The Country Underground and Neko: There’s nothing “alternative” about Neko Case’s country

By Richard Skanse

(From RollingStone.com, February 23, 2000)

https://nekocaseofficial.bandcamp.com/album/furnace-room-lullaby

As soon as Neko Case belts out the heart-wrenching opening line, “Want to get it all behind me…” at the outset of Furnace Room Lullaby, you know she’s singing about L-O-V-E gone wrong. But she might as well be talking about love songs, and the troublesome way they can sneak up on you when you’re trying to write honest music, particularly of the country variety.

“It’s kind of embarrassing that so many of the songs are kind of love songs, because I’m so sick of them, I tell you,” the Virginia-born, Washington state-raised and Canadian-fine-tuned singer says of her just-released second album. “It’s the most cliched thing in the world. But if it just comes out and you didn’t force it, you can keep it, I guess. I’m getting out of that, but it’s impossible to not think about it.”

When further pressed on the matter, she cagily admits that some of it may have had it’s roots in a “long-term relationship that ended horribly,” but she’s not about to give that mess too much credit for inspiring any of the bewitching torch and twang lullabies on Furnace Room, or her slightly more raucous ’97 debut, The Virginian. “Basically, it comes from when you break up with someone who you’ve been going out with for a long time, and you realize how much of yourself you’ve lost in that relationship. You’re more mad at yourself for letting yourself do that than you are at the other person.”

When Case isn’t singing about love gone to hell on Furnace Room Lullaby, she’s likely to be singing about her beloved hometown of Tacoma, Washington. It was there, she sings on the album-standout “South Tacoma Way,” where she “found passion for life,” even though “there was no hollow promise that life would reward you.” “Loving your hometown — that’s a cliched thing too, but it’s a good break from, ‘Oh, my tortured heart!’” Case laughs. “[Tacoma]’s got a real bad name for itself — it’s really the underdog of Washington State. But at the same time, that keeps people from moving there. Downtown is practically deserted. It’s a very strange place.”

Case spent her teenage years in Tacoma, a period of her life that found her leaving home and high school at fifteen (“family problems”), living in a friend’s basement and banging out her angst playing drums in Cramps-style punk bands. Migrating to Vancouver to pursue a fine arts degree in college, she continued to pound the skins as part of the arty-roots-punk trio Maow. “We were arty in a way that was really silly,” she says. “We’d wear furry bikinis and stuff on stage, and we would get mad when people would go, ‘You’re such a novelty band!’ because we practiced just as hard as anyone else did.”

She stuck with the band all through college, touring with them and recording an album in ’97 for the Canadian label Mint. When it came time to write more songs for Maow, Case’s contributions didn’t quite fit the mold; the classic country music she’d been exposed to as a child via her grandmother had taken root in her subconscious. The result was The Virginian, a sterling collection of originals and vintage covers that sounded like Patsy Cline gone wild. Credited to Case and “Her Boyfriends” — a revolving band of male and female collaborators – the album (along with the later Furnace Room) was released by Mint and licensed by the U.S. insurgent country label Bloodshot.

Although her new songs didn’t quite fit Maow, Case says the move from punk rock to hard country was not a drastic one. “Country’s very much like punk rock, anyways,” she says. “It’s made by poor, kind of pissed-off disgruntled people. It’s just a very passionate form of music — they’re very similar in that way.” Just don’t make the mistake of calling her music “y’allternative.”

“I feel disappointed that people feel they have to call it ‘alternative country,’ because I listened to country music growing up, and that was my influence, and I don’t feel like I should have to justify what I do by calling it alternative,” Case says. “Because there’s no way in hell somebody’s going to mistake my music for ‘new’ country anyway. I don’t have to separate myself from that genre because I’m not anywhere near it.”

If Furnace Room Lullaby offers a marked improvement on the already considerable promise of The Virginian, it’s only because it finds Case the songwriter catching up with Case the powerhouse singer. Both sets are unabashedly vocal showcases, and Case sings the devil out of them. She credits her chops to years of practice singing along to gospel music — in particular, an album called Bessie Griffin and the Gospel Girls Swing Down, Sweet Chariot lent to her by a friend in Tacoma.

“Punk rock was really disappointing me at the time,” she says. “And the passion on this was so incredible. That’s what I’d been wanting. I wasn’t a religious person, but listening to the music really made me open up a lot and be more accepting of other people’s ideas. That record changed my life. It opened the door to the great musical search of my life. I’ve never seen a copy of that record since, and it makes me sad, because I’ll never have one. I’d love to get a copy of it — maybe if I keep talking about it, somebody will go, ‘I’ve got a copy and I’ll make you a tape of it!’ That would make my year.”

The only thing that could possibly make her happier, it seems, would be an honest shot at performing at that holy shrine of true country, the Grand Ole Opry.

“I would love more than anything to be on the Grand Ole Opry and have my grandma get to come,” Case says unabashedly. “I have since I was a kid. The Grand Ole Opry and country radio are kind of different, which is the one thing that kind of gives me hope. But I would die if I got to be on the Opry. I don’t know how that happens, though — I need to look into it. Maybe you move to Nashville, but I can’t really see myself doing that.”

