While the Violent Femmes are best known for songs like "Blister in the Sun" and "Kiss Off," from their 1982 self-titled debut, it's perhaps the song "American Music," off of 1991's
Why Do Birds Sing
, that best embodies the band. Stripped down like an ascetic monk, the Femme's oeuvre makes any "unplugged" attempt at bare-boned simplicity sound like a full orchestra. For years relying on a simple equation of bass, mainly acoustic guitar and the most streamlined of (brush-friendly) drum kits, perfectly balanced with bassist/singer Gordon Gano's signature nasal vocals, the Femmes have always written tunes that sounded like
New Wave, but really were basic, solid
American
songs. I recently chatted with Femmes' drummer Victor DeLorenzo about this and other topics, in advance of the band's upcoming show (7 pm Saturday, July 15. $35 reserved, $20 general, $10 kids. Paolo Soleri Amphitheater. Call 988-1234 for tickets.)
SFR: Do you feel like you guys don't get enough credit for the current spate of musical minimalism?
It's funny because that kind of falls in line with my way of thinking as of late. For example, the other night we were playing with this band called the Dresden Dolls, and here's this fellow playing simple drum sets and a woman playing keyboards, and then I think about the White Stripes-and I could go on and on naming people. And I think it was a direct result of us doing what we did and gaining some kind of notoriety that made it possible for people to think in other ways about putting together-for lack of a better term-a rock band that could travel the world over and actually have audiences to see it. And not that we were hip to some kind of grand design when we put this thing together, we were just playing music we like and figured out the instrumentation was something that gave us kind of a kick. I think in a way we did make it possible for all of these bands that are more or less your atypical rock quartet; it was OK to like a band that just had, say, a drummer and a guitarist.
What was so resonant about your band in the early years, about the very simplicity you were putting out?
I like to think good songwriting. Also our instrumentation was very unique for the time. I don't think anyone else was playing a mariachi bass and a small minimalist drum set and trying to play music that hopefully would come across in a big way. And you know, god bless Gordon, he just really came through at a time when people needed to be reminded there was a place for good songwriting, and a lot of what we've come to appreciate as good American music, we resurrected in a way.
I saw you guys in a giant amphitheater in the '90s and I remember thinking, 'How is this band's sound filling this entire space?' But it was. Is it the chemistry?
I think the chemistry and I also think what's lacking these days is actual bona fide musicianship. We really do know how to play our instruments. And we can sit in with other people.
It's funny-we have this ad hoc horn section that we put together from gig to gig called the Horns of Dilemma, very much carrying on the jazz tradition where people sit in. I was just talking to Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips and said, 'Wayne, you should sit in with us and just play something.' And he said, 'I don't really sit in.' And I said, 'What do you mean? Because some of these pieces we would have you sit in on you don't even have to play, it's more about making a joyful noise.' And he was a little bit hesitant about that and finally admitted, 'Well, I just know how to play our songs.' And it's kind of funny, people that can be held in such high esteem the world over, when you get down to the brass tacks about it, well, are they really musicians or are they more part phenomenon and part marketing? And I'm not saying that Wayne's response was a bad thing; it's just an example, because many people we admire are actually just great musicians.
It seems like bands nowadays are afraid to take those kinds of risks. Yet the Pretenders grabbed you guys off the street and threw you onstage, and your band took a lot of risks…
We were happy to take risks. That was one of the only true things available to us. Especially because a lot of people, when we started, looked at us as a bunch of mad-cow-diseased farmers. But we're actual musicians. I don't just stand up and play a snare drum all the time; I play keyboards and a little guitar and have four records to my name as a singer-songwriter. It's about being a musician, it's not about being famous as a rock star. And that whole deal of "party like a rock star"-this term is bandied about so much now it doesn't mean a goddamn thing anymore. It's just so crazy the way it has developed over the years; it's been so co-opted by the corporate mentality that there is no more risk.
Could your career could have happened if all this were just now starting?
Well I think it would be easier
and
more difficult. Easier in the sense that so much more is accepted in popular music nowadays, harder because the whole structure of the record company has been blown to smithereens. How do you really market yourself now? It used to be the dream of every musician to find a record deal. Now I'm not so sure that's a good thing anymore.
Is it the Internet that's changed things?
Yeah, there's alternative ways of marketing oneself in the music business, and people know now that if they really want to make it as a touring musician, they have to do just that-they have to go out there and play for anybody, anywhere, USA or the world, in order to become popular. It's not just that they hook up to the giant PR machine of Reprise Records and are featured everywhere. It just doesn't happen that way anymore.
