Interview with Beulah
 

Dave: My name’s Dave Corey, and I’m sitting backstage with...

Beulah: I just want to start by saying that we discussed earlier, we had a good discussion before the interview, and we’ll probably have a good discussion after the interview’s over, so the interview itself might not be that interesting, but before and after we’re great, just so you know, and we’re drinking a lot, so it makes it more fun.

Dave: Well, the after will definitely be better if we’re drinking. Alright, one more try here. My name’s Dave Corey, and this is the Joe’s Blue Plate Special brought to you by Dr. Martin’s air wear, and you are about to witness the awesome power of Myles and Patrick, Sugarfree recording artists, Beulah, and I’m just going to be talking with them about the independent music scene today, where they’re at in it, and their personal lives. So let’s get started. Before I move into the personal lives, what the show is largely about is, the independent music scene, we do all unsigned artists and independent artists, and not that we have anything against major label artists, but we think they need more help. What are your opinions on the independent versus major labels and what they do?

Beulah: Well, my opinion varies from day to day. I’ve never been associated really with a major label, recording-wise anyway, so I don’t know. I like the fact that they have money, ‘cause I’d like some of it. I’d like a lot of it in fact, which I think every indy artist should strive for because while a bunch of kids might think it’s romantic to starve and play independent music, it’s really no fun.

Well, I think something we notice on the road, is we see the bands that we have admired for a really long time, and we play with them, and they’re still driving the same vans we are and playing the same venues we are, and I think that’s fantastic to a degree. I mean, and I really think that’s an aesthetic(?) of the early 90’s for sure, but I don’t think that’s what we’re really striving for, just to kind of eke by.

But would you like independent?

Oh, sure.

In fact, I wish, if I had my druthers, and I think all of us, if we could hope for something, it would be to stay on an independent label where you can have the freedom to do whatever you want to do and record whatever you want to. I don’t know, being on an independent label is cozy, you know the people a lot better, there’s not a lot of red tape, it’s not really difficult to get in touch with people, it’s very easy if you have good people that you work with like we do at Sugarfree. It makes it a pleasant experience for the most part. The thing is, though, and again if I had my druthers, it would be to make money doing that. See, I hate to say it. That’s what it comes to sometimes. It’s two things: making great music and also surviving, don’t you think?

Well, it’s 50% great music, and 50% of business, and it really comes down to being a business, and every business wants to succeed.

Well, so here’s another good point, then.

...and be self-sustaining.

Right. So then the good point is like if you’re going to get involved with an indy label, get involved with an indy label that knows what they’re doing. That’s one of the unfortunate things. Like sometimes independent labels have more enthusiasm than wherewithal, so.

Or just connections, sometimes is what it takes, unfortunately. I mean, they need to know where to send the records after they get them printed and so forth.

Yeah. Exactly. Or don’t have distribution, so.

Yeah, how do I feel about it? I don’t know.

Again, we’ve never had a bad experience with a major label, because none of them really talk to us.

We’ve not worked with any. But we’ve had both good and bad experiences with independents, so.

Sure. But I think that’s going to be the case. You have good and bad experiences every day when you’re walking down the street, too.

I have good and bad experiences with my band mates each day.

Not with me.

No. They’re primarily bad.

Yeah. No good.

Dave: How long have you guys been with Sugarfree? And for that matter, how long have you guys been a band?

Beulah: Actually, we’re celebrating our two-year anniversary this month.

Dave: With Sugarfree.

Beulah: No, as a band.

Dave: As a band, really? Only two years.

Beulah: Yeah, I mean, Bill and I recorded Handsome Western States like three years ago, but we were really never a band, nor did we have a band name. We just went into our practice space and recorded. It wasn’t really a band. We officially became a band when the record was going to be put out on Elephant Six in November of 1997, and then we hired, not hired, just asked our friends to come and join us in this band. Pat, who I’ve known for like 10, 12 years, and Steven. Like I said, we just became a band, and then we’ve been with Sugarfree for like not even a year yet.

