Brant Bjork

04/29/04

For some reason (damn that technical evolution!) a large part of my interview with Brant Bjork was erased, which is a shame since he was a responsive and interesting guy to have a conversation with. We mainly talked about the rumour that he’s a studio hermit who hates playing live (check out the All Music Guide’s review of his second solo album), which he blamed on the circumstances under which he left Kyuss after the recording of their third album (he no longer felt comfortable around the other band members). I also asked him how the hell he managed to perform on no less than 20 albums (rough estimation) at the age of thirty (as a member of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Mondo Generator, Che, collaborator on the Desert Sessions series, etc), the answer being that the he – despite the image of laidback desert pothead (so to speak) - is a workaholic whose buttocks are allergic to seat covers. He’s also released three solo albums all by himself (save for a few contributions from friends who happened to be around), the reason for this being that it’s easier, more convenient and, most importantly, cheaper. He did confess, though, that the recordings of his forthcoming album (Local Angel) were a different affair – for instance, he didn’t start by laying down the drum tracks first – and presumably are gonna sound different than the songs on the previous three albums. This brought up the concept of independence, obviously the guy’s pet subject (hence the label Duna Records). It reminded me of an anecdote in the liner notes of Keep Your Cool, his latest album, in which he described meeting a 10-year old black kid in Venice as something magical, an event that made him dedicate the album to that kid. The same anecdote contained also the line “Don’t take nothing from the fools who put the pressure on,” a motto he’d tried to live by since he discovered punk rock as a kid. That’s where we pick up:

… you didn’t follow any of your dreams, because you listen to someone else, you know, and that’s a pressure that a lot people feel, whether it’s coming from their boss, or their parents, or society at large, or even the government, it doesn’t matter what it is, but it’s like … I get excited about people that do their own thing and, you know, are the masters of their own destiny, and it starts when you’re young, you know, and to me, when I saw that kid, a little black kid at that, too, wearing a Ramones-shirt, it just blew me away. I don’t hang around very many young kids these days, ‘cause none of my friends have kids that are at the 9-10 year old age group, and I don’t surround myself, … I’m just not around kids of that age, so when I saw him, it immediately blew me away, ‘cause I don’t know what kids’ minds are at. When I was ten years old, I was starting to get into punk rock…

That early?

Yeah, maybe even earlier, because I grew up with older kids in the neighbourhood that were handing me these tapes, “hey you gotta listen to this,” kinda like, you know, givin’ candy to … you know what a mean, pushin’ drugs on a kid, something like that, “listen to this!”

Maybe you saw a younger version of yourself and thought “well maybe he can achieve something similar and do his own thing”…

Yeah, totally, totally, and it felt good to see him, because to see a 10-year old kid with a Ramones-shirt on was so awesome, and the fact that he was in Venice, because he wanted to see where the Dogtown Skateboarders were from, I mean that’s amazing, that’s awesome, I mean it really made me feel good and really inspired me, so I wanted to dedicate the record to him.

That’s a very nice idea. Uh, whenever I’m listening to Keep Your Cool, I think to myself “Wow, it’s got so many great grooves goin’.” It’s only presumption, but are you a reggae-fan or something?

Ah, I love reggae!

Of course the bass lines and stuff are different, but to me it has that laidback vibe…

I love reggae, I love Jamaican music, I love ska, I love rocksteady, I love dub, I love reggae, I love, uh, I don’t listen to much dance-hall, but yeah, mostly the ‘70’s era, ‘60s and ‘70’s.

Do you listen to jazz as well?

I love jazz. I listen to a lot of… I like ‘40’s and ‘50’s…

Bebop?

A lot of bebop, Parker, Miles and Gillespie, but I also like drummers like Art Blakey and Chico Hamilton, probably one of my favorites, he’s a drummer out of Los Angeles. But, you know, I like Milt Jackson, mellow shit like [Big John] Patton, Wes Montgomery on guitar, I like a lot of that stuff…

About tonight: you’ve been touring with Nick Oliveri for a few weeks, how does that feel?

It’s awesome!

Have you ever done it before?

He did a week and a half of dates in the United States with us as well, and uh, with the exception of the tours with Kyuss and Mondo Generator, but this is the first time where my band played and he’s there doing his own thing and it’s, it’s just awesome. It’s so much fun. I watched him last night, and I literally almost started crying (laughs), it was just so cool. Yeah, all of us, the whole band was like, on the verge of tears. It’s just so great to see him play his music and songs with an acoustic guitar. It’s just awesome, I don’t know what else to say…

Does he play the whole set only by himself?

Yeah.

What does he play? Covers, or…

Yeah, he’ll pull out of couple of covers. He just goes up there and plays what he feels, you know, what he’s feeling that day and write up the set. It’s great.

Does he also jam with you?

Yeah, (conspiratorial) sometimes… you never know…

So what about the future? You recorded a new album, is it already finished?

Yeah, it just needs to be mastered, and then I think Duna is gonna release that probably before the year’s up. We haven’t set a specific date yet. We’ve got a couple releases we wanna do… a Mondo Generator live record, I think Nick wants to do an acoustic record, so we’re just figuring out how we’re gonna set up the schedule, but it should be out before the end of the year.

This is the last date of the European tour…

Yeah.

So what’s gonna happen when you get back to the States? New gigs?

I’ll probably… Nick and I talked about workin’ together on the new Mondo record, maybe demo up some songs that he has, I’ll have the Local Angel record mastered and I’ll probably take some time to work with the Bros on some more songs and some new stuff as well, and then we’ll get ready to come back over in July to do some festivals…

Yeah, I saw you’re playing on the Dour-festival here.

Yeah in July, and we’re also playing in Holland, and we might do some club shows throughout Europe as well.

Cool, we’ll look out for that. Thanks a lot for the interview and good luck with the show tonight.

Thank you.