Interview with Ally Walker
For Telecable Satellite Hebdo
(Transcript)
 

What are you up to these days?
Well, I just finished a movie for Lifetime in Toronto about a week ago, and I just got home. My son went with me, he's two years old, and now I'm just being a full-time mom. I'm taking a break.

Happy, Texas seems to be doing pretty good.
Yeah, Happy, Texas is doing okay, it's a really funny, sweet movie and the role was great, so I got to do that. That was the most fun I've had in a long time, it was a blast. Comedy is just so much fun, especially after Profiler, which was so dark. I was like, Jeez, I need a break again! I got a breath of fresh air.

Do you miss Profiler?
You know, I think...I miss the way that I thought it was going to be. We all had different visions of the show, and I -- I think the first year was the best year of the show, and the second year too, actually. No, I don't. The third year was really different. The show changed a lot, and we got new writers, and new producers, and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. And I think when I saw that happening it was really easy for me to go Hey, you know what, I kind of want to move on here, and do other characters. Especially if you're in one-hour drama, it's really hard if your soul and your heart isn't into it. And creatively, I was like, Let's go. Let's move on.

What had you thought it was going to be like?
The show as it was originally conceived by Cynthia Saunders, who was the creator, who immediately got bumped off the minute we started -- It was a nightmare. I mean, we all were like, Wait a minute, our voice is gone -- the show was about these really kind of different people, who really -- and I think the show is still good, don't get me wrong, but the character of Sam in the third year really changed a lot. And she wasn't as intelligent and it was just a little bit more, if I may say so, TV-ish. It kind of lost that unique kind of quality that it had. And I don't know why. Maybe it was me -- you know, doing a one-hour for a long time is really hard, and I hadn't done anything that long. As an actor, you're kind of like, Oh, my God -- and I also had a baby, so my priorities in my life just changed 180. And it was like, I'd really rather be with my two year old. The show was like -- it was good, it was okay. (She calls her cat, Tig.)

You have a cat that comes when you call it?
Oh, yeah! Come on, kitty, kitty. He gets over the fence and cries. Tig. Tigger. A cat and a dog and a two year old. And that was it, you know, it was more like I never -- you know, I have my family, and having a family is just like, being a mom, the darkness got to me more. I was really concerned about putting out so much violence. It was a heavy thing to be in and be a mom. And it was like, wow.

Did that surprise you, that your focus changed?
I think it surprised me when it happened the second year. The second year of the show became much more violent, and they began showing a lot more of the gruesomeness. And for me, it had always been about profiling, eliminating that, talking about it, examining damaged people who did fucked-up things, but then it started to show all of those fucked up things, and I was like, wait a minute, I don't want to show these things, I want us to talk about -- you know, there's a human compassion that came with Cynthia Saunders' show and scripts and with the first year about helping people and getting beyond and showing the human spirit and striving. And that kind of poetic drive was missing after a while from the show, and when you get into that, you get into gore. And I got really freaked out by it, especially being a mom. It heightened my awareness of I don't want to show this! I don't want my nephews watching this! Look, you know -- it was always that way. I just feel like maybe my perspective changed a lot when I became a mother.

What was your highlight of your 63 episodes?
I think the first year was a real showcase. I don't think there was a show like it. I know that there's never been a female character like that. And it brought a lot of stuff that I had as an actor to the table. I don't get the bimbo roles, I don't get the girlfriend role. I get the smart roles, and I'm good looking. And if I may be so bold to say, this was the first time you saw someone who was strong and feminine, not strong and 'I'm gonna beat those fuckers up.' She wasn't trying to be a guy. And there just aren't roles out there like that for women. Helen Mirren had one, and it's really rare -- I was like, what a great role. And I wanted it to become that, and it became a little more -- I guess, cliche. As the role changed, it became less intuitive and more psychic. More ordinary, I guess. And I thought, Well, that ain't fun.

Had you drawn inspiration from other TV detectives or police women?
You know, it's so silly, because I had never seen anything like it, except Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs. That was a really great role for her, and she brought a lot of compassion into that role, about how she felt and how she thought, and there was also another -- Manhunter, where the guy is going crazy. And that really informed me when I took the role. And then I talked to Profilers, man, they all have emotional breakdowns. They all have traumas, because they deal with ugly, ugly stuff, and they deal with the dark and light side of the human soul. And when you can delve that deeply into like, I can understand why he would cut her open here...you know what I mean? It's really frightening.

You have to get into the heads of the criminal, and it's hard to get back out again.
Yeah, but if you do it with compassion, and you show the humanity, that's one thing. If you're just doing it, and showing the grossness, it becomes another thing. And that's what I was afraid we were getting into a little bit.

Did you think her continuing storyline of pursuing Jack was useful?
Yeah, that was handled -- honestly, I think Jack should have been over in the first year. Or it should have been that they kept the character of Sam on the run. We just shot the last two episodes were the climax of the story between me and Jack, and it was really done well, and it really mirrored what I was doing -- in the show, I leave for my child. I realize that I want to be with my child, and I can't pursue this life. And in my own life, I left for my child. It was pretty well done. I was really proud of the guys for writing it that way.

Were you anything like Sam?
Yeah, I think when you do episodics, you bring your own characteristics. I've always been kind of intuitive, kind of just wondering why. I always thought people were puzzles. As an actor, you do that -- you think people are puzzles, and you watch behavior, you become different people, so it wasn't that hard. I watch people when I want to work, I watch why they did that, why that mother is bad, why she's looking at her son that way, why she feels lonely when she's sitting there with her child. And it's really fun to do that kind of stuff, you kind of climb in and out of peoples' personas when you're an actress. So being a profiler was like that for me, it was like Oh, why did they do that? It was really a cool role.

Did you know that there's a web page on the internet that wants you back in the role?
Oh, really? I just got a computer. I actually want to write a letter to my fans, but I didn't know that, no.

Would you go back if they came back to you and asked?
I kind of doubt it. I think the show -- I think it's really hard to keep that kind of quality and that kind of mystique about a character up for a really long time, and I think it was done in the first years the best it could possibly be done. It's hard to stay stalked, it's hard to stay in fear, it's hard to keep that -- there has to be, if you're going to deal with darkness like that, you have to have a really soulful approach to it. And if you don't, you're just showing dead corpses and looking for clues. And it's like, that doesn't interest me.

It becomes like death porn.
It is. And that's when I became -- when it seemed to me that there was no soul issue at all any more, it was like, okay, that's not what I am, that's not what I want to be, that's not what I want my son to see.

Did you leave, or were you told you were going to be replaced?
No, I left. I'd been asking -- when the third season came about, about three months into it I was really unhappy, and I asked -- I started negotiation proceedings to get off the show. And they were very unhappy with me at first, but then, much to NBC's credit, they were like, Okay. Because they don't want an unhappy actress, and they knew I had a baby, they realized that I was like -- I took my baby to work with me every day. My son never left. He was always with me, because I worked 16 hours a day. It's either not see him at all, or integrate him into my life there. But when they get to be about two, we have to go to school, we have to go play, we have to meet friends, we have to do those things, and that's what my life became, and I think that NBC understood that. And also -- I did a movie again, and it was funny and it made people laugh, and it was really after Happy, Texas that I was like, Wait a minute, what's happening. I want to do this. NBC was pretty cool. They were really unhappy at first, and there was some bad press about me, and they 'wanted to get rid of me' and they retracted it, 'no no no, it was an amicable breakup.' And it was. I think that people at NBC were initially very pissed off. I was very quiet about it, I never went to the press, and I think people were angry with me, and I think that people were angry with me and I think (?) got leaked to the press, and it made it look like they were forcing me off, when that was the furthest thing from the truth. They were really cool, they were like, what do you want to do? And I said, Well, I want to be a mom, and do those things. They were great. The show is going to do fine without me.

