SW: I recently read a quote from Jean Cocteau that said
the greatest tragedy for an artist is to be admired for being misunderstood.
Do you think Pere Ubu are admired for being misunderstood?
DT: Um, say it again! These things always make more sense when you hear
it a second time. I don't think a lot of people have a grip on what we
do. I think one of the reasons I don't bother to read any rock press or
anything that's written about us, unless it's somebody on the level of
Greil Marcus-somebody who knows what they're doing-is because even when
they like you, they claim to like you for reasons that you can't recognise
as having anything to do with what you do. So I suppose it's tragic! Obviously
if I got too bent out of shape about it I wouldn't be able to function
very well.
SW:
Pennsylvania's lyrical themes seem grounded in geography and the way
it relates to culture. Can you expand on this?
DT:
A lot of what I've been writing about for a number of years concerns
geography, both cultural and physical, and the relationship of that
to sound, and the relationship of both of them to culture, and on and
on. Everything in my experience is linked to everything else, so when
you start talking about the nature of human consciousness you very soon
have to start talking about sound, and then geography and then any number
of things. It's not a complex approach, it's simply a rational approach.
Once you ask one question it raises another question which you're obliged
to continue and expand outwards in a logical sense. The things that
most people believe are massed contradictions, and my purpose in what
I do is to eliminate contradictions. I don't have grey areas in my head.
I don't have contradictory positions on things. One thing is one thing
and another is the opposite. I'm in to space and seeing long distances,
and the way to do that is to eliminate obstacles to vision.
SW: I gather that Cleveland has changed a lot since the early days of
Ubu. What is your relationship to it now?
DT:
I always work in the same studio (Suma), so I go back there quite often.
Though I go there a lot my experience is really confined to the airport,
to Jim Jones' house where I often stay, and Suma which is about 20 miles
outside of town. The only thing I want to see now is the football stadium.
I know Cleveland as well as I need to know it, and the things I know
about it are the things that have been taken away and destroyed, and
I choose not to know about the things that have replaced them. It's
just a conscious decision not to co-operate with what they're doing.
I still love Cleveland, and I'd rather be there than anywhere else.
It's my home.
SW:
When a friend first described Pennsylvania to me, he said it sounded
as if it came together more easily that Raygun Suitcase. Is that a fair
assessment?
DT:
No! It wasn't particularly hard, but it wasn?t as easy as they can be.
There's records that have come together quickly, but nothing is ever
easy. There's always something that's going on, you know? It isn't a
game, it's a constant source of frustration and failure. There's nothing
easy about never getting it the way you wanted to. You just learn to
live with failure and hope that other people find some spark of what
you were hoping to do. If we're in to quoting people today, I found
it resonant to note what Orson Welles said in an interview, that the
worst thing that happened to him was that he fell in love with the process
of making films. You become intoxicated by the process, you just want
to keep doing it, and never really get it right.
SW:
I think on your website you said that working with Tom Herman again
would either be really cool or a complete disaster. Obviously it wasn't
a disaster.
DT:
No, it's not a complete disaster. Yeah, it's fun working with Tom. It's
not particularly different to how it ever was before. There's the same
personalities and the same strengths and weaknesses.
SW:
Does personality clash assist the Ubu creative process?
DT: Well, everybody has very definite ideas about what they're doing;
so, certainly, that's a good thing for us.
SW:
I discovered recently that 'Rolling Stone' magazine included The Modern
Dance in their 'Best 200 Albums' a couple of years ago. What's your
reaction given the Ubu emphasis on the 'Brotherhood of the Unknown'?
DT: My response is that we should have been picked in the top 5 records
of all time. Perhaps the top 10. It doesn't really mean anything from
anyone. Yes, it's a nice little fuzzy feeling that you get for about
2 minutes and then you get back to watching T.V. and cutting your nails.
It's not a big deal.
SW:
Does the listening experience of rock music remain is powerful for you
now as it may have done in your youth?
DT:
Yeah. When I was in my teens I was listening to Herb Alpert, so I'm
not a very good example. I didn't start to listen to rock until the
end of my teens. Because I'm a musician and I'm way past the age when
people's passions for these things are expected to cool off, clearly
I still have a passion for the stuff. There are very few things that
move me, particularly. Without sounding terribly immodest, most of the
music I listen to isn't as good as what I do. There's a certain amout
that's better than what I do, so if I listen to that it just makes me
feel bad, so I tend not to play it very much. And there' a bunch of
things that are on the same level as me, and hearing that can make you
say "Oh that album is better than my last album", or "That's
not as good as my last album". You know, feelings of envy and contention
and competition can surface, so in the end I don't necessarily listen
to a lot of stuff anymore. I suppose there's no point in listening to
something that's not as good as you. Then that leaves the stuff that's
as good and what's better and then you're in trouble!
SW:
Has the experience of touring changed?
DT: Pere Ubu have never liked to tour very much. We like to tour, but
from the very beginning we've always been people who refused to sleep
on other people's floors, and we've always insisted on single hotel
rooms unless it's absolutely impossible. One of the reasons we're not
more popular is that to become known you have to go on the road for
a year and a half and sleep in the van or on the floor and we're not
doing it! So we tour exactly as much as we did 20 years ago, which is
30-40 dates a year, that's it. We have lives we like to live, and homes
we like to be in.
SW:
I was talking to someone who saw you in New York with the two pale boys
a couple of years ago, and he said one of things that impressed him
the most about your show was your confidence. Has it ever been difficult
for you to summon the confidence required to perform music which may
be a long way from what Joe Average wants to hear on his Saturday nights?
DT:
Confidence is really easy if you lack imagination. I would say that
the difference between a professional musician and a non professional,
or just a normal person-and I use the term very loosely at this point
because I consider myself an amateur, but in this context I'm a professional-you
have to have tunnel vision. You have to compartmentalise everything
about your life. An important part of lacking imagination is not being
able to see that there's a better life that you could have had if you
made different choices! I've never had a problem with confidence, because
it's like: "What are you gonna do"? I'm not overly confident
and if you has asked me if I was confident I'd say no, not particularly.
I don't know what else to do. I've gotta get on stage and do a good
show.
