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It's a lot more pleasant in the domestic sense. I've got a big house here, I've got a little studio in the back, which is much more pleasant than living in a small apartment in Brooklyn. Especially if you have a two-year-old on your hands. You sing on your latest album about Isaac Newton. Was he really a virgin when he died? He was, yeah. I learned that on the Discovery Channel. He was very religious, a devout Christian. I think it informed him in a weird way. Apparently, he declared on his deathbed that he was dying a virgin, proud. Speaking of pride, you've said your album was about "failing triumphantly." What does that mean? You know, things just weren't going very well for me, on a lot of different levels. Our last record, Soft Spot, didn't do very well and there was just this sense of like, "Oh, maybe this band's done, maybe this guy's had it." And my mom was dying of cancer at the time. I didn't have any money. I was thinking a lot about what it even really means to succeed. People think, "Oh, you know, he's made a lot of money, and he's got a beautiful wife, now he's very successful," but then, that same guy goes and jumps out of a window. You just never know what's sort of going on in the deeper, subconscious nether-regions of us all. Do you think that pain promotes creativity? I do find comfort in writing songs. But at the same time, if things are really difficult, then I can't do anything. I don't think that you have to suffer to make great art. I think what sort of goes on in people's hearts and minds is very mysterious and complicated. If life slaps you around a little bit, you tend to become either more empathetic or more bitter. I'm a little of both, I suppose. Empathy and bitterness are good things to feel when you're writing songs. What's important for a lasting relationship? That Dr. Phil shit is probably true, you know. You have to be honest with each other and respect each other. Every relationship's like a power struggle, and I think there has to be kind of a balance of power. If it tips too far to one side, then it starts getting a little dark and fucked up. There's a sort of sadomasochism in every human relationship. I think it's easy for a lot of relationships to move toward a destructive space. What's your opinion on monogamy? I like it. I'm happy with it. I remember I got into this conversation with our former bass player, Jeff, who was kind of a notorious slut. He would just screw anything. And he wasn't the most insightful person about human relations. He had that typical, free-wheeling kind of attitude that some men have. He'd show me, "the most beautiful woman in the world," and say, "I'm tired of fuckin' her," and all that. But it seemed to me that ends up being more of a routine than monogamy, in a way. It's like this false kind of intimacy, and it becomes like this kind of game that you play with people. What are ways that you can keep sex interesting if you've been in a relationship for a long time? Sex is just a . . . Everyone thinks about sex, and obsesses over it all the time, and so much media's generated by those sexy feelings. To me, it's just something, you just kinda do it, you know? It doesn't need to be analyzed, or discussed, or, or like, taken apart or post-modernized. It's just like uh . . . it's just sort of there, like the ground that we walk upon, you know? You just, you just kind of walk and . . . I didn't get much sleep last night . . . I was up all night having sex. What was your last day job? I worked as a New York City tour guide for about three years. The people that ran the company smuggled in 1960s double-decker buses from London that had no business being on the road anywhere. They would forge documents so that they could get them through the inspection. So every now and again, we'd be in the middle of Madison Avenue and the bus would just start spewing this black cloud of death or the windows would pop out. One time, they gave me this bus driver that was retarded and insane, and couldn't drive the bus. Right on the West Side Highway, he went over a stoplight beam on the sidewalk and half the bus went over this median. He almost bounced these two little Japanese girls out of the bus — they were practically hanging on for their lives — then he slammed into a taxi. I got people off the bus, like it was a disaster movie: "Everybody get off! Run! Run! Run for your lives!" Does Clem Snide have groupies? Somewhat. When we play in Germany we have older men as groupies. They come backstage and act shy, almost like thirteen-year-old girls asking for your autograph. You have a pretty long tour coming up, huh? Yeah, we're going to do two months in the States, and then we're gonna go over to Europe. But I like it. It's a wonderful place to be for a while. You don't have a care in the world, you just get to smoke weed all day and go and play music at night. Don't you miss your family? I do, but when I come home, I'll be home for months on end. If I worked a regular job I'd just come home to eat. I'd probably become cranky. So it evens out. n°
© 2005 Nerve.com. |
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Clem Snide's new album, Eef Barzelay croons about naked European women, reminds
us that you can't have sex with a woman in a mermaid suit and fantasizes
about sniffing pantyhose. In person, he's a relationship advocate. Sleeping
around, he says, "ends up being more of a routine than monogamy."
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