This interview was conducted with Steve De Pace in early 2009 (I think?) This was turned into a terrible article and published in a magazine.
Can you tell me how the Australian tour came about?
Our good friend Gregg Turkington, also known as Neil Hamburger. He tours Australia quite often. He tours with this guy Jeffery Hall, a promoter there. Jefferey has been trying to get Gregg in touch with us for a while. On his last visit to Australia, he put us in touch. Jeffery proposed an Australian tour to us, and it just so happened that the timing was perfect because we’re coming out with a new album and we’ve re-released our back catalogue (etc), so it really was perfect timing.
Your new album was recorded with Jack Endino. Can you explain how the recording process for this album differed to previous albums.
It was quite a different process. The Jack Endino involvement came about because of Krist Novoselic being involved with the band. Krist and Jack had remained really good friends since the Nirvana days. I guess Jack was involved in recording ‘’Bleach’’. Jack did a lot of the Seattle scene bands. When we started writing material with Krist, he suggested Jack Endino. Jack visits Krist often, where Krist lives in Washington, so he came on down and hung out with us during rehearsals. So when we had enough material to think about recording, we came down and we set up shop at Krist’s property.
It’s been quite a while since we recorded anything in a studio, so now days, given pro-tools and so on and so forth, you can set up a studio anywhere you want. So we decided to set up in a room that Krist had specially built for playing music, at his place. We had Jack come down and he brought all his microphones and computers and all that stuff. We could record at our leisure. We weren’t under any pressure, we weren’t on the clock. So we took our time and were pleasantly surprised with the result.
Another component of the release is the live album. It's an interesting concept that we have. We took the titles of one of the songs on the studio record called ‘’Love Fight’’ and decided to make 2 separate albums. We entitled the studio record ‘’Love’’ and the live record ‘’Fight’’. So we’re going to be releasing simultaneously, these 2 separate albums.
I believe Krist was recommended to you by a mutual friend?
Yes. I was brainstorming one day, we were without a bassist, and we had a very good gig offer that was on the table to go play ATP in England. This was in 2006, and it was being curetted by Sonic Youth. They invited us to play this party that included Iggy and the Stooges, The Melvins, lots of great bands. It was something that was too good to pass up.
I was brainstorming with a friend of mine, who ironically had tried out for Nirvana, he had tried out to be the drummer when they were going through a lot of drummers. He’s a good friend of ours, Andy Davenhall. We visited me in LA and asked him, ‘’what bass players would be available in the Seattle area?’’. The first name that came to mind was Krist Novoselic . It seemed like he was available. I reached out to him through Sonic Youth actually. Gosh, whats his name again, the singer in Sonic Youth, the lead guy, in Sonic Youth, god I’m blanking?
He’s your friend, buddy. You should know his name.
Yeah I know I’m blanking on it though. So anyway, the guy from Sonic Youth got in touch with Krist for us and we invited him to play the festival with us. So he did. From there we actually got with the Melvins and we did about 10 shows together in England and Ireland. It was a really fun tour. From there we did some West Coast dates with Krist, and then we decided to do a new album. So that’s what happened.
Krist just isn’t into touring anymore? That’s why he’s…
Yeah, all and all he was with us for about two years. Once we completed these albums, it had came time to get out and hit the road. We were planning European and US tours, and he came to the realisation that the tour grind just wasn’t something he was interested in doing at this point in his life. He enjoys staying at home and he’s got responsibilities at home.
I find it interesting that he was selected as bass player for the band. He’s clearly someone who has been directly influenced by Flipper. It seems that he came into the band and seemed to draw a lot of attention to the band. Would you say that is a correct observation?
He told me when we first spoke on the phone how important Flipper had been to him. How much of an influence it was to him personally, as well as Nirvana. It was really touching, in his mind, that we asked him to play. He was really moved by it, and it was very important to him.
Once it became known that he was in the band, certainly it added an extra level of interest, and probably brought new interest to the band from people who might not have paid attention otherwise. Yeah, sure, I’d say so. The band has been around for many many many years, so we’re pretty well known at any rate. I’d say certainly that real hardcore Nirvana fans had known that Flipper had been a big influence on Nirvana, and probably some of the younger kids, when Krist joined the band took note.
I know that you are in the process of writing a book about Flipper.
I do want to, and I've been talking about this for years and years, and at somer point I've got to do it, or just stop saying I’m going to do it. Some years ago I started hammering out and I've got about 100 pages written. I was doing all that while the band was on hiatus. Now that the band is up and going again, the book is still being written. The story’s not over.
Do you feel like the most qualified person to write the book as you were the most together member of the band?
Well I've actually had this on my mind since the early days of Flipper. I really enjoy writing, and I think I’m pretty good at it. All along the way, I've collected archival material and saved it with this in mind. I was thinking to myself, I’m going to hang onto this memorabllia because one day I’m going to write a book. Along the way, so much adventure and crazy things have happened, that I think the story needs to be told.
Are you saying that you knew from the very start of this band that it was going to be legendary?
Well, I could probably say yes to that. From the time we went on our first tour, to the time we released our first singles, there was so much attention on all of that. The reaction we got from ‘’sex bomb’’ and the very first tour we went on in the US was pretty incredible. Back in those days, punk rock was till pretty underground. From those times, I realised that what ever it was that we were doing was perceived to be important. Later on, all these bands that were coming up into their own and citing Flipper as a big influence, I guess it impressed more upon me that whatever it was that we had done was something that was important. It was perceived to be important by others as well. So many bands over the years have said that Flipper was a big influence to them. Not the least of which was Nirvana.