Two from The Who: Q&As with Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle (from RollingStone.com, June 2000)

PART 1
(From RollingStone.com, June 7, 2000)

Roger Daltrey says Who reunion not nostalgia, but “magic”
Consummate frontman praises Pete, remembers Keith and talks tour

By Richard Skanse

There were, of course, rock & roll frontmen before Roger Daltrey. But really, what was the point of ’em? When it came to the Who’s magic bus, Pete Townshend’s songs formed the engine, John Entwistle provided the chassis and Keith Moon brought the high octane rocket fuel, but it was always Daltrey who commanded the wheel. And it wasn’t just his powerhouse voice and epic stage presence that put him in that position. It was Daltrey who founded the Who [as the Detours] in 1962; Daltrey who built the band’s guitars out of plywood; Daltrey who drove the van; and Daltrey who cracked the whip when it needed to be cracked. “Good old Rog,” wrote Townshend in the 1994 Who box set Thirty Years of Maximum R&B, “. . . without his driving, tin-plate, cutter-uppers force, I would still be languishing in the garret of the visual artist I was training to be.”

Not surprisingly, Daltrey has long been the foremost champion of the Who. He’s currently plotting a biopic on the life of the late Moon, and even in the off years since 1982 when the band wasn’t reuniting, he’s never stopped promoting and performing Townshend’s songs, being arguably prouder of them than Townshend himself. So expect him to be in fine fighting form this summer on the band’s stripped-down, rock & roll amphitheater tour.

Whenever the Who reunites, it often seems like Pete has to be dragged into it kicking and screaming, John couldn’t care either way, and you’re playing cheerleader.

In actual fact, it’s Pete this time who really wants to go out and do it. And I can’t believe it’s happening! To be really honest, this is something that’s grown out of those benefit shows last year, and I’m just taking it a day at a time. And of course, I love being with the band — to be on a stage, and even though we’re playing songs that are old, they’re our songs . . .

At the press conference announcing the tour, how did you feel when the “nostalgia question” came up?

What a load of bullshit that is. I mean, if you went to see a Beethoven concert tonight, is that nostalgia? If you go to a museum and look at a Renoir exhibition, is that nostalgia? How can it be nostalgia if it’s our fucking music? It fucking belongs to us and we can play it when and where ever we like. And if people don’t want to come and see it, then that’s up to them — we don’t force anyone. But it’s certainly not nostalgia. And sometimes you go onstage, and mostly by accident, things happen and a musical direction gets switched in a certain way, and it’s just pure fucking magic. And that to me is probably the single most beautiful thing in my life, to have ever achieved something that wondrous. And it happens quite regularly with the Who, so of course I enjoy it and I’m enthusiastic.

What is it about Pete’s songs that allows you to never get tired of them?

There’s a courage and an honesty about them. And I know they were written really about problems of adolescence and just a little bit beyond that, most of them, but they equally apply to problems of middle age and onwards, too. I think there are other problems of middle age and onwards, but it’s frustrated me that Pete has never managed to put pen to paper or pen to guitar and write more about them. It always frustrated me that Pete could do it so well about adolescence and about the young boy growing up, but he can’t write about the middle-aged man figuring out his life with all the problems he faces. I mean, what’s the fucking difference?

Did you ever listen to his solo albums and think, “I’d love to get my hands on that song, see what we could do with it with the Who”?

Yep. I’m a Pete-fucking-Townshend fan. But when we’re in a working relationship, I am honest enough to say, “Maybe you could do something a bit better,” or, “Why don’t you try something a different way?” Pete’s always known that I’ll be honest with him. I would never tell him that something that wasn’t very good was. There’s an awful lot of people who will. I think he is a genius. Well, let’s put it this way — he was a genius. I don’t know whether he is now. There’s a difference between talent and genius. Talent you possess, which is what he’s still got, but genius is when you are possessed, which is what he was. I think when he wrote the songs, there was no doubt that he was a genius. And he’s still got potential to become obsessive again and get back to there, but when you are like that, far too often you’re surrounded by people who just tell you that everything you do is wonderful. And it’s death to an artist — fucking death. Because of course a lot of what you do is wonderful, but nobody — nobody — can do everything wonderfully. We all need that person to say, “Buddy, don’t be a prat — that’s crap!” [laughs]

When the subject of a new Who album has come up recently, you’ve mentioned having some songs of your own that you thought were up to par.

I’m so critical of myself because I lived in paranoia of writing anything for years and years because Pete to me was the ultimate, and it’s kind of a hard place to be when you think, “Let me have a go at writing,” because what can you do? You have no confidence whatsoever. But when I did Rocks in the Head [Daltrey’s 1992 solo album], I took it down to Pete and said, “Just tell me what you think of the lyrics, Pete, because I think I can write now.” And God bless him, he listened to it and said, “They lyrics are great, Roger.” That meant so much to me. And I’ve got three songs now which lyrically I think are really good. I’ve already played him a few demos.

You’ve expressed interest in doing a movie about Keith Moon’s life. What was your relationship with him like?

