Steven Drozd interview

by Utayo Furukuni

Firstly, could you tell me about your musical background? Steven Drozd: It's pretty weird. I guess a lot of kids are like "I wanna play drums!" When I saw Kiss or whatever [Laughs], I was five or six and I asked my dad if I could play. My dad is a musician. He plays saxophones and trumpet. It was actually shocking: my dad bought me a little drum set so I played on and on for about a year and he bought me a better drum set. He could tell I was getting pretty good at it. I was only playing what the neighborhood guys liked to play, stuff like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC stuff. When I was ten or eleven, I started to play with my dad. I played drums in his band with him. Just weekends we played, Fridays and Saturdays. It wasn't our music, just playing other people's music. That's how we made extra money to bring home. I made money to bring in when my family was really poor and stuff. When I was twelve or thirteen, I learned to how to play the piano just because… I don't know why, I just love the way the piano sounds. We had a cheap organ in the house and I practiced to the radio. I think the first song I played was Let It Be by The Beatles and some Journey's songs [Laughs]. Really bad Top40 stuff! And my dad actually bought me a cheap old black piano and that was so cool! I came back home from school and everyday I practiced for five or six hours a day! I never took any lessons or anything. But I think, if you say you're interested in music when you are young child and your parents make you take lessons then you don't wanna do that. So I was cool, my dad just said "If you wanna play the piano, that's cool. Just go ahead". So I practiced a lot and learned. When I was eighteen, I picked up guitar! You know punk rock! Of course I was 10 years too late for punk rock. When I was growing up, there were no punk rockers, no weird musicians. Everyone listened to Heavy Metal and Top40 and I hated that! But I liked REM and The Replacements stuff. They seemed kind of cool at the time and that's why I started playing guitar. And I really played in a bunch of terrible bands!!! In Texas? Yeah, in Texas. I lived in Houston and played in bad bands in Houston! One band sounded just like REM and the other band I joined sounded like Jane's Addiction! And then I moved to Austin to try to find another band. I joined a band that was a cross between The Flaming Lips, Nirvana, Jesus Lizard, and Dinosaur JR. It was such a cheap copy, always just a mixture of different styles. But these guys in the band were from Oklahoma and they got sick of Austin and I was kind of sick of Austin after about a year and half. Why? I think Austin is a really influential city for music. Well, Austin is just one of those cities where everyone who lives there thinks they are cool and all bands play there they think they are so cool. It really got on my nerves after a while. Everyone says like "I'm from Austin! I'm so cool! I'm in a band!" It sucks! It's almost like NYC in a way. So we were sick of that and everyone wanted to move to Oklahoma. "Sure. I'll move. Just to see what happens." That's why I met Wayne because he and Michael had done some demo recording for Hit To Death In the Future Head in this guy's house. I moved into this guy's house as his roommate. I guess Wayne had seen the videotape of me playing with this band from Austin. And he didn't know it's me and then he found out it was me. It's like "Oh, we should get this guy! Because he lives here!" He called me one day. I only talked to him two or three times and he goes "I wanna come over to talk to you for a while" I thought, "What for?" You know, "Oh my god, The Flaming Lips! They are my favorite band in the whole world!!!" They really were. I liked them, Jesus Lizard and I still like Nirvana quite a bit but definitely The Flaming Lips that sort of stuff. He came and said "The drummer Nathan just quit. We wanna see if you wanna play drums with us" I said "Yes, sure". That was October 1991. Now it's been almost nine years (actually now twelve years!) together. I know it's crazy 'cos most bands won't last nine years. You know The Beatles lasted nine, ten years. Really, it's just a weird thing. But now, with three of you, it's a really perfect combination. Yes, it's so different now. It's been like that for a long time. It doesn't seem to be weird any more. When Ron (Ronald Jones) first quit we were just like "What are we gonna do? Will we get another guitar player?" But now it's been for four years almost since Ron quit… So it doesn't seem weird any more and things are fine with just three of us. And you play guitar fantastically as well! It's my favorite instrument right now! [Laughs] But you did some guitar parts on records so far. No? Yes. I mean lots of them really. If you hear like the weird, noisy, really crazy stuff that was usually Ron playing and I usually played more just traditional sort of stuff. A lot of times when we were recording, we'd just pile it on like "You need this part, I get this