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Letters To Cleo

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

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"'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.    

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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

A girl looks at a photograph of Ewan McGregor who played Renton in the film 'Trainspotting' before the Private view for ?Look At Me - A Retrospective?

Photo of Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting

 

Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

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How The 'Trainspotting' Soundtrack Turned A Dispatch From The Fringes Into A Cult Classic

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Twenty-five years after 'Trainspotting' first thrilled and scandalized moviegoers, the film's soundtrack remains an iconic collision of Britpop, rock and dance music
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Feb 28, 2021 - 3:43 pm

From its opening shot, Trainspotting is a movie in motion. As sneakers hit the sidewalk of Princes Street in Edinburgh, Scotland, we hear the raucous drumbeat of Iggy Pop's 1977 barnstormer "Lust For Life." Renton—played by Ewan McGregor—and Spud—by Ewen Bremner—sprint away from two security guards, their shoplifting spoils flying out of their pockets. 

"Choose life," Renton's narration begins, introducing an instantly classic monologue about the emptiness of middle-class aspirations. The action then zips to a soccer match that introduces Renton's ragtag mates: Spud, Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle) and Tommy (Kevin McKidd). The scene is all propulsion and attitude, with Iggy Pop dropping the match on the trail of fuel. In just 60 exhilarating seconds, Trainspotting tells us precisely what it's going to be.

Trainspotting burst into U.K. cinemas in February 1996, followed immediately by a debate on whether its fizzing depiction of junkie life glorified drug use. Audiences staggered out, scandalized and delighted in equal measure by "The Worst Toilet In Scotland," Spud's soiled sheets and a ceiling-crawling baby. By the time it opened in the US in May, the movie was already a critical and box office hit at home. Its credentials were undeniable, including a compelling young cast led by newcomer McGregor, a visually daring director in Danny Boyle and a script adapted from Irvine Welsh's cult book of the same name. 

In a year dominated by slick Hollywood blockbusters like Independence Day, Twister and Mission: Impossible, Trainspotting was the scrappy, no-kids-allowed outsider that could. One of the movie's most significant talking points, and a key reason for its enduring legacy, was its use of "needle drops" in lieu of a traditional composerly film score. The soundtrack reaches back to the '70s and '80s, while also showcasing of-the-moment Britpop and dance music. The music of Trainspotting endures because it's intrinsic to the movie, with each song meant to elevate a particular scene or moment. 

Read: How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

Welsh's 1993 novel frames Renton's misadventures as a heroin addict against the dismal backdrop of Leith, just north of Edinburgh's city center. Trainspotting was first adapted as a stage play, with Ewen Bremner (perfectly cast as Spud in the movie) playing Renton. Before long, the movie offers rolled in. "There was loads of interest," Welsh told Vice in 2016. "Everybody seemed to want to make a film of Trainspotting."

Most directors wanted to ground the adaptation in social realism, but Welsh knew Trainspotting needed a wilder take. In 1994, a promising young director called Danny Boyle had made his feature debut with the pitch-black comedy Shallow Grave, starring Ewan McGregor. Impressed by the movie's visual flair, Welsh gave Boyle the keys to Trainspotting. 

The making of the movie was a thrill for all involved. Fresh from writing Shallow Grave, screenwriter John Hodge relished the opportunity to adapt Welsh's book for the screen. (Hodge was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 1997 Academy Awards - the movie's only Oscar nod.) Before filming, Boyle sent his actors to spend time with Calton Athletic, a real-life recovery group for addicts. The shoot began in June 1995 and lasted 35 days (a step up from the 30 allocated for Shallow Grave), with Glasgow mostly standing in for Edinburgh. 

Alongside cinematographer Brian Tufano, Boyle brought a bold, kinetic style to every shot. "We'd set out to make as pleasurable a film as possible about subject matter that is almost unwatchable," Boyle told HiBrow in 2018. 

