Possum Dixon – Never Invisible Interview
Possum Dixon have managed to produce an excellent debut album, drawing comparisons to talking Heads, XTC even to the mothers Of Invention. But the main strength of their album is the quality of the the album’s eleven tracks, coupled with a live show of equal worth. Possum Dixon’s debut is one of lasting quality. Steve Janes talked to lead vocalist and bass guitarist Rob Zabrecky after their support slot on Compulsion’s recent UK tour.
You come to us, from the ‘coffee house scene in LA’ Could you tell me a little more about that?
“Yes, that’s something that happened in Los Angeles since the late 1980’s, there was a time when there was some real underground coffee houses and they seemed to be put together more… gorilla like. They weren’t as conventional as cafes, as they are a lot more out there. It was more of a reaction to burnt out people, who were tired of going to clubs and things like that. So instead of getting all jacked-up on alcohol they’d sip coffee till four in the morning. There was one club in particular called Jabber Jaw that I helped to open in 1989 I guess, it helped a lot of bands that were coming through, including later national touring acts that come through. In fact I’m sure bands from Britain played there,:I think Nirvana played unannounced shows, Its like the secret cool place to play, so we were playing there quite a bit – every weekend almost.”
So was the coffee house thing a reaction to against anything in LA spandex-rock fueled and…
“That was going on, yeah. We had nothing to do with it actually, we avoided it like the plague, that was something on on the other side of town. The thing about the bands playing coffee houses they didn’t give a crap about what was about what is going on with the spandex rockers, it may have been as relevant as reggae fusion or something.”’
So what about Possum Dixon’s female following I’ve read a fanzine some of them put out. Some strange tales, I’ve read they follow you into a cafe and report things like ‘Rob had coffee and Richard had tea and toast…’
“Right. They made a chronicle of every minute we were in this place.”
Does that not make you a little paranoid?
“It just makes me sad. I think some of the kids see you as someone larger than life, they see you on MTV they hear your record and get this idea of who this person is, with all these preconceived notions that this person is going to be seven feet tall – like there just going to be like this, not that. If you’re ever lucky enough to meet that band they usually realise that. The myth is usually dispelled when you meet these people, we are entirely human, just like we all are. These people who try to look at people as immortal or gods…it’s just… please, we’re no different. When I was growing up, as a young teenager worshiping bands too, later on in life when I got to meet some of these people that I was worshiping, they seemed so much shorter in life, or much fatter, ugly or..
More laid-back when you thought they would be in your face?
“Right. I feel good about trying to dispel the myths. Like being what a rock star is about, I don’t believe it, i haven’t for a long time. So when I met all these people that i worshipped as a kid, you’d have all these notions about their songs, or products of their songs, living songs all the time, which isn’t strictly true; I mean you could write a rocking hard song when you;re sitting in the bath tub!”
Your writing style, is it pre-thought or do you tend to be a little more experimental. I can’t see how you could just sit and write a song like ‘’When John Struck Lucy’
“It was worked out. They said, OK we’re gonna write this song, then we would work it out then. Some things about Possum Dixon, there is an experimental side, a stream of consciousness, trying to mix poetry, bullshit, abusive relationships, drugs, sex and coffee – things like that.”
Yeah, the more important things in life.
“Exactly, the more important things in my life! But I don’t know much about this World Cup they are talking about, so…
I wouldn’t mention that.
“Yeah, please don’t because i wouldn’t know what to say about it, I have no opinions. Those are the things that are important to me… things like relationships are –I’m more keen to write about them.”
One of the tracks ‘Regina’ does she exist?
“Yes. This is circa 1983 in los angles when there was the death-rick, like Bauhaus, movement going on. She was this girl, this typical valley-girl – on my goddd! then when day she heard Joy |Division, decided her life was fucking miserable! It’s like when The smiths came out what the f**k happened to all the happy people. It was funny. it was satire.”
Is that linked with the song ‘We’re All Happy’?
“That’s another rather ironic story about a girl and her vibrator – ‘the house is shaking’ you know.I was dating this girl she was… she had this vibrator fetish, no man could stand up to this vibrator, the thing never quit.Twenty minutes into it, boy, I’d be laid on the side of the bed and she would just be ‘ARNNNNNN’ – so I found a lot of irony and humour in it, hence the song ‘We’re All Happy’.
Are you going to go for any kind of sponsorship for vibrators? could we one day see a Possum Dixon vibrator?
