December will be here in a few short weeks, and X will be hitting the road once again for their annual X-Mas Tour, starting in Salem, Oregon, on December 9th and roaring down the West Coast till December 28th, when they play the last of two dates in Santa Ana, California. Unfortunately, this holiday rocking tour won’t entirely be the same as it always has been. Although the band – vocalist Exene Cervenka, bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer DJ Bonebrake – aren’t calling it quits, the End Is Near Tour is ushering this legendary LA punk band into a new phase of not so much being on the road. Although Doe told me recently that everyone is doing great, the toll of long tours and overly hot stages have had an impact on their bodies during their forty-plus years as a band.
One thing that certainly hasn’t waned is their music. Older songs are still sparking up a fireworks show while a new album, Smoke & Fiction, which debuted on four Top 10 Billboard charts, is nothing short of killer. Every song has that X edge, even when reflecting on the past. “Memories are gettin’ late, not erased like tape, not replaced with fake, drivin’ state to altered state, holdin’ foldin’ maps, on another pay phone break, A big black X on a white marquee,” they sing on “Big Black X.” If they are slowly going out, they are going out with a prolonged BOOM!
If you’re a fan of X, you already know the story of their humble beginnings. If you’re only now discovering them, then you’ve got a lot of catching up, albeit fun catching up, to do. This band of misfits who met up in the seedy Los Angeles music epicenter, where Doe and Cervenka both loved the words of the streetwise poets, X kickstarted a punk movement that never really burned out; it just sort of changed into something else. “The most defining element of the early LA punk rock scene was the community and the collaboration,” Doe told me during a 2017 interview for Glide. “I think we wanted the simplicity and the speed and we didn’t want the seriousness; we wanted a little more melody and more fun and freedom.”
With album #9, there is no loss of momentum in any way, shape or form. The lyrics are still spot on while the musicianship is stellar without being overprocessed. “Ruby Church,” “Winding Up The Time” and “The Way It Is” are good examples of X in the 2020’s. With their seminal album, Los Angeles, now forty-four years down the road, you’d maybe thought a mellowing of sonics might have taken place – but you’d be wrong. Zoom and Bonebrake would never let that happen.
A few weeks ago I spoke with Doe about the new album, the new phase they are entering, the evolution of the punk scene and with him being a voracious reader, what books he has sitting on his nightstand.
You’re about to do a show tonight, how are you feeling?
Let’s see, a little wiggy, I don’t mind saying (laughs). We’ve done legs of this tour, but it was two weeks ago, and this is the hometown show for me, and it’s like, God, I hope we remember this shit (laughs). We should, but you know it takes a show or two.
For the last, let’s see, twenty-some years since Billy came back to the band, and even before that, we would do, I don’t know, sixty or seventy shows a year, so maybe away from home maybe a hundred and some days a year. As you get less young, it becomes a little bit harder. Going in and out of hotels and getting in and out of the van, three, four, five, six times a day, it’s like, aye yai yai. But our plan is to do bigger shows and fewer of them.
Will there ever be a total end of X?
Yeah, possibly. This is part of avoiding the wheels falling off tour (laughs). I don’t want to be part of THAT tour. But yeah, we still deliver and I’m proud of that. Nobody in the band wants to disrespect the legacy that we have and that’s why we made this record. Well, I think we made Alphabetland thinking, well, this will be interesting and we’ll see what happens. Then COVID happened, and we ran out of excuses because we had a producer and a record label. We did a session with Rob Schnapf, our producer, and it sounded like us and that was satisfying. So, alright, Exene and I got to work and we thought, well, we’ll see; this will probably be the last record. Then covid happened and we didn’t get a chance to really experience it touring and so forth. Alphabetland was good. I mean, there was a little bit of padding because we had some old songs that we never really gave them their due like “Cyrano DeBerger’s Back” and “Delta 88 Nightmare.” This one was more deliberate.
So you knew this going in, writing the lyrics, cause there is a lot of reflection in these songs, that you’re winding down?
