FROM THE VAULT: Johnny West Interview (Aug. 1, 2005)

Many years ago, before The Windsor Scene arrived on CJAM 91.5 FM or in Upfront Magazine or WAMM Magazine, it was merely a web site, full of links and interviews.

Once such interview I did years ago was with a singer/songwriter who was as talented and prolific as he was a mystery to most people in the local music scene. I had only discovered him at the nudging of CJAM Station Manager and local musician Adam Fox, but I can honestly say I'm glad I did. His name is Johnny West and, although he's much more known now than he was then, he's still somewhat of an enigma. He plays very fleetingly in public but releases several releases a year. His last two - 2008's brilliant The Chicken Angel Woman With A Triangle and this year's An Absence of Sway (which I regret to say I haven't heard yet) - were both made available to pick up for free at Dr. Disc in downtown Windsor. That's right. He gives away his CDs for free.

Anyway, this interview was done August 1, 2005, for the release of his latest CD (at the time), Nostalgia Triggering Mechanism.

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In music, it seems that the genius’ are always the one’s perceived as being just a little crazy. Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Frank Zappa. Even Windsor’s own Alexander “Skip” Spence (original drummer for Jefferson Starship, co-founder of Moby Grape) flirted with the genius tag before schizophrenia kicked in. But it’s not the mental illness paranoia that gets them their names in the record books – it’s the way they go about creating their music. They think, the move, they play – they create­ – completely outside the box. They don’t set parameters or guide lines to confine their music; they simply release it and let the notes, chords and melodies land where they may. Windsor may have its own resident genius, burrowed away in his home studios, creating some of the most exciting and mind-blowing music – those kinds of songs that seem beyond any realm of instinctual writing, but somehow manages to hit upon every emotion or grand idea. His name is Johnny West and he is easily Windsor’s best kept secret. He has recorded more albums in the past two years than most bands will record in their career. And each album speaks like a different voice within his communal mind – sometimes sounding like a collaboration exchange between Beck and Brian Wilson, other times like Nick Drake working with Ween. There are sounds that at first don’t seem to fit until you slowly realize it’s your mind that doesn’t fit – your brain is trying to perceive the pop sounds the way it was told to, not how it actually wants to listen to them. And once you manage to wrap your ears around his pop orchestrations, its hard to turn away. And even then, you can still hear them haunting your own mind, just as surely as they did his prior to him recording them for us all to hear. The Windsor Scene managed to interrupt the work in progress and talk to the man himself about his own views and opinions, on himself, his music and the state of the creative spirit.

What music inspired you to want to start making your own music?

Johnny: I don’t think anything really inspired me…I just had a desire to create music that didn’t seem to stem from anything in particular. I always had music in my head, long before I could articulate it in any coherent form. I’ve been told stories of how, when I was very young, I would stagger over to a table or refrigerator and start hammering out a rhythm with my hands. Only, instead of being formless noise, it was an intricate pattern that seemed to be accompanying some unheard music. But hey, I’m just going on what other people have told me… I do remember incurring the wrath of my kindergarten teacher for singing at inappropriate times, and I irritated a few people in later grade school years when I would use my pencil box as a snare drum. I also brought about the violent deaths of a few pens that way. Their dying cries still haunt me at night.

I started renting various keyboards around the time I was eleven years old, before getting one to call my own for Christmas. In the beginning I didn’t have much of anything resembling talent, but I didn’t let that stop me from improvising half-baked songs about ducks and firearms. Those songs are still kicking around on tape, too.

Over the years I acquired different instruments and taught myself how to play them, did the same with recording equipment, and gradually became less terrible at whatever it is that I do. There’s kind of a funny story about how I ended up playing guitar the way I do, but no one seems to notice that there’s anything unconventional going on unless they actually see me play. I’m just glad I discovered a way to get some sound out of the instrument that isn’t entirely hideous.

Did you see any local bands prior to getting into music?

Johnny: I didn’t, and I could probably count the number of local bands I’ve seen perform throughout my life on two hands. Or maybe two hands and a foot. I’m not exactly sure.

How long have you been making music?

Johnny: I’ve been making and recording music in various forms for about ten years now. I don’t think any of my other projects lasted for much longer than two years, though it’s difficult to say with all the jumping around we did.

So do you play with any backing band?

Johnny: I don’t have a band at the moment. I did at one point, but it dissolved more than three years ago, and I don’t expect I’ll ever put another one together. There don’t seem to be many people who are interested in working the way that I do - and if they are, they’re about as reliable as a homemade pregnancy test. Things operate a lot more smoothly when I do everything myself.

