When Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie arrived at their favorite hometown video store in Wellington, New Zealand, earlier this year, the straight-faced musical comedy duo found it difficult to hide the feeling that something was terribly wrong. The longtime friends—known the world over as Flight of the Conchords—had arrived for an in-store performance supporting the first season DVD release of their hit HBO series, but what was supposed to have been a small gathering of store clerks and neighborhood friends had quickly turned into an unwelcome free-for-all. As Clement and McKenzie stepped from their car with acoustic guitars in hand, they were met by a throng of screaming fans and prying news reporters. Making a quick break for the door while slowing to answer the occasional journalist, it became abundantly clear that for this pair of wide-eyed Kiwis, the age of innocence was over.

Only a week before the video store fracas—an event that saw more than 300 people clamoring for position in a space meant for only 30—Clement and McKenzie returned from the United States to their native New Zealand with the 2008 Grammy for Best Comedy Album, thus becoming the first non-North American artists to win the illustrious award. In capturing top honors for their EP, The Distant Future, Flight of the Conchords joined the ranks of such American comedic legends as Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Bill Cosby, George Carlin and Eddie Murphy—all the while playing to the beat of their own drum; or in this case, to the sound of indie-influenced, genre-specific pop melodies. Though the award undoubtedly contributed to the band’s over-zealous hometown reception, the pair seems to approach accolades and fame in the same casual manner as it does its humor. “I didn’t even know there was an award for comedy,” says Clement, laughing. “We’d been up for things before, but we would never win them. We’re the perennial runners-up.” And when confronted with their new celebrity status, Clement quips, “I don’t know too much about stardom, but what has increased is my annoyed-dom. I know that.”

Although both are quick to point out that the characters they play on stage and television are nothing more than fictional personas, it’s difficult to divorce the quirky, dry sensibilities of the Bret and Jemaine of make-believe from the Bret and Jemaine of real life. When McKenzie explains how he’s been playing a corpse on a friend’s low-budget horror flick, it’s with the same good nature that his imaginary television character would announce his new job as a human billboard selling hot dogs on the streets of New York. And when Clement complains about the chaotic scene at the video store, it sounds strikingly similar to his stage character’s stories of snagging a quickie in between laundry loads and sorting the recyclables. In fact, Clement and McKenzie do the we’re-funny-but-don’t-realize-it bit so well, that you actually believe them when they say they’re surprised that people treat them like stars. No matter if it’s a case of method acting gone awry or just classic delusion, what is certain is that the two men are undeniably endearing. And perhaps it’s just this that hints at the reason for their Stateside popularity—here are two lovable foreigners who seem to be just as naïve as us Americans really are.

But before they were co-creators of a hit television show or pulling fast ones on Yanks with deadpan deliveries and off-kilter jokes, Clement and McKenzie were just another couple of buddies at Victoria University of Wellington; a college known just as much for its views of the South Pacific Ocean as it is for its academic programs. First meeting in drama class where they performed whimsical songs about male-body image and media obsessions, they soon became your typical college roommates, scrimping daily for the monthly rent and passing time with unchecked self-amusement. With little money and lots of restless energy, Clement and McKenzie would spend nights reaping the spoils of their education, hosting impromptu jam sessions and throwing co-ed get-togethers of varying success. In fact, the origin of Flight of the Conchords mostly owes itself to the very spirit of collegiate pursuit; that is, if goofing off with guitars and dreaming up surreal song lyrics can be considered academic.

Wanting to improve their skills because they were the “worst guitar players in class,” the pair promptly began to hold practice at home. “We were trying to learn other people’s songs,” says Clement, “but found them to be too difficult to remember. So, we decided to make up our own.” “It was a happy accident,” McKenzie adds. “I think at first we wanted to be a proper band, but all of our songs were just too kooky.”

Regardless of method or intention, Clement and McKenzie were soon building a repertoire of playfully twisted songs chock-full of one-liners. Meeting together in their small, sparse Wellington flat furnished with thrift store couches and cheap movie posters—one very much like the apartment that appears in the HBO series—the two friends started to awkwardly manufacture the earliest Conchords tunes. However, depending on exactly who and when you might ask, designating the very first Flight of the Conchords creation is something of a chimera. Though both members have offered up several tunes which might warrant the coveted first-song status—including the ode to French pop and Parisian cuisine, “Foux du Fafa,” and a wayward song about people lost at sea who are then forced to eat each other for survival—on this day, McKenzie posits that the original song came in the form of rock and roll. “Our first song had only one chord and then a bridge of a second chord,” says McKenzie. “Then, it went straight back to the first chord. It was called ‘Rock Beat.’” For now, his answer must suffice, but whether or not the song actually exists or if this is just another way in which McKenzie can poke fun at himself and at the rock genre in general is anybody’s guess…deadpanning is very much a deadly business.

It didn’t take long until Clement and McKenzie moved beyond the two-chord song structure into slightly more varied musical stylings. Like the circumstances that brought the two together in drama class (a gathering that also included part-time Conchord collaborator and full-time director, Taika Cohen), how they became a bona fide musical comedy band is also one of chance opportunity. The pair had a college friend who booked a comedy night for a local Wellington club—the friend needed an opening act; the Conchords needed a gig. And through a shotgun marriage of supply and demand, a comedy legacy was born.

“Looking back, I think we could have become a really weird indie band just as much as a comedy band,” McKenzie says. “It’s just that we started playing comedy venues. If we would have been playing hipster dive bars, I think we would have become some really bizarre rock band…like Ween.”

The twist of fate proved to be a lucky one. Soon, Flight of the Conchords was playing more and more shows in locations not only in New Zealand, but in North America and Britain as well. Dark barrooms and cribbage halls turned into outdoor festivals and two-night stands. What was previously a handful of two-chord ditties turned into a bucketful of smart, cleverly-executed comedy routines about topics as varied as an Albanian-hating racist dragon, killer robots from a post-apocalyptic future, and of course, a space-bound David Bowie. After releasing their debut album in 2002, the Conchords were eventually tapped by BBC for an episodic radio program showcasing the duo’s songs, which were bolstered by sketch comedy co-written by the two New Zealanders and Da Ali-G Show director, James Bobin. Soon, Clement and McKenzie were traversing radio waves and invading living rooms, but by the time most of us finally took notice, the Conchords were already well in flight.

Last summer’s award-winning The Distant Future was not so much a fluke by a couple of outsiders making good in America as it was the culmination of years of honing guitar skills and perfecting comedic timing. The six-track EP is a sampling of the duo’s take on bended musical genres and dry lyrical witticisms. And depending on the tune, Flight of the Conchords plays mad-scientist with the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Hall and Oates, and Barry White—sowing new Oates for the yuppie crowd and bringing Barry’s great big ego down to suburban size. Unlike other musical comedy groups, the Conchords seem to have a knack for keeping listeners interested for more than just one go-round; a testament to their ability to channel by-gone pop stars and then turn them on their ears. But the partners are quick to note that they are not capitalizing at the expense of those who came before, but are actually paying tribute. “We started with this joke that we were a folk parody band,” says Clement, “but it was only a joke. Most of our songs aren’t really parodies at all; they’re just familiar songs with funny ideas. We’re really paying homage.”

McKenzie seconds the notion. Musically trained and an accomplished instrumentalist in his own right, McKenzie is no stranger to the live circuit or to melodic execution. Roughly at the same time when the Conchords first started gigging, he joined the New Zealand reggae-funk eight-piece, The Black Seeds. Playing keyboards, McKenzie and the group reached the peak of popularity in New Zealand, eventually dishing out two platinum records and becoming one of the hottest party bands this side of Ibiza. McKenzie’s involvement in The Black Seeds is more than notable, considering how the band’s image and success run contrary to what he and Clement mean to portray with Flight of the Conchords. On the one hand, McKenzie is a proven musician tested on a road filled with young groupies and college Rastafarians, and on the other, an actor-musician assuming the role of an unknown amateur. And the irony has not been lost on McKenzie. Before exiting The Black Seeds in order to focus on Flight of the Conchords, he had plenty of time to consider all types of music and musicians—no matter if they were funny or not.

“A lot of musicians are probably funnier to hang out with than comedians are,” McKenzie says. “Musicians think of me as a comedian and comedians think of me as a musician, but I think we’re different than a lot of music comedians. Rather than ridiculing a genre, we have a lot of respect for it. We’re not trying to take the piss out of Bowie; we’re just real big fans.”

The band’s approach to songwriting is best exemplified through a story that Clement tells about a Conchords show several years ago. McKenzie and Clement were booked to perform during a folk night at a small club in rural New Zealand. When the pair entered the bar, they discovered a room filled with some serious folkies; singer-songwriters who took the acoustic craft—and lovelorn lyrics—very much to heart. While they awaited their turn, the Wellington duo casually listened to a series of performers bemoaning life’s more lamentable aspects until one singer captured Clement’s undivided attention. Dressed in leather and khakis and projecting a voice more folk than Guthrie’s, the vocalist commanded the stage.

“He had this song which was very tender,” recalls Clement. “At the beginning of it, there was a list of all these things that he would do for this woman—like how he would die for her. It was all very sweet, but there was something about how serious he was that made it seem too innocent for a man his age. It made it very funny to me.”

After returning home late that night, Clement and McKenzie started to pen “If You’re Into It,” a love song that features a devotee not only willing to “hang around” with the object of his affection, but also buy her a couple of drinks, get naked for her, and depending on if she’s into it, set up a ménage à trois with her roommate. “I started with that idea—putting an unrealistic song in a somewhat more realistic context,” Clement says. “So I just had my character sing a dirty line in response to the pretty things the other person is singing. It’s the best kind of male-male duet I can think of.”

Skeptical humor interlaced with tried-and-true guitar riffs is a successful combination for the Conchords. And when HBO asked them in 2005 to appear on its comedy showcase, One Night Stand, and then later solicited from them a pilot for a potential primetime show, the once under-the-radar jokesters suddenly had the credentials of well-seasoned entertainers. Both fans and company execs alike gave praise to the projects, and by 2006, Clement and McKenzie were already working on what would become their calling card to most American audiences: the widely popular and unabashedly hip HBO series, Flight of the Conchords.

The premise for the television series is simple: Two New Zealanders, also named Bret and Jemaine, move to New York City in order to break into the music biz with their band called (you guessed it) Flight of the Conchords, while also trying their luck with oftentimes disinterested and unimpressed American women. The episodes stick closely to this basic tenet, effectually revealing two extremely lovable yet naïve foreigners as they confront big city dangers such as muggings, sexually aggressive women, con-men, substandard housing, rude concert-goers and high cost of living, to name only a few. Anchored by original songs intermittingly performed—or rather lip-synched—by Clement and McKenzie throughout the episodes, the television show is a refined, super-charged version of the Conchords’ live stage show complete with all the dramatic pauses, turns of phrases and dry counterattacks one could ever wish for. Though uncomplicated, the humor is intelligent, constantly playing with American cultural expectations and misinterpretations of the world beyond the borders. But Clement and McKenzie would never describe their comedy in such stuffy terms. To them, the show is drawn from, though not a documentation of, their own personal experiences—from the cramped apartments to the five-person audiences to the vintage shirts they wore when they “didn’t have the money to buy new ones.” And thus, the outsider/insider, real/unreal, deadpan/dead-honest tightrope dance continues.

“The show is based on us 10 years ago when we were starving,” says McKenzie. “And no one still can ever understand us. A number of times, Jemaine would phone up one of those computerized taxi services—the ones where you have to say your address to a computer—and even it wouldn’t understand him. We had to start using American accents just to get cabs.”

The show also achieves hilarity due to its very talented and funny supporting cast, which provides countless opportunities for Clement and McKenzie to not only prove their acting skills but their unwavering willingness to make jokes at their own expense. Prominently featuring fellow New Zealand comic Rhys Darby as the Conchords’ inept band manager and Kristen Schaal as the band’s stalkishly obsessive and side-splitting lone fan, Flight of the Conchords is seemingly littered with characters from the New Zealanders’ past. In fact, Schaal’s character, “Mel,” is the conglomerate of more than one female admirer who has crossed the boundaries of decency and tact. As the remarkable tale goes, it all started when McKenzie was cast as an extra in Peter Jackson’s first hobbit epic, The Fellowship of the Ring. Picked to appear as an elf because he was “tall and thin,” McKenzie was placed in the background—clad in a felt robe, long wig and pointy ears—for nothing more than several seconds. However, the scene was enough to spawn an online cult phenomenon as female fans from different points of the globe created websites honoring McKenzie’s handsome pixie looks. “A group really latched on to my ‘elf’ appearance,” he says. “It was our first introduction to intense fans and it was magnified because they were obsessed over something as small as me being in the background of a shot. It was amusing, yet a highly surreal experience for me.”