And for the record, as the live band started, Myles called me because he had known me before, and I called back and said I’d do it and play with him. And I figured about after two weeks or so I’d be kicked out anyway, so I didn’t think it was going to last this long, so Myles, just so you know that, anytime’s fine.

Dave: Are you all pretty close as a band? Is the band all friends that have known each other for a long time.

Beulah: We make love regularly to one another.

Dave: That’s pretty close.

Beulah: No. Yeah, I mean, we’re close, yeah. I mean, we’re good friends. At home we pretty much keep our distance. We are good friends, we are good friends, and we’ve been friends, many of us, for a long time. It’s just that when we’re at home because of wives and girlfriends and just other things, we sort of take a break. But then, like now, I think we’re excited. We jump on a plane together. We’ve only been home since our last tour like a month.

I think it’s definitely a tight band.

Yeah, we are. And at the same time, we know we’re close, because we can actually harp on one another and then everything becomes fine again, you know?

I mean, I think that’s the definition of close - the ability to tell each other when you’re fucking up.

Yeah, tell each other when you don’t like them and when you’re not liking them.

And then they get over it and they bounce back, or I get over it and I bounce back, I should say, and they all get along again, and it’s perfect. We went around the entire country in a van together.

We’ve done alright. We’ve only had a few blowups.

Not even blowups. Just minor little tiffs, and they’re really minor, and so I would say we get along really well.

And they’re over really stupid things, you know, somebody stepping on somebody’s sleeping bag.

Like music.

Just someone being in a crappy mood.

Like what songs we’re gonna play, who’s going to play guitar that night.

____________ that no one likes my songs.

Well, they kinda suck.

And they say, god, I gotta play that stupid thing again.

Especially that third one.

There’s a Beulah guy yelling for another _____________. We’re ordering Chinese food.

Dave: What is your favorite kind of Chinese food? What are you guys ordering?

Beulah: My fave what? My hangup what?

Dave: Your favorite kind of Chinese food? What are you getting here?

Beulah: Well, we’re getting some sesame chicken, some mooshoo chicken, some other tofu dish, and some other things I guess.

Yeah, all those are really good dishes.

A peanut butter....

Actually, I’m a big fan of lasagna and pizza, to be honest.

Chinese food.

Oh, Chinese food. I thought he said food in general.

Oh, no.

I like mooshoo pizza.

We’re from San Francisco. We have some pretty good food there.

Dave: Like the Rice-a-roni I understand is a San Francisco treat.

Beulah: Dave, let me just tell you right now. I’m a little out of it. Do you know we just flew in actually the red eye? I’ll let you in on our schedule. We flew in, we left last night like 10ish San Francisco time, and arrived in New York at 6:30 New York time, a.m., tried to get an Avis rent-a-car van, minivan, then we came into the city and had about two hours sleep. So we’re running on two hours over the last 40 something hours. So anyway, just so, I’m not at my witty best.

Dave: That’s okay.

Beulah: And then tomorrow we leave at 5:00 in the morning for England.

Dave: And you start an English tour.

Beulah: Yeah, an English tour tomorrow.

Dave: And how long is that gonna last? When do you finally arrive back home in San Francisco?

Beulah: September 28th.

Dave: Dear god.

Beulah: So that’s two weeks from now, right? Oh, we’re going to Scotland too.

Dave: And how long have you been on the road before this? You’ve been in San Francisco now for a month, but this is the beginning.

Beulah: Yeah. It’s funny, though, you know, like the guys have actually only....who’s that girl talking with? Do you know her? Oh, I don’t know. Is she one of Steve’s friends? Hm. Interesting. Well, we’ll see how that goes. No, I don’t know who she is. No, I don’t know. Well, we’ll go check that out after the interview.

Dave: Are most of the guys in the band married or have girlfriends?

Beulah: That answer would be yes.

Yeah, certainly. I’m married, personally.

