Wussy Interview: Monsters, Inc.
“The magic of the modern world,” dryly quips Wussy’s Chuck Cleaver as I’ve successfully connected him and co-band-leader Lisa Walker over a three-way call. “We tend to be Luddites,” he adds. The sort of simultaneous weathered curmudgeonly sarcasm and conversational warmth Cleaver and Walker exude is exemplary of a duo who’ve been at it for a long time. A band born out of a dare to play together in 2001 (Cleaver was in Cincinnati cult heroes Ass Ponys), Wussy have released seven albums of folk-, shoegaze-, and country-tinged rock. Cleaver and Walker share vocal, guitar, and songwriting duties, while Mark Messerly plays bass and Joe Klug the drums. Recently, they’ve added John Erhardt on pedal steel. All five shine on the band’s latest full-length, the excellent What Heaven Is Like.
Heaven, like a lot of Wussy records, centers around society’s Midwestern outcasts--not who they consider the “other” but who society as a whole considers so. In context of today’s climate, the band seems all the more essential, avoiding the self-righteous trap of writing politically inspired music by channeling it through the ultra-personal consumption of culture. Walker’s songs, especially, are loosely based on everything from Fargo to Charles Burns’ Black Hole. And on the record, the band covers folk singer Kath Bloom, another outsider. “If key and musical ability are something you’re concerned with, you’re not gonna like Kath Bloom,” jokes Cleaver. “She is a wonderful writer.”
While Wussy don’t have any upcoming tour dates (they recently had to cancel a couple tour dates due to Cleaver experiencing spinal stenosis), they’ve been quite busy even besides Heaven, releasing a duo CD, Record Store Day CD, Cleaver solo record, and split single with The Paranoid Style on Bar/None. Still, it’s Heaven that will endure and remain both a document of socially inspired music in 2018 and a timeless record. Read my conversation with Cleaver and Walker, heavily edited for length and clarity, below.
Since I Left You: What about What Heaven Is Like is unique as compared to your past discography, and what about it is a continuation of your past albums?
Chuck Cleaver: It took a lot longer to make the other ones for various reasons--we kind of tried some other studios, and it worked out to varying degrees, but we were kind of away from our home turf a little bit. We got some good stuff out of it, but we decided we were more comfortable where we normally record.
It took us a little bit to actually get going. Current political stuff kind of hindered us for a while because we were all to varying degrees put off by it. But that worked its way into some of the lyrics. We explored a little more. I think we do with every record. We thought, “Let’s go even farther out of whatever limb we normally do.” The quieter songs were possibly even quieter than before.
I don’t think try is the right word, but it’s just something we naturally lean towards. We just get bored otherwise. We keep things moving and hope it’s interesting for other people.
SILY: In the opening song, “One Per Customer”, the line about the astronauts stands out: “back when astronauts had more appeal.” What did you mean by that?
CC: I was born in 1959. Throughout the 60′s, my sister and a lot of her friends wanted to marry a fuckin’ astronaut. They were new, and it was the “it” job for swingin’ guys or whatever. Now--in reality, being an astronaut is scary as hell--but it doesn’t have the appeal that it once did. Kids when they grew up wanted to be an astronaut. I don’t have any idea what they want to be now. A robot, maybe. Maybe kids just wish they were more intelligent. I don’t know. It does seem like being an astronaut used to be more of a goal.
Lisa Walker: I had an astronaut Barbie.
CC: And there was an astronaut GI Joe.
LW: But I feel like that’s not as much of a thing now.
CC: Now, everybody wants to be a fuckin’ reality star or something. Ugh. They should just be murdered in their sleep. Sorry.
SILY: “Gloria” was inspired by the character in the latest season of Fargo--it’s not the first time you’ve named an album or song title after a movie or TV show. Attica! was named after Dog Day Afternoon. Why do you like naming things after other parts of culture?
LW: My theory on this is that I think classical allusions are a little played out. We’ve already used all the biblical ones.
CC: We’re big TV advocates.
LW: I prefer TV over film generally.
CC: I prefer TV over people.
LW: I’m in that camp, too. And I watch the same things over and over again. It’s like a comfort. Almost like therapy. One of the documentaries I saw over the past couple years I really enjoyed was that brony one. I can’t remember the title. [Editor’s note: It’s Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony]. It sounds odd, but it’s pretty sweet. It’s sort of like that Bob’s Burgers episode with the Equestranauts.
LW: They talk about how a lot of people process stuff through watching television. Something made for children helps people process adults, conflicts, emotions. I kind of get that. For me, that third season of Fargo helped me process the election. It took me a while to get through it. I had to quit in the middle because it was too bleak. I was like, “This guy’s gonna win.”
