D: Duane Denison E: Ernie Mejia (among other things I've been called )

E: Where was your last show?
D: Last night in Seattle.
E: How did that go?
D: It went really good. Sold out.
E; How did you guys get together in the first place?
D: By accident almost really. I met Patton at a Mr. Bungle show. I live in Nashville now and he came through town with that. I went down there and got introduced and one thing led to another.
E: Nice. Do you get the skitters when playing live?
D: I do! Funny after all this time I still do. You know when you’re recording or rehearsing whatever, that obviously doesn't happen, but the minute I get in front of people it changes. I like to have a little drinky-poo.
E: Do you write these new songs by yourself or is it pretty much a jam session with the whole band?
D: Typically these songs start off in my basement just with a guitar and a drum machine and a work station. I’ll make really rough out lines like demos, and then burn CD’s, and then get feedback. Then when we get together we kind of color in the blanks. People add details to their part. Editing, arranging, that kind of thing.
E: Do you change your equipment around from your recording set-up to your live one?
D: Not typically. This one because we’re touring with The Melvins, to make things easy I’m sharing, basically using Buzz Osbourne’s amp and speaker set-up with my effect and stuff. It makes it easier for a quick change over and since our bass player is in both bands, he’s there too.
E: Do you tour with pets?
D: No! It’s funny. I miss my cats though. I just had a dream about one of my cats last night.
E: Have you guys toured Europe for this album yet?
D: Not for this one yet. We’ve been out for about a week and a half so we’re kinda just getting rolling.
E: Do you think Europeans are friendlier to the live act?
D: They can be just as crazy in some places. Even worst in some places. Christ! Northern Ireland? Insane! Absolutely insane. Some of those grim industrial nations like, oh…England, and the Scandanavian ones…
E: You have to watch yourself?
D: That and there’s soo much drugs. You know the U.S. is bad but they are really bad there. It’s like people have such hopeless lives that getting completely obliterated is you know…not that there’s anything wrong with that.
E: Tomahawk’s first album came out in 2001. Do you consider the period between albums too long or too short?
D:No , just right. We played a lot of shows. Some of the stuff from this album we’ve actually been playing live before this tour. A year, a year and a half between albums is good.
E: Do you think you got a different sound from this album?
D:Yah I think it’s a bit more spacious. The working relationship is more comfortable. I’m just really happy with this album, without sounding like a jerk.
E: What is your take on the state of music right now? Pop music?
D: So me people say that this is the worst era ever, but pop music has always been bad, you know? I just think that as the technology gets more advanced, that the craftsmanship, the writing, and the playing seems to go backwards. People go to see what is supposed to be a “live” performance and half of it is on tape or on DAT, or on samplers, and they’re simply playing along with it, or in some cases, not even bothering playing along or singing! They just act it like at a Kareoke show. That’s wrong.
E: What kind of movie would you like to see your music be a soundtrack to?
D: The obvious thing to would be to say something like, “Well, Lynch!” , or “Terrantino!”, or “Kronenberg!”…Um , something contemporary in America, maybe something a little more subtle like Jim Jarmusch. (Night on Earth, Ghost Dog)
E: How about Christopher Guest?
D: That’s a little too dry for me.
E: Do you own anything magic?
D: I got an old song book that’s been in my family.
E: Do you feed off it, read it over?
D:Um, I’ve lifted a few things here and there.
E: Nice. What are you listening to right now?
D: In the van on this trip it’s been Faust, this Dutch composer Louise Van Driessen, kind of a modern, postmentalist guy. The Young Gods.
E: Do you try to buy stuff that’s in your own style?
D: Everything different. All kinds of stuff. I try to keep up on the rock stuff, but it seems like I’ll go buy a batch of stuff and be disappointed.. So then I buy something experimental or something orchestral,. Chamber music. Jazz.
E: Any strange childhood memories?
