TOM
WAITS
No matter what they may claim, few performers let it all go the
way Tom Waits does. Screaming, moaning, smashing the
ivories and smacking the strings, he speaks in tongues and
plays with abandon, painting bizarre patterns and unraveling
tangled memories. His latest works include a skull crackin'
CD of primitive clarity that rocks dem bones called Bone
Machine. Waits also contributed an eerie, earthy soundtrack
to Night On Earth, a film by Jim Jarmusch.
What do you like to hit the most when you're mad?
I got a bass drum that's about 59 inches across. It's enormous, it's like hitting a dump-
ster with a sledge hammer. It'll free ya.
Do you ever notice some things feel like they'd be good to throw?
Yeah, I like to do that with family heirlooms, things that have value to others.
I see you have Les Claypool playing bass on this new album.
He came up and played on "The Earth Died Screaming." He was in between fish-
ing trips at the time. He's great, he's got such an elastic approach to the instrument
a fretless, spastic, elastic, rubberized plasticene approach. He's like a fun house
mirror. He can take and elongate his face. He's a real pawnshop weasel, endlessly
in pawnshops. I think that's why he tours.
Didn't you do the voice of Tommy the Cat on
Primus' Sailing The Seas of Cheese?
Yeah, he sent me a tape with him doing it where it
sounds like an auctioneer on helium. I said, 'Man I
can't talk that fast. It was rough.
On that song "The Earth Died Screaming," do you
think the Earth is dying and we're just living in
our own little dreams and ignoring it?
I guess, but I think the world is going to be here a
whole lot longer after we're gone. I'm just waiting for
the whole world to open up and swallow us all
in-scrape us all off its back. I think the world is a liv
ing organism. When you stick a shovel in the ground,
have you ever hear the earth go "Uhhgm?" And we're
living on the decomposed remains of our ancestors.
both animal, mineral and vegetable. So it is a living
Interview by
Brian Brannon
Illustration by
Kevin Ancell
rocks. But there's another side of me that's like an old
man in the corner that's had too much wine. I'm prob
ably too sentimental for my own good sometimes.
What would you say to people who don't know
where you're coming from?
I try to nail a lot of different things together. I'm more
and more getting interesting in rhythm. I like to real-
ly kick it hard. I like to play the drums until my knuck
les bleed, until I pee my pants. Throw myself
against the wall. They think I'm a crazy old man prob-
ably. Check this guy out."
Aren't you using less symphony instruments?
Yeah, I'm getting away from that.
Did you ever skate?
I used to make skateboards out of plywood and go
down to a roller rink called Skate Ranch and buy
just the wheels. We used to skate down this hill called
Robert Avenue and it was a great curve and you
dug up a lot of speed. It went by our neighbor Mr.
Stitcha. He lived in the beauty of the curve, where
all the momentum culminated in a beautiful slough of
cement. It took you right past his house but as close
as you could get to his porch. Mr. Stitcha drank to
excess. This was common knowledge in the neigh
borhood. He had the thick glasses and the red face
and the red wine stains down the front of his t-shirt.
That's like I look now.
Trying to do things with just the essen. I like to play
ashtrays just put three grooves in it and
tial elements of music. It's like making
thing. I don't think it's going to die screaming. I think call it an ashtray. I found a great room the drums until
we're going to die screaming. In the swamp of time.
So I heard that you moved to the country and
there's a lot of roadkill out there.
Yeah, roadkill, gun racks, collapsing chicken
coops and organized vultures.
And there's always some killing.
There's always some killing you've got to do around
the farm. Barns are painted red because that's where
all the slaughtering is done. Originally bams were
painted with the blood of dead animals. Before they
had paint, there was blood.
A lot of your songs have a certain melancholy,
what's that from?
Too much wine. Half of me, I feel like a jack ham
mer, I love to holler and stomp my feet and throw
34 THR
to work in, it's just a cement floor and a
hot water heater. 'Okay, we'll do it here."
It's got some good echo.
So going crazy making music goes
back forever, right?
I guess so, yeah. Concerts are very
my knuckles
bleed, until I
pee my pants.
tribal and I guess it's the same as an
insect ritual, and mating rituals. We all have a drum
in our chest from the moment we're born. I think
music where the tempo is faster than the heartbeat
excites you and music that is slower than the heart
beat calms you down. We all have a constant myth-
mic beat going on, whether or not you hear it, it's con-
tinuing. You feel it all the time whether you
acknowledge it or not.
Anyway it was the only
speed and thrill, so the
place to get that kind of
front of his house became
sort of a festival for all the
skateboarders in the
whole area. On Halloween
he had a heart attack and
died on his front porch and
we were all told he died
because we skated by his
house and that each and everyone of us killed him
in our own way. And we were all left with the memo-
ry that we all had a hand in his murder. It was like a
Shakespeare thing, everybody had their hand on the
knife. So I carry this with me, but I just want to say
here and now, in Thrasher Magazine, that I did not
kill Mr. Stitcha. It took a lot of therapy and it took a
lot of liquor. Mr. Stitcha rest in peace.
Ween
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