Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Mondo 2000/Tin-Machine-Interview

Text File | 1993-01-01 | 18KB | 413 lines

Three Men and a Baby (Universe)
The Heart of Tin Machine
INTERVIEW BY RICHARD WHITE

Let's face it, one of the reasons the economy is handbasketing to hell
is old folks.  They're sticking around too long. They aren't kicking off,
putting equity back into the system-they're lounging around, enjoying.
Take rock musicians. When they should be donating memorabilia to
the Hard Rock Cafe, they're clogging airwaves and retail bins like
sonic cholesterol. Music for its own sake-transcending the corporate
sludge- rarely emerges from the senior citizens of rock 'n' roll. Which
brings us to Tin Machine, and two of the best ROCK albums of the
last three years-incredibly seamless packages of riffing.

Yeah, yeah, it's David Bowie-get over it. Bowie insists the real news
is that he's finally joined a band. It seems to be working. A
languishing career comes blaring back with spit-in-your-eye punk
angst, real balls. The themes are familiar, the context has changed,
taken a drastic turn, a scatological tangent.

The music is vital. Reeves Gabrels drives his guitar through a tone
shredder, a hyper- active love child fuzz box unit, while Hunt and
Tony Sales lay down an irresistible Stooge-infested rhythm line.

Where does this music come from? Getting a fix on Bowie isn't cake.
He's camped all over the boards. Yet there's always been a sense of
risk to his work. He caught a spark from the Velvet Underground and
blasted rock out of the flared-denim seventies. And then he reinvented
himself-repeatedly. With Tin Machine he's challenging his audience,
kicking their collective assumptions.

Seattle has provided an exhausted grey drizzle-London weather-as
Bowie and Tin Machine drummer Hunt Sales sit in a frigid hotel suite,
chatting. The pair exemplify the collaboration of Tin Machine. Hunt's
brashness seems innocent, for all his musical experience. He looks like
a toxic leprechaun in a Hunter Green pajama suit and bleached hair,
a cold cup of coffee and endless cigarettes always at the tip of his
gesturing fingers. Bowie's adorned in tropical yachting motif-Mr.
Lawrence on R&R. Bowie's conversation shifts through a cast of
dialects, voices, and schtick. He picks up and discards characters
easily. His inflections are uniquely his. And once again he
demonstrated that you can get away with murder-just explain it all
with an English accent.

-Richard White

 MONDO 2000: Are you enjoying the tour so far?

HUNT SALES: Yeah, it's going good, but all of us have been getting
sick, one after the other.

DAVID BOWIE: I'm fucking awful.

M2: You've come down with the bug?

DB: Oh Gawd yass, have I just_

M2: Just in time for the show?

DB: No actually, it was worse in San Francisco. I'm getting better
now, but it's still like the river Nile.

HE PLAYS LIKE HENDRIX, AND HE WEARS PACO RABAN

M2: David, how do you pick your guitarists? Your major projects
have been built around the sound of someone's guitar playing. What
does a guitarist do for you?

DB: They make me feel like a man. [Laughing] That's the nub of it all.
There's something about truly glorious guitar playing that makes me
feel really butch. [Laughing]

M2: Okay, [laughing] and was there something in particular about
Reeves in that respect?

DB: Yeah, he sounds manly, with a sense of humor. Like a funny
man. He's very much of the opinion that Hendrix was the last real
guitar player, who explored the possibilities of sound without going
through synthesizers. Reeves refuses to use any synthesizers at all.
Everything he does is pure-with his foot pedals and his guitar.

M2: Does this project have a lot of humor for you?

DB: Oh God yes. All the projects I've enjoyed the most have been
immersed in some kind of mirth-making. Even the Eno
sessions-probably the funniest sessions I've ever done, because the guy
is just a barrel of laughs.

M2: I have a box of cards that Brian Eno put out with Peter Schmidt_

DB: "Oblique Strategies."

M2: Exactly!

DB: I've got a set as well. You're one of the few people I know that's
got 'em.

M2: They're wonderful.

DB: Do you know who else has?

M2: Who?

