#Tyranny10: Vintage Ted Leo Interview from May 2001

In honor of #Tyranny10, I am dusting off this interview with Ted Leo that I conducted on May 25th, 2001, in his van outside of Brownies on Avenue A in New York City.

It was done for the final issue of the great Washington, D.C. 'zine Held Like Sound. The Tyranny of Distance was less than a month from being released, and I had been seeing Ted Leo play all over town for the preceding year or so.*

* ("I was there" show boastings: I've been a Ted Leo fan for years, and was lucky to see Chisel a bunch of times (at places like the Jabberjaw in L.A.; the Black Cat in D.C.; and an incredible pair of shows opening for Lungfish and Fugazi at First Avenue in Minneapolis, MN in 1995). I saw the Pharmacists play a bunch of times after Tyranny was released, including an amazing show at a Loews movie theater in Jersey City. I've seen Ted play a bunch of record shop in-stores, and I was even in attendance at an incredibly depressing show at the San Diego State student union on Election night in 2004 when Bush was re-elected).

I probably played The Tyranny of Distance more than any album in the first half of the 2000s, and I put it on for the first time in a long time while I typed this out from the 'zine. Man, there's not a bum note on the thing. If you haven't heard it in a while (or, god forbid, ever), treat yourself. And pick up all the rest of the guy's discography while you're at it.

So yeah – the introduction I wrote to this interview is pretty cringe-y (and I have no idea if my facts were even correct – was he actually using an Echoplex or a reel-to-reel? I have no idea...), and my questions were probably way too fixated on the PUNK question. It had just been announced that his new album would be released on Lookout Records, which was a surprising thing to lots of people - hence a big chunk of the discussion on that topic. Anyway, it's a fun little time capsule. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's a great story about infamous "outsider"/maniac/psycho-billy/one-man-band Hasil Adkins: When The Haze – as his fans know him – was just a tiny tot somewhere in the fringes of the Appalachian Mountains, his mother used to blast big band music as she worked on household chores. At the end of every song, the D.J. would announce something like, "That was Glenn Miller...," or "That was a new one from Artie Shaw..." Little Hasil was impressed. "All that sound is coming from one guy?!," he thought to himself. So he taught himself to play as many different instruments as he could get his hands on – at the same time. The result: Skewed proto-punk masterpieces like "No More Hot Dogs" and "She Said."

D.C./NYC/Boston songwriter Ted Leo is from a similar breed of D.I.Y. savants. When his hyperactive – and often misunderstood – mod-punk outfit Chisel broke up nearly 5 years ago, Leo soldiered on into the murky solo-artist territory that has been unkind to so many former-frontmen-of-once-great-bands. Not only did Leo emerge unscathed, though, he came out energized and amped, with a forceful batch of songs that demanded that jaded punk kids try to think outside the box. He played the songs, too – anywhere and everywhere, and to anyone who would listen. Often accompanied only by his guitar, a tricked-out Echoplex, and a reel-to-reel player of backing tracks, Ted Leo would stop hipster crowds in their tracks. "All that sound is coming from one guy?!," they wondered.

Ted Leo has a band again now, and he's still making noise – both literally and figuratively.

Held Like Sound: So when did you make the switch from James (Canty) on the drums to James on the guitar? The last time I saw you guys was at Bowery Ballroom with Cave-In and Rainer Maria, and there was a different bassist.

Ted: That was a line-up born out of necessity. Don't get me wrong, it was a great line-up, and it was fun, and it worked really well, but that was more just like – "Hey, I need people now. I can't play my new songs alone!" James and I have played together off and on for a number of years, and he's mostly played the guitar all that time. It was kind of exciting to get him back behind the kit again, which he hasn't done since Nation of Ulysses. But that line up was more just a timing thing.

HLS: And the line up is completely different from the Ace Fu EP (Treble in Trouble, 2000), right?

Ted: No, James played guitar on that, but it was Amy Farina from The Warmers on drums and Jodi from the Secret Stars on bass.

HLS: So I suppose this is the really obvious question, but how did you end up on Lookout?