I’m not married personally. I’m married to my work, Dave. Ah, which is rock ‘n roll. I’m all about rockin’.

Yeah, everybody’s kind of got a different status, and different status on the road, of course, because that....

Shh. Don’t say that.

Oh. Oh, that’s part of what we’re not supposed to....

Dave: What do you mean by that?

Beulah: I mean, I tell my wife in New York that I don’t have a wife in San Francisco, and vice versa.

A sailor.

Yeah, exactly.

International waters. Different laws apply.

A girl in every port, all that sort of thing.

A different disease in every port.

Um, let’s not get into that, please.

No, we don’t do any of that. We just play music. We’re all about the music and just simple fun.

Dave: You guys party pretty hard ever being on the road?

Beulah: Board games.

Dave: Board games? As in you’re bored when you’re on the road?

Beulah: Yeah, there’s a number in New York that you can call....are you from here? We’ve heard there’s a...

Can you call a number and get drugs?

Dave: I’m from Boulder. Boulder, Colorado.

Beulah: Oh, you’re from Boulder?

Yeah, we heard you can call a number here and get drugs sent to your door.

Yeah, I’ve had several people tell me this. Any kind of drug you want.

But we’re afraid.

Dave: I saw that in a movie.

Beulah: We’re afraid....yeah, you saw that one? Drugs delivered at your door with Mel Gibson and Julia Louis Dreyfus?

Dave: Was that who was in it?

Beulah: Yeah. Yeah, she got busted because some guy was delivering drugs to Mel Gibson. Yeah, do you remember that one? And then Arnold Schwarzenegger is like the drug dealer. It’s a really good flick. Yeah, it’s an indy film.

....a movie the other day, though, where he was super huge and they were dubbing his voice in.

Oh, yeah, it’s like one where he plays that Greek god. Yeah, from the early 70’s. Hercules. Yeah, yeah.

I was very impressed by the whole thing.

No, yeah, that’s some of the best stuff put to celluloid ever.

I will lift you up, now. I will move building so you can have river.

Alright, Dave, next question.

Dave: Does Beulah, speaking of film, does Beulah do anything other than music? I mean, have you guys forayed into music video or film, anything like that?

Beulah: Well, we’re trying to, actually. I’m going to be going to Japan in the winter, just as a solo artist, mainly because we don’t have enough money.

Um, you didn’t tell us about this.

What?

You didn’t tell us about this.

Yeah, I know. Well, we’re going to make a video for that. Yeah, no, we do all the art. We do visual stuff, and we do all the aesthetic things. We design all the record covers and our bass drums with the California flag. Yeah, we do little thing, I guess, yeah.

And we get to do a real video, supposedly.

Yeah, and we do sometimes light scenes. We failed at a light show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco just a few days ago.

Oh, miserably, miserably.

Was it yesterday, or two days ago.

Two days ago.

Two days ago it failed. It just wasn’t happening. We tried to put together a psychedelic light show, and that wasn’t happening.

It was like kind of the oil idea from the 60’s or whatever, but the slides, first of all, didn’t move very much. She made slides out of them. They were supposed to have movement. And then she was trying to project onto a black surface, which really didn’t work very well either. So it was pretty ugly. So we just took ‘em down and put ‘em downstairs and rocked out.

Yeah. Rock out we did.

No psychedelia.

No, no psychedelia.

Dave: So, who are the artists in the band?

Beulah: Well, mostly the records have been done by me and Bill Evans. I sort of just see what I want, and then ask him to do it, and then he’s capable, thank god, of performing the actual pen to paper. Semi-capable. Well, he screws up a lot of time, too. He’s slowly becoming a jar of peanut butter right before our eyes. He’s as slow as like peanut butter melting on a summer’s day.

Dave: In every way?

Beulah: Yeah, mentally, physically, everything, yes, yes.

Dave: Is he from the South?

Beulah: No. He’s from the fourth dimension of Visalia, the central valley, California. His father was an artichoke and his mother was a strawberry.

