Failure
"It was like Lord of the Flies in a van." John Berry said that after being on tour with Lifter for about 6 weeks. John was a good friend of ours and my first real AA sponsor. John's no longer with us, and I really miss that weird fucker. There was no one I've met like him. I could and should write a whole chapter just about John. But suffice it to say, his experience as our "roadie" wasn't a pleasant one for him. We got through it but going on tour with us wasn't a good thing for anyone we took with us.
Lifter, the three of us, Jeff Sebelia, Johnny Rozas, who was, by the way, John Penny from our first music endeavors in Sleep when I first moved here, and I were very tight. From the beginning, we had really developed an attitude of us against the world. We weren't really part of the burgeoning Silverlake scene despite playing all kinds of shows there in those glory days. And it wasn't as if we weren't friends with other bands. But we were unabashed that we wanted to be rock stars. We had no interest in being another 16th note flurry of indy rock. We wanted money, girls, and drugs, and we dared to play guitar solos. Well, I dared, which adequately describes my guitar-playing prowess. I don't think we were dicks to people, but we were clearly a very arrogant and confident band. Despite what history may say, we knew we were the best of the bunch.
After we finished the record, we came back, and it was decided that it needed to be remixed. Brian, our A&R guy, didn't like Sean and Paul's mix. Pretty common, so we then hired this big-time guy Andy Wallace to remix it for us. He had done all kinds of huge records. He was this very conservative, almost stately older gentleman. So we went to New York, plopped down another 150k and got our record remixed. Imagine that. One Hundred and Fifty thousand dollars to remix a record. Not that he didn't do a great job and not that his fees were out of line with what was standard those days but Jesus! Those days are gone forever! The money these guys made, especially relative to the actual bands, was just astounding.
So now we had a record and a reason to tour. But things got a little sidetracked. And for once, it involved drugs, but it wasn't me taking them. When we were in Boston recording, Brian came out to check out how things were going. I sort of figured we'd see a lot of him, but as it turned out, he showed up one night, had his cab wait for him, and he hung out for what seemed like maybe half an hour. We played him some tracks; he said they sounded great, and then he left. Seemed kind of odd, but what did we know?
At some point, Brian had gotten into the crack jar. I've always been almost embarrassed that I never picked up on it, given my expertise in such matters. And evidently, this had been going on for a while. I'm not really sure how long it was after we finally finished the record, but Brian just went wildly off the rails. He disappeared for a few days and then emerged by frantically calling the Interscope lawyer, claiming that I, me, was lurking around his house and had already stolen all of his TVs. I think that was partly formed by a night before all this when he visited me in my little hovel of a studio apartment in Los Feliz and saw that I had some shitty old TV. "You need a new TV!" he exclaimed. "Let's go get you one." I was a bit taken aback. I'm sure I reflexively demurred at first, but he was adamant, and so we got into his brand-new Lotus supercar and sped to Circuit City. He was hitting 120 between red lights on Vine, and while it was terrifying, it also had that weird feeling of comfort when you realize you might very well die, but it won't be your fault. I've only ever feared death when I thought I could get blamed for it. I just remember laughing the laugh of terrified and excited adrenaline. Nothing like it except for bombs; that's why I was into making bombs. Same deal. Although blowing myself up with a homemade bomb would surely be something I'd get blamed for so, I stopped all of that when a piece of pipe shrapnel whizzed past my ear, actually flicking my hair back. One inch to the left, and I'd be quite dead and in a lot of trouble.
And so he bought me a nice new TV, and I was very grateful and maybe just still a bit embarrassed, but I accepted it. He was almost little-kid excited to buy it for me. I really loved Brian as a friend. As it turned out, we never got to be around each other much from then on, as he disappeared after a few months of working with him. I've tried over the years to find him, but I never have. I hope he's somewhere out there, safe and happy. Maybe he'll read this someday for some weird reason, and if so, know this, Brian: I still love you.
Unfortunately, the paranoid delusions from the crack just kept escalating. While most of the psychosis and accusations focussed on me as the culprit, they started to extend to other key Interscope people and then it just stopped. And no one that I know of has ever heard from him since. It's horribly sad, this feeling of someone you love just vanishing into the ether. The saddest thing is that I think we'd know if he had died. But it seems he's out there in some Cambodian prison of the mind with only his punji sticks and crackpipe to keep him company. Very sad.