So who was this mystery prior band…

Johnny: I had a two-man outfit from about 1998 - 2001 called Papa Ghostface, with Gord Thompson and my then-less-hairy self trading off instrumental duties. We recorded a lot of fairly insane, mostly-improvised music that I don't think I could come up with any intelligible description for. In July of 2000, that accidentally evolved into Guys With Dicks (the real band). I came up with the name as a joke (the first CD was called "Without Dicks"), thinking we would never play together again, but people kept flitting in and out of the picture until we were whittled down to a lean three-piece in the last quarter of 2001. Gord took over bass duties and Tyson Taylor moved behind the drum kit. There was also a short-lived side-project I worked on with Tyson called Mr. Sinister, but only one CD came out of that. The band broke up near the end of May 2002, though there wasn't an exact date. Gord is now the lead guitarist in Surdaster, while Tyson plays the drums for tech metal purveyors Closed Casket Funeral. Tyson and I have talked a few times about trying to make music together again, but I'm not sure if it'll ever happen.

What would it take to get you into another band nowadays?

Johnny: Reliability is half the battle. I would have to know that people were going to show up roughly when they said they would. I can't work with people who have no concept of time (and no respect for mine) anymore. I've done it more than once, and it nearly cost me what little sanity I have.

It's difficult for me to find people I would want to work with, and whenever I think about it I usually come to the conclusion that it doesn't make any sense to even bother looking for them, because I know what I want to do, and I wouldn't enjoy taking other people through it step by step. The main reason Papa Ghostface and Guys With Dicks worked was because almost all of the music was created through improvisation, and we were able to tap into something that allowed us to follow one another. That wouldn't work now, because I don't operate that way anymore. I think I'd start to feel like a dictator if I was constantly telling other musicians what notes to play, where and how to play them...I mean, to me, that kind of defeats the entire purpose of playing with other people.

The only thing I can think of that would get me back in a band setting at this point would be if I came across someone who was capable of bringing something really unique to the table, with no interest in working from any kind of musical template. I've thought a few times about trying to put together a band to make music that's more ambient in nature and has nothing to do with my solo endeavours, but I'm not sure I have the patience to pursue something like that. Maybe once I'm done working through all the music that's in my brain right now, I'll give it some more thought.

But right now, I know what I want, and for some strange reason I'm able to bring it to fruition without any outside interference. It's not that I'm a visionary artist, or a musician of virtuosic proportions, or anything like that...I think I'm just getting closer to knowing what I'm doing. Once I figure it out, it'll probably be time to do something else. Maybe put together a graveyard jazz outfit, with long, winding songs about love and corruption within the animal kingdom.

How would you describe your sound?

Johnny: Back when I had a band, I wasn’t sure what to call our music. I once referred to it as “stoner blues” as a joke. My drummer called it “fucked”, and played out a scenario in which someone walked into HMV and asked where the fucked section was. My solo work is quite different from anything I’ve done with other musicians, and I’ve never been able to describe it or stuff it into a specific genre, outside of saying, “This CD’s mostly synth-based,” or, “This one’s more organic, and there are more nasty words.” This sometimes leads to exchanges like the following:

SOME RANDOM PERSON: “What kind of music do you make?”

ME: “Uh…Johnny West music, I guess.”

SOME RANDOM PERSON: “What the hell kind of music is that?”

ME: “You’re asking the wrong guy. Here—have some CDs!”

Generally, the only way I can adequately convey to someone the kind of music I make is to give them a CD or five. The trade-off is that people don’t usually tell me I sound like some other artist or band, which is nice.

I don’t seem to stay in one place for very long, so it’s difficult to come up with any kind of blanket term that applies to the music I make. But if I was forced to describe my sound, I guess I would call it “disjointed non-pop”.

Do you remember your first live show?

Johnny: Oh yes. Our first (and, as it turned out, second-last) show was quite an event. My bassist organized it. His parents worked at the Windsor Sportsman’s Club, and he told me he could get us a show there. In theory, we’d be able to use the house band’s equipment and play for as long as we wanted. The day of the show, I discovered that he had never spoken to anyone about us playing. We ended up transporting most of the equipment from my quasi-studio, only to discover that no one knew we were going to be performing. Eventually they agreed to let us play, but we weren’t allowed to use the stage. We set up on the floor and got through two songs before we were told patrons were complaining and we would have to stop. Less than twenty minutes after setting up, we were taking things apart and leaving. My band mates were crushed; I thought the whole thing was kind of funny, and made a mental note never to let Gord (the bassist) organize a gig again. In the end, my drummer and I celebrated our success by getting somewhat inebriated and butchering someone else’s music.

