Interview by Wendy WWAD, Photos by Gwendolyn Norton (Shots #2, 4, 7), Vlern (Shot #1), Icedrelics (Shot #3), and Richard Smith (Shot #5)
WW: How did you guys hook up?
Charlie:
Well, Richard had been talking about getting a band together, nothing too
serious…And he had some guys that were interested but that fell through. So he
asked me if I knew anyone that played bass and I said well, Jimmy plays bass. We
showed up and made some rock music and it went from
there.
WW: How do you and Jimmy know each
other?
Charlie: We’ve been playing in a band together for
about 15 years calledDown Syndrome Army.
WW: Who was singing at that
point?
Richard: Well, you have to scroll back about 3 years.
I met Jessie when she was singing withBoxcar Satan. We met at Taco Land (rest in peace,
Ram!) and started conversing back and forth online. So when we got this
together, I invited her up to sing some songs and write some lyrics. She came up
and we recorded the first song over at Hawkins’ house. Then we recorded the next
several over at my house. This was when we put together the Swastikittens, which was me, Jessie, Kevin
Stack (Gorch Fock) and Joey Whip. That ended up being 3
rehearsals, 2 gigs and then Kevin moved back to L.A. So when I started jamming
with Charlie and Jimmy I got back in touch with Jessie and said we’ve got this
little thing we’ve started and some new stuff, do you want to come up and check
it out? We started with a couple of Kitten tunes and she came in and rocked out.
It went from this is kind of cool to this is REALLY cool. I remember Jimmy
saying after the 1st rehearsal, “I’ve never been in a band with a real lead
singer before…it makes a huge difference!” Basically we did that every Sunday
for 6 weeks, then we recorded the demo, then Jimmy went on an anthropology trip,
and when he got back we played our first gig. One of the goals for me from early
on was to put this together for fun. We started in Jan. 2011. We did the demo,
by the end of the year we had about 10 gigs under our belt and since then things
have really started to pick up. At the end of Feb. we finished recording our
first record out at Yellow Dog Studios and we’re just waiting
on the final product.
WW: Yellow Dog
Studios?
Richard: It’s normally a country studio and the guy
that’s producing it is predominantly a country producer. He had 20 songs chart
last year. One of them made it to top 40 on the country
charts.
WW:How did you hook up with him?
Richard: Through electrical work and my good friend Dr.
Edward Robinson who kind of pulled the strings to get this thing
happening.
WW: So when is the release
date?
Richard: I’d say 3 weeks to a
month.
Jimmy: The thing is, it’s not coming out until we
think it’s right!
Charlie: We don’t
know!
Jimmy: We’re not giving our public an inferior
product.
Richard: And we’re doing digital download and vinyl
only. We’re not going to mess with CD’s.
WW: How did the
recording go?
Jimmy: Well, Jessie is amazing. I’ve never
ever in my life seen someone recording live tracks over instruments in the
studio that cut all the right vocals…every fucking
song.
Charlie: No scratch take…take
1.
Jimmy: No one does that. It’s unheard
of…
Richard: Yeah, when we were setting up in the studio he
asked if we wanted to do a scratch track on the vocals and I said, “No. She
wants to do the vocals live with the band”. He looked at me like, oh okay. But
then when we were doing playback it was spot on. Raw talent…I recognized it
right away. The first time I recorded with her I thought, that was really easy.
I thought it was going to be an all-day thing and a couple of hours later we
were just sitting there going wow!
Jimmy: Yeah, I’ve never
been in a creative environment where I can bring all my, Whoa! Wacky! odd ideas
and feel okay about it. It might get vetoed later but this band is a great
mixture of creative problem solving and the freedom to be
creative.
Jessie: It’s like rock-n-roll
therapy.
WW: Earlier, you guys mentioned Thunder Points.
What are Thunder Points?
Jessie: Well when the band does
good or somebody does something real good then they get like 50 krillion thunder
points!
Charlie: It’s 1 or 2 thunder points,
sorry.
Jessie: No, sometimes you can get a
krillion.
WW: Who has the most of
them?
Jimmy: Well, we don’t really keep score. The point is
getting the thunder points. It’s not really about how many you
have.
Charlie: Like if we’re working on a song 
and
somebody throws in a really good idea or a cool part then they get a thunder
point.
WW: How does the song writing process come
about?
