At first glance, Ian Rogers doesn’t look like the CEO of a cutting-edge music technology company. He has long blond hair and tattoos on his fingers, is an avid skateboarder, and loves hip-hop music. Rogers happens to be one of the music industry’s brightest visionaries and one of the most passionate people I’ve spoken to regarding the future of music and marketing.

He runs the Los Angeles based company Topspin Media, a direct-to-fan marketing and retail software company founded by Peter Gotcher and Shamal Ranasinghe in 2007. Rogers joined the company in 2008, the same year Topspin was named Indie Visionary of the Year by Billboard Magazine. Prior to working at Topspin, Rogers was the GM of Yahoo Music for five years. In the 90s he managed the Beastie Boys and eventually became the President of New Media for their label, Grand Royal.

Rogers practices what he preaches: the direct-to-fan CEO is also direct-to-critics. He is not afraid to defend his company on message boards, in person, and on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and blogs. He recently interrupted his family vacation in Hawaii to explain the company’s decision to shut down the San Francisco office.

I caught up with Rogers to discuss the Topspin platform and its popularity with over 4,000 artists, which includes diverse acts such as Odd Future, Drive-By Truckers, Paul McCartney, Blitzen Trapper, Neon Indian, Sigur Ros, Lil’ Wayne, and Gillian Welch, to name a few.

R&G: Can you tell me a little bit about your company, Topspin?

IR: At Topspin, what we’re really trying to do is to build a tool set for marketing and retail. The notion from our perspective is that the costs of production and distribution have come down, but that marketing takes a lot of effort, to say the least. Factors such as empowered consumers with unlimited choice require heavy lifting, plus the act of just getting content to people takes managing that content and building campaigns, measuring the success of those campaigns. Sometimes you’re giving content away, sometimes you’re selling it, and sometimes you’re doing both of those things with the same content. You have tools to do these things and to run your business. What we’ve been trying to do is to build a software package that gives you an integrated platform to do all of the activities that you do with both marketing and retail. Perhaps most importantly we help you tie those two things together: the activities that you’re doing as you’re trying to build awareness and create fan connections and build trust with your fans fit together with what you’re doing when you’re vending with fans, when they’re buying something. We released a new platform in March that is a self-serve version of the platform that we’ve been building for three years and using with roughly 4,300 artists of all sizes over the previous three years. Even when we went self-serve, the majority of the artists on the platform were small artists, but we just had opened it up to where we were marketing it and saying, “Come one, come all.”

R&G: You offer three platforms: Topspin, Topspin Plus, and Topspin Enterprise. Can you discuss benefits of each platform?

IR: Our goal was to make it affordable to anybody who wanted to have it, so we have the Topspin, which is $100 a year. That’s good for any artist just starting out. The only limitation there is that it only covers up to 2000 fans. We wanted the entry point to be super simple for folks, but it’s got the complete platform including the ticketing software, through which you can book your own shows. You can check people in at the door with our iPhone application. Widgets do marketing and collect email addresses; they give media in return for an email address. It’s got an integrated store-builder; it calculates tax; it pays on a regular basis. It’s the full platform. The next level up gets you up to 20,000 email addresses, makes the offering really price-competitive with email software like MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc. There’s also, in the Topspin Plus version, a tool for doing automated pre-sales. Part of the reason for including that is a) that it’s a more advanced feature b) it’s a feature you shouldn’t use unless you’re pretty serious about what you’re doing. It’s a sharp knife; put it that way. We really wanted to make that something that’s part of the Plus offering. Then the Topspin Enterprise includes features that are really for labels or other people that are running a business based with a number of artists and they need fancy accounting.

R&G: There were some ease of use issues with the Topspin platform in the past. What efforts did you guys make to address these concerns with the new offerings?

IR: We took what I would say is a first swing at it. When you first log into the app, the first thing you’ll see is a video giving you a tour of the app. We have one of those videos in every single section so that people can get an idea of what the section is about and why you would use this section, the kinds of things you would do there, etc. We changed some of the ways the software works – buttons in different places, tabs for different things – trying to make it fit more to what your flow is. The flow, as you come into the app, is: you start with your stuff, which are your products. From there, you move on into promoting those products. Once you’ve promoted them and built up a little bit of a fan base, then you can sell. That’s its own section. Once you’ve promoted and sold, presumably you have some fans and you want to manage those fans. Once you’re selling, you need to fulfill. We’ve kind of tried to build this flow where you start by uploading some stuff and you end by shipping out and doing customer service. We’ve tried to match the software itself to the actual life cycle. There are definitely some things that we want to make easier to use.

R&G: There are several players in the Direct to Fan marketing space. Why should an artist go with Topspin over your competitors like Bandcamp or Nembit or ReverbNation?

IR: Topspin is really the only solution in that it pulls all of the marketing and retail features into one. Some of the ones you mentioned don’t even have any marketing features. They’re just sort of retailers. Some of them don’t have retail features; they’re just marketing tools. There’s no one else that pulls together the catalog management along with the bundling and the way that the bundling is done and the way that the accounting is done on the back of the bundling and the way that that is integrated with fulfillment. There is integrated fulfillment: we will ship for you, we will do customer service for you. Nobody else that you mentioned has a ticketing app, where you can check people in with an iPhone. No one else that you mentioned has a membership product where you can do fan clubs and other types of advanced membership features. Topspin is really the only solution that has all of the functionality that you would need to run a real business, but that also levels up with you. I think if you’re a small artist, spending $100 a year on your career to have a great toolset that has beautiful streaming players that lead back to your website – not to Vimeo, not to YouTube – plus the ability to do the email from media type of thing – where you can gather 1000 to 2000 email addresses and have that be connected to an email marketing tool that shows you how much revenue each one of your fans has spent. That alone is a good investment, even for an artist just starting out. But then we do level up, all the way to artists at the Paul McCartney and Linkin Park level. It’s really a tool that’s going to grow with you, the same way that a ProTools or a Logic is going to grow with you a lot more than a GarageBand is.

You can follow Ian on Twitter: @iancr
Ian also hosts the online interview series, “This Week In Music.”

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Music Supervisor Profile is a recurring feature on Rollo & Grady: we interview the top supervisors in the business to learn their secrets and get valuable advice on how to break into world of music supervision. Some of our previous interviews have been with such heavyweights as Thomas Golubic, Liza Richardson, Scott Vener, and Gary Calamar.

We recently interviewed the brilliant and insightful tastemaker Andrea von Foerster of Firestarter Music. Over the last decade, Andrea has handled music supervision responsibilities for both television and film. She was the music coordinator for hit television shows Grey’s Anatomy, The OC, Rescue Me, and Roswell. She is best known for supervising the Fox Searchlight film, 500 Days of Summer. The movie’s eclectic soundtrack included Black Lips, Doves, The Smiths, Feist, and Hall & Oates. During our conversation, she made a point to tell me that she feels blessed to have the best job in the world.

R&G: How did you get started in the music supervision business?

Andrea: Accidentally on purpose. I went to film school at USC. I was a production major and a double minor in music business and music recording. The music business program was amazing and almost everyone I went to school with in that program is still in music today. During my junior year summer at USC, I got a temp job at Disney in live action feature soundtrack and worked on Armageddon, High Fidelity, Coyote Ugly, and Simon Birch. They said, “We can hire you.” I said, “I’ve got one more year of college.” They said, “Come back when you’re done.” So I did and that was my first entertainment job. It kind of went from there.

R&G: What does your day-to-day job entail? Can you discuss both your film and television responsibilities?

Andrea: With film, there’s a lot more time. You can work on a film from six months to two years or longer. With TV, it’s usually about a two-week turn around per episode. The pitching is always fast and furious because everybody wants something yesterday. Every day I will pitch music: I research and find and pitch. You hear what they like and don’t like and you go back and start over if you need to. If you find something they like, you go and research who has the publishing, who has the master, and then you send out requests, which I do every day. It’s a lot of paperwork. Then I’ll go ahead and send confirmations out for anything that we’re definitely using for the mix. Right now I have about eight films happening and they’re all in different stages. I have the full evolution of music supervision in one day every day.

R&G: What’s the most difficult part of your job as a music supervisor?

Andrea: Funny enough, it’s not the job itself; it’s the perception of the job. Because of the internet and technology, everyone thinks that they can be a supervisor, or if they take a class at a school, they think they can be a supervisor. Obviously, if it were just picking music according to your tastes, it wouldn’t be a job. Picking music is not just about your tastes. It has to fit the people who hired you: the writers, the editors, the director, the producer, the studio, the network. You have a lot of people to please. You’re the ultimate in the co-dependent department, because you have to make everybody happy. Your projects hopefully fit within your taste levels because that’s hopefully why you’re hired – your taste and your credits. Still, everybody thinks if they can find a song on YouTube or iTunes that that’s all you do. They’re like, “Oh, I would use this song.” And I’m like, “You have to fit it within your budget. You have to know who to go to to clear it within a certain amount of time and for a certain amount of money.” That’s the real part of the job: knowing who to go to and how to get it for the money you have and in the time frame you need it. Unfortunately, everybody thinks they can be a supervisor because they have good taste. If that were the case, then everybody would be a supervisor, but really there’s a lot of politics and paperwork and psychology in the job. You’re part of a big community of people; it’s never just one person who makes a show or a film. You’re part of a family.

R&G: What’s the best way for an independent or unsigned artist to get on your radar?

Andrea: Excellent question. I go to a lot of music conferences and festivals; I was just in Montreal. Every time I get invited to an event, I go because I want to meet people who pitch music on the label side, development side, agency side, management side, the artists themselves. As much as I hate to say that I don’t have time to meet everyone in the world, face-time really is important. When I’m at one of these events, already I’m in a good mood because I’m away even though I’m still trying to get my work done, which I am. I’m seeing new music and meeting new people. I love new people. I love new music. I love new places. So I’m already in a good mood and if you meet me at an event, you’ve got me in the best possible light. This is better than listening to you for the first time on my iTunes for a couple seconds maybe in the 14th hour of my day, when I’m kind of grumpy. It’s really great when you can play a conference or a festival or something in your area that you’ve been invited to. Also, send a proper email. I read all my emails and I get back to as many people as possible as soon as possible. I can’t say that I get back to everybody because if a question isn’t really stated in the email and somebody’s just throwing something in my direction, I don’t feel the need to get back to that person. But I do listen to everything.

R&G: What’s the best way for an artist to get your attention when they are emailing you regarding placing their music in one of your projects?

Andrea: I don’t need an entire press kit. I don’t need a bunch of pictures. What if I think you look kind of silly but I love your music? I really just want to know who has the publishing, who has the master, where are you from, and are there any samples. Then of course I want the music. I don’t need to know your story. If I want to know your story, I’ll ask later once I like you. I get a thousand emails a day, if not more. In all honesty: I actually get a thousand emails a day, it’s in my email signature. It takes a lot to get my attention, to break the monotony of all the emails I get in a day. If it’s just short and concise, maybe be funny somewhere in there, that’s awesome, and I’ll remember that, but I really sort of compartmentalize where people are from, so if I have an idea of where you are from, that helps me remember you.

R&G: If you receive a 1000 emails per day, I assume you don’t like mp3 attachments clogging up your inbox. What’s the best way to submit music to you?

Andrea: Never never never never never send an mp3 to somebody’s inbox without asking them first. We all get a lot of emails and that many people sending you mp3s will just clog up your inbox. I like things that don’t expire: ftp sites, box.net, Dropbox, Yousendit if you have an account and the link won’t expire. I will actually write to people and say, “Hey, I didn’t get to it in time. Can you send it again?” I do that all the time. If it’s some sort of file that doesn’t expire or you’re not too mad at me when I reach out and say, “Hey, can you send it again,” I’m fine.