While Shallow Grave gave an early glimpse of Boyle's tastes, including his fondness for electronic duo Leftfield, the music in Trainspotting demanded a bigger role. Welsh's book is peppered with references to The Smiths, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and David Bowie, so the call went out to a select list of musical icons. Bowie was a no, but others who'd loved the novel happily offered up their music to the project. 

Welsh and Boyle were both clued-in to acid house and rave culture (represented on the soundtrack by the likes of Underworld, Leftfield and John Digweed and Nick Muir's Bedrock project), but it was the director's idea to bring in the likes of Blur and Pulp. That decision was a "masterstroke", Welsh told Vice, because "Britpop was kind of the last strand of British youth culture, and it helped position the film as being the last movie of British youth culture."

Several of the best scenes in Trainspotting are soundtracked by songs made before 1990. Following "Lust For Life", the sleazy strut of Iggy Pop's 1977 track "Nightclubbing" lurks behind a sequence of Renton's relapse into heroin. (Both songs were co-written by David Bowie, giving him an honorary spot on the soundtrack.) New Order's 1981 song "Temptation" is a motif for Renton's taboo relationship with high schooler Diane (Kelly Macdonald in her first film role), while Heaven 17's 1983 pop hit "Temptation" plays at the club where they first meet. 

Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" lands the hardest punch. In a dazzling sequence, Renton visits his dealer Mother Superior (Peter Mullan) for a hit of heroin. As Renton's body sinks almost romantically into the floor, we hear Lou Reed softly singing about a perfect day drinking sangria in the park. The romance ends there. Knowing an overdose on sight, Mother Superior drags his sort-of friend to the street, then heaves him into a taxi, tucking the fare in his shirt pocket. (In a brilliant small detail, we see an ambulance rush past, headed for someone else.) 

"Perfect Day" keeps on at its languid pace as Renton is ejected at the hospital, hauled onto a stretcher and revived by a nurse with a needle to his arm. "You're going to reap just what you sow," Lou Reed sings as Renton gasps wildly for air. 

Boyle pushed for Britpop on the soundtrack, but he didn't want obvious hits. Britpop, a genre coined in the '90s to describe a new wave of British bands influenced by everything from the Beatles to the late '80s "Madchester" scene, was at its peak during the Trainspotting shoot in the summer of 1995. Pulp had just released the Britpop anthem "Common People," Elastica and Supergrass were flying high from their debut albums, and genre superstars Oasis and Blur were locked in a media-fueled battle for chart supremacy. 

In the heat of all that hype, Boyle reached back to 1991 and took "Sing" from Blur's debut album, Leisure. The song's stirring piano melody picks up after the "Nightclubbing" sequence, as Renton and his fellow addicts hit a harrowing rock bottom. Later, when Begbie busts in on Renton's new life in London, Pulp's "Mile End" underlines the mood of big city ennui. Along with contributions from Elastica and Blur frontman Damon Albarn, Trainspotting draws on just enough Britpop to keep its cool. 

If Trainspotting has a signature song, it's Underworld's "Born Slippy .NUXX". The duo of Rick Smith and Karl Hyde already had three albums behind them when Boyle reached out to use their 1995 B-side in his movie's climax. The duo was wary—as Smith later put it to Noisey, their music was often sought out to accompany "a scene of mayhem"—but Boyle convinced them with a snippet of the film. Underworld also contributed the propulsive "Dark & Long" to the indelible scene of Renton detoxing inside his childhood bedroom. After Trainspotting, "Born Slippy .NUXX" became the defining song of Underworld's career and a constant euphoric peak in their live sets. 

Just as Trainspotting caught the Britpop zeitgeist, it also immortalized a high point for dance music. A rush of trailblazing dance albums came out in 1995, including Leftfield's Leftism, The Chemical Brothers' Exit Planet Dust and Goldie's Timeless. In a time of rave culture colliding with chart hits, the movie finds room for both the dark electronics of Leftfield's "A Final Hit" and the goofy Eurodance of Ice MC's "Think About The Way". 

