IPOD
RADIO
Tomahawk
By Erin Broadley
Jun 29, 2007
When Ipecac Records band Tomahawk first surfaced in 2001 with its self-titled debut, rock talk swirled regarding the meaning behind the band’s name and, more specifically, whether or not it was a reference to Native American culture. It didn’t take a genius to realize that, yes…it was. Now with the recent release of its third album Anonymous, Tomahawk has delivered an album that finally bridges the gap between the band’s name and the culture it references. Released June 19, Anonymous is an album based on hundred-year-old transcriptions guitarist Duane Denison found of un-credited Native American songs. After being given what Denison calls the “Tomahawk Treatment” by him and band members John Stanier (drums) and Mike Patton (vocals), the songs were transformed masterfully into a contemporary statement about the nameless creators of the original music. It’s a concept album of sorts, but really, what album isn’t? It’s an album that gives voice -- albeit a hauntingly maniacal voice -- to those who never had one. Patton told SuicideGirls,
“It was a totally unique concept. One that I had not heard any other ‘rock’ bands attempt. It seemed perfect for Tomahawk, and Duane sent me bits and pieces of the source material that just blew me away. It was also quite a challenge. We had to stay true to the spirit yet bring it to modern day. I tip my hat to Duane. I'm pretty fortunate in that most of my fan base is up for adventure. We are not kidding ourselves to think that it will get 5 stars in Rolling Stone or Spin. This music is not a commodity. We are not planning on hanging platinum records on the walls. We tend to be ‘anonymous’ to the mainstream. Ironically the people that I am most anxious to hear from are the Native Americans. [As for my vocals] it was wide open. A lot of the original vocals just flowed in and out of the music like another instrument. I love that!”
SuicideGirls caught up with Duane Denison at his home in Nashville, Tennessee to get the full story…
Erin Broadley: Hey Duane, how are you?
Duane Denison: Good. Hold on a sec. I’m going to go outside where you can hear the chirping of birds in lovely Tennessee.
EB:
You’ve said that Anonymous was motivated by your interest in finding Native American music that was more aggressive, spookier and more kinetic than the norm. What exactly was it about the music you had been hearing that left you unsatisfied and wanting more?
DD:
Just that it was plainly too conventional. I had seen a number of native bands play at gigs throughout the West mostly at casinos and reservation gigs. I played at the Native American Music Awards in Gallup, NM with Hank III back in 2000 and it was all native bands and for the most part. I don’t mean to diss them but I was sort of disappointed and taken aback by how conventional it seemed. It just sounded like Southern rock or blues or country. Or else it sounded like new age drum circle, chantey stuff. And I just thought, “Well this is a drag! This can’t be all there is.” So I just kind of made a mental note of it and tucked it away. Then I started doing some research into different anonymous stuff because we started this album with the concept of it being based on anonymity. Our sources would be anonymous, public domain, older stuff for a couple of reasons: it’s interesting and you don’t have to worry about copyright or anything like that once it gets past a certain age. We also liked the idea of anonymity because it seems like -- in music and in American entertainment and culture in general today -- there’s this mindset where people will do anything to be famous. And it seemed really cool to do something involving people who can’t be famous because you don’t really know who they are.
EB:
I think it also reflects the whole history of the Native American movement and being a silenced and forgotten people without a voice in history.
DD:
Of course, that too. People are aware of certain tribes and a few famous Native American individuals throughout history.
EB:
But for the most part, they're nameless.
DD:
Yeah, for the most part. The people who created the most stuff and were the real nuts and bolts of that society, we'll never know who they are.
EB:
I found it fascinating that, to your knowledge, this music has never been recorded. Was that an ideal opportunity? I mean, it seems like a chance to be the Indiana Jones of rock and roll...
