Page 26 - LCM_issue_01_Jan2020

and Jim Sclavunos that I sent Jim Sclavunos a copy
You are based in New York
but are originally from
Chicago - is that correct?
Do you maintain connec-
tions to your hometown?
I was born in Chicago and
raised in Wilmette, IL, a few
miles north of the city, on
the lake. It’s also where Bill
Murray is from. Most every-
one I came up with ending
up moving to LA, where I
lived for almost 16 years.
I live in Brooklyn now, as
of 2018, but I’m moving
back to Chicago in January.
I love New York, but it’s too
expensive.
Please tell us about the
two albums you released in
2020, “Kingdom of Sleep,”
“Power and Gr eed and
Money and Sex and Death,”
and the remix collabora-
tions with Alain Johannes
also were released this
year.
I recorded Kingdom of
Sleep on my laptop at
home in the summer of
2019. The songs have
a very dreamy, under-
world kind of feel to
them. I find a lot of
them introspective and
romantic, with large
dashes of sci-fi thrown
into the sounds and
some of the words. I
love the lyrics of Marc
Bolan, Jimi Hendrix,
Nick Cave--people who
feel deeply and give you
something to dream about.
I played all of the instru-
ments on it except for a
couple songs—Sign in the
Window has Matt Hankle
on drums and Katie Burden
on bass. That was the
last band I had before
moving to NY. And Matt
Walker played drums on
You Turn Me On. We grew
up together in Wilmette.
He’s played with Smashing
Pumpkins, Garbage,
and has been with
Morrissey for years now.
And Cedric Bixler-Zavala
did a spoken word thing
on Ghost Like Soul. He and
I are friends from LA. I
played in his band Zavalaz
for a little while, and we
recorded a bunch of his
songs, that never came out.
of the record because he
hosts a radio show, and I
am a huge fan of the Bad
Seeds and Grinderman. I
asked if he would remix
one of the tracks and
he said yes, easy peasy.
Alain Johannes and I knew
each other when I lived in LA.
He also r ecorded Mark
Lanegan’s vocal when
Mark guested on my
Fresh Flesh album from
a couple years ago.
When I asked Alain to do a
remix, he was into it but he
was living in an air Bnb in
Chile at the time, and had
been pretty ill as well. But
he pulled it off beautifully
in true MacGuyver fashion,
I thought.
Kingdom of Sleep came
out the week of lockdown.
Once everything shut down,
I started writing a bunch
of new songs and ended
up making a record. That
turned into Power and Greed
and Money and Sex and
Death, which was released
just after the election.
I played all the instruments
but I got Jane Wiedlin from
the Go-Gos to sing on one
song, and Hong Wang to
play the erhu, a really
beautiful Chinese stringed
instrument. He plays on
all the Kung Fu Panda
soundtracks. Jane I met
through Instagram, we just