R&G: What’s your best advice for somebody who’s trying to get into the business as a music supervisor without previous experience?

Andrea: That’s the thing. You need to have some previous experience in licensing. Taste is taste and if it fits the director’s work or the producer’s work, that’s great. (In the film world it’s more the director who’s the point person and in TV it’s more the producers.) But get out there and do a film or do anything you can do to try to clear songs on someone’s project to get experience, because without any experience at all, you’re not really very useful to the supervisor, so you can’t really get a job with a supervisor. Have a music job. Pretty much everybody who’s working now worked at labels, booked bands, worked at a publishing company, whatever, so we had some sort of basis for what it was like on the other side. I think that makes you a more well rounded supervisor.

R&G: Where do you see the music supervision business going in the next five to ten years?

Andrea: I think that independent supervision will always be around as long as indie films are around, but as far as television goes, I think that most of it is going in-house with the studios and the networks. It’s a shame and I don’t really know how much in-house departments can take because that’s a lot of shows for very few people doing all of them. The music industry itself is sort of imploding, so I think it’s going to get to an absolute point where we kind of just have to explode and start over again. It’s kind of an interesting time and I don’t really know where it’s going, but I know that until music divorces me, I’m still in it.

R&G: You’re saying that it’ll go in-house for all of the networks, where they’ll do the negotiations for, say, Fox and NBC, and that they’ll have their own team that does all the work instead of the independent supervisors?

Andrea: Yeah.

R&G: That sucks.

Andrea: It does suck, and the problem is too that it’s bad for all musicians in the world and all the companies because the musicians will have fewer people to get to, and even these people will be already overworked. They can only know so many people in a certain time bracket, so they’re going to know fewer people and less music is going to be used from as wide a pool of music.

R&G: They’re not going to have time to be pitched or discover new music?

Andrea: It would be impossible.

R&G: Just handling paperwork all day, right?

Andrea: Yeah. Obviously, you’re going to have your own taste and I don’t know anyone in the business that doesn’t have great taste, but that’s not really the point. When you have to get the job done of clearing the film and making it fit with your budget and in time, and you’re working on however many shows for the network, and you’re responsible for all the administrative stuff on the other side, which the network normally does and the studio normally does, on top of what the supervisor does: that’s a lot of work. For example, you may be responsible for payment, and the supervisor isn’t responsible for payment most of the time, so there’s that much more work added to your plate. Independent supervisors have the opportunity to pull from a wider pool of music.

R&G: You’re heavily involved in the Guild of Music Supervisors. Can you tell me a little bit about the organization and what you guys are trying to accomplish?

Andrea: Yeah, I’m by no means the right person to ask about details, but it’s time. We don’t have any type of representation. We don’t have a union. We are sort of considered a fringe group of people and so we finally – it’s been years for some people – gathered together and said, “We’re looking for the same things that the other people get in the entertainment industry.” Health insurance would be great, as would a certain definition of what the job of music supervision really is. It’s not just sitting around and listening to music all day and saying, “That works.” That’s not the job. Bringing a certain amount of respect to what the job is is very important, and having a stamp of approval. Right now, health insurance is the strongest thing I think that we’re looking for.

R&G: How about 500 Days of Summer? The use of Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True” is one of the all-time best placements, in my opinion. Can you tell me a little bit about how that scene came together and how the music evolved with it?

Andrea: Yes. Scott Neustadter, who’s the writer, is a musical genius. We originally wanted Hall & Oates to be on camera, not actually singing the song but sort of in the scene or something, maybe shooting looks to Joseph Gordon-Levitt in his post-coital moment. They said yes originally and then something fell apart and they said no. We said that we didn’t particularly want to keep the song if they didn’t want to be in it, because that was kind of going to be part of the fun. I’m not sure if they thought it was cheesy or what. We went on this crazy tirade of finding something else that was feel-good and ‘80s that could still work with the artist actually on camera. We went through so many people and all of them weren’t available because of touring and others wouldn’t clear because of our budgets, and all the rest of it. We really could never beat it, and we finally just realized that it would be stupid to keep trying, so we did it without Hall & Oates on camera and of course it was perfect. It was the best day of shooting on our production ever. Everyone was in a good mood. That song can start and stop anywhere and you’re just happy. The entire crew was doing the choreography on the set. It was one of those rare moments when I think everybody was just so ecstatic to be where they were. There’s also another writer on the film, Michael Weber, but Scott is the one who wrote that in. The film is sort of Scott’s story.

Related Posts:
Music Supervisor Profile :: Thomas Golubic (click here)
Music Supervisor Profile :: Gary Calamar (click here)
Music Supervisor Profile :: Scott Vener (click here)
Music Supervisor Profile :: Liza Richardson (click here)
Rollo & Grady Music Supervision (click here)

Music Supervisor Profile is a recurring feature on Rollo & Grady where we interview the top supervisors in the business to learn their secrets and get valuable advice on how to break into world of music supervision. Some of our previous interviews have been with such heavyweights as Thomas Golubic, Gary Calamar, and Scott Vener.

This month we interviewed the super talented Liza Richardson. Her resume boasts Hawaii Five-0 , Parenthood, and Friday Night Lights. Richardson selected over 600 songs in the 5-season run of Friday Night Lights. Some of the artists she included were Pearl Jam, Wilco, White Denim, Ryan Adams, TV On The Radio, Explosions In The Sky, Black Keys, and Bob Dylan. Her film work includes The Italian Job, Lords Of Dogtown, and Y Tu Mamá También, which was nominated for a Best Soundtrack Compilation Grammy.

In addition to her work in television and film, Richardson worked on an IPOD commercial. The Texas native has also DJ’d for Southern California radio station KCRW 89.9 FM since 1990 and she was tapped to be the first DJ to spin for the Academy Awards ceremony in 2007.


R&G: Tell me how you got your start in the music supervision business.

Liza: There are a lot of people along the way that I got some great breaks from that I could point out, but the person who really gave me my start was Mark Pellington. He directed Arlington Road and I Melt With You. Back in the ‘90s, he was a big video director for MTV, and I, at the time, on my KCRW radio show, focused on spoken word and poetry. I would layer the spoken word with instrumental music, so I became super obsessed with finding spoken word as well as instrumental music and music of all different styles and types. Mark was doing a documentary on poetry, and somebody from MTV said to me, “You have to meet Mark Pellington. You guys are kind of kindred spirits.” They introduced us and he asked me to be a consultant on this documentary he was working on called, The United States of Poetry. Basically, we just sat there and went through music and I planned all these cool instrumental pieces. He said, “You know, people do this professionally. You should try to get into it.” Then he hired me again on his next project. The story goes on from there, but that’s how I got my start.

R&G: What does your day-to-day job entail?

Liza: It’s different every day. I just try to pay attention to what’s going on in music, whether it’s material I get in the mail or music I find on iTunes or online or on music blogs. I listen a lot to my fellow DJs at KCRW and take suggestions from my interns and assistants. I try to pay attention to “buzz” and see what’s currently happening. That’s pretty much daily, although there are days when I’m too busy with other crap to pay attention, which is unfortunate. I think spending as much time listening to music as possible is pretty ideal for the job. You not only have to listen to the music: you have to know it; you have to learn it; you have to make notes. I make lyric notes in my song fields on all my mp3s so that they’re searchable. The more time I spend doing that the better, but I do spend a great deal of time on the phone negotiating and making deals.

R&G: What’s the process of getting the scripts and selecting music for the shows you are working on?

Liza: Usually at the beginning of a season, I am reading all the scripts. As the season goes along, I don’t find that it’s necessary to read them as much. I really really should, but if something’s going on in a script that I need to know about, the post-supervisor or the show runner is immediately calling me and going, “Okay, what should we do for this?” and then I’m up to speed. I find that a lot of the things that are scripted don’t end up in the final mix. I’d say probably 90% of songs that are scripted never see the light of day. So, I don’t put too much stock in what’s scripted, unless it’s a visual vocal of course or something they need on the set; then you have to totally deal with it. I usually wait until post-production to get most of my work done. Every production is different. On some shows, every single scene that needs music, except for score of course, they send me a Quicktime and I send them back my choices. Sometimes it doesn’t work like that: on Parenthood, we have a certain number of pieces of music in each episode that I approve of and provide to the editors. My reasons can be that I think it’s great or current or that it’s affordable or that it’s not a dangerous piece of music. On Parenthood, for example, I give them huge amounts of music periodically throughout the season and then when the editor’s working late at night and they don’t want to bother me or whatever they can cut something in. If it works, great, and if not, they move on.

R&G: On Parenthood and Friday Night Lights you’ve placed songs by Pearl Jam, Black Keys, Flaming Lips, Bob Dylan, and Run DMC. What’s your secret for placing big time bands?

Liza: With Friday Night Lights, we had an incredibly interesting set-up that I’ve never had on anything else, because we used so much music and, yeah, a lot of huge titles. First of all, the Parenthood music budget is really good. On Friday Night Lights, we did two-year terms, which is hardly anything in the world of licensing. If we had licensed songs for perpetuity, we would never have been able to afford all that music. The two-year term covers the broadcast on NBC and Direct TV and I think that’s it. All of the music gets replaced after the two-year term, so anything that lives on beyond two years – like on DVD, gets replaced.

R&G: What’s your best advice for someone trying to get into the business as a music supervisor without previous experience?

Liza: I get that question all the time and I think everybody has their own path, but I would say working for another music supervisor is the best way to get your start. If you can get a job with a music supervisor you will learn more in three months than you will in a class. Working for a music supervisor is a great way to get the lay of the land and see what it takes and see what the different aspects of the job are. You can also work for a music publisher. You can volunteer to do your buddy’s student films or your buddy’s no-budget films. Any way possible of getting involved is good. I am always passing documentaries and various projects that come my way to my assistant and to my interns for them to do. That way they are building up their resumes and learning the ins-and-outs of the business.

R&G: How do you choose your interns?

Liza: When I meet somebody, I put the word out there that I’m looking for interns. I don’t want to get bombarded, because I don’t have time to do a million meetings. From resumes and recommendations from friends, I’ll choose five people to interview. Then I’ll pick one usually based on vibe. I normally pick people to interview that have some experience, so the final choice is usually based on chemistry. It’s like how you choose a lover: you hit it off or you see eye to eye or you can trust that person. The problem is that oftentimes you like all five people. Sometimes I just close my eyes and do it [laughs].

R&G: What’s the best way for independent or unsigned artists to get on your radar?

Liza: I hate to say it, but to cold call me probably isn’t the best way because I don’t have a reference for it and I don’t have time to listen to a ton of blind emails from bands I’ve never heard of. The best way to get on my radar is to be a great band and to get somebody excited about you. I try to pay attention to what people are digging. My job as a music supervisor is to try to discover things, but it’s not just that; it’s also keeping track of what people like. There are, however, times when I come across something randomly. I don’t even know how it happened and I’m just blown away and I haven’t heard of it and I don’t know anybody who knows it. There are just so many different ways that things get into my heart. There’s no set way.

