At the relatively young age of 46, Mike Watt is already a punk legend. After meeting D. Boon at age 13 they soon discovered that they were musical soulmates. They went on to form the legendary punk trio the Minutemen, which was the second act ever released on the pivotal SST record label. The band then toured nonstop up until Boons death in a van accident.
Not too much was heard from Watt until the next year when a rabid Minuteman fan named Ed Crawford found him and together they formed Firehose which also toured nonstop for almost eight years.
Since then Watt has had a prolific solo career releasing albums and playing with artists such as Perry Farrell, Eddie Vedder, Pat Smear and Dave Grohl.
Check out Mike Watts hoot page
Daniel Robert Epstein: How are you doing?
Mike Watt: I got a kayak a few months ago so I paddle three days a week.
DRE: When did you get into that?
MW: I got into it last June. San Pedro is the harbor of Los Angeles so living by the water I figured, why not paddle?
DRE: By yourself?
MW: Yeah its a little one-man kayak and its fun. I spend about 2 hours a day on it, Monday, Tuesday and Saturday. Then I pedal my bike for a couple of hours. I wake up very early like 4:30 am. I only stay up late for gigs now. I go to bed usually right after practice about 8:30 pm.
DRE: I was at your webpage. It seems like people are passing away right and left.
MW: Yeah its really sad. Wesley Willis and Johnny Cash were the most recent.
DRE: I didnt realize you were such a young guy.
MW: Im 46 now. Its all circumstance. I was born the year John Coltrane quit heroin, 1957. Sputnik went up that year also.
It ended up being a fortuitous time to be born because D. Boon, Georgie [Hurley] and me all graduated high school in 1976 which is right when punk came on. Thats why I believe we got to play in front of people because it was a scene that was open enough that would let anybody on stage.
DRE: How are you holding up?
MW: Im much healthier. The last tour was my 50th tour and I was sick three times, the beginning, middle and end. I havent been sick since. I rebuilt my immune system. I got this illness three years ago that almost killed me. Thats what my next record is about.
DRE: I read that you tried to capture a sound of the illness.
MW: Yeah thats what I thought about using an organ. This band I have is a bass, organ and drums. The organ is kind of churchlike so that creates the atmosphere. I was very grateful I got over being sick so I could pedal, paddle and plunk.
DRE: Besides the sickness, how was that tour?
MW: I played the first Stooges gig in 29 years so that was very exciting. Im actually the youngest guy in the band for once. Then I had to do five more weeks of tour, which burned the fever out of me.
Some of the guys like Pete Mazich and Jerry Trebotic are sweet guys with great karma.
DRE: Had you played with them before?
MW: I started playing with them with this band I put together after Firehose called The Madonnabes. It wasnt band to play gigs but more to practice because with the bass I have to play it everyday because it has big strings. I wanted to keep myself in shape and thats how I met them. Its nice to have guys in your own town to play with.
DRE: What are your fingers like?
MW: Well after a while you cant really have the pads anymore because they get caught under the strings and rip off. So after a while your hands become like moccasins and more pliable so there is a thickness to them so they dont tear. I understand all your nerves for touch and feel are there. So when they get torn open you are in a lot of pain. That was the early years but after a while my body gets accustomed to it.
DRE: Do you still you feel like you connect with the younger audience?
MW: Yeah I like to play to the younger people. I like playing to people my age too but a lot of them stopped going to gigs. They get into other modes like parallel universes of existence so I dont see them as much. I see the younger people and I like it because I never had children myself in a biological sense so in an aesthetic sense I have a family. In some ways there are Peter Pan aspects to my life like still playing but in other ways I had to become even more responsible because Ive never had a manager so I had to become adult that way. When I play with Perry [Farrell] he tells me to keep a childs eye which is not be nave. But you want to keep wonder and not get jaded and cynical. Young people are a good way to keep connected to that. You got to try to stay a student for life, to not try to get full of yourself. Also kids are curious about what its like to get a little older. They see some guy onstage that looks like their dad its kind of a mind-blowing version of punk. Im hoping to give them some confidence so they will take on the arts. Maybe not just music but painting, writing or rebuilding carburetors. Youve got to make an art out of this life. Art is used by us to prove to each other that we are alive. This is what I am trying to extend to people, including people my age, because it seems like there are parts of this society that have a predatory look on young people. A perspective where they are just people with disposable income that you should farm like herd animals or something. I have a lot more respect for them than that. I want to empower them by serving as an example. Im not saying they should imitate me but if they see a bozo like me up there they should try some of their creations out. I feel thats one of the gifts that punk gave to me and D. Boon, the idea to let the flag fly.
