GRAMMYs

Letters To Cleo

Photo by Chris Sikich

News

Letters To Cleo "Cleo-ize" The Holidays On The Limited-Edition 'OK Christmas' EP

Facebook Twitter Email
"'Ok Christmas' is this year’s annual holiday gift to our fans," Kay Hanley, lead singer of the Boston alt-rock troupe, tells the Recording Academy
Will Hodge
GRAMMYs
Nov 25, 2019 - 12:29 pm

"Every year we joke about doing a Christmas record," laughs Letters To Cleo lead singer Kay Hanley, "but this year we decided to get serious and finally do it." Since reuniting in 2016, the beloved Boston alt-rockers have been playing a year-end run of shows where they like to have a surprise or two up their sleeves. "For the last couple of years, it’s been a bit of a tradition for us to tour in November," says Hanley. "When you only go on tour once a year, you can’t go out empty-handed. So, Ok Christmas is this year’s annual holiday gift to our fans."

Comprised of three holiday covers and a newly penned original, the Ok Christmas EP finds the band mining the often-overlooked corners of the Christmas canon for some left-of-center chestnuts through which to celebrate their seasonal spirit. Where some bands stumble when it comes to covering other artists' material, Letters To Cleo have been showcasing their unique talent for reinterpretation since their original run in the 1990s. They memorably became soundtrack/compilation phenoms with covers of The Cars' "Dangerous Type” (from cult classic "The Craft"), Fleetwood Mac’s "Dreams" (from the Spirit Of '73: Rock For Choice album) and their double-dipped entry of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" and Nick Lowe's "Cruel To Be Kind" from the soundtrack to the high school rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You (a film in which they also make multiple on-screen appearances).

For Ok Christmas, Letters To Cleo bypassed the well-worn holiday fare for a trio of Christmas covers from The Kinks, Elvis Presley and The Dogmatics, a fellow Boston rock band that was active in the early-to-mid 1980s. However, even when they start off with another band’s material, Hanley and her bandmates can always find the right avenue through which to properly "Cleo-ize" their bouncy, buzzy, cranked-to-11 interpolations. There are no kids' choirs, church organs, "Jingle Bells" motifs or any other seasonal saccharine to be found here—not even in the EP's title. "We went through all the schmaltzy titles like Cleo For The Holidays or Cleo Does Christmas, but none of that was working. I suggested Ok Christmas because it’s a play on Radiohead's OK Computer, which is a phrase I’ve been using a lot in the last few years when responding to bots on Twitter," laughs Hanley.

To get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Ok Christmas, the Recording Academy chatted with Hanley about her own connection to holiday music, the band's song selection process and the inspiration behind each of the four tracks.

Kay Hanley: Once we finally decided to record a Christmas EP, everything came together pretty quickly. We did a little deep dive into potential songs and democratically chose which ones we were going to do. However, as with most holiday albums, we had to record it in the least Christmas-like atmosphere you could imagine: 90 degrees in July in Los Angeles in a little studio over in Koreatown. But we had a good time and just went for it. Even the artwork process turned out simple enough. Our graphic designer, Nicole Anguish of Daykamp Creative, came up with the cover on her very first pass. She only showed us one thing and we were immediately blown away!

During the recording sessions for Ok Christmas, the band didn't try to manufacture any fake holiday spirit by stringing lights all over the studio or by putting up a Christmas tree in the corner of the control room. Instead, Hanley felt that she and her bandmates were able to stir up the exact inspiration they needed from their own nostalgic memories and their personal connections to the holiday music of their childhood.

Kay Hanley: I grew up in a very devout Catholic family and my parents listened to a lot of Elvis and a lot of religious music around the holidays. So, I was a big fan of Christmas music, especially the big dramatic church songs like "O Holy Night." In fact, we almost did "O Holy Night," but it was really hard to figure out how to get the right Cleo vibe on it, so we didn't push it. Even though I'm a Catholic atheist, I love the holiday and everything about it. I haven't been to a Christmas mass since moving to Los Angeles. However, there's a church right across the street from us, so maybe I’ll take the kids this year because the place is really beautiful.

One of the potential tracks that all of the band members immediately agreed on was The Kinks' 1977 holiday single "Father Christmas." While the original has long been an anchor of power-pop holiday playlists thanks to its roaring guitars and propulsive drumming, Letters To Cleo managed to further the song's intensity through their amped-up romp that serves as the door-busting opener to Ok Christmas.

Kay Hanley: There was never going to be a Cleo Christmas album without The Kinks on it. "Father Christmas" was just automatically going to be on there. It was the first one we chose and we just all knew it was going to happen. We all love The Kinks and it was such a blast to record. I hope the fun we had really comes through in the recording.

However, hidden away in Ray Davies' satirical lyrics about a department store Santa getting roughed up by an unruly gang of kids was one specific line—"But if you've got one, I'll take a machine gun/So I can scare all the kids on the street"—that didn’t sit quite well with the band in light of America's ongoing gun violence epidemic.

