Transcription
[Music] Your lyrics, Tom, are always, uh, permeated with those, um, broken American Dreams. You know, the desolation, the loneliness. Is that America to you?
I don't know. I don't think it's intrinsically, um, American, but, uh, I, people identify with, with, uh, the American Experience. Um, I don't know. I, people say, oh, you write about, um, prostitutes, you write about people with, uh, drink problems, but I think I, I try to write about a variety of things and not just, uh, one group of people, one thing. If you're a writer, you have to kind of open your, open up your head, you know, so. But there is a point that, you know, in you, you go, because that point is more interesting for you sometimes.
Yeah, uh, yeah. I'll go there. I, yeah, I will go there. Uh, I can see you go. What, what is your creative process like? I mean, is it painful? Is it, it's really an expedition?
My musical life is very thrilling for me. I, um, it's more like, uh, a carnival, I guess, 'cause I, I love to be, uh, look for new things to, um, I like to have expeditions in music and I like to work with musicians who are, are open to, to that experience, so that we will all go on, on some very strange journey to some place we've never been before—the unknown. It's like the sort of discovery, really.
Yeah. And I'm kind of the, although there are moments in the music that are very democratic, I'm really the captain, but we are like a ship and, um, um, I've had thrilling, uh, moments in music with, with groups where we've all found ourselves marooned in very, uh, scary places, and, um, that's what I look for.
But, uh, where, where did you get your characters?
I just read the newspaper and look out the window and walk around. I, I go, I just watch and listen. I listen to people. I listen to, I write things down. I do what every writer does.
Do you take them from people you met sometimes?
Uh, sure. I have my own memories. I have my own experiences. I, I, uh, I draw on my own, my own life and, and, and the memories and the experiences of others and also very real and imagined, uh, things.
So do you, do you think your Derek areas, uh, drive you to, to create?
Oh, yeah. Um, you know, um, the thing is, though, for me it's always like when you, you know, at the, at the circus, there was, there used to be a little thing that comes out that you used to, was like a little steam shovel, and you would turn the crank, and it would lift this little steam shovel down, and it would drop down into a little pile of treasure, and there'd be candy and watches and things in there, and then you turn it back the other way and hopefully bring out something that you wanted, and, uh, you never get the pearl necklace, and you never get the watch, you never get what you really saw on the other side of the glass. You, you get a little small piece of candy with a little wax paper, W, around, you know. You have to go and go and keep going. Yeah, you spend more and more money trying to get the watch or energy or, yeah, or it's like remembering a dream. You're not going to remember everything about the dream. You're going to maybe just wake up with some, just some feathers in your hair, yeah, and that's all you have.
This introspective, Bohemian, melancholic, their image—is that the way you feel?
Um, I don't know. Sometimes, just a perfume, or, I, I try to more and more be open to, um, letting something take me away. Just could be a word or a sentence or, and then I'm gone. I'm trying to learn how to do that more and more.
So what are you trying to learn?
Um, I guess I'm trying to, uh, dig to China, like I did when I was a little kid. I used to think that if I, I started digging a hole that I could keep digging and eventually I'd see a little Chinese guy on the other side digging in my direction, in the same direction, yeah, and we would meet, you know, yeah. I would be in China, and then he would, he would come to America.
And is welcome, the way, however, you know, someone from other planets, who's going to be welcome now? I think that that, uh, the Space Program really should send, uh, musicians into space.
Sure, yeah. The easiest way to, to, to talk and to, to have communication. Yeah, I don't know why they haven't, someone hasn't recommended it. I don't know why we can do it right now. You can do it, you know. Let's write a letter, and...
Well, your career has been built in, in this, you know, in this image of an outsider, uh, do you still feel like one?
Um, sure. Yeah, I feel like an outsider. I, I, I'm not, uh, I'm not that comfortable in, um, the whole community of, of entertainers. Um, I have a lot of my friends are, um, in, you know, are artists and singers and, but I still don't feel like, uh, comfortable being a part of this celebrity or, or a group of people like...
