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Rack 'Em Up With DAVID YOW From THE JESUS LIZARD · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, hi there. My name is David Allen, one of
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the idiots in the Jesus Wizard.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Beautiful Idiots. Might be sold yourself a bit shortly.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, let's be honest. Thank cool.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: So that Jesus Lizard returned with your new album rack
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: this Friday, September third eighth, mate.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: So how you feel about it?
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  Speaker 1: Pretty good? It's it's a little strange to be doing
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a record this. We broke up in nineteen ninety nine
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and so now it's however, many years later, it's kind
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: of an odd thing to have gotten back together and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: written enough songs to make an album and made an album.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: But I'm happy, you know, I mean, it turned out
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: much better than I would have guessed.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Well, so for those who might not know, like this
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: is your first new album in twenty six years, which
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: we'll talk.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: More about Lighta, But how did you actually approach this album?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Might likely?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: But I'm in the music an existing older fans always
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: sort of more looking at a new, fresh audience.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Neither. I don't think we were like imagining what people
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: would think about it very much at all. I just
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: heard a quote from a filmmaker whose name is escaping
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: You right now, And he said that making films is
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: very much like having sex, because he does it for
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: his own pleasure and if anybody else enjoys it, that's great.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: So that's very similar to I think the way we
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: approached writing, writing songs and recording like we make it
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to where we like it. If if anybody else likes it,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that's great.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, can you tell us a bit more about the
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: album from a musical point of view and what you've
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: dobt forward it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It's sort of kind of weird to ask me, just
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: because I'm I don't really consider myself much of a musician.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know music theory. I don't I can't write
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: music or read music, so that's probably a better question
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: to be answered addressed by the other guys. But you know,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're still the same four guys. We just
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: have a lot more wrinkles and less hair. So we're
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: just continuing on as always. I think I think that
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: there's a possibility that we might be better than we
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: were back then, simply because of experience, you know, I mean,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: there are people come to our shows who weren't even
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: born the last time we played a show.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Today, you have released the singles Hot and Seek and
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: a lets us Bill six. What do you say they're
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  Speaker 2: a good sonic representation of what to expect from the
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: whole album, or I need to scratch the surface.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: There's a fair variety. Let's see, what are these songs
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: on this record? Yeah, there's there's one that nobody's heard
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: yet that is very, very bluesy. It's very led zeppelony.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: The last song on the record, called Swam the Dog
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: is just weird as ship. Yeah, it's it's mostly you know, upbeat,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: up tempo rock. But it's like we've kind of always
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: done some weird stuff that doesn't necessarily seem to fit
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: with the rest of it or not.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Did you try and modernize your sound at all on
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: this one or did you sort of more just stick
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: to the oldest soul that you know?
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: I love.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I think it was pretty I think it was pretty straightforward.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, whatever kind of technology is being
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: used in ordering these days, maybe we utilized that. But yeah,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know of any efforts to try and sound
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: more and more modern. You know. It's it's guitar, drums
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and bass.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Looking through the album, I didn't see a song called
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: rat so It's not often that there's an album titled
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: without the song on the Action album is it?
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Is there a reason for that?
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think that we've ever had a song what
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a pure head go at Lara Lash. I don't think
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  Speaker 1: we've ever had a song that was the title of
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the record.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: Right. No, we go back in history, but they brother
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: to get to know the band a bit better.