part, you get another part" and in the end we had ten tracks with different guitarists' stuff in. Specially 'Clouds Taste metallic' we tried to arrange the different guitar parts in. It really gave me a headache. I think a lot of the time Ron just didn't like what I played. He dislikes a lot of things about me but he really dislikes what I play on guitar… I don't know why… Well, I actually don't understand why. Yeah… I know he never liked what I did. I wrote songs like Slow Nerve Action that's the song I had and Wayne did lyrics. But he just hated it. I forget what he said about it but he didn't like that. He didn't like Chewin The Apple Of Your Eyes too. I thought that was a really cool song. He usually didn't like it if I brought the songs in on four tracks or something. Did you write Slow Nerve Action? Can I say? I really love that song! Oh, thanks. Actually I did that song. I just put the drums first, big drums [Steven hams] and then I made the song on top of that. I just wanted to have the song just for the drums. I figure if I put down cool drums and I can make a cool song go on well with it. It just worked out. This is one of the masterpieces. Well, you never played this song before but are playing it on stage on this tour! Yeah, we never tried to play it until now. It didn't matter if the drums never sound like they did on the record but now we just have the drums on the record (from computers) so it's easy now. It's definitely a cool song. I think The Flaming Lips' musical range became wider after you joined the band. Well, the reason why I work out well is because I know so much about music. Wayne has ideas, Michael has ideas. They know what they want to do but they don't know how to actually do them. I can always help them to do it. Especially with Ron. He is such a guitar genius in a way. That was a good combination between Wayne just bringing in ideas and Ron with his technically beautiful guitar playing. And my idea is like "If you wanna do this, you can do this" All the pieces together worked really well. I listened to Hit To Death In the Future Head a couple of weeks ago. That one is a fucking masterpiece! Well, I was always worried about…especially first four years. Once I joined the band, I started thinking like, why can't he just get normalized or something… but I really don't think that now. Now we've got comfortable with each other and they rely on me more than they used to. Most of the stuff in The Soft Bulletin has me playing. Most of the stuff, I mean Michael played the bass but Wayne sat around and boosted a bunch of keyboards, drums and something. When I tried to get the guitar part "What do you wanna do with the guitar part. We already enough stuff!" so I have to talk him into letting me try a guitar part. [Laughs] You have so many ideas. Well, when I'm into it I really can do stuff all day. Which songs did you actually write for The Soft Bulletin? It's really hard to say. A lot of times Wayne has sort of songs, I have sort of demo songs. The Soft Bulletin says…The Spark That Bled we have first verse and second verse and then it doesn't have much after that. So I take the tape home and make a bunch of stuff and put melodies. Race For The Prize that I had the music since 1992 or something. I just never found the way to do it because when I first came up with it, it was on guitar and the sound was like Dinosaur JR or something. So I kind of left it and when we were doing Clouds Taste Metallic I played it for Wayne. He really liked it. Ron hated it [Laughs]. He didn't want to work on it so we just couldn't get it on the record. But we came around to make The Soft Bulletin I just did tape with drums and strings and stuff. Wayne had two days to write lyrics and everything so the same. Superman and Gash I wrote the music for a few years ago. I never write lyrics that's why I say I come to the song and make a tape and I have instruments on there and give it to Wayne. He goes home to listen to it and prepares lyrics usually for a couple of days. So it's worked out pretty good for me to know that I can come up with this thing that actually turns into a Flaming Lips song. Some of my friends can tell what song I've written, what song Wayne has written… It's pretty interesting. Usually I have the songs, Wayne has the lyrics, and he helps me to come up with an arrangement. He has a song, I sort of come up with the arrangement. It works really. I wonder why you never write lyrics? The only lyrics I ever wrote was the first verse of Chewin The Apple Of Your Eyes. I wrote that and I couldn't come up with anything for the second verse so Wayne wrote the second verse. His lyrics were so much better than what I wrote! That's alright. His lyrics are damn good! On this tour, you are playing keyboard & guitar instead of drums. We are gonna try to get a drum kit on stage too in the next tour… I'll play drums for a couple of songs. We will try to make out. It'll be like Wayne will play some more guitar. We started talking about that. You know, I kind of miss playing drums