DB: Iman. My fiancÈe. I could not believe it, we quoted them to each
other and it was un-believable. This model-"dumb model," you
know-had a box of these cards.  Things got off to a great start.

M2: Are you still in touch with Eno?

DB: Oh Yeah! We wrote to each other only a month ago.

M2: Would you bring him into any future projects?

DB: Oh yes, I definitely would. In fact, we've talked about doing
something together in the future. When and where, I don't know
because we never have set agendas, but it will happen.

THOSE NICE BOYS FROM SOUNDGARDEN

M2: Do you think that Tin Machine will add anything more to the
vocabulary of rock?

DB: Than it already has you mean_ [laughing, sotto voce] you should
have said that more diplomatically.

M2: Well, in the face of new bands developing various sounds-hip
hop, funk-metal, the Seattle grunge sound_

DB: Oh yeah! There is some good local stuff-Soundgarden for starters,
they're a nice band. I immodestly would like to believe that Neil
Young took another look at his own work after he heard the first Tin
Machine album. His work changed drastically after he got our release.
I know that he was given our stuff by Julian Chapel, who does both
of our videos. So I think it's already having an impact. I wouldn't
categorize ourselves along with any of the new bands. Even a band
like the Pixies, who are fairly experimental in what they're doing, have
a linear writing style-a 'one kind' writing style. The problem with Tin
Machine is that it's so eclectic, and has such varied reference points.
It can turn itself to rhythm and blues, or slamdance even, and
interpret a song in that fashion.  It's quite hard to place us anywhere.
But eventually that will be one of our strong points. We can utilize our
elephantine memories and produce this pot pourri of what is loosely
called rock.

HS: [Laughs] Hanh! That's how it comes out. All of us are into
different types of music, and have done different types of music.

M2: Right, you and Tony were with Todd Rundgren and Utopia, and
with Iggy, David has certainly had his many personae and
incarnations, so to speak.

HS: Yeah, I've had soul bands, you know, horns and the whole thing,
but most people would know me for the stuff with Iggy or Todd. I
think it's just the combination of the four of us, because we don't set
out to stylize a music. If anything, we only know what we don't want.

MY OXFORD BAGS AND CUT-UP APPROACH

M2: David, you've often been identified as a musical trendsetter_

DB: [Laughing] I never wore flares, though.

M2: [Laughing] Thank God.

DB: I shouldn't say that because somebody will come up with a
photograph. [Laughing] But I don't ever remember wearing them on
stage. All right, I give up, I did wear Oxford bags, but nobody else did.

M2: [Laughing] In terms of musical style as opposed to fashion, why
make rock 'n' roll albums?

DB: I don't know. I wouldn't say that something like "Goodbye Mr.
Ed" is simple rock 'n' roll. The structure of that song wouldn't be out
of place on my late-period seventies stuff. There might be a return to
a style of music that I was very happy writing at one time. But because
of the Sales brothers-whose influences are blues and rhythm & blues-I
think it owes more to rhythm & blues than rock.  Reeves' background
is more rock oriented. He stretches into neo-modernist guitar
playing-he's very hip to state-of-the-art guitar. His whole crowd in
Boston was that artsy-fartsy mob. I shouldn't say that, I like their
records-Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., that kind of crowd. Because he's
thirty-five he also has a great hang, and a great reading, on people like
Jeff Beck. So you've got this underlying rhythm & blues rhythm
section and this modernist blues guitar player, and you've got my
rather eccentric top lines with my cut-up approach to writing. Not to
leave out Hunt's infatuation with Big Band drummers, and that one
of his best friends is Ginger Baker. Then you start to get the picture.

M2: As a drummer how much direction do you feel you can supply
the music? You know, the way a song evolves, or the direction it might
take?

HS: For this band the drums are real important for setting up the
mood, Reeves and I tend to play off of each other a lot. So I'm always
thinking about dynamics. We did one song which David was thinking
of as half time. I came in, played it double time and really threw him
off. He went [gestures, turning on a light] "Oh yeah, I kind of like
that."

IDENTITY CRISIS

M2: David, have you given up your own identity as part of this band?

