*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!
