1997-11 Indie Press
He Might Be John Linnell
Author Unknown, Indie Press, November 1997
Archived from: https://web.archive.org/web/20031023072441/http://www.tmbg.net/articles/indieinterview1997.html
After nearly a decade of making music with his counterpart sharing the same first name, John Linnell sits back with an aura that exudes a comfortable satisfaction. Here is half of the creative duo making up They Might Be Giants. He is soft-spoken, polite, and articulate as he discusses the not-so-recent additions to the band, expanding their number from a solitary two, "We're still settling in even though we've had a band for about almost 5 years now. We started out as a duo and we did that for ... we played out as They Might Be Giants as a duo for 9 years," his voice comes clear and direct. "And the getting used to a live band, that took quite a while. There was a period where we were kind of reproducing the tape show except with live musicians and we've become much looser over the years. Over the past few years, particularly in the last couple of years, the band has really kind of gotten loose. It's changed a whole lot. It's probably started to affect the way that we write right now. I think the songs that we're writing were not so dramatically different right off the bat, and now we're starting to think about what kinds of things live musicians can play and stuff like that."
But when discussing his own musical talent, he humbles himself, "I feel like I'm technically better at writing chords and melodies and stuff, but the ideas for the songs are still really difficult."
John Linnell, like his partner, John Flansburgh, diverged from They Might Be Giants to pursue his own interests, which he suggests does breath new life into the band - like working with Steve Albini and Jon Spencer. He becomes animated as he speaks on the different chemistries and recording techniques, "I played sax on the first Jon Spencer record with my friend Kurt Hoffman, who is friends with Jon Spencer and has played on his records a bunch. It was the fastest recording we ever made, I mean that I ever made.
"I went in with Kurt and we got our horns warmed up and then, Jon explained what he wanted in a very, you know, sort of perfunctory way ... and said, 'This is pretty much it.' He kinda sang and played guitar and then was like, 'Okay." And we kinda talked about it for a second and then ... and Steve Albini was the producer, he just started rolling the tape and we were playing along, and then they were like, 'Okay, yeah ... that sounds like that might work.' And he was like, 'Okay. That's it. You're done.' You know, and we were sort of like, 'Oh, I thought we were rehearsing.'"
"It was really, like, different. Pretty much the opposite of what John and I (do), which is spend a long period of time tinkering over every little detail."
John Linnell is a man who does not mince words, nor does he express himself in a way that perhaps other may expect. When questioned by a fan what he thought of the music scene today, his reply came without ceremony or clouded in niceties, "I guess I'm not so much interested in movements. I think I really like individual, personal work, you know, and that's always what I've preferred. I think that a movement is sometimes like a coincidence of different people who are working along the same line. But it's usually not the movement, but the individual work that's interesting, you know, and the people that come up with something personal to say. That's what's exciting to me, so ... there's a lot of not just individual artists, but individual songs that I think are good. And then, beyond that, it's sort of like I don't know if I want to ally myself to some, you know, general trend."
Indie Press managed to capture a few minutes out of John Linnell's hectic schedule, to parley about the current tour, the East Village scene of the early 80s, and what the future holds for They Might Be Giants.
IP: Did your band have any goals or accomplishments you wanted to achieve when you set out on this tour?
JL: On this particular tour, you mean?
IP: Yes.
JL: Umm, well, we're sort of on a tour that doesn't ... it's not really in support of an album. We came out with an album about a year ago and that's more or less ... you know, that tour's finished. We've had another thing come out since then, which is a two record set of ... it's a compilation of all our 80's material.
IP: Right ... Then: the Earlier Years.
JL: That's right. And we've more or less finished promoting that as well, so what we're doing now is doing some shows to ... well, there's a couple things going on. We're kind of preparing new material. We've got a new bass player, so we're sort of breaking him in, and we're also paying some bills... So that's more or less what this is and we'll be winding up in New York in November ... October or November, actually, doing ... well, I guess November and possibly December.