Dave: Well, I’m going to kind of wrap up here.

Beulah: No, no, no, Dave.

Dave: ‘Cause I’m out of questions.

Beulah: It’s only getting better.

We’ll get good eventually. We have this little act that we do.

Yeah, what’s the next question, Dave?

Dave: Why don’t you guys ask me a question?

Beulah: So you’re from Boulder?

Dave: Yeah.

Beulah: I had some friends who went to Boulder, years ago, though. Jeff Stark and my friend Kate. She went there too. Apples live by there.

Dave: Apples live real close by.

Beulah: Are you friends with them?

Dave: No, we’re supposed to do an interview with them pretty soon here.

Beulah: I don’t see if that would be worthwhile, ‘cause they’re bad news.

Dave: Really?

Beulah: They’re a wrecking crew, is what they are. They take over towns.

They’re mean.

They’re mean-spirited people, the Apples.

Mean-spirited, exactly, that’s a good way to put it.

Mean-spirited. They really are.

I’ve seen ‘em break people’s fingers just for playing the wrong chords on the guitar. I have.

Yeah. They’re mean-spirited. They smell, frankly.

I’ve seen ‘em head butt people.

Yeah, yeah. And they’re ugly. There’s no getting around that.

Oh, dreadfully ugly.

You have to like wear shades.

Especially that John character.

Oh, god, fuzz. He’s pretty ugly. Yeah, there’s a lot of problems with that band. Anytime you name your band after a fruit, you’re in for trouble, because, you know, all fruit rots.

And they don’t really play their instruments very well. And they think by putting "in Stereo" and you get some electronics in there, but, you know, it doesn’t work.

Yeah, but all stereos become obsolete at one time, too. So you have a rotting fruit and an obsolete stereo.

The Apples on Internet.

Dave: Being part of the Elephant Six collective, as we were just mentioning there, the Apples in Stereo part of that bid....what’s that?

Beulah: You’ve been trying to avoid the entire evening?

Dave: The question? Well, yeah, to some extent. But I think this is a natural progression. It’s unavoidable at this point.

Beulah: The E-6 thing. I’m glad you didn’t ask it the first thing off. That was very good.

Dave: Is that what usually happens?

Beulah: Well, it gets asked all the time in some sort of something.

Dave: You know, I wasn’t sure if you’d want to even talk about it. If you don’t, that’s okay.

Beulah: What, about Elephant Six?

Dave: Yeah, sure.

Beulah: No, I have no problem talking about Elephant Six. I just think it’s nice that you didn’t, because I think we are the island of Elephant Six. It’s sort of connected, yet not. We’re sort of like Puerto Rico. We haven’t been admitted as a real state. But we’re a territory.

Well, what happened was, Myles was at the Y swimming, and he went out of his lane because his eyes got too much chlorine in them, and he ran into Hillary Sidney, who’s in the Apples in Stereo, and when he popped up, he was singing one of Beulah’s songs, and she said, this is what music should be like. And so she asked him if he had any music out, or records. And he said, yeah, I have a tape. And he gave it to her, and the rest is history. It’s a pretty amazing story, actually.

Hey! What’s going on over there? Hey! What’s going on over there?

Hey!

Alright.

Dave: Beulah in action. Beulah communicating with one another.

Beulah: Oh, so what was the question about Elephant Six?

Dave: I just wanted to kind of know the story about how you guys got hooked up with Elephant Six and I just wanted to know what the story was with Elephant Six, how you guys got hooked up with them, and how things are now.

Beulah: Yeah, well, things got hooked up. It was all either serendipitous or fortuitous, or it just sort of happened. Bill and I made a tape. We didn’t know what we were doing. We just made a tape. We sent it off to....

Dave: And how long ago was this?

