Doug Gillard
After The Voices Have Gone
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NATN: So I just got Salamander and spun it a couple times. Can you tell me how you recorded it?
Doug Gillard: I basically just went into a studio in Kent, Ohio, and brought some reels of tape down with me. It was a two-inch, 24-track machine we recorded on. I played pretty much everything on it, except on three songs, John Wurster plays drums, and I hired a violin player for the string parts. It didn't get done right away -- it was a work in progress for many months. There was a lot of GBV touring.
NATN: Did you get part-ways on songs and have to finish them later?
DG: Yeah, sometimes. There was a good stretch of time where I got a lot done and some songs were almost all finished. Or sometimes I would go back and do just all drums one day or something. And then I had to wait to mix a lot of the stuff, but eventually I got it done.
NATN: Do you enjoy that kind of recording vs. a band setup?
DG: I don't know if I prefer it, but when it comes to my own stuff, I know what all the parts should be, so it's easier to just go around and add all the parts. Although, I'm not the greatest drummer, but I sorta know the part I want for the song. And I can execute most of my ideas on drums. I do like the band setup too, because you can get stuff done quicker. But there's less explaining to people what's in your head, and what sound you want. For me it's easier to work with an engineer and just say, 'start recording' and just work with him one-on-one and get the sounds I want and just do it.
NATN: When you're writing the songs, do you formulate it all in your head before going into the studio?
DG: Mostly, I did, yeah. Mostly they were formed and I knew what I wanted on every song. And also some of the songs were old; I'd had demos of them for a few years. some of them were brand-new right before I went into record. I just kinda chose a batch of tunes. And some of the songs, or some of the sounds, I got the idea for at the time of recording or during recording, or maybe one day I just decided to try something because some instrument was lying around the studio.
NATN: I know you've done a lot of solo-ish stuff in the past. Malamute Jute, Gem and other songs you've written, but what inspired you to release the debut Doug Gillard solo album?
DG: I don't know, I guess I just kind of realized one day 'man, I've never had a full-length album out under my name. Maybe I should finally go ahead and do that.' And I asked myself 'well, what's the harm?' I guess none. So, you know, I just decided it was high time for that. I'd waited too long already.
NATN: Are you planning to tour it?
DG: Yeah. I don't have anything planned yet, anything extensive. Probably some dates here and there. I don't know yet who I'm gonna have play on it, but I know some people. I applied to South By Southwest. Hopefully they'll accept my application, give me a slot. I don't know. I don't put too much stock in that sort of thing. Festivals or seminars, whatever you call them. There's always a million things going on at the same time. Some people can't catch your set because they have to be down in the street, to see whoever else is being hyped up. but they're also fun, and maybe some folks will come check it out.
NATN: What other post-GBV musical plans do you have?
DG: Other than this, I'll be working on music for films. I know a couple different people who have film projects they want me to either score or be musical director on. And eventually I'd like to put out another record of my own stuff. But I'm in no rush to record that anytime soon.
NATN: Any reviving of Gem in the cards?
DG: No. Unfortunately, no. I'd like to release an odds-and-ends CD though. There's a lot of Gem stuff that was recorded but never released. There were small compilations that were limited pressings. There was a magazine called Cle that was out in the mid-'90s. It was actually a zine that started in the '70s in the heyday of Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys. He folded it and then revived it in the mid-'90s, and Gem was on three of those. It was a magazine that came with a CD, every time. A CD of mainly just all Cleveland bands. He only pressed up 500 each time, so not many people have heard that stuff. And you know, little things that never came out. I'd like to put something together of 'the best of the rest of', you know, something like that. I don't know how I'd release it; probably just put it out on a Web site or something. But I haven't looked into the logistics of that as yet, that's just something in the back of my head I'd like to do with the Gem stuff. Cuz there were a lot of good songs.
NATN: Well, how's the GBV tour going?
DG: It's going well. We just had a... we were on the road, and our tour plans got cut short because a good friend of ours passed away in Dayton. So we came back for the services and everything and we're gonna have to reschedule those dates. But the shows have been going really great. They've mostly been all selling out. People want to get their last viewing of the band, I guess. It's been a good time; people are showing a lot of love for the band, and hopefully we're giving it back.
