Dax Riggs has spent a lifetime carving a deep and distinct path for himself in the landscape of American music. It began most notably near New Orleans in 1991, with his morbidly melodic and ahead-of its-time metal of Acid Bath; later, he provided the mad genius behind the swampy rock of Agents of Oblivion and Deadboy & the Elephantmen. These days, he’s making music under his own name, trailing through folk to blues to punk into the spiritual crevices of everything else. On Aug. 3, Fat Possum Records will release Say Goodnight to the World, his third solo album. In May, as the LP sat quietly completed and Riggs and his band set up shop in clubs all over Texas, Paste sat down with the frontman (who now calls Austin home) at The Cavern in Dallas to talk about the new record, the gulf oil spill and having an animal head.
Paste: Your songs seem to go through these different transmutations. Do they ever feel complete, or do you view them more as living, breathing things?
Dax Riggs: I think for the most par, most songs, if you keep playing them, they do change and live and grow, and become a living thing versus this snapshot in time that you made—that’s one thing. But then the song goes on and has a life of its own for as long as you want to play it. I basically feel like recording something and hearing it is different than playing it in a bar, or in a situation like this where— you need more of an iron fist, versus a velvet glove stroking your brain, which you could have on the record, but then here, in reality, it’s more violent.
Paste: What did you start off wanting the new album to be?
Riggs: Just free, experimental. In the end I feel like it maybe doesn’t seem so experimental, but at the same time … it became its own thing, you know? And I mean, on the record it is probably more experimental instrumentation-wise than anything I’ve ever done before. That is kind of what I was shooting for—just, more like Brian Eno, or an early record by him, doing something that’s a little beyond just guitars and drums, although that’s what we are.
Paste: You can hear another element there though.
Riggs: Yeah, I think so. It’s weird, I wanted to get away from it being too guitar rock, and now I’m embracing it. It’s like the changing of the weather. It’s day-to-day. We’re working on an acoustic set also … to be able to play another hour acoustically, but in like a real swampy, resonator, minimal drums kind of a way.
Paste: I read in an interview you did in late 2009 that the music you were working on at the time reminded you of field recordings. Now that it’s done, do you still feel that way?
Riggs: No. Basically, I think at that point, if we had any drums it was like a floor tom, a djembe—it was very tribal. It was very Tyrannosaurus Rex-ish, you know—like bass, acoustic guitar, and a tribal kind of percussion. So I think that’s probably what I was talking about at the time. And it seemed like that’s what we were going to do. And then as it progressed, it was just like, “Well, we can still keep that vibe, but we can be more powerful.” And now it’s turned into something where … I think it’s a mixture of things. It started with that, but I wouldn’t say that’s the way it turned out. Somehow The Stooges pushed their way into the thing. And I mean, we did lots of different versions of all these songs. “Sleeping With The Witch” we originally did like a kind of Everly Brothers, hyped up, acoustic, Beach Boys sounding kind of thing—early Beach Boys. And then it turned into this more droning, kind of slower thing. And you know, I don’t feel tied to any recording or anything. If tomorrow we fucked around with something and played it differently, and we enjoyed it, we’d play it like that—that night.
Paste: Is playing live part of the songwriting process?
Riggs: When we play [a song] live, it just takes on a different personality—a little bit more of a sometimes angry, drunk kind of vibe. (Laughs) I guess the songs just kind of lead us. I think they just have a mind of their own. And wherever they lead, we follow. They change, and certain things about them will change when we play them live. But they’re already kind of written—the basis of them, the structure.
Paste: Has the songwriting process changed from album to album?
Riggs: It’s kind of like, I get these things together. And then I just see how it feels with people, and what direction it seems to want to go in, and how it works and doesn’t work. The original lyrical, chord [idea] is a solitary kind of thing. Almost like a weird—I wouldn’t say trance-y, but definitely a different feeling than being present and talking to people, or even thinking really. It’s kind of just like trying to erase all thoughts and all words, and just seeing what happens. But I do definitely start with some kind of lyrical idea. That’s how any song usually starts with me—some inspiration from somewhere, in a lyrical sense. And then I build a house around it, to house that little idea.
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