Related Posts:
Music Supervisor Profile :: Thomas Golubic (click here)
Music Supervisor Profile :: Gary Calamar (click here)
Music Supervisor Profile :: Scott Vener (click here)
Rollo & Grady Music Supervision (click here)

Workaholics is one of the best comedies on television. The show revolves around three friends played by Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine, and Anders Holm, whose characters are roommates and recent college grads that work for a telemarketing company. They hatch elaborate schemes to fuck with one another, but ultimately, the show is about friends that don’t want to grow up and join the rat race. Blake plays the long-haired, pot-smoking, mushroom-eating, Renaissance Faire vet and loyal friend. Anderson is the funniest character on television since Charlie Day [Charlie Kelly] of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Workaholics is one of those rare comedies every episode of which is hilarious from start to finish. Workaholics completed its first season in early June and was renewed for another ten episodes starting in late September.

R&G: How did the concept of Workaholics come about?

Blake: For about five years or so, we were doing internet sketch comedy as a group called Mail Order Comedy, and we were approached by some dudes who had an office space. They asked us if we wanted to do something with them and use the office. We were like, “We’ve never done anything where we were wearing ties, so we might as well give it a shot,” and we made a short web series of five episodes. That’s where the idea was born; then somebody over at Comedy Central, Walter Newman, saw the videos, brought us in, we pitched to them, and they gave us a small amount of money to make a pilot presentation. We had never been paid anything for the stuff we were doing on the internet – it was all coming out of our pockets – so when we got this small amount of money, we were like, “Holy fucking shit, man.” We were blown away. “Let’s pool all our resources and really go for it.” I think we turned in a pretty awesome product for the amount of money we were given. We blew Comedy Central away a little bit and they agreed to do ten more.

R&G: What were you doing prior to Workaholics? Were you in college or acting?

Blake: When I moved out here, it was just to live with my pop and go to community college. That’s actually where I met Adam [Devine]. I was always doing sketch comedy with them in my free time, but as far as a job goes, I was just delivering pizzas for the longest time. No complaint though: it’s my favorite job. You just drive around listening to music. I could do that my whole life, I think [laughs].

R&G: Where did you go to community college?

Blake: I went to community college in Costa Mesa at Orange Coast College. Go Pirates!

R&G: Your character takes pole-dancing classes, he’s a member of the Rancho Cucamonga Justin Bieber fan club, he’s a Juggalo, and he dresses up as a wizard for Renaissance Faires, but he still comes off as a cool guy. Why do you think Blake is such a likeable character?

Blake: Well, I hate to toot my own horn, but I’m just kind of being real. That’s kind of the way I am. I have a pretty eclectic taste in the stuff I like. Not so much Justin Bieber, but I’m a Renaissance Faire vet, and I’m totally down with the hip-hop stripper lifestyle as well. As much as I’ve never earned a buck from stripping, I have been known to get really drunk with really good friends and strip some clothes.

R&G: So you wear a banana hammock and dance for your friends?

Blake: Yeah, there is some photo evidence. One of the weirdest nights of my life was when I reunited with all my fucking buddies from childhood and got super drunk. I did a hidden camera web series where I wore this tuxedo G-string thing, like a little bow tie right above my wenis. It was crazy. There’s nothing better than just getting blackout drunk and naked with your best dude friends.

R&G: What are some of the similarities or traits that you share with your Workaholics character?

Blake: The character and myself are very loyal to our friends. The people that I call friends I like to keep really close. I think both the character and myself are willing to go that extra mile to help a buddy out and also like the eccentric lifestyle and getting creative. There’s no reason to be bored when you can go draw a picture or create something or make a claymation movie or just smoke weed and zone out to some Animal Collective.

R&G: What’s your favorite scene involving your character? Is it, ‘We Be Ballin,’ with the badass bear coat?

Blake: [Laughs] Yes, that was a great scene. The bear coat was amazing. Initially when that was being created, it was just a fur coat. I think we were sitting in on a punch-up and it was like, “What would Blake spend his money on?” I watch a lot of Ghostface Killah’s stuff and I was like, “Hey, he looks proper in those fur coats,” and I said, “What the fuck? Why don’t we make it a bear coat? Like the most epic bear coat ever?” And it was like, “Yes. That sounds great.” So we actually had it custom-made by these people in this garage deep in the Valley who make custom fake animal fur coats. It turned out exactly how I had envisioned it in my mind. I told them what my idea was and everything, but they really nailed it.

R&G: Did you write or ad-lib the line, “Bitch better have my honey?”

Blake: Shoot. We wrote a lot of lines and I don’t think that one was improv-ed. It was definitely in the script, but… I come up with a lot of… I think that’s kind of what I bring to the table and to the writers. Most of my joke pitches are like, “I’ve got a pun, guys. Buckle up.”

R&G: It seems to me that every episode’s storylines are well thought-out, but it also looks like you guys are doing a good deal of improv. How much of the show is scripted versus improv?

Blake: We really do pride ourselves on coming with a really tight script and a thought-out story, but we’ve been working together so long, like on all that internet stuff, that after we get a few takes where we know we got the script lines, we definitely cut loose and a lot of it makes the final cut. I think that’s what makes it feel real, because we’re really buddies just talking to each other when the camera rolls. It’s about 60% improv lines when you’re watching it, but we do have a tight script as well.

R&G: Can you discuss why having a tight butthole is better than having a loose butthole?

Blake: [Laughs] Sure. A lot of times when you want to describe something as being cool, a lot of people will be like, “Tits! That’s tits!” I’ve always been a fan of that, but Anders [Holm] was not feeling it. He’s like, “Why not have another part of the body describe it? Like, people say, ‘That shit’s tight.’” He’s like, “Why not just go with ‘tight butthole?’” And we were like, “Yeah.” And we tried our best to incorporate it. Sometimes we’ll actually sit down and say, “Let’s make this word something we actually use every day,” and we’ll go out of our way to use it. It just so happened that we kind of remembered that one, so, like, “Tight butthole!” You go with it and you realize, well, what if something sucks? “Well, that shit was loose butthole.”

R&G: Are fans approaching you, saying “Tight butthole?”

Blake: [Laughs] Yes, “tight butthole” is definitely the thing that gets shouted out the most. When we were at Bonnaroo doing our live show, every five seconds, somebody would yell, “Tight butthole” – we loved it. The fans were so cool and supportive. But it does get awkward when it’s in a public place; old ladies give us weird looks. We created a monster and were loving every bit of it [laughs].

R&G: You guys smoke weed in several episodes. What do they use for the prop weed?

Blake: The prop weed from what I’ve heard is just hops, like what they use to make beer, but it’s really… I would prefer that it was tobacco or weed or something, because it’s harsh. I remember one day when we were doing promos, I had a sore throat and wasn’t feeling so good, but the scene was basically us all getting high and it was tearing my throat up. I’m like, “Can we just did some weed on set?”

R&G: Comedy Central would love that.

Blake: We might lose our lines a little bit if that happened [laughs].

R&G: Speaking of which, you guys were renewed for another ten episodes. Have you guys finished writing new episodes? What can we expect for the next season?

Blake: I think we’ve got one more episode to write. We started filming at the end of June. It’s a lot of the same: crazy adventures, basically. We’ve got a lot of cool stuff happening in the office and then stuff where we’re just out in the world being our dumb selves. From what I’ve had come out of the writer’s room, I’m excited. I’m excited to get out and shoot ‘em, because we have a lot of really funny stuff.

R&G: You seem to be a big fan of Twitter. It’s cool that you interact with your fans. What are your thoughts about Twitter?

Blake: I love it. It’s a good outlet for me to say stupid shit. I was stuck at 50 followers forever. I did stand-up and all the dudes from the show were on Twitter before I was. I kind of got there late, so Devine [Adam] was always holding it over my head. We’d be talking about Twitter and he’d be like, “Well, who’s got the most followers in the room?” and he had like 300 at that point, but I got ‘em now and I’m into it. I think it’s cool. I like to talk to the fans and shout out at people that might be celebrities. It’s just fun when people answer back or fans come up with some actually cool shit like fan art or whatever.

R&G: You recently made a new Twitter friend with the porn star, Dana DeArmond. She is hot.

Blake: Yeah!

R&G: Is she taking you to the Adult Video Awards?

Blake: I’m working on it. She said ok. I think it would be cool. She seems real nice. I mean, I don’t know what her intentions are. I saw her posting like shirtless photos of me on her blog. It could be cool. Who knows?

R&G: Have you seen her porn IMDB page?

Blake: I’ve only seen her blog and her Tumblr. There’s definitely a lot of naked photos. Which is not a bad thing at all [laughs].

RELATED POST::
Rollo & Grady :: Blake Anderson Guest Mixtape (click here)

Workaholics – Bitch Better Have My Honey

Over the past year and a half, Arish A. Khan (a.k.a King “BlackSnake” Khan) has been to the depths of Hell and back. He was arrested twice while on tour, lost three of his best friends, parted ways with longtime collaborator and best friend, Mark “BBQ” Sultan, had a nervous breakdown, quit music, and considered becoming a Buddhist monk.

Naturally, Khan’s wife, family, and friends were worried about his well-being and encouraged him to check into a mental institution in Berlin. He agreed. At the hospital he was evaluated, prescribed “mind numbing” drugs, and monitored on an outpatient basis for a couple months.

When I caught up with Khan last month, he was no longer taking the meds and told me that this was the first month that he felt back in real life again. He is now channeling his spiritual awakening towards producing and recording on several projects: one is with Singer-songwriter Mary Ocher and another called KhanWood Clarke, which is his country music collaboration with Jeff Clarke from Demon’s Claws and Sean Wood from the Spits. He is also working on a new King Khan & The Shrines record.

Image by Philip Virus

R&G: Hey Khan. It’s been a long time. How are things?

KK: Hey Carter. Well, I’ve kind of had a heavy year. I guess you would call it a collection of nervous breakdowns ever since BBQ and I split up and that whole craziness went down in Australia and China. We were on tour in the crazy land. After that, I kind of lost my mind completely. I had a couple of really dark months. I had decided to quit music. I wanted to become a Buddhist monk. Actually, I was in a monastery in Korea for a few days. Oddly enough, it was a women’s monastery. They say that when you hit the age of 33, everything kind of changes, and I know that for the Mohawk Indians, 33 is the age that you actually become a man. There was a lot of stuff leading up to it, but basically this whole year I have had to shed my skin and reevaluate everything. I lost three of my best friends: BJ from Atlanta, Jay Reatard of course, and another friend I grew up with who lived in Montreal who lived on an Indian reservation named Jayson Montour. I think losing these three Jays – oddly enough: Jay Jay Jay – really fucked me up big time. I guess I was on tour so much that I didn’t get to deal with it properly. I was just really fragile. My mind was fucked up. I would have these crazy episodes and start weeping out of nowhere.

R&G: I’m sorry to hear that man. I know that touring had been rough on you. You missed your Los Angeles show due to a drug bust in Kentucky. Tell me a little bit about that.

KK: Sure. Well, thank God it was really funny rather than being like something out of that TV show Oz. We had the orange uniforms and everything. The funniest thing out of the whole thing was that I was with Mark, who I have basically known since I was a teenager. We’re getting strip searched next door to one another and then we walk out in orange uniforms holding toothbrushes. You spend years with someone and you never imagine that it comes to this. [laughs]

R&G: Were you concerned about being incarcerated for an extended period of time?

KK: No, we got geeked (a term I learned in jail) for, what, a gram of mushrooms. One of the funnier moments was that when we got busted there were about ten cops around us, searching the van. I’m on my knees with those fuckin’ plastic handcuffs, and a cop actually comes up to me and asks me, “Are you white?”

R&G: Are you white?

