Rhonda: So how did Granny's form?
Cap: Geeze, that's a good question. How long have you been interviewing bands?
Rhonda: Stop that, now answer the question.
Cap: Alright. Alright. At first, this solar system was evidently a spinning gaseous cloud. At some point...
Rhonda: Will you freaking stop that!
Cap: Ok., sorry. Hey Adam, could you get me a whiskey please?
Rhonda: So how did the band form?
Cap: Do you really want to know this whole thing?
Rhonda: Yes. Now start talking.
Cap: Christ. OK., here's my side of the story but the other guys will probably tell you a completely different one, so you damn well better interrogate them too.
Rhonda: I'm going to don't you worry.
Cap: Alright. I moved from Davis, up near Blackwater Falls, to Saint Albans, WV around 1980. I was like 14 years old at the time. I started playing guitar about then, why for sure I'll never know, but I'd been around music alot, my dad played some guitar, mom some piano, one of my sisters and my oldest brother played guitar, one uncle played honky-tonk piano, another uncle played guitar, I think they all sang and my sister Sue, the one who played, had written some original songs and I always thought that was really cool. Then my Grandfather had been a pretty well-known musican back in the '30s and '40s, and I always heard stories about that and I guess this all steered me toward music.
I ended up meeting Don Duppee in Junior High I guess right after I'd started trying to play. He had just started too, and we tried jamming once but since he plays upside down and backwards I couldn't watch and see what he was playing and figure it out, and vice-versa, and it was just a disaster. I kept jamming with other people though, having a good time, but I wasn't very good and was never in a band. I sort of lost touch with Don for a few years.
Rhonda: What kind of music were you into?
Cap: As a little kid I remember liking Johnny Cash a lot, my dad had a couple Johnny and Hank Williams records and I can remember playing them over and over. Plus Creedance, too, The Beatles, The Doors, John Denver, Black Sabbath, Simon and Garfunkel, stuff my two older brothers had around. Of course I got into disco in the late '70s when I was like 11 years old, which I'd like to forget. Then in juinor high thank God I got turned-on to AC/DC and they were my mainstay for years, but they were also real good to practice guitar along with. I still listen to them all the time. Did you see "Fly on the Wall?"
Rhonda: Yes. Now please, let me ask you the questions.
Cap: Ahhhh yes, and let me answer them, I would be glad to oblige you.
Rhonda: It's like I'm rubbing a lamp. Ok, when you were growing up, you were saying you listened to...
Cap: It's like your the friggin' police. Well, I was into Molly Hatchet and Lynyrd Skynyrd too, the southern rock thing. But really I always listened to a lot of stuff, never drew any real boundaries ya' know, but I always loved going to concerts. Around '82, back before MTV was on there, every Friday I'd stay up half the night watching this funky cable show called "Night Flight" which had bands on from CBGBs and other unknowns that was just incredible. It made me realize that there was something else going on that you didn't ever hear on the radio.
I don't think I ever realized that radio stations could only play certain stuff already on their playlist until I got to hanging out with a neighbor-buddy who was a part-time, late night DJ, and after everyone was gone he'd let me sneak into the station, and we'd drink beer all night and he'd let me cue-up stuff, answer the phones. I'd lay down sound-effects tracks to AC/DC songs, stupid stuff. The thing is he gave me the low-down on how "corporate radio" worked and it shattered a lot of illusions.
About that time I got on a country kick and got to be a big fan of Hank Williams, Jr., I could play a dozen Bocephus songs, and that was probably my first attempt and singing stuff too. I started working at a trucking company in Nitro for a while. Those boys taught me how to party and I finally realized Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, stuff I'd overlooked, was fucking great. After that, in the mid 80s I guess, I got into The Cult, U2, stuff like Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, Jane's Addiction... It was always a weird mix of stuff, old, new, whatever.
Rhonda: So how did you end up in Morgantown?