And thus, the obsession grew. Soon, Clement and McKenzie were playing gigs to not only regular music comedy fans, but card-carrying members of Tolkien Societies across Middle-earth. Periodically, groups of Frodo-loving aficionados would approach them before and after shows, showering them with flatteries and getting just a little too close for comfort. If one innuendo-spouting compulsive fan is scary enough, just imagine a whole roomful of marauding Mels. “Sometimes people would come to the show and start shaking and all that stuff,” says Clement, smiling, “which I must say is totally unreasonable. You feel like you’re inflicting harm on these poor people, but you’re just a normal person… We based Mel’s character on these types of situations.”

As if the creation of such an entertaining character as Mel isn’t worth a few awkward moments backstage, McKenzie soon became the envy of wannabe-sprites everywhere. While visiting Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival, McKenzie was actually invited to a luncheon held by the local Tolkien Society—an event he not only attended but where he also agreed to wear standard-issue prosthetic elf ears. Catching wind of the frenzy surrounding his character in the first film, which wasn’t even cited in its credits, the powers that be gave McKenzie a follow-up role in the final film of the Lord of the Rings trilogy—and this time, the elf had game. “During the part where the elves were escaping through the forest, I tell Liv Tyler, who plays Arwen, to hurry up,” says McKenzie. “But, she wasn’t even there on set—I was talking to a ladder in front of a green screen. I guess she’s just a very busy person.”

You don’t have to be the princess of Aerosmith to maintain a demanding schedule. Already diligently working on the second season of the HBO series, the band is releasing yet another album of funny-pop hits this spring. Not even a year following their EP, Clement and McKenzie return with a self-titled album of 14 songs that all made cameos during the first season of the show. While the latest installment contains three tracks that appeared on the previous record, all the songs are expertly refined versions of those that graced the television show in all their quirky grandeur. Produced by Mickey Petralia, who helped fashion Beck’s vibrant, light-hearted opus Midnight Vultures, and nurtured by the folks at major-indie label, Sub Pop, the latest record offers a fresh approach to musical comedy by delivering high production value and eclectic instrumentation. The new tunes are not only good for a chuckle, but for a serious listen as well. Tromping over genres and anecdotal humor with ease, Flight of the Conchords is everything you ever hoped for in a musical comedy album, but until now, always dismissed as the impossible. “We strived desperately to make the recordings successful,” McKenzie says. “Earlier there was more attention to the comedy, but in the studio, a lot of time went into trying to play things well.”

Making a comedy album that takes its music seriously is a considerable risk. Due to the effort to create a record that is much more than just an extended prank, absent from the LP are live recordings and the laughter that accompanies them. Without audible cues, such as the building mirth that follows a well-played joke or the applause of a pacified crowd, the listener is left alone to decide for him or herself what is funny or not. While surely expecting to encounter a fair share of jeers from Conchords-purists and dedicated fans of the live show, Clement and McKenzie seem to have taken into account the slippery slope of being funny and musically talented. Where one would usually hear the requisite whoops and hollers of audience members during the album’s 10-plus songs, instead they’re skillful retro melodies that are perfect counterpoints to the lyrics. In fact, Flight of the Conchords’ playful yet clever composition reminds us that when all is said and done, music itself can often be the funniest thing of all.

Considering the tremendous creative output from Clement and McKenzie in recent years, it’s difficult to imagine something they can’t do. Besides writing television shows and hit albums, McKenzie continues to work on several side projects while Clement is steadily making waves on the silver screen, starring in Taika Cohen’s 2007 indie misfit-comedy Eagle vs Shark and the upcoming Gentlemen Broncos, directed by Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite). “But I love making music,” Clement explains. “When I don’t have my guitar, I miss it. It’s the way I can do what I want, using my own approach and my own way of thinking.”

And so Flight of the Conchords presses on, working its way through hometown welcoming parties and courting international crowds that just can’t resist that unassuming Kiwi charm. With the second season of their television series around the corner, a new album hitting the streets, and whatever else they have hidden up their very long sleeves, the two wonders from Wellington better get used to entering places full of uninvited guests—or at the very least, better equipped at feigning modest surprise when encountering large crowds. But the prospect of fame has never really frightened the Conchords; only the idea of not continuingly moving forward. “We once did a show where everyone was singing along to ‘Albi the Racist Dragon,’” McKenzie says. “I kept flashing forward 30 years and seeing me and Jemaine—all grey haired and wrinkled—playing a song about a dragon to a bunch of old people singing in unison. It was absolutely terrifying.” F

The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt has made a career out of obsession laced with a bit of masochism. You wouldn’t know it to listen to the charming synth-pop albums made instantly recognizable by his basso profundo booming sardonic lyrics about isolation, despair and love, but Merritt is notorious for his self-inflicted strictures. On 1994’s The Charm of the Highway Strip, Merritt created a travelogue, confining himself to geographical landscapes and their corresponding emotional terrain. Five years later, he released his magnum opus, 69 Love Songs, a three-disc collection about, well, love songs (and not love, a distinction the fastidious Merritt is careful to make), performed in various genres. And on 2004’s i, each song title began with said letter, with the slightly compulsive compression of Merritt sequencing the songs alphabetically.

Whereas other artists might find such parameters constricting, these constraints lie at the core of Merritt’s self-evaluated success. “I like to set myself easy goals,” Merritt says. “That way I can work on the actual art part without having difficulty.” He places these constraints upon himself, and then, like some musical Houdini, breaks free from the self-manufactured duress to release an album.

For his latest trick, Distortion, Merritt decided to replicate The Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1985 debut, Psychocandy. “The last record I thought was important from a production standpoint was Psychocandy. Nothing has sounded shockingly new since then,” Merritt says. The white noise and buzzing feedback of the British-bred Mary Chain might not seem like an obvious influence for the bubblegum pop of Merritt’s music, but he’s long been a fan. “I bought the single, ‘You Trip Me Up,’ when it came out. I really understand that record,” says Merritt.

Since 2004’s i, Merritt branched out into other projects, serving as the principal songwriter in the goth-pop group The Gothic Archies (creators of the soundtrack to the popular Lemony Snicket audiobook series) and the disco-pop band Future Bible Heroes. After a lunch with Nonesuch Records President Robert Hurwitz stoked a desire to make another Magnetic Fields record “quickly,” Merritt decided he would take an already existing stable of Magnetic Fields songs—some penned as long as a decade ago—and subject them to the production style pioneered by The Jesus and Mary Chain. He seems wary of the recognition he’s received for the disciplined adherence to themes throughout his catalog, and he’s careful to point out that “distortion” isn’t a motif. “It’s a production style. If it were anyone else, you wouldn’t think of it as a theme.”

That Psychocandy was a template for The Magnetic Fields is remarkable for another reason: Merritt has made no secret of his distaste for rock music. In a 1999 interview with The Village Voice, he said, “I certainly won’t make any more records that have anything to do with indie rock—or with rock, actually.” It seems he’s softened his stance, now hoping to place his creative defibrillator on the cool, clammy chest of rock music and revive it. “I’m not against rock—I quite like it,” he says now. “The only problem is it’s dead, and nothing new happens with it. Psychocandy is the last event, and that was 20 years ago.”

In many ways, the aural dissonance of Distortion better suits the themes of emotional discord in which The Magnetic Fields often deal. The perpetual roar of “Please Stop Dancing” sonically mimics the all-consuming nature of obsessive thinking. On “Too Drunk to Dream,” Merritt begins with disparaging couplets delivered by a chorale of his own voice before devolving into a muddled yet swinging ditty about drinking to forget. Formerly, Merritt’s output as The Magnetic Fields might have verged on easy-listening; however, in bridging the formerly extant gap between the sound and the emotion of the song, The Magnetic Fields have created its most visceral album to date.

“I don’t think there’s a danger of my being perceived as an easy-listening act right now. Maybe after the last album it was for some people, but this one isn’t easy-listening for anyone. Except maybe dyed-in-the-wool experimentalists, or actual members of The Jesus and Mary Chain.” F

Never has a movie this bad been so good. Defying most cinematic norms and all traditional reason, 1984’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension! is a movie that polarizes audiences like few films do—you either love it or hate it. Period. And the reasons for such divisiveness are many. For starters, unlike most watchable films, Buckaroo contains a tenuous plotline at best; a story about a multi-talented man who attempts to save the world from a group of inter-dimensional aliens from Planet 10. Secondly, the film’s protagonist, Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, is an anti-hero of sorts, tromping over time and space not as a buffed-up superhero, but as a smarty-pants scientist/surgeon/musician—a quasi-mythical character who resists strict characterizations. (As one character in the film remarks, “He thinks he’s Einstein, James Bond and Batman all rolled into one!”) Or perhaps, maybe these sci-fi adventures attract such heated criticism and undying adoration simply because on many levels, Buckaroo Banzai just doesn’t make any sense at all. Period.

Featuring aliens that look like Rastafarians, a band of scientists-turned-rock and rollers (the Hong Kong Cavaliers) and a bevy of fortune cookie Zen-like quotes (“No matter where you go, there you are”, “Nothing is ever what it seems, but everything is exactly what it is”), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai was not a film necessarily intended to be a classic blockbuster. Writer Earl Mac Rauch (who also penned Scorsese’s New York, New York) teamed up with director W.D. Richter to create a bizarre, sci-fi satire that would push the envelope and not pander to the masses. It certainly triumphed on that point: the film grossed little over $6 million at the box office.

Despite Buckaroo Banzai’s lack of financial success, over time it has earned a cult following that continues to flourish in a line of comic books, even as it earns numerous pop references in everything from Star Trek episodes to Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Much of this fandom comes from appreciation of its all-star ensemble cast, which includes Peter Weller (Robocop, Mighty Aphrodite, Naked Lunch) in the title role, John Lithgow as a mad scientist possessed by an extraterrestrial overlord, Christopher Lloyd as an evil alien, Jeff Goldblum as a surgeon/gunslinger, Jamie Lee Curtis as Buckaroo’s mother (her role was cut out of the theatrical version, but she returns in the prologue of the special edition DVD) and Ellen Barkin as Penny Priddy, the dame. Though all of these actors went on to bigger and perhaps more nuanced roles, it’s apparent from any Internet search that their involvement in the mythology of Buckaroo Banzai has not been forgotten.

Watching the movie today, two things are clear: that yesteryear sci-fi special effects don’t dazzle like they used to, and over the last 24 years, we as a species have not gained any more understanding with which to approach this movie as those who watched it for the first time. But what does translate to modern audiences is the film’s acute sense of mystifyingly off-kilter hilarity. In fact, the actors got such a kick out of it all, that there are a couple of instances in the film when someone visibly breaks down into giggles—including even the principal actor (“Lloyd was standing behind Lithgow, just out of frame, eating Doritos through his alien suit!” Weller explains). But more than just some silly slack-off flick, the film is laden with tongue-in-cheek self-awareness, biting social satire and philosophical nods that near a certain kind of inner peace—call it Western sci-fi with the ideals of a kung fu master.

Director W.D. Richter (who went on to write Stealth and adapt Big Trouble in Little China) relied on visual gags and physical humor to complement the audacious script, which gives Buckaroo Banzai the feeling of Airplane!, for joke upon joke is piled into each scene so that repeated viewings are required in order to catch them all. Thankfully, the special edition DVD released in 2002 came with a number of commentaries and featurettes, helping to explain the many inside jokes and references that litter the film (including why there’s a random watermelon inserted willy-nilly into one particular sequence).

To say that they don’t make movies like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension! anymore would imply that there was a time when films like this were regularly made. To quote another sci-fi classic: “There can be only one.” Sometimes the universe produces things that go against nature, but perhaps that just means that they’re so ingenious, it’s impossible to ever truly understand them. Here we gather the film’s stars, Peter Weller and John Lithgow, to bring some order to the chaos. Now, onward to the Eighth Dimension!
 

If He's Not One Thing, He's Another:
A Conversation with the Galvanizing Peter Weller

So…

Let’s talk about Buckaroo, man, because maybe you could explain it to me. You can start off the interview by saying that—I’m asking you to explain it to me.

Well, I was only five years old when the movie came out.

You were? Fuck you! [Laughs]

But watching it again after all these years, I get the sense that there’s a great collision of ideas in the film. All these cut-and-dry comic book characters with these very abstract social and political ideas…

A month after we finished shooting, while the film was in post-production, one of the top guns of 21st Century marketing asked me, “What genre is this film?” And at that time, I still thought it was an off-beat action movie, but my editor friend who saw the screening said, “Look, this movie’s going to go nowhere. It’s just too dense.” To which the marketing rep said, “Well, you’re meant to get a big joke out of this.” And so there I am, the star of the film, and this buddy of mine has to explain to me that it’s a comedy. And that’s what it is—a comedy.

But its humor is so broad. It’s got the slap-stick, the dry witticisms, the dark humor…

Yeah, it’s hard to say what it’s about. People were explaining the movie to us. There are Buckaroo freaks who know more about the movie than I do. I still don’t quite know what the movie is about. There’s a Zen-ness to it in that there’s an otherness to the film. There’s no particular niche you can stuff that film into. And it was written by one of the most madcap individuals I’ve ever met, Earl Mac Rauch.

