Interviews with Rockers II
Recently in this column we took a look at some online rock star interviews. But as they used to say over at MTV, back when the M actually stood for "music" (what does it stand for now? Mindless? Melodrama? Moolah?), too much is never enough. That's right, more is on the way. . .enjoy1x
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Few folks write pop songs as rich and complex as Joni Mitchell's. Her playful mastery of words is enhanced by a stunning vocal range and a chord vocabulary that's as deep as the ocean. Here, the woman who's inspired so many reflects on her own influences and opens up about the difficulties she encountered while creating one of her best works.
Mitchell1: I was at my most defenseless during the making of Blue. I guess you could say I broke down, but I continued to work. It's an overwhelming situation, where more information is coming in, more truth than a person can handle. . .. When you have no defenses the music becomes saintly and it can communicate. As one group of girls in a bar that accosted me put it, "before Prozac there was you."
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For more than twenty years, Tom Petty has graced the charts as one of our most humble and down-to-earth rockers, so it's no surprise The Heartbreakers have kept their nucleus intact, even in the face of a fluid pop climate. In this fine interview, Tom talks like a sage about his fans, the virtues of his longtime team and the fact that he's really not as easy-going as his public perceives.
Petty2: There's nothing like a band. It's a hard thing to pull off in music these days because your bass player never gets as much as your singer, so it's hard to keep them together. We're beyond a band. We're like a family. I grew up with these guys and they're closer to me than any relatives I have. We're not as well rehearsed as people think, but it's like one mind. Just the raise of an eyebrow or the look of an eye can say so much. I really think I'd quit if I had to play with a backup band or studio guys.
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Though not rockers per se, jazz guitarists John Scofield and Bill Frisell have injected rock's energy and grit into an art form that many feel was in danger of becoming codified. Sitting down just after the recording of Scofield's Grace Under Pressure (on which Frisell also played), the two ponder the current state of the electric guitar, the impact of the British Invasion, and of course, each player's effect on the other.
Scofield3: Bill has the most unique new guitar concept today. He's a painter. I've expanded as a player to include chords, sounds and textures. Bill really got me going on that -- not by anything he said, but just by playing.
Frisell: Sometimes I feel like whatever style I have is basically the inability to do something else. It's like, Well, I can't do this, but I'm a musician and I'm going to do something. . .. When I play with you, you challenge me. I hear this stuff, and it's fluent, amazing strings of melodies and notes. It makes me want to try to get to some of that. We've really pushed each other.
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No musician milks the interview format like the sadly deceased Frank Zappa. Honest to a fault, Zappa's interviews - like his music - swerve from absurdist bathroom humor to deadly serious discourses on politics and family values. This one has it all.
Zappa4: It's not exactly like being Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but it's hard for me to go in there and just work on music and forget about what's really going on in the world. I can't do it. I can't take what I know and throw it away and say, "Well, I just won't care anymore because I can't do anything about it." First of all, I think I might be able to do something about it, and just because I might, I have to keep thinking about it. So, there's no easy way to dispose of it.
If you're a little overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the session above, you can also find shorter, goofier pages chock-full of Zappa-isms like: "I don't think the typical rock fan is smart enough to know he's been duped." Or: "There's an art statement in whipped cream shooting out the ass of a giraffe, isn't there?" There sure is.
By Michael Parillo
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(1) A conversation with Joni Mitchell. Grammy Magazine, 14(2), Spring, 1996, pp. 26-32.
(2) "Tom Petty, Linking the Common Man to the Rock Gods," by Jaan Uhelszki,
www.allmusic.com
(3) "Bill Frisell and John Scofield Interview,"
http://platon.ee.duth.gr/data/maillist-archives/jazztalk/msg00044.html
(4) "The Best Frank Zappa Interview Ever," by Bob Marshall,
www.cs.hut.fi/~pno/
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