Cap: Well, school. I transferred from WV State to up here in '86. Duppee was already in school up here, still playing the guitar. We got to be friends again but I was on a different trip and still remembered the first time we'd tried to jam before, so guitars were sort of off-limits. A lot of our mutual friends were musicians though, and people would always end up playing at parties and getting together to play. No one could ever play with Don though, it was funny, he was like the mutant guitar player.
After a couple years of screwing around jamming with various people, I got a fake I.D. and starting to get into going to bars and hearing local music. I couldn't believe it, there were really good bands right here that you didn't have to pay $20 bucks to see and you could get right up to them to watch and a lot of them were playing original stuff. I was fucking thrilled and I felt like I really wanted to be a part of it.
I started practicing more and finally me and my roommates and some friends started a band called Abe Lincoln's Head, this was like 1989-1990, but we never played out except for one Halloween party, and that was it. We had a couple originals that the first singer had wrote, but mostly it was covers of, like, The Cult, Love and Rockets, The Beatles, REM, U2, other '80s alternative stuff, whatever, plus I was so terrified of playing in front of people I would damn near freak out at the mention of it. It was really frustrating too, because most of the time the various people in the band were just starting to learn how to play and we just sucked. Still, it made me want to be in a band.
Everyone in that band, which went through a bunch of different members, eventually left town except for me and drummer number 3 Al Vish. Al was a great drummer and we got along real well, practiced as a two-piece alot and tried like hell to find another lineup that we liked. We tried out 10 different people at least looking for the right thing. It didn't work though, so Al left for Pittsburgh and got in another band called Thickhead Grin with bass player number 1 of Abe Lincoln's Head, Ellen Frankel, and they were pretty successful. It was funny because they had never been in the band at the same time or met while in Morgantown. By this time I was 24 or so and already and old man in this town. I was washed up.
Rhonda: What about Granny's 12 Gauge?
Cap: Oh yeah, right, hey Adam, get me a shot, would ya? Uhhhh...Oh yeah, well, by this time it was like, 1991 or so, and I'd pretty much given up on ever getting in a band again. I knew I loved music though. I was jamming with anyone who would play, unsuccessfully mostly, begging other bands to take me in, "show me how to be in a band, let me carry your guitars" sort of stuff, trying to do sound.
It was pitiful and nothing worked. Still I was starting to meet other local musicians uhmmmm, like Porterfield, KarI Schuman, Mike Pushkin, Johnny Cambell, Kevin Ford, John Jacquis [of Capsule], who were sort of in the same boat, and I've been friends with them ever since. This thing that Morgantown has, its hard to explain--it kept me going and still does. There's this community feeling among all the people who are really interested in music and art and crazy stuff and its like this little incubator thing that helps you along if your willing to put in the time. That's why we're all here.
Rhonda: Darn-it will you tell me how the band started!
Cap: Geeze, calm down. Well, you know how people move around in this town. In the summer of '91 by pure chance I ended-up crashing for three months at a friend's pad, Lee Maddex's place, two doors down from Duppee on College Avenue, about halfway up the hill. I could hear Duppee and some drummer playing ever now and then and doing some cool stuff--real loud too, it echoed off the sides of the hollow.
I kept telling myself it was no use to try to play with Don because of the upside down and backwards thing, but out of sheer desperation one day I dragged my guitar and amp up the hill. Don introduced me to Rodney Bean, and we finally tried playing together again. This time I decided not to even watch what Don was doing, but just listen to it, and Rodney...geeze Rodney, in about 20 seconds I realized Rod was the best drummer I had ever played with, and suddenly we could all play together, just improvising stuff. I think they were as happy as I was.
I guess that was the real start of it. But the wild thing was that at about the same time I had a kooky 40-year-old Spanish professor named Dave Connell, who had mentioned to the class he played the Classical guitar. Plus he was friends with Lee, so Me and SuperDave ended up getting together to play guitar, and it ended up Dave was a fucking spectacular guitar player, not the Classical stuff, but doin' these chicken-picken guitar solos and country songs, and he'd been in some Morgantown band in the early '70s called Raw Hump, which was typical Dave stuff.
