Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 8, 2005 18:21:56 GMT
JC: How did the cover on Strange Days come about?
JM: I hated that cover on the first album. So I said, “I don't want to be on this cover. Where is that? Put a chick on it or something. Let's have a dandelion or a design.” The title, Strange Days came and everybody said yeah, 'cause that was where we were, what was happening. It was so right.
Originally, I wanted us in a room surrounded by about 30 dogs, but that was impossible 'cause we couldn't get the dogs and everybody was saying, “What do you want dogs for?” And I said that it was symbolic that it spelled God backwards. (Laughs) Finally we ended up leaving it up to the art director and the photographer. We wanted some real freaks though, and he came out with a typical sideshow thing. It looked European. It was better than having our fucking faces on it, though.
JC: What place do albums have as art forms to you?
JM: I believe they've replaced books. Really. Books and movies. They're better than movies, 'cause a movie you see once or twice, then later on television maybe. But a fucking album man, it's more influential than any art form going. Everybody digs them. They've got about 40 of them in their houses and some of them you listen to 50 times, like the Stones' albums or Dylan's.
You don't listen to the Beatles much anymore, but there are certain albums that just go on and on. You measure your progress mentally by your records, like when you were really young what you had then, Harry Belafonte, you know, Calypso, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley.
JC: You guys are only working weekends now, aren't you?
JM: No, not really. I think we work a lot. More than most people think. Like after the (Hollywood) Bowl we go to Texas, then Vancouver, Seattle, then jump to the East Coast, Montreal and blah, blah, blah. Take three weeks off in August for the film, then we go to Europe. Man, we work an awful lot!
JC: Do you still read a lot?
JM: No, not as much as I used to. I'm not as prolific a writer, either. Like when, a while ago, I was living in this abandoned office building, sleeping on the roof, you know the tale. (Laughs) And all of a sudden, I threw away all my notebooks that I'd been keeping since high school and these songs just kept coming to me. Something about the moon, I don't remember.
Well, I'd have to make up words as fast as I could in order to hold on to the melody - you know a lot of people don't know it, but I write a lot of the melodies too - later, all that would be left would be the words 'cause I couldn't hold on to them. The words were left in a sort of vague idea. In those days when I heard a song, I heard it as an entire performance. Taking place, you know with the audience, the band and the singer. Everything. It was kind of like a prediction of the future. It was all there.
JC: How did the ending of The End come about? Is the Whisky a Go-Go story true?
JM: I used to have this magic formula, like, to break into the subconscious. I would lay there and say over and over “Fuck the mother, kill the father. Fuck the mother, kill the father”. You can really get into your head just repeating that slogan over and over. Just saying it can be the thing...
That mantra can never become meaningless. It's too basic and can never become just words, 'cause as long as you're saying it, you can never be unconscious. That all came from up here.
JC: That really shook the Whisky audience up when you did it. Have you ever really gotten through to an audience like the first time you went over and got mobbed and all?
JM: Not like the thing that's in my mind. I think the day that thing happens it will be all over. The End. Where would you go from there? If everyone, even for a split second, became one. They could never come back. No, I don't think it could ever happen, not like it is in my head.
My audiences. . .They usually get pretty turned on. It's like saying at first you're the audience and we're up here and you're down there. Then all of a sudden there you are and you're right there just like us. . .it's out of sight. When they know "You're just like us," it breaks down all the barriers and I like that a lot.
JC: I've heard a lot of talk from friends in England and some of the groups from there, that a lot of hostility will be aimed your way when you go over there. You know, as America's super-sex group and all.
JM: Yeah?. . .hmmm, there's gonna be a bit of hostility, huh? That's a good prediction, yeah, a prediction of the future. There is going to be a little bit of hostility and if there isn't, I'm going to be a little bit disappointed. The more hostility, the better. (Laughs) Opposition is true friendship, ha!
JM: I hated that cover on the first album. So I said, “I don't want to be on this cover. Where is that? Put a chick on it or something. Let's have a dandelion or a design.” The title, Strange Days came and everybody said yeah, 'cause that was where we were, what was happening. It was so right.
Originally, I wanted us in a room surrounded by about 30 dogs, but that was impossible 'cause we couldn't get the dogs and everybody was saying, “What do you want dogs for?” And I said that it was symbolic that it spelled God backwards. (Laughs) Finally we ended up leaving it up to the art director and the photographer. We wanted some real freaks though, and he came out with a typical sideshow thing. It looked European. It was better than having our fucking faces on it, though.
JC: What place do albums have as art forms to you?
JM: I believe they've replaced books. Really. Books and movies. They're better than movies, 'cause a movie you see once or twice, then later on television maybe. But a fucking album man, it's more influential than any art form going. Everybody digs them. They've got about 40 of them in their houses and some of them you listen to 50 times, like the Stones' albums or Dylan's.
You don't listen to the Beatles much anymore, but there are certain albums that just go on and on. You measure your progress mentally by your records, like when you were really young what you had then, Harry Belafonte, you know, Calypso, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley.
JC: You guys are only working weekends now, aren't you?
JM: No, not really. I think we work a lot. More than most people think. Like after the (Hollywood) Bowl we go to Texas, then Vancouver, Seattle, then jump to the East Coast, Montreal and blah, blah, blah. Take three weeks off in August for the film, then we go to Europe. Man, we work an awful lot!
JC: Do you still read a lot?
JM: No, not as much as I used to. I'm not as prolific a writer, either. Like when, a while ago, I was living in this abandoned office building, sleeping on the roof, you know the tale. (Laughs) And all of a sudden, I threw away all my notebooks that I'd been keeping since high school and these songs just kept coming to me. Something about the moon, I don't remember.
Well, I'd have to make up words as fast as I could in order to hold on to the melody - you know a lot of people don't know it, but I write a lot of the melodies too - later, all that would be left would be the words 'cause I couldn't hold on to them. The words were left in a sort of vague idea. In those days when I heard a song, I heard it as an entire performance. Taking place, you know with the audience, the band and the singer. Everything. It was kind of like a prediction of the future. It was all there.
JC: How did the ending of The End come about? Is the Whisky a Go-Go story true?
JM: I used to have this magic formula, like, to break into the subconscious. I would lay there and say over and over “Fuck the mother, kill the father. Fuck the mother, kill the father”. You can really get into your head just repeating that slogan over and over. Just saying it can be the thing...
That mantra can never become meaningless. It's too basic and can never become just words, 'cause as long as you're saying it, you can never be unconscious. That all came from up here.
JC: That really shook the Whisky audience up when you did it. Have you ever really gotten through to an audience like the first time you went over and got mobbed and all?
JM: Not like the thing that's in my mind. I think the day that thing happens it will be all over. The End. Where would you go from there? If everyone, even for a split second, became one. They could never come back. No, I don't think it could ever happen, not like it is in my head.
My audiences. . .They usually get pretty turned on. It's like saying at first you're the audience and we're up here and you're down there. Then all of a sudden there you are and you're right there just like us. . .it's out of sight. When they know "You're just like us," it breaks down all the barriers and I like that a lot.
JC: I've heard a lot of talk from friends in England and some of the groups from there, that a lot of hostility will be aimed your way when you go over there. You know, as America's super-sex group and all.
JM: Yeah?. . .hmmm, there's gonna be a bit of hostility, huh? That's a good prediction, yeah, a prediction of the future. There is going to be a little bit of hostility and if there isn't, I'm going to be a little bit disappointed. The more hostility, the better. (Laughs) Opposition is true friendship, ha!