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The Negro Problem | page 1, 2
Stew: I've been a security guard,
which is how I finished all the lyrics
to the record, because I can't finish
lyrics unless I'm either on a bus or
working a really boring job. I can't sit
there with the quill. Where were you a security
guard? Stew: In Santa Monica, at an
empty business park. A bunch of gray offices with cellotex
wall panels? Stew: Exactly. But hey, it
worked. Also, the way we were able to
last was by doing something that L.A.
bands who are successful don't do, which
is we went to various towns over and
over again, whether they wanted us to be
there or not, and just kept playing and
playing until we finally developed a
following there. Unlike a lot of other
successful Los Angeles bands, we can
have a record release party in Arizona
or San Diego or Portland. We bought a van. We tour a lot, because
we're smart enough to know that the big
cities are basically jaded. They see you
a few times; first they watch to see how
far you're going to go up, and then, of
course, they watch to see how fast
you're going to fall. A lot of bands are
under this illusion that the whole world
is Los Angeles. And the city is very
good at creating that illusion that it
is the whole world. [Bands] just think,
well, the industry is here! David Geffen
lives here! He parks his helicopter
here! It must all be here. Why should I
go to San Diego? Why should I go to
Mesa, Ariz.? Heidi: It feels really good to do
great in San Diego. Stew: We go there and we make
money. It's just being old-fashioned,
like being a folk group or a blues
group. Rock guys are stupid! They're
uneducated working-class peasants that
have suddenly been given this
opportunity, and after a month they're
suddenly, like [British accent], "I
cahn't have regular coffee, I
want a cappuccino! I can't take a bus, I
want to be chauffeured around!" And I'm
like, hold it, you were a peasant two
months ago. Why don't you just get in
the van and go? Just carry some
equipment? People believe their own
bullshit, these myths, this Rolling
Stones, Led Zeppelin thing, and that's so
gone. That's ancient, it's Jurassic,
it's not real. So you've carved out a wonderful
little plateau for yourself. Stew: You have to, these days.
Does Kid Rock really think that anyone
is going to care what he says in the
next year? Do you guys have any horror stories
about major record labels that have been
interested in you? Stew: The best story I can give
you is some guy looked me in the
face and said, "You know, you really
have a great sense of melody, you really
write some clever lyrics, but let me
tell you, there's two things you need in
your band. You need a song that mentions
a car and a song that mentions a girl's
name or a girl's phone number." And I
looked at him and thought, somebody call
Robert Altman right now,
and tell him that he's a documentarian.
"The Player" is real life. People really say things like that. This
guy said, "You know, I'm a big fan, I
really get what you're doing, but you've
got to have a number like [singing]
'8-6-7-5-3-0-nii-yine.'" This guy was
buying me really expensive Chinese food,
and I was just thinking, OK, this is
what it's all about. [The major labels]
don't know what to do with us, and
frankly, I don't blame them. Walking
into a major label for us right now is
like us walking into the Pork Store over
there on Fifth Avenue and saying, "Can you
handle us?" and they're like, "Well, you
know, we do pork, maybe we could fit
something in." Heidi: And we don't want to wait. Stew: It would be nice if we had
met maybe one friend who had had a good
experience with a major label. But we
know all these people, and they've all
done it, and they come to us and they
all say the exact same thing: "What you
guys are doing is the right thing." What
happened with my friends is, the record
company pays your rent for nine months.
For nine months you walk around thinking
you're a rock star. They put you up on some crappy tour with
some bands you have nothing in common
with, and then they take two years to
release the record. You hate the songs
by the time the record comes out, but
you have to play them. There are really
quality people [who can't find good
label support] -- Aimee Mann has to put
a record out on the Internet. That's
goofy. Love her or hate her, some major
label should be able to do something for
her. Heidi: What's really cool that
happened to us is the last record; it
was financed, in the beginning, from a
major label going, "Here, here's some
money, go do some demos for us." It was
great. We did the demos and then we gave
them the tape, but we didn't even think
about it. We just took all [the tracks]
to a different studio and finished the
album and put it out. And everyone else
we know in L.A. would have gone
[star-struck voice]: "Now we're waiting to
hear back!" Stew: We laugh at these bands who
spend all this time recording with all
these gigantic budgets. Bands who take
too much time in the studio generally
don't know what the hell they're doing.
They've written 10 songs, they get a
deal, then the second record comes out
and they're like, uh, I'm working my way
through song No. 4 -- that's so lame!
Then, it's like, "Oh, let's send them to
New Orleans for some inspiration." You
don't know how many people I know who
have been "sent to New Orleans." New Orleans is like a bus graveyard
for rock talent. You have a whole tier
of rock stardom that young band hopefuls
should know about. It's a way to
reroute their careers so they can
actually do music. Stew: It would be pretty
impossible for us to do what we do if
[Heidi's job] wasn't a music-oriented
job. Heidi: I work with studios. I
sell recording tape. Stew: They understand the world
that she's in. Heidi: I'm kind of leaving [work]
a lot now, kind of pushing it. Stew: You can't leave your
average job for a Thursday and a Friday
to go out of town. Heidi: It's not safe, nothing's
safe. We're old enough to where we've
already gone, "This is what we're
doing." We can't say, "No, wait, we
should work, we can't go to New York." Stew: It's a paradigm shift --
most people, like people who quit our
band because they can't handle it, say,
"I can't go to New York, I have a job."
We just go, "We have to go to New York.
How can we do it?" Heidi: We figure it out later. We
don't know what's going to happen next
month. We're kinda scared. We don't know
where the money is coming from. We have
a giant van we have to pay for. Stew: Things do tend to work out,
if you rethink the situation. They
don't work out if you think, "Oooh, I
want to keep my job and I want to keep
my band. How do I do it?" Then you're
fucked, because you're on the fence. You
have to say, either I'm here or I'm
there.
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