ICONS INTERVIEW: J. Ryan of SIX FINGER SATELLITE!

*Editors note: This interview was originally published September 22nd, 2010 on Icons Of Punk.com. It is reprinted here for posterity!

Back in the early 90′s during the hayday of Seattle based indie record label Sub Pop and amidst the much publicized “grunge” explosion, there was one band from their ever-growing roster that completely set itself apart from the soundscape of all their other label mates. While SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE were building the foundations of what would eventually become “emo” and THE SPINANES (a 2-piece outfit) were churning out lush melodies over pounding drums, Rhode Island’s SIX FINGER SATELLITE were the ones making a tremendous amount of noise behind walls of loud guitar amps, spacey synths & the screaming howls of frontman J. Ryan.

Remember that Cantina scene in the first STAR WARS movie? SIX FINGER SATELLITE is the band you’d find tearing up the stage there on punk rock night. Sample tracks from their first EP Weapon or their first proper full length The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird to see (and hear) what I mean. While the band continued to evolve on follow-up albums Severe Exposure and Paranormalized, the core members have always primarily consisted of J. Ryan, (drummer) Rick Pelletier and (guitarist) John MacLean up until they disbanded in 1998 following the record Law Of Ruins.

They dabbled again with new music in 2001, which wouldn’t be heard until the 2008 release Half Control, but now a newly revitalized version of the band is back with both Ryan and Pelletier at the forefront. Considering the shroud of mystery that’s always surrounded the band, we got to chat candidly with J. Ryan and set the record straight on the history of the band. Read on! - By Rob Galluzzo

Rob Galluzzo: First of all, I have to say it’s such a pleasure – not only to talk to you, but I was pleasantly surprised several months back to discover the My Space page and see that you guys continue to have new music coming out! Because I have such fond memories of SIX FINGER SATELLITE from my early 20’s and on. So, it’s great to have you guys back.

J. Ryan: Right on.

I saw you guys at The Cooler in New York City and I think it was around the “Severe Exposure” period and I had no idea what to expect. And we stupidly were right against the stage in the front…

The show where I smashed the ceiling out?

Yes! And I remember another funny moment – you walked right up in my friend Steve’s face and just stared at him for a long period of time. And he didn’t know what to do, so he just… hugged you. (Laughs)

(Laughs) Yeah, I remember that.

I was telling that story to Mike C, the co-creator on Icons Of Fright and he was saying “I miss when bands were dangerous! When you weren’t sure what was going to happen when you went to see them live”. So anyways, that’s my history with the band. Let’s talk about the origins of SIX FINGER SATELLITE. Did you guys all know each other? Did you play in local bands together? How did the first incarnation of SIX FINGER SATELLITE come together?

It was actually the first band I was ever in. We all met in college. (Guitarist) John McLean and I were in school together and he was learning guitar, and he & I were friends that definitely had similar musical tastes. He was a little more of a hardcore/punk rock guy. I was never really into hardcore so much in high school, but my record collection expanded dramatically when I was 20. I devoured a lot of stuff, and he devoured a lot of music. He was a radio DJ and there were a lot of cool things with independent indie rock at the time. Bands that we really admired were the STT bands, stuff on Homestead Records, stuff coming out of Chicago. Bands like BIG BLACK and NAKED RAYGUN. There was this little club in Providence called Rocket and we used to go see bands there all the time, people were always putting on shows, and like anybody else that likes music, we decided to start playing. We had a couple of early incarnations (of SIX FINGER SATELLITE), we probably played our first gig in 1989 or so and it wasn’t until the line-up from the “Weapon” EP, where it all came together – it all happened pretty fast. One time when we were just starting to look at playing outside providence and Boston, we went to play a show in New York, and we got paid like $15 dollars or something. This woman in Boston who we knew through friends began helping us book gigs, she was kind of connected and we started playing better shows in NYC – CBGB’s etc – and slowly starting to do better. We were actually playing the New Music Seminar, and Sub Pop came to see us at a show. That “Weapon” EP was actually our first demo tape that we recorded. It was still very warm in our hands, probably only 2 or 3 months. We gave it to them and they signed us. We got called back from Sub Pop and they said “let’s put this out”, so they put it out as our first record.

Wow.

We’d really been playing seriously from that incarnation for probably 2 years at the most.

Well, it’s pretty amazing to go from recording this EP and then having that put out by Sub Pop.

Yeah, it was pretty cool! We were playing with GREEN MAGNET SCHOOL, who we were friendly with. We were creatively connected – kind of like weird brothers. We were all kind of riffing on the same thing, but slightly differently.

You did a split 7 inch with those guys too, right?

Yeah, yeah. They were getting ready to work with Sub Pop on something and they were already tied up with this label in California. We were on the bill with them in New York and Jon Poneman came to see them play and happened to see us. At the time, we were doing some cool covers. We did this really rippin’ cover of “Final Solution”. I don’t even think he saw too many songs. He might’ve seen our last 2 songs and maybe the cover. He asked if we had anything, and he went back & listened to it and signed us. Plus, they were working with Nirvana money at the time, so…

Yeah.

They had made an assload of money without even realizing what to do with it, so they just started signing bands, ya know? We happened to be one of the lucky ones to take advantage of the fruits of…

The fruits of “Nevermind”! (Laughs)

Yep. All the happy accidents.

So, how soon after this period did you guys start recording “The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird”? Was it right after getting signed?

We recorded that in early 1993. We had a bass player, Chris Dixon who left the group. We got a new bass player Kurt Niemand. Actually we did a tour in late 92 with The Poster Children down south. We were working on a lot of the songs for the Pigeon record, probably at least a good 4 or 5 of them on that tour. The songs were works in progress on that tour. Writing for the Pigeon was relentless. We had a strong work ethic and practiced at least 3 nights a week for 5-6 hrs a shot. With the WEAPON stuff, there was this really big wall of sound, the guys were playing Les Paul’s through Marshall amps but they were also playing in different tunings. So it almost had this Sonic Youth-y meets Aerosmith kind of vibe, which I always liked. The ability just to riff out a really big rock riff and at the same time be able to play these really extensive parts. Actually, the time leading up to the “Pigeon” record – we would just make these things rock. It wasn’t that we were constantly writing rock songs. We had one song that was like 23 minutes long. (Laughs) We played a show once in Providence and we sound-checked with it, we played the whole thing.

(Laughs) That’s awesome.

And then we opened the set with it, it was awesome. (Laughs) So, with the “Pigeon” stuff, we had a change in approach, as far as what we were going to do and not do. The music and style became more focused. I was really getting into things like WIRE and some of THE BIRTHDAY PARTY stuff too and a lot of that stuff shows up on that record. The Pigeon was definitely influenced by our record collections – both from a writing and recording standpoint.

Were all the songs for “Pigeon” written when you went in to record it?

Most of them. Actually, I would say just about all of them were written. There were a few things we moved around in the studio. There were some vocal parts that we reworked, but most of the proper songs on that album were all written. The in-between pieces, we just jammed to get those.

The CD is the entire album, but then I remember the records were split up into 2 LP’s? Why was that?

Yeah, that was us trying to find a way to do it on vinyl and do it interesting, and screw around a little bit. More so because Sub Pop would do anything at the time. “You want to make 2 records and spend a ton of money?” “Sure! That’d be great!” (Laughs)

(Laughs) Well, what’s cool is… I love the “Weapon” EP, but “Pigeon” just blew me away the first time I heard it. On the first one, you guys were playing together. But “Pigeon” was the first record that really made me conscious of the instruments. There was one guitar panned all the way to the right, and then there was one guitar panned all the way to the left playing something completely different. Even to this day, when I play it for people, I always pan left and right to show people what you guys were doing on that record. Was that part of the battle plan going in?

Well, we definitely had an aesthetic with what we were going for. We studied a lot of records going into that, like for how we wanted the drums to sound. Things we wanted to do with the guitars. How to go after certain vocal sounds. But yeah, it was definitely a lot of thought that went into that, in terms of how we wanted to present it – musically, stylistically, we were starting to doodle with synth’s. What’s interesting is there’s a whole slew of music from that period that shows up as the companion piece set that we sold through the “Machine Cuisine” record. We were doing a ton of 4 tracking. It was mostly Rick. Rick did a lot of 4 tracking. I had a 4 track around that time, and caught up. We used to go to each others house and basically just bring a bunch of crap over. Like “Ok, what are you going to bring?” “Oh, I’m going to bring my moog and I’m going to bring the mutron phaser.” “Ok, I’ll bring the guitar, bass and drum machine” and we’d just sit down and we’d spend the afternoon 4 tracking. So there was the public face of the band, which on that record was very guitar-centric. And then the synthesizer interludes, which in a lot of ways are drone-y – they’re cool as mood pieces. The music itself was definitely pointing towards the future, but kind of off the beaten path. Behind the scenes with mostly Rick & I doing a lot of 4 tracking and a lot of synth stuff. When we got to the “Machine Cuisine” record and then the “Severe Exposure” record, it was almost like we were gradually introducing synth as a viable instrument to the group. Because, when you’re in a band of guys and you have 2 guitar players like on “Pigeon” and they’re “guitar players”. Need I say more? With guitar players, it’s usually all about the guitar player. They’re in front of Marshall stacks and they’ve got all their gear. So it took a while to change the thought process with what instruments could make rock music. I think it took John (MacLean) a while to embrace the synth side. No matter what you might hear out in the press these days. (Laughs) Very creative guy however, regardless of the instrument. I have piles of rehearsal tapes and am always amazed to hear some of the stuff he would come out with. Very cool.

