MK Magazine Interviews

DANIEL ASH

Daniel Ash has one of the most impressive resumes in rock history. With Love And Rockets, he fashioned such alternative staples as "No New Tail to Tell," "Ball of Confusion" and the 1989 Top Five smash "So Alive." "Go," the massive 1984 club hit by his Tones On Tail project, has been featured in such movies as Grosse Pointe Blank, and is currently showcased in a massive TV and radio ad campaign for Starburst candies. Let’s not forget his role in influential band Bauhaus, and the immortal 1979 single "Bela Legosi's Dead."

But that was then, and this is now. In the wake of the final Love And Rockets full-length, and more significantly Bauhaus' massive 1998 reunion tour, Daniel was determined to make a clean break from his past and test his creative faculties. "I'm taking a big chance here, because everybody else wanted to continue doing Bauhaus and I stuck it out. I didn't want to be in a band any longer," he explains. "It was time to move on and work with different people. Or on my own. Anything apart from working with the same guys one more time."

The creative foundation for this self-titled album lay in his inventive approach to beats and rhythm. Sounding contemporary, without swapping one set of clichés for another, posed unique challenges. He confesses. "I love techno and electronica and obviously I'm influenced by that music, but there's other people like Deep Dish who can do that better than me. But the way it's worked out, it's got my character all over it; it's quite eclectic."

Indeed, the results on Daniel Ash are as diverse and variegated as all the previous undertakings in its namesake's career. Although work on the album began two years ago, when Daniel was sharing a house in Los Angeles with DJ Keoki (the two recently collaborated on the title track of Keoki's album Jealousy), the bulk of the recording was completed during a seven-month period after he set up his own studio, secreted away in his new digs north of LA. Once again, independence was a key factor in building his own recording space. "I wanted something where I didn't have to share with anybody else." Aside from contributions by multi-instrumentalist/singer Patina Crèm, and engineer Reb, the vast majority of sounds on Daniel Ash were produced by the master himself.

After 20+ years making music, with three of the world's most influential bands, Daniel Ash is starting once more from scratch. Crazy? Perhaps. But he wouldn't have it any other way. "I'd rather clean windows than do stuff that I didn't want to do." For now, the world will have to make due with one less window-washer and savor Daniel Ash instead.

On the onset of the tour, Friday March 1 2002, Daniel Ash was involved in a horrific automobile accident on the 405 freeway just outside of El Segundo, CA. Ash was starting off on tour with band mates when his SUV was struck by another vehicle in a chain-reaction accident, causing Ash's SUV to flip and roll several times before coming to a stop on its side in the incoming traffic lane.

Suffering the most serious injuries in the crash was bassist Patina, who ended up getting pinned underneath the vehicle. Thanks to Ash, Christopher The Minister, Josh the tour manager and a good-samaritan passerby, they were able to lift the vehicle and remove Patina from underneath it. She was immediately taken to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a broken arm, broken ribs, collapsed lung, internal bleeding, a broken jaw and numerous facial cuts. She subsequently had to be replaced on the tour. Daniel, meanwhile, suffered numerous cuts from broken glass, for which he's been treated. Christopher The Minister, Daniel's manager, came through the ordeal with a lot less skin on his right arm due to a severe case of road rash incurred.

I had the pleasure of receiving a phone call from Daniel Ash, one of my premier influences, for an interview just prior to the accident. (Note I've inserted the replacement bass player in place of Patina in the interview)

Alex Zander: I got an advance of your record a couple weeks ago and it's a lot of fun.

Daniel Ash: Right, that's what I thought.

AZ:: Now, you're already getting airplay here in Chicago with "Spooky." They've been playing it for about a month

DA: Oh really! Well, that's good. Wow.

AZ:: It's actually on the adult contemporary station, which was a surprise for me.

DA: Well what did you think it would be on then?

AZ: I was expecting it to pop up on the big alternative station here.

DA: Right, well it's pure pop though, isn't it? Know what I mean? It is pop. I'm not ashamed of being pop.

AZ: What took so long to make it?

DA: Oh, the usual, things like record companies not giving me a deal, record companies dicking me around with money, this sort of stuff. Yeah, it took me a long time. I had about four or five tracks recorded. I was shopping them around and everyone thought they were great until it came to signing the dotted line and then I had to get the finances to get it together. So in the end I got a publishing deal with Psychobaby. There was a delay of about two and a half years to make it.

