Now that Craig Finn is finally getting the place in rock history he deserves with The Hold Steady, a fare amount of attention is ciculating online re: the reissues of Craig's first band Lifter Puller. So...in my best I TOLD YOU SO voice, and to validate the concept of this blog, here is a gem of an interview I did with Dan (Liftr Pllr's drummer) in 1999 for my friend's webzine and a pic of my copy of thier first (and only) 7 inch, which I assume is now worth like a bazillion dollars.
So whats the deal with the first album? I can't find it anywhere, so I'm assuming that it's either on some obscure label or it's out of print.
As far as I know it's still in print, the thing is that we're not terribly happy with it. Craig had started the band here (Minn) with a different drummer, I'm the drummer now, and another guy filling in on bass, the drummer's brother actually. So then he quit and uh(laughs), they got me to play bass, which I don't really know how to do. And then I think we recorded a single... I can't really remember that well it's all kind of convoluted.
When you guys start at the beginning of the song making process is it more or less just one person?
Oh, know it's completely... it's just whoever comes up with the riff.
Cool.
On some songs I'll be like here's the drum beat I want and they will just flow to it. Craig will come in with a song idea or part of a structure and everyone will learn parts that he's playing, but then he'll slowly stop playing the guitar. So it's starts out as something else but then the originator of the song just falls out. Actually, on a song we were doing last night Steve, the keyboard player, he had like a story. I mean it was like cowboys and indians he said "We're here in town and it's a stand off, and the Indians are winning". So sometimes we'll start writing them that way.
Wow, well can I make a suggestion for the next time you guys use a theme to kinda set the mood?
Sure.
...when I was drunk, someone stole my dirtbike.
(laughs) That really happened to you?
No. A friend of mine made a short film for a class he was taking and that's what it's called.
Thats funny cause Steve's transportation issues are often very interesting. We'll be like "How did you get to practice?" and he'll say "Oh, I had to walk", then we'll ask why and he'll say "Well I rode my bike but then I got drunk and left it somewhere. So in a way...more like I got drunk and forgot where my dirtbike is!(laughter)
OK, you know how you get mental pictures of how bands look before you see them play?
Yeah.
Well listening to Half Dead and Dynamite I started getting this image in my head of Craig looking like Denis Leary, like wearing an overcoat and smoking nonstop while he kind of mouths off. Then, your going to laugh, but the first time I saw a picture of you guys was that clip from the Jenny Jones show on your website, and I was completely going... "Thats what he looks like?"
Someone else said he's got kind of a Dwayne Alman vibe.
His lyrical style kinda reminds me of Bukowski, in that you can get as much or as little as you want out of the words.
No, I don't know what he's reading. A lot of the stuff just comes from working though, and sometimes from college, he went to a very normal school so the people around... you know how some people get freaked out about being normal and then end up way more messed up in life because they have no outlet. Its kind of like this underbelly you know, that like, to coin a stupid phrase, never let their freak flags fly and then end up getting twice as twisted as your average...
Yeah, I got a friend up in Santa Cruz, which is a stupid scene, and he has this side project along with another band he's in called Howdy Partner. And when they play sometimes they'll just yell at everyone "OK, whoever wants to be in Howdy Partner you're in so come on up and lets rock!" so needless to say their shows are terrible but I think it might be his outlet.
Thats definitely something we try to encourage, I mean once we got to the point where it wasn't like we had to take ever show we could get, cuz it's kind of hard to get shows you know, we definitely wanted them interesting. I mean everyone has gone and seen shows at some bar somewhere where their just standing there.
Have you ever seen At The Drive In? I was blown away by their singer's stage presence when I saw them play. He gets a total connection with the crowd going. I think you guys probably have a different kind of aesthetic though.
Well, when Tad plays he'll have a mic even though he doesn't sing or anything on the records cause it's like Craig's already doing so much already, like more lyrics per minute than...whatever you know, so it's like he's got enough as it is with that and the guitar.
So Tad handles a bit of the crowd control aspect?
Yeah kinda, cause something breaks at every show with all the flying around. We just played this Halloween show at this warehouse and we dressed up as pirates. We had a rope on the stage that we could use to swing into the crowd and stuff, musically it wasn't our best show...
That totally doesn't matter if you guys are dressed up like pirates!
..no but I'm sitting there playing and all of a sudden I look up and Steve is laying on top of every drum except the kick the snare and the high hat(laughs) I mean it's funny cause I mean we've gotten to this point where even if we play really well, unless something really chaotic happens, or you know some kind of thing that takes away from it being just us playing, then we feel like it wasn't a great show, which is kind of setting us up for problems. The theory is if the ship is already going down then we should just light it on fire. It's all about entertainment you know, we don't really take ourselves too seriously.
Thats a good thing.
Tad is the only one who has an extensive knowledge of like...notes...I guess.
You mean music theory and that kind of shit?
Yeah you know like is it a major chord or a minor chord and that kind of thing, for everyone else it's just all made up from off the top of our heads, we sure never took any kind of lessons.
Well you guys have been getting some good press in your area right?
Yeah things have been going really well.
And there is a new album on the way?
Yeah the new one is being put out by Self Starter, which is a label out of Pennsylvania, and French Kiss, another label run by one of the guys in Les Savy Fav. We were watching them play once and commenting on the kind of strange disregard for personal safety that goes on, I mean things come really close, but never hit you know, it's just a really amazing thing to watch.
Do you guys record with a certain engineer or at some place in specific or do you kind of change it up?
I live in this weird old building where you share a bathroom with the person across the hall.
I bet your girlfriend loves you for that.
It makes for some interesting situations. But Dave Gardner is a great engineer who lives right across the hall and he records us with this other guy named Eric. Their both also in bands. Daves in a band called the Selby Tigers, and Eric is in a crazy band called Arson Welles.
It sounds like the scene there is really over the top, but in a good way...
Yeah I think the mentality is like we've all been in lame bands, and so now you know... I mean everyone takes music seriously in that they love it, but it's not like I'm up here being a dork, I'm up here because it's a blast.
Awesome. So what other kinds of things are you into?
Both Tad and I photo assist for a living, and shoot as well.
Have you heard that there making those Lomo cameras again?
Are those the plastic cameras like the Holga?
I don't know I just read some article in Details that said that tons of famous people really like this camera, therefore we should like it to.
There is a series of plastic cameras, like the Holga and the Diana, that work pretty much on the same theory which deals with the shutter speed. I've messed around with a Holga. Yeah, but Steve has also got this crazy side project going called Hawaii where he records these insane...like synth pop tunes onto a DAT in his basement and then they will go out in costume and play characters to the songs. It's funny too because we'll get a call from someone from a paper and we'll be thinking they want a Lifter Puller interview and then they'll say "yeah we want to talk to someone about Hawaii".
Wow that sounds really fucking great! Does he have a lot of old synths?
No, he just has Casios. Like the majority of the keyboards we play on the album and live are just $90 Target Casios.
From this point on the tape got recorded over, but if I remember correctly it ended with Dan telling the story of a great show they played where they had bottle rockets taped on the equipment and lit them off for the big finish. For my big finish I just want to tell everyone out there that Lifter Puller is touring the east coast right now and will hopefully make it over to the west coast sometime in May. Check back with us for dates.