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Dave Noisy
Minister of Chaos
Canada
4496 Posts |
 Posted - 01/09/2003 : 01:04:48
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Thanks to Eric Kempke from the AP for this:
http://www.nudeasthenews.com/interviews/1
Frank Black
The Devil's Workshops
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» TROY CARPENTER | CO-DIRECTOR
Frank Black keeps marching on, and released his seventh and eighth solo albums this summer, with the help of his trusty band the Catholics. Though interrupted by his escape-artist dog, he chats with NATN about what keeps him going, 15 years into his musical career.
NATN: I wanted to express my condolences about that big equipment theft last year.
Frank Black: Well, thank you.
NATN: Have you recovered any of that?
FB: The gear, no. I've obviously replaced gear, and I'm happy about some of my replacements; not happy about others, but what are you gonna do?
NATN: So can you tell me about the Frank Black and the Catholics mobile recording studio? Is that a new thing?
FB: Yeah, the last two sessions we've done have been recorded with this gear that I started to acquire a couple years ago, but I only got serious about it maybe a year ago, and started to put together in earnest, and built this studio that's all in flight cases. You know, like you put road gear in. So we don't have a recording truck, but we put all the stuff in a truck and wheel it into some warehouse or something and set it up and record. So that's our mobile studio; we've set it up in a couple of locations.
NATN: So that gives you more flexibility, or...
FB: No, what it does is it gives us a studio, and it gives us the pain-in-the-ass solution of finding a location. Which, you know, if you don't have a massive budget and you live in an expensive metropolitan area, sometimes it's challenging. Not just to find the space, but to find it at the right time, or find it for the right length of time. I found this space up the street from my house which would be perfect to do some recording. And I would be willing to pay rent on this space for a year. But, you know, I don't want to do a three-year lease for some space, which is what they're asking. Then my mobile studio isn't mobile anymore. And that's not what I want; I want to be able to have a new space every six months. Ideally, that would be the case. And of course, if you have tons of money, you can have the Biltmore Plaza Hotel. That's where I would go -- Biltmore Plaza Hotel, Providence, Rhode Island, the grand ballroom on the top floor. That's where I want to make an album. But you know, there's complications with that situation, you can imagine. Not only do you have to rent the grand ballroom of a hotel in downtown Providence, but you probably gotta rent like the four floors below it! So you don't wake everyone up when you're recording a record. I don't know how you'd do it. I mean, if Bruce Springsteen wanted to make a record there, he'd figure it out. They'd do it just for the publicity.
NATN: So do you find that the different places you record have an effect on the record and the way that it ends up sounding?
FB: (laughs) No! Not at all. Virtually 90% of the recording studios in the world are industrial parks. You know what I mean? They're in industrial parks and they're in kind of commercial space -- that's where people put studios. And so to me, studios around the world ... I mean, you can say "oh, it was fun to be in Berlin in '78," I'm sure, but you talk about the actual studio, it's very rare that it was cool ... Well, there are nice studios -- "oh this one's in a church, and this one has a glass swimming pool in it or something." There are certainly high-end studios that have a nice vibe, but usually there's not a lot of workhorse studios that have their own amazing character in terms of the architecture or the decor of the building. And that's what we're talking about, we're talking about an indoor activity. It always seems awkward to me when somebody says, "well, does where you are affect your recording," and it's like well, it depends what you actually mean, you mean when I'm actually recording the record? "Well, yeah." Well, when I'm recording the record, there's like fluorescent lights in in this big room for like 15 hours. There is like zero atmosphere. It would not make a successful cafe location. You know? (laughs). That's what recording is to me. And I suppose, if you can afford to rent your own castle, it's a different thing. And yeah, I'd like to rent my own castle. But what the heck? I guess even in the workhorse studios, there are some musicians that like to have a big heavy vibe -- all the lights go down, and fake oriental rugs are everywhere, and candles dripping wax everywhere and incense, and they create this like hippy cave, you know? And they find that relaxing, and it's a vibe, and it's an atmosphere that probably affects their music. But me and my band, we're not like that. We're like, "Bill, will you go put out all those candles?" You know, the new kid from the studio will show up and there will be candles lit everywhere, because he'll think the band is coming in for the session, and he'd never worked with us before, and it's like, man can you blow out these candles? it's hot in here. Can you turn on the lights? We can't see, man. (laughs). We're way more workaholic about it. And some people aren't like that, they're way more into the vibe. Everybody's different.
