The music of Vue bounces like a needle in the grooves of a dusty, forgotten garage LP, breathed back into flailing life through the speakers of a dim bar under the freeway in San Francisco, where skinny kids with dirty shoes smoke countless cigarettes and plot world domination. It's sex, and drugs, and rock'n'roll, but not in it's "Behind The Music" forms. This is not decadence. Decadence is for people who've had the opportunity to choose who they fuck and what chemicals they intake. Vue are desperation 180-proof; they are not going gentle into that good night. They've just made the move from Sub-Pop to RCA, and they're coming to steal your stereo. They need it for their tour-van:
[Keyboardist] Jessica Ann Graves: So what's going on?
Keith Daniels: Nothing! What do you want to talk about?
JG: God, I don't know. My brain is fried. I've been in the studio. I was there last night until 2:30, so fire away.
KD: Working on a new album?
JG: Yeah, we're working on our album, and we're kindof pushing the time limit. It's supposed to be out in early August.
KD: So time is running out for you?
JG: Well, yeah, it's a typical thing at the end of an album. Just ridiculous shit, like we're renting, I dunno if you know what a mellotron is...
KD: An old keyboard?
JG: Yeah, they're ridiculous. We're renting a mellotron. Things like that, which we totally don't have time to do, but it was last-minute inspiration.
KD: How many songs are you using it on?
JG: We're going to try [it on] two, but I haven't worked on one before, so you might not hear it on the album, because I might decide I don't like it. I'm not sure. The thing that I heard last night, which was a synthesizer that was supposed to be simulating a mellotron, that they showed me to demonstrate what they thought it was going sound like - I didn't like. But then they keep saying that the mellotron sounds different, so we'll find out.
KD: So how long have you been playing the keyboard, or the piano?
JG: Well, six years, something like that.
KD: Did you have piano lessons when you were a kid?
JG: Briefly, in third grade. I know what the scales are. I don't really have them memorized, but I understood the basic concept. I didn't get much further than book one. [laughs]
KD: Was it something like, the band needed a keyboard player, so you picked it up?
JG: They went through a lot of keyboard players with their bands. It just seemed to be the rotating position, because I don't think you have to be a 100% committed musician to be able to press a note on the keyboard, y'know? Make weird noises. So I think they had a lot of people who weren't as committed to the band as they were. When I think about how long they've all been playing together, it's crazy, like nine or ten years now. This was Jonah, Jeremy, and Rex, and I was really good friends with them pretty much that whole time. We were all living in Santa Cruz, and then I moved to L.A. I'd set up some shows for them about five years ago, and their keyboardist couldn't make it, so I was like "Well fuck it, I don't want to cancel these shows, so I'll come up and learn the parts."
KD: And you've managed to hang in there.
JG: Yeah! Well, they were like my best friends, and I already missed them, being down in L.A.. I think we went down to San Diego, if I remember right, on this little mini-tour, and it felt like that was the logical culmination of our friendship. I'd always kindof been one of the bro's anyway, and it just felt right, so I kept playing. But I continued to live in L.A. for a year, so I'd go back and forth between San Francisco and L.A..
KD: Were you always the kind of girl that had mostly guy friends?
JG: Y'know, unfortunately, yes.
KD: Unfortunately? Why?
JG: Well.. because, I'm not sure why I was always the girl in a group of guys, but I always had trouble being the girl in a group of girls, y'know? I felt more at ease in the other situation, and I think I missed out on a lot of good girl friendships. It's not that I didn't have girlfriends. I tended to have a few very close girlfriends, and then a lot of groups of guys. But that's starting to change I think. I've been so surrounded by masculine, testosterone-ness for the last few years that as soon as I get out of the van I run to find something pink, or something that smells good. [laughs]
KD: [laughs] Do you think you could write a book about understanding men now?
JG: Y'know, I almost feel like I'm more confused at this point, because I definitely have been accepted into the fold as a guy, so I see things from that perspective. I think that guys, everybody on tour, their behavior is so extreme, and the way that you talk when you're stuck in a van for eleven hours is not necessarily representative of the way you really think. It's just a way of killing time. So, I think I've come to understand guys in a certain kind of unique environment. There are very few experiences that you get thrust into that bring out the sort of mentality that touring does. Maybe being in the army or something...
KD: [laughs]
JG: No, really! Because it's just you and these couple of other people with very little outside stimuli, and a lot of time with not much to do. Lots of strange behavior starts to arise.
KD: What kind of strange behavior?
JG: Uh... I'm not at liberty to say.
KD: [laughs] Come on! This is for a porn site.
JG: Um.. [laughs] people have gotten in trouble for that kind of stuff before. Well, the PG version would be that you start arguing about every fucking little thing you could possibly argue about. We have never had a radio in the van. The one time we had a radio it got stolen. We had it in San Francisco, and it got stolen by the time we got to Detroit.
KD: They didn't steal any of your equipment or anything? Just the radio?
JG: That's Detroit for you though. They broke in, and they grabbed the radio and one of my bandmate's manbag, which he was bummed about. Right underneath the bag was an envelope with our band money which had over a thousand dollars in it, and they didn't notice. So that was good, and maybe stupid of us to leave it out anyway. I think we drove all the way from Detroit to New York with a broken window, so there was this constant breeze, and flapping wet cardboard pieces.
KD: So what do you do when you have a day off and you want to go feel like a girl?
