Up close with John Doe and Exene Cervenka

John Doe and Exene Cervenka on stage at Amoeba Records/Image:C.Hope for Style Wylde

Icons, legends, creators of the Los Angeles underground music scene, these titles can all be appropriately given to John Doe and Exene Cervenka. As  founding members of the L.A. Punk band X and accomplished musicians with 30 year + careers under their belts, they have more than earned the right to be included in any list of the most influential performers alive.  But speaking with the pair just before their performance at Amoeba Records on Tuesday night, it was clear that the root of everything is their music, which they have spent a lifetime simply singing and playing. 

SW: Let's start with the evolution of this new album John Doe and Exene Cervenka Singing and Playing, how did you start working on this project, and how did it come to be an actual album which is being released today?

JD: Like a lot of things, someone asked us if we would do just a duet show.  Over the years with all the solo shows Exene has done, or I have done we have frequently sat in with each other so we thought, why not do it?  Then after performing for a while, we thought why not take an afternoon, and record what we have been performing and have to sell at the shows?  That was about a year ago..then Moonlight Graham Records came along, and they had the idea that we should put it out, for everyone to have access to, not just those who had been at our shows. 

SW: Your sound has been described as everything from Alt Country, to Rockabilly to Americana. As musicians, how did you grow into this genre after your start with X, one of the most iconic punk bands in music history? What is it about this genre that attracted you?

JD: Well you have to remember that when we first started we were not iconic,everybody else was doing this on the same level. We just happened to stick around and, not die number one. Because if you die, that just sort of stops all that. Unless you are Tupac. But, there was an element of Rockabilly and an element of Americana in X from the beginning. Billy [Zoom, X guitarist] always had Rockabilly  influences, that is what he brought to X and to Punk Rock in general. If it wasn't for him taking Chuck  Berry licks and putting them into the music, Punk Rock would have been a lesser form. Early on, by 1981 or 1982 Exene and I were listening to country western songs, or even old timey  string bands, and some of the harmonies we did were reminiscent of that. If something is simple and direct, then it's simple and direct. Punk Rock is that, and old timey music is that. There are a lot of similarities between to the two forms. 

EC: There really aren't differences between the genres. 1920's blues and Punk Rock are very similar in essence. The evolution is really just repertoire. It really just comes down to expanding your knowledge about music. The answer is really just, how do you grow as an artist? Well you just grow!

image:C.Hope for Style Wylde

SW: Do you think in the current social/political climate people are being drawn back to the more simple and direct, more primal forms of music as opposed to the synth/computer generated sound that has been so prevalent over the last decade?

JD: I hope so! If anything in the last ten years there has been deeper and wider gaps between different genres of music, you know between what is hugely and widely popular and what is underground music.  But, with music becoming more democratic, with everyone being able to make a song and put it on the internet, there is a glut of music out there. But, there is also a lot of good music being put out.  There are people like M Ward who might blend some orchestration and real musicality and also have some beats. But what I don't understand is the return to House. It's fucking terrible. It was fucking terrible to begin with. It seems like on a lot of levels of popular music there is all this rave shit. Didn't we do that in 1992? But suddenly it's huge now again. I wish there was more political and social content in music. I wish there was  more real coming together in society. I was excited by the Occupy movement at first, but now it feels like it's just a lot of fucking posters on people walls and shit.

EC: For me, I don't really follow popular corporate manufactured culture. I have always liked the same music, and everyone I know has always liked the same exact music for 30 years! But in society there has been a dumbing down with corporate manufactured culture, with Lady Gaga and Madonna and all those women, who have done their damage. It really started with Madonna, and has continued until now. These women have destroyed any kind of non-sexualized vision of a woman that could be presented as a musician and an artist. After that you had to be sexualized.  For women, since the early 80's things have regressed pretty badly. 

SW: In other areas, such as agriculture we've seen a trend in the last few years of people wanting to get back to basics. People want to grow their own food, and use less processed products. People want to shop at small independent businesses. Do you think that can happen with music? Do you think there will be a backlash where people want to ditch their auto tuned pop stars and get back to the real thing?

image:C.Hope for Style WyldeJD: Definitely. I think the local food movement, and the idea that we need to eat better food for health, along with supporting local businesses and people moving their money to credit unions are all trends that I think can have a great effect. These movements are one shining positive light. Music does have a lot of democratic space now. At one time music had this bottle neck it had to go through. There was the music, and then the bottle neck of the media and record companies it all had to go through before actually getting to the people. It was an hourglass type stream. But now it's just music-to-people, straight across. The only thing that is difficult now is to cut through the static, because there is so much more out there. And people like us keep sticking around, so we are just as guilty as the rest!