Ted: I've been friends with Chris and Molly, who run it, for years. Molly's from D.C., you know, from Bratmobile. And even way back with Chisel, we always had this "Hey, if you ever want to do anything..." thing with them. Don't get me wrong, we were really happy with Gern Blandsten. We just always had this casual "maybe we'll do something" thing with Lookout. And then last year I was in San Francisco, and we started talking a little more seriously about it, and they were expressing a desire to expand their oeuvre, and I felt like I kind of needed to step it up a notch.

HLS: The way I've always perceived that label is that it's a pretty big operation, and they sort of cater to a consistent fanbase.

Ted: Well, it's a pretty big label, but it's not as big as you think it is. I mean, they have a couple of acts who sell A LOT of records. Basically they still sell more Op Ivy records and Green Day records that anything. Oh, and The Donnas do really well. The Queers to well, too, I guess. But I mean, they don't have a huge office with like 50 people working there, and there's no contracts unless the artist wants one – I mean, they'll give you one if you wants, but you don't have to have one.

HLS: And they're moving towards taking in some different sounding bands?

Ted: Yeah. They're definitely trying to branch out a bit.

HLS: Is the Lookout tag going to change how you do things?

Ted: I don't think I could do anything more that I HAVE been doing for the last few years, you know? It's like... I kind of work my ass off! I play all the fucking time, even when I'm not out on tour, I play half of every month.

HLS: No, I know it – I moved to New York about a year ago and I've seen you almost 15 times since then!

Ted: Yeah. And every time I have some new songs, I make a new record. There's not much more it could change about they way I do things. I mean, the only difference so far is that, on this tour – after we split with Q and Not U – we were headlining most of the shows, and we were playing clubs – which means you have to play later, which I hate, and that's kind of a drag. But they haven't asked anything special of me. Well, as far as promotion goes, I guess I'm going to have to be doing more interviews, but that's not any big deal.

HLS: I'm just curious, I guess... I'm from Bethesda (Maryland, a suburb just outside of D.C.), but before I came to New York I was living in California for the last seven years, and there's such a following out there for the pop-punk Lookout stuff. And your stuff just seems so different from what I associate with Lookout. Let me ask you this: Have you checked out the section they have for you on the Lookout website? They have this message board on there, and people have been commenting...

Ted: I made a rule a couple years ago to never read any of my own press again.

HLS: Really?

Ted: Unless somebody really says to me, "No, check this out, this is really good." Not just because bad reviews bum you out, but often even good reviews bum you out. Because they miss the point.

HLS: "This is awesome, but it's just like The Jam."

Ted: Exactly. "Pop songs! Pop pop pop pop pop!" Whatever, you know? Just scratch the surface for once, and there's a lot more going on. I haven't looked at the Lookout site. But I've heard some things... I guess some people think it's great, and some people are like "This sucks!"

HLS: Yeah, it's pretty amazing. The opinions are completely polar... there's some kids on there saying "this is the best thing Lookout's put out," an there's some people who are like "what the hell is this?! This isn't like the Groovie Ghoulies! This isn't fast or pogo-y!"

Ted: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I figure I can't LOSE an audience from being on Lookout. I don't think that anybody who would have bought my records before is going to NOT buy them because they're on Lookout. If more people can get a hold of the record because it's on Lookout, then great.

HLS: So this is more nebulous... I guess this is a pretty obnoxious question, but hear me out. Where, I guess, do you see yourself fitting in as far as "punk"? Here's where I ask this: I think you have the standout interview in the Punk Planet book (We Owe You Nothing, Akashic Books, 2001). I think that it's the one that is challenging, interesting, and forward thinking as far as what I consider to be "punk." And in your lyrics, you've never shied away from the kind of slogans you don't get from punk anymore: "Cheers for the young idea!," and "Here is the latest dart / I'm aiming it straight for your heart." But your music doesn't fall under a lot of people's definition of what "punk" is supposed to sound like. Do you get frustrated when people say you're not punk?