DB: Oh no, I don't buy that bit about, 'Dave's just one of the boys.'
[Laughing] I just can't buy into that. I'm just not doing as much on
stage, it's as simple as that.

M2: Do you think the band is getting an identity as Tin Machine? Do
you think people have gotten used to the idea that it isn't just David
Bowie in another identity?

HS: Yeah. When people come to see us live, they get the whole picture
and are finding that out. I've had people come see us and say "This is
great!" and go back and listen to the records with a different
perspective.

M2: Is this the first time you've found yourself in a real band
situation?

DB: Yes! Absolutely without a doubt. Because even with the Spiders
[from Mars] there was no doubt about who was leading the band,
where its ideas were coming from, and how I wanted things played.
They were willing to be in that particular kind of subservient position.
[Breaks into German accent, laughing] I vas da masta, They executed
my vill! I knew what I wanted, and they wanted to come along for the
ride, so it worked. But it wasn't a band.  This is truly a band inasmuch
as we've put our lot in with each other. It's so-called adults who've got
together to make music that they enjoy playing and haven't until this
point heard too much of on the radio.

HS: That's the big difference between us and say, Paul McCartney,
who will get some young blood around him, but it's not really a band.
I'm sure it wasn't easy for David to relinquish some of his control. He
might have something he wants to do and I might not like it. Usually
if there's a consensus, then we'll go with it.

M2: On this record, the sound has gotten more polished_

DB: Yes it has. [Laughing] I think we're going to have to do
something about that for the third one.

M2: So you are thinking towards a third record?

DB: [Laughing] Yes, it's going to be called Relapse.

M2: Is that what this tour has driven all of you to?

DB: Well, we're just going to do Tin Machine II again but will play it
out of tune, all the same songs. [Laughing]

THIS WEEK'S MODEL

M2: David, are there elements of your past identities that you are
trying to put behind you with this project?

DB: No, I'm terrifically proud of the stuff I've done. I'm not quite
sure what you would mean by putting it behind me.

M2: You've said you know that you are not going to do your older
material anymore_

DB: Yes, exactly. That's where it ends, though.

M2: And this is the first time you've gone out with a band without
some persona_

DB: Ummmm, naaalalala, I disagree with you there.

M2: Do you?

DB: Yeah, the last time I was really pushing a bit was the Thin White
Duke, in 1976.  Anything subsequent was just a different pair of
trousers-not much in the way of characterization out there. [Laughing]
It was the same balmy smile, crooked teeth, and rather vulgar hairdos.
But I did have a different color suit on for each tour_  Before then, I
agree-up until '76. It was the blue-eyed soul singer at one point. The
Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stardust-they were all
separate characters, and I tried to resolve that theatrically. But I've
got off that now. I don't think I'll be doing any more
characterizations. Although, I would be very happy doing something
highly theatrical onstage again. I do enjoy it, but not all at once. It's
a bloody headache.

M2: It seems like any of you could have gone and developed another
career, or stood pat on what you've done. You didn't have to go on
the road with an improvising band!

HS: But at the end of the day it really doesn't matter. You've got
people out on the road, like Dizzy Gillespie, who are seventy years
old. No matter how much money you make or how many records
you've sold, you're always as good as the best thing you've ever done,
not the last thing. And this is a real road tour. We made sure we
played small places despite the fact that

David Bowie's with us. We're not playing David's old compositions:
we're playing new compositions that he's written with us.

M2: David, what about you? Why go on the road with an improvising
rock band?

DB: You've got to love what you do! There's a certain point you hit
in your life when you realize that you've lived longer than you were
supposed to, and when you reach that point it comes home that you
mustn't waste time fucking about with things you don't have your
heart in. I really love this music. I love this band.

STEP ASIDE WALT, IT'S ENO WORLD

M2: In the past you've done a lot of things that were very
futuristic-almost a Sci Fi point of view.

DB: Yeah, I utilized the hardware of Sci Fi, even though my heart
wasn't in the Sci Fi sensibility.

