The Verve Pipe – Interview with Brian

What are you up to?

Doing some radio tours.

Working the promotion machine?

Yeah. Shaking a lot of hands.

Back to the basics?

Yeah, back to the basics.

I don’t understand radio, but I couldn’t figure how there wasn’t three or four singles.

RCA got really nervous when “Hero” didn’t hit. They spent so much, we quadrupled our budget, so it was our fault. Basically they dropped the ball, but we handed them a five hundred pound bowling ball covered in oil. (laughs) Hang on one second.

(Brian begins to sneeze)

Bless you.

I’m allergic to my own bullshit. (we both laugh)

With the letdown of the last album, did things change this time around?

Yeah, I was taken out of control. That was taken from me. If we wanted to make another record then our A&R guys were in charge.

Were your hands tied?

My hands were tied. Definitely. Donny wrote some songs that were very catchy, like “Never Let You Down”, and I didn’t care for the song. I had to be convinced that it was going to be a big hit that would resurrect the band. So I thought if that was the case then there were songs on this record that I didn’t want to slip through the cracks like on the last record, songs like “Miles Away” and “Underneath”, to be heard. So if that is what it takes then I’ll sing the song whatever way they want me to sing it.

Going into writing your songs, did you take a different approach at all?

I write the way I write, I don’t think I changed. I write however the mood strikes me. “Wonderful Waste” is a good example of the exact silliness, other side of the spectrum, and “Local Boys” too. Then there is the serious side with “Miles Away” that I like so much. I always run the gamut. Donny specifically wrote for radio, and that can be a great thing if it works, because people will buy the record and hear my stuff, which is good.

The last album, I felt it was very tongue-in-cheek and you really needed to hear what was happening under it all.

And that is asking a lot for people to pay attention. (laughs) How do you put an album out and ask that someone listen to it at least ten times? For commercial radio, if someone doesn’t get it in one or two listens, then the song is done. There is plenty of other stuff to listen to in their opinion.

Rock has become like pop. It’s generic.

Totally. It’s all the same. It’s a very generic time. I think it’s going to change. After the whole World Trade Center incident we’ve realized how we put so much into the frivolity.

Celebrity over substance.

Exactly! That is just the way it was. I was so disappointed with the Mtv Music Awards. Where was the substance? Where were the songs? It was all manipulative bullshit. It’s unfortunate that it took the recent incident to make people wake up. There are more important things than Mariah Carey’s recent breakdown. Who cares?

The new album, Underneath, came as a surprise, but my biggest question is what in the hell happened to the last album? I thought it was your best work.

I was incredibly disappointed with what happened with the last album because I thought it was our best effort.

I honestly thought it would be the album that would really make you guys huge.

Thank you. I don’t think anyone gave a shit about the fact that it was so esoteric. Wearing your heart on your sleeve proves to be futile.

I remember talking to Donny and it seemed everything was more up. Do you think that people were so used to you being so down that it was a shake up for listeners?

Maybe. I can’t really explain what happened because that record, though it took so long to make, in the end I walked away and thought that it was worth it. It just seems like making some sort of artistic statement doesn’t even matter if no one hears it in the end. And then it’s just lost forever. It’s unfortunate that that is the way it’s become in entertainment. Music is so low brow now and I feel a change coming on.

Maybe that album was a few years too early.

You know? At the time it was a very frivolous time for rock ‘n’ roll. I just think it was to high brow for the masses. We put that record out when Limp Bizkit was breaking and there was no way that record was going to get played with that going on.

I haven’t felt that Mtv has been on the fringe for at least ten years. They haven’t done anything for music other than exploit it for a decade.

Totally.

Where is the music I’d enjoy?

Music has become very R&B based now. Even back ten years ago there was a complaint that music was way too white, and now I think now we’ve gone way to far the other way.

Every album I get now is produced by the Neptunes with the heavy hip-hop beats. It’s just trendy nonsense.

Right. Everything has this really slick and contrived feel. Then everyone is singing on everyone else’s record. When are people going to just sit down with a guitar or at the piano and play a song? Instead of having four other people who are more popular than you sing on the track. It’s ridiculous.

To me it seems that singer/songwriters in bands have a craving to do a solo album. Do you have those cravings?

Oh yeah. I’ve always thought of doing that, soon. I have a lot of material and the only reason I’d do that is to satisfy that creative artist in me that wouldn’t be stuck to the normal verse-chorus-verse. When I do this, it’s going to be a very independent sounding record, like Elliott Smith or Rufus Wainwright. I’m sure radio won’t take it, but that is just to satisfy myself.