Ted: Sure. It bums me out, because I do everything I can to stay on this side of that line. Except for limiting myself artistically. Which, in and of itself, in my mind, is punk! I've really made it a point over the last four years, since I've been playing solo, to keep playing to the quote-unquote punk audiences. And more often that not, I found it usually worked. If only because it was off-putting at first to people who'd never seen me, to see me get up there alone and play – and I don't play quiet, or acoustically – so it would make the kids stop and listen for a minute. You know – "what's this all about?" But there always have been, and there still are those times where – and the older I get, the more I find this – people look onstage and if you don't look right... let me put it this way. I find that there are times when it's clear that people in the audience don't want to hear what I have to say and I find that it's because I look older! Not because I sound different, but because I look older. At least, that's the impression I get: The second I walk onstage, it's like "oh, look at these guys... they're not wearing patches; I'm not going to pay attention to them."

HLS: Right, right. This is what I mean... I guess I'm just always interested in the disparity between different people's definitions of "punk." In one camp, you've got the socially aware, open-minded, ready-to-accept-artistic-growth-type people, and they proudly call themselves "punk," and then you have something totally different – these unoriginal, women-baiting type bands- you know, one of the things that never fails to amaze me is Maximum Rock 'n' Roll – it's hideous! They had this whole thing a little while ago where they refused to review Atom & His Package's stuff...

Ted: Right! But they'll review every fucking beer drinking garage band on Sympathy for the Record Industry that's got naked tits all over the covers and all that! Look – there shouldn't be a codified definition for "what is punk." I mean... there's definitely things where you can say "that's NOT punk." If anything, most of it overlaps into this grey area. You have to look at the intent of the artist. I'm sire Atom ideologically considers what he does to be punk, you know? Same with Sean Na Na. Myself. Lots of other bands. If you put a little effort in, and pay a little more attention to what they're on about, it might become a little more apparent. Unfortunately, people just don't want to put that effort in, and that's when it gets frustrating.

HLS: So back to the thing I mentioned before, your slogans, or – for lack of a more appropriate term – catchphrases...

Ted: Sure.

HLS: Well – as a reference point, this is bad, because I really like this band, but take The Make-Up. I mean, I don't doubt their sincerity, but there's certainly something tongue-in-cheek about what they did. I guess I'm just wondering where these catchphrases of yours come from.

Ted: Well, I don't set out to write catchphrases. I mean, I'm not going to lie to you and say that when I came up with the "latest dart" idea, I wasn't psyched... I just think that sometimes you need to put an exclamation point on your point. And hence, "cheers for the young idea."

HLS: I'm more going after whether or not these things are informed by any cynicism.

Ted: Oh, I see what you're saying.

HLS: As a guy who's playing this brand of rock to these punk-tuned crowds...

Ted: Right, right, totally! Yes! In fact, yeah, "The Latest Dart" and "Warmer Music" are informed by a kind of frustration with the complacency with peers, and audiences. And wanting to shake people, and kick them in the ass in a way that goes to their head and makes their ass move.

HLS: So you've got this sort of idealistic – without the negative connotation of being "naïve" – take on things. Usually when somebody's going to come out with a big, bold statement, they have to pour irony all over it.

Ted: Irony is an amazing tool, but it's to be used sparingly. I want to provide an alternative to that.

HLS: I wanted to ask you about something from that aforementioned Punk Planet interview, where you were talking about the Blur song ("Song 2," aka "Woo Hoo"), and how people give in to guilty pleasures too easily.

Ted: You know what? That was said for effect, largely. Not to back off from the statement... but I like the new Nelly Furtado song! I mean, if you're a fan of music, you're a fan of music. I used to have this ongoing argument with a friend of mine who would go on and on about how much she hated The Beatles. I was always like, "How? No!," but it was like a punk thing. She was like, "No, fuck that, everybody likes The Beatles," and I kind of understood where she was coming from. I wouldn't go THAT far, but it's the same kind of sentiment that drove me to say that you shouldn't let that Blur song in.

HLS: You were just urging people to challenge themselves.