Talk about a guy who’s hard to find.

Do you know where he is?

No clue. Do you?

Uh-uh. He’s one of the more esoteric and brilliant guys I’ve ever come across, man. He wrote New York, New York. He wrote a bunch of stuff. He was an amazing writer. Drove around a big, black Dodge Ram truck with this big, beautiful golden retriever in the back; he wore salmon marine pants and a t-shirt and had a buzz cut. He was from Texas. But I think he went to M.I.T. He was a funny guy, and anything could come out of his mouth. So much so that he was told to keep out of meetings with all the mucky-mucks—like with the Hunt Brothers, who owned the company that produced the movie and owned the studio. I think Rauch was a guy who just loved mixing it up. I mean, come on—it’s Buckaroo!

One of the most special things about Buckaroo is its cast—the names are unbelievable. How did they get you and the others to do such a bizarre movie?

W.D. Richter took me to some restaurant in L.A. right off La Brea and San Vincente. I didn’t want to do some wacky comedy; I wanted to do a serious film that was going to affect the world. And he asked me, “When else do you get to play a rock star/neurosurgeon/astrophysicist?” And, I was like, “O.K.,” but I couldn’t get through the script!

So how did you prepare to play this never-before-seen superhero who’s also very human?

Well, it was intense physical preparation. I lost 20 pounds. I was running every day. And I did all the gun stunts myself. I read a whole lot of Jacques Cousteau and how he ran his shit. I studied Adam Ant. Goldblum and I met with a neurosurgeon. And that was it! The rest of it I had to wing. I did all that for a sense of knowledge, so I’d know what the hell I was talking about.

Looking back, is your character out to stop evil?

I don’t think so. I think he’s just plunging ahead for science. He’s out to relieve suffering through as many works as he can muster. And I can only say that in retrospect. That’s all he’s about to do, to make the world a better place. Essentially, that’s the worth of most science: to further progress. It’s the old 19th century ideology of positivism.

It seems that the cast had a lot of chemistry. Was it sort of like going to work every day with your best friends?

Yeah. I knew Lithgow from theater, and I knew Lloyd the best—he’s one of my dearest friends. Goldblum, too. I met Jeff the night he lost his virginity. He was acting in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and I went to the opening night party, and he said that’s the night he lost it. I felt so honored.

Where does Buckaroo rank among your memories of working in film?

While directing me in my second film, Just Tell Me What You Want, Sidney Lumet [Serpico, Network] told me, “Do not let the experience of the film be invalidated by the business of it.” Because when a movie comes out and gets panned, it doesn’t get any business. But if you had a great time making that movie, that’s all you can say. It was smart advice to give. My first film was with Richard Lester—Butch and Sundance: The Early Days—and it came out and tanked. So, in my meeting with Sidney, he said, “Don’t apologize for that. Don’t do that. Did you have a good time making that?” I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Then that’s what the film is to you; the experience. Don’t ever apologize for what the critics say.” I had a remarkable time with Buckaroo.

How old were you when you played Buckaroo?

I was 36. It was the last of my party days—when L.A. was wide open. I had a lot of friends out here and we’d gather at someone’s house for the weekend…half-stoned.

So the party days end when you turn 36, huh?

Yes they do. Those were the last of the party days for L.A., I think. Belushi died after that. A.I.D.S. became a major factor in partying. Physical abuse, which I wasn’t really into—drugs and drinking—but that level of party-time became obscure because of the huge danger it presented to the movie and music industry. I think ’83 was a seminal year. But I don’t know anybody my age who continued doing all that stuff and survived. I turned to discipline. I was running six miles a day, which I started doing for Buckaroo.

It’s interesting that you bring up drugs and music, because in the film, you essentially have a band of guys who are literally driving around on a tour bus. You’re hanging out in the backstage laboratory, but you’re doing science experiments instead of drugs. Is there a sense of patronization in this?

No. The Hong Kong Cavaliers were very noble, very contributive people. That was all Mac. On the surface, they have a rock and roll band, but behind the scenes, they’re all scientists. That’s one of my favorite scenes—we’re in the bar, playing the song, and as soon as Penny Priddy makes a false move, everybody in the band comes out with their MAC-10s. It’s a whole military unit!

As an actor, do you find that you learn things from the characters—whether it’s the one you’re playing or those with whom you are interacting? Do you apply what you learn from your preparation to your actual life?

Yeah. That movie changed my life. I connected to his Zen-ness. He was a real renaissance man. I have a thirst—a layman’s thirst—for knowledge. I’m doing a Ph.D. at U.C.L.A. in Italian Renaissance Art History with a minor in Late Republican Rome/Late Roman Art. I’m not a great scholar, but I’m kind of a wannabe know-it-all. Russell Crowe said he never met the guy he played in A Beautiful Mind; he didn’t care. But I care. The more you know, the more you can make up. If you’re doing a Harold Pinter play, there’s no background at all; you can make up whatever the hell you want. In Shakespeare, you’re given a whole scheme of history to own before you say your words. I like to own this history. Uta Hagen, my mentor—a great actress and teacher—said, “Why do you have to know your grandfather? Well, you don’t. But, if you know who your grandfather is, it’s just more food for you.” So, yeah. I like to know all that stuff. If someone just hands me the script and says, “Start making it up,” I could. But, the more I know, the more I can make up.

Otherwise it’s just another gig. And this same philosophy was applied to Buckaroo?

I have to say that I was going into Buckaroo blind. I kept asking myself, “What in the hell is this movie about?” In the old method rule, in a sentence, or in very few words, you ask yourself what the writer has in mind. Say in A Streetcar Named Desire you’re playing Stanley Kowalski. What is this about? O.K., it’s the survival of your house being threatened by some megalomaniacal sister. What is Buckaroo about besides Buckaroo? Saving the world? Understanding the interplanetary reaction of racism? [Laughs] I don’t know man, the movie has everything. It has politics, the central adjustments of racism; a whole extraterrestrial look at what’s good and evil. Socialism, man. I don’t know what the hell it’s about, but it’s a comedy for sure.

What is it about the science fiction genre that makes fans write this back story fiction about the characters? You don’t see people doing that for Stanley Kowalski, detailing his early years as a monkey trainer or whatever.

Science fiction is the frontier of invention. It’s the literary frontier of make-believe. But science fiction is even more compelling for that sort of ilk because it’s based on science. All of H.G. Wells has come true. Jules Verne has come true. So, people go nuts. I’m not a big science fiction guy. I get thrown into science fiction because of Robocop and Buckaroo.

Do you find that people get fixated on certain movies, like Robocop and Buckaroo, because those films refuse to only entertain? They demand a close viewing from the audience. Buckaroo always offers more each time you watch it.

Yes, most people want a rock and roll concert. But some movies are like Miles Davis; you have to really go to them. Look at the films of post-war Italy. You have to go to those movies. You have to invest something in them. They’re not going to come out and smack you in the face. One of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen is Remains of the Day. You think, “Where is this movie going?” There’s no galvanizing epiphany at all. There’s not a galvanizing end to Buckaroo, either. The film’s final line is, “So what? Big deal.”

So then, what is the big deal? How, ultimately, has this film affected your life?

First, I had never done a film—or anything—that took so much physical discipline. I was 20 pounds overweight before that film. It also got me reading and sent me on some scholastic channel that I’m still on. It showed me that you cannot let the results of the movie interfere with those experiences you had making it. That was one of the greatest times of my life.

Whatever may be lacking in the film also showed me that a film has to have certain things in order to please the public. I take from the film all of those spiritual and mental inputs and explorations. That said, I still don’t know what Buckaroo Banzai is about. I know that it’s a miracle. Somehow, there’s a spirituality that is untouchable. It’s a not a tangible thing. There’s a magic in it. Whatever you may say about the film, it’s one-of-a-kind. There’s no comparison.

— Interview by Pat McGuire


Laugh While You Can,
Monkey Boy!
Lord John Lithgow
Revisits the Eighth Dimension

Whatever happened to the proposed sequel, Buckaroo Banzai: Against the World Crime League?

There just wasn’t enough interest. It was not a hit film by any stretch of the imagination. Though, it did manage to resonate strongly with some small fraction of the population. Trust me, if there had been true public interest in a sequel, we would have made one.

If you were approached today about finally making a sequel, would you reprise your role as Dr. Emilio Lizardo / Lord John Whorfin?

Sure. Lizardo may have disappeared into the Eighth Dimension at the end of the film, but that’s the great thing about sci-fi: You can always find a way around things like that.

You’ve had a long and successful career since Buckaroo. But do fans still remember you for that role?

I still have people yelling, “Laugh while you can, monkey boy!” at me from across the street. And when I talk to people at parties, whenever they say, “You know what I really liked you in…” with a sort of half-embarrassed look on their face, I know they’re always going to say Buckaroo Banzai.

Years later, you did Third Rock From the Sun, which was a huge show for you. Did you ever worry that you’d be pigeonholed as a sci-fi actor and that you might have to work the ComiCon circuit?

I’ve never done a sci-fi convention in my life. I’m a character guy. And as long as people keep calling me to do characters, I don’t worry much about it.

What originally attracted you to the role?

Well, I originally rejected it outright. I thought it was just too out there. But then I went to lunch with W. D. Richter at Hamburger Hamlet and he was just such a sweet guy that I took the role.

What is your take on Buckaroo Banzai, as someone who was in the midst of the madness?

It was supposed to be a satirical take on a Saturday serial adventure, but taken to the furthest degree possible. I thought it was the funniest, smartest movie out there, but I wasn’t sure anyone would get the joke.

How did you get in character for the role?

I figured that since he fed on electricity, all his hair would stand upright and his teeth would have completely disintegrated. The accent came from a costume designer on the film. I would spend time in wardrobe with him and he would read my lines and I would tape them. We ultimately got him a credit as a dialect coach. I’m sure it was his first and only credit he got for dialect coaching. Lord John Whorfin’s way of carrying himself was based on Mussolini. The way I stuck out my chin during my big speech was pure El Duce.

What are you memories of filming?

I have wonderful memories of the shoot. We laughed our asses off. Unfortunately, I decided that Lord John Whorfin would wear two of everything—two jackets, two shirts, etc.—because we had this idea that he was always cold. It was damn hot though.

Do you still keep in touch with anyone in the cast?

I ran into Peter Weller a little while ago walking down the street in New York. It had been years since I’d seen him and it was absolutely great to run into him.

If given the chance, would you ever go to the Eighth Dimension?

I’m just trying to do the best I can in this one. F

Catching up with Switches frontman Matt Bishop seconds before he heads to his parents’ house for the holidays, one gets the impression of a man—and a band—in full transition. By all estimates, Bishop and his gang of oh-so-British pop rockers are teetering on the brink of a grand self-realization; that rare point where opportunity seems to knock on every backstage door and the promise of standing-room only crowds are forever ’round the corner. Welcome to that strange place where small town celebrities become household names, but also where soon-to-be rock stars still have to make time for ol’ mum and dad.

Young, charismatic and a bit wide-eyed, Bishop talks of canoodling with his folks much like he describes his band and how it now straddles the line between local notoriety and transcontinental fame: with humor and wily candor. Recounting Switches’ origins, Bishop says that while attending college in Guildford, England, he posted a self-made advert on the university website soliciting potential bandmates. Receiving an unexpectedly large number of replies, Bishop did what any self-respecting college student does with a hankering for the rock and roll lifestyle: He went out drinking.

“I just started hanging out with people to get vibes from them,” Bishop says. “I’m not the most sociable guy and it was quite an effort for me, actually. I have to drink a lot before those kinds of meetings because I get irritated easily. But it worked out well in the end, I think.”

Aside from campus gossip and easy “A” course electives, Bishop also discussed musical influences and playing styles with those he met. In the end, he simply settled on people with whom he felt most comfortable and who shared his taste in music, which is nothing short of a sweeping appreciation for everything from Brit-pop to glam to classic rock and roll. The final result is a four-piece that takes seriously the art of high-flying vocal harmonies, dance-friendly pop anthems and a rock sound that is far more bluster than blues.

Switches’ exuberance on stage made them quick favorites in the U.K. And once they cultivated their live act—and polished that smart-indie guise that makes all the pretty girls swoon—the foursome was flown to Los Angeles to record with accomplished producer, Rob Schnapf. Having produced Elliott Smith’s most influential works, Beck’s Mellow Gold and the debut record of Bishop’s musical idols, the Vines, Schnapf was a dream come true for Bishop and the band.

“That was the best time of my life,” Bishop says. “We wanted to make a really cool-sounding rock record and that’s what Rob helped us do. We had worked with a few producers in England, but some of them were really difficult to work with and a bit awkward—or maybe they were just a bit too English.”