NATN: So, with the way that you guys do records, you pretty much gotta be right on when you go in, right?
FB: No. It helps to at least be together some of the time, because sometimes that's what a particular song needs. A song needs you to give it some attention. A song needs you to write it properly, rehearse it properly, learn it, know it, frontwards, backwards, do a damn good job, do 50 takes of it, and find just the right take. It deserves it. It kind of begs for it, it needs it. And other songs couldn't be bothered with you, you know what i mean? They just don't give a hoot about you and your stupid career. They don't care. You write the song at two o clock in the afternoon, you scribble a few things down, the band comes in at six. 'Hey guys, try this chord progression' (sings) And you start yelping into a microphone, and it's done. And it sounds great. And when that happens, it's like "yeah, that's the way it should be." Is that the way it should be with all songs? Nooo. What about this little song over here? We tried that approach with that song and it sucked. This song needs attention. It just depends on the song.
NATN: Can you give examples from the new batch of songs, for both approaches?
FB: Yeah, yeah. On the new batch, well, on Devil's Workshop, there were probably four songs that we're done in that method of just writing it in the afternoon and recording it in the evening. Like "Bartholomew" or "San Antonio, Texas." But there were other songs, like the "Fields Of Marigold," which I started doing before I did Teenager Of The Year. And I had other versions of the song, I threw it down, threw some lyrics on top, and I thought, you know this isn't really that good. It's not that impressive. The lyrics kinda stink. The vocal isn't believable. And you try it again in the next session, and 'ahh, I hate that song. that's a stupid song.' And you forget about it for a couple of years, and then you remember 'oh yeah, there's this little thing I never quite finished off' And you work on it a little, and sometimes it has that kind of life.
NATN: What about "Velvety"? That's obviously been around for a long time.
FB: Yeah. Wrote the song when I was 15, ditched the shitty lyrics, recorded it as a b-side because I was hard up for a scrap of music for a b-side in the middle of a tour sometime or something. And I thought at the time that I was probably listening to a lot of Velvet Underground, and was doing my own piss-poor version of a Velvet Underground vibe, and called it "Velvety Instrumental Version." And so I'm stuck because someday I want to add some lyrics to it, but what am i gonna call it? I called it "Velvety Instrumental Version," right? Well, fuck, I gotta call it "Velvety" now. What the fuck? I gotta write a song about the Velvet Underground now. You know what I mean? I painted myself into a corner. Well, I didn't really. 'Cause now I think it sounds a lot more Velvety, I think, actually, and a little bit Stonesy too. And I rewrote the lyrics from the 15-year-old version, and you know, I'm pretty happy with it. So that one had a pretty oddball, a very long experience, you know. And even sort of a partial unveiling via a Pixies b-side. And you'll hear that on Lou Reed records. Songs that he did when they were instrumentals with the Velvet Underground that later he put lyrics on as Lou Reed.
NATN: And then on that big box set you get to hear the demoed Velvet Underground versions.