Ted: Right. I mean, there were specific issues I had with that song. Like, "Oh, now they're doing their "American Rock" record," and kids eat it up, and I'm like, "there's plenty of fuckin' American rock bands doing that just as well!" I mean, it's like all music. I like the first Skrewdriver record, before they evidenced their... white power tendencies! It's a great record, and I'm not afraid to say it, you know?"

HLS: That's going to be the pull quote, by the way: "Ted Leo says: 'I like... Skrewdriver." (Laughter)

Vintage Craig Wedren Interview

This is a Craig Wedren interview that I conducted on December 7th, 2000 at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.

It originally ran on the website of the late, great Held Like Sound after the print magazine shut down. Shudder to Think are - if not my #1, then certainly one of - my favorite bands of all time, so this was a huge thrill. I could write pages and pages about the shows I saw over the years, but for now I'll just re-print the interview in case any other fans might find it through Google or something. (I took the above photo at show they played at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C. on August 17, 1995 with The Warmers and Foo Fighters).

B: Ok… first and foremost. I hope you’re not tired of hearing this question, but how’s your health?

W: My health is great. I had Hodgkin’s Disease, which is a lymphatic cancer. For which I underwent about nine months of treatment. I’ve been in remission for 4 and a half years. Once I hit the five year mark, the doctors sort of deem it a cure. Although there’s always a sort of proclivity towards those types of illnesses once you’ve undergone that type of treatment, so… it kills it, but it also kills a lot of good stuff. But, you know, I feel great.

B: Good.

W: I certainly consider myself blessed.

B: Before I get into the new band – are you calling it “Baby”? I had seen you at Brownies a little while ago when you said you were considering calling the band “Baby.”

W: I think it’s just Craig Wedren. “Baby” had been a name that had been tumbling around in my head for a long time… it was something that sounded more infinitely universal than Shudder to Think. And more pronounceable than Craig Wedren. I wanted something that was a little more “boom.” But having said that, and having tried it out, I think I’m just going to call everything I do by my name. If people have a hard time pronouncing it, and remembering it, then I’m the worse for it.

B: So you’ve been recording stuff?

W: Oh yeah. I’ve been recording… well, I mean, I’m always writing. I’ve been PROPERLY recording from about February through August at my apartment. A year ago, I was hired to do music for a T.V.Show called “Wonderland.”

B: The Peter Berg show?

W: Yeah. A short-lived, but pretty intense outing.

B: How’d that happen?

W: A friend of mine was music supervising it, who supervised the movie “High Art.” And she said I have this great T.V. show that we should work on. It’ll be fun.

B: So this is that whole Dolly Hall crew (a prominent producer in the NYC independent film world) ?

W: Yeah. Well, this was a different segment of that, but still sort of “all in the family.” So she called me up, said “I have this great project, we should work on it together, it’ll be great… really cool people, really cool show, but… ABC… blah blah.” It was my first foray into mainstream T.V., to be sure. And one I will never forget. But one I hope to live down.

B: Really?

W: It wasn’t awful, it was certainly educational. I loved the show, and I really liked a lot of the people involved… but it was such culture shock for me. Because of the sheer speed and velocity with which they wanted things – but they weren’t sure quite what they wanted.

B: Of course.

W: Though I know I didn’t help matters much. ‘Cause I’m accustomed to much more collaborative – you know, when I’m working with a director, there’s got to be some interplay so that I can understand what the tone of the piece is going to be.

B: And it WAS like that with the “First Love, Last Rites” thing?

W: Oh, yeah… and with the movie I just finished that David Wain from “The State” just finished making, with a lot of other people from The State. It’s fucking hilarious. It’s so good. It’s called “Wet Hot American Summer.” And it’s about the last day of summer camp in 1981.

B: Wow. Sold. So you scored that?

W: Yeah. I co-scored it with a friend of mine who also did music for “The State,” named Teddy Shapiro. He just did the music for the movie “Girlfight.” So he and I did it together. But back to what I was saying about the culture shock with working for television, it could not have been more different. It was like trying to perform remote brain surgery or something. Like “what am I looking for and where is it?” It was difficult. And the show lasted two episodes on the air.

B: Which is criminal.

