Insight

Number four

The beans behind the band, Jeff Martin started Idaho and will probably end it. Together with his troupe of players, he plays indie rock on a semi-major like Howard Roark made buildings in the Fountainhead. He is a paradox, and in a few words, presumptuously, with originality, and somewhat blindly. Not to mention his attitudes are somewhat obnoxious. .Like Howard Roark, he drowns in irony: on a label like Caroline with no one at his snows; making- more unusual music on a heavy .hitter than most make on an indie; perhaps defeating: his own ends with his own focus.

Insight: Tell me about what happened with the lineup.

Jeff Martin: Yeah, It’s just me now working by myself to an extent. On the last record I had some drummers play on it, Joey Warnker who was in a band called Walk Naked. Now he’s with Beck. A guy named Tony Mackenwell from a band called That Dog, and my old drummer, Jeff Middey, who toured with us last year. He played on a song and I basically played everything else.

I: Right. Did John fit into that or no?

J: John Berry? No, we had our creative differences that were happening right in the beginning, and we had a real interesting formula that we kind of beat to death, I think, and it was time for me to move on. I always knew I would.

I: What was the formula?

J: John would come up with some chords that he liked, generally like two parts of a song, and I would arrange it and add a break or some extra color to it. He would do this feed back stuff all over it. He wouldn’t really write parts, he would just turn up his Marshall to 100 watts of screaming assault, and we’d record him going nuts. He really had a gift for that. It wasn’t just capturing a lot of noise and making sense of It later. He was pretty capable of producing the stuff first take. And then I would write lyrics and do the vocals, and we’d just mix the song. We wouldn’t really think much about it. It was that sort of process. It would happen really quickly. It was very satisfying, I mean the stuff came out beautiful, but after a while I got tired of doing that. It just became too automatic. Our tastes were different. I’m still very good friends with [him]. I’ve talked about working with him in the future.

I: Alright, so did you have any kind of musical training?

J: Yeah, I guess so, I mean I was a classical pianist. I did recitals playing in front of thousands of people at times. My high school had a real advanced music department. Professors from USC. University of Southern California, took over the class at my high school, Cross Roads, in Santa Monica, and I was a music major with all these Asian violinists and this kind of crazy bunch of classical musicians. I didn’t really fit into that at all, but at that time I was actually studying to be a concert pianist. In a way I think I knew pretty much right off the bat that that wasn’t what I was going to end up doing.

I: Right.

J: So I did that for a little while, and then I discovered jazz, and I started learning how to improvise. I stopped studying sight readings, and I eventually forgot completely how to write music.

I: So how long ago was this?

J: From age eleven to age fifteen or something.

I: And how old are you now?

J: Thirty.

I: So did you find that kind of music satisfying? Was it as cathartic as the stuff you’re doing now?

J: What I was doing back then?

I: Yeah.

J: Uh, no. (laughs)

I: You were playing everybody else’s stuff too right?

J: Yeah, I mean that was just like Kobiaz. Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, and yeah, it was great stuff, but right about at that point I started writing stuff myself that I thought was just as powerful on the piano, (laughs) or it gave me a lot more satisfaction. I didn’t really want to be a robot, you know.

I: Yeah.

J: I think I could play the stuff extremely well. My piano teacher would cry all the time whenever we had lessons when I played something, (laughs) So I knew I had a touch for it, but I grew up. I think it was a good discipline. I got really good at that to the point that I could jump over to bass guitar when I was about nineteen, and I was good on it quickly ‘cause my hands knew what they were doing. My teacher would always call them tools. At least I had that developed. Then you know, three years ago I switched to four string guitar, and I was instantly turned on to that.

I: Would you consider the music you’re doing now as serious as the music you were doing then? Is it as respectable? Does it demand as much respect as Stravinsky or Bartok or whatever?

J: Maybe. I’m working up to that. I don’t think it is yet, but I think I’m going there I hope.

I: Are your arrangements that complex?

