Mercury Lounge, NYC
Friday, July 18, 2003
Interview by Mark Griffey
Film Still courtesy of Drew Denicola
If you’ve ever seen a Lilys concert, you know that the between-song
banter is often worth the price of admission alone. Lead Lily Kurt Heasley
tosses off bizarre non-sequiters like a schizophrenic comedian on speed.
At a recent show in Philadelphia, he discussed the merits of tele-prompters
and lesbian yoga camps and said, “Everyone loved you so much they
called you on the walkie-talkie and said you’re a gay man.”
Whether Mr. Heasley is truly nuts or not, fans are just happy to have
him back. Although 1996’s Better Can’t Make Your Life
Better (Che) sold well and received glowing reviews, the major-label-released
follow-up The Three Way (Sire) quickly became an expensive
mess of clashing egos and multiple lawsuits. When the album was finally
released, critics barely noticed and the fans weren’t impressed.
But Heasley bounced back this year with a new band, a few new children
and a new outlook on life. 2003 also saw the Lilys back on the road
and in the studio for the first time in three years to record the back-to-roots
Precollection (Manifesto), which revisits the organic psych sound
found on earlier Lilys records. I sat down in the dingy basement of
the Mercury Lounge to chat with the always-entertaining Mr. Heasley.
Dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, he hardly looked like the mod hipster
from his more ‘60s-influenced days. He often talked in other voices
and did impressions, which I’ve signified with quotes.
Are you originally from Philly?
No. I was born in Florida, in West Palm Beach. I finally moved to D.C.
around the age of 10. From about 10 to 21 years of age I lived in D.C.
except for when I lived in Richmond. I loved Richmond. Richmond was
beautiful and very artsy.
I went to Richmond once. I wasn’t too impressed.
Well, it’s a secret world. You gotta know it. A lot of it is just
so burnt out, race war. It’s just old; old hate. There’s
a lotta old hate, not that new fancy hate. It’s old –
Deep-seeded hate?
No, it’s not even all that deep-seeded. It’s like, “My
daddy’s daddy was your daddy’s daddy’s footstool.”
The new album sounds a lot looser than the past two records. Was the
recording process different for Precollection?
Yes, we used water. It was more fluid. It’s more of what it sounds
like when we’re all just hanging out making a record. It doesn’t
really sound like a tricked-out Lilys record. That’s the trick.
It’s like you can actually hear what we are as opposed to what
we’d like to produce as an image. You can see more of us on the
streets.
Were you more of a control freak in the past?
Everyone involved was a control freak. Very control-freaky. I don’t
work with people that are like, “That’s good.” Well,
if they say that it’s good, I’m like, “Yeah, sweet.
You can leave the room now. (Talking in a robot voice) Put it in the
machine. (Robot noises) Bing! Your drums are ready.”
Is it true you take several baths a day?
That is true. I do foot soaks. I had a phase where I was sleeping so
little and the only thing that would keep me awake was water. I was
sleeping like, three, four hours a night for months. So water, like,
goin’ for a floaty. I used to do it, turn off the lights in the
bathroom and just kind of float in it. It was like my little sensory-deprivation
tank. (As if I was asking him a question) “You mean, like, John
C. Lilly?” Haven’t you ever seen Altered States with Jeff
Bridges where he becomes an ape? Do you know what a sensory-deprivation
tank is?
I think so.
When you turn off the lights and you’re just kind of in it. You
have time to relax. You’re not asking any questions and you’re
not getting hung up on things. (In a boyish voice) “I’m
so excited. I hope she says yes when I ask her to the dance.”
You just say, “I’m in my place, I am here. In 17 seconds
I’ll be there. Now I am here. See, I’m already 17 seconds
into my future. See, I was ready.” You prepare, you prepare and
then you hop out. “Okay, let’s take it again. Ahh! Nice!
Nice!” And everyone’s like, “Jesus Christ!”
And then you know at 4 a.m. everyone’s like, “Oh, man beer.
Beer. Damn, that’s good.” They all sleep until noon. I’m
poppin’ up at 7 a.m. and I’m like, “All right guys,
look what I’ve done today.” Yeah, boy, there’s that
secret. If anyone wants to send me a sensory-deprivation tank, I’ll
accept. “Yeah, we closed our health food meditation yoga center
and we didn’t know what to do with this, so we sent it to Kurt
Heasley in Philadelphia, care of Lilys.”
Why is it that you never print lyrics on your albums? Is mystery
something you try to perpetuate?
I was gonna do it for this record, but we turned in our artwork so late
the label put their own artwork on the new record. We had all the lyrics
written out. They were actually photographed and scanned. My handwriting
is a font unto itself – a classical print in cursive. Everything
is just kind of graphic. And uh, yes, there might be lyric sheets for
this new record if we alter the packaging.
You never printed lyrics for the old records, right?
Um, no, I never thought about it.
They’re pretty hard to understand.
See, no one ever steps up and tells me that kind of stuff. That would
be really cool.
Not only are the lyrics hard to understand, but they’re
pretty weird, too.
They read very jaggedly, but when you hear them in the context of the
song – my syntax is very abrupt – and to actually write
it out as I sing it I would need someone who specializes in the English
language. No that’s a comma exclamation mark dot dot dot line
dot. I mean this is the beginning of a new sentence. And it’d
be this very graphical, very graphic, very graphic lyrics.
Describe the songwriting process.
Even at my most remorseful, I would write like, “I’m sorry
and uh,” you know, the apologetic stuff, I could always at least
include the characters I was apologizing to with their faults as to
not make it seem I was blaming myself or anything, or that I was taking
the weight of the world on me. But at the higher end, your more conscious
lyricists write, I think, from a universally-perfect stance. Universally
perfect meaning that I don’t claim anything to be 100 percent
true or 100 percent false. So as I generate my perspective lyrically
and, you know, lyrics and music sometimes say one thing, music does
another, you realize something maybe is not as perfect as I say it is,
lyrically creating a juxtaposition.