For the first 10 years of the Who, I think I was probably his number one enemy — mainly because I was in front of him. In Keith’s opinion, the drums should be at the front of the stage and the singer should be in the back. And there was a tour of Europe where they were doing speed more and more and more — I couldn’t do speed, because it’ll dry your throat up — but we did this tour and we were all so out of it and the music was going down the tubes, it was fucking dire. Finally I was so fed up with it, I went in the dressing room and there was Moon’s big bag of pills and I just threw them down the toilet. And he went crazy, came at me with a cymbal, and of course we ended up in a big fight, and I was thrown out of the band. Fortunately, management stood by me, and I promised never to fight again.

And I didn’t fight. For years, I was the butt of all of Moon’s jokes — and he could be wicked — and I had to just bite my lip, but I did it because I loved the band. Once we did Who’s Next, I kind of passed my apprenticeship, and we became more friendly. And when Keith started to have a really bad time, I was the only constant because I was at a period then where I didn’t do any drugs. We got closer and closer and closer, ’til right towards the end when he was cleaning himself up and he finally got off of the drink and the drugs. I had a pact with him, because he said, “I’ve got to tour, we haven’t toured for three years — drummers have to work.” But he’d put on all this weight, and he was brokenhearted. And I said, “Look, Keith, if you get yourself set, we’ll get you a training program, and I’ll make sure we tour.” That was the deal, though God knows how I was going to make sure we toured. But anything to get him to get himself in shape. And we were working on it, and then, boom — he died of the bloody drug that he was taking to cure him.

How have the potential scripts for the movie that you’ve seen missed the mark?

They always just go for the cliches. I don’t want to see a script about the Who on stage at Woodstock. I’m not interested in that. I know how to deal with the Who in film. But none of them seem to have the balls to go to the depths that they’ve got to go to get to the center of Keith Moon. He was an incredibly complex character.

Speaking of complex characters, did you enjoy playing Scrooge last year in the New York production of A Christmas Carol?

Oh, I loved that. But 15 shows a week, that’s fuckin’ hard work, I’ll tell you — it was harder than a Who tour or any tour I’ve ever done. Fucking exhausting.

And how about your role as a fairy king in that NBC miniseries, Leprauchans?

Leprechans . . . was just a mess.

***

PART 2
(From RollingStone.com, June 7, 2000)

John Entwistle ready to join together … again
Bassist says he’s looking forward to his Who holiday

By Richard Skanse

They called him “The Ox.” In the midst of the unstoppable force that was The Who at its most fearsome, bassist John Entwistle was the immovable object. Measured against the extreme stage presence of his bandmates — Pete Townshend’s windmill guitar playing, Roger Daltrey’s deadly swinging microphone and Keith Moon’s explosive, unpredictable drumming, Entwistle was “the Quiet One”; but take away his bass, and the Who’s roar would be reduced to a whisper. Think of the Who’s signature anthem “My Generation,” and Entwistle’s earth-rumbling run down the neck of his bass guitar resonates as loudly as Daltrey’s stuttering “f-f-fade away.”

Entwistle’s also, in his own quiet way, probably the most astutely funny of the bunch. A noted caricaturist, he shudders at the thought of drawing the Y2K version of the Who: “It would take too much ink!” In a bio he penned for himself a few years back when he was touring with Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band, he painted himself as the watchman sitting on the Who’s coffin, making sure it stayed safely dead. How then to explain all those reunion tours over the last 18 years, including this summer? Even the most dutiful of guards has to make the occasional run to the loo.

How do you feel going into this Who reunion tour? Eager to get back into it?

I think more so now than before, because it’s down to a five-piece. The last couple of times, there were so many people onstage doing my job, there weren’t hardly any holes for me to fit in and do my little bass bit. Now there are a lot more holes, and I can play a lot better. Pete and myself have gotten eye contact back again, so we’re playing like we used to, not letting someone else play all the melody lines, which didn’t allow us to improvise — which is what I always loved about the Who, and I think a lot of our fans missed that. They’d come and see Quadrophenia two nights in a row and it’d be almost exactly the same show. Now all the shows are different.

How would you compare the new live album, Blues to the Bush, to Live at Leeds?

In a way, it’s not really fair to compare the two. Because on Live at Leeds we were shit-hot. We’d done a whole bunch of touring, and we were extremely confident and our sound was perfected and everything was real smooth — we could do a great show every time. This live album is basically where we are now, after four days of rehearsals. We played a lot smoother on Live at Leeds, but I know damn well that I’m playing a lot better than I did on Live at Leeds. So you’ve got the better musicianship to balance it off. But it’s a lot more raggedy. We could have gone in and overdubbed like crazy and made it sound wonderful, but we didn’t want that. We wanted people to know bloody where we were even down to our mistakes. We did do a couple of repairs, but at least we didn’t replace everything like the Eagles — you know, “New live in the studio album!”

What are your thoughts on the prospect of recording a new Who studio album?

The hardest thing is trying to figure how it’s going to work out. I think because we’re jamming a lot more on stage a lot of songs will come out of the next tour. We’re recording every show on DAT so we can refer ourselves to what we’re playing, because we never remember what we played. So I think a lot of song ideas will come out of jamming, and obviously that will make the album a lot easier to do — it will help us find a new direction.