Kay Hanley: We had just finished tracking all of the music for our version of "Father Christmas" when the mass shooting in El Paso happened. Our guitarist, Greg McKenna, texted the band on our group chat and asked if we should change the machine gun lyric. My first instinct was to leave it intact, just because I’m a songwriting purist. To be honest with you, the machine gun line had always just floated over my head because the whole song is just so tongue-in-cheek in the way it’s commenting on class and the haves vs. the have-nots. But it only took a few minutes for me to be like, "Oh no, we can't use that lyric." It just seemed really tone-deaf in the face of the gun violence crisis that our country is going through. I went to Twitter and slid up into The Kinks' mentions, told them that we were recording the song, and explained why we wanted to change the machine gun lyric. We didn't hear back from them, but our fans saw it and offered up some ideas on how to switch it up. One of our fans, Eric Reiberg, made a suggestion that I ended up modifying a little into a new couplet —"Can you meltdown all the machine guns/So the kids are safe on the street." It feels so much better now. Hopefully, Ray Davies won't be mad at us.    

GRAMMYs

For their next cover in the Ok Christmas tracklist, Letters To Cleo pulled out another '70s seasonal singalong. "If I Get Home On Christmas Day" was originally recorded by Elvis Presley for his 1971 album Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas. While the maudlin mid-tempo ballad may have shared a release decade with the spunky "Father Christmas," it certainly didn't share the same level of enthusiasm from the band during the Ok Christmas song selection discussions. At least, not until McKenna reworked the overly sentimental arrangement into the charming, twangy shuffle that eventually won Hanley over.

Kay Hanley: Greg brought this one to the band because he was the only one daring enough to look for the unknown songs that no one really covers. Initially, I wasn't into that approach at all and wanted stuff that people would immediately recognize. So when Greg first showed us this Elvis song, I was like "Hell no, absolutely not!" However, he worked up a different arrangement on guitar and sent me over a demo and I was like "Yes, this is fantastic now!" Our sound lends itself nicely to that sort of soft rockabilly vibe. So, even though it’s kind of twangy, I still feel like it’s very Cleo. It was surprisingly hard to sing though! 

For the final cover of the four-song EP, the band tipped their hat (a Red Sox cap, naturally) to their Boston roots by tackling the surly "X'mas Time (It Sure Doesn't Feel Like It)" by the Boston garage-rock band The Dogmatics. Originally appearing on the hard-to-find 1984 holiday compilation A Midnight Christmas Mess alongside Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Droogs and The Cheepskates, "X’mas Time" paints a dour picture of the snowswept city during the holidays, while shouting out a few of the "less touristy" local landmarks.

Kay Hanley: This song was actually our manager’s idea. I think he’s been trying to pawn this one off on us for years. I have to admit, even as a huge Boston music fan, I wasn't familiar with the song at all. At first, we ignored him, because that's what you do with managers, but we eventually came around to it. Musically, it's kind of long and doesn't go anywhere, but the vibe of it is absolutely perfect. It’s very defeated, very Boston—it doesn’t get more true-to-type than this song. I like that the lyrics are so visual for me. Filene’s Basement was my grandmother’s favorite department store. It was downtown, right at the edge of the Combat Zone, with a lot of seedy characters around there. Pine Street Inn is a homeless shelter in the South End. At the time this song was written in the early 1980s, it was in a very desolate, very bleak area. Now, the South End is one of the most gentrified areas in Boston. Pine Street Inn is currently in the middle of total opulence. The difference from then to now is absolutely nuts.

As nostalgically warm as the thick Boston threads that run through "X'mas Time" may be, the most personal musical moment on Ok Christmas lies within the band’s newly penned original, "Miss You This Christmas." Throughout the holiday heartbreaker, melancholy lyrics like "I'm not used to stringing lights alone" and "There's no cheer if you're not here" contrast smartly against the upbeat Spector-esque production touches of ringing guitars, clanging chimes and a bubbly bassline.

Kay Hanley: We really wanted to write an original for this record, so Michael Eisenstein and I made an appointment to sit down with a guitar and give it a shot. Writing a Christmas song can be really daunting because it feels like no one can bring anything new to the subject; like everything that could be said about Christmas has already been said. So I started trying to think about my boyfriend who tours a lot and is going to be gone through the holidays. I've also got two young family members who are serving overseas and I was thinking about how soldiers' partners must feel during deployment. So it all came together around hoping that your loved one will come home safe and sound for the holidays.

From the charming album artwork to the merry-making covers and the heart-warming original, Letters To Cleo have managed to craft an authentic, grade-A seasonal souvenir with Ok Christmas. They even pressed up the vinyl version of the EP on "holiday candy"-colored vinyl. Free of commercialized schmaltz and full of signature Cleo, Ok Christmas manages to find its own sonic space in the Christmas canon without just adding to all the Noel-hyped noise. However, according to Hanley, putting out a Christmas release isn’t exactly going to become a yearly tradition for the band.  

Kay Hanley: As fun as this was, we are one-and-done on the holiday EPs. A part of our annual gift is that we’re always going to try and do something different each year. However, we are hoping to have another regular, non-holiday, full-length album out sometime next year. We’ve already got like five or six songs ready to go, so that’s our plan.

The limited-edition "holiday candy" vinyl version of Letter’s to Cleo's Ok Christmas EP can be ordered directly from the band here.

