SOUNDSCAPES | Remembering Home with Alt Rock Band, Wussy
May 2010 | Wussy: Interview with Chuck Cleaver, Lisa Walker, Mark Messerly, and Joe Klug, with Daniel J. Gerstle / HELO. Image: WOXY | Humanitarianbazaar.org
Rolling Stone described the music of the American band Wussy as “mega-tuneful songs that can get under your skin something fierce.” The Village Voice labeled it “cheerfully combative Midwestern noise-pop.” And SPIN wrote the band was “exposing ordinary life’s flaming weirdness.” Listen to their myspace set here, or the studio video at the top of the story below, and decide for yourself.
When HELO Editor Daniel J Gerstle discovered that the band’s music perfectly reproduced that feeling of “home” needed so desperately by expats overseas, he ran down to New York’s Lower East Side to interview them when they were in town. Here’s the interview written as a Screenplay, all verbatim with the band’s songs weaved in. Enjoy getting to know them, and be sure to buy an album or two for when you’re on the road.
EXT. URBAN STREET – NIGHT
DJG scrambles through a cold rain on Ludlow Street in New York’s Lower East Side. He waits until cars pass, one splashes him, and he dashes across the road to a…
EXT. CAFEBAR – CONTINUOUS
Lit up with a sign that reads, “Cake Shop.” A few kind PUNKS are smoking under the very narrow awning. DJG ignores them as he hands his ID to a bored-looking BOUNCER, who hardly nods…
INT. CAKE SHOP BAR AREA – CONTINOUS
He shakes off the rain and weaves inside the tiny, modestly crowded club as some classic grunge rock a la Dinosaur Jr plays on the radio. Handing the TICKETER eight bucks, DJG pivots down a dark…
FLIGHT OF STAIRS
DJG immediately recognizes CHUCK CLEAVER, a large, tattooed man with shaggy hair, full beard, and glasses, coming up the stairs. He extends a hand…
DJG: Hi Chuck. Daniel, from HELO Magazine…
EXT: URBAN STREET – MOMENTS LATER
Chuck and Daniel stand beneath an apartment building awning one door down from the Cake Shop, watching the rain saturate the city. Chuck drinks a can of soda…
CHUCK: Joe, our drummer, is the only one originally from Cincinnati. Mark is from the Cleveland area. Lisa’s from Muncy, Indiana, or near there. And I’m from an hour north of Cincinnati, sort of out in the corn country. Clinton County, near Fort Ancient. I used to ride my bike to Fort Ancient every day. It was a cool place to grow up. Got a little dull as a teenager, but you know.
DJG: Yeah, I grew up near there. That’s a cool place to hang out. Then you just end up exploring more, farther and farther away. Prepares you for life on the road.
CHUCK: Exactly. But it’s supposedly a cursed area. The forefathers that built the town that I lived in didn’t pay attention to the fact that there were burial mounds there. Clarksville; there’s a high suicide rate; they always attribute it to the American Indian curse on us. [Half-smile]
DJG: If you grew up in a cursed town, how did that affect your choice in music?
CHUCK: Everything I write is bleak according to some people. I don’t necessarily see it that way. As a person I don’t consider myself that way. There’s hope in all that stuff. You just have to dig for it a little bit.
Taxis pass in the rainy street. “Happiness Bleeds,” a song Wussy plays down in the basement club minutes later rings out with Chuck singing over droning chords…
I remember puking down the side of a car
The cost of drinking liquor from the mouth of a jar
Leaning on the fender and declaring that we name a star
Trippin’ through the brambles ’til our pants are all torn
Searchin’ for a paper bag of mildewin’ porn
Reflecting on the neverending question why we’d been born…
Happiness bleeds, Happiness bleeds, Happiness bleeds all over…
You and me, you and me…
I remember sadness at the edge of your eyes
Surrounded by the darkness of the dead winter sky
Something like a kiss on the temple and word goodbye
There were never devils living under the stairs
There were never angels in your grandmother’s hair
There’s never been another that I could compare…
Happiness bleeds, happiness bleeds, happiness bleeds all over…
You and me, you and me, you and me…
La, la, la-la-la-la-la, la, la… Baby, I love you…
DJG: Listening to your music reminds me of driving across those country roads. It’s an uplifting thing, a summertime thing, but then the reviewers write about you and Lisa having some kind of catharsis, like an argument through the songs.