EC: People have been 'going back' to that rootsy kind of music, always. I think a lot of people I know now are playing 20's music with wash boards and strings and stuff, and 20's jazz which I love, mostly because it's really hard to play, and it's complicated and it's beautiful and good. I've been listening to a bunch of 78's where people were just sitting on their porches playing, and they are INCREDIBLE musicians. Nobody could play with them today. It's like when you listen a big-band recording with a full orchestra, it's great. People like this kind of music because it's real and it's good. The reason to play music is to play music. Not to get rich and famous.

SW: If you were playing, just to play, did you always know that you'd stick around? Did you know that you'd be the survivors, you'd be the ones that would be considered icons 30 years later?

EC: No of course not, how could we know that! You could pick 100 people out of the punk scene and you could never choose who was gonna live and who was gonna die? A few people you might have known were gonna die, but you know the reality is. We thought we were gonna be around forever, but we thought we were gonna die tomorrow at the same time. It was a weird mortality thing I guess.

JD: My theory is that anyone who goes into an artistic endeavor whether it's music or writing or painting or dance, you imagine yourself at a great peak and then falling off the edge. At all times. And then there comes a time in the middle of your career when you wonder if you are going to be allowed to continue because maybe your audience is not as big as it was. But then if you persevere, and you keep doing it, and you don't give up, you remain inspired, and you keep adventuring and challenging yourself then suddenly five or ten years after that rough patch, then people say "OH You're Iconic! You're a statesman!" And you're like alright! I'm a statesman!

image:C.Hope for Style WyldeSW: Does it feel weird when people say that to you, that you are icons?

JD: No, it feels good! I mean it is a little strange, of course. Johnny Cash didn't wake up, look in the mirror and go "How's it going.. icon!" Even though he was.  You know, you become comfortable with whatever mantle people lay on you, and unless you are really negative you embrace it and you don't abuse it. You don't make people jump through hoops and act like a diva. You just sort of say, okay if this is gonna help me get down the line and keep playing I'll embrace it. And you feel like yes, I have worked hard and I am aware of the effect that X has had, and all of our contemporaries have had, and if you stuck around and you're not an asshole you do deserve a little extra attention.

SW: How does it feel to still have a huge impact on a lot of audience members who weren't around in the early days, and some of whom weren't even born yet. Does it feel strange to have a huge impact on so many people? Do You wake up in the morning with a sense of accomplishment?

JD: Huge? Semi-huge maybe. How about a "moderate" following!

EC: NOOO! I don't wake up with a great sense of accomplishment, why would I? I don't know there is no end point. Do I occasionally look back at the past and assess where I've been? Well only if somebody brings it up! 

SW: But how does it feel to still have a huge impact on a lot of audience members who weren't around in the early days, and some of whom weren't even born yet. On some level you must know you that you have a lot fans out there, you guys are hugely influential. Is there a sense of that? 

EC: The thing is that there are no markers in our world. There are no symbols. We don't go on TV, we aren't on the cover of Rolling Stone, we don't sell millions of records, nobody that I respect does. The only symbol of your worth is when someone comes up to you and is like "hey my mom turned me on to you, I'm 19 and I really love your music, thanks." That is the measure of your worth when someone says thanks.

SW: Has the performing changed over the years? Do you feel time and experience has changed who you are as a musician and performer? Is there comfort now compared to how it felt when you were starting out?

EC: I am always nervous when I perform, because there is so much riding on it.  First, you don't want to look like an idiot, you don't want to forget the words, you don't want to forget the chords, you want to be good in voice, you want to be powerful, you want to give them more than they are expecting.That hasn't changed... that never changes in the life of a musician.  If you don't care about all those things, and you're just doing it to make the $50 bucks or whatever, than I don't why you're doing it. 

image:C.Hope for Style WyldeSW: Between the two of you, both together and in all of your solo projects,  you have created a huge library of work. So what is next for you musically? Professionally?

JD: I don't have a plan.  I think not having a grand plan, not knowing what is gonna happen in the future-that is liberating.

EC: I think expectations and hopes are real bad things to do. If you have a lot of expectations then you are trying to tell the universe what's what. I don't have any expectation beyond doing this right now...

Just a short time after our interview, John Doe and Exene Cervenka took the stage at Amoeba, and played to a crowd packed with old punks, Americana-music fans and a surprisingly large number of kids under the age of 12. As they plowed through the set list of songs from John Doe and Exene Cervenka Singing and Playing, the energy created by the pair's obvious passion and memorizing talent was as  intoxicating as the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer Exene occasionally sipped on stage.  The crowd (including the kids) laughed at Exene's jokes, cheered familiar chords, and at times loudly sang along with the songs, giving the performance a strange familial feeling that will stick with this reviewer for years to come. 

 

John Doe and Exene Cervenka Singing and Playing is available at Amoeba records, and online via Moonlight Graham Records. 

[Ed note: due to scheduling and time constraints portions of this interview were conducted with John Doe and Exene Cervenka separately, with identical questions asked and edited together for continuity.]