I think we definitely didn’t go into this thinking, this is the last record we’ll ever do. We just started making a record and as it came together we realized that reflective quality and each one of our talents, playing and songwriting and singing, etc etc, were very well and whatever we can do we should feature it. The “Big Black X” song is kind of like what I think of as Bob Dylan’s last record, it’s past-present-future all happening at the same time, because it has all these images from the past and it talks about having an idea of what the future might be, at that time. We didn’t know the future but it turned out we had an idea what the future could be as far as music and our experience, other people’s experiences in music and things.
I’ve read where you said it was kind of difficult to make this record. In what ways?
Well, we were touring as we wrote and rehearsing, learning songs, changing songs, and maybe we’re not quite as agile as musicians, I mean as far as learning songs. But on the other hand, I’m more than willing to change the music and lyrics and melody to a song if it’s not working. Like “Big Black X,” it was pretty much written in the studio. Exene had a piece of prose and I thought it was really meaningful. How can we put this into a poetic form? Then there was a certain music that I had put to it which the chords were changing too fast and Exene said, “What if we just doubled the length each chord was played.” And there was music to the chorus and the chorus was, “We knew the future and also the gutter.” Well, that’s a little strident, to say, “We knew the future!” Fuck you, we don’t know the future (laughs). But then you switch it around cause you did know the gutter, we did know what it’s like, life on the street, and it turned out that we knew the future. So that music was also changed. Then we had to kind of piece all that together. All we kept were the drums and then we built the rest of the track around it. We’re the kind of band that has about 80% of what we’re going to put on a record rehearsed and prepared. I think it’s important to leave about 20-25% open to inspiration and the way you tell the story and the way you deliver it.
With “Winding Up The Time,” was there any major changes going on from the original version?
Those are Exene’s lyrics and sometimes it’ll just be a lot of wordplay and there is some linear part to it, but it’s mysterious. I think “Winding Up The Time” is, and we haven’t played that one very much, but that one was of the first ones that we wrote and were rehearsing. The beginning of the song is both The Plugz and The Germs at the same time. It’s a lick that reminds me of The Plugz on bass and also the Germs towards the end of that phrase. Once you look at the wordplay, you have to make something of a story about it. I think it’s just like getting in the car and going fast, is what that song is kind of about. It’s seeing things flash by really quickly and with a lot of force.
“The Way It Is” has a surreal feel to it.
I think it was the beginning of 2023 or 2022, we went on a cruise out of LA called for Outlaw Country, and God rest Jeremy Tepper and Mojo Nixon, who were a big, big part of that, but it featured all the bands from the West Coast – Social Distortion, Los Lobos, us, Lucinda Williams, of course Steve Earle and some other people, the Long Riders were part of it; people from that 80’s era. And it was a mortality check and also getting right with what you’ve done and what’s in the future. So that’s another kind of reflective thing but it’s past-present-future. Like, that’s the way it’s got to be, which is the past, and that’s the way it’s going to be, which is the future. Even though you might’ve said and done things that you’re not proud of, you have to accept that and you have to get right with it. If you don’t, then you’re regretting it and you’re going to kill yourself with regret. But I’d say it was one of those fortunate songs where everything came at the same time. And I wrote it on the boat.
I want to go back to Los Angeles, the first album. With your version of “Soul Kitchen,” what were you trying to exemplify or exert or change the meaning from what The Doors were putting out with their version? Cause there is a whole different mood thing between the two songs.
I don’t know. I think the core of it is the same. The meaning is that you’re going to stay in this place and you’re going to be a safe haven for people and yourself all night long. We just loved the song and didn’t really think one way or the other about how the meaning would be changed by being much faster. Nowadays we play this as the last song most nights, and very fitting. I guess it’s time to go, we close now, “Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen.” We want to be part of an experience so I’m going to be with you and you’re going to be with me and we’re going to remember this, hopefully.
When did you notice that the punk scene in LA was starting to disintegrate?
Oh, I don’t think it disintegrated at all. I just think it changed, it evolved. I first noticed people playing much faster than us probably in, I don’t know, 1979 or 1980. There was a band called The Middle Class and they were kind of in their look and their speed, they kind of predated Helmet. They were all these young, skinny kids with short hair and they just played incredibly fast. The Minutemen to a degree as well but The Minutemen had that kind of anything goes. It seemed as though it was haphazard but it was all very planned out with The Minutemen.
