 |
Luna's Dean Wareham Forgives Me For Loving Guns N' Roses
by Joanna Lux
exclusive photos by Alexis Scherl
 Talking on the phone with Dean Wareham from New York on "a bitterly cold day," I ask, "so, you're probably over this question, but about Lou Reed...," but he interrupts me before I can finish. "Oh, I thought you were going to ask me about the Guns N' Roses cover," he says. Excellent idea.  Since Mr. Wareham is not a particular fan of GNR, I gather that "Sweet Child O' Mine," the closing song on Luna's new album, Days of Our Nights, was recorded at the suggestion of their ex-label, Elektra. I admit that I love Guns, I mean, Appetite for Destruction detonated when I was 15, and hearing "Sweet Child O' Mine" so tastefully redone "takes me away to that special place." A very civilized Mr. Wareham replies, "why thank you, it is a good song, you can be forgiven for loving them."
Analyzing for the fun of it, Mr. Wareham and Axl Rose's backgrounds compare like heaven and hell. Mr. Wareham, a New Zealand native but raised in Manhattan, attended the finest educational institutions, including Harvard. Growing up in an urbane environment was, "fun, good private schools, if you can afford it. It has advantages and disadvantages I guess." Mr. Rose dropped out of high school in small-town Lafayette, Indiana, spent three months in jail for brawling and hitchhiked to LA to seek the rock 'n' roll dream. Eventually, he became rock royalty, and then his band exploded. Mr. Wareham has enjoyed a solid, though commercially unremarkable, career. I doubt any of his bandmates ever shot up with Nikki Sixx in Hollywood. Never overbearing, Luna's refined jamming is accessible from the first note, and immediately lures in new listeners.
|
|  |
|
|
Luna's latest and greatest, Days of Our Nights, is a fascinating album - hypnotic, enigmatic, and catchy. Their catalog includes 1993's Slide EP (which features a cover of The Velvet's "Ride Into the Sun"), and Lunapark ("the worst one," according to Mr. Wareham), '94's Bewitched, (with VU's Sterling Morrison contributing his majestic guitar playing on the standout "Friendly Advice" and "Great Jones Street"), '95's Penthouse (which made the 150 best albums of the 90s in Rolling Stone and features Television guitarist Tom Verlaine), '96's Luna EP and '97's euphoric Pup Tent.
Days had a long, hard climb to the American record shelves. Beggars Banquet, their European distributor, released it on schedule overseas in May '99.  Elektra Records continually flip-flopped on their decision to keep Luna and dropped Days, even after advance copies were sent to the press. The long-awaited album finally arrived at U.S. stores in October '99, courtesy of New York indie Jericho, which is "a more enthusiastic company than Elektra - Elektra gives up after three weeks every time," according to Mr. Wareham.
In that magical summer after high school, Mr. Wareham began playing music and started a band "badly, but then seriously a couple of years after graduating college. Damon and I played together in college, we sucked, it was a different band [than Galaxie 500]." Galaxie 500 formed in '87 in Boston with Damon Krukowski on drums and Naomi Yang on bass. Is it weird for Mr. Wareham that Galaxie 500 still has a fervent cult following? "It's not weird, maybe in Japan it is a bit weird."
In 1991, after leaving Galaxie 500, Mr. Wareham signed a demo deal with Elektra and recruited friend Justin Harwood, former member of The Chills, on bass, and guitarist Sean Eden joined via an ad in the Village Voice. A few years later, Lee Wall lucked out and replaced original drummer Stanley Demeski (of The Feelies) after working at RPM studios (where Penthouse was recorded) making coffee and sweeping the supply closet.
|
| |
|
|
|
With such a diverse pool of players, how do you all get along?
"Well it interesting you should ask that. Justin, our bass player is taking a temporary leave of absence, gone back to New Zealand 'cause he got a lady in trouble - no...it's his wife! They are getting ready to have a baby soon, so our upcoming shows are with a different bass player. You get the first scoop on that."
[Matt Quigley, formerly of Vaganza, and Skunk, will fill in on the bass guitar.]
Are you comfortable with that?
"It's little strange after all these years, but its rock-n-roll isn't it?"
Will Justin come back?
"I think he is, who knows, it's a long way away."
On January 27th, Luna performed at Cisero's Nightclub in Salt Lake City during the Slamdance Film Festival, started by folks who can't get their films into Sundance.
How was it? Did you see any films?
