RTS Release Interview
Interview part I - the making an album
I have no plans when I write songs....I have no plans after I’ve written songs,
really. Songs just come. I’m not a really prolific writer. It’s not like I write 50
songs and we pick 10 for the album. Especially because we collaberated on a
bunch on this album. We just started playing together. I wrote a *few* songs, and
then we started...the band came down to L.A.....I called them up and I said “Come
on down here, I’m ready to work again.” Cause I’d been hiding out in LA for 6 or
7 months. They came down to LA and we started rehearsing and writing together.
I didn’t’ want to write a whole album of piano songs, so we started writing things
like Angels of the Silences, Daylight Fading, Catapult, those were all written in the
rehearsal studio. On my own, now that I got the influence of a lot of the other
band members around me, I started to write Have You Seen Me Lately, I’m Not
Sleeping, some of the other ones. You start working on something, and compiling
songs, you rehearse, and you go off to the Viper...you play a little gig and test them
out...you come back to the rehearsal studio and you rehearse, and you go back to
the Viper Room, and you do that like 3 times.
And then you look, and you have a
body of songs, all of a sudden. Then you start to figure out what sort of album it’s
going to be, and that helps you pick who you’re producer gonna be. Once we
really got into making the album, I started thinking about....we had all the songs on
little pieces of paper on the wall, and started talking about what kind of album. We
realized that there’s a lot of songs here...there was 16 songs. I started arranging it
in my head..and picking things, just bare things..like what’s the first song on the
album...what the last song on the album. Just little things like that....that’s all I
knew for a long time on August...what the first song and the last song were going
to be. And then you start to get an idea of what you’re trying to do with the record.
Like I said...the songs come unconsciously, and then when you look at them, all of
a sudden you sort of arrange then and you find, you know what...they do fit in this
sort of a situation. Unconsciously, it is about going from *here* to *here*
Interview part II - Goodnight Elisabeth
"One of the interviewers said to me yesterday "Ya, but how bad can it be...you can
have any girl you want." OK, but what if the one girl you do want is at home
studying for a Ph.D., and she can't come. She can't even come visit because on the
weekends she interns at a clinic. What do you do. "Life isn't about having any girl
you want. That can seem great for a minute....and, I'm sure that if I was 21, that
would be a lot better than it is now. Maybe that would be more fun. I don't know.
I'm sure it would have been. The road gives a lot to you, and this whole business
gives a lot to you, but it takes away too. I lost things that were really important to
me...things that I thought would be with me my whole life. What do I have for
myself from that period? I have a buncha money, and I have songs about periods
of my life that are gone now. "Like, I have Goodnight Elisabeth. But Elisabeth just
got married 2 weeks ago to somebody else. so, that's...that's gone..and that's gone
because *I* was gone all the time. And not, like, doing anything wrong, not that I
cheated on her ever, but it's gone. And, you know, that goes on...and, and...that's
not heaven."
[Goodnight Elisabeth played here]
The reason I said goodnight instead of
good-bye is because I wanted it to be a lullaby...something she could remember
it...us by. It’s a little sordid, that song, in places. Because I wanted to be honest
about it too....I knew what I was going to do after I lost her. I knew that I would
go out there and I would sleep with people. I would do anything to stop myself
from thinking about her in the middle of the night....where she was...with some
other guy or something. It’s like it says: I’ll wait for you in Baton Rouge, and I’ll
miss you down in New Orleans, I’ll wait for you while that girl takes her clothes
off, and I’ll wait for you while we’re having sex, and I’ll miss you while we’re
having sex, but I’m still going to be doing that. That last verse is about that...the
difference between me and her: You can wrap yourself in daffodils...me, the nut
that I am, I’ll wrap myself in pain and mope about it all day long. But, you’re you
and I’m the king of the rain.
Interview part III - Have You Seen Me Lately?
I’ve felt that the thing that was supposed to.....supposed to flush me out, to make
me feel the least like the ghost-type fella, was actually turning me into a ghost
instead. I *wanted* to disappear everytime I heard myself on the radio. Not that I
didn’t like hearing it, but after a while, you’re in a restaurant or in a bar
somewhere, and it plays, and everyone looks at you, and it just creeped me out
after a while. I felt that I couldn’t get into a place where people weren’t looking at
me.
[Have You Seen Me Lately? Played here]
I think that the public, a lot of the time, have a tendency to color people in, who
are famous. Make them their own image. Take what they believe a famous person
should be, and what they’re like, and what they have, and how they’re life is, and
color it into the person who may have nothing to do with that. That’s what the last
verse of that song is about. It’s saying: Having felt that I was so disappearing, why
didn’t somebody tell me this was happening. I thought somebody would notice. I
thought somebody would say something if I was disappearing...if I was missing.