It seems that Anglicism tempered with So-Cal laissez-faire is the perfect recipe for recording success. Switches’ debut album, released in the U.K. in July of 2007, received favorable reviews, as did the tour that supported it. However, with the American release of Lay Down the Law coming eight months after its British counterpart, the band currently finds itself hovering over the Atlantic with one foot firmly planted on English soil, and the other poised to dig in somewhere between Plymouth Rock and Big Sur. “We wanted to take our time to make sure everything was right,” Bishop says. “I think people will get what they’re waiting for.”

For Switches, it’s all about where they are and where they’re going, and only the future knows if they’ll be able to make a continental leap without losing a step. In the meantime, Bishop must content himself in occupying that very difficult yet extraordinary middle ground, where everything’s possible but nothing’s certain…nothing, that is, except a home-cooked meal and faith in one’s chosen creative path.

“I’ve been playing music since I was three years old,” Bishop says. “And my parents have always encouraged me to just go for it. I’ve always loved rock music. There’s just no other life for me.” F

“I never went to art school. Or any other kind of school, really.” Somehow, listening to Rick Froberg offer this information as I stare at the distinctly linear yet astoundingly diverse images of the ink drawings, etchings, gouache and Flash-made renderings that adorn his website, I am convinced of two things: This guy is true punk rock, and I could have saved about $100,000 by not going to college and instead showed up at Froberg’s doorstep with a blank notebook and a fresh set of pens.

Growing up in Southern California’s ’80s and ’90s punk scenes, Froberg has played in some of rock’s most ardently feral bands, including Drive Like Jehu, Pitchfork and Hot Snakes. Combining DIY ethics, killer tunes and ferocious onstage intensity, Froberg’s steady output of trailblazing sound was viscerally complemented by the unmistakably stylized art adorning his bands’ album covers, tour posters and shirts. Punk kids visiting the merch table were impressed to discover that the sweaty dude they had just seen rip it up onstage was now selling them a t-shirt of his own design, and that in addition to touring in a rock band, he also sustained himself as a successful visual artist and graphic designer.

Froberg’s art shares some of the same qualities as his music—it’s bold, skilled, sinister and primal, yet intelligent, referential and nuanced. He genre-hops with ease; from digital drawings to acrylic paint to heavy ink and back again, creating stark images of character collages, WWII-era comic figures and Dali-esque cartoon landscapes. Self-taught in classrooms of his own creation, in the form of design rooms at Transworld Skateboarding magazine and from books in his bedroom, Froberg is living proof that you don’t have to play by the system’s rules to operate successfully inside it.

“You can’t be a purist. A purist, what is that? That’s over,” he says, laughing. Punk or not, in today’s market-yourself-or-starve world, Rick Froberg’s two cents ring truer than ever.

I can hear a single riff on a Hot Snakes record and automatically identify it as Hot Snakes. Can someone look at a line you’ve drawn and identify it as Rick Froberg’s?

Rick Froberg: More and more it’s getting to the point where I do have a certain style—particularly with lines. I pay a lot of attention to lines; the way they’re put together. Lines are a premium, that’s the thing. It depends on the medium—if I’m doing printmaking or etching, I might have to draw using lots of little lines. And I like doing that every now and then because I don’t normally do it. I normally draw with really broad lines, like a brush. I also draw on a computer in Flash, which is basically like drawing with brush and ink.

How important are visual things like album covers, concert posters and t-shirt designs to a band?

That’s always important. That was kind of an extension of my job of being the singer—it’s basically my job to take the music and add meaning to it somehow. Even if you can’t sing that well, like me, you’re trying to give it a vibe or a feeling. And I felt the same way about the artwork. Once you add the artwork and add meaning to it, it becomes a genuine piece of pop culture.

While listening to a record, I’m affected as much by the album art as I am by the music.

Sure, everyone is. We’re all human. At the same time, it’s not like it’s tyrannical, like a music video, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for the viewers to interject their own interpretations of the music. With a static picture, it doesn’t really do that. It’s nice; you can direct people towards how you want them to feel about the music a little bit, but it doesn’t tell them exactly how they should feel about it.

Is there something specific that you’re trying to say in both your art and music?

Sure. With art, there is something aesthetic you can try to say. You’re trying to put your two cents in the big continuum of pop culture. Whether it’s music or art or whatever, you’re saying, “This is my medium. These are my values as far as what I think looks cool or what I think represents artistic values like mystery and beauty and things like that.” You’re saying the same thing with music. It’s pretty hard to articulate, though.

Do you come across people who are fans of your art but don’t know your music?

I do, mostly through work. They find out and I have to direct them towards my music, and then they hear this screaming rock and roll. Sometimes you don’t want people to know about that. I keep that kind of separate.

Your art websites are also clearly separated into two categories: “Commercial” and “Fine Art.” Why is it so important to make this distinction?

I don’t know. For me the line is so blurred. I’m not strictly fine art. I didn’t go to school. I don’t hang out with fine artists. I don’t know shit about it. I’ve had a couple galleries. I’ve been in shows, but I couldn’t begin to tell you what the hell is going on with that. And with commercial art, it’s the way I make my living. It’s the only thing I can do.

What do you think is the best thing about being an artist?

You have a clear, accessible vehicle for self-expression that’s always available for you. And that will make you that much more sane and healthy overall. Some people don’t have that at all, not any kind of way to express themselves, you know? They don’t have the words, there’s no musical ability…they need to find a way to express themselves.

Those are the people who get drunk and fight.

Maybe. Getting drunk and fighting is a way to express yourself. Some people are really good at fighting. It’s an art form. But yeah, being an artist is a good, healthy way to express yourself…and the hardest part about being an artist is to look at the blank piece of paper and ask, “What am I going to do with that?”

When you work, do you think, “Today, I’m going to do something and I have no idea what that something is, but here’s the blank space”?

I never have any idea what I’m going to do. I try to steer clear of an idea. I try to just start going, and once I have a few things, then I start adding on to them. And then the picture starts to emerge. Or I combine things. I change things. I try to fuck with things. I usually try to keep things very unspecific. You want to find out something about yourself by doing it. It’s kind of a…is “catharsis” the right word? I’m not sure. But that’s the idea. F


For more of our conversation with Rick Froberg, visit goodmusicwillprevail.com.

The fame-meter is skyrocketing for sketch comedy troupe Human Giant here in the year 2008! The three-member group, consisting of those lovable funnymen Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer, is about to blast off into mega-huge-stardom-ness when the first season of Human Giant hits the streets on DVD this spring, followed by the premiere of the hit MTV show’s second season. In fact, the current social circles in which the Giant cuties roll are so elite that they’ve been exposed to bands that even FILTER can’t get close to. So, Human Giant took it upon themselves to interview and photograph some of these hip newbies for us, and were even kind enough to send the results back. Oh Human Giant, is there anything you guys can’t do?

Alex St. Andrews and The Manhammers

This So-Cal power trio has the unique distinction of being the only band that is made up entirely of adult film stars. Their lyrics are bold, their riffs are tight and they probably have had sex with more people than read this magazine in a month. Their upcoming album, Used Men For Sale: Take It or Leave It!, hits stores in August.

1. How did you meet?

Alex St. Andrews: I met Gary and Brice during the shooting of Girls R Us. It was a real fun movie. We all played night security guards who get really surprised when we find out all the Barbie dolls come to life after the store closes. Crazy stuff. Anyway, we had a lot of downtime during the shoot because the shopping carts that we were having sex on during the big orgy scene kept breaking. So Gary and I got to talking…

Gary: I was telling him that I liked music and Alex was like, “Me too!” So we thought, “We have to do something with this.”

Brice: Yeah, I overheard them talking and I was like, “What are the chances? I like music, too.” So here we all are, three dudes who all like music. So I said, “Let’s make a band.”

Gary: Yeah, he said that.

Brice: That night I went home and wrote our first single, “Shave Me.”

2. How would you describe your sound?

Alex: It’s like if Jane’s Addiction met and married Men at Work and then had a baby.

Gary: Yeah, and that baby was tutored by Justice.

Brice: But then Jane’s Addiction and Men at Work got a divorce and Men at Work got re-married to Pearl Jam.

Alex: Yeah, and then Jane’s Addiction started seriously dating Fiona Apple.

Gary: That’s our sound in a nutshell.

3. Which of your songs is your favorite and why?

Brice: My favorite song right now is our tribute to The Who’s “Tommy,” called “Johnny.” We changed the specifics and updated it a bit. I think it’s awesome.

Alex: Yeah, so basically instead of the dude being a pinball wizard who’s mentally handicapped, now he’s an awesome porn star who gets acid splashed in his face.

Gary: It’s 47 minutes and we still aren’t done with it.

4. Best or worst experience on the road?

Brice: Unfortunately, we don’t go on the road too much, ’cause we get paid so much for fucking on camera.

Gary: He means acting.

Brice: No I don’t. [Awkward pause]

5. What’s next for you?

Alex: Hopefully our new album will hit soon, but we all have side projects.

Gary: Yeah, I’m going to start building my dream ranch in Simi Valley and start raising bobcats. They are beautiful animals.

Brice: I’m still trying to figure out my Internet phone, it’s giving me all sorts of problems.

Alex: I’m trying to focus on being a great father to my three kids.

God's Assassins

This dark-clad, intimidatingly large trio who refuse to be photographed call themselves the first Christian Death Metal Band. All three members of the group are over 7 feet tall and easily weigh 350 pounds each. They received a lot of negative attention two years ago when Gunther Van Tresse, the lead singer, was overheard saying, “God isn’t a pussy, so why does his music have to be?” They are currently on their “Abomination to Non-Believers Tour.”

1. How did you meet?

Lars: We were all in a religious studies class. It was an examination into the Stations of the Cross: its cultural and biblical impact, etc. I believe we were learning about the Shroud of Turin when I heard a distinct “Rock on!” I looked across the room and saw Gunther. He was wearing a Slayer t-shirt and had the coolest crucifix on. I just had to meet him. So I went over to him at the snack table and we just started chatting. We loved the same bands—Megadeth, Sodom, Obituary.

Gunther: I was like, “Dude. You have to meet Snake.”

Snake: I was also in the class, but I was quiet.

Gunther: One thing led to another and before I knew it, we were playing the coveted “Christmas Eve Mass” at the church and the vibe was just insane.

Snake: It was really joyful and fucking hardcore.

2. How would you describe your sound?

Gunther: It’s like every instrument in the world dying and rising again.

3. Which of your songs is your favorite and why?

Gunther: For me, it’s “Possessed By Jesus.” I wrote it right after I was re-baptised and that’s how I felt. It was like I was possessed to carry out His word. It was a beautiful feeling.

Lars: For me it would have to be “Drunk on God’s Blood.” When I was an altar boy I used to sneak into the place where they held the sacraments and drink the blessed wine. I knew then I was in the right place.

Snake: They’re all good, but I like “Tear into Christ” the most. It’s about really jumping into religion and faith.

4. Best or worst experience on the road?

Snake: Never play before a church bake sale. Nine times out of 10, your fans are just thinking about the treats they’re going to buy after the concert.

5. What’s next for you?

Lars: We won’t stop till everyone converts or dies!

Bubble Men 3000

Each of Bubble Men 3000’s members are in a “bubble boy situation,” meaning they each have severe immune deficiencies that demand each member to reside in a plastic bubble, free of germs. When playing together, all three members enclose themselves in one massive 600-square-foot bubble, instruments and all.

1. How did you meet?

Aaron: We were all at the same treatment facility and we started talking and realized that, in addition to being forced to live in a germ-free plastic bubble, all three of us were really into Joy Division.

2. How would you describe your sound?

Dave: It sounds like Joy Division playing inside a big plastic bubble.

3. Which of your songs is your favorite and why?

Frank: “You Don’t Understand What It’s Like to Live in a Bubble.” This was the first song we wrote together and it really speaks to all of us.

Aaron: “Why Aren’t Our Immune Systems Better?” This is a ballad we wrote for our upcoming album.

Dave: “I Wish I Could Breathe Air Outside My Bubble Without Fear of Dying.” This is the lead single for our new album.

4. Best or worst experience on the road?

Aaron: The worst experiences have been anywhere we’ve played where sharp objects have been nearby. If anything punctures the band bubble or our individual bubbles, we’re as good as gone. Needless to say, it’s a fear that consumes us all.

5. What’s next for you?

Frank: We’re gonna try to keep avoiding germs and rock out as much as we can.

Dojo

Dojo is a Wu-Tang Clan tribute band that actually knows martial arts. According to Dojo, “The Wu like to reference Shaolin kung fu. That’s for pussies. We are all blackbelts in karate. Our shows are part karate and part rap. Mostly karate. We’re not really very good at rapping, but no one can say shit, because we’ll destroy them.”

1. How did you meet?
Phillip: Terry (the Indian one) had just gotten the crap beat out of him by some asshole after work one night. The next day he comes into the karate school that me and Davis run and he’s like, “Phillip, I need to know how to kick ass.”

Terry: That was a long time ago.

Davis: Not that long ago, dick. Anyway, we taught him immediately. After that, we started watching martial arts movies together and he pretty much introduced us to the Wu.