Since I was also jamming with Don and Rod, one day I had the idea of Dave, me, Don, and Rod playing together, with Dave on the Bass, which he had never touched before. Dave was wanting to playing music bad enough that he went and bought bass about a week later, and since he was a Classical dude, he could play the bass like fucking mad. When we first all played together something clicked, knew it right away, and that was the first version of the band.
Rhonda: Was that when you got the name Granny's 12 Gauge?
Cap: Oh no, no. We didn't even attempt a name or playing out for like two years. Don ended up renting a house out in Maidsville and we started playing in the basement there. Then Rod moved to Charleston but left his drumset at Don's, and Rodney would drive back and forth from fucking Charleston every couple weeks just to practice.
That's how into it we were, just getting to jam in a band-setting, making our own music for ourselves...we all placed a high value on it. It wasn't long before we realized we didn't have much talent for doing covers, and we started coming up with original stuff, instumentals, that after a while we realized were pretty unique sounding, a mix of all the sort of music we liked, we just had a great time. We had all had alot in common, but were also all different, plus Dave being what we thought was ancient, 40-something playing what was in many ways hardcore punk at the time. Let's say it was an unlikely combination.
We were like the misfits of Morgantown and joked all the time about what we were doing. I guess we still are, we're sure not getting any younger 'ya know. But the thing was we always got along real well. We were all into music so much that we'd end up talking about music as much as playing it, listening to different stuff, going down to the Underground...I mean the Nyabinghi...fuck, that place across the street [now 123 Pleasant Street], to watch bands and hang out, that sort of stuff. We were real fans of local bands and went to see a lot of people play.
Those guys in the band got to be like bloodbrothers and I realized that I was in a really neat band, even though we weren't playing-out anywhere. I'd fucking do anything for those guys and they'll all say the same thing when you ask 'em. Jesus I'm getting drunk. Ahhhh, that's how you do it eeeh? Ply your subject with whiskey and ask him the dope, just like in Kelly's Heroes. Hey, did you see that?
Rhonda: What the heck are you talking about? [Right then the strange guy quoted on the reviews page stopped in and talked to Cap--I cut it out of this section so go there if you want to see it.]
Cap: Now that is a fine human being. Well, uhmmmm, anyway we didn't have a singer, but we had a couple people over at different times to just try stuff. Neither of the people trying could really put in the time to practice though. The first thing we taped was "Flatwoods Monster" with a friend of ours, Chip, flat-out reading a 1952 newspaper article about the UFO sighting there, but he couldn't practice so we were stuck. Hey! have you seen any UFO's yet?
Rhonda: Yes...I mean no, darn it I hate when you bring that stuff up. Will you just tell me about Granny's 12 Gauge?
Cap: About this time time I started writing lyrics...well no, I had been writing lyrics for a while but it was all crap, trying to be someone who I wasn't, some New York band or something, while here I was living in a fucking trailer in Morgantown. But hearing what the band was sounding like and looking back at things that had gone on in my life, plus how I loved this state that was a joke to most people in the country, and then the fucked-up political system in this state...it got me to writing about stuff that meant something to me.
The neatest thing was that the lyrics that started to come out were about us and West Virginia--you know, if your a West Virginian you know what this shit is about, coal mines, trains,cool stories I'd heard Gramma tell, trips to the fair, that sort of thing--"The Ballad of Sid Hatfield" was the first thing along this line I came up with. Wrote that one night in a hotel room in Logan County. There's inspiration in this shit that I can't believe nobody has ever got into. Uhmmm, Adam, is this water? You a doing a superb job back there.
To damn near everyone playing rock-n-roll this way would have been the stupidest idea ever thought up. But to us it made complete sense. Like, that's how you win the battle, don't play for anyone but yourselves, and make music about something you care about. It'll give you power and peace of mind and keep you together. Any other things are just fringe-benifits. WV was what we cared about and that was the bonding force. Do you remember Star Wars?
Rhonda: No Stars Wars stuff, alright? Keep telling me about the band...the band...do you remember? The name?
