Talking with The Blues Explosions Jon Spencer was an absolute pleasure. It was more of a conversation about music and comic books than just your ordinary run of the mill interview. But mostly we concentrated on Spencers latest collaboration, Heavy Trash, which is Rockabilly inflected album created with Matt Verta-Ray of Speedball Baby.
Buy Heavy Trash
Daniel Robert Epstein: I heard you just got back from Africa.
Jon Spencer: Yeah I just got back a few weeks ago.
DRE: What were you there for?
Jon:: Just a holiday. I had never been there before.
DRE: Was it amazing?
Jon:: It was.
DRE: What made you go?
Jon:: My family just wanted to see some of those animals, see the land. We like to explore different places and we had friends that lived in Nairobi. These friends of ours had been inviting us for some time and we heard that they were going to move. So we figured we had to take advantage of this while we still had the connection over there.
So you're a freelance writer?
DRE: Yeah.
Jon:: Do you write for other places beside SuicideGirls?
DRE: Yeah. I write for a few other places, UGO.com and a comic book website called Newsarama.
Jon:: So you're a comic book fan?
DRE: Yeah.
Jon:: What are your favorites?
DRE: I just got the new Ex Machina trade paperback. Do you know Ex Machina?
Jon:: No.
DRE: It is the same writer as Y: the Last Man.
Jon:: I've read that.
DRE: I just read Harvey Pekar's new book called Ego and Hubris. That was really good. Sounds like you are a comic book fan too.
Jon:: Yeah, it's something I've gotten into more and more over the years. If you look at the Heavy Trash record, that's Paul Pope's artwork in there.
DRE: I love Paul's stuff.
Jon:: He's somebody I turned onto recently. A friend knew him and he designed a poster for the Blues Explosion a few years ago. When I was working on the Heavy Trash record, I asked him to do the art. He lives here in New York City, so he would visit me and Matt while we were working on the record and we'd talk about ideas. It was cool to see how he put the thing together.
DRE: What made his work right for Heavy Trash?
Jon:: I was just happy to work with him again. I think having the packaging based around this idea of a pinup was Paul's idea. At first you're very close in, facing the girl. As you open the package, you realize it's a pinup on the wall of recording studio where the musicians are.
DRE: How did Heavy Trash come together?
Jon:: Matt and I have both had bands around New York City for a long time and weve toured together a few times. About three years ago, I started hanging out with Matt and we started playing music and writing songs together. Matt is a record producer so he's got a small studio on the Lower East Side. It was very nice to have a place of our own, where we could workshop, mull over ideas and experiment. Where we didn't have to worry about studio bills or a time limit or anything like that. The thing which really drove us and inspired us was Rockabilly which we are fans of. I think we were drawn to each other because of that and this was a chance for us to indulge it.
DRE: Was it done, not in a lackadaisical fashion, but...
Jon:: I would say relaxed. We worked hard, but it's not like we were worried about clock on the wall or the studio rates. We had time to really stretch our wings and mess around with a range of ideas. The record was made slowly over a long period of time which helped. It was like simmering the sauce.
DRE: I always see that when people work on other peoples album there is always a This person is courtesy of so and so label. Is it easy just to get together with a friend and make music?
Jon:: Yeah, I guess people are legally bound to include that kind of information. We still live in a free country so you can play with anybody. That's one of the things I like about music, writing and playing with other people.
DRE: I would imagine that doing Blues Explosion is much different.
Jon:: Yeah, the working dynamic between the two bands are different. The last couple of Blues Explosion records have been pretty big productions, working with producers and getting a lot of outside help. Weve worked in some nice but quite expensive studios. They're both nice ways to make records. It's not like there's a right way and a wrong way.
DRE: Blues Explosion is such a diverse-sounding band in a lot of ways, was that Rockabilly side just not getting satisfied?
Jon:: I guess. It's always been an influence in what I've done. It's definitely always been there in Blues Explosion and other bands I've been in. It was nice to really embrace it and just do Rockabilly. But the Heavy Trash record is a pretty loose version of Rockabilly. We're not so strict. We're not purists. There are a lot of other elements in there as well.
DRE: Have you guys have been touring with it?
Jon:: Some. We had some friends who'd come in and help us play different things. Once we finished the record, we did start to play out and tour around. We've been very lucky to play with some great people in the States and in Canada like this great band from Toronto called The Sadies. When we go over to Europe, we play with various different groups and old friends. It's been great to be so casual and carefree about it to the point where Matt and I can just pick up and fly to Toronto and we'll do a few weeks worth of shows with our friends up there. Just these past couple of months when we toured in Europe we would go into the recording studio because the aim is for this second Heavy Trash record to be with the live bands.
DRE: What else are you working on?
Jon:: A bunch of different things. I'm putting together an old record I did with Luther and Cody Dickinson about five years ago. It was only released in Japan. The name of the album is Spencer Dickenson. We're adding seven songs to it. Also I've slowly been trying to organize and put together a bunch of bootlegs for the Blues Explosion that we're going to release on our own. Live concerts, outtakes, things like that.
DRE: Do you have a DVD for Blues Explosion?
Jon:: We're trying to do that too.
DRE: Are you thinking of doing it for one show or making it into a collection?