In one scene, Renton sits grinning between the speakers at a London nightclub that's going off to Bedrock and KYO's 1993 classic "For What You Dream Of." "Diane was right," he narrates, recalling a conversation from before he left Edinburgh. "The world is changing, music is changing, drugs are changing, even men and women are changing." For the briefest moment, we see the thrill of '90s dance music as it really was. 

The Trainspotting soundtrack album hit shelves in July of 1996. The cover played on the movie's iconic poster design, framing the characters in vivid orange. The soundtrack sold so well that a second volume followed in 1997, featuring other songs from the movie and a few that missed the cut. (The same year, the hugely popular Romeo + Juliet soundtrack also inspired a "Vol. 2.") 

Boyle continued to use music as a key character in his movies, following up Trainspotting with the madcap Americana of A Life Less Ordinary and the pop-meets-electronica of The Beach. After 20 years, Boyle got the gang back together for 2017's T2 Trainspotting. In contrast to the original's wall-to-wall needle drops, the sequel weaved a score by Underworld's Rick Smith around songs by High Contrast, Wolf Alice and Young Fathers. 

Many impressive, star-studded soundtracks followed in the wake of Trainspotting. What makes this one rare, though, is how deeply its unholy union of rock, Britpop and dance music belongs to the movie. Remove any needle drop from a scene in Trainspotting, however fleeting, and it'd lose something vital—that's how you know it's built to last.

How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

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Dave Mason

Dave Mason

Photo: Chris Jensen

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Dave Mason On Recording With Rock Royalty & Why He Reimagined His Debut Solo Album, 'Alone Together'

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The ex-Traffic guitarist has played with everyone from Jimi Hendrix to George Harrison to Fleetwood Mac—now, he's taken another stab at his classic 1970 debut solo album
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jan 4, 2021 - 3:33 pm

Dave Mason is charmingly blasé when looking back at his life and career, which any guitarist would rightfully give their fretting hand to have. "I did 'All Along The Watchtower' with Hendrix," he flatly tells GRAMMY.com, as if announcing that he checked the mail today. "George [Harrison] played me Sgt. Pepper's at his house before it came out," he adds with a level of awe applicable to an evening at the neighbors' for casserole. 

Last year, Mason re-recorded his 1970 debut solo album, Alone Together, which most artists would consider a career-capping milestone. When describing the project's origins, he remains nonchalant: "It was for my own amusement, to be honest with you." 

Fifteen years ago, when the Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer started to kick around the album's songs once again in the studio, he didn't think it was for public consumption—until his wife and colleagues encouraged him to reverse that stance. On his latest release, Mason gives longtime listeners and new fans an updated take on the timeless Alone Together, this time featuring his modern-day road dogs, a fresh coat of production paint and a winking addendum in the title: Again.

Alone Together…Again, which was released last November physically via Barham Productions and digitally via Shelter Records, does what In The Blue Light (2018) and Tea For The Tillerman² (2020) did for Paul Simon and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, respectively. It allows Mason, a prestige artist, to take another stab at songs from his young manhood. Now, songs like "Only You Know And I Know," "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" and "Just A Song," which demonstrated Mason's ahead-of-the-curve writing ability so early in his career, get rawer, edgier redos here.

Mason cofounded Traffic in 1967 and appeared on the Birmingham rock band's first two albums, Mr. Fantasy (1967) and Traffic (1968). The latter featured one of Mason's signature songs: "Feelin' Alright?" which Joe Cocker, Three Dog Night and The Jackson 5 recorded. After weaving in and out of Traffic's ranks multiple times, Mason took the tunes he planned for their next album and tracked them with a murderers' row of studio greats in 1970. (That year, Traffic released John Barleycorn Must Die, sans Mason, which is widely regarded as their progressive folk masterpiece.)

Over the ensuing half-century, Mason has toured steadily while accruing an impressive body of work as a solo artist; Alone Together...Again is a welcomed reminder of where it all began. 

GRAMMY.com caught up with Dave Mason to talk about his departure from Traffic, his memories of the original Alone Together and why the new 2020 takes are, in his words, "so much better."

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Where do you feel Alone Together stands in your body of work? Is it your favorite album you've made?

