The Big Takeover (#47) Interview - August 7, 2000
The Big Takeover #47
Bohemia Is A Lot More Than Just Sex And Drugs And Rock ‘N’ Roll
By Pamela Chelin

If you are going to call your band The Dandy Warhols, you better be sure that you are at least worthy of your 15 minutes. A few years ago, Portland, Oregon’s Dandy Warhols indeed lived up to their name with their terrific underground hit, “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth” – a song that exposed the unglamour of heroin and those who fall prey to its lure. Hand in hand with the song was a cool award-winning video, directed by the famed David La Chapelle. How could The Dandys lose? With a catchy pop song, a great looking band, and a reputation for living the consummate rock and roll lifestyle, the band seemed all set for success. And, with one listen to the rest of that second LP, Dandy Warhols Come Down, you knew that this was not some one-hit wonder. (Their first LP, Dandy’s Rule, OK, was was only released independently on T/K Records, leading to their deal with Capitol.) Their sonic depth, lyrical substance, and obvious love of guitars suggested that this band would not end up in the $.99 bin. They were too smart and had too much passion for music to just drift into anonymity.

A few years later and The Dandys are indeed back, outlasting that initial quarter hour of fame. Thankfully, they have not abandoned the essence of their earlier records, but instead have expanded upon it and provided us with a new 13-song LP, 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia. The Dandys have always been adept at filtering their obvious influences from country to pop to psychedelia, through their own imprimatur, coming up with a sound that has hints of everything that is definitively Dandy. This is especially true of their new single, “Bohemian Like You,” an infectious poppy tribute to young artists struggling to make ends meet while trying to express themselves and live a pure existence.

The song would seem an apt ode for singer Courtney Taylor to write, judging by the scene at soundcheck in Toronto, Canada, where local bands dropped by to hand off their CDs to Courtney and engage him in various discussions, from the wonders of Martin Amis novels to the ragged and exhausting aspects of touring. Excited about a new recording the Dandys have done of CSNY’s “Ohio,” Taylor played the tape through the club’s P.S., singing along and nodding his head as enthusiastically as if he were performing the song on-stage. Psyched for a sold out show, the singer and his bandmates, guitarist Peter Holmstrom, Keyboardist Zia McCabe and new drummer Brent DeBoer then demonstrated that their latest record would more than translate live, with a hypnotic thrust and a heavy, shaking dance groove.

A few weeks later, I caught up with Taylor via cell phone, just before his soundcheck at a Seattle club. The phone kept cutting out and we got disconnected a number of times. He was already exhausted from being interviewed all day and was now starting to lose patience with the technical difficulties we were having, but he remained in a good mood long enough to dispel rumors about the band and effuse his real and true love of music and people.

Pamela Chelin: So how are the shows since Toronto going?

Courtney: Great. All the shows are sold out. Only Boston and Salt Lake City were not sold out. [pause] Oh my God! The most beautiful woman in the world just walked right by. Oh my god! Oh my god! I should go after her.

PC: NO! IF she’s at the venue during soundcheck, it’s likely she’ll be at the show, Courtney. Believe in fate.

Courtney: OK, fate. Cool.

PC: So what’s it like touring this new record, compared to your last record, Come Down?

Courtney: We are better as a band. We’re more in control of how out of control we can be, and how we can bring it down to a chill and then bring it on again full tilt. We’re just better. We’re in a more groovy state.

PC: How was the production different for this record?

Courtney: We made our own studio. Therefore there was no pressure. Making records can be such an up and down process, emotionally. I don’t know. Maybe it has to be that way if the record is going to be any good.

PC: And you co-produced it?

Courtney: Myself and Gregg Williams, who has a lot of recording equipment.

PC: This record has a Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon quality to it, in that though the songs are different from each other, they flow into each other in a very seamless way. Did you pay much attention to the song order?

Courtney: Oh yeah! Definitely! We would have a lot of different listens. We’d even listen at different times of day. Sometimes something would bug me when I listened to it in the middle of the day, and something else would bug me in the middle of the night.

PC: Another similarity is that the vocals have very different treatments, depending upon the song. They range from the dreaminess of “Godless” to the straight-ahead nature of “Bohemian Like You,” to the album Lou Reed-meets-Johnny Cash low register of “Solid.” How do you decide what type of vocal to use?

Courtney: It’s just whatever turns me on. Whichever delivery suits the song.

PC: Really, on some of the songs, the lyrics aren’t prominent in the mix, so it’s like you use them as just another instrument, or layer…

Courtney: Really? See, some people say that they are too prominent, others say not prominent enough. I think they’re prominent.

PC: Well, you also know what you’re singing, so you don’t have to try and make out the lyrics! It’s harder for someone like me to hear them. But from what I could sort out, I noticed a bunch of words like “Mohammed,” “Nietzsche,” “Godless,” etc… That seems like a lot of waxing philosophical, or religious soul-searching. Were you recently on that kind of personal voyage?

Courtney: [laughs] Only my whole life! Really, the lyrics are the same as on the last record. It’s all the same, just a continuation. Structurally, all the songs are the same as before. [another pause\ Oh my god! Hang on… Sorry Pamela, but there is a picture of a white fluffy kitty and the caption reads, “Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten.” [Both laugh loudly. Courtney continues cracking up and calls over his bandmates to show them.]

PC: Is this a spoof magazine or something?