You were spotted in the audience at Pete’s “Lifehouse” concert in December. At any time while watching it, did you imagine the Who playing it?

Not really, no. That’s Pete’s baby. I have no comments on it.

What were your thoughts about the concept albums you did record together? Did you ever have difficulty sinking your teeth into those?

They were kind of a lot different. With Tommy, we started out doing what was basically a single album, but it didn’t make sense. We realized the only way to make it coherent was to make it a double album, because a lot more things happened to Tommy than could be put on one album. We eventually got the double album finished, but we were recording during the day and playing concerts during the evening to pay for the next day in the studio. We knew it was going to be different because it was the first full concept thing that we had done, besides a nine-minute mini-opera thing [“A Quick One While He’s Away”].

When it came to Lifehouse, it was like, here we go, another concept album. It kind of fell apart on Pete, and he did the opposite, making it a single instead of a double album, and it became just a normal album [Who’s Next]. But then Quadrophenia came and I went, “Oh God, yet another!” Why can’t we just do songs that stand on their own? But Quadrophenia was a lot easier because Pete had actually done most of the demos, so it wasn’t anywhere near as hard work as Tommy. But I always prayed that the next album wasn’t going to be a concept album. [laughs]

By the time of the farewell tour . . .

Which one? [laughs]

The first one, in 1982. Were you ready for the band to end at that time?

Yeah, I wanted to get on with my solo career. I thought there were much greater heights to go on to. And after four years of that, I realized that there weren’t any heights to go on to. You’d always get dragged back and have the Who thrown at you. “When are the Who getting back together?” We all realized that the Who would have to get back together again, because they wouldn’t let us do anything else. But yeah, I was full of grandiose ideas when the Who broke up for the first time. But it doesn’t take long to spend five million dollars! [laughs]

These days, whenever you have to stop touring with the John Entwistle Band for another Who reunion, is that at all like having to go back to work for you?

Not really. The John Entwistle Band is a lot harder work. Playing with the Who after that is like a holiday. I don’t have to save my voice because I’m not singing, I’m not having to go to the mic to make announcements, trying to keep the whole thing going while somebody’s changing a fucking string. It’s a lot harder work, and touring with the John Entwistle Band is a lot more Spartan. We travel by bus, and the Who by private plane with big hotel suites. I’m lucky to get a hotel room with my band over $60. It’s a cheapo, cheapo production. So the Who is a vacation compared to that.

What was the origin of your nickname, “The Ox”?

I think it came from Keith Moon. He started by saying I had the constitution of an ox, because I could drink. And then I started putting weight on, and it became a physical thing. I hate it.

Last question: Were you ever clocked in the head by Roger’s swinging microphone?

Nah. If it ever gets close to me, it usually just goes around the head of my bass and puts me out of tune. He has hit a couple of people, but they were both on purpose [laughs]. I’ve seen him even knock someone out for throwing pennies at him. We did a gig with Chuck Berry and there were a whole bunch of rockers there making a lot of noise because we had actually pulled the plug on Chuck Berry because he was running over time. We were contracted to play an hour and a half, and we only had an hour and five minutes left. But we kept playing until they pulled the plug on us, and this guy was throwing pennies, and Roger saw the guy throw it when one hit him on the head. So Roger just pointed to the guy, aimed, and . . . phwump!

The complicated life of Ray Davies (from RollingStone.com)

Ray Davies discusses his new book, another new book, two musicals, his first solo album and the future of the Kinks

(From RollingStone.com, March 14, 2000)

By Richard Skanse

“I’m all coffeed out,” says Ray Davies as he stands at the counter of a Timothy’s on the Upper West side of Manhattan. “Is your apple cider alcoholic?” There’s a wry look in his eye that suggests he’s joking — probably — but the young coffee jockey looks clearly perplexed. “No? Good.” With a steaming cup of the virgin brew in hand, Davies finds a seat and pulls out an advance copy of his new book of short stories, Waterloo Sunset. It’s the Kinks’ frontman’s second foray into literature, following his acclaimed “unauthorized autobiography,” X-Ray, and disregarding the few inevitable typos, he seems quite happy with the results.

After his early afternoon cider, Davies will catch a plane back to England to dive back into the making of his first studio solo album. He’s also got two theatrical productions to wrestle with – the London musical “Come Dancing” and a projected Broadway endeavor. The only medium he doesn’t have on his plate at the moment is film, though he toys with the idea of revisiting his 1985 short-feature Return to Waterloo. The chilling short story version that closes Waterloo Sunset suggests that he didn’t quite get his way the first time around. “I wanted the character to be a man who murdered people, and my producer said we won’t let you finish the film if you don’t make him friendly,” he says, exasperated. “I said, ‘He’s a rapist. What do you want me to do? Give him a song and dance?’”

Should the stories of down-and-out rocker Lester Mulligan in Waterloo Sunset be read as a sequel to X-Ray?