Yeah, you, you, you, you haven't, um, chosen the mainstream, but you were a celebrity. I mean, you know, you were famous, you were rich, you... so, but inside of you, you still feel like one?
Um, even with the millions of dollars? See, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't know. I, um, you know, I've always imagined that people who have, have arrived at a certain level of celebrity must become like politicians, that, that all of the people that you, that got you to where you are will, will, uh, want you to, to be nice to them, or they'll, they'll cut the string, and you'll come crashing down like a puppet. You, so, you know, all, when you become president, and you realize that all the, the everyone in business who got you there, and you have to, you have to kiss everybody's ass, yeah, he was leave, you know. So you know, I always, always imagined that this is the same and entertainment, and there are people who are very, very famous and very powerful in, uh, show business, and I always thought that was what it was like. So I, I think I've, I'm kind of a, oh, far from this.
But you do, do you think you still keep your freedom?
Oh, yeah, no, totally. Do anything I want, go anywhere I want. That's great.
Have you had this, this fascination with the underbelly of society since you were a boy?
Yeah, maybe. I have a lot of things that happened to me when I was a kid that I think about a lot that, that are, you know... We used to play a little game, and we'd bury ourselves in the sand out in the desert up to our necks, and then we'd wait for the vultures to start circling over our heads.
Did they come?
Oh, yeah. One by one, the whole sky would fill with vultures, and we would sit perfectly still, and then the bravest one would land and make his way over to where we were, and you could smell them when I got behind your ear, and then you'd hear the wind from their wings as they lean back, and their neck would twist into like a question mark as they got ready to take your eyes out of your head, and that's when you reach up and snap them and swing them over your head like a black larat.
Interesting boy. Interesting childhood. Interesting childhood. Yeah. Um, you said that you, you, you came from a broken home.
Broken right into snap.
Yeah. But then I realized that everyone I knew also came from a broken home, so then I felt really like relieved in a way. I'm just like the others. Yeah, I'm just like you. My, my home also is broken, and, um, so it was okay.
What was your childhood like? I mean, besides the...
Voles. Rich guy, poor guy. Suburbs.
Suburbs, yeah. LA suburbs, and, um, but I think every child has his own personal mythology about where he grows up, and for a child, uh, big things are even so much bigger, and small things are smaller, and it is like Alice in Wonderland, and everything is like a fun house mirror, and for me, uh, all my memories in childhood are like kind of like a circus, images all out of focus and very dramatic.
You mean everybody's try childhood is dramatic?
I guess you only have one of them. Yeah, I think, you know, nothing changed, you know, afterwards. Things are still the same. We are still dramatic, aren't we?
Well, I think the things that happen when you're a kid, uh, keep changing as you remember them in a different way. It's like reading a, a book when you're older. It's the same book, but it's different 'cause you're different.
What, where, where were you born?
Um, I was born in what they call Butt Town, Los Angeles.
Mhm. Because, you know, there is a story about you, you, you being born in, in a taxi.
Yeah. And is it true?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. MH, yes.
Are you telling me is it true?
Yeah. Because you like to put people on. I know that you know... How can I be sure that you are not putting me on?
Well, I know, I don't know. Maybe why I have to call my parents. I don't want to get in trouble. Yeah. Are you alive? Am I a liar? Every day I lie about something.
Yeah. Do you enjoy lying? Lying?
Well, I don't know. Lying is a hard word. I, I, I, I play with the, with the truth a little bit. I do it in, when I'm writing something, and then I find that I, it's a bad habit that I picked up in my work that I've, I've also, uh, brought into my life and, uh, but it's fun. It's just, it's become kind of an illness of, of mine.
Do you think so? Do you feel guilty?
I mean, no, no. So, so it's fine. It's fine. Yeah. I, I mean, I like your sense of humor. I, I, I laugh reading the way you, you, you talk to your songs. I mean, you say you [ __ ] you little bastard, you wimp.
But did I say that?
