Lost in the Zone
[Meat Puppets]
Aug. 31, 2009
by Josh Barr
What happens on stage greatly defines a band. When live and stripped down to the goods, sans the smoke 'n' mirror Pro Tools, when left dependent solely on musicianship and showmanship, how do acts fair? Frankly, some barely muster applause, many disappoint, and others are revealed as the mediocre illusionists they've been all along. Often times, fans are left feeling victim to the ol' bait 'n' switch; the album is God's shoeshine-polished, the live show: sole-side crud. Where others falter The Meat Puppets thrive -- and have for nearly 30 years.
The Puppets have "it." In support of their latest, May's Sewn Together (review) (Megaforce), their 12th studio album fully, they're flaunting it once again this September through December all across North America. Aversion shared a phone line with Puppeteer frontman/guitarist Curt Kirkwood to talk touring, ADHD, the Frost/Nixon debate, and the now-and-again necessity of prompting certain audience members to contemplate gender re-assignment surgery and/or intentional self-asphyxiation.
One thing we've always admired about you guys is that you take the music seriously, but not yourselves. What do you think when you see musicians like Bono, Oasis, Kanye West and the like?
Curt Kirkwood: I don't know, I think they were probably into The Beatles just like everybody else but didn't watch Help enough times or something.
When writing and recording, you've said you're determined to streamline things and avoid over-thinking. What do you over-think?
CK: I'm kind of blessed with a short attention span. Tends to just be I'll over-think what I wanna see on TV over anything else when I'm channel surfing.
In your upcoming tour, what are you looking forward to, aside from the stops featuring [your son,] Elmo [Kirkwood] and [Brian] Dellinger [of Kirkwood Dellinger]?
CK: I tend to take that as it comes. I know I have what my obligations are, and outside of that, outside of trying to get a little bit of practice in, I keep my expectations kneaded. Generally what I'm looking for is good shows. It's tough to maintain that focus a lot of times, you know, ok, is everybody happy, are you fed, do you like the club, is the dressing room pissing you off ?these weird, petty things that everybody gets in to and I find myself constantly trying to bring it back and say regardless, let's just remember what we're doing here, we need to make sure that, no matter what, the shows are good, because people want to see a good show. And primarily, I also just drive on it. Being out there seems useless after you've had a show that doesn't go over the way you think it should.
Friends, reviewers and industry reps alike say The Puppets still have it in concert. How do you think this is?
CK: I think it's largely a combination of luck and having had our passions requited in the past, knowing how that feels and knowing when we're in the zone. We have plenty of material, but it's also just kind of being familiar with how it feels like when we're in the zone, and letting that happen. And that turns out to be something that you can practice all you want, and I like to practice ?mostly to learn material and get it down right, in our case, what that means I think is that in these shows, even in the renditions, that there seems to be just something going on that you can't really put your finger on. We've always been kind of lucky to be regarded as a good live band.
It's been said our kind -- the meat puppet carriers -- are incapable of multitasking. When you're on stage playing, what else do you typically find yourself thinking or doing? Does you mind ever wander?
CK: Sure, sure. I don't know if I agree with that belief. I don't know if I'm actually multitasking but I can be fully involved in what I'm doing and have my mind wandering into different things. I mean it goes to weird places but a lot of times I'm just checking out the audience, the club, the lights --there's an element that's kind of strange when you're in a good show it's almost like you could do it in your sleep. [While performing] I could totally be thinking about the Frost/Nixon debate and still be doing the show. I mean it can get really abstract.
In Rip It Up and Start Again [: Postpunk 1978-1984 (Penguin, 2006)], you're quoted with saying, "We were really into pissing off the crowd." Has much changed?
CK: In the past, it seemed we'd get kind of weird for [the audience] and if they wouldn't be getting it, we'd just give 'em shit or try to make it even weirder, try to make 'em leave, or make 'em so uncomfortable that they wanna go home and start considering a sex change or something. Faced with that kind of aversion], you know -- you're out there and [like] here's our beautiful stuff and people are like 'ehhhhh' and it's just like well why are you even here then? You make your choices. Good for you and your open mind. And hopefully you go home and put a plastic bag over your head and knot it around your neck.
We could be at that point in a show and it could change where we would be, I wouldn't call it hostile, but we'd be aggressively trying to uproot anybody who wasn't well into it, like this is where we're going.
The Puppets have worked into their sound different elements likened to acid rock, country western and have even been called cowpunk and so on. How tired are you of hipsters and music snobs coining new micro subgenres?
