No Way Interview
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No Way
Courtney Taylor and Zia McCabe of The Dandy Warhols
By Terisinha Costa
1995
To be honest, I wasn't prepared for the interview. I assumed I wouldn't get to do it before the show because of the short notice. I got the call an hour before the scheduled interview. AHH!!! I had listened to the CD a few months back and was always curious to find out more about the bunch. I was going to write Tim Kerr Records but never did. I was excited to hear of their opening for the Electrafixion/Echobelly show. The band is made up of four memebrs: Courtney (singer), Peter (guitar), Eric (drums), and Zia (keyboard, moog). I waited around for an hour for the band to get to the venue for soundcheck. They arived late so I thought I wouldn't be able to steal some moments with them. Luckily it worked out, thanks to the electrafixion roadie, and so here are the moments I spent with a few members in a fittingly echoey stariwell of the phoenix:
Interesting conversations about music leaves one feeling like it really is an essential element of life. The Dandy Warhols prefer to express through the universal rather than language, it "should not be used as purely decoration", a strong belief in "utilitarianism". If a song delivers even when someone doesn't speak the language than it has done it's job. The music must "deliver something emotionally". Zia described Courtney as "a man of few words".
Their album is a scrapbook of the years of a band. The music that influenced them are British & American pop music like the Velvet Underground, Doors, Beatles, Stones... I asked what they thought the status of North American music waslike. Courtney said "sad". As soon as music, either a sound or style, is not new then it has no "substance". We talked about the difference in east and west coast music from the US. The west coast is very "rock" and have "people that never stopped listening to AC/DC". The east coast music is more "art". They want moving sonics that crosses both a fuzzed out sound (reflective of VU) but has crushing guitars like AC/DC's "Back in Black".
I decided to throw in some silly questions because they seen to have a good sense of humour and to stray off of the boring serious stuff. Courtneys favorite Happy Days character is Potsy. he favourite article of clothing is a 50's style stripped jersey and his combat boots...
After being on the indie label Tim Kerr Records, the Dandy Warhols have been signed to Capital Records. We had a discussion on artists and labels and the danger artistic because of pressure from labels but I won't bore you with those details... (lookout for a possible Adult Contemporary album)
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