Richard: It’s very much collaboration. Usually what
happens is one of us will bring in an idea, either a recorded sketch or just an
idea, that may show the parts. I don’t think anyone ever intentionally brings it
in as a complete thing. They bring it in as an idea that’s not fully realized,
and although it may be in our minds we don’t present it as such. We throw it out
there and things happen by accident and things happen by intention. The last
song we wrote I brought in a pretty complete idea and immediately Jimmy threw a
key change into it. I would have never thought to do that but it was totally
cool.
WW: Did he get a thunder point for
it?
Richard: Most definitely. Jessie writes most of the
lyrics, I’d say 99% or 90%…whatever. It’s a very collaborative effort. If we run
into problems, we’ll pull out one of Brian
Eno’s oblique strategies and see if that solves
it.
Jimmy: Richard is obviously such a master at percussion, but
it takes someone equally as good, and adventurous to play these parts. If
Charlie was less of a drummer, Richard would be sitting there saying, here…do
this!
Richard: Charlie’s awesome! I often like to joke that
I got demoted to guitar.
Jimmy: Everyone is unique and
brings their own thing to the table.
Jessie: But we all come
together and have this…
Jimmy:
Synergy.
Jessie: Synergetic, that’s the perfect
word.
Richard: I see us all as equals. It’s a 25%
contribution although it might be different contributions and different jobs at
different times. What matters is that we’re all contributors and that
everybody’s happy with it. It’s not the Richard Smith band. This is not Crust Jr., this is the Bipolar
Gentlemen.
WW: How did you guys come up with the
name?
Richard: The name strikes really close to home. We’re
all a little off. We’re all probably bipolar, and two of us (Jessie and Charlie)
are clinically diagnosed bipolar.
Jimmy: And I’m
dateable!
Richard: And we all try to be
polite.
Jessie: So we’re the Bipolar
Gentlemen.
Charlie: When Richard first came up with the name
we thought, well that’s a joke! That’s not real!
Jessie: We
hated the name at first.
Richard: We actually used an
oblique strategy. We talked to someone else about it and they said it’s a unique
name, it’s appropriate for the band, no one else has it and I think it’s a good
name. Also, when you Google a name like Crust you come up with
the earth’s crust, pizza crust, pie crust…as much as Crust is a unique name, it
was watered down from Church of Crust or Jesus
Crust…
Charlie: It was Body of
Crust.
Richard: That’s right.
WW: Where
do you guys come up with all your crazy
instruments?
Charlie: Well, Richard used to be in this band
called Miracle Room which was a very interesting, and they
had all kinds of crazy percussion and just weirdness, and we incorporated
that with a standard trap kit.
Jimmy: We throw in some dump
truck equipment.
WW: And
the slide guitars?
Richard: Well, remember in
Crust (there’s that name again) we used a spring and played it
like a slide guitar? It works really great when you’ve got a guy up there in a
diaper screaming at the top of his lungs. It does not work when you’ve got a
beautiful woman that sings on pitch and in key. Basically, with the bass all the
strings are tuned to the same note, is played like a spring but it’s actually in
pitch. The guitar is like a lap steel but is really a beat up Telecaster. So
that’s kind of a Texas thing.
Charlie: And you get a lot of
subtle nuances out of that. Richard does this thing where it sounds like a
guitar but when you watch him play it’s like, what the fuck is he doing? What is
that? And Jimmy plays bass with a pencil…how fucking cool is
that?
Richard: There’s a lot of stuff from Home Depot in
there, and I design and build the tube amps. My amp is an old Montgomery Ward
amp on the outside, but is all Richard on the inside.
WW: So
if you were on the road and something broke you could fix
it?
Richard: I’m pretty amazing with duct
tape.
Jessie: He is amazing with duct
tape.
Charlie: Winging it is definitely one of our stronger
points.
Richard: We call it residential music. We’re going
to expand on it too. It comes from the Home Depot, not the industrial
depot.
Jessie: But nobody knows what residential
means!
WW: Do you guys have plans to
tour?
Richard: We want to go to Europe really badly. We’re
working on the regional thing, but it’s just not economical to tour the states.
We’re not going to go to Chicago and play for pizza. Going to Houston and
playing for a pizza? That’s doable. At least you’re not going to come back
pawning stuff.
Charlie: We’re open to booking and
management.
Jessie: Plus we’re waiting for our record to
come out!
Charlie: If we get some good promotion…that’s one
of the biggest setbacks for every band, even good bands. And I can say with
pride in my heart that we’re a good fucking band.
Richard:
The other thing is that the market is down.
Jimmy: But we’re
trying to adapt to that.
Charlie: That’s the whole reason
we’re not going to do the CD thing. We’re going to do vinyl. If you want to
purchase a physical representation of what we are you’re going to get artwork,
you’re going to get lyrics, and you’re going to get an album of kickass fucking
music. We do have a website (http://www.bipolargentlemen.com/)
with a downloadable demo on it now.
