Just the three countries on this tour then; the US, UK and Spain.
Yes, we got offered the Ian Hunter tour and just built some stuff around it. I wasn't sure about going out and supporting somebody, but the idea is you go out and play to their audience and make some new fans. It's been fun, having to win over some people that don't know you, that's exciting. I wanted to go to Spain; I've never been there apart from acoustic and touring with Ryan Adams; this is the first time with the band. I don't speak Spanish but will try to do some sort of hand language!
How did the tour with Ian Hunter come about? Were you a fan of Mott The Hoople?
I've been saying every night on stage that Mott The Hoople, like Chuck Berry, they are the definition of rock and roll. 'All The Young Dudes' I believe describes rock and roll. I'm a big fan of Ian's solo work; he's got swagger, he's down to earth; he's a real star but he's working class. I have learnt things from him on the road; how to deal with things. I've been playing to crowds that have been going to shows longer than I've been alive.
They're not a young crowd then?
It wasn't emo-core!
Why change the video to Broken Radio? Was that your idea; for the girl to bump into people keeping parts of a radio?
We did the whole thing as a concept with Danny Clinch as the director, who did the whole video with the girl, the park and Handsome Dick Manitoba from The Dictators. At the beginning speaking in a funny accent is producer Giorgio Gomelsky who produced The Yarbirds and Magic Stones; I've known him since I was little kid; an eccentric kind of professor guy; a mentor of mine. They were all in there and then the label decided to make a more performance driven thing so they removed the whole B section but I like the audio one with the girl and all the people giving her parts to build a radio.
Was it filmed in New York?
Down town right near where we rehearse, near Avenue Way. In the park, famous for the riots of the late eighties when the homeless people took on the police of New York. Do the right thing in colour!
Your new video to In The Modern World' has just finished being filmed there, is there a running theme with Glitter in The Gutter music videos?
The theme of the video? The song is about technology and how it can be something that's wonderful, but it can also be you're biggest nightmare. It's great to be able to have the phone and shoot this and film that but you also need your privacy. For me the mystery and romance of music and art means having a little distance. Now what song they played last night and what colour pants they had on is on the internet the next day. What happens on the road; you cheat whatever, it's on the internet. So the video has me getting busted in the shower making out with a girl in the shower naked and then it gets posted all over You Tube; that's the running joke of the video. It's also about surveillance, I think they use September 11th as a tool; an excuse to go bananas on our civil liberties. Getting to download your entire record collection onto a tiny Ipod is great but there's something about carrying a record with the great artwork and the lyric sheet.
You recently hosted Music Mix USA. Could you be a radio DJ if not a songwriter and performer?
I did some DJ stuff here and there, like at my bar Niagara, sometimes I'll do it around town or on tour. I dunno, maybe someday. A few people I know have radio shows, I could do a lot of blabbering; I definitely major in mouth!
Youve worked with Bruce Springsteen, Ronnie Spector, Ryan Adams; if you could work with anyone, living or not, who would it be?
That's tough, I guess Neil Young is a big influence, or Lemmy from Motorhead. [egigs gets excited, as we mention we are going to see the Motorhead show with Joan Jett and Alice Cooper next week] Really? That's a good bill, we were trying to find a show like that to go to. [Jesse then looks at his mangled pizza I have been interrupting him from all the while]. Look at this pizza, it's curled up, it looks like it's starting to get scared of itself!
Is your band called The Heat? Is this after your second solo album?
That was another band we had. We haven't got a name for this band yet, but once you've been on the road for a while you start to give each other digs, personal jokes; maybe a name will come out of that. Otherwise it's Jesse Malin and The Band. I wouldn't like to be JMG like Jesse Malin Group like some progressive shi.......Or you know what's worse? The Jesse Malin Project, that's very serious. JMP, that's the name of the Marshall amp I use. Nice logo. Or like Paul Westerberg's a loner and he lives in Minneapolis so he made a touring band and called it Paul Westerberg And His Only Friends!
Youve been in many bands, each a little different, with loose genres from glam rock, punk, and rock and roll. How were you influenced to make such music?
Yeah, I was in Heart Attack when I was a kid which was a hardcore thrash band and D Generation; a kind of glam punk band, like the New York Dolls and The Stooges with tight pants, creepers, eyeliner and songs about the street. I've moved on because I like songs where people can hear the lyrics. For D Generation I really liked the songs and the lyrics but the people who came to our shows just wanted to be in a moshpit. I could have been singing the phone book and they wouldn't have cared. They just wanted to buy the coats and jackets and not the records; they were more bothered about wearing the right creepers than the music.
What made you strip it down to yourself and a guitar for Fine Art Of Self Destruction and beyond?
