Black Lips are a four-piece from Atlanta, Georgia who play a psych-garage style they call ‘flower-punk.’ Heretofore as well known for their unpredictable live shows as their self-produced records, the Lips have seemingly been aiming for more artistic respect since their breakout, 2007’s Good Bad Not Evil. And not without justification. That record and its followup, 2009’s 200 Million Thousand, showed that they were as serious about their craft as they were about good times. With their new record, Arabia Mountain, the Black Lips’ connoisseur’s ear for the best bits of rock history and hard-won chops have found an unlikely but sympathetic enabler in super-producer Mark Ronson. Ronson, famous for his work with artists like Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, and Robbie Williams, might have seemed a risky choice, but he’s left the Lips’ scruffy lo-fi charm intact while bringing a wider palate of sound and honing their songs to razor sharpness. SuicideGirls spoke recently with the band’s singer/guitarist Cole Alexander about the new record, heavy metal, and economics.
Keith Daniels: Your sixth record is coming out today. What’s different about your situation now than when your first record came out?
Cole Alexander: Well, I’ve got a little more hair on my balls. We were a little more purist when we first came out. We were still learning the rudimentary style of rock’n’roll. So we were kind of a beat band, kind of like how the early Beatles might have sounded. As we learned more about music we delved into psychedelia and all that jazz.
KD: Do you still feel nervous when you’ve got a new record coming out and people haven’t heard it yet?
CA: I
do. Unless we make music for ourselves. Before anybody ever heard our music I was making it for myself in our bedroom, and I still love those songs. But as we’ve gotten larger and you play more and you tour you open yourself up to more criticism. You put yourself out there more. It makes you a little nervous to be judged by so many people, because it’s easy for someone to just hear the record one time and just write it off. Maybe if they’d listened to it five times they might have liked it. To spend a lot of time, like a year, on a record, to have someone critique you can be a little... it affects you emotionally, you know? But it goes both ways! Some times you get a real glowing review and it makes you feel good about yourself. You definitely put yourself out there and you have to accept some of the criticism and what other people think of you. It’s kind of hard.
KD: Before this record you guys had always produced your albums yourselves. Was it also nerve wracking to have a pro like Mark Ronson come in and judge your music?
CA: A little bit, but not too much. We had a lot of faith in Mark and we trusted him, and he actually came through. It actually made it a little easier to know somebody who’s acclaimed and talented [was] listening to our music and believing in it and helping make it the best it could be. I felt
very fortunate to have him on our side, especially being our first time using a producer.
KD:
We actually talked to him a few weeks ago, and he was saying that
he was actually nervous to be working with you guys because he was a fan.
CA: I think it was real out-of-left-field for us and for him to do this. In a lot of ways we’re quite different, so that made us a little nervous. But it’s good to be nervous. I read a thing the other day that basically said ‘if you’re not nervous it means you don’t care’.
KD: What inspired the album title and cover?
CA: There’s a mountain in Georgia. We were looking for pictures for our album cover, and we found this neat place outside Atlanta called
Arabia Mountain. It’s a large granite rock. It’s elevated. We took these pictures and then we transposed them with milk, food coloring, and dish soap, which is hydrophobic and repels the colors from the milk.
KD: That’s badass.
CA: Yeah, I was happy with the cover. Again, I was nervous about that. Nervous what people think.
KD: I thought, when I saw the cover, that it had something to do with the interest you guys have expressed in the Middle East, in going to places like Iraq. You’ve been to...
CA: Palestine, Turkey, India. Yeah, that’s true. There was a little undertone of that. It’s volatile in that region right now, and we’ve tried to show a lot of openness to that region. So yeah, there’s an undertone of that. We wanted it to be kind of ambiguous, so people would wonder. But it’s really up to people’s interpretation, you know? People don’t know there’s an Arabia Mountain, Georgia, so they just assume it’s that. We also have a Rome, Georgia, and an Athens, Georgia.
KD: [Laughs] Well yeah. I actually asked one of the Suicide Girls who’s from Atlanta, Flux, if she had any stories about you guys. She said, “The Black Lips make you kiss people you shouldn’t.”
CA: We’ve had a lot of onstage kissing. It’s kind of juvenile and innocent. Like a kindergarten orgy. [Laughs]
KD: [Laughs] You’ve been all over the world. What are some bands in other countries that you think people here should check out?
CA: There’s a band from France I like called
King Khan & the Shrines from... all over Europe.
Omar Souleyman from Syria. I haven’t seen him live, actually, but from what I’ve seen on Youtube he seems pretty outstanding.
KD: Where’s the sample from at the beginning of “Mad Dog” where the guy is talking about summoning demons?
CA: I’m actually not sure where that’s from. What I’ve heard is that in the ‘90s there was a cassette tape of that call; an answering machine went on and it was recording a phone call where this guy was talking crazy to his friend or whatever. So they talked for an hour about heavy metal and all kinds of shit. It used to be a popular road tape for bands in the ‘90s, then it eventually got on the internet. It’s called
Tight Bros. From Way Back When I think there’s a TV show called that now. We have a booking agency called “Tight Bros”. I think it all comes from that. It wasn’t a prank call, it was more like a found recording, a field recording. It’s an excerpt that I actually liked. They were talking about which black metal band or whatever was using the book of
Necronomicon to conjure spirits into their songs, but the guy’s really talking with conviction about it. It really got me more into heavy metal listening to him talk about it.
That “Mad Dog” song is about playing a record backwards and having subliminal messages, like how Judas Priest got in trouble. In the ‘80s they thought that they told people to kill themselves and they had to go to court. If you play our song backwards there are memetic palindromes, there are actual backwards messages.
KD:
Something about Ke$ha, right?
CA: The Ke$ha thing was kind of a joke, but there are actually lyrics forward that work if you turn them backwards.
KD: I was raised in a really religious family, really had the fear of God. When I was a kid there was another kid next door who was really into heavy metal, and he would play those records that had all that backwards shit on them and I’d think, “Ugh, I’m going to Hell.”
CA: [Laughs] That song is like a tribute to that whole... exactly what you’re talking about.
KD: I’ve heard that one of the alternate titles you were considering for this record was
Expensive.
CA: [Laughs] It was like a concept album we thought of having where we charge an exorbitant amount of money, so like the record is 99 dollars. But you get the record no-money-down, like you get it for free at the store, but you’re on an installment plan of 99 cents a month for 12 years or something. Like a refrigerator that seems great, “Take it for free!” but then it winds up ruining your credit. No money down but it builds interest over ten years. Everybody likes a free record. We didn’t really have time to manifest all that, but maybe in the future we will as kind of an ironic joke on the economy and society. [Laughs]
KD: What do you think of the idea that this record might
really blow you guys up?
CA: I’d be open to that, but I don’t think the world is quite in that place right now. But if they took to it, I’d love that. I want to make a bigger live show where we can have more lights and own sound guy and be able to enhance our product and do more crazy stuff. It would take a little success to build out some of the more far-out ideas we have. Like
Expensive.
KD: Your success up til now has been a gradual process. There hasn’t been that one big moment.
CA: Yeah, much like human evolution. Baby steps. But I think we’ve persevered longer doing it slow and easy than if we’d been a flash in the pan and had a big record label push in 2001.
Just you wait...
Not to mention how horrible I felt for participating. So far its only been 3 days but every time I think about what I've read, its no problem to turn down the carcass that has been brutally murdered to feed our fat faces! I'm going Vegan eventually, that's going to be WAYYY harder considering I LOVE CHEESE!!!