But I would guess, probably Exene and I going to see the Circle Jerks and Fear and having some youngster who was five years younger than us and thought that we were quote rock stars and gave us a bunch of shit (laughs). We were going to see our friends, people that we’d known for a long time; but people giving you attitude and you realized, oh, this is actually not a very safe place for us. You’re going to keep pushing my button and I’m going to get in a fight; or they’re going to take advantage of Exene and that’s also going to be bad. But it’s evolution. It’s like, oh you’re bad? Well, I’m bad too; you play fast? I’m going to play faster. And it so happened that the testosterone from South Bay – like Black Flag and the people that came from down there – was real because they were surfers, but the actual surfers saw punk rockers and would chase them down and beat the crap out of them – like Jack Grisham talked about. They came up with a big chip on their shoulder and I imagine the Hollywood scene was sort of exclusive to them, maybe not everybody was so accepting or inclusive to them. We were all about art and expression and things like that and they were all about kicking ass (laughs). Yeah, that’s part of it but that’s not it.
Have you been to the Punk Rock Museum in Vegas?
No, I haven’t. I kind of have been there (laughs). I kind of have a punk rock museum in my head and in my archive. They did an exhibit up in Seattle, the EXP, which is now called something else, I can’t remember, it was referred to as the Jimi Hendrix Museum. But they had a big punk rock display and there was another one Exene and I lent some stuff to up in Cornell, I think. We did an exhibit at the Grammy Museum, an X exhibit, and that was very rewarding and validating.
Jack Casady once told me that he was forever chasing tone. What has John Doe been forever chasing?
Hmm, as a musician I think I’m forever chasing a unique way to get from the verse to the chorus. That’s one of the things I like most about Smoke & Fiction. There’s a couple of cool tricky ways that we got from one place to another.
Give us an example
“The Struggle Is Surreal,” which has a funny story because it came from a friend of ours saying that phrase, and she said it to me just off-handed, and then Exene sent me some lyrics with that phrase and I thought, Oh God, this is a phrase that is a popular phrase among the kids or it’s something that people say now and Exene has just kind of stolen it and oh God, how do I tell her that this is a popular phrase (laughs). And then I realized that she heard it from the same friend. Then she asked our friend if she could use this phrase that they’ve coined, the struggle is surreal.
But the way that it goes from the verse to the chorus, it does a full step down and then another step down to establish the key to what the chorus is going to be in. The verse is in D and then the chorus is in F. I mean, this is pretty granular here (laughs) but it goes from a D to a C to a B flat. Then it does this little tricky thing going back to the D. As a musician, I’m always trying to find a different way to get around the fretboard. As a bass player, there are some pretty well-worn paths to go from one to the next, one board to another, and I’m always trying to find a new path. So in general, I’m always looking for something that’s different.
What did you love about your first bass?
Which I still have. I’m looking at it right now (laughs). I’m going to use it tonight. But everything: the sound, the neck, the fact that it’s from 1960 and that was the first year that they made Jazz basses. I bought it for $150 cause [a friend] bought it at a pawn shop for $150 in 1970 or 1971 or 1972. At that point it was only eight or nine years old. It wasn’t really an old instrument. I actually bought another one. What I didn’t like about it was that it had no paint on it so it looked like a hippie bass and I wasn’t going to play a hippie bass (laughs).
How have you liked the new age of digital recording, all these bings and whistles that really weren’t there at the beginning of X?
I’m not a purist in any way. I think Pro Tools and digital recording is just fine. It just depends on the engineer, whether they keep the eye on the prize and the prize is a recording, to make the record what is happening, to make it sound real. If it sounds overly processed, then I’m usually not a fan. I want to hear the beginning and middle and end of the story. I want the music and the people to take me there, to quote Mavis Staples. But what I have done in my solo work, what we did with this X record, is record on tape, dump it down to Pro Tools, do overdubs and then put it back on to tape; well, I’m not sure about that for mastering. But it all depends on whether the person has good ears or not that’s doing it. This record is a little harsh for me.