IP: You mentioned the compilation, Then: the Earlier Years. Did you have a strategy toward putting that out? Was it demand from the fans for the earlier material?
JL: Well, this stuff was not in print, it wasn't really available, you know. So we felt that it would be a good way to ... I think for some people for it's, you know, they have a special place in their hearts for the earliest stuff that we did and the fact that it wasn't available was kind of too bad. So we cut a new deal with Restless where we packaged it with a lot of demos and stuff. And a pretty nice package, I think. We got this illustrator, Tony Millionaire, to put together a thing, and it's also helping to get people ... I mean, it's working both ends. The people who liked us once who maybe have stopped paying attention can check out that record, and it's something for them. Also, if people who bought the last record but don't know anything about our history, that's something else that they can buy. So, you know, it has those functions.
IP: You've had solo projects you've both done. How do you think they've affected the band?
JL: I think that ... I wouldn't really say ... I can't think of a way that ... I've done very limited kinds of things, just mostly recordings for the Hello Club, which Mr. Flansburgh runs. I can't think of a concrete way that that's affected what we're doing now.
I do have this strong feeling that John (Flansburgh) putting out Mono Puff kind of got him amped up about writing songs last year, just in time for us to start making the record Factory Showroom. Because even though he'd been writing all this material for Mono Puff, and working really hard on that, he wrote some of the best ... I think some of the best songs he'd ever written for the last They Might Be Giants record. And it really seemed that he kinda got warmed up by doing Mono Puff, you know. I mean, I really love the Mono Puff record, too, but I think it was ... it was the opposite of what I probably (in the back of my mind) fearing, which is that John would save his best songs for his solo project and that the table scraps would go on the THEY MIGHT BE (GIANTS record -ed). Not that I though he would do that, but that it would dilute his output if he was working on something else. In fact, it actually made him do more work and more interesting work ... maybe it was a coincidence.
IP: Is there someone in the industry that you, yourself, would work with ... outside of They Might Be Giants?
JL: Um, right ... I don't know. You know, I've actually been asked that question a few times recently and my instant response is, "Oh yeah, I should really think about that and I'll give you answer tomorrow" and I've though of and thought of this dream, you know ... Whitney Houston would be great to work with … (he smirks)
No, I really don't have a particular ... I mean, John and I have collaborated in this particular way that has to do with a very long standing friendship that we've had, and it's not the kind of thing where we just jumped into it and started jamming. You know, we've known each other since we were in our early teens. We had a very close sensibility, you know ...
I have a lot of other friends who are musicians, they're not ... and they're people that I have, in some way, worked with at one time ... Both John and I have worked with some of our friends, even on They Might Be Giants projects, um, so I suppose I could do more of that. But I've never really figured out the ideal, like, person to go stalk ... find, you know ... stand outside their window and say, "I want you to be in our video" or something.
IP: Where are the band's influences coming from currently?
JL: Well, you know, we always squirm when we get asked that question, because it's ... I think part of the reason is that we're not even 100 percent sure ourselves, but also ... it's a really good question! I always want to know about other bands, you know, what they listen to and what they like. Unfortunately, I think with us ... I really feel that the answer is really more boring than the ... I mean, we like a lot of the same stuff everyone else likes, and the thing about what we're doing that we like the most is, maybe, is the part that's different from the stuff that we actually like, you know.
I mean ... John and I are of a certain age ... when we were, like, infants the Beatles were popular, and that's probably like the most important thing about everything that we've done ... is that I sang Beatles songs when I was taken on car trips when I was a kid, you know. And there was a whole, kind of a series of things that happened in music after that that had an effect on both of us. We were in high school, there was this dramatic thing that happened which was it suddenly became okay and sort of fashionable to have a band if you didn't know how to play an instrument. This is the late 70's and suddenly, like, anyone could have a band, you know, and that was super encouraging to us.