Cap: Awhh yeah. Ok, It started real simple, we took one of the instrumental songs we'd been playing and added "Mudstone! Bonecoal!" to it, a band-yell sort of thing because none of us had ever sang in front of other people, but together we would do it. Then me and Don both started writing lyrics, and then by God we started singing because nobody else was going to do it, and Rod and SuperDave starting singing too. We just had to learn from the ground up and believe me, we're still learning.
Anyway, Rod ended up writing and singing a cool song called "Blisters on My Eyes" and also gave me a couple lines to "Highwall Blues" that helped me finish the song. We were all just thrilled to be doing this stuff. As a group we started doing things musically that we'd always dreamed about doing but never thought we actually would.
Around that time I went back through one of my Grandfather's lyric books and found "MacBeth Mine Disaster" and we played it loud like we were playing our other stuff, but flatpicking it like a country song. That was a big part of this history side of us. It sort of made us feel like we were carrying on some WV legacy or something, making it new, and that was even more motivation.
Then, we turned around and picked up a couple of covers and with the original stuff we had enough to play about forty minutes. We'd heard Leadbelly's "In the Pines" about that time and starting playing it kind of psychedelic-like and started getting into real old stuff plus classic outlaw country, all with our own angle to it. We did that Waylon song "Are You Sure Hank Done it this Way," that SuperDave sang. All this was influencing the originals we were coming up with. We didn't even think about playing in bars or anything though, seriously at least, I mean we weren't trying to find shows at all. We were just playing in Don's basement.
Rhonda: If you'll try to think back to fifeteen minute ago, I asked you where did the name come from.
Cap: Ahhh yes, the Goddess of Time. Nice to meet you. Where did Granny's 12 Gauge come from...hmmmmm. The name...That's a good one. Did Dunkle teach you that?
Rhonda: Yes, and he also told me to give you a cigarette at times like this, so here. Now, think back, where did you get the name?
Cap: Ahhhh grasshopper, the master has taught you well...............Ok, the name finally came out of thinking about the songs we were making up and playing and how fucking loud it was, plus the past and present and how we were interpreting it. Me and Don where sitting in a bar one night hashing out band names, I got on some "Granny's" this, "Granny's" that line, and out of the blue "Granny's 12 Gauge" came out. We laughed our asses off because we new instantly that it represented everything we were doing, plus how damn loud we were, and that it would be the band's name. .....mmmmmm, That, my dear, is some fine whiskey. My Gramma was thrilled--wanted me to take her picture with one of her guns, that sort of thing.
Rhonda: So how did you end up playing in front of people?
Cap: Oh shit. Well, I was at a party on Grant Avenue on night, Fall of '93 I think, and Mike Pushkin, who I'd gotten to know, told me he had a new band called The Joint Chiefs and that they needed an opening band for a show at the Nyabinghi a week later, and he asked me if I was still playing with the band I had told him about. I said yeah, and we'd do it, and we had our first show. We couldn't believe it because we went straight from our basement to one of the coolest music bars around. I mean we worshipped this place...still do. I damn near threw-up, but it was such a fun thing that we were all hooked. Getting up on stage to play was a rush like I'd never felt.
So, we got a nice response from people and suddenly we were playing out alot, meeting the other local bands who we had been going to watch, sharing shows. That year I think...no, early the next year, we got a track on one of Orville's Morgantown compilation cds. We got started playing in different places, different towns, whatever and whenever we got the chance--started doing the do-it-yourself rock and roll thing, ya' know, loadin' up your cars and driving off to a show in some town you've never been to, it felt just great. We got to play shows to 2 people and say, "Wow, that was great, we just got to play one of those shows that bands always talk about where there was only two people there!" and then do shows to 200 people and say, "Wow, that was great, did you see all those fucking people!"
It's still the same way, the thrill is always there when we play, but when your a nobody band from West Virginia you never know when you'll get a crowd. It's like a freaky thing, a band can be like living a dream and a nightmare at the same time ya' know. You get do do shit that most people dream about, but it's a lot of work, ya' know, that nobody ever sees, carrying all the shit, practicing, writing stuff, trying' to get four people in the same room at the same time, be in tune, not kill each other, and then you don't make money. Thank God for Frank the roadie, he's helped us a lot...that man can carry a friggin' amp like a pizza. As God is my witness I will never make back the money I've spent on strings since I started playing guitar....guitar...guitar...what the fuck was I talking about?
