Conversations with Rock Stars: Scott Metzger

So let’s start with the obvious: What’s next for you, post-Particle, post-Rodney Speed Extravaganza?

There’s a couple of things in the works, but Greetings From Metzgerville will definitely kick back up, probably early next year realisitically. We’re also talking about recording the much-anticipated Danjaboots debut record [Danjaboots is Metzger and Sir Joe Russo]. Sex, Food & Murdah is what I think we’re calling it, but we’re definitely going with M-u-r-d-a-h.

Is that going to be a full release or just a couple of songs?

It’ll be an album, if it ever gets done. That’s the album that we’ve been sitting around talking about how great it’s gonna be for the last eight months of our lives. I think it’s coming down to the wire now where the songs have been perfected and they’re ready.

Staying with the side projects theme, where does Bustle In Your Hedgerow go at this point?

Bustle is almost too much fun, but we’re always very careful not to overplay the cover band thing. We’re obviously trying to take the tunes and do something different with them, but at the same time when you get down to it, we’re still playing Led Zeppelin songs. It runs the risk of becoming a little schticky if it’s overdone. But that being said, there’s talk of a tour on the horizon for sure, in the early part of next year.

Tell me a little bit about your involvement with Paul Green’s School of Rock?

I got involved with the School of Rock through [Ween/Bustle bassist] Dave Dreiwitz, who was teaching there from time to time. He mentioned that our friend Seahag was going away on tour with Sound of Urchin — he was teaching there full time, still is, and he needed a sub, so I went in there. And it’s just the greatest job, I get to go in and teach little kids how to play rock ‘n roll guitar. It’s the most rewarding day job anybody could ever have.

How often are you going down there?

This week I was there every day, and it’s a becoming more regular thing. The kids range from six to 17, so obviously a six-year-old’s gonna be much more of a G-D-C kind of thing, whereas some of the kids…I taught a 17-year-old girl yesterday, and she banged out a whole Tony Iommi solo in a half-hour, we were able to get it down. By the end of the lesson she was playing it right along with the album.

That must feel great, as a teacher. And as a musician, looking back at the last however many years you’ve been out on the road, what would you call your seminal moment as a professional player?

James Brown offered me a job, face-to-face. I was playing at a festival in Live Oak, Florida in 2001 or 2002. We were playing at about 3 in the afternoon, and James Brown was scheduled to headline. So we’re playing our set and [RANA bassist] Andrew Southern keeps coming over to me during our set and saying “I can’t believe this is happening, I can’t believe this,” after every song. I had no idea what he was talking about. After the gig we’re packing up our stuff, and Andrew comes over and says it again. Finally I asked said to him, “What are you talking about?” And he told me James Brown was on the side of the stage, fully dancing, busting out the Sex Machine Moves to the RANA set for like the second half of the set.

As that was sort of setting in, this guy in a full-blown suit taps me on the shoulder, obviously a security guard for someone, and says “Excuse me, Mr. Brown wants to meet you.” So I pack up my things and found the guy, and he let us back to the artists’ tent — there’s security everywhere. The guy leads us through all these security guards, and sure enough there’s James Brown and his wife sitting there. The security guard leans over to him and says, “These are the guys that were just on stage.”

So James said, “Where the gee-tar player at?” I said, “That was me, sir.” And James said, “My God, son, you play so much gee-tar it’s fightening.” And he looks at his wife and said, “I swear to God, the boy scared me!” What a huge compliment, it was a never-forget-this-moment kind of thing. We made small talk, you know, complaining about how hot it was down here — “Too hot! Too hot down here! I need a showah!”

Eventually we let him go, but first he said, “Jerome, give this boy a card.” It was right out of Purple Rain, Jerome reaches into his pocket and takes out a business card and flips it around in his fingers as he hands it to me. Then James Brown says, “And that’s the real number, gimme a call some time if you want a job.” I never called him, but I do have the card framed.

Did he make make any sort of backhanded slap motions at you or his wife during that encounter?

No, but he did have blue hair. His hair was blue, and it wasn’t punk-rock blue, it was like something went wrong at the stylist kind of blue. Nothing’s really topped that since then. There have been some other highlights, but that’s gonna be tough to beat. It was just perfect the way it happened, so poetically beautiful.

Let me jump back into Danjaboots for a second here…your association with Tom Marshall has led to more exposure amongst the hippie crowd. How much did that play into the origins of “Go Home, Hippie” — where did that come from?