W: Which is criminal. I barely lasted THAT long on the show. But in celebration-slash-preparation of and for my first big T.V. gig, I bought myself a pro tools unit for my apartment, which I still owe my grandfather heavily for, seeing as how that venture didn’t work out. But… the T.V. show forced me to learn pro tools really fast. So on my last day at the “Wonderland Estate”… the “Wonderland Commons”… I started working immediately on my own music. In fact, a lot of the stuff I was doing for “Wonderland” ended up playing into the more experimental end of the new stuff that I’m doing. So in that respect, “Wonderland” was an amazing experience, cause it turned out that the stuff that I was doing was probably as much for me as it was for the T.V. show.

B: O.K., talking about side-projects outside of your specific music, what can you tell me about “Night Vision: A First World Vampire Opera?”

W: Oh, man, what do you know about “Night Vision?”

B: I don’t know much about it at all. I know that you played someone called “The Spin Doctor.”

W: How do you know that?

B: There was something on the internet…

W: Oh, dear god. So there’s this woman playwright, Ruth Margraff – who my old girlfriend Nina Helleman, late of the band Cake Like, used to work with. And I always really loved her writing, and I got a phone call that she was doing a reading of one of her new things, which are always completely a trip. She might be insulted by my saying this, but I mean it as the utmost compliment, this thing was totally hyper-imaginative, flight of fancy, stream of consciousness, very poetic kind of semi-encrypted. That’s her style of playwrighting. And she called me ‘cause they were doing this thing and needed a replacement. So I was in that world briefly, which was this sort of free-jazz, cyber, post-modern opera thing.

B: And whatever happened to the “Spanish Amnesian” solo album?

W: Well, I made that record when I was sick, and it was sort of an ambient, experimental excursion. It was an excursiomental record. Beautiful stuff, really textural, lovely… I think it fed directly into the movie “High Art.” It was sort of my own late night palette of sounds. It seemed like it was plagued every step of the way, though… I was sick, I didn’t have a ton of energy, I ended up not getting it out there. But I still have it, and it’s really pretty.

B: So it may someday see the light of day?

W: I hope so. Parts of it have found their way into new parts of my new stuff, which has a sort of combination of that aesthetic with a very classic pop thing, with some Shudder to Think-isms, too.

B: Right. So the real “bleeps and bloops” stuff started with “High Art”?

W: No, I’ve always been a home – for lack of a better word, ambient – writer/producer. In fact, it was almost sort of weirdly fluky that Shudder to Think became the focal thing. I mean, I was always the singer in a band, and the stuff I would work on at home would be much more sound scape-y. Then I started writing more and more and more for Shudder to Think, and the sound scape-y stuff was always totally separate, until “High Art,” which was kind of a combo of the two. And now that I have the chance to do the stuff myself, it’s taking on both aspects of my musical styles. In college and stuff, I used to do more performances that were kind of “sound acoustic theater” pieces.

B: Something along the lines of the “Interpreting Robert Johnson” track (from an old comp called “Teen Smash Hits for Students”)?

W: Yes, exactly. Wow, you have done your homework.

B: I’m a nerd, actually. I huge geek.

W: No, it’s cool.

B: So can you talk, if you want to, about the last days of Shudder to Think?

W: Sure.

B: Was it the Black Monday label merger thing?

W: No, we were on Epic, which wasn’t involved in that whole thing. I will say this, so many of those bands that were affected by the shakedown of Black Monday – horrible as it was – the silver lining is “free at last, free at last.” Because, man, it ain’t easy dealing with a corporation who knows how to do something in one of two ways, and at one speed – and that’s very slow. All due respect. Had some wonderful experiences at Epic. In fact, Michael Goldstone, who signed us, lives in that building right across there. I adore a lot of the people who did and do work there. But, man, get them all in a room together, and it is really hard. It’s like pushing a mastodon up a hill. So…. The last days of Shudder to Think. We were still at Epic records, and we had gotten into soundtracks, which initially we had been discouraged from doing.

B: Why?