Meet Armageddon Records, The Record Store-Turned-Label For Punks And Metalheads

Huey Lewis & Jimmy Kimmel at the GRAMMY Museum

Huey Lewis & Jimmy Kimmel

Photo: Alison Buck/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

News

Huey Lewis Talks New Album 'Weather,' Legacy Of 'Sports' & Staying Hopeful

Facebook Twitter Email
The leader of the legendary GRAMMY-winning band talks new music, staying positive amidst hearing loss and finding the heart of rock and roll in Cleveland
Ana Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Feb 18, 2020 - 4:57 pm

In 1983, San Francisco blues-rock outfit Huey Lewis & The News released their third album, one the world would never forget, Sports. They hit it out of the park with six of the nine tracks landing as hits, including classic jams "The Heart Of Rock And Roll," "If This It," "Heart And Soul" and "I Want a New Drug."

Now, 37 years later, the GRAMMY-winning band has released their 10th studio album, Weather, on Feb. 14. The seven-track project is made up of jubilant songs they finished recording before Lewis suffered an intense episode of Ménière's disease—an inner-ear disorder that affects hearing and balance in varying intensity—in 2018. Because of this heath issue, Lewis hasn't been able to perform, record or even listen to music since—but he is hopeful things may improve in the future, and is grateful for his many rockin' memories.

Ahead of Weather's release, the "Hip To Be Square" singer treated GRAMMY Museum guests to a heartwarming and enlightening conversation with his celeb bestie, Jimmy Kimmel. The dynamic pair dove deep into Lewis' long musical career (all the way back to busking around Europe with his harmonica at age 16), living with hearing loss, Weather and the new "The Heart of Rock & Roll" musical.

The GRAMMY Museum event opened with a special early preview of the star-studded "Her Love Is Killin' Me" music video (which you can watch above), featuring Kimmel, S.F. Giants' former manager Bruce Bochy, legendary S.F. 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, Andy Garcia, Brandon Flowers,  June Lockhart, Topher Grace, Brad Paisley and many more. During the chat, Kimmel shared his excitement about finally fulfilling his dreams of staring in one of their videos, while Lewis revealed that his original idea for the video was for Kimmel to lip-sync the whole song. 

Before Lewis and Kimmel's conversation, Huey graciously spoke to the Recording Academy about Weather, the legacy of Sports, living with hearing loss and where the heart of rock and roll is still beating (hint: it's in Ohio).

The band's first album of new music in almost 20 years, Weather, is coming out soon. How are you feeling?

Yes. Friday, Valentine's Day. I'm very excited. I honestly think it's among our best work. I have these hearing woes, so I probably shouldn't be trying to do interviews and stuff, but I've tried to give the songs a nice sendoff. We're very proud of the record, and we're trying to make some noise with it.

"I honestly think [Weather] is among our best work…We're very proud of the record, and we're trying to make some noise with it."

Can you talk a little bit about the message behind "While We're Young"?

Yeah. It's written from the point of view of someone who's not that young, but not dead yet either. I think that's the idea. [Grins.] It's how do you handle middle age, let's say.

"We'll take a nap in the afternoon." That's just part of the fun.

I love that lyric.

So much of youth is wasted on the young.

I was just having that conversation with my coworker today—what should we be doing now that we're going to be mad we didn't do when we're 50?

See? [Grins.]

Can you talk a little about your experience living with hearing loss?

Yeah. It's something I've lived with for a long time. I lost my right ear 35 years ago, or 80 percent of it. [Points to left ear.] This just happened two years ago. Unfortunately, the left ear fluctuates. When my hearing's good—I wear hearing aids—I'm okay. I can hear speech and everything, and I might even be able to hear music enough to sing. But I haven't been able to find that out because I'm never good long enough to book a rehearsal. My hearing turns crappy again like it is now. When it's bad like this, I can't hear anything, I can barely hear the phone. I can hear you when you're 24 inches away, that's about it.

Has it been hard emotionally for you? Do you just take it day by day?

In the beginning, it was very, very hard. I spent my first two months in bed really, just fasting and taking steroids and trying everything, hydrating galore. I lost 18 pounds, but my hearing never got better. I was really depressed.

My kids are great and helped me through this all. It turns out you can kind of get used to almost anything. I have to realize that there are lots of people worse off than I am. I have to be grateful for what I have. It's hard sometimes, but it's only right. That's what I try to do, try to look on the bright side.

That's important.

Not always easy, but I try.

"Our dream is to play music for a living, period. That was it, to be able to do nothing else but play music. And so, Sports was the record that proved to us that we could do that."

What did the success of Sports feel like to you at the time?

Well, it was a relief for us because our dream is to play music for a living, period. That was it, to be able to do nothing else but play music. And so, Sports was the record that proved to us that we could do that.

But it's an interesting record because it was a record of its time, it came out in 1983, but we recorded it in '82. If you think back to that time, it was completely a radio world, Contemporary Hit Radio ran the whole show. Even MTV, which had just started, its playlist exactly mirrored radio's playlist. And so, our job was to make a hit single. If you didn't have a hit single, you didn't exist.

This was our third album, and if we didn't have a hit with it, it was going to be all over. So we insisted on producing the record ourselves because if we're going to make those commercial decisions, we wanted to make them ourselves. Because you've got to live with that stuff. So our manager went to bat for us. Our label was in London, so they couldn't really control us. We were 6,000 miles away, so they allowed us to produce it ourselves.

