So I guess you’ve been doing a ton of interviews this year, huh?
Oh, you know, a few here and there!

I imagine it’s kind of crazy at the moment.
To be honest, it was kind of nice to step away for a while. I noticed this: When I was at my busiest, even with the Jesus Lizard and also with Tomahawk, it almost becomes a routine where you record, release, tour, do interviews, and after a while you take it for granted. And so around 2005, 2006, 2007 I was doing other things. I was staying home and got a family started and this and that, and I didn’t do any [interviews] for a while, and so now I’m doing interviews again, I feel like I have more to say. I’ve had a few years to sit back and think about things, and you kind of appreciate it more. It’s like, wow, someone’s actually interested in my opinions or someone actually wants to talk to me! I think more musicians should do it – step off for a while a realize just how lucky you are.

So you had moments recently where you sat back and reflected about your career and all the things you’ve done. Is it weird to look back?
Maybe so. I don’t know if I consciously did, or a lot of it was more practical based. Touch & Go reissued all the albums and so we all had to go back and listen to stuff to make sure it was okay, and then in the process of rehearsing I had to go back and relearn songs and listen to it, and it’s surprising what goes through your head. I hadn’t listened to that stuff in well over ten years. It was just funny to me how jarring some of it still sounds, and how abrasive it sounds, and how some of the vocal and lyrical things made me laugh out loud. Like the song “If You Had Lips” — “Hey shitmouth, I love you!” [laughs] We need more of that!

Absolutely!
And I started listening to other stuff from around that time, it made me wanna hear other things — Butthole Surfers and Husker Du and Black Flag and I thought, “Goddamn that was good music, we could use more of that right now.”

When you were first starting out playing guitar, did you have a vision of the kind of guitarist you wanted to be?
I did, and it was so far removed from where I ended up, it was funny. But that was so long ago. That was in the ’70s when I was a teenager and progressive rock was still kind of around, glam rock was still around, and punk rock had just started. So I was sort of, like any kid, impressionable and very changeable. One week it was this and the next week it was that. To me, it takes a long time to find your voice. If you want to be original, it takes …I was in a band called Cargo Cult that did an album on Touch & Go back in about 1987, and you can almost song by song hear, like, okay, this guitar part sounds like the Birthday Party and this one sounds like Billy Zoom from X. Basically whoever I was listening to. Even the Jesus Lizard, the first couple things we did, to me it’s fairly derivative and you can tell if you go song by song.

You think so?
Head, are you kidding? You can go song by song and go, “Well there’s a Big Black-style beat and a Big Black riff, and here’s a Public Image kinda sounding thing…” And honestly I don’t think it was until Goat, and from there out we sounded like the Jesus Lizard. That’s where to me, let’s put it this way, it didn’t sound like anyone else.

Were you aware of that at the time?
No, no. We were too busy out playing shows to consciously think about it, and we didn’t sit around and analyze things. But by Goat and Liar, that period, we knew we were onto something. Everything was really streamlined and focused, and the shows were getting bigger, and the sales were getting better.

I remember a few years back reading an old interview you did, and you said that when the Jesus Lizard was first starting up, you were living in Texas and working in a factory, right?
Mmhmm.

And then you decided to quit that job and move to Chicago and start the band because you didn’t want to regret not doing it and thinking, “What if…”?
Yeah, absolutely.

So did that same mindset come into play at all with these reunion shows? Like, regretting if you didn’t do this?
No, because I don’t feel like I’m risking as much. Back then I was almost 30 and even though it was a factory job, it was a pretty good factory job. They were paying for me to go to school — I was actually taking electronics courses at night and they told me, “You stay in school and we’ll move you up in the company.” It was a Fortune 500 company. And I had no savings, I had absolutely no money, it was week to week. I had a crummy car and no belongings. So on the one hand I had nothing to lose, but on the other hand I had everything to lose. So I chucked the job and moved across the country, and when you start a band you’re not gonna make money for a while, if ever. So for the first few years, when I wasn’t on the road losing money, I was at home working way crummier jobs than what I gave up, and taking the bus across Chicago, and living in a way crummier neighborhood than I was before. So it was a calculated risk. But as far as doing these shows now, man, it just seems like the timing couldn’t be better. It was ten years since the band officially broke up, 20 years since we played our first show, the label has reissued the back catalog, and everyone’s still healthy and active and we all get along, so it couldn’t have worked out better.