You said... Oh, talking to the song, to the songs, you have to tell the songs that if they don't straighten up, they can't come with you. They can't go on the record. They obey you. Some do, some don't. The ones that don't will be sorry. So, but I, I, you know, it, songs are like, um, H, they happen very fast. Most of them, the best ones happen very fast. They come out of the ground just like a potato. All you have to do is just pull... You sometimes there's seven of them there. Um, they're, um, some of them go on to do great things and never write, others come back home. Um, they're very, the best ones are written quickly, and, uh, and they, you know, the thing that most people don't realize is that you, you wrote thousands of songs before you even learned how to talk. That, that, that the best songs are really are songs that, uh, that no one has ever heard. I think they're very difficult to record. I don't think that the recording process is, uh, is something that songs, uh, particularly enjoy, and therefore...
Do you think they don't deserve it?
Sometimes you don't feel like you deserve a particular song, or you don't want, you let it go. I'm let you go. Just go, and you don't feel some loss, they, you're missing something.
No, that's okay. There's others.
Uh-huh. Thousands of them. Potatoes when it's raining. Yeah, songs, you know, forget about it. There's, there's always another one, or it goes on to somebody else. Somebody else will write it down. Who, let's it, Bob Dylan, or Bob, somebody else.
Okay, okay. You are a songwriter, a poet, an actor. Do you think you put your whole soul, you know, your whole self and everything?
Uh, I don't know. Sometimes, uh, not every time. Sometimes you're all out of Tabasco sauce. Spicy. More Tabasco. You got to go on fire, yeah. And sometimes just a soup, a plain soup. It's a nice plain soup with a little bit of pepper, nice little napkin and a silver spoon. So sometimes very clean, sometimes diving in the dirt in the soup in the... sometimes you di in the Tabasco, let off the spoon and into the soup. Sometimes... What were we talking about? Song, Tabasco, spicy things, hot times. We are talking about the heat. Okay, the heat. Job, you know, you had a lot, you had lots of jobs. Um, waiter. Yeah, pianist in the Tropicana Motel. What are your memories of this period?
Well, you see, that now that was a hotel that was, you know, really a businessman's hotel when it started out. It was a $9 a night motel for, for like Fuller brush men and people who were down on the road for... There wasn't really a music hotel when I, I first came there, although it had been in the early 60s, um, it had fallen into this kind of, I don't know, the people who used to stay there were, yeah, people... $9 a night is, you're going to attract a certain crowd, um, and, uh, slowly it got a reputation for bands. A lot of bands started staying there, and, uh, um, I had a place in the back, and I was very happy back there. Um, fresh towels, uh, clean-up maids. It was, uh, very nice. Um, they painted the swimming pool black. Was the last thing I remember they did there.
A black swimming pool? Is something...
A black swimming pool? Yeah, that's like painting your teeth black so you don't have to brush them anymore, and I knew that it was really finished for me there. You said that's enough. That's enough. I can't, can't stand it anymore. That's the, what, the drop, the last drop. That was the last drop of Tabasco for me, and then, uh, oh, I moved to New York, and I lived in a lot of different places.
M. And have you been through really, really rough times in your life?
Uh, lots of different kinds of times. Good times, bad times, like everybody else. You been, do some rough times. What is a rough time to pow pow?
Um, well, [Music], um, um, well, some of them were rough at the time, but as I remember them, they're actually kind of funny.
Uh-huh.
Because you said I like things that are kind of falling apart.
Well, do you feel that about yourself sometimes? That I'm falling apart?
Um, we all feel bad, right here on the show now. Here you, I'm okay, wonderful. Uh, falling apart? Well, you know, when you come from a broken home, I think you're always going to be attracted to things that are also broken. You're going to want to find something that's broken and try and put it back together. You're going to feel sorry for that, that broken radio or that broken guitar, you know. You will, you just, you know, you will feel sorry, but you going to try to fix it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, so that's normal. You, you went through a self-destructive period in your life. I mean, you know...
Gee, I don't know. Yeah, I guess perhaps I did. Uh, uh, uh, yeah, yeah. Mhm. So, but, yeah, I mean, alcohol, drugs, you know, the everything, baby. You tell me. I'm going to tell you right here where the camera is running all the terrible things I did. You turn off the cameras, and I'll tell you what.