You were a young man at the tail end of the Vietnam War. When America was pulling out, you were about twenty. How did you feel about that?
Oh I was in the draft. I was very lucky that I got a high number when they did a lottery for the draft. But yeah, I was sweating bullets, just like everybody else. But I was very lucky that I was able to avoid that. There was a time when people were getting deferments because they were going to college and I went to college but there was no deferment. That was when they had changed to the lottery.
What are you reading right now?
I have so many books that are by the side of my bed (laughs). I just finished a Charles Portis novel that a friend of mine gave me called Norwood. A friend of mine and I had talked about True Grit and that’s such a wonderful and hilarious kind of book. And Norwood is mystifying. The main character just goes through life with no consequences and does all kinds of insane things (laughs). This is an old book. Charles Portis, his most famous book is True Grit, and I love the version the Coen Brothers did of that. It was really true to the book.
I discovered this guy, James Crumley, who is kind of a noir, more modern-day writer. A friend was giving away books, and he gave me one calledThe Last Good Kiss.It’s kind of like this insane poet who is very famous is trying to be tracked down by his wife, and they’re just tearing through Northern California/Wyoming, going from bar to bar; it’s just insane, but it’s all very noir.
Then I also have a book on The Wild Bunch, the making of that movie. I was fortunate enough to work with someone who was the Assistant Director of The Wild Bunch, and he told me some stories about it, which were just as unhinged as you can imagine (laughs) with all that testosterone and male ego with Sam Peckinpah, Warren Oates, and William Holden. He said it was just ridiculous. It’s kind of amazing that people got away with that shit. And also they just went down to Mexico and kind of did whatever they wanted. It’s kind of awful, but at the same time, you are marveling at how awful it is, how insane it is (laughs).
I’ll tell you another thing talking about, quote, character actors from that time. I re-watched Paris Texas. They did a restoration of that, and it’s been playing in theaters lately, and an incredible experience. Wim Wenders, at that point, it was a very different movie for him, and Harry Dean Stanton gives the performance that I would put up against any actor’s performance. It’s just stunning. If you have a chance to see it, even if it’s not on a movie screen, it’s an incredible movie. It’s so tender and so sad. I saw it when it came out. Harry Dean is just so vulnerable, and Natassja Kinski is so beautiful to look at, but she also gets pretty deep. But Harry Dean was a winner. He lived a long time and did exactly what the hell he wanted (laughs).
Do you know Kristin Hersh? She was in Throwing Muses and she’s from Boston. She’s got a couple books out. One is called Rat Girl. I haven’t read that one but the one after that is called Seeing Sideways. I think she has four sons and she pretty much brought them up on the road with her husband. This is a biography of that, Seeing Sideways. It’s incredible because she uses different voices for different sections, which are about different sons and their growing up.
What do you have coming up for yourself after touring with X? Do you have any plans to do some solo records?
I don’t know. I’ll probably start writing some stuff. Next year I’ve got a couple of solo shows. I’m just going to let the field go fallow and see what grows. I need some time. I mean, these tours have been pretty easy in that we don’t play every night. We play two or three nights and then have a day off; or at least a travel day. When it’s like two weeks on, two weeks off, you don’t have enough time to really get adjusted at being at home. We’re grateful but it’s like, oh shit, I’ve got to start again. I don’t know, maybe I’ll take the time to get serious about writing a memoir. I keep saying that (laughs).
Under the Big Black Sun was really fascinating. It’s your book but you have other people telling stories and that’s really cool the way you did that.
That was just, I don’t know, my Tom Sawyer idea, that other people painted the fence and then I wouldn’t have to be the authority and you get a wider range of that time and experience. That was probably the one really good idea I had for that book: not to have to do it all myself (laughs).
That’s lazy John
(laughs) Yeah but smart. What’s the phrase, don’t work harder, work smarter. You got to use what you got.
You’re doing alright physically, right?
I’m incredibly grateful, yeah; knocking on wood.
How is Billy?
He’s been cancer free for five plus years so yeah, he’s doing alright. We’re all really fortunate in that way. Every day is a good day that you’re above ground (laughs).
Portrait by Gilbert Trejo; live photograph by Leslie Michele Derrough
