Interviews
NOMEANSNO Interview #2
by Felix Thursday
Nomeansno have been playing punk rock for longer than most of
you have been alive. 
They played at the first punk show I went
to--over 10 years ago--(actually, now it's been 20) and I've admired
them ever since. This is the second interview I've conducted with
bassist and singer Rob Wright (the first appears in C.O.T. #2). It
took place a few months back at The Inn of the Beginning in Cotati,
CA.
I'm still what one might call an interview novice...
Rob: That's alright, I've done a million.
I noticed on the insert of the last album (The Worldhood of the World)
that you were wearing a shirt which read: "Banned From
MAXIMUMROCK'N'ROLL".
Rob: Yeah, Jello (Biafra) had those made up for us.
Did they actually ban you from the magazine?
Rob: Essentially. Well, we weren't "banned". It's just that Tim
(Yohannan, R.I.P., editor of MRR) decided after 18 years that we
weren't "punk rock" anymore. What, we're not playing the same scene?
We're not playing the same places? We're not playing with such and
such independent band? I guess we're not punk rock anymore! My advice
to people who don't know anything about punk rock is not to read
MAXIMUMROCK'N'ROLL. Come see a Nomeansno concert, you'll learn more.
I agree with you for the most part.
Rob: I like Tim, actually. I'm not saying anything personally bad
about Tim...but this black and white ideological bullshit--I've never
liked it and I still don't like it.
Do you consider Nomeansno a "punk" band?
Rob: I guess we've got to, because that's why we started playing
music--because of punk rock. That's who we play to--punk rock
audiences--who were as important as the bands when we started it, if
not more important, considering what some of the bands were doing. But
I don't look at punk as a musical style at all. I look at it as a
movement of people who are reacting with a certain sense of personal
and social commitment toward what they perceive to be boring and
schlocky music and culture that's around them. It was full of a lot of
rage and a lot of people genuinely finding out that they had emotions
and could express them among others instead of just sitting quietly.
That's what I identified when I first started out. So it was never to
us about what kind of music you played, it was basically the attitude
and the fact that you were doing it to a certain crowd who considered
themselves as you considered yourself--as an equal, and on the par to
the importance of what the music was. That doesn't really exist
anymore. Well, in some places it does.
But with the bigger bands--and a lot of newer bands, too--it's been
watered down.
Rob: It has been watered down. In the scene, too--the people who are
listening to the music and going to shows--I find no longer have a
sense of oneness. We all had oneness because everyone else hated
us...the rest of the world thought we were crazy. Yeah, I'd call us a
punk band for those reasons. And we continue to be one, I guess.
Punk was once, to some extent, an artistic and literary genre. But, as
it continues to merge with popular culture, it seems to be growing
anti-intellectual. Do you think that affects punk's purpose as a
counter-cultural movement, and as a musical form of expression?
Rob: I never thought the message of punk was a logical, rational one.
I thought it was an emotional one.
Though the same could be said of the Symbolist movement in poetry, too.
Rob: But in music more so than writing. That's why music is the best
venue for it. Because music you don't do alone, you do it with a bunch
of people ideally. Even records are a bit decadent as far as music is
concerned. You should be in the same time and place as it's being
done. It's one of the few things that happens in the moment. It can be
about ideas and sharing lifestyles and stuff like that, but it's
really about sharing emotions--expressing them, getting them all
funneled into once place and people letting loose so they can stop
being the tame personas they pretend to be every day of their lives
and get very tired of. In some sense I thing punk rock is not that now
because it's become a form of show business--which is a different
thing. That's not really what music is about. When Green Day hit and
that kind of music and those kind of songs were number one, I thought
it was great. I always thought "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" should have
been a number one hit. I thought Green Day played beautiful pop music.
But at the same time, it didn't mean much to me because I've heard it
already, and in the context where it actually meant something in terms
of exposing the punk thing, with the Buzzcocks, The Jam, and people
like that. With Green Day it was just another form of pop music. Not
that I have anything against them--I like their music--but to me it
was always something different. It was about more than just selling a
lot of records.
What effect has the mainstream success of punk had on Nomeansno?
Rob: Well, when it suddenly became popular, we could see our crowds go
up and people paying more attention to us. Of course we never really
played what they wanted to hear. Now, with the rise of the rave and
techno, it's gone down a little bit. But to me what we do will always
have an audience. It will be a smaller audience but this is what I've
always wanted to do, I've succeeded. To sell 100,000 records you enter
into a world which has not got anything to do with what you started
doing music for. Whether you succeed or fail, it's something totally
different and it's not something I'm really interested in. I'm not
saying we survive on bread and water. We get paid and we sell
tee-shirts and we try to make a living doing our music, but we market
it in our own little way--which basically just means playing it. Which
is what we should be doing anyway. With big business the music is
always second--it comes after the video.
So what was the deal with The Hanson Bros. (Nomeansno's goofy side
project) signing with Virgin/EMI?