There’s a bit of a gray area between “Pigeon” and “Machine Cuisine” and “Severe Exposure”. I was wondering if you could shed some light and set the record straight – were there internal problems within the band?

Oh, just the usual – well, I don’t know if it’s usual these days. But being in a group in your early to mid 20’s. There was friction just like any other group. From a creative standpoint, I don’t think we ever lost that desire – the nucleus of the band was definitely John, Rick and myself, in the sense that there weren’t any rules. Kurt ended up leaving the group and sadly passing away just before “Severe Exposure” came out. He had some problems. We really made “Machine Cuisine” as a single for Sub Pop. The band had kind of imploded after touring for “Pigeon” and then we bounced back and started writing songs. We found that with synthesizers, it was the best way to embody the rhythm section, lead and vocals. We approached it very much like a rock band. There was a time when all 3 of us were sitting around with synth’s facing each other in this little triangle. (Laughs) Playing synthesizers! And I remember saying, “Hey guys. I’m not going to play, I’m going to be the singer.” So, Rick handled the drum machine and the bass parts, and MacLean handled all the lead guitar parts, if you will. And I did the vocals. So, we practiced, we set up like that and we played a couple of shows and dragged every freakin’ amp in our practice space to the shows. It was horrific. It bummed people out. Especially in Providence. The last time we had played in Providence, we had played for the “Pigeon” record and we had been on tour for 2 months. The band had been so tight and so insane. Everyone was in various states of mind. There was a lot of tension. It was a totally over the top. When we’d go play the set, people would be like, “What the hell’s up with you guys? You’re like… evil!” (Laughs) “Yeaaah, we’re just about ready to kill each other.” But, from a live standpoint, it translated into really strong and energetic. When I step back to think about it, it was probably really intense to watch. So we follow up that show with a bunch of weirdo synth crap. Awesome in hindsight. It was a tough gig to get through however at the time.



I remember the first time I saw you guys was for “Severe Exposure” and it was totally intense. Now, correct me if I’m wrong but by that tour you didn’t play anything prior to “Severe Exposure”, right?

No, we shed that stuff. We always moved forward. That was another interesting thing. When we bounced back, about a year later, we played Providence as an electronic 3 piece, people were just like “What the?” It was a really hard thing to do, especially when we were playing all old, out of date analog synthesizers. And drum machines that were pulled from organs! It wasn’t the sleek, digital, analog combination shit you see now.

Lyrically, has there ever been any specific influence? Was there ever any approach to any of the records in terms of what you wanted to say lyrically? Obviously, with the name of the band, I got the impression that you were a band doing a “sci-fi” kind of thing.

I think that’s always been in the back of my mind. Just from a word standpoint. It evokes some cool imagery for me. Yeah, I guess I’ve been there, but I’m not a geek for sci-fi stuff or anything. We weren’t going for that, trying to be a “sci-fi” band. But in time, I always felt it lent itself – I think it was really um, it’s almost like a cold and anonymous thing that I always link to space.

Anything that takes place in space feels cold and anonymous.

Yeah, yeah, and it lends itself to music. We always wrote as a group. It wasn’t like I was writing vocal parts and bringing them in. It really all came out of jamming. I always tried to get the vocals to try to fit (for my own sense obviously) sonically, and how they fit from a mood standpoint, and how they lent themselves to the music. So, it’s almost like I would try to get the vocals to how they interpreted the sound. That’s always been my approach.

For “Pigeon”, a lot of the songs titles and even lyrics reference a “Larry”. Is there a real life “Larry”? Is there a friend of yours name Larry that you choose to reference constantly?

That’s just an in-joke with the group. (Laughs)

I didn’t know if that was your version of a Joe-Blo name or something. (Laughs)

Yeah, it probably was just a Joe-Blo. I think it just came up one time while we were talking about it. I was always the one that was naming the songs. I think there were certain points where I’d think “Ok, let me see what ridiculous fucking song title I can come up with and see if the guys go for it.” (Laughs) And they’d be like “Oh, that’s a good title.” So, I’d say, “Ok, that’s the title!”

Like “Save The Last Dance For Larry”! Yep, that’ll work! What’d ya think of that?

(Laughs)

Sure. Awesome!

Exactly. Exactly.



I remember from “Severe Exposure” to “Paranormalized”, you guys played out live a lot! I remember seeing you in New York several times. At The Cooler and at CBGB’s. Was that you guys wanting to get out there more? Was there pressure from Sub Pop to tour more?

There wasn’t pressure from Sub Pop. Sub Pop never really knew what to do with us.

Yeah, because I couldn’t think to pair you up with any of the other bands at the time.

Yeah, exactly. Look at Sub Pop’s roaster. Like THE SPINANES, THE GRIFTERS, SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE, bands we had nothing in common with. They never really knew what to do with us. What I always find interesting too is that at the time we were kind of mining this territory with the end of the guitar kind of thing. Everyone always used to say, “These guys sound like Devo. Devo meets Big Black.” And I was like, well, the thing I always liked about Devo was more their aesthetic. Devo was kind of a cruel band. If you listen to their songs, they’re kind of cruel. That’s what I always liked about Devo more than anything. I always thought their rhythm section was just great. But from that kind of New Wave-y “we’re going to put on funny hats”, I never saw us in that kind of realm. But I think it was always an easy thing for music writers and critics to draw from, because we were playing at a time when every band sounded like PAVEMENT or YO LA TENGO and we were doing something different and it was easy to just sort of pigeonhole us in that little spot.

Well, I was very thankful that you didn’t sound like any of those bands. (Laughs)

(Laughs) I don’t even know if I could if I tried. As far as Sub Pop, they didn’t know what to do with us, and at the time, our tours up until that point hadn’t really been all that good. We had somebody who was helping to manage us, but we just weren’t on the same page with where we wanted to play. We had done a couple of cross Canada Sub Pop tours with ERIC’S TRIP and POND. While they were really fun and great people to be on the road with, it wasn’t our crowd. We did another one with ZUMPANO and HEARTSHIP POST. And I’m like, “Ok. We’re driving across Canada with these guys. Cool guys. Fun tour. Playing all summer, but not really our thing.” We did a tour with Mike Watt on one of his big records. The big one he had all the superstars on. We thought what are we doing with these guys? So right after that time, I kind of took over control of the management of the group and booking. Our biggest M.O. was that we just wanted to play with bands that we liked, that made sense, and so we got a new booking agent. We started getting booked by Billions out of Chicago. And they did a lot of the Touch & Go bands. So around that time, we toured with SHELLAC. We toured with THE JESUS LIZARD a bunch of times. We did a pretty long tour with TRANS AM. And then we started playing a lot on our own and we brought a lot of Providence bands out with us on tour. Have you ever heard of “THEE HYDROGEN TERRORS”?

No, I don’t think so…

You should check them out. They were on Load Records. You’d like ‘em. So we did some tours with them, and this band from New Bedford called AStoveboat. So we were headlining our own tours with some friends & some local groups. We made an effort to get out and it was almost like… we were trying to figure out how the hell to promote ourselves? The label didn’t really know what to do with us. They just gave us money to make albums.



Which is great, but that’s only half the battle!

The booking agent got it, but it wasn’t until “Severe Exposure” that people really got it. So yeah, we played a lot in those years. “Paranormalized” was really an attempt to make another record and get back out on the road really fast. I think that record kind of reflects that.

I dig that record a lot!

Yeah, it’s a good record, although it’d be different had we played those songs live before recording them. We would kind of test them (on the road) and then bring them back and re-work them. But a lot of songs on that record, we just wrote and recorded. Then when we went and actually played them live, they took on a whole new light. That record would’ve been more interesting if we had recorded it after we toured. It definitely would’ve been sonically different. A lot of the songs on the record probably wouldn’t even be there.

That would’ve been interesting. I wanted to ask about “Half Control”. Now, is it technically new or something you recorded a while back?