DD:
(Laughs) Yeah. I don’t want to build it up too much and talk about it like it’s a brilliant discovery where the likes of which have only been seen on this level…but you know, you’re absolutely right. And not only that but I felt like I was on to something that I hadn’t heard anyone else do. To me, it removes some of the stigma that I feel might be associated with doing a project like this. You look at a group like the Rolling Stones, when they first started and even still, there's no denying that a lot of what they did was directly based on recordings of black American blues artists. And they admit it. And to their credit they’ve always admitted it. To their credit, the people who they’ve borrowed from, whether it’s Muddy Waters or whoever, actually like them and thank them. I’ve heard interviews with BB King where he thanks the British invasion for covering his music.
EB:
He didn’t feel slighted by it?
DD:
No, these artists’ careers were rejuvenated by it. So anyway, this Tomahawk album was not like that. We did not have any recordings to copy or study or steal from. We just had these transcriptions. It was there and it wasn’t. All that was there was the barest of bones, the barest of blueprints. I just dug into these things and picked the ones that I thought were the most interesting and recorded some rough demos, very basic with a guitar and drum machine and played them for everyone. I let them further narrow it down to see which ones seemed best suited for the Tomahawk treatment.
EB:
When you came across the books and source material, did that discovery come before the interest and decision to turn it into a new record?
DD:
Yes, absolutely. I’m glad you mentioned that because I was just fascinated by the quality of it and that it bore no relation to what I had heard done. It was interesting on a strictly musical level. It was fun to play with. I make a living playing music so I’m always working on something that, one way or another, is a form of commercial art. On one hand, I do try to be unique and original and exciting. On the other hand, let’s face it I’m always somewhat concerned with what other people will think because we have to sell it. If people are going to come to shows and buy the album, it has to be something worth selling. But that’s not all I ever do. I work on stuff and practice stuff at home during my free time that I don’t ever do anything with. I’ve got tons of books and stuff that I play with for my own enjoyment and not for anyone else. So when I found this native stuff I didn’t really have any big plans for it. I just played it because I liked it.
EB:
You weren’t holed up in a library scouring books like, “Oooh what can I steal and sell...”
DD:
No, not at all. It was just a lucky catch. I don’t have any native blood but I’m going to play with it because no one else is. Originally, when we first started doing it with Tomahawk, we thought that maybe we would just do a few tracks and use them as interludes between songs and do a rock album more along the lines of the last two. But then we decided to just make a big jump and do the whole album like this. We’ve shown we can do the other stuff. We don’t have to prove that we can rock anymore. Collectively we’ve made dozens of albums in that genre. We wanted to just do something different and see what happens. There’s a huge [lyrical element] to this album. Some of it is very phonetic, just based on sounds. Some of the songs had translations. And some of it was still in the native language of those who wrote it so you just read it and hopefully make it sound like what it was supposed to sound like.
EB:
And Mike is perfect for that...
DD:
Yeah, absolutely. There was a lot of stuff that we added where we used the native stuff as basic, background material and then developed it. We created loops out of it and made sequences. Some of the lyrics are definitely just made up for that particular song. There’s a mix of everything in there. Mike's voice and vocal range were just perfect. Not that I’m bragging about it, but I really think it’s one of the best things he's ever done. I don’t like it when I see other people brag too much. But on the other hand I’m also wary of people who are overly humble. (Pauses) Can you hear that bird chirping?
EB:
Yeah, it sounds beautiful.
DD:
It’s nice. I’m in the backyard. Anyway, I get tired of humbleness because I hate it when people say, “I’m just doing it for myself and if other people like it then cool.” Well, I never believe that because if you’re really doing it just for yourself then why on earth are you making an album? Why are you packaging it and publicizing it and releasing it and going through all the trouble. If you’re truly doing it for yourself, you’re not going to go through all that!
EB:
Absolutely. I’ve come across a lot of musicians with that attitude. I always say look, the minute you take your music out of your garage, the minute you bring your music into a public or commercial forum, you take on a whole new responsibility when it comes to your audience. If you’re selling them something then you bet your ass you’d better believe in or else why should they?