JG: Well, let's see.. The one thing I did notice is that I sought out other girls more often than not, as opposed to kindof being on the prowl for guys. I was really relieved to have a conversation with a girl after a show. The tour has been so hand-to-mouth for so long that there weren't really opportunities to do much, because we didn't have much money to do anything with. But on one of our more recent tours of Europe, it was like the first tour where we actually had a little bit of money and stuff, so I would pretty much go AWOL every single day. We'd toured Europe before, but this was the first time, like I said, where we had a little bit of money and stuff. So I managed to hit all the museums. It's just crazy that I've been to Europe and hadn't been able to do that kind of stuff [before]. I studied Art History, too, in college.
KD: Oh yeah? Did you graduate?
JG: Yeah, and I thought I was going to go into something like that, more academic. I've kindof neglected it over the past few years. It's something that I'm passionate about, but I haven't been inspired to follow it - but definitely being in Europe and having time off, and being able to go to museums has sparked my interest in it all again.
KD: What was the best museum that you saw?
JG: The Modern Art Museum in Amsterdam. The Reich Museum in Amsterdam is a really famous museum. I was all excited to go there, and I was really disappointed. The parameters of their collection are really small, and then I kept walking around and stumbled on their Modern Art Museum, which I'd never really heard anyone talking about. There were long lines for the Reich's Museum. There were long lines for the Van Gogh Museum, but no-one was really going into the Modern Art Museum. Their photography collection is unbelievable. Everybody in it is so good, and photography is not something that I studied real closely, so there were a lot of new names for me. The Tate Modern in London was just amazing, if you're ever in London and you get a chance. It's a relatively new museum. The architecture alone is reason enough to go, but I've never, ever, seen a modern art museum with this collection. They have everything.
KD: Who are some of your favorite modern artists?
JG: I'm going through an Edward Hopper phase right now. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's the one who did this painting of a street at night looking into a diner, and there's people sitting around the counter. You see a lot of spoofs on it with Marilyn Monroe, things like that, but anyway. I feel like, driving around, and being in the van, driving around at weird times of the day... rolling into Brooklyn at dawn... I feel like I see a lot of Edward Hopper moments. A person standing on a sidewalk, staring off into space. There's something about [being on] tour where things become emotionally charged, and I'm probably projecting onto these people. There's a lot of lonely moments. You see someone just standing there by themselves staring off into space. I almost feel like I'm in an Edward Hopper painting sometimes when I'm on tour.
KD: Alone in a crowded place?
JG: Yeah, exactly. He has this other painting of a woman standing in a lobby at a movie theater, and you can see all the people in the theater and she's just standing there under the light. You see moments like that too. You see someone at a show standing off by themselves staring into space.
KD: You must have been really sad when you heard about the looting in Baghdad.
JG: Horrified. Absolutely horrified. It's appalling, because I happened to be reading a "history of civilization" type book at the time...
KD: ...what was the book?
JG: Well, it's funny. It's my little brother's seventh grade history book. I just wanted to brush up on some of my world history, and it's a chronological overview, really overly simplistic. I'd forgotten a lot of the dates of wars, and stuff like that. We were down in L.A. recording, and at the time of "Shock and Awe" I was reading about the cradle of civilization, and it was all there. It's hard to fathom that that wasn't a top priority, protecting that stuff.
KD: ...but they did manage to protect the Ministry of Oil.
JG: Oh, of course. They had that all planned in advance. I'm glad for that, for sure.
KD: There is a certain sense that the Iraqi people might be better off though, eventually.
JG: Well, I felt horrible. When I hear the stories...
KD: Especially some of the things that the women in those societies go through.
JG: I can't imagine being in that kind of society at all. It's so alien, and it's just hard to even imagine what it could be like.
KD: When I got first 'hold of your EP [Babies Are For Petting] I thought "Wow, here's this great new band." Then I went back and checked and you guys had two albums [ed -- and two EPs] out already. Are you excited that you're finally blowing up, or is it like "Where were you guys before"?
JG: Y'know, honestly, right now --from our perspective-- it hasn't really changed yet. For me the real measuring stick is going to be when we go out on tour, because we're still in our own little bubble. In theory things are different because we're on a major, and in practice they're different because we have more time to record our albums and that kind of stuff. We have the luxury of renting a mellotron, things like that, but in terms of our popularity level I don't we've really experienced a change yet. I don't know. I think in terms of wondering where everyone was before, or whatever, the kind of music that we've been making for so long was not a genre. It had no place, and I don't think we had any expectations of it becoming what it already has become. So I think we just appreciate it for what it is rather than... it's already exceeded most of our expectations. I don't think any of us thought of this "genre" becoming popular, in a sense. I hope that answers your question.
KD: So you'll know things are different if you go on tour and you have your own private jet. [laughs]
JG: Yeah, exactly. I don't even want that. Just having consistently good shows all over the United States. We've had our own little moments of superstardom that aren't because of RCA, or being on a major. That, I think, left a stronger impression on me than anything else. We do really well in Sweden. [laughs] That's a really big market for us. We got Album of the Year [from Sweden's top music-magazine Aftonbladet] last year. So I've had moments in Sweden that are like "Oh my god, we're big here." I think that in terms of the people you reach, if that is important to you, that left more on an impression than the contract we signed six months ago, because so far that hasn't amounted to anything literal in the real world.
KD: Sweden is the new Japan.
JG: There's a lot of good stuff happening there right now. Be interesting to see if it keeps up.
KD: A lot of the bands that are coming out of there seem to speak perfect English, and are very aware of what's happening with American music.
