Broken Dreams Club Interview: The Black Lips

Photo Credit: Alexandra Cabral

Once seemingly destined to burn out early in a blaze of youthful self-destruction, Atlanta’s Black Lips are improbably celebrating their 26th year of existence. Better still, the band continues to churn out their vital, vibrant and unique brand of music, equally indebted to garage rock, lo-fi, psychedelic, doo-wop and rockabilly influences.

There isn’t a bad album in the Black Lips catalog, but their latest release, “Season of the Peach,” is one of the best records in their formidable history. The Black Lips' current iteration of guitarists Cole Alexander and Jeff Clarke, bassist Jared Swilley, drummer Oakley Munson and saxophone player Zumi Rosow is among the longest-running versions of the group and tellingly, the band has never sounded tighter or more cohesive.

In anticipation of their October 23 show at the Fox Theater opening for the Viagra Boys, Broken Dreams Club spoke with Black Lips bassist and co-founder Jared Swilley about inspirations for the new album, which touches upon everything from religion to European civil wars to doomed prison jailbreaks:    

So, you guys recently wrapped up a massive tour in Europe. How did those shows go?

It was a very hectic schedule, but all the shows were very, very good. We started in the Netherlands and Belgium—like the Low Countries over there. And then Scandinavia for a week, and then Turkey and Greece and London, and a couple shows in France.

And now you’re starting up this American tour opening for Viagra Boys. How did you all connect with them?

I don't think I've ever met them. I don't know if anyone in the band knows them, either. We probably have some mutual friends. I think they just asked our agent if we wanted to go on tour and we said yeah. We’ll get to know them soon, though. Very well. 

You guys are living all over the world now, right? You’re the only one still in Georgia? How do you all reconvene and prep before going on tours? Will there be a meeting point on the West Coast before you kick off these gigs? 

Yeah—I’m in Georgia, Jeff is in Berlin, Oakley is in upstate New York, and Cole and Zumi are in LA. We always talk about maybe showing up a couple days before the tour starts for like a day or two of practice, but that's never happened. We just get together and do our thing. Our songs aren't that hard, and everyone's been in the band for long enough. Maybe if we were like a metal band, that approach wouldn’t work. But, you know, our music is pretty simple stuff.

The new album is called “Season of the Peach,” an obvious ode to your home state. Any particular inspiration behind that album title? Maybe a reminder that, despite the scattered locations of everyone now, you all are still an Atlanta band at heart?

We’ll always be a Georgia band because this is me and Cole's thing. We have a friend Andy Animal who kept pushing us to have a title that has something to do with peaches. And I kind of hated the idea at first, but he kept pushing us—and he’s our good friend, he directed one of our music videos—so eventually, I warmed up to it. I mean, I really love peaches—it’s kind of a cliche, but they’re my favorite fruit. You can get a banana all year, or an orange. Not a big deal. But technically, you can only get peaches for a couple months of the year, even here in Georgia. I always remember that last peach of the year, at the end of August. That’s kind of why summer has always been my favorite season—the peaches.  

You all recorded this album at Oakley’s house in the Catskills, right? What was that experience like?

I mean, it's awesome. I don't know if I would want to record a different way anymore. It’s nice—it’s like this real hippie thing, where we're out in the woods and, yeah, I chop wood, and everyone takes turns cooking. And he has a ton of birds out there that Jeff takes charge of. He has, like, 30 geese and ducks and peacocks and stuff. And the main thing is, not being in a city, we can start whenever we want. The record before, we recorded in Paris, which was cool, but it's a really hectic city with pretty strict rules about only being able to record between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.. Everyone has different schedules, too. I'm up at the crack of dawn, but some people sleep later, so it's just less pressure on everyone. When we’re in the studio, I'm constantly trying to figure out, ‘oh, this is costing X amount of money an hour.’ So, I was always just sweating stuff like that. We've done a record in New York before and that was cool, and we’re certainly not complaining about recording in New York or Paris, but it's just less hectic being in the country. It's just a different vibe—very chill. You don't have people stopping by. No one's going out to party at night. 

The Black Lips have always been a very democratic collective—back to your earliest days, you always had multiple songwriters, but “Season of The Peach” is heavily indebted to you and Cole. Did you all just happen to have the most ideas for this album, or was this an intentional effort to focus the album on your songs?