Courtney: No. It’s a sticker, obviously made by someone brilliant! [Courtney continues laughing for quite a while]… Oh my god! That is so fucking funny. [Can’t stop laughing.] I’m sorry. Have you been on the phone all day? I’ve been doing interviews all day!

PC: No, I’m not a journalist by trade, so I don’t have to do this all day.

Courtney: You’re lucky! Jesus! I wouldn’t even want all my best friends to call me now. I’ve been doing this all afternoon.

PC: I understand. It’s tiring. We’ll try to wrap this up soon. So, let’s talk about your songwriting. I read that you only write a song if something hits you emotionally, as an eight or higher out of 10.

Courtney: Yeah, I don’t actually write a lot. It’s just like channeling, really. Almost every song I’ve ever written, I’ve recorded. I don’t care if it’s a song, even [i.e. it can be only a fragment]. I don’t try to make good music. If it’s a sound, and you like the sound, that’s cool.

PC: I’m sorry if you’ll take offense to this, but the central riff of your new single “Bohemian Like You” is a total steal from The Rolling Stones, right? I would find it hard to believe I’m insulting you since it is so overt. You’re not hiding it, it obviously sounds just like “Brown Sugar.”

Courtney: Fuck Yeah! I pretty much ripped it off! Everyone always wants to do it, and they never do, so I said ‘I’m going for it’ and it feels good. Fuck, it feels great! It’s not necessarily “Brown Sugar,” though. It could be “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” [Or “Honky Tonk Woman,” or about 30 other Stones songs. They’ve ripped themselves off so many times, they could get confused and sue themselves in court like the Rutles did. – ed.] It’s not an exact rift.

PC: Well at least you readily admit to ripping off The Stones. Dare I ask then if it’s the same thing for “Big Indian,” which sounds, melodically, exactly like John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery?”

Courtney: I don’t know that song. But that’s cool. I’ll have to listen to it.

PC: I also wanted to ask you about how you are often painted as alcoholic, drug-addled sex addicts by the media. A lot of that is from the British media [where the band is more popular], who are notorious for projecting images onto a band. Would you say, in your case, that the British media just want you to be that, in order to fulfill what they need to sell papers?

Courtney: Oh yeah, for sure! They don’t use a quote if I talk about music and what bands I like and about what I care about and my friends… and then ask questions about sex and which drugs we like, and that’s all they use. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.

PC: I did read somewhere that you liked Stereolab. So, at least one of your musical preferences made it into print.

Courtney: That’s all they said? God! [disgusted]

PC: Tied into the British side of things, is that over here people say you sound British, yet didn’t the best British bands ultimately base a lot of their sound upon American blues? So it all just comes back to the U.S., anyway?

Courtney: Yeah, I mean, whatever. To Americans we sound British and to the British we sound American, so I guess we call somewhere in between! We grew up on a healthy diet of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and The Doors. Maybe we sound somewhere exactly halfway in between. Maybe we sound Icelandic! [both laugh]

PC: Well, one major British icon complimented you, recently: David Bowie.

Courtney: Yeah! He walked up after a show. It was really brief. He told me it was fucking brilliant, and that he listened to the record all the time. At first it seemed pretty mundane, but later I realized that it made me feel utterly validated! All those times getting elbowed in the halls at school for wearing eyeliner and having bangs down to my nose… it was like God coming up to me and saying, “You were right. Sorry it took me so long.”

PC: Would you want to work with Bowie?

Courtney: Yeah! I’d love him or Duran Duran to produce our next record. I hear Duran Duran are fans of ours, too.

PC: Hmmm, I’d go for Bowie. [That sure as hell makes two of us!! It’s like, “Hmmm, should I eat a bowl of fresh ice cream or a bowl of month-old milk! I can’t decide!” – ed] So, what about radio and video? How important is that stuff to you?

Courtney: Capitol left me alone for the video for “Godless,” so that was great. The director and director of photography were just masturbatory geniuses!

PC: What? Masturbatory? Does that mean that God killed a lot of kittens that day? [Courtney starts cracking up uncontrollably again.] There was some kind of ban on the video, right? In which country? Or, you had to edit it to get airplay.

Courtney: Yeah, in Canada. There was a scene with cocaine. But I like Canada, so it’s cool. I like the vibe there better then in America – but then again there’s a maverick quality to America that I like too. As far as radio, we always get played on the cool stations and that’s great. We aren’t making millions of dollars, but at least we get to do what we want to do for a living. It would be great if we – and our favorite bands like Apples In Stereo [See, The Big Takeover prints in when you tout your favorite bands! –ed] – sold eight million records, but…

PC: So, what bands are you listening to right now?

Courtney: Chet Baker and a band from San Francisco, I don’t even know if they are signed. They’re called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. They sound like Love And Rockets meets The Jesus & Mary Chain.

PC: When I watched your soundcheck in Toronto, you played a tape of CSNY’s “Ohio” that you’d just recorded the day before. What was that for?

Courtney: It’s for an independent film coming out about political resistance movements. Bands were asked to choose a protest song and I’d always loved “Ohio.” I always thought, “Shit. This a cool song.”

PC: All right, Courtney. I’m going to end your agony and let you go, so give me something to sign off with. What are your plans when you get off the road?

Courtney: We won’t get off the road!

[And with that, the cell phone died for the last time.]