DD:
Yes, oh yeah...see now we're getting on a topic. This is interesting now, Erin. The minute you step on stage you better have a pretty strong ego to get up in front of people and charge them money. You must think that what you’re doing is good because how on earth can you justify doing it otherwise? There's a certain amount of ego involved in that as well and you have to have it or you’ll just crumble up and wither away. So when I hear people trying to be humble in that regard…well guess what? I don’t believe you. Look, I’m not a celebrity, I’m a musician. If people know who I am it’s because of what I do and not because of what I look like or how I act or my outrageous opinions. When I hear celebrities complain about how they can’t go anywhere without being recognized, I mean, these people have spent their whole lives trying to be famous. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with publicists to make sure their name is everywhere and that their picture is everywhere and that they’re on all the talk shows. And then, they complain when people recognize them. Isn’t that ridiculous?!
EB:
Of course it is.
DD:
But that’s all part of the celebrity culture we live in now. Paris Hilton? What does she DO? What is she actually good at besides her body?
EB:
She's good at working out.
DD:
Exactly. She's shown she can hang out at the gym all day. And her sister has no talent! Even Paris Hilton, who I have to admit I kind of like for some reason...
EB:
Really? (Laughs)
DD:
Yeah, I don’t dislike her. I don’t know why. I should but I just don’t. But what does she actually do? What does she do to warrant that fame?
EB:
I’m not sure.
DD:
She's not a good actor or actress. Oh, by the way, I don’t mind saying the word "actress" even though people say its not PC anymore. Do you?
EB:
(Laughs) No, I don’t mind at all. I always say “actress.”
DD:
I mean, male and female are not the same.
EB:
I still say “stewardess” even though I guess I’m supposed to say "flight attendant." Fuck that, man.
DD:
I do too! And I still say “waitress.” I don’t think there's anything bad with that. Men and women are not the same and by adding "-ESS" at the end I do not think I’m demeaning anyone. I’m so tired of it. Guys like me are not the enemy. Anyway...what were we talking about? Oh yeah, Tomahawk...okay. (Laughs)
EB:
(Laughs) It’s all related.
DD:
Right. The anonymity factor. There are a lot of people who are doing great things who will never get any recognition for it.
EB:
Exactly, there are those who complain about being in the spotlight and complain about the recognition and then there are people who will never have a voice but would love one.
DD:
If you look back, I’m not sure when this happened but I was reading about it in some art book, hundreds of years ago people created art and built massive architecture that took generations to build and we have no idea who they were. Whereas nowadays some guy has some motorcycle shop and he's a celebrity because he customizes motorcycles. Come on. One more musical thing I would like to point out is that, one of the byproducts of working on the native stuff is that I noticed a fair amount of melodies were written in this mode based on this five-tone pentatonic scale, which goes a long way towards the idea of the land bridge that may or probably existed between Asia and North America, across Alaska. It seems to me that a lot of this music sounds like Asian folk music, like what you would hear played on flutes and stuff in Korea or Japan or China. It seemed to me that, if those are the people that came across the land bridge -- the Native Americans -- then it makes nothing but sense! In the bigger sense, if you listen to the blues and a lot of African folk music and even Celtic music...it’s all the same scale. So it makes me think there’s this sort of universal pentatonic thing going on here and this is part of it. Isn’t that cosmic?!
EB:
I think it’s amazing. With this music being over 100 years old, what is it about the way you guys are presenting the material that you think is going to help it connect with modern day listeners?
DD:
Obviously we're not purists. Obviously we're using electric guitars and drums and samplers and modern studio techniques. It sounds more like a rock album. It seems to me that people who like our previous stuff will be drawn to it because it’s something they’re familiar with. Maybe they trust that we make good music. Yet it’s also different in a way. It’s not just another rock album or another rock product. I’d like to think there's a fair amount of people out there who, even though they say they’re into rock and the rock scene or whatever, that’s not all they listen to. They like to have something that steps away from that in a more atmospheric way. But at the same time I don’t want to be lumped in with some kind of world beat thing...