FB: Yeah, yeah. The artist is truly obsessed with his music, I think. The artist doesn't always make the best decisions or write the best song ... we all have our less-than-stellar moments. There are a few artists that are exceptional, you know, and tend to have very few of those moments or almost never write a bad song, and of course they're to be commended. But you know, a lot of people write a variety of stuff, and some of it's amazing, and some of it's maybe not that amazing. But you know what, even though they're that fallible, and I'm that fallible, you sometimes become obsessed with music. And you don't necessarily make it better in your obsession, you're just obsessed with it. Like a little kid is obsessed with a particular video tape or a song. You know, "play the song again, mommy!" You become obsessed with little snippets of music, and you force it through all these kinds of changes and things, and you expose it to the rest of the world. I mean, Bob Dylan sings songs live, and adds verses to them that weren't on the record and takes other verses away. And i think the artist -- the fallible artist -- is to be commended for at least being interested in what he's doing. I mean, sometimes rock stars can seem -- "oh gee that wasn't a great album, was it. oh gee, he's just obsessed with making money now. oh gee, look at all the mistakes he's making." Yes, you can say that sometimes about people, but you must commend them because basically, they're going out on stage and going "lalalala." I mean, even though it is an ancient and beautiful thing to perform music for other people, it is still kind of a potentially goofy situation. You know what i'm saying? Getting up and singing. Think about all the situations that regular people sing in. You know, at church, at a birthday party. (sings) "Happy birthday to you" and maybe somebody has a really bad voice and they're singing (sings out of key) "Happy birthday to you" --- you're going out on a limb when you do that stuff. So the artist has to be commended for putting himself in the position to make a complete fool of himself, and frequently doing it.
NATN: In terms of when it comes around to self-editing, or "this song isn't working at this particular time, let's put it aside for now," is that sort of a collaborative thing within the Catholics?
FB: Well, with me and the band, it's an unspoken collaboration. There are no discussions about these things that you're asking me about. But I can tell when it's going on with the band. And the band will sometimes not even self-edit. The band will say "well, that's Frank's job. it's his song, he's the singer, and if he wants to pursue this bad song, we're gonna keep on playing it. I'm not going to question his art." And you know, sometimes they're wrong. I'm sure sometimes they hear something and go "you know, this is not one of my favorites. this is gonna be a shitty one!" And you know what, it ends up being something good maybe. I'm just guessing what their experience is, you'd have to ask them. But you know what, the pressure is on me now. Because sometimes you know what, they're right. They go "well, it's maybe not my favorite." And sometimes you can pick up on that. You know, you can tell if everyone likes a song, if everyone's like "whoa!" If everone's in a good mood after you do the song. So you go "gee, this seems like a good experience in a song -- we're definitely going to pursue this." Maybe it's not done yet or whatever. But you know, we're gonna pursue it. So anyway, there' s not really a ton of discussion as to what's good or not. I mean there's discussion, but when you use the word "collaborative," it seems like people sit down with notebooks and pencils and really get into talking about it. And for us, it's a lot more light and natural and unspoken. There's a lot of unspoken pressure, because when the band is saying "ok, genius, impress us" and they're not going to question you and say "that's bad, don't do this" Because then you have disagreements and then you have that tension there. So it's better sometimes to just have them say "I'm gonna play the shit out of this and do a good job, whether it's a good song or not." So the pressure's on me now, to say "ok, they're playing it good, but am I being a good singer, a good frontman." And you can sense if maybe they don't like it. It's unspoken. So it's unspoken collaboration. And it also goes the other way around. But like I said there's not a lot of discussion. I can't say it's 100% unspoken, but I could say it's 90% unspoken.
NATN: So this time around, the Catholics family seems to have expanded again. Is it safe to say that Dave Philips is a permanent member at this point?
FB: Yeah, he's definitely a permanent member. And Eric Feldman is becoming a, not a permanent member, but he's been around more recently than he has been. We played together the first two Frank Black albums, the last Pixies album, but then he wasn't around more than the occasional gig for a few albums, and now he's been with us on two albums that we just did. So there's a core band and then there's like.... (barking) Sorry, I have a slight dog situation here. Lemme just figure it out real fast.....Jean??....I'm really sorry about this, but can I call you back in like 30 seconds.
NATN: Hello?
FB: Hi Troy, it's Frank. Sorry about that. One of my dogs is a real escape artist, and it's an ongoing kind of thing.
NATN: What kind of dog?
