what that palette will be for my next record and who I want to work with and how to make that happen.

A random, kind of obscure question for you: I was a huge fan of “Winter Pays For Summer”, which I know was born out of the “lost” album, “Tornillo”.  What went into the decision to scrap the sessions with David Garza and go back and re-record a lot of that?

I was kind of catastrophically depressed when we recorded that record, and I really wasn't able to communicate effective.  David had stuff going on in his life as well, his marriage was unraveling, and I was vomiting my feelings.  It was hard for us to get on the same page.  I mean, David’s a freaking genius, but we were not seeing eye to eye, so it was hard to make a record.   Sometimes you can have a situation like that where it’s edgy in the right way and everything works, and sometimes it just fizzles a little, and I just wasn't able to make it work.  Coming from that experience, I had new management and was being represented by AWARE, and they were really hoping that I could get on the radio again…so was I, for that matter.  It was strange, because after Toad broke up was really the beginning of the major changes in the music industry and I had no idea how to navigate those changes and took it really personally.  They got together with John Fields, who is a great guy and tons of fun to work with, and he wanted to make a big pop record.  It was an interesting process to enter into.  I also got friends that I had worked with before, Jon Brion and Pete Thomas and a lot of really players, and we ultimately made a record that was probably a little more “pop” than I feel my center is, but there were a lot of great songs and I got the opportunity to write a lot more and refine what the album should be.  I’m really proud of that record.  

In the years since then, I've been really busy making records while in the process of getting dropped from a label (laughs).  I made “Mr. Lemons”…I was intending on doing a record in Nashville with Neillson Hubbard, and then the label said, “how about some demos instead”, and I knew basically that I was getting dropped.  So I took the demo money and made “Mr. Lemons” far too early…I needed something that I could tour solo acoustic on, and most of the records I have made since then were reactions to situations instead of really sitting down and asking myself what the next creative statement I wanted to make.  I feel like when I did “Secrets of the New Explorers” or WPA or Plover, those were all feeling like screw strategy, screw commerciality, screw anybody’s need of what they want me to do.  I am just going to make records for myself. And so I did, but there was no label, no promotion, and so I would like to make another record that I hope maybe somebody will hear (laughs)

I would think that the new Toad album would buy you some increased visibility and the ability to do that.  A lot of fans you know to look for your stuff, but “New Constellation” should hopefully widen your fan base and make the next thing more accessible. 

It may, or it may not.  I have kind of gotten past seeing it personally.  My friend Teitur was talking a while ago about making records and his attitude was that you only get to make a handful of these things and nobody may ever even hear them, so you may as well try to make something great every time you do it.  I have put out records before because I had to make a living, I had to go on tour, I had to support my family…and they all have good songs and worthy creative expression on them, but I wasn't making them from the point of view of pure creative freedom and asking, “what do I truly want to achieve right now?”  It was more like, “I need to get this next batch of songs out or we don’t eat!” (laughs)   And writing and recording from that point of view is problematic.  So, what I am looking forward to is having the time to make something that is creatively worthy and well thought out and that is sounds like what I really want it to sound like, not anything strategic.  I’ll just keep making music, and maybe people will hear it and maybe they won’t.  Right now, it’s just great making music with Toad and having people show up because they want to hear it!

Happy birthday, you beautiful bloggy bastard!

It was just over a year ago today that dream became a reality and this blog was born.  It's been fruitful and frustrating (often at the same time!), but I am humbled and honored by the generosity of the artists, publicists, and labels who have shared their time and music.  Mostly, though, I'm thankful for those of you who check in and find worth in the things that are posted...music is inherently personal and sharing the conversations I've had and the things I have listened to or thought about has been a blast...

Some upcoming stuff to look forward to:

- Interviews with Toad the Wet Sprocket's Glen Philips, power pop impresario Paul Collins, and punk rock demi-god and lifer Mike Watt!

- Reviews of the Buffalo PRIDE festival Ambush! show (featuring JD Samson, formerly of Le Tigre), SWANS, and several others

So, thank you for your patronage, and hoist a glass to hopefully several more fruitful years!  