EB:
Right. Well, you mentioned how bare bones the material was that you had to work with. What were some of the challenges you faced with making it a Tomahawk record but still staying true to the original structure?
DD:
Well, there you go. That was the challenge! (Laughs) That was a good question. Um, you want to somehow try and capture the essence of the piece as simply as possible and then develop it. For me the hard part, and also for Patton, was developing it in a way that didn’t seem overly thought out or overly contrived. It would have been easy to take a simple melody and say make a feud out of it! Like, repeat this half way through only a fifth below that and have this other voice and invert it and have this happen, you know what I mean? I wanted to keep it more transparent and straightforward.
EB:
More immediate?
DD:
Yes, exactly. We didn’t want it to come off at all like an academic exercise. But at the same time we didn’t want it to come off like a gag or like a novelty act. We didn’t want it to be like, “Oh we're just going to mess around with this and hopefully people will like it because we're Tomahawk!” Hopefully we avoided that. When you make music and you’re interpreting stuff, there's a certain amount of license you have to take and should be happy to take. But at the same time you want to preserve the integrity of the source material. Whether we did or not is for other people to decide.
EB:
You mentioned interpretation, which this album definitely embodies. But I know that Tomahawk is also a lot about collaboration, particularly with the way you work with the guys. You write the bulk of the music and then Mike said that you guys will leave each other voicemails with your baby blabbering all over them, exchanging ideas to flush out a song. Creatively, when it comes to the differences between interpretation and collaboration, do you prefer one to the other?
DD:
No. Actually I kind of liked having the interpretive element with this. All the other stuff, when you’re writing songs from the ground up, it’s all collaboration at that point. You’re making it up from the get-go. Whereas with this it was kinda cool to have the rough framework already set. It already had a direction. It used to be that you’d make cassettes and send them back and forth and that turned into CDs and nowadays you can record and home demo and load it into your computer and send a file and someone halfway around the world will have it that day. If you’ve got the technology now you can make up for the distance between people. So that’s one of the benefits of that. On the other hand, I really think there’s still something to just bashing it out, just getting together and putting it in real time and deciding what sounds good and what doesn’t right then and there.
EB:
Well, besides Tomahawk and Hank III, you were also the guitarist for the Jesus Lizard, which is considered a quintessential live band. One of the last times I talked to Mike he mentioned that Tomahawk functions so well as a live band that it could not exist without playing live. What do you think it is that attracts you to bands that really thrive in the live environment?
DD:
For me that’s when it’s the most real. I’m glad, it’s funny you mentioned that because I just played a show Saturday night with this new band I have U.S.S.A. It is me and Paul Barker from Ministry and a couple of guys. We had a really great here in Nashville. I realized that if it weren’t for playing live I probably wouldn’t even do this. I like the creativity in recording. It’s fun to put things out but to me there’s just something primitive and ritualistic to playing live. It’s very basic and elemental. It’s just one of the basic straightforward forms of communication. It’s life affirming and there's an excitement there that I just don’t get from anything else. I like the fact that as a player you’ve got one chance. You play those songs and if you screw it up then tough luck. You’ve got to live with it. Especially nowadays with the YouTube generation -- everything you ever do is being recorded in some way. From now on, everything you ever do, especially musically, someone is going to be recording it. If you make a mistake they’ll be blogging about it immediately. It’s ridiculous. (Laughs)
EB:
Well when it comes to playing live, how do you see this material fitting in with the other two albums in Tomahawk’s live set?
DD:
I don’t know. I don’t think there will be any problems with it. We don’t have any immediate plans to play live. It took so long for this album to come out. I started on this stuff years ago, so now that it’s finally come out we're all involved in other things. John Stanier plays in Battles, Mike has Peeping Tom and I’ve got this thing U.S.S.A and we have an album coming out in the Fall. And now that those things are going I don’t want to pull back from them. So we don’t know what will happen. Keep moving forward, you know.