DRE: You still play with a lot of good people.
MW: Yeah you cant learn everything by always being the boss. I think its good to be a deckhand too especially if you want to ask others to help you with your ideas.
DRE: I didnt realize you played on the School of Rock soundtrack.
MW: Yeah it was called Wylde Rattz. It was kind of a studio thing where we got together to do some songs for the movie Velvet Goldmine then we did enough songs for a whole album, which will see the light someday. One of those songs got onto School of Rock.
DRE: I read this great quote from you, "Being in a band is a political statement in and of itself." I dont know when you said that exactly but do you still feel thats valid?
MW: Absolutely. For a young person a band is the most idealized form of a political state. Guys get together, make decisions and act on them. They enable creativity and actualize it by bringing it to audiences. The ensemble act of creating is kind of a political endeavor. Trying to find your own voice is also a political expression.
DRE: Have you always had that philosophy?
MW: Well a lot of these ideas came from Minutemen and my experience with D. Boon. We used to play in his bedroom until punk came then music was a whole new thing for us. When you could play for people we started thinking about all the different perspectives. We came up with the idea that the world was two different categories, gigs and flyers. Everything that wasnt a gig was a flyer to get people to the gig. We were young men coming into our own and trying to understand how we fit into the world. We saw that music was one way we could relate to other people.
DRE: You and D. Boon were 13 years old when you met.
MW: Yeah, his mother made me play bass. We used to listen to music in his room. The culture of the early 70s was not little people trying to create their own thing but to imitate others.
DRE: What was it that made you go play in public at first?
MW: The way we knew rock and roll was arena rock. But when we went to The Whiskey and saw punk bands up close we saw that the guy onstage could be standing next to you for the next band. It was a whole different thing than sitting in the dark for an arena show. I said to D. Boon, Man we could do this. Its hard to explain nowadays because its so obvious now but for us it was fucken earth shattering and profound.
DRE: Do you feel that there is real punk now?
MW: Yeah. Punk is not really a style of mystic. It was more like a state of mind. So there are punk painters like Raymond Pettibone. Its anybody who doesnt feel embraced by the big herd so they set up their own little world outside of that. It people think it sucks then so fucking what you're going to keep going.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Not too much was heard from Watt until the next year when a rabid Minuteman fan named Ed Crawford found him and together they formed Firehose which also toured nonstop for almost eight years.
Since then Watt has had a prolific solo career releasing albums and playing with artists such as Perry Farrell, Eddie Vedder, Pat Smear and Dave Grohl.
Check out Mike Watts hoot page
Daniel Robert Epstein: How are you doing?
Mike Watt: I got a kayak a few months ago so I paddle three days a week.
DRE: When did you get into that?
MW: I got into it last June. San Pedro is the harbor of Los Angeles so living by the water I figured, why not paddle?
DRE: By yourself?
MW: Yeah its a little one-man kayak and its fun. I spend about 2 hours a day on it, Monday, Tuesday and Saturday. Then I pedal my bike for a couple of hours. I wake up very early like 4:30 am. I only stay up late for gigs now. I go to bed usually right after practice about 8:30 pm.
DRE: I was at your webpage. It seems like people are passing away right and left.
MW: Yeah its really sad. Wesley Willis and Johnny Cash were the most recent.
DRE: I didnt realize you were such a young guy.
MW: Im 46 now. Its all circumstance. I was born the year John Coltrane quit heroin, 1957. Sputnik went up that year also.
It ended up being a fortuitous time to be born because D. Boon, Georgie [Hurley] and me all graduated high school in 1976 which is right when punk came on. Thats why I believe we got to play in front of people because it was a scene that was open enough that would let anybody on stage.
DRE: How are you holding up?
MW: Im much healthier. The last tour was my 50th tour and I was sick three times, the beginning, middle and end. I havent been sick since. I rebuilt my immune system. I got this illness three years ago that almost killed me. Thats what my next record is about.
DRE: I read that you tried to capture a sound of the illness.
MW: Yeah thats what I thought about using an organ. This band I have is a bass, organ and drums. The organ is kind of churchlike so that creates the atmosphere. I was very grateful I got over being sick so I could pedal, paddle and plunk.
DRE: Besides the sickness, how was that tour?
MW: I played the first Stooges gig in 29 years so that was very exciting. Im actually the youngest guy in the band for once. Then I had to do five more weeks of tour, which burned the fever out of me.
Some of the guys like Pete Mazich and Jerry Trebotic are sweet guys with great karma.