FB: Oh, just a slender white mutt. She's probably got a lot of greyhound in her. Anyway, she's a real beautiful dog, and I have a pretty big backyard, but she inevitably, no matter how much dog-proofing I do, sooner or later she figures out how to make the great escape. And she only does it when I'm not home, you know. She gets stressed out cuz we're not here. She's got a lot of anxiety issues. So sooner or later she makes a breakout, and she doesn't really get into trouble, but you know I just dont want her to get hit by a car or something. So anyway, we have the guy putting in a giant, you know, dog kennel-style dog run for her that's escape-proof. I have another dog that's fine, she's kind of fat and lazy, you know, but we've had her since she was a pup so she doesn't have any psychological issues really. Other than the ones we've presented her with. So she's fine, I don't need to tie her up or anything like that. But the other one, man she's just ... I can't leave her in the house, cuz eventually she gets mad enough, and I'll come home and the door jamb will be ripped out of the wall (laughs). Just like something really super destructive. The house will be trashed, and like the wall will be damaged. She'll start gnawing through a wall. This dog, I just can't keep up with her. The only thing I can do with her is to just keep her at my side for like 24 hours a day. And I just can't do that. I even try to take them into the studio sometimes, and they're pretty good at the studio, but there's always a lot of people coming and going, and they're always worrying about where you are, and always want to be by your side. And when there's people coming in and out of the soundproof doors and there's cables everywhere, dogs just kind of end up stepping on em a lot, so I just leave them at home. But I digress.
NATN: So I assume you'll be hitting the road soon to work these songs out?
FB: Well, not neccesarily. I'm considering my options right now. We've been touring all over the place in the U.S. over the last few years. We'd just take a couple vans out, you know a van and a trailer, and just going very do-it-yourself, no crew or anything. And we enjoy that. We have enough popularity that we can pretty much play anywhere. And we're not neccesarily playing to thousands of people, but we can play in El Paso, Texas, you know what I mean? Places like that. And I enjoy that, the little niche we occupy.
NATN: I saw that you guys did some west coast dates recently, right?
FB: Yeah, we're going to go play next in a couple weeks, around California. But you know, our record won't be out. We'll be playing in places like Jerry's in Bakersfield, where I've never been, but use your imagination. It's not fucking gonna be Carnegie Hall. I don't know what it's gonna be -- i've never even been to Bakersfield. It's a mystery, you know? We like doing these mystery gigs every once in a while. Not for any particular reason, just to stay in practice, and make a little bit of money. You know, we go, and the fine folks of Bakersfield plunk down their hard-earned money and they come and see a Frank Black show at some little club you know. And we enjoy going into these little places and practicing ... not to say we're not doing a show, but we might be apt to get a little experimental in Jerry's. We might have a couple of drinks and play that new one. You kind of let down your guard a little more when you go to out-of-the-way places. And people are in a good mood. We've sold out El Paso a couple times now, and we love playing there, cuz people are really open to the music. It sounds rather hokey, but not everyone stops in El Paso, you know? They don't get that many bands stopping there. So when somebody stops and plays there, people are excited and they come out to see the show. And who knows, it might be a slow night. There might not be that many people there. But you know what? They have a great time, buy a lot of beer, and a good time was had by all. And you can just feel it right there. There's not a jaded heart in the entire room. And that's great, that's great. But anyway, mixed in with those good moments are like gritty moments, of like loading into some club that's on the third floor of a fire escape in 90-degree humid weather, and the stage is as big as one of my amplifiers, and the dressing room is trashed and the promoter's an asshole...whatever, you know? There's stuff like that, you know, when your'e just like "man, i wish I was in Carnegie Hall. this sucks!" So there's a lot of that kind of stuff too. But it's always fun to just play. That's what the Pixies were about. I wrote a few songs; we played a few gigs around town! We went and played in little clubs and a good time was had by all. And fortunately for us, it kind of snowballed into something bigger, you know? And that's great, we were in the music business. But if things didn't snowball, I'd probably still be back there with my little band, somewhere, working my Monday-through-Friday job, and on Friday night I've got a gig! And maybe i'd enjoy a little obscure popularity, but I enjoy the popularity nonetheless. And you know, I get to do that. I get to be a musician. I get to be on stage. And you know, you get to sit in the audience and watch me. That's the game. That's the game, whether it's for money, or beer tickets, or simply for fun. And hopefully that fun is still there, even when you're doing it to make money. But if you can just keep focused on the fun, that's what it's all about. Keeping focused on amusing yourself and that's when you can do nice creative things. I don't know how I got on all that.