KK: Yeah. He didn’t know what I was. [Laughs] Then, on my arrest sheet, my race is listed as “Other.” So, in Kentucky, there’s only like two races. The guy did not look like the brightest. It looked like he was a couple sandwiches short of a picnic. [laughs]

R&G: Were the cops good ol’ boys?

KK: Yes. Some of them didn’t even know what it was that was in the aluminum foil, but there was one Robocop-esque, Bruce Willis type cop who was like, “That’s shrooms. We got you guys.” It was ridiculous. Then, when we went to prison or jail or whatever, it was Christian County jail, of all jails. That tour was ridiculous. We missed a week of shows because of that stupid… Our judge’s name was Judge Lynch.

R&G: Jesus.

KK: When we first heard the name, I was going to shit my pants, but I found out that he was the only black judge in that county, so I guess we lucked out. Anyway. It was funny, but it nearly broke up BBQ and I.

R&G: You and Mark had another dust up at the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

KK: Yes. Mark and I were asked by Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed to play the Opera House. We were the only Rock & Roll band that they invited. Basically what happened was that I didn’t realize that the Opera House is basically like an airport. It’s like a national, high security building. We couldn’t necessarily get away with the antics that we do at normal shows, although that is what Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson wanted from us… They described our thing as putting danger back into the Devil’s music. If I read that kind of description, I’m assuming they want us to go crazy, like we always do. The first show I had a rubber snake that I was throwing in the audience, and I was like, “Keep the snake dancing!” The audience was throughout the show tossing this big rubber snake around, and we served food to the audience. We had leftover Chinese food in a big silver plate and we had a guy dressed up like a girl – our tour manager – who went into the audience and served food. I guess there was a little bit of a mess after the show [laughs]. Anyway, Lou and Laurie loved it and the next day Lou and Laurie invited me to go see their rehearsals for the show that night. I was really excited. I was hanging out with them all day. One really kind of ridiculous incident was that I was in the rehearsal room and there was literally just me, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson on violin and that crazy keyboard that she has, a piano player, and a couple sound people. I’m literally sitting next to Lou Reed and he’s singing this song – something about vanishing – and I was completely in the space. I was like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m here.” Me, I have this tendency, when I get this excited, I turn into a big kid. Cole [Alexander – Black Lips] had told me this story on the tour before about the serial killer John Wayne Gacy and how when he would capture kids in his basement, he would open up a small slot and go, “Gotcha.” So for some reason that flashed in my head and I looked at Lou, who was sitting right next to me, and I said, “Lou, that song was really great, but you got something on your sweater.” He looks down and I totally flick his nose, like, “Bam.” He looks up at me. I guess he couldn’t believe that I did that. I was like, “Gotcha.” [Laughs] His face! It was like an ancient turtle was bitten by a fucking mosquito or something like that. He just looked at me and said, “Please. Don’t ever do that again.” [laughing]

R&G: [Laughs] Holy shit, you were lucky he didn’t punch you in the face.

Khan: I know. After that, these Tuvan throat singers came in. Tuva is a province above Mongolia, and there were five singers who came in. Lou Reed sat on the floor right in front of them. I’m like, “Alright.” So I sit right next to him. Then the Tuvan throat singers start. Have you ever heard that? It’s really incredible. It’s like throat singing: “Ererererrrrroorro.” They do these harmonies that are so psychedelic and wonderful. There was a woman sitting in the back who was silent for at least ten minutes. The guys were singing the whole time. Then, when she opened her mouth, it sounded like the sweetest flute sound you’ve ever heard coming out of her. It was incredible. At this point, I hadn’t slept for a few days. I was just partying too much. I’m sitting next to Lou and I’m like, “Oh no. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep.” It’s like, “ERERERRroo…” and I’m like, “Oh God. I’m totally falling asleep!” I start totally nodding off. I wake up about to freak out and I look to the side and Lou Reed’s totally nodding off too! Thank God. I was living out every junkie’s dream… to nod off with Lou Reed!! [laughs]

R&G: I understand that the Opera House didn’t take kindly to the show theatrics you’d put on the night before and gave you a stern lecture of the do’s and don’ts for your next performance.

KK: Things got a bit hairy because when I came to sound check the security was like, “Listen. You can’t throw food. You can’t do this. You can’t invite people onstage. No more than four people.” We had like ten girls onstage dancing. They were basically like, “You can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t do this.” Of course, I was in a crazed state already and I just figured, “Fuck that. I’m gonna go crazy.” That was not exactly the wisest decision. I got really drunk and we played. Mark was kind of pissed off. At the end of the show I started throwing my guitar into the audience, lobbing it into the air. They would catch it and throw it back. I think Mark thought I was attacking the audience. We got into a huge fight after the people had left. There was a huge screaming match between Mark and I.

R&G: At the time, did you try to make things good with Mark?

KK: The thing with Mark is that, man, we’ve known each other… We’re like brothers, but we’re also like a married couple. We blow up and explode and then the next day it’s like, “Oh, well, I’m okay. Let’s go play another show.” The thing was, we just figured, let’s just finish this tour. We have four or five dates left: China, Korea. Let’s just make the best of it. At that point, I might have even thought that I might have flown home after Shanghai. It took maybe two or three days for us to make up. In Shanghai, I met my sister. My sister, and Oily Chi from the Spaceshits, who were living in Shanghai, hung out with me and Mark and partied and it was great. We were fine again. Then we had a few days off in Beijing. Mark and I were like best buddies again. We went to Tiananmen Square. We saw all the majesty of China together. We went to the Great Wall and all this stuff. It was totally like being brothers again. Then, we go to Korea, and boom. It kind of exploded again. Mostly because of me getting drunk and because I was just in such a bad state of mind. We started fighting again and it just got worse. At that point, I just quit. I went to a Buddhist monastery for two days and tried to get my shit together. I wound up shaving my head into a mohawk. I had a blonde mohawk and I wrote to all of my family this crazy letter that I was going to quit music and become a Buddhist monk and I wasn’t able to do this anymore.

I lost my mind and when I went home, my wife, of course, was so worried. My kids saw that I was crazy, but obviously I’m not a violent guy. They were worried: Dad now looks like Gandhi. My family in Canada and America was really worried. In fact, my sister-in-law, Rose McGowan, the actress, her sister married my brother, and she was one person who actually was writing to me a lot at that point and saying, “Arish, your emails are insane. Go to the fucking mental hospital because you are losing your shit. Don’t be embarrassed about it. This happens to people, especially artists.” Luckily, I have this great support system built up. She was right, I was insane. So I checked myself into a mental hospital.

R&G: In Germany?

KK: Yeah, in Germany, in Berlin. I was an outpatient, but I was on a psychiatric emergency thing. It was rough, especially for my kids and my wife; they didn’t know if I was going to come back. I didn’t even know if I could write music again or do anything. I was really fucked up. Then they put me on different mind numbing drugs for weeks and then lithium for a month or two, which I didn’t know how I was going to react to it and basically it made me feel like a zombie. I had to go to the hospital weekly to monitor my behavior and change the doses of lithium. It was pretty scary.

R&G: How are you dealing with it these days?

KK: Basically, I’ve learned to curb it. I gave myself the chance to turn off my mind for two months with medication and basically go to a zero state. During that time, I realized that my true passion is to create music. I love being a showman, but my passion is to create and to help people create and to produce. I want to devote more of my life towards making epic things and not to just get lost in the mania, in a positive way.

R&G: That’s good to hear.

KK: Honestly, this is the first month that I feel like I’m back in real life again. This year seems to have really fucked up a lot of people and I am on that list. It was really hard, man, to lose people… to lose such important people in my life that were my age, and my buddies, and my best friends. It kind of made me reevaluate everything about how I was behaving. I am so fortunate to have people that care about me. I’ve got to say, my wife is like the greatest thing ever in my life and she really went through a lot of shit. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what I would have done. Also, my kids. I’m very lucky. That’s what I had kind of forgotten, running away from everything and touring so much and trying to earn a living through losing my mind and losing myself. I forgot about what I really have. It got to the point where my body was driving me to lengths of getting in trouble. Now I see when the mania is coming on and with the help of my wife and my friends and the closest people around me who are like, “Okay, hey, man. Chillax.” Chillax. I hate that word. But basically I went through the depths of hell and now have finally found light. It’s the same light that’s always been shining, but now I can really appreciate it and bask in it rather than get distracted and go back into the dark.
Taking a break like this, I feel like it’s completely reenergized the right parts of my body and brain. I feel like a completely different, newer person right now. My whole mission in life, at least now, is that I want to make majestic music. I want to make music like Lee Hazelwood or Sun Ra.

R&G: Did you quit drinking and doing drugs?

KK: I slowed down. You know what? It wasn’t the drugs or the drinking that was making me crazy. It was my own mind and my own hyperactive… I don’t know how to explain it. For example, I wouldn’t sleep for days. I would kind of go insane. Of course, the drinking and whatever else was not helping. I stopped all that, but now I can drink again and I’m fine. I’ve never actually had that much of a drinking problem except when I was kind of self-medicating myself with wine which turned out to be rather toxic.

R&G: Now you are in a better place mentally, have you reached out to Mark and tried to make things right?

KK: We’ve been in touch. We’re still friends and everything like that. I just think, man, we’ve been playing together since I was 17. It’s good to have some distance. He’s been really inspired lately. He recorded like two albums or something like that in the past two months. He’s doing great. Actually, he’s going to come stay over, in fact, next week. He’s on tour right now in Europe. So, yeah, we’re still friends. I think, in a way too with KK and BBQ, I think we did three really great albums, and I don’t know where we could go after… I think Invisible Girl was one of the greatest things we did together. For my personal sanity, I think I’ve got to focus more on being less of an insane person and just try to make beautiful music like I’ve always wanted to. Touring less has given me back the chance to really try stuff in my studio and have a ball at home with my family.

R&G: Last year, you lost one of your best friends, Jay Reatard. Can you tell me about your relationship with him?

Image by Kirstie Shanley

KK: Basically, the first time we met, Jay was 17 and he told me that he had just gotten engaged to be married, this was around 1996. The first time I met him, we loved each other. It was so amazing to meet a real punk. He told me these crazy stories. One time he played in a mechanic’s garage – a Reatards show. During the show, he opened up a can of motor oil, got naked, poured motor oil all over his body, and then was slipping and sliding and falling everywhere. Some jerk in the audience grabbed a spray can – it was like a dirty spray can, didn’t know what it was – and just shot it at the floor. Jay, in an inspired moment, grabbed the can, didn’t look at it, opened it up, and sprayed it all over his dick. Then, within three seconds, he was in a fetal position, crying on the ground. Everyone was laughing. Somebody grabbed the can, wiped the dirt off, and it was EZ Oven Cleaner. Can you just imagine the doctor’s face getting this 16-year-old naked kid covered in motor oil who has just burned his penis? Then, basically, my relationship with Jay from then on was just finding a lost brother.

R&G: When was the last time you saw Jay?

KK: The last time I saw Jay, which was about a year before he passed away, we got flown in to play South America together. We did two shows: one in Brazil in São Paulo and one in Argentina. In São Paulo, it was just insane. I’ve never taken so much drugs in my life. We were laughing on the way to the airport at 8 in the morning like, “Oh, I can’t believe no one died tonight.” The next day, we played in Buenos Aires. We all stayed at this really nice hotel. Me and Jay were swimming in the afternoon in the pool, just the two of us, and talking about how happy we were for each other and how great things had gotten. He was really happy too; he had just made peace with his dad and stuff. It was probably one of the greatest days of sobriety, even though it was just a day after a shitstorm of hilarity. We were really happy. The year that followed – the year before he passed away – I started to hear all of these horrible stories about stuff. He was going crazy and losing his mind. I think that it’s really sad that he passed on and I think that Memphis has completely lost one of its true kings. He got buried next to Isaac Hayes.

