No Oxygen Tanks in My Songs

An Interview with Chris Connelly

By Joseph McCombs | June 20, 2001 With a new album, Blonde Exodus, under his belt and no sellouts in sight, industrial icon turned singer songwriter Chris COnnelly forges on. Buy Chris Connelly's music Visit Chris Connelly's Web site Visit Chris Connelly's Label Invisible Records The best compliment I can give Chris Connelly is that if I had met him at a cocktail party, I'd have gone home sober: he's such an engaging conversationalist that I'd never have gotten around to refilling my glass. In a recent phone conversation with Connelly, we touched on everything from the DIY ethos to the proper way to score films to writing poetry to the genius of Scott Walker. Oh yeah, and we talked a little about his brief tour in support of the remarkable Blonde Exodus album. The album found Connelly at his most theatrical -- a far cry from his pranky days with Ministry and Revolting Cocks -- and in the intimate telephone setting he retains that theatricality, punctuating his sentences with emphasized words and thoughtful pauses that make you think he's actually blocking scenery in his head as he talks. Chris Connelly, I've discovered, defines to me what being an artist is all about: he doesn't make obscene amounts of money and you won't find videos of his tunes on Total Request Live, but his lifelong devotion to his craft has afforded him a living wherein he pursues his muse as he deems fit. He's achieved artistic freedom and self-sufficiency without having to get a "real job" or shill for Pepsi -- what more can a rocker ask for? The chance to score a few films and to bulk up at the gym, apparently. Here's some of what was on Connelly's mind (and mine) when we spoke recently. Joseph McCombs: I was kind of amused to see how scheduled you were, as far as going to the gym, going to rehearsals. Such a far cry from reading about what your touring situation was like 10 years ago. Chris Connelly: I know, I know. But you know, even back then, I kept a pretty good regime. Or maybe the façade of a regime (laughs) is more like it. But I need some kind of discipline in my life. Yeah, I got the gym a lot, now. It's actually a lot of fun, believe it or not. Good to hear. I've never been good with such stuff, myself. I'm more of the sleeping-whenever-possible variety. How old are you? 28. See now, once you hit 30, you'll probably start going to the gym a lot. (Laughter.) You gotta keep the ladies looking at you, y'know? One can pretend unto yourself that you look good, and it's such a big ego trip to leave the gym, you feel great, and you're like, "Yeah, I'm all right. I look good." Or you might look a mess, I don't know … When I'm carried out on a stretcher, it doesn't look so impressive. (More laughter.) So you're in Chicago now, right? Yeah, uh-huh. Gearing up for -- how long until the tour dates start? It's right around the corner, isn't it? Wednesday's the first show, yeah, next Wednesday. So it's a week. I just got done rehearsing about 10 minutes ago. Now, who all's touring with you? Is it the same Bells cast who recorded Blonde Exodus with you? No, it's not, except for Henry [Polk], the bass player. I've recruited a girl called Mary D. Reynolds who has a band called Chainsuck. She's a very old friend of mine; she's a guitarist and a singer. So she's playing second guitar. Kim [Ambriz], the drummer, can't make it. She has a college class, which she already paid for, so she can't move. Which is unfortunate -- it would be lovely to have her out -- but it ain't gonna work this time. The set's gonna be really good anyway. Did that result in some rearrangements of the songs, or are you trying to stay close to how they originally sounded? Well, you know, they're rearranged; they're somewhat stripped down. But I think that the approach I took was -- it's a three-piece band, I'm basing things around my singing, and super-concentrating on that. When you strip things down like that, and you can still relax in that atmosphere, then I find that that's when my voice starts to blossom. That should work nicely -- I thought your voice was the strongest aspect to the Blonde Exodus album. Thank you. Well, I recently -- about three weeks ago, I saw John Cale [formerly of the Velvet Underground] play, and it was him and two other guys, and it was really all about his voice. It was just fantastic, and it was captivating. And I thought, "Well, yeah, that really works: there's no distractions; his voice really filled the room." I have to confess that I don't think I've ever heard him sing. Oh, really? I'm so unfamiliar, I'm embarrassed. He has a beautiful, beautiful voice. And it seems to get better as he