Ted Leo

He
may no longer be a mod but guitar-popster Ted Leo is still counting
the beat. Since 1999, the former Chisel survivor has performed with
his own venture the Pharmacists. Truepunk caught up with him on the
phone from New Jersey.

Interview by Steve Tauschke | steve@staff.truepunk.com | with Ted Leo.

Is touring the big payoff for you or writing songs?

It’s tough to say. Touring or traveling and playing every night I love doing it but it also has its drawbacks and it does start to wear on you after so many years. However playing live is actually a really integral part of the process for me. As much as I love just sitting around and playing songs I don’t think I would feel complete about it if I wasn’t able to put together a set and a play them live. That’s the final part of the process for me. A lot of people are perfectly happy to make music but never get on stage but I really do need to take it out there I think.

Are you content operating as an independent artist?

I’m more than happy being an independent artist. In terms of heading for the mainstream and I know this sounds a little trite or whatever but we are just on our own trajectory. It has brought us a considerable amount of popularity in the States in the last year or two but we honestly just keep doing what we’re doing and the funny thing is the schedule that we’ve been on there hasn’t really been much time to stop and assess what that trajectory is. ‘are we headed for the mainstream?’. Well, I don’t know because I’ve got to drive to Omaha and play a show tonight.

You were called a mod back in your Chisel days?

Sonically, it makes sense to me. Without being too self-aggrandising, I think what I played was punk and soul with a little bit of folk thrown in here and there and I guess that kind of fits with the mod aesthetic. But if I’m going to be completely honest, we kind of actively courted that mod thing to a certain degree and in 1990 when we formed it was pretty anachronistic, we were the odd one out. I’ve heard since then Chisel has gained a little bit of notoriety but the mod tag is not something I run away from but I’m not a mod. I do drive around on a Vespa and I do like the Jam but I don’t hang around with guys in parkas and go to mod shows.

What did you learn in your time in Chisel and others?

I don’t mean to keep talking about touring a lot but that was one of the frustrations for me with Chisel specifically. We weren’t able to tour as much as not only I wanted to but as much as I felt an independent band had to stay on the road because you don’t get these giant advertising budgets and crashing waves of hype from the NME, you have to create your won opportunities and get out there and do it and I found that once I was able to start doing that then for me it really is incredibly rewarding, to be on the road and personally connect with people and play your music every night, that’s important.

You must have some war stories surely?

Going back to Chisel, we played this out door show with the Cranberries once and two days before the show this radio station called us and told us we had to play acoustic because the Cranberries were doing an acoustic set and they didn’t want to have to follow a rock band. So we said we’d try it and so we practiced in our basement but when we got out there in front of 13,000 people on a sunny may afternoon on the mall in Washington DC it didn’t translate well at all. We were horrible and the crowd hated us and wanted us off the stage immediately and they were throwing things at us. They were so wound up they started a pit during the Cranberries acoustic set because, you know, there were 13,000 drunk college students there. The Cranberries walked off after one song and an actual riot ensued with all these muscular tanned college guys and girls started rampaging and it was raining green Rolling Rock beer bottles onto the stage. Police on horses had to come in and it was really surreal.

If only they’d plugged in!

Right. Haha!

Speaking of going electric you worked with Chris Shaw who I notice has collaborated with Bob Dylan?

Chris I think was as in awe of Bob Dylan as I was of Chris. He had this persona of walking into the room and look really unassuming but once he got working you can really see his genius. He’s telling us about Bob Dylan walking into the studio pushing mikes out of the way after everything had been miked up really professionally and then sitting down at the piano and going (adopts nasal Dylan-esque voice) ‘ok, roll’.

I’m used to being very involved in every aspect of making a record right down to like sitting at the console but I mean working with Chris, you know, he’d say ‘give me an hour with every song’ and that’s when I saw his real genius. He was like a mad scientist on the boards and exacted in on my unarticulated ideas of what I wanted. He’d just throw up this amazing mix and I rarely had any comment other than ‘oh, that’s great’. He was pretty amazing to work with.

Is it true you recorded Shake The Sheets in the basement of your childhood home?

Yah, that’s true. I was between places for a while and was staying there last year which was nice to be able to stash my stuff in a basement and head out on the road for a while. Both my parents still work and everything so I kind of had the run of the place to make noise during the day and I took full advantage of that. I sat up late and wrote lyrics all night and it was nice to be able to get into that comfortable space and roll up the sleeves and do nothing but work on music for a month. It was a rare treat.

You recently did a split EP with Aussie punkers Blueline Medic. What was your prior knowledge of that band?

I had heard some of their stuff through working with some of the people at Shock. I try to stay on top of things that are going on elsewhere in the world so I checked out their catalogue and I really liked what I heard from those guys. I think we probably share a lot of things in common, sensibilities wise, and for me it’s actually pretty flattering and exciting. It’s pretty rare that someone comes to you and says ‘let’s do a split with these guys and then come down and play shows – what do you think about that?’.

You’ve included a cover of the 80s Split Enz track Six Months In A Leaky Boat?

I saw them on MTV when that record came out when I was maybe 11 and so I went and bought that record. From the moment I heard it it’s been a favourite of mine. A lot of the music I w as listening to and was writing at the time when I did the Tyranny of Distance LP, it called that song back up in my mind and I named that record after a line from the song. Eventually I figured well, maybe I should just play the song.

So do you have any favorite split EPs?

There’s two great sort of classic American hardcore records, Faith and Void which is like a classic 80s hardcore split EP and on my record label Lookout there’s a band called Filth and another called Blatz and that’s a classic 90s split. So they’re some good ones and I gotta say, anything that leaves you wanting more is usually a good thing.