The Jesus Lizard

Blue (Capitol)
An interview with David Yow

Like A Gecko Messiah

by Nik Rainey

At this late date, when the vast majority of what passes for “rock” tends to be limply over-emotive and dully formulaic, you have to take the real stuff wherever you can find it, which is what makes The Jesus Lizard such a blast. At proper volume, the Lizard’s music can clear your sinuses, kill blackheads, and empty your bloodstream of all impurities without a significant loss of viscosity. Quick history: David Yow (rarely has a vocalist been so aptly named) and David Wm. Sims (bass) first joined forces in Austin, Texas as one-half of Scratch Acid, possibly the only band who could make fellow homepersons the Butthole Surfers seem mellow by comparison. After two messy, powerful albums, Scratch Acid split in 1987 – Sims and SA drummer Rey Washam formed the short-lived Rapeman with Steve Albini, and Yow, ex-Cargo Cultist Duane Denison (guitar) and a drum machine came together as the Lizard, soon to be joined by Sims and Albini (who signed on as house producer for the duration of their stint on Touch and Go). With the addition of Yow’s old friend Mac McNeilly (ex-Phantom 309) on drums, the Jesus Lizard quickly became one of the most feared and respected pummel-rock units in American music. While he magnanimously claimed that “only three-quarters of the band are great musicians,” Yow has played a large role in TJL’s legend, not only for penning some of the greatest lyrics in contemporary rock, but also for his alcohol-fueled stage antics (particularly one over-referenced piece of business that brought new meaning to the term “balls-out rock ‘n’ roll”), which landed Yow in a Cincinnati jail (during ’95’s Lollapalooza tour) and led to his being banned from Seattle (home, of course, to friends/admirers Nirvana, who helped raise TJL’s profile with the now-rare “Oh, the Guilt”/ “Puss” split single) by a fire marshall who called Yow “no less dangerous to the public than a man who walks into a bar with a loaded gun.” (Damn, I’m envious – that’s the best rock criticism I’ve heard in years.)

But lo, times change, even for a band as monolithic as the Lizard. In 1996, they parted ways with both Touch and Go (amicably) and Albini (decidedly less so) and found themselves sandwiched between Julio Iglesias and Jimmy Eat World (figuratively, one hopes) on the Capitol Records roster. Despite the loss of their Albinic studio dynamics,Shot, their big-league debut, kept the faith in terms of the almighty erg. Then came the departure of McNeilly (replaced by former Laughing Hyenas and Mule skinsman Jim Kimball, also of the Denison/Kimball Trio) and the subsequent refinement of their approach. Yow still scrawls blitheringly brilliant lyrics (check out the chilling “Cold Water,” which anchors both their latest Capitol epistle,Blue, and the self-titled, limited-edition-and-going-fast EP on Jetset) and both he and the band can flatten speaker cones at a moment’s notice, but they’ve discovered a new, horrifying shock tactic: Subtlety. The tempos are slower, the textures more complex. Yow takes a bash at (gulp) singing, and in spots, they even drift towards (you may want to sit down at this point) the avant-garde. Even so, to slightly contradict my mildly ambivalent review in our last issue, both records reward multiple listens as never before. But enough of my yakking, as Marty DiBergi would say. Let’s go to David Yow, live on paper from Crown Point, Indiana, for the details.

Has the shift from “defiantly indie band” to “major label artist” brought about any perceptible changes in the way you’re dealt with by fans or writers?
Actually, I was pleasantly surprised. I was really expecting a lot of flak from people when Shot came out, but the fans – though I don’t really like calling them “fans,” I prefer the term “people who like our music” – seemed real supportive. On the other hand, most of the press we got had nothing to do with the music; it was all about how we don’t work with Steve Albini anymore and that we’re not on Touch and Go. That’s weird, ’cause before that, 90-95% of the press we got was positive. I guess all the journalists got together and said, “Okay, we’ve liked these bastards long enough, now it’s time to start trashing them.” I don’t know. Hopefully, enough time has passed that they can just focus on the music.

How/why did the Jetset one-off come about?
Well, originally we wanted to do a single. It was Duane’s idea mostly; you know, when we were growing up, bands would always put a seven-inch out first, sort of heralding the new album, and we just wanted to bring back some of that feeling. But it turns out that Capitol doesn’t really do that anymore, so we shopped the idea around a little bit, and Jetset are friends of ours, good guys, you know, and the whole thing kinda metamorphosed into a five-song ten-inch record. People seem to like it; I haven’t read any reviews, but it did well on the CMJ charts! Whatever that’s supposed to mean…

You’ve been quoted as saying that, as a band, you skewed towards the Ramones/AC/DC method – that is to say, sticking to a pretty well-defined format without much in the way of experimentation. Judging by both your new records, this has changed. What inspired you to get more experimental?
Nothing spectacular – we just wanted to get away from that method of doing things and mess with things in ways that haven’t been done before. Personally, I also wanted, in my own weak little way, to incorporate melody into what we do, and I really think it worked. But, you know, we’ve always done little departures like that, even on the early records – there’s an old track called “White Hole” that’s a little different, there’s “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” (aka “Happy Bunny Goes Fluff-Fluff Along”)… we just like to challenge ourselves a little bit.

