SplatterTribe: Where are you based at these days?
 

Curt Kirkwood: Two of us live in Austin, Texas and one of us live in Phoenix. I live in Austin.

SplatterTribe: So the tour starts tomorrow, do you guys do any extensive rehearsing for the shows, or do you pretty much show up and just do it.

Curt Kirkwood: Naw, we don’t rehearse a whole lot. We, kinda, know the songs, pretty much. We just kind of do it (rehearse) for fun, more than anything. It works itself out on the road.

SplatterTribe: How does your writing process work? I mean, you can go back through your whole career, but more to the point, how about for the new album, “Lollipop?”

Curt Kirkwood: Well, I don’t really have any discipline. If I’m setting around and I think I got something, you know, a subtle tune goin’ through my head, that’s how it usually is, something like that; just a little melody or some kind of little tune. I’ll just take the time to stop and figure it out on guitar. Maybe record it on my cell phone or something like that, these days.

Hang on a second, I just lost my phone charger. We’re at a Pilot Truck Stop tryin’ to score a new one (laughs)...

SplatterTribe: Yeah, go ahead and do what you got to do...

Curt Kirkwood: ”Yeah, OK,” (directed to someone in the car with him).

Hang on a second dude, I’m gonna plug this thing in and make sure it works before I drive off here… Yeah, it’s gonna work…

 (inaudible) Well take it out of the Goddamn thing... (directed to the person in the car with him)

Alright, I’m gonna say it works (laughs) There’s too much happening. Uhh, I’m driving too…sorry. (laughs)

Anyway, it’s pretty casual. I’ll get a tune, one little, sort of, (piece) of it. Then I try to find what the answer (is on) how to finish it. That’s usually the trick. You get one little piece of it. Then you, kinda, gotta finish it. Sometimes it all comes at once. A lot of times, you know, I’ll have it setting around; like is the case of the first song (Incomplete) on this album. I had the basic (part) of that for a really long time; probably starting… When did I write the first song, in ’83 maybe? It’s that old. And then, I just finished it for this record. I’ve never tried to record it. I kind of knew the basic parts in my head…

SplatterTribe: Is it a song you never could finish until now, or was it something you just pushed aside and didn’t think about anymore?

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah, I could just never figure out how to do it. I couldn’t figure out… if I wanted to do that song, with the band… I never… I don’t know, I just never felt like it was a good idea. And that’s a strange, abstract thing in itself, how you decide when something is ready for something, or what goes with something else. It’s pretty loose for me… Uhm, and there’s songs from this that are from all over the place, time wise. There’s a couple I wrote when I lived in California a number of years back (and) probably about half of it, I wrote in the studio. I kind of, just decided to go in there and see what we could do. Then I have to set there writing lyrics while I’m standing at the microphone.

SplatterTribe: Well, that’s another question I was going to ask…How much of a song do you normally have when going into the studio and how much does it change while you’re there?

Curt Kirkwood: Well, this time, we didn’t practice for it. We didn’t really learn the songs. I knew some of them, (but) we just got in there and start putting it together. Some of them changed quite a bit, for sure, as we went along. It was a really fun way to do it, working it out as we went. I found it was an easier way to keep track of the stuff. A lot of times you practice and go in there with the band and think you have it down. Then you get (too) involved with the recording of what you already have, (and) you kind of forget some stuff with the arrangement, or just let things go because you are focused on the recording and not the specific material, as much. This time it was like, “Let the guy deal with the recording. Let the engineer take care of all that stuff.” We can just sit there and worked on arrangements.

SplatterTribe: Is that something you tried for the first time? How much has a studio session changed for you guys over the years?

Curt Kirkwood: Quite a bit of difference from session to session. Some of them where really expensive, long sessions; like for the major label records and sometimes, we’ve just thrown together and cut all the tracks as a band, and then (we're) out in a few days. This time we didn’t know’m. So we couldn’t really do’m that way. We had to play our parts, start out with the drums, the acoustic guitar. You know, it’s always, kind of, different. That’s the fun of it. You just go, “Ahhhh, I don’t want to do a record like that. I want to go in and make something like we would do setting around in the living room.” That was the goal this time. It wasn’t like, “Oh, we have to go to the studio now.” It just sounded like fun. There’s something cool about how stuff comes out when you’re messing around with it, better than going in and try to make an effort to record a “Great” album. I just like to record and not make a big deal out of it.

SplatterTribe: Do you feel that you succeeded with that “living room element” on this album?

