Are You X-Perienced?

Are You X-Perienced?

Expasion Or Exodus?

FEATURES

Conrad Heiney

by

Dropping the needle on X’s new album was something of a nerve-wracking experience for me. As a diehard X fan, I have vivid memories of joyously opening up my copy of Ain’t Love Grand, whenever that came out, only to experience intense disappointment and pain. Happily, See How We Are is an entirely pleasant listening experience: a hard-rocking, wellwritten, and tastefully produced chunk of music that has been running through my speakers and my mind since it came out.

John Doe seems satisfied with it too. In fact, sprawled on a couch in Elektra’s Los Angeles offices, the singer/bassist seems not only satisfied with the record, he seems happy about his new guitarist, Tony Gilkyson, his coffee, his hamburger, and even this publication.

“CREEM is really something special,’’ he enthuses, “Kind of the Mad magazine of rock ’n' roll. I love it.”

Bully. So how come it took you guys so long to put out a record?

“Well, we had a real specific idea of what we wanted,” says John. “Let’s see, it’s been two years since the last one. Part of that was four months of touring, a month of Billy (Zoom, X’s original guitarist, famed for his grin and spread-eagled, immobile stance) being gone and talking to Dave (Alvin, the ex-Blaster and interim X guitarist) about replacing him, of four

months of working with Dave, and then going through three different producers. We tried three different guys. One flaked out on us. Another put on too much crap, just overloaded it so there wasn’t a breath in it... I think the most fortunate thing in the making of this record was getting together with Alvin Clark, our final producer. He’d worked with a lot of dance bands, done some really high-tech stuff, and he was really awful tired of it, tired of synthesizers and drum machines. He wanted a real drummer and a real guitarist, where some of the other producers we worked with wanted to make it real.. .palatable. I think it is palatable, actually, but in its own way.”

See How We Are has the qualities that X fans the world over have come to love: DJ Bonebrake’s loud, exuberant drumming (“Maybe a little too loud,” says Doe, “but what the...”), those love ’em or hate ’em John and Exene harmonies in fifths—-and some of the best songs they’ve written in years. The title track, for one, is a standout; a dead-on piece of—dare I say it?—social commentary.

“That was actually a really easy song to come up with,” says Doe. “Not the lyrics, but the music. It was one of those nice five minute things. And then it took about six months of me and Exene working on the lyrics—just write a verse this month, fix it, et cetera. We didn’t even put a bridge on it until it was done for a cou-

ple of months.”

See How We Are also presents us with new guitarist Tony Gilkyson, an alumnus of Lone Justice, who’s been playing with X for about a year now.

“It’s strange sometimes,” the guitarist admits. “Kind of like being a step-parent or something. I get nothing but support from the band, but it gets my edge up when I face Billy fans sometimes. But it really hasn’t happened that much.”

“Those people are such idiots,” fumes Doe. “They really are. They have no idea of what really goes into being in this band. I think what’s kept us together this long has been an incredible personal commitment—and Billy just got tired of it all.”

X’s longevity—as compared to other originators of the L.A. underground scene—is amazing. They’ve been cranking out good records for years and years now. One might wonder how they do it.

“Love of art,” replies John. “Really. It’s a good gig, except for the fact that if we

I quit tomorrow, we’d have to be working stiffs again. And you can only do it for a few years, and then you have to retire (laughs)—and we haven’t made that much money yet! But I knew this was going to last when we started. You can look down at people in a club and see something in their eyes that says This is important,’ and then you know that you ' can do this all over the place. That’s why it’s frustrating sometimes, ’cause it seems like people all over the world would really like this stuff if they could just, well, get to know us!”

Which, of course, has been a major problem over the years for L.A. bands— and X is no exception.

“We get a lot of resistance from radio programmers,” admits Doe. “They still think of X as a punk band, which is pretty unbelievable. It’s the same kind of mentality as those people who still scream for Billy Zoom. Some radio guy says ‘One letter in the name? From L.A.? I ain’t gonna play this!’ And we get those generalizations, which are all bullshit. I was really bitter when The New World’ didn’t get played in Detroit, especially with all those auto workers out of their jobs. There it was—‘Don’t forget the Motor City’—and no one in town would play it! Touring, though... there are certain major cities that are ‘X-ified.’ Washington D.C., Atlanta, Boston.. .We’ve been in those places enough times that people know what to expect, and we’ve never traded on our ‘We’re outrageous, come watch us thrash’ appeal.”

And this time?

“Well, a lot of places didn’t have the record yet during our most recent tour, and that’s a big difference right there. But we get a lot of good response for these songs onstage—not so much to the lyrics, of course, but to the general feeling of the songs. Even people who didn’t seem familiar with the music got into it. And the people who’ve written about us this time have been very kind.”

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So what lies ahead? How long can you keep it up?

“As long as people want to see us! I don’t ever want to be embarrassing. I want to deliver, you know? I know I don’t want to be doing this when I’m 40.” He laughs. “And I didn’t say I’d quit at 30 when I was 20, either. Sure, we’ve been at this for a while, and sure, it does get frustrating, and yes, we would like to make a little more money, but... I like doing it. And it’s important to a lot of people. And it’s not for any glory, other than you’ve got the desire to create things.” ®