sometimes… Especially people can get a couple of songs like you can do "Rock Out!!!" A couple of song I go back to the piano and a couple of songs I sit down to drums… I think we're gonna try to do that. Where we'd actually have… where we've got piano, still guitar and make little bit more room for small drum set and we do that for a couple of songs. Yeah? We'd really love to see that! Because your drumming is absolutely amazing! You are the best drummer I've ever met in my generation. Thanks. See, a lot of times if you see a great drummer, he is not in a great band. Have you seen Melvins? Their music is so-so…but the drummer is amazing! I always pick out the drummer and get enthusiastic. I saw the drummer Melvins, it was like,"OK, Man, I'm dying!" He just like…He gets done the shows only trunks put on stage. I've started to get more enthusiastic about the drums. When I joined The Flaming Lips, it was really unnecessary to play so loud. I can be such an enthusiastic drummer. The Flaming Lips, specially back in 91,92, if you see guys back like this, you even won't notice me because Michael, Wayne, and Ron were always so loud! After I saw you play drums, I began to pay special attention to the drummers. A drummer is the king of a band. [Laughs] Oh, yes. Especially for rock music. The funny thing is that a lot of times, the drummer is the last person to be noticed, but it's really the most fun thing about music. Have you ever seen Jesus Lizard? Oh, yes! Mac McNeilly! He is really good. He is my favorite. This man was so beautiful on the drums he was so natural. There was another turning point I was getting to. When I saw them in 1990, I think that was the first 3,4 years they'd played together. I've never seen Rock 'n 'Roll like that ever since. It was just…so powerful, fucking powerful! The place in Houston, Texas, called ＊Pig & Pug the place held 50 people but 150 people climbed into the building illegally, someone passed the amps in the crowd, they have to crowd on the amps and guys destroyed the place and I thought this is sort of punk rock. I guess it would be like it actually, if I ever saw punk rock 20 years ago. That was a big deal for me. I still think of how exciting the drummer was to watch. It seems right now the emphasis more like all the cool stuff people seem to be into more its sound. Who are your influences? Sorry, it's a really typical question. Oh, I mean obviously John Bonham from Led Zeppelin. It's such an obvious choice but his drum sound was just so good, especially compared to all the other bands in the 70's. All drummers in the 70's, always sounds like… not all of them, most bands, just the drum sounds really just kind of wimpy, not really very good. His drum sound is always so good. And the drummer of Melvins, I definitely like him. My first favorite drummer was Peter Chris from Kiss when I was 7 years old. You took a picture with him, didn't you? He was really rude to me, actually. Yeah? He was just drunk like 4 o'clock in the afternoon! We were playing with The Stone Temple Pilot in NYC. How do you know that? Did I tell you the story or something? Anyway, he showed up and he wanted to play with The Stone Temple Pilots! [Laughs] They're like,"OK, sure! You can join us tonight!" I was like "Hey! Can I get your autograph?" Well, he was really rude I mean he was terrible. He was really drunk and wore cheap Jimi Hendrix T-shirts on and black gloss stretch pants and Indian Marcus Boots. It was 1993. He looked like hell! It's really embarrassing but you know, he was one of my heroes from my young age. He really blows me away, man. Well, I can say, you are my hero. [Laughs] That's cool! [Laughs] Thanks! It's really cool people like music stuff and know about that, you know. When I was younger, really young, I thought I wanted to be a rock star! Like Kiss! I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be on stage on fire, girls chasing after me, flying in a jet airplane. When you get older you realize the point is "how can I work that way" and I'm glad it's not like that, really. It'd just be such a hustle to live that kind of life style. Now, it's really the best because I can play all the time, really. We can travel around the world for free, we can get paid for it, I meet other people who really like music. You know, especially The Flaming Lips seem to have really hard core, serious music fans, you know. I never thought when I was younger I would actually write my own music and be doing that. Well, I guess that it naturally came to you. Yeah, it's natural but I'm saying when I was younger before I never started to play piano, I don't think I actually wanted to do my own music on the piano, guitar anything. I just thought I'd drop drums in a rock band. I'm just saying when you get older, your perception changes. I mean by the time I joined The Flaming Lips I knew I could write my own music but still didn't want to do that for a living. But Wayne really encouraged me "If you have something, you should put it on a tape so we can try to do something" and then three