The Dandy Warhols "Odditorium or Warlords of Mars" (Capitol)
By Ken Marcou
Thursday. Dec 15, 1:46 AM
An interview with guitarist Peter Holmstrom.

So you just got back from Europe. How was it?

Well, I’m in Australia now. But in an hour I’m leaving for the airport. But it’s been good. It’s been fucking great.

Did you guys go straight from Europe to Australia or did you stop over in the States first?

Straight from Europe to Australia.

Are you guys going to be home before the U.S. tour starts?

I’m gonna be home for a day and a half. (laughs)

I was under the impression, by looking at your tour schedule, that you’d be home for a couple weeks. And I was gonna ask you if you celebrated Matilda’s (keyboardist/bassist/vocalist Zia McCabe’s one year-old daughter) birthday...

We did down here. I think there’s gonna be a party in Portland too: on the day that we’re home.

I wanted to ask you how the Paris gig went.

I think it went pretty well. I mean that’s how it felt to us. That’s the response that I’ve heard, that it was pretty good. It was very, very, very sweaty. That’s what I really remember about that show.

A friend of mine was sharing a crazy story with me, saying that she remembers seeing you guys back in 2000 at the Trabendo (in Paris) and I guess you were hanging out on stage and smoking and basically nothing was working. I guess the taxi driver didn’t remember how to get there, and you ended up being late.

Yeah, Courtney (guitarist/vocalist) ended up being late cuz the cab driver didn’t know where the venue was. It was a tricky place to find!

(laughs) Yeah that’s what she was saying, I guess it was a new venue that hadn’t been open very long.

So that’s a true story. That’s pretty cool.

Yeah, nothing was working. The keyboard had gone out so we had to fix that in the middle of the show. And we’d lost our trumpet player in Greece to a moped accident so we had a French jazz trumpet player named Eric Trufaz or something… I don’t know about the Eric part of it, but Trufaz was his last name. Um and he… you know… jazz? Rock and roll? It didn’t mix in this case. He couldn’t count to four. He wanted to go three? Five? Anything but four.

Yeah, three with an upbeat maybe?

Yeah. And we had to chart everything out for him beforehand. It was really weird.

So when I was listening to songs like “Down Like Disco” and “All the Money or the Simple Life Honey,” I got pretty excited to see these new ones live. Do you feel like some of these songs on this record are your best ones live?

It tends to take a while for our new songs to feel as comfortable as the old ones, but they’re getting there. I think “All the Money…” is gonna be a really good one. At this point it feels like it’s not completely natural... it’s like worrying about what the next part is. But that? We’ll get over it. And I don’t think anybody’s gonna notice except us. And maybe just me.

I think those two are my faves from the new record, but do you have any old songs that supersede the new ones every time when it comes to playing live?

Well, “Boys Better” is pretty much always a winner. And “Bohemian.”

Yeah, “Bohemian”’s gotta be pretty interactive, I’m sure lots of people know that one.

All it takes is the drums coming in and everybody goes crazy. And it doesn’t matter how well you played it or what happens during the song, it’s always better than average.

The new record is called Odditorium or Warlords of Mars. You recorded this “at home” in the Odditorium: was this your first time recording a record there?

Yeah, the first one at that particular space.

Do you think you’re gonna prefer recording at home from now on or do you think you’ll need to mix it up?

Well, we’ve done the last three records at home: it’s just this time we own the building that we’re in. In the past we’ve rented spaces and brought equipment in. We haven’t actually spent much time besides mixing at “real studios.”

Do you think you’ll want to record outside of that space now?

Oh I’m sure. It’s bound to happen sooner or later. We’ll try it and it’ll be too much stress, like, you know, the $500 a day or whatever they charge for a regular studio. I think it’ll be difficult. It might be inspiring in some ways – the pressure and everything – but I can’t imagine any of us wanting to deal with that for too long.

Yeah, that’s what I was wondering: if you think you’ll need to keep inspirations fresh.

Yeah, maybe… the rest of the band doesn’t particularly like that feeling. (chuckles) They like to have their ideas slowly develop over time. I personally like the intense sort of crazy, creative rush.

How was it writing and recording during Zia's pregnancy? Did it change the dynamic at all?

It changed her dynamic. She became more of a morning person. So she would come in and do her parts earlier in the day than the rest of us. But it didn’t really change much else.

What about all the hoopla surrounding Dig!? Was that distracting?