CHUCK: Like I was telling that guy who interviewed me for the Philadelphia City Paper, if everything in those songs would have happened to me and her, we would be dead.
Both laugh.
CHUCK [Cont’d]: There’s no way. Some of it’s fiction; some of it’s fact. We don’t tend to divulge which is which. She and I have broken up three times within the band and gotten back together. We’re not together at the moment, you know. It’s odd traveling in a band with your former girlfriend. It’s an odd experience.
DJG: Well, how does that… What is your routine for writing songs together.
CHUCK: She and I, our writing just meshes so well that she writes her stuff, I write mine, and we just sort of cram it all in together. We do help each other, too, sometimes…
A sopping wet HOMELESS WOMAN emerges from the rain and approaches the two under the awning…
CHUCK: With a line or two there…
HOMELESS WOMAN: Can you spare some change?
CHUCK: I don’t have any, Ma’am, I’m sorry. [To DJG] But um, and I really don’t, so I can tell that truthfully.
DJG: Happens a million times a week here.
CHUCK: Lisa told me, and my ex-wife told me, You have that face that panhandlers just go up to for some reason. Cause we go downtown in Cincinnati and my ex-wife will always be like, I come down here by myself and I’m fine. I come down with you and I get hit on by everyone. You just have to not look at people, she said.
DJG: Might be the eye contact.
CHUCK: Yeah, well she [Lisa] and I will help each other out. I’ll finish a line for her sometimes. Or she’ll give me one. Or she’ll look at something and say, Maybe you should use this instead of that? That kind of thing. We’re very much on the same wavelength as far as writing goes. But we don’t write too many actual songs together.
DJG: What about Mark and Joe?
CHUCK: What we do is we bring in a skeleton and they flesh it out. Mark occasionally will write a lyric or two, if we’re hung up on something. Joe’s only been with us for a year, maybe a little longer.
DJG: Do you agree with that, that you use music as a catharsis?
CHUCK: Oh, yeah, by all means, I think I would go insane without being able to write. For me, it’s therapy, you know. Oh, you might want to get out of the way…
The door opens with a squeal and a tenant passes to the sidewalk…
DJG: Our magazine has a lot of foreign affairs, war and peace type stuff, but we want music in there because nearly everybody who goes out to work in crisis zones has a stressful life. They want to have music for coping with stress. And people who have hardship, music helps us to work it out.
CHUCK: Well, yeah, without music I’d be a complete basket case. It’s the only way I write. I’ve attempted to write short stories to some success, but the song structure is what interests me. I’m very nerdy about words and how they fit together, how they flow up and down in a song.
DJG: What about your roots in music? What do you like to listen to, and what would you recommend people listen to when they’re out on the road?
CHUCK: To tell you the truth, I’m probably the least interested in [collecting] music in the band. About the only current bands I’ve heard lately, and that doesn’t mean there aren’t tons out there that I wouldn’t like, I really like the band Frightened Rabbit. There’s a band called Reindeer Section that I like. Both those bands happen to be Scottish. They’re both very confessional bands. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Frightened Rabbit, but their last album is probably one of the best break up records I’ve ever heard in my life. Man, it’s just relentless but in a kind way, if that makes any sense. His lyrics are very harsh towards his ex-girlfriend and who she’s decided to be with, but at the same time it’s so eloquent that it doesn’t come off pissy. It’s really powerful.
DJG: Yes, definitely. By the way, the rest of the band…?
