Rock is Dead! Long Live Rock! A Talk with the Greenhornes

Well, we had it all planned out?the stuff we wanted to touch on in this intro?until we opened the paper last week and saw that Little Stevie Van Zandt said it all. Put an ear to the ground and you can hear the rumblings from Detroit or, thanks to the White Stripes, you can pick up Rolling Stone and read all about it. Rock is dead? Fucking long live rock.

We've been interviewing bands about the new garage scene for more than a year, and not the goddamn Chocolate Watchband either. People like The Hot Snakes. Nebula. The Donnas. Zen Guerrilla. The Mooney Suzuki. The Murder City Devils. No fresh bridgework there. Just kids in their 20s looking back to the Stones and the Faces as a blueprint, like those bands looked back to the blues. What we're doing ain't rocket science, but neither is rock 'n' roll. Occasionally you'll get a few words out of a John Paul Jones; something insightful from the next Chuck Biscuits. Then why is it so hard to make great music?

Who knows. We're simply glad someone still is. Hey, a man on the moon, it doesn't mean that much to us. An existence without the first Go record? Can't imagine it. We're trying to change your lives here?squeeze some back in between Friday evening at Angelika and Sunday brunch in the Slope. Bebe Buell is in the audience again (not to mention onstage), and just when you thought they only knew about the MC5 from a Beck riff, more of those Gen-Y assbags are coming out.

So age is not an excuse. If you're under 21, get a fake ID like everybody else did. The last show I went to there was a guy up front who looked like what I imagine George Thorogood does now. On a bad day. And with less hair. He was making out with some blonde, drinking a beer and shaking his fist in the air all at the same time. And we see that dude everywhere.

The Greenhornes have got a new album out on Telstar, but you don't have to buy it first to enjoy the show. It's hard to say what they sound like, because within two songs everyone's screaming and stomping too loud to tell. They do a mean cover of "I Can Only Give You Everything," and if they'd ditch the organ and buy a piano, they'd tear a new one into "Cindy Incidentally." If you're short on money, save your bones for the cover on Saturday, because you'll catch plenty of buzz from their set. They can turn a Monday afternoon into Saturday night, and we don't quite know what they're doing, but judging from their three-day stint in February, New York City can't get them outta its mind.

We called drummer Patrick Keeler and bassist Jack Lawrence the other day to talk about the revolution. It ended up in the gutter pretty quickly, but, hey, as Patrick said, they're not a pop band.

 

 

Lisa LeeKing: So is this just gonna be you, or is [the singer] Craig there?

Patrick Keeler: Actually it's gonna be me and Jack.

LL: Who's Jack?

PK: He's the cute one.

Tanya Richardson: There aren't any cute ones on the album cover I'm lookin' at.

PK: He's hiding in the back.

LL: Oh, the bass player. Gotcha. Can you guys talk louder?

PK: Louder than this? Not without it being a strain on my voice.

TR: Well! We wouldn't want the drummer to strain his voice!

LL: I'd never heard a Greenhornes record before I saw you play live, and I was shocked you captured such a retro garage sound. How did the band arrive there?

PK: We all kind of came from the same place. We've known each other since we were 15.

Jack Lawrence: You grow up listening to something like the Stones, and as you get more into the Stones, you read interviews with them, and hear what their influences were. Then you get into that stuff.

LL: What are your record collections like? Be honest.

JL: I've been getting into the Birds, with an "i," not a "y." Ron Wood was in that band.

PK: I have a lot of Dragstrip records, like Hawaiian music.

TR: So can you at least turn us on to the next Don Ho?

PK: Actually, the most recent record I bought was the Greenhornes CD.

TR: You had to buy your own record? I knew Telstar was tight, but...

PK: It was for my dad.

TR: Well, I gave mine to Steven Van Zandt at one of your New York shows last month.

PK: Hey, thanks!

TR: We all do our part.

LL: You guys have been playing for years, yet I haven't seen any national recognition. What was it like to come to New York in February and see people really turn out for your shows?

PK: 'Bout time. Before we were on Telstar, it was hard, because we had to do everything for ourselves. It's a very slow climb.