I spoke to David Yow a couple years ago when Scratch Acid did those reunion shows and I asked about the possibility of a Jesus Lizard reunion, and he said it would never happen, mostly because [drummer] Mac [McNeilly] wasn’t into it, and without Mac he wouldn’t do it. Was that the way it was for a while?
Well, we never talked about it. It’s funny, I’ve been touring and playing pretty much nonstop for the past ten years and people would ask me about a Jesus Lizard reunion and I would just dismiss it almost out of hand because it just seemed like a) it hasn’t been long enough, and b) what was my b? I lost my train of thought [laughs].

Well, did you feel angry at all because you were in new bands, working on new projects, and people wanted to pull you back into the past?
No, not at all. And it wasn’t so much that Mac wasn’t into it, it just was that at that time no one was really talking to him about it and it never came up. It seemed like it wasn’t long enough, and that suddenly everyone was doing a reunion. Everywhere you looked there was a new reunion, and to me, most of them — I don’t think — were very good. And I wanted to be the band that didn’t do a reunion, the band that was unique and different by not doing it. But over time, the reasons for not doing it just kinda fell by the wayside, and when we finally started talking about doing this last fall…it first came up because [Mike] Patton wanted us to play [England's] ATP [festival], but we didn’t have time to get it together. That’s what initiated the dialogue on it, so then we said, “Well, maybe in the spring, maybe a few months from now…” And then everything else just kinda fell into place.

I guess conventional wisdom — and you can correct me if I’m wrong — is that the band broke up ten years ago because of problems with your record label [Capitol], and/or you just felt as musicians that as a band you’d run your course creatively. Is that true?
That’s pretty much it. As you probably know, Mac left the band before our contract with Capitol was up. We did an album and an EP after that, and to be honest it was never quite the same after that. And I don’t mean to diss [replacement drummer] Jim Kimball, because it’s tough switching horses in midstream — joining a band that’s already been around for years and is sort of past its prime. You’re not suddenly gonna resurrect it. And by the time we finished it had been over ten years from the time we started, and I feel like we had run our course.

What were those first rehearsals like when you got back together? Did the old songs come back to you quickly? I imagine you hadn’t played any of those old songs, even just for fun on your own sitting around the house, for a long time?
[Laughs] Well, once in a while I would, just to see how much I could remember. But okay, Michael, figure, how many times have we played some of those songs? We played almost a thousand gigs, plus soundcheck, plus rehearsals, plus recording, plus writing. Some of those songs we must have played three thousand times. So there’s no way I could forget them. Obviously there’s a lot of songs where there’s details where I’d have to stop and noodle around until I found the right fingering or the right picking pattern or the right position, and it was kinda like that with everyone. But once you get past the details of each individual song, then you gotta get used to going from song to song, going from one to the other and remembering, “Okay, right, this is the part of the set where my wrist starts to cramp up, and this is the part of the set where my left hand gets tight…maybe I’ll switch to slide.” That’s when the practical gig things start coming back to you.

Those first shows, did it feel natural and normal to be playing with each other again?
It felt pretty natural, to be honest. We’d done a couple rehearsal sessions and it was a little tentative, to be honest, at first and maybe a little rough the first day or so, but then it came together and it sounded like us.

You’ve worked with a lot of distinctive, attention-commanding singers over the years — David Yow, Mike Patton, Hank III, J.D. Wilkes. What draws you to working with those kinds of personalities, those kinds of frontmen?
I’m glad you asked that! My favorite bands, that’s one thing they have — they have someone who’s either a great singer or a great frontman up front who you can watch as well as listen to. I am not a frontman. I think there’s a certain type of personality you have to have. You have to be somewhat fearless and reckless and all of that, and I’m just not. You know what I mean? If I was in the movie business, I’d be a supporting actor. I’m not the star, I’m not a matinee idol, I’m not the guy people drive hundreds of miles to go see just because they want to see them.

