Greg Dulli Finds Redemption in the Twilight SingersBy Joe Ehrbar
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview first appeared in the final edition of The Rocket, in October of 2000. I’m republishing it here, because, well, it was one of my favorite interviews and few people actually read it—most of the 85,000 Rocket issues were launched straight to the dumpster. During my time as a rock music inquisitor, I often avoided interviews with artists and bands of whom I was a big fan—I didn’t want to come off like a sycophant; I also wanted to spare myself the eternal embarrassment and disillusionment I’d no doubt feel should an idol interview end badly. This particular interview went pretty well, as I recall. Conducted by phone, my conversation with Greg Dulli lasted about an hour; maybe one day, I’ll transcribe the entire tape—before it crumbles to dust.
I’ve long admired Greg Dulli’s work, first as an Afghan Whig, then as Twilight Singer, later as a Gutter Twin. I regret not going to see him and his bands perform in the last decade. Perhaps I’ll resolve to get out more in 2012. One thing’s for sure, I’m excited by the recent news of an Afghan Whigs reunion. The band will make their grand re-entrance as the headliners of the ATP festival in Asbury Park in the spring. A tour will follow. Given the Whigs' Seattle history—they were among the original Sub Pop bands and Dulli lived here for a time—perhaps they’ll give us an encore.
Q&A with Greg Dulli. The latest issue of Chunklet magazine has been stirring up a bit of controversy for its cover story on the "The 100 Biggest Assholes in Rock." Charting high on the list is the Afghan Whigs' Greg Dulli at No. 24 (he beat out the likes of Isaac Brock and Mark E. Smith). While Dulli is down seven places from last year's posting, he's still considered a big asshole by the editors of Chunklet because, they say, "He thinks he's God's gift to women." Having only interviewed Dulli just once and over the phone-for this particular piece-I can't say that Greg Dulli is an asshole. During our recent conversation about his latest musical endeavor, the Twilight Singers, the singer was quite pleasant and candid and acted interested. I also can't vouch for Dulli thinking he's "God's gift to women"; the subject just never came up. If Dulli is guilty of anything it's his ability to make women swoon (or maybe, just one woman-my wife). As an Afghan Whig he's made some incredibly sexy soul music-all be it dark and tormented, but sexy rock 'n' roll nonetheless. Now with the Twilight Singers-a project that's involved the likes of crooners Shawn Smith (pigeonhed, Brad) and Harold Chichester (Howlin' Maggie) and English dance music kingpins Fila Brazilla, Dulli is immersing his soul singer talents into the wrinkled silk sheets of the night-where many romances begin and end. Much like the records cranked out by Motown in the '60s, the Twilight Singers' debut, Twilight as Played by the Twilight Singers (Columbia), is a bittersweet album, but it's also a bearer of soul music the likes of which you're not hearing these days.
The Rocket: How are you doing, Greg?
Greg Dulli: I've been better actually. I fucked up my back last weekend taking a bath.
The Rocket : Were you alone?
Dulli: Yeah, I was, actually [laughs]. I slipped in the tub and grabbed a towel rack and wrenched my back and spent all day Saturday in the hospital. It's bad. I've got to have an MRI in about an hour.
The Rocket : You must be swallowing some pretty sweet painkillers?
Dulli: Yeah, they're pretty sweet. They gave me Dilaudid on Saturday. I was in a Drugstore Cowboy state-of-mind all day Saturday, know what I'm sayin'? But since I had to do press today, I haven't taken any pills today. Right about now, though, I should take one.
The Rocket: So you're living in L.A. these days. How come you left Seattle?
Dulli: Honestly? The rain finally got to me. I love Seattle; I was there for six years, but for my health and state-of-mind I needed a little more sunshine.
The Rocket: While you were here, you began work with the Twilight Singers. How did this record come together?
Dulli: It took awhile. I started working on it three years ago.
The Rocket: Didn't the Twilight Singers start as a collaboration with Shawn Smith and Harold Chichester? Or, was it your idea?
Dulli: Oh, no, it was my idea. One thing I will state on that subject: Never try to get three lead singers in the same room.
The Rocket: I've had a bootleg copy of an early version of the album for about a year and a half-
Dulli: Oh, you have the demos? Uh-oh.
The Rocket: What I was going to say is that the final product of Twilight as Played By the Twilight Singers is significantly different and better in places than the original demos. It doesn't sound like it buckled under the weight of three distinct egos.
Dulli: It didn't because over the course of things one ego was destined to take over anyway. And I don't say that in an egotistical way, but it was my vision. And, honestly, I was bringing all of my best songs that I had at the time to the table and the other guys were kinda second-stringing it. And when you second-string it, the first team's gonna eat up the second team. It's not that those guys didn't have great songs in them, I just don't think that they were willing to part with them.
The Rocket: How much of the album was re-tooled in England with Fila Brazilla?