No. I’ve actually started drafting out the follow-up to X-Ray, and that’s a totally different thing. People always think that it’s something autobiographical — this is a curse. This could have been a thousand people that I know. I think a lot of people had a blank in 1985 and came to life again in 1990. It just happens to people – they go sleepwalking through careers and through lives, and sometimes it takes an event to jolt them back into reality. I chose Lester Mulligan because he represents all of my fears and paranoias, and he’s much more strung out and stretched out than I could ever be. He’s a more extreme version of me. More romantic. I never took the pills or anything. I almost wish I had, because it would give me the credability – it would make a much better Behind the Music. I think the Kinks Behind the Music would probably be the boring let down of all time, because I suffered through my own seriousness and mundane lifestyle, which is not very attractive. And I really like the name Les, because if I’m out looking for a new guitar player, there are two names where no matter how well they played, I just couldn’t employ them – Ken and Les. They’re so un-rock & roll. [Laughs

What’s the status of the solo album you’ve been working on?

At the moment I’m writing songs, and I’m being so picky. I’m doing sketches of songs before I even make a demo. So its going to go through three or four process before I make the record. But I’d rather eliminate stuff now than have it all eliminated when the record’s done. I’ve got about forty songs I’d like to work on, and I’ll cut it down for the record company. But I want to make sure the demos are done as high fidelity as possible because I’ll definitely want to use them as bonus tracks.

How are you approaching your solo album differently than you would another Kinks album?

Well, I’m trying to get Dave’s phone number! There was a meeting in London before I came here. I was doing my will, because I’ve never had one, and I told my lawyer and my accountant, ‘I really miss being in the band, because there’s nobody to be angry at.’ We’re actually on contract to do one more album Kinks album for EMI. But I’ve spoken to my people at Capitol, and my priority is my first solo studio record – ‘please get that done.’ Then, who knows.

The theater’s kept you busy lately. Are there any ties between your ‘Come Dancing’ show in London the production you’re planning for Broadway?

They’re two different shows. The one I’m doing on Broadway is basically an extension of my one-man show. ‘Come Dancing’ is a musical with lots of actors and actresses. It’s about my sisters and how they lived through that time in post-war Britain. This summer we did an eight-week workshop at the National Theater in London, which is unprecedented, they don’t give that much time to people. But I think it will be a piece not for national but for the commercial theater. It’s a very fine line to tread, because theater is a world that is so focused on the bottom line. There’s no courage in the theater. I’d say next to films, it’s the most paranoid, time wasting, exploitive creative environment, but when it works, its wonderful.

What is the status of the Broadway show?

It’s going off Broadway. I’m changing producers, because one of the producers isn’t right. It’s a small show. The difficulty with it is it’s gleaned from a concert piece. It’s not like normally where a writer goes in with a play, the producers read it and the producers say, ‘We’ll do it.’ With this, its coming from something that’s not only proven theatrically, its proven on television on VH1 — it started that series [Storytellers]. So it’s a difficult one for them to understand. I think you have to adapt in the modern theater world the same as in independent films. And it’s getting them to be flexible. If they’re inflexible, it can’t happen.

How would it be different from your regular show?

Well during my last stint at Edinburgh last year, I thought, ‘God, it would be lovely if I could get somebody else to this so I wouldn’t have to work my guts out every night.’ It’s a tough piece to perform. And one of the arguments we’re having in negotiations is about the amount of performances I do a week.

You can hear the collective groans, though: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tonight the role of Ray Davies will be played by…’

Martin Short! I can’t imagine that. Who would I get to play me? I guess David Letterman knows all the tunes. Conan O’Brien knows all the tunes. But maybe somebody old and grouchy like David Letterman would be a good stand-in. He could have Paul with him. It will be difficult to cast, but that is a reality, because if this happens I have to have an understudy, because you’ve got to have a show every night. Maybe they might have to do a reduced ticket, I don’t know. But they might get somebody who comes in and does such a great performance that they’ll come in and earmark it as their piece. Which would be fine for me.

There’s another reason to give your brother a call.

Yeah. Strangely, my new script, seriously I’m trying to make it something that somebody could step into. The script is revealing; it’s almost in a sense that I’m the villain of the piece, and this person that I loathed since I was born ends up being my salvation, because without him, I couldn’t have done it. Its about brotherly love basically – that’s the essence of the piece. And if I could do that, I’m sure accomplished actors could do it with the right script. I think that’s the thing that differentiated my original Storyteller from other people that have done it since. I was talking to Elvis Costello the other week, and he said he modeled his show on what I did, but he said ‘We could never bring the same thing to it because you were up there, and it had a beginning, middle and end to it, and our show is just to fill an hour time slot on VH1.’

Even with multiple books, musicals and a solo career, your name still usually comes with “of the Kinks” after it. How important is it to you to forge a new identity?

Well the only example of an answer I can give you is, when I first started my Storyteller show, I played the Birchere Community Center. And they phoned up my agent last year and said, ‘We’d love to get that show back.’ My agent said, ‘What, Ray Davies of the Kinks?’ And they said, ‘No, the show…we want the show back.’ To me, that’s success, because they remembered the show, and I was the performer. That’s a real compliment.

Last question: where does X-Ray II start out?