or four songs like ended up on Transmissions From Satellite Heart and I thought "That's cool". He encouraged me to keep doing that. Wayne said before you are a genius. Wayne said that? Wow! It's funny! [Laughs] He expects me to create more than I do. He expects me to come up with huge, new music for Orchestra. I'm still like I'm just starting. I'm trying to get something going. I wanna write for Orchestra. We wanna make The Flaming Lips like 40 boom boxes and 40 people with a real Orchestra so I always talk about that and he is like "When are you gonna have it?" [Laughs] So I guess he is mad at me for being lazy. Not only Wayne says this, but many other musicians, too. I mean people are telling me that. That's a good feeling for me. It makes me happy. I try hard to make whatever I'm doing interesting. But you know, The Flaming Lips is easy to do because people just expect us to do something crazier every time. What we were five years ago and what we are now is so different. I think people aren't bothered by it. They expect to hear us doing a different style, you know… Imagine bands like Ramones or something, right? They are doing the same thing for 20 years! If I were in a band like that, I'd wanna switch out! No one would like it! I got sick of them a long time ago! Lucky for us, we always continue to keep changing. Wayne always has got new ideas for visual, and whatever other kind of presentation. You guys are making music history in a way! I hope so. That's a weird thing, how all the bands get categorized. The Flaming Lips came from Sonic Youth, Dinosaur JR, and Pixies… None of the bands really exist any more. I mean Sonic Youth are still around but I don't actually know anyone listening to them. So it's a pretty weird thing that The Flaming Lips can still be around and make music and people like it. That's cool and I'm glad. I feel like I'm a major part of that now… The first few years I always had an identity crisis, you know… Are we doing the right thing, did I do the right thing as a drummer or whatever… It seems like now it comes that much more naturally. By the way, you guys have the two different songs Slow Motion and The Spiderbite Song for UK & USA version. Hey! The Spiderbite Song, the first version is about you. Yeah. [Laughs] and the second version is about Michael and the third version is about maybe Michelle or something. Well, we didn't want to put out all the same songs for both records. We thought "we've got to push anything two versions for Race For The Prize, two versions for Superman" So we thought we wanted to make it interesting. We don't want to cheat anyone! [Laughs] I like Slow Motion more. Even The Spiderbite Song is such a nice, melancholy thing but I like Slow Motion more. Did you write Slow Motion? Yeah, Wayne wrote the lyrics. Actually no one knows about it. I made it by David Bowie. [Speaks in a lower voice] I have a little sample thing and a little pedal and I was trying a sample of beat from Soul Love, Ziggy Stardust and my sample is screwed and that got drum beat. The next part of the song is acoustic guitar started got the two, mixed two together by accident. [Sings] It sounds cool it doesn't sound like Soul Love anymore so I put the music on top of it! A couple of days later, Wayne had words for it and we did the mixing together. Sometimes, a great song happens by accident. The Spiderbite Song is… ummm… funny! [Laughs] I really want to hear Slow Motion on live. Oh, Maybe, next tour or something. Next tour… We are always talking about that, you know, first we thought we should do different shows every nights. But I realized that if you go to see your favorite bands, you've seen us so many times now. Yeah, but I've never been bored with your shows. Never! Really? Yeah, if I go to see my favorite bands, maybe the same set, 3, 4 nights, I'll probably like it because that way you know what's coming, you know what song is next, you know you are gonna like it. We've been worried about that for a while. "We should make 2, 3 different tapes, do different shows every nights." But well, people like it. They don't seem to get too bored with it. It's almost like to go to see a movie or something. You know your favorite parts come up or whatever. Well, I'm not sure I answered your question about The Spiderbite Song. [Laughs] I want to back to The Spiderbite Song, We worried about you, Steven, a poison spider bit your hand. Oh, it was such a big deal. [Laughs] I was in the hospital like 4 days. Initially, I wasn't that bad because I went to the doctor and he gave me an antibiotic shot and a bunch of antibiotic pills and the idea was: I'll take this for two weeks until I get the result and then take them for two more weeks just to make sure, but after two weeks the swelling had gone down and it seemed fine and since pills cost a lot of money and I didn't want to spend more money I thought my hand was fine. So I didn't get the next two weeks' prescription. When I woke up the next day, my hand was this, I mean like this huge. So I get to the hospital and this