GRAHAM PARKER TALKS!

Talking to the shrimpy Graham Parker, who is definitely a living legend and one of my all-time favorite artists, in person, was one of the highlights of my journalistic career. He's kinda grumpy and I laughed too much at his stupid jokes, but it was great. I talked to him last November when he was on tour with The Figgs.

MSD: The tour's going well?
GP: Yeah. People are digging what I'm doing with this band. A lot of people don't know [the new material], so they come to the gig to see The Figgs, then see the Figgs come out again with me.
MSD: And they come out again in suits, right?
GP: Yeah.
MSD: Are you wearing a suit, too?
GP: Naaah. That's the thing. The young guys have to dress like backclerks and I dress in an oversize T-shirt. lt looks pretty good.
MSD: "Beancounter [from Acid Bubblegum], is a slam at rigorous, programmed behavior. Do you include yourself in that group?
GP: No. I often include myself in my critical songs, but I'm not in that one. That's about everyone else.
MSD: Well ... you have a regular output, with an album every year or so.
GP: Maybe I am a bean counter. There's the next verse I should've added.
MSD: Talking about being critical--it seems to be you've been overly harsh on some of your own output.
GP: I'm more critical of the recordings of the songs. I think the songs hold up. It's usually arrangement things. Like "Get Started, Start a Fire"...there's one bit in there where the chorus goes on too long. "Can't Take Love for Granted" just goes on and on. My voice--my voice makes me cringe a bit. I think my voice is much better now. l'll probably listen to Acid Bubblegum in a few months time and think, "I didn't quite get it then." That is what drives you one to the next one. My feeling is, I want to wipe out what I just did what I just did. You never think you've quite got it... You've got to get back on the horse and do it again.
MSD: "Bubblegum Cancer." Is that a comment on the state of affairs today?
GP: I got the idea of the chords first, then the punchline, which means nothing, in a way, although you can attach meaning to any of these things--like "Strawberry Fields." It's fluffy, bubblegum kind of music. "Bubblegum Cancer"'s sort of a T-Rex idea. I wrote those lyrics as kind of word association, theme association, without considering any meaning at all--it was fun to do. I tend to take weighty emotional matters and dismantle them and put them back together again. "Bubblegum Cancer" is a lot more fun, to play with words like that. I haven't done that so much for a while, since maybe "Human Soul."
MSD: You're doing "Daddy's a Postman" off that album on this tour, right?
GP: Yeah. We've been playing that, which is never before....
MSD: How do you whittle down a set list?
GP: As much as anything, gut feeling. Certain songs I really don't want to do and certain songs, I think, will suit a band, whether Ilve hired musicians, or in this case, a self-contained band. I wanted to do things I thought would be appropriate. You just start off from the standpoint that you cannot please everybody and sometimes you cannot please many people at all. You've got to dd it for yourself. You do it for what makes sense for the singing and what makes sense for the musicians. "Daddy's a Postman" was a strange example of a song you wouldn't ordinarily do but it seemed to pop out as a good one for this band.
MSD: Do you rehearse a lot of songs?
GP: No. It's like six days rehearsal, which is a very short amount of time. I like things to be very good--I don't like them to be half good. I want them to be pretty damn good by the time we get to the first gig. So I picked 24 songs. The Figgs picked out a few, but I like to keep them very tight. I've many a problem on the road with vocals, losing bits of my voice.
MSD: Is that a problem with a solo tour, then?
GP: No. Singing is not a problem with solo--it's great. Solo has made me a better singer. It's more enjoyabie singing solo--it's just good for the voice. I'd recommend it to anybody in a band who loses their voice through fighting with the band and all the bad monitors and stuff. You learn technique, which I've never done.
MSD: Are you cutting some of the regular songs then?
GP: I've never done anything over and over. Maybe "Discovering Japan" has been one that I've done quite regularly. There are some. For instance, I did a tour in '92 in which I did a song from each album, chronologically, then finished the set with eight songs from the new album, which happened to be Burning Questions. From those albums I picked obscure songs, like "Nothing's Gonna Pull You Apart," from Howling Wind--something called "Canned Laughter" from Steady Nerves. I like to do that, because you'd have to be there for six hours a night singing--which is not possible for me. It's impossible. Tonight we do "Local Girls," which I did with Graham Parker and the Rumour and a couple of other bands. The Figgs wanted to do it.
MSD: The comments I've read on the other shows on the tour is that you seem to be enjoying yourself a lot.
GP: It's great. When I went into rehearsal, it was like, "You take the songs-and l'll sing 'em." I only play electric guitar on like two or three numbers. I play acoustic on about a dozen. A lot of the others I just sing, which I haven't done since GP and the Rumour. That's what I needed to do, especially after the last tour, which was me on guitar. No other guitars. So I had to play very well, the best I can-and l'm no virtuoso. I have to play the best I can when there's no other guitar. This is fun. I give the numbers to The Figgs and I say, "You play 'em, and l'll sing'em"-I'm not too critical.
MSD: No weird guitar tunings on this album?
GP: No G tunings. I didn't want to carry an extra guitar, so I won't be doing anything off of "Twelve Haunted Episodes." lt is sometimes my way to blow the last album out of the water like it didn't exist. It's a sort of perverse act of mine to do that, I tend to like to do that.
MSD: You said in a recent interview that songwriting is an arduous process for you.
GP: It's filled with anxiety. You don't know what's going to come out. lt's not like something you controi, like building a wall. I can write songs'tit l'm falling off a log, but they won't be any good. The good ones take real work.
MSD: How do you know when a song's any good?