Oh yeah, Ok. Let's see...Rodney was still driving from Charleston to the shows, and that was key because if he'd left I'm sure we would have croaked. All that sort of shit is what usually kills bands. But we have fun. The friendship and the songs about West Virginia that mean something to us personally, us and our place 'ya know, it's kept us together and motivated us. There's been ten times I thought this band couldn't go on much longer, but something good always happened and has kept us going. It's like us meeting Dunkle and him taking a shine to us, wanting to give us advice and stuff, having you help us. He's a little nutty but man he makes sense a lot of times. Good God, let me get some cigarettes.
Rhonda (after Cap's half-hour-long cigarette machine trip): So when did Jeff Shilling get in the band?
Cap: Ooohhh yes, the Shilling years, fine years indeed. Well, I'd known Jeff for a few years and knew he was a killer bass player. He'd been coming to our shows at the Nyabinghi for a while and knew a lot of the songs. This was like late '94 or so. Rod had moved back to Morgantown and we we're all finally in the same place, and out of nowhere SuperDave up and decided he absolutely had to move to some mountaintop over in the Eastern Panhandle to meditate, really fucking meditate, and he's still there meditating and practicing the guitar and bass all alone, waiting to emerge as some zen master or something.
Well, Shilling found out SuperDave was taking off and immediately offered to play bass for us. It was a really lucky thing 'cause me, Rod, and Don thought it was all over 'cause SuperDave played these really crazy bass lines that were out of the league of most bass players and were a real important thing in the songs. But more than anything we were afraid that we wouldn't be able to find another bass player that we could bond with, be the bloodbrothers-thing that we had had.
We stopped playing out for like six months while me and Don started going to Jeff's house, showing him the songs, working through them. Fortunately Shilling had no trouble with the band's bass style and even enhanced it. We got real lucky and he fit right in, personalities and all. Hell he upped us to another level. He was much more a veteran musician than us--he'd played in a lot of bands, knew other bands, had a van, had a PA, knew sound equipment, didn't give a fuck about much but music. We were real lucky. Morgantown serendipity!
Rhonda: Wasn't Jeff also in Moon [a stalwert Mo'town band led by 63 Eyes guitar-master Mark Poole] at this time?
Cap: Yeah, well, he was in Moon playing with Mark Poole, but he left Moon in like late '96 or something, and settled in with us full-time. That's the way it is here, there's alot of intermixing among bands. It's the WV incest thing the big-city fucks joke about ya' know. Adam! Whiskey please! We started playing shows though a little farther from home--Pittsburgh, Columbus, Baltimore--and meeting alot of really cool musicians and people. We also routinely had assholes wanting to tell us their latest WV joke as soon as we got off stage, and that never ended up pretty.
Usually though, we played the Nyabinghi 'cause it was still better than any of these other places we went to. We started getting shows with some pretty big bands and that was a trip, meeting bands we were fans of and had never dreamed we would play with, and that was fucking great. That's what's so neat about Morgantown, it's up here in the mountains but its like a five-hour drive to half the population in the country. It's a good place to be a band at. Adam, hey, thanks. Have a tip. Anyway, the lineup hasn't changed since and we're still doing it.
Rhonda: Tell me about the cd.
Cap: Ah, the cd, that has to have been the best and worst experience we've had so far. We'd done a two-song 45 out at Kim Monday's studio at some point and got on a couple compilation cds, but we'd never done our own cd, this was in, like, '95 I think. Well, we decided to do one and Mark Poole gave us a good deal at his studio, Zone 8, and we started laying down tracks in December of '95. We laid down 16 songs, but because we were doing it on weekends and free nights it took us a fucking year to even get near finishing. The process was a blast though, really got to see how its done but it was alot of work. Thank God we had people like Mark helping us. Plus Don Goegenour offered to help master it. Another friend, Tom from Columbus, laid-out the artwork.
