WATTAGE!
I was rummaging through my web site and found this Mike Watt interview my buddy Ryan Leach did for some lame magazine back in 2005... good stuff!
As you get older, Mike, do you feel you associate more with jazz musicians?Well, I have to say that, you know, I didn't grow up with jazz. Pettibon played me some John Coltrane, and people I met in the early punk scene, is where I first heard jazz. And I have to say that I thought they were doing punk, too, that they were just older. The music was so wild to me that I had never heard anything like that. You know I never thought punk was a style of music; it was more of a state of mind. And it meant each person into it would come up with their own style.
To me, personally, jamming Econo is very revolutionary. Do you think that other than your, D. Boon's, and Hurley's blue collar upbringing, there was anything else that influenced that?
Of course, Black Flag. Those daddies built the tour circuit that we all used. The whole idea of making your own rules; as to how you were gonna run your own boat. Very influenced by those guys. Punk wasn't just a style of music, it was about starting a label, doing a fanzine. The whole dealio was all this expression. Yeah, and our daddies were working men. We were Econo. (laughs) We started out Econo.
Would you say you started out and then happened to find bands like Black Flag and Mission of Burma?
Well, Black Flag, actually. I think it was their second gig at the Moose Lodge (in Pedro). And they were at a Clash gig handing out flyers. I think it was the beginning of 1979.
Yeah.
We got a flyer and we were like, "wow, look at this, we're gonna have a punk gig in Pedro." And then they were tripping out that there was a Pedro punk band called the Reactionaries; that was us: the Minutemen with a different singer. They were so tripped out that there was a Pedro punk band, 'cause a lot of the punk scene was in Hollywood at the time. And they said, "why don't you guys be on the bill." And that is how we met them, from playing with them. We played with them as the Minute Men, after Keith left, and Greg asked us to do a record (on SST)...and you know, you have to work within your means.
Well, that is one of the most revolutionary things about Black Flag and The Minutemen...
Oh, yeah.
...'cause you were talking about The Clash, who were a fantastic band, but they took a lot of the traditional rock steps of having a tour manager and roadies, and being flown places...
Oh, yeah, let's talk about that. A lot of the early punk scene in England was signed to major labels. Like, I saw a lot of these bands, The Stranglers and The Clash, and they were all signed to major labels. It was a much different take, 'cause punk got bigger quicker over there. I mean it turned into the new rock music in the seventies, where here, punk was not popular. Very little. Very small. So you had to build a sense of self-reliance. The big labels in the US, major labels at that time, were pushing a thing called new wave with The Cars and The Knack and bands like this. Black Flag actually made a deal for Damaged through MCA, and the boss said it was an anti-family record. So you had to pull yourself up. In England, labels didn't have any trouble with punk. Maybe The Sex Pistols, who went through EMI, A&M and Virgin, but still big labels. And they only lasted one US tour. It was all about the big labels. But they weren't interested in hardcore and early US punk, except for some of the New York bands like The Ramones were signed to Sire, Television...
Seymore Stein got all of them.
Yeah. Blondie, Richard Hell. So there was some of that, but on the West Coast, very little.
And that idea of a working class band, at least in rock n roll, was a new concept. John Lennon kind of posed with it, but it seems...
What, with that song, "Working Class Hero?"
Yeah, or just standing in front of the statue of Liberty or wearing a shirt with a slogan. But you guys literally were throughout your whole run.
Yeah, The Minutemen worked the entire time. That's true. We never made enough money off of music to live off, so we all had jobs the entire time. But a lot of that is circumstance. I mean you are born into a situation, right? Then I think it is more important what you do with it, right? Once it's put in your hands and that was our circumstance.
And you had flexible jobs for touring?
Well, that was the thing. To get flexible jobs meant not as good pay; so that was kind of Econo.
Yeah, I read that you and D. Boon worked the night shift at Jack In The Box.
Yeah, you passed it on Gaffey. We made $1.65 an hour.