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah, for sure, it was definitely like that. It was just the three of us, the engineer, a pretty secluded studio, good environment…We were able to keep it really casual and not have to get that… I don’t know, (where) it turns into that production line, sort of, “Ah, we’re in the studio now, this has to count.” It’s a little oppressive when it’s like that. It’s not that much fun…

SplatterTribe: You are now signed to Megaforce Records, how much control do you have over the recording?

Curt Kirkwood: Well, I’ve never been coerced to heavily, in anyway, really. It’s always…

Road closed? We can’t get on the road there? (directed to the person in the car with him) Sorry Luie... (laughs)

SplatterTribe: Oh, you’re alright, I don’t know if you’re hitting the rain yet, but that can get a little hectic..
 

Curt Kirkwood: No, not yet, I’ve been stuck behind a funeral procession here. It’s been pretty casual in talking to you. Now I’m tryin' to get back on this (inaudible), which is anything but casual between Austin and Dallas. It’s absolutely crazy…

SplatterTribe: Are you on the road to get to the start of the tour?
 

Curt Kirkwood: We’re headed to Lexington, KY. It’s a two day drive from here. It’s another 1000 miles for us till tomorrow night.

SplatterTribe: This is the start of a pretty extensive tour, isn’t it?

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah, yeah, we’ve got a couple of days off between this one and the European leg and then a couple of days off between the Euro leg and the West Coast leg. Then we’ve got a good month and a half off after that before heading (back) to the West Coast for a few isolated dates in July and August, but we’re busy till then.

SplatterTribe: So how did you hook up with the headliner Slightly Stoopid?
 

Curt Kirkwood: They’ve been saying they were going to take us for a couple of years now. So it finally happened. They can choose their opening act. I think they’re pretty careful about it. They take who they want to. I think I met a couple of the guys when I was playing with Bud Gaugh (Sublime). They’re old friends with those guys in Sublime. So that’s one of the connections I have there. Their manager was involved with my band Eyes Adrift that I had with Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) and Bud Gaugh.

SplatterTribe: Yeah, whatever happened with Eyes Adrift?
 

Curt Kirkwood: Well, those guys both decided they were going to quit the music business. I think Krist, pretty much, he played with Flipper some, but he bailed first. He said he wanted to run for Lieutenant Governor of Washington, which he did. Then Bud quit a little bit later. Well, after Krist quit, Bud and I kept playing and we played with Miguel (Michael 'Miguel' Happoldt). The guy that produced the first few Sublime albums and he produced a bunch of Slightly Stoopid stuff, as well. That’s how I met them. They came into the studio. I don’t really remember meeting them, but then…

Then Bud decided to quit, and he was out for a while. I guess he’s been doing Sublime again, now.

SplatterTribe: Meat Puppets did have a lot of down years. Did you miss the band on those down years or did you stay so occupied with other projects and stuff, that it wasn’t a big thing?

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah to me it was, I had done so many things (with Meat Puppets) that it was fun to do other things, but then, when I did the solo record that’s when I started going, “Ah, I want to have a Rock band again.”

 I’ve always had the ability to just do it when I wanted to. I’d keep in my head, even if other people thought, “Oh, you guys broke up”, or whatever. Its like, “No we didn’t. I’m still in (the band)”, or whatever...

SplatterTribe: Well, you where the lone member to keep it going for a while there…

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah, that’s what I was referring to. (Everyone would be saying), “You broke up. You broke up & here’s a new band”. I started getting offers from other labels. I still had the contract for the Meat Puppets. I was like, “I already have a contract”, and I wrote all of these songs anyway. It was, kind of, my take on artistic license. Whose business is it to say what that means?

SplatterTribe: I saw somewhere that there was going to be re-issues of some of your older albums. Do you have anything to do with that?

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah, yeah, I own all of that stuff. (cell phone cuts out) I own the recordings to all the early stuff and I own the publishing. We’re gonna do it one at a time. The way rights go, it's kind of hard to keep things in stock anymore. It’s kind of the way record stores are. So we’re just going to do one at a time.

SplatterTribe: How hard was it to hold on to your publishing through your career?

