Interview with Robert Hunter and Greg Anton, August 25, 1997
New York Stories
xian
The album seems to have a lot of New York in the lyrics, at least in
that song and in Pits of Thunder.
RH
Yeah, I wanted to do some New York stuff.
xian
I think it fits. Maybe it's the funkiness, but Zero always sounds like
a city band to me, like a street-smart band, so that New York, urban, street
scene thing fits like a glove. Maybe it's just my stereotypes of funk.
Greg
We do a lot of blues, you know. The roots of a lot of the music is blues.
A lot of your music, Hunter, seems to have grown out of folk, out of
the language and sometimes the structure of folk music, although a lot
of other rivulets lead into the stream. And "folk" isn't the first word
that comes to mind when I think about Zero or their sound. Is that just
a musicologist's distinction that's meaningless because it's all just music
or rock and roll?
RH
I don't know if it's meaningless but I don't examine myself from that
point of view. What I liked about folk is that the lyrics lasted, made
sense, and they made sense for a reason, whatever that might be. I never
had much use for lyrics that only kept the rhythm or only had a nice tag
line. I just never concerned myself with that stuff. So I'd say that the
sense in good folk lyrics, in good old-timey lyrics, has come through,
and that's what I consider a good song to be, but I also understand I'm
working with rock and roll, and you can get a lot snappier.
each line is a song, almost, in its own right; you've got to stack the deck
Robert, you performed Pits of Thunder at your last Fillmore show and
you were halfway into the first verse before I connected it to the versions
that I'd heard Zero doing for the last few years. On the chorus it's unmistakable,
but even there you take that chorus with a very different feel from the
way Zero does it.
RH
I did it to favor the lyrics.
xian
It was nice because I actually hadn't discerned them before. Until you've
heard a song a few times or in a few different contexts, it's hard to learn
the words. Getting Zero's latest
album just last week, I finally understood
what the lyrics were about for some of those songs.
RH
You only need to catch a few lines on a song. I've realized that over
the years. With a stage-performance type song, the lines aren't cumulative.
Each line is a song, almost, in its own right. The audience will get this
one, and then while they're thinking about this, a couple of more lines
pass by before they "come to" again and stop thinking about that one. Or
they're grooving to the music and all of a sudden a line will jump in.
So you've got to stack the deck that way, and you can't depend just on
story content.
You mentioned that you don't take to songs that have just a hook, but
some songs need a hook, don't they? I've been in the audience where people
did not know the song Pits of Thunder when it started, and when it re-coalesced
again out of some incredibly spacious jam or some percussion thing, everyone's
singing along with the chorus.
Greg
Really?
xian
Oh, yeah. Especially down close, where it's not a mosh pit-- it's a
hippie audience-- but it's kind of a pit down there, lots of people making
eye contact, and there's a kind of feel that the song is narrating the
events. You must have noticed that the song does get a great response?
Greg
No, I never really noticed that.
RH
He's back behind those cymbals.
Greg
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I can't really tell what's going on out there.
RH
I can't either. As a soloist performing, I can't really tell what's
going on. Except for in Portland, playing during the day. I could actually
see the audience, at Furthur. That was one of the few times I've been able
to see my audience, see what effect I was having. I don't know if I like
it or not. I did like it that day.
Greg
Yeah, it's a myopia or something that happens. I've noticed that. People,
a lot of times good friends, have said "I came to your show, and you were
looking right at me, man. Didn't you know I was there?" It's kind of a
survival necessity, in order to do your work. It takes such concentration
right then just relating to those people on the stage.
RH
You're probably interacting but you don't know it, because if you know
you're interacting, then you're doing something other than performing your
song. You start being mirrors on mirrors: me watching them watching me
watching them watching me, that you can finally forget your lines and blow
your chords. You've got to concentrate on your music.
I went to one of those Steve Kimock & Friends shows and I saw you
pop out of the backstage area at one point. I wonder if that gave you the
feeling of being in an audience?
I think that's something that fans appreciate, the way they may run
into Martín hanging out in the audience before a show or just the
sense that you guys aren't up on some 20 foot stage.
"Martín told me to shut up!"
You seem like real
people.
RH
You've got to make a button that says "Martín Told Me to Shut
Up"! You'd sell a lot of them.
xian
Yeah, I went to one of Martín's Sunday gigs at New George's.
We got there early and I was shooting some pool with my friend Nick and
Martín came by and leaned over as I was making a shot. It happened
to be a good shot, thank goodness, and he went "Oh man!" and I said "You
gave me good luck!" and he said "Oh shut up." Nick turned to me and said
"Martín Fierro personally told you to shut up!" (Greg and
Robert laugh.)
Greg
Yeah, you've got to be careful with that, if you hang around with Martín.
Next thing you know, you're talking to some stranger, a waitress or something,
and you just say "shut up"!