So that was a big thing, and there were a lot of interesting artists at that time, just doing very ... I think one of the things that was interesting to us then was just the diversity of what was considered to be a scene, but it was composed of such completely diverse elements that it was hard to see what even made it a single scene, you know. I mean, there was the Ramones on one hand, and then, you know, The Talking Heads and ... I mean, I can't even give you the whole list, because it's too long, but there were so many different things and they were all considered to be part of the "now" scene, you know, and that seemed very healthy to us.
IP: And being in New York, you were more exposed to it more, than say, people here in Washington (DC).
JL: Yeah, actually, we weren't in New York at that time. John and I were outside Boston at that time and we were really interested in New York, because that seemed to be where a lot of the stuff was going on. But we didn't live there, and by the time that we moved there, which was in the early 80's, it was sort of like all the band and things that were going on had all moved away. It was, you know, we were there and there was no scene left. So, you know, it was something else by that time.
By the middle 80's, there was a different thing going on, which was there were these little clubs doing what was referred to as "performance art" at that time, and John and I were not performance artists -- we were in a band, but we kinda got to play on the same bill as people who were doing something that had nothing to do with music, and that was sort of ... that felt like home for us. You know, we were doing the rock set next to the people who would just come out and talk or do some pantomime or something. And that was the East Village scene in the early and middle 80's. That was kind of how the whole thing germinated for us. What we're doing now came out of that.
IP: Do you have a song that, when you play it live, moves you in some way because of something in the past that's happened?
JL: There are things that are fun on stage that are kinda like special moments. In one thing that's easy to sort of pull this one out is there's part of the song "Spy" where we do a live, conducted improvisation on stage. And the thing that's interesting to me about that is that it's completely different from one night to another. I don't think we've ever done anything like the same version of that song twice. And we just ... we come up with a lot of different ideas for it.
But the basic things is that we play the song and then we finish and one of us is conducting the rest of the band ... just getting all sorts of different things to happen through one way or another. Sometimes we sing little songs in between the noise that the band is making, or play some cover or something else happens. Sometimes we don't ... I guess for me, sometimes I don't think of what I'm going to do with "Spy" until right at the moment as it's starting and then I have the idea and we go into it. And that's really, like, crazy ... it's exciting.
We have a set list and we figure out what we're going to do, but there ... sometimes it gets a little bit more pretty crazy and chaotic than we would like. One example of our perceptive versus the audience's is ... sometimes things go wrong, and John and I are miserable because everything's screwed up and the show's kind of ground to a halt. But because of this, the audience is really enjoying themselves because they're getting to see some ... they're getting to see us squirming and sweating and ... you know, eating ourselves. And for some reason, people like that. We don't enjoy that.
IP: What are your plans for the band after the tour?
JL: We're going back to New York and we're going to do some shows at a place called the Mercury Lounge. And the whole idea of that is that we've got lots of songs that are written that we haven't quite learned yet, and lots of songs that we're still writing and that we're going to write. And the idea of doing these shows is to sort of get them beefed up and ready in front of a crowd and basically prepare for this next record that we're going to make.
IP: If you could change one thing in your extensive history together, what would that be?
JL: Boy, I don't think I could change one thing without changing other things. Well, I mean, I could pick one thing, I suppose, at random, but I feel like ... you know, I like the way things worked out for us, frankly. We had one whole career of doing it, you know, doing the bands that do the tapes ... and that was one kind of band. And we changed it 4 1/2 years ago, and so we got a kinda new lease on life, in a way.
IP: So you felt the change was healthy for the band?
JL: Yeah, it was good. In general, we've had a very long life as a band, you know. It's unusual. Most of the bands that we know have not been around this long. I mean, the ones we know now started later, and a lot of the ones we knew when we started, are no longer around. I think that people tend to get on each others nerves pretty quickly, and John and I, for some reason, have put up with each other for an unusually long time.
There's a lot of things on our records that I would go back and change if there was a way to go back and do it, but it's sort of an exercise in driving yourself crazy to think about that stuff. So, I try not to let that bother me.