Nothing As It Seems
Revolver #129
by -
April 30, 2001 - May 7, 2001

Zia McCabe and Courtney Taylor-Taylor from The Dandy Warhols talk about growing up, marriage, and the toothless underground.

Zia McCabe is getting married on October 7. I’ll pause to let that sing in. And listen to the sound of hearts breaking. Young men everywhere. The keyboardist and bassist in arguably the world’s sexist band, The Dandy Warhols, and perpetrator of the odd legendary ‘topless’ performance – and that’s nothing compared to her nude sleeve shot on their Dandys Rule OK? Album – will say “I do” to Travis Hendricks, who appears as the barman in a couple of their videos.

In fact, she’s just been out shopping for her wedding dress, and having been caught out – it’s been a very well kept secret – owns up to the naked truth. She laughs: “We’re getting married in our friend’s backyard and then we’ll have a party. It’s going to be fun. I think that I’m going to have Courtney (Taylor-Taylor, singer/guitarist/songwriter/last great rock star) and Brent (DeBoer, drums) sing a couple of songs on acoustic for the wedding and I’m trying to get Troy (Stewart, touring band slide guitarist and multi-instrumentalist) to play the Wedding March on his trumpet but he doesn’t seem very excited about it so maybe we can talk him into it.

To the onlooker, Zia has always appeared the most sane of the bands members. She laughs at that but notes that she and Peter (Holmstrom, guitars) already own their homes: “You know what, I bet Peter will be the next to get married.” You can also seen it on stage. There’s a constant dialogue after each song between her and Courtney (“About how the show is going, maybe, what’s going on with our sound or our emotions; just whatever we need to make the next song better; we just check in”.). She seems like the rock in their sea of intensity. And it gets pretty intense in The Dandy Warhols.

They are, you see, a smashing band. And a gang. A real group. None of that silly let’s-pretend-we-understand-rock-and-know-how-to-pose-properly stuff with the Dandys. Nah. They know rock…intuitively. In the gut. Instinct. They get it. They were all born in a garage stuffed with imagination. The Dandys do drugs; they do drink – although much less then they did seven years ago, according to Zia, who only drinks on the road; and the Dandys do debauche. And, by hells bells, they are a mother of a rock group. Lester Bangs would have loved them. He would have euphemized endlessly over them. He would have smelled spirit and spirits. He would have wanted to get trashed with them. And he would have written copious prose about their ability and sheer majestic force. He would also have found sex smeared over The Dandy Warhols. Because they are damn sexy. Nobody should be that sexy and that good musically and lyrically. They even know how to write great songs. And not just one or two flukes. There are at least 15 classic Dandy Warhols tunes. And Lester, like me, would sneer at those who think of them as poseurs. Only the greats can afford to pose. And the Dandys have change leftover.

And, incidently, it’s the time that The Dandys did the full It’s A Fast-Driving Rave-Up With The Dandy Warhols Sixteen Minutes instead of the shortened versions we’ve been treated to on past tours. Why? Because I want to hear it. And my girlfriend wants to hear it and sever other people I know what to wig out to it. Because it is THE psychedelic experience of modern rock. Just like Good Morning is one of the best five guitar pop songs written in the last decade. And Boys Better has the best intro to a tune in years, especially the build, that jangling chord and the way the drums splash in with a huge crunch and crushing, atomising blow – followed by Zia’s organ line snaking its way into your groin. And Godless is so fuckin’ sublime it’s three joints left of way cool and somewhere in karma country; a bliss out that Keith Richards can only imagine. And if you don’t own the three great Dandy Warhols albums – Dandy’s Rule OK?, Come Down, 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia – then you should have no notion of where rock music is and should be. There’s a lovely description of Dandy’s Rule OK? that goes: “Justine Frishmann (of Elsatica) had a baby and they called it Roger McGuinn. They then force fed it psychedelics, and the Dandys snailed the secret of full frontal sonic wallpaper before it had finished its first trip. Surf music for the end of the world. Sister Ray on a skateboard.” The Dandy Warhols make people write with imagination: and if it’s bloody confusing and, even, meaningless who cares. It’s better then the paper mache that substitutes for some music writing these days. Come Down was more of the same, only more of the wallpaper. And 13 Tales was a step into sonic speculation: The Dandy’s ‘rock’ record as Courtney says. And, of course, over the last couple of albums, in particular, they self-mythologized; Courtney even did it in his interviews. How good is that. A band that actually wants to present itself as more then a ‘bunch of guys and/or girls with a little bit of attitude making loud music with a little bit of attitude.’ Oh please. Iggy would vomit on the navels of such pretenders and Frank’s weasels would rip their flesh off. Both would did the Dandys.