What all of this meant for us was basically catastrophe. A band is really only served by a label to the extent that their A&R guy fights for them. We were assigned a new guy who was the head of A&R, which you'd think would be a good deal, but it was the exact opposite. Tom Whalley was his name. Nice enough guy and certainly third in command of the whole label, but his regular bands were Nine Inch Nails and No Doubt and Dr. Dre and basically all of Interscope's actual stars. We didn't get much of his attention, which is the kindest way to put it.
We sorta just landed in the autopilot bin of the labels promotional department. They got us a van, they made a bunch of posters to send out to various regional label marketing people, and we booked a tour with our booking agency. I don't even remember who they were, but I'm sure we somehow had to give them some money.
Our first tour was just the three of us. I imagine it was a west coast tour. I really can't remember. But I know it was a headlining tour which meant that it was us and several local acts every night. But our record was months from being released, so there was zero reason for anyone to even consider coming out to see us. When you get out of the major cities, you'll generally pull in random people who just like live music and are grateful that anyone's willing to come to their small town. Still, generally, these were pretty empty rooms, and the local bands might be anything from reggae to rock to Red Hot Chili Pepper knock-offs. But hell, we loved it! We just drove all day, loaded in our gear and maybe soundchecked, and waited to play; we always gave it our all and then we'd get whatever small guarantee we were owed and go to the nearest Motel 6 or such. Then we'd do it all again the next day. When you're a kid, and you find yourself in this situation, it takes a lot to make it anything but fun.
We'd take turns driving. I hated it, so I'd try to dodge it as much as possible. I liked laying down in one of the back seats, eating Jolly Ranchers and reading. But, whoever was driving got to choose the lion's share of the music we constantly played. Man, so many records flood back as memories of those tour soundtracks. The first Codeine record, lots of SWANS, especially the song "Failure.", which was a favorite and almost religious experience for Johnny and me. Jeff played a lot of Flaming Lips, which I just wasn't really into yet. Surely lots of The Birthday Party and Nick Cave and later year Einsturzende Neubauten. But we just never didn't have music playing. It was inconceivable to have the engine running with no music playing.
One day we were driving through the barrens of some state like North Dakota or Wyoming. One of those massive open vista areas with nothing but straight blacktop for miles and miles and another car maybe once every 10 or 15 minutes. Next thing you know, there are flashing lights and a siren behind us. We're being pulled over. Johnny was driving and was evidently speeding, which seems impossible in such a massive flat place. So the cop comes to the window, and he's what you'd expect. He's a young Adonis, very straight-laced state trooper. We turned the music down, but it was still playing. Johnny rolls down the window, and the cop starts with the ubiquitous, "Can I please see your license and regis….hey! Is that Einsturzende Neubauten you're listening to?" I said, "yes! You know these guys??" He got so excited. He starts going on about how he loves this kind of music. He sees some other CDS laying around, and he's, "Oh man! The Birthday Party, and Jeez, you guys have SWANS!" I mean, this is a moment that just doesn't happen in any sort of uncharmed life. One of us had to have been living one. I think it was me, but whatever. He goes on about how there are no record shops that sell this sort of stuff for hundreds of miles, so he has to order everything through mail catalogs. He was so excited. We talked music for about 15 minutes. It truly made his day. He was turned into this giddy little kid asking to check our various CD covers. It was great.
And then he gave us a ticket and left. We definitely didn't see that coming. I remember Johnny saying after he had walked away, and we were all in stunned silence, "Son of a Bitch. After all that, he still gives me a ticket."
It seemed like we were always getting curveballs like that thrown at us. Our record release date kept getting delayed. First, it was the vanishing of Brian. That definitely pushed it back. Then, the Seagrams company or some such behemoth bought a bunch of labels, including Interscope, which threw a wrench into the machine with all sorts of restructuring and whatnot. Finally, it looked like we had a firm date in a few months. So, at that point, the label sends out promo copies of the record to radio stations all over the country. These aren't really meant for airplay, but I'm not sure what the actual protocol was. In any case, a station in Seattle started playing one of the songs from the record.
