On the Bus with Frank Black
By: Jennifer Wagner |
Sunday January 21, 2007 |
| I almost start to respect people who are sort of non-PC, just to clear the air or whatever, because it does get a little bit uptight. I mean, I feel paranoid sometimes doing interviews. |
Photo By Michael Halsband
I made a smart decision that particular Wednesday evening. Some of you readers may already be familiar with the irresistible little cupie doll of a neighbor I've got, fondly nicknamed Bender. I brought her with me to the interview I had scheduled with the one and only Frank Black. This maneuver, bringing along a Calista Flockhart-lookalike, ended up serving two purposes - first, she couldn't have looked more precious, and secondly she took notes as I talked with Mr. Black - which ended up really coming in handy because my stupid recorder broke down. So, in a cab on the way to Chicago's infamous Metro, I got a call from the tour manager as I made an unsuccessful attempt to grab Bender's knee. The interview would take place on the tour bus waiting outside the club, a fact confirmed as we rolled up in the cab behind it. "Frank's waiting for you," I was told as I tipped our driver and held the door for the straight and unobtainable girl. We clamored onto the nearly empty bus, and, upon instructions, we made our way to the back where some cushy leather seating and Frank Black awaited, hand outstretched politely. He looked good. We shook and settled Bender into a little corner at the table with my notepad, I hit "record" on two craptacular pieces of equipment, and we were off and running. How are you, Mr. Black? Frank Black: I'm very well, Jennifer, how are you? I'm very well. You've been running around quite a bit lately. Cincinnati last night? Southgate House? Yep! It was good! Actually I think it was the best show of the tour so far. Really? Good! I'm familiar with the venue myself. You are? Well, I heard it was haunted...I don't know if that was baloney. We played on Halloween, and things started to get really Halloweeny as soon as we got off the bus earlier that evening. A guy sort of jumped out at us from nowhere, then I had this lonely walk along the river. Only a couple of us were on the bus, and I made myself a little Halloween Lone Ranger mask; I cut the collar off my shirt and cut holes in it. (laughter) Way to improvise! Yeah! You usually use like garters for that sort of thing, don't you? Garters that you wear yourself? (laughing) Yeah, that's a good way to do that, actually. I should do that next time. It wasn't very fancy; I didn't have any glitter or anything, my kids have that stuff at home - the craft cabinet, you know. (Laughter). (Back to the gig at the Southgate House) We got locked in the bus... Out of the bus, did you say? In the bus. (perplexed) How did that happen? Something slipped in the lock or whatever. So I was 45 minutes late getting on stage, they couldn't find the bus driver. Anyway, it was a good show; I skipped a couple of songs, but got into playing any of the stuff that was darker lyrically - it seemed to come out more. I even told a local paper who asked how I felt playing on Halloween; 'Forget Halloween, I'm bigger than Halloween!' or something obnoxious like that. (laughter) You couldn't have picked a better venue that night. I've got a personal haunted house story about the Southgate House... Oh, really?! Are you from that area? Yes I'm from Cincinnati and I'm familiar with the Southgate; I had a little run-in there once with a strange lady in a white dress who didn't really exist...at least not on a normal plane. Oh, really?! At the venue? At the venue. Were you, like, attending something there? I was just hanging out...I'm privileged to be friends with the owner and the owner's daughter, Morrella. I don't know if you met her... I didn't meet her. But I kept hearing about it being a haunted house... It's legit! I only experienced a ghost once myself; I did not see anything, and would normally be very skeptical about this kind of stuff. What happened with that experience? A little pub in Dublin. A really old, old place and I was there...it's not that much to tell. It's just, you know, I got scared. I was there [in Dublin] and I couldn't find a bathroom. It [the pub] was closed, but these musicians I was with knew the owner, the bartender. So they said 'Come on, let's go there!' and it was a very typical Irish bar, with the Guinness and the singing [of] songs; the quintessential Irish sharing songs until the wee hours, 'til dawn. And I went up some stairs and just...there was something there…I don't know. I was ready to go!!! Yeah, that was like the only time I'd ever experienced anything like that. How old are your kids? Eight, six, almost two, and six months. I was gonna show you a picture of them; it must be in my other pants...two boys, two girls. Quite a little gaggle! Are they exposed to your music at all? Yeah, yeah, especially the older ones. They get to see a show here and there. They're really not quite ready to get into show business yet (laughter); they're just taking notes. And you're not, you know, The Wiggles. (laughter) They're just like 'So, you know, how do I get in on this?' But they do want to get into music, as far as you can tell? Oh, yeah. They're ready to push me right out of the way. (laughter) Are you gonna be, like, a dick of a stage dad or... Oh, no no no...whatever they want to do, I'll support it. So, you're touring in support of Fast Man, Raider Man? The album reviews are pretty good... I was lucky, I mean, I always get mentioned, whether they love me or hate me, I always get mentioned in the paper. How do you personally feel about how the album turned out? Pretty good, I haven't listened to it recently, but I think I like it! It's been described as like 'a director's cut of Honeycomb.' It's probably got a few too many songs on there, but, come on... It's got a huge, huge cast of big names contributing; Spooner Oldham, Levon Helm... I got a lot of mileage out of that. (laughter) 
How did you get everybody together?