JG: It's pretty nuts over there, actually. They speak better English than I do. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's, relatively speaking, a pretty wealthy country, and education, health-care, and public facilities are socialized. They're really heavily taxed, so the standard of living is pretty high. Pretty much everyone has an upper middle-class education, like the education level of at least a small private school here. I think sometimes they might even take it for granted a little bit, that not everyone in the world can live that way.
KD: Would you be willing to pay taxes like they pay, forty to sixty percent, to be able to have socialized health-care here?
JG: Forty to sixty percent sounds crazy, it's hard to fathom, but if it would mean that you didn't have to spend that money... I mean, knowing America, you'd pay those taxes and then you'd still be paying for your health-care, but in theory, if it worked like it does in some other countries, absolutely. When we got that tax break sent back to us a few years ago, when George Bush first came into office, I wanted to put it in a letter and sent it back to him, and say "Use this for a school somewhere." And I was really broke at the time! I was living in a warehouse. We were struggling, and I just felt like "I'm not going to remember where this money went." They're basically using our Social Security to make people want to vote for [George W. Bush] again. Use this for something else. Back to your question, I think that the way that it is in Sweden, and one thing that I tried to impart to all the people I talked to over there, is that there's things about it that just wouldn't work in the United States. There's an utter lack of diversity there, and it's a small, wealthy country. Geographically small, and also in terms of population. When I would have these high-minded philosophical debates with people [in Sweden] about the woes of America I wanted to drop them off in Oakland for twenty-four hours, and see if they still felt like they had magical solutions for some of the problems that we face here - as a result of how huge and diverse the country is, and the breakdown in communication between different groups of people here. I personally don't have any easy, magic solutions for that, and I think that in countries like Sweden they don't understand why everything isn't like it is there.
KD: I was reading a book by [conservative humorist] PJ O'Rourke called Eat the Rich. It's a book about economics, and he talks about Sweden in a section called "Good Socialism". In it he talks about how, in Sweden, everything looks nice on the outside, but they're about to go bankrupt.
JG: It's an amazing country, and I absolutely fell in love with it when I first went there. I certainly wouldn't want to say anything bad about it, because I would recommend [it to] anyone who had the opportunity to go there. It really is amazing, and everyone there speaks perfect English. The fact that the entire population is fluently bilingual alone is a big statement, and it's clean -- but it doesn't seem sustainable to me. My thinking was that although they have certain things that are socialized, they're very much a capitalist nation, and if they're living well that means someone somewhere isn't -- and maybe it's not someone in Sweden. Not to get too Marxist, but maybe someone in a sweatshop somewhere is facilitating a lifestyle that's that good for that many people. When you've been out to places like that and then you fly back to a place like New York City, and you see all the diversity, all the beautiful things about it, all the problems. It was just such a relief to get back to that in a sense. Capitalism is staring you in the face, and you have to come to terms with it.
KD: Yeah, you can't get any more capitalist than New York City.
JG: Yeah, really, and democratic in a sense, the fact that you can come here and preserve your lifestyle, your culture, and your language, if you so choose - or you could integrate more, too. That's a little bit idealistic.
KD: That's the idea anyway. So you were living in a warehouse at some point? By yourself?
JG: No, no. Actually, it's getting torn down today. It's funny that you mention that.
KD: Does that make you sad at all? Want to go back and take pictures?
JG: Yeah, I feel like I should. I mean, I don't miss living there at all, not at all. I lived there for two years, but when I lived in Santa Cruz I lived there on and off.
KD: Were you squatting?
JG: No, but it was almost on that level. It's a really, really big warehouse. This guy that I'm sortof friends with ran this company called Punks with Presses... Lots of people lived there, the guys from Rancid and Green Day, that kind of thing, the old school East Bay punk world. Because everyone was living there the rent was really cheap, but the first three months that I was living there Rex and I were sharing a room. It had all my furniture in it and everything, so you couldn't really walk around the room. There was a little path from the doorway to the bed, and it had all my stuff, and all Jonah's stuff - he was storing it there - and all Jeremy's stuff. It was basically a storage space with a bed in it. It had an un-insulated corrugated metal wall that had rust-holes where you could see out onto the street. It's chilly here at night during the winter, and it was just damn cold at night -- and it was really hot in the day.
KD: That's paying your dues right there. [laughs]
JG: Yeah, you don't even know the half of it. [laughs] That was definitely the period of time where I decided that anybody's romantic notions of poverty are based on an unlived experience of it.
KD: How did you get by?
JG: Tenacity. At this point I wouldn't trade these memories for anything. They're not bad memories at all, but it's almost like we have a little bit of a curse on us. Nothing ever really goes smoothly for us, and I think that it's, in a way, the reason that we're still here. It's forced us to really assess the reasons why we're doing what we're doing. If things are always easy I think that you fall into a routine of malaise, but the way things were constantly difficult... everything that could go wrong always seemed to go wrong with us... it's just forced us to have a good attitude about things. This is not unusual, but there were a lot of van-breaking-down tours. My band-mates became quite proficient at fixing it themselves, and then the mad dash to get to the next show because you're really behind schedule. You're living on show money to get to the next show. There was one tour where it was just unreal. It broke down three times in between Oakland and Salt Lake City. We were completely out of money, because we spent all our money fixing it. Then we were missing shows, so we'd drive as fast as we could, and then whatever city we landed in by the evening we'd call anyone we knew there and ask if they could let us do an impromptu show. We bought a bag of bagels, and that was all we ate for four days; a bagel a day. I was definitely very grumpy by the end of it, but like I said, I wouldn't trade that memory for the world. Once you learn to hang on so stupidly like we did you don't ever want to give up, because it becomes a point of pride. I think that that attitude is helping us now, even, now that things are a lot smoother.