Okay, let's do it right now. Turn it up. Your lyrics talk about suicide, murder. How far do you allow yourself to go?
Not far enough. I know you're still here.
Um, well, I think you have to let down the, you know, the, the, the biggest, um, drawback to, to making these things really work is yourself. You really have to face your own inability to go forward. I think in stories and in songs you get a little scared sometimes, or you're uninhibited, or you, or you're nervous or worried or you don't want to go too far from home, or just like when you're a kid, you... How far I used to like have a fly a kite. I would get the kite till it was this big in the sky. I had like thousands and thousands of feet of string until the kite would disappear, and I could barely see, even taking the risks to, to have it disappeared. Yeah, and then when I cut the, I just cut, and then I go look for it, and I go everywhere. I go 10 miles away into everybody's backyard. People, people I didn't know, and there were, there were dogs that I didn't know, and there were strange neighborhoods, and I was just looking for my kite.
Mhm. And I found it sometimes. It, it's a big thrill to find a kite that was that small in the sky. I felt after to cut it on purpose.
Yeah. You're, uh, in this album, there are so many references to death.
Oh, yeah. Mhm.
Have you ever come very close to suicide?
Me? Who else? I've thought about it. Everybody's thought about it. What would it feel like? For people who are very depressed, thoughts of suicide are, are like erotic thoughts. These are the, the thoughts you toy with that'll make you very excited, the idea of ending it all, you know. It's very thrilling. You can, it can be this fast, but, uh, for me, uh, I don't know. I thought about it from a dramatic standpoint. I don't think I, it, if I had really been thinking about it, it already would have happened. That you would try?
I never tried. Mhm. No, I am, but I think about it. And murder?
Murder? No, I... Oh, well, you know, I, yeah, I thought about murder too. Um, the idea of murdering a stranger, though, has always seemed ridiculous. That if you wanted to murder someone, it should be a family member, you know. CU, you have all these pent-up, you know, resentments and anger towards people in your family, and that if you're going to really do the big one, it, it shouldn't be someone you don't know. It should be someone you can really have communicate with, that you've had an ongoing thing, and finally, you know, Shakespeare, great tra, Greek tragedy. I'm not encouraging that. You just asked me, and I, that's, you know, I'm just... because, you know, you talk about this, so...
Is in your thoughts?
Yes, in my thoughts. Yeah. Have you ever, uh, been in therapy?
What for? You mean I have, I gone to a psychiatrist? Not Frank. Know someone to talk...
Uh, yeah, I've been to a friend. Yeah, yeah. But, uh, it was, um, you know, expensive.
Oh, for sure. Expensive. They're very expensive. Yeah, you solve your problems, but you got, you know, completely... Bartenders are much cheaper.
What do you do when you want to ex, to escape? I mean, when you really want to get away from it all?
You know what I do? I, I get it up to about 90 on a wet road, it's curving at night, and I turn off the lights and slam on the brakes. The kids love it. They scream. We spin around. Oh, God.
And when you went to the shrink, did you, could you define, you know, the line between the insanity and that sort of balance that they try to sell us?
I don't know where the line is. Do you? I think that you go there so that they will draw the line for you, and you know the difference between... And do you know my line is, is this, and then I, you can change the line anytime you want. You can cheat on it sometimes. Ras the line. He dreamed that something, and he thought that you would like something, you know, you imagine you're doing, but, uh, going into space with, with a band. I, I'm going to write that up as a proposal.
Yeah, yeah. As you said, be...
Yeah, I don't know what I would like to do that. I'm not, uh, I'd like to think that I can pretty much do what I would like, and if it occurs to me, I could find a way to make it happen. But, um, uh, dreaming of something, um, I don't know. Can you don't have... I'm going to think about it, and then you have to come back. Somebody, things are hard to... I promise I come back. Okay. And what can't, what can't you leave without?
My wife, my kids, my family. And what can't, can't you live with?
A dog. Oh, yeah. How we got rid of the dog in this terrible way. Um, yeah. Talking about your wife, uh, your wife, uh, she co, she wrote the, the, the songs with you. How does it work? You know, your relationship, working together?