CK: Well you know they've all stumbled across some sort of special world of novelty that would warrant a new moniker or it's the king's new clothes, one of the two. I wouldn't wanna be able to be the one to say that, I'm not a critic, really, I've felt left out since I started. I still feel totally left out. I don't have any genre. I never adhered to one, never cleaved to one, never been involved in one of my own volition and have been included in rosters, et cetera.
It's kind of like in the '70s, in the personals in the back of the New Times in Phoenix, the local weekly, they would have in the personals on-going wars between people going like "Disco sucks" or "Metal rules." It was rock or disco, and you could go through it. I liked disco, it was fine with me; my first band played plenty of it, none of it bothers me. It's all just stuff that people did and they all did it in about the same time. The timeframe is the same, you can't go back and forward in time; they're doing it now so they're contemporary. Everything is by the hand of time, it's contemporary. It doesn't matter if it's retro, it doesn't matter if it's created an anachronism.
That's the overriding kind of oath that I see in terms of any categorization, that everything is contemporary. The fun thing about art is that it can be criticized, categorized too. In another way, the subtleties of it are all being subjected, they all are relevant in the game. That gives it that abstract sort of thing that kind of makes it fun. You can supposedly genre-jump and do a ballad here, do a metal song or whatever ?to me, it's just music. It's just what I want to play ?here's the next song.
I can't go and listen to an old record that I like and not be influenced again. For instance, when we were doing No Joke (1995, London) , oh look, The Offspring and Green Day are popular, pop-punk like we played 15 years before that is popular now -- so there's a side of the band going and elements in the band going so we should play the punk rock we know so well. It's like, No, if we do that, we'll sound like Green Day now, even though they listened to us. You also have to be careful with what the perception is of your own stuff; it's not the devil may care, I just do what I want and you can deal with it. I'm not into repeating things or being seen as an anachronist necessarily, so there's some responsibility there.
Lastly, gonna work in a James Lipton technique. Just for shits. I'll say a word. You say the first thing that pops into your head. Progressive Car Insurance TV ads.
CK: Horseshit.
Flomax TV ads.
CK: Horror.
The Jack LeLanne Juicer.
CK: I want one.
God.
CK: Jack LeLanne.
Pro Tools.
CK: Acid.
Your playing a Gibson Hummingbird plugged into your pedal board.
CK: Yeah. Right on.
The Meat Puppets.
CK: Tools.
Accessed: 9/5/09
http://www.aversion.com/bands/interviews.cfm?interview=454
[Meat Puppets]
Aug. 31, 2009
by Josh Barr
What happens on stage greatly defines a band. When live and stripped down to the goods, sans the smoke 'n' mirror Pro Tools, when left dependent solely on musicianship and showmanship, how do acts fair? Frankly, some barely muster applause, many disappoint, and others are revealed as the mediocre illusionists they've been all along. Often times, fans are left feeling victim to the ol' bait 'n' switch; the album is God's shoeshine-polished, the live show: sole-side crud. Where others falter The Meat Puppets thrive -- and have for nearly 30 years.
The Puppets have "it." In support of their latest, May's Sewn Together (review) (Megaforce), their 12th studio album fully, they're flaunting it once again this September through December all across North America. Aversion shared a phone line with Puppeteer frontman/guitarist Curt Kirkwood to talk touring, ADHD, the Frost/Nixon debate, and the now-and-again necessity of prompting certain audience members to contemplate gender re-assignment surgery and/or intentional self-asphyxiation.
One thing we've always admired about you guys is that you take the music seriously, but not yourselves. What do you think when you see musicians like Bono, Oasis, Kanye West and the like?
Curt Kirkwood: I don't know, I think they were probably into The Beatles just like everybody else but didn't watch Help enough times or something.
When writing and recording, you've said you're determined to streamline things and avoid over-thinking. What do you over-think?
CK: I'm kind of blessed with a short attention span. Tends to just be I'll over-think what I wanna see on TV over anything else when I'm channel surfing.
In your upcoming tour, what are you looking forward to, aside from the stops featuring [your son,] Elmo [Kirkwood] and [Brian] Dellinger [of Kirkwood Dellinger]?
CK: I tend to take that as it comes. I know I have what my obligations are, and outside of that, outside of trying to get a little bit of practice in, I keep my expectations kneaded. Generally what I'm looking for is good shows. It's tough to maintain that focus a lot of times, you know, ok, is everybody happy, are you fed, do you like the club, is the dressing room pissing you off ?these weird, petty things that everybody gets in to and I find myself constantly trying to bring it back and say regardless, let's just remember what we're doing here, we need to make sure that, no matter what, the shows are good, because people want to see a good show. And primarily, I also just drive on it. Being out there seems useless after you've had a show that doesn't go over the way you think it should.