Oh my God! Did you ever have people come in that knew who you were?
No, punk in Pedro was very, very small. It wasn't popular, so to avoid getting shit, you didn't tell them, especially employers (laughs). Oh my God! Not a lot of people saw it as a means of expression, they thought it was weirdo, a plot against the kids or something...
Kind of what you were talking about. I know SST had a lot of problems with the police.
Yeah.
Did you ever get any pressure?
Yeah, I was working with them when the Torrance Police Department came in and shut the whole place down. They had a weird theory that it wasn't really a record company, that they had drugs. It was totally bullshit. It was all in their minds'. You look at things now with Blink 182 and stuff like this, and it's probably normal for a young person to have a "punk" phase. And so you wonder all their worries and concerns were fucking for nothing.
Were you and D. Boon aware of the '60s alternative press movement when you started the Minutemen?
Oh, yeah. We were early '70s people. So we grew up with a lot of '60s things going on. I know that I wasn't always articulate to it, but I think that is one of the reasons we got into punk. By the time we did come of age it was kind of over, with Woodstock and Charles Manson. So all this stuff we had been rambling up for had been gone, and the only place where some of those things were at was in the punk scene.
'Cause I read Ginsberg, and I see the nexus between them (beat poets) and what The Minutemen did, and SST even, where the cops used to try to break up the presses...
Yeah.
...and the whole idea of the free press, writing about what you wanted to and not necessarily worry about making a living off of it.
Yeah, I would agree with you...punk didn't come out of a vacuum. Malcom McLaren was a part of the situationists...
Yeah, he got arrested for that. They used to paint the slogans on the walls.
Yeah, their whole idea was to make spectacles to wake people up. And the guy who made Slash Magazine out here in LA, Kickboy...
Claude Bessey! He was great!
Yeah, he died of cancer a couple years ago. He was apart of that situationist thing, too.
'Cause he was a bit older than the rest of you guys.
Well, yeah. You talked about Ginsberg and he was from the '50s. That happens a lot. There is an overlap, between older cats and younger cats and I don't think it's totally weird.
No. I really dug his band, Catholic Discipline.
Oh, yeah, I saw them a few times. And they were in that movie even.
Yeah, that's true. Do you ever get tired of answering questions about D. Boon?
No. I love D. Boon. I think about him everyday. I ride my bike pass the pad where we started the Minutemen. In some ways, I feel when I talk about him he is alive a little bit. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
So..ummmmm..one of my missions is to try not to let him be forgotten, but at the same time not vampiring off of him. Trying to be my own man. He is responsible for me being in music. His mother made me play bass. I owe him a lot.
Do you think that eventually, if Ed Crawford hadn't come out here, that you would have picked up the bass again and started playing with other people?
Edward helped me out a lot. I actually did something before he came out. Thurston got me playing again, too. I played on the Evol record. We made a band called Ciccone Youth. It was a strange thing. We made a single. So that is where I really started playing again, but as far as a band, Edward came out and found my number in a phone book and came out to Pedro. I was just talking to him a couple weeks ago. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, now. Edward was very charismatic. Strong that way in not being afraid on stage and it helped me out a lot, too.
The first fIREHOSE records were on SST and then you signed to Columbia...
Yeah, the first three records...
Yeah, Flyin' the Flannel being the first on Columbia.
Yeah, '91.
I'm not the first to say that you pretty much epitomize the DIY aesthetic, did you have any qualms...
Well, we were looking at distribution. The kind of deal we made with Columbia was we delivered the finished masters, so basically it was the same as SST. We operated the same way. Made the songs and brought them the finished tapes. It all depends on the deal you make. We were asked for a couple years. And we finally said artistic control. We didn't take a lot of money up front, either. The distribution was always the hard part of indie labels. It is hard for people to know that, 'cause a lot of bands you hear just nightmares about big label stuff about them losing control, but I made sure we had our autonomy. 'Cause we did 11 years with SST and I had learned it that way. Some people look at things as stepping stones, you go from this to this and sometimes back.