Is that why you enlisted Jim O’Rourke?
Yeah, but that’s misleading – I don’t really know the guy. Some of the other guys know him and I talked to him on the phone once. He seems cool. But all he did was remix one song (“Needles For Teeth”) after we were finished recording it. Of course, then Jetset slaps on a completely inaccurate sticker reading “PRODUCED BY JIM O’ROURKE” – I had to yell at them a little bit for that. “What are you doing, man? Stop that!” Anything to sell records, I guess.

And that’s just Jetset, too – I can only imagine what the folks at Capitol make of you.
Oh, I get a kick out of it. It’s funny to see the record company people bumping into each other, walking in circles, trying to figure out how to deal with us. I can just see the executives who had nothing to do with us getting signed saying, “Jesus! How the hell do we market this? This doesn’t sound like any of the normal acts on our label! What the fuck are we gonna do with this shit?” They come up with some real absurd ideas. I love this one: somebody at Capitol figured out that, you know, recycling bags are blue, and the album‘s called Blue, so they decided to make Jesus Lizard recycling bags! What the hell is that? Like some record store manager’s gonna see that and say, “Wow, a recycling bag. Now I really wanna push this band!” I will say, though, I liked what they did with Shot – they sent out shot glasses with the name of the band on them. Of course, I wish they had been real, heavy-duty shot glasses, not those lightweight ones like they use in England. But hell, I’m just a perfectionist when it comes to that stuff.

What’s the deal with you and Albini? For a while, he couldn’t say enough good things about you, now you may as well be Urge Overkill for all the dissing he’s been doing. What happened?
To be honest, I don’t really know. (pause) I really can’t be sure. We still talk pretty frequently, but he won’t have anything to do with Duane or David (Wm. Sims). I think a lot of it came from when we did our last album with him,Down. You know, as much as he claims to be an engineer and not a producer, he was really acting like a producer on that album, to the point where we had to say, “just shut up and do your job, Steve.” I think that hurt his feelings a little, but I never mention it when we talk and neither does he, and we still get along fine. I don’t think he hates us like he hates Urge Overkill.

You’d have to stoop pretty low for that to happen.
We’d have to rape his mom or something. And even then, it’d be a toss-up.

Does your reputation still follow you around? I mean, there’s rarely an article written about you that doesn’t bring up that little, er, sac trick you used to do on stage…
I guess. I mean, that whole “tight ‘n’ shiny” testicle thing was years ago, and, to be honest, I never remembered doing it. That was one of those things where I was so drunk, I had to be informed later that I, ah, pulled that off. But, yeah, they’ll never let me live that down. Jesus, I must not have done anything that interesting since then for them to have to dig in the, ah, memory banks like that.

Do you still have to get well-lubed (Note: we’re referring to alcohol, I assure you) before you perform?
Yes, I do, even now. The difference is that I try not to go overboard anymore, otherwise I’ll hurt myself, break mics and everything, then I’ll have to pay for it out of my own pocket and get yelled at the next day. These days, I try to keep it at a workable level, and now in my old age, I’ll either have to go straight to sleep afterwards or continue to drink myself into oblivion.

What kind of ratio are we talking about?
Let’s see… (pauses, breaks out abacus) On our last West Coast tour, that would break down to 36% sleep and 64% oblivion.

Great. I’ll get our graphics people to work on the pie-chart.
Cool.

I just found out, to my surprise, that you directed a video for the Offspring last year… Any plans to pursue that further?
I’d like to do more video stuff, I just don’t know if it’s really my calling. I see a lot of films, and I’ll pick up on certain directorial ideas that would be really cool to use, but I just think that the whole thing’s way too much responsibility. I like telling people what to do even less than I like being told what to do, and of course, when you’re a director, that’s all you do! People’d be like, “Um, what do you want me to do now, Mr. Yow?”… “Jesus, I don’t know… eat a sandwich!” But sure, I’d do it again, especially since… the Offspring are really good guys and everything, but I’m not into their music at all, so I’d like to do it with somebody whose music I like.

