Interview: EXP
It’s certainly a coherent body of musict hat’s representative of EXP at this place and time.
EXP are a new band who feature members of the likes of Cop Shoot Cop, Lubricated Goat, Swans, and Live Skull and they have just release their self-titled debut album, an intoxicating mixture of punk, psychedelia and noise laden rock n roll. Gavin Brown caught up with EXP bass player/vocalist J. Natz to get the lowdown on EXP and their debut as well as discussing previous bands and their New York City home, both past and present.
E&D: Your self-titled debut album has just come out. Is this a total statement of intent from EXP from the get-go?
J. Natz: I mean it’s not a concept album but it’s certainly a coherent body of music that’s representative of EXP at this place and time.
E&D: How did the creation of the record go?
J. Natz: The process usually begins with a bassline I’ll be playing around the house that AE takes a liking to and picks up her guitar to begin adding something akin to a swarm of hornets buzzing in out over and under. Both of us are self taught with no formal music training so there’s a good deal of telepathy that takes place by means of necessity. This process of fleshing out continues as the lyrics find their way in and it gets brought into Mr. Bloody Rich’s lab for percussionizing, our old friends Annabel Lee and Stu Spasm will drop in with suggestion and contributions.
E&D: Did you want to capture a real, raw New York City vibe with the music of EXP?
J. Natz: Not at all. It may well be perceived as such but there isn’t a deliberate, conscious decision made to that attempt.
E&D: How was the experience of working at Martin Bisi’s BC Studios?
J. Natz: The studio and its large cavernous basement haven’t changed much since the Cop Shoot Cop recording sessions in the early ‘90s. Martin’s always a pleasure to work with, he’s like the seasoned old sea captain and that old building on the banks of the Gowanus feels as if it could break off and go sailing into the Buttermilk channel, you feel you’d be in good hands with Cpt. Bisi at the helm.
E&D: Have you got plans for EXP live shows once the album comes out?
J: Natz: Absolutely, as soon as the timing’s right.
E&D: Have you all wanted to work together for a while?
J. Natz: I’ve played and recorded with Phil, Stu and Rich before EXP, have been old friends with Annabel, she in Vermont and myself in NYC, happy to finally have her come down with her fiddle. This is the first band for AE to be playing guitar and synth, it’s a good little family unit. We’ll likely bring some other kinfolk and cousins in.
E&D: The members of EXP have played in Cop Shoot Cop, Lubricated Goat, Swans, Live Skull, and many others. Did you bring this experience to the sound of EXP?
J. Natz: In some sense, I suppose it’s inevitable, like a football player moving over to a different team, he’s going to bring with him what he’s picked up along the way. We’ve all learned a lot about deferring to the song, that ability to keen in on what the song requires, to keep things from becoming contrived.
E&D: What were some of your favourite times with Cop Shoot Cop?
J. Natz: Commandeering Katz’s delicatessen for an afternoon for a record release party – Cop Shoot Cop’s Ask Questions later. Being detained by a whole lot of very irritable LAPD during the Rodney King riots in ’93. We’d inadvertently parked our tour van, a school bus painted in military camouflage, in front of then Police Commissioner Darryl Gates’ office. National Guard radioed it in as a suspicious vehicle from which 7 people exited walking in a suspicious manner. We were in fact at a Japanese restaurant celebrating our being paid not to play (the college thought it foolhardy to go ahead with a show by something called Cop Shoot Cop in the midst of a full scale police riot). They brought the helicopters and the drug sniffing dogs, tore the doors off the van and marched us out of our supper in breadtiecuffs. There were no charges to book any of us on of course but that only seemed to make them angrier.
E&D: When you play live, will you be playing any songs from those bands at all?
J. Natz: No plans in that way. We’ve currently got enough material for a new album.
E&D: The band is based in Brooklyn, who are your favourite ever artists from Brooklyn?
J. Natz: Lester Young comes to mind, “Prez” he actually wasn’t from Brooklyn but he is buried here, just up the block from us in Evergreen cemetery. Phenomenal sax player.
E&D: What are your favourite Brooklyn music spots, and in New York in general both past and present?
J. Natz: TV Eye is a good place to catch a band and Mamma Tried. Of course I miss CB’ like a knife in the heart, can’t even walk that section of the Bowery anymore, sentimental old fool..
E&D: What are your favourite and least favourite things about New York City?
J. Natz: The rent is too damn high and the drugs suck, still love the place though, couldn’t live anywhere else, at least not in Murica. I’m all in favor of secession, call it the People’s Republic of Mamdanistan.
E&D: What are your favourite punk/no wave/noise rock album of all time?
J. Natz: Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Lounge Lizards esp. Queen of all Ears, Brian Eno’s first 3 albums, the No New York comp, The Slits, The Birthday Party (all), Perez Ubu (The Modern Dance), Television (All) ,Tom Waits (nearly all) Bush Tetras, Suicide … this could go on for some time…
E&D: What albums sum up New York the most for you?
J. Natz: Could be the first New York Dolls, or Frank Sinatra, Come Fly with Me.
E&D: What have been your favourite ever NY live shows you’ve seen?
J. Natz: Television at the Capitol Theater 1977, The Stimulators at Club X ’79, The Fall at Maxwells in Hoboken ’81, Gang of 4 at the Ritz, Bad Posture + Flipper at CBGB, Bad Brains at 171A.
E&D: What do you miss about New York that’s missing nowadays?
J. Natz: I miss a lot of the old buildings that have since been replaced by hideous monstrosities of modern architecture. I miss people walking down the sidewalk without having to stare at a black plastic rectangle.
E&D: What else have EXP got planned for the future?
J. Natz: EXP plans to play and record as much as humanly possible and have fun doing it.
