Visionary Songwriter Chats Himself Up for Our Own Entertainment
By Andrew Clayman
Published in The Metro Pulse, June 2008
One of the central obligations of all rock n’ roll iconoclasts is to make their comparatively dull interviewers squirm, overcome with a mix of reverence and fear. It’s fair to assume that Tom Waits has been down that road enough during his four-decade long career. As one of rock’s most unique and unequivocally cool cats, he’s absorbed an endless parade of stuttered queries about everything from his unorthodox singing style to his hard boozing past. The fact is, no one’s ever been able to drag too much out of the guy. This might be because Waits, like Woody Guthrie and Charles Bukowski before him, is almost in competition with his own mythology—the working class American poet who marches to his own drummer. Or it might just be because he’s “difficult.” In any case, Waits decided to sidestep the usual interview process in the press materials for his latest tour, choosing instead to answer questions from the only person truly worthy of asking them—himself.
The highlights of Waits’ third person self-analysis are numerous, and they help showcase just how damn funny the gravel-throated troubadour really is (although his true fans have known this for years). He discusses some of the key artists and individual songs that most affected him through his life, and spends a lot of time musing on his second love, film-- all while inexplicably failing to mention Scarlett Jonhansson. There are also some substantial doses of politics, romanticism, famous quotes, absurdity, and for good measure, sincerity.
Here’s just a small sampling.
“Q: What’s the most curious record in your collection?
A: In the seventies a record company in LA issued a record called The Best of Marcel Marceau. It had forty minutes of silence followed by applause and it sold really well. I like to put it on for company. It really bothers me, though, when people talk through it.”
“Q: What's heaven for you?
A: Me and my wife on Rte. 66 with a pot of coffee, a cheap guitar, pawnshop tape recorder in a Motel 6, and a car that runs good parked right by the door.”
“Q: What's wrong with the world?
A: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. Leona Helmsley's dog made 12 million last year... and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. We are monkeys with money and guns.”
“Q: What is a gentleman?
A: A man who can play the accordion, but doesn't.”
Q: Tell me about working with Terry Gilliam.
A: I am the Devil in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus– not a devil… The Devil. I don’t know why he thought of me. I was raised in the church. Gilliam and I met on Fisher King. He is a giant among men and I am in awe of his films. Munchausen I’ve seen a hundred times. Brazil is a crowning achievement. Brothers Grimm was my favorite film last year. I had most of my scenes with Christopher Plummer (He’s Dr. Parnassus). Plummer is one of the greatest actors on earth! Mostly I watch and learn. He’s a real movie star and a gentleman. Gilliam is an impresario, captain, magician, a dictator (a nice one), a genius, and a man you’d want in the boat with you at the end of the world.
“Q: Do you have words to live by?
A: Jim Jarmusch once told me "Fast, Cheap, and Good... pick two. If it's fast and cheap it wont be good. If it's cheap and good it won't be fast. If it's fast and good it wont be cheap." Fast, cheap and good... pick (2) words to live by.”
Tom also takes a moment to vouch for the five piece band he’ll have backing him on the latest of his all-too-rare American tours.
“They play with racecar precision and they are all true conjurers. I'm doing songs with them I've never attempted outside the studio. They are all multi-instrumentalists and they polka like real men. We are the Borman Six and as Putney says, ‘The Borman Six have got to have soul.’”
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