Meat Puppets: Band to bring mix of rock, punk to Otto’s
By JOHN PUTERBAUGH - jputerbaugh@daily-chronicle.com
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| Band members from left: Cris Kirkwood, Curt Kirkwood and Shandon Sahm. |
When Nirvana covered three Meat Puppets songs for the band’s MTV Unplugged session in the mid ’90s, the nation was introduced to an obscure punk/hardcore band that’s been around since the ’80s. While Meat Puppets have always had a strong cult following, not many might have guessed Kurt Cobain was among them.
And while the days of Nirvana have long since passed, Meat Puppets continues to play in concert and record new music. Guitarist and singer Curt Kirkwood spoke with this writer from his home in Austin, Texas, last week about the band’s music, its fans and its record companies over the years.
How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard of you?
Rock music. It’s always my fallback description; just a rock band, three-piece.
Is there anything about growing up in Phoenix that left a permanent stamp on your career and development as a musician?
Oh yeah; Phoenix is a different place to grow up. It was real different. The desert was always real appealing to me and there’s no real change of seasons. It’s always kind of the same. It doesn’t rain. Once we started traveling around, it was like ‘oh this is different.’ The culture you get is more like the environment.
Is it true that in your earliest days as the Meat Puppets, you refused to rehearse in an effort to stay true to punk rock ideals?
You know, we’ve rehearsed a lot. What we never really did was try to figure our stuff out. We always just played. We only played when we enjoyed it, but we wound up playing a lot. We’d go through song books; a Beatles song book, an Elvis song book, whatever. We never had a set rehearsal schedule. We still don’t.
What did you learn as a musician in your time with SST Records and Black Flag’s Greg Ginn?
It was always the opportunity at SST to do what we wanted. That was the biggest thing. We always saw eye to eye; they never questioned what we were going to release. We’d make a record and go here you go and that’s it.
From your earliest days, you’ve garnered a real cult following. What has this type of fan base done for you as a musician?
You know, I just kind of kept apart from it. I’ve seen that and I just ... I’m still pretty much the same musician as I was. I’ve seen it kind of from both sides; we have our cult following and people who just come in at different times. But I never really think about it that much. I keep apart from all that stuff. I don’t really do any networking. I don’t know that it’s affecting me; it’s really hard for me to tell. I’ve never been able to figure out what people see.
After Meat Puppets broke up around 1990, what kind of lessons did you learn about yourselves?
It sort of picked up where it was. Being on hiatus from the band allowed me to do solo stuff and be in other bands, which was kind of cool for sure. I never had that experience. For me, it was good.
Obviously, a lot of people have come to know you as a result of Nirvana MTV Unplugged session in the mid ’90s. From your standpoint, what did it mean to have Kurt Cobain thinking enough of your music to try it out for himself?
The bands were real close in spirit; there’d been mutual influences that we shared. You could sum it up in just saying kindred spirits. And I could tell that way before we met him and before we knew he liked us at all. Where we’re coming from, there’s similarities; whether in the MO or in the vibe of the music. I’ve felt that way with a few bands. When I heard Nirvana, I was like, you know that’s different. It made a lot of sense once they were like, ‘we wanna do these songs.’ It’s pretty phenomenal if you take a step back from it.
How has your latest album, “Sewn Together,” been received since its release last spring?
Pretty good. Everybody tells me they like it. That’s about what I’ve heard. Everybody’s been really liking it. That’s what they say anyway. And people like it when we play the songs live. I don’t think anybody thought it was too big of a departure from anything we’ve done before.
What do you think the future has in store for Meat Puppets?
Probably work on some new songs more. We toured a lot this year and we’ll be looking more toward getting another album done. Just playing music. I’m lucky to have had this be the opportunity time and time again. No grand plans; I never have been that kind of a planner.
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If you go
Meat Puppets with Geronimo!
8 p.m. Wednsday, Nov. 11
Otto's Niteclub, 118 E. Lincoln Highway, DeKalb
$15
www.kickstandproductions.net
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