We aimed pretty much almost all the songs at radio because we knew we needed a hit. We didn't know we were going to have six of them. Each with different styles—one was kind of a ballad, one was a rocker, one was kind of a bluesy thing, one was R&B-based, not knowing which one would work. Now, when I look back at the Sports album, I see it as a record of its time, a collection of singles because it was a singles world back then.

Read: Michael Kiwanuka On His New Anti-Alter Ego Masterpiece 'Kiwanuka,' '70s Psychedelia, Songwriting & More

As the group came together in San Francisco back in the '70s, do you feel like '70s S.F. had an influence on your music or career as a musician?

It was a great time for music. Even before that, live music was abundant when we grew up. That was the entertainment of its day. There were four or five clubs in Marin County, which had live music all the time. And so, it was a great, great place to learn your craft. I was in a band called Clover that played five nights a week for years.

And then this band, we played clubs and concerts. We've played thousands of shows probably, certainly more than a thousand. A lot of groups today don't get to do that. In fact, it's a mistake if you do. It's better to make a nice video or screen time thing, and let that work and don't go out there and blow it. And so, it was just a different time then.

In our day, the way you broke a record was you released it and then you go play the country. You started in Seattle, go to Portland, go to San Francisco, go to L.A., go to San Diego, cross Tucson, Phoenix, then Texas. And in each town, you invite the radio stations and the newspapers, and hopefully, when you leave, you get a nice review and the radio stations will be playing your song. You do that all across the country, about 50 shows. When you get to New York at the end, hopefully, the whole country is playing your record. But even if they aren't, you've just done 50 or 60 shows. So that's how we learned our craft. It was very much a live performance thing. I think today it's less of that.

A lot of cutting your teeth, hustling that music.

Yeah, a lot of cutting your teeth. We weren't playing with machines, so we're ad-libbing more. It was a different deal.

Related: Memphis In May’s Beale Street Festival 2020 Lineup: The Lumineers, Lil Wayne, Leon Bridges, Brittany Howard, DaBaby, Deftones & More

Where do you think now the heart of rock and roll lives now?

Well, it's probably still beating in Cleveland. Cleveland is a cool place. I wrote that song because we had played a gig there and, you know, we're from San Francisco, and we'd always heard that Cleveland is a great rock and roll town. I thought to myself, "How could Cleveland be a great [city]—we're from San Francisco!" We had the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly & the Family Stone. [Jimi] Hendrix played the Fillmore [West]. Then we played the gig and it was amazing. The audience was amazing. It was really one of our best gigs when we were first coming up.

Driving out of town on the bus, somebody had a T-shirt on with the smoky skyline of Cleveland that said, "Cleveland, you got to be tough," or something. I looked at the shirt and, mindful of the great gig, I said to the guys, "Hey, you know what fellas? The heart of rock and roll really is in Cleveland." I said, "Wow that could be a song." And the guys went, "The heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland? I'm sorry, that's not very good." I changed it to make "the heart of rock and roll is still beating," but that was the inspiration.

I think it's probably still beating in Cleveland. It's beating in a lot of places, but just not as loudly as it once was.

What gives you the most hope right now?

Wow. My kids, my family. [Grins.] My kids are so positive. I get notes from my daughter, like just now [points to phone], she says, "Love you dad, and I know you're looking at an upturn any minute." They're just so positive and so wonderful. It's really wonderful to have a great family.

Grammys Newsletter

Foo Fighters Announce 25th Anniversary "Van Tour"

GRAMMYs

Andy Shauf

Photo Credit: Colin Medley

News

Andy Shauf On Anticlimactic Storytelling & 'The Neon Skyline': "Essentially It's An Album About Nothing"

Facebook Twitter Email
The Canadian singer/songwriter delves into his sophomore effort and why he chose to center it around a nondescript Toronto dive bar
Eli Enis
GRAMMYs
Jan 29, 2020 - 12:30 pm

Andy Shauf is playing poker at Laguardia airport. He's currently at 2,300 chips, and if he gets to 5,000 then he'll have enough to win an actual bag of potato chips. It's a funny sight to try and visualize; this soft-spoken guy perched at an iPad in a bustling airport, surrounded by clunky musical gear, gambling for a petty snack while speaking on the phone with a journalist about the music that put him in that very situation. It's the sort of simultaneously banal and peculiar setting that Shauf could write an entire album about.

The 33-year-old Toronto via Saskatchewan singer/songwriter rose to international prominence with his 2016 record The Party, an album about the myriad happenings at a single house party. Part drama and part character study, the album bounced between the perspectives of various guests at the function to offer a deeper—and often darker—understanding of their intoxicated psyches. While cooing admirably concise lyrics over dazzling '70s pop-rock songs (which he wrote, arranged, performed, produced and recorded independently) Shauf nodded vividly to each genre of partygoer: the girl who shows up too early, the too-drunk spectacle, the callous boyfriend, the jealous best friend and the guy who dies alone out front while smoking a cigarette. You know, typical house party stuff.

The stories were intended to be fictional, but after reflecting on the lyrics throughout an intense press cycle, Shauf realized the album had more of himself in there than he expected.

"I think there was a point where I realized after I did The Party and [said], 'Oh, this is fictional, blah blah blah,' and then thinking about the lyrics and realizing it was a lot more about me than I thought," he says.