LL: Craig said it freaked him out to see people in the audience singing the lyrics.

TR: Craig looked freaked out about a lot of things. He's the only frontman I know who stands a bit off to the side.

PK: He's concentrating on what he's doing. He doesn't like to make mistakes. But he can let loose, you know what I mean? In a situation like the Maxwell's show, where we were the opening band and everyone was obviously there to see the White Stripes, you just try to do the best you can. Warm 'em up so everybody has fun. But we've always liked playing with the White Stripes, now and before they were big or whatever.

LL: I know you live in Cincinnati, but do you identify more with the rock scene in Detroit?

PK: Yeah, definitely. We started playing around here, and venturing out only a little bit. Maybe go to Athens, OH, where OU is, or Cleveland. Then we made our way up to Detroit. We were lucky enough to meet a few bands we liked, and who liked us, so we ended up playing together a lot and trading shows.

TR: You guys know the Go, right?

PK: [sarcastically] Yeah, we know the Go.

LL: So does Tanya.

PK: We saw them play in Detroit once, when they just started, and Jack White was still in the band. It was like, Whoa! Amazing to watch. What was happening on that stage was incredible.

LL: We saw a lot of groupies attack you guys after your set.

PK: I mis

sed that.

TR: That's when the other guys told you to load the equipment back into the van. [laughter] But normally, does it bother you when strangers approach you after the show?

PK: I don't mind it, to tell you the truth. You have to understand, I'm a bartender.

TR: A musician and a bartender? You must make one hell of a boyfriend.

LL: What's Cincinnati like as a rock town? WKRP?

PK: Hey baby! They had King Records at one point. But as far as now goes, there isn't really any place to play. One spot is so big that if you get 400 people in there, it still feels empty. And there's no other place to have a show. A couple bands that come through, we'll put 'em on at my bar, the Comet, even though it's not really built for shows. But living in Cincinnati is very cheap. And it's pretty centrally located, you can get to a lot of places in four hours. Plus, it's where I'm from.

LL: What does the rest of the band do to supplement their incomes?

JL: Um...I bus at the Comet...

LL: Let's talk about the album.

TR: All the songs are "Lies," "Stay Away Girl," "Shadow of Grief"...

PK: That would be Craig. He writes most of the songs, and I'm sure he's had his share of shithole fucking relationships.

JL: It's easier to be pissed off and write a good song than be happy and write a good song.

TR: What about the track guitarist Brian Olive wrote, "Lonely Feeling"? Guess he's the deep one, huh?

PK: Oh, he's deep! Oh yeah. I could go on forever about Brian.

LL: How is it playing with five guys every night and piling in the van afterward?

PK: It's a pain in the ass. It sucks. If you play a show, you're happy for about an hour, then you gotta crawl back in the van. It's icky. It smells...

TR: But Brian doesn't smell.

PK: Nothing about Brian smells. He's very perfect. Although he does have two different-colored eyes.

TR: How Marilyn Manson!

PK: Although they're both brown. Different shades of brown.

TR: Spend a lot of time gazing into them?

PK: We grew up together...

TR: So maybe when you would wrestle as boys, and he'd pin you?

PK: Well sure, of course we usually had our shirts off...

TR: And there was someone just hosing you two down?

PK: Uh-huh!

LL: So what can we expect from this Cavestomp show?

PK: Lots of pyrotechnics.

TR: Maybe some wrestling?

JL: I might bring out my mirrored double-bass drum.

LL: And you promise to go shirtless?

PK: Oh yes. With a headband.

TR: One last question. Now I know your band is all dudes, but would you ever make the statement that women can't play rock 'n' roll? I only ask because one of our writers said that in the paper recently.

PK: That's insane. It's such a male attitude, and I think it really holds women back. Who wrote that?

LL: This guy named George Tabb. He has a band called Furious George.

PK: Huh. Never heard of him.

The Greenhornes play "Underground Garage Saturdays" this Sat., March 31, at the Village Underground, 130 W. 3rd St. (betw. 6th Ave. & MacDougal St.), 777-7745.