For any and all things Tomahawk check out www.ipecac.com
When Ipecac Records band Tomahawk first surfaced in 2001 with its self-titled debut, rock talk swirled regarding the meaning behind the band’s name and, more specifically, whether or not it was a reference to Native American culture. It didn’t take a genius to realize that, yes…it was. Now with the recent release of its third album Anonymous, Tomahawk has delivered an album that finally bridges the gap between the band’s name and the culture it references. Released June 19, Anonymous is an album based on hundred-year-old transcriptions guitarist Duane Denison found of un-credited Native American songs. After being given what Denison calls the “Tomahawk Treatment” by him and band members John Stanier (drums) and Mike Patton (vocals), the songs were transformed masterfully into a contemporary statement about the nameless creators of the original music. It’s a concept album of sorts, but really, what album isn’t? It’s an album that gives voice -- albeit a hauntingly maniacal voice -- to those who never had one. Patton told SuicideGirls,
“It was a totally unique concept. One that I had not heard any other ‘rock’ bands attempt. It seemed perfect for Tomahawk, and Duane sent me bits and pieces of the source material that just blew me away. It was also quite a challenge. We had to stay true to the spirit yet bring it to modern day. I tip my hat to Duane. I'm pretty fortunate in that most of my fan base is up for adventure. We are not kidding ourselves to think that it will get 5 stars in Rolling Stone or Spin. This music is not a commodity. We are not planning on hanging platinum records on the walls. We tend to be ‘anonymous’ to the mainstream. Ironically the people that I am most anxious to hear from are the Native Americans. [As for my vocals] it was wide open. A lot of the original vocals just flowed in and out of the music like another instrument. I love that!”
SuicideGirls caught up with Duane Denison at his home in Nashville, Tennessee to get the full story…
Erin Broadley: Hey Duane, how are you?
Duane Denison: Good. Hold on a sec. I’m going to go outside where you can hear the chirping of birds in lovely Tennessee.
EB:
You’ve said that Anonymous was motivated by your interest in finding Native American music that was more aggressive, spookier and more kinetic than the norm. What exactly was it about the music you had been hearing that left you unsatisfied and wanting more?
DD:
Just that it was plainly too conventional. I had seen a number of native bands play at gigs throughout the West mostly at casinos and reservation gigs. I played at the Native American Music Awards in Gallup, NM with Hank III back in 2000 and it was all native bands and for the most part. I don’t mean to diss them but I was sort of disappointed and taken aback by how conventional it seemed. It just sounded like Southern rock or blues or country. Or else it sounded like new age drum circle, chantey stuff. And I just thought, “Well this is a drag! This can’t be all there is.” So I just kind of made a mental note of it and tucked it away. Then I started doing some research into different anonymous stuff because we started this album with the concept of it being based on anonymity. Our sources would be anonymous, public domain, older stuff for a couple of reasons: it’s interesting and you don’t have to worry about copyright or anything like that once it gets past a certain age. We also liked the idea of anonymity because it seems like -- in music and in American entertainment and culture in general today -- there’s this mindset where people will do anything to be famous. And it seemed really cool to do something involving people who can’t be famous because you don’t really know who they are.
EB:
I think it also reflects the whole history of the Native American movement and being a silenced and forgotten people without a voice in history.
DD:
Of course, that too. People are aware of certain tribes and a few famous Native American individuals throughout history.
EB:
But for the most part, they're nameless.
DD:
Yeah, for the most part. The people who created the most stuff and were the real nuts and bolts of that society, we'll never know who they are.
EB:
I found it fascinating that, to your knowledge, this music has never been recorded. Was that an ideal opportunity? I mean, it seems like a chance to be the Indiana Jones of rock and roll...