J: No. (laughs) Not really, but I think that complex arrangements aren’t what make something have that emotional impact at all. I’m more into simplicity and texture.

I: I think a lot of classical musicians would argue with you on that.

J: Yeah. (laughs) That’s true. I don’t argue about music much with people. I feel that if they have to argue they don’t really care that much.

I: Yeah, what about this four string guitar? I’ve never even seen one.

J: Well they exist. I just bought a 1957 Guild hollow body electric that’s a four string. They’ve been around forever. They’re called tenor guitars or plexic guitars. That’s why a lot of the music on the first record had this mulchy kind of brown sound. A lot of it’s just because the tunings are really low.

I: What do you do live when you do break a string? Do you just play it out or what?

J: For some reason I’m the one who breaks the strings. I don’t know why. Just because I think my angst gets transferred into the wood, (laughs) so generally what we’ll do is play it out, but Dan’s gotta learn my parts. He’s learned most of them because then he can just play and we don’t have the lead guitar in it anymore. Yeah, it’s pretty dorky to stop playing a song.

I: It’s really kind of sacrilegious to turn a song off in the middle. I always had a pet peeve about people that make you tapes and then they have one song at the end and It gets cut off. (Oh, I wonder who that’s supposed to be? -Bridget) I erase the rest of the song because you don’t want to listen to half a song.

J: Yeah it has a real sort of negative effect. It’s shocking, like a jolt. So what are you interviewing for?

I: Insight. I used to write for Your Flesh. I’ve reviewed all your records.

J: Oh really? I think in my scrapbook I have a review from Your Flesh.

I: It might have been from me. I got the Palms E.P. to review, and I loved it. That’s what started me listening to your stuff. Caroline called me up and asked me if I wanted to do an interview with so-and-so, and I was like “Urn, not really... But you know who I would like to do one with is Idaho...” Sorry if telling me this stuff is redundant for you, ‘cause I don’t know that much about your history, but I like the records.

J: Right, well that’s all that matters. They didn’t send you a bio or anything?

I: They have, but I never read them.

J: Yeah they are really stupid.

I: I remember reading the first bio and I didn’t like it at all. I said in the review for Your Flesh that I didn’t care what the deal was with you and John you know. Did you read them?

J: Yeah, It was kind of bullshit too.

I: It said that John was some street smart hustler and you were some classical savant.

J: It’s an utter cartoon version of reality. We’re actually almost exactly the same. People think we talk the same, we both kind of stutter. People think we’re brothers. He just happens to have some bad toxic habits and I don’t, and that’s the only difference.

I: Did that affect the band? Was that part of the problem?

J: I think that John’s always had a problem with that. We’ve worked with each other off and on since we were about nineteen, and he got into heroin in like 1986. We were just working on a project then that was really, really cool.

I: You said it was heroin?

J: Yeah, he’s always had a drinking problem but a lot of Americans do, and people don’t really care. They don’t notice it until it gets to be some evil drug. So he got into that and it killed what we were doing at the time. He went through a string of problems after that. He got arrested, but then in 1988,1 think he was at a drug rehab, he became a counselor and he was really respected. He’d go on tour In California and speak in front of lots of people about it. After he’d been clean for about two and a half years he kind of joined this joke band that I was in just on drums and eventually he snagged me out of that and got me to start working with him again, and we started doing the first song for Idaho. He was great the second we signed our deal in December of ‘92, but then he started using again. A lot of people I know in bands in L.A. that are getting these big gigantic record deals, people who had drug problems, they instantly start up again. When things get too comfortable and success is knocking on the door, it’s some weird decision that’s made, now I have money I can afford it sort of, and it seems like I can get away with it now. I have a life, my dream has come true, so I might as well celebrate and get back into my old friend. So it just happened to him again too, and once it started happening he stopped. He wasn’t able to write his music anymore. It was somewhat of a nightmare. The small amount of touring we did though, he would always manage to get up on stage and do a really good job for the most part. I mean, he was always breaking equipment and was like, “You’re so lucky to have me around to fix this stuff and keep things cool.” So it just didn’t work out, but I’m glad we got to put out two good records and go play. There’s great live recordings of a lot of shows that exist. I just can’t hang with that anymore.

