anderswolleck

In the past few months Ive spoken with a number of incredibly talented and iconic musicians including Mike Patton, Les Claypool and Page Hamilton. All three of these men have made their nut and name with super cool yet somehow popular music, oftentimes carving out their niche by paying for their music themselves. Frank Black definitely ranks right up there with these unique performers. Black first cracked the music scene wide open with his preeminent band, The Pixies. In addition to making music with The Pixies, Black has had a exceptional solo career. His newest album, Fast Man Raider Man, is a bit more chill than previous endeavors, but it is certainly no less dynamic.

Buy Fast Man Raider Man

Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up?

Frank Black: Im just driving my son Julian to camp.

DRE: How old is he?

FB: Hes eight.

DRE: Does he know how cool you are?

FB: Yeah he does [laughs]. He likes to be around sometimes when the press is involved especially photographers. I think he might have ambitions of his own.

DRE: Does he play music yet?

FB: No, were going to drama camp today just to give you an idea. He dances and stuff but he is in the Pixies movie.

DRE: I was really surprised when I popped your new album in and found out how mellow it is.

FB: What do you mean? Ive done mellow before.

DRE: Sure, but I was just surprised that every track seemed mellow. Not in a bad way or anything.

FB: I dont know, I mean, Im just, I just feel that you. Well you knowyoure right, its mellow. Its mellow [laughs].

DRE: Did you just not want to put something on there that wouldnt be as recognizable as a Frank Black song?

FB: No, it doesnt really work like that. I just write a bunch of songs. The Nashville guys rock more like the Rolling Stones than they realize. But the difference is that theyre all of the same vintage, the same generation. Heck we had Ian McLagan who was almost a Rolling Stone himself. But a lot of these guys, especially the American guys, play with a certain amount of restraint. Its just the way they play rock music as opposed to people like the Rolling Stones who play things a little more blown out, a little more amped up. So if I like something a bit more restrained or a bit on the mellower side, I think of that situation as extra restrained or extra mellow. But to generalize what theyre actually playing I dont think its dainty or anything like that.

DRE: Right, it is not going to be played on any soft rock stations if thats what you thought I was saying [laughs].

FB: It is that end of the palette. It has a certain je ne se quoi. Pick something from the really rock end of my career like the record Doolittle. In reference to those records, yes there are songs that are played in an up tempo aggressive style but mixed in among those songs are also mellow songs and songs that are downright silly. So your observation is right, there are not any heavy rock songs on this album. Maybe except a song like Johnny Barleycorn or something but to me a song like End of The Summer is more of a Leonard Cohen-y vibe. Those kinds of songs are truly the heaviest of all. Leonard Cohen doesnt have to yell at you to get his point across. He just has to say it very calmly and very coolly. Its macho in a much different way.

DRE: Do you feel like youre less aggressive personally?

FB: One would hope. One would hope that as a person when youre 40 years old that you dont have the same knee jerk spontaneous stupid reactions that you had when you were 25. So hopefully you gain some worldly wisdom and thats why when you meet an older person and when I say older I mean someone 50 years old and theyre flying off the handle and aggressive and intense, its extra awkward [laughs]. You just go Wow, whats up with that dude? If youre at the mall and you run into some older person who has got all this aggression it feels wrong. As opposed to some younger doofus who belongs to a fraternity. You cut him a lot of slack because you just go, Theres a guy who doesnt know a thing about life.

DRE: For your next project will you swing the other way and do something more aggressive?

FB: Well I dont have a lot of vision. I just write songs and they come out the way they come out. But I suppose that there might be something in the air before I start to make a record. I might go, Yeah, I think its time to rock out a little bit or I think its time to not worry about whether or not its going to rock and let these dudes play what theyre going to play. But you dont necessarily just sit around and make a concentrated effort. You dont analyze everything that far, you just do it. Its still rigid and music is still rubbing the muse so you dont want to pigeonhole the muse.

DRE: I read that you recorded this album in Nashville. Was that important to get certain people to play on the album or did you want a Nashville mindset?