The song was "402." That's the address of the house I grew up in. We always figured this would be our best shot at an actual hit. And this radio station, The Edge, I think it was called, was the big station in Seattle. It was their go-to radio station. And so they started playing "402," and it just fucking exploded. It was the most requested song for that entire summer. You couldn't have done better focus group testing and come up with better results. It was a bonafide hit. We'd drive up to play in Seattle like once a month and play packed halls way the hell bigger than we'd ever played, and everyone would sing along with the song. They knew all the lyrics. We felt like, fuck! This is it! We actually did it!
It was a wild time. Going to Seattle each month and being interviewed on that station and playing sold-out shows was so, again, intoxicating.
And the Interscope told them to stop.
Interscope had decided that we should be more in the weird genre of rock radio instead of indy, and I don't even know if I'm getting the terms right, but they decided that another song from our record should be the single, and it fit an entirely different format. A format where we might follow Motley Crue and lead into Marylyn Manson. The whole thing just collapsed
And so it all just died on the vine like every love I've ever had. Everything dies on the vine. You either pick your fruit before it's ripe and hope the counter sunlight does the trick, or you just walk away and let death smile upon your back.
There was almost nothing we could do. You couldn't fight them. Not at our level. You just expressed your dismay and banged your head against a closed door, or you just shut up and hoped this whole thing was some bad dream. One day you have a hit single, and the next day your label demands they stop playing it.
And so we just kept touring. The touring in and of itself was fun. We toured with our friends Possum Dixon for three months. They headlined. But three months is a long time in a van. We'd fuck with each other on the road to kill time as we had a lot of that, often six or so hours between little half-emptied bars and clubs. Which is to say, I'd torment them. Once, we both stopped at a gas station market kind of place. We needed gas and such. I bought a 2-liter bottle of coke and a big box of instant mashed potatoes. My mind was constantly creating new ways to make them all but crash. We left and continued down the highway. Johnny was driving. I told him to get in the fast lane and get about two van lengths in front of them. Their van was to our right. I rolled down the window and squeezed all the soda out of the bottle, which immediately covered their windshield and then I quickly dumped the entire package of potato flakes out the window and wham! Instant whiteout! Their windshield turned pure opaque white in a split second. Sure, people could die. But rock is war. And war is supposed to be fun.
You just keep driving, hauling in amps, tuning guitars, and making setlists with sharpies and torn-out notebook paper. You just keep playing the songs you wrote in the Echo Park apartment with tears streaming down your face, and you try to conjure that feeling each night in front of maybe ten or twenty slightly flummoxed but grateful kids. You just keep trying.
We tried for a year. We went everywhere, and I carried the thoughts of her, Melinda, throughout all of it, never knowing who she might be fucking as I carried in Mesa Boogie half-stacks and anvil cases of pedals. Where was she? Why couldn't I trade all of this in for her?
At some point, we reached Los Angeles, which was, as no one knew, was our last stop into our past lives that were careening up with bullet speed upon us. It took us months to realize it was over.
When Lifter started, I had one simple goal, I just refused to wake up on one morning at age forty or fifty and regret that I didn't give it my all. That sort of regret calls for the revolver. And so I didn't. I gave it everything I had, heroin non-withstanding. We tried. And some people were touched by us, our music, and my songs. And that makes it all ok.
When I was a little kid, all I ever wanted was to be a baseball player or a rock star. Despite my not making the JV team because of my wise-ass nature and long hair, that dream was almost assuredly out of reach. It's much easier to become a rockstar. And, well. That never happened, either. But I tried.
Every so often, I'll get a Facebook message or an email from someone who heard our record at a magical time in their life. And they tell me it meant everything to them. It changed them and maybe kept them from so much of the damage I did to myself. When these moments happen, they fill me with the light of Heaven and the sound of angels. It makes me feel like I matter to someone. I guess I did. It's not in my nature to admit or even acknowledge such things, but these messages make it impossible to deny. I mattered. I tried so hard to nullify my life, and yet some light shone through. And I thank you, you who took the time to write me these little paragraphs. When someone makes you feel like you matter, you better listen. If you don't, you do so at your own peril. And so Lifter and Melinda ended. And I moved onto other ways of feeling. I moved on to baseball.