Interview from On The Record book
What are some of your favorite songs?
“Lady Grinning Soul,†David Bowie
“The Musical Box,†Genesis
“Forensic Scene,†Fugazi
“The Trees They Do Grow High,†Joan Baez
“Holiday,†the Bee Gees
“Ride into the Sun,†Lou Reed
“Drugs,†Talking Heads
“Black Angel’s Death Song,†the Velvet Underground
“Wonderful Woman,†the Smiths
“White Queen,†Queen
“Epitaph,†King Crimson
“Frankenstein,†the New York Dolls
“Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World,†the Ramones
“Free Money,†Patti Smith
“Girl,†T.Rex
“Remember (Walking in the Sand),†the Shangri-Las
“Duke of Earl,†Gene Chandler
“Snow Blink,†Black Sabbath
“Police Story,†Black Flag
“Presence of a Brain,†Parliament
“Maybe,†the Chantels
“Be My Baby,†the Ronettes
“I Feel Love,†Donna Summer
“You’re So Fine,†the Falcons
List up to ten things that could be helpful to someone breaking into the business.
Give it everything you have in your performances.
Practice as much as you can. A band like The Mars Volta practices, like, ten hours a day, and that just seems right on to me. They’re people really trying as hard as they can to be the best they can be. To me, these are the things that guarantee a person a place in the music industry.
I feel like people who are in it for the wrong reasons might get lucky and be succesful; people who are doing it for the right reasons might not reach that millionaire level of success, but they will always achieve a kind of success in their own hearts which will fulfill them for their whole lives. If they make music that’s good, they should be able to at least make enough money to live by playing. If the type of music they play is so abstract that they can’t make enough money to live, I believe they can still feel a kind of success that’s as deep as any. Music is that fulfilling.
A lot of the music that I am excited by now is made by people who have jobs. It’s made by people whose direction isn’t determined by trying to satisfy a public, or trying to be successful in the music business. Too much music these days is contaminated by the desire to be successful.What was great about punk rock to me as a kid in 1979 was that they were making music because they had to; it was a pure form of expression. They weren’t making music because they were trying to get anywhere with it, or be on the radio. There was no chance of punk being on the radio. To me you make music bacause you’re interested in music. You follow the direction that your interest dictate, not what is dictated by the public or the record business. I love listening to music by people like Fugazi, the Black Eyes, the Mars Volta, electronic people like Pita, Fennesz, Ekkehard Ehlers. These people are making the music that interests them whith no expectation of it being successful in the music business. This music is relaxing to me because there’s purity to it that a lot of people in the music business, or people who are constantly chasing success, don’t have.
