This interview lasted just over an hour and found Jon Spencer on jubilant form. We discussed everything from my ability to speak the Welsh language, our previously failed attempt at an interview in Cardiff a few years ago, Pussy Galore, JSBX, and some brilliant insights into the recording of the two records by his current incarnation Jon Spencer & The HITmakers. This is on top of his thoughts on Record Store Day, Brexit, Baby Driver and absolutely everything in between.
Jon was an absolute joy to interview and this interview is far too wide ranging to condense into one piece. Therefore, this interview is split into two parts. The first part coincides with the release of their new album Spencer Gets It Lit on 1st April 2022 on Bronzerat Records.
The second part will be released to coincide with the announcement of UK/European Tour dates June 2022, so keep an eye out for it on Joyzine in a few weeks…
IH Hi Jon. I was supposed to interview you when you were supporting Melvins on tour. I think it was about 6 years ago in Cardiff?
JS Supporting Melvins would have been about 3 years ago.
IH Oh right, 3 years ago. Covid has really messed up everyone’s sense of perspective and time. I interviewed Bob Bert instead, maybe you were not feeling it at the time.
JS I am sorry that I gave you a pass 3 years ago.
IH Ah that is fine, we are speaking now Jon. Can I just tell you, when I was talking to Bob, he gave me this little anecdote he told me if that is ok. I was talking about the Pussy Galore reunion that you had, and I thought it was a New Year’s Eve event back in 2011, but Bob corrected me it was Hanukah.
“I live in this town called Hoboken across the river from Manhattan and there was this really great rock club there called Maxwells and Yo la Tango every year would do like eight nights of Hanukah and they would have special guests and it was kind of crazy cause ever since Pussy Galore fell apart I was hoping we would get back together and I never thought we would. Then all of a sudden Julie Cafritz started dating someone that was friends with Jon and she met him through my Facebook page then all of a sudden I got this email from Jon asking if I would be into doing this (2011) show and I almost fell of my computer chair and was like “Yeah, sure!”
We have done a few things together since, not this year, but in the last 3 years I have been part of this Cramps tribute thing at this club called Bowery Electric. Jon and Christina did ‘Goo Goo Muck’ this one year and then we did a Valentine’s Day thing where it was me Jon, Kid Congo, Mickey Finn and Christina and we did a bunch of cover songs. Me and Jon have always been friends, but this is the first time since 2011 that I am actually banging on a gas tank playing Pussy Galore songs.”
Excerpt from an unpublished Bob Bert Interview, 2018
JS And I am equally as pleased. It’s true Bob and I. New York city including Hoboken and places in Jersey, it’s a big place, but it’s not really that big and we kept seeing each other and we remained friends and it is a great pleasure and honour to working with Bob again for sure. And Bob plays on this new record whereas the first HITmakers record, Spencer Sings The Hits, Bob didn’t play on that album. Bob came into the picture once we started playing the shows and we needed somebody to help throw out the sound and we needed someone to bang on a gas tank.
IH Yeah, it is really weird you mention that at the time, as said I to Bob, I can’t believe you’re not actually playing on it because it does actually sound that he is like that sort of trash can clatter on there.
JS Well the first record is just me dubbing all over there and all that stuff and the first album is just 3 people: me, Sam Coomes and M. Sord and so we tracked the record as a trio playing live in the studio and once we had all the base tracks down I went back and over dubbed the percussion. With this new record, Spencer Gets it Lit, it was the current band, the touring band was the 4 people, Sam Coomes, M. Sord, Bob Bert and myself we are all playing together live in the studio.
IH I have listened to the new album several times and it’s really is great. The sounds, the sonics and the keyboards, some of the flourishes in there, it’s just great and a really fun album to listen to. I thought the same with your first one as well, but the second one is even… It’s got that… I don’t know if it’s intended but it has got that… it has it’s tongue stuck firmly in its cheek and I think it is great.
JS Well thank you very much, that means a lot. I hope that… I think that this record like most of my records its playful, it’s not meant to be an out and out joke or a piss take.
IH Ok. An attempt at ‘My life in 10 songs’ What is your earliest music related memory or what do you remember being played at home as a child?