Did you watch it when you were on it?
No, uh-huh. I rarely watch my stuff, though. When you're working 15 hours a day, at least, for 3 years, you don't want to spend your Saturday nights watching it. You want to just have dinner, read a baby book -- I have a son, and it was really hard.

Have you caught it with Jamie Luner?
No, I haven't. I met Jamie, she seems like a real nice girl. I don't know her work at all. I did a couple seasons with her, she was just fine. She seemed like she was rarin' to go. And that's great for someone at her level, and I think -- I wish them all the best at the show. I think that a lot of people work really hard to put out a good product, and I think they're going to do great.

Who on Profiler did you enjoy working with most?
I enjoyed working with Roma (?) Mafia (?). I think that Roma Mafia is one of the most talented actresses I have ever worked with, and you know she did huge films, and she's got the greatest vibe about her, and she's a strong woman. She's been through a lot, and it just comes through in her work, and I think she's a really beautiful person, and I consider it an honor to work with her.

Was it fun working with A Martinez again?
I loved working with A! I was really sorry to see A go. A's another one of those guys who's just soulful beyond belief. Big heart, just gives and gives. Roma was like that, too. There's very few actors who are very good, and those two are, because they just give so much, and you go Ah.

Have you caught him on General Hospital at all?
No, I haven't! Is he doing good?

Yeah, he's filling an old character's role.
Good for him!

Do you fondly remember your soap days?
Yeah, I loved my soap days. I really loved them. A Martinez and Marcy Walker taught me how to act, basically. All those people pulled together and helped get me started. Like, showed me how to hit my mark, made me do this, made me do that. That was my first long-running professional gig. And it was like, they were just -- great, great with me.

Not everyone wants to be associated with their soap past.
And it's such bullshit. It's such a great learning ground, it's a great place to get your chops, and a really great place to learn how to avoid doing bad work, because it's really easy to do bad work if you've got a lot of melodramatic stuff. But on Santa Barbara -- I've got to be honest with you, Marcy Walker is a tremendous actress. I was blown away by watching her. And A Martinez is a damn fine actor. He really is.

Would you go back to soaps?
I never say never. My life has taken me all over the place.

Your son's name is?
John Walker Landgraf. He goes by Walker.

Do you think you'll go back to TV once he gets into school?
I'm probably going to go more the feature film route for a while, just so I have more time on my hands. If I did go back to television, I'd do a comedy, a half hour. Or I'd go back on an hour long if it was ensemble, if I had a smaller role, if I could work less days. Being a main character and carrying an hour and being pregnant and having a new baby and a new marriage was like -- I'm tired. I've got to be honest with you, I'm really tired.

Any directors you'd love to work with?
Well, I worked with Cameron Crowe, and I'd love to work with him again. Jim Brooks has always been really cool to me, I wrote a script he wanted to do, and those are my two favorite directors so far. There are a lot of good people, though -- I love Mark Ilsey, who I just worked with on Happy, Texas, and I'd work with him and Ed Dunagan in a heartbeat. There's a woman who did Forces of Nature, who I think is brilliant. She's from Toronto, and I'd love to work with her. I think she's really talented. I'd love to work with her.

Anything else crucial going on in your life we should know about?
Not really, we're just taking a nap at my house! That's pretty much it. We're on the West side of LA.

Blinker the Star
Interview with Jordon Zadorozny
For Alternative Press Magazine

Every band wants to take a town by storm, but most would prefer that they be the main attraction. Luckily for Blinker the Star, the worst of Hurricane Floyd, which came to New York City on the night of their gig, had died down by the time they took the stage. "We were supposed to do an in-store [appearance]," explains chief Blinker Jordon Zadorozny (Sadder-oz-knee). "That got canceled. Otherwise, it was fine!"

In general, storms (whether lyrical or metaphorical) don't seem to faze Zadorozny (the rest of Blinker include drummer Kellii Scott and bassist Pete Frolander) much. After all, this is the guy who moved from his native Canada to Los Angeles to make his band's third release, august everywhere, a collection of densely-lyrical, clever pop tunes, and never looked back. "I had to move away to make this record," heinsists. "I knew L.A. would be tough, and it was. L.A. really kicks your ass. I learned so much while I was there for the last two years, just about song structure and brevity and production."

What he picked up on the West Coast makes august a more cohesive effort than Blinker's last two releases. Smoothly harmonic without being slick, Zadorozny writes soaring, epansive tunes, and with his newly-learned skills, august feels more confident (although less recklessly loud) than previous releases. Says Zadorozny, "I told a friend it was a sad record, and he said, 'That may be so, but it makes you want to have a smile on your face.' What he meant was, 'I miss the noise.' "

Noise or no, the overall impression of listening to anything Zadorozny releases is that this is a man who lives for music and has a reverence for that most-used, most-abused of forms, the pop tune. That's got to count for something. Oh, and apparently, he's also nice to his mom, who's a singer of Scottish airs and jigs -- he produced an album for her recently. "We were at each others' throats for three weeks," he admits. "I didn't realize how ridiculous it was until she was describing it to someone else. She was like, 'Jordan pushes 'play,' puts his feet up on the console, starts reading a book, and says, 'You have to get it right this time.' Maybe I need to lighten up a bit."
 

"We shot most of our film outside, at night in New York City," explains producer Barbara De Fina, referencing Paramount's "Bringing Out The Dead", "and our DP lit several blocks so it just sparkled. You could see straight down the Avenues - and it was just spectactular. It was dazzling."

When was the last time you heard a producer wax rhapsodic about Los Angeles? No, even after five years of breaking records, New York alone still has what it takes to drop jaws and draw filmmakers. Including this past year: Even as television filming was beginning to settle down, feature film production posted the largest gains in shooting days of any production category, up to 4,965, up 17 percent from 1997's 4,236. Direct expenditures for features last year totalled just shy of a billion dollars, compared to $877 million in 1997.

"In a cyclical business like this, five years of record breaking tallies is not the norm," says Patricia Reed Scott, Commissioner for the New York City Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting. "It's been terrific for the professional labor force and for rising independent talent, which I think is our greatest ace in the hole."

That's partially thanks to a city which is finally getting a grip on how to handle an industry which seemed to have abandoned it a decade ago. John Penotti, producer for Paramount's "Company Man," notes that when he was working with Sidney Lumet ten years back, "You could not find an area camera anywhere. Now, the city has the ability to accommodate a huge amount of productions."

Two-hundred and twenty-one, to be exact, which is how many filmed around the city last year. Some producers go even further. Says MGM's "Flawless" producer Caroline Baron, "These days, New York has everything that Los Angeles has to offer."
There's no doubt the city has undergone some major changes, which may be good for Hollywood's trek East, but is not always an advantage for some filmmakers, disillusioned with the idea of a cleaned-up Apple. "[Mayor] Giuliani has really sanitized New York," sighs Darren Aronofsky, who's following up his acclaimed "Pi" with Artisan Entertainment's "Requiem For A Dream." "It's hard to find interesting places to film sometimes, since it's been turned into Disneyland/Santa Monica."