R&G: He did?

KK: Literally right next to Isaac Hayes. I think that Jay always gets the last laugh in these things. One thing is that throughout the time that I knew him, he was always a gangster. That was his thing, we were all in the Death Cult together and truly lived life to its fullest. Jay basically came from the poorest family out of everyone. He really struggled and he conquered, massively. It had a lot to do with him being a tough jerk, in some people’s eyes, but he was like a gangster. He would always make fun of the fact that I had a family and was still not making the big bucks. He was born into poverty, and so when he started getting all this money on the road all that cash can really change you. I think that he always had trouble dealing with money in his life. Sadly, he got heavy into the drugs and found a crutch that eventually devoured him. All in all Jay managed to become a true punk king crawling out of a cesspool. I wrote a song for him on the next Shrines record called “So Wild”… I miss him a lot.

King Khan is in town this week performing a special show with The Gris Gris on Friday, July 15th @ The Echo. For ticket info (click here).

The King Khan & BBQ Show – Invisible Girl
The King Khan & BBQ Show – Teabag Party
King Khan and The Shrines – Destroyer
King Khan and The Shrines – Que Lindo Sueño
KhanWood Clarke – Apache Love (Demo)
Mary Ocher – The Road

Buy/Download:
King Khan and The Shrines on iTunes
King Khan & BBQ Show on iTunes

Related Post:
Rollo & Grady Interview with King Khan (June 23, 2009)

Look up soul in any dictionary: it means “strong positive feeling, as of intense sensitivity and emotional fervor.” Charles Bradley is one of the best soul singers of our generation. His raspy vocals are reminiscent of the voices of Otis Redding, Al Green, and James Brown, whose music he was covering when he was discovered in Brooklyn by Daptone Records’ co-founder, Gabriel Roth. Roth took Bradley to meet Tommy Brenneck, who plays with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Budos Band, Menahan Street Band, and runs Dunham Records.

Tommy Brenneck

Bradley’s brother had just been shot and killed, and Brenneck encouraged Bradley to open up about his life and put it on tape. Bradley’s life gave him a lot to sing about: fatherless since day one, homeless since 14, cooking in kitchens, reuniting with his family only to get terminally ill, getting better only to lose his brother. “Heartaches and Pain” is the song he wrote about the murder of his brother, and its title describes the whole of Bradley’s debut album, “No Time for Dreaming”, a heartwrenching glimpse of how to get through hard feelings and hard times with only your voice between you and giving up. Again: it’s great soul, and it gives our generation a sense of the greatness of that genre as it was in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

R&G: Charles, you have an inspirational life story. You’ve overcome many hardships to get where you are today. Can you tell me about your journey?

CB: I will tell you my story, to the best of my knowledge. That’s all I can say. All I remember is that I was raised up in Florida and that I was about eight years old when my mom came to Florida and said she wanted to take me back to New York with her. I didn’t know who she was.

R&G: Were you living in Florida with your father?

CB: No, I never knew my father. Today, if he walked in here right now, I wouldn’t know who he was.

R&G: Who was raising you?

CB: My grandmother. She was like a mother to me. Then my mom came down to Florida and said that she wanted me to come to New York so she could get to know me. My other brother was there, so I came to New York, but I always felt that I was the black sheep of the family. With my grandmother, I was treated fairly and honest, but when I turned 14, I saw there was a lot of hardships in my family. I couldn’t take it. I was living in the basement, where you couldn’t see nothing but dirt and sand, and I only had a small bed on the floor. I ran away. Then my brother ran away. My sister called the police and said there were two young people in the streets. They took me back to my mom’s house and told my mother that she could not let these children live on the streets of New York, but I saw that there was nothing good for me at home, so I went on my own again.

R&G: How were you surviving living on the streets?

CB: I was living on the subway trains. Living in old cars. Sometime at a friend house, I’d sit there and watch TV all night until he told me I had to go.

R&G: Where did you go after you were asked to leave your friends place?

CB: I would go back to the subway trains. One day, my best friend, this Spanish guy, he saw me not going home. He saw me go to the subway train. He said to me, “Charles, where are you going?” I said, “Just riding the train.” He said, “No, I been watching you. My mom wants you to come sleep on the couch.” I said, “No, your mother has a lot of kids. You don’t need me in there.” He said, “My mom wants you to come. We know what you’re going through.” I stayed on their couch, but I tell you the truth: they were very very poor. That night when I stayed on the couch, I had rats jumping on my back, jumping on the floor, crawling over me. I said, No God, I can’t stay here. I didn’t tell them why. I showed my love, but next morning I went back and stayed on the trains, anywhere I could live. I took with me two pairs of underwear and when I took off the dirty one, I’d go in the subway train in the bathroom and wash them out. Nobody knew I was washing up and nobody knew I was living in the streets.

R&G: How old were you at this time?

CB: I had just turned 16. I was living on the streets for two years. I saw myself going down. At that time, my friends were getting high, sticking needles. Using heroin.

R&G: Were you using too?

CB: No. I never did that. They tried to get me to do it, but I said no. They said, “Let your problems go, get high, don’t think about it.” But thank God I’d always been afraid of needles. Never took it.

R&G: Did you try any other drugs?

CB: I did one time, I sniffed that glue. That messed my mind up bad. So I stopped that on my own. I also tried weed a couple times. I knew that drugs were dragging me down further. I saw myself just giving in, so I heard of Job Corps. I went to try to get in Job Corps and they told me that my mother had to sign to get me in. My mother was mad with me and she wouldn’t do it. So I got my sister to forge her name.

R&G: Where did you go with the Job Corps?

CB: First they sent me to Virginia. Then I left there and went to New Jersey. I felt that I wasn’t getting the attention that I really needed, because it’s a big Job Corps. So they sent me to Bar Harbor, Maine. That was the best place of my life. That job really helped me to get out of the ghetto and really know people for who they are, not for their creed and color. Back in the hood, they always got the racial thing. The blacks are as bad as the whites: they always got something to speak back. I was wondering why when I was in Job Corps everyone was being so good to me. There were a lot of white guys. You think they want something from you, but they only wanted to be my friend.

R&G: When did you getting into singing?

CB: I believe I was 18. They had me going around to girls in Job Corps singing. I was doing James Brown. When I was 14, my sister took me to see James Brown at the Apollo Theatre and that’s what really gave me a lot of impulse. Over the years, I moved around to upstate New York then out to Northern California. Then my mom called me and said, “Son, give me a chance to know you. Come on back home.”

R&G: What year was this?

CB: That was about ’96, I came back to New York. Times were tough back home. I was in and out of the hospital because I had this fever that wouldn’t go away. I didn’t know what happened to me. I was also told to go to unemployment in New York. That was the first time I had ever been to unemployment. [Since Job Corps, Charles had always been a cook.] Unemployment told me to go to welfare. Welfare told me to go to social security. Social security told me to go to welfare. Then I had a relapse, I had to go back in the hospital. When I got out of the hospital and they said, “You missed your appointment, so now you have to wait for welfare again.” That went on for about three years.

R&G: That’s awful.

CB: Then the hospital gave me penicillin. I’m totally allergic to penicillin. I thought I was going to die. They gave up on me. Honestly, I thought I was leaving this world. I was sick as a dog. My brother Joseph came there and whistled in my ear. He put his hands on me. I was burning up. Joe said, “Charles.” He kept whistling in my ear. He said, “If you don’t want to live for yourself, Charles, please don’t leave me.” He said, “Fight, brother.” To keep a long story short, they got me out of that hospital and took me to Beth Israel. I had a fever of 104.7. They had to nurse me up, put ice all over my body to break the fever. They would stick this big needle in my back four times a day. I tell you one thing: I’d rather be dead before I live through that again. Man, I was screaming, I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I’m telling you a lot of things, the short version, but if I was to tell you the nitty gritty, I’m gonna break down, right here.

R&G: That’s fine. Please let me know what you are comfortable talking about.

CB: What hurt so bad is when I got well and out of the hospital, my brother who loved me so much and took care of me, he got killed. He got shot in the head. Man. [crying]…..when I got out of the hospital, I would always go over to his house, and he said, “Charles, I don’t want you to go back to California. I want you to stay here with me. I will take care of you. Do you want me to take care of you?” He said, “You want a house? Whatever you want.” The night before he got killed, I was at his house and I was walking through the hallway and he grabbed me and said, “Charles, I love you.” I said, “I love you too. You know my heart before I do.” He said, “Charles, I know you love me,” but he said, “Sometimes I wonder about everybody else, it seems like they’re after what I got, but you just show me that real love.” I said, “Joe, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He grabbed me. He wouldn’t let me go. That was the last hug I had from Joe. I went home to my mom’s house. I woke up the next morning. My mother came and knock at my door. She said, “Charles, what is all these police out here for?” I said, “Mom. I don’t know. I’m in my bed all night.” My bed was by the window; I just pushed open the drapes and I saw all these police cars, all these firetrucks, ambulances. I said, “My God. What’s wrong?” So then, I got up, went upstairs, threw some water on my face. I heard my mother scream. She said, “Charles! Charles! Charles! Joe got shot. He’s dead.” I blocked “dead” out. I said, “Lord. Let it be the arm, the leg, or something like that. Please God.” When I went downstairs and walked out the door, my brother’s wife grabbed me. I said, “Clarice, what’s wrong?” She said, “Joe got shot and he’s dead.” That took all the energy out of me. I just fell down to the ground, crying. My mother said, “Charles, please. Go back in the house, son. I can’t stand to see myself losing two sons. Please son.” I went back in the house, pulled the cover over my face, and said, “Lord, this is a dream. I know this is a dream. Lord, if you let this be a dream, I promise, whatever you want me to do, I’ll do better. I’ll do good.” I stayed in bed about ten minutes. Then I looked out the drapes again, out the window, and I saw this thing says, “Morgue.” I said, “No, Lord. I’m going to see for myself.” I went outside and went to go in my brother’s house. A detective was standing in front of the door. He said, “You’re Joseph’s brother, ain’t you?” I said, “Yes, I am.” He said, “Son, please, don’t go in there and see your brother until we clean up.” I said, “How can you tell me I cannot go in there? That’s my brother. I want to see for myself.” God knows, man. When I walked in there… [crying] They shot my brother…they shot my brother with a hollow point bullet. God, I wished I didn’t go in there. I ran outside. I ran in front of every car and no car would hit me. Everybody stopped. I wanted to die. I wanted to leave this world. I could not take the pain. I loved my brother so much. I remember every time me and Joe hung out as kids we would go sometimes and walk the streets. I’d say, “Joe, you go on that side and I’ll go on this side. Let’s see who finds the most pennies today.” That was me and his game. Now, when I go to his gravesite, I throw pennies on his grave. I wish to God I would have never went in there, if I wouldn’t have seen him bleeding and his body, maybe I could block it out of my mind, but every time I see a penny, it reminds me of Joe; it tears my heart out. [weeping].