CC: The thing is [in the show] he doesn’t beat her spirit.
LW: That’s my takeaway from every article. I try to come away with the long view of history. I know a spark of hope when I see it, too. And I think that TV, more than movies, is good at telling the story.
SILY: Over that many episodes and hours, over a serial thing, it allows for greater storylines and development. It’s just such a commitment, and there’s so much, it can be hard to pick.
LW: I know. Some are too intense for me, frankly, because I get too into it. I’m one episode into Season 1 of Legion, and there’s flashbacks with a puppy. I’m already like, “If they do something to that dog, I’m out.”
CC: I’m like that with animals and little kids. Unless the little kid’s an asshole--then I’m like, “Kill that son of a bitch.”
CC: Plus, I have the attention span of a gnat. Sometimes, when we’re watching a movie, I’ll get up and leave the room, and my wife will be like, “God damnit. We’re watching a fucking movie! What are you doing?” And I’m like, “Oh, I forgot.”
LW: I watch a lot of Bob’s Burgers and Parks and Recreation. Things I’ve already seen. And that stuff helps me with reality a little bit because there’s a kindness to it.
CC: There’s kind of a not-kindness to it too that keeps it funny. Bob’s Burgers is a very irreverent show. But in a sweet way.
SILY: What else helps you process and come to terms with the world around you?
LW: For me, I listen to a lot of Gang of Four and Wire. Their anger is soothing.
CC: Just being in a band. My wife always notices I get really grumpy when we don’t play for a while. [Lisa and I] both for varying degrees buy lots of junk--not really junk--but vintage stuff. We both collect all kinds of things. Going to antique malls and fairs and stuff like that is very therapeutic for me. I don’t even have to buy anything. Just walking around and seeing the tritest of people’s lives is interesting to me.
SILY: That’s exactly what my girlfriend does. She just organized her so-called “cabinet of curiosities” with her knick-knacks and what not.
CC: That’s it. Organizing and reorganizing things, looking at each thing and wondering whether it’s haunted or not. It’s just interesting to me. It provides great joy. I just posted a picture on Facebook--I found an old rat trap with Mickey Mouse’s picture on it. [To Lisa] You actually found it first, I think.
LW: Why would you put Mickey Mouse on a rat trap? That makes no sense.
CC: Exactly. But it’s just beautiful. Like, “Oh my god. Who thought of this?!?” That keeps me going. It made my entire week.
SILY: There’s a clip of Tom Waits on Letterman from a few years ago wherein he for no reason brought a rat trap from the 1800′s. He didn’t explain why he had it--he just had it. It makes me crack up every single time.
CC: It’s just fascinating. Especially when it’s something that’s mass produced. I’ll never get over some of the stuff we found created by individuals, but the idea that a group of people got together in a board room or wherever and thought, “This rat trap with Mickey Mouse on it is going to be a good idea” is just great to me. Wow. This mass hallucination of people thinking it’s the right thing to do.
LW: It’s like the Middle Ages dance hysteria. Where people did something in hysteria until they died--like dancing. There are paeans with the Pied Piper of Hamelin where they think something happened like that. If you look in the town records of Hamelin, they say, “It’s been such and such years since our children went away.” And they don’t know what it means. There’s a stained glass that told the story.
CC: That’s some X-Files shit.
LW: You could also make correlations with acts of terror now. You read and think, “Why would somebody do that?” It’s crazy.
SILY: You can be fascinated and talk about how crazy the past is, but part of me thinks you can’t judge it at all because we do shit that in a number of years is just as crazy if not crazier.
CC: Imagine two generations from now people looking back at our political atmosphere and wondering, “Those motherfuckers were nuts. What the hell were they thinking?”
LW: I always love watching movies made before cell phones because people actually look around. You see their face. Now, if everyone’s not on their phones, it seems disingenuous somehow. You’re like, “That’s not real.”
SILY: I was waiting for the train the other day, and some guy was talking on the phone and very purposely and loudly saying, “I’m trying to engage with these people and they’re all on their phones!” Part of me was like, “Nobody wants to talk you to, it’s early.” But there was a certain extent to which he was right.
CC: And, you’re on the phone, [too].
SILY: Back to the record. It seemed like it had a much darker instrumental tone than previous records. Was that at all an intention or observation on your end?
CC: It was probably just a product of the time in which it was made, I’m guessing. We don’t ever talk about that stuff. We never say, “Let’s put in the devil’s chord,” or “the brown note” or anything.
LW: If we could, we would, though.
CC: Especially the brown note. The idea of our record making people poop their pants is just great.
CC: Again, we don’t discuss much. We just do it. However it comes out is how it comes out. I know that seems strange. We’re just not that kind of a band.