It starts in Belgium. The first line is, “I woke up in Belgium, and I sneezed.” I like things like that.

Johnny Cash talks Love, God, and Murder (from Rolling Stone Online, July 5, 2000)

In his first U.S. interview in more than a year, the Man in Black discusses his new box set, two new albums and cheating death.

(From RollingStone.com, July 5, 2000)

By Richard Skanse

Johnny Cash is on the phone, calling from his office outside of Nashville in Hendersonville, Tenn., sounding strong and feeling fine. He has reason to be in high spirits. Less than a year ago, a nasty bout with pneumonia had him knocking on heaven’s door, but he’s battled his way back and now stands poised on the brink of his second major comeback of the decade. He’s currently recording a new album for American Recordings with Rick Rubin, the long-awaited follow-up to 1997’s Grammy-winning Unchained (and its equally lauded predecessor, 1994’s American Recordings). A fourth Rubin-produced effort, a gospel album, is in the can, while a new three-disc retrospective, Love God Murder, together with recent, expanded editions of his two seminal “prison” albums (1968’s At Folsom Prison and 1969’s At San Quentin) have shed fresh light on his singular, four-and-a-half-decade history as a recording artist and bona fide American icon.

The renewed interest in his career is well deserved, but on this morning, Cash, who turned 68 in February, still seems to be taking it all in with an amused sense of wonder. “Sony sent me about two dozen box sets today,” he says with a soft chuckle. “They’re being very, very nice to me for some reason. I didn’t hear from them for many, many years, but now it seems after the success of the American records, Sony’s really interested again.”

So what was the genesis of Love God Murder?

Sony had the idea for three different theme albums — Johnny Cash Sings Love Songs, Johnny Cash Sings Gospel, and Johnny Cash Sings Prison Songs. I thought that was pretty cluttered, so I told them, “How about calling the albums Love, God and Murder? Cut right to the chase.” They liked the idea, and they came up with all these songs for the different ones, and I marked some of them out and added some that I liked better, and this is what the result was.

Did you go back through your whole catalog and cherry pick songs?

No. Well, actually yes I did. I had my discography. I was in the Caribbean, and I just checked out some other titles. I didn’t listen to anything — I don’t listen to my records except for when I’m making them. Or if I’m going to do them live, sometimes I’ll listen to them again — I keep going back to a line of Dylan’s: “I will know my song well before I start singing.” I do that once and awhile. But I pulled out some songs I liked, like “Mister Garfield,” and “Hardin Wouldn’t Run,” which are my two favorites on the Murder album. I put those in there.

Did you have any say in picking your wife, June Carter, Bono and Quentin Tarantino to write the liner notes?

No, that was a surprise to me that they had contacted Bono and Quentin Tarantino. But these record companies and managers have a way of calling in your friends without your knowing about it. [Chuckles] Bono’s writing knocked me out — talking about Moses parting the Red Sea, that whole thing from Exodus that he commented on, and then how he brought it down to me. I thought that really was a nice piece of writing.

I’m told that the box set of all three albums is selling the best, but of the individual volumes, Murder is outselling Love and God like three to one. Does that surprise you?

No. [Laughs] My biggest selling albums have been the prison albums.

What is it about the prison albums that still appeals to people so much?

I don’t know. You know, the biggest song of the nineteenth century was about Jesse James. The whole country was singing the praises of Jesse James. It’s always been an American theme to make heroes out of the criminals. Right or wrong, we’ve always done it. You know, it really is a crime in itself, but we do it. I think there’s a little bit of a criminal in all of us. Everybody’s done something they don’t want anybody to know about. Maybe that’s where it comes from.

Were you ever threatened with any form of censorship for your murder songs?

No. I didn’t ever have any resistance to them. They caused a lot of arguments and controversy. They still argue today about whether or not I was in prison myself, because of those songs. But I wasn’t. I’ve never been accused of a felony. I never spent time behind bars except for a few overnight jail times back in the Sixties . . . El Paso was my last time.

Let’s move on to the theme of God, which you don’t hear quite so much of these days. You grew up singing a lot of gospel and hymnals, didn’t you?

Yeah, I did. My first public singing was in church, when I was a boy. The gospel songs were always a part of my whole musical thing. I have a gospel album recorded with Rick Rubin for American [Recordings] that is probably going to be released sometime next year. That’s probably going to be called My Mother’s Hymn Book. It’s old country gospel songs with just me and a guitar.

Does any song on God represent a particularly trying time for you, faith wise?

Well, there’s songs in there that encourage me. One I wrote called “What on Earth Will You Do (For Heaven’s Sake)” is kind of a challenge to my fellow Christians and to myself as well to walk the walk instead of talking the talk. The other one on there is “Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord),” a spiritual that features the Carter Family. That may be my favorite. It’s the one that I sang in every concert through the Sixties, and it always gave me inspiration.

What songs on Love have special meaning to you?

“Flesh and Blood” is a nice memory for me. I wrote that in 1970 when I was way back in the country somewhere, way back in the sticks, sitting beside a creek. I wrote it for June. And “The One Rose (That’s Left in My Heart),” from the American Recordings album, is maybe my favorite in that whole bunch of love songs. It’s a Jimmie Rodgers song. I’d sung it all my life, but never recorded it.

