By Seth MacKenzie
IG: @culinaryanarchy
culinaryanarchy.com
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the one, the only, the VIOLENT FEMMES!
It was a short but sweet set and the drummer, I sh*t you not, was playing a Weber grill. This is not a typo, he was playing the top of a grill, and it sounded great. While a lot of bands get stale with age, these guys still play like they’re on the street corner trying to get gas money to get to the next town. They don’t take themselves seriously and neither should you.
Once the performance was over, I stepped out for s smoke and was lucky enough to catch up with Bass player Brian Richie. Much to my surprise he remembered emailing with me and promised to get a response to my interview questions and thus, here you go…
This man provided the bass line to many nights in the Kitchen Culinary Anarchy.
Seth Mackenzie: First off, why did you guys decide to go back out on the road?
Brian Richie: Coachella Festival has a gimmick of inviting bands that are split up to reform and play in the desert. They tried it out on us about four years ago, and we went along with it for laughs. Once we re-engaged with our audience, Gordon and I decided to keep it going. Since then we’ve released an EP, LP, and double LP, so it has been a fertile period for both recording and touring. We have always been a powerful live band, but the new lineup with John Sparrow on percussion and Blaise Garza on sax is the tightest version of the Femmes yet. It’s gratifying to be at the same thing for 36 years and still be able to tweak it and make improvements.
SM: What is the strangest thing you have eaten on the road?
BR: Food is quite a big part of touring. I decided early on to focus on food rather than some of the other distractions musicians fall prey to.
The strangest thing I’ve eaten on the road would be a choice between whale, crocodile, emu, frog, turtle, snail, sea slugs, fermented bee larvae, green ants, dragonflies, scorpions, earthworms, rotten hare, spleen, brains. Just for starters. Let’s say fermented bee larvae.
SM: I saw you guys play 11 years ago in Virginia Beach and was blown away by the energy of the show, how do you keep it up and is it ever hard to get excited?
BR: We get buzzed by the energy of the crowd, especially the youngsters therein. Today, as you saw, we had many pre-teens which is so gratifying. My motto is always play as if it’s your last gig because it might be. You also never know when your music might change somebody’s life. It’s a big responsibility.
SM: Do you ever have days that you’re like “Screw this, I’m tired.”?
BR: I don’t have a schedule. I have numerous activities. So if it needs to be done, I just do it and try to bring as much energy as possible. A professional musician knows how to summon reserve energy even in stressful conditions.
SM: Who’s been your biggest non-musical influence?
BR: My whole life revolves around music. My wife Varuni has been my biggest non-musical influence because she is a natural anti-depressant. She keeps me upbeat. She’s always smiling.
SM: Who would win in a fight between the Power Rangers and the Ninja turtles?
BR: I was never into Power Rangers, but I vicariously lived the Ninja Turtles through my son Silas back in the 90’s. At that time he called them teenat mutant linger turtles. So my vote is Turtles.
SM: What’s your go to comfort food?
BR: I love to eat every kind of food imaginable, but simple things like cheese and crackers are my comfort food.
SM: What performer have you seen live that blew away your expectations?
BR: I am the Music Curator at Mona (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. (www.mona.net.au & www.mofo.net.au)
This means I’m constantly being blown away by amazing musicians. The performer who amazed me the most recently is Kate Tempest. I think she is the shining light of the new generation. She’s a poet, playwright, rapper, and totally committed.
SM: Is there anyone who you would still like to perform with?
BR: I was irritated when they did not call me to replace John Entwistle in The Who. I would have loved to play with them. But the top of my list would be to play in a reformed version of The Kinks. I also wanted to play with the great Dutch drummer Han Bennink, but he rebuffed my request. What a knob!
SM: How has the creative process changed for you over the past 30+ years?
BR: Always looking for new things to do and new ways of doing the old things better. The most important thing is to try to create a better world through creativity. You have to open yourself up to do that. In the beginning, a musician tries out what they can do. Later on, it’s what you must do or should do. I think about other people and the ripple effect a lot more now than I did in the beginning. My field of vision is much wider and more multi-faceted.
SM: If you could go back and give yourself one bit of advice before you guys made it big, what would it be?
BR: In a business sense our biggest mistake, perhaps, was not setting up our own record label. It would have been better to have independence on that front. From a musical perspective, I wish I had learned how to properly read music. That is still a problem that I have to confront on a semi-regular basis.
Special thanks to the hard working staff at KEXP who put this show together and are keeping the music alive in Seattle.