It's great, really. It's, um, to collaborate with someone, you have to come from totally different backgrounds, and otherwise one of you is, is important in the, in the collaboration. She's a, she's a lapsed Catholic. M, she's from Illinois. She grew up on a farm, and, um, so she has, uh, her background in music is, uh, is, is from her own. She invented herself from, from church music and Irish music, and, um, she has her own pathology and has changed the way I hear music, because I, I, uh, when I started working with her, I think she, she changed the way I hear things and see things, and I has had a very big effect on the way I hear music, and so I think we, um, compliment each other.
But how, uh, has she influenced you?
Made me more, more rhythmic, more, more fearless, more percussive. Do know making instruments? The idea of make your own instruments. You don't have to play that if you don't like that. Make one yourself. Make one that sounds better. This sound, put that in the song. M, do what you want. Have courage. Be bold. Be like a wizard. Be like Dr. Frankenstein. Make what you want. Wait for the storm. Put the wires on his neck, and he'll get up and walk. And I believe it. Wen two before... wasn't I before? I think you see, I think that, uh, you know, we all grow, and hopefully we grow strong, not always straight, MH, but we grow stronger, and then develop more courage about what we want to do with music or whatever. Um, and before, I think I was more scared and, um, see, I, I have, I, I was like an old man in the corner with too much wine.
So you've changed a lot since you met her.
Oh, yeah. In good, grand, good ways.
How long ago?
12 years. So this marriage seems to have changed you really. And, um, yeah. Have you, meowed?
Well, you see, uh, I don't know. I don't really like to think of myself as having mowed, but... Well, I mean, mow is, is usually the word that it's, when I don't know, it usually means that you've quieted down, and I think I'm getting louder.
No, I don't think you, you are quiet down. You, you are so restless. You know, you are always in the creative process. You, you can't stop. Is it easy to work with her? I mean, you discuss how it works?
Yeah, we discuss everything. Um, with music, you need some, sometimes someone just to push you. Mhm. Push you into the water. You have to go. Um, you need someone also to be able to say to you, this is [ __ ]. You wrote this. This is nothing. You wrote this a thousand times. This is really just those repeat trash. Get rid of it. And you'll listen to her. You have to respect someone enough to know that they're giving you constructive criticism, and I do the same for her.
True. You've been married three times.
I've been married three times. Am I wrong? Um, did I miss something?
No, I don't know who told you I was married three times.
No, no. I've, I've only been married once.
Oh, really? Yeah. No, no other women, any... No, no, no. Right out of... No, maybe you forgot your... No, I didn't forget. No. Three times. Who told you that?
Night... Oh, I had B here come from when you didn't find out the poetry, you know, that you could write, you could would write your feelings and...
Well, uh, I've been writing songs for a long time, but, uh, my early songs, I can't even listen to my early songs. I, I said like baby pictures from me. I, you know, I just say, oh boy, you just... And then I got more, just because I like so very naive. If you look at the things that you wrote when you were very, very young, you say, well, this is a, this is so naive and, you know, so innocent.
Yeah. Um, that was before I, I had my bof flesh regenerator, and, uh, so, uh, now that I've got my, my bof flesh regenerator, I'm capable of much more. I'm another man. Yeah, I like, uh, you know, I like my coffee in the morning.
Mhm.
I make the coffee. That's always a big moment.
What time?
About 7. MH. What do I like to do? So, do you wake up...?
Early in the morning, oh yeah. How is your daily, you know, routine? What do you do?
I go out in the dig around the yard, look for bones, water the rose bush. Um, every day is different. Lately, I've been, you know, doing a lot of stuff. I I'm I'm I'm working lately, so I haven't had much time to, um, you sleep, can and all that. Um, um.
What time do you create?
Morning, in the morning, yeah. Oh, interesting. I, my sessions, my recording sessions are always about 10:00 in the morning. Everybody hates it but me, and but I think this is the best time, cuz everyone's clean and everyone's empty, yeah, open.
I want to say thank you. Oh, thank you for your interview and your songs. Okay, and the moments. Okay. [Applause]