You mentioned the early days. I’d like to talk about that. I’d like to take a quote from someone that you probably know very well, and have your own opinions on- and that’s your former label executive, Steve Tupper.
Yes, that was our very first record label-Subterranean Records.
Yes. He said Flipper ‘’…fit into the whole cultural and social scene at the time.’’ In what cultural and social context did the band form?
San Francisco was probably similar to New York. Where talking about the late-70’s- 77, 78, 79, once 1980 came around, everything became hardcore and that was a totally different scene. Everything became more uniform and everything sounded the same and that was kind of what everyone was going for. I came into the scene around 78, and my very first band was called Negative Trend. Will Shatter was also in that band with me.
The scene in San Francisco was very eclectic. There were no two bands that sounded remotely the same. San Francisco was a city that had come through the sixties with a very big music scene that drove a whole generation in the United States and around the world. A decade later came the punk scene, and in between, this whole corporate rock thing had developed. Corporate rock was a term that we used to describe bands like Journey, the big, huge stadium bands. The kids who wanted to be in a band, or be in a scene couldn’t relate to that at all. In our community in San Francisco, we were all looking at what was coming out of England- The Clash and the Pistols. Our scene developed around a club called the Mahubay Gardens. They had a policy where anybody could play.
There was a fashion aspect to the scene, and there was a social aspect to the scene and there was a music aspect to the scene. In the late seventies, there was so much variety in sound and style and everything.
How would you say the band fit into the…
We developed our own unique sound and style, prior to the early 80’s period of hardcore. That was good for us. Our style was a slow, grungy style of music, which was juxtaposed against the hardcore scene, where every band sounded hard and fast. How we fit into that scene? I really don’t know? We just did our thing. I think because we sounded so different to all the bands out there trying to be hardcore, it gave people something else to pay attention to. It set us apart. Even the hardcore fans would come to see us. Some of them were frustrated with us because we didn’t fit the hardcore mould, but at the same time our shows were so exciting and chaotic, that kids came regardless of whether they like it or not. Our show was really something unique and different and exciting and chaotic and different. There was this whole thing going on where Flipper was the band ‘’You loved to hate.’’ A New York journalist friend of ours said, ‘’hardcore kids hated Flipper, but they were at every show.’’
Could you talk about the pivotal members of the band. Bruce Loose, Will Shatter…
Well, Will Shatter was definitely a rebel, but at the same time, a gentle soul. A sweet guy. He was one of the creative forces in the band. He and Bruce Loose played off each other very well. It was good for us, we had two song writers that were splitting and sharing the song writing responsibilities. Will Shatter read a lot of books, he brought some sense of wisdom and rebellion to the band. He was skeptical of everything. He never wanted to be a rock star or anything. He was really against that. He was surprised that we lasted as long as we did, even while he was alive. On the other had, he had some sense that the band would live on. He made a comment to me early on in our career, he said ‘’well it seems to me that we’re going to do something pretty important here This going to live on.’’ He was a fun loving guy who got into partying too much and ended having some problems with drugs.
What about Ted Falconi? He was a Vietnam Veteran when you met him?
He was an interesting guy. He was a Vietnam vet. When he came back, he got interested in photography. He went to school to study music, photography and fine art. He came out of university and ended up teaching art for a while. When punk rock came around, I guess it was something that appealed to him.
He had an interesting fashion sense. He made his own clothes. He had a unique guitar playing style. No one played guitar like him. To this day no one plays guitar like him. He was involved with a lot of people in the art world, the film world. He co-wrote a film called ‘’Emerald City’’. Flipper appeared in that film.
Do you think that his tour in Vietnam influenced his guitar playing style?
I’m sure it affected his whole outlook on life. His whole approach to art and music was affected by that.
What would you say his whole approach to art and music is as a result of that? It’s fairly unique.
He’s not the kind of guy that likes to deal with traditional methods of doing anything. His approach to art is that its something that anyone should be a be to do. He unleashed this whole graffiti thing when he created the Flipper fish logo. People were putting that graffiti all over the place. I have no idea how to explain what he does on guitar. I think he approaches the guitar not as an instrument, but as an electric thing that you make noise with.
An admirable pirsuit. And it works! How would you compare the last few Flipper tours in the UK (etc), to the first few Flipper tours.
Oh boy, many years apart. Its hard to compare that with the original line up of the band. Punk rock was still an underground music. We toured from 79 to 87 with the original line up. It was very adventurous. The audiences were awesome, the scene was very cool, there was lots of fun and adventure. Less of a business than it is now. You get out there, climb in a van and do it. Surviving from town to town, day to day.
The tour we did in England with Krist brought a lot of that back. We played great shows. It felt like the old days. Some of it was to do with how Krist was playing the old songs. He wanted to play them just as they were recorded. But the kids came out, old and young, and young and old. And they were loving us. It was very cool. The original scene, the underground days, You can feel nostalgic towards them, but you’ll never have those days back.
I read a quote from a fan, Joe Pop-O-Pie. Regarding Flipper, he said, ‘’If you weren’t there, you’ll never get the full Flipper experience.’’ I ask you, in 2009, are we still going to get the full Flipper experience?
Yeah, you will. But you have to be there.
