Ray Gun article/interview

Ray Gun Magazine
by Ray Gun
Fall 1997

Well, they could eat now, or just have a snack, because they have to go play live on the radio soon, and they’re not up for it, and maybe they should eat now, and maybe they should go back to the Roosevelt Hotel, where they tried to get a cabana room but couldn’t, and the ones they got are awfully small, but then again, maybe they should just have soup.
“What are bangers?” bassist Zia McCabe asks suspiciously, staring at the menu at the British-food-oriented Cat N’ Fiddle.
“Sausages,” explains drummer Eric Hedford.
So is everyone eating, ‘cause there’s the other dinner later, or do they want to eat after the radio station gig…
“This is just too confusing,” says guitarist Peter Holmstrom.
The Dandy Warhols aren’t in Portland, Oregon, any more, and their stacked LA schedule of interview and photo shoots just doesn’t seem natural to them. At home, “We maybe practice every other day. Maybe probably we go out every night,” says McCabe.
“That’s structure,” say vocalist Courtney Taylor.
That’s Portland.
“There’s different camps. There’s punks, and alternative cooler-than-thou.” Explains Holmstrom about the scene. “The more obscure your band, the better you are. But it’s totally accessible, there’s a small town feel to it.”
“They don’t really care what your band sounds like, they just care if you’re a dick or not,” adds Taylor. “There’s no meet and greet going on in Portland, man, there’s just drinking and rocking. There’s a lot of blow, a lot of alcohol, and a lot of bands. It’s a seedy little scene, a weird, bohemian freakshow.”
He recounts a story about dropping on in a recording session by a local band. “They were going to get a record deal if the label liked this song and thought it was a Wallflowers-y hit. I didn’t know this – I just went in and listened to it. The engineer and the songwriter are just sitting there like, ‘I don’t know any more.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean? It’s obvious to me. Like, what’s up with those studio nerd drum sounds, and bring up the tinny-ness in the slide guitar, and your vocals are way too loud. Run it through every compressor you have, get it to wash out.”
“And he explained to me it’s got to be like radio. The Wallflowers,” he continues.” And I said, ‘Oh, then I have no idea what to do. Nevermind. I could fuck up your big hit.’ That never happens in Portland. Nobody imagines getting their shit on the radio in Portland. It’s gnarlier than thou. The only place gnarlier is Detroit.”
“It’s so eclectic, it never goes off the deep end in any one way,” adds McCabe. “There’s never been too embarrassing a scene.” A number of notable bands, including Everclear and Pond, have emerged from it.
A few years back, the Dandy Warhols got serious, in a manner of speaking, when McCabe completed the line-up.
“We found her at a Starbucks,” explains Hedford.
“I called them, told them I didn’t know how to play any instruments, and they said I could come over anyway,” she recalls. “(Courtney) mentioned all these bands I’d never heard of. Finally he mentioned T-Rex, and I was like, ‘Whew! Oh, yeah, they’re great.’ It took me forever to finally ask who Andy Warhol was.”
“I never cared about Andy Warhol’s art or anything,” explains Taylor, “but he collected people like us around him and then put them in his movies. It just seemed to make sense. When we first started the band we were like, anyone can hang out with us as long as you’re fucked in the head, and you’re pretty and somewhat intellectual, and like to get naked, fucked up and party. We had a really great group of freaks around us.”
From the midst of this chaos came the Dandy Warhols’ 1995 indie CD, Dandys Rule Ok, which spawned a hit single, “TV Theme Song,” and earned them giant buzz and many free expensive dinners and trips from A&R guys (which they worked to the hilt). They signed to a major, and did the cool, but really uncommercial thing and began to work on what they now call their Black Album.
“We just spent a month having our friends in the studio doing drugs and making noise and thinking it was great when we were higher than shit on crystal meth,” explains Taylor with refreshing candor. “The next day, after sleeping all day, listening to it again and going, ‘Why was this so great? I can’t tell any more!’ I don’t know… It was just a freakout, so after a month of this we said, ‘Fuck this.’”
“It’s really cool, though, the record we bailed on,” he says wistfully. “The [released] record is more of a concerted effort. We actually have songs.”
Good songs, as a matter of fact – a skewed haze of psychedelics, dark gloss, and undulating, ominous reverb. Laid-back in that cool, druggy way the Velvet Underground was.
Record company folks begin to hover in the patio of the Cat N’ Fiddle; It’s time to take those songs to play on KCRW. Now they’re kind of up for it. Bad schedule notwithstanding, the Dandy Warhols are taking their major label duties in stride.
“We’re pretty easy-going. We like everything,” says McCabe. “we’re very easily amused and take everything for what it’s worth, and enjoy it all.”
“People adapt to us,” says Taylor.
“They have no choice,” says Hedford.
“There’s all these games we like to play,” says McCabe.
“Like Hollywood Meet and Greet,” says Taylor. “We love to play that game.”
“That’s not what we stand for,” explains McCabe.
“What do we stand for?” queries Holmstrom.
“Impressing whoever’s buying the drinks,” explains Taylor succinctly.
“We’re all about you tonight, baby…”