CHUCK: They went to eat dinner somewhere. I’m the guy that sticks with the, I have urban phobias, especially in New York. I normally just stay at the club and hang with the stuff. In the rear with the gear. Everybody always thinks I’m the roadie, anyway. They never think I’m the high voiced front man.
DJG: What are you working toward?
CHUCK: Everything I’ve ever been in has fortunately done quite well critically. The Ass Ponys, we were a critic’s band. We had fans but we were mostly a band that got written about. Wussy has gotten beyond that; we’re still more within the critics’ realm than within the fan-based realm. But we’ve gone farther because we have two people singing, two people writing, two points of view. You’re going to get more feedback. I hate to say this, it sounds terrible but you know she’s cute and that helps, too. I hate that cause it sounds condescending, but the Ass Ponys, I mean, we looked like a bunch of guys who fell off the back of a truck. We [Wussy] just have a broader appeal. We’re doing pretty well right now. Not making money yet but you know.
DJG: Well, you’re carving out some legacy right now with a fourth album.
Another PANHANDLER stops by…
PANHANDLER: Dollar?
CHUCK: I don’t have any money at all. I, I,…
A group of WOMEN gather to smoke; laughing as they tell stories…
CHUCK (Cont’d): Lost my train of thought.
DJG: Legacy.
CHUCK: I’ll read a review like in Rolling Stone, and it’s always like I’m reading about somebody else. So it’s always a nice surprise. I don’t know if I’ll ever not feel that way…
LISA WALKER’s voice rings out over the pounding rock jam, “Funeral Dress,” their concert opener they’ll perform minutes later that night. Chuck finishes his drink and watches the rain…
Some went over to take your best
Save your money for a funeral dress
Skipped your dinner when you got the news
Maybe now you can’t afford to choose
But you’re alive, each and every day you’re alive
You’re alive, counting every second
You’re alive, knowing he will never come again
You never ran so far from anywhere
You clutched the rail but never left the stairs
Scars are hidden by a classic ring and
Coming home may be the hardest thing
You’re alive, each and every day you’re alive
You’re alive, counting every second
You’re alive, knowing it will never come again
MINUTES LATER
Singer Lisa and bassist MARK MESSERLY join Daniel under the awning in the rain as Chuck has disappeared to prepare for the concert in the Cake Shop’s basement…
MARK: In the last few years, I’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that we sound like the Midwest. I grew up in northern Ohio, total rust belt, near Akron. My Dad worked in Cleveland, so that Akron, Youngstown, Cleveland triangle. Turns out that I’m proud in the end to be a Midwestern band. It was nothing that was discussed. It just turns out that you can take the band out of the Midwest, but not the Midwest out of the band. Well, I thought I’d work in that quote…
[Laughs]
DJG: [To Lisa] What do you think?
LISA: I lost track of the question cause [Mark’s] answer was too long.
[Laughs]
DJG: We were just talking about how the music somehow sounds like Ohio, in a good way. I lived in Clifton and went to Uof Cincinnati, so I was there in the whole Over-the-Rhine / Afghan Whigs period. I always thought that the Afghan Whigs really sound like Cincinnati in the winter. But you guys sound like Cincinnati in the summertime.
[Cheers.]
MARK: Well, we can’t say it any better than that. And great to be mentioned in the same breath as the Whigs. They’re one of the great Cincinnati bands.
LISA: Summer’s a good time there.
DJG: I was talking to Chuck about how some reviewers see your music as a catharsis, the lyrics as a bit dark.
LISA: I don’t see our music as dark at all. They’re no darker than life.