No, I wouldn't say it's the favorite, but it's sort of spread out. When people ask me, "Well, what's your favorite music? What are you listening to?" I'm like, "I don't know. Which genre do you want me to talk about?" I can't pick it out and say it's my all-time favorite. There are other things I like just as much.

I mean from your solo canon, specifically.

Well, even from a solo thing, 26 Letters, 12 Notes, which I put out [in 2008], went right under the radar, because trying to put new stuff out these days is … an exercise in futility. And that was a great album! Really good. [Alone Together] definitely had great songs on it, and it still holds up, redone. So, from that point of view, it's great. It's probably one of my faves, yes.

When you made the original album, you had just left Traffic, correct?

Pretty much after the second album [1968's Traffic], I moved over here in 1969, to the U.S., for a couple of reasons. Traffic was not a viable option for me anymore, from the other three's point of view. So I decided to come to the place where everything originated from, which is America. Bluegrass, which had its roots in Europe and everything else, is uniquely American music. So that, and probably the 98-cents-to-the-dollar taxes, too. But I mostly came here for musical reasons.

Which divergent creative directions did you and the other Traffic guys wish to go in?

Had that not have happened, all those songs on Alone Together would have been on the next Traffic album.

Read: WATCH: Dave Mason & The Quarantines Uplift With New Video Version Of "Feelin' Alright"

You had quite an ensemble for the original Alone Together: pianist Leon Russell, vocalist Rita Coolidge, bassist Chris Etheridge and others. Were there specific creative reasons for involving these musicians? Or was it more in the spirit of getting some friends together?

I knew Rita and a few other people from early on, being in Delaney & Bonnie. All those people kind of knew each other. Leon Russell was new. I think Rita was going out with Leon at the time. A lot of them were gathered together by Tommy LiPuma, who coproduced Alone Together with me. Otherwise, I was just new here. I didn't know who was who.
Many of those guys were the top session guys in town: [drummers] Jim Keltner, Jim Gordon and [keyboardist] Larry Knechtel, for instance. Leon, I had him play on a couple of songs because I'd met him, I knew him, and I wanted his piano style to be on a couple of things. He put the piano on after the tracks were cut.

Let's flash-forward to Alone Together… Again. Tell me about the musicians you wrangled for this one.

Well, that's my band, the road band that I tour with. [Drummer] Alvino Bennett, [guitarist and background vocalist] Johnne Sambataro—Johnne's been with me for nearly 40 years, on and off—and [keyboardist and bassist] Tony Patler. 

Other than the slight differences in arrangements, there's more energy in the tracks. Other than the vocals, they were pretty much all cut live in the studio. The solos were cut live, because that's my live road band. "Only You Know And I Know," "Look At You Look At Me," "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave," all those songs have been in my set for 50 years, on and off, so they knew them.

If I never had that session band on the original album and could have taken them on the road for a month, then that original album would have had a little more of an edge to it, probably. This new incarnation of it has more of that live feel. Those boys knew the songs. They didn't really have to think about them, but just get in there and play.

Aside from that, there are slightly different arrangements. "World In Changes" is a major departure, "Sad And Deep As You" was basically a live track cut on XM Radio probably 12, 14 years ago and "Can't Stop Worrying, Can't Stop Loving" is a little bit more fleshed out, which I like. The other songs pretty much stick to the originals. 

"Just A Song," I think, has a little more zip to it. It's got the addition of John McFee from The Doobie Brothers, who put that banjo on it, which is cool. Then there's Gretchen Rhodes, who does a lot of the girl background vocals on these tracks.

What compelled you to change up the rhythm of "World In Changes"?

I just wanted to see what would happen, taking one of my songs and adapting it to something else. I have a version of it cut the way it was originally done, and it was a question of whether I stick to that and put that on the album or do something exciting and totally different. To me, it came out so cool. The sentiment is timeless, and I wanted something on there that was new—an older song, done in a new way.

It seems like you still feel poignancy and urgency in these songs. Besides the fact that the album's 50th anniversary just passed, why did you return to the well of Alone Together?

