Black Lips tour, talk new album, movie

Not ones to ever sit still for too long ("I have an anxiety about being productive. If I have time, I should make the most of it," drummer/vocalist Joe Bradley says.), Atlanta's self-described flower punks, Black Lips, are planning to tour away the remainder of 2007 (dates below). After some yet-to-be announced August dates, the band will spend most of September and part of October on the road with fellow Atlantans, The Selmanaires. Accurately dubbed the "hardest working band at SXSW" by the New York Times, the group will continue touring overseas throughout November and December, those dates also to be announced.

All this to support Good Bad Not Evil, the fantastic September 11 release that marks the band's first proper studio album for Vice Records following an apparently spoofed, but no less awesome "live" record earlier this year. The day following their Independence Day block party, bassist/vocalist Jared Swilley and Bradley sat down for a few minutes at Atlanta's Majestic diner to talk about the new album (did we mention it's awesome?), touring and the band's first starring film role.

Paste: Atlanta's rock scene has been garnering more-than-usual attention from mainstream media outlets lately. How has the city's musical landscape changed since you guys started out?

Joe Bradley: I remember when we first started playing, the only bands we could play with were grindcore bands and crust bands.

Jared Swilley: There have always been good bands, but I think this is the first time that there's been a cohesive scene. Once the ball starts rolling, it pushes everyone else to do more. When we moved down here there wasn't much going on, so we just started having to book our own shows. Everyone kind of does different things. People are less competitive here. I know when all that stuff was happening in Detroit, it seems like everyone kind of hated each other there. But Atlanta's never been in the spotlight for rock music, so everyone's happy that it's started happening.

All the country stuff always got put on Nashville and the blues stuff got credited to New Orleans or Mississippi. But I mean, James Brown, Little Richard, they've all been here. But I remember also when we were starting, all the bands I wanted to see would skip Atlanta. They'd go as far as Memphis, but always pass us over. But now more bands are coming. And I think people are less jaded here. There's more of a good feeling between everybody.

I like that it's not the "garage rock" thing in Atlanta or an "indie" thing. Everyone can play shows together. People are pretty open-minded here, which is positive for growth and so creative things can happen.

JB: I don't think the scene's big enough for individual genres to split off into their own thing.

JS: Yeah, we need each other. (both laugh)

Aside from all the bands getting mentioned consistently, Deerhunter, Snowden, you guys, Manchester Orchestra, are there others that you think are unfairly left out?

Both: Subsonics.

JS: They were amazing. One of my favorite bands, but they never took off. It's just weird how some things get passed over. They're a lot older and we're going to play with them in August, but they've been on hiatus for a long time. They put out seven LPs. When I was kid, they were my favorite band from Atlanta.

I'm also surprised The Selmanaires don't get mentioned a lot. Hopefully this tour more people will pay attention to them. And I guess they're going to record a new album soon.

How did you decide on the title Good Bad Not Evil?

JB: It was a very arduous process.

JS: We had been trying to decide forever. It was going back and forth between us and Vice British people and Vice U.S. people. Finally, they said, "We have to have a title right now," so yesterday while we were at our barbecue we wrote a drunken e-mail to the British office and told them we'd go with this one. There were a few that I really hated and the other people really hated, so it was just the one that everybody has the least amount of problem with.

We were going to do one called Do They Walk On Water? because we were in Israel and we were at the spot where Jesus walked on water. We tried to create this illusion of walking on water, but the picture didn't turn out too good. And that was also originally supposed to be the name of the High Tide and Green Grass album by the Stones, but it got rejected. We thought about Lay Down Your Arms. We wanted to put a flower inside of one of the Israeli soldier's guns at the wall in Palestine, but they're a little touchy about cameras. Ian (St. Pe, guitarist) tried to kiss one of their guns and he got kicked out of their base. There was also a bunch of nonsensical, retarded things too. Warfare was one of them.

Can you talk a little bit about how "Katrina" came about? Not only is it just a great-sounding song, but it's interesting since it's ostensibly about a girl, but also about the hurricane.

JS: That was my intention when we wrote it. I don't want to be overtly political because that's tacky and it's kind of played out. It's supposed to sound like it's a girl, but it could be about the storm. Ian's from New Orleans and we were in Holland when it happened, so we wanted to write a song about it.

Why did you choose "Cold Hands" as the UK single?

JS: That's what the [Vice UK] guy chose, and I don't really care about England that much. I'm not so hot on the song, and the production got messed up. It didn't get approved by us, and it came out too clean sounding. We didn't want that version, but there are only a thousand pressed, so that's fine.