We recorded this stuff just before “Law Of Ruins” came out in 98. We had a change in the band, MacLean quit and we had a tour all lined up and ready to go, so we had to get a replacement to do the tour. We got this guy Alex Minoff from the band GOLDEN. He’s a DC guy. We did our tour and we wrote a couple of things with him, and did a little tour after that later that year in 98. Things eventually got put on the back burner. Everybody had things going on. About in late 1999, Rick was playing with these guys in this band Landed. They’re 2 guys from Providence, Joel Kyack and Shawn Greenlee. Rick said, “Hey, I’ve been playing with these guys. I’m playing drums. Why don’t you come down & we’ll work on some songs.” So I started going down and we started playing some new songs. And we had some discussions and we wrote a set, we started playing a bunch of shows, we were kinda gigging around, but we were gigging as SIX FINGER SATELLITE. We played a couple of our old songs, but we only played maybe half a dozen times. But we recorded those songs in 2001. They hung around for a while, but we never really mixed them properly since we recorded them ourselves. Rick and I took a couple of stabs at it back in 04-05 to try to mix them. Rick at the time was playing with THE CHINESE STARS. He and I had talked about playing again. I had moved out here for work and we always kept in touch. Finally, the time seemed right, and we decided we were going to bring this stuff to a studio and mix it properly. So we did that last year and Load Records in Providence put it out. Basically, Half Control is stuff that we recorded in 2001 and mixed in 2007.

“Half Control” is awesome. I threw it on, and it sounded like a brand new record. What I remember of you guys from the last time I saw you, it felt like picking up on the next beat. That’s what that record feels like to me.

I think it definitely does, and those songs really came back to light with the mixing. With it being mastered and all, those songs really work, and I think they’re really good, and they’re really simple. But it definitely picks up on the same vibe. At the time, it was a transition from what we had been doing. I don’t think it misses a beat. Obviously, there’s different members on it from the guitar and bass standpoint, but Rick’s drumming is off the charts on it. And I felt also too after the “Law Of Ruins” record, which I liked but I think from a recording standpoint I never was particularly happy with the final mix on that thing. I thought a lot of my parts were kind of buried. Personally for me it’s probably one of my best performances on vinyl. On record. Whatever you want to call it. (Laughs) Floating around in the ether. But “Half Control” was really satisfying to hear it years later and have it sound better then I remembered it.

Rick is one of my favorite drummers, he always blew me away anytime I saw you guys live. But… is it true that he’s now playing guitar in the latest incarnation of SIX FINGER SATELLITE?

He plays guitar on A Good Year… but what he will be doing in the future remains a mystery. He is a very talented musician and can do it all. He might end up as our one-man brass section!

You’re latest album is A Good Year For Hardness. Can you talk a bit about the creative process on this record and how making this album compared to the process on your earlier stuff, especially now that Rick has changed roles in the band? How long did it take to write, rehearsal, finesse and then record these songs?

We wrote that those songs over the course of a year. I travelled back east on weekends when I could and we would write and play. It was a long distance effort but because we are seasoned professionals, the results are damn good.

You guys also have “The Machine Cuisine Companion Cassette available on iTunes now. Does it compromise all the material you talked about earlier? The demos between Pigeon and Severe Exposure?

Yes. It now sees the light of day again. Beware!

A few years back on the MySpace page, you had a ton of outtakes and rare tracks from the Severe Exposure & Machine Cuisine. You also hinted at demos dating back to the Weapon-era, Law Of Ruins outtakes, pre-Pigeon live sets (those I’m most intrigued in!). When and how will this material surface? (I notice SnoCap doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and there’s no listing on CD Baby for your stuff)

Not sure. We want to avoid dumping all our dirty laundry on the floor for people to sift through. We’ll see what happens. We need to proceed with a careful editing ear soothe high level of quality music is maintained. Integrity matters!

Lastly, music has changed so much now with the influence of the internet. Had it not been for the internet & you’re My Space page, this conversation between us wouldn’t be happening right now. What do you think of SIX FINGER SATELLITE now in the internet age? Has it been beneficial to the band?

I’ve thought about it. Believe me. When we were playing in our “hey day” if you will, this kind of stuff wasn’t around. And I was talking to people who are currently playing in bands and they’ll find out the band I was in and ask all sorts of questions. You have to realize, we were playing shows when you couldn’t get on your cell phone on the way to Pittsburgh and text or jump on you’re My Space and drop some announcement about where you’re playing. There wasn’t that kind of immediacy of it, but at the same time, there were still really vibrant scenes thriving in cities that I think were allowed to exist. I think without this digital internet age going on, it allowed us to be and grow organically. Ya know, if you wanted a record? You had to go and fucking find it. (Laughs) It wasn’t like you were going on-line and just downloading it just like that. We would go on tour and go to cities, and find all the record stores and search them! We all had a list of stuff we were looking for. And we basically would tear into a record store and be like “I got the S’s!” “No, I got the R’s!” (Laughs) We’d be fighting each other for records! And you’d wind up hearing stuff or finding stuff. It was definitely work! It’s great to have a lot of stuff at your fingertips, but I don’t know. I think in a lot of ways, it… makes you lazier. It doesn’t make you appreciate stuff as much.

(Laughs) Yeah, it’s not as special! The art of the hunt!

This immediacy has sort of… wiped out this sense of time and place. Which I think for music scenes, and that kind of stuff to grow, it’s important. You can be a band in Denver and no one in Denver could ever have heard of you and you could be the biggest thing in North Carolina. It’s true! It’s cool, but it’s also weird. So, from my perspective, I’ve never been that big of a networker. But I approach a lot of these things still almost as something new.

It’s weird, it’s weird. I mean, I remember I had to hunt for that “Machine Cuisine” 10 inch record! It was not an easy task finding that thing! Yet, your latest stuff is a click away! And even though I downloaded it, I still want the physical CD of it!

I’ve almost philosophically gotten my head around a lot of this stuff. But at the same time, I look at the internet as a tool to promote and get your name out there. If you’re making good music, you’re making good music. I just think its given people more access to stuff. As far as making bands successful over night, if you’re going to be a flash in pan, you’re going to be a flash in the pan whether you’re on the internet or not. As a tool, it gives people infinite possibilities to get their stuff out there, which I think is super cool.

J. Thank you so much for talking with us!

ICONS INTERVIEW: Jonah Matranga of FAR!

Editor’s note: This interview originally appeared on Icons Of Punk.com back in March of 2009 right on the cusp of the recording sessions for FAR’s “At Night We Live” album. I'm re-presenting it to you here because A) it’s a really fun chat that I'm proud of and B) for prosperity’s sake. Enjoy!

Whether you’ve heard of them or not, FAR has easily become one of the most influential bands of the last 10 years, even more so since they disbanded back in 1998 after sharing the stage numerous times with frequent touring mates the DEFTONES and INCUBUS. You can do a quick search on You Tube to find bands such as THURSDAY and FINCH covering FAR songs. Even bands like BLINK 182 & BIFFY CLYRO often cite them as a major influence.

Singer/frontman Jonah Matranga went on as a solo artist under the moniker of ONE LINE DRAWING & later played in the bands NEW END ORIGINAL & GRATITUDE. Guitarist Shaun Lopez formed THE REVOLUTION SMILE, while drummer Chris Robyn & bassist John Gutenberger played together in the band MILWAUKEE. (Robyn also played in WILL HAVEN, while Gutenberger played in TWO SHEDS & JACKPOT).

After 10 years apart, the band recently got back together & recorded a cover of the GINUWINE single “Pony,” intended for their fake My Space page as a tease for a handful of reunion shows they’d planned. Much to their surprise, “Pony” became a radio hit, and eventually led to a full on FAR reunion. Now, the 4 original members are back together and working on a new record for Vagrant. Considering my personal long term history with the band, I was excited to catch up with singer Jonah Matranga to talk about all things FAR. He spoke candidly & honestly in this exclusive, extensive interview that essentially has been… 10 years in the making. Read on! – By Rob Galluzzo – 3/09

Rob Galluzzo: Firstly, I have to thank you for talking to me because my history with the band FAR goes back many, many years. I don’t know if you’ll remember this but about 10-11 years ago, I used to work at one of the Tower Records here in New York, I was the artist that did the giant “Mother Mary” mural for “Water & Solutions” that hung in our local Tower Records in Long Island.

Jonah: Oh my gosh, that’s you?

That was me! (Laughs)

That’s amazing! I totally remember that. That’s fucking crazy.

I just remember around that time seeing FAR play in NY at Coney Island High with INCUBUS, and me & my buddy Steve got to meet you before the show and you’ve always been really great with chatting to fans before & after the shows. It was the first time I’d seen you guys live and I was so blown away by your live performance! You opened with “Boring Life” and half way thru, my friend Steve tackled you on stage to sing the chorus with you.

That’s so, so awesome.

Yeah, so I have wonderful, wonderful memories from back then.

Those are great memories. That’s one of my favorite things about sticking with this for so long, and really not just music, but just everything, just growing up and running into people. Like, I remember meeting you and it’s amazing to think of all the things that we’ve done since then. Just life! It’s crazy!

One of the other beautiful things, you guys came to play on Long Island, my band got to open with you, which was great. I remember talking to you beforehand and you were so supportive. I was leaving Tower Records at that time, and I remember you saying, “Well, you’ve got your band, so as long as you’re sticking with art somehow.”