Did you accept that early on in your career?
I figured that one out a long time ago. But — and not to sound like a jerk — when it came to playing guitar and writing music I always felt very confident. Right from the first bands I was in, I was always the guy who wrote the songs. Because a lot of times somebody had to do it, and nobody else would. The first bands I was in, we would play cover songs — we’d play school dances and after doing that I would figure out, well, this song sounds like that one and this one has the same chords as that one, why don’t we just make up our own and then I don’t hafta sit hunched over the record player learning songs all day. In those days, you didn’t just play one set. That’s a luxury invented by punk rock. In those days you played three sets. If you wanted to play the school dances, you had to play three sets. So I started writing songs just to kill time. And nobody noticed the difference! As long as it was fast and rockin’ and had some dynamics, nobody cared. And once in a while you’d throw in a song that they did recognize. So I figured that one out a long time ago. But anyway, yeah, I am not a frontman, and I was perfectly happy to be the moody, enigmatic guitar player.

The foil, as it were?
The foil! Absolutely. The sideman, the straight man, the guy who makes all this sound and all these weird chords. I always felt like people who understand music would get it. They’d go, “Okay, that guy does that, and that guy does that…” And also [bassist] David Sims, between the two of us we basically wrote the riffs and songs. Anyone who knows anything about music would hear what was going on there, like, that’s where the music’s coming from.

Yeah, I remember back in the day seeing you guys — David Yow would be out in the crowd doing his crazy thing, and I’d look over at you and you’d kind of be off to the side playing with this bemused look on your face. You seemed into it but you were taking it all in, just watching and seeing what would happen next, kind of like a fan or something.
Well, a lot of it I was watching just for my own protection [laughs]. When you’re up there playing, you’re pretty vulnerable. It’s pretty easy to get knocked over or knocked into, unplugged, get gear stepped on. I was always sort of watching to see, like, “Okay, here comes this guy again, this guy looks like a troublemaker, I’m gonna keep half an eye on him.” To be honest, I got kinda tired of that, and I was perfectly happy to play bigger places with security. I was perfectly happy with that barrier! For years I didn’t use any pedals or effects and people thought I was a purist — no, I just didn’t want them to get smashed! Between David Yow and the people coming onstage, there was no way.

That was one of the things people loved about seeing the Jesus Lizard — the unpredictability and danger of it all. As a musician I guess you want to create that energy, but there’s also a down side to it, too?
If you create it…if you open the door, you have to accept what comes through. You want it to be that sort of, like, isn’t that the spirit of rock itself? It’s noise and energy and speed and power, and people get excited. Well, you’re getting them excited, so you are somewhat responsible for what happens.

Toward the end of the band’s first go-around, did worrying about that stuff take away from the enjoyment of playing? Were you tired of that experience?
Umm. There were times, to be honest, where I felt, “I just wanna play music now.” I spent a lot of time — and as simple and straightforward as a lot of that stuff sounds — we spent a lot of time deliberating and writing and rewriting and demoing, making it sound that way and there were times when it was like, “I just wanna play guitar, I just wanna play music and not be distracted by these peripherals.” But that’s usually just the people up front. Over time I would just sit back and watch and realize, like, maybe the first 50-100 people up front are these guys, but you look back and you see people kinda standing back with their arms folded listening and looking, like they’re here because they wanna hear the songs they like.

Did you feel like you were playing to them more?
Absolutely. I felt like I was playing to them, and David Yow was playing to the people up front.

And never shall they meet.
[laughs]Well, yes, they did meet, because David with his extended mic cord, he’d end up in the back of the hall, he’d be lighting someone’s cigarette while hanging upside down from the ceiling and singing at the same time. And people would work their way up to me and I’d see them watching what I was doing. They wanted to hear the full impact of the sound coming through the amp. And it would make me mad because a lot of people wanted to come up front and just listen, but they couldn’t because they’re getting smashed into by some giant guy full of crank and whiskey. And that still happens. I guess it’s a public venue, you can’t control what people do once they’re in the building.