M2: Are you currently exploring anything along those lines? Eno was
here in Seattle last spring speaking about Virtual Reality; there's a lot
being done with digitizing and sampling of sounds and visuals, and
music is lending itself to the cyber culture and cyber reality.

DB: Oh God, it's going to become Eno World! Terrifying, he's just
terrifying. He's been waiting gleefully in the wings for this era.
[Laughing] Like some mad scientist character, he's going to come out
and take possession of all our souls, the little bald-headed bastard!
[Laughs] Serves us right, should never have invented Eno-don't wish
for what you want, you might get it.

LESS IS MORE_ FLACCID

M2: Hunt, you've said that less is more with respect to the band's
sound. How does a four-piece allow you to be more experimental?

HS: Compared to what?

M2: Compared to larger bands, compared to the kind of technical
production that David has done on albums in the past, and your work
with Todd Rundgren_

HS: When you have a larger band anything can happen-it's like a
three ring circus, there's so much happening. When you have that
small ensemble thing-that three- or four-piece thing-it's really exciting
because you can screw up. I've seen a lot of big acts lately, and they do
the same thing live as you see on the video. To me there is so much
you can do with that live experience, and I think people who come to
see a band live are coming to feel something.

DB: Yes, the larger an ensemble gets, the more you have to be aware
of parts and arrangements, otherwise the whole thing just ends up in
pure cacophony. Which sometimes is not bad. [Laughs] But when you
are just a small ensemble you can have musical conversations with
each other. And that's something that differentiates us from most
younger bands. The abilities lie within this band to extend the
conversations so they're not set arrangements every night. Which
means, of course, that we can have disastrous shows. [Laughing] Some
of them are so embarrassing that I wish the stage would open up and
swallow us all.

M2: When that starts happening is there a chance to pull out, or does
the whole show just go down the drain?

DB: [Laughing] No, it goes into a spin and just crashes to the ground.
We all just stand around watching helplessly as our musical peak
becomes flaccid.

M2: Can Tin Machine explore new music, new territory?

DB: Yeah, I think so, because we don't quite know where we're going.
If we had a fixed focus, I don't think we'd have much chance. But
because all we do know is what we don't want to play, it leaves
everything else open. That sounds very ephemeral but that's basically
how we work-knowing what we don't want to be.

SWISS ROULETTE

M2: When the band came together was it your intention to make it a
live project, or did that evolve because of the sound you found
yourselves creating? HS: When we first got together we didn't know
what was going to happen. Tony and I had worked with David years
before-with Iggy. We didn't know Reeves. I got a phone call from my
brother who said that David wanted to get together in Switzerland. So
we went over there, met Reeves, and just started jamming.  There was
this casino, and the recording studio was upstairs. They had feeds
down to the casino, so we miked everything up. Then it was just,
"Let's try this," and we'd turn the tape on and start playing as opposed
to arranging things. The music was very spontaneous, and then we'd
try to make something out of it. There'd be mistakes, but we thought,
"Oh those are good, let's leave them in." And sometimes we'd build
guitars or vocals around the mistakes.

M2: Is this band something that you want to do for quite a while? DB:
Our premise was that as soon as it started being forced, as soon as we
said, "Oh, I suppose we should get another album done," that's the
point to quit. We're only doing this as long as we are thoroughly
enjoying it, otherwise there is no reason for us to be together. We've
all got our own lives, and we could do a number of things on our own.
Reeves could do more or less whatever he wants, and in fact does
when he's not working with us-pieces of film music. He did some stuff
for David Lynch earlier this year. He buggers off and does lectures,
seminars at universities. He's a would-be Eno himself, another bald
genius in the fold. The two of them will take over.

M2: Has this been something that you wanted to do to rejuvenate
yourself?

DB: Oh God no. I don't buy into the idea that music is for some kind
of rejuvenation process. I think it's to re-emphasize one's vitality with
life, which is different. I've known a number of men of considerable
years that, with their boundless enthusiasm, and spiritual and
emotional insights, could just wipe the ground with most of the
nineteen-year-olds I've met. It's not an age thing at all. It's
understanding life and the energy that it contains, and how you can
latch onto that energy.