Awe!

I’m glad you were always supportive of that!

Well, it’s all I’ve ever known so.

With all those memories, there was nothing more exciting for me to learn that FAR got back together and started playing shows again. How’d the reunion shows and the recording of “Pony,” the Ginuwine cover all happen? Did you guys keep in touch over the years?

Well, basically, the start of it was when I re-released two of our really old indie records, because people were just paying way too much for them on eBay, which is kind of silly. So we all talked about that and I ended up just paying for it and putting them out. Basically from the conversations we all had around those, we just… I don’t know. I think the crux of the decision was… it’s kind of now or never? It’s been long enough. Let’s at least get together and play this music together and get to know each other again. Just because, with life you never know & we’d already waited a long time. It was never like we hated each other, we all just shot off in our different directions. That’s how it started, hanging out at Shaun’s and playing a few tunes. Of course, we got all goofy about it and when we decided to play a show, we were like “Let’s play it under a fake name!” just to keep it really personal and strange and just for the people that really want to find out about it as opposed to this sort of hyped up thing. And so, we thought of this name and made a fake My Space page for it. “Pony” was literally recorded as a tune for our fake My Space page.

(Laughs)

It wasn’t even a FAR song. It was this thing that we did at Shaun’s house. We did it really fast, it was a song we all liked. (Pause) Honestly? That’s where the story… stops being even comprehensible to me? (Laughs) That’s where it got weird, but weird in a good way! I’m really, really grateful for it, but it definitely puts the thing in a whole different light. At first, this thing was just going to be a few shows and us hanging out and saying hi to anyone that ever cared kind of thing. That’s the basic gist of it. But since then, it’s just been nutty!



There’s a great You Tube video from one of the 1st two LA shows and it’s you guys closing the set with “The System” and it’s just totally bonkers! Obviously, it’s now been 10 or so years since you guys have played those songs. Did you have any inkling at the influence that FAR had on so many bands of today?

No, I mean… definitely, definitely not. It… when we were doing it, we were just misfits basically. What we knew that for a band that had sold so few records, we had a sort of surprising number of fansites. This is when fan websites were new. And we knew that we had a lot more fansites per record sold then any other band we knew, so we knew that the people that liked it really, really cared about it. So that was interesting. And then we’d run into other bands, and they’d be really nice & stuff, but it was egh… Short answer is no. We had no idea… We just knew that we were trying to make rock that was interesting and personal and like a lot of the bands that we loved at the time. Not copying anyone, but just going for that same spirit, which as far as we were concerned was just not being afraid to be super loud & aggressive, but also not being afraid in the same breathe to be quiet and introspective and sweet. It was a very simple for us. There was… (laughs) There was no big vision as far as our impact on the world. There was just a big vision in ourselves, that we wanted to make something that we thought was good. We all loved music so much so all we wanted to do was make music that we were really, really proud of and that could come on after our favorite record and would hold up to it at least in spirit, if not in talent. (Laughs)

I’ll occasionally You Tube FAR stuff, and I discovered the band FINCH plays a kick ass version of “Bury White”! They apparently played it every night on their recent tour.

We’ve been hearing about that. We hear over the years things like that happening. BLINK 182 talked about us on some DVD of theirs. Just a lot of weird bands that we never would’ve expected! And there’s a lot of bands from the UK actually who have been super, super complementary over the years and that’s been nice. I kind of learned about this influence as I kept going around & playing solo. The years would keep going by and it almost seemed as if the music that FAR made was getting more popular then, which was strange. But it’s great! I’ve always thought that one mark of music that’s worth something is that it lasts. So I’m really happy that ours has.



I’m really excited that you guys did re-release the first 2 records, because for a while they were really hard to find. As a musician, it’s always tough to evaluate your early material. You’ve written probably a hundred songs at this point! So what was it like to revisit some of your earliest stuff on those first 2 FAR records?

Well, ya know… they’re terrible. (Laughs) It’s not… I think they’ve got the spirit. I think that we were trying to find something interesting. It’s totally clumsy and ridiculous, and it’s hard to even listen to my singing. I think I was very self conscious at the time about the studio. It’s nothing that any of us sit around and listen to and go “Wow, those were the days!” Ya know? (Laughs) But we’re proud of what we were trying to do.

Well, I have to ask… in the liner notes for the very first record, you’ve got the…

Ah, the thing about TOOL.

Yes! It reads, “Thanks for nothing… TOOL (remember the good times, opening for us at the Cattle Club… hey guys! Let’s trade shirts!)” What’s the story behind that? 

Um… in short – Their first EP was coming out and they came and opened for us and a band called Fallacy, who were a Sacramento band at the time. So they were the 1st of 3 bands on the bill. They were… just… such unbelievable assholes to pretty much everyone there. To the people that were there to see them, to the bands that were playing with them. It was… (Pause) I don’t know.

Well, I take it you never forgot that show, I guess!

Yeah, and a lot of people haven’t, which is so ironic that they ended up being so big, because they were not big at the time. That was just me being a dick (in the liner notes). (Laughs) But I went up to them in my own stupid, innocent way after the show, and they’d already been jerks, but I was still trying to be cool, and I offered them a shirt. I said, “Hey, you guys want to trade shirts?” And they just all looked at me like I was the biggest loser in the world. It was such a bummer moment for me, because I was just so idealistic about rock and about touring and they were one of the first touring bands we’d played with. So we were totally naive and green, but they were just jerks. And it’s uh…

Well, that’s a shame. There’s always got to be one band like that, but it makes it worth it for all the great bands you do tour with who are appreciate & are beautiful about going on that experience…

And honestly, they taught me a lot about how I didn’t want to be. They taught me that – it’s great to meet nice people and learn from them and learn ways I do want to be. But it’s almost equally important to meet people that exhibit a behavior that makes you think “Yeah, ok. That’s what I want to avoid.” I’ll always give artists the benefit of the doubt when I hear something about them. I’ve heard so many rumors about me over the years. Um, when I hear a rumor about someone being a jerk or them being whatever they are being, I try to remind people to remember that that was one moment in their lives, you have no idea what was going on for them personally at that moment. Or it could be any number of things! So to sort of judge them and their whole personality. And so, as much as I was a brat and put it in the liner notes, I’m sure the guys from TOOL are fine. Or maybe they aren’t, I don’t know? I’m certainly not trying to say I know them, and I actually do know people that have become friends with them and say they’re really sweet. So for all I know, they were having a really hard night on tour that night, and they took it out on us. They probably don’t even remember that night. And frankly, if I… oh, no I’ll always remember it just because it was instructive to me as an artist of if I’m ever opening for someone and traveling around, just to be grateful, whatever mood I’m in. I’m not claiming to know them or whatever. They are who they are and that was just one crazy night 15 years ago.

Enough about TOOL then!

It is really funny. Obviously, none of this would matter if they hadn’t become this massive band. There’s plenty of other bands we reference in our liner notes that no one ever asks about, so obviously it’s kudos to TOOL. For being so huge.

It’s just funny to see way back in the liner notes of your very first independent record.

Believe me, it’s ironic on so many levels. But I like that! I once met Moby, and I don’t know if you’ve ever read his liner notes, but they’re pretty crazy. They’re sort of him pouring his heart out in the notes. So, I met him and told him, “Hey, I just want to let you know I really appreciate how open you are” and he said, “Well, yeah, because I want to write how I feel at the time, because if I don’t then I won’t have anything to look back on,” which is true. I really admired that. That was years after my liner notes, but it really felt like “Oh wow, there’s someone else that thinks the way I do.”

You’ve played with so many different bands, you’ve done ONE LINE DRAWING and solo stuff. How do you approach your music lyrically? Do you approach it differently for each band and who you’re working with? Or is it more a moment in time & what’s going on with you personally when you sit down to write lyrics?

I try not to be honestly. I try to let ideas come. It’s funny – having FAR writing new songs. All of a sudden, there’s this strange – I mean, I woke up this morning actually with something I don’t want to forget, in my head. Just some words, and it was this funny thing thinking, “Oh wow. Is this going to a FAR song? Is this going to a me song?” Who knows what this is? So, yeah I try to not think about that, because it gets in the way of anything coming out that wants to.

I wanted to ask a bit about the producers you worked with on the latter FAR records, because they’re people I greatly admire. On TIN CANS WITH STRINGS TO YOU, you had Brad Wood who had done the first 2 Sunny Day Real Estate records, he worked with HUM, and Veruca Salt and Liz Phair. He’s done a bunch of records that I love, so I was just curious what the recording experience was like with Brad? What’d he bring out of FAR for TIN CANS?