GP: lt just holds up. I weite stuff and I sometimes slave away at something and it's no good until a certain point in time when they do nothing-I just know it doesn't pass the test. I keep working, and what that leads to, is something better. Its definitely in a consciousness state, in its own and in its self--it's a bit like something induced. I sort of know when ifs happening, because I've worked at it. I've been working, with a guitar at something that isn't good enough. Thats why it's arduous, is that it's so disappointing to realize that it's not easy. lfs so disappointing to write something that's substandard. You think, "This is it--I've lost it." But when tfiey work, its obvious--it's totally credible nine times out of ten. There are one or two that I go in and demo, wondering. Some of them are a little fishy-but I let'em go sometinies. I let a few fishy ones go, but mostly, I think they're credible and they hold up. ffs just a feeling.
MSD: You don't try them out for your family?
GP: Well, my wife hears me playing. She hears me writing a rocker on acoustic guitar and she says it sounds "Spanish." I tell her, "That's because l'm writing on an acousfic guitar-it won't be Spanish--it'll be rock and roll." She likes the rock and roll. She doesn't like it when I get too ballady.
MSD: But you've been doing that for a few years.
GP: And she's like, "Okay-If you must."
MSD: "Graham's being sensitive again."
GP: Yeah. (rolling his eyes) Sorry about that. I'm getting old. I can't help it, for fuck's sake. I don't bounce off of people a lot. I don't want other people's opinion. I guess I'm scared.
MSD: How many kids do you have now?
GP: Two. I have an eleven year old daughter and a ten-month old son.
MSD: When you have to sing and rock James...
GP: We call him Jimmy..
MSD: When you have to rock him to sleep, do you sing him your own songs?
GP: No.
Parker begins to sing a meandering version of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." Laughter follows.
GP: The first time I played guitar for him, it was silence. He was just stunned. This bizarre instrument. Now he's kind of blase already--"Daddy's doing his stupid thing."
MSD: Are you surprised that some of your songs, particularly "You Can't Be Too Strong," still prompts such a strong debate amongst your fans?
GP: It's funny. I guess it's good--you don't want to disappear, you don't want to be forgotten. I'm not known for hits, so I might as well be known for songs.
MSD: You hear a lot of odd explanations on how that song began.
GP: I don't really think about it-it's not meant to be anything much. I just wrote it drunk one night-I didn't think it was any good, anyway. That's actually one I wrote as a mid-tempo country tune. The producer said--"This is pretty heavy, why don't you slow it down." That was it. I didn't consider it to be anything much until I heard it back and went "Oh, shit. What have I done now?" A lot of these things I dont know what they are until I hear them back in the studio-even after the demo stage, I know they're good, I know they hold water, I really don't know what I was trying to say or what it would come over like. Only when it's finished and you can hear the mix back until I go, "Oh, God-what have I done." Generally. "That's fuckin' scary--this guys a lunatic." That's generally what I'm feeling. Its a revealing thing.
MSD: What has surprised you most about being in this stage of your career?
GP: I thought I would make one or two albums and disappear or something. I thought it was something that wore off. I just thought that I would bum out. That's what the expectations are. Because in the'70's, it was the expectations. I didn't imagine I would make an album like Acid Bubblegum now. I think it's pretty good and I think it's credible-and that's not the case of a burned-out guy. I've got to be pleased. When I write a song like "Sharpening Axes," I have to say, "Wow! Thank God for that."
MSD: There was a period during the '80's when it seemed a prerequisite for a musician to have some kind of drug problem. Did you have a problem?
GP: lt was totally prevalent in the '80's. It was everywhere all the time. In those days, even your accountant or your attorney would come backstage and say, "You want to have a bang? Let's go in the bathroom and have a snuff." lt was just everywhere. It's not now. Its there, sure, but it doesn't really happen. It's just something you go through and hope you survive. I never took heroin, which is a lucky thing. There were plenty of drugs, all the time. When I started, I was smoking dope all the time. That was just what you did-woke up in the morning and got stoned. Now, I couldn't remember a word of my songs if I got stoned.
MSD: That's why some bands have teleprompters.
GP: I need 'em. My memory is not as good as it should be. But I think that's from being on the road and traveling. lt was just something that everybody seemed to do. And the coke thing was just a craze--a major craze. Its just something that most people survive.
MSD: You did a tour with Dave Edmunds and Dion some years back. I wondered why you don't do more collaboration-type of things.
GP: I don't push myself around. When I'm out of the business, I'm out. I just live my life. I've got a life-I play soccer, I go skiing, tennis, I've got my family. I've got my place in London. I play soccer twice a week, which I haven't done since I was fourteen. lt gets in your blood, competing at a violent sport-it's really great. I don't push myself around. I got off at that--I only have to sing 35 minutes--sounds like a breeze. I got to play with Steve Cropper, for Christ's sake. I could do something like that if it came up again--I don't look for it.
MSD: So there'll be no duets with Julio Iglesias?
GP: That would be unlikely--sort of a mismatch.
MSD: You like to throw in the odd cover to your set--Prince's "Cream" and Nirvana's "In Bloom" have been recent additions.
GP: Yeah. I was actually doing "Stop in the Name of Love" on one tour--with acoustic guitar. Works great. I do these things, then move on.
MSD: Anything you want to add, anything that's burning in your soul?
GP: Naaa.

Hey--if you haven't checked out the Graham Parker web site from John Howells, do so now!

Reproduced with kind permission from Steve J. Johnson.

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