Need New Body - In the charts of a parallel world

They unload the gear (amplifiers, countless keyboards, a bare-bones drum kit, two basses, an electric banjo, a few flutes and some percussion) and the CDs for sale (including side projects and a mini tour CDR packaged in pouches with patchwork fabric, paper and plastic), run through a rough soundcheck and unwind. Among the equipment set out on the tables, an IMac stands out. It won't be used for the performance, though, let's make that clear right away: only for matches on an "old style" platform video game.

We sit down at a table with Jeff Bradbury, singer and multi-instrumentalist, who will mostly be handling banjo, bass and vocals tonight, Griffin Rodriguez, also known as Blue Hawai, an exceptionally tall and lively bassist who will also briefly sit behind the drums, and Jamey Robinson, keyboard wizard and human jukebox: his are the sickest, most absurd and most exciting little voices (untreated, at least in tonight's live show) on the band's new album.

I recently described your latest work, the surprising "Where's Black Ben", to a friend as the Residents, Ornette Coleman, Outkast and John Cage dancing drunk on a giant xylophone. Do you recognize yourselves in that?

(They laugh)

Griffin: That sounds good!

Jeff: Yeah.

“ Where's Black Ben ” is varied, but has a fairly compact sound. If I really had to pinpoint a break, I'd focus on the difference between the two sides of the record: the first part is fairly melodic (it even has several really intriguing jingles!) and works as a kind of build-up to the post-jazz electronic improvisations that assault the listener in the second part…

Griffin: Yeah, I very much agree.

Jeff: I think the second side has some potential jingles too, like "South Street Rocks".

Jamey: Yeah.

Jeff: Anyway, yeah, there's a lot more electronics on the second side.

On the CD packaging there's a sticker that reads: "like a laser beam sent by God to save us all from the jungles of boredom". Do you really believe in boredom?

Jamey: I think whoever gets bored is boring. (Laughs)

Your music reveals dozens of influences, often very far apart from one another. I'd like to focus on at least three of them: Frank Zappa , Caroliner Rainbow and Faust . How much of a role have these artists played in your tastes?

Griffin: Could you repeat the second name?

Caroliner Rainbow. They're from the West Coast.

Griffin: No, I don't know them. I think there are a lot of differences between our influences, especially for me, coming from Chicago. Frank Zappa was a relatively small influence on me, simply because I haven't listened to most of his albums. But I love Faust, they're actually one of my favorite bands.

Jeff: I really like Frank Zappa, I respect him, I think he's… you know what I mean, the best there is. I don't know Caroliner Rainbow, and I think Faust was a bigger influence on the other members of the band than on me.

Jamey: I appreciate Faust, I listened to one of their records and really loved it, the one with (hums) "J'ai mal aux dents…" (Exclaims) "…Tapes"! Yeah, it's really good. Everyone says we were heavily influenced by them, and I think that's true, but…

Griffin: I loved Faust before, back when I was in another band (Bablicon, ed.), I really liked them a lot and wanted the others to hear them, but that was already after we'd made our second record as Need New Body, so they'd actually never listened to them before! Everyone was just electrified, like "Wow!" — the same kind of surprise I'd had myself a while earlier, when someone in my other band told me "you guys sound exactly like Faust!" and I said, "Really? What do they sound like?" Then I got hold of their records and thought, "Wow! He was right!"

Your sound has a very deep American flavor, and yet it also fits perfectly with the tastes of part of the European audience. On this tour, are you getting good feedback from the old continent?

Griffin: This is our fifth or sixth show in Italy. So far it's been great, but we've only been to Britain and Italy, and everyone says your audiences are very warm and receptive, which is something everyone likes. It's a different experience from what we usually get in the States, the reaction is different.

Jeff: Right, so far we've only played in England and Italy. In England we got a very enthusiastic response, and some Italian friends invited us to come here.

Jamey: A lot more people in Europe come talk to us after the shows, we talk about music, and I think they have a better grasp of what we're doing than our own countrymen do…

I'm sure that right now "Poppa B" is a huge hit on the charts of some parallel world…

Jeff: Thanks! (Everyone laughs). It's probably better if we focus on this world, for now.

I read that in the past you often played wearing masks and costumes. Could you describe them to me?

