Mike Watt, bassist, vocalist, provocateur, formerly a member of punk revolutionaries the Minutemen, post-punk trio fIREHOSE, and solo artist whose latest release is Contemplating the Engine Room.
Mike and I are the same age and both grew up in San Pedro, CA, though we didn't know each other in school. Our commenting Most Righteous Bud Bricklayer mentioned running into Mike on this post (see comment #1), so dammit, it's time to put up my Mike Watt interview from late-1992.
EO - Going back to the beginning, how did the Minutemen get hooked up with SST?
MW - Our first gig as The Minutemen was May 22, 1980. No that was our second gig. Our first one was in April. But Greg Ginn of SST was at both of those gigs. Even at the first gig he asked if we wanted to be on the label, and in July we made our first record. It was just Greg seeing us and liking us that got us on the label. We were very excited about it.
EO - What was the band like at that time?
MW - We had another drummer at those first two gigs. We didn't have George Hurley. After two gigs the first drummer got scared. He thought it was too violent or something, and quit. So we got George, like four weeks before we made the record, and he had to learn the songs in that time. The band was pretty uncompromised. We kind of knew rock and roll from playing in our bedrooms in the 70's. So when we got our own band together, we were kind of scared of people knowing that we knew rock. In order to avoid them knowing this, we did some very extreme things. We played real short songs, and really stripped them down with no choruses. We played them all together like it was one big song. Very extreme!
EO - Why did you choose that route? Why so extreme?
MW - We thought that it was the only chance we had at getting our own identity, our own voice. We thought it was the only way to get a shot. We didn't think we were good enough to copy other people. We thought if we went this way, no matter what style we played, people would know that it was the Minutemen.
That's what we went for, and I think that's why Greg liked us. We had a conservative lineup of guitar, bass and drums like everyone else, but there was something about us that didn't make us sound like anybody else, or even look like anybody else. I think it was those things: being extreme, being ourselves.
Article comments
1 - David
Very nice interview, and very nice of you to dredge it up for us.
Seeing the MM for the 1st time was unforgetable. Two weeks after I'd run out to buy The Punchline for some reason, with a bored, bleary-eyed teenage punk rock audience at a warehouse in the Valley called Godzilla's, where pretty much anybody could play. I was standing next to O, who was the world's biggest MM fan (both literally and figuratively, not to mention being practically the only one - what ever happened to O? What ever happened to me?), and he turned to me and said the 2 words made famous by Tony the Tiger, whereupon the MM exploded. 1 minute later we all exploded right back with the same word "Yeahhh!" which we kept doing every minute or so for about the next 45 of them.
I also once had the honor of peeing on a dumpster with D Boone. I won't forget that either.
2 - Eric Olsen
Thanks David, great stories. The Minutemen, SST, and that whole scene were very important to a lot of people. You can tell from the interview, that even 12 years later it was all still very real to Mike, that he helped create something out of nothing and gave voice to something that needed to be said.
3 - Eric Olsen
And now it's been another 11 years after that. Amazing.
4 - BJ
Thanks Eric, that's very cool.
I'm just a touch younger, probably, and some of my formative experiences were laying in bed late at night in high school (mid-80s) with my headphones on, listening to the University of Northern Iowa's late night radio shows. They played NPR and classical stuff during the day, then everything from the Minutemen to Africa Bambataa after 9:00.
I wonder what I'd be doing now if that hadn't been available. It's powerful stuff, that music.
5 - Eric Olsen
thanks BJ, very powerful and very uncompromising indeed
6 - dave
Yes, Thanks Eric, that's very cool.
7 - Eric Olsen
thanks Dave
8 - brother dale
in the fall of '85 i got to go tour as part of an opening act for the mm. our thing was called brother awest and his world salivation ministry. we were not a musical act, instead we did politcal comedy. bro awest wore a 3pc white suite and a 2 foot high pompador (white) wig. i would come out 1st and sing a song called "going to the tent" to get the people warmed up and then bro awest would come out and do a right wing preacher spoof that would usually have most folks wondering if we were for real or not (ala andy kaufman style). the mm paid us with a portion of the money they made from the clubs ($75). and although here it is almost 20 yrs later, i gotta say that that was one of the highlights of my life so far. d. boon was the real deal and although i only knew him for a short time (5 months) the spirit of his friendship is still as strong as ever. my wish for all of you is that you get to meet and hange with someone like the minutemen.
9 - bruce
brother awest has sent me some photos from the 85 world salivation ministry co-conspirators' tour.
check 'em out here:
http://users.110.net/~brucesiart/watt/index.htm
-bruce
10 - dirt
Live Minutemen fIREHOSE Mike Watt and many more at:
http://www.archive.org/audio/etreelisting-browse.php
11 - saundra ellis hill
In 1992 I had the pleasure of touring and opening up for Mike Watt and Firehose with a band named Hipnotic Beat. Band members were Steve Reed Rick Hill Saundra Ellis Hill Mike Sanfordsmith,Abrums,Jerry,afemale drummer who also played with leathal weapeon.It was a college and club tour.It was awesome.All the kids loved it Mike let's do it again
12 - Eric Olsen
that's a Beach Boys song
that does sound great, saundra!
13 - todd
I remember seeing the Salivation show. Didn't think I had ever seen the Minutemen casue I was never a huge fan, I was more into Husker Du/faster stuff you could slam to.
But now that I think about it, I somewhat remember meeting D Boone somewhere hanging out before a show.
Probably either in Muncie at the No-bar or Indy at some American Legion or something.
A guy dressed up as a preacher played a saw.
Ha I remember being tripped out by that at the time!