People always wonder why their bands don't make it big. They could take a note or two from the Black Lips, underground rock sensations all the way from that indie music mecca known as...Georgia. The South, you say, disbelievingly, scratching your head. But my band's in New York, and we go on tour all the time. We even play an ironic cover song by a famous eighties artist who later burned out on sequined appliquéd sweaters and cocaine. Our drummer's sister is like, totally blogging about us. Why aren't we HUGE?!?
I ask of you these questions:
Does YOUR band have the band members dressed like Apaches and feature tumbleweeds and chicks dressed as cowgirls? Does YOUR band gain press notoriety for your guitar player urinating in his mouth during shows? Is YOUR band signed to Vice records? Well, then. Put away the fog machine and send the drum tech home. It's time to meet the Black Lips.
Tuula: We're recording here at the AA meeting with Jared and Cole from the Black Lips. So you guys are from Atlanta,
are there a lot of bands from Atlanta at the minute? Is there like a good band scene there?
Black Lips: Yeah, there's Deerhunter, The Wet Dreams, Beep Beep Beep, they may not be names that everyone knows but there's a scene.
For bigger bands you have Cat Power and Mastodon.
Tuula: I have a friend from Atlanta and his local church was just inciting everyone to burn their rock records, so I wasn't sure if there was a scene.
Black Lips: Yeah, but indie rocks? not really that big in Atlanta though, if you want to find indie rock you have to go to the northwest or something, in Athens there's more but people are more into math rock in Athens right now, it's pretty bad.
(Keith asks Joe - 'Did you just say math or meth?' 'math'.)
Tuula: It's all the same thing, though right? I mean, there must be some crossover.
Tuula: So, I was looking for information on you guys, and was it you (gestures at Cole), that did the infamous piss in your mouth,was it you?
Black Lips: Yeah yeah.
Tuula: Cause I thought I should talk to this guy, I have a horrible head cold that won't go away, maybe
there's some remedy he knows or something...
Black Lips: Yeah, we've gotta to put that on the back burner for a bit, it's gotten out of hand.
Tuula: Was it a drunken antic that got kinda taken out of context?
Black Lips: Yeah, it got played out, 'cause it's all the journalists will talk about if they write about us.
The press loves that sort of stuff (but) it's a double edged sword, we're just trying to give it a rest.
Tuula: Maybe you can get like, fifty fluffy kittens for the show and put them on stage.
Black Lips: Yeah.
Black Lips: I want to get a bunch of those mechanical dancing flowers that dance when you play, those are rad.
Tuula: Their predecessors were the California Raisons, you could get some of those too.
Black Lips: Yeah, see, I want to make five huge ones that dance and are like 7 feet tall.
Tuula: To make you guys a bit fluffier and cuter.
Black Lips: Yeah, yeah, we want for people to associate us with flowers a lot.
Tuula: Not poppies or opium or anything, just flowers.
Black Lips: No, just flowers, pretty posies and tulips. Just something to counter the punk edge or something.
Tuula: How did you guys get involved with Vice, anyways? How did that come about?
Black Lips: We played New York all the time and eventually they took interest and came and saw us, and we started talking, and last February they flew us to Norway for the bei:Larm festival, in Oslo? Wait. No, it was in Tromso, which is 250 miles within the Arctic circle, it's way, way up there, they flew us up there and we played and they liked us so much and so we began the deliberation, the, what's the word? We just started talking. we just worked it out.
Tuula: I know that Death From Above are on Vice, right?
Black Lips: Yeah, the Boredoms the Streets, there's not really a lot of stuff that's like us, but we figured that would be good to get to a new demographic. We really want to start focusing on different audiences especially when we?ve worked the same circuit all over the country for so long, you?ve really got to expand to different audiences if you want to get any bigger.
Tuula: So they let you pretty much do what you want, it sounds like.
Black Lips: Yeah, we have creative control of it. I don't think we'd be able to follow directions if they tried to give us some, it just won't work that way. They told us from the beginning just to do what we wanted to do. They just gave us their opinion.
Tuula: Have you guys been in Vice? Maybe in the dos and don'ts section?
Black Lips: Well they did a little article on us. and sometimes they do a little advertising. All the people at the magazine are really nice, they're cool people, they enjoy traveling just like we do and they want to do cool stuff and find out new things. And one of the things about the magazine, I thought that they would be really super snobby hipster, but a lot of the people there are really just cool, they're just writers. That really warned them up to me, they're not snotty fashion people.
Tuula: No, that's San Francisco, San Francisco is snotty fashion people. You?ll see them at your show tonight, actually. What's next for you guys? You guys are on tour right now, more records,, more touring?
Black Lips: February we go to mix a record we were just recording, in late February we have to go to London for a week for a press week because we put out a single over there for Vice UK, March we go to South By Southwest and we play and then leave with The Ponies for an East Coast/ midwest tour.
Black Lips: (Cole to Joe) She reminds me of your sister Miriam, a little bit.
Tuula: Is that good or not?
Black Lips: No, she's cool. She works for CNN.
Tuula: That's right because CNN's based in Atlanta. Hey, Ted Turner is based in Atlanta.
Black Lips: Yeah, We wish he would run for mayor or president, we like him. We like The Ted, he's awesome. for a corporate guy, he's pretty cool
Tuula: He's married to Jane Fonda, right, or are they divorced?
Black Lips: Yeah, they're divorced. He's a philanthropist. he bought all this land in south carolina for all the native people, because all these white carpet baggers were trying to buy it all up and make it a resort, but it's like their islands, they've been there forever, and they didn't have the money to buy the land so he bought it all and gave it to them. He even buys up nature reserves all over the country so it won't get developed, he's like the biggest person in Atlanta saving the natural habitats.
Tuula: This could be a song, you know.
Black Lips: AND he drinks a lot too.
Tuula: I hear Paul Newman's like that too. He'll drink and then grab his wife's ass, meanwhile donating millions of dollars for his organic products. Well, thanks you guys,. Anything else you want to say?
Black Lips: I was gonna mention you were asking about Atlanta, and one of the bands we like is Deerhunter, and they're coming out on tour with the Ponies.
Tuula: The Ponies are coming out here in March, I think, for Noise Pop.
Black Lips: We played that last year. So hopefully, they're be out here with them.
(Interview ends in random discussion about Ted Turner, which may or not contain references to penis size and/or current drinking ability.)