Terry: Yeah, these guys went crazy when they heard rap songs that mention martial arts. We figured out that we could probably make money performing Wu-Tang songs while simultaneously splitting boards with our fists and foreheads.

2. How would you describe your sound?

Phillip: We sound exactly like the Wu-Tang Clan if they were under attack by a bunch of bad guys.

Terry: Every song has extra-cool shit going on in the background.

Davis: Roundhouse kicks, dragon-punches, leg sweeps…

Phillip: It sounds pretty badass.

3. Which of your songs is your favorite and why?

Davis: We do a version of “Protect Ya Neck” that you wouldn’t believe. In the middle of the song, Phillip lights these nunchakus on fire and attacks me and Terry with them.

Phillip: I go to town on them.

Terry: We let him do a lot of damage to us, just to show the audience the importance of protecting ya neck.

Phillip: You don’t let me. I just dominate.

Terry: Shut up, dumbass.

Phillip: You shut up!

Davis: Anyway, from the feedback we’ve gotten, people really like that part of the show.

4. Best or worst experience on the road?

Terry: The coolest thing about being a band full of blackbelts is we never have to worry about our personal safety. Last year at a show in Portland, things got pretty intense.

Phillip: A bunch of 13-year-old white kids jumped onstage during a song. Not cool.

Davis: So, we unleashed a shitstorm of kicks to the neck and face and took them down. It was awesome.

Terry: To be honest, even if those particular guys hadn’t done that, someone was gonna get hurt by us. That’s what we do.

5. What’s next for you?

Davis: Well, all three of us are competing on Saturday at the Mid-Atlantic Karate Tournament. Last year we each got to the semifinals but then lost.

Phillip: I didn’t lose. I tore a groin muscle.

Terry: Same thing, idiot!

Phillip: Keep it up, Terry. Keep that shit up.

Davis: But this year, we’re all really jacked about it. We’ve all been training a lot. I think the three of us have a great shot at a “Golden Tiger.”

Phillip: That would be huge. Then it’s not just about fear; it’s about respect.

The Little Guys

This trio from Portland, Oregon, is a ska band that plays tiny, tiny instruments.

1. How did you meet?

Wayne: We were all at a tiny, tiny instruments convention in Austin, Texas.

Eric: All the big tiny instrument makers came to town and were showing off their new tiny violins and tiny saxophones and tiny guitars. We each picked one up and the rest is history.

2. How would you describe your sound?

Eric: It’s like guitar meets violin meets saxophone, but much quieter.

3. Which of your songs is your favorite and why?

Wayne: “Spiderwebs.” It’s a cover of the No Doubt song. We’re really proud of how similar it sounds to the original, given how much bigger their instruments were when they recorded their version.

4. Best or worst experience on the road?

Eric: One time I lost my guitar and had to play a full-sized one. We looked pretty silly with two tiny instruments and one regular-sized one.

Ricky: Probably when my girlfriend cheated on me with the other two members of the band. That was not a very fun part of the tour for me.

5. What’s next for you?

Ricky: After last night’s show, where I caught my girlfriend sleeping with Eric and Wayne, I think I’m done playing with this band. They can take their tiny instruments and go fuck themselves. F

Two generations and more than one hundred years removed from his Sicilian grandparents’ passage through the protocols of Ellis Island, DeVotchKa’s Nick Urata carries all the transatlantic baggage and New World wonderment of a man freshly discharged from the ship. When he toes the microphone stand with a frock of statically charged petroleum-black chest hair, clutches a cheap bottle of red wine and trills between French, Spanish and English, he makes good on the adjectival mess of a genre he’s coined for himself and his three bandmates: “Gypsy-immigrant-carnival-wedding.”

It may sound gimmicky for a west-of-middle American indie rock band, but DeVotchKa’s European essentials—polka syncopation, flamenco guitar, bazouki and sousaphone—are, in fact, natural touchstones. “We all have that in our roots... You probably do too if you look back far enough,” says Urata in a jet-lagged voice on the phone from Madrid, where the four Denverites recently arrived to entertain packed houses in advance of their fourth full-length, A Mad and Faithful Telling, to be released this spring on Anti-.

The band dug straight through the topsoil of its roots before foraying into the long-player format. Early on, it camped near the proverbial red lights of burlesque, musicalizing neo-pinup doll Dita Von Teese’s national circuit of Eastern European-inspired fetishism. Things grew more thoughtful by 2004’s How It Ends. On that album, Urata sang from the vantage point of a ranchero returning from war to find his fortune depleted and his wife deceitful. Conceptually, A Mad and Faithful Telling is an inversion of that narrative. After spending intermittent chunks of the last decade on the road and abroad, Urata says he can imagine the unease his grandparents must’ve experienced as they crossed the pond; something contemporary immigrants still experience today as they try to traverse the virtual fence along the southern border. “When you leave behind your loved ones to get in a little van and go on tour, it sometimes feels like you’re never going to see them again,” he says. “Who’s watching over them? Who’s watching these people I’m working for?”

DeVotchKa used to work on its own free-spirited terms. 2003’s Una Volta carried a seemingly counterintuitive warning label on its back cover: “Unauthorized duplication of this record is encouraged.” Now, attached to a label for the first time, Urata has gained some perspective on the recording industry (“As much as independence is satisfying, it’s also hampering”), but doesn’t rescind the band’s open invitation to pirates. “In this day and age no one has to be encouraged to copy a CD,” he says. “Our parents are even doing it.”

Some of DeVotchKa’s recent ascendency comes from the mainstream star power of the hit 2006 film, Little Miss Sunshine, a black comedy bought for $10 million at the Sundance Film Festival. When the band received a Grammy nod for the film score, which was compiled from pre-existing material and some tinkering in the studio with composer Mychael Danna (Capote), Urata was ready to stake his claim on financial solvency.

“People who cared about me always tried to warn me about how poor I would be if I tried to be a musician, since I come from a long line of them,” he says. “And they were right. It has been a long road and I have gotten myself into some really degrading situations to make a buck.”

But sonic output is what counts, anyway, and A Mad and Faithful Telling continues to deliver DeVotchKa’s expansive, eclectic sound. Tom Hagerman’s virtuoso violin often dices through the foreground, while Jean Schroder’s tuba rises in the back like a slow-motion, low-end tide. At its best, on tracks such as “Along the Way” and “Undone,” Urata’s tenor reaches an Orbisonian vibrato that can break through the iciest Eustachian tubes; at its subtlest, it offers the camp of Chris Isaak, debauched and philandering at a bridal reception in Bucharest. Amid warm, staccato organ notes on “Transliterator,” his call-and-response lyrics cathartically overlap. “I never get anywhere / I get the space in between,” he sings with the force of an entire family tree of vocalists.

This kinetic movement is a testament to Urata’s restlessness. Like a million others, he says he’s fed up with all the arrogance the U.S. government has projected toward the world at large during the past eight years; after all, his grandparents didn’t leave Europe to fan the flames of an even more threatening empire. Yet he isn’t prepared to expatriate, let alone leave Denver. Pragmatism reigns in the sanctuary city. “I’m not going to give up on America,” he says. “I tell you, the temptation’s there, but I don’t feel like it would do justice if I just ran away. I think about how hard everybody worked to get me here. To run away is to give up on this great experiment.”

“It’s an easier way of life in Denver,” he continues. “I’ve surrounded myself with a circle of friends and family. It’s cheap to maintain a band, not like L.A. or New York, where you have to pay an exorbitant amount for practice space. And if you forget to lock your door, it’s not the worst thing in the world.”

Occasionally, despite his diverse family background, Urata’s safety—the sovereignty of his comfort zone—is threatened by a language barrier. On an early-morning public radio show in Madrid a few days after he and DeVotchKa touched down, for instance, he had to filter his broken Spanish through a translator. “I can’t keep up with those guys,” he says of native speakers. When the band returns from its Spanish mini-tour, he can resume life at his own Anglicized pace, or at least until it’s time to roll out stateside publicity for the new album. And as he exits the front door of his modest Denver digs, he’ll step onto East Colfax, the longest street in America, catch his breath amid the commutes of Gypsies and Gentiles, and perhaps be reminded that trotting out success in any corner of the world is a long, intergenerational project. It’s not easy to rise above the melting pot. F

Ah, the summer of 1994. O.J. Simpson and Al Cowlings took us all on a ride in a white Ford Bronco, simultaneously shattering our collective innocence and ruining Hertz commercials forever. Forrest Gump taught America a thousand recipes for shrimp and 1,001 clichés about the banalities of life. New York City cops were cracking down on all manner of indecency, Kurt Cobain’s death was still fresh, Major League Baseball was going on strike and very temporarily, the words “Hootie and the Blowfish” were cool and unusual and not just the punchlines to a joke.

For Luke Shapiro (tween icon Josh Peck of Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh, the hero of Jonathan Levine’s The Wackness, ’94 was the summer between high school and college—three months spent selling pot in The Park, listening to A Tribe Called Quest and Notorious B.I.G. bootlegs, getting high with his shrink (Ben Kingsley), trying to stay cool and trying to get laid.

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, The Wackness is almost vindication for Levine, whose slasher debut All the Boys Love Mandy Lane generated buzz and a bidding war at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival only to get lost in a distribution morass.

Like The Flamingo Kid for the 21st century, The Wackness is a coming-of-age story that unfolds over one long, sticky New York summer, with enough personal growth, sexual humiliation and kickass tunes to help it stand out from the usual steroid-injected superheroes of the Hollywood blockbuster season. It’s also the only movie you’ll see this year to feature Gandhi making out with an Olsen Twin (Mary-Kate, we think) in a telephone booth.

So how was your actual summer of 1994?

Jonathan Levine: You know, dude, I shouldn’t even tell you. I was a fucking counselor at a summer camp.

If it makes you feel any better, so was I.

Good, good. But that’s not as interesting a movie. I used to work at a summer camp in Maine for like 10 years for the simple reason that everyone I knew was leaving the city over the summer. The summer was always bookended—I would go to camp for June and July and then I’d have May and August in the city. And New York is just so desolate and you almost feel like you can do anything because the same people aren’t around, so you can become a whole new person, which is very appealing when you’re in high school.

So why, given this cinematic opportunity to reinvent your summer of 1994, did you make your proxy a pot dealer?

I don’t know, man. Luke just having graduated and being on the cusp of going to college; that’s a very important crossroads that I wanted to examine. As far as why he’s a drug dealer; I don’t know. I never was. To me it’s a great device to get him to move all around the city and meet people. I certainly smoked a lot of pot in the summer of ’94. Maybe not while I was a camp counselor, but definitely while I was in the city. And I think that has the almost lazy, nostalgic haze to it that underscores the vibe of the summer.

I have nearly the film’s entire soundtrack on my iPod now, but in 1994, I have to admit that I was still bouncing between Pearl Jam and Phish. Why were you going a different direction?

I’m from New York, so that really informed a lot of what I was listening to. I think that was a time when a lot of my colleagues in high school, a lot of white kids, were getting into hip-hop. For some reason, I never really got into the Pearl Jam thing. I later got into Nirvana. And now I’m really into kinda alternative music from that time, like James or Siamese Dream—all of these albums from that era that I didn’t get to put into the movie. The other thing is—and the Mary-Kate Olsen character in the film is kinda reflective of this—I had this very reactionary response to The Grateful Dead. I had no interest in it. I fucking didn’t like it and then I went to boarding school and everyone was taking bong hits in their room and listening to The Grateful Dead and Phish and the other jam bands that were around then that I equally didn’t like. Now I love The Grateful Dead, but I couldn’t even listen to a fucking song for years.

Why do you think that was the moment to be getting into hip-hop?

At the time, there was kind of a recklessness and provocative spirit to rap music. I started getting into rap with Public Enemy; Do the Right Thing was really the movie that turned me on to filmmaking. That recklessness and almost subversive revolutionary something was what I responded to. I don’t know why. I didn’t really have anything to revolt against. As a teenager, I kinda identified that spirit with how I was feeling, just in terms of my worldview. The next step in that was listening to Biggie. He was the single most influential musician for me in that time and place because he was speaking with such frankness about things. Sometimes they were things I understood and sometimes they were things that did not personally resonate with me, but what I understood was his spirit. And when you’re living in New York, that music is the pulse of the city.

The movie is full of browns and greens, of unusually saturated and desaturated colors. Why was that the way 1994 looks in your mind?

The look evolves through the course of the movie. My DP and I had lots of visual references for it, whether it’s the lugubrious murk of the city or later when it opens up and we let more color in as he falls for the girl and things start to get more golden and sunny. We wanted to give the whole thing a nostalgic haze and we produced a lot of that onset with smoke machines and lenses. Then, in the color correction of the film we were able to dictate even more deliberately how the color palette evolved, but it was always our goal to start desaturated and then open it up, while still maintaining the look that movies from that era had—movies like Kids or Fresh. The city tells you where you’re supposed to go with things, especially if you’re outside. All we could do was graft our visual narrative onto what we had, but being on location in the city was the most significant dictator.

