NoMeansNo – Stay Tunned Folks! (2007)

RockLine: First, let me say how happy and thrilled I am, on behalf of myself and the whole Slovenian crowd, to have you back here again.

Johnny: Thanks so much.

RockLine: Your past gigs here have knocked the socks off even the most reserved listeners. What are your expectations for tonight’s show?

Johnny: I hope tonight turns out as close as possible to what we’ve witnessed here so far. (laughs) We’ve been welcomed amazingly here every single time since we started coming to Slovenia. Considering we first played Ljubljana in 1988, it’s worth pointing out how radically things have changed in the last twenty years. Not just in Slovenia but in all the Eastern Bloc countries. Twenty years is plenty of time to make friends with quite a few people here, and some familiar faces keep coming back again and again. Thank God… (laughs) that’s definitely good for us.

RockLine: Absolutely. Last time you were here, you were celebrating your 25th anniversary, which you marked with the album One. Let’s rewind a bit further. If I’m not mistaken, it all started way back in 1979 …

Johnny: It wasn’t so much the birth of the NoMeansNo idea. It’s more that my brother and I decided to write and record a few songs. Rob bought a four-track recorder, which at the time was honestly the pinnacle of technology. We started writing music and playing together. There was a growing commotion around punk in Victoria, Canada back then, which Tom (Holliston, the guitarist, who’d just wandered backstage and cracked open a hard-earned beer …) was also listening to, so it was only logical that we wanted to make something different from what ABBA or Queen were doing at the time, and we wanted to leave our own mark on the awakening scene too. As for the actual birth of NoMeansNo, that came a year later, when Rob and I decided it was time to lose our live virginity and get up on stages. At first there were just the two of us – bass and drums, because we honestly didn’t know a suitable guitarist to play with. Then we met Andy Kerr, who stayed with us until 1991, and we met Tom, our current guitarist, while touring with our side project, the Handson Brothers. Rob also played with Tom in Showbusiness Giants, which was originally Tom’s music. Then we kidnapped him … (laughs) And forced him to become part of our band, whether he liked it or not (laughs).

RockLine: Since you brought up Andy’s departure, let me aim this one at you, Tom: what are the quality criteria a guitarist has to meet to fill Andy’s shoes?

Tom: I never tried to fill Andy’s shoes, since I already had my own on (laughs). That’s my answer.

RockLine: And was that the only lineup change inside the NoMeansNo camp?

Johnny: Around that time our friend Ken Kempston also joined and played drums in the band. Tom stepped in around our planned trip to Australia, where we toured with fellow Canadians D.O.A., which was really something else, interesting, a big adventure. Since we’d decided to change something up, we started wondering how NoMeansNo would sound with an extra drum kit, which we tried out in the studio first, and then somebody suggested trying it live too. It was a change that pulled at least a little attention away from Tom and pointed it somewhere else, so people could say: “OK, changes were made, and NMN decided to try a new sound and new recipes too!” That’s how it went for the next two and a half years, but since the ship was heading off in its own direction and Tom had fully settled into the band, we decided to trim things back down to a three-piece. The experimental period was short but sweet, which is cool and fun, but we’re really glad to be a trio and a rock’n’roll band again. You’ve got to keep the structure of what you do as simple as possible, right?

RockLine: A lot has changed since the eighties, like you said. For a while the progressive experimentalists handed the throne over to bands with a live, do-it-yourself style, who didn’t layer much in the studio or overcomplicate things. What’s your studio approach?

Johnny: A lot of what we record is full of overdubbing. You’ve got to use the studio to the fullest and squeeze the last juicy drop out of what it offers. First we record the basic structure and skeleton, which we build together, and then there’s plenty that needs polishing up. You swap out and re-record certain parts. Tom lays down guitar parts that amp up and thicken the sound. We use the studio as an extra piece of gear, as a studio. To be honest: sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t … (laughs) Not everything we’ve put out belongs in the “incredible achievements” category, but at least they’ve all got a certain charm of their own … (laughs)

RockLine: The next thing that strikes the innocent listener is that you recreate patterns of your sound, but not in some dryly identical way. So the experiments do work. But what’s the sacrilegious act that would make you hit the wall of limits and admit that something just can’t be a NoMeansNo product?