So you’re seeing that again now, on this tour?
Well, it could be worse. There could be no one there. It’s like, “Would you like it better if there was no one there?” [laughs] It’s kinda like, “Can I have dancing girls and music heads?” Dancing girls all up front, and the serious music fans behind them. Every night I want it just like that. Is that too much to ask for? [laughs]

The Jesus Lizard plays the Starlight Ballroom tonight at 8 p.m., along with Noveller. Tickets are $20.

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Sat., October 31. Spectrum. All photos by Michael Alan Goldberg.

On Saturday night, I was at the Spectrum to photograph Pearl Jam playing the final-ever concert at the venue for Spin magazine (PW’s Jeffrey Barg wrote the review). While waiting backstage for Pearl Jam to come on, I snapped a few shots of the memorabilia-laden corridor that musicians (and athletes) have traveled down over the years to get to the stage (or the court, or the ice):

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[All photos by Michael Alan Goldberg.]

Happy (almost) Halloween! I think I might go as “zombie Cliff Lee” this year ’cause dude looked like a zombie when he stuck out his arm to catch that pop-up the other night (and it’ll be Game 3 of the Series and the first one back here in Philly). Anyway, here’s 10 of our favorite Halloween tunes to get you in the mood for tomorrow night:

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Tomorrow night, Alison Sudol — who makes terrific piano-centric pop under the moniker A Fine Frenzy — comes to World Cafe Live with her four-piece band in support of their sophomore album Bomb in a Birdcage. As I noted in this week’s PW: “AFF’s 2007 debut, One Cell in the Sea, had a dreamy, whimsical, romantic quality about it—it pulled off the neat trick of being charming without being dainty or cloying—and Sudol’s clarion voice and clever lyrics spoke to love and loss in simple but wise ways. On the group’s new Bomb in a Birdcage, Sudol and company expand their palette, adding a tad more complexity and texture and, gasp, even a bit more aggression to the mix.” We caught up with the always friendly and gracious Sudol over the phone last week as she was kicking off her U.S. tour:

Feeling good about the new album?
Yeah, I am, actually! I don’t have full perspective on it for sure, it still feels pretty new. But I do feel like it’s definitely different than I thought it would be when I was making it, and I like it. And it always surprises me when I put it on. Something happened when we were in the studio and it was more than just musicians coming together and making music — something just kinda happened that wasn’t planned or controlled or anything and I feel that when I listen to it, more now even than when I made it.

Are there one or two moments from the recording sessions that stick out for you now?
Yeah, you know, there definitely are. There were a lot of very special moments. But one was the very beginning. I wrote “What I Wouldn’t Do” far before we went into the whole album process, and funny enough, I never get sick but I was actually sick when I wrote that. I was stuck inside and I wrote it in an hour and a half or two hours, and I was sick again when I recorded it. And I just remember it coming together, and I did that vocal and I was literally kinda propped up on a pillow feeling awful, and then I was like, “Oh, I feel like singing,” and there was something so joyful and free in it.

Do you sit down before you write the songs and think about overall moods or themes for an album, or do you just write and record all the songs and then see what you’ve got and what works together?
I guess it’s a conscious effort to try to make something of a piece. There are songs I’ll write that won’t go on the album because they just don’t fit in, but I think there were subconscious themes that I didn’t realize until afterward. There’s a lot of, like, elemental themes, and there’s a lot of birds and flight and sort of mythical struggles and stuff like that on this album. Just like One Cell had a lot of fairytale elements, and I didn’t really realize that too much until afterward.

That’s interesting that you can have a greater understanding of something you’ve written a year or two later than you do when you’re in the moment.
Hugely, and it’s funny, too, because there are things that, like, maybe I thought I was writing about at the time and I look back and I see that a song might have been more honest than I was being with myself. Like, I might tell myself something but actually be writing about how I actually feel and not understanding it at all when it’s happening, not until later when I get some clarity and understanding. It really makes you wonder about the whole time and relativity thing. It’s on a different plane and I don’t claim to have any power over it and it’s definitely not me. I don’t know what it is, I’m just grateful that it’s there to be tapped into.