W: Who the fuck knows? I think the general consensus at the record label was that “First Love Last Rites” was somehow distracting us from the focal thing, which was the band… when in reality, it was reinvigorating the band. After “Pony Express Record,” we started going through an identity crisis. I wanted to go further in the direction of “Pony Express Record.” More poetic, less traditional structures. It was around that point that Nathan’s and my lifelong friendship and erstwhile working relationship began to fissure. And sour. Which we knew was imminent from the day we started working in Shudder to Think together. In fact, the night that I extended the offer for Nathan to replace Chris, the old guitar player who had just quit, we sort of looked at each other with knowing glances – again, having been friends for ages and having done music on and off with each other since high school – and the look, if not the words, said “it will end in tears.” And it did.

B: Mm hmm.

W: In short, we’d had a bumpy experience with the mainstream “high money world of alternative rock.” Which we just sort of fell into. Our music sounded like us. It happened to be, in my opinion, fairly distantly related to the movement known as alternative. But like most of the people in alternative music, we had all come up in punk, and been turned on by similar things. Pretty white kids who like to fucking rock a lot. So it had been a strange trip from Dischord to Epic… putting out records, touring…

B: Did you guys take a lot of heat for jumping from Dischord to Epic?

W: You know, in my opinion, and I hope this is no offense, anybody who is going to think that we were sell outs from going from “Get Your Goat” on Dischord to “Pony Express Record” on Epic, is missing the point.

B: No, believe me, I steer clear of those polemics, but I was wondering if you felt any of that…I know Jawbox did.

W: I would look at people and sort of go, “what the fuck are you thinking? Have you LISTENED to the record we made for Epic?! It’s a coup!” We also… you know, we just happened to be on Dischord Records, because Ian and Jeff loved our music, and we loved Ian and Jeff. We were never the type of band to cop to anything but the truth, which was that we wanted to take over the world! The commercial world as well as the underground, with our brand of music, which was the ultimate in our eyes. So there was never any social-political stuff holding us back in that respect. But, you know, everything you hear about record labels is true, although I don’t believe that most of the people are evil at all.

B: There’s been a bit of a resurgence of the anti-major thing lately – like the infamous Steve Albini article about “The Problem with Music” – with all the internet related stuff.

W: Yeah, right. But it wasn’t the jump. Like I said, when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s, which coincided with the last “Pony Express Record” support tour, which coincided with the beginning of the writing of “50,000 B.C.,” was the beginning of the end. Nathan no longer had any interest in what I was bringing to the table. Which, aesthetically, was related on one hand to “Pony Express Record,” and on the other hand to all of the ambient stuff I was doing. He wanted to do soul music. You know, his own version of soul music. He writes beautiful songs. I then went to the task of re-writing everything I had written for “50,000 B.C.,” ‘cause I was getting blank stares in the rehearsal space, and went and re-wrote everything when I was sick to suit the band. I think the general consensus was that everyone was disappointed with the performance of “Pony Express Record.” Which in retrospect, is ridiculous, because people who love that record feel so passionate about it. I wouldn’t say “50,000 B.C.” was a sell-out, by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just—personally, for me – a little bit convoluted. It doesn’t have the singular identity of “Pony Express Record,” or “First Love, Last Rites,” or “High Art,” or “Get Your Goat,” or “Funeral At The Movies.” I think you can feel it pulling in many directions. It didn’t quite ever arrive. Even though I love the songs and have many fond memories.

B: Uh huh.

W: But throughout the process, frankly, Nathan was becoming more and more miserable. Our relationship, which was always fairly competitive, but based on pure brotherly love and, bottom line, respect for each other’s work and vision, was really getting strained. I had the dominant artistic say in the band. Nathan went and made “Mind Science of the Mind,” and I think he was disappointed that it wasn’t more successful than it was, which – it should have done much better, it’s a beautiful record. He was just feeling trapped in Shudder to think. He wanted to front his own thing.

B: What’s he doing now?

W: He’s doing mostly film soundtracks. He did finish a record of his. It should be coming out on Artemis records. I haven’t heard the whole thing, but I’ve heard a few songs from it. His film soundtrack career is exploding.