But Commissioner Scott says that it would be impossible to get rid of the real gritty reality that provides the creative muse for so many creative minds. "This city is a man-made, remarkable, ever-changing place that offers endless stories and scenes, and it's always a great star you can have in your production. Toronto is not that, Toronto doesn't generate stories, Toronto is pretending to be New York most of the time."

Toronto is also New York's biggest pain in the neck. "The trend is increasingly to go to Canada," notes Andrew Bergman, director for Universal Pictures' "Isn't She Great." "Being in New York, to me, outweighs any disadvantages in cost, but when the producers are sitting in the black tower - they don't see those advantages."

Producers whining about costs is one thing, when there's not much that can be done about it. But Canada's advantages: a fabulous exchange rate coupled with the national and provincial tax credit, which can return as much as 11 percent of a film's budget makes it hard to resist. For some, like Marianne Maddalena, producer for Miramax's "50 Violins," cost is not a pressing concern: "New York was a special effect for us. You choose where to put your money in, and it was worth it." But for Lions Gate Films, Inc.'s "American Psycho," after five days of exteriors and practical locations in New York, everything moved to Toronto after that. "Between the dollar exchange and the refund we were getting from the government, it would be impossible for New York to compete with that for the interiors," admits Lions' Gate president of production, and executive producer for "Psycho," Mike Paseornek. "For the unions to compete in New York, they'd almost need some help from the government."

That's not likely to happen, says Commissioner Scott. New York City has considered a tax rebate, she says, "But that is easier to do in a government where you're trying to pull a business you don't have that much of, than it is for the US to give help to industries we all feed the box office grosses to. 'What do you mean, you're giving some of my tax dollars to filmmakers?' So you have to find a way around that."

Which New York may have managed to do. Next in line after cost troubles is a lack of stage space - which also sends productions out of town more often than not. Some directors have simply inventeted their own places to film: "We've got a big, open abandoned warehouse in Redhook, Brooklyn, which we've converted into a makeshift studio," points out Aronofsky. And John McTiernan brought his film, United Artis's "The Thomas Crown Affair," outside of the center of the city, to Yonkers. "Ninety percent of the congestion in this town is within four miles of Columbus Circle," he remembers. "If you don't pierce that circle, but go around it, life can be comparatively rational."

And New York's solution? Finally, after years of wrangling, more stage space may finally be going up. The Brooklyn Naval Yards, long-vaunted as the way to turn Brooklyn into Burbank, recently received most of the financing it will need to begin construction, from Robert DeNiro and Harvey Weinstein. The behemoth project, which will bring 12 state of the art soundstages to the yards, will offer "a campus-like setting in New York for the industry," asserts Commissioner Scott. It will also further intertwine the city's interests with Hollywood's, since the land belongs to the city of New York and functions as "as of right" land, meaning there's a lot less red tape necessary to wade through (no pesky environmental and land use processes) in order to begin construction.

Although it won't possibly be ready before next year, the Navy Yards couldn't come at a more opportune time. The city is clearly reaching critical mass when it comes to accommodating filmmakers. "The Mayor's office have a very strong support group for incoming filmmakers," says Bill Carraro, Executive Producer for New Line Cinema's "Frequency." "But all neighborhoods get to a breaking point eventually, and they've begun trying to steer you into other areas until those neighborhoods get a rest."
Still, it hardly seems that any problems or encumbrances will prevent the vast majority of filmmakers from wanting to film in the city. The advantage for filming in New York has never been that it has been the most state of the art, inexpensive, or convenient - but that simply that it is New York: inimitable, and immobile. "There was some discussion at one point about going to Canada, but you literally couldn't do it," says producer Beth Alexander, about October Films' "Joe Gould's Secret." "New York is as much of a character as the people in the script."

And it's that attitude that keeps bringing people back. Penotti recalls advice Sidney Lumet once gave him about working in the city: "He told me there's no use fighting New Yorkers. Let the city be the city, and as soon as you identify that as a character, you become more powerful in trying to create your reality."

Interview With Tom Fontana
For Generation Series

Depending upon who you talk to, Tom Fontana is either a genius or the anti-Christ. Best known for his straightfoward, blunt style of storytelling on shows like Homicide: Life On The Streets and, more recently, Oz, Fontana takes a dark, largely-masculine view in his writings, which focus on the common man placed in very uncommon situations - confronting dead bodies, living life behind bars. But Fontana's characters are not just brute force contained; they reflect, they debate, they have intricate internal lives, even if they don't express them very well. His men (and sometimes his women) are like few ever portrayed on television before - so three-dimensional they not only leap off of the screen, but have garnered a strong, vocal fan base who have often rebelled against some of Fontana's ideas. When the fans start to yell back at the creator, that's when you know you've got something special.

Fontana first came to the public's attention as a writer and producer on the critically-acclaimed 1980s hospital drama St. Elsewhere, and after writing/producing stints at such mediocre shows as Tattinger's and Home Fires, Fontana linked up with producer Barry Levinson and teleplay writer Paul Attanasio to adapt David Simon's book Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets into a weekly television drama. Simon's book focused on the homicide department of the Baltimore, Maryland police department, and portrayed the real lives of real detectives. The ensemble drama, which debuted on American network television in 1993, drew critical raves, but has never attracted a wide audience. Complex, with intertwining plots and a revolutionary cinema verite camera style, it requires an audience's full, concentrated attention - which could explain the lack of a general viewing audience, who expect to be lulled and entertained.

Fontana, having stepped back from direct control of Homicide after several years, moved on to his next, and even more ambitious project in 1997: Oz. Based on a fictional, experimental section of a New York prison known as "Emerald City" (hence the Wizard of Oz nickname), the drama is like Homicide in that it focuses on intertwining, complex, almost exclusively-male plots. It is also extremely violent, graphic, and pulls no punches when attempting to get its story across. No small wonder that it does not air on American free broadcast television - viewers must subscribe to cable service, and then pay extra for the mostly-movie network which airs Oz, Home Box Office (HBO). With Oz, Fontana has gone beyond what is expected of writers in Hollywood, and forged a name - and a brand - for his type of writing. He doesn't just push the envelope, he reinvents it as a box.

TV Weekly caught up with the writer/producer in his New York-based offices, a former cookie warehouse in lower Manhattan, where Oz is also filmed. He's a compact, spare man with strong arm muscles, a fading hairline, and a salt-and-pepper beard, in control, but hardly a slick Hollywood operator, like so many of his Los Angeles peers. After all, how can you not respect a television producer who keeps copies of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and a collection of Chekov short stories in the "In" tray of his desk?

Randee Dawn: France has just begun airing the second season of Oz, but you're actually working on the third season, correct?
Tom Fontana: Yes, we just started shooting our first episode of our third season now.