Jon:: We're going to do three concerts, two audio CDs and one DVD. These will be sold separately. Small editions of these things, maybe 5000 copies.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy Heavy Trash
Daniel Robert Epstein: I heard you just got back from Africa.
Jon Spencer: Yeah I just got back a few weeks ago.
DRE: What were you there for?
Jon:: Just a holiday. I had never been there before.
DRE: Was it amazing?
Jon:: It was.
DRE: What made you go?
Jon:: My family just wanted to see some of those animals, see the land. We like to explore different places and we had friends that lived in Nairobi. These friends of ours had been inviting us for some time and we heard that they were going to move. So we figured we had to take advantage of this while we still had the connection over there.
So you're a freelance writer?
DRE: Yeah.
Jon:: Do you write for other places beside SuicideGirls?
DRE: Yeah. I write for a few other places, UGO.com and a comic book website called Newsarama.
Jon:: So you're a comic book fan?
DRE: Yeah.
Jon:: What are your favorites?
DRE: I just got the new Ex Machina trade paperback. Do you know Ex Machina?
Jon:: No.
DRE: It is the same writer as Y: the Last Man.
Jon:: I've read that.
DRE: I just read Harvey Pekar's new book called Ego and Hubris. That was really good. Sounds like you are a comic book fan too.
Jon:: Yeah, it's something I've gotten into more and more over the years. If you look at the Heavy Trash record, that's Paul Pope's artwork in there.
DRE: I love Paul's stuff.
Jon:: He's somebody I turned onto recently. A friend knew him and he designed a poster for the Blues Explosion a few years ago. When I was working on the Heavy Trash record, I asked him to do the art. He lives here in New York City, so he would visit me and Matt while we were working on the record and we'd talk about ideas. It was cool to see how he put the thing together.
DRE: What made his work right for Heavy Trash?
Jon:: I was just happy to work with him again. I think having the packaging based around this idea of a pinup was Paul's idea. At first you're very close in, facing the girl. As you open the package, you realize it's a pinup on the wall of recording studio where the musicians are.
DRE: How did Heavy Trash come together?
Jon:: Matt and I have both had bands around New York City for a long time and weve toured together a few times. About three years ago, I started hanging out with Matt and we started playing music and writing songs together. Matt is a record producer so he's got a small studio on the Lower East Side. It was very nice to have a place of our own, where we could workshop, mull over ideas and experiment. Where we didn't have to worry about studio bills or a time limit or anything like that. The thing which really drove us and inspired us was Rockabilly which we are fans of. I think we were drawn to each other because of that and this was a chance for us to indulge it.
DRE: Was it done, not in a lackadaisical fashion, but...
Jon:: I would say relaxed. We worked hard, but it's not like we were worried about clock on the wall or the studio rates. We had time to really stretch our wings and mess around with a range of ideas. The record was made slowly over a long period of time which helped. It was like simmering the sauce.
DRE: I always see that when people work on other peoples album there is always a This person is courtesy of so and so label. Is it easy just to get together with a friend and make music?
Jon:: Yeah, I guess people are legally bound to include that kind of information. We still live in a free country so you can play with anybody. That's one of the things I like about music, writing and playing with other people.
DRE: I would imagine that doing Blues Explosion is much different.
Jon:: Yeah, the working dynamic between the two bands are different. The last couple of Blues Explosion records have been pretty big productions, working with producers and getting a lot of outside help. Weve worked in some nice but quite expensive studios. They're both nice ways to make records. It's not like there's a right way and a wrong way.
DRE: Blues Explosion is such a diverse-sounding band in a lot of ways, was that Rockabilly side just not getting satisfied?
Jon:: I guess. It's always been an influence in what I've done. It's definitely always been there in Blues Explosion and other bands I've been in. It was nice to really embrace it and just do Rockabilly. But the Heavy Trash record is a pretty loose version of Rockabilly. We're not so strict. We're not purists. There are a lot of other elements in there as well.
DRE: Have you guys have been touring with it?
Jon:: Some. We had some friends who'd come in and help us play different things. Once we finished the record, we did start to play out and tour around. We've been very lucky to play with some great people in the States and in Canada like this great band from Toronto called The Sadies. When we go over to Europe, we play with various different groups and old friends. It's been great to be so casual and carefree about it to the point where Matt and I can just pick up and fly to Toronto and we'll do a few weeks worth of shows with our friends up there. Just these past couple of months when we toured in Europe we would go into the recording studio because the aim is for this second Heavy Trash record to be with the live bands.
DRE: What else are you working on?
Jon:: A bunch of different things. I'm putting together an old record I did with Luther and Cody Dickinson about five years ago. It was only released in Japan. The name of the album is Spencer Dickenson. We're adding seven songs to it. Also I've slowly been trying to organize and put together a bunch of bootlegs for the Blues Explosion that we're going to release on our own. Live concerts, outtakes, things like that.
DRE: Do you have a DVD for Blues Explosion?
Jon:: We're trying to do that too.
DRE: Are you thinking of doing it for one show or making it into a collection?
Jon:: We're going to do three concerts, two audio CDs and one DVD. These will be sold separately. Small editions of these things, maybe 5000 copies.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 12 of 12 COMMENTS
still...it werent a BOSS HOG gig