Sally Norvell interview continued... 

He was looking for something to do creatively that was more writing, going deeper creatively, because he had been a side man for a pretty long time. An important side man, of course, but still he needed to do something on his own, more focused and more directly. I think it was the kind of emotional camaraderie because we were both going through a couple of big time deaths when we met. So that’s what we decided to focus on, ‘cause neither one of us wanted to do, like, “Oh, let’s do a band and be rock stars.” We needed to do something for our hearts. 

We played benefits and played with whoever was around, like if it was a little trio, or a bigger band, or whatever. It was a very movable feast for a long time. It was just special projects. Then he’d go off on tour, or I’d go off on a film, then we’d reconnect  three or four months later and do it again. That’s kinda how it started, and just sort of grew from there, and took on it’s own life, and became a more and more important outlet for us for other areas of our life and expression. The issues of AIDS and mortality is still a very strong theme in a lot of what we do. Then it just branched out from there into other areas.

I was going to ask who Mark and Travis are from the song "November" on the new album.

Mark Hager and Travis John Alfred. Really good friends of ours. Travis played with us sometimes. He was a bass player, but primarily he was a really great songwriter. He had a band. It was his dream to be a rock star. That was his actual dream. He played with us, and played around L.A. for awhile, then he formed his own band, the Travis John Alfred Band, and did some recording, and we played with him, and... then he got sick. Mark was his lover. Mark is still with us, Travis is not. Once he started to get ill it was such a long tragedy, involving all kinds of evils on the part of the medical community against them. When they connected as lovers they were clean, their lives were really going great. They had found true love. Travis had signed a deal, he had management and it was really starting to go. And it was all ripped away from him. So NOVEMBER was another of those little magic songs that tumbled out.

I think it’s a truly powerful song. There’s a great sense of perspective in the line, "Thirty looks so old from here."

Travis actually said that. The lyrics are taken from a conversation we had sitting around a table one day. I didn’t take notes on the conversation. It was just a powerful moment. Kid and I talked about writing the Ballad of Mark and Travis for a long time, but I think it was very close to the bone for Kid. He was very close to them. So, Bill Bronson was at my house playing this little thing on the bass, and I was doing a little melody to it, and it just hit me that’s what it was, and I sat down and wrote everything I could remember about that conversation... and it became a song in about five minutes. It was spooky. Travis was still alive when we wrote it.

Kid put together this benefit in L.A. so he could finish his record, which was his dream. We played, L7 played, and The Geraldine Fibbers. It was wild, like a living wake. Travis was sort of floating around with this single red rose, like a ghost. But he looked beautifully happy. He got to make his record, and then he died.

That’s really powerful. I would use the word beautiful to describe your music, yet a lot of the themes are... nightmarish, to use maybe too strong a word...

Maybe not (laughter). People look at me in terror.

There are certainly elements of the darker side of things. You’re planning a tour this fall. What are your plans for that?

World domination, darling.

I know you have a child. Does that make touring difficult?

It makes it somewhat complicated and expensive, but I wouldn’t say difficult. For me, leaving him is more difficult than dealing with him on the road. I’ve done some traveling without him, but I prefer to take him, even though it’s exhausting. He’s actually pretty good on the road. Once he starts school we’ll probably make some changes.

Tell me about your film background.

I was in Wim Wenders Paris, Texas as an actress. One scene as Nurse Bibs. Harry Dean (Stanton) is going to get Nastasia and he gets me instead. A mean nurse in a peepshow, that’s me. I did some acting, then became a producer and a writer, worked on some shorts. I’ve always kept my hand in it because I really like putting film through a camera.

(At this point, Kid came on the phone and I continued the interview with him.)

First of all, thanks for doing this interview.

No problem. It’s my job.

I’ve been aware of your work for a long time. The Cramps' Psychedelic Jungle was a seminal album in changing the way I listen to music.

Yeah, me too (laughter). The way I played music. It was really a good thing to do. I think I had been playing guitar for about a year when I joined The Cramps. It worked out well.

You have a very idiosyncratic playing style.

I learn something every time I play with people. I’m really pretty self taught and unschooled in standard playing, or even in standard tunings. I use about three different tunings with this band. I’ve learned as I went along. It’s just been more a matter of taste than a matter of technical proficiency. Most of the bands I’ve been in have been very sparse sounding, very simple kinds of things. I really don’t know how to play any other way. I was just thinking recently, it’s really difficult for me to jam with another band, or play along. I just play what I play (laughter).

It certainly seems to work.

I’m very happy with it. I’ve come to a place, I think... I had a crisis some years ago, thinking, like, “Oh my God, I don’t know how to play guitar, blah-ba-blah,” then a friend said, “You just play fine.” I felt like I needed to take guitar lessons or something. There are just so many possibilities, and I haven’t taken any traditional road so far. Which is funny, because my roots are in very traditional kinds of music. Old blues, John Lee Hooker, Sunhouse, Howlin’ Wolf, it’s just instinctual playing. It has nothing to do with rhythm, or it is, but a different rhythm. I think that’s why Jeffrey Lee Pierce, or Nick Cave, or ourselves, tend to go for that. It has a lot more to do with the emotional impact of playing than it does with any kind of technical proficiency. It’s about feel, it’s about sexiness, or sadness, or whatever.

I think your current work with Sally is very provocative and sultry, and very moving.

Good. Then we’re doing what we set out to do.

I want to ask about some of your other projects. I just read about something called Bottleneck Drag. 

Yeah, that’s something I just started doing. That’s with Ron Ward, the singer for Speedball Baby. He plays drums in Bottleneck Drag. It’s something different for me, playing drums and percussion, and a little guitar.

Another outlet.

Yeah. We were just in the studio all night recording.

You’re also producing a band called The Factory Press.

Yeah, we’ve just got one more song to produce. It sounds really great. I really like producing. Factory Press are a young band from Texas. They’ve been in New York for about a year. I really like working with these young bands, especially when they don’t have big budgets. Try to help shape, try to get the best out of them. Let them see they can do something really good without a lot of money. I’ve become an expert at that. It’s really refreshing for me to be around young musicians, and see what they’re doing. They have a lust for what they’re doing that’s different after you’ve been playing for a long time. An un-jadedness (laughter). I definitely need to be around that. I appreciate what I’m doing now. Better than grousing about the state of “post grunge alternative rock.” I think there are a lot of really original bands out there.

© 2003 Wayne Wise