NATN: We're in New York and I was at that Hudson Pier show.
DG: Oh really? All reports I heard of that show were really great. Everyone says the sound was really good, and I'm pleased to hear that. A lot of times the sound can be really dodgy outside, but apparently that wasn't the case.
NATN: Yeah, it was a good scene, being out there on the river.
DG: Yeah, it was kinda cool. When we were soundchecking in the afternoon it was great, because either you'd say something or play a guitar chord, and you could hear it bounce off the buildings of Manhattan. That was pretty neat
NATN: At what point did you know that GBV was coming to an end?
DG: Not until after our last album was recorded, Half-Smiles Of The Decomposed. We recorded it in December and a couple months later, Bob called everybody with his decision. I don't think even he knew until then. He gave us enough time to all kinda line things up and look for other things to do, jobs or whatever. And enough time to plan a tour, a last tour. So I think it worked out pretty cool.
NATN: So there was no knowledge when you were recording Half-Smiles?
DG: No, there was no knowledge at all. I don't even think Bob knew. He may have had a feeling, I don't know. But we had no clue. And things were always going smoothly. Things were going well. There was no strife within the band that precipitated that decision. You know, Bob's just thinking about his own career and his life and he just decided it was time to discontinue that name. And I don't blame him one bit, really. He wants to continue challenging himself. And he was already releasing stuff under his own name anyway, on his own label. He'll definitely continue doing that.
NATN: I get the sense that it's like appreciating rock history: there are certain bands that have starts and clean ends, so you can appreciate their canon as a whole, as it were. It can be tidy.
DG: Yeah, but in a way it's not so tidy, just cuz of all the projects that got released. And not even under the name Guided By Voices. All the side bands and related things that are sometimes a little harder to find or people haven't heard them cuz they don't know they're out. Fading Captain Series obviously doesn't have as big of distribution as Matador or TVT, but it does have a beginning and an end, and that's actually kinda good.
NATN: Have you discussed at all maybe touring acoustically as the Lifeguards or anything?
DG: Well, I would always be happy to do something like that. Acoustic performance is something that Bob doesn't want to do. At least, he never did before. I don't know if he'll change his mind. He's not a big fan of the "unplugged" sort of performances. We did that at radio stations for a while, and it just didn't ... we played the game a little bit but after a while we just said 'no more of those.' You know, Bob doesn't get to have the beer there, usually, and his throat doesn't feel quite in shape for singing. And it's in the morning sometimes, these shows. I think the big reason is we're playing rock songs acoustically. We're playing songs that are meant to be big, and loud. And you know with that whole unplugged theory, I think it's all played out. I think that got played out a long time ago. I'm sure Bob and I will stay in touch, and I'll always look forward to any of his calls, if he wanted to work on another project with me or have me tour with him. But we're just not sure what's gonna happen yet. Everything's gonna be all amicable though.
NATN: Could you describe a few of your favorite memories of your tenure with GBV?
DG: Being able to see Europe and other cities in the world. There was a year where we went to Japan and Australia and New Zealand. That was great, cuz I'd never been there before and didn't know when I'd be able to get over there again. That was great, that being in the band afforded me the luxury to get over there. And I always have good memories of the shows, being on stage, the fans going nuts. I'm not much of a great storyteller.
NATN: What are some of your favorite songs to play live?
DG: We're adding so many old ones in right now, with each leg of this tour, that some of my favorites are actually starting to get played now. Like, we haven't added it in yet, but we're gonna play "Gold Star For Robot Boy." The band never really did play that live. Let's see, the ones we're doing now...I'll have to look at the list..."Pendulum." We're playing "Pendulum." I love playing that one live. That's from "Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia."
NATN: I feel like you're pulling out a lot of those. You played a couple at Hudson River.
DG: Oh yeah, "Navigating Flood Regions" and "Chief Barrel Belly." I'm sorry, "Pendulum" is "Same Place The Fly Got Smashed." But those are both in that first box set. The Scat box. Man, I don't know, there's a lot that I dig playing live. Bob's a pretty diverse songwriter, so he has songs in lots of different styles. It's never ever been boring, which is cool.
