There’s a common misperception among many groups of music enthusiasts that those making the stuff that the rest of us listen to are somehow different. They’re artists. They’re special.
At some point in the last forty years, pop music groups—no matter what subgenre of music they play, be it punk, metal, Top-40 pop, ska or the dozens of others—lost sight of the fact that like, Chuck D. once said, “While making music professionally is a fun job, it’s still a job.”
Somewhere along the line musicians got sold a bill of goods that said they were special and the conventional rules of the human experience didn’t apply—according to the current theoretical mandate, time is not a factor in their quest for personal and/or artistic fulfillment and the public will just have to wait until everything is just right (some would say convenient) for them to produce something new. When one spells it out on paper, it doesn’t look reasonable for fans to pander to such an attitude and Atlanta’s Black Lips are aware of that fact—which is exactly why they’ve been called the hardest working band on the circuit right now. As an example to drive that point, while my interview with Black Lips was initially scheduled to be with drummer Joe Bradley, when I called him he had to ask me to call back in a couple of minutes because circumstances before a show required his immediate attention. “I know that The New York Times called us the hardest working band of the 2007 South By Southwest conference because we did so many shows [the band performed a dozen concerts in a three-day period at the conference –ed] but I don’t know if that’s true,” says Black Lips singer/guitarist Alexander modestly while holding his cell phone to do our interview in one hand and helping load the band’s equipment into a venue in Madison, Wisconsin, with the other. Black Lips don’t rely on road crews to get them loaded in. In the truest spirit of punk rock, they do it themselves, their way, and keep to schedules—both touring and recording—all their own. It can get taxing and Alexander freely admits it, but in speaking with him, it becomes apparent quickly that the returns far outstrip the price.
Bill Adams vs. Joe Bradley and Cole Alexander of Black Lips
JB: Hello?
BA: Hi, may I speak with Joe Bradley please?
JB: This is he.
BA: Hey Joe, it’s Bill Adams calling.
JB: How’re you doing?
BA: Not too bad, how’re you doing?
JB: I’m doing alright. Is there any chance you can call me back in ten minutes? We just arrived at the venue and I’ve got to go talk to some people.
BA: Ten minutes? No problem.
JB: Alright, thank you.
BA: Yup.
JB: Bye.
BA: Bye.
[ten minutes lapse]
CA: Hello?
BA: Hi Joe.
CA: Actually, Joe’s a little busy. This is Cole, I can do the interview.
BA: Oh, okay—that’s fair enough. So how’re you doing?
CA: Good. How’re you doing?
BA: Not too bad, where are you guys right now?
CA: We’re in Madison.
BA: Wisconsin?
CA: Yeah.
BA: That’s cool. So how far into this tour are you now?
CA: We started a few weeks ago, but it doesn’t really feel like we stopped. We only had four days off in between the last tour and this one. We’ve been on the road constantly.
BA: How’s it been going so far? Good shows? Good crowds?
CA: Oh yeah! It gets better and better every day, too.
BA: That’s cool. What are the set lists looking like this time out? Mostly stuff off of Good, Bad, Not Evil?
CA: [clearly not having heard what was asked] Yeah, most of it is off the new album. The live one we did was mostly stuff we’d done off previous studio albums too, with the exception of one track
BA: Okay, I see. So I heard you guys were starring in a movie this year?
CA: Yeah, we’re supposed to be doing a movie, I don’t know if it’ll be out this year though. It’s still in preproduction.
BA: How’d you get hooked up with that?
CA: We were contacted by the production company, but it’s all really still up in the air. They’re still in preproduction, so I’m not really sure what’s going to come of it or how it’s going to turn out.
BA: It’s funny because I was reading about it. The movie’s called Let It Be, the band’s from Minneapolis in the 80s and all this other stuff… I’m wondering if it’s supposed to be loosely based on The Replacements.
CA: I think there are some subtle similarities that kind of relate to them—it’s supposed to be a band from that era—but it’s not really about The Replacements. It’s in the same vein though.
BA: I was reading as well that you guys have a bunch of unused tracks from session work that might come out as an album in the near future—is that right?
CA: We have a lot of stuff from our In The Red sessions and before that too—before we were on Vice. And we’re going to put an album of that stuff out called Last of the White Niggers, which is all the B-sides, outtakes and rarities.
BA: Will that be this year?
CA: I’d like it to be, but I’m not sure if we’re going to have enough time to compile it all in time to come out this year. It all boils down to a matter of scheduling.
BA: So how does that work? Do you find that, after each recording session, you have a bunch of extra, unused tracks?
CA: Yeah, definitely. On average, we usually record twenty songs or more each time we’re in the studio, but our albums only tend to have between twelve and sixteen per album.
BA: So you end up with a pretty significant surplus each time.
CA: Yeah. Sometimes it’s a matter of quality control for the album, but sometimes a couple of good songs get left off. So we want to compile and put out all of the good stuff from the leftovers.
BA: Kind of like what Nirvana did with Incesticide.
CA: That was my favorite album from them.
BA: Oh, really?
CA: Yeah. To me, it was closer to the real band; a lot of the other albums had bigger production from big-name producers and I always just felt like, at their core, they were just this little grungy punk band.
BA: Is that the sort of direction that you’d like to take your B-sides/rarities album?
CA: Well, ours is more outtakes and stuff from all our sessions so I don’t really think it’d turn out like that.
BA: Oh, I see—so this could be construed as an all-new album then?
CA: It could be construed as a new album—you’re right. There’s enough material around, actually, that it might be a double album.