D: Um , no. But my sister and I saw a ghost car twice in the same night. We lived out in a suburb of Detroit called Plymouth on a dirt road with a dirt driveway, and this glowing silver car came down the driveway, passed the house, and turned around again, and it was silent. The whole car was silver. The glass, everything. So we ran outside where my mom and dad were sitting next to the driveway. This was really evil. So we’re all “ Who was that in the car? What kind of car was that? WHAT WAS THAT!?!” And they said “What car?” They didn’t even see it. So my sister and I went back into the house and we were freakin’ out. And it came back fifteen minutes later. We were so scared we just stayed inside. And once again it just passed them by and left…
E: Do you drive?
D: Uh huh.
E: What do you drive?
D: A Subaru stationwagon. Very sensible, very practical.
E: You don’t go for the old jaloppees?
D: No, I don’t go for the vintage and I don’t go for the sporty new ones, just strictly practical. If I could have a second car it would be nice to have maybe a vintage pick-up, maybe an old Chevy.
E: What would you be doing if you hadn’t gotten into music or had gotten out of it?
D: Well, before The Jesus Lizard I had quit playing for a while. I was living in Austin, Texas working at a gasoline pump factory, and I had been playing in bands down there too. That’s where I met the Scratch Acid guys, but I just couldn’t seem to get anywhere so I just quit playing for a while saying ,“You know, music is just wearing me out and I’m just going to quit and concentrate on getting ahead.” So I was working in this factory and they had moved me up. I went from the assembly line, to the final assembly, to the test department and they said, “You know Duane, if you want to take some night classes in electronics, we’ll reimburse you for it, and we’ll move you up into field service, which meant that I wouldn’t be out on the line all the time. And that’s probably where I would have worked.
E: So you didn’t go for it.
D: I actually did for a while. I was still working there and going to night classes. Every dad was like a ten hour shift, and then go to school. It was just a long day. Exhausting.
E: So what brought you back to music?
D: David Sims called me from Chicago and him and David Yow had moved there. Sims was playing in Rapeman and we had already sort of flirted with the idea of Jesus Lizard down in Texas before he moved up there. This was like 1988-1989. He called me up and said, You should come up here and I think we should get this band together , and we’ll get a drummer, and I hate to see you quit.” So I thought about it thinking, “ You know if I don’t do this I’ll probably regret this for the rest of my life.” So I did, and things worked out and things are still working out.
E: So you don’t mind moving around?
D: No, I’ve moved around a lot. I started out, grew up in Michigan, moved to Texas, Chicago, now I’ve been living in Nashville for the passed four years.
E: Playing with Hank Williams III?
D: Yah. Not anymore. I’m not doing that gig anymore.
E: Any reason?
D: Let’s just say I wanted to do this.
E: Does weather influence your writing?
D: Sure. I like a change of weather. I could never live in L.A. or Southern California. I like the seasons. I feel the most creative around like the Christmas through February period where it’s short days when it’s dark a lot and you’re more prone to staying inside.
E: Socks or slippers?
D: Slippers. I didn’t used to be.
E: Annika or Pippi?
( silence )
E: …from Pippi Longstocking?
D: I have no idea.
E: Milk or cheese?
D: Cheese.
E: LP’s or CD’s?
D: CD’s.
E: Favorite drink?
D: The one I can’t obviously face the day without is coffee. That’s the reason to get up in the morning. But then there’s the afternoon, maybe more of a soda, more of a Coke time. Evening is wine, beer, whiskey time…
E: Do you see an end to Tomahawk anytime in the near future?
D: I take it by ear. Of course bands break up. That’s what they do. I don’t know. I don’t have any set time limit, no due date. We seem to be going well.. It’s still kind of an upward trajectory. It’s still a new band, just our second album, so things are going well…
E: Have you ever not had the creative freedom to do what you want with music?
D: Yah, but not the way you’re thinking. There was a period in time where I was out of school for about five years where I was supporting myself with jobs that took up so much time, but somehow when I come to think about it, I managed to write and put out albums. So no, not really. You just have to make time.
E: What does Duane do for fun when he’s away from music?
D: Basically normal things. Eat, go to movies, swim, go outside.
E: Movie fun, huh? Action? Foreign?
D: Everything. Foreign, drama. Even dumb comedies. Sometimes there’s nothing like a mindless comedy to get the cobwebs out…Even bad comedies like “Undercover Brother”.
E: Oh that was a good movie.
Any parting words for our No-Fi readers?
D: Where is No-Fi based?
E: Silverlake.
D: Oh, Silverlake. That’s very cool… Um, no wisdom. Just kinda, I hope you like the new one.
E: Very good. Thank you Duane.
D: Thank you.

