The Life and Times of Marvin Pontiac
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I’d Love a Bite of Your Sandwich

(The Joe-Mammy.com interview with John Lurie)

“Life is so beautiful. For some more than others. Every breath, every day of our lives, ahhhhhh, fishing . . .”

When those words were spoken I was sure I had stumbled upon brilliance. My first experience with John Lurie was with the brilliantly subversive “Fishing with John”. For the uninitiated (you poor bastards), Lurie wrote/directed/scored the quirky sorta-documentary where he goes fishing with an impressive list of celebrities and indie legends. Throw in a little creative editing and inspired narration and you’ve got yourself gold.

As a result of “Fishing with John” I began checking out Lurie’s musical work with the Lounge Lizards and from there his scoring work on films like “Manny and Lo” “Get Shorty” and “Down by Law” – just to name a few. Soon I was hooked on his distinct sound and droll sense of humor. With song titles like “John Zorn’s S&M Circus” “A Woman can Take You to Another Universe, Sometimes She Just Leaves You There” and “My Clown’s on Fire” melded with jazz with rock and pop sensibility, I was sold hook, line and sinker. So I felt it was time that I track down John and see if he’d be willing to drop by the little website to say hi. He graciously agreed.

So sit back, pop open a cool drink and enjoy the wit and wisdom of John Lurie…
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John Lurie: I have rented a house in Massachusetts for the summer and I am mostly painting.

I have a show in Munich September 9th.

John: That is a good question; unfortunately I don't have a good answer. Not when I was young there were no defining moments. Though with all the immense changes I have gone through in my life, I feel a very clear thread to the person I was as a boy. Like I am more that person than I had been in a long time.

"Man Eating Nachos"
"God Watched Betsy Dance In Her Room, He Was Not Happy About It"
"Harry Didn't Want To Say Anything, But The Appearance Of Jesus Was Ruining His Vacation"
"Harry Hoped Susan Wouldn't Notice His Demons"
"The Surprise by Ed Munch"

Joe: So what role does art (whether it be music or painting or writing, etc.) play for you in keeping in touch with who you are or who you're becoming? And along those lines, do you consider music or painting to be a more ready avenue to express yourself with?

John: I used to feel that when I stepped on stage with the band that I was more myself, closer to the essence of who I was than at any other time. It wouldn't just be any time I stepped on stage, which can often be quite an awkward feeling but when I was with the Lounge Lizards I felt more confident and at home than any other time. Except once in 1993 at the Village Gate when we were having an exceptionally bad gig and Laurence Fishburne, with that big impassable head, was sitting in the front row looking bored.

Painting is kind of like an extended Rorschach

Test. I start with a blob, or a line or a combination of colors that occurs to me and then see what I have. I kind of go into a trance state. It is interesting because (I have Advanced Lyme Disease with a multitude of neurological problems and often weird migrating pain) when I am painting my symptoms usually subside, at least while I am working.

I feel that it is most important to get away from what I call “the front part of the brain” — painting and music help me do that.

Joe: You've also done soundtracks in the past. Do you take that kind of improvisational approach to composing or is it a different beast all together?

John: With film it is different but some part of the process is the same. It is different because you want to have a palette or color for the movie overall and you want to help the arc of the movie. There is the timing of everything which is important and tedious. You have to decide on a tempo for each cue and then maybe change it ever so slightly to make it fit into the scene, without ruining the feel of it musically. Sometimes slowing something down a fraction of a beat changes the whole feel and then you have to rewrite it. And depending on the movie there can be an enormous approval process and on some Hollywood movies you are not really sure whose approval is the one you are supposed to listen to.

But really the initial part, the creative part is somehow the same. I never labor over a cue. I watch the movie a couple of times and then move away from it. I set up the tape recorder with keyboard or guitar or whatever a day later, and just sit there recording a bunch of stuff that just seems to come out. You can hear me yelling “this is cue 12A, right after the car crash” — and then playing a few notes on the guitar. Then we go back later and sort it all out.

Joe: It's been a few years since you've had a musical release. Are you focusing more on other things or is it just in the process of percolating?

John: No, I got sick. I mean I was sick for years but I am so fucking tenacious that if I had a gig or a tour or a soundtrack, I would get it done. But it was kind of like using the energy you use when your brother is stuck under a car and you lift it up with one hand.

Honestly, though, I don't know even if I was well if I would have the heart to do music again.

Joe: Well I for one am disappointed to hear that, but I understand why. You say you're not sure if you have the heart to do it again even aside from the illness. I remember reading you had label troubles in the past, is it that you've just become disenchanted with the whole industry thing or does making music take more of a toll on you emotionally/creatively than other work?

John: I have been working on my memoirs. I am about 3/4 of the way through. The book starts with the first time I had sex and ends with my stopping music. The book is called “What Do You Know About Music, You're Not a Lawyer.” I tell you this so you see that this is not a thing that is easily answered in a paragraph or two.

I wanted creative control over the music. Over the years I had really disgusting relationships with E.G. Records, Island Records, VeraBra Records and LuakaBop. Just ugly, petty, incompetent stuff. The music is so important to me; it is such a precious thing that I can not really let it be controlled by people who have ethics that would be sneered at by cocaine dealers. And then it takes a giant toll.