NATN: So who do you think will be coming along for these upcoming shows? Wil you have Dave and Rich both?
FB: Not on this little California one. For a guitar player, it'll be just Dave Philips. Unless you go to the Salt Lake City corporate gig we're gonna do, for Outdoor magazine, in which case Rich is gonna be there. Because he's gonna be doing some recording with us right before then. And sometimes we're a four piece, but lately we've been at the very least a five-piece. And sometimes Rich is the fifth wheel -- well, that's not a very good expression, but you know what I'm saying? -- or sometimes Eric Feldman is, or sometimes they're both there, and we're a six-wheel machine. I like recording as a six-wheel machine. That feels pretty good. It feels pretty good live too, although if you're playing a small club and you've got six people, it gets to be a lot of gear on stage, and you can get kind of ... it's tough, you know, with all those amplifiers and stuff, so it gets tight on stage. But you know, it's not horrible or anything.
NATN: I see Stan Ridgway played on Devil's Workshop. Is this the first time you've worked with him?
FB: Yeah. I mean I've played gigs with him over the years. We've played on the same stage on the same night. And that's how we met each other. I think the first time we met each other was in Munich at some gig, and the bill was the Stan Ridgway group and the Pixies. And that's how I met him.
NATN: Well, now it seems like your original repertoire has expanded so much, it might be hard to represent all your records at each show. And I know that's a good thing, but is it say increasingly harder to come up with setlists?
FB: No, we haven't done a setlist for like four years. We just stopped doing 'em. We just didn't do one one night and were like "that felt really good," and I think we've maybe done one since then. Yeah, I'm not really into it. It's so much work. You gotta find paper and magic markers, and say "oh, what should go first," you know? All this kind of like fretting over this sequence of songs, which, at the end of the night, is probably not how you played it anyway. I mean, I used to do setlists for years, but at some point in the evening, the setlist went out the window and we just started playing. Just play, think about it. What is the audience like? Do they wanna hear golden oldies? They want you to go out on a limb and get wild? They want you to play tight? loose? They want to hear covers? Do they want to hear music all night, or is it late and it's Monday night and it's snowing out, let's not play for three hours. All the little factors that go into dictating the show, so I don't like to get locked into a setlist. It just kind of seems boring to me. So we just play a bunch of songs, and hopefully we don't play too long.
NATN: How many songs do you guys know when you go out?
FB: Well, we usually go out knowing about 50 songs, and usually we gravitate toward 25. So it usually ends up being some order of those 25 songs. Slightly different every night. And every once in a while, you'll pull one out of the sort of "b-list" of the 25 that you gravitate to less frequently.
NATN: Well I've been to a lot of shows over the years, and it seems to me like you gravitate toward a few select Pixies songs, like "Gouge Away," "Nimrod's Son," etc... So my question is, do these represent your favorites from that catalog?
FB: Yeah, songs I like basically. Without much analysis, just I remember a song from many years ago. It just feels like it's yours still. Where other songs, they don't feel like they're me anymore. They feel more far-flung. So I'm not as comfortable. So at the end of the day, it's all disco. Just pick some songs and play 'em.
NATN: I wanted to ask you about the Pixies demo thing that's coming out. Was that your decision to release that?