I: It seems like it would be good music to take heroin to. I’ve never done it, but I mean, If I did It (laughs) I think that’s what I might like to listen to.

J: (laughs) Either that or some type of music you’d hear when you died or something which is kind of the same thing.

I: That’s really funny that you said died because I wanted to have you make a list separate from this interview about the top twelve records you’d like do something to, like to do drugs, to die. to have sex. It’s a serene kind of music.

J: Right, which is changing a little bit. I’m doing some new stuff that has a more aggressive quality to it, kind of steering away from that meditative sober thing.

I: Have you ever heard of Lambchop or Bedhead?

J: Yeah I have, but I don’t really know their stuff that well. I was just reading about Lambchop.

I: The mood is comparable to what you guys do. There’s a little more sarcasm in it, but Bedhead does really pretty music. And being an alternative band on an alternative label makes that an unusual thing. Most people are doing “pop grunge,” and when somebody turns down or slows down it’s a weird thing.

J: Yeah, I hope it happens more.

I: It’s refreshing.

J: It’s funny, I don’t really know why, ‘cause I’m still recording a lot. I did that record, and we don’t tour that much, but I’m kind of getting into the third record, and I want to listen to stuff.

I: Can you ever picture yourself doing catchy pop songs that are up beat?

J: I think a lot of Idaho are pop songs, I think they’re catchy. I think a song like Skyscrape is really catchy. It’s a little bit somber of mood, but you can hear it as elevator music very easily. I’ve always written sort of pop type catchy stuff, and I think some day I will do it, but I don’t think the climate’s right. I think that I’m still gonna try to fly below the radar now until the climate’s right for higher quality pop music to happen. I’m getting older too, I think it’ll make more sense when I’m about thirty-six or thirty-seven. I might actually be writing pop music, but I think it’ll always be real high quality. It’s not gonna be a sell out. But that’s going to take awhile to happen. For now I want to wallow in my obscurity and enjoy that for awhile.

I: Do you have a big problem with people selling out or yourself selling out?

J: Not really, but it just seems like something horrible happens to people when they do. Their own music starts going down hill.

I: I think a lot of people focus on that when they watch their favorite band grow or change and put out records. They’re always analyzing when they’re gonna sell out. It seems like some people can do it and it doesn’t really matter.

J: Like who?

I: What can be more tacky than Neil Young doing a tribute to Kurt Cobain? But yet he can do that and it doesn’t sound tacky.

J: I think there’ll be a way for me to sneak through this and keep my feathers unruffled. Keep writing honest stuff for myself.

I: Keep your integrity intact. As far as the indie thing, do you feel like you fit into that scene? Your music is probably closer to something like, as far as expressing mood, something more like classical than stuff that’s in Maximum Rock and Roll. But your audience is probably closer to punk kids.

J: I don’t really know what the audience for Idaho is yet. I’ve never seen more than four at once really, but I have no idea. They’re all sorts of different kinds of people. There are like sixteen-year-old girls to this fifty-five year old man who’s written me saying he’s a big fan that loves to talk about it.

I: Do people come to your shows?

J: It depends. Here in California we had four hundred people come to see us play ‘cause we were number one on the college radio station there, but that’s absurd for the most part. Only a handful of people come to the shows. I don’t know where Idaho fits in.

I: I don’t think you guys are really a live band.

J: Not exactly. It was never my intention to play live with this stuff at all. I like it now ‘cause it’s a challenge. It’s making me a better singer, better guitar player. It’s fun to travel ‘cause otherwise I’m pretty reclusive. I don’t do a lot. I like to stay home. It’s good for me to get out into the world, but yeah, it’s a very modern band, and I think it doesn’t quite fit in to the current system. It’s kind of a freakish thing.

End

Jeff Martin currently is releasing Idaho records through Caroline.