ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW:
Journalist Sally Steele spoke with Johnny Vanguard for an interview that was published in Rolling Stain Magazine's June 5th 1999 issue. Johnny speaks of his recent separation and reconciliation with Jo Beth Jo, the recent Underlife legal settlement, and also speaks positively on the possibility of an Underlife reunion. Other topics include his own recent solo albums, and working with (now) Australian Idol judge Mark Holden.
Q: "What's your life like right now?"
JOHNNY: "Well, life... It's '99 now, isn't it? Well, I've just settled the Underlife settlement. It must've happened in the last month. Took seven years. (pause) That's a big change. Maybe that's why I'm sleeping funny. As a friend says, I went out for coffee and some papers and I didn't come back. (chuckles) Or vice versa. It's always written that way, y'know. All of us. You know, the guy walked. It's never that simple."
Q: "What did happen with you and Jo Beth? Who broke it up and how did you end up with Denise?"
JOHNNY: "Well, it's not a matter of who broke it up. It broke up. And why did I end up with Denise? (pompous voice) 'We ended up together again because it was diplomatically viable...' Come on. We got together because we love each other."
Q: What happened on the set of that Santos film, Johnny?
JOHNNY: Many things happened. It was a very strange time, but also a wonderous time. Look it was one of those strange times in a person's life when they get attracted to another person for some unkown reasons. Denise and I got together and the rest is really history. What more can one say?
Q: Ok. Now to the other part of your life. "What was the final Underlife settlement?"
JOHNNY: "In a nutshell, what was arranged was that everybody gets their own individual monies. Even up till this year, till the settlement was signed, all the monies were going into one pot. All individual records, mine, Spencer’s - all into one big pot. It had to go through this big machinery and then come out to us, eventually. So now, even the old Underlife royalties, everything goes into separate accounts instead of one big pot all the time. That's that. The rest of it was ground rules. Everybody said Underlife signed this paper, that means they're no longer tied in any way."
Q: "Is there still a good feeling among the guys?"
JOHNNY: "Yeah, yeah, sort of I talked to Spencer yesterday. There's nothin' going down between us. It's all in people's heads."
Q: "You went to one of Underlife’s concerts, what are your thoughts on their tour?"
JOHNNY: "It wasn't the greatest thing in history. The band went through some kind of mill. It was probably their turn to get smacked. When we were all together there was periods when Underlife was in, Underlife was out, no matter what we were doing. Now it's always Underlife were great or they weren't great, whatever opinion people hold. There's a sort of illusion about it. But the actual fact was Underlife were in for three years, but they were also out for three years. The public, including the media, are sometimes a bit sheeplike and if the ball starts rolling, well, it's just that somebody's in, somebody's out. Underlife is out for the moment. And I think it didn't matter what they did on tour."
Q: "Spencer Lees told Rolling Stain that if you wanted Johnny Vanguard, go listen to Underlife. It seemed a bit of a putdown."
JOHNNY: "I didn't see what Spencer said, so I really don't have any comment. (pause) Speedway Sweetheart is a great album. Underlife is almost as conceptual a group as mine. We were a conceptual group, meaning whoever was playing was the band. And Underlife keeps changing all the time. It's conceptual. I mean, they're backup men for Spencer. It doesn't matter who's playing. You can call them Underlife, but it's Spencer Lees music. And it's good stuff. It's good Spencer music and I don't really see the connection."
Q: "Spencer said at his press conference that he could not play with you again. How do you feel?"
JOHNNY: "I could play with all of them. Spence is entitled to say that, and he'll probably change his mind by Friday. You know, we're all human. We can all change our minds. So I don't take any of my statements or any of their statements as the last word on whether we will. And if we do, the newspapers will learn about it after the fact. If we're gonna play, we're just gonna play."
Q: "City Experiences has an undertone of regret to it. Did you sit down consciously to make an album like that?"
JOHNNY: "No, well... Let's say this last year has been an extraordinary year for me personally. And I'm almost amazed that I could get anything out. But I enjoyed doing City Experiences and it wasn't hard when I had the whole thing to go into the studio and do it. I'm surprised it wasn't just all bluuuugggghhhh. (pause) I had the most peculiar year. And... I'm just glad that something came out. It's describing the year, in a way, but it's not as sort of schizophrenic as the year really was. I think I got such a shock during that year that the impact hasn't come through. It isn't all on City Experiences though. There's a hint of it there. It has to do with age and God knows what else. But only the surface has been touched on City Experiences, you know?"
Q: "What was it about the year? Do you want to try talking about it?"
JOHNNY: "Well, you can't put your finger on it. It started, somehow, at the end of 96, goin' to do this Concrete Haystacks album (with Mark Holden). It had quite a lot to do with Jo Beth and I, whether I knew it or not, and then, suddenly, I was out on my own. Next thing I'd be waking up, drunk, in strange places or reading about myself in the paper, doin' extraordinary things, half of which I'd done and half of which I hadn't done.
Q: "Tell me about the Concrete Haystacks album."
JOHNNY: "It started in 96 with Mark and fell apart. I ended up as part of mad, drunk scenes in Los Angeles and I finally finished it off on me own. And there was still problems with it up to the minute it came out. I can't begin to say, it's just barmy, there's a jinx on that album. And I've just started writing a new one. Got maybe half of it written..."
Q: "What about the stories that Holden's working habits are a little odd? For example, that he either showed off or let off fireworks in the studio?"
JOHNNY: "I don't like to tell tales out of school, y'know. But I do know there was an awful loud noise in the toilet of the Record Plant West."
Q: "What actually did happen those nights at the Troubadour when you heckled Russell Crowe?'"
JOHNNY: "Ah, y'want the juice... It was my first night on Brandy Alexanders and my last (laughs). And I was with Jimmy Barnes, who was no help at all (laughs)."
Q: "What's your relationship with Jimmy? Some critics say that he's been heavily influenced, maybe even badly screwed up by you."
JOHNNY: "Oh, that's stupid."
Q: "...and that you've also been influenced by him."
JOHNNY: "That's stupid, too. I haven't been influenced by Jimmy, only that I had a lot of hangovers whenever I was with him (laughs). I love him. He's a great guy and I count him as one of me friends. He hasn't influenced me musically. And there's an illusion going around about my production of Jimmy's album. That he was trying to imitate me on his album."
Q: "You mean that he'd gone into his primal period..."
JOHNNY: "That's it. They're so sheeplike - put this in - and childlike about trying to put a tag on what's going on. The press use these expressions like 'primal' for anything that's a scream.
Q: "Walter Neff has described you as a superb producer but maybe in too much of a hurry."
JOHNNY: "That's true [laughs]."
Q: "But supposedly, when making the Underlife records, you were painstaking and slow."
JOHNNY: "No, I was never painstaking and slow. "
Q: "So can we say that these last few years, in some ways, was a year of deciding whether you wanted to be an artist or a pop star?"
JOHNNY: "Yeah. What is it I'm doing. What am I doing? Meanwhile, I was still putting out the work. But in the back of my head it was that: What do you want to be? What are you lookin' for? And that's about it. I'm a freakin' artist, man, not a freakin’ racehorse."