KD: So aside from writing a book about understanding men, you could write one about the Vue diet.
JG: [laughs] Yeah. It's disturbing. My band-mates are vegan, so that makes it even more of a challenge.
KD: Are you vegan too?
JG: I'm a vegetarian.
KD: Was that for philosophical, or health reasons?
JG: For me it's gross out reasons. [laughs] I just get grossed out at the thought of meat, but I respect people's philosophical reasons for doing it. I respect people's philosophical for eating meat, if they have them. I don't really think that one ideology fits all, really.
KD: Did you see something that was like an epiphany, and made you think "I can't eat this anymore."?
JG: Yeah, I think ever since I was little I was grossed out by the thought of it. Being in a vegetarian in my household wasn't really an option, not that my parent's wouldn't have been supportive of it, but it wasn't like anyone else was. It didn't really occur to me until I was older. I was always considered a finicky eater, and as soon as I was a vegetarian I wasn't anymore. I think it was just that I didn't like eating meat. The idea really grossed me out, always.
KD: So I looked up the word "vue" in the dictionary...
JG: [laughs]
KD: ...the only thing I could find was a Unix term for Visual User Environment.
JG: Um... I guess it would be subject to interpretation would be the right answer. We had another name, and we had to change it because there was another band that had it.
KD: What was it?
JG: The Audience. The thing with Vue that we liked was that it didn't have a static meaning, so it could grow with us. We wanted the freedom to evolve, musically, and that name definitely gave us that.
KD: So new album's out in August. How do you plan to take over the world between now and then?
JG: Between now and then? [laughs] Well we're touring mid-May through mid-June. Part of the tour is going to be with this band called The Raveonettes. It should be good. Then we fly out to England, and from there it's not confirmed yet. I think we're playing Glastonbury. We're playing some festivals, but I'm sure we're planning on touring between now and then, and obviously between then and whenever we make our next album. [laughs] So I'm envisioning about a year and a half of touring.
KD: Is that daunting to look down the barrel at?
JG: Yes and no. We've been home for a long time, and at this point we're not really used to that. Everybody's starting to get antsy. I'm excited to finally do a tour that's not quite so bare-bones, and to actually be able to sleep in a bed every night - that kindof thing. I think the only reason I would have second thoughts about it all would be that I live with my boyfriend, but he manages bands, so he tours a lot too. He's going to be out of town for a good portion of next year as well. That makes it a little bit easier for me. As far as relationships go, and the strain that touring can put on it, the fact that he's out of town a lot too makes it easier.
KD: I always wondered why young musicians even get in relationships.
JG: Yeah, I think a lot of them wonder the same thing. [laughs] I wouldn't want to be in a suffocating relationship. The things I want from a relationship are more like a guy that wouldn't ask me to sacrifice the things that I'm working on in my life, and vice versa. I'm really happy to encourage him to do his stuff. The relationship isn't the Alpha-Omega of my life. It's definitely the most important thing in my life, but it doesn't mean that I need to work on it or whatever...
KD: Just see where it goes.
JG: I feel pretty confident about where it's gonna go. Maybe that's an unusual luxury about our relationship, that it doesn't require a lot of maintenance.
KD: So you think marriage is a possibility?
JG: [laughs] You sound like my dad! I dunno, call him. [laughs] I'm sure you and my dad would get along.
KD: I'm only 23! [laughs]
JG: [laughs]
KD: You've been on tour with a lot of bands that are maybe where you guys might be in a few years. Did you learn anything from them?
JG: BRMC [Black Rebel Motorcycle Club], that's one band that we've toured with, and another band called And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. I think we definitely learned, in a sense, what sort of ships they run. Tour managers, roadies, guitar techs, sound guys, merch girls, and all that jazz... that's something that we've never had. So seeing the way that they each run their operation, it's pretty different. BRMC, not surprisingly, run a pretty sober, focused ship. Trail of Dead, on the other hand, are very Motley Crue. [laughs] Both people make it to the shows on time and are no less professional, but it's just two extremes in terms of what kind of machine you want to be operating. It's given us a chance to articulate what we think we'd work well in.
KD: So which of the two do you think would be better for you? Running your band like a corporation, or the Motley Crue style?
JG: I'd say a little of both in the sense that my band-mates definitely emphasize fun over anything else, and that's part of [our] tenacity... like "If we're going to keep doing this, against all odds, it better be fun." I think, because of that, on the one hand that would be a reason to have people who are down with that with you, but on the other hand that's a reason to have more sober people with you too. Then you can be the chaos, and they can be the structure. You don't have to worry about anything because they're worrying about everything.
KD: Or you could just have your mom follow you around.
JG: [laughs] Well, essentially, my mom's house in LA is our second home. She's been a band mom for years now.
KD: She's pretty supportive of what you do.
JG: Yeah, I'm lucky. They're both 100% supportive. It's never occurred to me that I'm doing something that doesn't make them proud -- even when it didn't look like it was going to be something I could as a job.
KD: You're a musician now, and you majored in art history. You must have grown up in an artistic house.
JG: Yeah. My parents met at art school. It never occurred to me to be a cheerleader and study law. It's not that they wouldn't have supported me, had I done that, but the kind of people that I was surrounded by as role models weren't really those kind of people.
KD: I think my tape is almost out...
JG: [laughs] I talked your ear off! It's good that you caught me right when I woke up because I tend to ramble when I'm a little sleepy.
KD: [laughs] So I can get all the information out of you when you're tired.