The Neon Skyline is his highly anticipated follow-up (out now via ANTI-), and it's another concept album about another single night in an alcohol-oriented setting. This time, however, the lyrics are remarkably verbose and novel-esque, and Shauf went into the writing knowing that it was based loosely on his own experiences. The record begins with the narrator meeting his friend at a bar called The Skyline (which is a real place that Shauf's a regular at), and what’s initially an incredibly ordinary night turns into a whirlwind of reminiscence when his ex arrives and memories start to rush back as the drinks go down.

"I don't even know if I know how to write a normal song anymore," Shauf says with a laugh. "They’re just all gonna be weird stories."

Fortunately for him, weird story songs are something he’s exceptionally good at. Shauf’s characters are astoundingly lifelike and the conversational tidbits he included on The Neon Skyline are hyper-realistic. In "Try Again," the narrator gets playfully called out for botching a fake British accent while holding open a door—the type of menial moment that a songwriter would typically cut in favor of some witty one-liner. Shauf's dialogue never relies on that sort of camp. He says he tried really hard to instill humor into this album, and he did so by purposefully making some of the jokes fall flat.

For instance, in the song "The Moon," a character repeats a corny pun about "taking off" to a bar called The Moon, and the narrator cringes at his ex's chortle at a joke that he didn’t think "was that funny the first time around."

"There are a lot of jokes on this album that bomb," Shauf says. "There are some that intentionally are not funny and I left them in because nobody's jokes always fly."

We talked to Shauf about why he chose to center his album around this dive bar, how he developed the detailed plot and why he chose to end the record on an unceremonious note. Our conversation has been condensed for clarity.

Why did the setting of a dive bar strike you as the right place to tell these stories?

I think a lot of the writing that I've done as of late or on the past two records have been stories that are pretty close to what’s going on in my life. On The Party, I was [going] to a lot of parties and stuff and observing that kind of thing. This one, I had just moved to Toronto like three years ago. I was starting to work on this record three years ago and I found myself spending a lot of time at that bar and I made friends who were just kind of drinking buddy acquaintances, so that was what I was doing. That was my social life, that was it. So it was just kind of natural.

I don't know if you've ever been a bar fly or a regular at a bar, but you end up kind of meeting a lot of people but kind of not. You get little glimpses into their lives because everyone's drinking and a little more willing to give up information. I don't know, it's just an interesting bunch of characters.

In the past, the press has framed you as this very shy and socially anxious person. So I'm wondering what you find appealing about a dive bar, which is such an intimate setting that puts strangers in conversation with one another in closed quarters.

I feel like I've come out of my shell a little bit, maybe. I'm getting older and realizing nobody gives a sh*t how weird you are. When I moved to Toronto I knew very few people, so going to the bar and sitting at the bar, talking to the bartenders, was kind of one of the only social outlets that I had.

I get framed as a shy, socially awkward guy, quiet guy. But I have that desire for a social life and it was one of those things where I have no one to hang out with tonight because I don't know anyone, I'm gonna go to the bar and hang out with the bartenders. And they were really welcoming and they became good friends.

So you had the idea of the setting and sort of an idea for the story, but when did the actual plot start to come together?

It was really one song at a time. The first song kind of sums up a lot of what's going to happen. It mentions the ex, it has the drinking buddy Charlie, the setting The Skyline. It was just trying to figure out how to make that all work and how to make it into something.

Because essentially it's an album about nothing. These guys go to a bar and a girl shows up. It doesn't sound that interesting. [Laughs.] So it was a lot of trying to figure out how to make that interesting. What are the small things that would happen that would make it into a story? How many songs can you write about a couple of people sitting in a bar?

I like how there's not a real resolution to their relationship. They meet up, they reminisce about some stuff and the night ends. And sometimes the night just ends, and I feel like that ending felt really realistic.

Yeah, definitely. And I feel like that's how nights most often end, especially when you're drinking. Like, "Oh, we’re done I guess. Time to go to bed. I thought something exciting was gonna happen but it didn't." And that was something that I struggled with when writing this; there's no big moment. I've written a lot of songs where there is a big moment and someone dies or someone gets murdered or something. I was trying to keep the deaths out of this one. It's more subtle, it’s more kind of just a normal night out.

Your career really took off after The Party and a lot of people really began to take notice of your writing style. Did you feel any pressure to follow that album up with something as conceptually interesting?

You can't help but think along the way, "Are people going to like this? They liked my last one, this one's a little different." Most of my pressure comes from myself. I really just want to make something that’s better to me than the last thing that I made. This record was really difficult because I was trying to make something that was focused and narrative-driven and trying to make it so that it doesn’t just read like a musical theatre, or sound like musical theatre.

And I struggled with how to do that and how to make it better than The Party for myself, not necessarily for other people. In my mind, the people who listen to my music are probably like, "Why is he so fixated on making concept records? Like, can't he just write a normal song and be done with it?" But I like the challenge and it doesn't really matter to me. I mean it matters to me if people like it or not, I want people to like my music obviously. I'm on a little self-motivated tangent of trying to make these weird story albums for some reason.