Beulah: Like two and a half years ago, three years ago, three years ago that the tape sort of landed in their laps. But we weren’t a band, that was the thing. We just sort of sent a tape to them, like, hi, just like anybody sends a tape to people that they like and they make music that’s sort of, I guess, quasi-similar, I don’t know. But anyway, they got the tape through a friend of ours here in New York, in fact, and then they just called us up the next week and said, you want to put it out? So that was it. So it makes our relationship with Elephant Six a little different than, say, everybody else’s relationship in that....so anyway....

But we’ve been really fortunate, though, to be able to tour with them.

No, totally, we love it. It’s just that we’re....again, our situation’s different than say the Gerbils or the music tapes or whatever in that we don’t live in Athens, we don’t live in Denver, and we don’t live in a big house, and we don’t know them from childhood and all these things. We’re just these guys that sort of like were given some sort of like honorary, freaky membership, and we like it and all, it’s just we found, and I think all the Elephant Six bands might have found this, although I still believe that Elephant Six is one of the most important like pop movements at least this latter half of this decade. It’s just a certain amount of backlash and also just weird things that people...I mean, we’ll read reviews of things that start off about our record...we keep getting these reviews, we’ll get a review that says, oh, I don’t like Beulah’s record, but before they get to the reason they don’t like Beulah’s record is ‘cause they hate Elephant Six, you know, so they make the segue way halfway in. Like, and by the way, yeah, Beulah has a record out, they’re on Elephant Six, I don’t like that either. Which is just a bit unfortunate about this thing that is supposed to be just harmless. It’s a collective.

And everybody has preconceived notions, I think, that anybody that’s Elephant Six has to be all Beach Boys and Beatles and Zombies and so forth.

Yeah, I don’t think we sound a damn thing like the Beach Boys.

...and don’t pull out any other comparisons or pull out their own ideas or perceptions on what was on the record. I think that happens quite often.

You think we sound like the Beach Boys? I don’t think we really sound like the Beach Boys too much.

We use jingle bells and we have a couple harmonies, but we can’t sing like those guys.

Yeah, that’s about it. Yeah, I mean, that’s just so crazy, ‘cause they’ll say, somebody said in a review that I sound like Brian Wilson. That guy could sing. Like I can barely hold a fuckin’ - oh, sorry - note.

I can vouch for this. I’ve heard him sing without guitars.

Yeah, I mean, I get away with it with a little bit of sass and sugar, but it’s like, man, those guys were like angels or something. They had these voices.

It’s an unfair comparison for them. I mean, it’s ridiculous to say anything...

Yeah, it’s like an insult.

An insult. Exactly.

But it would be just as insulting if they said we rock as hard as the Beach Boys. Yeah, we’d be insulted by that.

Sure.

‘Cause none of us dance like Mike Love.

You’ve tried in practice. I’ve seen that.

Or wear mumus or funky hats.

But, again, the Beatles too. The Beatles comparisons. Again, it’s offensive to the Beatles to a degree, and we stole from everywhere.

We stole from everybody.

We did. We want this particular David Bowie guitar sound. We tried that.

We rip off everyone. We’ll rip off you.

We want to sound like the Ramones. Yeah. You watch. You’re on the next record.

Make a sound now, boy. We’ll rip you off. There you go.

That’s an amazing couch sound you’ve got there.

It’s double clicked.

Wait until the next record. That’s showing up. "They sound like Dave." That’s what’s going to be every review.

Could you get me a beer? There’s free beer downstairs. Anyway, next question, Dave?

Dave: Being part of the Elephant Six collective, you guys have kind of focused on the negative aspects. Do you think that’s it’s also really kind of rocketed you up?

Beulah: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I’m sorry. No, we’re not focusing on the negative at all. I’m sorry. No, we love Elephant Six. I like all the bands on there. I think one of the best records in the 90’s, hands down, is like In the Airplane Over the Sea. It’s unparalleled, any sort of like group of people that have made this sort of like impact with pop music, you know, a group of people, that is, you know? With a sort of vane thing. The only reason we do that is just ‘cause, again, it’s a bit unfortunate, and sometimes you have to live up to unfair comparisons.

