A rainy day at the beach pt. 2
March 29th, 2009 by Chad Radford in Music news
Day 1 in the Redneck Riviera (A.K.A. Destin, Florida) was a success despite the less than summery weather. At the beginning of the trip B Jay had suggested that I call these blog posts “Endless Summer,” but it was apparent upon arrival that summer had not yet begun. But why let that ruin the trip?
After checking into our hotel and scoping out the view from our room over Destin Harbor, we spied a derelict, half-sunken boat that appeared to have been abandoned. The water in the harbor was calm and an occasional dolphin fin or jumping fish flashed across the surface from time to time.
Our room was on the fourth floor of a five story building and our balcony was under constant bombardment from a flock of seagulls who were hungry and demanding. Their barking visits turned out to be among the most high-energy moments of the trip. We fed them peanuts, tortilla chips, onion rings from Burger King and bread and bagels from the hotel’s free continental breakfast stand. Everyone including the hotel concierge gave me dirty looks when they saw me cramming bagels into my pockets and heading back to the room. After the first few rounds we even started recognizing the repeat visitors by their distinctive markings and squawks.
… There is something both surreal and incredibly hilarious about looking into a seagull’s eye as it snatches an entire onion ring out of the sky and flies away with it dangling in its beak.
By evening it was clear that the sinking vessel in the harbor had sunk just a little bit more, and by the next morning water was touching the boat’s windows. Day two came in like a lion when at 10 a.m. heavy black clouds moved over the town. We waited for the rain to let up from a full deluge to a mild sprinkle. The Weather Channel told us the winds were blowing at 15 mph, but it felt more like 30. We went to the beach anyway. We waded in the water while rain pelted us, and in the distance lightning struck the ocean over and over again. B Jay was worried about catching a cold. Due to the chemo and radiation treatment that he had been enduring until recently, his immune system is severely compromised. He stayed out of the water and darted away from the tide that was creeping further up the beach. With each crash, waves knocked over trash cans and scattered soda cans, beer cans, plastic cups and junk food wrappers across the white sand.
B Jay stood draped in an American flag and black Navy beanie, looking like a cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Nicholson circa One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Back at the hotel the sinking ship in the harbor became a recurring topic of conversation. B Jay related to the derelict vessel in ways that the rest of us will hopefully never know. One of the major tasks that was to be accomplished on this trip was a beach recording session of some new songs for a record to be released on Rob’s House Records. On the drive from Atlanta, B Jay fretted over the fact that he hadn’t written any songs and wasn’t feeling particularly inspired by anything. But after the rainy venture to the beach and after tossing around ideas about how the doomed vessel in the water came to be there, he put pen to paper and within minutes had conjured a song called “Sinking.” Later that night he locked himself in the rented SUV with a guitar and a 4-Track and got to work recording two songs for the LP.
Chad Radford: When you write songs do they always come to you as quickly as when you wrote “Sinking?”
B Jay Womack: My shittiest work is stuff that I’ve thought out and sat on for a long time. It’s just a matter of running across the right catch phrase or idiom. I usually start from the chorus and I have a couple of formulas that are cut and pasted, and from there it’s just a matter of getting the verses right. Some of the best Ramones songs are one verse and one chorus that repeat or double with the structure and that’s what I try to do. I generally use the same three chords and just rearrange them.
Tell me about the second song you recorded on this trip, called “Not My Fault.”
I don’t remember writing it. It kind of surprised me because it’s not a bad song, but I don’t know what I intended when I wrote it. It must have been a Xannax night.
Do you forget a lot of things because of the Xannax you are prescribed?
It definitely affects my memory, but usually if something that happened gets mentioned it will click and I’ll remember what happened. It’s getting better because I have more of a tolerance to it, but it kind of sucks that it’s such a mind eraser.
You’ve been recording a lot lately, mostly singles with talk of an LP. What do you have in the works?
It’s kind of still in the air at this point. The end result would be an LP that compiles all of the songs from the 7-inches that I’ve recorded. There are only a few local labels that I even give a shit about, so I want to do something with each of them. But I don’t really know if I can get like, say Rob’s House to do an LP as well as another 7-inch, or if another 7-inch would just be a stone in the way of the LP. I don’t want to hear another label whine about how I can’t use a certain song on the LP if it’s coming out as a 7-inch as well.