JG: [laughs] Yeah! I haven't had my coffee yet, and once I do everything becomes hyper-efficient. I answer everything with three syllables.
KD: The people don't want to read that!
But the people do want to read up on Vue at The Vue.com.
[Keyboardist] Jessica Ann Graves: So what's going on?
Keith Daniels: Nothing! What do you want to talk about?
JG: God, I don't know. My brain is fried. I've been in the studio. I was there last night until 2:30, so fire away.
KD: Working on a new album?
JG: Yeah, we're working on our album, and we're kindof pushing the time limit. It's supposed to be out in early August.
KD: So time is running out for you?
JG: Well, yeah, it's a typical thing at the end of an album. Just ridiculous shit, like we're renting, I dunno if you know what a mellotron is...
KD: An old keyboard?
JG: Yeah, they're ridiculous. We're renting a mellotron. Things like that, which we totally don't have time to do, but it was last-minute inspiration.
KD: How many songs are you using it on?
JG: We're going to try [it on] two, but I haven't worked on one before, so you might not hear it on the album, because I might decide I don't like it. I'm not sure. The thing that I heard last night, which was a synthesizer that was supposed to be simulating a mellotron, that they showed me to demonstrate what they thought it was going sound like - I didn't like. But then they keep saying that the mellotron sounds different, so we'll find out.
KD: So how long have you been playing the keyboard, or the piano?
JG: Well, six years, something like that.
KD: Did you have piano lessons when you were a kid?
JG: Briefly, in third grade. I know what the scales are. I don't really have them memorized, but I understood the basic concept. I didn't get much further than book one. [laughs]
KD: Was it something like, the band needed a keyboard player, so you picked it up?
JG: They went through a lot of keyboard players with their bands. It just seemed to be the rotating position, because I don't think you have to be a 100% committed musician to be able to press a note on the keyboard, y'know? Make weird noises. So I think they had a lot of people who weren't as committed to the band as they were. When I think about how long they've all been playing together, it's crazy, like nine or ten years now. This was Jonah, Jeremy, and Rex, and I was really good friends with them pretty much that whole time. We were all living in Santa Cruz, and then I moved to L.A. I'd set up some shows for them about five years ago, and their keyboardist couldn't make it, so I was like "Well fuck it, I don't want to cancel these shows, so I'll come up and learn the parts."
KD: And you've managed to hang in there.
JG: Yeah! Well, they were like my best friends, and I already missed them, being down in L.A.. I think we went down to San Diego, if I remember right, on this little mini-tour, and it felt like that was the logical culmination of our friendship. I'd always kindof been one of the bro's anyway, and it just felt right, so I kept playing. But I continued to live in L.A. for a year, so I'd go back and forth between San Francisco and L.A..
KD: Were you always the kind of girl that had mostly guy friends?
JG: Y'know, unfortunately, yes.
KD: Unfortunately? Why?
JG: Well.. because, I'm not sure why I was always the girl in a group of guys, but I always had trouble being the girl in a group of girls, y'know? I felt more at ease in the other situation, and I think I missed out on a lot of good girl friendships. It's not that I didn't have girlfriends. I tended to have a few very close girlfriends, and then a lot of groups of guys. But that's starting to change I think. I've been so surrounded by masculine, testosterone-ness for the last few years that as soon as I get out of the van I run to find something pink, or something that smells good. [laughs]
KD: [laughs] Do you think you could write a book about understanding men now?
JG: Y'know, I almost feel like I'm more confused at this point, because I definitely have been accepted into the fold as a guy, so I see things from that perspective. I think that guys, everybody on tour, their behavior is so extreme, and the way that you talk when you're stuck in a van for eleven hours is not necessarily representative of the way you really think. It's just a way of killing time. So, I think I've come to understand guys in a certain kind of unique environment. There are very few experiences that you get thrust into that bring out the sort of mentality that touring does. Maybe being in the army or something...
KD: [laughs]
JG: No, really! Because it's just you and these couple of other people with very little outside stimuli, and a lot of time with not much to do. Lots of strange behavior starts to arise.
KD: What kind of strange behavior?
JG: Uh... I'm not at liberty to say.
KD: [laughs] Come on! This is for a porn site.
JG: Um.. [laughs] people have gotten in trouble for that kind of stuff before. Well, the PG version would be that you start arguing about every fucking little thing you could possibly argue about. We have never had a radio in the van. The one time we had a radio it got stolen. We had it in San Francisco, and it got stolen by the time we got to Detroit.
KD: They didn't steal any of your equipment or anything? Just the radio?
JG: That's Detroit for you though. They broke in, and they grabbed the radio and one of my bandmate's manbag, which he was bummed about. Right underneath the bag was an envelope with our band money which had over a thousand dollars in it, and they didn't notice. So that was good, and maybe stupid of us to leave it out anyway. I think we drove all the way from Detroit to New York with a broken window, so there was this constant breeze, and flapping wet cardboard pieces.
KD: So what do you do when you have a day off and you want to go feel like a girl?
JG: Well, let's see.. The one thing I did notice is that I sought out other girls more often than not, as opposed to kindof being on the prowl for guys. I was really relieved to have a conversation with a girl after a show. The tour has been so hand-to-mouth for so long that there weren't really opportunities to do much, because we didn't have much money to do anything with. But on one of our more recent tours of Europe, it was like the first tour where we actually had a little bit of money and stuff, so I would pretty much go AWOL every single day. We'd toured Europe before, but this was the first time, like I said, where we had a little bit of money and stuff. So I managed to hit all the museums. It's just crazy that I've been to Europe and hadn't been able to do that kind of stuff [before]. I studied Art History, too, in college.