And then you have Rudy Giuliani unseen in the background as almost a villain. How did you want to use the idea of Giuliani?

It wasn’t really a political statement in any way. It was about staying grounded to the truth of the times. The reality of being in New York at the time was that you couldn’t go anywhere without somebody bitching about Giuliani, which is another fascinating thing about the period. Since then he’s worn so many different personas. He’s been this amazing American hero and then he’s been this failed presidential candidate; it’s interesting how fast history moves. To me, there was no polemic about how much Giuliani sucks, but for this particular character he was definitely the antagonist. But for me, as a New Yorker, I think he did a lot of great things, too. The Giuliani thing is also an analogue, thematically, for what’s going on with Dr. Squires and Luke. How do you clean up your own self? Do you do what Giuliani did and cosmetically deal with it? Or do you attack the core of the problems?

Sure, there’s the grittiness and authenticity, and sure, the city dictates the movie, but there’s still—and don’t take this the wrong way—the core of a classic ’80s teen movie here, right?

Fuck you, man! [Laughs. Pauses.] Of course, man. I grew up on that John Hughes, Cameron Crowe stuff. From a script and acting perspective, those were the single greatest influences on the film. But the good ones, you know? Like Ferris Bueller and Say Anything and even Almost Famous. I was definitely conscious of it, that there’s a very rich history of these summer coming-of-age movies. I think it’s because that structure lends itself to the themes that we’re working with in this film.

You manage to have Gandhi and one of Nickelodeon’s most popular stars doing drugs together in several scenes. How much fun did you have casting this movie?

It was always something I wanted to do, to basically take people and…not reinvent them, but put them in interesting and different roles where you haven’t seen them before. I like the idea of people having preconceived notions of an actor and us subverting that. That’s one of the great things that independent films can do.

With this movie and with Mandy Lane, you’ve had two very different versions of film festival buzz. Have you learned anything from the experiences?

I’ve learned to go to film festivals and really concentrate on showing the movie to people and hoping they like it. As far as the distribution game goes, it’s not something for me to concentrate on, because I’ll drive myself absolutely bananas. Like you said, we had two different paths for both of these. I think Mandy Lane is coming out toward the end of the year and luckily both films are going to get into theaters and find audiences. That’s really the most important thing. If I could take back all the psychic energy I devoted to who was going to buy the fucking film, I would gladly do that, because all that matters is that people sit in a dark room and like it. The biggest thing Mandy Lane did is that it gave me another film. But when we had sold it for a bunch of money, I thought I was going to be rich and all this shit; and then I was still sitting in my crappy apartment in Echo Park six months later. It’s very important to stay grounded. That’s one of the more important lessons, as I move on with my career—figuring out how to deal with both success and failure, and just continuing to do your thing.

Does that mean that it was easier for you to keep perspective at Sundance with The Wackness?

No. I was super-psyched to go to Sundance with this movie, and then we showed it, and yes, we had interest, but it wasn’t the huge bidding war that Mandy Lane was. And ironically, this film is going to come out first and it’s getting all of these accolades and people love it. So…no. Just because I understand it intellectually doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to fuck up over and over again.

3 films
that inspired Jonathan Levine to make movies


Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee
“I love it for its sense of time and place. It doesn’t pull any punches and it’s also looking at big ideas, but on an intimate scale.”

Manhattan
Woody Allen
“There’s this kind of beautiful, self-conscious romanticism that’s in many ways a beautiful filmic version of the lens through which everybody looks at New York.”

Band of Outsiders
Jean-Luc Godard
“I tell people I like this so I’ll sound smart. For me, Godard is a stylistic visionary; doing stuff with music, sound and image that people still don’t do. In many ways, a Godard movie is like a hip-hop album.”

Cherub Rock
Josh Peck Slangs the Nostalgic Haze

While many older viewers will be getting their first glimpse of Josh Peck as Luke, the mumbling, hip-hop loving, pot dealing anti-hero of The Wackness, those ill-informed moviegoers are obviously outside of the Nickelodeon target demo, where Peck’s work on The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh has been making kids laugh and squeal for nearly a decade now.

Make me feel old—how long ago does 1994 seem to you?

In some ways it seems like forever ago. I mean, truly, I was 8 in 1994, so I was still rocking the shoes that lit up when you walked, and watching Power Rangers and wearing Bugle Boy and shit. But it was also such a defining year in the ’90s as far as hip-hop goes and sort of the cultural impact that happened. If you allow yourself, you’re constantly reminded of that time.

Did Jonathan give you a 1994 primer to get you up to speed?

We started adopting some speech patterns, some language that was used more prominently in the ’90s. While I was in New York—I mean, it’s my hometown; I’m from Hell’s Kitchen, but I’ve lived in L.A. for a couple years now—but when I got to New York for filming, I only listened to East Coast rap. I wanted my headspace to be completely immersed in the East Coast vibe, because New York is this sort of living, breathing thing and I wanted to be completely connected and enraptured in everything that it is. I think my character Luke really represents the city.

This is a fairly major realignment of your image. Have you been looking for a transitional role like this for a while?

I got into this because I love acting and it feeds my soul and I’m really not good at anything else. I’ve always wanted to do material and roles that challenge me and it’s usually the things that scare you in life that are the things you want to gravitate towards. Except for spiders... I felt that with Luke, because I felt we were really in the same place in life. In my acting and in my career, I just want to project truth and put it out there, because I think it’s my responsibility to the audience. Sir Ben [Kingsley] said it best; he said the camera hates acting. And yes, I’m so appreciative for what Nickelodeon’s done for me and making kids laugh; there’s no greater gift in this world. But I also wanted to make sure that I wasn’t typecast into that role for the rest of my life. F



 

Comics are a weird breed. And I’m talking about real comics, not some funny guy you went to high school with or that schmuck in your office who forwards those gut-busting lists of lawyer jokes. No, I mean the comics who actually go out night after night, delivering 30 minutes of stand-up to drunken accountants in Sheboygan or an hour of improv sketches to bachelorette parties in Nantucket; or that even rarer few who make it to the Really Big Leagues of comedy, like Last Call with Carson Daly or one of those little boxes on the MySpace homepage. Comedy is tough, man. It takes a toll. No wonder Sam Kinison screamed like a madman; no wonder Eddie Murphy makes shit like Norbit and Martin Lawrence did Big Momma’s House. Twice.

You see, there may be nothing more difficult in the world of entertainment than making people laugh. Really laugh, and repeatedly. It takes a certain stock, it takes a certain ilk. Call it a death-wish, call it self-loathing, call it what you will: Those who measure success by conjuring even the slightest smile on a stoic’s face, or those who mark their worldly worth by a wet spot on the front of a patron’s pants—man, those people are sick.

However, every once in a Belushi moon comes that special personality, that well-adjusted, family-driven, spotlight-sharing, helping-old-ladies-across-the-street—unironically!—kind of guy; that no-less gifted but, dare we say it, normal comedic genius. Kevin Nealon is such a talent. Born into a Protestant family in Connecticut and entering the lunatic fringe of Hollywood stand-up during the Reagan ’80s, Nealon has always possessed those two traits that every comic this side of Dangerfield would kill for: good jokes and respect.

Those qualities and the friendships they forged have served Nealon well, personally and professionally. As legend has it, Nealon’s close friend Dana Carvey was selected aboard the sinking ship that—at the time—was Saturday Night Live; learning from show captain Lorne Michaels that SNL was looking for a “big tall funny guy,” Carvey recommended his big tall funny buddy and, after wowing Michaels with his stand-up routine, Nealon, along with Jon Lovitz, Phil Hartman, and Carvey, joined the ranks on an S.O.S. mission—Save Our Show. Thanks in part to Nealon’s dry, sardonic deadpan, his hilarious (and newly acquired) sketch-writing skill, and memorable characters such as Hans and Franz and Subliminal Man, the good ship was righted and Nealon spent the next nine years going live from New York.

Today, multiple sitcoms and myriad film roles later, Nealon once again finds himself in the forefront of pop-comedic culture. As pot-crazy city councilman Doug Wilson on Showtime’s highly praised Weeds, Nealon is winning over both co-workers and viewers alike with his down-to-earth-yet-out-in-space portrayal of a hilarious everyman whose sole job seems to be to lighten the mood and raise the spirits of those around him. Quite appropriate for a man who, as Dana Carvey says, “is just one of those people in show business—Tom Hanks might be the other one—that I don’t believe has any enemy.”

Finding inspiration in his new baby, book, and banjo, Kevin Nealon is truly one of America’s favorite big tall funny guys of any comedic generation. Here, along with Dana Carvey, Tim Meadows and Mary-Louise Parker, we pay tribute to a comedian so humble that his comic legacy just might be, in fact, news to him.

A Conversation with Kevin Nealon

Was it always going to be comedy for you?

Yes, it was. In high school, I used to memorize the jokes on the back of Parade magazine from the paper. It had the favorite jokes of a different comedian each week. I memorized those jokes and then personalized them, and when I went to neighborhood parties I would tell them to people like they were my own. People started saying, “You should go to the comedy clubs in New York.” So, I went to check it out, and it was too aggressive for me. The crowds were packed in there, the comics were kinda brash. So, I went out to L.A. and did stand-up.

Did you plan to stick to stand-up, or did you have aspirations to be an actor?

All I wanted to do was stand-up comedy. But eventually I saw how it would be good to act as well. In fact, one of the co-owners of the Improvisation in Hollywood said I should take some acting classes because nine out of 10 times a casting agent will come into the club and see a comic they like and ask them to come read for their project. So, I started taking acting workshops.

Did you put those skills to use immediately? Were they honed onstage doing stand-up?

It all evolves. You start doing stand-up, and you get better. You get better at writing; I wasn’t just doing bits memorized from Parade anymore. I was writing my own material. And then the acting started coming along. You start going in for more auditions and get better at that, too. That’s hard in itself; it’s nerve-wracking and it’s worse than doing stand-up—a closed room with people just staring at you. It all evolved into the experiences I have now.

As a stand-up comedian, was the prize just to get onstage and do your act, or were you working towards something? Was a Johnny Carson appearance the golden stage for stand-up?

For most comics at that time, that was the goal, to get on The Tonight Show. And that was what I did, I kept working at it and eventually auditioned for the talent coordinator, Jim McCawley, and he had me come on the show. I had a great set, and Johnny invited me over to sit on the panel with him and talk a little bit, and it was probably the highlight of my career. More than doing Saturday Night Live or anything else.

How did you go from stand-up to SNL? I understand that Dana Carvey really went to bat for you with Lorne Michaels.

Yeah, Dana was a friend of mine. He was renting an apartment over our garage in a house me and some buddies lived in. And he got hired to do the show that coming fall, and they still needed another guy, so he pitched my name and called me and said, “They’ll probably want to see some tapes.” So I sent my tapes in from The Tonight Show and they liked that and called me in for an audition. And then they offered me a job. We negotiated that I’d be a featured player on all the episodes, and that I would also be a writer.

What was your audition like?

It’s funny you should ask, because I just went to the party after this season’s last show, and somebody said they have my SNL audition tape and they’re going to send it to me. I was basically doing my stand-up act. I was doing stuff that me and Dana used to do in our driveway, which eventually was on the show; our characters. I hadn’t done sketch comedy. I didn’t do characters, so it was interesting. And it worked. I guess sometimes they’re just looking for a certain type: the tall drink of water.

The deadpan guy.

I don’t know how I became deadpan. I guess that’s what I was growing up; I liked that stuff. But it seems to work for me. I’ve never been the broad comedian—the in-your-face comic.

What dictates the success of a recurring sketch? Do you wait to see how audiences react, or is it based on cast or producer feedback?

It’s a little bit of everything. With “Hans and Franz,” we wrote that sketch and put it on kind of late that first time. The audience didn’t really know what to expect. There wasn’t an overwhelming reaction to them, and we didn’t put them on again for another couple weeks. And then I came up with an idea, and we voted to put it up and when the audience saw it, they just went crazy. It was just the familiar character-recognition thing.

How did you get to the “Weekend Update” desk?

Dennis Miller was leaving and Lorne thought I’d be good for it. He asked me and I agreed to do it, and I just started getting into that boat. I got out of the mode of writing character sketches and got back into the mode of writing jokes.

Did you write most of the jokes that you read at the desk?

I wrote some of them. You can’t write them all, but I would pretend I had to. It’s hard to get the writers to write for “Update” because it wasn’t a real glorifying job. Nobody at the watercoolers on Monday would be talking about a Clinton joke. Everybody wanted to write characters and sketches where they could do spin-offs and movies later, so to try to entice people to write for “Update,” they’d put out a buffet Saturday mornings in the writer’s wing. They’d have all kinds of AP photos and newspapers—some of the younger, newer writers would come and then Al Franken would come up and grab a paper and have breakfast.

Did you write your sign-off, “I’m Kevin Nealon and that’s news to me”?

I did. I didn’t have it the first time I went up there. I couldn’t think of one. And then sometime during the night, the week after that, I came up with it.