AZ: So you were working on this right about the same time you were still touring on Lift?

DA: Yeah, just after that. I recorded some stuff before the Bauhaus reunion. I recorded like four or five tracks.

AZ: This is completely different from your last two solo records.

DA: Yeah, the big part of that is the fact that it's been nine years. Since those times things have evolved a lot as far as music technology and production. You know, instead of just using one loop, use three or four mixed together to get a good sound. So that sort of evolved, the whole production side of it.

AZ: So you built your own studio out there?

DA: Yeah, most of it. The other half, basically my own studio with a guy called Reb. Anyway, Reb and I worked on tracks together. I finally got my own gear. But you can get a really good working studio for not a lot of money these days, you know, how we've progressed as far as technology is concerned. I've been gearing up for the new tour with the new band, and working out the set which will include many "treats" from my Bauhaus, Tones On Tail, Love and Rocket's days.

AZ: Now who do you have in your touring band, anyone that we know of?

DA: Johnny Servo on Drums and Mike People on Bass, both from 16 Volt.

AZ: John Sevro worked with KMFDM before, right?

DA: That's right. And Rachel. You'll find out who Rachel is when you see us live.

AZ: Okay, when I spoke with Kevin a couple years ago at the end of that tour he mentioned that you were doing some DJ-ing. Are you still doing that out in LA?

DA: Yeah, I did something for about a month on Sunset in Hollywood. I just do it for fun. I didn't get paid, I just got a lot of champagne and rude for the night.

AZ: So when you were doing work at Goldfingers was that a gig that you had before?

DA: Yeah, that's something I did for a couple of years, two years back. That was a regular thing every Friday or Saturday night. Again, that was fun.

AZ: What kind of influence did that have with what you're doing now with your music?

DA: Well I like dance music more than anything these days. It starts with a drum loop and a bassline, rather than the guitar. That's been going on for quite awhile, starting with the bass and slowly structuring the song.

AZ: Well I'm pleased that you still have a psychedelic feel to your music.

DA: I've never really thought of it as psychedelic at all, but yeah. okay.

AZ: Did you consider your previous music to be psychedelic with Love and Rockets?
DA: No, not at all. That was probably Dave's influence because he was into that.

AZ: Because it's always came through as...

DA: Yeah, but there again in terms of trippy stuff, he's very strange about that. The music sounds like it's from another planet. This one I find is not too heavy or too slow. It's not a goth album.

AZ: Oh, absolutely. I wanted to mention I used to DJ at Crazy Mama's in Columbus.

DA: Oh really?! Crazy Mama's on High Street. Oh yeah, yeah, I went there because you probably know I'm married to someone from that town. Many years ago, yeah, I've gone down there.

AZ: Yeah, they still talk a lot about that.

DA: (laughs) Really, why? What did I do? There's a song called "Mirror People," which was all about people in that town. She told me about these people who were just obsessed with their appearance and looked in the mirror all the time...

AZ: Yeah, that was the popular rumor, so I'm glad you confirmed that.

DA: Yeah, it's true. That's where I'm calling now, is it?

AZ: No, I'm in Chicago now.

DA: Right, of course you are. Yeah.

AZ: They closed that bar down. The whole scene in Columbus is completely different now. That whole strip of bars is gone. It's all corporate

DA: Yuppiesville now, then?

AZ: Oh yeah.

DA: Wow.

AZ: It's crazy now. It's like The Limited. The whole campus scene is nothing but a strip mall.

DA: Really!

AZ: It's pretty sad.

DA: It's seedy, then?

AZ: I remember when you guys played at the Wexner Center in 1988 in the auditorium there, the first time I saw yo,u and that was when things started to change. But I just wanted to bring Crazy Mama's up because the Mirror People story still goes around.

DA: That's funny.

AZ: What made you decide to cover "Spooky?"

DA: You know what, I think I was driving or something and I heard it on the radio. It was the Dusty Springfield version and I loved it. I really related to it at the time and I think it's very mysterious. Right up my street. I just completely related to it at that moment in time. I recorded that two years ago, that's way back. It took a day to record it. It just sort of fit completely where I was at in my head. I related to it that way.

AZ: That's the single they're playing on the radio here, is that the first single from the record?