JS Well my mother is a big fan of classical music and opera so that was on a lot in the house, especially on weekends or during the day, so I heard a lot of opera and classical music through my childhood. As far as popular music, I have older siblings but neither of them were big rock n roll fans, there were some records in the house, the really typical stuff for the early 70’s – Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. Real run of the mill kind of stuff for that time but you know the kids had a hi-fi, the kind of inexpensive little hi-fi down stairs where our bedrooms were in the house.
But as far as the very first I mean I don’t really have a good story or tale, probably something from the television. If not an actual band appearing on a variety programme in the evening, it was probably more likely was like a fake band on a Saturday morning cartoon. You know all Saturday morning for like 5 or 6 hours there was just all these cartoon shows and a lot tried to cash in on having cartoon versions of real bands or like The Archies where you had a fake band, fictional characters playing in a band. But then they went on to have a hit in real life with ‘Sugar Sugar’. All those TV shows and even the sitcoms that were on in the 60’s like The Munsters or Gilligan’s Island. Then in the early 70’s there were programmes that were on every day in the afternoon when you were home from school, all of those shows had like, Oh it’s the Standels or it’s Davey Jones from The Monkees – he is Marcia Brady’s date, so there are rock bands on all of these shows. And then of course there was The Monkees themselves which were all kind of hangovers from the youth culture explosions of the late 60’s that were kind of trickling down in the early 70’s through the TV on every day.
So my idea of rock music or what does it mean to be part of a band is probably coming from some episode of some terrible tv show like the cartoon with the Groovie Goolies with the vampire, wolf man and a Frankenstein’s monster and I don’t know if there is a mummy in there as well having misadventures and solving mysteries. But they also had a rock band and had a groovy pop song. It’s coming from that or from The Monkees which was a sitcom about a fictional band, so yeah it was pop culture but it was also complete you know real super mainstream Madison Avenue commercial stuff.
IH Yeah we had that on a Saturday morning TV here. We had Champion the Wonder Horse, The Monkees.
JS Did the horse play an instrument?
IH Haha, I remember the theme tune funnily enough, but I can’t remember the details! We also had The Banana Splits.
JS Such a good example, they had a band.
IH When did you really start to develop a passion for listening to music?
JS It wasn’t until I was a teenager maybe 16 or 17, I guess a change in body chemistry probably had something to do with it. Like I said earlier there were the classic rock records around the house but it wasn’t until like 1981 when I was 16 that I began getting turned on to you know, it was called New Wave yeah bands like Devo and The B-52s, Talking Heads. At the time there was an adult comic book called Heavy Metal. It was the American version of Métal Hurlant which is a famous French comic and in that magazine at the time they had a music column and through that I found out a lot of stuff and I think that is probably where I found out about the Residents and I was really into Kraftwerk and then friends would say like “Oh my, have you heard this band call the Gun Club?”
And then I gradually got into more straight up punk or hardcore bands like Black Flag or something. But I think at first it was the kind of, for lack of better word, the sci fi bands like Devo, bands like Kraftwerk and groups which had a very strong visual aesthetic and a lot of these bands were making heavy use of synthesizers and that was very attractive to me, I think because it was kind of anti-rock. It was so far away from Zeppelin and Aerosmith and that kind of stuff. Now I can look at those bands like Devo for instance and it’s clear there is a really strong foundation built upon roots music and early rock and roll and its not that they were anti-rock, they were really kind of forward thinking or really truly doing something creative and new.
I grew up in a small town in New England and this was in 80, 81,82 and there was a local college record and bookstore you could get stuff there, but some things you have to send away for and order it in the mail and you certainly didn’t hear any underground or punk stuff on the radio when I grew up. You wouldn’t hear it on the local radio, you certainly weren’t seeing that on the national media or national television, there was no internet so to find out about this stuff it was a real mystery and you had to really hunt for things and it was kind of like someone would let you in on a secret or tell you about something.
IH Yeah to find out about that stuff you really had to go out of your way to do it and again with mail order cassettes. Melody Maker over here in the UK had a mail order cassette called Gigantic 2. I think I must have missed out on Gigantic 1! You had to send off for a postal order or whatever it was and it came back and had songs by Sugarcubes, The Breeders, Cocteau Twins, Lush, etc and a band called Pussy Galore. And they were doing a song called ‘Seattle’ (Live) and it absolutely blew everything that had ever come before me out of the water. And since talking to Bob, I realise it is Bob singing and not you!