Have your influences changed? There was a definite ’60s
thing going on in the last two records.
With Better Can’t Make Your Life Better, I decided to
become, as you say, more maniacal, and work on space or arrangement,
letting guitar, bass, drums and organ work together to create this new
syncopation where I could kind of stridently go (singing out loud),
“lalalalalala.” The record after that was just kind of like,
“All right, same guys, same drill, except now everyone’s
all sad and egotistical.” Sweet. And it made for a great complimentary
record, but I never said thank you in a way that the other players or
other workers on the record could hear. I was appreciative of them and
would have done anything for them. I made decisions to keep everyone
together, and still that’s what drove everything apart. I didn’t
have the listening skills to be able to seek first and understand where
they were coming from, and then make my evil empire clear to them. I
think the ’60s music that we did is so much more than what you
call ’60s music. I’m not afraid to say that most of the
best moments of those songs [on Better Can’t Make Your Life Better]
are lifted from bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Neil Young and
My Bloody Valentine.
Was the new record a reaction against The Three Way?
Oh yeah, and it was totally great to have two-year lawsuits. It just
ended with everyone wanting to put up their big-boy-I-can-do-this-if-you’re-gonna-do-this.
I’m like, “What’s that? That’s no dream. That’s
your dream?” That’s like working at Ralph Lauren where everyone
is just like constantly in panic mode. I don’t panic. Panic is
for when I’m running naked in the woods, you know? I’m not
making records, this is working in the Senate or working at the sausage
factory.
Was there stress coming from the label? Were they pushing you
to put out a new record?
I think the label would have been much happier if I would have worked
with new people. Since we didn’t have management, since I was
the manager, they would never approach me about it. “What if he
freaks out? He’s such a big guy and he’s probably kind of
strong, and I know he’s got a really good shot. What if he freaks
out when we ask him this stuff? He’s at the point where he should
really take his career seriously. But we’re scared to tell him.”
So they didn’t tell me, and it just became bad and they let me
do my little paper mache art project record. “Look, it’s
a giant fish mask.”
So that wasn’t what the label wanted?
Absolutely not. It took too long and everyone was very upset and tired
and bummed out at the end of it. I wasn’t particularly bummed
out. I was just broke. I did that record to be able to make more records
and everybody wanted that record to be a final payment. I was like,
“It’s our first record for those people. They can’t
ask for the pot of gold. (Talking in a leprechaun voice) Oh you don’t
think I can? I’m gonna ask for it.” I was like, “Oh
my god, you are so dead in your career.” The drummer and engineer
got into physical altercations, yelling matches on a daily basis. The
engineer, producer, and myself did none of the pre-production work the
label wanted me to do. They paid for two weeks and [the engineer] showed
up for 20 minutes. He asked for me to call my lawyer to call his lawyer
and play piano with the bass player and drummer. Then when I got back
he was like, “All right, how’d you do?” I’m
like, “He’s calling ‘em.” And he’s like,
“All right,” and he picked up and left. The label felt like,
“Gee, we can’t have any say in it, ’cause this guy
is what, an ape? He thinks he’s such a genius he doesn’t
have to do his job?” I’m like, “You know I love him.”
That was strike one. Then strike two was it took longer than we said.
Strike three was, as soon as we were done, [we] asked for more money
after they said there was no more. None. So they tried to sue. And then
the two parties in the studio sued each other for two years. And then
they were going to sue me, but they thought, “That might be a
really bad idea.” Because I’m a really good shot and I’m
prone to extreme acts of violence. If people come and start picking
on my peach tree, they need to understand the magic words, “Please
Kurt, may I have a peach?” I’m like, “Absolutely.
I have a whole tree full. Take one of them, I’ll break a finger.
Do it again, I’ll break a hand.”
Has having kids changed the songwriting process for you?
Songwriting has become more imagination-based rather than physical experimenting.
I go back to experiments in memory. I think of all the research I have
done, the 12-hour, 15-hour days of just constant recording. Now I take
care of the office and the lab, but I don’t need the actual arduous
hard working hours. I need the smart working hours, fulfilling responsibilities,
make sure all the calls are organized. My new hard work is remaining
organized. I’m sure the next two records that we’re working
on will be much more fantastical than The Three Way, compositionally
and production-wise. I was at such an impasse about how I used to work
versus how I want to work. I wanna work with the right people. If we
can’t get it in like three or four contacts, are we looking for
the right things? These are the songs we want to record so let’s
play around with them, but let’s not play around. This is what
broke me from thinking you’re allowed to pretend you’re
Fleetwood Mac and be in the studio for a year and what got me into playing
like you’re Lindsay Buckingham [Fleetwood Mac guitarist].
He was pretty obsessive in the studio.
Yes, but that was obsessive in the ’70s. This was obsessive in
the drug-induced paranoia sort of way. Not that he wasn’t fantastic;
he was. I’m not gonna compare Rumors and The Three
Way. The Three Way is sausage; Rumors is a sausage with
a string of hits. People can understand the lyrics on Rumors.
Can you understand most of the lyrics on The Three Way?
Their lyrics are much more personal than yours.
They’re universally personal.
Would you ever write something that personal?
Uhhhh, yeah. I don’t know if it’d be about the same subject
matter, but I can write from that level of personal experience. It wouldn’t
be autobiographical. I don’t need to be singing about myself.
No one wants to hear what I do for a living, but I have very wonderful
interesting heroic friends that really do live life. And they are my
heroes. Some of the biggest moves they ever did was getting out of bed
that day.