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  Speaker 2: Like the Jesus Listend born in Chicago back in nineteen
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  Speaker 2: eighty seven. So what was the musical climate like back
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: then that gave birth to the band and where did
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: you sort of fit in initially?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Oh god, well, we actually started in Austin, Texas in
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: eighty seven. But uh, I don't know, it was weird
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: at the time. Like David and I had been doing
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a band called Scratch Acid for a few years, and
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: you know, we were accustomed to that kind of music
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  Speaker 1: and that kind of behavior.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And then then then Dwayne, our guitar player, who is
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: kind of more classically trained musician, and was, you know,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: capable of doing things that we're a lot fancier than
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  Speaker 1: anything that we knew of. And so I guess that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that's sort of the way we were when we started
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: with using a drum steam. I'm not sure if I'm
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: answering your question, Chris.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: That's fine, that's good.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: You're pretty quickly labeled annoys rock band mate, which all
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: rikon is a fucking cool, cool term for a band
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: noise rockets.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I haven't heard that one before, but it's cool.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's yeah, that's that's what I remember being
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: called most while we were banded. I think in the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: in the mid eighties with Scratch Acid, there was a
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: term going around with bands like Sonic Youth and Big
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Black and the Swans and US and I think the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: buttholes refers were included in there. They were calling it
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: pig fucker music. I thought that would really good. It's
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: better that it's better than grunge or you know, alternative.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I like pig pig fucker music.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: He fuckings. There's another thing reading through the press of
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  Speaker 2: the the caught my attention to. But like, there's a
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: party there that says you were paid to not record
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: an album by your label at the time.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: To the story there, that's great.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: After Nirvana, feeding frenzy of record labels wanting to who
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: was going to be the best, the next big thing,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and so we signed a capital a three record contract
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: with Capital and a Capital Slash EMI, and I told
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the guy who was running the company at the time,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Gary Gersh, that I said, you know, we're not going
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: to sell any more records than we did on an
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: independent label. And he was like, oh, I don't think so, David.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I think we're gonna do really good. We're gonna sell
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of records. And so we did the two records,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the first two records, and it wasn't selling anymore than
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: what we had done previously, and so they they said,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you know, you're dismissed. You don't have to do a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: third record, and so I immediately called our manager and
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: said I quit. So it wasn't Also, the last few years,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: it wasn't what it should have been. Our drummer had
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: was sort of he was sort of he had to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: leave the band for different kinds of personal reasons and stuff,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and so after that it became a job with this
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: guy who I didn't like playing drums, and so the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: first opportunity to stop doing it, I grabbed it. You know,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: It's like I don't want it. I didn't want to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: do it without Mac. I didn't want to do it
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: without the drummer that we have back now with us.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'd like I have to break it up with
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: that for that period.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Like the band reconvened in two thousand and nine for
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: a few shows and sporadically played together after that. But
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: at what point did you personally know that the band
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: would be getting back together and writing new music.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know, about a year or so ago.
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  Speaker 4: The other guys played some ideas for me that they
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: had for them, you know, a few songs, a few
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  Speaker 4: new songs, and I was impressed.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I liked him. I thought they were good. I thought
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  Speaker 1: it was a viable and it wouldn't be a bad
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: idea for us to, you know, make a record. I
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: don't know how long we're gonna stick around. I don't
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: know how. You know, we're all pretty gold. I don't
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: know how long after all this touring this year and
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: next year, I have no idea what the future holds.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: You know a grave Yeah, well I might be far
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: behind you, brother. Beforemula, you go daved, I've started a
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: new segment.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I go digging three old Facebook photos and I come
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: up with a couple of interesting ones that I sort
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: of present to bands to give a bit of a
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: please explain to So I got a couple from you guys,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to tell me the story behind them.
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  Speaker 3: So I found this one that's a hell of a
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: stage dive.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: That was at That was a show here in la
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  Speaker 1: at a place called the Henry Fine Theater, and it
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: was just it was a really really fun show. And
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: throughout the years I would occasionally do more theatrical stuff,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: like instead of you know, just wearing your shirt and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: pants and stuff. And that particular show, I came out
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: before the other guys wearing that white robe and a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: wholehead poodle mask and I was wearing a bald wig,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: which now and you kind of don't mean. And yeah,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: there was this sort of this metamorphose of underneath the robe,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I had on a zebra print thong. And as the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: show progressed, I got fully dressed instead of the other
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: way around, getting fully undressed.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Roddy that sort of be Spiny as the next spider
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: on Golfoy then, which was that one?
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  Speaker 3: So that sounds yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So that's the beginning of the show. And I just
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  Speaker 1: had that bucket full of black ink and I just
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: soaked my arms in it and did whatever it was
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Oh that's insane.
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  Speaker 2: Do you still do that sort of stuff live?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I haven't since then. It was always sporadic. It was
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: never It was just because. I mean, I was on
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: vacation with my wife and I saw that poodle mask
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: in the in the store window and I said, I
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: gotta have that, and the goofy idea just sort of
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: made itself up.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: It actually looks kind of regal, doesn't It looks very
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: very regal and royal sort of.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: It's a good look at mask.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I fucked it up on purpose, so you.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Know, all right, Well that's all I got for you, mate,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Thanks for your time today. The new album, Rack, which
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: is your first in twenty six years, comes out this Friday,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: September the thirty eighth them. Sounds like you guys are
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: pretty busy, mate, so best of luck with everything.