We’ve never gone into an album with a set idea, like, this is what we're going to do. The only process we've ever had is basically everyone getting together and we write and record as many songs as we can. And then we just pick the ones that we think sound best. So, it's really just how it happens. Sometimes Cole and I will have more songs than others, and that’s just an organic thing. Our band has always been an open-writing project, where there's no main songwriter. And I like that—it makes it more of a collective.

Did it give you a little bit of a throwback feeling, partnering with Cole so much on this record? I mean, you and him have been making music together since you were teenagers.

Yeah—when I play music with him, it’s different than anyone else, just because I’m more comfortable with him than anyone. We literally discovered music together. I think we were 13 when we discovered punk rock together, so there is always going to be a different energy with us. But, you know, everyone else has been in the band for long enough to where we all have a pretty strong connection.

This current lineup has been one of the longest iterations of the band. What do you think is the key to that kind of longevity?

I guess because everyone still digs it and no one's gotten married and had kids. We’re all still pretty committed to the band.

Let’s talk about “Season of the Peach.” It’s a great album and is bookended by these two tracks, “The Illusion Part Two” and the “Illusion Part One,” which both seem surprisingly world-weary for a band like the Black Lips. A couple of questions there—what was behind the decision to start the album with Part Two and end with Part One, and why was it important to have those songs open and close out the album? 

I think we started with Part Two, just because it was the wrong thing to do—that’s how we do things around here, pretty much. And I like having intros and outros to albums. I’ve never been much of an album guy, because I’m mostly into stuff from the 50s. But I like the idea of, not necessarily concept albums, because we don’t do those, but it’s fun to have an opening and closing song that has a connection, just to tie everything together.

“Kassandra” is one of the standout tracks from the album—it almost feels like a spiritual successor to “Katrina.” It tackles the Yugoslavian Civil War—a conflict that’s probably slipped off the radar for most people. Any reason to revisit that war now?

Well, I’ve spent a lot of time in Croatia and Serbia the past couple of years, So I heard a bunch of stories about it and I was dating someone that went through the war and everything. She told me stories about this Venezuelan soap opera called Kassandra, and it was, like, the most popular show in Yugoslavia. And so, when that show would come on, everyone would stop fighting for that hour. I think at one point, the show got canceled or taken off the air, but someone at the UN or somebody high up, basically begged the broadcaster to bring it back, because they needed that peace. I thought that was pretty cool. There was this really brutal war, but everyone was bonding over this kind of cheesy telenovela.

You guys tour so much and you do travel to countries that aren't on your typical touring circuit. Do you think it gives you this perspective that others might not have? That’s an amazing story, but I’m betting that most people out there today aren’t super familiar with the Yugoslav Wars.

You know, I have a ninth grade education, but I do think that getting out and seeing the world gives you a pretty good perspective. It gets you outside of your bubble. I grew up with a lot of people who were poor and couldn't travel—there’s obviously nothing with that. But I know a lot of people I went to school with who have never been on an airplane. I took a buddy of mine over to Europe two summers ago and he’s my age. He had never been on an airplane before. It’s kind of wild. Traveling gives you a better understanding of people. It shapes your worldview, in a better way, because you're exposed to more things and it’s just interesting to know about other stuff. 

Ok, back to the album. “Baptism in the Death House,” is this great outlaw story that very much fits within the Black Lips’ catalog of offbeat, wild characters—these Southern Gothic tales. Is Roy Settles a real person or kind of amalgamation of various bandits you heard about growing up?

It's a true story. All the men in my family were preachers or still are preachers, and my great-grandfather was a pretty big time preacher in South Carolina. In the early 30s, at the South Carolina State Penitentiary, there were these six prisoners and Roy Settles was one of them. They planned an escape from this prison, and they took a prison guard hostage. There was a day-long standoff, and eventually the cops started shooting tear gas, and a guard got killed in the melee. So, all six guys got sentenced to death. And they actually executed them all at the same time. It was the largest mass execution in South Carolina state history. And my great grandpa got called and stayed with them the whole night before. He did all his preaching stuff, and said all the prayers with them. And five of the guys chose to accept Jesus and repent or whatever. But this one guy, Roy Settles kept spitting on the ground and said he'd be happier in hell. My grandfather ended up writing a book about it—it was called something like the “Tale of Five Men Who Repented and the One Who Didn’t.’ But he preached on that story forever. He was able to lead five men to Jesus, but one just said ‘fuck you, your shit sucks.’

You guys have never really shied away from tackling thorny religious issues. You obviously grew up in the church--what’s the Black Lips’ stance on organized religion?

