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Source: Request Magazine (USA) Issue: No.?
Date: Apr, 1990
Subject: Interview - Kilbey, Willson-Piper
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GRACE LAND
THE CHURCH FINDS SALVATION
IN THE SPACE BETWEEN ART AND ROCK
by Harold DeMuir
"I think it's important to remember that life is a joke, the music industry is a joke, I'm a joke, and The Church is a joke," says Steve kilbey, The Church's bassist and lead singer. "At least it's a joke on one level. On another level I take it very seriously, but it's always in the back of my mind that what we're doing isn't very important in the larger scheme of things. I like the fact that I'm old and ugly enough to realize that, whether or not my record's a hit, I'm still incredibly small and insignificant."
Not exactly the sort of cozy promotional chatter you might expect to accompany the release of "Gold Afternoon Fix", the eagerly awaited follow-up to "Starfish", the Australian quartet's American break through. But then, members of the Church aren't the sort to indulge in shameless self-promotion.
"Half the reason the Church took so long to get this far," says guitarist Marty Willson-Piper, "is that until very recently, we always fought against having to do anything involving the media or promotion:'You want us to do a video - why?' 'You want us to do an interview - why?'"
Over the past decade, the Church has pursued an equally iconoclastic musical course. Though they're still often mistaken for paisley revivalists, the Church's relationship to psychedelia is more a matter of deeply held musical ideals than style mongering, and the result is contemporary head rock, a seamless hybrid of rock 'n roll energy and art-rock aesthetics.
The group's 1981 debut album "Of Skins and Heart" (including the now- classic single "The Unguarded Moment"), was a promising if conventional affair. On the subsequent "The Blurred Crusade" and "Seance", the Church carved out a more distinctive niche but remained a cult band in the United States (where "Blurred Crusade" and "Seance" weren't released until 1988).
An association with Warner Bros. returned the Church to the U.S. market via the 1984 lp "Remote Luxury", actually a compilation of two Australian ep's. Though the spotty "Remote Luxury" strongly hinted that the band was on its last legs, 1986's "Heyday" showcased a revitalized Church. That renewed energy extended to the band's live shows, which spotlighted the soaring multilevel interplay between Willson-Piper and fellow axeman Peter Koppes.
In addition to being its most focused effort to date, the Church's 1988 Arista debut "Starfish" was also the beneficiary of its new label's promotional resources, winning the band a sizeable U.S. audience with the haunting, restrained single "Under the Milky Way."
"Gold Afternoon Fix" builds on "Starfish's" strenghts, taking a slightlymore expansive musical approach. And on tracks like "Pharoah", "You're Still Beautiful", and "Terra Nova Cain", principal lyricist Kilbey - who previously swathed his songs in wispy fantasy and introspective imagery - takes a witheringly bleak view of civilization's current state.
"In the past, you'd never find anything nasty on a Church album", admits Kilbey. "Everything was kind of vague, and there was never any real bite. I used to strive to create music that was beautiful, but i think I've modified that a bit now. In retrospect, I think that trying to be purely beautiful - whatever that means - is a bit one- dimensional. I think it's good to offer an alternative to the ugly reality of day-to-day living, but I don't want to reflect mundane situations lyrically or musically. Actually, there are quite a few ugly songs on this album."
The band recorded "Gold Afternoon Fix" in Los Angeles with producer Waddy Wachtel, who also co-produced "Starfish" with fellow soft- rock specialist Greg Ladanyi. Given the band members' professed distaste for LA, their decision to return there and work with Wachtel again comes as a surprise.
"When we did 'Starfish', we hated being in LA", says Kilbey. "The producers hadn't heard of us and didn't know what we were supposed to be, and a lot of that struggle came through on the record. But this time, coming back as a relatively successful band, it was a lot friendlier. Waddy was treating us with a lot more respect, and the Los Angeles thing didn't seem to make that much of a difference".
"Waddy was the better half of the pair that produced 'Starfish', and the rapport improved because we'd had some success on the last album, so it's not as hypocritical as it seems," says Koppes, who wrote and sang the lyrics of "Transient" on the new LP. "Also, my sister moved to LA, so that helped me overcome my earthquake paranoia a little bit."