Jeff: Some of our pieces were actually full-on performances: on our first record there's a song called "Don", which originally started out as a performance. We wore masks; for instance, a smiling human face and a Chinese mask. My character was running for mayor, then he died and was reborn absolutely furious. The crowd loved it. There was also, for another song, a monkey mask, and a woman's mask. I never actually wore that one, though — I'd just put it on one hand and pretend to talk to it. We still perform like that today, but without any masks.

The use of masks is just the latest link to a whole tradition of avant-rock from the West Coast scenes of recent decades: I'm thinking of Residents , Sun City Girls, Caroliner Rainbow, the whole Los Angeles Free Music Society crowd…

Jeff: Most of that music goes back to when we were really young, before we'd actually been exposed to a lot of music. When we were sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, we had no idea who the Residents even were…

Griffin: It's normal, first you make your own music and then everyone tells you: "you sound like this, this, this and this." It happens. It happened with Bablicon too: everyone said "you sound exactly like Faust" or "you sound exactly like Soft Machine", and we'd never even listened to them… And then later on, maybe years later, you listen to that stuff and think: "Ohhh! I guess they were right!" But you never set out to sound like them, it just happened that way — same thing, my bandmates might have listened to the Residents, but I don't think any of them owns all their records.

Jamey: I think the Residents are terrible. People come up to us and say "you sound like the Residents." They don't usually tell us that in the States, but here in Europe a lot of you say it, and personally, the two or three albums of theirs that I own, I can't even listen to them because they make me really sad. They're so serious, but deranged and dark... it's just not the kind of music you'd put on at a party.

David McDonnell of Bablicon and Icy Demons, bands that some of you are also part of, once said: "Composition is just improvisation in slow motion." I'm guessing a lot of your music comes from improvisation; how often do you use that slow-motion approach?

Jeff: Most of the time.

Griffin: A very slow slow-motion... Sometimes extremely slow, sometimes almost immediate. I like the songs on the new record, how quickly they take shape. We improvise in the studio, so we try it once, then again, then again... and then we record, something along those lines. I wouldn't call it live improvisation but studio improvisation. Great quote from David, by the way! (All three laugh).

What do you think of the New York avant scene that revolves around John Zorn and his Tzadik label? And of the related Japanese bands, like Boredoms , Ground Zero or Melt Banana?

Griffin: Personally I love Boredoms and Melt Banana. I think they're a ton of fun, Boredoms especially have been hugely influential, and what I appreciate most is how much they've changed over time, without ever standing still doing the same thing. They kept innovating without ever being afraid, when "Super Ae" came out it sounded like something completely different from anything they'd done before.

Jeff: I love John Zorn and I love New York. Boredoms too, a whole lot. We saw Melt Banana here in Italy just a few days ago, in Bologna.

Griffin: They were so fucking great!

Jamey: I don't like Zorn, I don't like almost anything I've heard. When I bought a few Tzadik records I was really excited by the descriptions, but when I actually listened to the music it was a letdown. The concept, the arrangements, the instrumentation, the artwork: it was all really well presented, but the music just wasn't my thing. But I do love New York (Laughs).

In the '90s, post-rock bands were making music that was no longer rock in the classic sense of the genre's instrumentation, revealing new approaches to the instruments. Then some bands, like Moonshake, started ditching guitars altogether, giving a lot of weight to that choice.

You too have excluded the rock instrument par excellence from your lineup for some time now, focusing on the banjo instead. Dale has said: "Guitars are weird, especially the way people are used to playing them." After this period without them, can you tell whether that choice has had a big effect just on your sound, or also on how your music develops?

Jeff: Yes, yes, on how it develops too, absolutely. It changed everything for us, our whole approach to music. I miss guitars a little sometimes, but most of the time I don't. I think we needed to refresh our musical philosophy by dropping guitars.

Griffin: In the '90s, when I started playing, there were so many bands with heavy guitars that with Bablicon it felt natural to try to do something different and interesting without guitars, because everyone was using them.

Mario Andreoni, guitarist of !!! , said last year: "It would be really interesting to collaborate with Need New Body." Would you be interested in a split with them, or do you think their music is too flat compared to yours?

Jeff: We like them a lot, they're really nice guys. We did a tour with them.