B: Oh, he had the song in “Boys Don’t Cry.” What about Stuart?

W: Stuart is doing computer network development at an on-line mediation site, where people with claims who don’t want to go into arbitration, they go on line and try to settle.

B: So no music?

W: I’ve called him a few times and asked if he wanted to play, he just – when the band broke up, which basically happened in the Chicago airport, when Nathan was finally like, “dude, I’m quitting,” and I was kind of relieved, because I was feeling trapped in a rock band… (pause) In retrospect, I was so foolish. Not to let the band break up, necessarily, but I thought everything that followed would be pie. I would do awesome soundtracks, I would make awesome records, everybody would want to put my shit out. I was so naïve.

B: You’ve had trouble finding people who want to put your stuff out?

W: Well, let me put it this way – I’m not viewed as a commodity at this point. My music remains uniquely my own. And I want it to be the right thing. I don’t just want to settle. If it’s going to be on an indie label, it has to be perfect. If it’s going to be on a major label, it has to be even MORE perfect. I guess, giving myself the benefit of the doubt, I’ve been very cautious and wary. But I just thought it would be so easy to find the perfect players – a whole new Shudder to Think.

B: Right.

W: Well, no… after Shudder to Think, I just wanted to work alone, actually. And I did, until I lost my mind. At first I was like, “fuck it, I just want to do my own thing for awhile.” By that point in Shudder to Think, I felt like I was having to shelve so much music that meant so much to me that had really been tapped into with “High Art.” With the combination of “High Art” and “Pony Express Record,” actually. Those were like the 2 records that most felt like truest to me; closest to home. I was tired of the struggle. Tired of the personality and ego struggle. Tired of going into band practice and getting….

B: Shot down?

W: Not even shot down. Cause most of the songs on “50,000 B.C.” were mine. Just feeling like I was having to compromise something that was important to me. And it was worth it for a while, ‘cause it was for the sake of the band. But after a certain point, it wasn’t worth it. And then I just wanted to do it myself. Which I did…. But I realized how difficult that is. Because working along just isn’t as much fun. Working alone is the most wonderful shangri-la, haven, oasis, in the desert thing when you’re working with other people. But when there isn’t anybody, or there isn’t the right group, it’s just a drag. So I did it – working alone – for like 2 years. I get really deep into the minutiae of things, so I was really starting to go “The Shining” on that motherfucker. I gave myself an August deadline, basically at my Dad’s insistence. He was like, “you have to stop recording in August. You’re going to go on until you’re like 70. So stop.” I thought that seemed reasonable. In order to finish something, you need to finish it. And August came, and it was time to put a group together, because that was the next phase. And figure out how to put it all together in a performance environment, which was something that I was missing so much. That and working with other people. And the show you saw at Brownies was the second of our performances together.

B: Was the last tour Shudder to Think did the “Movie Soundtracks” tour?

W: Mm hmm.

B: I caught that in L.A. at the Roxy.

W: Really? That was a really fun show. Lots of friends were there. That was such a great tour, such a beautiful thing. All that soundtrack stuff we were doing around then was such a breath of fresh air for everybody. Everybody was happy for a brief stint. It was reinvigorating, but it was temporary.

B: And after that were you going in to record another album?

W: We started writing, and the stuff was beautiful. It sounded sort of “Get Your Goat.” Quintessential Shudder to Think-y, but somehow simpler.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

POSTSCRIPT: Wedren did release one excellent but hard to find album with Baby. In addition to a LOT more soundtrack work, he also put out a great solo album called "Lapland." "The Spanish Amnesian" solo album finally did come out, but not until this past year. Shudder to Think partially re-united for a series of shows last year (without Stuart Hill, who has never played music publicly again as far as I know, and with late-era drummer Kevin March) - these shows led to the amazing live album Live From Home on Team Love Records (living overseas, I didn't get to see any of the shows, and I have a bad feeling they won't do it again, which is a real drag). I read recently that Wedren and Nathan Larson recently collaborated on a score for a movie that just played at Sundance called "The Kids Are Alright." Each and every Shudder to Think album is essential as far as I'm concerned.