One notable absence from "Gold Afternoon Fix" is Marty Willson- Piper's trademark 12-string guitar. "I had this one Rickenbacker 12-string, which I loved, and somebody stole it from our manager's office," says Willson-Piper. "When I started trying other Rickenbacker 12-strings, I just couldn't get the same tone. But I've got a Rickenbacker six-string with an ancient tremolo-bar assembly, and that's got a great tone. That's the one I kept picking up when we wrote the new songs, and that's the one that's all over the new album. It's probably a minute detail to the rest of the universe, and I don't know if anybody's even gonna notice it, but to me it makes a huge difference".
The Church is taking its improved industry status in stride. "Recognition is a funny thing," says Willson-Piper. "Suzanne Vega was down at Folk City every saturday night playing for 50 people who all thought she was brilliant. Six months later she was selling millions of records in every city of the world - not because she was any more brilliant, but because somebody put a marketing campaign together.
"The only reason more people bought 'Starfish' was because more people were exposed to it. When it sold 410,000 copies, we all looked at each other and went, 'Wait a minute, this isn't so different from our last five records, why's it so big?' I don't know - timing, promotion, luck. And it's the same with this one; if it doesn't sell, I won't know why."
This higher commercial profile hasn't altered the group's working methods. "Accidents still play a big part in what we do," says Willson-Piper. "You've got to leave the opportunity for accidents to happen, otherwise you're leaving your creative doors closed. The biggest problem with most popular music is that it doesn't allow for that element of chance."
"I'm always surprised when we manage to write a bunch of songs and record an album," Kilbey adds, "because it's still incredibly untogether and disorganized. If we'd written these songs a month earlier or a month later, they could have been radically different. It's like a sperm floating up to an ovum - depending on which sperm swims the fastest, you could have the guy who's gonna bring peace to the world or you could have an axe murderer. When we write the songs, none of us really knows what we're trying to get at. We just jam together and occasionally we'll hit a groove that takes on a life of its own and eventually becomes a song."
In certain quarters, much has been made of the role of mind- altering substances in the Church's creative process. Koppes, however, is matter- of- fact on the subject. "I don't see anything wrong with the educated use of drugs," he says. "It's good to experiment with different frames of mind when we're writing. Fanaticism is a disease, whether it's pro or against drugs, and I think it's long past the time when we should be frightened of mentioning drugs in interviews."
For the foreseeable future, the Church will function without longtime drummer Richard Ploog, who'll be replaced on the band's upcoming tour by ex-Patti Smith stickman Jay Dee Daugherty. Kilbey describes Ploog's status as "temporarily excommunicated, with the possibility of it becoming a permanent thing. Before people start thinking that Richard was unceremoniously dropped once we got popular, I should say that Richard wanted this and deserved this, so what's happening now is very much his choice. It had to happen eventually - he just couldn't hack it, and he didn't want to.
"The band feels very stong at the moment," says Kilbey. "It's a bit like a family; when one member goes away, the rest of the family bonds together more strongly. Three seems to be a very strong number."
A key element in the band's rejuvenation has been the adoption of a collaborative songwriting policy. "On the majority of the songs on 'Heyday', I said 'I'm not gonna sit at home and write songs for the band anymore; we're gonna write the songs together, because that's the only way the band's gonna survive.' Now when we play on stage, people are playing parts they've written themselves, so everyone feels a bigger stake in the songs."
With the Church functioning as a more democratic unit, Kilbey, Koppes and Willson-Piper have emerged as surprisingly prolific solo artists. Kilbey released four albums of eight-track home recordings (the latest of which, "Remindlessness", was just released in Australia) and collaborated with girlfriend Donnette Thayer on two LP's under the name Hex. Meanwhile, Willson-Piper and Koppes produced three solo discs each; most recent being "Rhyme"(Rykodisc) and "From the Well (TVT) respectively.
"I'm always surprised when I hear our solo records," says Kilbey, because I don't hear much of the Church in them. The good thing is, now that we're doing solo records, the Church is based completely on the interaction of Marty, Pete, and myself. I think that's one of the things that makes it strong.
"There's nothing more painfully pretentious than a rock musician saying, 'My music's not entertainment, man, it's art,'" he concludes. "But having said that, I do think that the Church aspires to do more than just entertain. I'm sure you can get some satisfaction from tapping your foot and singing along, or from marveling at our contraputnal scales and literary devices. But I think we aspire to something a bit deeper, and I'd like to think that we achieve that occasionally. It's still a joke though".