Did you identify most with a particular SNL cast from a certain season?

I was there for so long, I saw so many cast members come through, but the initial cast I came in with was Dana, Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks, those people—we were there for a couple of years before they started bringing in Spade, Rock, Farley, Sandler and Myers. It became diluted. There was no real lineation in the cast. But I don’t think a lot of us were on the same comedy level as some of the newer guys. I guess you could say it was a different kind of comedic generation. Their stuff was a little more along the lines of MTV-style comedy. Every week that first year we thought the show was going to be canceled. We were all living out of our suitcases.

When did you realize that you were safe?

After about two years. And even then, you’re still not completely safe. That’s so typical of the business. You always think that the last thing you do is your last project and then you’ll never work again.

How do you remember your time at SNL?

It was an incredible experience. You’re in this institution and you never really felt like you belong there. You felt like you were trespassing; especially me, because I had never done sketch comedy. But I enjoyed the whole process. It was exciting to work with a different talent each week and meet the musical guests, and live in New York City—there was this energy there that was unparalleled. I have no bad memories of it at all.

When did you know it was time to leave?

After about nine years I was kind of done with it. I still appreciated the show, but I was getting bored. There were so many people in the cast. It wasn’t what it used to be for me—it didn’t have the same excitement. I’d be eating at the craft services table in between sketches and then I would actually be in the sketch with food still in my mouth. That’s how casually relaxed I’d become with it.

So, what did you want to do from there? What did you do immediately afterwards?

I kept doing stand-up during off-weeks. I’ve never stopped doing stand-up since I started. But I actually left SNL because I had an offer to do a pilot. It was a sitcom for Dreamworks called Champs, with Timothy Busfield and Ed Marinaro. And that seemed like a good stepping-off point. I think we shot a full season but they only aired eight episodes. And then I had a series called Hiller and Diller in 1997 with Richard Lewis that lasted about the same amount of time as Champs.

Can you sense, on a show like that, that it’s not going to be continued?

I was so new to the sitcom world. I was at SNL for nine years—live television—so I didn’t know too much about sitcoms. I thought it was a shoe-in; both of them. We had good time slots!

But now you’ve got a prime role on a very successful show. How did you get started on Weeds?

I was still doing my stand-up and going on auditions and there wasn’t much good stuff out there. I got my hands on the script for Weeds and told my agent I really liked it and that I’d like to go for a reading. I went in and met the people and read for them. And it was just for a guest role on the pilot, but they liked me so much they kept me as a regular when the show got picked up. That role just seemed like a natural fit for me.

Mary-Louise Parker’s line referring to your crew of white collar delinquents sums it up: “I’m surrounded by the fucking Lost Boys.” How does this show’s success feel?

It’s always nice to be on a show that people respect and appreciate. Everybody always asked me about SNL, and I started wondering if that would be the benchmark of my career. I was always hoping I’d be able to do something else that people would be interested in and would want to talk about. And Weeds seems to be that now.

It’s funny how people automatically think I smoke pot because I’m on that show. And I don’t smoke. But I’ll go do a stand-up club and invariably somebody will come up to me with a joint and say, “Dude, you wanna go smoke some weed?” And I’ll say, “Thanks, I don’t really smoke.” And they don’t believe it, they’re like, “C’mon, it’s good stuff!” I wonder if the actors from The Sopranos, like after they’re finished with dinner, if anybody comes up with a .38 caliber, “Hey, you wanna go whack some people?” We’re just actors!

Your role as Doug Wilson on Weeds really seems to keep the mood light during some of the heavier plots.

I am kind of the comedic relief on the show. Not that the other actors aren’t funny, but Mary-Louise comes from a theater background; so does Justin Kirk. But with my background, there’s really no other role for me. It’s what I do.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing stand-up comedy, because I really love it, and it’s the reason why I got into this business. After Weeds, I’d like to do my own project. Maybe a half-hour show on TV or some films. Maybe I’ll write another book. I love being a Dad. I love staying home and hanging out with my son.

I also like to play the banjo. Occasionally I get together with other banjo players in the business like Steve Martin. Eric Idle plays the guitar. It’s a lot of fun.

Does playing the banjo provide you with anything that comedy can’t?

No, not really. I took up the banjo after I saw Deliverance. It just moved me so much.

It was either taking up the banjo or taking up sleeping with your cousin.

Yeah, I had the choice of either one of those and went with the banjo. Probably a safe choice for all of us.

Well, Isn’t Kevin Special?
A Conversation with Dana Carvey

Kevin told me you helped him get to SNL. How did that go down?

I first saw him at the Improv in Hollywood in the early ’80s and got to know him in passing. My wife and I rented an apartment in a house he lived in, so I was his roommate in a sense. It was a dive; it was pretty rough.
When I got SNL, I went out to New York and stayed at Lorne Michaels’ house for a month before the show started. They were casting the show; it was a big overhaul year, and it became known to me that they wanted a big tall funny guy. [In a Lorne Michaels/Dr. Evil voice] “Maybe like Chevy, a tall, funny guy…” I said, “I know a tall funny guy!” So Kevin came out and he just stood there in the studio and did stand-up for 15 of us, which is very hard, but he killed. And that’s how he got it.

Was that an aspiration Kevin had expressed to you?

I think anybody around in the early ’80s at the Improv and The Comedy Store—unless they were already a star—wanted to go on SNL. I auditioned with Jim Carrey at one point. It was whimsy; it was bizarre that it even happened to Kevin and me.

Kevin and I came during a weird time, which was the first time in the show’s history—even now—that it didn’t get a full-season pickup. It was only booked for eight shows that year, and it had been cancelled. We were told if we didn’t hit the ground running, they’d pull the plug by Christmas. And so my very first show I was so nervous, I was just swearing at myself in the mirror. And Kevin did “Subliminal Man” on that show and killed, and several other things. He started off well.

How did you two develop such a good partnership for “Hans and Franz”?

We’d done stand-up together and had the same management team, so after our first SNL season they suggested we do a tour. So, Kevin, Dennis Miller and I went on a 20-city tour; we had Swatch sponsor us, we had a road manager—stuff I don’t even have now. Kevin had actually lived in Austria for a while, so he was really good with Austrian accents, and we saw Arnold [Schwarzenegger] on TV and started improvising. We had this little riff we would do, over and over again, [In Austrian accent] “You know, you get to the hotel and you do a nice workout, and you break a nice sweat and you take a nice shower. And you put on a nice white cotton shirt and then you’re ready for evening.” We repeated that 3,000 times; it was just one of those giggly high school things. I don’t know how it all came about, but it was a complete collaboration.

We were thinking of doing Arnold’s cousins, Hans and Franz, and at one point Kevin did the little turn where he does the paranoid, almost sadistic part of Hans and Franz: “If you don’t want to work out, we could very easily come to your house and stretch your flab,” and we giggled for hours at the idea that they never lifted weights, but they had this huge chip on their shoulders. It became a bizarre little sketch as it went along. It’s still one of my favorite attitudes to play.

And Arnold eventually came on the show, right?

Yeah, they all do. Arnold came, and we didn’t know whether he was going to be weird about it—of course we know now he’s brilliant, he just sees the big picture; “They make fun of me, and then I am the good sport, and everyone knows it’s good because we’re all relaxed.” He wasn’t defensive at all, he immediately loved it. And the girly-man thing, obviously he’s still ripping Kevin and me off.

One thing that’s kind of a shame is that [Robert] Smigel and me and Kevin and Conan [O’Brien] wrote a movie, Hans and Franz: The Girly-man Dilemma, which was really, really out there. We had Robert Conrad in it, and the bad guy had a button called “Hurt the Environment,” and then Sylvester Stallone would look out his window, [as Sly] “Hey, the environment seems sorta hurt.” And Arnold was in it, and he was swimming and we were water-skiing behind him, he was the boat; and the door to his house was a giant pair of buttocks. Crazy. Arnold really wanted to do it, but I didn’t understand how Hollywood worked and he had 19 projects in development, so that fell through. But that was a shame; it would have been fun.

What is Kevin Nealon really like?

Kevin’s kind of shy, I’d say. Protestant family; he’s not one to get close to. I’d say I would be one of his closer friends. Kevin—and I put myself in this category—is sensitive for a stand-up, he’s not a bulldozer, show biz guy. He’s sensitive and polite. Comics really appreciate him; he has a dry, droll, subtle, very smart kind of humor.

How hard is it in this business to retain friendships?

We’ll go months without talking, but when you have that long history it’s just five seconds and you’re right into it, like high school buddies. We both went through that entire SNL thing—he stayed nine years, I was there for seven. And there’s nothing in your life that can be more intense than that, in terms of show business.

What are Kevin’s best qualities as a comedic personality?

He’s great at deadpan; he’s really good at keeping that straight face and saying outrageous things. Likeability is so huge in comedy, maybe more so than music or even acting. Kevin has that.

When Kevin graduated high school, he was five-feet-eight. He never seemed like a big guy—even though he was six-four, 220 and ripped when I met him. But he never played like a big guy. He didn’t want to stand-out, and I think that’s a key to him.

There’s a reason why class clown is singular. You never hear of class clowns. Kevin just stood out as generous. He didn’t really think to be cutthroat, or jump on a punchline to knock a guy out. Phil Hartman had that quality, too. I do a little more damage trying to get my face in the lens. I’m pathetic. But even though show business and Saturday Night Live can make you so competitive and bitter, Kevin just maintained his civility and his gentlemanliness in the midst of all that. He played by the rules. Everybody loves Kevin Nealon.

3,000 Laughs and Counting
As Told By Tim Meadows

Kevin was one of the veterans when I came to SNL, so it was really intimidating because I’d seen those guys perform for years. It was two different worlds then: the veterans and the new guys. But Kevin was really friendly with us new guys; we all respected him, and he made us laugh, too, because he’s just a naturally funny dude. And he’s a really good writer.

I remember one thing he did that always stuck with me at Saturday Night Live. During rewrite meetings they would bring in a large fruit salad and plates and plastic forks, and Kevin would come in and talk to the writers and while he was talking he would take a fork and pick up a piece of fruit and eat it, and then throw the fork on the floor. And then pick up another fork and eat another piece of fruit and throw that fork. And he would just keep doing it over and over until everybody was laughing. He would do bits like that all the time.

He’s really good when the cameras are on. We used to watch those guys work, so I learned a lot from him and Phil Hartman—how to work cue cards, that kind of stuff. Kevin and I just did this movie in New Zealand, They Came from Upstairs, and the way he would do different takes and add lines or improvise something were always good. He’s really consistent.

We’d all be having a normal conversation, and Kevin would say something funny and everyone would laugh, and then he’d turn to a non-existent camera and say, “We’ll be right back.” We were down there for three months—he probably did it 3,000 times, and I laughed every time he did it. I think he loves to be with comedians and make them laugh.

It was good to see him and talk. We had dinners a lot; we’d go out to fancy restaurants in Auckland. In all the years I’ve known him, I don’t think I’d ever spent that much time with him. I got to watch him do stand-up, which I hadn’t seen him do in a long time, and it was really funny. He’s still got it. He’s the same way he is in-person when he’s on stage. He’s not an angry comic. He’s not a brooding, sad comic, either. He’s normal, as normal as a comedian could be.

Kind Buds
As Told By Mary-Louise Parker

Kevin actually has a great, grounded quality and a real sweetness. A lot of times comedians are angry or damaged. Kevin is kind of the opposite. He is positive, sweet and humble.

You would be hard-pressed to find a more devoted husband and a more loving father. His love for his little boy is so profound that it just melts everyone. He is an incredible father. He is so nice that it is almost freakish. I am so happy when he works on the days that I do. He brings a really good vibe to the set. Sometimes he brings his banjo to the set and plays it for my son. He calls him the Banjo Man.

Kevin is constantly making all of us laugh, but never in a way that feels forced or obnoxious. Everyone is always happy when he walks on set. I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t love him. F

Say what you will, but the second British invasion offered much more than the mop-tops-in-suits of the first incarnation. Not that Jagger, McCartney and company weren’t impressive in their own right, but in the early ’90s, the wave of Brit-based hooliganism that overwhelmed grunge rock and its lumberjack wardrobe was truly inspiring. Pearl Jam and Hootie (Lord, banish thy memory) may have had the record sales, but the limeys had the cred, the outfits and an unlimited supply of cool bands with catchy tunes.

Led by Madchester ruffians The Stone Roses and everybody’s favorite feuding brothers, Oasis, the world was soon listening to the cheeky pop gems of Pulp, Blur, Soup Dragons, Auteurs, Denim, Supergrass, The Verve and Radiohead. Also caught in the Britannia tsunami was James, but unlike its contemporaries, this perennial underdog resisted cookie-cutter classification. For starters, by 1990 James had already experienced more highs and lows than the typical signed-after-two-gigs (Menswear) or claiming-to-be-better-than-U2 (Gene) band du jour. Beginning with its formation in 1981, James struggled through Smiths comparisons, flavor-of-the-month idolatry and wonky record deals so regularly that by 1988 the band was already being dismissed as a “has been.” But then came the hits. On its 1991 self-titled full-length, James exploded on the mainstream by producing three U.K. Top 40 tracks shortly following the album’s release, with the smashing wallop of a sing-along “Sit Down” following close behind. Suddenly, Manchester’s best kept secret was unleashed on the world, and phrases like “has been” and “washed up” were reserved for the likes of the Brothers Gallagher.