Go Home, Hippie came from the concept of writing songs about characters that everyone knows, which I’ve been doing lately. Whether it be the girl that has it all but does too much cocaine, or whatever it is. And everybody has in their posse of friends the guy that oversteps their bounds when they go and see the band. Like the guy that yells for a song, and then the band plays the song, but they keep yelling for the song after it’s been played. We all know these guys. Being a musician, we just deal with these guys on a nightly basis.

More to your question, certainly Amfibian was the first time I saw guys like that at my shows. Eventually, down the road, here it is four years since then, and I figured it was about time that those guys get their non-approval recognition. And it’s great, I love that one, when we get to the chorus now it’s not uncommon for a big part of the crowd to do the “No”s with us. It’s a testament to the more honest you are in a song, the more the audience will relate to it.

You ever get the Tom Waits comparison?

All the time, all the time. It’s not by coincidence necessarily. When I was 21 I bought a copy of Closing Time on a recommendation from my dad, and that’s changed everything. Within a month I started smoking cigarettes. It just changed everything for me. I went through a massive obsession for about two years with Waits.

Who else besides Waits is on your list of biggest influences?

There are a few, but right now it’s Richard Thompson. He’s possibly the greatest guitar player alive right now. He absolutely is mind-blowing on the guitar and his songwriting is on a level of John Prine or Bob Dylan to me. He’s from England, he was in a band called Fairport Convention back in the ’60s and then started a career with his wife, Linda. And they made a bunch of great albums. It was actually the album I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight that I got first, and I haven’t been able to listen to anything else besides that lately.

The Miles Davis mid-70s stuff has also been a constant obsession for about five years — the Jack Johnson album, and they just put out the Cellar Door Sessions, the Live Evil stuff. Pretty much anything that Miles has ever done, but more recently it’s been the electric stuff. And recently, it’s also been Sly Stone that’s been a big influence.

We talked this summer about how you missed the typical Zeppelin phase and had to learn their songs for Bustle. First of all, where the hell were you, and also what was that like cramming such a tour-de-force songbook into a short period of time?

Yeah, I just never listened to Zeppelin. As fucked up as that sounds, I never had the experience of going around in high school getting stoned listening to Zeppelin. I think it had something to do with the fact that I didn’t have any older brothers or sisters, and my friends’ older brothers and sisters were a little more Jersey, into like Maiden and Anthrax and Exodus — they were a little further down the timeline.

And learning the stuff, you know, I had heard all the stuff, and in the back of my head…Zeppelin’s one of those things that you have burned into your neuroses, even if you’re not a fan. You hear it on the radio growing up, so somewhere in the back of my mind it all registered and it didn’t take too long to learn all that stuff. And then coming in and playing it with Marco and Joe, just a rock solid rhythm section, and there was never any doubt how the songs went…And we try not to go too San Francisco on it, we pretty much play short and sweet, keep the energy there, hit it and quit it.

You guys are four very original musicians, but Bustle’s a fan favorite and I think the country would really benefit from a full tour, people have only good things to say…

It’s so much fun. On this last tour that I just did, I was playing with the band that was opening for The Duo — Chris Harford and the Band of Changes — we did the Zeppelin thing in Boulder and Asheville. And both nights when we got up we were just going to do two or three songs, and then cut to an hour and a half later and we’re on song number 11. Once you get going, it’s so much fun, and the energy is so there, and who wants to stop that? Who wants to wrap that up after three songs?

What’s the deal with RANA these days?

We did our last gig at CBGB a little while ago [sans keyboardist Matt Durant]. I think basically where RANA stands…we hit it so hard for like four or five years, and we came home and everybody’s just kind of playing with different groups. Also, Andrew just got married. RANA’s always been a thing where we play because we love to play together, where you get together and have fun, and that’s it. RANA will always play, but we’re the kind of band that’s so family it’s gonna go through a lot of phases in terms of how much we’re playing, and how much we’re playing in and out of town.

What’s it like being up on the CBGB stage?

It’s great. I think we played there like 10 or a dozen times, and it’s just one of those places that’s such a shithole — the most beautiful shithole in New York City. But the history in that room is totally undeniable. For such an awfully rundown room, you felt the need to bring your A game whenever you played there.

What other kind of rooms stand out, either playing or as a fan, a place that makes you say, “Wow, this is fucking venue”?

