Graham Smith Interview, Pt. 1: Indie Pop, Guided by Voices and Hudson Hawk

If you read Soi Disantra's 2004 music round-up, you already know that Graham Smith's Final Battle was my favorite album of last year. At the time I promised a "creepy" review, but after Graham himself posted a comment here I was a little mortified and held off. Graham was the creative force behind Kleenex Girl Wonder, who released the classic Ponyoak in 1999, my first introduction to the band. The follow-up, 2001's Smith, comes off as a collaboration between Graham (I HAVE to call him by his first name, otherwise the subjects are going to get really confusing here) and HAL (I guess it was a 2001 thing). Personally, I feel that 2002's After Mathematics was unfairly maligned- the PopMatters review captures it pretty well. Anyway, Final Battle surpasses them all.

In honor of Graham's show this Saturday March 12th at Galaxy Hut with Sprites and Joe Jack Talcum (ex-Dead Milkmen- do you think that at every show someone thinks they're hilarious and jumps up on a table and shouts "Anarchy!" if he won't play their request?), Soi Disantra proudly presents our first ever interview.

What's the story with the end of Kleenex Girl Wonder? On the March site there used to be something alluding to the deaths of two band members, but that seems to be gone now. Wait, I found it on the Barnes and Noble site: "Faced with issues such as death (two of his bandmembers shockingly died within the previous few months), he's grown up a little and has written his most mature record to date."

Kleenex Girl Wonder came to an end two+ years ago, Feb. 22, 2003. The band members had begun to disappear and go off to do their own things and for all intents and purposes it was usually just me recording the stuff anyways, so I was like, skrew this noise, band name is dead. It was rather uneventful. Plus we had pretty much devalued the brand by putting out Smith and After Mathematics, and on top of that the Graham Smith brand was pretty much known by everyone who knew what KGW was, so we figured it wasn't much of a switch. The deaths thing was not really represented properly; by the time my two friends (of whom one was a band member at the time, though we still hadn't played any shows, and the other had been in the band earlier) died I had long since finished recording FB. I wouldn't call it grown up, necessarily, but it is a step in the direction of "stop being such a fucking prick about it." And that is certainly conscious, I think.

Now that you've gone solo have you given up writing songs with your name in the title?

I can't imagine I'll ever give that up, although technically there's only one song, and one album. I didn't even come up with that naming structure, the "Graham Smith is the Coolest Person Alive" thing was written in earnest about me, in high school, which was pretty cool, because I was pretty uncool. But, there is the issue of "Smith 2: Graham" still needing to be made.

What's going on with March? It seems like the album is back in stock most places- does that mean everything's functioning again (at least so far as you know)?

Everything's functioning just fine. Jack can get overwhelmed at times due to large numbers of orders and the fact that he's got a day job for the first time in a long long while. Technically the record is distributed through W.A.R., and I'm sure they have plenty of piping hot, fresh baked copies to hook you up with should you be looking for relief, gentle reader.

I have a friend who wasn't totally sold on Final Battle because he missed the jokiness of Smith and After Mathematics. Have you gotten that reaction from anyone else? Were those albums a conscious effort to distance yourself from the innumerable GBV comparisons, or are they just a reflection of what you were into at the time?

Fuck that guy! Sold after they heard it, or sold before they heard it? Is it alright to answer with an expletive and then another question? Anywho, I'm sure there are those out there who gave up after one of those two records, or both, or just didn't feel like dropping the dime/spending the time. And my attitude isn't actually fuck 'em, of course I want as many listeners as possible, why else would I be doing this? (At least that question is rhetorical) Those albums were in line with the general idealogy of KGW which was: "I [Graham Smith] get to do whatever I want." I was certainly listening to a lot of rap music at that time, more than I am now, but I still listen to it all the time and I've been able to prevent myself from trying to record it, so who knows why I did what I did. By the time I recorded Ponyoak the GBV shit was mostly out of my system-- say what you want about the lyrics on that record, but they do have some meaning, which GBV's don't, right? Or at least didn't. I didn't need to consciously get away from that stuff, and realistically, I may have had more success if I had just kept strip-mining the GBV fanbase, those dudes are LOADED, apparently. But I think I tried that (one can surely find an hilarious journey in that vein within the archives of the postal-blowfish mailing list SOMEWHERE out there in Internetville), and not only did it feel gross (in retrospect), it didn't exactly work. A lot of KGW's stuff was mimetic, though, anyway. When I was in seventh grade I spent a longish time (probably upwards of a month) plotting out a precise reimagining of the then current Bruce Willis starrer "Hudson Hawk." Not sure why I did this, I think I remember thinking it was a boffo idea for a film and then reading negative reviews and thinking maybe I could do it better? I've always tended towards that. A lot of good KGW songs were born out of that kind of impulse, although the sources don't always betray themselves so well because of whatever reason. GBV's did, for better or worse.

Since you're on March it seems like you've been obliged to mostly play with indie pop bands. Are you actually much of an indie pop fan? What are your current favorites (indie pop or otherwise)?

I like indie pop alright. I guess Aden is technically an indie pop band, right? They're like my favorite band of fucking all-time. I'm sure there are bands that I don't think of as being indie pop but that other people do that I like. I listen to mostly a bunch of shit that doesn't sound like anything I've ever written or recorded, again for (or because of) whatever reason. My music is indie pop, sort of, right? At least more of the old stuff. So I guess I have to like it. I guess indie pop fans and bands are alright, really. A little precious for me some of the time, but hey, there's a time and place for that, too.

What was your Japanese tour like? How did you get such a devoted fan base over there?

It was kind of a weird luck thing. I'm still not 100% on the story, but it was a higher-up at Emperor Norton, where Jack AKA Skippy worked, who secured the deal with Rock Records, which led to the tour. I wouldn't necessarily say we had a devoted fanbase. I think some of the higher-ups, again, at Rock were fans. There were pockets of fandom. Although a gold record is 10,000 sold in Japan, Ponyoak sold 6ish, so obviously I have no idea what the scale of things is supposed to be like. I think maybe there was some tremendous transpacific miscommunication, because our bass player, Rafeeq, was talking to some guy from Japan in England and he (the guy) said that Kleenex Girl Wonder was on the same level as Pavement, the Flaming Lips in Japan. Which was cool. A lot of the articles that I read or had translated for me or whatever suggested that we were big in America, which we weren't. But it was great, while it lasted. I guess better that it didn't last, somebody would have found out about the miscommunication sooner or later.

Tomorrow: Graham's thoughts on Conor Oberst, Lou Barlow, Winona Ryder, and our old housemate Prasad.

(If you'd like more information on Graham Smith or Kleenex Girl Wonder, your best bets are March Records and the KGW site. Huge thanks to Graham for agreeing to do this and being so forthcoming.)

--MZ--

Comments

[DM]

"When I was in seventh grade I spent a longish time (probably upwards of a month) plotting out a precise reimagining of the then current Bruce Willis starrer "Hudson Hawk."

This was -- by far -- my favorite excerpt.

[ZR]

that's awesome - i love joying!