Like who?
Well… I think Einstürzende Neubauten broke up, but it would’ve been cool to do something with them. There’s this other band, Stanford Prison Experiment, that have played out with us and I really dig them, I’d love to do something with them. I wrote a treatment and showed it to them; they told me they liked it more than any of the others they’ve seen, but time won’t allow it to happen right now. And, of course, the Spice Girls.

What would a David Yow-lensed Spice Girls video entail?
A bunch of cocksucking.

Now, see, if they’d had you at the helm, that Spice World movie would’ve been much more interesting. Maybe you should give Virgin a call.
Is that the label they’re on? Wow, irony! Maybe it should be Ex-Virgin Records.

So Mac is no longer with the band, right?
Yeah, he left at the end of ’96. It makes me sad. I miss him a lot, but our touring schedule was just killing him, really messing with his life. He’s got a wife and two kids, you know, so you can hardly blame the guy. If it were me, I would’ve quit two years before that, let me tell you. When he left, the only thing he asked was that we get Jim to replace him, and of course, Jim’s great, so we had no problem with that. I just wish he were still around, that’s all. He’s been my best friend for, what, ten years now? But I live 50 miles southeast of Chicago and Mac lives 20 miles northwest of Chicago, so we can never hook up. Last time I saw him was, shit, eight months ago.

But it wasn’t any kind of rock star ego tussle that led to his departure.
Hell, no. No hard feelings in the least. A few tears shed, maybe, but it was the right time for him to split. The stress was killing him. At the end, we were on this Australian tour and – now, Mac’s about the nicest, most easygoing guy in the world, but he completely flipped out on the twelve-hour plane ride from Australia. It’s the kind of airline that, if you light a cigarette, there’ll be cops waiting for you when you arrive, they’ll drag you away and you’ll have to pay a $2000 fine or something – well, Mac lit three cigarettes, he started screaming while people were trying to sleep, kicking people’s seats, he pegged a little kid in the face with an apple. Poor guy, he just lost it. But he’s okay now, except that now he’s trying to figure out what he’s gonna do when he grows up, whether he’s gonna be a session musician or teach people how to play or what. Personally, I think he should be a model.

You have to be one of the most consistently namechecked bands out there, loved and respected by all sorts of musicians – what music do you get off on personally?
Hmmm… what spins my prop? Let me think…

Excuse me, did you just say “what spins my prop?”
Yeah. You don’t know that expression? You know, like those beanies with the little propellers on them?

Right, right. Mine were always defective. I could never get more than three inches off the ground at any given time. Very frustrating. Anyway, back to the bands you like…
Okiley-dokiley. I really don’t listen to a lot of contemporary music, to be honest with you. But I like Stanford Prison Experiment, as I mentioned. Dirty Three are tremendous fun. Firewater. And the Spice Girls, obviously.

When I ask that question, I don’t just mean current bands…
Oh. Well, I guess I don’t really listen to much music, period, though I do have a CD player in my truck, and I’m always playing Led Zeppelin in there. That’s a staple. Come to think of it, we were listening to music at home the other day. I had Robert Fripp’s Exposure on, Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas soundtrack, my wife was playing one of the first three Peter Gabriel albums – I forget what it was called…

That would be either Peter Gabriel,Peter Gabriel, or Peter Gabriel.
That’s right. I think those first three solo records of his are just great.

Yeah, he really went downhill once he started giving actual names to his records. Anything else?
Yeah. You don’t have to print this, but, uh… the first Psychedelic Furs album.

Hey, I love that album, too. Nothing wrong with that!
I had to get my Steve Lillywhite fix, I guess.

Do you want that statement stricken from the record?
Hell, no! I’m proud of it! Take the Furs out of the closet, man!

Speaking of Zeppelin, have you heard the new Page and Plant record that Steve prod- I mean, “engineered”?
No, I haven’t yet, but I talked with Steve while they were recording it, ’cause we both happened to be in the studio at the time – we were at C & C Sound in Chicago, they were at Abbey Road – and I made sure he told them what a big fan I was. Zeppelin was my first concert, you know.

Did they have any idea who you were?
Well, Steve kept telling Robert Plant that I’m his favorite lyricist, and he gave him a copy of Goat to listen to. The next day, Steve asked him what he thought, and he said that he thought it was… “trendy.” Not that I give a shit whether he likes us or not, but damn, Bob, put in a little more effort, for crissakes.

You guys just skew a little differently than they do.
Funny thing is, Steve got a call a few weeks later. He picks up the phone and there’s this goofy voice saying “Steeeve!” and he said, “Hey, David,” ’cause it sounded like me, and the guy said, “No, it’s Robert!” I never thought I’d say this, but I’ve actually been mistaken for Robert Plant. Which is nice.