is like "It's more serious than you realize…" "Really?" I was pretty stressed out already… I did do surgery and it was pretty scary. And a bunch of weird stuff all happened at the same time… Wayne's father died, that was bad for him… I'm in the hospital and Michael had a really bizarre car accident… I didn't hear about that till like a few weeks after that happened. It's such a weird song. I played it for my sister she's like…"Wow…" [Laughs] It's such a weird song… 'cos Wayne first played that song, I got so embarrassed, you know… "What do you try to say, man!" [Laughs] [Laughs] Well, You have a sister? I've got quite a big family. I have two older brothers, one of them is dead now, I have an older sister and me and a little brother. Five of us in total. I should have mentioned that. When I was growing up, two of my older brothers had a lot of good records and totally turned me on to all the good bands and 70's stuff. They really encouraged me when I first started playing drums. All of your family play instruments? No. My oldest brother started playing guitar just now. He's like 38 years old. Growing up he never played anything. He loves music but he never actually played. He is really encouraging me, he really got me like he told me I was getting better. Just the thing you need to hear when you are little kid when you start something. He was great. Both of my brothers were great to have 'cos it's cool. My house is like my mum, she listened to like Motown, R&B stuff like that. Supremes, Marvin Gay, Stevie Wonder and my dad listened to all C&W music stuff. My old brothers listened to 70's rock and my older sister had to every week, every Saturday, she went to K-Mart to buy No.1 single of the week. So I got to hear all kinds of music when I was growing up, so that's why today I like so many kinds of stuff, you know. I would be walking past my mum and she'd be playing Motown and my dad would have a Hank Williams record playing and I'd walk past my sister and she'd have Blondie "Heart of glass" playing and walked I passed my brothers Black Sabbath playing, it's like crazy, all different kinds of stuff. It's really a great family. Yeah. It's weird my family. I wouldn't trade them for anything, really. Pretty dysfunctional family. But it's pretty interesting. Anyone meet my family they always think "You have the craziest family I ever met…" So I'm like the normal guy of my family they are all down in Texas, Houston. Your father must be so happy about your success as a musician. He is. I think it took a long time before he could understand the concept of being in a band, making your own music. He just never made his own music, just played in top 40 cover bands or whatever. So he thought I should get a job at music store and play like in a nice little lounge act or something on weekends. So when I joined The Flaming Lips he was like "What are you doing? You are wasting your time!" "No, no, no…" and finally our song for Batman, movie Batman "Dad, we have a song for Batman!" He was still like "That's great son. But when are you gonna quit this crazy rock music?" and I was like…" Dad, we have a song for Batman…" [Laughs] and then he saw Late Show With David Letterman and he finally says "OK, my son is doing alright" Oh, yes. He is proud of you! He is. He is just a frustrated musician himself. He's been playing music since he was like a young kid of 12 or 13. He was in like the first Rock 'n' Roll band in Texas. He was in a Rock 'n' Roll band in Texas in 1955. He's been doing it for a long time. He just never had a big success or whatever. He just is a bit bitter about the whole music business. Sometimes do you go back to Texas to see him? Yeah. Usually try to. Obviously as much as I can. But we are really busy, so usually I only get down there for like the thanksgiving and Xmas. I usually spend a couple of weeks with him. We usually fight whole time because he is just a freak. That's the whole story. He is a just weird, high stressed guy. [Laughs] Everyone's father is the same! Yeah. I know everyone thinks their dad is the weirdest guy in the world! And all my friends think my dad is cool like " Hey! Your dad is so cool!" "No… he's not, man…" [Laughs] like Wayne. He and my dad once met "I like your dad!" "Oh no… You don't…" [Laughs] Have you ever done any collaboration with someone? Actually, I'll do some in the next couple of months. He's not really big, but do you know a guy called Jay Farrar? I guess he is in Wilco. (Jay Farrar used to be in Uncle Tupero and didn't join Wilco. He released his album Third Shift Grotto Slack this year and Steven played the piano for it) He is doing a new record, I'm gonna go do some recording in St. Louis. I'll play some piano for three songs. That'll be some fun. 