Saves The Day's Chris Conley Talks 20 Years Of 'Through Being Cool'

Grammys Newsletter

GRAMMYs

The Cranberries

Photo credit: Andy Earl

News

The Cranberries Reflect On Their First GRAMMY Nod: "Dolores Would've Been Delighted And Honored"

Facebook Twitter Email
While the beloved Irish band's Best Rock Album GRAMMY nod is no doubt a triumph, it is mostly bittersweet, as it arrives approximately two years after the death of their singer, Dolores O'Riordan
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Jan 9, 2020 - 9:59 am

This year may mark the first time the Cranberries have been nominated for a GRAMMY (Best Rock Album for 2019's swan song In The End), but the Irish alternative rock figureheads have enjoyed mainstream success ever since their career boom in the mid-'90s, with ubiquitous jangly singles like "Dreams" and "Linger."  

While the band's GRAMMY nod is no doubt a triumph, it is mostly bittersweet, as it arrives after the death of beloved Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan, who passed away in 2018 of accidental drowning due to sedation from alcohol poisoning. After O'Riordan's sudden death, the remaining band members—guitarist Noel Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler—teamed up with longtime producer Stephen Street to work on a posthumous album (the aforementioned In The End) comprised of her unfinished demos, which she started working on with Hogan after the band released 2017's orchestral record, Something Else. "It's a tribute to her, the band and our fans for the past 30 years," the Cranberries said in a statement upon receiving the GRAMMY nod. "Being honored with this GRAMMY nomination has made this whole process even more special." 

Special though it may be, the Cranberries' GRAMMY nomination in many ways marks the final lap the band will ever take, with no plans to tour or record any more music without O'Riordan. Drummer Fergal Lawler was kind enough to hop on the phone from his home in Ireland to talk about his feelings around the nomination, how he expects O'Riordan might have felt about it and how he's continuing to deal with the still-ongoing promotional cycle around In The End.  

What was your reaction when you found out The Cranberries had been nominated for Best Rock Album?

Just shocked. It was kind of like, "Oh my God. Yeah. Wow! I can't believe it. We've never been nominated." It was incredible really. It kind of took a while to kind of sink in. But yeah, just, it's an incredible honor really.

Do you remember where you were when you found out? I imagine you were already awake, with the time difference and everything.

Yeah, it was the afternoon. I was in my kitchen just having a coffee and I got a call from our manager when he says, "You heard the news?" And I said, "No, no. Is everything okay?" He said, "Yeah, we just got nominated for the GRAMMYs." "Oh my God! Brilliant."

How did Mike and Noel react when you spoke?

The same. So surprise and delighted, and kind of a little bit of sadness as well. Because Dolores wasn't there to share it with us, so ... But she would have loved that. She would have been delighted with that, so ... We're trying to focus on the positive, and not get too sad about it and just, you know?

I can't even really begin to imagine how complex your feelings must be about this, with the loss of Dolores.

Yeah, we were talking about that kind of saying like, "Oh, she would have loved [being nominated for a GRAMMY]. She would've been so delighted and honored to be nominated even regardless of whether we win or not.

The Cranberries | Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nom

And I know that the actual recording of In The End was not easy.

It's just such a difficult album to do. Initially the first couple of days I was kind of going, "I don't know if we can do this. I don't know if we can possibly get through the whole thing." It was so emotional.

But as we progressed, we kind of said, "Look, we have to do a job. We have a job to do and we have to make these songs as good as possible." We kind of said, "Look, we have to focus on our work and try and push down the emotions little bit, and get the job done. And pay respect to these songs and make them as good as possible." And I think that's what helped get us through it. You know? And then kind of towards the end of the day when Delores would come in to do her vocals, that would hit you again that she wasn't coming in.

And then the last listening back session was hugely emotional. Especially the very last song on In The End was just overpowering. And then we had to go out and do the promotion for it. And that was kind of really hard again because everyone was asking questions about the whole thing, but everyone was really, really nice and sensitive, which was fantastic. So that helped. But it was still very difficult to do.

That’s over a year ago I suppose. So I kind of thought that was the end of it. Let the album kind of live its life. Like you know? And then we went and got nominated for the GRAMMY. It's kind of like, okay, we're going to be doing more interviews and bring it all back up.

I don't know. It's probably healing. It's difficult at the time to do it. It's like therapy or something. It's difficult to sit down and talk to someone about your problems, but then afterwards you feel better. 

I thought about that too… the therapeutic nature of speaking to journalists about the album and now, its GRAMMY nod. But at least in therapy, you don’t have to keep telling the same stories over and over. Has that part been difficult at all?

Yeah, it's been okay. I've only done a small few interviews, so it's not too bad yet. Maybe as I do more it might get a bit more stressful, but I look after myself. I'm 48 years of age. I've been doing this for a while, so I know how to mind myself.

What have you been working on outside of the Cranberries? What is your day-to-day these days?

Day-to-day, I have a small studio beside my house, and I'm doing music for documentaries and short films, things like that. Something I really love, because you don't have to go on tour. You can work from home. And it's something, it's not drums, something different. So it kind of stops me getting bored.

What have Mike and Noel been up to? How often does the group chat these days?

We have like a WhatsApp group, we send messages every few days, just to see how things are doing. There's always something happening regarding the band. Once we finished the promo, we had a break for a while, which is nice. And now with the GRAMMY nomination there's more talks of prolonged doing bits and pieces. But musically I'm not sure what they're doing at the moment. I don't think they're doing much.

Recently you released a 25th anniversary box set of your first album. When In The End celebrates, say, a 10-year anniversary, do you expect that the band will be open to talking about it again?

