What do you do when your sixteen and in deep shit? You’re looking out at the world from the strip-mall and the detention hall, from the basement and the cul-de-sac and it just looks like there is a wall around you. Everybody tells you and your friends that you’re going nowhere, that your lives are already ruined. What the fuck do you do?
You hang around and smash stuff and get high and try to be a bad-ass, that’s what you do. You steal and drink and smash up the car your mom gave you and pull your pee-pee out in public. You work at sandwich shops and fast-food joints and try to screw private school girls because they think your tough and the girls at your school think your gay because you pretended to give your friend a blowjob at the junior prom. You fuck it all up as ugly and as dirty as you can because, why the fuck not?
Your parents and teachers and sandwich-shop supervisors look at you and think, “What happened to the kid? He has all the advantages in the world and he has chucked it all in the shitter. Doesn’t he believe in the inherent goodness of our enlightened society? Doesn’t he believe in any thing at all?”
Have you started recording your next album?
Yeah, we’ve started recording it. We’re doing it with Lockett (Pundt) from Deerhunter in his studio in Atlanta. The game plan is that we’re not gonna have a deadline. We’re not going to put it out unless it’s amazing. We’re really a live band. I don’t really care if we ever put out a record again. If it sucks, we’re just going to tour. I’m not too worried about our marketing plan. I mean our last records have some great moments, but they all could be better. We’re not putting out another record until it’s all great.
What one of the things that you disliked on the last album that you want to change?
We didn’t let enough people hear it before it came out. I guess we were too worried that it was going to leak, so we hid it from our friends, and you need friends to tell you things. They’ll let you know if it’s bad. This time we’re not going to be so scared to show it to people.
Alexander’s first band, the Renegades, co-helmed by current Lips bassist Jason Swilley, landed a slot in the Dunwoody High School talent show, but the guys got drunk, kicked stuff around, were hooked from the stage and cut from the video. One of their classmates was American Idol host and radio personality Ryan Seacrest, heard locally on KIIS-FM 102.7 and Live 105.5. “We were freshmen, and he was a senior—a total douchebag metrosexual,” Alexander says. “We used to fuck with him in the halls, but he was a senior and had some big friends, and we were scrawny, so we didn’t fuck with him too much.”
Seacrest graduated from Dunwoody in 1993. Unless Cole entered high school when he was 11 years old, this story doesn’t quite add up. Wikipedia has Cole’s birthday on June 8, 1982. If he was supposed to graduate in 1997, he has to at least be at least thirty years old or older right now. He was a senior when Columbine happened. I do remember him saying he was in special needs classes so it could be possible that he was in school for six years instead of four. The bottom line is that he was probably born in 1979 not 1982.
…LA Times…
How did you end up collaborating with The Black Lips and King Khan?
Originally, it came about through my manager Heathcliff [Berru]. The bands were fans of Wu-Tang and I and we decided to perform together. It worked out well; they’re good musicians and we have a mutual admiration and love. The thing is, they were already connecting with me in some way first. I’d never heard their music before, but I was feeling it and when I saw both of those groups perform live, I knew I could work with them. The vibe was there.
Much of current hip-hop — particularly the more mainstream iteration — is characterized by glossy shiny-sounding production. Did some of your desire to work with the Black Lips and King Khan stem from the similarity of their lo-fi aesthetic to the beats you came up rhyming on?
That’s my problem with the stuff today — it doesn’t sound raw and uncut. When the Black Lips sent a track over to me, I thought it sounded like a Beastie Boys track, the way the singer was singing and flowing on it. He was right in the pocket. You don’t get hip-hop that sounds that gritty anymore, you get some Auto-tune, ping-pong computer-made and Casio stuff.
A lot of rappers have tried to chase whatever trend was hot, whether it’s Auto-tune or getting the hottest R&B hookman on a track, but you’ve carved out a different path.
I think it’s about being original and creative. You’ve got to be comfortable with yourself. There’s no set way to do anything. Sometimes you have to go outside the box, sometimes you can do things the standard way. Like you don’t have to have a beat to write a song, sometimes you can write lyrics without the music. A lot of artists think that to be current, you have to follow what’s out there and do something that’s so unlike what you normally do. It can work but it doesn’t if you chase it.
I admit not as fabulous as the classic, “Bobby Is A lover,” but I just heard this one so, I decided to share this great music with y’all whom couldn’t possibly discover such fine art on your own. Gaye Blades = Music to poppy for the Black Lips catalog. RIP Bobby Ubangi!
Daily Telegraph (Australia)
EVER wanted to know what Black Lips would sound like performing your favourite song of all time?
Trying something new, St Jerome’s Laneway Festival organisers have lined up Black Lips, Philadelphia Grand Jury, Dappled Cities and Danimals to perform cover songs harking back to the music they respect or just have fun playing – whether personal or legendary.
Titled PUMA Archive Uncovered, they pay homage to the art of the cover song. To find out more about the day on January 31, head to http://www.lanewayfestival.com.au
What if your favorite song of all time is by the Black Lips? Get to hear it twice?!
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 