FB: Certainly the engineers and the studios itself have a certain atmosphere which is different than say, LA, London or New York. It is not so much about city but its indirectly about the city. Making records is not about ambience. Youre in a room that has four walls and a roof. Frequently its an industrial space. In the case of Nashville there are studios in other peoples homes, which is not that uncommon these days, but whatever ambience is at Cowboy Jacks place is because of Cowboy Jack not because its downtown Nashville. Maybe it would be different if I were in New Orleans or something. For me, making records is very much about work. Sometimes the studio will be prepare for your arrival and the assistants will roll out the oriental rugs and start lighting incense and be burning Jesus candles to try to create a vibe, an atmosphere. Some people like working in atmospheres like that but as soon as I arrive, I go What the heck is going on here? Blow out all these candles and turn on some frigging lights. I dont want ambience, I want the ambience to be in my record and I need to see what Im doing here so I can capture it with my microphone plus the incense dries out your throat. The mood is on the record. It is in the way the people play. Its not external stimuli, in fact, the less external stimuli you have the better. The less drugs and alcohol the better, maybe some coffee but you dont want to have lots of stimuli. The muse is a mysterious thing, but then there is also all the practical mechanics of using all of your muscle memory and your knowledge about the way that you play, about the way that the other people play and keeping that heightened. Long gone are the days where the band sits around and says, Hold on we need another five minutes with the bong here before we can get in the mood to play our art. Thats just a crock of shit.

So you start to have a more serious approach. A lot of people say, Oh yeah, youve been recording in Paris. There must be something about that city that really helps it be creative. I would want it to be that way like it is in the movies but truly when you arrive you could be anywhere. Theres the tape machine, theres the bathroom, theres the drum room, theres the control booth so its got nothing to do with Paris. You got to be tuned into the record.

DRE: I read that you did the last Pixies tour to pay for Faster Man, is that true?

FB: No. well I guess in a literal sense, maybe. I make money from a variety of sources but I cant say Ive ever done a tour to pay for something specifically. You just try to run around and make as much as you can. Sometimes you have good years and sometimes you have bad years.

DRE: You mentioned the Rolling Stones before and very often it seems they will record a new album just to get out there on tour.

FB: They go through a tour to make money and they dont necessarily need to make a new record. But if the Rolling Stones dont put out a new record that maybe just a 100,000 people are going to go buy its symbolically bad because youre not a viable premium band, youre county fair. Thats what The Pixies have to do at this point, were at that junction where weve got to decide if we a creative viable force now or are we county fair. Right now were still getting away with playing a few gigs under the guise of a reunion. Thats worked great but it can only last so long.

DRE: Can you clarify whether or not The Pixies are doing any new work?

FB: The thing is, I can say things and people can interpret what I say however they usually have some preconceived notion that they want to be confirmed. So if I say Gee, I dont know if were going to make a record. Then, The Pixies Will Never Record Again is the headline. If I say we might record then the headline is Pixies to Record a New Album. Im not a politician or Kofi Annan but you guys or your editors, if youre in the mood, will just make stuff up. Even if its not in the interview. It happens to me all the time.

DRE: Im sure it does.

FB: The British are the worst of all. The other day I did an interview and they even had the nerve to print the interview in a question and answer format to give the illusion that this is what I said verbatim. They actually printed all my responses verbatim, which would be fine, but the clever part was they didnt change what I said; they changed what the questions were. That cast my answers in a whole different light. I had been thinking about writing to the editor saying Shame on you! I know Im just some rock dude and youre just some goofy rock magazine, but youre giving everyone the impression that Im responding to question x but you didnt give me question x you gave me question y. Youre deceiving everybody. You could have just asked me the question and now youll never know the real answer.

It could be termed as a juicy question but they didnt say it to me in a really juicy way, they phrased it to me in a dull way. So I gave them a little answer when they could have had the juicy answer to the juicy question. Now theyll never know because they didnt have the guts to just ask me the question because they assumed that I would get all thrown in a tizzy and hang the phone up or something. That isnt true. Ive only hung a phone up once in my life on a journalist and Ive never restricted a journalist ever from asking me anything.

DRE: Would you like to do more Pixies material?

FB: I would love to.

DRE: What do the other people in the band want to do?

FB: The main thing the band is wrestling with is that we havent put out a record in 12 years but the records that we did put out are held in fairly high esteem. Theyre all still in print and you dont want to mess with that necessarily. You dont want to screw it up by putting out a bad record or even a record thats really great but everyone says its bad. So theres a lot of hesitation, if there werent a lot of hesitation maybe we would have made a record three years ago. But here it is three years into the reunion and were going Yeah, I think Id like to make a new record. Should we? We havent had any reason to make a new record until about now.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck