“Our love’s in jeopardy, bay-bay …”
That was not what I wanted to hear. Oh, it’s a fine and dandy song: “Jeopardy” by the Greg Kihn Band. You couldn’t turn a radio on in 1983 without hearing it. But I was calling John McCauley’s cellphone, hoping to talk with the Deer Tick frontman about the band’s new release, Divine Providence. And every time I dialed his number, I was going straight through to:
“Our love’s in jeopardy, bay-bay …”
Finding its inspiration in both the intelligent design of Nilsson Schmilsson and a drunken Bob Stinson heaving his guitar across the Saturday Night Live stage in celebration of ending a song on the right chord, Divine Providence comes as close to nailing the vibe of Deer Tick live as any of their albums have to date. The Rhode Island-based quintet (guitarist/lead vocalist McCauley; drummer Dennis Ryan; multi-instrumentalist Rob Crowell; guitarist Ian O’Neil; bassist Chris Ryan – and all the lads know their way around a vocal mic) play every performance as if it’s their last. There’s no shortage of sweat, beer, and broken stuff at a Deer Tick show and co-producers Justin Collins and Adam Landry managed to get enough of that spirit into the grooves of Divine Providence to make you flinch.
And that’s what I wanted to talk with John McCauley about, but all I was getting was Greg Kihn.
“Our love’s in jeopardy, bay-bay …”
I had a fallback number, though – and a short while after leaving a message on tour manager Zeke Hutchins’ voicemail, my phone was ringing. A good man, that Zeke Hutchins: he explained that they were on the road and not everyone had cell service. Could I hang on while he passed the phone to John?
I surely could …
JM: Hey.
BR: Hey, John. This is Wednesday, so you must be …
JM: Uhh, we’re somewhere in (yawns) Texas. I’m pretty sure. (laughs)
BR: We should let the folks back home know about the luxurious accommodations Deer Tick has when traveling.
JM: We’re in the van, man. (laughter)
BR: Cool. ’68 Econoline?
JM: We wish. (laughter) Naw – nothing that cool. A standard Chevy 12-passenger van.
BR: All for the sake of the music.
JM: That’s right. (laughs)
BR: Last time we spoke was just after the Middle Brother album came out; you’ve had a busy year.
JM: Yeah. (laughs)
BR: I know we talked a lot about The Replacements last time, as they’re one of your musical heroes. I just re-watched the clips of their Saturday Night Live appearance in ’86 – the night they got banned from the show.
JM: (laughs) I love those videos, man.
BR: Your appearance on Letterman a couple of weeks ago was great. You got to watch yourselves later that night during a gig back in Rhode Island, right?
JM: Yeah – that was pretty cool.
BR: Are you guys wearing those matching grey suits the rest of the tour?
JM: Oh, yeah … you oughtta smell these things. They’re so bad. (laughter)
BR: There you go again: all for the sake of the music. (laughter) Congratulations on the new album, by the way. It’s been a blast to listen to.
JM: Oh, good. Thanks, man.
BR: Did you guys do the writing in one clump or was it spread out over a while?
JM: Probably half of it was written in the year before we went into the studio. The rest we wrote while we were working on the album back in the spring.
BR: Was your intent right from the beginning to go in and knock the walls down with this one, or is that what it evolved into?
JM: Naw – that was our plan from the start.
BR: I feel like a lot of credit goes to Adam Landry and Justin Collins, who handled the production and mixing chores. They did a great job of capturing Deer Tick’s sound without taming it.
JM: Wait … (muffled noises; John returns) Sorry, man – Chris Ryan’s being an idiot. (laughs)
BR: Yeah, well, tell him I’m putting it in the interview.
JM: Cool – do that. (laughter) Yeah, I’d worked with Adam and Justin on the Middle Brother sessions. They were the perfect guys for this album.
BR: It sure sounds like the core tracks were cut live.
JM: Yeah – there wasn’t much layering and overdubbing going on.
BR: If you have the time, how about we run down through a few of the tracks. I’ll toss a thought at you and you can toss one back.
JM: Sounds good.
BR: My take on “The Bump” was “John Lee Hooker down in the basement.”
JM: It definitely has that stomp to it. I originally wrote it as a Hank Williams-style country song, but we just fucked it up a little bit. (laughs)
BR: You’re playing the acoustic on that, right?
JM: Yeah.
BR: Do you have a go-to acoustic guitar?
JM: No – not really. I think I used a Martin that was hanging around the studio on that song. I actually don’t know too much about acoustic guitars.
BR: Yeah, well – it doesn’t show in your playing. (laughter) How about your fave electric guitars?