So, we decided to put 10 of the songs on the cd and we finally, in June of '97 or somewhere around then, we finished mixing it down a year-and-a-half after we'd started. At the time most of the bands in town were sending their stuff off to a cd-maker in Canada. He was cheap and had been doing good stuff, so we decided to send ours up there too. Well, we were broke as always so we borrowed 1500 bucks and sent it off in July I guess, and the cd was supposed to be back in early September.
So, September roles around and there's no cds. Don's calling the guy and the guy's saying "Oh yeah man, no problem, it'll be there in 10 days." Now this happened like 3 times, but the fucking thing never showed up. In the meantime we're scheduling shows 'ya know "cd release party in 10 days, be there!" that sort of thing, and having no cds. Well, now its late October and we're getting more than pissed-off because that fucker had our money and was yankin' on our tails and we realized we were being shafted and we couldn't get our hands around his little fucking neck because he was at the North Pole. By this time he's not returning our calls, and then by-God his phone gets shut off and there's no even contacting him to tell him we were coming to rip his fucking heart out. Jesus, this is pissing me off right now...Hey Adam, do you remember when that shit was happing?
Adam: Yeeahh man. I thought you guys were going to freak.
Rhonda: Yeah, me too. That's about when I met you all and I thought you all were like that all the time.
Cap: You ain't shit'n we were freak'n. There we were 'ya know, all this work us and our friends had done, our money, he had our fucking master tape and our artwork.
Rhonda: So how did it work out? I know you got the cds or course. Do you remember? I was there that night and it was like you all had just climbed Mount Everest.
Cap: Yea, we were happier'n hell when they showed up. Well, we weren't the only band in town who had cd's up there that weren't coming back, so alot of people were trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Someone found out the guy still had an e-mail address so we started e-mailing the dude to inform him that Granny's 12 Gauge, the FBI, the CIA, the US Army, and 30 or so ticked-off West Virginia farmboys were planning a trip north and we weren't coming to play a show and that we knew his address, that sort of thing. By God we were too, I had more maps of Canada than I knew what to do with.
Then out of no-where Kim Monday, God bless him, found out that the guy had claimed bankruptcy and just skipped out, and our fucking cds were sitting in a warehouse somewhere near Montreal where they'd probably been for three months. This was like late November in '97 after we'd had 3 cd-release-party shows with no cds. Kim arranged for them to get sent down and the day they suddenly showed up I swear I cried I was so happy. It was almost exactly 2 years from the day we started recording at Mark's. Well, we all got together, I remember you were there, Dunkle too, a bunch of friends...we all just sat around partying on the boxes of cds and playing it over and over. It ended up that that was the cd release party, and it was more fun than any of the shows.
The other bands weren't so lucky though, this guy had never even printed their cds and they lost everything. The funny thing was that by that time, we had evolved alot and it was like "Damn, we could have done this alot better if we were doing it now," but we were happy as hell anyway. ....Where's my lighter? Do you have my lighter? Where's my fucking lighter!?!? Adam, lighter please! Oh, wait, never mind, here it is...Christ I hate when that happens.
Rhonda: Are you going to do another cd?
Cap: .............ummmmm. Yeah, once we get enough money to do it. We've got enough songs for 3 cds by now but we're not in any hurry. We've never been in a hurry for anything, but it'll happen at some point. I'm looking forward to the next one but God I hope it doesn't take the time and bullshit that the first one took. Then again the band could implode or half of us die like Skynyrd in a plane crash, an asteroid could hit, might loose a hand 'ya know, whatever. You're never guaranteed another breath in life or in a band.
Rhonda: So do you think you'll ever get a recording contract?
Cap: Nope. Well, I mean when we were younger we talked about amongst ourselves like every band does, but as we saw how the system works we realized it wouldn't happen and it doesn't even cross our minds anymore. For most bands getting a record deal means nothing but getting to say "Yeah, we've got a record deal, we're cool," and they get fucking shafted.
