The Band
Scott McCloud (guitar and vocals). Charming, black-clad alterno-rock star with a disarmingly easy laugh. Resembles a leaner, but no less scary John Malkovich. Favourite backstage graffiti: "I feel much more like I do right now than when I first got here".
Alexis Fleisig (drums). Graphic designer and movie-maker. A real darling. Possesses a very dry and somewhat deviant sense of humour. Quite possibly psychotic. If he was in The Rolling Stones he’d be: Charlie Watts (always was and will be the coolest one).
Johnny Temple (bass). Social worker, Akashic record and book label co-owner, GVSB’s political mouthpiece and star of Alexis’ murder mystery movies, (Johnny is De Niro to Alexis’ Scorcese). Life’s ambition: To make "the cohesive (New) Wet Kojak signature sound record".
Eli Janney (keyboard, samples, vocals, bass). Greets me in Dublin with a bow instead of a handshake for fear of passing on cold germs. Onstage demeanour: Plays the keyboards like he’s fucking and fingering them at the same time according to my friend Laura.
The Record
Scott: Freak*on*ica’s not easy listening. It’s pretty fucked-up music, so it doesn’t hit a lot of people right away, it never has. Nineties vs. Eighties was very industrial, but I think Freak*on*ica is smoother. We definitely wanted to make a hard-hitting record. We’re still into the idea of making hard music that’s not necessarily stupid head-banging music, something that’s aggressive, but still smooth. I guess the record is more electronic-sounding than industrial, so I don’t know why we’re getting more comparisons to Marilyn Manson! (Laughs)
The Theme
Scott: I think overall after I got done and thought about it there’s a lot of American themes, a lot of entertainment themes. But that doesn’t really hit you, it’s nonsensical to say ‘entertainment themes’. I guess by that I mean the whole idea of where you find enjoyment, your whole make-up of what you find pleasurable. People often misinterpret that, (disdainfully) "Oh yeah, they’re pleasure mongers", but it’s not only like, (evilly) "We’re heading out for a fuckin’ good time!" That’s not what we’re saying, what we’re saying is, "What are these things that I find enjoyable and why?"
The Lyrics
Scott: In ‘Cowboy’s Orbit’ it was supposed to be "Love will fuck you up" (instead of "Love will freak you up"). There is a remix with that in it. This is a record that, for better or worse, we worked on for a really long time. This is the cool thing about doing the record that way. It’s something we’ve always wanted to do as a band. It’s like we’re really, really proud of it and we really like it. At the same time we love our earlier records. Those records that we made in 2 weeks, you don’t have any time, you go in and it is "Love will fuck you up", because that’s all you fucking have time to say. And it’s done. I’m also sensitive to the fuck stuff because I’m always pegged with being Mr. Hard Ass Dude, so I always try not to be too hard ass about things.
The Move #1
Scott: We all live in Manhattan. Actually, Johnny just moved back to Brooklyn. We transplanted up to New York at the beginning of the 90’s from DC. The idea of attempting to make music based in New York was kind of a thrilling prospect, just in the way we removed ourselves from our ilk, removed ourselves from where we were comfortable, putting ourselves in a whole new situation where nobody gives a shit about Soulside or anything that happened before. It’s like no-one cares. It was definitely a growing experience that had a lot of negatives as well. But I think in the end it was positive because in the end without growing up in DC and being part of Dischord, I don’t think any of us would be playing music now and it was in a lot of ways interesting to try to do it somewhere else.
The Move #2
Alexis: (mock ignorance) Geffen? I don’t know what you are talking about, man. That never happened. I’m outta here!
Scott: (Laughing) There was a lot of major label interest developing over the years and that wasn’t fuelled by any management, so we didn’t need a manager. But we got a manager after we signed because when you‘re on a major label you need a fucking manager to be on your side. What am I going to do? Call up the president of the corporation, "You fucking asshole!"
Alexis: "What the fuck are you doing?! Why isn’t our record selling?!"
Scott: I mean I might, but you definitely need people you can relate to, on your side and working for you. It’s a huge corporation you’re dealing with, you’re not dealing with your friends anymore. I’m sure there have been bad reactions (to signing to Geffen), but no one tells me, they’re all sensitive to my feelings.
Alexis: Unlike most people Scott is different in that he doesn’t like his feelings hurt.
Scott: I’m sure there have been on a lot of levels. It’s not something we’re incredibly defensive about. If anyone was to criticise that they’re right. We did three records for Touch And Go, a great company, then we signed to a major label. I mean criticism of that is totally valid.
Alexis: (deadpan) We tried to get Geffen to write great pop songs for us.
Scott: For any band you do a first record for a major label everybody listens to it with a huge amount of scepticism . . .
Alexis: . . . And prejudice.
Scott: It takes a lot to get over that.
The Film
Scott: We had been asked by MTV film or someone if we would be interested in doing a cover version of a song from the 80’s, cos the movie ‘200 Cigarettes’ takes place in the 80’s. It sounded kinda fun and intriguing to us. We ended up doing a GVSB version of ‘Boogie Wonderland’ by Earth, Wind and Fire, (laughs) which is pretty cool. We perform it in the movie. We also considered ‘On The Radio’ by Donna Summer. And we wanted to do an Air Supply song. I think Air Supply are one of the only bands from the 80’s that were so hated, it’s almost like the only thing that’s still ironic. Everything else is just not even funny any more, like the Donna Summer thing is not funny. I think the millennium will be all about Air Supply. "The Comeback!" The idea was to do a punker version of one of these songs. Some of their songs we figured might have interesting lyrics to twist. If you take something and twist it around you get a new meaning and in a way ‘Boogie Wonderland’ was perfect for that. Once we got the lyrics down and the whole vibe of the song, it fits almost too well with the sentiments of our own music. The whole song is about people getting lost.
The Press
Scott: When I come across stuff I take the time to read it. I wouldn’t put too much store in it, but it definitely interests me. I’m cognisant of how much press we’re getting and what’s going on with it. We had a ton of press on the last record and it was all positive. And this time we’re getting a lot of fucking mediocre press, but that doesn’t surprise me, because I know people will listen to the new record with a lot of scepticism. If we had went in there and delivered an exact duplicate of Venus Lux, which by the way no-one fuckin’ liked when it came out! (Laughs) It’s been five years ago already! But I expect that because it’s a major label record and we were a Touch And Go band. There’s nothing we can do about that. We’ll just sail on . . . like The Commodores said. (Laughs)
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