twenty/forty: How was this album written as opposed to the last? With the last album, you wrote all the main parts and then traded tapes back and forth. Was this similar?

Duane Denison: This wasn't a whole lot different, although instead of tapes its CDs now. I have a digital workstation now, so I kind of moved up. Same idea though, I kind of just sketch things out and then make CDs. When we get together we fill everything in. Though three songs on the new album we played live before recording, and we've done some improvising together. Maybe the writing process was a little more organic. Plus, we know each other better from playing a lot of shows now. I think that enhanced it.

t/f: Going back to those three songs from the new album, "Mayday," "Harelip" and "Birdsong" were all part of the first tour.

DD: Right.

t/f: Now, did you write those for the first album?

DD: No, they kind of happened after. When we went on tour we didn't have enough songs.

t/f: Is that why you guys did some covers as well?

DD: That's part of it. Plus, we just like doing covers. Covers are fun. That's why we would improvise though, because we'd run out of songs.

t/f: So, are you generally writing when you're on tour?

DD: That doesn't really happen. Touring is fairly exhausting. I've already got maybe five or six new songs, rough ideas that I worked on in the period between when we finished "Mit Gas" and when we started the tour. So, I did some homework and kind of got a head start. Then I just stopped and said okay, it's time to get into tour mode.

t/f: Is that the same mode that everyone else in the band is in?

DD: Well, we're all playing all the time. Like Fantomas, Melvins, everyone's always doing something. John plays with a group in New York called Battles and he dj's. Actually I have a group called Koneki in Nashville that I play with when I'm home. I do a little bit of studio stuff here and there. So, we're playing all the time. After sitting in the basement all winter writing songs it's like, "enough."

t/f: Is that how you normally write, you shut yourself in?

DD: Yes.

t/f: Do you have a favorite song you like to perform?

DD: Not really, there are a few so far that seem like my favorites. "Point and Click," "Capt. Midnight," "Mayday's" fun, "Harelip's" fun. "Harelip's" easy -- I can take it easy on that one.

t/f: Is going on tour and performing mostly fun for you, or does it ever just become a job?

DD: Well, it's definitely work, it's tiring, but it's good work. It's fun, obviously we enjoy playing. To me there's nothing worse than going to see a band and they look like they don't want to be there, you know what I mean? I don't think we ever give that impression. You know there are some days when you're tired and you don't feel good or you have problems going on at home that you can't do anything about. And you'd rather just have a day when you don't have to do anything. That's part of the deal.

t/f: Are you able to overlook the problems and enjoy yourself?

DD: Just drink them away.

t/f: As a band, are you guys trying to find a sound, and is that a good or bad thing?

DD: Yeah, I think we've found one. I think that's exactly what a band should do. It took a while. The first album, the first tour; I still like a lot of those songs and I think it holds up pretty well, but we hadn't really found a group personality yet. I think we're on it now. We know what we're capable of, and it's not so much individuals as it is a collective thing. Now I feel like it's really starting to take off.

t/f: Does that have to do with this being more of a collaborative album?

DD: Yes, and just playing together. You get used to communicating more easily. We're at the point now where it doesn't matter who writes a part because everyone's going to say something about it. So, you have a built-in editor, everybody in the band. If I come up with something and I figure I like it and those guys like it, then everybody will like it. But the other guys are not shy about saying, "That's not so good." Maybe I'll make a CD with three or four songs, and they'll say, "One and two are great, but I'm not so sure about that other one." Honestly it doesn't happen that much because I think about what everybody likes before I make a tape or a CD.

t/f: The first album, had you written most of the songs before you knew who was in the band?