Dave: It’s a label, a label.

Beulah: Exactly. And people expect something from you. If you’re not that, then they get upset. And here’s the thing. We’re not a psychedelic band. We’re just not. We’re just not a psychedelic band. So people go, oh, they’re not kooky like the Olivias. Well, that’s ‘cause we’re not the Olivias. The Olivias to me are like modern day Captain Beefheart and stuff, and I don’t see us like that at all. I see us like this sort of weird conglomeration of Love meets the Velvets meets like Pavement meets Stereolab, meets a bunch of bands that we like.

Well, the Olivias make amazing music. Nobody’s going to make music like that. So you don’t get the same thing.

I mean, yeah, look at that record. Look at the Black Foliage record. I mean, that record seems like the most crazed....

It’s incredible. Most psychedelic...

...it’s more psychedelic than like Pipers at the Gates of Dawn. You listen to, like, Jefferson Airplane, like Surrealistic Pillow, and that thing’s not even close to as psychedelic as what they made, not even close.

Or The Apples do that great 60’s pop sound. I mean, amazingly well, which we could never mimic, because they’re better musicians than we are, and we don’t ever want to try to mimic that. That’s not the goal.

No, we love the Elephant Six.

Oh, love every one of them.

It’s double-edged.

Yeah, it is double-edged, actually. ‘Cause you do, you get people who love you just ‘cause you’re on there, and they shouldn’t really probably. They should maybe hate you. And then there are some people who hate you just ‘cause you’re on there.

Right. It’s just preconceived.

Yeah, exactly, ‘cause they see the logo, and suddenly it’s like, you know, they think everything’s the same. ‘Cause I don’t think we sound too much like a lot of the other bands, ‘cause a lot of people say we sound like The Apples, but I don’t really hear us.

Or that lyrically we’re like The Apples, which is completely strange.

Yeah, that’s so crazy. Like my lyrics are so different than Robert’s, like completely different. Anyway, I’m sorry. That was a long-winded answer. But, no, we love Elephant Six. I didn’t mean for it any way to seem like we were down on....

Disparaging.

No, not in the least. It’s probably been the most fortunate thing that’s ever happened to us, is to be associated with these people.

And one of the more fortunate things to ever happen in music is having the Elephant Six come back and do something interesting in a time when there’s not that many new interesting things going on. It’s not indy rock anymore, which is nice. I mean, it’s still independent, but it’s not the indy rock sound of the early 90’s. It’s something different and fresh, and even though it’s....

At least until 2002.

Yeah, exactly. For now. And then people will be bored with that and do something else. It’s an American art form, and I think everybody that’s involved with it should be very proud to be part of it, so.

Do you edit this thing?

Dave: Oh, yeah, wickedly.

Beulah: That’s good.

Dave: I’m probably just going to kind of snip a few bits out of it.

Beulah: I was just curious, ‘cause we’re just sort of like rambling.

Dave: That’s okay. We can chop it up. Do you see other movements kind of moving out of the woodwork right now similar to the way the Elephant Six collective has slowly made its path out and expanded?

Beulah: Well, I think in England a little bit you’re seeing that, definitely. I think with the Beta band and things like that, with bringing in samplers with a lot of really organic-sounding instruments and that sort of stuff. I mean, that’s certainly a movement that is different, new, and fresh, and it’s not the....you know, if you think of indy rock of the 90’s here, you know, Super Chunk and so forth, which are great bands, in England you had Blur and Oasis and that sort of thing, and that’s starting to get usurped by the Beta band and bands that are doing more interesting things I think, or different things. You know, it’s a new age, so it’s good.

Seems like a lot of music’s coming out of Scotland.

Dave: Yes. You want to expand on that?

Beulah: Nope.

Dave: Okay. Alright, well, since it’s starting to get a little raucous-y around here, I’m going to go ahead and let us cut out.