March 2008 Joe Lally interview transcript
Was it a scary thing…. going from an influential band like Fugazi to being out there on your own?
In a way, I was fearless, because I HAD to do it, and it felt awful. I made myself go out and play music in front of people, even though I wasn’t sure I could do it. I started by standing in a record store because it was a public place, and I didn’t want to tell anyone I was going to be there. I thought that if I stand in a public place, and it’s just me and the guy behind the counter in the room, this is the beginning of me playing my music in public! But then five or six of my friends found out and came down, and it was horrifying! I was reduced to dust… it was horrible…
I walked out of there thinking “Oh my god, I have GOT to find a band… people to play with againâ€. But that lasted 5 minutes, and I was like “NO. I MUST CONQUER THIS FEELINGâ€, and so I subjected a lot of innocent people to something fairly terrible. I went out and did some playing in coffee shops and record stores for a while… but I just had to go through the process. That was the difficult part about it, but when you really have to do something, out of a need and a love to do it, difficult and scary really don’t fit into the equation. It’s what had to be done.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from coming from a big band to being a solo artist?
Boy… there’s probably a million lessons I’ve learned along the way and I’ll continue learning… The clearest statement is that things are not like they used to be; the way people find out about music, find out about music they’re going to go see, music they’re going to go buy, music that is going to have an effect on them or music they’re going to get into, or how seriously they take music. I’m not even sure what music means to people anymore. I know what it means to me, and I want to keep getting together with people in a room, or outside and experiencing it together, because it’s still something really important to me. I’m not sure what people make of it because there’s just so much going on, I don’t know…. you can’t say “Oh, people are like this nowâ€, or “People are like that . everything is so different now, the way music is consumed or heard…. you can’t generalise about lots of people anyway, but it’s really just important to me to get together with people and to play , because frankly, I can’t go to shows! I just can’t get myself to go out and go to shows… I just put my daughter to bed, and I’m doing this interview now… and then, I’m going to go to sleep! I’m just tired!
I suppose the biggest thing it’s taught me is that music is just as important to me now as when I first discovered it.
How do you approach songwriting now? On your solo albums, you bring in guest musicians… on your second album, the sound is still stripped down, but it’s more developed…. is this something you’re learning as you go along?
Totally. What you’re hearing in my records is exactly that – you’re hearing me learn. My first record is literally me learning HOW to put this music down on tape. I know how I would record the first record now. I can still see that there is a variety of ways to do it, but I could sit down and record the whole record again, in a completely different way. And I wouldn’t necessarily approach the second record with the same kind of feeling, but it’s there…. but that’s how I see the music – it can be recorded in the studio, but when it’s played live? A lot can happen. Not with every song, but… the songs from these two records…. I hope I’m playing these songs for the rest of my life, and that they keep changing. I hear a lot of possibilities, that I haven’t had the chance to explore. I would play these songs with people who play entirely free… it’s hard to describe but…. I wouldn’t want every song to sound the same… It’s not like I want people to just go apeshit, and I’d sing over the top of them… but I would play these songs without playing bass, I’d just sing… and I’d love to have an extremely free drummer…. people could just be making noise…. people could play one thing throughout the song… it’s gathering people together and making the set, varying the set, so it’s an interesting set to go through, for the listener. I’m trying to hone in on a band, but it’s really difficult because everyone nowadays plays in three bands, and I’m not in a position where people are just going to play with me when I’m ready to go out. And I go out a lot…
Looking on your website, the list of tour dates, past and present… how do you find the time to write? And record?
The writing thing just happens… I develop songs with people sometimes in a soundcheck or in the one or two practices we have… I’ve been working with a guitarist here – Andrea – but I’m not going to be able to take him out on my next tour… He’s in a band here where he can really make money. And he has to do that, because I’m not in a position to be able to help him out much. He’s really interested in working with me, and he’s really good, and I can sit down with him and play whenever we can, because we don’t live too far from each other… but then we’d go play with a drummer in Brazil, and it wasn’t until we arrived in Brazil that a song started to develop. And so there was a new song we played during that tour, and we carried that into the next tour we did in the States, because I’d been playing it with Andrea, but the song developed through playing with different drummers. We’d been playing it in sound checks, or doing it as an instrumental, that we’d put out there, and going into a different song after it… and that slowly developed and from there I can see the arrangement. And once I can see the arrangement, it shapes itself. A lot of songs… I have a basic concept for music, and once I get the lyrics, it can fall into place. And I’m really struggling with lyrics for the third record, I have about 5 ideas already… The third record is a tough one, people expect more of you, or you want to do something different; I just want to do better – I want to be better at what I’m trying to do, and so I’m going to take more time over it, and not force myself to try get it recorded before the Fall.
You’re now based over in Italy – is this going to impact on how the third record is going to sound?
It may end up recorded here, with the guys I’m playing with, or I may go back to the States and record with completely different people – it depends what happens between now and the time that I’m ready to record! I’d really love to be able to keep playing with the same people because I’ve found that I can just change… I want the music to be able to change from night to night…. I want be able to say – let’s do this song like this tonight – and people who are good enough can just say – sure! – and then you don’t have to say too much more, they can follow my lead. i wanna play with the same people, so we can play them one way on a tour, and change them for the next tour – they understand what I’m talking about, because they’ve done it with me enough one way, that they can go in a different direction.
How do you bring in the guest musicians for your records – is it just people that are around you at the time?
Sometimes it’s that…. Andy who plays on the last record, he works at Dischord, and we recorded in the Dischord House basement, which is across the street from the office where Dischord Records is run, and I was struggling with the amount of time I had with Ricardo – he could only do so many songs with me that quickly. Ian said “Andy’s across the street – he’s a good drummer!â€, and so I brought him in and assigned three or four songs that I’d play with him. It’s a lot to do to someone so quickly, and so the songs he played best on, we recorded, and that’s how they happened…. There’s ideal people who will pick up on things faster, or I assign different songs to different people, and they can all come in and play on that song… I want the next record completely figured out in that way – I want everyone that’s going to play on it to know exactly what they’re doing, and really not as open as it has been. Of course there’s always Guy Piccotto and Eddie Janney who play together – two guitar players – if you give them a backing track and just record – they’re just amazing. I wanna write a whole other record that is just a rhythm section for them just to play over – just so I can sit back and listen to them play over the whole record. I see the role that people I know can play… and I leave it open to that…. it all depends on the situation when I’m ready to record…
