We [No Doubt] were making music that was the opposite of grunge and what was popular on the radio, and we were fine with that. And for a garage band, we were massive! We were already successful in our own minds.
Exactly you had to dress in flannel, and if you were a grunge band, before the grunge thing took off and you said you were METAL.
We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals
We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.
When I first started, in 2006, it was an exciting time. Independent, cool, weird artists were being successful, and magazines were writing about them, and people were getting played on radio that were, like, really good.
The Doors were successful. It was Jim Morrison as the centre and the figure and the spokesman, the figurehead, but we were all into the same thing. That's why we were a band.
Sometimes you have to wonder if there isn't an ejector seat built into having a popular-music career. We were lucky when we started. We were already old when we started - you could have described our first album as "aging Brooklyn guys." We were in our late 20s. We weren't octogenarians, but a lot of bands were already younger than us. Fortunately, we've held on to our manly good looks.
We've been through the experience of being in high school and starting a band. Then we were also a garage band, while we were going to college, trying to make ends meet.
I'd be at someone's house or be up on the roof all day and I'd get lonely - stir crazy - and talk radio became this soothing voice in my life. But the idea that I was making $10 an hour and stacking drywall while these guys were making a few hundred thousand, and they were having a party, and there were Playmates and there were good times, I just couldn't imagine it.
I think the Cosmic Psychos were a band that was highly influential on the Seattle so called grunge scene. I know that Kurt and Nirvana were fans, they played shows with Pearl Jam. Even thou the Cosmic Psychos never had the commercial impact or success that those bands had, they were still a major influence on them, and I think a lot of it had to do with the spirit and the sound of their music.
For our first album, we were our own dressers. We didn't have no stylists. We came up with all of the ideas when it came to dressing. At that time, Cross Colours and Jabos were really popular, so we were able to get stuff from them, but we always added accessories.
I myself grew up when radio was very important. I'd come home from school and turn on the radio. There were funny comedians and wonderful music, and there were plays. I used to pass time with radio.
The Clash were a major influence on my own music. They were the best rock 'n' roll band. Thanks, Joe.
Initially we were spitting lyrics over garage beats, in that eight-bar gap where there wasn't a vocal. But we were rebellious towards garage because they were rebellious towards us; a lot of their gatekeepers said grime was too violent.
In the early eighties, there were a lot of artists involved with the music scene. All those young artists, before their careers took off, were into music. Robert Longo used to play some guitar. He had a band for a while. Basquiat had a band. I mean, people were always trying to mix music and art - in fact, I'm guilty of it myself.
Our experience making 'Pieces,' all it did was confirm our passion for film making to ourselves. We were having the time of our lives, and we were in love with what we were doing.
We were kids that didn't have any education. None of our parents were in the music business or even college graduates. We didn't have someone guiding us. We were just uneducated kids from the middle of nowhere that suddenly had a band going around the world.