“O sure , I’d love to. i wouldn’t use them, but I’d definitely endorse them. As an item for the record company to promote for the song. actually i haven’t really told that story much, , but i don’t really care – it’s true. The thing about those songs they’re true, they are about truth, they’re a bit auto-biographical in a lot of ways.”
During you’re set, i wondered if maybe it was because you were supporting Compulsion, as a result, it was quite an alternative crowd, you played that card a little. you didn’t play ‘Invisible’ or ‘When John Struck Lucy’ = the more experimental tracks from the album.
“we tend to do that a little bit, we assess the crowd a little bit, then we talk. We have a meeting before the show and say, these guys would probably get off more on something like ‘Pharmaceutical Itch’ than ‘Invisible’. But by the same token some nights we feel like, ‘well it looks like a real hardcore-Motorhead audience – let’s play ‘Invisible’ for ten minutes or something like that. We play it to our disadvantage and see what happens – rail and error – sometimes it works, others it doesn’t. In Belgium we did a five minute version of ‘John Struck Lucy’ and they went crazy for it. I didn’t have the bass so climbed up on the speakers, we had an extended piano solo that sounded like hyped-up jazz.”
One of my favourite lines, mainly the acclaimed way it’s delivered “…hit her with a stick”
“Yeah HIT HER WITH A STICK absolutely loved it!
I always think that people think it says he hit her with his dick – I listen to that song so many times’ ‘he hit her with his dick – it’s not like that; my Mom got the wrong impression when she heard that song.”
what do you make of Compulsion?
“I don’t know what to make of Compulsion to be honest with you. Its like the Sex Pistols, light show, Nirvana, AC/DC you know – big rock. Definitely we enjoyed playing with It was fun touring with them. I’m not much of a headbanger. I was more curious as to what the old Londoners were gonna think. Like the people who saw the Sex Pistols or saw The Stranglers might come and say what is this? But I personally liked them enough, fun shows with them. Think people in the States and the early punk scene here – I don’t know what they would think of them. I I would be quite curious to know what they thought.”
Do you fit in with this New Wave Of New Wave thing over here?
“We have nothing to do with that,it just seemed like another media thing, it’s like Generation X – i don’t give a crap about it.”
Is there much difference to the audiences over here?
“Not really, playing any big city here there’s not much of a difference. I think you can be anywhere, get up and play the same songs you play in Los Angeles, the same in New York and the same set in San Francisco. When you’re done. they clap and throw stuff or shit at you. there really is little difference and that goes for most cities in general. We feel like the new kids on the block because we haven’t played here in the UK like we’ve played the States, we’ve been playing for five years now and we’re feeling the same way we did as when we first started playing the states or Los Angeles. People don’t know who we are, they don’t know what our songs sound like, so we are going to have to do it for ourselves – which is why we are doing it anyway.”
How has the album been doing in the States?
“We’ve had an excellent eight months of touring on this album erm, entirely in the U.S. it has been excellent, the radio has been great as were the shows. We got to tour with bands that we love and respect, we get a chance to get there and be ourselves.”
Reading through various press, there’s several bands that are almost constantly mentioned when describing Possum Dixon, from early XTC, Talking Heads, even with we thought ‘Invisible’ had some of Thomas Dolby at least on the keyboard parts. what do you think of all of the many tags being thrown towards the band?
“A tag is just something that is a label. It happens to everyone who has ever been in a band, who has ever written a book, whoever is painting a picture – you’ll always be tagged to something. The world is full of analogies and it is going to happen to a band too it would be wrong if there wasn’t. They are not going to draw comparisons to milk and salt, just to other bands.”
https://youtu.be/IPzcflH-tYw
There is some good bands being mentioned there…
“I think so, bands that I definitely respect and listen to, the bands we typically get compared to are bands a really of one genre of music. from the late 1970s, it was punk rock, new wave and all that- the spirit of rock n roll as they say we captured in the album. In my opinion a lot of the greatest albums were recorded back then like the Pretenders first album for instance, I’ve listened to and in my opinion, a brilliant album, It sounds like it was recorded yesterday not twenty-five years ago. The songs, the thing she sings about are definitely great fodder today.”
Yeah, last night I was listening to Elvis Costello’s ‘Armed Forces’…
“Arrr there you go, I mean you can put on that album – it holds up over time. When we made the Possum Dixon album we said ok, there were a lot of things that we wanted to do and a lot of things we didn’t want to do with that album. One of them was to make a record that would hold up in ten years from now – will it land at least near to ‘Armed Forces’ or ‘My Aim Is True’ so far the answer is yes, it’s already been a year since we recorded the album.”