BA: Oh, really?
CA: Possibly. If quality permits.
BA: That’s cool. So what else is happening this year? When does this tour end and what happens after?
CA: Um, I think we’re going to try and record a new album, hopefully in the summer. We’re going to continue touring as well through Europe and the States again. We got some offers recently for China and India too; I’m not sure if we’re going to do that this year, but maybe next year. [background noise and Cole responding to them]
BA: I beg your pardon?
CA: Oh I’m sorry, I was talking to the guys. We’re loading in right now.
BA: [chuckling] Ah, the joys of multitasking. The upside is that you’ve only got one hand free so you can only carry half the stuff and it can’t really be heavy.
CA: Yeah, I’ve only got light stuff. I’ll let them do all the heavy stuff. I have to get some gloves on though; it’s really cold—my hands aren’t used to this kind of weather.
BA: Keep in mind that I’m Canadian man, it’s well under zero here at the moment.
CA: Oh are you in Canada?
BA: Yeah.
CA: Crazy. I wish we could come up there. Not for the cold, but for the women and the liquor. [laughing] Good times.
BA: Stronger liquor, better coffee—it’s the way to go.
CA: Yeah, I love Canada. We really love it there.
BA: Are there any plans to hit Canada on this tour?
CA: Well, we’re not really allowed to right now so we’re laying low from Canada at the moment. We’ve got criminal records and it finally caught up with us. We had been sneaking in for years and we finally reached the point where we had gotten caught so often that we were told if we did it again, we’d be banned from the country. So we’re taking them seriously this time and giving them the respect that I guess they want or whatever.
BA: I see what you’re saying, has that been a problem going to Europe?
CA: Not really, no. It has been a little tight with England a couple of times, but it’s a matter of getting a work permit, but they don’t really bust your balls for criminal records there now.
BA: That’s actually really surprising when you think about it given Tony Blair’s nonsense and siding with Bush and all things terrorist.
CA: We got into a terrorist haven easier than we did into Canada last time. We got into Palestine no problem.
BA: Oh, really? Did the terrorists welcome you with open arms?
CA: Well, when we played “Johnny B. Goode” on the street, some kid started singing some Homas chant—I thought that was pretty tough.
BA: That sounds nothing short of terrifying—I’m not going to lie to you.
CA: Yeah, there were posters of suicide bombers on the wall and stuff—it was crazy.
BA: See, now we’re just illustrating how little I’ve traveled. This is very interesting to me. Where haven’t you been that you’d like to take the band?
CA: I’ve been to Japan—I’ve been to every continent actually—on my own, but not with my band. I’ve been to Japan just visiting, but I’d like to take the band there. We’ve gotten offers from China and India and we want to go, but I’m kind of bummed that Japan hasn’t worked out yet. It’s kind of weird that China and India—both of which are second-world countries—have asked but Japan hasn’t. I’m not disappointed to go, but I was surprised that culturally they’d ask first before the Japanese because they’re culturally more similar to us. Maybe it feels like it’d be more exotic in that way for some reason. Anyway, we’d like to go to China, India, Japan and Brazil.
BA: You’ve never been to Brazil?
CA: I’ve been to Columbia because I have family down there in Venezuela and our band has been invited, but we haven’t had the chance to work it out with the band yet. It’s hard to schedule when there are so many places that you’re supposed to be at once.
BA: I can understand that. So you were saying you’re going to go in to record another album later this year?
CA: In the summer we’d like to record, and I’d like to get it out this year as well if we can.
BA: Are the songs already written?
CA: Some of them are written mildly, but they’re not ready yet. We haven’t been playing them out yet…they’re still in their infancy.
BA: Do they tend to come together pretty quickly?
CA: Yeah. They tend to just fall together.
BA: So it might be true what Spin and Rolling Stone said: you might be the hardest working rock ‘n’ roll band in North America.
CA: [laughing] I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s a nice compliment. We keep busy though, and we’re dedicated to taking our music to the people.
BA: Have you been off the road for any amount of time at all in the last eighteen months?
CA: In January, we had three weeks off, and that was the most consecutive time we’ve had off all year—we’d do a month or two and then take a week off and then back out for a month or two. Those three weeks were a lot of fun.
BA: Has the work paid off? Can you see it at the shows?
CA: Oh yeah! Definitely. The shows have gotten bigger and the crowds have gotten more enthusiastic. It’s definitely paying of slowly but surely. We’ve been doing this for the last seven years. We weren’t any kind of overnight sensation and it’s still pretty indie in a lot of respects.
BA: Cool. So what else am I forgetting to ask about? What else would you like to see in this piece?
CA: I was kind of excited when our band got onto this MTV2 show called Subterranean. That was pretty cool because nobody had ever played our videos before. I don’t know if anybody watches it anymore, but I thought that was pretty exciting. MTV in Canada was pretty nice to us too—they let us come on their TRL show—that was kind of fun and the American version never had us on.
BA: Yeah, we tend to be interested in things that aren’t Britney Spears.
CA: Yeah—I like that [chuckling]. I was surprised though. I actually like her new record. It has been overshadowed by her antics, but I like it. I think it’s her best one to date…her other ones suck. It seems darker and clubbier. We’re all fans of pop music, too. We’re not elitist, 60s purists or underground snobs. We all listen to the radio and aren’t too picky.
More on Black Lips here: www.theblacklips.blogspot.com and myspace.com/theblacklips
Download – “Cold Hands” from Black Lips – [mp3]
Download – “Not A Problem” from Black Lips – [mp3]