RD: What kind of reaction did you get from the first season of episodes? A lot of critics pointed out at the time that there had never been anything like that on American television before.
TF: When we were shooting the first season, we were all kind of being locked up in this prison [set] for days on end - so we all developed a sense of humor about what we were doing. But we all kept saying to each other, "Well, who's gonna watch this? I mean, we're having a good time but nobody's gonna wanna watch this!" So when the show premiered, the reaction was so positive that I was stunned by it. And what was amazing about it for me is, is that it seems to interest a wide variety of people. I mean, I've had a lot of young, urban kids come up to me and say how much they like the show, I've had middle-aged white couples. I've had people living in the suburbs, people living in the city, women, men, it seems to speak to a wide variety of an audience. And fortunately, I guess, those are the people who get HBO! People actually pay for HBO.

RD: And since it's pay television, that would narrow the demographic of people who could watch it in the first place - they'd have to afford cable, and then they'd have to afford a specialty channel.
TF: Well, God love HBO, they never talk about the ratings. And they never talk about demographics. All the conversations I'm used to having for [a] broadcast network, I never have those conversations with them. All the really care about is me doing whatever I want, the best job possible. I guess we do satisfy that. For me, it's just very exciting to have people say to me -- people who have been in prison or people who've worked for a prison, or people who have family members who've been to prison, say to me, "This is, this is, you got it. You got it right."

RD: So you've received a positive reaction from inmates?
TF: Yeah, yeah.

RD: Who knew pay cable was available in prison! Still, that's pretty amazing. Did you go to various prisons to do research first?
TF: I did about two years' worth of research, at various prisons around the country, and spoke to a lot of inmates and ex-cons and people who'd worked in prisons in various levels. But when I was doing the research it wasn't like I was trying to write stories down. I wasn't saying, "Oh, tell me the most interesting [story you have]..." What I was trying to do was basically get a feel of the life that they lived, not just the inmates, but the CO's [Commanding Officers]. I approach every show that I do with an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation. That way, they're still like you and I, and they have to deal with all the things that you and I have to deal with. The only thing that they do that's different than what you and I do is -- every morning, I face a blank piece of paper. The guys in Homicide face a dead body. And the guys in Oz, they face this incredibly compressed lifestyle. That's what makes it fun to write it.

RD: How did you originally come up with the concept for Oz?
TF: It may be as a result of doing Homicide, and wondering what happened to all the people that we put away over the course of the years that we've been doing the show. But I think it more has to do with the fact that I've always been fascinated by extreme behavior. To kill someone is an extreme act. It's probably the most extreme act that any human being can do. And what [I wanted to explore was] not just what brings a person to do that, but how they live with that. That event in the rest of their lives. To me, that seemed like a place that would [have] a lot of interesting characters. You take a lot of people who have committed an extreme action and then put them in an environment where they are completely limited in their actions. Again, it's that tension thing. It's that pressure-cooker. And now, they have to live with each other. Cause they all share this moment of extreme behavior.

RD: You tend to show their crimes in flashbacks when they're first introduced on the show. What's the purpose behind showing it that way?
TF: One reason was that I was trying to avoid a lot of stupid narration, but the other thing was, was because I decided that once we were in Oz, we would never go outside. We weren't going to have a yard. Most prisons you would see, "Oh, they're out in the yard, and they're smoking cigarettes and they're all walking around." That's typical prison movie kind of thing. My thought was, "I never want to see the sky. I never even want them to feel that outside. I want the audience to know that these people are in this box." And so, my thought was, "Well, then to see the crimes takes us out of this box." So it gives the audience kind of, "Oh, well, look, there's a tree!" But, what happens in those moments of being outside almost makes you think, "Eee, I'd almost rather be inside!"

RD: When did you come up with the framing device, where the narrator, Augustus Hill (played by Harold Perrineau, sits in his wheelchair, often in a suspended glass cube?
TF: In most of the shows that I do, there's always a moment when two of the characters -- let's say Pembleton and Bayliss are going somewhere. And in the car, they talk about the meaning of life. They have these philosophical, funny conversations about the purpose of our existence. My understanding about life in prison is that no one is that forthcoming about how they really feel. Because the minute they show anybody any vulnerability, that person then has something over them and eventually can harm them. So, people in prison tend not to wax on poetically about the meaning of life. So I decided I would not write those scenes, for the most part, for the actual inmates. Then I thought to myself, "Well, I do have things that need to connect all this craziness." So it's not just wave after wave after wave of violence and nudity and craziness; it's actually given some perspective by someone. And I thought long and hard about who that should be, and I ended up with the character of Hill because I thought it definitely had to be a criminal. And I thought making him paralyzed would say that he also has had an extreme [limitation]. Everyone in the prison has had their selves, their behavior reduced, I wanted a guy who's had his even reduced even more. So it would give him a kind of a reason to have reflected on all of this stuff. Because you could have the homeboy sitting there doing it, but I think you would say to yourself, "Well, wait a minute. How does a 16 year old homeboy know this much about life?" Whereas a guy who's literally, who's black, who's in a wheelchair, who's in prison -- here's a guy who's got a lot of shit he could have talked about!

RD: It's as if he's twice-confined.
TF: Exactly. And, actually, three times confined, being black. You know what I mean? And I was very lucky that we got Harold. Cause there's a guy who can handle anything you throw at him. In another actor's hands, it might have really seemed kind of stupid, but I think he's just amazing, the way he deals with language. He's a Shakespearean actor, so he, he can play with words wonderfully.

RD: He's Jung's classic anima.
TF: As I said, I wanted him to be sympathetic. If he was going to be our Virgil, leading us through this divine comedy that we're now going to be exposed to, I felt like the audience - black and white -- to know that there's a reason to be sympathethic toward him. Even though he killed a cop, which we find out in the second episode. You know, it's one of those things where you just say, "If I can catch the audience's imagination with this character, then they'll sign on." There are people that don't like it, who say to me, "I hate the guy in the box." But I have to say, to me, it's part of what makes Oz, Oz, as opposed to any other TV show.

RD: For the show's first season, each episode seemed to deal with a very specific issue, but there appears to be less of that in the second season. Was that intentional?
TF: What I did the first season was that I tied everything together thematically. And, and, sometimes it was a stretch, because what I was doing, I was trying to keep these ongoing stories going, then tie that particular piece of that story into this overall theme that I have. And I also thought that, as good as Harold was, I thought my writing of it was maybe a little too on the nose. So I thought, rather than be that specific, maybe be a little more allegorical. To me, that seemed like more of a fun way to approach it and not have to strain these little speeches to get to a point.

RD: What do you think prison means for people who have never been there?
TF: Most of the people who've watched the show, who have never been to prison, have said to me, "Well, if I never wanted to go to prison, this show has convinced me to never break any laws at all!" I think that, I mean, to get into a political conversation briefly, though I'm not very astute politically -- I think that, in America, prisons are a dumping ground. It's like a landfill. We just keep dumping garbage. In our minds, if there's no garbage in front of my house, there's no garbage on the planet. So all this nonsense about the environment being in trouble, is nonsense. It's the same idea. If there's no criminal in my neighborhood, there's no crack dealers, on my corner, then, there's no crack problem in America. I think it's a huge mistake, and I think it's a mistake that we're going to have to pay a large price for. I mean, all this stuff about crime is down, crime is down, well, that's because we've shoved them all into this one place and they're going to get out eventually, in 20 years or whenever paroles are up. And they're going to be worse than they were when we put them in. So, to me, it's just, I think, I think people think of prisons as these scary places that they're glad they're not in, and as a solution to a problem that we should be a lot cleverer at solving than we are, with just building bigger prisons.