None of us have a computer and we don't have Blackberries, so the communication lines get blurred sometimes. We definitely get along with [the label people] great. I love the people we work with. But sometimes, we have so much going on, when it comes to an executive decision, it's just like, 'F— it, let's do it.'

JB: And all the counterparts are pulling in different directions for different reasons.

JS: No one's going to like us in England anyway, so I don't really care about [the single]. We do OK, but their music scene is so weird. It's kind of cool in one way because it's real old school the way old record labels used to do it, but that audience is so fickle. And there are only eight million of them in the whole country, so if you're not on the cover of NME... But then, when you are on the cover of NME, you've got like four months until you're kaput. It's really brutal. And the exchange rate is a bummer because our money isn't worth anything when we get there. There's no hospitality. The food is vile. And they don't have a sun there, and that bums me out because I'm really into the summer and being outside. I don't have a jacket that's good enough for the English winters. In London, it's super hipster. The way they dress, everyone is so done-up over the top and they don't really care about the music. It's a "be seen" sort of thing. It's like $15 for a pack of cigarettes. Then you get into the north of England and it's like Britain's version of Detroit. It's kind of scary and you get robbed.

We have to tour England all the time. But Europe and Israel are awesome to play. Everyone's real receptive to everything. They're not jaded. They give you snacks and ask for autographs. It's awesome.

I've always wondered where your MySpace profile quote came from. It's pretty amusing, really.

JS: Wait, what is it?

"it's not IF... but when and how bad"

JS: (laughs) I used to be obsessed with No Fear quotes, and that's a quote from a No Fear t-shirt. We like to toss around idle threats sometimes.

JB: Yeah, its like, "If you can't hang with the big dogs, stay on the porch."

JS: We have a book of clichés in the car, so we like to memorize those. We haven't been so good about it. Usually on the U.S. tours, I try to study them and throw those out as much as I can.

JB: I don't think they work in Europe.

JS: Well, they have their own, but they're a lot different. The Germans have this weird one like, "Don't leave your donkey tied outside the sewer" or something. I just don't get it.

JB: This French girl told me instead of "bigger fish to fry," it's like, "I got more cats to kill." I don't know if I believe that, though.

Good stuff. Anything else going on that you'd like to talk about before I let you go? What's new for the Black Lips?

JS: We're going to be starring in a movie that's coming in February. We're going to try our hand at acting. It's called Let it Be. Andy Gibb from the Bee Gees is producing it and Bo Diddley is in it. Some guy just e-mailed us and asked if we wanted to be in a movie, so we said yes. It pays better than touring.

Ahem:

September:
12 - Athens, Ga. - 40 Watt Club
13 - Carrboro, N.C. - Cat's Cradle
14 - Baltimore, Md. - Sonar Club
15 - Washington, DC - Black Cat
16 - Philadelphia, Penn. - The Filmore
18 - New York, N.Y. - Bowery Ballroom
19 - Brooklyn, N.Y. - Music Hall of Williamsburg
20 - Worchester, Mass. - The Grind - Clark University
21 - Cambridge, Mass. - Middle East
22 - Montreal, Qc. - La Sala Rosa
23 - Toronto, Ont. - The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern
25 - Detroit, Mich. - Magic Stick
26 - Cleveland, Ohio - Beechland Ballroom
27 - Covington, Ky. - The Mad Hatter
28 - Chicago, Ill. - Logan Square Auditorium
29 - Milwaukee, Wis. - Mad Planet
30 - Minneapolis, Minn. - Triple Rock

October:
2 - Omaha, Neb. - The Waiting Room
3 - Kansas City, Mo. - Grand Emporium
4 - Dallas, Texas - The Loft
5 - Austin, Texas - Emo's
6 - Houston, Texas - The Engine Room
7 - New Orleans, La. - One Eyed Jacks
11 - Vancouver, B.C. - Richard's on Richards
12 - Seattle, Wash. - The Crocodile Cafe
13 - Portland, Ore. - Mt. Tabor Theatre
15 - San Francisco, Calif. - Great American Music Hall
17 - Pomona, Calif. - Glasshouse Concert Hall
18 - San Diego, Calif. - The Casbah
19 - West Hollywood, Calif. - Troubadour
20 - Echo Park, Calif. - Echoplex (under the Echo)

Related links:
Black Lips on MySpace
Vice Records
Black Lips "Cold Hands" UK Video