KD: Oh yeah? Did you graduate?
JG: Yeah, and I thought I was going to go into something like that, more academic. I've kindof neglected it over the past few years. It's something that I'm passionate about, but I haven't been inspired to follow it - but definitely being in Europe and having time off, and being able to go to museums has sparked my interest in it all again.
KD: What was the best museum that you saw?
JG: The Modern Art Museum in Amsterdam. The Reich Museum in Amsterdam is a really famous museum. I was all excited to go there, and I was really disappointed. The parameters of their collection are really small, and then I kept walking around and stumbled on their Modern Art Museum, which I'd never really heard anyone talking about. There were long lines for the Reich's Museum. There were long lines for the Van Gogh Museum, but no-one was really going into the Modern Art Museum. Their photography collection is unbelievable. Everybody in it is so good, and photography is not something that I studied real closely, so there were a lot of new names for me. The Tate Modern in London was just amazing, if you're ever in London and you get a chance. It's a relatively new museum. The architecture alone is reason enough to go, but I've never, ever, seen a modern art museum with this collection. They have everything.
KD: Who are some of your favorite modern artists?
JG: I'm going through an Edward Hopper phase right now. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's the one who did this painting of a street at night looking into a diner, and there's people sitting around the counter. You see a lot of spoofs on it with Marilyn Monroe, things like that, but anyway. I feel like, driving around, and being in the van, driving around at weird times of the day... rolling into Brooklyn at dawn... I feel like I see a lot of Edward Hopper moments. A person standing on a sidewalk, staring off into space. There's something about [being on] tour where things become emotionally charged, and I'm probably projecting onto these people. There's a lot of lonely moments. You see someone just standing there by themselves staring off into space. I almost feel like I'm in an Edward Hopper painting sometimes when I'm on tour.
KD: Alone in a crowded place?
JG: Yeah, exactly. He has this other painting of a woman standing in a lobby at a movie theater, and you can see all the people in the theater and she's just standing there under the light. You see moments like that too. You see someone at a show standing off by themselves staring into space.
KD: You must have been really sad when you heard about the looting in Baghdad.
JG: Horrified. Absolutely horrified. It's appalling, because I happened to be reading a "history of civilization" type book at the time...
KD: ...what was the book?
JG: Well, it's funny. It's my little brother's seventh grade history book. I just wanted to brush up on some of my world history, and it's a chronological overview, really overly simplistic. I'd forgotten a lot of the dates of wars, and stuff like that. We were down in L.A. recording, and at the time of "Shock and Awe" I was reading about the cradle of civilization, and it was all there. It's hard to fathom that that wasn't a top priority, protecting that stuff.
KD: ...but they did manage to protect the Ministry of Oil.
JG: Oh, of course. They had that all planned in advance. I'm glad for that, for sure.
KD: There is a certain sense that the Iraqi people might be better off though, eventually.
JG: Well, I felt horrible. When I hear the stories...
KD: Especially some of the things that the women in those societies go through.
JG: I can't imagine being in that kind of society at all. It's so alien, and it's just hard to even imagine what it could be like.
KD: When I got first 'hold of your EP [Babies Are For Petting] I thought "Wow, here's this great new band." Then I went back and checked and you guys had two albums [ed -- and two EPs] out already. Are you excited that you're finally blowing up, or is it like "Where were you guys before"?
JG: Y'know, honestly, right now --from our perspective-- it hasn't really changed yet. For me the real measuring stick is going to be when we go out on tour, because we're still in our own little bubble. In theory things are different because we're on a major, and in practice they're different because we have more time to record our albums and that kind of stuff. We have the luxury of renting a mellotron, things like that, but in terms of our popularity level I don't we've really experienced a change yet. I don't know. I think in terms of wondering where everyone was before, or whatever, the kind of music that we've been making for so long was not a genre. It had no place, and I don't think we had any expectations of it becoming what it already has become. So I think we just appreciate it for what it is rather than... it's already exceeded most of our expectations. I don't think any of us thought of this "genre" becoming popular, in a sense. I hope that answers your question.
KD: So you'll know things are different if you go on tour and you have your own private jet. [laughs]
JG: Yeah, exactly. I don't even want that. Just having consistently good shows all over the United States. We've had our own little moments of superstardom that aren't because of RCA, or being on a major. That, I think, left a stronger impression on me than anything else. We do really well in Sweden. [laughs] That's a really big market for us. We got Album of the Year [from Sweden's top music-magazine Aftonbladet] last year. So I've had moments in Sweden that are like "Oh my god, we're big here." I think that in terms of the people you reach, if that is important to you, that left more on an impression than the contract we signed six months ago, because so far that hasn't amounted to anything literal in the real world.
KD: Sweden is the new Japan.
JG: There's a lot of good stuff happening there right now. Be interesting to see if it keeps up.
KD: A lot of the bands that are coming out of there seem to speak perfect English, and are very aware of what's happening with American music.
JG: It's pretty nuts over there, actually. They speak better English than I do. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's, relatively speaking, a pretty wealthy country, and education, health-care, and public facilities are socialized. They're really heavily taxed, so the standard of living is pretty high. Pretty much everyone has an upper middle-class education, like the education level of at least a small private school here. I think sometimes they might even take it for granted a little bit, that not everyone in the world can live that way.
KD: Would you be willing to pay taxes like they pay, forty to sixty percent, to be able to have socialized health-care here?