What was your most memorable incident playing with your band?

Johnny: Playing at a dinner banquet—which was a hilariously inappropriate atmosphere for the kind of music we made—and having most of the audience leave before we even started playing because the evening had stretched on longer than anticipated. We weren’t able to start playing until about an hour and-a-half later than expected. A few songs into our set, we were playing to about ten people out of the three or four hundred who had shown up. I punctuated serious songs with stupid facial expressions, and we joked back and forth with the people we knew (our entire audience, really). The first two songs of our set were captured on video, and it’s kind of funny to watch, knowing that the band was about to disintegrate almost immediately after that show. We were pretty tight, too.

How has the audience reaction been to your music?

Johnny: I rarely play live, but everyone who hears my music seems to respond to it in a positive way. It never ceases to surprise me. Even more shocking is the fact that some people have used select CDs of mine for make-out purposes. I’ve certainly never thought about it along those lines. But I enjoy getting any kind of feedback from people who’ve heard my music. It’s the closest I’ve been able to come to approaching it objectively, even if it’s kind of a vicarious pursuit.

Why have you chosen not to play live?

Johnny: I have a strange relationship with live performance. I think I would enjoy it a lot more if I had other musicians to play off of, because then we could stretch things out and improvise. It's not the same when it's just me up there, playing songs that generally weren't intended to be stripped down to guitar and voice. I enjoy the idea of boiling things down and giving songs a different interpretation, but for some reason I don't like being responsible for everything that happens onstage. I also don't like playing songs that have already been recorded, even if most of the people in the audience wouldn't have heard those songs anyway, so I end up pulling out a lot of new material and then losing interest in it after it's been performed. I think I enjoy the recording process a lot more---not because I'm a perfectionist (one listen to any of my CDs would quickly dispel that idea), but because the songs have time to unfurl and decide how they want to be treated. Having said that, it is nice when you get paid and realize that you don't have to share the money with anyone else.

It's kind of funny, though...back when I was aggressively trying to get shows, giving CDs to different people at different venues and following up repeatedly (and this is going back about two years), no one would give me the time of day. All I wanted was to play somewhere occasionally to see how people responded to the music, but I couldn't get anyone to listen to a CD let alone give me a date. When I finally said to hell with it and lost interest in the idea of playing live, people suddenly started telling me I should get out there and play at different places. I ended up playing one show at Phog, which is a great, open-minded venue, but there don't seem to be many other places in this city that would be interested in my kind of music. Of course, if one of my CDs got reviewed on pitchforkmedia.com and I started to get industry attention, I'm sure The Avalon and other places that shunned me would become incredibly supportive overnight.

So I guess there are a few different reasons for my losing interest in the idea of live performance. I'm all for catching some great live jazz, though.

What are your future plans for yourself, musically?

Johnny: I just intend to keep doing what I’m doing—making the music I want to make (whatever that may be at any given time), and then giving the resultant CDs to a handful of people who might be interested. I decided a few years back that I would never allow myself to write another song that incorporated a chorus or followed the traditional A-B-A format, so I plan to keep experimenting with structure and dynamics. I have about three different CDs in the works right now, though I’m not sure if they’ll emerge in that form when all is played and sung. But there should be some new stuff available before the end of the year.

What do you feel about the local Windsor music scene?

Johnny: Kind of indifferent. I know there are talented bands out there, but I’ve never been the kind of person to go out to a lot of shows and investigate. Part of my indifference probably stems from the fact that I’ve never really felt like I was a part of the scene. I’ve never had much interest in playing live and building a following; I just make music for myself. That’s something that still seems to puzzle some people.

What local bands currently excite you?

Johnny: I don’t think there are any local bands that currently excite me. Maybe that’s because I just don’t seem to get excited about a lot of music in general. I’ve been meaning to check out some things for a while now, particularly Ten Year Drought, but I never seem to get around to it with all the other music I’m trying to wade through. I liked the set Ryan Fields and his cohorts unveiled at Phog when we played on the same bill earlier this year.

So what kind of music do you find exciting?

Johnny: A lot of the music I listen to was created by bands that are defunct or artists who are no longer living, but there's some music being made right now that really grabs me. Idaho (Jeff Martin's endlessly-evolving project) is consistently amazing and unpredictable. Man Man are insane and great in equal doses...a bit like Tom Waits on acid, shot through with a healthy dose of twisted cabaret. Susumu Yokota makes some of the most compelling electronic music I've heard. Scout Niblett's another artist making music on her own terms. I know there are more, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Do you remember the first album you ever bought with your own money?

Johnny: Something terrible. I still have some disturbing corporate rock shit in my CD collection. It's kind of funny to keep around, if only to serve as a reminder of how much my taste has changed. My first purchase was probably something by Kansas or Journey. I was so excited when I found their obscure early albums. Before Steve Perry joined Journey! Before "Carry On My Wayward Son"! I still can't believe some of the music I used to be into before I hit puberty. Man...

What would you tell young aspiring musicians about starting a band in the Windsor scene?

Johnny: Though it’s been said often enough that it’s essentially become a cliché, it really is true that having a band is a bit like being married. It’s one thing to see someone once in a while, but when you start spending a lot more time with them under a more serious premise, it completely alters the dynamics of your relationship. In spite of the best efforts of everyone involved, things have a way of turning ugly when egos of different sizes are involved.

For someone looking to do what I do (assuming there are other aspiring one-man operations in Windsor), my advice would be to try to do as much by yourself as you possibly can. Reliable talent is very hard to find.

But above all, the most important thing is to enjoy what you’re doing, regardless of your situation. If you’re happy with the music you’re making, everything else is gravy.

So what recordings are available?

Johnny: A full discography would be a frightening undertaking. In addition to my solo work, there have been a few two-man bands/side projects, and a bona fide band that shifted line-ups about half a dozen times. There were also a few things I engineered for other people, occasionally making the odd musical contribution. All told, I’ve recorded more than 50 “official” CDs from 1999 (when I was first able to preserve my music in the digital format) to date, not counting compilations and things I recorded for other artists. The majority of the CDs have gone unheard by most people. There are also a few hundred cassette tapes covering the pre-1999 years, but most of that stuff I won’t play for anyone, although it is kind of amusing to be able to chart my voice’s gradual descent into puberty and beyond.

Having said that, here is a list of my solo work available on CD (again, not counting compilations): Nostril Saliva EP (1999), Singing the Oesophagus to Sleep (1999), Sick Shit EP (1999), Don’t Talk Like a Baby (1999), Live @ the Naked Giraffe Theatre (1999), Sleep-Deprived EP (1999), Merry Fuckin’ Christmas (1999), Here Comes Trouble EP (2000), The Lifeline & Twisted Happenings of…/WOHIS (2000), Children Have No Eyes [incomplete] (2000), Sale of a Dead Man (2000), Beautifully Stupid (2002), Temporary Amnesia (2002), Keep Your Scars (2002), Live on CJAM (2003), Oh You This (2003), Nudge You Alive (2004), Pavement Hugging Daddies EP (2004), Brand New Shiny Lie (2004), Growing Sideways (2004), Who You Are Now Is Not What You Were Before (2005), Nostalgia-Triggering Mechanism EP (2005)

I didn’t start putting some amount of effort into making my CDs look somewhat presentable until Oh You This, so anything that came before would have to be a CD-R with handwritten info. Anything post-2003 comes complete with front and back inserts and a disc that doesn’t say “Verbatim” or “Maxell” on the front.

And where can one acquire these recordings?

Johnny: My CD’s are only available through/from me. To my knowledge, only one person has ever tried to find my stuff in a Dr. Disc or some other CD retailer and I think it's kind of funny trying to imagine the conversation they had with the person behind the counter.

"Do you have any CD’s by a guy named Johnny West?"

"Johnny West? Who the hell is Johnny West?"

"Well, uh, I heard it on CJAM..."

"We don't have any CD’s by Johnny West!"

"Are you sure? Maybe you could check again?"

"Don't make me hurt you."

I almost never sell CD’s, unless someone insists on giving me money; I usually just end up giving them to whoever might be interested and occasionally forcing copies on random people in bars just for the hell of it. As a result, I now have no copies left of the Pavement Hugging Daddies EP and only one or two copies left of Brand New Shiny Lie and Growing Sideways. But I think I'm going to stop sending CD’s to a handful of indie labels (I recently realized how little sense it makes, given my situation), so that should keep future CD’s around a bit longer.

So what kind of equipment do you use to record your stuff?

