INTERVIEWS-8

Giant Sand Interview by Adrian Pannett (from 'Under The Surface' magazine)

Spend too much time in the punishing heat of the desert and you might end up like Howe Gelb – which is most definitely a good thing. Without the desert there would be no Howe Gelb and without Howe Gelb there would be no Giant Sand.

Since the early-eighties Giant Sand have perfectly captured the parched atmosphere of Howe Gelb’s dusty homeland in Arizona, amassing a vast catalogue of recorded work in the process. Shifting through the grungeist low-slung rock, avant-garde noise, country and acid-jazz along the way. Howe’s songs calling all shots through his own rural-hipster lexicon.

Giant Sand is to Howe Gelb what The Bad Seeds are to Nick Cave. A band with a loose fluid membership that has at various times included Howe’s daughter Indiosa, his ex-wife, country crooner Pappy Allen, Victoria Williams, Lisa Germano, Juliana Hatfield and Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino.

The last few years haven’t been too kind to Giant Sand. Howe’s close friend and likeminded troubadour  Rainer Ptacek died of a brain tumour and the band were also dropped by their label V2, despite having just presented them with possibly their most accomplished album, ‘Chore of Enchantment.’ A record of rich-hued songwriting, warmth, humour and humanity. Eclectic, entertaining and enthralling. Smouldering and ruggedly brilliant. Luckily ‘Chore of Enchantment’ didn’t die in the dust of a record company filing cabinet, it found its way into the hands of Loose Recordings who wisely chose to give it a proper release.

Enough history lessons, here’s what thoughts Howe Gelb had to share from his desert dominion in Tucson, Arizona…

Weeding out from the shadowy larger labels. Joey taking on too many other projects instead. And mostly, my good friend, Rainer, being stricken with brain cancer.

Did it worry you that the new record might not see the light of day after you were dropped by V2 records? Were you misunderstood by the label?

Not worried. Once I had finished the record (finally) I felt relieved of it. Vindicated, delivered, done. Time for something else and it didn’t matter if ‘Chore of Enchantment’ ever surfaced. As for being misunderstood, I don’t think so. Our A&R woman ended up loving the record... she was from the New York office. Then a fellow from the London office was put in charge in New York and he thought it still sounded too indie for what the label wanted to become, and of course he used to have an indie label, Big Cat, so...I guess he had a clue, or not. It didn’t matter any more.

That stuff is always completely non-descript with me. I don’t know what I want until I find it... or stumble over it. But it’s always important to do something different with the recording then we had ever done before. The main thing this time seemed that I had sung softer then I ever had, but the vocal was mixed louder then it ever had been before. That was new. And the locations have a nice subtle contrast to them...but that gets all mixed in so it’s impossible to tell where one town begins and where one ends.

There is a rather redemptive, end of a journey feel to the whole album, do you feel that it is something you have been working towards for a long time?

Well... the event of the record became a state of deliverance. In fact that's why I was really able to walk away from it when I heard we were getting dropped. I felt I had really delivered the goods after going through 2 years worth of wobble. 

It sounds like you had a fun time in the studio with guests like Jim Dickinson, John Parish and Juliana Hatfield. How did they come to be involved?They’ve become friends, and a recording is a great excuse to hang out with friends.

Nope. It’s not religious at all. If you’re not paying attention to the lyrics until the lines about Christ come into play, then you will wonder about that slant. But really it’s ‘Off Ramp Man Part 2.’ (a song from ‘Center of the Universe’). It’s about what goes through your head now that you have fallen through the crack,. become homeless, had enough with this world’s agenda of wires and revenue.

What’s your personal attitude to religion?

It’s a shame it gets exploited by any elite. God is good. Religion is tricky. Sticky.

‘Punishing Sun’ appears to be an ode to your desert homeland. Do you think Giant Sand would have sounded a lot different if you had lived in Alaska instead of Arizona? Does the heat really get to you sometimes?

‘Punishing Sun’ is just one more thing that happens to you. Usually that’s what songs are about...the muttering of occurrence. Alaska? I’ve never been... but John Convertino has. So maybe it would be the same. And of course the heat really gets to you, fortunately.

"Candles are melting without being lit. Knocked upside the head without even being hit."‘Punishing Sun’ (2000)

What is ‘Temptation of Egg’ about?

My habit of breaking events down to the first molecule that causes them. From a man’s stand point, I think our attraction to woman must begin with their egg, no?

"Out here on the sidewalk, at home in the rain I count the staining gum spots.If you connect those dots they spell your name, and I stand astonished."‘Astonished (In Memphis)’ (2000)

‘Astonished (In Memphis)’ is the track that really caught my ear. Is it a love song? What kind of atmosphere were you trying to capture?

Yeah, I would think that is a love song. That particular recording of it is all Jim Dickinson. Moist.

Old Joe Peña and I sat there well basted,Till the blur bar faded away."‘Way To End The Day’ (2000)

‘Way To End The Day,’ is that a tale of wanting to escape from real life? Tell me more…

My friend died. Couldn’t get over it. The only way was to shut the day down by choking it with drink. Sad, but still a home remedy. Eventually, with time, you get a grip but for a while, it was the only way to end the day and stop feeling.

There’s some pretty interesting sounds listed on the album’s production credits notably ‘scraping chair on metal porch loop.’ Do you feel like a kid with lots of new toys when you’re in the studio?

In the credits, I listed myself as ‘toys with guitar’.... but I meant it as a verb. Then I thought...oh yeah... I guess it all is toy like... all these shiny buttons and gizmos. But like any true toy, its best to use whatever is lying around. Make use of the clutter.

Giant Sand has been active since the early-Eighties. What has been your greatest achievement? Are you happy to have been influential but remain relatively unknown?

I am happy I did anything at all with my ideas. If not, I would be sitting here thinking, shit. So many bands seem to have a similar playfulness to what we had going on way back when. Even similar tones, which were very important to me back then. There’s satisfaction in all that but not in a useful way. The one weird effect from all that is that it was easier and more fun in the 80’s to make our mess, cause there were so many awful sounding records and attitudes that we would just make the mess we wanted to have it on hand cause, we could hardly find it anywhere else, like making your own clothes, sorta. Now, because there seems to be such an abundance of what we like out there, the old timey necessity isn’t as strong. There’s plenty of stuff out there that sounds so good. 

Who or what has been the greatest influence on your songwriting over the years? Other artists, personal experience or books?

It’s mostly the attitude that comes through certain pieces of work. Neil young seemed to have the best working ethic from the earliest I can remember. Jimmy Rodgers was amazing with his sense of timing and flip. Thelonious Monk knew what to do with a tried and true melody...tempt it, teeter it. Make it immediately memorable by working within the realm of accidental. Wordy old Dylan. The mix of Ziggy Stardust. The book ‘Dahlgren’ was pretty good...a town’s landscape that kept changing with every new morning. The film ‘Don’t Look Now’...oddly memorable and thick with the silence of the seventies and gratefully filmed in Venice. ‘The Tennent’ by Polanski. 

What keeps you occupied outside of making music?

Experimenting on my children, with love of course.

Have you ever considered acting?

Well, I thought about it. Would like to really try it. The camera is such a liar, but I love the notion of capturing light and the dream like medium of floating from scene to scene.

The phone ring.

Well I thought about quitting the other day. Then I wasn't sure I could really pull that off... so then I figured just fire everybody. That would be new, but I don’t think anyone who was fired would notice.

Adrian Pannett can be contacted at underthesurface@hotmail.com