In a tune they’ll play later that night, Lisa sings “Soak it Up”…
You cut off your hair despite all the warnings and
Burned all the letters on your concrete block
I wasn’t there when they found you in the morning
I found a bullet while you were finding God
I’ll take a drink, drinkin’s just too easy and
I can’t soak it up when the memories start to run
I have a plan that’ll get us to the next town but
I never thought I’d drive this far without a gun
When your hurricane came I didn’t board the window
I knew by the name it was coming for me
I wasn’t there when the sun came in the morning
I never had a reason to stay anyway
I’ll take a drink, drinkin’s just too easy and
I can’t soak it up when the memories start to run
I have a plan that’ll get us to the next town but
I never thought I’d drive this far without a gun
MARK: I kept a quote on my refrigerator, a quote from Lucinda Williams when her absolute masterpiece of an album came out and the interviewer was like, there are no happy songs on the record. She paused for a long time and said, Nobody writes happy songs, for God sakes. You know, other than “Walking on Sunshine.” I love a great summer-put-down-the-windows song as much as the rest, but to be honest I don’t go to rock and roll to be reminded of the joy of life. Yeah, it’s catharsis. Feeling like you’re not alone.
LISA: The fact that they’re noticing that, to me every pop song is not heard that way must mean that with our songs they’re listening in a new way.
MARK: There is turmoil in our songs, but anyone who’s been involved with another human being in any significant way, it should be a very recognizable turmoil. Even the best of relationships are fraught with insecurities and misunderstandings and fear and love and longing.
DJG: What kind of music do you listen to to get through stress?
LISA: I listen to a lot of soul music, like Al Green and Rolling Stones, old stuff.
MARK: I went through a messy divorce; as if there was anything other than a messy divorce. And I listened to two bands to get through it. One was Superchunk and the other was a band called the Muffs. The great break-up album is a beautiful thing. Matthew Ryan has this record called, East Autumn Grin, that is one of the great break-up records. The Replacements’ All Shook Down. His band is breaking up, and his marriage is breaking up.
LISA: And Shoot Out the Lights. I like Blue Valentine, even though it’s not a break-up record. Just that album by Tom Waits.
MARK: Nobody does a sad song better than Tom Waits.
DJG: One of those things about Cincinnati is that social tension, which has dissipated from other parts of the country.
LISA: If you’re not rich or white, you’re just not going to fly in some parts of town. When I moved there I was shocked.
MARK: I was in Boston then in Cincinnati, I thought, why don’t white and black people do anything together here? But I refuse to get on any bash Cincinnati thing because there are also too many dear people there.
LISA: That’s why it’s so important to be somewhere like that. A place like that needs culture and it needs open-minded people more than other places. Everyone has their calling, but some people need to stay otherwise it’s going to turn to Hell.
DJG: Where do you usually play most?
LISA: Northside Tavern [Cincinnati, Ohio, USA].
MARK: That’s our home.
INT: CLUB FLOOR – MINUTES LATER
Lisa, Mark, Chuck, and drummer JOE KLUG take the tiny stage in the basement floor of the Cake Shop. DJG nurses a beer against the wall and watches the dedicated cult followers of the band bunch up.
The vibe is very casual, with Lisa and Mark picking on each other. Their sound is much, much louder than on their albums to the crowd’s delight. It’s not a slamfest, or a bunch of screaming maniacs, but rather a mature dark humored lot. The band finally reaches their top single off the new album, Wussy. The song is, “Muscle Cars.” Lisa sings, Chuck jams, Joe pounds, and Mark walks a forward bass line.
You’ve been singing on my tape, sleeping under lock and key
Kissing on the fire escape, rock of ages cleft for me
And the room is picking up my cues
It spins and waits to see if you’ll
Talk talk, talk talk, talk talk, talk talk, talk talk, talk talk to me
It’s okay (it’s okay), pull me under (pull me under)
All the way (all the way), all the way (all the way)
On the other side of town, you’re sleeping through the fire alarm
I could watch the city drown, from your everlasting arms
We could row, against the undertow
There’s nothing here to see til you…
Talk talk, talk talk, talk talk, talk talk, talk talk, talk talk to me
It’s okay (it’s okay), pull me under (pull me under)
All the way (all the way), all the way (all the way)
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