DRE: Had you played with them before?
MW: I started playing with them with this band I put together after Firehose called The Madonnabes. It wasnt band to play gigs but more to practice because with the bass I have to play it everyday because it has big strings. I wanted to keep myself in shape and thats how I met them. Its nice to have guys in your own town to play with.
DRE: What are your fingers like?
MW: Well after a while you cant really have the pads anymore because they get caught under the strings and rip off. So after a while your hands become like moccasins and more pliable so there is a thickness to them so they dont tear. I understand all your nerves for touch and feel are there. So when they get torn open you are in a lot of pain. That was the early years but after a while my body gets accustomed to it.
DRE: Do you still you feel like you connect with the younger audience?
MW: Yeah I like to play to the younger people. I like playing to people my age too but a lot of them stopped going to gigs. They get into other modes like parallel universes of existence so I dont see them as much. I see the younger people and I like it because I never had children myself in a biological sense so in an aesthetic sense I have a family. In some ways there are Peter Pan aspects to my life like still playing but in other ways I had to become even more responsible because Ive never had a manager so I had to become adult that way. When I play with Perry [Farrell] he tells me to keep a childs eye which is not be nave. But you want to keep wonder and not get jaded and cynical. Young people are a good way to keep connected to that. You got to try to stay a student for life, to not try to get full of yourself. Also kids are curious about what its like to get a little older. They see some guy onstage that looks like their dad its kind of a mind-blowing version of punk. Im hoping to give them some confidence so they will take on the arts. Maybe not just music but painting, writing or rebuilding carburetors. Youve got to make an art out of this life. Art is used by us to prove to each other that we are alive. This is what I am trying to extend to people, including people my age, because it seems like there are parts of this society that have a predatory look on young people. A perspective where they are just people with disposable income that you should farm like herd animals or something. I have a lot more respect for them than that. I want to empower them by serving as an example. Im not saying they should imitate me but if they see a bozo like me up there they should try some of their creations out. I feel thats one of the gifts that punk gave to me and D. Boon, the idea to let the flag fly.
DRE: You still play with a lot of good people.
MW: Yeah you cant learn everything by always being the boss. I think its good to be a deckhand too especially if you want to ask others to help you with your ideas.
DRE: I didnt realize you played on the School of Rock soundtrack.
MW: Yeah it was called Wylde Rattz. It was kind of a studio thing where we got together to do some songs for the movie Velvet Goldmine then we did enough songs for a whole album, which will see the light someday. One of those songs got onto School of Rock.
DRE: I read this great quote from you, "Being in a band is a political statement in and of itself." I dont know when you said that exactly but do you still feel thats valid?
MW: Absolutely. For a young person a band is the most idealized form of a political state. Guys get together, make decisions and act on them. They enable creativity and actualize it by bringing it to audiences. The ensemble act of creating is kind of a political endeavor. Trying to find your own voice is also a political expression.
DRE: Have you always had that philosophy?
MW: Well a lot of these ideas came from Minutemen and my experience with D. Boon. We used to play in his bedroom until punk came then music was a whole new thing for us. When you could play for people we started thinking about all the different perspectives. We came up with the idea that the world was two different categories, gigs and flyers. Everything that wasnt a gig was a flyer to get people to the gig. We were young men coming into our own and trying to understand how we fit into the world. We saw that music was one way we could relate to other people.
DRE: You and D. Boon were 13 years old when you met.
MW: Yeah, his mother made me play bass. We used to listen to music in his room. The culture of the early 70s was not little people trying to create their own thing but to imitate others.
DRE: What was it that made you go play in public at first?
MW: The way we knew rock and roll was arena rock. But when we went to The Whiskey and saw punk bands up close we saw that the guy onstage could be standing next to you for the next band. It was a whole different thing than sitting in the dark for an arena show. I said to D. Boon, Man we could do this. Its hard to explain nowadays because its so obvious now but for us it was fucken earth shattering and profound.
DRE: Do you feel that there is real punk now?
MW: Yeah. Punk is not really a style of mystic. It was more like a state of mind. So there are punk painters like Raymond Pettibone. Its anybody who doesnt feel embraced by the big herd so they set up their own little world outside of that. It people think it sucks then so fucking what you're going to keep going.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 21 of 21 COMMENTS
this is obviously from 2004, but Mike's obit of Ron Asheton of the Stooges is worth looking up.
Ron Asheton is one of the greatest rock guitarists of all-time. he and Mick Ronson are as underrated as they go. and D. Boon.
jam econo people.