Frank talk

Mr. Black on the Catholics and the 'pendulum thing'

by Michael Caito

Frank Black and the Catholics

Frank Black has released four solo albums since the demise of the Pixies, the sterling Boston band he fronted through a slew of intense, powerful records. The new self-titled Frank Black and the Catholics was released overseas last week, and domestic issue is planned for late summer. I called him in California.

Frank Black: We just played last night and I ended up pulling an all-nighter just getting back here. I'm totally fried. I just woke up. I just had my deep two-hour sleep.

The Phoenix: Then we'll keep the Kafka and Kant on low. The Little General slid me a tape, and told me you and the Catholics recorded it to two-track.

A: We went to cut a demo -- kind of an expensive demo, to be honest. [Drummer] Scott Boutier, [bassist] Dave McCaffrey and I, we rehearsed at a place I'd rehearsed at off and on for eight-and-a-half years. A little room in a complex called Sound City. The main part is quite a good studio, where we cut our last record, and a lot of famous records have been cut there. Not fancy . . . it's an old studio. No one was in there that weekend, so we literally wheeled our amps across the parking lot from the rehearsal room. We used the house engineer, we were just cutting some demos, didn't have a lotta time, so [we decided to] do it live to two-track. We'd been rehearsing every day for 10 weeks. We cut this live tape. After the second day we suspected that it sounded really good, and maybe subconsciously I knew that that might happen. I like to bite off more than I can chew, and usually I don't chew it . . . it'd be just all talk. I'd be the kind of guy saying, "We can go cut our record live to two-track in three days!!! Woo-hooo!" and it would never happen. That's the kind of guy I am, but I didn't say that. Ifigured maybe if we're lucky we can extract a number from this tape because it came out great. So we recorded for those three days, sequenced them in alphabetical order, picked the best take of each song and called it an album.

Q: The louder you play, it the better it sounds.

A: The engineer made the recording sound exciting. It's simple and everything, but it still always sounds good when we stick it on in a stereo. We're really happy with it.

Q: Would you say the last record had the unifying theme of space and space guys?

A: It was a dominant theme. I didn't really help things much by declaring the record The Cult of Ray after Ray Bradbury. A couple times I've gotten defensive in interviews saying "only half the songs are about space," but I forget I named it that, so it puts it in a certain light no matter how technical I get with the journalist about it. There's not much of that on the new record . . . well, there's one song that is kind of an astronomical theme, but no one will ever figure out which one it is. I'm playin' down the space.

Q: Overall, are you happy?

A: Things are going OK. We have a record deal outside North America. North America's situation's a little frustrating, record labels keep calling up and saying, "Hey man, love to hear your tape," and then for whatever reason they backpedal, either because they think it's not commercial enough or they realize that we're a little too demanding about what we want in the contract. We just don't want some typical shitty deal.

Q: That lots of 19-year-olds would think is a wonderful deal just because they haven't lived through it?

A: There is this kind of rock minimum wage out there, basically what labels call a baby band deal. And you don't want minimum wage after 10 years. We want this, we want this because we know better. Right now record labels are pretty conservative, and they're really watching their pocketbook. The record contract I just got out of, there was a big creative difference of opinion regarding this tape that you've been listening to, however, that was definitely overshadowed by the financial turmoil that the label was thrown into. The alternative rock boom [is over]. They've squeezed it and marketed it as much as they can, and now suddenly there's less a person can do, like myself.

Q: You helped define the parameters of that genre. The conservatism -- is it cyclical?

A: There is a pendulum thing where things get more corporate and more uptight. The mainstream becomes homogenized, cliché, bland. Then it all gets broken up by, say, punk rock in the late '70s. Now everything's way left of center and the pendulum swings the other way gradually over 15 years, so now 20 years after punk we're back in the new kinda dinosaur rock sound, because alternative isn't alternative. I think it might get more corporate still, but sooner or later everyone will think "this sucks" and suddenly indie's big again.

Q: You've seen it in Boston, to a certain extent, but in a small city like Providence, all of a sudden there are tons of rooms and all of a sudden we're inundated with the most musically bereft bands. Then it swings, and there are fewer quality bands for fewer quality gigs, and it seems like those trying times, when gigs are scarce, act as a cauldron for the whole works to distill, and the cream rises to the top with the survivors. Is that a screwy way of looking at it?

A: It totally makes sense.

Q: Will reviewers harp on the recording process?

A: I don't care what the angle is as long as some kind of angle is taken up. I finally broke down and said let's call it a band thing with the Catholics. I don't know whether people will notice or ignore it and call it the new Frank Black record. Or say it's a new beginning. You can't just declare something a group -- lead guy and the so-and-so. You have to earn it before people think this association sounds like this -- Neil Young and Crazy Horse. I hope people get into the angle. Some might care, and if they don't like it, who cares how it's recorded? The first Reverend Horton Heat record was recorded that way, and I noticed. It was a great record and a standard had been set. So I hope this is a little bit of a drawing a line in the sand, a friendly competition sort of thing. Not (singsong), "Ha-ha, we cut a record in three days and didn't overdub nothin'!" Obviously we're proud of it. After 10 years of making records that were overdubbed to death, it feels good be a musician and just play.
Frank Black and the Catholics will perform at the Century Lounge on Friday, May 15 with Lotion and Reid Paley.

NOTHIN' FROM NOTHIN' LEAVES NOTHIN'. Thursday night must flee TV (a.k.a. tonight, 5.14): newly-transplanted Bostonians the Fly Seville entertain at the Century Lounge, as do Purple Ivy Shadows at the Met Cafe. Shuffle to catch both; very doable. Yon Mark Cutler/Rebecca Hart/Johnny West bill on Friday at the Met is very good, three-deep as it is in strong newish records. Kilgore headline Lupo's next door with State of Corruption, Stained and Godsmack. Next Thursday (5.21) at the Met, catch Rock Hunt semifinalists the Indestructibles with Motormags (former and current One Ton Shot Gun/ Mother Jefferson members). Trivia: name the band which once featured current Catholics guitarist Rich Gilbert and new Royal Crowns drummer Judd Williams. First winner gets an ice-cold milk from yrs truly at the shebang for Rudy Cheeks on Sunday at Lupo's. I hear Jackiebeat's doing "Echo Lake" to the tune of Seger's "Fire Lake." To evahbody on Chestnut, Cheeks remains, to quote Silver Bullet Bob, not unlike a rock.