DD:
(Laughs) Yeah. I don’t want to build it up too much and talk about it like it’s a brilliant discovery where the likes of which have only been seen on this level…but you know, you’re absolutely right. And not only that but I felt like I was on to something that I hadn’t heard anyone else do. To me, it removes some of the stigma that I feel might be associated with doing a project like this. You look at a group like the Rolling Stones, when they first started and even still, there's no denying that a lot of what they did was directly based on recordings of black American blues artists. And they admit it. And to their credit they’ve always admitted it. To their credit, the people who they’ve borrowed from, whether it’s Muddy Waters or whoever, actually like them and thank them. I’ve heard interviews with BB King where he thanks the British invasion for covering his music.
EB:
He didn’t feel slighted by it?
DD:
No, these artists’ careers were rejuvenated by it. So anyway, this Tomahawk album was not like that. We did not have any recordings to copy or study or steal from. We just had these transcriptions. It was there and it wasn’t. All that was there was the barest of bones, the barest of blueprints. I just dug into these things and picked the ones that I thought were the most interesting and recorded some rough demos, very basic with a guitar and drum machine and played them for everyone. I let them further narrow it down to see which ones seemed best suited for the Tomahawk treatment.
EB:
When you came across the books and source material, did that discovery come before the interest and decision to turn it into a new record?
DD:
Yes, absolutely. I’m glad you mentioned that because I was just fascinated by the quality of it and that it bore no relation to what I had heard done. It was interesting on a strictly musical level. It was fun to play with. I make a living playing music so I’m always working on something that, one way or another, is a form of commercial art. On one hand, I do try to be unique and original and exciting. On the other hand, let’s face it I’m always somewhat concerned with what other people will think because we have to sell it. If people are going to come to shows and buy the album, it has to be something worth selling. But that’s not all I ever do. I work on stuff and practice stuff at home during my free time that I don’t ever do anything with. I’ve got tons of books and stuff that I play with for my own enjoyment and not for anyone else. So when I found this native stuff I didn’t really have any big plans for it. I just played it because I liked it.
EB:
You weren’t holed up in a library scouring books like, “Oooh what can I steal and sell...”
DD:
No, not at all. It was just a lucky catch. I don’t have any native blood but I’m going to play with it because no one else is. Originally, when we first started doing it with Tomahawk, we thought that maybe we would just do a few tracks and use them as interludes between songs and do a rock album more along the lines of the last two. But then we decided to just make a big jump and do the whole album like this. We’ve shown we can do the other stuff. We don’t have to prove that we can rock anymore. Collectively we’ve made dozens of albums in that genre. We wanted to just do something different and see what happens. There’s a huge [lyrical element] to this album. Some of it is very phonetic, just based on sounds. Some of the songs had translations. And some of it was still in the native language of those who wrote it so you just read it and hopefully make it sound like what it was supposed to sound like.
EB:
And Mike is perfect for that...
DD:
Yeah, absolutely. There was a lot of stuff that we added where we used the native stuff as basic, background material and then developed it. We created loops out of it and made sequences. Some of the lyrics are definitely just made up for that particular song. There’s a mix of everything in there. Mike's voice and vocal range were just perfect. Not that I’m bragging about it, but I really think it’s one of the best things he's ever done. I don’t like it when I see other people brag too much. But on the other hand I’m also wary of people who are overly humble. (Pauses) Can you hear that bird chirping?
EB:
Yeah, it sounds beautiful.
DD:
It’s nice. I’m in the backyard. Anyway, I get tired of humbleness because I hate it when people say, “I’m just doing it for myself and if other people like it then cool.” Well, I never believe that because if you’re really doing it just for yourself then why on earth are you making an album? Why are you packaging it and publicizing it and releasing it and going through all the trouble. If you’re truly doing it for yourself, you’re not going to go through all that!
EB:
Absolutely. I’ve come across a lot of musicians with that attitude. I always say look, the minute you take your music out of your garage, the minute you bring your music into a public or commercial forum, you take on a whole new responsibility when it comes to your audience. If you’re selling them something then you bet your ass you’d better believe in or else why should they?