I always find myself thinking back to Jason Falkner and the albums he put out that no one paid attention to.

I loved his stuff. I remember when the Greys album came out and I loved it!

Music has become therapeutic for so many. What is therapeutic for you?

Music has gotten past the point of therapy for me. I think that at one time it was very therapeutic, like ten or twenty years ago. If anything, music is agitating. It’s hard for me to find artists today that are creative. I like Rufus Wainwright and Coldplay are really good. Other than that, music just makes me angry. It’s just got to do with the fact that it sounds so contrived.

Do you find yourself digging through old albums?

Totally. I don’t know if you are old enough to remember what FM was like originally. When they broke out, they were album-oriented rock. It was a really great, eclectic thing whereas AM was Top 40 before it started to switch over. College stations are the best stations, but they don’t reach enough people.

It’s so limited and rarely does it influence like a KROCK.

Well, you know that all the radio stations are owned by only a few stations.

Yeah.

One of them put out a list of a hundred songs not to play right now. It’s ridiculous. Like “You Dropped A Bomb On Me” (for those who don’t know, it’s an old song by the Gap Band). First off, who the hell plays that song anyway? And there is “Crash Into Me” by David Matthews. I mean, come on!

It seems like we always go way past everything and dumbing down things.

I guess that is what it makes it all underground. Alternative was that at first. I think about Dag Nasty and stuff. That was underground. Still is. I got turned onto REM bootlegs and the Pixies. The people that are looking for something new will find it if they look hard enough.

I find, even though I have access, it’s hard to wade through the good and bad because there is so much of the latter.

I wouldn’t want to be a part of it because it’s hard. I never want to stop creating, but sometimes I just want to go independent like Ani Difranco. You know, I don’t want to be the whining rock ‘n’ roller because I really do appreciate everything we’ve gotten.

Right. Is writing music today easier or harder than it was in the past? Or does the inspiration just come when it comes?

Good question. I know how to get to the place I want to get to faster. I know how to structure, I know where you need a good lyric that takes it all home and how to get there faster. As far as inspiration, it’s harder, definitely harder. We have a catalog of eighty songs, and I’ve written three hundred songs, so it’s harder to find new inspiration.

Do you find writing is more of a craft now than just winging it?

I’ve always found it a craft. I think it’s something a lot of people have gotten away from. I do think it’s a craft and I think that Donny is better than crafting commercial songs than I am.

I feel like the lucky people who do it once or twice are songwriters, I think those who do it many times are craftsman.

Exactly. I mean, Diane Warren, the hit-bitch, basically writes in her sleep, is like that.

Like Carole King.

Carole King is a perfect example. I think our generation’s Carole King is Art from Everclear. Everything the guy writes seems to be a huge hit, even though they have the same rhythm track. (laughs)

What song still gives you goosebumps today?

Recently?

All time.

Easy. “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by the Police. The opening piano riff is just awesome.

Has anyone given you great advice in your life that you’ll never forget?

You know what? I spent four years in the Army and I had a lieutenant, who is still one of my best friends, he told me that the Army was teaching us not to take any shit from anybody the rest of my life. And I still feel like that and I’ve never taken any shit. (laughs) It has nothing to do with music.

I didn’t even know you were in the Army.

Yeah, I spent four years in there.

What made you decide to go into the Army?

I came from a poor family, not poor enough to get good financial aid, so I wanted the college money. So I went into it for four years and went into military intelligence. I used to work the border of Czechoslovakia and East Germany before the wall came down.

Wow, really?

That was a trip.

What would you be thinking today if you were in the Army?

I’d be scared shitless. I’d go if I got called back up, but I’d be scared shitless. The Army motivated me to do music. The whole idea of not taking shit for me was true. I never wanted to be in the position that when I was thirty I’d have to go back to the Army. I knew that wouldn’t be me. I still have nightmares about that.

Was working the border scary?

This was the Reagan era and the Persian Missile Crisis so the German’s hated us and we had the protestors there throwing rocks and bottles at us. I mean, we’d see people trying to escape East Germany to West Germany, this was literally six years before the wall came down. And they got shot. It was sad. I mean, if they just knew to wait.

Such a small percentage of humans ever go through things like this.

There was a lot of shit that went on over there that people never knew about, it was just crazy. We would screw around and take a pack of Marlboro lights and stick it on a border stone and go back three hour later and a Czech guard would have traded it for one of his packs of smokes. We’d just trade. It made you realize they were just like us.

Going in, did you know you’d be doing this?

Yeah, I signed up specifically for military intelligence. It was before the Persian Gulf war and I had just missed Granada. I got lucky.

+ charlie craine