The main thing that I remember about Brad Wood, well he was a really, really sweet person. At the time, I think he was probably a little bit too sweet? I think he should’ve been a bit harder on us, because we were this very young band. We were very hyper-insular and into our little world and defensive about anyone who wanted to change it. And I wish he’d been a little tougher on us, because I think he could’ve broken us out of some molds and probably made that record a better record. Outside of that, the thing he taught me the most was – when I’d be singing a song, he would have a piano in the room with me, and I’d do a take and he’d say, “Ok, now plunk out the vocal notes your singing – plunk that out on the piano.” I would do that and then I would do another take and it would really, really improve my pitch and my phrasing. I’d have the melody much more in my head. It was just this little trick, I don’t know where he learned it, but that was what I really remember that he really changed about my singing; to really be reminded of the melody. And that was cool. I’m forever grateful. Also, he was really sweet. Him and his lady were so nice to us. They showed us around Chicago when we were mixing. They were so cool.

I love TIN CANS.

Oh, I love it too! I love them all in a strange way. To me, we can re-record a lot of songs off that record and they’d… be a lot better. (Laughs) A lot of people love TIN CANS. A lot of people like TIN CANS more then WATER, which is strange to us, but we totally get it.

One of the things that stands out for me personally on TIN CANS is the lyrical content on just about all of those songs. “Girl” was a song I know you’d had for a while. “Love, American Style,” I took that as your take on TV celebrity, or better yet people that are made into celebrities on TV. Even something like “Joining The Circus,” which could either be literal or a metaphor for touring & just always being on the road. These are things that I took away from those songs. Anything in particular that stands out for you from TIN CANS? Something that you’re proud of, lyrically or musically?

There are! That’s the whole thing. There’s some songs on there that I think are really neat. I think the centerpiece of the record is “Job’s Eyes”. It’s one of my favorite lyrics I’ve ever done, and as a song it’s just a big, intense song. A lot of those lyrics. “Punchdrunk”, “Seasick”… Actually, ya know? When you say it, words? Lyric wise? I think there’s some really neat stuff on there. “Boring Life” is a really neat & strange song. “Girl” is one of the most enduring songs. That’s the song that still gets asked about and really got to a lot of people.

It’s all great stuff there!

Well, thanks! I haven’t thought about that record in a while.

At the time that it came out, those songs really meant a lot to me. I love WATER & SOLUTIONS just as much, and of course the stuff that you’ve done after, but TIN CANS is just a moment in time for me personally and a lot of those songs speak to me.

Absolutely. And me too. No question.

For “Punchdrunk”, you give credit to Simon & Garfunkel for the little bit towards the end where you sing the “lie la-lie”. Did you guys have to give credit? Because it’s not that noticeable that it’s the melody from that song! I always wondered about that!

Yeah. That’s the funny thing. That was me being all… If I did that these days, I would never even bother, because no one had noticed it. And I don’t think anyone ever would of, frankly. But I made the mistake of asking someone at Sony “Hey, is this OK?” It was sort of the chain of people trying to cover their asses, I think? Because no one wanted to be the person that was told about it, but didn’t do anything about it. So, I really wish I’d kept my mouth shut, because it turned out to be a huge pain in the ass. (Laughs) And it was fine, in the end. But I wish I never said anything because then it would’ve been our little secret. (Laughs)



WATER & SOLUTIONS got re-released with a DVD about 5 years ago, and the thing that stood out for me was how overly complimentary you were with D. Sardy in the liner notes, and specifically on how important he was in making that record…

Absolutely.

He’s worked with everyone from HELMET to SLAYER to THE ROLLING STONES and OASIS, just so many different artists. It’s always interesting to see what D. Sardy does with each artist…

I feel sort of like we found him before anyone knew how brilliant he was! He was just working with his band BARKMARKET. That’s why we worked with him. The first song off of “L Ron” is one of the greatest rock n’ roll songs ever recorded. So you should get that record. But yeah, he’s incredible. He’s such an incredible artist and that was the record where I think we learned the value of a producer. That’s what I mean about Brad – we weren’t ready for a producer when we had Brad, which is too bad. I’d actually love to make another record with him some day. Because he I think had a lot to offer that we weren’t ready to hear, because we were all into our little crazy world. So, Sardy, we really let him in and he was fucking amazing.

Now, this was also the first record where you guys didn’t come in with completed songs? Whereas the previous one’s you had demos and songs you’d worked on, etc? WATER & SOLUTIONS was an album you guys kind of wrote in the studio?

Well, it wasn’t that we wrote it in the studio. Again, Sardy just came in and just kind of chopped up our tunes, in a good way. He just really got to the center of the songs in a way that I think we and the band, we were too close to the songs to see. We couldn’t see it the way he could see it. So yeah.

It also seems like you guys did a lot of experimentation on WATER & SOLUTIONS. One of the tracks that I love is “In 2 Again”, which is just totally different from anything FAR has ever done…

Yeah, that has another one of my favorite lyrics. That was one that I wrote back to front. There’s a few of those over the years in FAR where I just wrote all of it, and the band brought what they brought to it playing-wise. And it’s been a little bit tense sometimes within the band. But I’m really grateful when they give them a shot, because I think they make for interesting moments in our lives. The end of “In 2 Again” where it drops up and the new chord progression starts, the little BEATLES “She’s So Heavy” chord progression, when the drums come back in there, it’s one of my favorite moments on any record. It’s one of those moments that I can’t believe that I was a part of making it. And that was all Sardy. I remember when he brought us into the room and said, “Check this out, you guys.” We just all lost our shit! I sang that song in Belgium the other night because someone wanted to hear it. I’m really proud of that song.

NEW END ORIGINAL, a lot of people know that it was an anagram for ONE LINE DRAWING. And a lot of the songs on “Thriller” had existed in one form or another. 14-41 for example was a ONE LINE DRAWING song that you guys had re-recorded. I was wondering, did you guys ever get as far as starting the 2nd record? Did you ever get to the point where you got to write some stuff together with that particular band?

Well, NEW END as it existed in that first record was done way before we started writing anything new, as far as I remember. It ended pretty fast, which was sad. Me and Norman (Arenas) started working on a couple of other things after Scott (Winegard) and Charlie (Walker) left. So, we started writing some things. Actually, there’s a song called “Are You Sure?” that I ended up recording as a B-side for my last record? And that actually may end up on the new FAR record, because I still think it’s a really, really great song. So we’ll see.

My favorite song on “Thriller” is “Hostage”. It’s a song you get requested to play quite often on your solo shows. It’s a song that really stands out for me, I love the lyrics. I was just curious the history of that song. Was that something that existed for a while? Because, dare I say it, it felt easily in line with your work with FAR?

Yeah, that’s one of those songs that was almost on a lot of records. I wrote that song in 1994, probably? I tried to get FAR to play it, and we practiced it. And they just didn’t like it. (Laughs) So, we didn’t play it with them. And it just kept being the song that I kept enjoying. Then I showed it to Norman when we were making the NEW END record, and he was really into it. I think the arrangement of it on “Thriller” is beautiful. Charlie played these drums on it that are just astonishing. That song is one of my favorite things.

It’s awesome. (Laughs)

Yeah, I love playing that all the time. It’s a song that’s been through a lot for me. And it’s one of the most asked for songs.



You’ve always had a lot of interactivity with your fans, so I just wanted to know now with the internet – how has it benefited you as an artist, especially in the last several years?

It’s hard to even quantify. The main thing that it’s done and I’ve thought about this a lot. It’s allowed me to communicate really directly with anyone that cares enough to communicate. And that matters a lot. Because there have always been a lot of entities that seek to make their money in between the person who makes the stuff and the person that wants the stuff. Weather that’s chairs or music or anything. You pick the profession or the idea, and the people that make the most money are the people who run the distribution system. Which is fine. God bless ‘em and it’s a hard thing to run a distribution system and all that. I’m not mad at them. But there is a level in which it kind of gets in the way. Because basically, if someone in the distribution system for some reason decides that you don’t sell enough or do enough to make it worth it for them to put it in their distribution system, they’ll either A) not distribute it or B) give you a really bad deal. None of this is personal, it’s just the way business works and I wished more artists understood this. So, what the internet has done on every level – it’s opened communication. But even with communication – Facebook? My Space? None of us are making money! But we’re providing 100 percent of the content that people are making hundred of millions of dollars on. Not that we should make money for writing to our friends, but the whole point is that someone built this thing that yes it allows us to talk to our friends, but… that’s something we can already do ourselves. You don’t need a special new interface just to talk to your friends. Now, the internet itself is one of the miracles of history. The fact that I can type a few words here and all of a sudden a kid in Ireland can read it, it’s remarkable. Completely remarkable. But – once that technology is there, what I want to do is I want people, artists, whomever to take that simple technology and make it their own. And what happens when we don’t make it our own is that someone else comes in and says “Here’s how this should look.” My Space isn’t the internet. Facebook isn’t the internet. Those are places with a lot of rules. And a lot of blocks to doing really interesting things, but they do a lot of great things too. I’m on them all and I’m not hatin’. I really prefer the direct communication, so that’s what the internet has meant for me is the ability to talk to people with no one in between. With no managers or labels or stores, or portals or anything in between.