WW:
So the Austin music scene has changed quite a bit since back in the day. What do
you like / dislike the most about it?
Jessie (from
Satantonio): You guys go ahead and get this one. I’ll sit here and
quip.
Richard: Nah, you can I answer
it.
Jessie: I just want to quip.
Quip!
Charlie: What I like about Austin is that there’s
really beautiful people, really beautiful people.
Jessie:
Women.
Charlie: Men, women
alike.
Jessie: Women.
Charlie: Which is
a perfect recipe for a great fucking crowd…What pisses me about fucking Austin?
Is that you get treated like a piece of shit. It didn’t used to be that way. It
used to be that if the band was fucking awesome you were probably going to get
laid and it’d be fucking cool. Now, and I don’t know what happened and I’m not
trying to be negative or anything but what I’ve noticed is that it’s almost like
you’re a pain in the ass for showing up to play. I think that people are
obsessed with over stacking bills just because it’s fucking Austin and there’s a
thousand fucking bands chomping at the bit to play.
Richard:
I want to chime in on this. I think it’s a matter of supply and demand. Austin’s
always had this great supply, but there’s not so much of a demand now. When I
first moved to Austin and you wanted to play a show you only needed to know one
guy, Brad First. Now I have a 2 page list of clubs that we could play in this
town. There’s a huge supply but not as much demand. There’s so many bands and so
many of them are willing to do it for free that that’s what they’ve come to
expect. The thing that makes me the maddest is pay to
play.
Jessie:Quip!
Richard: The first time I was approached with this via email
was when a club said if you don’t bring in this amount of people, you’re going
to owe the club this amount of money. I just about lost it. I was so happy to
get a response and was like, cool! We can play there? But then I’d have to put
$150 down?
Charlie: The other thing is that there’s a gap.
There’s the old school fans that know all the bands we do, from the 90’s on.
Like our own band, it’s always the same fucking people that show
up.
Jimmy: There’s a disconnect between Austin music and the
newer, younger crowd. I don’t know where the disconnect is. We need to connect
to the other audience. We’re at the point where we have a good draw; we don’t
have to prove that we can draw. Our problem is getting across to the new
dynamic.
Richard: One cool thing about the music scene is
that there’s still new bands springing up. Angel Babies
yesterday blew me away. I had never heard of them, I’m 48, I walked in and Boom!
There’s a cool band right in front of me. So Austin’s still got that. I don’t
get out as much as I used to but when I do there’s usually some good
surprises.
WW: Jessie, the first time I saw you onstage, you
were so intense it was almost scary. Is your intention to scare the
audience?
Jessie: Naw, I’m just who I am. I’m an intense
person. The reason I think I’m so intense is because of my dystonia, which is a
neurological disorder. I’m actually disabled because of it. I think the dystonia
kind of fuels it. I’m very passionate about music and am actually a classically
trained opera singer. Combine that with the dystonia and the goddammit I’m
fucking disabled and…
WW: When I first saw you I thought
she’s so hot and so scary.
Jessie: When I first saw you I
thought she’s so hot and so scary!
WW: When I first saw you
I told Richard, “Wow, your singer is a great actress!” And he replied, “Oh it’s
not an act. That’s just Jessie”.
Jessie: No it’s not an act.
It’s just me purging my fucking shit out.
Richard: She’s
just naturally gifted.
WW: Do you use any effects on your
voice.
Jessie: Just a little bit of
reverb.
WW: If you were on tour do you think you’d be able
to maintain that vocal level and still be able to sing every
night.
Jessie: Traditional, medicinal throat coat tea. It
brings your voice right back. If you scream, drink that and your voice comes
right back the next day. That and ensure, the best hangover cure
ever!
WW: If Bipolar Gentlemen had a mission statement what
would it be?
Jessie: I’m going to go with Charlie and say,
“To confuse and enlighten”.
Richard: Think and have
fun.
Jimmy: Wrangle honeybees and get them back into a happy
place.
Jessie: We care about the
bees!
WW: What can we expect from Bipolar Gentlemen in
2012?
Richard: A really good record!
WW: What would you
like people to leave a BPG show with?
Jessie:I would like
audiences to leave in an extreme state of confused bliss.
Bipolar Gentlemen are: Front Freak Femalian Jessie – Lead Vocals & Keyboards, Richard Smith – Guitars, Jimmy St. Germaine – Basses, and Charlie Void – Percussion
