Meat Puppets on tour again
Elizabeth HIggins, Senior Staff Writer
Published On: 10/26/2009
The Meat Puppets put on a stunning and rip roaring show at the Bottletree in Birmingham Wednesday night, Oct. 21.
The band, which gained quite a bit of notoriety after performing three of their songs with Nirvana on “MTV Unplugged” in the ’90s, still had plenty of fans come out to hear their raging country, grunge-like music and new songs off their recently released album “Sewn Together.”
The audience, composed of new and old fans, sang along as they played their hit song “Too High to Die.”
Bass player Cris Kirkwood said he first became inspired by music after watching the movie “Deliverance.”
“That whole banjo sequence just set my little 12-year-old brain on fire. Somewhere along in there, I developed an early relationship with music,” he said. “I started a band with my brother and Derrick (Bostrom). We decided to call it the Meat Puppets…and started doing shows under that moniker.”
Kirkwood talked about what inspires the band to write songs, which he mostly credits his brother Curt with.
“The desire to eat,” he said. “It’s also a why not situation. Songs come from wherever they come from. It’s just something you do. It’s something that gives you the opportunity to really play music together. There’s this communal point where you’re all playing this thing as something to hang your hat on.
The band began playing together in 1980. Kirkwood said he still and always has enjoyed the music but is not very favorable of the business side of it.
“But there’s something fun about playing in front of people and there’s something about coming up with a name and making albums inside of it and what not, but you’ve got to sell that crap. That’s another side of it, he said.
Kirkwood said he was more into the business side of it in the mid-’90s, but now he is more comfortable not being on a major record label.
“We have a comfortable relationship with the [Mega Force] label right now, who does a good job of selling our crap and who’s willing to make the art we have. We’ve never managed to hook up with a major label willing to support us.
Kirkwood explained how he feels about the music industry and the competition to be on top by pleasing the most people.
“Well, I mean, you know, it’s essentially capitalism, right, how capitalism operates. The more popular you are the more money you make. So there’s a built in schism there, you know what I mean? If you can appeal to the most people, you make the most money.
Kirkwood said this idea of capitalism and making the music that will sell doesn’t necessarily have to affect the quality of the art itself.
“You know, maybe you can be an artist that, you know, makes art that’s enlightening and special enough to where people actually dig it and yet it’s the most, you know, forward thinking music that’s going to make it at that point, or something like that. And occasionally that happens,” he said. “That’s what’s cool about the music business. It’s kinda like Elvis, where he’s taking stuff that hadn’t been that loud and above board and suddenly he was the most popular. The Beatles. Again, we’re talking about people that were really pushing their creative side and was still the most popular stuff around on that side to a certain degree. But then again there’s this propensity there for it to develop into something that isn’t quite that — once the die has been cast, or you know the money process has been established, you know they’re going to be able to come along and make pale imitations of that. Most people are able to and make money off of that.
Basically, Kirkwood said, the whole business is about finding out what people want to hear, so the companies can make more money.
“So you’re talking about something that is essentially money-driven. But what isn’t? What isn’t in life?” he said.
Kirkwood said the Puppets haven’t usually been as successful on the business end, but aren’t necessarily bad at it either.
“I’m as good at it as I am, I’m still doing it,” he said. “I turn 49 tomorrow [Oct. 22], and I remember the first time I played in San Francisco. It was my 20th birthday. So I’m 29 years in, so there’s something there that at least has the continuity. But the thing that have kept me going is the musical side of it. The business side of it is just a whole other thing. It’s trying to sell stuff.
He also recalled the grunge-era, where the Puppets gained a majority of their popularity.
“A rush of music labels came about after this music scene that us and a lot of other bands — you know our peers from a long time ago — influenced all these other kids and suddenly that became the new, different thing. We got swept up in the wave that we initially helped to create. You know, it’s kinda funny,” Kirkwood said.
Kirkwood didn’t have much of an opinion on new music in the alternative genre, in which they were eventually grouped when the term was coined in the ’90s.
“What I liked about music initially, I still like. I still like a personalized version that is able to go on through music. I still find it an interesting tool in which to explore what it is to be me,” Kirkwood said. “Most rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t do that much for me. I like people’s need to howl. I get a kick out of that.
If Kirkwood is interested in a band, he said he bases it on the band members’ personality and if they have a unique sound.
“Some of the music they make is pretty cool, and I go OK, it’s a nice tone. Then I’m also the type of guy to go, OK they’re the only one of them and what’s their take on the making of noise specifically in terms of rock ‘n’ roll…so I can find something and well at least they’re the only ones that make that noise, specifically that way,” Kirkwood said.
The Meat Puppets were also joined by Athens-based grunge band Dead Confederate and Gift Horse.
Email: lizzie_212003@yahoo.com