FB: Well, it's not really a demo, but just the other songs that were left off our first record. So you could say that those were the outtakes from that record. And a lot of them were songs that we recorded at other sessions, that ended up on other records. So they were just kinda sitting around, and I didn't really think about it. My manager called me up and said "hey, why don't we release this stuff." And it turns out we owned the masters anyway to that particular batch of songs, so we had a variety of options. We didn't have to convince some record label that we were contracted to, to release it, we could talk to whoever we wanted to to release it. So it's no big deal. It's for the collector, for the Uber-fan. It's not like it's my lost album or whatever. It's some stuff that it's not quite shavings, you know. It's above being complete trash that was thrown away. You know, it's not like the sound of us tuning our guitars or something like that. It's not shatter. But it's stuff that got re-recorded later.
NATN: Well it's kind of interesting that you've got three releases on the same label in a month's time.
FB: (bellowing) I'm gonna be a very rich man.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. Now, he lives in Brooklyn with his girlfriend Lourdes, who only puts up with his working on NATN if he leaves the computer every once in a while to go out for Szechuan food. Somehow, he still manages to write a shitload of album reviews, most of which betray the fact that, indie ideals aside, he's a sucker for a great pop song. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.
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[From the side bar]
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Artist bio
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See also: Pixies
Frank Black, nee Charles Thompson, is one of the most accomplished rock songwriters of his era, basically the 20th century's final 15 years and beyond. He earned his stripes with five albums in six years as the frontman for underground icons the Pixies, but after disbanding the group via press release in 1993, he embarked on an even bolder mission: to outlive the legacy he created.
1993's Frank Black and 1994's Teenager Of The Year proved Black's creativity to have even more range than he displayed with his critically acclaimed former band. Both find him reaching past his well-known surf-punk motifs to create pop-rock vistas that distilled dozens of influences into tunes about UFOs, architects, obscure towns, facial hair, and the Three Stooges.
But lo, Black was not completely happy on his own. He missed having a trusty band behind him that he could tour long and hard with and not worry about collaborating with dozens of people on each album. Enter the Catholics, basically the former Miracle Legion rhythm section of Scott Boutier and David McCaffrey. With a string of guitarists including Lyle Workman, Rich Gilbert, and Dave Philips, Frank and the Catholics turned into an old-school band of rock troubadors, punching out albums like Frank Black And The Catholics, Pistolero, Dog In The Sand, and Devil's Workshop with impressive regularity.
Black adopted the new m.o. of recording live to two-track, which gave his albums an immediate feel and gave his band a reason to really learn their shit and get air-tight in time for the performances. The former indie icon is currently living out his dream as a rock and roller with a band in a van, criss-crossing the country to play ear-crushing shows at a smoky club near you. |
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Ten Percenter
- FB Enquirer -
United Kingdom
1733 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2003 : 02:53:59
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| Thanks Dave. San Antonio, Tx was written and recorded in less than one day? The man is a genius. The band members are geniuses! |
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Chip Away Boy
= Cult of Ray =
914 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2003 : 12:02:49
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| i like frank black. |
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Visiting Sasquatch
= Cult of Ray =
USA
451 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2003 : 12:48:09
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| Very good interview. |
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Ebb Vicious
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1162 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2003 : 13:27:54
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quote:
Originally posted by Ten Percenter
Thanks Dave. San Antonio, Tx was written and recorded in less than one day? The man is a genius. The band members are geniuses!
i'm really impressed at bartholomew being that fast. wowie zowie. |
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frankblackphx
= Cult of Ray =
USA
287 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2003 : 15:51:20
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"So at the end of the day, it's all disco. Just pick some songs and play 'em."
I am definitely stealing that quote.
Great article. |
Edited by - frankblackphx on 01/10/2003 15:51:54 |
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misterwoe
= Cult of Ray =
Greece
675 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2003 : 13:28:21
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Indeed, an awesome interview. Thanks man.
Leonard Cohen is cool. |
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Jettison
- FB Fan -
USA
228 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2003 : 13:00:00
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That's the beauty of Charles...
He's right there, but not.
-Jettison |
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chipahoyboy
- FB Fan -
112 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2003 : 19:45:39
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| Interesting question and response about the Pixies songs he plays live more frequently. I wonder what other songs specifically he feels either "closer to or farther from." |
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