Images By Leslie Kalohi

Download:
Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band – No Time For Dreaming (iTunes)
The Menahan Street Band – Make the Road By Walking (iTunes)

We Are Trees is James Nee’s musical project, one that he started when he was sixteen in Virginia Beach. Nee’s voice is often compared to that of Grizzly Bear’s Dan Rossen; Nee doesn’t agree with this comparison, but the similarities are unmistakable. I would go as far as to say that a few of his tracks are superior to some of Rossen’s work with Grizzly Bear and Department of Eagles, but to overemphasize the comparison would be selling We Are Trees short; Nee certainly isn’t ripping anybody off. His music is layered and complex and at the same time very mellow with engaging vocals occasionally accompanied by string arrangements. In the past year, Nee has put out two EPs: Boyfriend in July 2010 and Girlfriend in March 2011. Both were well received by music blogs and by some traditional print outlets. Boyfriend caught the attention of Collective Crowd Records, who signed the singer last year.

R&G: James, can you tell me a little bit about your background?

Nee: My background musically or personally?

R&G: A little bit of both: bands, musically, growing up, Virginia Beach.

Nee: I started We Are Trees because no one would want to be in a band with me.

R&G: Why was that?

Nee: The type of music that was in Jamestown [Virginia] was not the type of music I wanted to play. When I first found my electric guitar, I just wanted to jam out and shit, but no one wanted to. My sister gave me a classical guitar for my birthday and I started writing cheesy folk songs. I was really into Bright Eyes.

R&G: How old were you when this was going on?

Nee: I was probably 15 or 16. That’s when I first met my violinist: Rocky [Capizzi]. She actually messaged me. This was when Myspace was huge. She messaged me and told me that she was going to go to one of my shows. I met her and she said, “Can I play violin for you tonight?” And I was like, “Oh, okay, that’s fine.” She’s a pretty crazy person. That’s when I started making music as a band.

R&G: So you guys have known each other for a long time.

Nee: Yeah, ever since that day.

R&G: Is Rocky the girl in the picture with you guys lighting up some smokes?

Nee: No, that’s my friend Liz.

R&G: How long has We Are Trees been a band?

Nee: The Boyfriend EP: I look at that as my first official release, because the music I had been putting out before that was really shitty. I wasn’t really proud of it. I guess I’ve just been playing music by myself for five years now. It’s developed really slowly, but I’m glad it got to the point where it’s at right now, because I’ve been doing it for a long time. Now that I’m getting recognition, it makes me feel self-worthy, kind of.

R&G: Is Rocky a full-time member?

Nee: Not currently. Right now, I wouldn’t call We Are Trees a band, per se. I wouldn’t call it a solo project either. It’s kind of weird. I can’t play by myself. I’m very insecure about that kind of thing. I kind of have to have some people. The line-up has changed over the years, but I’ve known Rocky for the longest time. The reason why it’s so complicated is that everyone lives in a different city and there’s no way to collaborate. I write everything by myself and the next time I see them, I say, “Hey, can you play this part?” I guess that’s the writing process. I make songs and when I want to do a show, I get a hold of them and teach them all these parts. In the future, I do want to be more of a band as a whole unit, rather than just be me myself. I’m really comfortable like that.

R&G: What brought you to Richmond?

Nee: I moved to Richmond in August of 2010 because I had had a really shitty summer and I was really tired of Virginia Beach. If you ever go there, it’s cool and stuff, but it’s too much of a tourist town. It’s always going to be my home, but I really needed to get out of there for a while, and my drummer recently moved to Brooklyn, so that’s a pretty big issue. I think I’ve had to turn down five or six shows just because we physically can’t do it. I’m also trying to focus on writing material and things like that.

R&G: How did you hook up with Collective Crowd Records?

Nee: It was a month before I released the EP on Bandcamp. I think that was July and in August when I moved to Richmond, I got an email saying, “Hey, I really like your stuff.” Before that, I’d sent it to ten different labels and none of them wanted it, so I felt kind of depressed by it, because I had kind of spent all my time and money on this thing and to have it not have any recognition is kind of like a punch in the gut. Then Jacob from Collective Crowd found me instead of me finding him and it made me feel special in a way. That was it. I just really wanted it on vinyl because I didn’t have enough money to release it. I was definitely okay about depending on a label to do everything.

R&G: Obviously, your music has been compared to Grizzly Bear, specifically Daniel [Rossen]. There are definitely similarities. Do you feel like that’s a fair comparison?

Nee: Actually, no. When I was first compared to Dan Rossen, when the first blog told me I sounded like Grizzly Bear, I was like, “Cool. That’s nice.” Then when it happened every single time, I was like, “Oh, okay. I guess that’s cool.” I mean, there are worse bands to be compared to: My Chemical Romance, or something like that. It’s a compliment, but it’s not what I wanted to go for personally. I don’t mind it now. Grizzly Bear is still one of my favorite bands, but I’m not trying to sound like them at all. I guess I can’t say anything because I’m really biased; it’s my music, so I don’t see the resemblance. I don’t understand why people think that.

R&G: What about the song, “Daniel”?

Nee: That, I wrote for him, actually. I think I paraphrased a line from “Easier.” It’s the first one, where he’s like, “I know… I know…” That’s the same thing with “Chan Marshall [Cat Power]” I just really like “The Greatest.” Absolute perfection. Going back to “Daniel,” I wrote it for him, but I didn’t intend to sound like him.

Download:
We Are Trees – Boyfriend (BC)
We Are Trees – Girlfriend (BC)

MP3: We Are Trees – Final Round
MP3: We Are Trees – Afraid Of Love
MP3: We Are Trees – Sunrise Sunset

Talking to Jared Swilley about Black Lips’ upcoming release, ‘Arabia Mountain’, I couldn’t help but feel proud: This band has matured a great deal in the past decade. Swilley says that the album is the band’s best to date and that its recording re-energized the group. And although Jared can’t promise vomiting, pissing, man-kissing, or any of the band’s usual on-stage debauchery, he can promise that this music is the best thing he and his bandmates have ever done. He is not one to bullshit about albums, he mentioned publicly that he wasn’t totally proud of their previous album, ‘200 Million Thousand’.

The Black Lips were just teenagers when they formed in Atlanta in 1999: Cole Alexander on guitar and vocals; Ben Eberbaugh on lead guitar; Jared Swilley on bass; and Joe Bradley on drums. These four cut their first album in 2002, just before Eberbaugh died in a head-on collision on a Georgia highway. The band carried on, believing that Eberbaugh would want them to continue. Ian Saint Pé, the bands current guitarist, joined the group in 2004.

Their music caught everyone’s attention, starting Atlanta’s “flower punk” movement, and mixing in the sounds of blues, country, garage, and the 80s. Their performances were out of control; they gave their audiences the whole package of punk, rock & roll and controversial on-stage antics.

They took their time recording ‘Arabia Mountain’, working for the first time with an outside producer: Mark Ronson. Ronson, who has worked with Nas, Adele, and Amy Winehouse, wouldn’t have been the first guy I would have thought of for the job, but it worked out really well for the band. Their friend, Lockett Pundt of Deerhunter produced two songs on the album, which was recorded and mixed in Brooklyn and Atlanta in 2010 and 2011.

‘Arabia Mountain’ will be released in June through Vice Records. Touring behind this album, they’ll play with the Vivian Girls on the East Coast and Cerebral Ballzy on the West.

R&G: Your sixth studio album is coming out in June. You’ve mentioned in several publications that you think it’s the best Black Lips record to date. What makes ‘Arabia Mountain’ a special album to you guys, or to you?

JS: I should speak for myself. Every record has been a different process, but I think we’ve kind of rushed through every album. We’re pretty frugal, so it’s always like bam bam bam, let’s get in here and do this. There’s not a lot of thinking about it. I don’t hate anything we’ve ever done, but sometimes we’ll finish a record and I’ll have a bunch of regrets about it. I can live with them. For example, our song “Bad Kids”: everyone likes that song a lot. I can’t really listen to that song, and I think the other guys feel the same way. We wrote the lyrics to that song the day we sung it in the studio, so we hadn’t really gotten used to doing it. I guess everyone else likes it, so that’s cool, but for me, there’s just stuff that I can pick out that I would change. We actually spent time on this record and made a conscious effort: if we don’t like something, let’s go back and fix it. That’s the main thing that I like, and the fact that we had a producer. It’s cool to change things up after making records for so long, having someone else in there, essentially, in a way, as a member of the band.

R&G: A fifth member of the band?

JS: Yeah, having a producer in there is in a sense like that. It’s someone besides the engineer who would have more input than an engineer would have.

R&G: The band originally planned to record the album yourselves before Mark came in.

JS: Yeah, we started doing it that way. We did our last record like that. I really didn’t like that because although we had the capability to do it, we didn’t know what we were doing at all. The engineer that we had working with us did everything and was great, but it takes a while to learn, especially what we had. At one time what we had was a shooting range and at one time it was a big warehouse with a tin roof and a train going by so it was hard to figure that room out. I didn’t like being in that room in the summer. It was so hot we had to be in our underwear and have all the doors open, but with mosquito problems real bad because we were in the low-lying swampy area. In the winter, we couldn’t use the heat or anything because it would be too loud, so we just had to be so uncomfortable we could see our breath.

R&G: How did you hook up with Mark?

JS: Ever since we first signed to Vice, right when we went with them, they were like, “What would you guys think about getting a producer?” I was kind of always open to it, but certain people in the band were just like, “Absolutely not. We do everything on our own.” I didn’t put up a fight for a producer because honestly I didn’t know. I had no idea what a producer even did until recently. It was never kind of a thing. I guess Suroosh [Alvi], that runs Vice always wanted us to have a producer and he just happened to come across Mark in the Creators Project and one thing led to another. At that point I was really into it because there was a certain point where we thought we were done with the record and it was really not ready to come out at all. In all we recorded about 30 songs for this record. I feel like what we put on there was the best representation of what we could have done. Mark kind of came in and saved the album, in my opinion.

R&G: When I saw the videos, you guys looked really fresh. I think it was on VBS. Did you feel like you needed to be on your best behavior and just really respect the process of having what you consider a big-time producer involved?

JS: No, not at all. We acted the same as we always act in the studio. I wanted to step it up as far as song writing and getting sounds down and all that stuff, but we still went out. Mark’s kind of just like us. We went out a lot of nights. He was a DJ a lot of nights after we got off and were done with the studio; we’d always go to that. I think there was one night where I didn’t go to sleep until I got into the studio the next day.

R&G: This was in New York?

JS: Yeah.

R&G: Did you meet any interesting people that run in Mark’s circle of friends?

JS: Yeah. We wanted a stand-in on this one song and he kept saying that he had a friend who could play. The guy came in and he was Sean Lennon. He hadn’t mentioned that it was Sean Lennon at all.

R&G: Did Sean bring his girlfriend with him?

JS: No, no, but she’s actually from Georgia.

R&G: She’s stunning.

JS: Yeah, she’s from the suburbs near where we grew up. Oh and the coolest part is that because he’s friends with Q-Tip, one night Q-Tip came in. Actually he came in a couple of the nights and hung out and one night we got to ride around in Q-Tip’s car. He took us to his DJ gig. That was pretty rad.

R&G: How did Lockett [Pundt – Deerhunter] get involved? I believe he produced two songs on the album? Was that before or after Mark was brought in?

JS: That was before Mark came in. That was when we were scrambling to do anything. They [Deerhunter] have a studio that was kind of like ours up in the suburbs. At that point, we were just trying to keep the momentum going, keep recording, and we didn’t even know if we were going there to practice songs or… It’s a pretty minimal set-up there. It’s a practice space with a four-track recorder. We also did one session out in LA where we did our third album, ‘Let it Bloom’, and the sessions weren’t very productive.