Imagine if we had that when we were kids? For kids that are fans of yours to have access to you personally and your music, it’s amazing.

That’s the thing. I think everyone’s complicit in this sort of comodification of that. Ya know, our friends band is a big band – They were talking about something where kids get to call some number – basically it’s just a voice mail number. Or they text or whatever it is to a certain place and leave their number. And then the band, from this sort of special phone line calls people at random. Which is great, that’s really, really sweet. But A) what’s the big fucking deal? Yeah, I understand that a really popular band can’t talk to all of their fans, I know I can’t talk to all of my fans. I mean, but – making a big deal about it and having another separate company that gets paid one way or another to set up all of this infrastructure, just so a band can call someone that likes them, I mean… how about a mailing list at a show? How about the band gets a cell phone that’s just the band’s cell phone and –

Leave it in the rehearsal space, and whomever’s in there can answer if they want. (Laughs)

I mean, whatever! (Laughs) It’s not that hard! I feel like there’s a lot of stuff where artists forget about their own power and own ability to affect people and maybe to avoid a little bit of work or hassle, they end up not only giving a lot of money away, but kind of giving a lot of the spirit away, I think, of what is interesting about this stuff. Ultimately, rock n roll – I know it’s huge, big business now and all that stuff, but it’s also a very internal thing, those connections. If anyone’s as much of a music geek as I am, they know it’s a really, really special connection. And I just really treasure it, and the experiences I’ve had over the years & the people that have liked what I do, are those same kind of geeks. I want to treasure that, weather it’s through unique recordings, or through playing weird little shows, on whatever scale! Or if I sell a gazillion records, like – the important part is the 15 year old’s dream part. That’s what keeps me going honestly.

So, what’s going on with FAR at the moment? Now that you’ve accumulated the fanbase that you have over the years, will the internet be the way you get these new songs out?

We’re just playing catch up. All we’re focusing on right now is writing the tunes, and just hanging out with each other and just being good to each other. We’re actually going to release the record through Vagrant. Actually it’s ironic, the guy that signed us to our very first Immortal record deal in 95, he just started a little management company, so we’re working with him which feels really good because he’s a familiar face. And he actually is the one that talked to Vagrant. It makes sense. It’s a very collaborative partnership sort of arrangement. I think it’s really cool for the band in our situation.

I’m looking forward to a new record from you guys or whatever you guys do next.

There’s going to be a new record. For sure. We’re writing songs that we really, really like, so yeah.

Are they in the vein of what you’ve done before? Is it a different approach to songwriting for FAR now? Or is it more of where you guys left off?

Um, (Laughs) I don’t think we’ve ever had a specific approach, so, it’s similar where we’re just throwing out ideas to each other and they’re all really, really different and we’re all sorting through them. I guess on that level, it’s similar, but honestly, we never had a way that we worked. Whatever came out, came out. Generally it’s kind of mess, and it still is a bit of a mess, but it’s fun!

Are you documenting all of this?

Yep. I never documented as much as I wanted to. That’s one of my big regrets in a way is that there’s a lot of neat stuff that’s happened that’s not on film. I sort of rely on people being there with their recorders at shows & then I get to hear it again years later. So, no there’s not as much documentation as I would like going on, but ya know, documentation changes everything.

Well, Jonah, I’m looking forward to everything you do and I hope you’ll make it out to New York soon. Thanks for talking to me.

Thank you! It’s really sweet to talk to you again. I like talking to anyone that cares to talk to me, but it’s cool that we’ve got sort of history, and so I’m really happy that you’re still excited about being creative.

The funny thing is – I hold you and FAR and that period from 10 years ago very close to my heart. Around the time that you guys broke up, I had fallen out of music. I was working & seeing every aspect of the music industry and it just kinda broke my heart after a while. So, I went back to movies because it was something that I genuinely loved as a little kid and it was something still pure to me. I launched Icons Of Fright about 5 years ago, just for my genuine love of these movies I enjoyed so much as a kid. So, I’ve been more focused on horror movies for the last 10 years because it’s something that’s from my childhood that meant something & is innocent and is untainted by any record label or anything like that. So now that we’re launching the music version of ICONS with Icons Of Punk, I’m rediscovering my love of music and catching up with bands and it just feels so fitting that FAR got back together at the same time that I got back into music. You guys got back together when I needed you to most! You know what I mean?

Yeah, it’s funny how that stuff works. And for me, it’s been music for me the whole way through. But weather it’s a horror website or being a teacher or being a lawyer, or whatever it is, I think the important part is doing it with heart. And so, whatever it is you’ve done, I’m just happy that you’re still doing it. And weather its music or movies or whatever it is – I’d love to write books some day. I’d love to make movies. I got to get killed in Mel House’s new movie.

Oh cool! That’s awesome! I didn’t know that!

It’s just fun! I just love making shit. (Laughs) So here’s to that!

Hells yes. Jonah, again, thank you so much for your time. And I’m fairly confident that our paths will cross again at some point.

Me too, man. Take care of yourself.

All my best.

ICONS INTERVIEW: Jeremy Enigk of SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE!

Editor’s note: This interview originally appeared on Icons Of Punk.com back in December of 2008 prior to the reunion of the band Sunny Day Real Estate. I'm re-presenting it to you here because A) it’s a really fun chat I'm proud of and B) for prosperity’s sake. Enjoy!

SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE is easily one of the most influential bands of the last 15 years, especially for any band that the musical media has classified under the “emo” banner. But at the forefront of SUNNY DAY has always been singer/songwriter Jeremy Enigk, whose unique voice and melodies have always set them apart for their many contemporaries and imitators.

After SUNNY DAY disbanded in early 95, Enigk recorded his 1st solo album RETURN OF THE FROG QUEEN. SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE got back together shortly there after and recorded 2 more albums together, HOW IT FEELS TO BE SOMETHING ON & THE RISING TIDE. Enigk, along with SDRE members William Goldsmith & Nate Mendel went on to form THE FIRE THEFT and released one self-titled record.

In 2006, Jeremy released his 2nd proper solo album WORLD WAITS, 10 years after his solo debut with FROG QUEEN. Currently, he’s wrapped up his 3rd studio album OK BEAR which is scheduled for release February 2009. He was kind enough to chat with IOP and answer all of our questions about his entire music career. Read on! – By Rob Galluzzo – 12/08

Rob Galluzzo: Jeremy, how are you, sir?

Jeremy Enigk: I’m good!

First and foremost, thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me.

Absolutely!

I’ve been with you since the “Thief Steal Me A Peach” 7 inch.

Wow!

So this is a total thrill for me.

Right on.

So, you have a new solo record coming out called “OK BEAR.” You went and recorded it in Spain, was it?

Yeah, in a town called San Feliu, which is near Barcelona.

What was the motivation to recording an album out there as opposed to your comfy home studio?

Well, I have a friend out there who owns a label, and he’s a friend I’ve had for years. Eventually, he just asked me if I wanted to go to Spain to record a record. He had a studio and some producers in mind and musicians. So, he asked, “Hey, what do you think? I’ll pay for everything. Just come out and do your thing.”

Wow. If it’s free studio time, how could you turn that down?

Yeah, it was an amazing opportunity. You just can’t refuse one of those offers.

This is the first time where you didn’t come prepared with an arsenal of pre-written songs. You sat at the piano and wrote brand new music on the spot. What was that experience like compared to the way you’re used to writing? Was it more challenging? Surprisingly natural? How’d you approach writing this record in that way? 

It was actually pretty easy. Because, I’ve done it… I’ve written enough songs that it’s pretty easy to know what to go into next. But also, what made it incredibly easy was that the guys I was working with were extremely prolific musicians. They were able to take anything that I wrote and sort of turn it into a cohesive song. I literally would sit down and write something really quick and hand it off to them. And they would do whatever they wanted with it. That was cool on one level, because it was very liberating for me. I didn’t have to work too hard on it. And also, everything sort of became a surprise. I wasn’t even aware of where it was going to go until we were done with it. So that’s how the process went.

It sounds like you’d start with an idea and the musicians you worked with would give you some options you could go with it?

Well, yeah. I mean, they didn’t give me any options. They did whatever they wanted. (Laughs) And that was cool to me, to an extent. That was the hardest part trying not to edit or not being allowed to edit myself too much, because I wrote the whole concept going in in the first place.

When your released “WORLD WAITS”, I was pleasantly surprised to see a few tracks that I’d recognized from your earlier solo tours; songs such as “Damien Dreams” and “Burn”. Do any familiar tracks appear on “OK BEAR” or is it strictly new material?

No, it’s all new.

I’m still holding out for a studio recording of “Asleep Under Last Weeks News”! (Laughs)

Oh ok. Well maybe, ya know? And I got some other old ones too that I was thinking about recording in the studio. Songs I used to play live a lot. But… we’ll see.



