Rockers Unite For New Album
Hey, kids! Don’t try this at home.
Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, trying to pass the time while a band was setting up to record a track for Mike Watt’s solo album, decided to do some Dumpster-diving in an alley behind a California studio.
Vedder found a discarded wet suit and, in a weird attempt at inspiration, put it on while recording the antinostalgia rant, “Against the ‘70s.”
Unfortunately, the wet suit was crawling with bugs, which Vedder discovered in front of the microphone with the tape rolling. He tried to yank the suit off, lending a certain desperation to his vocals.
Watt, a punk rock pioneer with the Minutemen and Firehose, raided his address book for a record that contains an all-star lineup of 1990s alternative rock. Besides Vedder, the album features Henry Rollins and members of Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., the Screaming Trees, Soul Asylum, Lemonheads and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Watt called it his wrestling record - he dared anyone to get in the ring with him.
The result is a combination of straight-ahead rock songs with jazzier, more eclectic material. He decided to emphasize the songs and the talents of his collaborators rather than his instrument. Watt plays the bass.
“The idea of a bass solo record is kind of ridiculous,” he said. “When I think of that, it’s like a fusion instructional video.”
Watt and his best friend, D. Boon, grew up together in San Pedro, Calif. In a twist on the parental cliche of yelling at children to turn down the racket, D. Boon’s mother bought the two boys instruments to keep them off the streets.
Unknowingly, she gave birth to a career. The Minutemen were among the leaders of a do-it-yourself, hardcore style of American punk rock in the early 1980s. Black Flag, Husker Du and the Meat Puppets were friends and fellow travelers.
The Minutemen ended abruptly with Boon’s 1985 death in an auto accident. Firehose was formed when a guitarist and Minutemen fan, Ed Crawford, showed up at Watt’s house to persuade him to work through his grief by getting back on the road.
Their band, Firehose, recently disbanded after recording four albums.
“Toward the end of Firehose, I really felt like I was on autopilot, cruise control, which was bizarre for me,” Watt said. “I’d gotten into music to be with people. It was a real passionate thing, a vital thing. I felt like I was cheating my whole tradition in a way.”
For inspiration, he wanted to do something completely different. For a man used to making records on the cheap with just a few friends, that meant spending time on a recording and involving as many people as possible.
Few turned him down. In the process, he discovered through the enthusiasm of a new generation that a lot more people than he thought had been listening in the early 1980s.
The Minutemen was an extension of his friendship with Boon. Similarly, Firehose enabled Watt to get over Boon’s death. His new record “Ball-hog or Tugboat?” was therapy for the musical blahs.
Watt may be about to return Crawford’s favor, in a way.
He’s going on tour - at his typically leisurely pace of 33 performances in 35 days - with the musicians in Foo Fighters. That’s the band led by Dave Grohl, Nirvana’s former drummer, who is playing guitar and singing with Watt.
Watt can relate, to a point, with what Grohl is coping with following the death of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain.
“I was lucky, because Minutemen was kind of small,” he said. “There were old Minutemen fans who looked at me and measured Firehose. But for Dave, (it’s different) because he got taken to this big public arena and all this other stuff that isn’t really real. He has to keep going.
“He has got such a neat attitude,” he said. “He’s like a light bulb in a dark room. He’s all smiles and ready to play. I think in a way, by playing with Watt, he can say these are my own terms.”
Fans should be prepared for some wild shows. Watt said his band is ready to take some chances. “I want the kids in the audience to be almost as scared as we are.”