The abrupt success was sweet for a band constantly fighting uphill battles. When Tim Booth and Jim Glennie began playing together in the early ’80s, they became co-architects of the Britpop milieu, opening for the likes of The Fall at the Haçienda and attracting the attention of Tony Wilson’s Factory Records. Early EPs were full of promise, but ongoing disputes with Factory personnel and original guitarist Paul Gilbertson thwarted James’ full potential…as did subsequent sidesteps. Amidst record label troubles, the band jumped ship and joined Sire Records in the hopes of salvaging its torn sails, but the change proved to be another misfire. Sire quickly lost interest, promptly withholding support in the way of investment and distribution. However, despite label woes and changing guitar players (Larry Gott stepped in for Gilbertson), James developed a solid fan base through constant touring and devotion to its craft. Gigs became rituals for the faithful, and while permanent mainstream acceptance eluded them, word of mouth spread like a virus. One thing’s for certain; they sold a hell of a lot of T-shirts.

James’ second decade was a whirlwind of activity, as radio finally understood its genius and longtime band idol Brian Eno signed on as de facto producer. The band toured the world and by the end of the 20th century, James had sold millions of records. Having recently celebrated its silver anniversary, albeit with a hiatus for most of this decade, James is one of the few survivors of a musical renaissance that resulted in as many rehab visits as number one hits. And with a sterling new album, Hey Ma, the backing of a capable record company, and longtime fans eager for a sing-along, James is back.

A Conversation with Tim Booth

After seven years, you’ve returned with a new album and tour. Has this reunion been in motion for a while?

It started in earnest about two years ago. Jim had called a couple of years before that and I was never interested in getting together, but after a while I agreed to come to Manchester. Instead of having a business meeting with managers, we just got together in a rehearsal studio and mucked about for a few days.

It seems choosing a studio as a meeting place tipped the scales towards playing again…

The language we communicate in best has always been music. So yeah, besides talking, we tried a few other things and all of a sudden we had 30 pieces of music. The level of communication within the band when it comes to writing is effortless; things get a little harder when it comes time to hone the songs into polished gems, but some of them come in no time at all. “Bubbles” on the new album was like that. “Upside” too.

James achieved a significant level of fame in the early and mid-’90s with massive album sales and huge concerts, yet you’ve managed to keep it all together for the most part.

To be honest, we really weren’t interested in the level of fame of Madonna or someone like that. We weren’t in it for the fame…ever. So, we never had that experience of having to hold on to our celebrity. For us, it was always about playing and making great music.

Certainly our choice of making a record such as Wah Wah, which was all improvisational jamming, right after our biggest record and at the height of our fame, was—in the scope of celebrity career moves—suicidal timing. But, that’s what we wanted to do and it was definitely for the best in the long run.

You’ve had your share of ups and downs with various members leaving and the band breaking up in 2001. What kind of place are you in now?

A really good one. It’s a fantastic time at the moment. Honestly, I didn’t miss James during the time we were split up. Between my acting and solo work and writing, I’m a cottage industry. I’ve written three screenplays, one of which was optioned. I’ve got a solo record in the can, which who knows when it will come out, and I’ve got to spend a lot of time with my family over the last few years.

In 1999, NME reported that James was settling into middle age. What are the critics saying now?

I stopped reading reviews years ago. The U.K. is the only place where music press is tabloid based—they cover music the same way the American press covers film stars, so there’s really no point in bothering with what they say. What has kept us going over the years is how other bands have honored us and praised us. So many bands have always encouraged us and that’s what’s made the difference. The list is endless: Coldplay, Oasis, everyone. The press has gotten it wrong from the beginning. When they said we were influenced by The Smiths, that wasn’t the case at all. They were influenced by us—just ask Morrissey.

Tony Wilson and Factory Records obviously played a big part in the band’s early days. Tony’s death last year must have been a sad occasion for those who knew him…

We’ve dedicated the new record to Tony. He was so sweet. We heard about it while we were on tour in Edinburgh and played a new song for him that night. I regretted not staying with Factory, but back then we thought they were the big record company. It wasn’t till we got to Sire that we realized what a big record company actually is.

Another close collaborator has been Brian Eno, right?

We’re the luckiest band in the world. Working with Eno is an absolute pleasure. Everyone asks us—Michael Stipe for instance—how did we get Eno? It happened after Seven; I sent him a handwritten note with a cassette of some demos from Laid and I guess he just loved it and one day he called me up. There wasn’t any meeting with managers or anything; he just called. We talked for half an hour about everything from porn to perfume and then he said he wanted to work with us. And now it’s been nine years. I think he got hooked on our way of working; the fact that it’s so improv and jam oriented. He’s so graceful in his approach and draws out a different side of you. I think part of why we’ve lasted so long is that he wants to be involved…you’re not going to walk away from a Brian Eno project.

Is there an era of music to which you feel especially connected?

The ’70s fed me the most, going from Patti to Iggy into punk. Those are the roots I come from. I suddenly got the power of words and music coming together with [Patti Smith’s] Horses. But also, three years ago was one of the best years of music that I’ve ever experienced, which was Arcade Fire, Antony and The Johnsons, Martha Wainwright, Joanna Newsom…I kept going, “Holy shit, this is a good fuckin’ year.”

The Pixies, Arcade Fire, Talking Heads: those were amazing live bands and totally off the wall, totally uncool in a cool way. It was like with The Velvet Underground; they were never hungry or pushy for success. We thought that if you make great music, someone will pick up on it in the end, and you saw that with all these bands. The Pixies were never going to be like Nirvana because they didn’t have a singer who looked like that, but I’d say they were much more important than Nirvana in terms of music. I think Kurt, God bless him, would have said the same thing.

Looking back at the last 25 years, what are the songs that you are most proud of?

“Sometimes” comes straight to mind; that was the one that hooked Brian. We kept it from him initially and when we did play it for him in the studio he just sat there very quietly and said that it was one of the musical highlights of his life.
When we wrote “Sit Down,” we couldn’t stop laughing ’cause we wrote it in 20 minutes and we knew we’d written a big song. And there’s a song called “Lullaby” on Laid which was the first time where I learned the technique of writing in which I do six or seven passes improvising lyrics and in the end, I have a finished lyric. It helps me to work very quickly, and my subconscious writes better lyrics than my conscience ever could.


A Conversation with Jim Glennie

So now that James is playing together again, how has the time away been for you?

At first, I charged ’round like a headless chicken for six months doing busy work. It took me a good year to 18 months to figure out how to enjoy things in a different way. I definitely slowed down a lot. I mean, I still stayed in music, but it’s been kind of nice seeing family and friends and doing boring everyday stuff. I thought I’d miss gigging and traveling and staying in nice hotels and all that stuff, but it wasn’t that at all. I was missing songwriting; having songs come from nowhere. When I started writing with Larry [Gott] again, I realized that this was what I missed—the buzz of sitting around with a drum machine and creating something magical. I realized that was why I was in music.

Mainstream acceptance was a long time coming. What kept you going?

One thing that’s always sustained James and why we’ve managed to keep at it this long is that we’re kind of bloody-minded in that we have confidence that what we do is great. If the industry struggles with that, that’s its failing as far as we’re concerned. I’m inspired by bands like The Doors and The Velvet Underground, who had success come to them. We were never that concerned with what the industry thought we should have been doing musically.

What was the most difficult thing about cutting the new record?

There were all these questions of who was going to be involved and whether it was going to be a James record and how was it going to relate to the past. We did know that when we got together, it was going to be about new music. We had no interest in just trundling around, just playing the hits. So, that first weekend of rehearsals we knew we were going to do something; it was just a question of what it would be. But then, by the end of the second day, our manager had rung Tim up and got a tour on hold for the end of April, including playing the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester which holds 16 thousand people. I just freaked. It was so against what I thought we should be doing. I thought we should be playing for months before those decisions were made. Instead, on the second day of bleeding rehearsals, we had a tour booked, for Christ’s sake. I got a bit panicky, but Tim and Larry were convinced it was the best thing to do, and in reflection, I guess they were right. But, I tried quite hard to stop that tour from happening [laughs].

What has working with Brian Eno taught you?

One thing we all learned came from him jamming with us, which he does in rehearsals sometimes. He would always play these really basic keyboard lines and sounds because he wanted to limit the options; with unlimited options you never decide on anything. He forced us to use our creativity to come up with something really good instead of always looking for the perfect sound or line…clever man.

The way Laid and Wah Wah came together was pretty unconventional.

Brian is a busy man and wasn’t going to indulge us in the studio for six months. He set up a tight six week schedule, so that was a bit daunting. But then he did something that initially seemed ridiculous—he decided to record two albums at once. The other body of work was our improvisation, which we saw as a work in progress but Brian instead treated as finished songs. We got a second studio at Reel World and we had this mix engineer called Marcus Strauss to work on these improvisations. We’d work on these jams and then they would go straight to Marcus and he would mess around and stick effects on them. We just had fun and we ended up with the two records. If anyone else besides Brian Eno had suggested that, we’d have thought they were mad and not done it. With Eno, you put your confidence in and just go with it. He was such great fun to work with.

The record business has changed so much from the time when James was last in the spotlight. How is that going to affect how things work for you in 2008?

The industry is so different now, even since 2001—let alone back in the ’90s. But for us, it’s good because so much is geared towards playing live. There are new festivals opening up and we’re a live band, so in that aspect, it’s wonderful. In regard to sales, yeah, the labels are struggling to sell hard copies and I don’t know how that’s going to pan out for us, but I think the Internet is a great thing for music. I think the industry has completely and utterly shot itself in the head with the way it’s tried to approach people downloading music. The current music scene is so healthy and vibrant. In 2001, every kid wanted to be a DJ and now everyone wants to be in a guitar band, which is wonderful. You don’t have to bump into an A&R guy at a record company—you can build a career around the record industry through MySpace and your website. And I think that’s got to be a healthy thing. How the record industry finds a way to capitalize on that is another thing. The fact that they’ve struggled against that for 10 or 15 years is just ridiculous. It’s so, so silly. The best it could ever do is take people to court for downloading.

Besides the fanfare of the early and mid-’90s, when there were tours with Neil Young and loads of radio play, America hasn’t seen much of James compared to Europe and even South America.

I think the plan is to come over later in the year. Tim has been spending a lot of time in L.A., so that would make it easy for Larry and me to come over and do some writing, or in the guise of writing [laughs]. We know we’ve got a fan base there, but in the past it has been a bit difficult to bring a seven-piece band plus managers over to the States.

Those Charming Hooligans as told by YOUTH

In 1991, soon to be Grammy-winning producer and Killing Joke bassist Martin “Youth” Glover was hired to produce the follow-up to James’ breakthrough album, James. The result was Seven, which would rise to #2 on the U.K. charts.

I had the pleasure of working with James on Seven. I was recommended to them by their A&R man, Alan Pell, and I’d gone up to see them in Manchester, staying in Tony Wilson’s flat while he was away. At the time, they’d already broken through with the previous album and single “Sit Down” and my brief was to consolidate that success and take it further. I put together a pretty special team in the studio, including Simon Posford and Mark “Spike” Stent, so we had a great group going in.

I was fairly tough with them. I’m not a challenging producer and I’m quite careful not to interfere with a band’s character; I don’t have to stamp my name on it. They were coming out of this ramshackle indie-ness which was beautiful chaos in itself, but they were starting to do bigger gigs and tours, and my mission was to get the sound and make it bigger so it would fill up a bigger stage.

One of the things I was very proud of was that the reason Eno got into them was from hearing Seven; he is such a big hero of mine and I was blown away that he was so into the work we did. I’m a big fan of his productions with James; he doesn’t take over too much. He still retains that character of the band, but he gives Tim’s voice a nice backdrop to bounce off.

The members of James come across as nice, intelligent guys, but ironically it is a little different when you meet them. The first day of rehearsals at Olympic [Studios], and I won’t say who it was, but one of them came in after having had an altercation with a taxi driver outside and ended up spitting in his face and being knocked out; and one of the other ones is a real football hooligan; they’re really quite a hard, heavy band.

Although Tim has that poetic aspect to his to lyrics—and I think he’s one of the best lyricists out there—he’s also got this poet/boxer dynamic, he’s a bit of a fighter and not afraid to stand up and say what he thinks. These days I see a much leaner, wiser and savvier Tim, and not so naïve in a student/hippie sense. That’s still a part of their charm though; in a way they’re very feminine, but also very powerful. F