In D Generation we would be opening for The Misfits or the Offspring and the audience didn't care about the songs. I'd be listening to Jim Crowchy, The Counting Crows, Ryan [Adams], Steve Earl and Lucinda Williams and I started writing songs in my bedroom when I got home from the tour and I wanted to make a stripped down kind of Tom Waits early years intimate record. I got in the studio with Ryan, and he made it more band orientated. I liked it; it was still low-fi and sounds like a sixties record. Just a couple of microphones, done live in five days, warts and all. I needed to go from that screaming crazy place to a whisper, and now we're bringing rock back into it.
Do you play many festivals, either here or in America?
We played Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza. They're getting better at organising them; though the toilets still get kind of stinky. We did Glastonbury, I enjoyed that a lot. I think you guys have it dialled in a lot more than we have it back in the states; it's more of a lifestyle over here. I don't like mud, and I don't like going to the bathroom in a plastic box, but when you're playing and you're backstage it's better. It's a nice way to hang out and meet other musicians and see a lot of shows. More bang for your buck!
I guess you like the smaller gigs, as you can get the whole crowd sitting down with you?
I've can do that at a big gig. It's a challenge to get a thousand people to sit down. I've done it at Electric Ballroom; I'm gonna try at other venues. It's good to try and get people to try and sit down and sing when you're the support act. Old people, young people, mullets!
The Sex Pistols, Led Zeppelin, and The Police to name a few are touring this month; what do you think to all the comebacks?
I think some things are better left with the memories. I'm not a Police fan, the Sex Pistols were meant to be a band that you were never meant to see. I like that; this is the band you can't see, 'cause they're never gonna get back together, Sid Vicious is dead. Now you can see them if you have enough money. [egigs points out that the tickets are quite cheap, under thirty pounds]. It's cheap? That's cool, but it's probably sold out so you have to buy from ebay! I stand corrected, but I still wouldn't go.
Many bands that I loved in the early nineties; Dinosaur Jr, Buffalo Tom, The Cure, plus some without frontmen like Alice In Chains and Blind Melon, are all back again. What do you think to the reunions?
For good reason, they can't get those guys back from the ground! The Stooges are back, that's cool. So is Big Star, The Raspberries, but you won't get The Ramones or The Clash.
Would you go see bands that are back after, say, a decade?
Oh definitely, I would go see Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Elton John. I'd go see The Dead Kennedys if they would let Jello [Biafra] sing! [eGigs again points out that we are going to Jello's spoken word show next week. A busy week]. He's great, but get ready for four hours of talking. You think I talk a lot, but he has a lot more to say, a lot of information, and a lot more to give.
Do you ever see yourself leaving New York (maybe for a quiet life in the country, or to another country altogether)?
If I could have enough money to keep a place there and then go hide like Charles Manson up in those hills! I like New York, even though it keeps changing. I don't know where else would I live. Up state New York is like a whole other country, but I like Los Angeles, San Francisco; I love Chicago. I like London and I like Liverpool. They have great music and clubs in Liverpool, and the girls wear nothing, even if it's freezing outside. I don't know what that's about, it's an English thing!
Does touring and visiting these places influence your song writing?
When you're away from New York and away from your friends and you're looking out of the window of a car or van on the motorway you get lonely and it puts you into a place where you feel vulnerable, and a lot of times stuff comes out of that, when you're really uncomfortable and you're lost. At home it's great and inspiring but everyone knows your name like that show Cheers; slapping your back and getting you a beer; like a big fish in a small pond. It's good to go out and play Leicester on a Monday night. Who the fuck knew that people would know the songs and sing a long? I didn't know, I thought this gig would suck
I read somewhere that you would like to open a club as a tribute to Joey Ramone.
Yeah. I was talking to his brother Mickey. He was a friend of mine; when I broke up D Generation and wanted to make my own record he leant me some money. For a lot of musicians their thing is money, drugs, sex; his was rock and roll. Everyday, listening to records; very excited. Bruce Springsteen's the same way, people that are passionate about rock as an art form and after they've been doing it for so many years is rare; people get jaded; I don't think Bob Dylan cares that much any more, though he has a good radio show. We didn't get this club going, but maybe some day. Joey would have liked that; to have a club, he was a guy who liked to put on shows and go to shows. We miss you Joey.
Whats the plan for 2008?
I'm gonna come back, hopefully do a covers record, with covers from everything from Johnny Thunders to The Hold Steady to Elton John; just a wide variety of things that influenced me from Jim Crowchy to The Lords Of The New Church. Do that, do a new record, always more touring; more festivals next summer, learn how to bungee jump, water ski, shoot people with high powered water guns, stuffed animals on stage coming out of the sky for the plushies emo Flaming Lips tribute concert!! All that good stuff, just keeping it positive and trying to stay out of a day job. If you can travel and they give you peanut butter and beer and people show up I will come and play.
article by: Danielle Millea
photos by: Danielle Millea
published: 10/11/2007 17:56
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