R&G: Were you guys having fun?

JS: [Laughs] Kind of an understatement.

R&G: On ‘Arabia Mountain’, what are the differences in terms of sound versus your previous five albums?

JS: Every album is a little different. The first one is pretty well produced, split sounding, which is weird because that was our first record. It was a pretty nice studio in Atlanta. The second one sounds completely fucked; I like that one a lot too, it’s just so weird. The tape machine we were using during that one broke so we had to use part computer, part four-track, and part this broken eight-track, and somehow we put them all together. That’s why that one sounds so fucked up. We just did that in our friend’s basement. The third one, which is pretty much my favorite, kind of sounds lo-fi or old. This one I think sounds old, but not intentionally low-fi. It gets annoying, especially lately, how people are really overdoing the low-fi thing. Anytime we’ve done low-fi, it’s more been either by accident or just by circumstance that that’s how it’s been. I like old sounds and I don’t like slick produced sounds and we’ve never used Pro Tools or any sort of computer programs, but I like old records that sound good and old and worn and this one may have that sound.

R&G: The majority of the band has been together for a decade and you guys are in your mid to late 20s. Did this album help reenergize the band?

JS: Yeah, I think it will. I think the last album, although we were never sad sacks, it’s just the last album was kind of a plateau. It didn’t get bad reviews, but it didn’t really take us anywhere. I think this one has definitely energized the band. I’ve noticed everyone’s been a little more enthusiastic and because we’ve had so much time to make it, we’ve had time to take time off and time to be creative. There have been some years when we’ve been on tour for eleven months. So this one is really in a good place.

R&G: When we ran into each other at SXSW, you mentioned that you had great time on the Bruise Cruise in February.

JS: Yeah, that was so much fun.

R&G: How many shows did you guys play over the course of the trip?

JS: We actually only did two. I don’t think I could have done much more, because I was pretty drunk the whole time. I think everyone was. It was kind of like the feeling I got the first time I ever went to summer camp or the first time I ever went to Europe with my friends. You get that weird juvenile elation where you can’t stop smiling and everything’s really funny. It was a really fun time.

R&G: I also saw on the video that you chucked your bass in the ocean. Was that planned?

JS: Kind of at the last minute, because in the video, we were all standing at the back, and I was like, “I kind of want to throw my bass in the ocean. That would be an awesome picture, and I have to get a new bass anyway, because that one’s been on tour with me for about two years and it’s just falling apart. I have to get it fixed every time I get back to Atlanta.” It was like a Hofner Re-issue. They’re pretty cheap. So I needed a new one anyway, and it ended up being a cool picture. I didn’t get in trouble.

R&G: Hipster Runoff ran an article about Katy Goodman and they had a picture of you guys kissing. HR said of the picture, “Katy making out with one of the dudes from the Black Lips. Might be the other girl in the band [Vivian Girls], though. Can’t really tell.” Did you read the piece? If so, do you think the article was funny?

JS: No, I didn’t read it, but someone told me about it and sent me the picture, and it didn’t look like we were making out at all. It just looks like we’re talking.

R&G: But it’s interesting, now in this day and age of digital cameras and amateur paparazzi that it became a story, albeit a satirical story.

JS: Yeah, I’ve talked to other people that were on the boat – other bands and stuff – and I thought it was kind of dumb. Especially how they portrayed some of the girls that were on the boat, there were these stupid blogs that talk about them in bikinis and stuff. It’s like, what do you want them to be wearing? Burqas? They’re on a fucking boat. It’s hot and we’re by a pool. That was the one annoying thing about the Bruise Cruise. It seemed like about 25% of the people there had cameras and were just snapping away at everything. I understand if maybe there were a bunch of famous people on the boat, but it was just people in punk bands. It was kind of silly. They got a little gossipy.

R&G: Your dad, who is a preacher for the Church In The Now, recently announced publicly that he was gay. How did you feel about that?

JS: I was really proud of him. I thought it was awesome. He told me probably seven or eight months before he came out to the public about it. He didn’t know how to go about it because he’s a preacher in the Deep South and there’s not a lot of love for homosexuals outside of some of the big cities. I was really proud of him.

R&G: Is he a fan of your music?

JS: Yeah, he likes our music. He kind of got me into rock & roll because he’s such a huge Beatles fan. When we were kids the movie we would watch together was ‘Yellow Submarine’. He’s responsible for me being into music. He’s a musician too. He likes it. He thinks it’s cool. He doesn’t like some of the urine and vomit stuff. He comes to our shows in Atlanta sometimes and he knows that that’s not what we’re all about.

R&G: When you say the urine and vomit, is that stuff he reads about or has he seen it? Have you done anything like that in front of him at a live show?

JS: He’s only read about it and I think weird Christians send him links to our stuff sometimes. Stuff on the internet since we have the same last name.

R&G: When you had time to process the fact that your father was gay, did you think about the WAVVES incident and how your father might have felt or perceived your comments at the time?

JS: No, because he just got done raising two teenage boys. He never actually mentioned that at all. We never talked about that but it’s definitely something I wouldn’t really be saying again, just in light of that, just out of respect. Even before my father came out, it’s pretty obvious that our band is probably the least homophobic band around considering I’m sure a lot of people thought we were gay. I’ve made out with boys before in front of people, so I thought it was weird that people would even think that I was homophobic at all. I would think that there were bigger targets for that than someone in the Black Lips.

Download Black Lips music from iTunes (click here)
Black Lips Tour Dates (click here)

Black Lips – Cold Hands [Live]
Black Lips – Stoned
Black Lips – Disconnection
Black Lips – Hippys
Black Lips -Gentle Violence

STRAIGHT INTO A STORM

John McCauley is a rock star, plain and simple. He’s an extremely talented musician with no pretense who is accessible to his fans and loves to have a good time. Like the fictional character Russell Hammond played by Billy Crudup in Almost Famous, it’s easy to envision John taking a hit of acid after a show and heading out to a late night party with his fans. He’s the kind of guy that would jump off the roof into the pool without any encouragement and without proclaiming, “I’m A Golden God.” There would be no guilty feeling the next day; he would chalk it up as a life experience. That’s the way John is wired.

Deer Tick began as a solo project in December 2004 when John was only 18 years old in Providence, Rhode Island. During that time he taught himself to play drums, guitar, piano, and pedal steel. He went on to record his critically acclaimed debut album ‘War Elephant’ at age 19. John’s distinctive, howling voice and tales of love and loss put him on the map with critics around the world. The music press anointed McCauley as one of folk/country’s most promising young songwriters.

John didn’t envision Deer Tick as a solo effort, so he invited Andy Tobiassen (no longer in the band), Dennis Ryan, and Chris Ryan to join the Deer Tick for their sophomore album, ‘Born On Flag Day’. At the time, John commented on the newly formed band, saying, “I tend to limit myself as far as what I write about and how I deliver my lyrics, so collaboration has been a really healthy thing for me lately. I’m kind of realizing that singing songs about getting drunk and cheating isn’t going to sustain itself for much longer. I’m going to have to broaden my horizons.”

Deer Tick’s brand of music has been described as country, folk/rock, and alt-country, but that’s selling the band short. If you see them live, you will see elements of grunge, blues, punk rock, and country ballads, with a primary focus on straight up rock n’ roll. Their live performances and non-stop touring have earned the band a loyal following of devoted supporters and fans.

In addition to performing with Deer Tick, McCauley is currently touring with Middle Brother, which is a collaboration with Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes and Matthew Vasquez of Delta Spirit. They are touring behind Middle Brother’s self-titled album, which was released last month.

R&G: Hey John? What’s going on?

JM: I’ve been drinking vodka since 3 in the afternoon. [Loud peeing]. I read your interview with Arish [King Khan] where he took a piss during your interview. I thought I would do the same.

R&G: [Laughs] Honestly, that’s the best thing you could ever start an interview with.

JM: [Laughs – Still peeing] Yeah, I thought so too.

R&G: By the way, where are you?

JM: [Still peeing] I’m in Providence. I was in New Haven last night. I went to see Those Darlins show and I got back this afternoon.

R&G: How was their show?

JM: I thought it was excellent. I’ve seen them play three times in the past four days, and I think that was the best sounding show. The crowd was a little strange, but Connecticut can be a tough market even for us, and we’re pretty much local.

R&G: Their new album is excellent.

JM: I fucking love it. I think the songs are really well written. It sounds a little garagey, but it’s more mature than that garage rock scene. I think I’d rather listen to that record than ‘Exile On Main St.’

R&G: Are you and Nikki married or are you guys still engaged?

JM: We’re still engaged. We were going to get married this summer, but with their new record coming out, it just didn’t seem like the right time. We want to have the right amount of time off afterwards to be newlyweds and whatever.

R&G: Is it going to be something where you guys want to make it a rock & roll wedding and hang out and bring all your friends and play music?

JM: I think the idea is that we have a pretty straightforward ceremony and have two crazy-ass receptions with our rock & roll friends and our families in different parts of the country.

R&G: When we caught up before your show, the Deervana show at SXSW, you had just dyed your hair pink. Were you trying to channel your inner Cobain?

JM: It was a very sarcastic way of coming out as Cobain for the evening. I knew it would get varied reactions from anybody with any strong opinions on Nirvana and Kurt Cobain and what they stood for, and that was what I was going for. Plus, I’ve never dyed my hair an unnatural color before and I thought it was time.

Image by Tim Griffin

R&G: Did you feel there was added pressure performing Nirvana’s songs?

JM: No. We just wanted to make sure that we knew the songs well enough to do a pretty good performance of it. We took an hour or two before the show and got together in a hotel room and listened to all the songs we were going to do. We also kind of felt like we to do some instrument smashing.

R&G: So that was staged?

JM: It was staged.

R&G: Did you guys feel like you put on a good performance?

JM: I thought so, considering the chaos of people running on stage and stage diving and whatnot. My pedals came unplugged. I think everybody came unplugged at different points in the night from people tripping over cables and whatever. We were hoping it was going to be like that and it was. I think it was a fun idea. It was Saturday night; people had been going to shows for four days straight and trying to take it all in. I think it was a great way for people that were there to totally fucking let loose and kind of relive something from their past.

R&G: Do you plan to do an extended Deervana tour?

JM: We’re trying to be really careful about how many more of these shows we do. We’ve got an unusually large amount of requests from promoters and festivals for a Deervana fest and we’ve turned just about all of them down. It looks like we might be doing one or two more, but it’s also kind of unlikely, though. I don’t want to be associated with some sort of tribute act. I don’t want Deervana to become a common, cheapened version of Nirvana, and I don’t want Deervana to steer people away from our main focus, which is Deer Tick, obviously.

R&G: Let’s talk about Middle Brother.

Poster by Ben Kramer

JM: Hell yeah.

R&G: The album is fantastic. Are you happy the response it’s getting? What are your thoughts about the collaboration with Taylor Goldsmith [Dawes] and Matthew Vasquez [Delta Spirit]?

JM: Man, I think it’s a really fucking sweet band. I have no regrets about the way we made the record at all. There are probably four more songs that we did that didn’t come out in any form that I hope someday will. Other than that, I think everything else about it is great. Working with Matt and Taylor… We had Griff [Griffin Godsmith, Dawes] in there too, who we love. Working with them in the studio, with the combination of the producers, Adam Landry and Justin Collins, opened my eyes a lot to how to approach making a record. I think everybody walked away with a little bit of each other’s personality. We’re definitely approaching the next Deer Tick record the way we did the Middle Brother record.