Is that an issue?
It’s been confusing. I guess I didn’t make myself clear about what I wanted to do in the first place. Travis and Trey [from Rob's House] know me pretty well so it’s not as awkward to talk about stuff like that, and I understand them more clearly than the way a label like DoucheMaster works. It hasn’t been bad with DoucheMaster, I just think that he didn’t understand that I wanted to take the whole 7-inch that I’m doing for him and include the songs with the LP. But that is what I’ve always wanted to do.
One of my favorite LPs has always been a Bobby Teens record that was nothing but singles that had already been released. I liked how the production was different from song to song. Some of them were different versions of songs that were on other records. Some of them sounded really shitty while others sounded better, but it was cool to have them all together like that.
Do you prefer sitting down alone and recording with a 4-Track vs. recording with a band?
I love it man. The only thing that I hate is hearing people’s dumb ass suggestions about the songs when they haven’t sat down and listened to the song. They immediately want to make suggestions, like ‘why don’t you use a maraca here?’ I just want to say maybe you should just sit down and listen to the song as is. Maybe it doesn’t need anything more than a snare drum and a guitar. … All I had here in the van was a tambourine and an acoustic guitar.
Was this the first time you have recorded in a car?
Definitely the first time. I’ve done a lot of other weird things in a van, but never recorded.
You’ve been recording a lot of stuff lately.
Terminal illness is a motivating factor, especially for me because I have no idea when the shoe is going to drop with this thing. Plus I have put out so many records that were rushed where I didn’t have the control that I wanted, or I was nervous and under confident. Especially vocal wise. I’ve always been pretty confident with a guitar because everything that I play is simple, but I’ve always been sheepish with my vocals. The best times I’ve ever had recording are just when I’m sitting at home in my little makeshift studio and being able to experiment with my voice. That’s why so much of my stuff sounds different.
One of the more striking things about your split 7-inch with Personal and the Pizzas is that your voice is so high pitched?
I don’t really know what that’s about.
I assume that it was because you were listening to a lot of records by Ohio Express?
Yeah that’s definitely part of it. There’s such a slickness to a lot of that Buddha Records stuff and a lot of the more obscure bubblegum labels. Something about the higher range just gives it a snotty energy. One thing that I have hated about my voice is that a lot of songs come off sounding monotonous, like there wasn’t much conviction to it. Singing at a higher register makes it feel like there’s more tension to it. I guess that makes it easier to use minimal instrumentation now, too. I’m mixing the vocals loudly now whereas I used to bury them where you can barely hear them. Now I’m more confident about my lyrics and I kind of want them to be heard.
You have started calling your home recording set up Nuts! Studio. Um, what’s up with the name?
My grandfather was in World War II. He was a crazy bastard who was with Patton in Northern Africa and he followed him into the European theater. He landed at Normandy and crossed the Rhine with him also. He fought at the Battle of the Bulge as well. Purple heart, silver star, bronze star. Got shot by a female Belgian spy, all kinds of crazy shit. The Battle of the Bulge was one of the bloodiest battles in the European theater. He was there fighting, freezing, starving and everything that comes along with war. They were short on supplies and in a horrible condition to fight. At one point the commander of the German army sent a letter of to my grandfather’s commander that said, ‘We demand your surrender. You’re surrounded, your troops are dying. This is your one chance for a peaceful surrender.’ The General read the note and said ‘Nuts! I don’t know what to say. …’ He read it to his troops and asked them what they thought he should send back. They said, ‘tell him what you just told us!’ So he took a piece of paper and wrote NUTS! in capital letters and sent it back. The next day the sky broke, they stormed through and beat the Germans. I thought that directly applied to my situation right now, as far as getting this music recorded now while I can, despite the doctors telling me to take it easy. There are people who have been through a whole lot worse than this. If I can’t get my piddly ass to write two more songs and finish an LP it’s pretty much a disgrace to my family name.
(Photos by Chad Radford)
March 30th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
why’d you have to make me cry :( ?
March 30th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
I was looking at some old photos of the Lids from back in 2003 and remembering how badass they were. Thanks for this wonderful interview! BJ is awesome!!