JG: Forty to sixty percent sounds crazy, it's hard to fathom, but if it would mean that you didn't have to spend that money... I mean, knowing America, you'd pay those taxes and then you'd still be paying for your health-care, but in theory, if it worked like it does in some other countries, absolutely. When we got that tax break sent back to us a few years ago, when George Bush first came into office, I wanted to put it in a letter and sent it back to him, and say "Use this for a school somewhere." And I was really broke at the time! I was living in a warehouse. We were struggling, and I just felt like "I'm not going to remember where this money went." They're basically using our Social Security to make people want to vote for [George W. Bush] again. Use this for something else. Back to your question, I think that the way that it is in Sweden, and one thing that I tried to impart to all the people I talked to over there, is that there's things about it that just wouldn't work in the United States. There's an utter lack of diversity there, and it's a small, wealthy country. Geographically small, and also in terms of population. When I would have these high-minded philosophical debates with people [in Sweden] about the woes of America I wanted to drop them off in Oakland for twenty-four hours, and see if they still felt like they had magical solutions for some of the problems that we face here - as a result of how huge and diverse the country is, and the breakdown in communication between different groups of people here. I personally don't have any easy, magic solutions for that, and I think that in countries like Sweden they don't understand why everything isn't like it is there.
KD: I was reading a book by [conservative humorist] PJ O'Rourke called Eat the Rich. It's a book about economics, and he talks about Sweden in a section called "Good Socialism". In it he talks about how, in Sweden, everything looks nice on the outside, but they're about to go bankrupt.
JG: It's an amazing country, and I absolutely fell in love with it when I first went there. I certainly wouldn't want to say anything bad about it, because I would recommend [it to] anyone who had the opportunity to go there. It really is amazing, and everyone there speaks perfect English. The fact that the entire population is fluently bilingual alone is a big statement, and it's clean -- but it doesn't seem sustainable to me. My thinking was that although they have certain things that are socialized, they're very much a capitalist nation, and if they're living well that means someone somewhere isn't -- and maybe it's not someone in Sweden. Not to get too Marxist, but maybe someone in a sweatshop somewhere is facilitating a lifestyle that's that good for that many people. When you've been out to places like that and then you fly back to a place like New York City, and you see all the diversity, all the beautiful things about it, all the problems. It was just such a relief to get back to that in a sense. Capitalism is staring you in the face, and you have to come to terms with it.
KD: Yeah, you can't get any more capitalist than New York City.
JG: Yeah, really, and democratic in a sense, the fact that you can come here and preserve your lifestyle, your culture, and your language, if you so choose - or you could integrate more, too. That's a little bit idealistic.
KD: That's the idea anyway. So you were living in a warehouse at some point? By yourself?
JG: No, no. Actually, it's getting torn down today. It's funny that you mention that.
KD: Does that make you sad at all? Want to go back and take pictures?
JG: Yeah, I feel like I should. I mean, I don't miss living there at all, not at all. I lived there for two years, but when I lived in Santa Cruz I lived there on and off.
KD: Were you squatting?
JG: No, but it was almost on that level. It's a really, really big warehouse. This guy that I'm sortof friends with ran this company called Punks with Presses... Lots of people lived there, the guys from Rancid and Green Day, that kind of thing, the old school East Bay punk world. Because everyone was living there the rent was really cheap, but the first three months that I was living there Rex and I were sharing a room. It had all my furniture in it and everything, so you couldn't really walk around the room. There was a little path from the doorway to the bed, and it had all my stuff, and all Jonah's stuff - he was storing it there - and all Jeremy's stuff. It was basically a storage space with a bed in it. It had an un-insulated corrugated metal wall that had rust-holes where you could see out onto the street. It's chilly here at night during the winter, and it was just damn cold at night -- and it was really hot in the day.
KD: That's paying your dues right there. [laughs]
JG: Yeah, you don't even know the half of it. [laughs] That was definitely the period of time where I decided that anybody's romantic notions of poverty are based on an unlived experience of it.
KD: How did you get by?
JG: Tenacity. At this point I wouldn't trade these memories for anything. They're not bad memories at all, but it's almost like we have a little bit of a curse on us. Nothing ever really goes smoothly for us, and I think that it's, in a way, the reason that we're still here. It's forced us to really assess the reasons why we're doing what we're doing. If things are always easy I think that you fall into a routine of malaise, but the way things were constantly difficult... everything that could go wrong always seemed to go wrong with us... it's just forced us to have a good attitude about things. This is not unusual, but there were a lot of van-breaking-down tours. My band-mates became quite proficient at fixing it themselves, and then the mad dash to get to the next show because you're really behind schedule. You're living on show money to get to the next show. There was one tour where it was just unreal. It broke down three times in between Oakland and Salt Lake City. We were completely out of money, because we spent all our money fixing it. Then we were missing shows, so we'd drive as fast as we could, and then whatever city we landed in by the evening we'd call anyone we knew there and ask if they could let us do an impromptu show. We bought a bag of bagels, and that was all we ate for four days; a bagel a day. I was definitely very grumpy by the end of it, but like I said, I wouldn't trade that memory for the world. Once you learn to hang on so stupidly like we did you don't ever want to give up, because it becomes a point of pride. I think that that attitude is helping us now, even, now that things are a lot smoother.
KD: So aside from writing a book about understanding men, you could write one about the Vue diet.
JG: [laughs] Yeah. It's disturbing. My band-mates are vegan, so that makes it even more of a challenge.
KD: Are you vegan too?
JG: I'm a vegetarian.