Overall, do you enjoy going back through your past to compile collections like this one? Or are you more comfortable looking forward?

Well, making new music and new records [is] what I always want to do. We can always put together interesting and good compilation albums from my repertoire, going back to 1955. I have no doubt we’ll continue to do that. But meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’m going to be doing my thing out there in the studio with Rick Rubin for American.

How far along are you on the new album?

We’ve recorded 28 songs. And I’m going to California now and hopefully in the next three weeks I’ll do my vocals, and hopefully we’ll finish it. So far it’s acoustic — it’s only one or two guitars. We started recording it in my cabin over in the woods from my house, and we just didn’t bring in a bass when we started recording, and it felt good again to do it that way. Some of the songs are just me and a guitar; sometimes there are two guitars. Sometimes Norman Blake, sometimes Randy Scruggs. And now in California, Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers is doing a couple of guitar tracks for me.

How many of those 28 songs did you write?

Only three or four, actually. A song of mine I wrote called “Before My Time” is maybe one of my favorites. But it’s got a real variety. There’s a Bono/U2 song called “One.” I just finished that the day before yesterday with just two guitars, Mike Campbell and Randy Scruggs. It’s a fabulous song. Also did a Nick Cave song called “Mercy Seat.” And there’s some country and some folky things, a Jimmie Rodgers song, a Hank Williams song …

Which Hank Williams song?

Well, I had never heard it before. He wrote it for a singer named Molly O’Day in 1949. It’s called “On the Evening Train.” It’s a tragedy song. There’s also a Stephen Foster song called “Hard Times” on there.

Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin has got to be one of the must unlikely and successful partnerships in the last 10 years.

You know, it’s amazing to me too. He and I work together so well, and we get so creative and so excited when we’re in the studio. I’m really looking forward to spending two or three weeks with him in the studio in California. We really got off to a good start on this album.

So will this album and the new gospel album be coming out at the same time?

No. The gospel album will be next year some time. I hope this one will be ready for this fall.

Do you see yourself performing again?

No. Not concerts — not touring. I’ll never do that again. I’ve had 43 years of that. That’s enough. I can direct my energies more to recording now. I intend to keep recording as long as I’m able. It’s what I do, it’s what I feel.

You’re bound to know that thousands of your fans around the world have had you in their prayers over the last couple of years because of the illnesses you’ve faced. Is that a daily challenge you face, or do you feel like you’ve survived the battle?

Yeah. Yeah I do. Last year, I had pneumonia twice. And when I got over it, when I thought I was over it in November last year, June and I went to Jamaica for the winter so I would be out of Nashville during the flu season. But as it turned out, I had what they call walking pneumonia, until about six weeks ago. I had an antibiotic IV to kill it again, because it was still there, in my lung. But it’s gone now.

I know that the fans have really been concerned that I’ve been really sick — as a matter of fact I was almost dead — but God willed that I live, and here I am, enjoying myself and looking forward to finishing this album. I’d like to thank everybody for their prayers and say that I hope I won’t let you down on producing some good work.

Warren Zevon (from Rolling Stone Online, Jan. 28, 2000)

Note: I wish this one could have been longer, and that I’d had a lot more time to talk to him, but I recall this being one of the most intimidating interviews I’ve ever done. Zevon could not have been cordial, but something about interviewing him felt like playing speed chess against a Russian master. I walked out of that hotel buzzed but still sweating bullets. I went back looking for this piece shortly after his death a few years later. His answer regarding his biggest fear still gives me chills. All that said — definitely one of the funniest Q&As I’ve ever come away with — and Life’ll Kill Ya is still one of my favorite Zevon albums. 

Q&A: Warren Zevon

On Life’ll Kill Ya, werewolves,  William Shatner, and the perils of covering Bette Midler

By Richard Skanse

“Welcome to my guitar shop,” deadpans Warren Zevon as he navigates his way through his Manhattan hotel suite, which is presently cluttered by boxed guitars headed for the hands of a half dozen or so lucky contest winners. Asked how folks will end up winning the Epiphones, Zevon admits he has no earthly idea. All he knows is, he’s already thrown his back out moving the cumbersome bastards around to make walking space. To loosely quote one of the songs on his characteristically sardonic new album, Life’ll Kill Ya, his shit’s a little fucked up.

The new album, Zevon’s first since 1995’s Mutineer and his debut for Danny Goldberg’s Artemis Records, is all about things falling apart. It opens with the been-through-hell-and-lived-to-tell-the-tale testimony “I Was in the House When the House Burned Down,” and ends with the somber, meditative “Don’t Let Us Get Sick.” In between, Zevon tackles degenerating health, degenerating (and degenerate) relationships, and the degeneration of Elvis, with only a liberal dose of dark humor and a straight-up cover of Steve Winwood’s wistful “Back in the High Life Again” to take the edge off the pain.

What have you been up to for the last five years?

