David Yow was eating lunch outside a restaurant when a Jaguar pulled up and Billie Eilish got out. “I was knocked out, hyperventilating. She walked right past me into the restaurant: no makeup, no luxury, just Billie Eilish. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to tell her how big she is, but people like her hear that all the time, so I didn’t bother her.”
Yow, who is 64 and has just released a new album with Jesus Lizard entitled Rackis the first to be surprised to have recognized Eilish. He is certainly not someone who knows the music that is popular today. He likes Idles, is obsessed with Lhasa who also influenced his writing and in recent years has become a fan of Eilish. “If Billie hadn't existed, my vocals on this record would have been different,” he says half jokingly and half not, “but don't ask me to tell you where exactly her influence is felt.”
The point is that Jesus Lizard still sound like Jesus Lizard, despite 26 years having passed since their last album: steamrolling noise with Yow's inimitable wild vocals. Works like Goat, Liar And Downall recorded by Steve Albini, earned the band a loyal following in the 1990s. They even signed to Capitol, although their relationship with the major label ended before the end of the decade.
Rack It's their seventh album, the first since 1998. Despite being of retirement age, they manage to infuse songs like Hide & Seek, Lord Godiva And Is That Your Hand? the same frenzy as when they released singles with Nirvana and performed at Lollapalooza. It's not easy to put out a record that lives up to their legend. Yow explains how they did it.
How did you convince yourself to make another Jesus Lizard record?
The other 75% of the band worked on some song ideas without me knowing about them. They brought me six or maybe eight and they sounded good. So I asked them what they wanted to do with them and they said, “A record.” I thought, what the fuck, that’s a weird idea because there’s something weird about every reunion. We split up in 1999 and then did some shows in 2009 and then a few years later. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like fucking an ex. But I love the other guys in the band and singing with them is an honor and a lot of fun. Rack It might be our best record and we're having a blast, so why not?
Did you have any doubts about making the record?
In 1996 we signed a three-album deal with Capitol. There was one stipulation: Mac (drummer Mac McNeilly, ed.) could have possibly left because of family. And when he actually left, I couldn't stand the idea of him not being in the band. It had become more of a job than a hobby. So when Capitol told us that we didn't have to do the third album that was in our contract, I called the manager and told him I was out. Of all the guys, I was the one most determined to end the band. The others knew it and I guess they expected resistance from me, which is one of the reasons they started working on the songs without me. But after listening to them, I became less hesitant.
You didn't want to ruin the group's good name?
I honestly don't know what kind of fame we have. The two records we made with Capitol didn't sell more than the ones we made with the Touch and Go label. And there are a lot of, I use the word in a broad sense, fans of our early stuff. When we broke up, fewer and fewer people came to see us, it was a good time to say enough.
In the meantime you recorded with Qui and made a solo album. How was it to put on the shoes of the singer of Jesus Lizard again?
A little weird. At first I didn't really know what to do. I relied on automatic writing. The result doesn't necessarily have to make sense. It helped me a lot, a lot of ideas came out. And then there's everything that's happened in the last eight years. There's Trump, who I hate with all the hate imaginable, and some of the shit he did ended up in songs. Maybe it seems trivial, but it's something I couldn't ignore. And so the ideas came from automatic writing, from current events and from a crazy woman called Lhasa de Sela. Do you know her?
Yes, I love it The Living Road.
She inspired me a lot in my writing. It's an incredible album, maybe the best one ever recorded. I love the way she expresses strong emotions. I don't even remember how I got to her music, but at that point I wanted to go see her in concert and I found out she had died seven years earlier. How sad.
Where is the Lhasa influence inside Rack?
A little bit of Falling Down it is taken, I'm not talking about plagiarism, from a song by The Living Road call With every word. I took the phrasing from the first line. I haven't done it often in the past, but here I stole from her. No one would have noticed if I hadn't said it.
What did you think when you heard the music others gave you?
Armistice Daywhere Duane [Denison] he plays the guitar in a stellar way, it reminded me of Led Zeppelin and so I came up with something Robert Plant-like in the part where there is a modulation from a higher tone to a lower one. I was inspired by Kashmirwhere Plant intones a long note that floats above the modulation. The guitar in Hide & Seek It's one of the baddest I've ever heard and that was also very inspiring.
You mentioned Trump earlier. I was wondering if the “I forecast them stupid” in Is That Your Hand? be inspired by him…
Yes, the song comes from his rallies, the funniest part is exactly the one where I repeat “I predict them stupid” which is a bit like if I said “I saw Captain Stubing”. Now that I think about it, it would have been a good text… too late to change it.
Why this title, Rack?
The hardest thing about being in Jesus Lizard is to all four of us agree on a title made up of only four letters. The idea of Rack It was mine. There are various double entendres and many meanings, from torture device to getting kicked in the balls to the recording studio rack or even boobs… I could go on and on.
What's the difference between being the lead singer of Jesus Lizard at 64 and 28, which was how old you were when you started?
Lots more wrinkles, lots less hair. After planning a lot of concerts this year and next, I hired a personal trainer to get back in shape. I have a sedentary job where I sit at the computer fiddling with Photoshop (at work he retouches photos for advertisements, nda). Without him I wouldn't have been able to do even 45 minutes of concert and the last one we did lasted an hour and a half, and I could have even gone on.
In an old article by Rolling Stone You're described as sweaty and shirtless like a cross between a drunken tramp and Robert Plant's illegitimate son… Do you feel pressure to live up to your legend?
Sometimes honestly yes, but let's say that usually the problem is that if there's a concert I simply don't feel like doing it because I'm tired or I don't feel well or something and I hope that in the end the adrenaline and the audacity take over. The pressure comes from wanting to do things as best as I can, even if I don't feel like it.
What drove you to make your performances so extreme?
When Talking Heads came out they said they were going to make dance music, but intelligent music. And I also like bands like Wire or XTC that have an intellectual side. I don't have that, but there's intelligence in the music we make and also humor. And so to answer you, I'm driven by the idea of putting together things that you don't necessarily think go well together.
If Jesus Lizard are legendary it's because of the first records they made with Steve Albini, who you already knew as the frontman of Big Black. Did you immediately understand that he was a recording genius?
I don't know. I mean, he was self-taught and he'd definitely read a lot about recording, but I don't know how he came to develop his experimental and revolutionary ideas about miking. I know that recording with him was fun, you'd try out weird techniques. I'm not sure if that weirdness came out on the recordings, but it was certainly a blast.
How strange were those techniques?
For Wheelchair EpidemicI think, he had me lie on my back and pointed the microphone at my mouth, above my chest. Another microphone was on a stand not far from my mouth. And a third one was hanging from the ceiling. When we started recording I had that microphone move so that it was spinning in circles above me and the other microphones for the duration of the song. And for Cloud He taped a pressure zone microphone to my headphones, then had me stuff my torso into a giant garbage can.
You did a split single with Nirvana before they worked with him. Did you recommend them to Steve?
I don't think so, but Steve told me that a couple of times while they were recording (In Utero, ed.) in Minnesota, Kurt told him to press the “David Yow button,” which is a big compliment in my opinion.
And what is the “David Yow button”?
What do I know? But when they were recording us with Steve I always told them, “Press the Elvis button.” I didn't know it was just the reverb.
From Rolling Stone US.