RD: But the past thirty or so years have proven to us that rehabilitation of criminals doesn't seem to work, either.
TF: I know. See, I think each person who's in prison is an indivdual, and you have to look at that person as an individual. And I think, if I have any political message at all with this show, which I really don't think that I do, it is that. That these people belong here. They belong in a situation in which they need to be punished for what they've done. But that doesn't cease to make them be human beings. And we put them in an enviroment that only strips them of their humanity. And then we let them out and we're confused as to why they wanna kill our children. Because they've been stripped of everything that we take for granted.

RD: For the first season, Tobias Beecher [played by Lee Tergeson] seemed to be the "average" viewer's gateway to the show. We could sympathize with him; he could be most of us - a lawyer who got drunk and killed a little girl while speeding. But now, you've made him pretty much insane!
TF: You're absolutely right. After a point, I ceased to think of him as the one that the audience could identify with, though it's remarkable the number of people who, whether they identify with him or not, are extremely concerned about him. I was at a baptism party, and this guy comes up to me and goes, "You know, Beecher has gotta get back on top this next season." I mean, he's like pointing his finger at me and yelling at me. "What you did to him at the end of the season, that's just not right!" And he's all excited. I'm like, "Well, don't worry." But I think that also, I think that the thing about Beecher is that his insanity level has definetly been amped up. But I don't know if he's completely crazy. I think the lawyer in him, the manipulator of facts, and the manipulator of emotions and people, still exist. And so, there are times when he's quite lucid. But I think like any wounded animal, he has to react in an extreme way.

RD: So since we can't rely on Beecher to be the average viewer's gateway by the time the second season rolls around, how does a new viewer come into the show if they're starting late?
TF: I have no idea. I wish them well. [Laughs] No, it's a good point and it's something I actually never even thought about. I figured, whoever's come along has come along and whoever hasn't, will either figure it out or not! I think in the third season it'll actually be easier to get into the series, because the end of the first season, we did the riot and we felt like we had to do as our first show in the second season, we had to deal with the riot. And so, with this one, there's less, it ties less to a single climactic event. So I think, for a new audience member, they could figure it out a lot easier. You don't have to know as much coming into the third season as you did coming into the second season.

RD: Is that because writing this show is becoming easier for you to do?
TF: No, no, I think it's just because the riot the riot was such a big event. And we ended it there, that the audience was really saying, "Okay, we need to go back there. We have issues we need to solve." I think at the end of [the second] season, there were more individual things that had happened. But I don't think it was as traumatic a larger event that the audience needed to know what was going on.

RD: Are you more hands-on with Oz than with Homicide?
TF: It's hard to say. I mean, in the sense that, the first three years of Homicide, I was living in Baltimore and I was coming back and forth to do casting, and I was writing all the scripts and I was a lunatic. In the same way that I am right now with Oz! What happens [is], I think a smart executive producer finds people who are as talented or more talented than he. And then lets them do the show. So, what I am now with Homicide is, I still am involved in all the stories, I still do the final polish on every script, I do the final
edit of every episode. So that's not casual involvement. But in terms of a day-to-day life of the show, I'm removed from that. Because I have people like [Homicide co-executive producers] Jimmy Yoshimura and Julie Martin and [Homicide supervising producer] Eric Overmyer who know how to do it as well as I do. I mean, it would be insulting for me, this far into their working on the show to really pretend like I'm, you know, some grand genius that they can't live without me. I just think they're so talented, they don't need that. It's better this way, because I have a much bigger overview of Homicide because I am a little bit removed from the day-to-day shooting of it down in Baltimore. So I can give them a perspective that's very hard to do when you're in the middle of shooting.

RD: You haven't reached that point of separation with Oz yet?
TF: I don't know if I could get to that with Oz. Homicide is based on David Simon's book, and Paul Attanasio wrote the first script and Barry [Levinson] has obviously been involved in it from the beginning, as he is with Oz, and which is how he functions with me. He's very much my kind of other set of eyes, keeping me focused on the right things. But that kind of was something. So, with Oz, because it all came out of my head, it's been hard for me to let go of it. Everything's in my head. This is just all a part of me. It's the best about being a writer.

RD: Did you have any problems when you were first trying to produce Oz?
TF: No, I would say it was all remarkably kismet. It was all HBO, and I couldn't have been more totally in synch with them in terms of what they expected and what I wanted to do. They allowed me the money and the time to figure out all the stuff I needed to figure out before we got working. And, we were very lucky to get this building that we're in.

RD: That's right! You film Oz in the old Nabisco cookie warehouse!
TF: Yep! It was actual the cookie factory. Where we shoot Oz was where the Oreo[a famous American chocolate cookie with a creamy vanilla center] was invented. We always have Oreos on the craft service table! There's no space in Manhattan like this space. I walked in to the empty -- it wasn't a sound stage at that point, because there was nothing in it. It was just an old factory. And the walls, the look of it, the feel of it, was a prison. Then we had to build Emerald City, obviously, because that's the new prison. But in terms of the old prison, the cafeteria, all that stuff, the windows, it was so evocative of what I had in my head. It truly was, I thought, "Wow!" And 10 blocks from my house! I'm thinking, I'm the luckiest guy in the world right now. I walk to work every day! It's absurd.

RD: How much does the show cost per episode?
TF: I actually shouldn't say that. I don't want to make it sound like it's way, way expensive, cause it's actually not way, way expensive. The problem with it is because of the nature of the material, it doesn't have a great resale value. You can't put it on at 6:00 between [I Love] Lucy and whatever, Three's Company. I was very glad it sold in Europe, because I do think it's a show that Europeans would respond to.

RD: Why would Europeans respond to it?
TF: I just think that because, whereas because in American television, we still have such a Puritan ethic going on. It's so repressed. Our television is so repressed. Though God knows, I've done as much as I can to try and undo that! I think that in Europe, there's a sense of kind of, "Well, this is life," and so, therefore, it can be seen.

RD: How far ahead has HBO commissioned the show for?
TF: We do it season by season. We're doing another eight. Eight is a great number. Again, it's a very European thing. British television always does, that, with shows like Prime Suspect. They made a bunch, then stopped for a year, and then made a bunch, then stopped for a year, then made a bunch. It's so not the way American television is done. Overseas, and with HBO, you say, "Okay, I'm going to tell this. These are the chapters in this novel." And that finishes this part of the novel. And then you move on to the next part of the novel. There are some ideas that shouldn't be 22 episodes [the typical television season on non-pay broadcast networks in America]. You know what I mean? I certainly don't think I could write 22 episodes of Oz in a year. I would be in a mental institution.

RD: Are you heading towards a finite ending with Oz?
TF: No. I would like to keep making eight a year forever. The thing is, there are so many untapped stories. There's so much dynamic out there, in terms of the personalities, that I don't see it getting to a point where I would say, "Well, that's it, I don't have any more." I may get to a point where I feel I'm repeating myself emotionally. At that point, I'd probably want to pack it in. Cause storytelling is one thing, but if you've already explored emotionally every element that's there, you kinda go, "Oh, I did that."