Curt Kirkwood: I just never sold it (laughs). It was easy... I got some big offers now and then, especially after ‘Too High to Die’ and we did the Nirvana stuff and there was definitely some expensive stuff dangled there, but I felt like once… It’s pretty easy to say, “Ok, Nirvana is gonna release your thing and people will want to buy your publishing”, (but) I’m like, “Naw, I’m gonna make it (the money) anyway. There’s no gamble here." A publishing deal…You sign away your publishing. You get that front money, but 9 times out of ten you’re not gonna make any money back unless you have some huge hit, or whatever. That may be the only money you see. I was pretty sure this would generate some money either way, and it would probably be to my (benefit) if I didn’t give away 50% of it.

SplatterTribe: So you consciously were thinking about the future? A lot of bands do not do that, and it always boggles my mind.

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah, I wound up in a pretty easy position here, just by being mostly stubborn and being careful, you know? Handling the SST (Records) stuff hands on. I’ve always been conscious of that being important. I didn’t even know what it meant when I was young. I just knew, like, SST was putting, “Published by...”, whatever that thing was (they listed) on the record. I was like, “why is it published by their thing.” Eventually I started finding out what it means. I was like, “No it’s not. I never gave you the publishing on this.”

That was, probably, just about luck that I didn’t get in knee deep with them, but I was also very Punk Rock back then. I was always like, “No, I’m not putting my name on anything; just put the records out like the Punkers you say you are.” That stubbornness there, also got me into this (current) situation...

SplatterTribe: I always ask everyone if they have a good question to ask a future interviewee. I got a question from Richard Young of the Kentucky Headhunters a long time ago, that would be a good one for you being that you have been in the business for a while. His question was…

 --How do you feel about the way the music industry has changed over through your career?--

And I’ll also add...How has it affected the band?--

Curt Kirkwood: I still held on to a big part of my original…my motivation. I never wanted to be in the music business. I didn’t know there was a music business. I got into it because I was in a band. I always liked to be in a band, play music with my friends and all of a sudden, yeah, there’s a business and you need to sell records. You need to be successful. You need to be famous. I always have thought, “Why is that a concern of mine?"

 You know, I’m lucky people put my records out, but I give a fuck about what happens. I really do (sarcasm). That’s the way it goes. I don’t care... I don’t care. It’s changed a lot, yeah, but what? Now they don’t pay radio programmers to play your shit anymore; passing money under the tables? So what? You know? (laughs) You can’t bribe people anymore? No…I don’t know…I know how it works to a degree. There’s a lot of scratching each other’s backs and that kind of stuff. I’ve always been one of those people that, you know, it’s a fluke that you get popular anyway… You think your fuckin’ popular…(inaudible-possible cursing directed toward a vehicle in front of him)

Sorry…Road Rage...

And a, you know, I’m just a… I think… (dropped call)

(Tribe Note: This is the point that I lost him. The conversation went from the “Road Rage” comment to a dropped call. So, I wasn’t really sure what might have happened and decided to wait a couple of minutes before I tried to call him back. Instead, Curt called me back after a couple of minutes... I started the recording back up after I answered the phone and he said he must have passed through a dead zone.)

SplatterTribe: Well, as long as you didn’t hit another car during the road rage, I guess everything is good.

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah, (laughs) Naw, that doesn’t happen.

SplatterTribe: I just got a few more questions and I’ll let you get back to the driving. I’m sure it is hectic. Getting back to the music industry question, how does the digital age affect someone like you who has been in the business for 30 years? Does it?

Curt Kirkwood: You know, whatever the method. I mean, for me, when we started out, it was cassettes and LP’s. You know, CD’s didn’t exist. I remember when the first CD’s came around. It was like Pink Floyd and Mannheim Steamroller, you know, just a couple of them that you could get. It was a big deal. I think ‘Up On The Sun’ was the first one of ours that came out on CD, initially; at the same time it came out on LP. Honestly, I’ve never made anything off of…in terms of like making money; I’ve never made any money off of a record. You don’t sell enough records, you know? I mean, you need to sell so many, by the time you do… I mean, yeah, you can make money if you sell (a lot, but) on a major, you have to pay it back first.

So if that’s the deal, you get in deep. You got to make enough back to pay them back all their promo (promotional money), all the recording costs and everything. By the time you got done with that, maybe you’re a couple of records deep into them for debt, which was the case with us. We, pretty much, about broke even there.

I mean, over the years I’ve made money off the SST thing, in whatever the format is, whether the people bought it over iTunes, or whatever. How they’re buying them, I don’t know. To me, it becomes this huge deal and it’s just like…It’s like a Dr Seuss thing. It’s like the better butter battle. We’re gonna butter our stuff from the other side now. We discovered it’s better if you turn it and butter it from the bottom…I don’t really care. I’m still gonna play music the same way and that’s a conscious thing, just to go, “I don’t care about this. This is all a bunch of…smoke screen, or whatever.