That didn’t really start until we were fairly done with the record. There was some press I guess, but I it wasn’t a big deal.

I love the use of trumpet on the record. It’s very “Godless” to me. Tell me more about the inspiration behind what seems like a pretty prominent role for it.

We’ve had trumpet in our music since 13 Tales... as well as a touring trumpet player since. It was just time to put him on a record. He lives in London. We flew him in and he spent a couple weeks playing pretty much on every single song. It’s great. He’s an amazing part of our live show. It was time to put that on the record.

So he’ll be with you during the U.S. tour?

Yeah, if he gets his visa. We’re having a little problem with that at the moment. He’s gonna be staying in Sydney for some extra days to deal with that instead of flying back with us today.

I’ve seen you once at a bigger venue opening for Radiohead. That was back in ’97, I think, in Boston. I’ve also seen you two times in small clubs, and I like how, in the small shows, you manage to give this “wow” factor with lights and projections and stuff. And the big shows have a bit of a small show personality to them... basically a cool mix of the two types of approach. Is that by design or just the natural way you roll?

I think that’s just what we do. It’s one of the things where… small shows are very easy for us. As long as the production is good enough to give us the monitor mixes that we’re used to and all that, then it’s really the easiest thing in the world. The bigger shows, it’s always a bit of a struggle to know what to do… just because the sound goes away as opposed to completely surround you. But, yeah, I don’t know, that’s a weird one. The big shows we’re a little unsure about.

Even now, after doing lots and lots of them, you still like the surrounding, engulfing aspect of the small shows?

Well, first of all, what do you consider a small show?

The two clubs I saw you at were probably about 100 people.

Oh okay, that’s really small. I still think “small” is like 1000 and down. Big shows is anything above 2000: that’s where you get the big theaters with the huge high ceilings that look super impressive but sound kinda… it doesn’t do the same thing without turning insanely loud, which doesn’t do anybody any good. So, it’s just something we need to do more of, or… I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. It’s probably to do with our heads than anything else. Cuz it probably sounds great to everybody else.

Yeah, I can say from experience that it sounds good both ways. That was something I was wondering: if you had any preference either way, and if the way it comes off to the listener is something that you actually put effort into as opposed to letting everything happen naturally. Because it comes off really well.

Good. Yeah we try… one of the things we do as a band is just try not to do anything that doesn’t feel natural. I mean the whole show… we’re not “entertainers” or “performers.” We’re musicians. And so, we’re gonna play music. We don’t really put on a “show.” You know we got the projections and lights that sort of take care of the visual aspect. Music? We deal with that. We know what we’re doing there.

Awesome. That’s pretty refreshing to hear, actually. I feel like the opposite outlook on things is really prevalent right now.

Right.

It’s cool that you guys play really entertaining, fun music, but you don’t necessarily look at yourself as entertainers and water it down because of that.

Yeah, it’s just something we discovered over time. There was always pressure from label and management to “make the show more of a big deal.” But it’s just like “no.” It’s the music, really. You know, Grateful Dead didn’t do anything on stage beyond PLAY. It’s an amazing IDEA. I think that’s ultimately what we’d love to be is a Grateful Dead like entity where we can put out records, people will come to the shows, we don’t have to worry about radio, press, or videos or anything, it’s just… it happens. It’s all about the music. People coming to the show and being a part of that. It’d be pretty incredible. It’s a bit of a pipedream, but… we’ll see.

It sounds like your hearts are in the right place. Do you feel any different about playing one location versus another? Do you look forward to the U.S. tour more than the European or anything like that?

There’re aspects about both that are great. The thing we don’t look forward to in the U.S. is the long drives. But I mean the shows and the cities we end up in, it’s always great cuz there’re people who we met years and years ago that show up again and again. It’s like seeing long lost friends. A lot of the clubs are the same, the people working at the clubs are the same, everybody’s getting older together… it’s nice.

It’s gonna be like that for me when I see you in Boston. Really looking forward to it. If you could play (if I may be so humble as to request) “Down Like Disco,” that’d be cool!

(Laughs) We’ll see if we’ve got that together by the time we get to Boston! We were playing it, but it kinda fell apart. At this point, though, we’re a little tired of our set list and need to spice it up a bit, so we’re gonna try to bring some other old and new songs in. Hopefully sound checks will go well!
www.dandywarhols.com
www.capitolrecords.com

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Ken Marcou

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