'Cos everyone wants the freedom to go do other stuff that the other bands do. The last time I tried to do something, I was supposed to play drums on a new Breeders album. I was in NYC for a month with Kim Deal and we didn't record anything, she was so fucking weird… I was there for a month. We only recorded one song. We practiced for hours, days, trying to get something on record. But she never committed to anything. That's the last time I really tried to do anything but most of the good ideas I have are just for the Flaming Lips, you know. That's really enough for me. I mean I would be interested in doing some movie stuff some day. You mean a soundtrack? Yeah．Specially, musically, it's powerful! It's so connected with imaginary scenes. Some movies for me, whenever I think of a movie, I remember music first. Just music? Not directing or something? Oh, maybe some acting! I could be an actor! I was a good actor in Junior High! I was in drama class! Actor Steven Drozd! [Laughs] You never are into doing any sports? [Laughs] No… never… I tried to play football for one year like in grade 11 or 12. I wasn't good, really. I don't like to be tackled. I was always like an art faggy kind of guy. I was really into drama and acting stuff. But you now act for the music video of Waitin' For A Superman! Just sitting on a park bench and looking like doomed out. "OK, it should not be problem!" and Wayne is like "It's really good! You really looked doomed out!" It doesn't take much talent to be doomed out. [Laughs] And… Sleeping On The Roof. We did that three months ago. When I was in George's house, he set the camera and I put the headphones on so I can do the right time for Sleeping On The Roof… I put, sit and did it and he and Wayne were turning the video. It's pretty weird. I tried not to laugh the whole time. You know you are smoking. Yeah, smoking all the time. [Laughs] Yeah, it's typical of Steven. [Laughs] Try to smoke as much as I can. But I like the photo of you with a cigarette. Maybe, it's 'cos it's such a part of me. 'Cos I talked to Wayne about that because Wayne and Michael both used to smoke a lot, specially Michael. But now I can't remember what Wayne looks like with a cigarette in his hand. Used to be such a natural thing he was on cigarette. You know what I mean? It's weird for me to try to imagine what he looks like. But they now stopped smoking! They both quit in 1996, Michael used to smoke 2,3 packs a day. He just used to be a chain smoker all day long. I see. Yeah, Wayne smoked around 1996… I remember now. He had a really bad bronchitis. Some sort of infection. He was really laid about for a week, he never smoked after that. I'm not too worried about quitting cigarettes. I'm only 30. Wayne is like " When is your quit?" I won't quit until 33,34 so…Hey! You wanna ask me about personal questions? Yes, but you are talking to me a lot of things! I should say more about my older brothers. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't know as much about music as I did at such an early age. I mean it's great like 70's rock like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. But you know, to be 10 and know all the stuff so well, even what I did, it's because of them. They have all these records. My oldest brother is such a lazy bum he did a deal with me. The deal was: he'd let me come into his room if I agreed to clean it. So I had to clean his room everyday. I'd go in to make his bed, sweep the floor and he came to check it out. If it was OK he let me listen to his records. [Laughs] That was my big privilege when I was a kid growing up. He had a cool stereo and black lights and when I came home he and his buddies were smoking pot like with 10 other people! They'd just be like [Steven mimics] listening to Pink Floyd or something. I was walking around like "Wow! This is really weird!" You are really lucky that you have older brothers. I only have a younger brother. Yeah, so you have to try to turn him on to music! But he is never into music (but I found a CD of Rage Against The Machine in his room the other day. It's amazing! But why Rage?) Oh, he is not… What's his interest in? Well, Japanese pop, Karaoke type of music, I guess… Some people are stoked and driven to music like my sister, she loves music but I tried to turn her on to stuff I thought she would like. The stuff she listens to is so dull. She likes Alanis Morisette. Oh, it makes me throw up! Hey, you play any instruments? You should get a drum set! Yeah! I can't play any instruments so I want to try but I'm too old… No. You're never too old. I mean, they do say that if you start at a younger age you pick things up quicker, you know like a different language, or music, or whatever. So I'm so lucky I started at such a young age. It's so ingrained. But is it really so better that you ingrain things at such an early age? Guitar stuff I don't really pick up until 17,18. You just need to practice. I know people, a friend of mine, he's actually a pretty good drummer and now he's like my age 28,29. He just started playing drums about 5 years ago and he's really good drummer. So you never know, you still can!

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If you know the venue in Houston Steven mentioned, Please let me know. Utayo Furukuni ©PUKKA Gallery

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