Well, I started playing around with doing this 15 years ago. Mostly, it was for my own amusement, to be honest with you. But then, as it started to come together, and it was approaching 50 years since the [release of the] original, my wife and some people around me were like, "You should put this out." That's how it all led up to this.

Any other lyrical or musical changes that the average listener may not notice?

As to whether this ever reaches the ears of some new people, it would be nice. It seems unless you have some Twitter trick or social media thing happen, trying to get people aware [is difficult]. In other words, if a younger audience could hear this, I'm pretty sure they would like it. You'll probably have some people out there—the purists—but otherwise, I don't know. 

"Sad And Deep As You" is so much better than the original version, frankly. To me, it holds up. I think my vocals are better, which is one of the big reasons why I decided to redo it in the first place.

When you said "purists," there was an edge in your voice.

[Long chuckle.] Everybody's got their tastes and opinions, and that's the way that is. Same reason they booed Bob Dylan when he had The Band behind him. Some people are that way.

Even if people aren't familiar with the original album, I'd think your backstory would resonate with them. Your role in George Harrison's All Things Must Pass comes to mind.

Yeah, I played on a bunch of things. With All Things Must Pass, I pretty much just played acoustic guitar stuff in there with a group of people … George gave me my first sitar and played me Sgt. Pepper's at his house before it came out. I did "All Along The Watchtower" with Hendrix.

A lot of it's available on my website. There's a lot of cool stuff on there. On my YouTube channel, there's a great live version of "Watchtower" from the Journey and Doobie Brothers tour we did four years ago. But we'd be here for another half hour or more if we went over everybody I appeared with and everything I've been on.

Read: It's Not Always Going To Be This Grey: George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass' At 50

Regarding Hendrix, that's an experience that not many other people can say they've had.

Very few. Very few. There are a lot of great guitar players out there, but there are no more Jimi Hendrixes.

You also played with Fleetwood Mac in the '90s, yeah?

I was with Fleetwood Mac from '94 to '96. We did an album called Time, which sort of went under the radar somehow. It didn't get promoted.

Why was that?

I don't know. It's not a bad album, but Warner Bros. was trying to force the issue of getting Stevie Nicks and whatshisname back in there.

Lindsey Buckingham?

Yeah, Lindsey. Christine McVie was on the album, but she didn't go on the road with us. It was kind of weird. The only original members were Mick [Fleetwood] and John [McVie]. It was a little bit like a Fleetwood Mac cover band, but it was cool. It was fun to do for a couple of years, but then they got back together again. C'est la vie. There you go.

Anything else you want to express about reimagining Alone Together 50 years down the road?

I don't think it's just the fact that it's my stuff because there are certain songs I've done that I would not address again. But the thing about those songs is that they all have very timeless themes. "World In Changes," I mean, that could have been written a month ago. To redo them doesn't seem that out of place to me.

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Johnny Flynn as David Bowie in Gabriel Range's 'STARDUST'

Johnny Flynn as David Bowie in Gabriel Range's STARDUST

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.

 
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Marc Maron And Johnny Flynn On Why 'Stardust' Is A Cinematic Space Oddity, Not A David Bowie Biopic

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One of the most interesting music films of the year, 'Stardust' has zero aspirations to embody the big Bowie biopic daydream, instead offering an intriguing, arty interpretation of an era that ultimately helped shape the sound and style of Ziggy Stardust
Lina Lecaro
GRAMMYs
Dec 30, 2020 - 3:49 pm

The hunger for a David Bowie biopic has intensified in the four years since the icon's death and in the wake of the breakout box office success of music films like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman. But despite its perfect title and marketing that might suggest otherwise, Stardust had zero aspirations to embody the big Bowie biopic daydream. 

Released last month (Nov. 25) on multiple streaming platforms, Stardust is an intriguing, somewhat arty interpretation encompassing a short but influential window of time before Bowie broke big. The film follows a young Bowie, played by British musician/actor Johnny Flynn, in his pre-Ziggy, boho-rock days. Aided by Ron Oberman, played by comic and podcast king Marc Maron, the record company PR guy tasked with promoting the singer in the U.S. at the start of his career, Bowie takes an ill-fated press trip to America in 1971 that ultimately helps shape the sound and style of one of music's most revered figures: Ziggy Stardust.