gets older. I mean, I think he's 60 now. And it's just as strong as ever. Do you think you'll still be on a stage when you're 60? I believe so. I can't give it up, although there are certain times in my life over the past few years when … you know, because I'm definitely one of these artists who -- I do receive fantastic critical praise; it's really, completely flattering; but this does not reflect in terms of record sales. It's not something I can make a good wage at. However, playing out can sometimes generate some cash. What size venues are you playing these days? Little, you know, tiny. I play really little places. And sometimes I can come out with a little bit of money, and that can keep things going a little bit. But I can't, I just don't feel like jumping ship, I don't feel like shifting careers at this stage, unless it was something astronomically good. I'll never put my pen down. I can't stop writing and exploring that; it's just too fascinating for me. And no matter how frustrated I get -- which I do get frustrated, because I seem to be banging my head against a wall a lot -- I can never reach a point where I'm like, "Okay, I've had it; this isn't working." 'Cause it still does work for me. No matter if there's three people in the audience. Click here to read Choler's review of Chris Connelly's Blonde Exodus. When you're writing something -- I know that you've written a great deal of poetry in addition to your songs -- I was curious as to how you know, as something you're writing is evolving, whether it's going to become one or the other [a poem or a song]. Generally, the way I write songs is, I'll sit there with a pen and paper and a guitar in my hands; and I write the lyric at the same time as the melody. It has a lot to do with rhythm, I think, for me. My poetry is, I think, a little more arrhythmic. And that's something that I'll tend to write, usually when I'm out and about. You know, when I'm out walking or something, and something strikes me. And I'll write, and at some point it becomes a poem -- and it's like, "Well, this isn't gonna work as a song at all. It reads well, just on its own, in cold black and white." However, having said that, recently I wrote a song where the lyric came first, and that's not happened to me for years. I mean, I just sat down and wrote a lyric. And suddenly started hearing a tune behind it? Yeah, I came up with the music weeks later. I just let it sit there, and kept looking at it, and it worked well as a poem, but I knew that it could be a really brilliant song if I just let it become apparent. I don't write so much poetry these days. I'm very much geared towards songwriting. Mainly because I've learned a little bit more; I've taught myself a little bit more. I can -- you know, the melodies come a lot easier, and before, I think I was trying to find my place, and I was trying to, I guess, learn about playing, and learn about melody and songwriting; and the two were very separate things. I think the last poem I wrote was about a year ago, the last stand-alone poem. Which is -- it's weird, because I wanted to do another book of poetry --and it's kind of slow on the uptake. (Laughter.) Well, you still have a backlog of material. Do you ever get a chance to recite any of that during your shows? Or would that be too out of place? I have done before. I think, was it last year -- whenever the book [Confessions of the Highest Bidder] came out, I did a show where I was playing music and I was reading from the book as well. And I recently completed a spoken-word record that accompanies the book. It's weird, because if you're the person writing the poem, you don't -- I don't, anyway -- say it out loud as I'm writing it. It's something that I feel should be read -- so reading something onto tape like I did, a spoken-word album, and hearing my voice back … I like listening to my singing voice, I have no problem, but listening to my speaking voice, I think is absolutely ridiculous. So that was a wee bit strange, but I wanted to do it, 'cause so many people had asked about it. So I went ahead and did it, and sort of wrote a note in with the record that sort of said, "This is to be listened to in one sitting," kind of like looking at a painting or something like that. And I tried to keep my voice neutral: I didn't want to get too Shakespearean or go off; I wanted to keep it at a level. Not a monotone, but something that allows the listener to perhaps breathe their own images into it at the same time. 'Cause that's really what I write for: I think I write triggers. I'm very into imagery, albeit obtuse and albeit a little, maybe, existential. But I'm into creating images in people's minds. | Next