There’s a lot of them…for one, the Park West in Chicago, it’s like a beautiful big room with unbelievable stage sound; the Fox Theatre in Boulder, just classic, great energy in there; The Independent and The Fillmore in San Francisco, it’s great playing there; and La Zona Rosa in Austin is an awesome venue too. There’s also John & Peter’s in New Hope, Pennsylvania, which is the club that I grew up playing in, ya know, sneaking into gigs when I was like 16 years old.

When did you start playing guitar?

I started playing when I was about 16. My dad was an amateur guitarist, and he had a guitar up in the attic that he and his sister shared while they were growing up. I was a saxophone player when I was growing up, but I was way more into guitar music than I was saxophone music at the time, so I figured I would try bangin’ out some songs. I learned how to play all of Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All on this nylon-string acoustic guitar. That was pretty much it, and it became an immediate unhealthy obsession.

You ever break out the sax, can you still play?

Only times when I was really drunk — it’s more of a party trick. I have an alto, but I played everything. I played alto, tenor and baritone, which was just a nightmare…

I was going to say, that’s probably a really funny sight, what were you 86 pounds back then?

There’s a picture in my high school yearbook, and it’s Sax Man. It looks so awkward — it looks like a character out of a Will Ferrell movie.

How much songwriting have you been doing lately?

A lot. A lot recently. Like I said, I’m planning on getting the Metzgerville thing up and running, and I’m jamming with people more these days. And I’ve kinda just taken stock of my whole style of guitar playing; I found myself playing the same things over and over again. Now I’m sort of challenging myself and trying to move forwards, take the licks what feel like home and old friends and add onto that.

What’s the Metzgerville ensemble gonna look like, same ol’?

Yeah, I’ve got an unbelievably talented pool of guys that for some reason are willing to play my songs with me, and that includes Russo, Dave Dreiwitz, Justin Wallace, Kevin Kendrick, and Ryan Thornton and Andrew Southern of RANA, just guys that I feel like are really some of the best musicians in New York City right now, and also who are like family to me. I’m keeping with the Metzgerville tradition of guys that love to make music together, but more importantly, love each other and are as tight as grown men can be without it being weird.

Kevin plays the vibraphone, right? Any time you throw a vibes in there, I’m sold. Some of my favorite stuff to listen to is the Cannonball Addereley/Milt Jackson recordings, or the Modern Jazz Quartet…

What really blows my mind is all the Velvet Underground stuff that they used vibes in — the use of vibes is so genius. It’s incredible, it changes the mood so much. And also if you listen to that Fleetwood Mac album Rumours, there are vibes deep in the mix, pretty much on every song, they just hit it on the 1 of every chord. It’s too bad it’s Fleetwood Mac, because it’s so good, it’s like, “Fleetwood Mac, dammit!”

Metzger Multimedia: If you’d like to listen to this guy shred or wank or rage or whatever the kidz do with their axes these days, here are a couple places to start…

• Bustle In Your Hedgerow, 7/31/05 in Chicago (Make sure to check out their incredible take on Immigrant Song)
• RANA, 4/21/04 at NYC’s Tribeca Rock Club
• RANA, Carbombed Again, off the Here In The USA album
• Sitting in with the Disco Biscuits on Pinball Wizard, 5/28/06 [via LMB] 
• And lastly, here are two YouTube videos to digest: Danjaboots’ Burn For This and RANA’s Buy, Sell or Break

What goes on with you outside the world of music…do you do anything special or you just sit around?

I’m really into running. This last tour I was getting up and running two miles every day at the hotel. I don’t have a gym membership here, but you go to a hotel and they’ve got the complimentary gym. I’m really into old horror movies, like from the ’70s. What else, um, Internet porn? I watch football and stuff, you know, you’re average guy in his 20s.

So what is your favorite horror movie?

It was for a very long time the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it might be newly replaced by The Devil’s Rejects, the Rob Zombie movie. Oh man, it’s so sick, my stomach turns when I think about it. It’s fucking genius. Rob Zombie’s an amazing director it turns out, and he’s doing the new Halloween movie. And it will be the best Halloween in years, I’m sure. Now they’re up to like Halloween 13, but who the hell has seen parts three through 12? But, this one is gonna be great. With him directing, I don’t see how it can miss.