Despite a disclaimer that states "what follows is (mostly) fiction" at the start of Stardust, the film's basic premise is based on true facts. Bowie did have to stay with the real Oberman and his family in Maryland before embarking on a bare-bones road trip to promote his music, and due to visa problems, the singer was not able to play any substantial venues or even play his own music during the tour. He was clearly struggling with some identity issues as an artist before he evolved into the Starman, and as depicted in the film, his relationship with his overbearing wife, Angie (Jena Malone), became more and more strained as he grew as an artist, fleshing out his flamboyant, cosmic persona and music.  

While Stardust is indeed a music film, the music logistics for the movie were no easy road. Last February, Bowie's son, Duncan Jones, announced on Twitter that he and his family would not authorize the use of his dad's music for the film. Consequently, fans quickly denounced the project. But the film's writer/director, Gabriel Range, had very specific intentions, and music wasn't necessarily essential to explore them. 

"He didn't want to give us the music, but that's great because it provided us more freedom," Maron said during a joint interview with Flynn before the release of Stardust. "We couldn't afford it anyway. The idea that we can't interpret this moment in David Bowie's life out of respect is ridiculous. David was a public figure who contributed so much to artistic innovation, to creativity in his work, and it's been out there in the world for 50 years. This idea that it's off-limits by any means to express interpretation of this man is ridiculous. They are protecting the brand more than they are protecting the person."

For his part, Flynn, who in the film sings covers Bowie often played live and does a glammy new song he wrote for Stardust called "Good Ol' Jane," didn't take the lead role lightly. 

"He's a big hero to me in lots of ways," he explained. "I passed on an earlier version of the script because I thought this is not a story that needs to be out there; it was more like the jukebox musicals that we've seen out there recently."

Flynn, an acclaimed musician in his own right and a promising actor, reconsidered when Range, working alongside writer Christopher Bell, came on board and took the film in a new direction. 

"He knew Bowie really well and he said, 'We just want to look at this tiny, tiny moment of his life," the actor explained. "I went to see the “David Bowie Is" exhibition in Brooklyn, and I was walking around the exhibit. It was so interesting. He was desperate to escape this sense of mediocrity and what he thought of as banality. [Range is] always looking for interesting truths about situations that change people's opinions of what a certain time might have been. We took things step by step, and it felt right at every step. This is such a small film and it doesn't negate or tread on the toes of a big, estate-backed film about Bowie. This can exist, too."

Indeed, it can. What's explored in Stardust would have probably taken about 10 minutes in a traditional biopic. Though its limited scope and intimate approach is far from the grandiose, glam-rock affair some might have hoped for, the film has many endearing moments music fans, if not the hardcore Bowie base awaiting a blockbuster life exploration, can enjoy. There's a nice chemistry between the two leads, for one, and in many ways, the film is a classic buddy flick/road trip, quasi-comedy featuring two opposites coming together and learning from each other. 

David Bowie's '…Ziggy Stardust…' | For The Record

Of course, the monumental undertaking of tackling a beloved and legendary figure like Bowie on film is a big risk for any actor or creative. The haters were not silent. 

Naysayers pointed to Flynn's lack of facial resemblance to Bowie, but the actor wasn't going for a gauche impersonation. 

"I tried on the wig, then we tried some songs and some scenes, just to see how we could get on with that. And each step that we took just felt like encouragement to move to the next," Flynn said of playing Bowie in the film. "I didn't know if the story we were trying to tell would work, but it felt right. And this era is the only David that I would have been happy with portraying."  

Read: "Space Oddity": 7 Facts About David Bowie's Cosmic Ballad | GRAMMY Hall Of Fame

Rock movies are often in danger of coming off as corny or cliche. Stardust, and the cast and creative team behind it, mostly avoided this by keeping the narrative ambitions specific and the acting fairly measured. 

