Boston Globe Interview
Boston Globe
Courtney Taylor of The Dandy Warhols
By Joan Anderman
September 10, 2003

The Dandy Warhols are somewhere in Canada. Courtney Taylor-Taylor, the band's singer and songwriter, has just rolled out of bed and cannot possibly be more specific about his locale. Indeed, during the course of a rambling 20-minute interview about the band's new album, he fluctuates between lucid commentary and mind-bogglingly vague references, at times contradicting himself in the space of a sentence.

One imagines this is par for the course for a man who legally added his last name to his last name and has written some of the savviest, druggiest rock tunes this side of the Velvet Underground. The haze has lifted, however, on the Dandys' fourth CD, "Welcome to the Monkey House," a bleeping, whirring New Wave disc coproduced by Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes. Assuming Taylor-Taylor hasn't yet relocated to the island near Jamaica where he hopes to escape Armageddon with an army of people who feel the same way he feels, the Dandy Warhols will perform at the Paradise tonight.

When you went into the recording studio, did you have a clear idea of what you wanted this album to sound like?

Oh yeah. What we had in mind was very minimalist with lots of empty space. Dr. Dre but not rapping. Dr. Dre doing Simon and Garfunkel. When we finished, it sounded like Rick Rubin producing OutKast. Very lo-fi and messed-up.

But you ended up with a synth-pop disc. What happened?

Capitol [the Dandy Warhols' record label] didn't know what they could do with it. So Nick [Rhodes] came in after a year and a half and spent two weeks making it not so lo-fi sounding. It's cosmopolitan now. We had made a sloppier, ambling, jam version of this record, and by the time we were done with it I wanted something less trendy sounding. There's so much lo-fi now. All you need is a vintage guitar and a shaggy haircut. There was a major desire to remove ourselves from that.

How does an indie band from Portland, Ore., wind up working with Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran?

That was my idea. He just does something that people don't do anymore, something very champagne and caviar. Nobody in the world has the [guts] to make a glossy record anymore. It's international, first-class, David Bowie, Monaco. And we're taking a beating for it. People are [ticked] off, but I don't really care. It's like, "Not this again." We release records, and then they're kind of a failure. And two years later, they sell a hell of a lot. We're two years ahead of where we're supposed to be.

Are you happy with the way it turned out?

I love every [expletive] song on the album except for "We Used to Be Friends" [the first single]. Capitol had it reworked. They snuck around and had people come in and play guitars and add vocals. They were gross, and there's nothing you can do. Sue Capitol Records? The minute I spoke up, they threatened to not put it out. But "The Last High" is the best song in the world today.

That's the song you co-wrote with Evan Dando, right?

Yeah. I needed some help tidying that song up. I have a hard time finishing things. Evan and I had met, and I knew he was good. So we went to his place and hung out all night.

Can we assume that "Welcome to the Monkey House" is inspired by, or a tribute to, Kurt Vonnegut's short-story collection?

No. It's just a phrase I liked the sound of.

The Dandy Warhols are much bigger overseas than in the United States. How important is it for you to break through to mainstream success in your own country?

We obviously don't have a choice. We can't control it, therefore it can't be important to us or we'll just break our own hearts. And that's the last thing we need. You have to put away thoughts of commercial success and approach the world as you and your people against Them. I want to find the massive army of people who feel the way I do and speak to them. I want people to have my records only if they need them.

There's a sense of emptiness to the sounds and the words on this album -- all surface style, and not much underneath.

Yeah. That comes from this international time we had, flying around the world, being massively successful overseas, hanging out with David Bowie [who took the band out on tour]. We were trying to fit in with what's cool, and we were disgusted by it.

Did those experiences feed the sense of isolation you return to again and again in songs?

This is the most detached music we've ever done. Staying in five-star hotels and having a top-of-the-line Mercedes Benz with a driver who's picking up Paul McCartney after us -- that's when I found out you cannot avoid that isolated feeling. The aloneness is just there.

Is there anything that fills up the empty space?

No. So don't spend your life trying to make anyone like you. Nothing fills up that space.