I can't speak for anyone else. I know Cole loves gospel music, as do I. A lot of my favorite singers and musicians  grew up in the same church I grew up in. People like Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis and Little Richard and James Brown—all those guys came from the same kind of Pentecostal church I grew up in. I felt a kind of kinship with that and it was easy to reconcile with. And my dad is very, very liberal, but he used to be a mega church preacher. He came out of the closet about a decade ago, but before that, he was getting heat in the Atlanta press for some of our behavior. The articles weren’t exactly bad, but it was not stuff you'd want your preacher dad to read or everyone in his church, right? But I always said to him, ‘I'm kind of doing the same thing as you.’ Like, I’m an entertainer, and I'm on stage and same with him. 

But as far as organized religion goes, I was never brought up in a super judgmental home. Even before my dad came out, he never believed that anyone was going to hell. And that was kind of controversial. But it very much shaped my experience with religion, which was very compassionate and nice. I saw it as a great support system for a lot of people who were pretty down and out. I always thought it was a force for good. Now, there's other stuff I don't like about religion and you can probably imagine what I’m talking about, but my experience with it was always good.

I grew up in a full gospel Pentecostal church, so there would be people freaking out at like, nine in the morning. They call it getting drunk on the Holy Spirit, like having seizures and screaming and my dad would hit people on the head and they'd fall down. I just remember being like, if I could bottle just 5% of this energy into a Black Lips show, it would be amazing. But we’re singing about rock and roll and cars, and the church is singing about saving your eternal soul, so we can’t really compete.

After “Baptism in the Death House,” is Cole’s song “Tippy Tongue.” I think one of the most underrated aspects of the Black Lips is your obvious appreciation for 50s and 60s doo-wop groups (“Hatman” is another great example.) There is always going to be a garage rock and lo-fi and southern rock tinge to your songs, but these girl groups, like the Supremes and the Crystals, seem to be a major influence. Is there a shared love within the group for those kinds of outfits?

I would say they are really special to me, more so than anyone else in the band, although Cole's really into that stuff as well. This guy I work with asked me if I was listening to anything new, and I was like, ‘man, I've listened to the same shit for years, now.’ It’s just doo-wop and old rockabilly stuff. I used to be more involved in finding the new stuff, but at this point, I’m too old to be going to concerts all the time. I work full time when I’m at home and have to be up at 6 a.m. so I can’t stay out late or anything. That said, I really like this French band, La Femme. And I’m sure there are a lot of other great bands out there, but I just don’t get out as much.

Sounds very reasonable. So, we talked last year about the band celebrating 25 years. Are you all due for another 25 more? Be just like the Rolling Stones, performing out there forever?

You know, I'm not gonna say where we’re gonna be 25 years from now, but I don’t see any reason why we can’t keep this thing going for the foreseeable future. We have a pretty good balance right now. Our last tour was great, this next one should be pretty cool, so I don’t see any reason to stop. We’re not going to tour 10 months a year like we used to, but we’ll still probably tour more than most bands do.

Ok—looking ahead to this show in Oakland. Are you guys excited to return to the Bay Area? Have you ever played the Fox before?

We’ve never played the Fox in Oakland. We have a Fox in Atlanta, and we got to play there recently and that was like a dream come true. Even before we started, my goal was always to play the Fox in Atlanta one day. We had my high school prom there, even though I wasn't in school at the time. So, that was a cool thing. My dad got to go to the show—it was his birthday. And we played the Fox in Detroit one time, but I didn't realize there was a Fox in Oakland. Either way, we’re super excited to play there.

I’ve seen you guys play in countless venues here—Rickshaw Stop, Great American Music Hall, Bottom of the Hill—even saw you at Public Works, which is now a dance venue. Do you have a favorite spot to play here? And what’s your favorite thing to do when visiting the Bay?

I always like playing the Great American Music Hall. It's been a while since we've been there, but it’s such a pretty club. When we go to San Francisco, we always eat a lot of great food and hang out with our friend, Kristin, who owns this shop called Vacation. We’ll hang out with her and grab some Chinese food and explore the city.

You’ve got this tour for the next month or so. Will you be returning for a headlining slot in the near future?

I don't love touring in the winter, because it's just not that much fun. I think this might be it for us for the year. But we'll tour behind the album more starting next year. We’ll definitely make it back to San Francisco.

Show Details:
Black Lips with the Viagra Boys
Where: Fox Theater
When: 8 p.m., Thursday, October 23
Tickets: Sold out!