I wanted to ask you about that material. One of the things about your fanbase is that it’s very unique. I personally have never encountered anything quite like it. I’ve made friends on-line solely based on saying that I was a fan of your music and then they’d forward me links to these servers that host tons of MP3’s of your unreleased solo stuff from shows you did post-FROG QUEEN. That’s pretty amazing to me! The demand for unreleased songs that haven’t been properly recorded yet. Is that interesting to you? The idea of the fans kind of taking it into their own hands?

Yeah, I actually went to a website that has all of it. And I was blown away at the songs that I had forgotten that I even used to play. And… I was kinda bummed too. Because… I didn’t release or record those songs for a reason. Because I didn’t think they were very album worthy at the time. Yeah, it’s amazing that everything that you do is recorded and everybody knows about it. Even like the things that to me are totally obsolete. It’s amazing. I don’t know what this website is, but it’s got everything. It’s pretty crazy.



Back when you were on the FROG QUEEN tour, I was penpals with Anita Perkins who was part of your live orchestra. I know she mentioned back then that you intended to record the 2nd solo album and play a lot of the orchestrated instruments yourself. Obviously, SUNNY DAY reformed and it put your 2nd solo album on hold. But, did you ever begin recording a 2nd album for Sub Pop?

Yeah, well we started a 2nd solo record (for Sub Pop) and actually recorded one song with Anita and actually some of the other string players. And that was the first attempt that I ever had at completely writing all the music myself, without Mark Nichols who did RETURN OF THE FROG QUEEN with me. But that was the only song. And then, shortly after that SUNNY DAY got back together, and all my songs that were meant to be for a solo record were moved to SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE. Some of the songs on HOW IT FEELS actually.



A few years ago, when you first started recording “WORLD WAITS”, you hopped on the message boards and mentioned a potential live THE FIRE THEFT DVD, from a Seattle show? Is that still happening? Whatever happened to that project?

Yeah, actually – we sent it into a place and had a meeting with some guys about gathering all this material and editing it. I really don’t know what’s going on with that. That was about a year ago, and I haven’t really heard anything about it since. I think the reason why is because they’re sort of doing it pro bono. Also, there’s so much material, because it’s not just a live DVD anymore. The guy Maury (Duchamp), who was filming it unfortunately passed away, but he toured with us for quite a while. And filmed tons of shows, tons of interviews with us, and some backstage stuff. We figured we should probably do something more like he had in mind, more of a bigger documentary of the whole thing. So it ended up becoming a bigger project then we anticipated. And mainly to stick to what Maury wanted, in memory of him. He wanted to do a full-on documentary, but he wanted it to span over a long time. Unfortunately now that’s not going to happen.

Well, I’m sorry to hear about your friends passing, but I hope one way or another we’ll get to see his footage at some point. It’d be a fitting tribute.

Thank you.

It’s interesting because when you approached the lyrics for THE FIRE THEFT, this is one of the first times you weren’t writing lyrics with Dan, and I read you saying that you really wanted to say something with THE FIRE THEFT record. I think you accomplished that with songs like “Chain”, “Sinatra” and “Heaven”. But even before that, I thought you had a lot to say on THE RISING TIDE. I consider it to be one of the best things you’ve done lyrically.

Wow.

Take a track like “Killed By An Angel” for example. It wasn’t obvious to me immediately, but it’s a brilliant analogy for being killed by heroin use. Or at least that’s what I took from it…

Yeah, that’s totally… Wow, I’m glad you picked up on that.



I thought that was brilliant. “Faces In Disguise” is my favorite SUNNY DAY song. There’s a lot on THE RISING TIDE that I think lyrically is among your best work. I was wondering from your perspective, what stands out from THE RISING TIDE? Anything stand out from that record that you’re particularly proud of?

(Pause) Well, I have to think about that. I have to think about the songs and what’s on there. (Laughs) “The Rain Song” is a beautiful love song. That’s probably one of my favorites on the record. And just to clarify, that’s mainly Dan’s writing (lyrically) on that record. When we were recording it, as usual I would have main themes and concepts for the lyrics like “Killed By An Angel” and things for him to write around. But I was just so busy, because I was playing bass on that record, and I had my hands sort of in everything musically, that I was just like, “Dan, can you please just write the lyrics? I can’t even sit down with you.” And on a huge bulk of it, he actually spent a lot of time just writing (lyrics), so I can’t fully take credit for the majority of the lyrics on that record, so…

Multiple kudos to Dan as well, but it’s fantastic work from both of you. The first 2 SUNNY DAY albums are among my favorite sounding recordings, and I attribute a lot of that to Brad Wood, who you guys later reunited with for THE FIRE THEFT album. Can you talk a little bit about your working relationship with Brad? He’s engineered so many albums that I love. What did he bring or add to the first 2 SUNNY DAY records, and how come he didn’t record the latter 2 SUNNY DAY albums?

Well, obviously Brad is a pro, first and foremost. We had been listening to the Liz Phair “Exile In Guyville” record. So we knew right away that we wanted this guy to produce the (first) record, because of the raw sort-of indie quality recording that he had on that, yet still polished. Working on the first 2 records with Brad was amazing. There was inspiration there when I had no inspiration left. He’d sit me down and talk to me for about 2 hours and just tell stories. It had nothing to do with music or anything, he would just tell stories. And by the end of the conversation, I’d be completely rejuvenated, and ready to go into the studio and go into the vocal booth and just scream my face off. He’s also a great producer in that he can hear things, and gives you confidence in what you’re doing. A lot of times I’ll be unsure. But he’ll go, “No. That’s it. That’s the take.” He’s very decisive. I’m a very indecisive person, but he’s very decisive. He’ll say, “This it the take. This is the way the song should go.” And I’ve always appreciated that in producers who actually do their job rather then expect the musicians to just come up with everything. We probably didn’t work with him on the other 2 records just because we wanted to take a departure and do a different style record. A band constantly I think needs to change in order to keep themselves interested, to keep the fans interested. Change is good. That’s why we went with different producers later on.



Was it true that the way HOW IT FEELS TO BE SOMETHING ON came about was that you & Dan were asked by Sub Pop to help prep a rarities album collecting tracks for all your 7 inchs and were asked to perhaps record a few new songs to compliment that rarities album? And then that led to you guys deciding to get back together?

Yeah. That’s exactly what happened.

Was Nate Mendel a part of this as well? Was it all 4 of you when you were in the preliminary stages of getting back together for HOW IT FEELS?

No, we had been talking to Nate about it. And, he wanted to try to do it, but… he just couldn’t. He was way too busy with the FOO FIGHTERS. And I just don’t think he was ready to really jump into the chaos of SUNNY DAY anyways. (Laughs) He probably thought “FOO FIGHTERS? Or SUNNY DAY? I think I’ll go with the band that’s probably not going to break up.” (Laughs)

I really love “LP2” or “THE PINK ALBUM”, however you’d like to refer to it. I caught SUNNY DAY several times in your original incarnation on tour with SHUDDER TO THINK. At the time, although “DIARY” was the only album you guys had, you were already playing a bunch of songs from “LP2”. I always felt like the songs on LP2 had a SHUDDER TO THINK influence, at least in terms of doing odd time signatures. (“5/4”, “Theo B”) Were you guys influenced by your frequent touring mates?

Absolutely. When we started out as a band a huge influence on us was really anything from Dischord. SHUDDER TO THINK specifically – You know, Craig Wedren’s voice gave me the courage to… sing like a girl, and not feel weird about it. (Chuckles) Because I typically have a high voice and I like pretty melodies. So we were coming out of hardcore and punk rock, and I wasn’t sure if the punk rock scene & the hardcore scene that we were a part of was going to accept ultimately what I really wanted to do, as opposed to the screaming heavy stuff. Yeah, they were a huge influence on SUNNY DAY.

You opened for them the first few times I saw you guys, but when you came back to NY for HOW IT FEELS, I remember they opened for you, which was great.

Yeah… Ya know, I felt really bad. And I think some of them might’ve been kinda bummed? (Laughs) They probably thought, “Yep, these guys were opening up for us and now they’re headlining the show.” That’s just how it was set up though.

Why have the lyrics to “LP2” never been publicly available? I remember you doing a web-chat once, and someone asked you about a line on “THE PINK ALBUM” and your response was, “Wow, that’s not what I say. But that’s really beautiful.”

Yeah. (Laughs) Well, I mean we had broken up before we recorded the record, and we just decided we have all these songs, so we’re going to record them, even though we’re going to be inevitably breaking up. So, we broke up and we just felt like we were done. We put no energy into the artwork or into anything. Sub Pop had no idea what artwork we were going to have for the record, so they called William (Goldsmith) finally and asked, “William. Nobody’s responding. We need artwork if we’re going to put it out.” And William was just like, “Ah, just make it pink.” And… that’s why it’s pink. That’s why it’s so simple, there’s no lyrics or anything. And also, on a lot of songs, there aren’t lyrics! In a lot of cases, we never sat down to write them, because we just wanted to get it out of the way as fast as possible. So I just sang a lot of gibberish, which makes it really quirky. (Laughs)

(Laughs) The truth comes out! As fans, we heard your gibberish and made up beautiful lyrics out of them! (Laughs)

(Laughs) My favorite is the Japanese translations.