- JP

FIRST IMPRESSION: Bob Mould – Beauty & Ruin

If age is what it takes to be this passionate, how can I unleash the 53 year old inside?  Simply put, “Beauty & Ruin” is a masterful, exciting and joyously cathartic journey through pain and loss to an understanding and appreciation of life on the other side from an artist who has spent over 30 years grappling with these very themes.   For Bob Mould, “beauty” and “ruin” are flip sides of the same coin, two conjoined states that can’t exist without the other, and the album works its way from desolation and defeat to jubilance in 3-4 song chunks.  A heady (and potentially problematic) thematic arc for sure, and the conceit wouldn't matter if the songs didn’t hold up – but sweet Jebus, do they!  The fact that a full third of the material here sounds like it could have been written during sessions for “Flip Your Wig” and that they feel thrilling rather than desperate or pandering is a testament to Mould’s skills as a songwriter.  There is a vigor to these performances that belies Mould’s age.  Artists in their 50s are expected to mellow and reflect on their mortality (Dylan’s excellent “Time Out of Mind” being the template)…well, this Bob didn't get the memo!  He thrashes his way through the songs here (abetted greatly by longtime foils Jason Narducy on bass and Jon Wurster on drums) with the same level of energy that he had in the latter days of Husker Du and throughout his tenure in Sugar.

And that is truly one of Mould’s greatest gifts – he is able to look to his past for reference points without ever becoming beholden to them or making the songs sound like retreads of past glories.  Opener “Low Season” swims in the same gray seas as 1990’s “Black Sheets of Rain” and stunning centerpiece “The War” sounds like an ace lost song from “File Under: Easy Listening”.  A nice little trick is the one Mould pulls on the album’s two final tunes.  If this were truly a “middle age” album, the thing would bow out gracefully with the sweet reverie of “Let The Beauty Be”, one of the most truly lovely songs in Mould’s canon.   When the song fades, however, the band kicks back in with the raging but upbeat “Fix It”, a fake-out coda that ends the album on a triumphant note.  If 2012’s “Silver Age” found Mould coming to terms with his legacy, “Beauty & Ruin” finds him embracing it…the whole, bloody, joyous, messy lot of it...and creates what might stand as the best solo album of his career in the process.  

INTERVIEW: The Wit and Wisdom of John Petkovic (Death of Samantha/Sweet Apple/Cobra Verde)

courtesy of Death of Samantha

Journalist and purveyor of all things “real”, indie rock icon John Petkovic knows how to talk.  And talk.  Over a freewheeling 45 minute conversation that covered everything from the charms of Buffalo, NY architecture to “heritage” rockers’ use of technology, we rarely strayed into the territory of straight dirt about the reformed Death of Samantha and their fab “new” record, “If Memory Serves Us Well”.  Thus, while the chat with John was an engaging and stimulating one for your blogger, it would largely be a slog for the rest of you (the several minutes wherein John and I discuss him coming to visit the Buffalo area over the summer is charmingly sycophantic and best left to your imagination) therefore, in lieu of our standard conversational interview, it is my pleasure to offer up several of John’s more intriguing and salient bon mots…enjoy!

On Death of Samantha’s “new album”, “If Memory Serves Us Well”:

The funny thing is, we didn't decide to really get back together…it just kind of happened.  I’m not the kind of guy to look back on things, so the title is literally about how I NEVER even listened to the old material before we got together to play it! The drummer kept telling me, “you’re not playing it right!”  I don’t live in the past, not because I am above sentimentality, but I just don’t remember it! (laughs)  I have this amnesia…my mind just doesn't process these things.  I am like some sci-fi character who is always trapped in the present.   When we recorded, everything was a work in progress…the recorded versions of things are codified in the minds of people as THE versions, but that’s only one moment in time.  So I didn't think I needed to listen to the old stuff…if memory serves ME well, I will remember what I need to remember! 