DD:
Yes, oh yeah...see now we're getting on a topic. This is interesting now, Erin. The minute you step on stage you better have a pretty strong ego to get up in front of people and charge them money. You must think that what you’re doing is good because how on earth can you justify doing it otherwise? There's a certain amount of ego involved in that as well and you have to have it or you’ll just crumble up and wither away. So when I hear people trying to be humble in that regard…well guess what? I don’t believe you. Look, I’m not a celebrity, I’m a musician. If people know who I am it’s because of what I do and not because of what I look like or how I act or my outrageous opinions. When I hear celebrities complain about how they can’t go anywhere without being recognized, I mean, these people have spent their whole lives trying to be famous. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with publicists to make sure their name is everywhere and that their picture is everywhere and that they’re on all the talk shows. And then, they complain when people recognize them. Isn’t that ridiculous?!
EB:
Of course it is.
DD:
But that’s all part of the celebrity culture we live in now. Paris Hilton? What does she DO? What is she actually good at besides her body?
EB:
She's good at working out.
DD:
Exactly. She's shown she can hang out at the gym all day. And her sister has no talent! Even Paris Hilton, who I have to admit I kind of like for some reason...
EB:
Really? (Laughs)
DD:
Yeah, I don’t dislike her. I don’t know why. I should but I just don’t. But what does she actually do? What does she do to warrant that fame?
EB:
I’m not sure.
DD:
She's not a good actor or actress. Oh, by the way, I don’t mind saying the word "actress" even though people say its not PC anymore. Do you?
EB:
(Laughs) No, I don’t mind at all. I always say “actress.”
DD:
I mean, male and female are not the same.
EB:
I still say “stewardess” even though I guess I’m supposed to say "flight attendant." Fuck that, man.
DD:
I do too! And I still say “waitress.” I don’t think there's anything bad with that. Men and women are not the same and by adding "-ESS" at the end I do not think I’m demeaning anyone. I’m so tired of it. Guys like me are not the enemy. Anyway...what were we talking about? Oh yeah, Tomahawk...okay. (Laughs)
EB:
(Laughs) It’s all related.
DD:
Right. The anonymity factor. There are a lot of people who are doing great things who will never get any recognition for it.
EB:
Exactly, there are those who complain about being in the spotlight and complain about the recognition and then there are people who will never have a voice but would love one.
DD:
If you look back, I’m not sure when this happened but I was reading about it in some art book, hundreds of years ago people created art and built massive architecture that took generations to build and we have no idea who they were. Whereas nowadays some guy has some motorcycle shop and he's a celebrity because he customizes motorcycles. Come on. One more musical thing I would like to point out is that, one of the byproducts of working on the native stuff is that I noticed a fair amount of melodies were written in this mode based on this five-tone pentatonic scale, which goes a long way towards the idea of the land bridge that may or probably existed between Asia and North America, across Alaska. It seems to me that a lot of this music sounds like Asian folk music, like what you would hear played on flutes and stuff in Korea or Japan or China. It seemed to me that, if those are the people that came across the land bridge -- the Native Americans -- then it makes nothing but sense! In the bigger sense, if you listen to the blues and a lot of African folk music and even Celtic music...it’s all the same scale. So it makes me think there’s this sort of universal pentatonic thing going on here and this is part of it. Isn’t that cosmic?!
EB:
I think it’s amazing. With this music being over 100 years old, what is it about the way you guys are presenting the material that you think is going to help it connect with modern day listeners?
DD:
Obviously we're not purists. Obviously we're using electric guitars and drums and samplers and modern studio techniques. It sounds more like a rock album. It seems to me that people who like our previous stuff will be drawn to it because it’s something they’re familiar with. Maybe they trust that we make good music. Yet it’s also different in a way. It’s not just another rock album or another rock product. I’d like to think there's a fair amount of people out there who, even though they say they’re into rock and the rock scene or whatever, that’s not all they listen to. They like to have something that steps away from that in a more atmospheric way. But at the same time I don’t want to be lumped in with some kind of world beat thing...