RD: How is producing Oz different than producing anything else you've worked on?
TF: You hear it on the set - it's the most hilarious thing. The editor will say, "All, right, you want me to cut on the butt or the 'You motherfucker'?" And these are people who don't swear in their day-to-day life, so it's all very analytical. People are screaming across the room, "You got something, nigger?"

RD: Is Oz is a soap opera?
TF: Well, let me tell you this. I think it's a grand opera. I don't think of it as, I don't think it's any more of a soap opera than, say, NYPD Blue is. I just think that the, the reason I say it's a grand opera is because I think it is about extreme behavior. And so, in the way, that let's say, not to compare myself to far better writers than me, but in the way that Aeschylus or Euripides would write a play in which the action of the lead character is so huge, the passion is so huge, that you be become compelled by it. Even though you don't possess that extreme, that amount of passion yourself, you're exhilarated by seeing someone who does express it. So it become cathartic, in theater terms. So, I would say, yes, in a sense of it is, I hope it engages people the way soap operas do, in that what's gonna happen next kind of way. I hope it's not a soap opera in the sense that the emotions we're exploring are easy or cheesy.

RD: True, but shows like ER are soap operas, when you think about it.
TF: Exactly. I know that, for me, I think the thing that bothers me about soap operas is that no one ever seems to change as a result of their four divorces, the death of their husband, death of their children, whatever famine, locusts, they suffer through. I think it's true of my work, all the way back to St. Elsewhere, and through Homicide and into Oz, that my characters learn maybe the wrong way to say it, but change.You don't read a novel, which leaves the characters in the same place they were at the end of the book that they are in the beginning of the book. That's a bad novel. And so it would be bad television to just have people perpetually going through all this drama and not be affected by in a way that they would start to change. I also don't believe that people radically change; I think that people change in degrees and it's the subtlety of those changes over the course of time that I find fascinating.

RD: Do you ever find yourself not sure how to change the characters because the environment they're in - prison - does not exactly lead them changing into the better?
TF: Changing them for the better's not my concern. That's someone else's job. Better is not the problem. I let the character lead me to the next place he or she should be. I don't dictate to the character, I don't sit there and say, "Well, okay, this is where you're going to be by episode five."

RD: Is there any one character in Oz who's kind of your alter ego?
TF: No. I would say no. I would say they're all bits and pieces of me and nothing like me at all!

RD: Elements of you but completely imagined?
TF: Yes. There's nothing autobiographical in it except for the swastika on my butt! [Laughs] There's nothing autobiographical at all. But I think emotionally, I understand these characters, though obviously, I haven't lived their lives. I'm not a young black kid and I'm not, well, I'm almost old. I take that back.

RD: Do you feel like in a couple of years, you may have to go out and start interviewing people again because the prison system changes so much?
TF: I think so. I think probably, yeah. But I'm still getting a lot of information. People who watch the show and know about the show will call and write me and say, "Have you heard about this?" One of the stories we're doing in the third season is that the hospital in the prison is being taken over be a health maintenance organization. Which is happening. New Jersey just had this, a lot of states are doing this, where they're just turning over the prison hospitals to HMO's. And whatever effect it's having, some good, some bad. And I thought that was an interesting thing that five years ago didn't happen.

RD: You just recently signed a deal with the UPN network for another show. Can you tell us a little about what to expect?
TF: It doesn't have a title yet, but it's a show about a family. It's about a brother and sister, and 25 years ago, the father murdered the mother. So it's about the two adult children, who, when they were four and seven, went through this trauma. And the father's still alive, in prison. For me, I wanted to do a show, cause so much about what I do is about the immediacy of violence, the immediate aftermath of violence. I thought it would be interesting to do a show about the American family. And then up it, a little by saying, "This is your average American family, except that the father murdered the mother."

RD: It sounds as if you're going in a logical order.
TF: Exactly. We start with the cops on Homicide, we follow the criminals to prison in Oz, and we see the effects on the survivors in whatever comes next. I'm working on a cycle.

Tracks Of My Years: Fountains Of Wayne
Interviews with Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger
For Alternative Press Magazine

"I don't like much music,"says Chris Collingwood, frontmember of Fountains of Wayne. "I haven't heard a record in a long time that really blew me away. But I'm a pessimist, too."

So when you listen to FOW's second album, Utopia Parkway, be aware that any comparisons to other, lesser alterna-pop bands (paging Weezer), are unfounded. FOW's first, self-titled record, came out in 1996 and took everyone by surprise by its spontaneous sense of gleeful fun and almost frighteningly memorable pop hooks, but some of the most surprised turned out to be Collingwood and Schlesinger themselves. "The last record had one amplifier and one guitar and we did it all in five days,"recalls Collingwood. So with this record they set out to eliminate whatever struck them as slapdash. "This time, we took our time -- at least by our standards," recalls Collingwood. "This one took a month, and that had us exploring every possibility we could think of, and still keep it interesting."

An adjective Utopia Parkway more than lives up to. The last thing Collingwood said he wanted was Fountains of Wayne 2.0. "I hate it when there's a band where you like their first record, and the second record sounds like they did the exact same thing," says Collingwood. "That's one-dimensional." Which leads to a logical next question: What influences a band who insist they're not what everyone says they are (power pop) and who claim not to have been inspired by any modern music?

"I'm much more comfortable being lumped in with Cheap Trick,"clarifies Collingwood.

Perfect. Herein, the considerably non-1990s bands who stir the memory banks of the members of Fountains of Wayne:

1) What's the first memory of a record that you have?

Chris: The first one I can remember is Olivia, by Olivia Newton-John. At least that's what I think it was called. It's the one with her on the front, in denim, lit from behind. My grandfather had a lot of albums like this one and records by Engelbert Humperdinck and Chicago and Dionne Warwick. I can
remember being really small and listening to "Let Me Be There" and spinning around until I got dizzy, fell and cut myself on a glass table.

Adam: Meet the Beatles. I think I thought it was a coloring book, because I drew all over it first, then a year of two later I started listening to it.

2) What record reminds you of your school days?

Chris: This Is The Moody Blues. I went to an all-male boarding school and there was this enormous retro culture there, and it was totally not cool to listen to anything modern (at the time "new wave"). To this day I really like this record, indicating a complete nostalgic lack of perspective.

Adam: "Chicken Fat" - (artist unknown) - an exercise record on a vinyl 45 that they played for my elementary school phys.ed class which you had to purchase. The chorus went - "Push ups! Every morning! Not just now and then! Go you chicken fat go!"

3) What song did you first fall in love to?

Chris: I haven't really fallen in love to a song since about seventh grade, and then it was probably "Killer Queen" by Queen, since they used to play that at dances. Only a seventh grader could dance
to that song, with all those different sections and breaks.

Adam: Rush, "Red Barchetta" -- but I won't get into that right now.

4) On the flip side, what's your "heartbreak" song?

Chris: Hard category for me, since sad songs are always my favorites. "Surf's Up" by the Beach Boys is one of the saddest melodies I've ever heard, but who knows what the fuck he's talking about. It's like when you're watching The Wall and it's that part where the soldiers come marching over the hill and Gilmour's singing "momma loves her baby/daddy loves you too" and you get all choked up until you remember that it doesn't make any sense and you've just smoked about a pound of pot.

Adam: Poison, "Every Rose Has It's Thorn." It's true, you know.

