Black Lips
There’s more to being rock and roll than wearing an earring
Photo by myspace.com
Publicists’ emails are often hilariously epic. Often, they’re like, “Hey Dave, listen to Band X and your whites will get whiter and your colours will get brighter. Oh, and vegetables will taste like ice cream.” For publicists, hyperbole is a way of life.
The publicist for Atlanta’s Black Lips didn’t go that route. Rather, I received this a few weeks ago:
“To be bluntly honest the Black Lips are playing at Le National on 4/15. Curt, I know, but I don't know how to not be brutally honest like that. I don't have a sharable version of the new record yet (Arabia Mountain, out June 7), but I swear it is THE perfect Black Lips record.”
This, naturally, piqued my curiosity. It made me ask what oh what could make a record “perfect.”
“We just made it sound really great this time,” says Black Lips vocalist/bassist Jared Swiley, ever the master of elucidation. “We had help from Mark Ronson, the international recording star. [Also], we worked on it longer than our previous efforts.”
For those of you who suck at the art of précis, here’s your recipe for success: Work on things longer, enlist an A-list producer, and make things sound “really great.”
Seriously, though, with due respect to the recording process and the in-the-studio aspect of a band’s career, Black Lips haven’t earned their props based solely on their albums. They have, over the years, cultivated their healthy fan base by making their live shows aggressive, shocking, and rife with bodily fluids. They’re like a Takashi Miike movie writ both large and musically.
Amidst the blood, vomit and urine, however, is more of a playful spirit than one trying to offend and provoke. “We just do whatever we feel like doing,” explains Swiley. “We aren't trying to make anybody mad but we aren't trying to not make anybody mad. If it feels good do it.”
This has, over the years, gotten the band in trouble. In a particularly noteworthy incident in Chennai, India a few years back, the band worried about getting charged with “homosexual acts” for, among other things, flashing some genitalia onstage. Oh, and kissing each other. Then again, as this (NSFW) VBS.TV video argues (somewhat), there’s more to being rock and roll than wearing an earring. Sometimes it’s about going balls-out mental onstage if only to show that you can.
“[We are] a rock and roll band,” says Swiley. “Kind of punk. We like people to enjoy themselves and do whatever they want to do.”
Since Montreal shows are always thick with a laissez-faire attitude, the Lips’ upcoming show is definitely a humdinger in the making. To that end, Swiley’s words betray his affinity: “We love Montreal. It is beautiful and one of our favorite cities in this hemisphere.”
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