EB:
Right. Well, you mentioned how bare bones the material was that you had to work with. What were some of the challenges you faced with making it a Tomahawk record but still staying true to the original structure?
DD:
Well, there you go. That was the challenge! (Laughs) That was a good question. Um, you want to somehow try and capture the essence of the piece as simply as possible and then develop it. For me the hard part, and also for Patton, was developing it in a way that didn’t seem overly thought out or overly contrived. It would have been easy to take a simple melody and say make a feud out of it! Like, repeat this half way through only a fifth below that and have this other voice and invert it and have this happen, you know what I mean? I wanted to keep it more transparent and straightforward.
EB:
More immediate?
DD:
Yes, exactly. We didn’t want it to come off at all like an academic exercise. But at the same time we didn’t want it to come off like a gag or like a novelty act. We didn’t want it to be like, “Oh we're just going to mess around with this and hopefully people will like it because we're Tomahawk!” Hopefully we avoided that. When you make music and you’re interpreting stuff, there's a certain amount of license you have to take and should be happy to take. But at the same time you want to preserve the integrity of the source material. Whether we did or not is for other people to decide.
EB:
You mentioned interpretation, which this album definitely embodies. But I know that Tomahawk is also a lot about collaboration, particularly with the way you work with the guys. You write the bulk of the music and then Mike said that you guys will leave each other voicemails with your baby blabbering all over them, exchanging ideas to flush out a song. Creatively, when it comes to the differences between interpretation and collaboration, do you prefer one to the other?
DD:
No. Actually I kind of liked having the interpretive element with this. All the other stuff, when you’re writing songs from the ground up, it’s all collaboration at that point. You’re making it up from the get-go. Whereas with this it was kinda cool to have the rough framework already set. It already had a direction. It used to be that you’d make cassettes and send them back and forth and that turned into CDs and nowadays you can record and home demo and load it into your computer and send a file and someone halfway around the world will have it that day. If you’ve got the technology now you can make up for the distance between people. So that’s one of the benefits of that. On the other hand, I really think there’s still something to just bashing it out, just getting together and putting it in real time and deciding what sounds good and what doesn’t right then and there.
EB:
Well, besides Tomahawk and Hank III, you were also the guitarist for the Jesus Lizard, which is considered a quintessential live band. One of the last times I talked to Mike he mentioned that Tomahawk functions so well as a live band that it could not exist without playing live. What do you think it is that attracts you to bands that really thrive in the live environment?
DD:
For me that’s when it’s the most real. I’m glad, it’s funny you mentioned that because I just played a show Saturday night with this new band I have U.S.S.A. It is me and Paul Barker from Ministry and a couple of guys. We had a really great here in Nashville. I realized that if it weren’t for playing live I probably wouldn’t even do this. I like the creativity in recording. It’s fun to put things out but to me there’s just something primitive and ritualistic to playing live. It’s very basic and elemental. It’s just one of the basic straightforward forms of communication. It’s life affirming and there's an excitement there that I just don’t get from anything else. I like the fact that as a player you’ve got one chance. You play those songs and if you screw it up then tough luck. You’ve got to live with it. Especially nowadays with the YouTube generation -- everything you ever do is being recorded in some way. From now on, everything you ever do, especially musically, someone is going to be recording it. If you make a mistake they’ll be blogging about it immediately. It’s ridiculous. (Laughs)
EB:
Well when it comes to playing live, how do you see this material fitting in with the other two albums in Tomahawk’s live set?
DD:
I don’t know. I don’t think there will be any problems with it. We don’t have any immediate plans to play live. It took so long for this album to come out. I started on this stuff years ago, so now that it’s finally come out we're all involved in other things. John Stanier plays in Battles, Mike has Peeping Tom and I’ve got this thing U.S.S.A and we have an album coming out in the Fall. And now that those things are going I don’t want to pull back from them. So we don’t know what will happen. Keep moving forward, you know.
For any and all things Tomahawk check out www.ipecac.com
For any and all things Tomahawk check out www.ipecac.com
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