Clyne talks Refreshments documentary, new album
These are reflective times for Roger Clyne.
He spent much of 2016 saluting the 20th anniversary of the Refreshments’ “Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy,” an album Clyne looks back on, fondly, as the first step on his journey, by revisiting the album live in its entirely at the helm of the Peacemakers – first in a series of shows at Tempe’s fabled Yucca Tap Room, then on a U.S. tour.
Now, fans can go behind the scenes on how that album came to be and other stories from the singer’s distant past, one including a monkey, in a well-told documentary on the rise and fall of the Refreshments.
Taylor Morten’s “Here’s To Life! The Story of The Refreshments” is an oral history of those days, as told by Clyne, guitarist Brian Blush, drummer P.H. Naffah and other major players in their story, from the guy who signed them to a major label to David Dobkin,
who directed their first video, “Banditos.”
We also hear from Alice Cooper, credited as “Rock legend/Refreshments fan, who says of “Banditos:” “I heard it on the radio and I remember, there are certain songs that you turn up. The first time I heard ‘My Sharona.’ You know, the first time you hear the Nirvana stuff. It was the same thing with this.”
“Here’s to Life” screened at this year’s Phoenix Film Festival. You can see the documentary on Vimeo for $15.99.
Clyne checked in from Tucson, where he’d stopped to get a margarita, to talk about the documentary, his initial reluctance to get involved and how it felt to hear his praises sung by Cooper. He also talked about the new Peacemakers’ album he’s currently putting the finishing touches on, with Steve Berlin of Los Lobos producing.
Question: What do you think of the documentary?
Answer: I think it’s really well done. I’m astonished that everybody got their stories straight. It’s the way I remembered it. (Laughs.) I thought there might be some discrepancies in the history, but it looks like what we can remember, we remember in the same way. So, it’s cool. I’m super happy that we got it out there for the record.
Q: You guys played together recently, right?
A: Yeah, we got everybody together except (bassists Buddy (Edwards). Buddy didn’t want to play. But we spoke, and any hatchet that there ever was is all buried. We did a couple gigs together, and it was fun.
Q: What do you think it was about the Refreshments that all these years later, there’s a documentary about them?
A: I don’t know. (Laughs.) If I had to guess, it’s a bright spot in people’s lives. They remember the time in their life when the band was together, and they remember the music fondly. I think they associate that music with good times and good people. So we’re lucky in that way. It was the kind of music that brought and still brings people together. I think it’s probably about that simple. We weren’t playing funeral dirges. It was pretty good party music and people stamped that in their memory.
Q: Is there a band like that in your life?
A: You mean that I go back to?
Q: That you like in part because the music kind of transports you back to these good times in your life?
A: I do. I have those records. Like I love Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’ greatest hits. I played that up and down every Arizona and Mexico road I traveled two decades ago. The Violent Femmes’ debut record does that for me.
Q: The Violent Femmes seem much more of your generation than Alpert. How did that become a favorite?
A: His greatest hits record is just amazing. I don’t know how that thing made it into my cassette player. I lived Ensenada for a while and was studying Mariachi and Norteno culture. And they were actually taking a lot of the moves from Herb Alpert. They were listening to that a lot.
Q: Getting back to the film, you said when you were watching it there were no discrepancies. Were there things that surprised you or things you didn’t remember and you were like, “Oh yeah, that happened?”
A: Yeah, but I don’t remember the “A-ha” part. I remember thinking when Brian gave his full confessional that it was really great. It almost seemed like he really wanted to air his part of the story that was never really our place to talk about because there were private issues. But he was unabashed in his detail. I remember thinking it really felt good to hear him tell the truth, and I hope that it felt good for him, also.
Q: How long was this documentary in the works?
A: It’s the one project in the past two decades that I haven’t had to budget, fund and oversee as an independent artist. It kind of just spun its way out without me having to pay much attention. So I don’t actually know. It was probably a year? You would have to ask Taylor. I’m not sure how long it took. I just remember being asked, “Do you want to be the subject of a documentary?” At first I was like, “Not really” (laughs). Then I looked at some of his work and thought, “You know what? He does a really good job. If everybody else says yes, if we have a consensus, I’ll go along with it.” So it didn’t take long to generate a consensus and we were off to the races. He did all the heavy lifting.
Q: You said your initial reaction was “not really.” Why was that?
A: Mostly because it came out of nowhere and I thought that ghost has already been exorcised for me. There’s a fine line between telling a story and airing dirty laundry. And I kind of felt, to tell the story right, somebody’s gonna have to air some dirty laundry. And I didn’t want to do that. But I said everything I had to say in truth and kindness. Everybody who wanted to say something said it because they were the ones who did it. That was a lot of pronouns. I don’t think that was very clear (laughs).
Q: You’re saying that people aired their own laundry.
A: Exactly. If you’re gonna air your own dirty laundry, fine.
Q: Cooper had some nice things to say of you.
A: Oh my God, that blew me away. I mean, I know he liked the music, but the things that he said, that will be a treasure for me my whole life. I’m honored.
Q: I knew he was really into you. He’s introduced you as his favorite Arizona band at Christmas Pudding.
A: He’s told me that before. And that was a huge honor, but I’m not gonna go flash that around, like “Alice Cooper says this about us.” But he did say some nice things in the documentary, and I went, “Wow. We’re not worthy.” (Laughs.)
Q: With the timing of it, do you see this in some way as an extension of your celebration last year of the album?
A: Yeah, it was cool in a timely way. The only way it could have been timelier is if it actually had come out in 2016 (laughs), but this is close enough. He was filming it as we were trying to dig through our memorabilia and celebrate that record so those things we were pulling out of the archives were fresh and easily accessible.
Q: How is the recording of the Peacemakers album going?
A: It’s really good, actually. I think we’re about 90 percent of the way done with the tracking. I just got kind of a punch list a couple days ago from Steve Berlin, our producer, mostly vocal stuff. I’ve got some harmonies and some sort of atmospheric vocal stuff I’ve gotta finish. But after that, I’m on a plane to New York City, where we’ll mix at Electric Ladyland for a week.
Q: I remember you being excited to work with Berlin. Was it what you expected?
A: All I wanted was somebody artistic in the producer’s chair who would give us an objective evaluation as we moved forward. I’ve been a songwriter for 20 years and some habits are good and signature and some habits aren’t. So I wanted somebody to objectively say, “OK, this thing is cool but it’s a little rote. Why don’t you stretch out here?” Or “Why didn’t you go to your old move there, because it would be a perfect spot for it?” He did that with aplomb. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the way he helped conduct the whole process. He did exactly what I hoped a producer would do for us at this point in our career.
Q: That’s great. Did you find that you learned anything about your writing or the process from working with him?
A: I did. Mostly that I have it in me to takes risks in writing that oftentimes I just won’t. I oftentimes will have a weird turn that came to me naturally that I’ll sort of not employ for I don’t really know what reason but I’ll shy away from it. And he said, “No, I want to hear every weird thing that you want to do, and we’ll talk about how it informs the song.” It was a really good experience for me.,
Q: Was he involved in the selection of the songs at all?
A:
Not really. He was actually involved more in saying, “Hey, you guys need to crank out more material now and trust yourselves. Don’t take so much time in crafting this. You’ve been doing it for 20 years. You’re really good at it. You create music that is respected. You need to trust yourselves and accelerate your writing process a little bit.” He really helped with that because I’m a really slow writer. I’m meticulous because I try to exhaust too many possibilities before I actually make a commitment. He was like, “I want to hear your initial shoot-from-the-hip instinct and don’t second guess it before you send it off to me.”
Q: When you got to where these were the tracks on the album, was there any sort of thread?
A: Typically I go into a record with a statement of intent and then flesh it out that way. This one I didn’t. It was just, “What will my writing sound like after two decades of writing in the public sphere?” So what I’m doing now is going back and listening and trying to find that common thread for a couple reasons. One, I need to sequence the record and two, even more importantly, we’ve got to name it and come up with what it’s saying as objectively as I can and then come up with the visual art. So I’m in that process right now. It’s funny. I’m looking at myself in the mirror and trying to figure out what I see (laughs).