JM: I have a Mustang and a Jag-Stang.
BR: And then there’s a Gibson I’ve seen you using lately.
JM: Yeah. That’s a ’75, uh …
[Sudddenly there’s an eruption of total chaotic noise. I can’t tell what’s going on – has there been some sort of disaster? After a few moments, however, I hear McCauley laughing. Apparently, lunch has worked its way through his system, an unfortunate circumstance for his fellow van passengers. Drummer Dennis Ryan seems to be affected the worst.]
JM: Wow. I think Dennis almost threw up.
BR: It’s hard to beat life on the road, isn’t it?
JM: Pretty incredible, man. (laughter)
BR: Hey speaking of Dennis – he wrote and takes the lead vox on “Clownin’ Around”. I was trying to get ahold of the vibe of that tune; it’s got that bouncy, sort of country rhythm against those heavy lyrics. It’s like a weird William Burroughs western.
JM: That’s Dennis’ John Wayne Gacy song.
BR: No.
JM: Oh, yeah. (laughs)
BR: Oh, man … now that I think about the lyrics; the houseguests in the crawlspace and everything …
JM: Yeah. (laughs)
BR: Wow. Dennis has got some serious snakes in his head. (laughter)
JM: Yeah, you got that right. (laughs)
BR: In the liner notes for “Funny Word” you mention Taylor Goldsmith [drummer for Dawes and Middle Brother] as an inspiration. Is there a story there?
JM: That actually started out as a Middle Brother song. Taylor had a list of song titles – that was one of his ways of coming up with ideas. And one of them was “Love Is A Funny Word” – I took that and made something out of it.
BR: It’s a great pull-the-cord-and-let-it-rip performance by everybody – it sounds like the whole band tumbles into a heap at the end.
JM: Yeah – I threw my guitar across the room at the end of that. (laughs)
BR: Jeez – which guitar?
JM: My Mustang.
BR: Well, that’s a hell of a thing to do, John. (laughter) We should tell any kids reading this not to try that at home, right?
JM: Naw – it’s okay to smash ‘em if it’s a Squier. (laughs)
BR: Nice. There goes your chance to land a big-bucks endorsement deal with Squier.
JM: Yeah, no doubt. (laughter)
BR: “Main Street” sounds like one of those classic old New York Dolls tunes with the girl group vibe that they would just bash the hell out of.
JM: Cool – thanks. (laughs) I’ve got a few Dolls albums – that’s good shit.
BR: Absolutely. My notes on “Chevy Express” read “a young Lou Reed fronting an unplugged Nirvana.”
JM: (laughs) I like that. (laughs) That’s actually the first time we’d played the song together. I sat in a different room, completely isolated from everybody and had Adam take everything out of my headphones. I couldn’t hear anything the guys were doing; he cued me and we did the take.
BR: Great – bigtime tension in the performance. How about the arrangement on “Electric”, with the keys and strings?
JM: I wrote it on my guitar, but when it came time to record, I wanted Rob to play it on the Wurlitzer – kind of like Harry Nilsson’s “Early In The Morning”. In the meantime, we‘d brought in a string section for another song that didn’t make it onto the record. We thought we’d try them on “Electric” and gave it a shot. I guess it worked. (laughs)
*BR: For “Miss K.”, I wrote down “a happy drunk’s take on ‘Born To Run’ without the drama.” *
JM: Yeah, that was my attempt at writing a love song. (laughs)
BR: Oh, sure – I can hear that: “Come on Miss K/Wrap your drunken arms around me/Talk dirty/Turn me on/Let’s get going” (laughter) I mean, next to a bouquet of roses, it doesn’t get much better than that.
JM: No, it doesn’t. (laughter)
BR: Now, ever since I got my pre-release copy of the album a while back, I’ve been wondering: there’s just about a half-hour of silence between “Miss K.” and the hidden track, “Mr. Cigarette”, which is a Paul Westerberg tune. Is that the way it is on the finished album?
JM: (laughs) Yeah. We wanted to make the album even more annoying.
BR: Ah – well then, I thought it would be helpful for all the folks at home if you could pass along some suggestions about what they could do while waiting out the 30 minutes of silence between the two cuts.
JM: I would probably tell them to go to footfetishes.com, sign up as a member, watch it and, you know … (laughter)
BR: Perfect. I knew you’d have some good advice. Look, it sounds like the van’s pulling over – I’d better let you go. Thanks for taking the time to talk, John. Take care and good luck. Be careful out there.
JM: Alright, man – thanks so much. Take it easy. (laughs)