I have seen those on-line and they’re totally off.

Those are amazing. (Laughs)

Ya know, and it’s funny. I don’t know if you ever caught this, but hopefully you’ll get a kick out of it. Like you said, “LP2” were songs that you had at the time and you just put them all together. But I always found this underlining theme of fairy tales through out that whole album. I thought you were trying to do interpretations of fairy tales. Because “Song # 8”, starts with the lyrics “Rain song” and you later say, “Fingers stain my gold.” I thought you were referring to a leprechaun finding stained gold at the end of a rainbow. With “Waffle”, it sounds like you’re saying “Then I saw the magic glowing out of your hands”, which I thought was a wizard. And you have a song about a space cowboy named “Rodeo Jones”.

Wow! No we weren’t doing that. (Laughs) But wow.



Speaking of great titles, “Bucket Of Chicken”, was that meant for THE CROW soundtrack? Or did you record that for “LP2”?

Yeah, actually that was for THE CROW. And that’s probably one of the last songs we wrote before we broke up, well, broke up for the first time. In fact, I actually called the band – we had studio time booked the next day. That’s when I called the guys and told them that I needed to quit the band. And we went into the studio and recorded “Bucket Of Chicken” the next day.

Oh my. I recall a show where someone requested it and Dan said, “We’re never going to play “Bucket Of Chicken”.”

Yeah. There’s no way I can physically do it. I can’t sing and play that guitar line at the same time. It’s way too hard.

I have to know. What’s wrong with the state of California? Why did all 4 members of SUNNY DAY never play there properly?

Well, we actually have…

All 4 original members now?

Ohh, ok…

I got ya!

Yeah, you did. Yeah, I don’t know. That was Dan’s thing. We were planning on going on tour, and Dan just refused to go to California. So we just accepted it as it was. And eventually, it became kind of a funny thing. It was like, “Why would we not go to California? In fact, it’s kinda rad.” It doesn’t make any sense! We were still selling records there. He eventually got over it and we played California.

I hope that someone didn’t break Dan’s heart in California and he decided to curse the entire state over it. That would’ve been sad.

Nah. I think there was a rumor that it had something to do with the mafia. (Laughs)

I love that on the recent acoustic tours, you’ve been playing material from all of your bands and all your discographies. The great thing about it is I find all the SUNNY DAY or FIRE THEFT songs translate really, really well into acoustic versions. I know legalities may be an issue, but have you ever thought about doing a live album? Or perhaps a studio acoustic album of those tracks?

No, not really. I mean, especially with the SUNNY DAY stuff. For one thing, I only play the songs that I wrote. And even then, it’s kind of weird. I had an experience the other night where I was playing “In Circles” and I turn around to the amp like I did to that song every time I played it live. And I turned around to face my amp and face William, and… William wasn’t there. And it was really weird. I thought, “What the hell am I doing?” William’s not here. I don’t see Dan. I don’t see Nate. I… guess I’m not really answering your question. (Laughs) But, it’s a weird experience.

I understand. Those songs, they’re your “babies” collectively with those guys. You feel like you’d want to ‘see them off to college’ together.

Sure.

With “WORLD WAITS”, you launched your own record label, Lewis Hollow. And your new album will be on your own label. Although you & your band members have been coy about it, you guys weren’t always pleased with the way Sub Pop or later Time Bomb handled your material. I know first hand what a terribly frustrating thing that is. So, what have you learned from your experiences dealing with those labels that you’ve been able to apply with Lewis Hollow Records?

I think the biggest thing is… between the music, and having somewhat of a built in fanbase, it is possible for me to actually make a better living doing it myself, then on a label. No offense to any label that I’ve been on, but the system the way that it was and is, is kind of robbery. I mean… the musicians get a really small percentage and they hardly see any money unless they sell a million records. And that… was the biggest thing. It’s really hard for a musician to make a living. That’s the way the system is, and that’s the trade off, because a record label does have the money to put into publicizing your record, or tour support and that sort of stuff. You can get out there a lot easier, you just don’t see the backend. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned.

For most bands, they make all their money from touring and selling merchandise.

Right, merchandise is huge.

I know there’s record labels now that own merch on their bands…

Wow.

So sadly, a lot of bands these days have a really shitty deal. But quite frankly, with the internet these days, you’re far better off putting out your own stuff.

Yeah. I hope so. This “OK BEAR” is going to be the first real release on my own. “WORLD WAITS” wasn’t really a release on my own. It ended up being more of a label deal. So we’ll see. I’m definitely curious and exited to see what happens when after the record is released. I’m really hoping that it’s good.

I can’t wait to hear it. I’m sure it’s too early to say, but are you thinking about the next record, the next tour, etc?

Yeah, I hoping to (do another record). I was just talking about it a half hour ago, how I want to go record a new record again! I just don’t know how I want to do that yet. I have songs – I always say yeah, I want to go home from tour and record a record. But it always ends up being a year, 2 year long process either way. As soon as I get a chance, I need to jump in and just start swimming with the next one. But, I’ll be touring for “OK BEAR”, that’s definitely a priority. I’d rather be recording then touring, but touring is a big part of releasing a record.

Something that’s always been on my mind – I always wanted to ask about the cover images for the latter 2 SUNNY records, HOW IT FEELS and RISING TIDE. I love the imagery for both of them. The cover of HOW IT FEELS, is that a tattoo that you have?

Yeah.

The star, I just recognized it on an old SUNNY DAY bootleg video and saw it on your arm long before HOW IT FEELS came out. Is there any significance to that image? What does it mean to you personally and to that record in particular?

Well, that’s Dan’s design, and the moment I saw it, I loved it, and that was that. I loved its simplicity. Ya know, I’m not really into art too much. But the more simple, the more I love it. And that’s it. I just saw it, and thought I want that on my arm, and I also want that to be the cover of a record. Now, I wish I didn’t have any tattoos. But… it’s on my arm forever!

A constant reminder, pal! (Laughs) Now, the cover of THE RISING TIDE is actually a famous “bronze angel” statue in Vancouver, I believe. Was there any significance to using that for the cover image?

Well, the photographer who took it was just walking around there and took an amazing picture and said, “Hey, I’d like to submit this as a possible cover”. We loved it. It’s brilliant. It obviously fit in with “Killed By An Angel” just using the angel. It sort of fit.

It definitely encapsulates what that album is about.

It was really an amazing convenient coincidence, really, and not so much of a planned thing.

I’m sure you hear this all the time, but I can’t not ask this… In terms of the prospect of you getting back together with SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE, you’re often quoted as saying, “probably not, but never say never.”

Right.

So, realistically, what is keeping the 4 of you guys from getting back together? Is it a timing issue? Is it just that everybody is busy with what they’re doing now? What’s keeping you guys from making music together again?

Well, it’s history and our past. It’s um… well, when you break up with a girlfriend, it’s not likely that you’re going to get back together again. And it’s sort of the same thing. But… there’s still always a possibility. We do talk about it! Nate has been instigating a reunion. We talk about it seriously, and it’s a huge possibility. That being said, then it’s just a matter of details. And then it comes down to getting everybody together, and coming up with a real cohesive plan to do it. I don’t know if we really have the energy to do something like that. The SUNNY DAY machine is such a… it’s such a monster! And it takes over, it has a momentum to it that none of the band members can really control. So the moment we say yes or start doing something, it’s going to take off. Like a snowball, it’s going to turn into a huge, freakin’, giant… whatever. (Laughs)



So many bands attribute SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE and you in particular as being their biggest influence, and yet I don’t hear SUNNY DAY in a lot of these bands that say that. But it is interesting to see how you guys have slowly permeated music pop culture. An example, I have a friend who manages a Hot Topic. And they’ve got a mixed CD for in-store play for the holidays of popular “classic” music. On this mix are bands like QUEEN and DAVID BOWIE, and early GREEN DAY, JOY DIVISION, SIOUXIE and, sure enough… SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE.

Wow.

So, you guys are sandwiched between QUEEN and DAVID BOWIE at the playlist at Hot Topic this holiday season.

That’s amazing!

That’s really, really cool! I’m also amazed – I did a PROFILE piece on SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE, and in preparation, I went on You Tube and was amazed by the videos I found. The band PARAMORE does a cover of “Faces In Disguise” that they played during their most recent tour!

I’ve actually seen one of those videos and I think it’s amazing. I was absolutely flattered! Because, the singer, the girl (Hayley Williams) has an amazing voice! So, to see her sing it, that’s super flattering to me. I did see that too. From time to time, I will You Tube old SUNNY DAY videos, and I came across that.



Well, Jeremy, I really wanted to thank you again for taking the time out to talk to me and I really appreciate it.

My pleasure!