Johnny: I've assembled quite a bit of gear over the years, but the brainchild of my "studio" is a Roland VS-1680 digital recording workstation. I'm sure it's been obsolete for a few years now since they're constantly coming out with new, "better" and more expensive models with more tracks, but I haven't felt a need to replace it. I like being limited to 16 tracks, because it doesn't allow me to dress up songs with endless overdubs in an attempt to mask a lack of quality. A list of all my gear would make for some pretty ponderous reading, but one of my favourite pieces of equipment as of late is an old Arp Omni-2 analog synth. While it's incredibly limited compared to a digital synth, some of the sounds you can get out of it are impossible to replicate on anything else. After letting it collect dust for a few years as a makeshift shelf, it's been freed and I'm thinking about bringing it out of retirement. Also, RODE makes some nice microphones that don't necessarily break the bank. Recently I picked up a pair of K2s, which are tube mics and a bit pricier, but they may prove to be my favourite mics for acoustic guitar and other stringed things. They're sparkly and warm and...I sound like I'm trying to sell freshly-baked Christmas cookies.

While the world of software-based recording is foreign to me, it seems like a good way to allow people to record their music without having to shell out a lot of money. I can't really argue for or against it, since I don't have any experience with it. But if you don't have access to the plug-ins that format provides, mic preamps and compression are a good idea. I found that out the hard way. It helps to have a good outboard effects processor or two as well - kind of like having a spice rack. You may not always use it, but it's nice to have around.

The best piece of advice I could offer to someone looking to record their own music would be this: spending a lot of money on gear doesn't necessarily mean you'll end up with great-sounding recordings. Find equipment you like, and then learn how to use it. Experiment. Someone once said (and I paraphrase), "You can either spend a lot of money and time listening to someone talk to you about recording, or you can spend that money on recording equipment and teach yourself." I took the latter route, and while I've made a lot of mistakes, I've learned things along the way that I don't think any course would have taught me. Still, it's worth it to read up a bit about different things, particularly EQ.

Having your music professionally mastered is a nice idea, and it's great when it works, but it can be a pain in the ass trying to find someone who will do the work the way you want it done. My self-mastered CDs aren't as loud as anything you'd buy at HMV (or at least not anything recorded after 1991), but they also aren't squashed to death. I value dynamics over master volume. I also have a kazoo and a party whistle. Hear me tremble.

Then again, sometimes a 4-track and a cheap microphone are all you need. It all depends on what kind of music you're making, and what your aspirations are.

You mentioned that you’d done some engineering work with some other bands. Who have you worked with?

Johnny: I haven't recorded anyone else's music in years now, but most of what I did in the past was for friends…ADHD, Fetal Pulp, Jesse Topliffe (who's since relocated to Toronto, and with whom I essentially collaborated on a lot of what we recorded), and various other quickies. It didn't feel much like work most of the time, which is appropriate, since I usually wasn't paid much for my services. It was nice to be able to sit back and watch the music happen without getting dirty myself. A few things I recorded for people and never got around to mixing, which I find a little funny. But they never got back to me about it, so I don't think anyone was too upset.

It sounds a bit like you’re a cross between Brian Wilson and Phil Spector - without the fecal fetish father and the dead wife.

Johnny: Ha! Well, I don't think I have much of anything I could call a production style...certainly not anything as distinctive or elaborate as Brian or Phil. I'm pretty sure I did have a sandbox for a brief time during my youth, though. And I do have more than a few pairs of sunglasses, though most of them spend more time on stuffed animals than they do on my face. My stepfather resembles a rat suffering from heatstroke, if that means anything.

So who exactly is Johnny West?

Johnny: I’m probably the most cynical, profane person you’ll never meet, though you probably wouldn’t know it if you did meet me. I have such horrible luck with the opposite sex that it’s become a bit of a running joke between the left and right sides of my brain. I still can’t get my facial hair to do precisely what I’d like it to, but I’m confident I’ll get there someday.

And with that, Johnny returns to his home studio, once again answering the musical voices in his head that he captures so magically on his albums. And though they are only available through his website (or in person if you can track him down), I can guarantee you they are definitely worth the trouble and the listen. They will show you soundscapes and musical visions most people assume takes years in the studio and thousands of dollars worth of hallucinogens to achieve – you may not get it on first listen, but keep trying. It will unfold in your ear like the birth of a new audio galaxy.

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So there you have it. A little blast from The Windsor Scene past. His current album, An Absence of Sway, is available - again, for free - at Dr. Disc in downtown Windsor, just go in and ask for one (until supplies last).

For more info on his current whereabouts, he has a Blog called Dressing To Undress with all the juicy gossip of his thoughts and music as well as the seemingly obligatory MySpace, which seems to house more "works in progress" than final product.