Look...in general 1 in 5,000 bands ever get signed and out of those lucky ones 1 in 5,000 ever actually make money, then add in how many West Virginia bands in the last 50 years--country, rock, whatever--can you name with a record deal...it's damn near absolute zero.
I've seen some incredible local bands that if they were livin' in New York City or L.A. would have gotten deals long ago, 63 Eyes is a good example, but the music business is more about who you know and how many asses you want to kiss than how you play. Christ, just listen to top 40 radio nowadays if you can stand it.
Plus, we'd seen fucking hundreds of bands that were out there touring there asses off, trying to get signed, and ruining themselves in the process and you never see them again. It's all bullshit, so anymore we just take our time and do what we do for ourselves and for the thrill and personal satisfaction of playing music and makin' what we have to say heard. That's where the reward for playing your own music is. It makes us all feel like we have a voice, at least on a local level, that we wouldn't have otherwise, and it keeps us together and keeps it fun. We just like playing music, and that's where it stands.
Rhonda: O.K., I'm going to ask you a couple of quick questions, and please answer them quick because Mr. Dunkle is going down to Lexington tomorrow and he needs me to drive and I have to sleep at some point.
Cap: Takin' the convertible? I love that thing!
Rhonda: No, he wants to take that stupid old Aspen station wagon that he always takes to flea markets because he has a line on some Victrola or something down there he wants to get.
Cap: Whoa...yeah you do need your sleep, the Aspen sucks. Ok, I'll be quick.
Rhonda: I'll believe that when I see it.
Cap: I'm so quick that I just did it and you didn't even see it.
Rhonda: Right... So, how do you all come up with songs?
Cap: Awwwhh, now why you have to go and ask a question like that? Them's is secrets!
Rhonda: O.k, I'm leaving...good night.
Cap: Ok! Ok! I'll be good, I promise, really.
Rhonda: The songs?
Cap: It's generally a situation were me or Don comes up with something, maybe a whole song ready to go, or maybe just lyrics or just a guitar part. Whoever has it throws it out and the rest of us just try to make sense of it, do something with it musically that makes us all happy.
If it's just a part of a song or a riff someone else tries to come up with something to add to it. But even if, say, I have a full song with lyrics and guitar, I'm not going to tell them exactly what to do and vice-versa. It all comes down to the personal level ya' know, you have to hear something and interprete it and try to mold something around it that makes musical sense.
Don't get me wrong it's not always like that, sometimes we're just improvising, jamming along on something off-the-cuff that clicks, and some lyrics get inspired. Times like that a song can just spill out and those are probably the best times to be in a band. When something like that happens we end up standing around looking at each other sort of in fucking shock at what just happened.
On the other hand if just one of us don't like what we're doing or the song in general, the song gets tossed out. It's a fucking myth that bands have to be a democracy, democracy bands end up killing each other because there's someone alway feelin' left out of the loop and it comes back to bite you on the friggin' ass. That way we know that we're all in it together, 'cause each one of us has the "kill button" for a song, and any one of us can hit it anytime. Every person in the band has to have control, believe in what their doing and be getting some personal reward for doing it or the band ain't gonna' happen for too long. You look at a band that's been around for a long time and it's usually like some sort of truce among dictators. Christ I'm not makin' sense. Am I makin' sense?
Rhonda: As about as much sense as anything you've said tonight. So, how did...
Cap: Oh Christ...Rhonda...I've gotta go. I just remembered something...Oh shit...
Rhonda: Hey! Two more questions, just two...
Cap: Sorry Rhonda. We can talk again sometime, I'll tell 'ya some stories. Have fun with Dunkle tomorrow! Get some sleep! I'm off! Adam! Bless 'ya buddy! Goooodnight!
Adam: 'Night Cap, have a good one.
With that Cap left me there in a cloud of smoke like I was just another barfly, so I decided to try some of his last drink, which he'd ordered and left sitting untouched. Why he likes the stuff so much I'll never know because I tell you it tasted just like gasoline.--Rhonda.