"I saw 1.5 films, stayed in the lodge, watched TV. Saw 'celebrities' like Tammy Faye Bakker, John Lydon a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, Charlie Sheen, it's like being in LA - but a microcosm of stars parading up and down the street."
[What was punk doing in Utah? Julien Temple's "The Filth and the Fury," a Sex Pistols documentary touted as "the band's version of the band's story," premiered at Sundance Film Festival.]
Are you very inspired by films?
"Sometimes I steal things from films, sure like 'Bobby Peru.' "
The Pup Tent track is named after a character in "Wild At Heart" from master of all things artfully bizarre-and-creepy, David Lynch. [No strangers to soundtracks, Luna did a tantalizing version of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" for "I Shot Andy Warhol" and a poignant cover of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" for "Mr. Jealousy."]
Is Luna indeed a reference to a Bertolucci film?
"I was probably lying - I remember when I was in high school they were casting that movie and they came to my school looking for people, it wasn't a very good movie."
[Also inspired by great works of fiction, a Penthouse song, and Luna's publishing company, are both titled, "Moon Palace," after Paul Auster's riveting novel of the same name - a book you fight exhaustion to stay awake reading. Currently on Mr. Wareham's nightstand is Victor Bockris' biography of Andy Warhol which he claims has "all the dirt and much more."]
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
Do you ever see any shows?
"Sometimes. I saw the Flaming Lips recently, we played with Stereolab in Spain... that was fun...."
[Penthouse features a secret hidden track, a spooky duet with Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, a cover version of Serge Gainsbourg's "Bonnie and Clyde."]
"I tried to see Suicide. I was supposed to be on the guestlist, but I wasn't, it was so cold I didn't want to deal with it and just went home."
[Avant-garde Suicide led the pre-punk '70s CBGB scene in New York. They must be very influential on Mr. Wareham, since he penned "23 Minutes in Brussels" after Suicide's "23 Minutes Over Brussels," which is practically a historical landmark.]
Mr. Wareham definitely has eclectic musical tastes. His current favorites include Icelandic space-rockers Sigur Ros, Cat Power's Covers Record, and Canto Morricone Vols 1 and 3, "a fantastic collection of songs written by Ennio Morricone from the '60s and '70s."
I hear you're a Jonathan Richman fan, did you ever see The Modern Lovers?
"I never saw the original line-up of the Modern Lovers. I was too young. I have seen Jonathan many times... he's crazy. I do not like how Ric Ocasek produced his new album though, all synthesizers and stuff. Better to see him live."
|
|  |
|
|
|
Is mainstream success as a band an important goal?
"It would be interesting, sure I might even like it."
Even superstar level?
"I'm sure there is nothing particularly fun about that, maybe there would be in a demented sort of way, it would be nice to sell more records for financial security."
Any particular cities you'd like to hit while touring?
"San Francisco has great venues, Bimbos, Great American Music Hall, The Fillmore... It really is the best place. Chicago and New York too."
Luna rock out in concert. I loved listening to your in-studio performances on KCRW too. Live shows make new fans. Have you considered touring more?
"That is what touring is for, I suppose. Yeah, we are different live. Maybe you are right, but touring is hard, some bands become huge like the hippie bands Phish, Blues Traveler, all that kind of stuff...maybe we should we get on that bandwagon. We play around the northeast, to make money sometimes - long tours need label support. I don't know, if you have to earn your living out playing shows... We will be returning to the Fillmore in San Francisco on April 1st and 2nd during our spring tour.
Back to Lou Reed... I saw Lou Reed play acoustic at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit in '97. I was speechless; I didn't think anyone could follow him.
"Oh really, he did one of those? We opened for the Velvet Underground on their European tour that summer (in '93)."
Oh, I have that Live '93 CD...
"I'm not really into it, the double-live record from '69 is the one, Lou's voice is much better back then."
After we hung up, I listened to "Pale Blue Eyes" on the '69 and then the '93 CDs. I decided that I prefer the '93 version because Lou's voice takes me away to another "special place" where I can distinctly recall the chills I felt watching him perform live at the Bridge School Concert. The '69 version is too surreal, a version from a long time ago that's hard to grasp, a party I was born too late to be a part of. In life, and rock 'n' roll, timing is everything. Serendipitously, my stars are aligned with Luna.
* Stay in touch with Luna via their new website: www.fuzzywuzzy.com *
|
|
|
|
|