Probably we'd have to go through older material and do interviews and talk about it. And it's kind of nice to, like, comb through an old photograph album and all the memories just pop in straight away and you're kind of an arm with that time or this time. So it's nice to revisit.

Over the course of the band's history, what are some treasured memories that you regularly revisit?

It's strange, when Dolores passed away, all the memories that came back were the early years when we kind of first started off and were traveling around in a van. And it was just a big adventure because I was 20, I think Mike was only 16 or 17. And we were just basically out of our teens and just having a big adventure traveling around the world, getting to see new countries and just have a ball, really. We had no money. We had like $10 a day I think to survive on. We didn't care. We just seemed to get by and just really enjoy it. Met loads of nice people. They're the kind of ones that last, those kind of memories.

This being your first time at the GRAMMYs, is there anything or anyone you’re most excited to see? Any albums you were fond of that were nominated?

Yeah. I don't know. The albums for me that I love this year were Thom Yorke, Anima, it's incredible. Lana Del Rey. Tool with Fear Inoculum. They're amazing. I saw them for the first time live this year. I couldn't believe it. I was blown away.

Grammys Newsletter

Tune in to the 62nd GRAMMY Awards, which are once again hosted by Alicia Keys, on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, and broadcasting live on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

james alex.jpg

Beach Slang's James Alex

Photo by Charlie Lowe

News

Beach Slang's James Alex On The Albums That Made Him

Facebook Twitter Email
An unapologetic music fan with clear sonic ties to the Replacements, the Philly fuzz-punk goes in-depth on the albums that blew his mind and most informed his own work
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Jan 7, 2020 - 9:00 am

"Do you remember NENA?" James Alex, lead singer of Philly anthem-punks Beach Slang, asks over the phone. "She said the only reason she got into rock and roll was to meet Mick Jagger. And I was like, 'That's what I never want to lose touch of.'"

The ultimate fan, Alex has stayed true to his (and NENA's) original intention as a musician, taking unapologetic influence from punk pioneers the Replacements, among other early alternative greats. The Rhode Island native sings in a gravel-voiced pitch, much like his idol Paul Westerberg, and builds melodic, earnest tracks around thick, fuzzed-out guitar chords. Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson even shows up on Beach Slang's forthcoming first album in three years, The Deadbeat Bang Of Heartbreak City, dropping on Jan. 10 via Bridge Nine Records.

And that's hardly the first time Alex has followed in his favorites' footsteps: Earlier last year, Alex paid tribute to Hüsker Dü dignitary Bob Mould and Westerberg on a two-track covers EP, performing a heady rendition of "AAA" and "I Hate Alternative Rock." He even secured help from another hero — Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac — who acted as the EP's producer.  

So, in the lead up to Beach Slang's latest LP, it only made sense to ask Alex to go in-depth about the albums that made him, from Pleased To Meet Me to Ziggy Stardust to recent tourmates Goo Goo Dolls' Superstar Car Wash and beyond. 

AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976) & Back In Black (1980)

When I was a little kid, my birth father used to live at this campground area and they had this cover band come up and play these AC/DC songs. And I go and they're selling some things afterward at a little flea market, and I see this AC/DC pin. I'm like, "This band. These songs." I eventually get my hands on Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and Back In Black. I think the best way I can describe when I first held Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap… They have the sort of blackouts over the eyes and stuff on the cover. You remember William in the “Almost Famous” scene when his sister leaves home and leaves those records for him? I felt like I had that moment where it was like, "What is this?" It was cool to hear those songs, but to see the art and all that stuff, it really crashed into me in a really great way.

I was such a straight-laced kid because I was raised just by my mom. I always wanted to be good and get good grades and do right by her so she could be proud of how good she was doing as my mom. But I'm still like becoming this little raging human being who's got this energy and all these things. Those records gave me where I could have this outlet of being this rock and roller with still being a goody-two-shoes. I suppose we all want a little bit of edge, but I wanted to do it from the safety of not really being in harm's way.

Angus Young was absolutely my first rock hero. Even as far as my stage outfit now. That getup is not an accident. It's my mushy little nod to him.

Buzzcocks – Singles Going Steady (1979)

I have a bunch of family in Rhode Island. I've got a couple of uncles up there that really, they turned me on to punk rock. And I remember it was Buzzcocks’ Singles Going Steady record. I heard that and I was like... I didn't know what I was feeling but I just knew like this is something special. I was too young to understand that I had angst and rebellion and these energies that, whatever it might be, school or little league weren't completely handling. And these records turned up and it was me jumping around with a tennis racket in a room screaming along gave me a thing that I wasn't finding anywhere else.

I always had this affinity for really good hooky melodies. Two-and-a-half minute songs, right? When I heard the Buzzcocks, when I got turned on by my uncles Shaun and Gary with that stuff, it was like, "Oh wow. So you can have all this energy and devil-may-care-ness, but you don't have to check melody." You know what I mean? It was like these things can co-exist.

The Who – Tommy (1969)

I went to go see a high school production of Tommy by The Who and at that point, I'm thinking any band like that, it's otherworldly. Then I saw kids who were maybe my age, maybe a couple of years older playing these songs that Pete Townshend wrote. These like really incredible songs. And I was like, "Wait, I can do this? These kids look like me." And I think that gave me the, "Okay. I have this thing in me that's happening and crunching, but here's the evidence that I can do this."