5) What was the record you most remember from the best summer of your life?

Chris: When I think of a really good summer, I think of driving to the beach with the windows down blaring some kind of raw, visceral record, and oddly enough the first thing that popped into my head was Songs to Learn and Sing, by Echo and the Bunnymen. Probably because I can remember doing just that, with my friend Karl, who had that morning brewed up a fruit punch made with grain alcohol that his brother had stolen from his Chem lab, and which had this huge label on it that said Ingesting May Cause Blindness.

Adam: Violent Femmes first album, summer 1984. For some reason, it was on constantly, and it seemed very evil and weird to me at the time.

6) What record would you want playing for a solid night of debauchery?

Chris: I think the theme from Jeopardy! is a perfect sex song. It's got all this built-in anticipation and tenseness, it's only about 30 seconds long, and then when those two timpani hits come at the end, you instinctively think, "Oh shit, time's up, did I win?"

Adam: Canary Training Record, The Hartz Mountain Master Canaries. The perfect record for when things get out of hand.

7) What record first inspired you to form a band?

Chris: I've known that I wanted to be a musician since I was a kid, and I think it's largely due to my infatuation with Tom Petty records from a very young age. While there's not one particular record that I can pinpoint, in retrospect I think Damn the Torpedoes was the most worn-out.

Adam: The Police, Regatta de Blanc. I think I was in 8th or 9th grade, and all we did was play Police covers and songs that sounded like Police covers. Every drummer in my school was either into Stewart Copeland or [Journey's] Neil Peart.

8) What record will clear the room? (Or tour bus, as the case may be?)

Chris: Hands down, it's that most recent Rammstein record. Our roadie Rick had toured with the Ramones and they had played a bunch of shows with Rammstein in Germany a while back, so Rick knew them. He tried to play it on the bus, and everyone got mad, but I couldn't even talk because I was laughing so hard. I think that's the funniest record I've heard in a long time.

Adam: Pet Shop Boys, Please. I'm the only one that likes this stuff.

9) Midnight on New Year's Eve -- what will you be playing on your record player?

Chris: Nothing. I hate all those times when you're supposed to party, so as a rule, I party on all those times when you're not supposed to (Sundays, driving kindergartners to school, doing my taxes) and sleep when I'm supposed to be partying. With any luck, I'll be on a beach somewhere with a nice book and a beer when the clock strikes 12:00.

Adam: I plan to be somewhere so remote and away from catastrophe that they won't even have electricity -- so nothing.

10) What was "your song"at your wedding?

Chris: My wedding was a small private affair where my wife was wearing overalls. We didn't play any music but later on that night we listened to a recording of Hal Holbrook doing his "Mark Twain" monologue on Broadway, which was nice.

Adam: According to my wife, our song is the Shania Twain "You're Still the One" dance mix. It's nice to be married to someone who doesn't even listen to music.

11) What's your "guilty pleasure" record?

Chris: I've got a bunch of them, but by far the guiltiest is any record by Bryan Adams. Any time he's on the radio I have to listen to it (except for that song "The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You"). I'm a sucker for any of the ballads (especially "Straight From The Heart"), and anyone who tells
you he doesn't like Bryan Adams just thinks it isn't cool.

Adam: I have many of them, and I'm not really guilty about any of them -- but I would have to say either .38 Special "Caught Up In You" or Republica "Ready to Go." Or both at once.

12) What's your favorite album cover?

Chris: There's a Dwarves record called Blood, Guts and Pussy which features some naked women smattered in blood. I think that's my favorite, even though I don't own it, because...damn.

Adam: Led Zeppelin - Presence, featuring the object. Or maybe ELO, Out of the Blue.

13) When you die, what song should be played at your funeral?

Chris: I'm not going to die, but just hypothetically speaking, [Aerosmith's] "Dude Looks Like A Lady". All my relatives would start looking around uncomfortably and wondering what the fuck was going on. In some twisted way I could die happy knowing that they'd all be so embarrassed, and they'd have to do it because the dead guy said so.

Adam: "Funeral Home" by Daniel Johnston: "Got me a coffin shiny and black/goin' to the funeral and I'm never coming back."

Yeah, their name does sound like the name of the latest eco-friendly new age Windham Hill label freak show, but in fact The Gentle Waves are the first project spun off from a member of the Scottish cult favorite band Belle & Sebastian. Headed up by cellist Isobel Campbell, and backed by several other B&S members, the band's name is perfect for the sweetly dour, 60s-folk influenced (with a dash of Nick Cave) music it conveys.

"I'm not very modern at all," explains Campbell in a cheerily breathless voice. "Most of the music I like is pretty old, and I do love 60s music as well."

Her original induction to Belle & Sebastian came as a bit of a surprise (guitarist/vocalist Stuart Murdoch assembled the band in 1995 from all-night Glasgow cafe regulars to help him release a record as a final class project) says Campbell. "I've always loved music completely, beyond everything else," she explains. "But I didn't plan anything. A lot of my friends who were in bands were all male, and I thought, 'Well, it's so great that they can do this,' but because I was a female and I played the cello and piano and I didn't have a voice like thunder I thought, 'Well, it would be nice but I probably can't do this.' "

Fortunately, Belle & Sebastian became an underground success, which gave Campbell a platform from which to start putting together her own music. Although she did contribute to some of the three B&S albums, Campbell says she didn't really feel that her retro-folk didn't really blend well with B&S's sound. "If someone goes into a restaurant and orders carrot soup and gets chicken, they might not be happy," she shrugs.

And so she began planning for her own album. The songs on The Gentle Waves' first release, The Green Fields of Foreverland (okay, Marilyn Manson fans, stop laughing; B&S fans are thrilled, thank you very much) were composed over a few months while, as Campbell notes guiltily, "I was supposed to be studying for my finals. I kept on going to bed, and then I'd have an idea and I'd put the light back on, and I was supposed to be studying..."

If she hadn't liked the end result, says Campbell, she simply wouldn't have put it out. "I just had a collection of songs and I wanted to record them. The idea was to record when the time was right, and if I liked it, I would put the album out, and if I didn't, I wouldn't."

Fortunately, Green Fields passed muster for Campbell. What's next on the docket? Whatever else next falls into her lap - just like B&S did in the first place. "I would like to come and tour, but I haven't been asked yet," she explains. "I'd like to play a few not huge venues, just smallish atmospheric places. I don't really like pushing things, because if things are meant to happen then they will, and there's not much point bursting blood vessels over it."