KD: Was that for philosophical, or health reasons?
JG: For me it's gross out reasons. [laughs] I just get grossed out at the thought of meat, but I respect people's philosophical reasons for doing it. I respect people's philosophical for eating meat, if they have them. I don't really think that one ideology fits all, really.
KD: Did you see something that was like an epiphany, and made you think "I can't eat this anymore."?
JG: Yeah, I think ever since I was little I was grossed out by the thought of it. Being in a vegetarian in my household wasn't really an option, not that my parent's wouldn't have been supportive of it, but it wasn't like anyone else was. It didn't really occur to me until I was older. I was always considered a finicky eater, and as soon as I was a vegetarian I wasn't anymore. I think it was just that I didn't like eating meat. The idea really grossed me out, always.
KD: So I looked up the word "vue" in the dictionary...
JG: [laughs]
KD: ...the only thing I could find was a Unix term for Visual User Environment.
JG: Um... I guess it would be subject to interpretation would be the right answer. We had another name, and we had to change it because there was another band that had it.
KD: What was it?
JG: The Audience. The thing with Vue that we liked was that it didn't have a static meaning, so it could grow with us. We wanted the freedom to evolve, musically, and that name definitely gave us that.
KD: So new album's out in August. How do you plan to take over the world between now and then?
JG: Between now and then? [laughs] Well we're touring mid-May through mid-June. Part of the tour is going to be with this band called The Raveonettes. It should be good. Then we fly out to England, and from there it's not confirmed yet. I think we're playing Glastonbury. We're playing some festivals, but I'm sure we're planning on touring between now and then, and obviously between then and whenever we make our next album. [laughs] So I'm envisioning about a year and a half of touring.
KD: Is that daunting to look down the barrel at?
JG: Yes and no. We've been home for a long time, and at this point we're not really used to that. Everybody's starting to get antsy. I'm excited to finally do a tour that's not quite so bare-bones, and to actually be able to sleep in a bed every night - that kindof thing. I think the only reason I would have second thoughts about it all would be that I live with my boyfriend, but he manages bands, so he tours a lot too. He's going to be out of town for a good portion of next year as well. That makes it a little bit easier for me. As far as relationships go, and the strain that touring can put on it, the fact that he's out of town a lot too makes it easier.
KD: I always wondered why young musicians even get in relationships.
JG: Yeah, I think a lot of them wonder the same thing. [laughs] I wouldn't want to be in a suffocating relationship. The things I want from a relationship are more like a guy that wouldn't ask me to sacrifice the things that I'm working on in my life, and vice versa. I'm really happy to encourage him to do his stuff. The relationship isn't the Alpha-Omega of my life. It's definitely the most important thing in my life, but it doesn't mean that I need to work on it or whatever...
KD: Just see where it goes.
JG: I feel pretty confident about where it's gonna go. Maybe that's an unusual luxury about our relationship, that it doesn't require a lot of maintenance.
KD: So you think marriage is a possibility?
JG: [laughs] You sound like my dad! I dunno, call him. [laughs] I'm sure you and my dad would get along.
KD: I'm only 23! [laughs]
JG: [laughs]
KD: You've been on tour with a lot of bands that are maybe where you guys might be in a few years. Did you learn anything from them?
JG: BRMC [Black Rebel Motorcycle Club], that's one band that we've toured with, and another band called And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. I think we definitely learned, in a sense, what sort of ships they run. Tour managers, roadies, guitar techs, sound guys, merch girls, and all that jazz... that's something that we've never had. So seeing the way that they each run their operation, it's pretty different. BRMC, not surprisingly, run a pretty sober, focused ship. Trail of Dead, on the other hand, are very Motley Crue. [laughs] Both people make it to the shows on time and are no less professional, but it's just two extremes in terms of what kind of machine you want to be operating. It's given us a chance to articulate what we think we'd work well in.
KD: So which of the two do you think would be better for you? Running your band like a corporation, or the Motley Crue style?
JG: I'd say a little of both in the sense that my band-mates definitely emphasize fun over anything else, and that's part of [our] tenacity... like "If we're going to keep doing this, against all odds, it better be fun." I think, because of that, on the one hand that would be a reason to have people who are down with that with you, but on the other hand that's a reason to have more sober people with you too. Then you can be the chaos, and they can be the structure. You don't have to worry about anything because they're worrying about everything.
KD: Or you could just have your mom follow you around.
JG: [laughs] Well, essentially, my mom's house in LA is our second home. She's been a band mom for years now.
KD: She's pretty supportive of what you do.
JG: Yeah, I'm lucky. They're both 100% supportive. It's never occurred to me that I'm doing something that doesn't make them proud -- even when it didn't look like it was going to be something I could as a job.
KD: You're a musician now, and you majored in art history. You must have grown up in an artistic house.
JG: Yeah. My parents met at art school. It never occurred to me to be a cheerleader and study law. It's not that they wouldn't have supported me, had I done that, but the kind of people that I was surrounded by as role models weren't really those kind of people.
KD: I think my tape is almost out...
JG: [laughs] I talked your ear off! It's good that you caught me right when I woke up because I tend to ramble when I'm a little sleepy.
KD: [laughs] So I can get all the information out of you when you're tired.
JG: [laughs] Yeah! I haven't had my coffee yet, and once I do everything becomes hyper-efficient. I answer everything with three syllables.
KD: The people don't want to read that!
But the people do want to read up on Vue at The Vue.com.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
hellkitten said:
Great interview hun. I'm going to have to check 'em out +o)
Thanks babe!