Friends, reviewers and industry reps alike say The Puppets still have it in concert. How do you think this is?
CK: I think it's largely a combination of luck and having had our passions requited in the past, knowing how that feels and knowing when we're in the zone. We have plenty of material, but it's also just kind of being familiar with how it feels like when we're in the zone, and letting that happen. And that turns out to be something that you can practice all you want, and I like to practice ?mostly to learn material and get it down right, in our case, what that means I think is that in these shows, even in the renditions, that there seems to be just something going on that you can't really put your finger on. We've always been kind of lucky to be regarded as a good live band.
It's been said our kind -- the meat puppet carriers -- are incapable of multitasking. When you're on stage playing, what else do you typically find yourself thinking or doing? Does you mind ever wander?
CK: Sure, sure. I don't know if I agree with that belief. I don't know if I'm actually multitasking but I can be fully involved in what I'm doing and have my mind wandering into different things. I mean it goes to weird places but a lot of times I'm just checking out the audience, the club, the lights --there's an element that's kind of strange when you're in a good show it's almost like you could do it in your sleep. [While performing] I could totally be thinking about the Frost/Nixon debate and still be doing the show. I mean it can get really abstract.
In Rip It Up and Start Again [: Postpunk 1978-1984 (Penguin, 2006)], you're quoted with saying, "We were really into pissing off the crowd." Has much changed?
CK: In the past, it seemed we'd get kind of weird for [the audience] and if they wouldn't be getting it, we'd just give 'em shit or try to make it even weirder, try to make 'em leave, or make 'em so uncomfortable that they wanna go home and start considering a sex change or something. Faced with that kind of aversion], you know -- you're out there and [like] here's our beautiful stuff and people are like 'ehhhhh' and it's just like well why are you even here then? You make your choices. Good for you and your open mind. And hopefully you go home and put a plastic bag over your head and knot it around your neck.
We could be at that point in a show and it could change where we would be, I wouldn't call it hostile, but we'd be aggressively trying to uproot anybody who wasn't well into it, like this is where we're going.
The Puppets have worked into their sound different elements likened to acid rock, country western and have even been called cowpunk and so on. How tired are you of hipsters and music snobs coining new micro subgenres?
CK: Well you know they've all stumbled across some sort of special world of novelty that would warrant a new moniker or it's the king's new clothes, one of the two. I wouldn't wanna be able to be the one to say that, I'm not a critic, really, I've felt left out since I started. I still feel totally left out. I don't have any genre. I never adhered to one, never cleaved to one, never been involved in one of my own volition and have been included in rosters, et cetera.
It's kind of like in the '70s, in the personals in the back of the New Times in Phoenix, the local weekly, they would have in the personals on-going wars between people going like "Disco sucks" or "Metal rules." It was rock or disco, and you could go through it. I liked disco, it was fine with me; my first band played plenty of it, none of it bothers me. It's all just stuff that people did and they all did it in about the same time. The timeframe is the same, you can't go back and forward in time; they're doing it now so they're contemporary. Everything is by the hand of time, it's contemporary. It doesn't matter if it's retro, it doesn't matter if it's created an anachronism.
That's the overriding kind of oath that I see in terms of any categorization, that everything is contemporary. The fun thing about art is that it can be criticized, categorized too. In another way, the subtleties of it are all being subjected, they all are relevant in the game. That gives it that abstract sort of thing that kind of makes it fun. You can supposedly genre-jump and do a ballad here, do a metal song or whatever ?to me, it's just music. It's just what I want to play ?here's the next song.
I can't go and listen to an old record that I like and not be influenced again. For instance, when we were doing No Joke (1995, London) , oh look, The Offspring and Green Day are popular, pop-punk like we played 15 years before that is popular now -- so there's a side of the band going and elements in the band going so we should play the punk rock we know so well. It's like, No, if we do that, we'll sound like Green Day now, even though they listened to us. You also have to be careful with what the perception is of your own stuff; it's not the devil may care, I just do what I want and you can deal with it. I'm not into repeating things or being seen as an anachronist necessarily, so there's some responsibility there.
Lastly, gonna work in a James Lipton technique. Just for shits. I'll say a word. You say the first thing that pops into your head. Progressive Car Insurance TV ads.
CK: Horseshit.
Flomax TV ads.
CK: Horror.
The Jack LeLanne Juicer.
CK: I want one.
God.
CK: Jack LeLanne.
Pro Tools.
CK: Acid.
Your playing a Gibson Hummingbird plugged into your pedal board.
CK: Yeah. Right on.
The Meat Puppets.
CK: Tools.
Accessed: 9/5/09
http://www.aversion.com/bands/interviews.cfm?interview=454