I go out, I get this knockoff Fender guitar. I don't even remember the brand name. And I got this little one speaker with the Gorilla amp. Just sounded horrible. And I jump around in my room windmilling like Townshend and just thinking, "Man, I'm on to something here." And I was awful. You know when a kid can't even hold a chord but you just hit it and it makes noise and you think you're the thing, you know? It was like that.

David Bowie – The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders from Mars (1973)

I could run off and marry a voice, it'd be Bowie. If somebody came up to me and they'd never heard music before and asked me, what does rock and roll sound like? That's the record I'd play.

I can relate to the smell of that record. The vinyl, opening that up. It places me in such a poignant moment in my life. I don't want get to engineer-y here, but just even the production and the sounds on that thing and the vocal layering Bowie does, or the lack thereof… I still can't completely wrap my head around it.

When I was first getting knocked into that stuff, I was like, "What is this?" I'd never heard records that felt that special and thoughtful and avant-garde yet completely sing along-able. I was just like, "How is he doing this?" All these years later, I suppose, I'm still asking myself those questions, like a lot of musicians are. That record is dangerously important to me.

Pixies – Surfer Rosa (1988)

The Pixies have always been huge for me. When I was learning how to play guitar and learning how to write songs, I was doing the Ramones thing. And then the Pixies came in and you have these weirdo sounds and time signatures and guitar things and you have screaming and whispering… I was like, "Oh, okay. Here's this whole other way to put words to music." I think I needed that crack. I know “Where Is My Mind?” is obviously the mega-hit, but when I heard that “Broken Face” song, I was just like, "This is so weird." I just adored it straight away.

I just have everything they have [released] now. That new record they just put out, I just think it's brilliant. I went to go see Charles Thompson once playing solo. I think he was going by “Frank Black” and I was just at this little brewery and I'm right up on stage because I'm like, "I'm about to see a f**king hero of mine." All of a sudden I feel this tap on my shoulder and I turned around and just be like, "Oh man, I'm so sorry." It's him getting to stage and I'm like, "I'll never wash this shoulder again."

The Replacements – Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash (1981) & Pleased To Meet Me (1987)      

I was playing in a band and the guitarist was the hugest Replacements fan. That's how I got turned on. He was like, "You're going to love this. You have to hear this." He gave me a copy of Sorry Ma.... I listened to that and I was, and I suppose it really couples nicely with what you just said. I was like, "This has all the snot of punk, but it's something more than that." You just saw right away, Paul Westerberg was just this phenomenal writer. I was like, "Where is this band going to go?"

When I'm asked about what my favorite Replacements record is… Look, I love everything of course, but I always cite Pleased To Meet Me. I just think it just clobbers and there's something relatable to me because that was the first one where Paul did all the guitar stuff. I don't know, the ability to be able to do that… Not only are you writing these songs, but you're writing all of these hooks or these shreds or are these little dingers or little mess ups or whatever they might be. But it's just like, "Man, you're not just writing a couple of chords and putting some words over it” kind of thing. It just knocked me out that somebody could do all that. And I think I began to want to chase that idea where your singular vision couldn't get smeared. Could I ever pull something like that off? Look, the short answer to that is probably not, right? But there's some fun in trying to do it.

Goo Goo Dolls – Superstar Car Wash (1993)

I'll tuck Superstar Car Wash into bed with me at night. Paul [Westerberg] wrote a single for that [“We Are The Normal”]. I was like, "How is this Replacements thing that I'm finding out about, there's more greatness that's directly related?" And then I heard Johnny [Rzeznik] and Robby [Takac]'s songs and I was like, "What the f**k is this?" I was really knocked back. And then I went back and I got that Hold Me Up record and I was just shattered by it. That's actually how I got turned onto the Plimsouls because I heard the [Goo Goo Dolls’] cover of “Million Miles Away.”

I always refer to it as the Dolls' Holy Trinity, right? It's Hold Me Up, Superstar Car Wash and Boy Named Goo. Those records absolutely sculpted me. Every time I sit down and I'm trying to write a hooky guitar ding or anything like that, it's like I'm thinking of those records. Even as it calmed down, the stuff on Jed, they're just this raucous f**king Buffalo punk rock band. They sort of cleaned it up in the best way you want to clean something up because then they just became these, quite literally, these perfect rock and roll pop songs.

I fanboy-ed out to Robby when he produced our EP [last year’s MPLS]. It's like, I'm talking to Robby from the Goos. I felt intimidated in a loving way. I was just like, "You've made records that have meant so much to me."

He invited us to come to a show that the Goo Goo Dolls were playing and we went there and we met the crew and the band, everything. And he's like, "Man, I want to find John. Let me find John." And I go up and I meet him and I'm, now I'm extra intimidated, right? Because I'm like, "This is the cat." But then we do it and he's the sweetest guy. We're hugging and I remember and I had a Sorry Ma T-shirt on and he did a little knowing point and smirk and looked at me dead in the eyes. We just connected for a second in a way that I was... It was really cool.

Grammys Newsletter

Goo Goo Dolls' John Rzeznik Talks 'Miracle Pill,' Staying Fearless & Catching Feels Listening To Beach Slang