Dulli: The majority of it. Two songs got taken off: one of mine and one of Shawn's. Three songs ["Railroad Lullaby," "Annie Mae" and "Last Temptation"] took their place. I did three new songs in England. And of the eight original that remained, I re-did five of them.
The Rocket: What inspired this record?
Dulli: It was reclamation project. And what I was out to reclaim was a certain amount of my musical innocence. I felt like I was starting to bow under the expectations of a record company [Elektra] to the point of where it got so ugly that I had to leave said record company. And as a parting gift, they let the [Twilight Singers] demos out so that people such as yourself could hear them. It got so negative to point where I was starting to forget why you play music in the first place. A lot of music for me started out in a self-gratifying way. I made up songs that I wasn't hearing but wanted to hear. I think [this project] was to get back to that. I think Harold Chichester, in particular, who's been through the same wars I've been through, he was the most inspirational. He said, "Why don't you write songs that you want to hear again." That seemed like an anachronistic thought, but it was so right on that I took him up on his offer.
The Rocket: To me, it sounds like the soul record that no one's making today.
Dulli: Yeah, I was finally able to articulate what soul singing means to me. And to me soul singing is if the singer can make you feel like he feels when he's singing that particular song. That's what I really got in touch with. There's no chart toppers on this record, but it's probably the most pure recording I've done since I was a teenager.
The Rocket: It's funny, the liner notes to the advance promo CD of the album says that it was "conceived in your bedroom."
Dulli: That's where my recording equipment was set up.
The Rocket: Nice double entendre.
Dulli: It definitely is a double entendre. A lot of people have told me-and I've started to feel this way as I started workin' it out-"Well, this is kind of a mood record." And the mood is definitely sexual. And I've heard from people that they have used it in their seductive pursuits.
The Rocket: And with varying degrees of success? Or was it unanimous?
Dulli: I think a lot of these guys who are using it are using it on people that stuff like this has worked on before. So they're preaching to the converted.
The Rocket: As long as the seductees aren't listening too closely. The lyrics betray the music's sultry, sexual tone. It's full of heartache and heartbreak.
Dulli: Lyrically, I've always sort of been like that, which is why I think I was so drawn to Motown music in particular. There's a lot of jaunty musical tracks in the Motown repertoire. But if you strip away the words and read them on their own, they're pretty heart-breaking. A lot of Supremes songs are on a real jaunty, kind of doot, doot, doot, but when you take the words out....That's why Uptown Avondale [an EP of soul covers the Afghan Whigs recorded in 1993 for Sub Pop] was a big experiment for be because I started to hone in on that. I'm like, "These words are sad. What if you took these words and put them in a sad setting? You get a really devastating heart-breaker of a tune. More than anything, I think [the Twilight Singers] is a continuation of the Uptown Avondale principle.
The Rocket: It's that betrayal or underlying sadness or bittersweetness that makes the music compelling and affecting. Reggae and rock steady utilized the same formula.
Dulli: Oh yeah. People will hide heartbreak behind anything that will conceal it. I think it was pretty ingenious what they were doing, especially in Detroit.
The Rocket: Twilight as Played By ends on kind of an ambiguous note, with you repeating the chorus "Everything's gonna be all right." It can easily interpreted as something positive, uplifting. What do you think?
Dulli: There's a point in the "Everything's gonna be all right" where I start to wonder if it is going to be all right. I sort of wonder if it's not a desperate man trying to convince himself of a lie. In the time that I wrote that song, I was desperately trying to convince myself of a reason to continue on because I was psychiatrically in trouble-though, thankfully, I do not find myself in that spot right now. Bob Marley popularized that phrase, at least musically. It was definitely done with the full knowledge that he had done it. To me, it's a universal statement and one I could hang my hooks into. Honestly, the record helped me purge a lot of things, helped me move on, if not musically then palpably.
The Rocket: How difficult was the process of writing and recording the material while wrestling personal demons?
Dulli: I don't know what a nervous breakdown is, but from what I've heard I think I had one and was having during the writing as I was able to revisit it with the three new songs ["Railroad Lullaby," "Annie Mae" and "Last Temptation"]. These songs give the record some levity without taking it out of its context. The three new songs helped it sound more cohesive. They were strategically placed in the repertoire of the album to give it that feel it has now.
The Rocket: Was it painful trying to complete this record this year, to tap back into the mindset you had a couple years ago?
Dulli: Yeah, but when you confront something, you don't fear it anymore. Had I kept running from it-which, I'm sure the record company would have been fine with if I left it on the shelf.... I'm a completion junkie, I have to have closure on something in order to move on. Going back and listening to some of the [album's songs] and the B-sides, too, I was like, "Whoa, who is that guy?" I felt bad for him. When you can go back and have pity on yourself-but it's not self-pity because it's another version of you-that's kind of interesting. It was the sound of a person who did not like himself at all. Thankfully, I've overcome that. So, on the new songs, I had to go back to that other guy a little bit and help him out, help him at least connect the dots.