When you’re in writing and recording mode, are you aware of the audience that will eventually hear those songs, and are you trying to communicate something to them? Or are you mainly just trying to get things out from inside?
Ummm, I think I’m aware of it as much as, like, I wanna make a song be relatable by someone that’s not just me. So, there’s a way of writing a song which is just for you, where you would include details in a way that it would just carve out everybody else from being able to participate in the song, to where people listen and they don’t feel like it could possibly be them. I write songs like that sometimes when I’m being self-indulgent and having a pity party, and then I’ll put it aside and go “Okay, that was stupid. Cut that out!”

Yeah, you don’t wanna get too emo, huh?
[Laughs] I want people to be able to step into my shoes, or have the shoes of the song be a one-size-fits-most [laughs]. So that a person can benefit from that, because in my opinion music is such a healer, and if I go through something and can maybe find a way to communicate about it in a way that hits some sort of truth, then that might make somebody at least feel like they’re not alone. Maybe I don’t have an answer, but at least it’s a sort of unity. I would never want to make a song exclude the listener.

One Cell in the Sea was a pretty big success, and the music industry being the way it is, I would imagine a lot of people now look at you with dollar signs in their eyes. How have you been able to navigate that?
I’m very lucky in that the people I work very closely with are there for the long haul and know me and understand me and have been there for a long time, so I was shielded from a lot of that. I was definitely made aware of it, but, you know, I think I’m grabbed onto far less than the norm in this industry, and I feel very grateful for that. I think I’ve been treated very well and have been remarkably unscathed.

What’s your favorite part of the whole thing — playing shows or making albums, or something else?
For me, my greatest joy in the whole world is writing a song. There’s nothing that really compares to that.

The first moment when you come up with a song idea, or when it’s fleshed out?
The first moment. Everything else is touching, but that moment of creation is really what I do this for. Seeing it come together is on par with a fabulous show. It’s that exciting. But the fact that you have nothing, and then you have something, and then you have something that’s this jewel that didn’t exist before, it’s amazing.

I think the nature of artists is that they want to be able to capture that at will.
You can’t.

Is that frustrating, or do you accept that?
It’s a frustrating thing that I accept [laughs]. It’s like a cat — sometimes that cat just will not let you pet it no matter how much you follow it or give it food, and then you go and sit on your couch and you’re like, “That’s okay, I’m just gonna be a little sad for a while.” And the cat comes and snuggles in your lap, and you’re like, “Ohhh, there it is.” And you try not to move so that it’ll stay as long as it does, even though you know it’s gonna go again.

A Fine Frenzy plays World Cafe Live on Friday, October 30th at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20.50-$30.50.

PEARL JAM

SOCIAL DISTORTION

[All photos by Michael Alan Goldberg]

Our prediction — Phillies in 6. A hard-fought series. Lidge strikes out Mark Teixeira for the clinching Game 6 victory in the Bronx. Cliff Lee MVP. We win it for Harry.

Here’s some Phillies songs to get you in the mood (as if you’re not all going crazy already waiting for this thing to start):

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MMM: Just like when Vet Stadium and JFK came down, a lot of people are sad to see the Spectrum go because of all the memories, while other people say, “Ehh, big deal, it’s just a building…”

DJ Jazzy Jeff: Well, I mean, so’s Independence Hall. It means something. This is a part of Philly history. I don’t care what anybody says, people in New York are gonna be sad if they tear down Madison Square Garden. It’s kinda like, this is our Madison Square Garden. We have our memories. I remember being six years old going to see the circus there. It was for everything. I hate to say it but it has a little more of a meaning to it than Vet Stadium. It was smaller, it was more intimate. You went to Vet Stadium for the biggest concert in the world, or for a football game or a baseball game. You didn’t go for the circus, or the Globetrotters. You didn’t go for the Ice Capades. When you think about it, the Phillies did win the World Series at the Vet, but the Sixers won a championship at the Spectrum, the Flyers won the Stanley Cup there. It’s definitely been a part of my history that you’ll never forget and I wish it wasn’t going. But thanks for the memories, you know?

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Sun., October 25. Electric Factory. All photos by Michael Alan Goldberg.