JS Its weird it is on that… I thought we did that as part of a Sub Pop single? I think that ‘Seattle’ is a version of the Heartbreaker song ‘London Boys’ which is a put down. It’s a diss track, and we (Pussy Galore) were asked to do a split single with Tad. They were on Sub Pop and we had done a tour together (Pussy Galore and Tad) and we liked the band we liked their music and were friends with them, so we said let’s do a split single with Pussy Galore and Tad. So what we proposed was we do the Heartbreaker song but do it as ‘Seattle Boys’ and they should do, what’s the Pistols song that has that diss song you know it has that line ‘everybody knows Japan is a dishpan’? (Jon goes off to Google the track as both of us go blank) ‘New York’!
So we said Tad should do this and then they didn’t want to do it and I can’t remember why – it was something like we don’t like the Sex Pistols or some kind of response they didn’t want to do it and we couldn’t understand it – we were like “What?” So then we were like “How about we both do a Black Flag song?”, so one of us did ‘Damaged’ and the other did ‘Damaged II’. So when we went into the studio and recorded our version of Black Flag, we did the Thunders song anyway. They must of asked permission of me or Pussy Galore to put that on the cassette. I hope they are not bootlegging us, but thank you and I am glad you liked it.
IH Can you remember the first gig you went to as a member of the audience?
JS I think when I was little my older sister took me to see Beatlemania which was a very popular Beatles tribute show at the time, I think they may still be going. As far as something that really meant a lot to me… again where I grew up there was a university in the town and they would put on concerts, but those kinds of concerts were more mainstream stuff and conservative classic rock sort of stuff. Once I went to college myself at Providence Rhode Island I went to college there I was going to a lot of shows in Providence and Boston, which is only an hour’s drive away so I saw a lot of stuff like Echo and the Bunnymen, I saw the Fall and also people like the Gun Club, Black Flag and even people like Link Ray so I think the thing that made the biggest impression, while I really loved going to all these shows, was probably seeing the hardcore shows. Hardcore wasn’t my favourite music, but going to see bands like Black Flag or Flipper or the Minutemen, seeing the Butthole Surfers or something, but local shows, local bands. So that was the thing that really turned on the lightbulb above my head seeing something like, “Oh this is available to anyone, maybe I could do this, maybe I should try and play in a band.”
IH What are your memories of starting out making music?
JS It wasn’t until I was about 18/19 and at university when I started playing in bands and I was following 2 different paths. I was playing in a very straight 60’s garage punk group playing bass guitar and then also at the same time playing in a totally abrasive totally out there industrial noise group and in that band I was playing a mixture of drums and percussion and I was doing both things at the same time. When I finally started my own band with Pussy Galore on a surface level it was combining those two strains.
IH It is funny you mention that because with Bob also, I love the fact that he uses a gas tank and he said that was your idea. He said when he came for his audition, he had a standard drum kit and you suggested to him to use trash instead. Is that what it was?
JS Yes well when Pussy Galore started it is kind of like the HITmakers. We had a traditional drummer playing a trap kit and then someone playing percussion banging on pieces of metal and when we moved to New York City the drummer and percussionist didn’t move with us so we needed somebody. I think it was Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon – we met them within the first few days of moving to New York City standing outside of CBGBs and one of them said “Oh you should talk to Bob Bert, I think he may be looking to play with somebody” and it worked out. But when Bob came into Pussy Galore, we just had one person instead of two drummers or a drummer and a percussionist we just had Bob. So Bob played a kit which combined some standard pieces from a trap kit like a kick drum or floor drum some symbols and sometimes a snare drum, and they sometimes combined that with a gas tank or a spring and a metal snare drum.
IH Did you graduate from College?
JS No it became all I wanted to do was play records, listen to records, and play music so that became overwhelming and all consuming…technically I am still on a leave of absence.
IH I am going to bringing it up to date, so I am not going to just be just talking about Pussy Galore. But can you remember what the first gig was like? And are there any recordings of it?
JS I think there probably are recordings, back then I used to try and record almost every show, I had a boom box and I still have a crate full of cassettes somewhere and there may be a recording of that first show I don’t remember.
IH What are some of your favourite current artists now, are there anything you’re currently listening too?