LW: You know what it is, though. It’s a product of what we listen to. If we’re listening to a lot of Yo La Tengo--particularly their darker stuff, as I do--that’s gonna come out in what I play. Not like I’m trying to copy it. It’s just by osmosis.
CC: And I’ve watched a lot of black metal documentaries this year. [laughs] There’s probably that. It’s just interesting to me. I don’t listen to the music much or at all. I could watch a documentary on practically anything.
SILY: Any good ones in particular?
CC: If you go on YouTube--I’m terrible at remembering titles--there’s a couple that are really informative. They’re always kind of funny. Any time I see someone in corpse makeup, it just makes me giggle. At the same time, they seem very genuine and into it, so I can’t make fun of it too much. It’s no less relative than what we do.
SILY: Lisa, how do you like the new Yo La Tengo record?
LW: I haven’t heard it yet. I’ve only heard one song. I’m looking forward to it. My favorite Yo La Tengo record is Electr-O-Pura, if that gives you a sense of the ones I like. I like them all, but the ones that tend towards that. I think that record is kind of dark. A lot of singable noise. You could hum that record. Some of their stuff is so monotone--the I Can Hear the Heart Beating era. Like that song “Demons” of theirs from one of their covers records. I tend to like their dark stuff, so I’m hoping it goes in that direction.
SILY: It’s pretty droney.
SILY: One song is in that great tradition of sweet, fuzzed out bliss like “Tom Courtenay”. I think it’s one of their best songs. The rest is kind of atmospheric.
LW: Sounds like Yo La Tengo. I will be happy.
SILY: The song on the new Wussy record “Tall Weeds”--
LW: We’ve played that more than any of them.
CC: We’ve been playing that for almost two years. Since the end of Forever Sounds.
SILY: The delivery in the vocal tone reminded me of Nick Cave.
LW: Sweet. That’s always a compliment.
CC: Thanks. I can think I’m skinnier and more handsome now.
SILY: The line, “Are you afraid of all the monsters in the folding metal chairs,” on the final song “Black Hole”--
CC: Best line on the record.
SILY: What’s the story behind it?
LW: Since “Tall Weeds” was kind of born out of Black Hole, that graphic novel by Charles Burns, I was having trouble knowing what to write about on this record. So I thought, “Let’s just make a whole suite about that.” Chuck had already gotten the ball rolling, and I had to write my half. If you haven’t read [Black Hole], it’s about this mysterious disease that afflicts people graduating from high school in this town. It’s like an STD, but people mutate. Not so much X-Men style--they become lizard skin or part animal. Some people grow a tale. Some guy grows a mouth on his neck that talks and tells his secrets.
CC: [laughs] It’s an amazing graphic novel.
LW: It touches on fear of aging, growing up, fear of change. I just thought about what that graduation would look like. But it rang true to me because of the climate, challenging my perceptions of people.
CC: Where it hit with me is I can remember my graduation, looking out on all those dunce faces and thinking, “What a bunch of fuckin’ assholes, I’m getting out of here.”
LW: That feeling of alienation from everything from your own body to your neighbors. Because even though those people mutate, they’re still the same people. And that’s the key. It just sort of brings out what’s already dormant in their spirit. They turn into something that makes them want to act out.
CC: You and I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Different places. But all I thought about was getting the hell out of there when I was 18.
LW: Me too. I don’t like to downplay where I’m from.
CC: I respect where I’m from and respect the people, but I didn’t belong there. I was afraid of all the monsters.
SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the album title?
LW: One day, when I was walking in the studio, I was thinking about this tweet from Donald Trump. He was shit-posting all day. After all of the shit-posting and talking about hating people, there was something like, “Oh, read this new book!” I forgot what the title was, but it was something along the lines of “what heaven is like.” “Read it today! Beautiful.” Are you serious? [laughs] It was so gross, but so funny. It was like Onion level. I got the title wrong. It’s not “What heaven is like.” It’s A Place Called Heaven. [The rest of the band] laughed so hard. They were like, “That’s the title.”
CC: Then we found an old postcard and ran it through some filters and that’s how we came up with the cover.
SILY: Are you still ingrained in the Cincinnati music scene?
LW: I think so. I never really was that much. I’m really less so now but just because I don’t go out a lot. I save my going out for being on tour. I don’t go to a lot of shows. It’s not because I don’t like music. I just don’t like going out socially much.
CC: We have two band members who are a little more social than me, Lisa, and John. We never go anywhere, pretty much.
LW: We do, but with our own families. I get together with Chuck and his wife or John and his wife.
CC: Mark and Joe tend to be our butterflies. [laughs] Our rhythm section.
LW: I go out on the road, and that’s sort of how I get it out of my system.
