“There’s always room for rowdy rock 'n' roll,” says singer Jared Swilley who co-founded the band with with Cole Alexander . And, we couldn’t agree more; especially if it’s coming from Black Lips.
With their new 18-track album, Satan's Graffiti or God's Art? being produced by Sean Lennon - and featuring no other than Fat Whites’ Saul Adamciewski on guitar and co-production - they have one of the best rock records of the year.
Couple that with the way this around the core duo have dealt with a shifting line-up. The Georgia, Atlanta punk rockers have an all new touring band they’ve brought to Europe that make half of Reading Festival look like City workers.
Their scuzzy band include: Cole Alexander’s Girlfriend Zumi Rosow who played sax in the band K-Holes; drummer Oakley Munson from Sonic Youth affiliated Rondelles (and many other bands); Danny Lee Blackwell the singer/ guitarist from Night Beats. As Cole tells us: “It’s an all-star line up right now.” Who's to argue?
Gigwise meets them just before their headline slot at the Festival Republic stage in Reading Festival in a cosy back stage area. Every band member huddles around and the come across well-mannered and like a strong crew of friends. The conversation meanders through the recent history and harks back to some wild - and sometimes sad experiences - that life gives. Read the interview below:
Gigwise: How’s tour?
Jared: All the shows have been amazing but it's been a lot of travelling. Trains, planes, boats, and automobiles. It's been Israel, then Greece then France then here.
Cole: Bicycles next.
Zumi: No camels unfortunately.
G: You’re getting to the level now where you’re headlining a stage at a festival? Is it how you thought it would be when you started out?
Cole: I didn’t realise we were headlining our stage, that’s cool.
Jared: I probably didn’t actually think we would but I was really cocky when I was younger, I was like 'of course we're going to' In my head. You’ve got to do that think positively.
Cole: It's weird because we've been around longer than many of the bands... they're hot young things. So yesterday we were at the bottom of the bill in France (Rock en Seine) and then we headline the stage. We are in the weird limbo of a bands; popular, but old dogs.
G: You’ve always struck me as band that does things their own way.
Jared: We never do anything the right way so. I'm surprised we've got as far as we have just be being us.
G: How do you feel about the state of the music industry?
Jared: I'm so out of touch. I was looking at the line up for Reading. Other than Eminem and stuff like that I didn't know anyone. I've always been bad at the industry and understanding it.
G: In that case, how have you played it to get where you are?
Jared: We do whatever we want to do… sometimes that can be self-destructive. But …
Cole: Every now and again we have flirtations with more mainstream stuff like Mark Ronson working with us, but generally we just do what we want. Even when working with him he went to us and just let us do out thing. Ge was not trying to make us a pop band. We're just not good at that.
G: How did the conversation with Sean Lennon come about?
Jared: Actually through Mark Ronson.
Cole: Fat What Family was doing this song 'Breaking Into Aldi' that we played on so when we were there Sean said let's record.
Jared: We introduced the Fat White Family to Sean because we played a show in Texas. After that we all just started recording together. Saul plays on our record a lot and he helped produce it .
G: This was 2014 when you all met?
Cole: This show was a like a meeting of minds. I met Temples that day, Fat White Family, and then Sean was there. We've toured together become friends and become like a brother band.
G: The production seems to blow a lot of record out of the water. Sean's studio must have helped? And he must be able to pick and choose who he works with.
Zumi: His is a labour of love.
Cole: He's kind of like us he's not in the mainstream top radio thing. He just kind of does what he wants to do.
G: You don't really follow the rules, there's like 18 tracks on the album. You could argue that the whole album cycle is a snapshot of your ideas as a band and not the full picture again. Do you feel like the Black Lips discography represent you?
Jared: I think ours represents us pretty well. I'm not a big album guy. A lot of the music I like is from when people only made singles.
G: So what is your album? Is it more of making good songs rather than it being a concept?
Jared: Yeah. We made an anti-concept album. I didn't realise people thought it was a concept record until it came out.
Zumi: There's a perception that because the interludes - that we have are my favourite parts of the record. People were like, 'they really fucked up on that concept, double record [laughs]; I think their [the press] thought process was that it was a big thing, coming back with this new line up with this double record.
Jared: We didn’t know it was going to be a double record until the pressing plant told us they couldn’t fit it all on one.
G: You recorded in upstate New York. How was it?
Jared: Magical. There's a magical walk way to the studio I would take every day, there's deer and peacock and turkey's.
G: Jared, where are your family from?
Jared: My family came over from Ireland a long ass time ago and stayed in Georgia.
Did you feel any connection to Ireland in the rural idyll of upstate New York?
Jared: I think it helped with the album because we were cut off. We didn't leave for like a month.