DA: Yeah, that's right. I mean it was, when I recorded it, the way it turned out I had it in mind to be the single particularly after the way it turned out. I think it's just got that feel-good factor to it. It's funny because it's released now and I do find, to me, it's a summer song. Hopefully it cheers people up.

AZ: I read in the press kit that I was sent that there's a story behind the vocal by your nephew on "Kid 2000?" Was that something from a movie or something you found?

DA: No, I was working with Adrian from Portishead he made another version of it for the soundtrack of American Psycho. I went for a walk and I found a flyer on the floor with a kids handwriting. Later on I had this instrumental track that was called something else. I got him (Allister Ash) to speak into a microphone to get the words down, laid down on the track. It was just a flyer and I found out from somebody's mother that it was their kid. I found out where she was. She worked at an art school, she was a secretary there or something. She didn't return my calls or anything so I couldn't really clear it up or anything. So I don't know who wrote it, as far as the lyrics go. But Allister talks into a mic and then we laid it down on the track.

AZ: Yeah I wanted to know if that was true because that's a very, very fun story.

DA: Yeah, that's what happened.

AZ: I was watching a PBS program last night about some censorship issues coming up with pornography and they had a Los Angeles porno star in there named Danni Ash.

DA: Yeah, she has the biggest selling Website or whatever in the world. She's a multi-millionaire because of her Website. I know about that because one thing we were going to do, going back about five years and they were going to hook it up for me and her to interview each other. Which would have been hilarious. We have the same name and she happens to be a fan of Love and Rockets anyway. I didn't know her or anything, I didn't know nothing about nothing. But my girlfriend at the time wasn't ok with it.

AZ: Yeah, I wasn't aware of her till last night, I found that very interesting. I mentioned it to your publicist, he thought it was funny.

DA: Yeah, I dunno what she does, live web cams, sending photos out or something. She just sells photos, cooking breakfast or something with nothing on. Stuff like that, real innocent stuff, no heavy duty porn, that is funny, I remember once when we were rehearsing this guy came in with a porn magazine. I think her name was spelled differently and was like mine at the time. She changed it, I think "a" double-"n," i." But yeah, that is hysterical.

AZ: Yeah, on the Internet, there'd be some people who could find you who don't know about your music and vice-versa.

DA: I don't know if that's really going to happen because the spelling is totally different.

AZ: Now, it's on the back of the record, the end of the press release and on your Website, and I can't figure out what "Jesus flies when you're having fun" is all about?

DA: Well I got that line from the William Burroughs idea of cutting stuff up, sentences and everything, and then making new sentences from all the ones that are cut up completely unrelated to that. That process of working with words, have you heard of that before? I've got lots of those like that. You take a magazine and you cut sentences and cut them in half and create new sentences. So I got that line from that and I just loved the way it sounded. For me it's just an optimistic comment on the Catholic Church. Which, you know, we've all heard stories about how the guilt trip is very true. And what I'm trying to say with that line is it's cool to have fun, you're not being bad if you're enjoying yourself. That's what I'm trying to get at with that.

AZ: So who are you listening to now? What does Daniel Ash listen to when he's not playing his stuff?

DA: I like dance.

AZ: Like the trance stuff, or do you like digital hardcore?

DA: I'm not crazy on jungle, or drum and bass so much as say, trance. I like the Chemical Brothers.

AZ: The new Chemical Brothers video with the train is nice.

DA: Yeah, you know I haven't heard the new album yet. I haven't gotten it yet.

AZ: Speaking of videos, any chance of something coming out for "Spooky?"

DA: Well, absolutely, if it's successful but if it isn't you're just wasting that much money. That's the way it works these days. So if it becomes a hit, yeah.

AZ: As far as having Lennon on your opening act, it seems that she's opening for everybody these days. Was that a choice of yours?

DA: It was a choice of somebody who thought she was on the same page as me. It wasn't my idea, I wasn't familiar with Lennon. It is something that is sort of inconvenient. I've seen one video of theirs and it's a different area of music compared to what I'm doing. But I don't know how that's going to work. I'm hoping that it's going to draw a section of the public that wouldn't necessarily come to one of my gigs. I think it's a case where we're hoping to help each other out. But their band are complete road warriors. She told me that she did 125 gigs last year.

Posted by Alex Zander at November 1, 2003 12:00 AM