To make it make any sense the music has to be breath taking. It doesn't make sense otherwise. The world needs so much, but the last thing it needs is another record or concert, unless it is stunning and moving. So in order to do that a lot of people have to be on board, the musicians, the business people, the engineers. If for one very small example, if you arrive in Milan and the marimba is tuned to 440 and the piano is tuned to 444, it is going to be impossible to be breath taking. If the monitors make the saxophone and cello sound like duck calls it is hard to be beautiful. I could go on for hours but basically you have to fight like mad, months in advance to try and avoid every possible thing that they can screw you on. I found that I was spending 3% of my time on music and the rest on business arrangements or trying to get money that I was owed.

Joe: I'd heard about the book, and was actually curious what was going with it. Let's change track a little bit and talk about "Fishing with John". It doesn't seem like it was over a decade ago that you did it. How do you view the show in retrospect? I know in the commentary you said you would have liked to do more. Is that still the case and, if so, who would be your dream lineup for a second go 'round?

John: Yes, I would like to do more. I almost did more with IFC but could see I was headed

	"I don't know why I ever let you talk me into doin' this. This is the most absurd thing I've ever done in my life." Tom Waits with John on "Fishing With John."

for trouble and pulled out.

List of dream guests - Bill Clinton, Stephen Hawking, J.D. Salinger, Louis Black, Sean Penn, Mike Tyson, Noam Chomsky, Serena Williams, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Allen Iverson. Anybody really smart or really dumb: what's-his-name Brown — the head of FEMA, Donald Trump.

I would like to take Michael Moore and then edit it to make him look like an idiot, the way he does to everybody else.

Joe: I'm trying to picture fishing with Mike Tyson and it's either very cool or very scary. Anyway, did the reaction of "Fishing with John" surprise you? It was originally produced for Japanese television and did the fact it became this cult phenomenon here surprise you at all?

John: I was a little nervous fishing with Dennis Hopper.

I am not so aware that it did become a cult phenomenon. Is that true?

Joe: Well, I hope so. I'd hate to find out I'm a crazed loner. Seriously though, it does seem to me that "Fishing with John" did have a pretty devoted (albeit perhaps not a huge) group of fans. It even made a cameo on the ubiquitous "SpongeBob SquarePants" — how did that come about?

John: At the time that happened I had never heard of SpongeBob. I was in the office going through something else and Sara who ran my office at the time said — They want to use one minute of “Fishing with John” on “SpongeBob Squarepants” for $500.

I said — what is that?

A kids’ show.

Sure I don't care.

Now whenever it's on, I get more calls from people than anything else I have ever done. Way more. There was an article about me in the New York Times and I missed it, didn't hear about it until days later. Anthony Kiedis is on Conan O'Brien saying that I was the only person to ever sit in with the Chili Peppers wearing nothing but a sock — no one says a word. But SpongeBob comes on with that 2 second snippet and the phone rings off the hook.

Joe: Life is funny that way, isn't it? 500 bucks is 500 bucks though, right? One thing that occurred to me (I can be a little slow) is that your last album revolved around a character (Marvin Pontiac) that was a brilliant renegade musician who went completely insane and died isolated in an asylum. How much of that character was a metaphor for your relationship with the music industry and your experience in general? Or is it one of those "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" kind of things?

John: No it wasn't the money, it was the idea that it was for a kid's show. I say no to almost everything that comes in like that because you can not control it. So they take something you did and wreck it somehow. It is often not just pearls before swine but swine wearing pearls, badly.

There was a crazy actor named Timothy Carey, who would not act in a movie unless the producer came and mowed his lawn. I loved him for it. So I kind of fashioned Marvin after him in a way.

Joe: I see that you have a book, "Learn to Draw, Vol. I" slated for release in the near future. Would you give us an overview and background on this project?

John: No that project is not happening — I mean it will happen but not this fall

Joe: You've had the opportunity to work with some amazing talents (and take them fishing in some cases); is there anyone in particular that stands out in your mind that you got to work with?

John: Dennis Hopper is an amazing person to meet. It does not quite get shown in the fishing show because his rhythm is quick and it doesn't quite work in the pace of the show. But he is just remarkable to be around.

Calvin Weston (the Lounge Lizards drummer for years) is a great talent. Sometimes Michael Blake and I would stand behind him and just listen to the snare on “Evan's Drive to Mombasa,” which we would do second in the set. I would get chills up my spine and into the top of my head.

A lot of people come to mind — Tony Garnier, John Medeski, Evan, Erik Sanko — see now I am going to have to go on or leave people out who I should list.

Joe: Well we'll move on before you dig yourself too far into a hole. Kind of along the same lines of what I asked before, are there any particular artists (that you've known through their work, not personally) that really influenced you?

John: Of course, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Sidney Bechet, Egon Schiele, Anton Webern, Edgard Varese, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, Fela Kuti, Little Walter, Astor Piazzolla, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Klee, Johnny Hodges, Martin Scorcese, John Cassavetes, Paul Bowles, Eric Dolphy, Ali Farka Toure, John Lennon, Ornette Coleman, Ravi Shankar, Cy Twombly, Hieronymus Bosch, Sergey Prokofiev, Mark Twain, Robert Johnson, Jackson Pollock . . .

Joe: Always a treat to see Bosch, Lennon and Coltrane on the same list. Finally, any parting words of wisdom for the kids at home?

John: If you don't know anyone on that list, look into it and be generous.
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For official news, goods and John-related goodness, be sure to check out the website for his record label, Strange and Beautiful Music. Check out some of his featured artwork, music samples and other grooviness there. Still not satisfied? Some of John’s nifty work can be checked out in the Joe-Mammy.com Shop for purchase and consumption in your very own home.

Check out a more recent interview with John by clicking here.