Zumi: And it was amazing. We needed a drummer and we met Oakley.
Jared: Yeah we went up there without a drummer and he just happened to live right next door.
Oakley: I was going to be an earth ho. I was living on a farm. But it is magic up there and then within a month. I had just set up my land line and the first call to go to Sean Lennon's recording. Sean made me feel very at home when I got there.
G: Did you not want to stay out of city life?
Oakley: I make an exception for these guys.
G: What were you doing before?
The Rondelles, The Shine Brothers, The Witnesses.
G: I met Danny here from Night Beats as well.
Cole: We have an all-star band right now. She [points at Zumi] was in the K-Holes.
Oakley: I've played with Night Beats and Black Lips before when I was in Shine Brothers - a number of times.
G: Is there a zine or communication tool that brings a lot of these bands together?
Cole: The Austin psych fest brought us together with Fat Whites and Sean and Burger Records has brought us with a lot of bands.
G: You’ve always been known for your DIY approach and not a lack of musical theory get in the way of starting a band.
Jared: We started the band before we know how to play instruments. We told everyone we were in a band then got a show then had to learn how to play.
Cole: It was just like a fantasy.
G: Jared, were you aspirational in other areas of life?
Jared: No. It was prison, military or washing dishes.
G: So what inspired you to start?
Jared: I saw punk bands I really liked and I was like I want to do that and I didn't really play sports. It was just cool to be in band, like skateboarding and playing music.
Cole: It was always a fantasy, even when I was in elementary school we just fantasy. Then we just booked a gig and that's when we got off the ground.
G: Did you ever get people trying to tell you to not shoot for the stars?
Jared: My parents claim nowadays that they were really supportive and always knew it was going to be ok but that's not true. They told me I was really wasting my time a lot. So I kind of out of spite had to prove them wrong.
G: You've always been an all-male band until now. How’s having a woman around changed the group dynamic?
Cole: We dig chicks. We like the feminine energy we think that's a good thing. We were even thinking about having another girl in the band it's a good energy. There's maybe a lack of women in the industry but it's better having women, it makes things better, and more creative.
G: Have you ever had any near death experiences?
Cole: With Mark Ronson we got food poisoning. We ate some raw livers.
Jared: I got trapped in a car one time and the lock malfunctioned so I had to kick out the windshield. That was kind of scary it was like really hot. I was starting to not be able to breathe. I slept in overnight it was on the beach somewhere in Spain. And I couldn't get out so I had to kick out the windshield.
Cole: Our guitarist was killed.
G: Yeah I was sad to read about that. That happened in 2002. And you continue his legacy by playing songs he was on in the set?
Jared: Yeah. We play everything from all the records. His spirit lives on through that, that's kind of cool.
G: Is the Black Lips show as outrageous as they say?
Cole: Oh yeah we get loose. But I think when you start playing a lot of shows it becomes hard to like have something happened every night. People expect like 'Why don't you vomit on me?' I didn't want to vomit today I don't want it to be a forced formulated thing. You don't sensor yourself when you write your lyrics. Was there anything you wrote for the album.
Jared; That song 'Crystal Night' That's a pretty emotional song.
Cole: The last song too (‘Loser's Lament’) is kind of meaningful. It was about our friend that died of cancer.
Jared: That one made me cry.
Zumi: that song is really emotional. Jared wrote that song, even thinking about it makes me cry.
G: What have you got planned?
Jared: Working on a country music record.
Cole: Yeah old traditional, truck driver country. This will probably be our first concept record. We might have a spoof, like a new country spoof of that.
Jared: The first song we recorded is kind of religious, it's about how much Satan sucks. We're not going to be singing about tailgate parties or Donald Trump.
Oakley: I do kind of want to write a song with like truck, girl, beer, dog, a cola.
Cole: We do want to do a hick- hop song that's a new form of rap and country that's popular now in country.
G: Georgia as a state is quite Republican. And are you from a Christian background?
Jared: Yeah my Dad's a preacher. My Grandpa is a preacher. My uncles are preachers
G: Were you the black sheep?
Jared: No I went to church the Sunday before we left for here and they played the Black Lips album as everyone was living. It's a pretty liberal church.
G: You have some spiritual feelings?
Jared: I don’t know enough, I'm kind of agnostic.
Cole: I'm a spiritual atheist. I feel spirit. Gospel music is a huge influence for us.
Jared: I play bass at church when we're home.
G: How do you feel about Trump?
Jared: I kind of stay out of it It's totally overwhelming and awful.
Cole: We wrote an anarcho punk song about it. What was that song called?
G: You find unity and love in the band at least?
Cole: Yeah that’s like a positive.
G: Thanks for your time I don't want to keep you long, you've a show to play.
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