Johnny: Maybe we’ve already hit that outer limit. Hard to judge. We approach music as music. We create and write music, and the paths to the goal can vary. My brother Robbie writes lines for lyrics, sometimes even a whole song, while Tom and I start gathering ideas by jamming on what’s on offer. On the last record we took the opposite route. We had a pile of music without lyrics. A fair bit of it is weird music that doesn’t qualify as riff rock. But once the guitars and bass are working, Robbie gets ideas for lyrics, opens the valves, and the songs morph into something entirely different, something whole. Most songs start with you getting them going, nursing them along, and then they grow into fully independent musical entities. At some point, if you only use logic, it’s hard to predict what shape they’ll take. In the end you listen to the material, you listen to it so you understand it, and you feel how a given song should work. That’s how the weak links drop out of the lineup. Only that way can an album get its own distinct character. It’s not about some well-thought-out idea you saw coming in advance. On the last album we wanted to carve out a path with shorter songs, more punk rock, stuff that would be easier for listeners to grasp and get into. NoMeansNo One was a long album, meant for sit-down listening in an armchair, and definitely not a party album. Six years went by and we put out a new record, with which we wanted to fire a fresh projectile straight into your face …

RockLine: Speaking of One – besides the Ramones, who’ve been your role model in the past, you also served up a cover to end all covers: you wrote a lyrics-enriched vision of Miles Davis’s ‘Bitch’s Brew’. That took a hefty dose of musical know-how and above all guts, since not just any clown sets out to play Miles’s music, let alone record it …

Johnny: Robbie is a huge Miles Davis fan. He puts Miles Davis at the very top of his musical obsessions and honestly loves him. So he came up with the idea of writing not just a song but a prose piece, a story, borrowing the title and writing the lyrics. That was his idea, after which he had to write the lyrics and make something new. Then we went into the studio and started recording what was supposed to be just a studio project, and then we found ourselves in the position of staging One in its entirety on stage, twice. In Vancouver we performed with the one-of-a-kind Canadian lineup ZOO, who are otherwise Italian masters, total lunatics, I admit, with an amazing baritone sax player, and they’d been invited to a jazz festival … They picked us as their guests. The festival organizers called us, which is pretty weird, since we’re not a jazz band … They were probably looking for something interesting that would break out of narrow frames, and we figured that if there was ever a right moment to play ‘Bitch’s Brew’ live too, this was it. We polished up the recording and invited the aforementioned ZOO saxophonist Luca to join us on stage. The song has two parts, and in the second the keyboards pass the passages back and forth, and we deliberately dropped out, so he jumped in to fill the gaps in the second musical half. The song is just long. The experience was pure fun. The other thing was the Ramones, who’ve always been our darlings, so picking that material was much more spontaneous.

RockLine: The Ramones are easier to connect with what you do in The Hanson Brothers, though …

Johnny: Definitely … (laughs) The Hanson Brothers are just our alter ego, pretending to be the Ramones. (laughs)

RockLine: When I listened to your latest album All Roads Lead To Ausfahrt, the title hit me first. I started wondering whether you’re saying goodbye with this record, since Ausfahrt means “exit” in German.

Johnny: I hope not. It doesn’t mean goodbye. It was just a joke, because there’s a running gag on the road that Ausfahrt is the biggest city in Germany, since all roads lead to “Ausfahrt”. And our sound guy actually said it out loud (laughs). The idea for the album title was right there for the taking.

RockLine: Since the more common saying is that all roads lead to Rome, you could’ve gone poetic with your next record, but Ausfahrt is the funnier twist! So what’s the story behind the latest album?

Johnny: There’s no solid story or concept. It’s just a bunch of weird-sounding songs that clustered together like a bunch of grapes. We wanted to make a faster record than the last one. We worked with Blair Calibaba, who sharpened up the sound as the sound engineer. We were surrounded by new faces, hit up brand-new studios, approached the album differently and freshened up the sonic look. The title All Roads Lead To Ausfahrt also suggested a great idea for the cover, and I think the artwork is minimalist but effective … It’s also our little homage to our German fans, who’ve stayed truly loyal all these years, so the name of the record is totally logical and cool.