Rob Zombie, Henry Rollins, all of a sudden a lot of musicians have developed these outside-of-music charismatic personalities — like Rollins, kids growing up now think of him as an actor, or the guy that writes letters to Ann Coulter. If you ever had designs about hanging it up and going the route of kids 15 years of now have never heard of RANA or your music, what do you think you’d move into?

I would get into drug and alcohol rehabilitation. I’ve been around it a lot in my life. And I find it fascinating how people go from using and having chemical dependencies to not, the awakening that happens within a person. I think it can be a very harsh world, and sometimes people use things to get themselves out of their own heads. They do it on a daily or short-term basis, and before you know it, people turn around and five years of their lives have gone by in a sort-of haze. That can be very, very sad.

Growing up, my father ran a methodone clinic, so I was surrounded all the time…every couple of weekends we would have a cookout at my house for my father’s clients. So it was basically me, my dad, my mom and like 30 ex-junkies, or guys that were in the process of withdrawal. I remember guys coming to the house and going through withdrawal in my bathroom. So I always thought it was fascinating. I knew guys through my father’s work that were linebackers for the Eagles; they took one hit of crack and they lost it all. And that’s just incredible to me, the power of it all.

But again because of my father’s work I saw people come out of that awful hell they got themselves into, and it’s the most uplifting and promising thing you could ever watch anybody go through.

Given your background growing up with that, how does that square up with you life on the road?

I’ve seen all kinds of people get all kinds of fucked up, man. It’s really fucking terrible. Like I said, when I met James Brown, there was something going on. It’s part of the world we choose to live in, and we can choose to take it or not, that’s it. Life on the road can be very dangerous because there’s temptations everywhere, all the time, and there’s no consequences. That’s the thing.

It’s like Grand Theft Auto…

Totally, it’s like living in a video game. I’ve said for years they should make a video game where it’s not virtual guitar, but you’re an actual band. Get the band through the tour. That shit would sell like crazy. But it’s like, everywhere you go it’s Saturday night — it could be a Tuesday in Des Moines, and nothing against Des Moines, so I’ll say it’s a Tuesday night in some town, you’ve been on the road forever, and you’re not to psyched about being there, but you walk in there and everyone’s so psyched to see you. There’s a certain image that sometimes you feel you have to live up to…

What do you really have against Des Moines?

I love Des Moines actually. I think Des Moines people are some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met.

Good save. But that does bring up a good point about bands that are constantly touring…you will get the down show. Do you as a musician recognize when you don’t have it, do you ever walk off the stage and say “We just did not fucking have it up there?”

I’ve definitely had shows where you want to jump off the stage, where you walk off and want to slit your wrists. You’re up there on stage and every note that you play feels like the worst possible note, like there’s not a note possible that’s any worse than what you chose. But on the same token, I’ve heard those shows a month or two later, and they’re great shows. Or I’ll have people come up to me and say, “That was some of the best playing I’ve ever heard you do.” So you never know, and it’s sort of a trick of getting your thinking to not be so hard on yourself and to realize that your bad night might be someone who’s listening’s favorite show.

Is the converse of that true?

Oh, absolutely. I’ve come off stage and been like feet not touching the ground, feeling so good about the show, and there’ll be some comment made where I suddenly realize that noone else in the room was that into it, and I was all by myself in thinking that it was so great. At the end of the day, though, it’s all a process of trying to get there, you’re never going to arrive. That’s the great thing about playing music, the journey of the whole thing.

I’m sure you’ve gotten a ton of praise, but what’s the worst thing someone’s ever said to you after a show?

The first show I ever played in my life was at a teen arts talent revue. And I was playing Man in the Box, the Alice in Chains song. It was the first time I’ve ever played guitar in front of people. We started playing our song, and there were maybe 100 kids there watching. We got maybe 15 seconds into the song and the whole thing started to fall apart. The drummer dropped his stick and then the beat fell apart, and then the singer didn’t know where to come in, and I look over and realize I’m playing like one fret off every note I’m supposed to be playing.

I remember like this was yesterday, out of the blue in slow motion, out of the darkness came one of those half-boat of french fries covered in ketchup. It’s coming at me, and it just hit the fretboard and fell off, and now there’s ketchup all over the strings and fries are kind of falling off one by one, the strings aren’t making any sound because they’re covered in ketchup. At that point I just took the guitar off and sulked off stage.

Allright, we’ll leave it there on such a happy memory…