I mean, we where Punk Rockers. Our whole thing was, “I don’t care if I’m successful. I hope I’m not. I hope this music hurts your feelings. I hope you don’t like it” type shit. You know, "we do it for ourselves". Then all of a sudden we’re a money making thing? I rely on this for my (inaudible) and all of that? Well, I resent that too. I resent having to make a living, so why do I give a shit? You know, “Good, I make a living, ha-ha-ha-ha, but I’m not going to put that on my damned music.” That’s a huge burden for art.

SplatterTribe: With that mindset, when you do get success, is it awkward?

Curt Kirkwood: Well, no it’s not. I mean, while it’s not something that I regard as a priority, I’m still out there doin’ it, and I’m putting myself on the stage; which I don’t have to. So it’s kind of a lie to say that you’re not goin’ (for it), because by presenting yourself, you are. It doesn’t mean I have to have it be a priority in my mind, but I do make the gigs and I do the best shows that I can, in my eyes. You know, (if) the herd likes it, who knows? What can you say about that? There’s something about that, that makes you feel a little more human because, one, it inspires you; especially at shows. The more people that are into it and they give to you, a lot of times you get these really cool shows. It (success) didn’t really make me feel, like great, or anything, but it doesn’t make me feel bad having success.

Once again, you just look at it as, “Well, what’s the reward here, for all of this?” Money? It’s great, but you still…I got a house. I got my needs taken care of , which is how you like…to have things. Now, if I had more, what would I do? Travel the world? Buy drugs? Who knows? What do you do? There’s not much you can do with it. The realistic part of it, ironically, is you get to keep playing music. It’s always been the case for me.

What’s the major of the success? Do we get to make another one? (When) your hugely successful, people seem to be interested in your next one. I never wanted to be like, “Well, you where something that happened at a certain time, and that’s it.” Not to stay trendy over the years or anything, but just to be able to have the ability to do this. You know, I like making records. I like playing music.

You keep those priorities there and all of the rest of the crap just passes by you.

SplatterTribe: Well, do you have a good, random question I can ask a future interviewee?

Curt Kirkwood: Uhm… Wow… Uhm… Boy… I’m not really good… at that kind of thing… to ask a question… uh…uhm… Jesus…

(directed to the person in the car with him) I know, I know, I can’t think of one man… That’s a tough one… What kind of…?

Ok… Uh… How long… OK, here’s my random question. How long would it take a person to count to a billion?

SplatterTribe: That’s perfectly fine with me... I got no issues with asking that question...

Curt Kirkwood: (laughs) Well, there is an answer to it. There’s a correct, estimate… Uhm… That’s a damn long time. It would take you 30 sum years. Yeah, counting like, a number per second.

SplatterTribe: Yeah, I got ya. I mean, I’m not gonna question it and I’m not gonna try to prove you wrong, so…

Curt Kirkwood: (laughs) That’s a music business question. It’s basically… “What do you do when you’re not setting in a corner, by yourself, crying naked and counting to a billion in a pool of your own run off?” (laughs)

SplatterTribe: (laughing) What the…(laughing) alright? Yeah? (laughs)
OK, man, I guess if you have any closing comments, I’ll let you get back to driving.

Curt Kirkwood: Well, you know, we’re driving. We’re driving and playing shows and then, I don’t really look to far ahead that way. I get the album done (then) ok, we got some shows. We’ll take care of those. I don’t really know about the next recording. I’ve started to do a few little things here and there, but mostly just focusing on what’s in the immediate future and what’s on the docket.

SplatterTribe: So basically, your tour starts this week and you will be touring through the summer...

Curt Kirkwood: Yeah, you know and then picking it up again in the fall, September. Who knows how long we will work this one. It tends to work in cycles like that. Put out a record and go out and, quote/unquote promote this record.

We’re just, kind of, doin’ the same thing (we always do). I always look forward to the shows. That’s still the highlight for me. There’s no question about it. I’m a live music person. I only get certain enjoyment out of any of it. The shows are the highlight. There’s not a whole lot more I have to look forward too; unless somebody wants to give me a yacht... and a big fuckin’ bus.

SplatterTribe: Give it time...

Curt Kirkwood: (laughs)

www.myspace.com/themeatpuppets