RockLine: So no metaphysics, no metaphorical farewell to the scene?

Tom: (laughs) Hmmm… No! People often ask us whether this is our last tour, and they were asking even before the record came out.

Johnny: Every tour we head out on is our last. Every gig is our farewell, but look: we’re still here! Despite the years! (laughs) NoMeansNo are always on the verge of falling apart, and yet the thing’s been rolling along in spite of everything for the last ten or fifteen years. When Andy left, plenty of people speculated that we’d break up, but… I don’t know … Whatever we do, there’ll be someone who imagines something of their own (laughs).

RockLine: A lot of Canadian bands can be counted, with a clear conscience, among the influences that shaped and carved out the face of today’s music scene. What’s your take on the current music scene?

Johnny: I think it’s hard to grasp and impossible to define. A lot of punk rock today is mostly commercial. Punk has grown into a pop phase. The world undoubtedly no longer has an underground scene as strong and influential as the one in the eighties, when most people were closely tied together politically and ideologically. That scattered after certain influential guys got older, and the young guard doesn’t have any solid, institutionalized backing of a solid scene, because one like there used to be simply doesn’t exist anymore.

RockLine: Similar, then, to how we can call the proverbial NYHC scene into question, as I was thinking during Sick Of It All’s last visit.

Johnny: People just get older, and the kids come in with a whole new outlook and attitude. Sometimes things get better, but often they get worse. Take the nineties, for example: kids warmed their ears up to rap and hip – hop, house, and that was the peak of interest at the time. Unfortunately, a lot of the good and positively minded stuff just fell away. There wasn’t much learned from past experience and positive aging. Still, lots of bands keep popping up and filling the gaps. Lots of good ones. I don’t keep up with the pace and the scene anymore. I also don’t read the music press or listen to the radio and so on. There are some great bands, and we’re playing with one of them today, from Vancouver, that pleasantly surprise you. Where did I first see Invasivse?

Tom: I think that was about three years ago or something like that … I think they were the opening act on the bill when we were promoting the second-to-last record … I think it was at the gig where we played with the band Removal.

Johnny: Right … They were on the bill.

Tom: They’re great guys and a heartfelt, quality band.

Johnny: They’re excellent people and musicians, and that’s how they ended up on our short Hanson Brothers tour. Through their connections they were looking for bands to promote and support them, and the call got redirected to our address. They’ve got three quality albums, and what really stands out is a brand-new, still-unreleased album you’ll be able to hear next year. It’s an honor to be able to help and offer people something fresh, enticing and outstanding. What could be better than that, especially if the band’s Canadian? The next treat was ZOO, whom we met when their bassist organized our gig in Italy. They’re all connected with bands like The Ex, and they recorded with Steve Albini, who’s also an excellent musician playing in numerous lineups. He’s more part of the avant-garde music scene. When you play with them, you make acquaintances, but like I said, nobody’s really tuned in to the current music scene to the point where they’d dare say they know it inside out. We don’t follow the pulse of modern music … (laughs)

RockLine: So what about a possible surprise of the evening? What are the chances we’ll get an incarnation of The Hanson Brothers at this gig?

Johnny: No … You’re not that lucky tonight, sorry.

RockLine: What are your plans for the future (short-term and long-term)?

Johnny: Right now we’re wrapping up the last of five NoMeansNo Ausfahrt European tours that have been going since last December. Before that we did a couple of Canadian ones and a US tour. We’re at the tail end of a very long string of gigs. We’ve played 150 or 160 … 180 shows. So the short-term plans smell like rest. (laughs) Long-term, we hope to make some new music soon. Next year we’re heading to Norway. We’re gathering material for a live album by The Hanson Brothers, which is already recorded, so it’d be really nice to get suitable artwork and put the record out. Next year we’ll also play a few Hanson Brothers gigs. But we don’t have any firm plans, since we’re all hoping for a well-earned vacation.

RockLine: On our end, we always wrap up with a message for our readers. What’s your message?

Tom: Turn the page, because something even better and tastier is cooking on the next one. (laughs)

Johnny: And: “Stay Tunned!”