You decided to release the album on your own label.
Yeah, we ended up doing the indie approach, where we did our recordings out of pocket without having to go through a label. So we could do it the way we really want to do it. And then we could use the label later for merchandising after we’ve done the recording.
It was a tradeoff. If you go to an established label you lose some control and they take a much larger percentage of the income in order to reimburse them back for their cost. We went back and forth on that and decided it probably makes more sense for us to go ahead and record the way that we want on our own expense and then shop that among different labels to see who wanted to participate in it.
How did the band pick Jim Diamond to produce the record?
It was recommended by, I’m not sure, but it could have been our business manager. Maybe not. Somebody was mentioning to The Sonics that this guy he would be exceptionally good at recording our style of music. And we followed that advice. We listened to some of the things he’s done in the past and talked to him, and it seemed like we had a good meeting of the minds as for how the recording should take place. But now after we’ve made it, I think we made the right decision.
How involved was he in the recording?
Actually very involved. He would express his opinion on how we would approach a song as much as we did. We would say “Should we make it faster or slower? Should we add this or not add that? Is this solo true to the song or is it stretching too much?” There was a lot of conversation. He was heavily involved.
What’s your favorite song on the album?
A song that [Jerry] wrote that we put on the album, “Save the Planet,” is my favorite song on the album. To me that’s the best song on the album, but that’s just personal choice.
How do you think [Jerry] compares now as songwriter with when you first met him?
I think pretty much the same. Even back then he wrote the lyrics himself but the instrumentation everyone kind of chipped in their opinion of the song, the musical part of the song. And that’s what we did this time. Jerry did the lyrics of the song that he contributed and everyone had a little say-so on the band part of it including him.
What’s the biggest difference and similarity between the band in the studio and live now compared with back in the 60s?
Well, in the recording part of it, even though we didn’t utilize it very much, we have a lot more possibilities because of the number of tracks and the way things are recorded now. So in that sense it’s easier than it used to be because you don’t have to do as many ping-ponging of tracks to build up the sound like you had to in the ’60s. Live, if it’s anything, I think the songs we play are not really written for people to dance to but now it’s played for energy without concern if people can get into a groove and dance to it. The big difference live is that when we played before there weren’t stage monitors and there wasn’t lighting. The lighting consisted of a floodlight above your head. You didn’t mix sound off-stage. And that was also different. When we started playing again, when we played in New York for the first time in 2007, that was probably the single thing that made a huge difference to us on stage that scared us, is having monitors because we weren’t used to having monitors like that. The music was raw back then and raw now.
From what I’ve read it sounds like the single “Bad Betty” helped get things rolling towards the band making an album.
Yeah. The whole album is similar with the way “Bad Betty” sounds, simple and in-your-face.
The Muddy Roots label originally released “Bad Betty” on a seven 7 inch record.
Yeah, “Bad Betty” on one side and Mudhoney had their song on the other side.
Any other songs in particular that were very special or influential in the direction of the album?
Yeah. A song called “I Don’t Need No Doctor” is a song that we used to play back in the ’60s and I think most people think is the best song on the album. Taking that song and we drastically changed it so it represented a Sonics song. One song that a lot of bands in the Northwest did that I think comes across really well…there’s a song called “Leaving Here” that a lot of local groups did in the ’60s. We went back and did that one for the album.
What memory since the band reunited has affected you most?
Primarily just the fright. I mean, we were scared to get back together and play and not knowing what to expect. There was a lot of apprehension about “Can we do this?” and “Are you good enough that people are going to want to hear us after all this time?” and, “How many people are going to want to hear us?” Is it just going to be one and that’s it do we have the opportunity to go and play more often than that? Still hard to believe that after all those years, I never thought we’d be doing this again.
How do you think you’ve progressed as a guitarist?
Not much. None of us. I don’t think any of us think our musicianship is that great. I don’t think any of us are great musicians. Over the past 40 years we weren’t playing so we didn’t progressively get better and I didn’t try to be a great jazz guitar player or anything like that. I barely played it at all. It’s not that we’re good musicians, it’s just the combination of the guys in the band all seem to feel things the same way. We want a lot of energy. So the energy is more important to us than how fluent we are on our instruments.
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