I didn't have anything to do with it; it was the producer...pretty shameless about it, you get like Paul McCartney's e-mail address, and you're shameless, you're just like, 'Wanna come play on a record? So-and-so's gonna be there!' and then it's just like 'Oh, sorry, thanks but no thanks.' (laughter), and sometimes they say 'Yes!' You recorded it all in Memphis, right? Most of it in Nashville, a little bit in L.A., and the remainder of it in Chicago, actually. Oh, wow, so Memphis had nothing to do with it, actually. (laughter) Well, some of the players are originally from the Memphis scene, and that. Got it, got it. So touring: how long have you been out? Just twenty years. (laughing) Consecutively? (still laughing) Feels like it sometimes. Any highlights, city-wise? Ummm...yes! I had not yet played Asheville, North Carolina, and I liked it there. What'd you like about it? It's kind of an East Coast version of where I live; it is a college, University, hippie-dippy health food store town. What's the college there? Pardon my ignorance. I don't know; the University of North Carolina or something like that. Nice little ballroom venue; are you familiar with ballroom venues? Well, the Southgate I would describe as one. Yeah yeah yeah, but a big, sort of, up above the street level thing...big floor. I don't know if it had springs in it, but... If it did I'm sure you'd bounce. Riiiight...well we played this place, called the Orange Peel, I think? Dylan's played there, it's just a really cool room. So I liked it there. And they had a lot of really nice coffee shops and stuff. Your range is really huge...I mean, post punk, guitar rock...alt-country... I can't make up my mind! Pretty schizo, yeah. No offense to schizophrenics. It's hard to get rid of those words. It's sort of a salute to schizophrenics. (laughing) Yeah. It gets pretty stiff, now, it's hard to choose your words carefully. I almost start to respect people who are sort of non-PC, just to clear the air or whatever, because it does get a little bit uptight. I mean, I feel paranoid sometimes doing interviews. I had a very long interview yesterday, and we were talking about music and show biz, and I was talking about what I like about show biz, and playing old places that other musicians used to play years ago, and I was referencing musicians of yesteryear, and what they had to deal with, and I said 'And that's the white guys.' My point being that the black musicians who were preceding had a much harder time than the white guys. So anyway, I made some point about hard times in yesteryear for black musicians. And in this sort of espresso-wired conversation I had to wonder, 'Did/could I have just said something they may misunderstand? I said it so fast...' I know for a fact I'd never say anything offensive to anybody, or not deliberately. Are they gonna, not hear what I just said? You know how people, like, extract stuff, or misunderstand you? Anyway, you find yourself second-guessing yourself. You know what I mean? Well I feel that being really stringent about being politically correct is driving a bigger wedge between understanding and relations than anything else. I mourn for the days of Good Times and All In the Family and sitcoms that laid it out - there are differences between the races and amongst different sorts of people, the point is to treat each other equally. So now it's almost more diversified, because everyone's tiptoeing around this and that. So I contend you can just use descriptors like "retarded." (laughing) Yeah, how did we start talking about this? I have some Down's Syndrome fans, actually, in Eureka, CA, there's a health facility there... It's at this point that both of my flipping recorders broke down, but thanks to Bender the story's saved. Mr. Black went on to tell a very amusing story about one of those Down's Syndrome fans who'd once been brought to sound check by a nurse. Frank was helping load amps or whatnot when the kid saw and recognized Frank; naturally he got very excited. The nurse thought Frank was a roadie and apologetically explained that the kid had a mental challenge and was a huge fan of Frank Black and was completely harmless, just really amped up about seeing him later that night. The kid the whole time was running up and down the sidewalk, "going bananas," and as Frank relayed: He knew what was going on. I knew what was going on. He and I were on the same page. Had you ever thought about doing anything different? I don't think so...I don't know how to do anything else at this time. Thank God for the whole Pixies thing. (laughter) Well, what if there were no Pixies? We wouldn't be sitting here on this bus. I'm getting paid lots of money because of that Pixies tour! Next time around it'll be like; 'Oh yeah Frank is back. He cost me my fucking shirt last time!' I shouldn't be paid as much as I'm being paid right now. (looking at bus floor, shuffling feet) - Frank? I wasn't going to ask you about Kim Deal, but... (amicably bursting in) She owes me a phone call! See, I'm a really big Breeders fan. I think she and Kelley [Deal] are making a record. I have yet to confirm that bit of news, but am living contentedly with the fantasy. Back to the bus that chilly November eve: as Mr. Black wrote out the setlist with a big fat sharpie, I made several song suggestions such as "Rocky Top," Fergie's "London Bridge", and "Whipping Post," but sadly none of my classic and/or crowd-pleasing recommendations made the cut. We'd gone over our time limit by an enjoyable quarter of an hour, and another interview was waiting outside the bus, so at that point the human "soothing balm", tour manager Billy Block, politely kicked us out. I peeled the reluctant Bender off her chair, who then proceeded to cling to the bus door with her fingers and toes like a cat being forced into or out of anything it doesn't care to go into or out of. Only after threatening to take advantage of her prone and sprawled body did she acquiesce, and we departed the wonderful company of our clever new friend Frank. But there was time for one more question: How long do you think the tour's gonna last? Maybe another twenty years (long, loud laughter). |