DD: Oh yeah, about half of it.

t/f: So, now that you know who is in the band, do you find yourself writing differently?

DD: Yes, knowing what they like to play, what they're strengths are, that kind of thing. Then you kind of balance it out; I don't want too many of this kind of song, or too many of that kind of thing.

t/f: You've played with some pretty powerful lead singers. Do you approach writing differently knowing your singer is Mike Patton as opposed to David Yow (of Jesus Lizard)?

DD: Oh of course. With Patton, it's so easy to write for a singer like him because he can sing melodies and do traditional vocals as well as screech and shatter and do all that other stuff. So, I feel like I can write just about anything, which wasn't always the case in the past. It's nice to have songs where the vocal melody drives the song, rather than just say, riffs or beats.

t/f: What do you think of the arraignments and the samples that he adds, which is not something you traditionally had in your songs?

DD: True, but I love it now. Now when I go back and listen to stuff that's guitar based with drums and vocals, I think it was fine for the time it was in but it now sounds a bit plain to me. I think it's nice to have those different sounds and textures going on.

t/f: So, what do you think in general about technology and music?

DD: Mostly good, but now it seems that sometimes the technology is driving the music as opposed to the other way around, which isn't what it used to be. It used to be there was a need for something and someone would invent something to fill the need. Now people invent new things, and it's not to say it's always bad, but the technology seems to influence the music more than the other way around. In the old days, Leo Fender, the guy who made Fender guitars, would go to his local dancehall and you could never hear the bass. People said, "Leo," who was a simple machinist, "why don't you make us an electric bass?" And that's where it all happened. Same with guitars, couldn't hear it, let's make an electric guitar. Now you have samples, which I like. Obviously we have a sampler in the band. But when someone says, "Hey listen to my new song," and it's all just samples of preexisting things, there's a part of me that says, "You no talent, button pusher."

t/f: Is there any pop music that you actually enjoy?

DD: A lot, a lot. I'm not so sure about current pop music. Popular music has its place in society. It's supposed to make people happy for a few minutes at a time, if you're stuck in a traffic jam. I remember a couple years back, I live in Nashville now, so that "O Brother Where Art Thou?" song was huge. That one damn song is so catchy and it sounds so fucking good. You know what I mean? I know so many people from all cross sections of music who all like that song. You were perfectly happy to hear it on the radio when you're driving. To me that's what popular music should do. Blondie, ABBA. I couldn't get ABBA out of my head. I heard it once earlier this tour, that song Dancing Queen. It's a beautiful song. It starts off with the chorus first, brief intro, then the chorus, and then it goes into a verse -- brilliant.

t/f: You've had some issues with big record labels in your time. Can you talk about what it was like to go from Touch and Go to Capitol (with Jesus Lizard) to where you are now on Ipecac?

DD: By the time we went to Capitol, we had been around for a while, and we weren't kids. We had lots of friends who had made that similar jump and we had really good legal advice, so we knew exactly what we were doing. We knew what the possible consequences were but our contract was so ironclad. That's why we signed -- there was no way we could lose. They had to pay us for a certain amount of albums whether they put them out or not. No matter how many they sold and no matter whether they put it out, they had to pay us x amount of dollars. That was the only reason we did it. You know we had been playing for years and getting by and doing alright; Touch and Go is a great label and I still talk to them all them time. We told them beforehand that we're thinking about making the jump, so we're still on good terms with them. It was funny though, we made that jump and then our record sales went down. Usually it goes up, but ours went down. That was kind of the beginning of the end. But I still have money in the bank from that. Some people might say, "You fucking sellout," but we went for years living like hobos while other people, our fans, were going to dental school or whatever, so I don't feel guilty. Leading to where you're going with this, it's nice to be back on an indie like Ipecac where it's quality music, I trust the people that run it, we have creative control, etc.

t/f: Was creative control something you didn't have at Capitol? Did they pressure you?