“I think one of our great strengths is a sense of not growing up even as we are growing up,” Zia says. “I don’t think we’ll ever grow up completely. We have such a good time together and it’s really just about making each other laugh, making each other comfortable and having a good time together. Everything comes from that. If that isn’t happening for us then everything else crumples.”

Zia McCabe is a delight to talk to and this also happens to be her first ever interview with an Australian journalist. She’ll do a few more afterwords but it represents a lovely chance to get her perceptions of the band and Courtney, who most often dominates the press. And get the finer detail. For instance, Janis Joplin is her idol and she has her tattoo on her wrist: “I got it more then a year ago. It’s beautiful. I love it. It’s my favourite tattoo. It’s looks exactly like her. I noticed it looks really good with my wedding dress.” So are you getting married in white? “It is white, but I tried on three different ones – a silver one, a platinum-coloured one and cream but this is the one I liked the best and it happened to be white.”

She is also, obviously, the only girl in the band – and that surely is either difficult at times or at least must offer a different view of planet Dandy. Zia giggles, “If you look at the guys does it really seem like I’m the only girl.” No, not really. “They’re just as much chick, if not more then me. Courtney and I have talked about that and he agrees with me. You know, I’ve talked to girls that are in all-girl bands and I can’t see how they would do it. With me there’s only one PMT, there’s only one girl issue, and there’s three guys – one of them is going to be able to cope with me at any given time. Four chicks! Come on, you’re all going to be freaking out at the same time. And you’re all going to have these big dramatic emotional arguments. I think it would be much harder. I have no competition. I get to be me and I get to be a little different from them and it’s okay. I’m all by myself for the things I like and I’m with them for the things I need them for. It’s really nice.” Imagine being on guy in a four-girl band. “Oh my God, you’d have to be gay. No, I’m very happy with the situation. Besides, if there was any other girl I’d have to worry about whether she was prettier then me, skinnier then me or more talented. I don’t have to worry about any of that. They are all prettier and more talented and that’s fine because they’re boys.” The divine logic of womanhood. “Yeah, I think everybody has their own set of logic. Getting along with people is lining up your moral and logic guidelines.”

So who was the first of the guys you ever laid eyes on and what did you think? “Courtney was the first one I met when I’d just turned 19 and I thought he was gay and then later I thought Peter was gay too. Courtney lived in Portland and I lived across the river in Vancouver and I was going to college. I’d never been in any bands or played any instrument. Anyway, I thought he was kind of weird and interesting and that’s what he thought about me, young and fearless and up for anything – and it worked out. Then Peter got back from New York and our old drummer Eric Hedford showed up and we did a couple of practices and I went to the Grateful Dead for a week, came back and played a show. I’d never even been in a bar before. It was so weird. And now it’s seven years later and most of it has just been a wonderful time. A lot of our growth and success is due to Courtney though because he’s the talented one when it comes to songwriting. That said, it’s also wanting to always grow and be a better person and be better at being a person and if you have that in mind then everything you touch is going to be constantly evolving. We’re not stagnant people emotionally, philosophically or socially. And if you’re not stagnant in those areas, then none of your life is stagnant and you’re always evolving and you’re always having new experiences. That’s why our music changes and grows.”

And it has a lot to do with that sense of the musical past, the heritage your music embodies. “Courtney is a genius when it comes to that,” Zia says. “I’ve learned so much from him, from listening to him do interviews. Everytime when he’s on a really good one and has a lot to say and come to a lot of new conclusions, my jaw just drops at what he’s concluded about what makes a song, what makes rock’n’roll, what makes a pop song, what makes a gen. And he’s thought about those things for his whole life and come to so many brilliant conclusion. He’s so smart in that area. As far as the philosophy of music goes, I think very few people understand it the way he does.”