Rob: Well, The Hanson Bros. was more of a showbiz thing. We had this
fucked band for years that we just did every now and then, and we
wrote these little songs that we thought were really funny and we
loved it because we loved the Ramones and we never played that sort of
punk-pop stuff with Nomeansno. We always took ourselves maybe a little
too seriously, and so this was a great way to drop the pretensions and
just to have fun playing this sort of straight ahead music and mix it
up with some hockey stuff--which, for Canadians, is like ingrained in
our genes. So finally Greg Werckman, who was the GM of Alternative
Tentacles at that time, said: "Look, you gotta make a record." We
said: "Well, will you pay for it?" and he said he would. So we said
okay. We spent $3000 on a basement recording, made the record, and it
turned out pretty good. People liked it. We liked it. Then, of course,
since we made a record we had to do a couple tours. So we started
doing some tours, got into the costumes and the shtick, and it was
fun. And then, of all people, Virgin/EMI--I think hoping to snag
Nomeansno--said: "We'll put it out and give you a bunch of money to
put out another one." And we said: "Send it on down! As soon as we get
it, we'll make you another album." Which we did. And, at the summit of
all this silly band work, I found myself laughing at the opening
ceremony of the NHL All-Star Game. We were lip-synching to "The Hockey
Song", a cover we did, and we got backstage all-access passes to meet
every famous hockey player in the world. I'm 43 and I'm walking around
like a 12 year old! Then we do our shtick at the beginning on the ice
to 15,000 people and the whole NHL razzmatazz showbiz stuff. And then
we go upstairs to a restaurant overlooking the ice with free booze and
food and watch the All-Star Game. Unashamedly, this band is for hockey
perks.
Did Virgin ever actually release the album? I haven't seen it anywhere.
Rob: Another great myth about major record labels is that they do a
better job of distribution...they don't. This was Virgin/EMI Canada.
They couldn't distribute for shit down in the States, it's ridiculous.
If we had put it out on Alternative Tentacles, you'd see it.
How well did the album do up in Canada?
Rob: Who knows?! They're never gonna tell you. We just made sure we
got paid up front.
Exactly.
Rob: We made a video and had a famous hockey player, Tiger Williams,
in it. It was basically just for a lot of fun and to get a lot of
hockey perks, and do it all on Virgin/EMI's paycheck. They've soaked
enough bands, so we soaked them.
Cool.
Rob: We had a lot of fun. We'll probably do some more with it, but I
don't think Virgin is going to go twice to the well. If we do another
one, we'll probably put it out on our own label (WRONG Records). It's
still a lot of fun to do. We did it too much, though. Two bands is too
much. Nomeansno kind of suffered. It started as just sort of a side
project but it took on a life of its own. Things will do that. I was
happy, though, because people liked it.
With bands like Pennywise and Rancid selling 500,000 records, have you
noticed an increase in the sales of your records?
Rob: About the same. Live you can see it more. When it was really huge
we seemed to do a little better--especially in the States. In Europe
we've always done pretty well. We do generally--worldwide--between
25,000 and 30,000. And they sell pretty consistently as back catalog
and that's kind of nice. Wrong, of course, being the most popular. It
wouldn't have been my choice, but I think that's the one people
remember us most for.
I like Sex Mad.
Rob: Well, Wrong seems to be the one that most people associate with
their checkered youth. I don't know if it's our best album, but it's
the one they seem to have had the most fun with. It's as much time and
place as the album. We were just flavor of the year that year.
I hate to mention the 80's...
Rob: The 80's?
Well, that's when I was a teenager and going to a lot of shows. And
that's when I first saw you guys. I hate people who are always saying
"Back in the 80's...", but it did seem like the heyday of punk--at
least to me.
Rob: Yeah, it was. Before it was generally popular it was more exciting.
The Canadian punk scene at the time...S.N.F.U., Subhumans B.C., and of
course you and D.O.A....I know S.N.F.U. made a record for Epitaph, and
you toured with D.O.A. a little while ago, but most of your 80's
contemporaries seemed to have vanished...
Rob: S.N.F.U. is still going. We just played a "Rock For Choice"
benefit up in Vancouver with them. They had lots of trouble. When you
get older and you get into the biz, a lot of things slow you down.
D.O.A. was almost crippled by some bad business moves--bad
associations with record companies and stuff like that. Plus, people
get older and maybe their enthusiasm wanes. Or maybe they don't put
out albums that people find relevant anymore. We'll find out with the
next one, won't we?
How long do you plan to continue with Nomeansno?
Rob: That's the Litmus Test. If the people involved are having a lot
of fun and are excited about what they're doing--and the people who
are listening still find it relevant--I don't see us stopping.
You're in a band with your brother...
Rob: Right.
How does that relationship seem to be going?
Rob: You mean, are their fistfights backstage?
Yeah.
Rob: Well, almost. Tom, how bad does it get?
Tom: It's like Ray and Dave (Davies, of The Kinks) sometimes. It's not
as bad though because nobody on this planet is as crazy as Dave
Davies.
Felix: I thought Ray was the crazy one.
Tom: Have you read Dave's book?
No.
Tom: Oh boy. It doesn't make any sense! It's a must read.
Well, he's British.
Tom: He's bizarre! Well, you just go back to talking to Rob now
because I'm very busy with my book.
No way. You just opened yourself up to inquiry. What are you reading?
Tom: I'm just reading...(whatever he says is inaudible over the sound
of Rob applying duct tape to his bass).
You guys seem like a literary band.
Rob: Well, we can read.
Here I talk with them about Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. I'm
not printing it because it's probably a fairly boring topic for most
of you.
Okay, last question. It's about baseball.
Rob: That's a question for Tom. He knows a lot about baseball.
I asked Rob this during our last interview, but that was a few years
ago. What do you think the chances are of a Canadian World Series?
Tom: You don't mean an all-Canadian World Series...
No. That'll never happen.
Tom: With the Blue Jays I would have said yeah, in the near future.
But since Pat Gillick went to Baltimore, I don't think they've got as
good of a chance. I was pretty pissed off when they let Joe Carter
go...
Rob: Yeah!
Tom: Unlike a lot of American players, he was living in Toronto the
whole time and I think he really wanted to stay.
finis.
This interview appeared in Church on Thursday, Issue # 9, sometime in
1997 or 1998.