DD: You know, they did, but not as much as you might think. We just weren't a pop band and we thought they understood that. Anytime you sign to a big record company they are going to want to hear a single, they're going to say, "Where's the single?" So, we tried to mix singles and Jesus Lizard weren't a singles band. I don't know what kind of band we were. But there was never that big of pressure. Now at Ipecac the pressure is to just be good, just be creative and unique and original and exciting. The label seems to be pretty visible right now and it's in an upward trajectory. So, it's a good place for us to be.

t/f: And it must be a nice sense of community on the Ipecac Geek Tour.

DD: Awesome, it's the way a tour should be. You like the bands, you like the music, you like the people. It's not some ego-driven mayhem tour where you just get sick of seeing these people day after day. It's great, the way a tour should be. The attendance has been excellent everywhere. It seems to be the tour that's under the radar as far as mass media but it's the one that real people want to see, so I'm so happy to be doing it.

t/f: Can you talk about the difference between this tour and touring with Tool?

DD: (Laughs) Well, once again we knew what we were getting into. Tool are very nice people, they are actually music fans, they listen to music, they care. But anytime you're playing in front of somebody else's crowd, you're at their mercy. We've all been in that situation before where, no matter how well you play, they're probably not going to like you. So, you just kind of get used to it. It got to be a drag after about eight weeks. I'd had enough. Being flipped off by kids half my age, I'd like to beat their ass.

t/f: Do you think you'll play another stadium tour anytime soon?

DD: You never know. Sometimes those things are fun to do just for a change of scene. You know, we play this kind of circuit all the time. I've been playing places like this (Theater of the Living Arts) since what, the 80's or something? So to get out and play an arena, it's fun. It's funny in a way. I don't think music was meant to be played in those kinds of places. To me there's another example of technology driving the music, it's architecture driving the music. When bands started playing bigger and bigger places, they had to start writing music that would sound good in those kinds of places, right? That's arena rock. People say, oh that's just amped up blues. Well maybe, but it was big blocks of sound, simple beats, big textures, stuff that will sound the same no matter where you play.

t/f: And it doesn't bounce off as much.

DD: It bounces off, but it doesn't matter that much. I don't think our music works well in that type of architecture , whereas Tool's does. They're songs are slow and thick and they go on forever. I think they were very smart; They basically figured out how to write music that sounds good in big places.

t/f: Do you think that on album number two, you guys are finally considered less of a "super-group" and more of an actual group?

DD: I would hope so. I mean with the super-group thing, I don't care, people can say what they want. But really this whole thing started as a collaboration between me and Mike. We had no idea where it would ultimately go or if we'd be a band. But we recruited our friends. I'd been talking to John Stanier about playing together for years. And we all knew Kevin Rutmanis. Mike said, personality-wise he'd be just right. And, he was right. I know that's how it is, it's not like we said let's create a rock super-group . How stupid would that be, you know what I mean? I'd like to think that now it has its own personality, we have our own sound, maybe we'll start getting away from that.

t/f: So, you have a big tour ahead, Europe, Australia. How do you like the road life?

DD: I like it, but man, it gets exhausting. To me that's a real band. Everybody has a home studio now, everyone has computers. So the world is full of guys and gals who just sit around and do these home recording projects and put it out, and you can read about it everywhere you go. To me, go out and do it night after night, go and recreate that. That's when it's real and when it's not. That's, to me, the challenge. Go out and deal with everything you're going to deal with and then, get up there and give people their money's worth and make them happy and excited and all that kind of shit. To me, that's what bands are supposed to do.

t/f: So when the tour is over, are you going to go to work on another Tomahawk album?

DD: Yes. When I'm done I'm going to get back to Tomahawk stuff. I'll do some stuff in Nashville for a couple people there. I've got this other project that's kind of on the backburner but I don't want to talk about because, you know, you jinx things.

t/f: Keep up the good work, Duane.

DD: Thanks man, appreciate it.