That brings us , perfectly, to Mr. Courtney or T-T (who used to just be T). This is the fifth interview I’ve done with him in the past 3 years. And he’s so way cool in his own head, it doesn’t matter what anybody else things, because he can – and does – pull it off. The last great rock star? Maybe. A damn fine musician? You bet. An interesting bloke to pass the star-spangled natter with? Yeah. He has a way of talking that sounds filthy but isn’t. In fact, he can be quite poetic. And he’s intelligent. And honest. He calls a prick a prick. I’ve interviewed him after he’s been up all night shagging and wrecked off his face; when he’s stoned; when he’s hungover; when he’s jet-lagged; in bed, and – this day – on the couch in his Portland home. He needs no more introduction than life as seen by Courtney Taylor-Taylor: “Everything had been going amazingly well in my entire life until yesterday when a really good friend of mine died. That was fucked up, so I’m kind of hungover today. A really great guy called Kel Tanner who sang in a band called The Webbers and had been around forever. It’s very symbolic in my head. I can’t get past the symbolism of the Portland I used to know being gone and Kel dying was like a really massive part of that. Basically, I’m not going to refer to Portland as Portland anymore, I’m going to call it the American Center For Alternative Fashion. And when people go ‘You live where? Is that a big building?’ No, no, it’s a city in Oregon. You just walk outside and it’s just an alternative fashion show. Every street, every person is like fabulous and alternative. They got money, they’ve got everything. Every other building is a coffee shop and the ones between the coffee shops are antique and thrift stores. Resale shops. That’s Portland. It’s all you get. You go downtown and it’s all advertising agencies, software companies, graphics designers, and they’ve all got to have shaved heads, tattoos and nose rings. Or the English indie look. Black bowl cuts, Levi chords for men. It’s just so goddamn slick.” What was the old Portland like? “Toothless underground. Notes from the toothless underground. Just a depressed forgotten city that had weirdo – real weirdo – artists, sort of weird theatre and just strangers. It was just strangeville.”

What changed it? “A bunch of computer companies moved up here. Intel boomed. Nike is massive. And then all the travel magazines started calling it ‘the most beautiful city in America’.” He whispers that, mocking. “And that it became the most moved to city in America and the population as quadrupled in the last 10 years.”

But Courtney and the band are: “…buying a building right now. It’s going to be our studio/club house.”

We talk about the last Australian tour: T-T can’t actually, initially, remember the Metro in Sydney. Graphic description of the building doesn’t help. “No, I’m just picturing a dump we played in Melbourne. I can’t get my head out of the bucket in Melbourne shithole we played in. God. And I can remember Adelaide. Really nice venue there. Sydney is just a fucking blank. Probably, we were totally tired, stoned and God knows what else. Oh. Oh. We stayed in the Sebel. The last night before they tore it down. But I don’t remember the fucking venue.” Eventually he does.

We prattle about since then. A couple of months off, then Europe where “we totally kicked ass. It became very clear to everyone we were a band on the verge of becoming massive, which was great because we don’t get hit singles or stuff. You know, we release a record, have no big hits, then a year later we’re huge. We’re a bit of a sleeper but we just keep growing.”

And they just went gold in Australia (Zia has ordered one for her mum, her dad and her sister). “We refer to Australia as downunder (the pronunciation is suitably nasal.). It’s fucking cool. It’s like Portland used to be.”

So have you given any thought to next record? “Oh yeah, it’s going to be a weirdo. We’re just heading to this space, lots of empty space rather then just stick with guitars and shit. We’ve just been listening to a hell of a lot of Dr. Dre and Outkast. The greatest producers and the greatest sonic achievements are, right now, in hip-hop. The shit just sounds great. They’re settling the standard for us for what we can get speakers to do. What kind of head-fucking backflips and stuff. We made our class of ’71 big rock record and before that we made our 15 guitar tracks all doing the same thing record. Every record is an experiment both sonically and motionally. And this time it will be our studio. It will just be us.” That could be dangerous. “You know, I actually have a feeling that we will actually be pretty quick. Very prolific. I think the hardest thing is working around some other mixer. There’s always a lot of ho-hum going on. So we’ll make a bid on this old creepy-looking warehouse space this week and then when we come back from Australia – if we end up getting this place or the one we looked at last week – then we’ll start building and hopefully be working one month later.”

Like Zia says, The Dandy Warhols Grow Up – it’s a great title for an album. And a statement of intent, particularly as the best, frighteningly, is yet to come.