As for the fan community and their critiques of the film, Maron is pragmatic. "I dealt with that with the Marvel idiots when I did Joker, too," he shared. "The nature of fanaticism and the idea of fans and that kind of religious dogma that goes around what they think is honoring their 'God' is really problematic in terms of moving art forward in a lot of ways."

Flynn, on the other hand, took the feedback as an indicator of Bowie's impact and lasting legacy.

"What made all the reactions interesting to me is the fact that [Bowie is] such an influence, and he's a different person to everybody," the actor added. "For Marc, it was the Scary Monsters era. For me, I discovered him during like "Space Oddity" and the early stuff, but mixed in with Ziggy and Hunky Dory, which is probably my favorite album. I think that makes it worthwhile to examine who this person was. It is fascinating, in terms of cancel culture and people saying, 'You can't touch that.' [But] I'm happy that there's a dialog around it and somebody who is such a beacon of liberal expression and artistic freedom."

David Bowie's '…Ziggy Stardust…' | For The Record

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Frank Zappa in 'Zappa,' a Magnolia Pictures release

Frank Zappa in Zappa, a Magnolia Pictures release

Photo: Roelof Kiers/Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

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Actor/Director Alex Winter Talks New Frank Zappa Documentary, 'Zappa': "It Was The Full Complexity Of The Man I Wanted To Show"

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For the film, Winter and his team combed through more than 1,000 hours of footage to capture the complicated essence of one of the most groundbreaking rock experimentalists
Jordan Blum
GRAMMYs
Dec 30, 2020 - 12:13 pm

Few 20th-century musicians have amassed as unique and influential a catalog as two-time GRAMMY winner Frank Zappa. Between the late 1960s and the early 1990s, Zappa's multifaceted artistry knew no bounds. He was a one-of-a-kind musical genius whose attitude and approach rubbed off on countless creative followers.

Of course, he was far more than that, too. As the recent documentary Zappa lays out, the singer/songwriter and composer was an adamant denouncer of censorship, which led to him morally testifying before the U.S. Senate in 1985, as well as a fearless critic of social, spiritual, and political hypocrisies. Plus, his collaborators and loved ones knew him as a highly demanding yet devoted bandleader and a flawed but loving family man.

There were many professional and personal dimensions of Zappa, and the actor-documentarian Alex Winter—best-known as the amiable, peace-loving goofball Ted Logan in the Bill & Ted film franchise—did an exceptional job capturing it all. Zappa, which arrived in theaters and on-demand last month, provides the most heartfelt and robust examination of the man on film to date.

Winter and his crew could have been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of footage available to them—more than 1,000 hours, to hear him tell it. However, his goal to spin a compelling yarn for a universal audience rather than create a footage-dump for superfans kept him focused.  "It was important for us to tell a certain story," Winter tells GRAMMY.com. "We found so much great stuff that [spoke] to his inner life. It motivated us to stay on track."

GRAMMY.com spoke with Winter about what sparked his interest in telling Zappa's story and why Zappa's legacy endures almost 30 years after his untimely death.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Let's begin by discussing how you discovered Zappa. What are your favorite songs or albums by him?

I first became aware of him on Saturday Night Live. I have an older brother [Stephen] who's a musician, so I knew the music. As I got older, I became much more appreciative of his music, especially the expansiveness of it. That fact that he wasn't just a rock guitar player or even just a rock musician.

As for specific records, [1969's] Hot Rats had the biggest impact on me, and then I came to love his orchestral music, such as [1993's] The Yellow Shark.

Those are great ones! What attracted you to making this documentary?

I was interested in who he was as an artist and his relationship to his art, his fellow artists, and the politics of the time. It was the full complexity of the man I wanted to show—more than just a standard music documentary or a standard cradle-to-grave biopic.

That's one of the best aspects of Zappa: it even appeals to people who aren't necessarily fans of his. There's a lot of pathos to it, with sadness beneath the happier aspects.