And then he sort of screams out: can’t you see me? And then he says: OK, well
then, color me in. If I’m everything you think I am...go on, color me in. And while
you’re at it, make the sky green, make the...what is it...blue rain...make the rain
blue, and make the sky black. If you can make me anything you want, go ahead
and do that. Make the whole world anything you want. But, the he says: Give me
your blue rain, give me your black sky...or just give me your green eyes...or your
white skin. Something real. Do you really know who I am? Everyone was saying
they did. I’m not sure they did. You’re suddenly...you can become a very
semi-private person who has trouble dealing with people, and the next day you
belong to everyone. And, all I’m saying is that I’m not sure you get it, really.
People come up to and they say “oh...we love you, we love you, can we take a
picture with you?” Pictures make me uncomfortable. I can’t tell you why, but they
do. And since they do, I probably shouldn’t do them. So, I’d say “I don’t really
feel comfortable doing that.” They say “ya, well, screw you...we *made* you.”
No you didn’t. The truth is, I was always me. I wasn’t nothing before this
happened. I may not have been famous, I may not have been wealthy, but I was
something. You don’t make somebody. You don’t. And, you can’t take it away
either. That’s the thing people don’t realize. I appreciate what they’re
saying....they’re just saying that “we appreciate what you do.” But, I couldn’t
always take all that appreciation, sometimes. I just need a little space.
Interview part IV - Miller's Angels
If I have a problem it’s that I think too much. The real meaning of this song is:
what if there are angels, and what if they’re not benevolent. What if they’re, sort
of, benevolent. What if they, just sort of, hang there between you and God, and
sometimes *block* the light of the Son (sun?) from getting to you...block the light
of God. What if that’s what they do. Every once in a while, they just
go....*PLUCK*....and they pull you off, just when it’s time, ‘cause it’s their job.
What if it’s that hard of a world. And, what if you’re some guy who can’t stop
thinking about it. I wrote it because my friend, Sean Penn, wanted us to write the
closing theme for the crossing guard, and he brought the film in the middle of ‘94,
this summer, to New York and showed it to Dan and I. That movie is about a guy
who had an event happen in his life that changes everything in all these peoples
lives...forever after that. That song is my....it’s not about the movie, but I took
some of the feelings of that movie, and when Dan and I wrote the song, that’s
what I was feeling. It’s like, what if it’s that kind of world? What if it just is? What
if...because I think the problem the guy has in the movie is that he just can’t stop
thinking about it. His whole life has been shattered by what happened, and it’s just
never going to be put back together again....or, maybe it will some day, but it
hasn’t happened yet. And, if I have a problem it’s that I think about things too
much. Or, I think about things as much as I do. There’s no changing it, but I was
thinking just what if you can’t stop thinking about these things hanging over your
head.
[Miller’s Angels played here]
Interview part V - Daylight Fading
At some point, it’s always going to happen...it’s a lifetime commitment. (Life’s)
always going to go up, it’s always going to go down....for me, at least. It may not
be as extreme as it once was. There’s always going to be periods where I don’t
write for a while, where I get sort of bitter. Maybe life will change and get better
that way. But, you know, I wouldn’t...wouldn’t bet on it. It’s a one in a million
thing to get what we got. Everybody that’s in our position wants....all of our
friends at home, everybody wanted to be in a rock band. And, we have a lot of
friends who are still playing music who are really good who haven’t had the
success. We’re together, spending our lives playing music, unless we screw it up. I
wouldn’t trade that for *anything*....any happiness...any peace of mind...there’s
nothing in the world that I would trade for being able to do this with my life.
Instead of having some wasted life like I thought I was going to have. At the same
time, if you have difficulties coming into this sort of a situation, fame doesn’t
necessarily fix them. It fixes some things, but it doesn’t fix any problems you might
have with yourself. If you have problems dealing with people, all you have now is
more people. Some of it actually exasturbates. It’s not a black and white thing, it’s
a gray thing. There’s really parts of it I wouldn’t trade for the whole world, and
parts of it I have trouble with, adjusting to those things
[Daylight Fading played here]
I’d really gone into hibernation and I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that the
thing which was most important to me in my life was causing me the most pain
and...um....fear that I’d ever been through. Fear....really, fear over what was
happening. I was very scared dealing with all those people all of the time.
Everywhere I went, I was really freaked out by that. Honestly, I can say “have
you ever been scared of anything?” I was just scared. I didn’t dislike the people or
anything, I just was....scared. And that was a weird thing to have...that the thing
that you wanted the most in your life was causing you this sort of thing...this
tape-loop you can get onto and it’ll drive you crazy. And I didn’t see any way out
of it. Those songs are kind of about that...I just don’t know how to deal with
this...I *didn’t* know how to deal with it. Now I just pretend its not happening.
(Laughs) Because I’m not on the road yet. (In trance-like voice) I AM NOT
HERE...I AM NOT HERE....THERE IS NO AUDIENCE HERE.