Interview With Matt Johnson of The The
Previewing release of NakedSelf
For Alternative Press Magazine
 

The The (Nothing Records)
Projected Album Title: NakedSelf
Projected Release Date: February, 2000

What Can We Expect: As the first new The The music in six years (their last record, Gun Sluts, was so aberrant it got the band barred from the Sony building, and was never released), and their ninth full-length release, NakedSelf delivers beautifully. It's a stripped-down, yet still experimental album with songs like "PhantomWalls" and "VoidyNumbness" that explore such sweeping emotions as, as Johnson puts it, "Fear, betrayal, karma, conspiracy, guilt, greed, numbness, yearning, depression, release, and addiction." (In that order.) The current band is comprised of ex-members of MC 900 Foot Jesus (drummer Earn Harvin), Iggy Pop's band (guitarist Spencer Campbell), and, well, Kenny Rogers' band (bassist Spencer Campbell). "It's a very eclectic mix," promises Johnson, who co-produced with Bruce Lampcov, and who insisted on setting parameters for the recording, cutting down the number of tracks to 16, and twisting the guitar sound through Chinese radio tubes to get an interesting sense of distortion. And finally, the whole package will come in two versions -- "hardback" (complete with a book of spare sepia-toned photography) and a "paperback," which presumably will cost a bit less and come with fewer bells and whistles. For Johnson, the two versions are a way to combat price-gouging by record labels ("they should give something of value to the fans, considering how much they charge for CDs") and MP3 ("you need to make CDs more tactile and desirable"). And if fans are noticing a particularly dark tone to both songs and pictures -- remember, The The have never gone in for rainbows and unicorns. "There's Tori Amos to do that," he deadpans. "We have to have an antidote to all the frivolity."

Tracks Of My Years: Jerry Only of the Misfits
For Alternative Press Magazine

It's hard to hold on to a rapacious adolescent love of heavy, thrashing rock and gory, menacing monsters for 22 years, but meet The Misfits. Though they started in 1977 with a lineup of Glenn Danzig (vocals), Doyle Von Frankenstein (guitars), Jerry Only (bass) and Dr. Chud (drummer), they've remained almost exactly the same bunch of hard-hitting rock and roll maniacs for more than two decades. Almost, because Danzig left in 1995 to form Samhain, and was replaced by Michale Graves. Now, with their second album in the new lineup, Famous Monsters, The Misfits prove that what's truly changed is that they've gotten better at what they're doing.

"The band has a very unique sound when we play live, and it's always been a struggle to get that on tape," explains Only, calling from the set of Bruiser, the George Romero-directed horror flick they're briefly appearing in. "We've had records in the past, in the very beginning, where we've done them very cheaply. But it wasn't really what we sounded like in a live situation. It was more like an interpretation of what we sound like."

With Monsters, they're definitely on their way -- plus more. Not only will the band appear in Romero's Bruisers, but Only and Von Frankenstein even have doll versions of themselves coming out soon. (Will Barbie ever be the same?) As for the new album title, Only says they took the it from a book they all enjoyed as children, thus continuing their theme of monsters, monsters, monsters. "We got even heavier into monsters for the Walk Among Us album," recalls Only. "Nearly every song was a horror movie title, and our logo is now similar to the one from the book. So it connects your head with your toes. Like going so far back into your past that it feels comfortable for you."

And since Only was in a mood to go back into his past, here's a quick check at the albums that shaped his life.

1. First record you bought.

Copies of 1950's songs on 45 r.p.m. format. One I remember particularly is "Blue Moon."

2. Record that reminds you of school.

Alice Cooper's "Schools Out." I always remember hearing it in June... for obvious reasons.

3. Song you fell in love to.

"Traces" by Climax. I was in 7th or 8th grade, it was a girl with red hair....

4. What's your heartbreak song?

"Drive" by The Cars. It was a hard time for the band when that song was on the radio -- it reminds me of not being able to get what you want. It is more of the timing of the song's popularity than the actual song itself.

5. Greatest summer in your life.

David Bowie - ZIGGY STARDUST brings back those memories. I went down to the [Jersey] shore freshman year with all my good buds.

6. Record for a night of debauchery.

"Search and Destroy," by Iggy Pop. That whole album, RAW POWER is full of the most inspiring songs.

7.Record that inspired you to form a band.

David Bowie's DIAMOND DOGS. Bowie's live show was so theatrical I knew what I wanted to do.

8.Record guaranteed to clear the tour bus.

Backstreet Boys -- need I say more?

9.Midnight on New Year's Eve,1999 --Êwhat's on the HiFi?

If anything, Elvis. The Elvis Christmas albums would take us through the whole holiday season. "I Hear the Bells" is one of the best songs.

10.What song would you like played at your funeral?

"Funeral For A Friend," by Elton John. I didn't like Elton John when I first heard him -- he totally grew on me. That song starts off really creepy... it is a perfect funeral song.

11.Record that was (or would be) "your song" at your wedding...

"In The Still Of The Night." It was always one of my very favorites and was written by a soldier on watch for his love.

12.What's your "guilty pleasure" record ?

Mariah Carey's Christmas album -- it is really great. My wife and daughter bought it.

13.What's your favorite album cover ?

THE MISFITS' AMERICAN PSYCHO and FAMOUS MONSTERS -- because Basil Gogos is one of my heroes and it means so much to finally do him justice in my world.

Morphine: The Addiction Continues
Interview with Dana Colley
For Alternative Press Magazine

When Morphine's Mark Sandman dropped dead of a heart attack in front of bandmates Billy Conway (drums) and Dana Colley (sax) while performing on stage in Italy this past July 3rd, time stopped. "It was like a long pause," says Conway in a hushed voice. "In the moment, you're thinking, 'What happened? He fell over.' And then it's unfolding and, 'Why doesn't he get up?' "

Morphine's fifth album, The Night, also halted momentarily. The band had submitted a sequenced version to their record label, Dreamworks, prior to going out on tour, and all that was left to do was master the finished copy, but after Sandman's death, those plans were in disarray. According to Conway, the band was pushing for an expanded sound that would still hew closely to the band's familiar "low-rock" minimalism, which included Mark's invention of a two-string bass. "Mark was on a mission to orchestrate it differently, make it fatter, yet at the same time hopefully retain space and room for the imagination."

When they returned from touring sans Sandman, the question became: What to do next? A memorial concert to raise money for the Mark Sandman Music Education Fund provided an answer. "We learned the songs could be played with a different singer, and new arrangements could be made," explains Conway. "So we decided maybe a good thing would be to go out and play them."

And so they will: Now that The Night has been released, and Colley and Conway are assembling fellow Boston and Cambridge-based musicians to hit the road. They've got a rich list to choose from - Sandman played in no less than five separate Cambridge, Massachusetts-area bands (many with crossover musicians), including Supergroup, Hypnosonics, Pale Brothers and Candybar. Morphine was just the one that paid best. As Sandman told AP in 1995, "I like to play, and you can't play that much with just one band - nobody would come and see you after a while. A man's got to get a six-string guitar out of his system."

So Orchestra Morphine, as they'll be calling themselves, will include Conway and Hypnosonics members Colley, Mike Revard (bass), Evan Harriman (keyboards), and Russ Gershon and Tom Halter (both also in Either/Orchestra, on horns), as well as Jerome Dupree (drums), and singers Christian McNeil and Laurie Sergeant. The nine-piece will play mostly songs from The Night, some back catalog, and round things out with Hypnosonics tunes. But according to Conway the tour, which begins in New England in February and will expand nationwide in May is neither Morphine or the next logical step after Morphine. "We're trying to create something that's more about the song - we're not trying to re-create the cult of personality that was Mark onstage. This is really an organic thing. We'll see how it unfolds, and see what creative avenues it might lead to."

There's also a live Morphine album, to be released in the summer. And after that, says Conway, that's when they'll consider going forward (or not) without Mark Sandman, who had so much music in him, it took five bands to control it. "The guy invented an instrument," says Conway when asked to speculate on Sandman's legacy. "He learned how to play it, he wrote songs to go with it, and he made records and toured all over the world. That's a good start."

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