Yeah, I mean, his life was tragic in that he died so prematurely [in 1993, from prostate cancer]. He faced the consequences for living as he did, and the film tries to chart the ups and downs of his life in that way. It's not just a celebration but also an examination of what it means to be an artist.

Read: How 1970 Became The Year Of Syd Barrett

You also interviewed former Zappa musicians who express that he was a bit of a tough leader at times, but that's what was needed to get the band to perform properly.

Right. I wanted to get at the root of what was—not unfairly, but maybe superficially, a reputation he had for being a martinet. I had a suspicion that the artists I would speak to would paint a more comprehensive picture of how he was. 

I was so grateful for those interviews and for having a sense of a man who had a very specific vision, yes, but who also was extremely collaborative with his fellow musicians, with his family, and with his audience. He was very curious about a broader view and working with others.

I didn't have a problem getting to people, either, and I only wanted people I felt were able to speak vehemently about having worked with Zappa and experiencing his inner life.

Zappa is far from your first documentary. What did you learn from doing those prior films that influenced this one? How was making Zappa a different process?

There was an aspect of this far beyond anything I'd done before: the sheer amount of media that we had to work with. We had to preserve a lot of the media that was in Zappa's home. Then, we had to go through all that media [laughs] and figure out what we wanted to use.

We benefited from doing a preservation project to get that media into shape, which took us a couple of years. It allowed us to figure out exactly what to choose. I think that at least 98 percent of the archival footage we used has never been seen or heard before.

Oh, wow.

There was an exhaustive process of rebuilding things to make them coherent. Sometimes, we'd find a piece a film from one time and then search for the right sound and sync it up somehow. Some of that took years, and it was like finding the Holy Grail when we finally located the proper audio for a piece of visual that we wanted to use. It's been an extraordinary journey, to put it mildly [laughs].

From what I understand, the Zappa family—and especially his late wife, Gail—were very private and particular about who would get access to the archives, vaults, et cetera. I'm sure other people have tried to see and hear those things before but couldn't. I wonder what led to you being able to look through all of that.

Well, I pitched Gail a way of telling the story, and she just happened to like it. Many people had come to her asking to make much more standard music docs or legacy docs about Frank, sort of ignoring the broader spectrum of who he was and what he represented.

I was only interested in telling a story about him as an artist and as a man pitted against his time, dealing with the consequences of committing to living a particular life. That's what she wanted someone to tell. I didn't know that when I pitched her, so I was glad. I expected her to tell me to get lost, to be honest with you.

I guess it's all about the angle of the story.

She was notoriously a tough cookie, and I knew that going in. There was a good chance that she wasn't going to like what I wanted to do. That would've been fine. It would've been twenty minutes out of my life instead of six years.

Frank Zappa in 'Zappa,' a Magnolia Pictures release

Frank Zappa in Zappa, a Magnolia Pictures release | Photo: Roelof Kiers/Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

What were some of the most surprising things that you learned about him? What did you have to cut?

We had the mandate to tell a very specific story, and that gave us parameters. It helped us weed out the stuff that didn't fit. We had over 1,000 hours of unseen and unheard media; we could've made a 10-part series, no problem. I wasn't distracted by it, though. Mike Nichols, the editor, and I were pretty determined to craft a very coherent narrative, so we didn't worry about many of the media we had. Let it get used by the next people who come along. [Laughs].

Have you discovered any bands that are inspired by Zappa?

Oh, there are so many, from classical musicians to pop and rock musicians. Artists like Beck, “Weird Al" Yankovic and Weezer. The list could just go on and on. There aren't too many popular bands who don't have a Zappa influence, even if they don't know it. Also, a lot of avant-garde composers.

Zappa had one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in history. How has the reception been so far?

The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. It's a film that I wanted to see out in the world, and I believe that Zappa's story was extraordinary and untold. I was hopeful that others would want to see it, too.

I was never a fanatic—more just a fan. This movie is aimed at anyone who likes an interesting and compelling story. That was the gamble we took when we set out to make it, and I couldn't be happier with how it's being received. 

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