The older you get, the more you realize that there’s a shit-load of stuff to do. There are certainly a lot of things to do besides single-mindedly pursue a show-business career. I decided I wanted to play flute like Hubert Laws. I decided I should be able to read “Pater Noster” in Russian. Both of those are pretty difficult goals, but even a laughable attempt at either one can keep you busy as a motherfucker for years and years.

How did the flute playing go?

Unfortunately, because I used to smoke, I find that I play the piccolo better than the flute. It requires considerable less wind. But I play it OK; I don’t play it like Hubert Laws, but I play it well enough to play on the record.

And the Russian reading?

Didn’t go as well.

Do you feel like you’ve gotten significantly better as a songwriter as time goes on, or do you sometimes feel like you’re playing catch-up with yourself?

I’ve always had the same goals. I think that I’ve evolved a little bit craft-wise, but not very much. I don’t think it really grows or evolves very much. That’s good and bad. It’s bad because you don’t really get much better, and it’s good because you really are doing what you thought you were doing and what you set out to do.

How receptive are your fans usually to your new material? Do you inevitably find half the audience shouting for “Werewolves of London” the whole time?

With this record, I knew I was probably going to be playing the songs alone. That’s the financial reality. And since I’ve been doing that for a number of years now, I guess one writes songs that will be compelling to get up and play alone. You know you’re not going to be able to turn to the lead guitarist or prance around while the sax player takes over. And these songs do seem to go over pretty well, to get people’s attention. It seems to me the last couple of tours they’ve been listening to these songs. Maybe it’s because I made them sensational — that’s not a virtue. Or maybe its because they’re intense or they’re moving, but they seem to be listening. They don’t always — and they certainly don’t like to listen to my bizarre choices in cover songs; then they get riotous.

Like what?

“From a Distance.” I did it on the last tour, no matter what they did, and you wouldn’t have believed it. They were fucking tearing the seats out. People are trained to have these illusions about show business. They don’t even hear the song; they just associate it with Bette Midler, who’s not Ani DiFranco. Although, they’re not necessarily quite hip enough for Ani DiFranco, but you know what I mean? It was like the Christian and the lions with some of these people and “From a Distance.”

You cover “Back in the High Life” on the new album. How has that been going over?

It’s OK. People don’t have some kind of knee-jerk reaction to Steve Winwood. They know they love him. They get confused — they don’t know if they remember the beer commercial or they just love him — everybody on the planet loves Steve Winwood. So it doesn’t strike some Vegas guilt chord in people that makes them savage.

You’ve written some extremely wrenching, sad songs, like “Hasten Down the Wind” and “Reconsider Me.” Have you ever written a song too close and personal to release on an album?

Those are about as close as it gets. Those are close like, “Maybe she’ll hear this…” They’re that kind of close. The women don’t come back, though. They’re impressed, but they don’t come back. They’ll tell their friends.

On the flip-side, you seem at ease writing really disturbing songs. Are there any subjects you’re hesitant to tackle? What scares you?

Sickness. Doctors. That scares me. Not violence — helplessness. That’s why I turn to violent stories, I think. Nobody’s every asked me that, and I’ve never said that before, but I think that’s true.

The theme of sickness is all over Life’ll Kill Ya, though.

Yeah. [Laughs]

Does that spring from any particular recent scare?

No, no, no! [Laughs] It’s kind of the fun of it. Now it’s time to really pretend to deal with something that you don’t wanna, and try to laugh about it. I mean, I’ve had guns in my face. I’ve been robbed. But that doctor stuff — it’s too much for me!

You’ve dabbled a bit in TV soundtrack work lately — including William Shatner’s short-lived Tek Wars. Is that a paying-the-bills type of thing, or do you enjoy it?

No, it’s a lot of fun. Sometimes you’re more creative when there are limitations imposed on you — then you really blossom: when Captain Kirk says to you, “When the double helix logo explodes, I want to hear those guitars come forward!” So that’s pretty much all been fun. But it’s a strange thing for me. My father was a gambler, so maybe that’s prepared me for this in a way; I don’t get what I go after, except when I try to write a song. I don’t mean I’m in control of that, but it’s a complete process. Everything else has been like a weird fluke. I’ll write a song and say, “I wrote this song for George Jones. Please give this song to George Jones with my respect and admiration.” Nothing! What’s the guy sell, he can’t even listen to it? Nothing! And then a month later, I find out I have a No. 1 country song — “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” by Terri Clark.

There’s a great picture of you target shooting with Hunter S. Thompson in your I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead retrospective. Does he make you nervous?

No. On the contrary. I find his presence immanently calming. I try to tell people that aside from the fact that we got the idea for the song from a suggestion by Phil Everly, “Werewolves of London,” from my point of view as a co-writer, is a rip-off of Hunter S. Thompson. I can’t imagine why people don’t see that. And I must tell you that Hunter doesn’t see it, because Hunter’s too modest. He’s a real gentleman. He’s a genius who doesn’t have that capacity to worry about what people have taken from him, which of course, my whole generation has derived a great deal from him. But he can be a real good friend — he can be a more reliable friend than a lot of people who aren’t on the same…wavelength.

Where do you think you’d be if not for music?

Adult film.