NATN: So you're adding in all these new songs. How do you work out the setlists?
DG: Bob decides what he wants to add in, and that invariably involves cutting out some of the stuff we have been doing. We have sort of a general setlist that we work off of, but the order is different every time. We don't really know until he writes it right before our set, what it's gonna be.
NATN: So no hints as to what will be the final song of the New Year's Show?
DG: No, we haven't talked about it. Hmm, no. I don't have any opinion.
NATN: I've got tickets to see the Irving Plaza show up here.
DG: Oh, cool. We're playing "He's The Uncle." That's a favorite of mine to play live. It was on a b-side, from the Under the Bushes days.
NATN: Do you ever play that "Invisible Train To Earth"?
DG: Oh, no. I think we played that out live maybe once or twice. And it ended up on...was that on the Prince Whippet EP?
NATN: I don't know. The way I got it was when you bought Isolation Drills you got a link to a TVT web site and it was there to download. But when we saw you at Irving, you played that song and then Bob was like "yeah, that's the title track of our next album."
DG: I don't remember that, that's cool. Yeah, we played that out one or two times then retired it for some reason.
NATN: Well in your mind can you give a percentage chance of whether GBV would ever get back together?
DG: Well it's hard to say. You mean out of a hundred? I'd say maybe 3%. Bob doesn't want to go back on his word. Cuz that's the first time he's ever really announced an official breakup. He'd dissolved lineups before and recovened with different people, but it was never announced that he was breaking up the band. Since this time it has been, I think he wants to be a man of his word. If there ever was a get-back-together type thing, it would take a few years. But Bob is really excited about exploring life as a solo artist, and that's cool. He deserves it; he's put a lot of years into this band.
NATN: And even I think some of the best stuff is not quote-unquote GBV stuff. Like the Volunteer Fire Department album was always a favorite.
DG: Yeah, thanks. I'm really glad I got the opportunity to be involved in that. I hold that one up as being pretty cool. I was revisiting Lifeguards the other day too, after not hearing it in a long time. And that thing's blast-able. It's like, something you kinda want to blast for some reason. I don't usually blast music in my house, but that one I felt like turning up. And there's countless other projects that Bob has done too that are amazing. There's a lot of stuff from his solo records that is great, and a lot of them have the same personnel too. I mean, Not In My Airforce, his first solo album, that's Kevin Fennel on drums on a lot of it, and Bob playing everything else, maybe [Greg] Demos on bass. And those are some of the best songs ever, you know? "Flat Beauty" and all that.
NATN: "Psychic Pilot" is one of my favorites.
DG: Oh yeah. We used to do that all the time. I don't know if we have any plans to put that back in. But that was a good one, man.
NATN: Well if you do, do it in New York.
DG: I think I remember playing it at the Warsaw in Brooklyn.
NATN: I was just listening to Lifeguards the other day too and I noticed there's the song "Sea Of Dead" which was an instrumental there, but it also pops up on Bob's latest solo record.
DG: That's true, and it's just a different song. I don't know, I guess he felt like calling another song "Sea Of Dead." He named that one too. That was just an instrumental that I found that was laying around for years. Just some four-track thing I did. And all I did was I added keyboards to it. That was the only thing and submitted that to be put up. There's actually one song on my new record Salamander that was a Lifeguards rejected song and I just put words to it.
NATN: What's that?
DG: "Drip-Nose Boy." It's kinda near the end. So that's like the only song that wasn't recorded in a studio. In the Kent studio. It was just recorded at home here.
NATN: Do you have lots of backlog of home recordings?
DG: I have stuff that's kinda layin around on tapes and CDs, but not a whole lot, there's not 100 songs, but there's a lot of snippets of ideas that aren't fully formed songs yet, that I'd like to explore. But there's a lot of songs that are in demo stages, you know, that deserve to be re-recorded in a better way. So I don't know how many are there that are unused yet, or unheard, but probably a good 30 or 40.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.