On DOS’s reformation:

I think people are used to bands of that time getting back together for various reasons. For us, I just happened to go out for a pack of cigarettes and the guy who plays bass happened to be standing there in the street smoking a cigarette!  I haven’t seen you in years!  And the guitar player, Doug (Gillard), had been playing in town about three days earlier and we ran into each other.  The drummer and I see each other around from time to time, and he said, “hey would you like to work together on a project?” and I thought, “well, here we have 3 of the 4 people in the band!”  And with Doug just in town, we thought maybe we could jam some DoS tunes.  I’m not trying to make some magical thing out of it, but if I hadn't gone out for a cigarette that day (laughs)…we wouldn't be playing!  We got back together for the opposite reason that so many of these other bands did.  We are contrarian in some weird way…the last thing I’d want to do is what everyone else is doing!  What I think is really special about the DoS thing is that we all started when we were between the ages of 15 and 19…we started at a very early age.  There are very few bands whose entry point was at such an early age, it is highly unlikely that people like that continue to play after college.  But 25 years later, we still continue to all play music!  It's like choosing the field you want to work in in middle school and sticking it out for 25 years.  That’s pretty incredible and impossible…it never happens.  

On what’s “real”:

The marketing of our time is really the marketing of “authenticity”, you know, which I find really weird.  I did a story on the “authenticity scam” about how everyone is trying to market and sell everything to you as this is “organic” and this is “artisanal”.  I walked into a bar and a friend of mine was in from California, and he wanted to know what craft brews we have.  And I walked in and asked if I could see the list of the machine-crafted macrobrews (laughs).  My friend thought that was typical of us Cleveland folk, but I explained that I’m just ahead of the curve because the craft brew phenomenon has even hit Cleveland!  It’s so saturated…it’s the whole cult of authenticity and people want to believe that everything they do is “real”.  Everyone has their own set of propaganda.  The whole “farm to table” thing…are you telling me that I should be buying watermelons from Cleveland???  Because there aren't any!  And really what is farm to table?  Isn't there a butcher involved somewhere in there?  It seems like being not a part of the herd is the new herd!  Everyone wants to feel special and unique. 

On his love of Buffalo, NY:

I've always had a soft spot for Buffalo.  There’s some amazing architecture there – I have a friend who’s a documentary filmmaker and I told him that he should do a film on the buildings there.  You also have some great sports teams – I mean, the original ones were the Buffalo Braves baseball team but the Bills have such an interesting history too.  It must have been an amazing city to experience in its heyday of the 1930s and 1940s.

On Sweet Apple’s new records:

We just recorded a new record and its coming out soon…actually we got two albums recorded, three singles.  It was insane.  That’s why it’s not bullshit when I say I can’t go back in time.  I have so much going on NOW.  It’s fucking insane trying to take care of everything in the here and now.  I am pretty stoked on the Sweet Apple thing right now…we have a lot of videos and I like to have a hundred things going on at the same time.  We have a video for one song, which we recorded in Los Angeles, and I've known J (Mascis) from really early on, probably the first time we played New York…Mark Lanegan sings on the song, and Mike Watt is in this video and I've known him forever.  People that you meet early on in your formative times, those are the people that you are on the same page with and you continue to be friends with…there weren't a lot of us in the mid-80s, so we kind of had to gravitate towards one another.   We got into it when there was no money to be made, and it was just passion-driven…you can’t quantify that. 

On what continues to inspire him:

I’m a walking disaster otherwise! (laughs)  Dude, I am in a relationship with the clouds.  I’m in like fucking five bands, and people question why I do all that…if I didn't, I would go crazy! And it’s ok to be at peace, but those people who say that they are fully in communication with the world?  I feel bad for those people.  Music and art is an abstract thing that is an attempt to grapple with the flaws in our language.  There should be some mystery and mysticism…simple language is not enough and music and art, you never master those languages.  It’s an abstract communication, and that pushes me.  It’s tough, because so many musicians are worried about losing their audience, and it’s a fine line you have to walk…you have to not care about what you are putting out or be wired in such a way that you don’t think about it.  Someone like Brian Eno, for example, isn't wired to think that way I would think and his career has probably been more rewarding and even financially lucrative because of it.  That’s the way to be.