Do you feel that people have had you abide by principles that weren't your own?
I think it is OK to question things and ask people. You got a lot of that in college radio when they would see the label of your record and it says Columbia and it was like, "ahhhh, this might be bullshit." You can't really blame them...you know we were talking about new wave and later on alternative, all these cons just dressing things up to try to make them fit in. So people are suspicious. I don't think it is totally out of the blue, that they have good reason to...I've never felt too weirded out.
Our Band Could Be Your Life, do you feel that book did The Minutemen justice?
Well, I'm glad that book came out, because for a long time, I mean it's known to you and stuff, but a lot of people didn't even know about those days. A lot of the "conventional rock historians" and stuff, kind of-I remember there was this PBS thing on rock n roll and they went from The Pistols to Nirvana and acted like there was nothing in between (laughs). So, it opened up, Steve Blush wrote a book, too, called American Hardcore, talking about these days. And I think that is kind of neat that that happened. D. Boon was killed. He was the only guy that wasn't there. 'Cause there was a lot of focusing on the guys in the band, Bob and Grant, Greg and the whole band...so I gave him (Michael Azerrad) an interview tape of me and D. Boon with this guy- I think in Minnesota- we were kind of arguing with each other. He didn't use a lot it- he used some of it. Bands are trippy, they're like little families. There is a weird thing, I don't think he did it intentionally, 'cause he is a nice man, but he kind of puts all the cats in that book as kind of victims, 'cause there wasn't a lot of commercial success. But I think all those bands had a lot of success in a way, because maybe not with the money, but getting our own sounds and taking it to people, doing the tours and stuff, we kind of did it, we were successful.
When were you able to make a living off of music?
fIREHOSE. The Minutemen had built a lot of stuff that fIREHOSE didn't have to reinvent.
Do you think that the Minutemen overshadowed fIREHOSE?
No...you gotta understand this, too. Many more people saw fIREHOSE than The Minutemen. A lot of people from the old days know me more from fIREHOSE than The Minutemen. The scene got bigger and more open-minded. In a weird way it was kind of an advantage You were a little bit more mysterious.
Enigmatic.
Yeah, 'cause a lot of them didn't get to see us! And then some people who did see us, who saw The Minutemen and then fIREHOSE, the loss of D. Boon kind of colored their judgement. fIREHOSE could never match up, 'cause of the loss of him. Which is sad for Edward, but it's understandable. Other people, all they know is fIREHOSE, so they hear The Minutemen it's like, "oh my God, what's this?" You gotta kind of leave it in peoples' hands.
How were the recent Iggy and the Stooges gigs?
Yeah, we've done 27 of them now. Recent? I mean shit, they didn't do one for 29 years. So that first one at Cochella a year-and-a-half ago, well, almost two now. During the summer we did a lot of Europe ones. He called me a couple days ago. They got new songs.
Really? Wow!
Him and Ronnie and Scotty are working on new ones. He flowed me eleven of them, and their neat! For me it's a real mind-blow, 'cause we were boys listening to that stuff and to think that, twenty, thirty-years later, that you are going to be playing with them. But, also, finally I'm the youngest guy in the band. They are really interesting gentlemen, very intelligent. And not such a stretch from D. Boon and George Hurley, guys who are into music, but are into all kinds of things so to be around them you are constantly learning. Righteous cats. To be on the stage, and learning to take direction from Iggy. It helps me so much when I come to my own bands. On a lot of levels, it's a profound experience. It is definitely not an oldies act!
Yeah, and Iggy is still quite the wild man?
Oh, yeah! In a way he is like D. Boon, the way he plays. "This might be my last gig. I'm giving you everything I got." Totally, abandoned, wild, but at the same time hearing everything, like a conductor.
Labels: Black Flag, Econo, Mike Watt, SST
posted by Richard @ 3:50 PM
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