JS I like Osees a lot. They are from California. They are consistently great live and I think they’re a really great band.
IH You know the 6Music DJ Marc Riley? He is a massive fan of the Osees. And Flat Worms who are an offshoot of the band. He is a massive fan of yours as well I think. Did you do a session for him?
JS We did yes, we recorded it on Halloween I believe, which is a big deal for me and a popular holiday in the States. The session was on Halloween, but we recorded it in London – we used a satellite facility in BBC London. Yeah, Marc’s been a good friend for sure. For me it has always been kind of weird as I am such a big Fall fan. Marc’s a nice guy.
IH Your approach to making music since you started out, has it changed much? Your sound has developed over time.
JS Yeah, I think it is safe to say it has been changing over all these years and it is a little funny that over more than 30 years I am kind of back to the start. I have reached into my past and I am working again with metal percussion, someone banging on junk and am once again in a position where I am writing songs by myself and that is the way Pussy Galore started. The Blues Explosion which lasted 25 years that was a much more collaborative band. We would write together. The three of us would just get together and we would write by playing together so that is a big difference between the Blues Explosion and the HITmakers.
IH Ah ok, that’s interesting.
JS The first record there was no band, and it was just my attempt to start something. It had been a couple of years since the end of the Blues Explosion – I wanted to have a band again, I missed it a great deal and still had an itch to do something, so I figured I am just going to write some songs and make a record and try to get the ball rolling that way. So I asked Sam and Sord and for that record I went in with all the songs written and with every song just played it for them and showed it to them in the studio myself and then we would figure it out and work at it until it was good and then we would record it. With this record, the second record Spencer Gets It Lit, this comes after there being a band the HITmakers, we toured a lot through 2018 and 2019 and there was a lot of experience from that. And you build up some muscles on tour playing night after night. And so this album benefits from that. But yeah, once again I wrote the songs by myself. Part of it has to do with we all live in different places and to get together to write together takes some doing. So once again for this album I wrote everything myself and made some very simple demos just using my phone. But one difference between this record and previous records was I shared the demos with the band before going into the studio.
IH I didn’t realise that Sam and M. Sord all lived so far away.
JS Yeah Sam lives about as far away from me as possible, he lives in Portland, so he is clear on the other side of the country.
IH When I saw you in Cardiff, if I remember rightly, you had one Blues Explosion song ‘Dang’. Is that your one of your favourite Blues Explosion songs?
JS It is one I like a lot, I don’t know if it’s my favourite, there is also some Blues Explosion songs that were more fully sprung out of my head and ‘Dang’ was one of them. But no, I think it was more I just like that song and it sure is fun to play. With this band I definitely thought about, would I like to have a band where yeah I can play Pussy Galore songs or Blues Explosions songs or Heavy Trash songs? I remember watching Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds and Kid Congo plays a Cramps song, he plays Gun Club songs, and he plays songs from different bands that he has been in and I remember thinking that must be nice.
Part two coming soon…..
Jon Spencer & The HITmakers return this year with their new album, Spencer Gets It Lit, which was released on 1st April 2022 on Bronzerat Records. This LP is the follow up to the brilliantly received Spencer Sings the Hits! album released in 2018 with his band made up of: Bob Bert – trash, Sam Coomes – synth & vocal, M. Sord – drum, Jon Spencer – vocal & guitar
His second album with the HITmakers is classic Jon Spencer taken to the extreme: electro-boogie, constructivist art pop, a high-voltage cocktail of industrial sleaze and futurist elegance, a masterwork of freak beat from the world’s weirdest garage. Spencer croons and rhapsodizes across layers of big beats, fuzz guitar, and a battery of phaser blasts and otherworldly sounds, making Spencer Gets It Lit his most complex and groovy record in years, a dark, danceable odyssey, a studied take-down of the early 21st century, and a celebration of the place were electricity meets the mind.
The vinyl is available to pre-order on the 15th April here.
UK/European Tour dates to be announced June 2022 (Taking over drum duties for the Jon Spencer & the HITmakers on their upcoming spring tour will be Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, The Jicks), with her band Quasi opening every show).
Follow Jon Spencer & The HITmakers on Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
Interview by Ioan Humphreys
Photography by Bob Coscarelli
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