R&G: What do you mean by “approaching”?

JM: We want to have it sound more like you’re just kind of letting the tape roll, you know? That’s a lot of how the Middle Brother record came about. It was kind of like get in the studio whenever and just kind of roll tape and see how it goes. Mostly, every song we did was totally unfamiliar and foreign to everybody else but the guy who wrote it.

R&G: Do you think your experience with Middle Brother made you a better musician?

JM: Definitely. I learned a lot about figuring a song out kind of on the fly and choosing your role in the song and sticking to it. It just makes life in the studio so much easier. It’s like, I think with the current line-up of Deer Tick, which we’ve decided is the definitive line-up; we need that kind of… It’s this weird combination of recklessness and discipline. It’s like let’s have a fucking party in the studio, but don’t stray from your part. It’s more than that, and it’s kind of difficult to explain. I guess, everything on that record is either the first, second, or third take. That’s what I want to do: don’t over think things too much and just play along and let the music do its own thing. You’re there to serve the song.

R&G: You recorded in Nashville, right?

JM: Yeah. Nothing fancy: basically in a garage.

R&G: Was it an easy process? Did everybody write the songs that they sang on the album?

Images by Michael Orlosky/Rollo & Grady

JM: Pretty much. Yeah. The original idea was supposed to be more of a writing collaboration, and it was originally just supposed to be just me and Taylor, and then Matt heard about what was going on. Matt came in the day we entered in the studio and I had drunkenly met Matt once before. I don’t remember this, but he does. To me, I was meeting him for the first time when I picked him up at the airport on the first day of recording. I tossed him a beer and we drove back to the studio having a beer and he was like, “How’s it going?” and I was like, “I don’t know. We haven’t started recording.” and he was like, “What?” I said, “Yeah, you’re here from day 1, buddy.” He came in prepared with a bunch of songs that I guess he or Delta Spirit didn’t feel like fit into their catalogue and we Middle Brotherized them. Prior to that, before we started recording, me and Taylor hung around the house that we’d subletted. We sat around the dining room table all afternoon with our guitars, but working independently of one another. At night, we’d go out to the bars and party or whatever. Kind of repeat that every day for two weeks. Corndawg [Jonny] would pop in every day and just be like, “How’s it going?” That’s how we came up with Middle Brother. Middle Brother, the song, that’s the only real collaborative song-writing on the record. That was written by me, Taylor, and Corndawg.

R&G: How difficult is it for you to write a song, or a song that you think is worthy of an album?

JM: It’s tough to say. Middle Brother was a whole new experience for me. I’d never forced myself to write because I felt like I had to or there was some kind of deadline, and that was the case with the Middle Brother record. I think I handled it really well. I write songs here and there, just on a day-to-day basis and a lot of them just get lost or forgotten or after a day or two I just don’t think they’re good at all.

R&G: I read an article that mentioned the Middle Brother collaboration was also a way for you to shed light on the three bands you guys front.

JM: Yeah, that’s definitely what I think we knew was going to happen. As we were making the record, it became pretty clear that that’s exactly what it was going to do. That’s cool with everybody. I think we’ve all gained a lot of fans from each other’s respective fan bases due to this crossing. It’s just good for everybody.

R&G: Were you disappointed that Pitchfork didn’t review the album?

JM: No, man. I couldn’t care less. They probably would have had a field day trashing it, which, I guess, would have been pretty entertaining to read. Press is press. Journalism is what it is. There are always going to be publications or blogs or whatever that don’t like you. Fucking deal with it. I could care less about Pitchfork and at the same time I could kind of care less about a lot of the press we get, even if the publications champion us. I just want to make music and fucking have a good show and meet interesting people.

R&G: Rumor has it that you are playing the Kentucky Derby.

JM: That was something that was offered, and now we’re taking a closer look at it. It wasn’t actually going to be during the Kentucky Derby. I guess the money wasn’t right. It would have required us flying Rob out from Halifax [Nova Scotia], which is always fucking expensive. They didn’t want to cover his travel or something like that. We would have had to do the 24-hour driving day to get there. Then, we didn’t have shows to connect us down to Bonnaroo and it turned into quite the headache, so we declined the offer.

R&G: So is this your first Bonnarroo?

JM: Yeah.

R&G: Are you excited?

JM: I am. Yeah. I think our goal is to pick up a bunch of LSD in Nashville and drive to Manchester and park our RV for four days and have a good time.

R&G: I hear that the cops are all over the drug thing down in Tennessee. But tons make it into the festival.

JM: [Laughs] Well, maybe we won’t pick anything up. I’m sure we can find it at the festival.

R&G: In our interview two years ago we discussed Lil’ Wayne’s gold teeth. I said, “Are you going to get gold teeth too?” And you said, I thought jokingly, “If I get a tooth knocked out.” So, you have one now. Give the story behind that.

Images by Michael Orlosky/Rollo & Grady

JM: Well, I do this beer bottle trick, where I’ll do a guitar solo and I’ll get on my knees and pick up a beer bottle with my teeth, and chug the whole beer while I do the guitar solo. It’s not good for your teeth. Yeah. I’m sure you can fill in the rest.

R&G: Why did you decide to go with gold?

JM: Why not? If I have a cavity, I choose to get silver fillings instead of white ones because I think it adds more character to you. I got a shit ton of tattoos. Why not make some kind of jewelry a permanent part of my body?

Middle Brother is playing the Echo on Thursday, April 7th (tix info)
Download Middle Brother album – (iTunes)
Download Deer Tick Catalog – (iTunes)

Deer Tick – Straight Into A Storm [Daytrotter]
Deer Tick – Easy
Deer Tick – Friday XIII
Deer Tick – Still Crazy After All These Years [Paul Simon]
Deer Tick – Nebraska [Springsteen]
Deer Tick – Dead Flowers [Rolling Stones]
Middle Brother – Me Me Me
Deervana – Lithium
Those Darlins – Screws Get Loose

2011 is going to be a big year for the multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Hanni El Khatib. The San Francisco native generated industry buzz when local music blogs Passion of the Weiss and Aquarium Drunkard each presented him in shows last year. Soon after, his music was featured in the HBO series “Hung” and he landed a slot opening for Florence and The Machine.

Hanni’s music is straight up rock ‘n’ roll with a touch of soul and blues. Influences range from Johnny Cash to the Sonics, and his cover of “You Rascal You,” is a dead ringer for a Black Keys song. Still, his sound is his own, transporting a hybrid of the past and present. “Build. Destroy. Rebuild,” Khatib’s second single, sets the tone for his debut album Will The Guns Come Out, which will be released May 2011 on Innovated Leisure. When he is not touring, Hanni serves as creative director for HUF, a skateboard company founded by professional skater Keith Hufnagel.

R&G: So where are you right now? Los Angeles?

Hanni: Yeah, I’m in Los Angeles. I moved here maybe 4 ½ months ago from San Francisco.

R&G: Was moving here an easy decision for you?

Hanni: Yeah, moving was kind of work-related. I’m the creative director for a skateboard company called HUF. We moved our whole operation because the industry is down here. I looked at the bright side of things: the label I’m on is down here and I came down here a lot over the past couple of years anyway, so it kind of worked out. Now I’m here and I don’t think I’m moving any time soon.

R&G: You released your first EP, Bullfighter’s Heart, which was an acoustic, folk-based album.

Hanni: Yeah, I did. That was me testing the waters with music on my own. I have always made music, but prior to Bullfighter’s Heart I’d been pretty involved with work and doing what I do creatively outside of music. I used to pick up and go on tour with my friend’s band called Her Space Holiday. He [Marc Bianchi] took me to Japan and Europe a couple of times and all I did was play guitar. It wasn’t my music; I just kind of showed up. We’re like best friends; it was kind of an easy thing. That was the extent of what I did with music. A few years ago, I felt like recording something on my own, but I didn’t have a studio. I just recorded a few songs at my house. I put out that acoustic EP and basically gave it away. I decided to go from there to actually recording a record, but I had no plans to do anything with it. I literally just recorded it because I felt like recording an album.

R&G: Your current style of music is rooted in blues and rock & roll. What was the reason behind the shift?

Hanni: I’ve always liked old rock & roll. I’m a fan of rock & roll in general – all areas of it – but I’m definitely a fan of 50s and 60s rock & roll. I really like soul music and doo-wop and the classic stuff, plus a lot of 30s blues things. I’m all over the place in terms of what I listen to on a daily basis. That all comes out when I write songs or record. I draw from everything that I like and try to put it all together and spit it out.

R&G: You describe your music as knife-fighting music and your music’s audience as comprised of those who have been shot or hit by a train. Can you elaborate on that statement?

Hanni: In short form, I like aggressive things, tragic things, and raw things. I like keeping things emotional. I feel like I’ll always try to make music with that aesthetic. I would rather keep a first take than not. If I can bang out a song in one take, then it’s done; whether there are fuck-ups or mistakes doesn’t really matter to me. I like listening to music like that, so I gravitate towards leaving all that stuff in. I like the idea of struggles or rumbling. I like that kind of stuff.

R&G: You licensed “You Rascal You” to the HBO series “Hung.” How did that come about?

Hanni: The label I’m signed to, Innovative Leisure, is a very new label. There are two main guys over at Stones Throw: Jamie Strong and Nate Nelson. They are both doing my record through the label Innovative Leisure, which kind of runs through that family, I would say. It’s not limited to what’s going on over at that label. They can sort of do whatever they want. The guy who runs Innovative Leisure also handles a lot of licensing projects and things like that. The music supervisor over there picked the song “You Rascal You” to be featured in the episode of “Hung.” It happened really organically. He said, “Are you okay with this?’ I said, “Yeah. Of course. I totally watch “Hung,” all the time.”

R&G: That was my next question. Do you have boundaries in terms of where your music is placed in television or film?

Hanni: My thing is that if I personally can agree with it or if I like it in some capacity, I’m okay with it. I’m not too precious about that kind of stuff. Getting your music out there in those ways is kind of how things have evolved in music and I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with it if I’m okay with what it’s being connected to. Let’s not forget, musicians are in the business to make music so that people can hear it. In this day and age, why limit that just to vinyl or just to hearing it on indie radio or stumbling upon it somehow or going to a show? People get their information in all sorts of ways these days. Why not?

R&G: No doubt. You’re pretty open on Twitter about homeless people, weed, and mushrooms. You mentioned you wanted to name your first born, “Cobra.” You’re obviously cool with people seeing what you do day-to-day. What are your thoughts about social media as a musician?

Hanni: I was actually fully not into it before all this music stuff happened. I’m the type of person that would be like, “Well, if you’re my friend, then fucking call me on the phone.” When it comes down to it, though, social media is the way that you can actually interact with people that don’t know you. You can expose your music or art or whatever you do to as many people as you would like to reach out to, as long as you participate. Everyone does it differently. I was like, “I’ll just roll with it and go with it and be myself normally and whatever happens happens. Whatever interactions come out of weird social networking things, it’s cool. If nothing happens, that’s cool. Either way.” There’s a fine line with getting too personal and exposing just enough. Then again, I don’t consciously edit myself in that sense, so I guess sometimes it can get personal. Until it gets extremely weird, I’ll just go for it.

Dead Wrong 7″ (Buy)

Build. Destroy. Rebuild. 7″ (Buy)

Related Posts:
Artist To Watch – Hanni El Khatib (Click Here)
Waved Out II – Photos (Click Here)
Artists To Watch In 2011 – (Click Here)

MP3: Hanni El Khatib – Loved One