Griffin: Yes, we've already collaborated in a way.

Jeff and Jamey, I wanted to ask you what the meaning of "Bent Leg Fatima" is, the name of the group you came from.

Jeff: It doesn't mean anything. They're words put together at random. Fatima was the name of a pretty girl in my neighborhood, that's all.

Griffin, on the other hand, Icy Demons is your side project with Chris, drummer of Need New Body, and David, horn player of Bablicon. I've only listened to "Fight Back!" once so far, and musically it struck me as much more relaxed than your usual standards…

Griffin: Icy Demons isn't a side project, because it started a couple of years ago before I officially joined Need New Body. It sounds calmer because in Icy Demons there's more emphasis on space-rock.

Your website, post-chaotic and post-psychedelic, reflects the essence of your music. Who's the web designer?

Jeff: It's Dale.

Could you tell us how "Pen", one of the best tracks on "UFO", came about?

Jamey: Our drummer is a huge fan of a Canadian TV show, "Kids In The Hall", where there's a sketch with a guy who wants his pen back.

I have another question for Blue Hawaii/Griffin. "In A Different City", by your previous band, Bablicon, was described by the British mainstream magazine Melody Maker as "the worst record ever made". I'd say you should be very proud of that, because usually any album hastily branded that way turns out to be a huge avant-garde masterpiece; I'm thinking of "Contact High With The Godz" by the Godz, or "John Gavanti" by Mars and D.N.A., for instance…

Griffin: I think that story will keep amusing me forever!

The first time we read it we had just landed in England, the label gave us the review, it was the first English one of the record, and at the start we were obviously upset, but after a week or so we all started laughing about it as a band, it's always been a great joke for all of us!

Thinking about the relatively short life of your previous incarnations as Bent Leg Fatima and Bablicon, and especially about your current moniker, how far along are you in the search for your new body? Should we expect a new reincarnation of yours anytime soon?

(In unison) Yes!

Jeff: As soon as we get back home.

Do you individually have other interests or jobs outside of music?

Griffin: No, I'm a recording engineer, so I record albums.

Jeff: I like my private life.

Jamey: I walk in nature.

You were selected by David Pajo to take part in the All Tomorrow's Parties Festival. What was that experience like, and how did it go with David?

Griffin: David is really nice and kind. We were very excited to be there, and the festival was a lot of fun.

Jeff: We were a bit scared by all the response we got for just playing a single show there…

Griffin: So many people, so much enthusiasm, well before the festival was over we'd sold out of all the records and t-shirts we'd brought with us.

Jamey: We also played really well, it was a great show.

We're about to wrap up… for the next set of questions, just pick one name out of the two proposed. Neu! or Can ?

(They laugh)

Griffin: Just one of the two? Can't it be both?

Jeff: Neu!

Jamey: I don't know, it depends song by song. Some Can, some Neu!, I don't know.

Griffin: Impossible decision, let's go half and half.

Oneida or Lighting Bolt?

Lighting Bolt.

Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart ?

Griffin: For me, Beefheart.

Jeff: Zappa.

Jamey: Beefheart.

Slint or Tortoise ?

Tortoise.

Bob Dylan or Neil Young ?

Jeff: Oh my God! This is torture. (Thinks it over, then says slowly) Bob Dylan or Neil Young? Amps For Christ.

DFA or Anticon?

Jeff: 5RC.

No, that doesn't count. You're on 5RC.

Jeff: Then Birdman.

George W. Bush or Bill Clinton?

Griffin: Clinton… George Clinton! (We laugh)

Ramones or Television ?

Griffin: I like Television, but the Ramones are so unique…

Jamey: The Ramones are almost all dead. Put down Ramones.

Dalek or Clouddead ?

Griffin: I'm not familiar with either. My answer is MF Doom.

Alright… You've been in Italy for five days now. Have you fallen in love with any particular Italian food?

Jeff: Yeah, titanium chocolate… (They laugh)

No, I'm joking. Everything is really good. In Padua we ate a plate of penne alla porchetta with a glass of wine right after waking up… amazing!

Jamey: We're sick of highway rest stops! We eat at rest stops every single day…

Tago Mago – Massa (November 1, 2005)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google