ALAN THE GODDAMN KING's ANGRY JOHNNY INTERVIEW
FOR CARBON 14 MAGAZINE
On this past New Years Eve, Angry Johnny officially declared 2006 to be the “Year of the Killbillies”. I don’t think he was fucking around ‘cause it’s only May and the band has already started work on two new albums, been approached to do music for a couple of movies, released a new DVD (Live At Ralph’s Diner) as well as a third CD in the Killville Auto Salvage series, and traversed the country a couple times, getting down on them praying bones and making converts of the unwashed masses. And did I mention that Angry’s already got several new paintings under his belt, is working on opening his new gallery, and has just released SIX – yes, count ‘em, SIX – solo CDs?
To top that off, Angry and company ran into The Devil in Savannah, Georgia on their last tour and The Devil concurred that 2006 would indeed be the “Year of the Killbillies”. After proving his powers on some mundane tasks such as changing stop-lights and traffic-flow, The Devil told the Killbillies to be ready to go to L.A. in a moment’s notice as he was going to make them stars. He even gave them half of a song (I’ve heard it, and it’s pretty good), the other half to be delivered upon sealing the deal. Most folks would run from such a strange occurance, but Angry just gave The Devil his number and then took him out for margaritas.
Ya see, the strange is kinda the norm for Angry Johnny and the Killbillies. Strange happenings just seem to follow them around. We are talking about, after all, a guy who was once picked up and interrogated by police because one of his paintings was found at a murder site; a man who has had the wounds of Christ inflicted upon him (no shit – I touched the holes in his hands and watched everybody freak out when the camera would take pics of everything but Angry’s hands); this is a man who must be touched by something out of the ordinary to be able to pen the best songs heard since Hank Williams passed on to eternal reward.
So sit back and pop open a PBR and let’s chat with the man for a while. And if you’re ever up somewhere between the Berkshire Mountains and the Connecticut River, in a little town called Killville, stop by Dewey’s (any local can point you in the right direction) and ask where Angry’s at. Buy the man a beer and maybe he’ll grace you with a story or two…..


Let’s start off with the Angry Johnny and The Snots album.


Ay yay yay. You have that?


Yep.


You poor guy.


Was that the first thing you ever did music-wise?


Nah. There was a previous Snots cassette out in ’86, I think. Then I did a whole bunch of these horrible solo tapes. I had eighteen of ‘em out. I dunno, the kids were buying ‘em, just locally. I got panned in the local paper by this guy who said I was a misogynist, and then he ended up stabbing his girlfriend a million times – his ex-girlfriend, who had become a lesbian – and he’s in prison. So, who’s the misogynist now?


So these eighteen solo releases were all on tape, too?


Yeah, they were terrible. Not even Jimmy the Twitch is allowed to listen to ‘em, and he’s my official archivist.


So there’s never gonna be a box-set with all that shit on it?


Well, I gotta keep an eye on my brother. I think he has ‘em. His judgement’s clouded.


So what kind of background did you come out of before the Killbillies, was it more punk rock or always the country-tinged stuff?


When I first started playing, I didn’t start playing guitar until I was 22 or something, 21, 20, I don’t know. Basically – well, you’ve seen me play – I never learned how to play guitar, I learned how to make a couple of chords and I was like “Hey, I’m gonna write some songs!” I wrote this handful of TERRIBLE shit and then when I started with the Snots it took a while to get it to, it was punk rock, but I don’t even know if it was. It didn’t sound like punk rock, either. That was the thing, I could never get a handle on even sounding like what I wanted to sound like ‘cause I didn’t know how to do it. So it always ended up sounding like us. Which is good, in retrospect. I was a hack (laughs). I’m a fucking hack. Then somewhere along the line I kind of realized that I may not sing great but I can actually kind of sing. Back in the day, if you ever heard those eighteen tapes (which you never will), it’s like almost like deliberately singing poorly ‘cause I figured I couldn’t sing so I might as well sing real bad. But that’s where the country shit came from, those tapes. All that solo shit. There’s like a thousand songs and doing the solo shit with the acoustic guitar brought it into the country vibe. Some of that stuff is fucking embarrassing. The first Snots tape, I think, sounds better than the Snots album and I want to put it out but then I listen to it and I don’t. The lyrics are fucking juvenile. They’re embarrassing. That’s why it will remain in the vault.

So The Snots album was the first “album” you did?


Yeah, and that was a mess. We had just got the Snots back together and we had been practicing a couple of weeks when I booked all this studio time. (Laughs) We went in one day and recorded it. I wasted all that money and like a fool I put it on vinyl ‘cause I was the last hold-out. And then Slabs, who was the bass player, before we even got the record in our hands, moved to Miami, so there was no more band. So I had a thousand giant drink coasters.


But when it becomes a collector’s item, you’ll have the whole supply…


Actually, I’m almost out of ‘em, now. People have actually been buying them over the years and I haven’t been keeping track. I shoulda put a couple of ‘em away in the vault.


How did that progress into being the Killbillies?


Well, I called up Jim Joe Greedy, who I’d previously played with in the Mill Rats, back in like ’87, I think, and we all ended up hating each other and fell apart. When Slabs left, I actually went and left a note on Jim Joe’s studio and said I need a bass player. “I’m one snot short of a full nose” is actually what the note said. He called me up and said “I’ll play – but I ain’t gonna be a snot.” That’s when we came up with the Killbillies. Which in retrospect was good. Divine providence or whatever you call that.


I know you’ve been through quite a few lineup changes.


Yeah, if you count the part-time, mercenary Killbillies, it’s gotta be in the twenties. I’m nor sure. But originally, that lineup was Jim Joe, Sleepy Animal Kaisla and me. And then we got Al Camino one night. He was drunk and we were drunk and he hopped in the car and we went home and played all night. He had a mandolin, he was the mandolin player for the Big Bad Bollocks. Then he joined the band. That’s where we were until like, I think ’97. They’re on “Hankenstein”, that lineup. We were playing and touring a lot, ya know? Well, “touring” – going out every weekend and stuff. Camino quit ‘cause he just couldn’t go out that much, he was working, and then Sleepy Animal Kaisla had another kid and so he was gone. That’s when I got Dwight Trash and that’s when we made “What’s So Funny?”.


The lineup you have now (Goatis T. Ovenrude – mandolin, Sal Vega – drums, Jimmy Rat Fink – bass) seems to be pretty stable.


Yeah, right now it is. It’s good. We’ve got Sal, who’s also from the Big Bad Bollocks – the drummer, Sal Vega. And we got Goatis, Goat had never been in a band before, unbelievably. I don’t know what we’d do if we lost him.


He’d never been in a band before?


No, he’s a classical guitarist.


So he did recitals and stuff or?


I don’t even know if he did that. Remember Luther? You never met Luther. He was our bass player after Jim Joe left. One night I was over at his house, Sal and I were there, and these guys were over just jamming with Luther, and Goat was there playing a mandolin. So I asked Luther to ask Goat if he’d play, and that’s how we got Goat.


Jimmy Rat Fink was telling me a story about how you got him in the band, telling him to be packed and ready on the sidewalk?


Oh, that was a long time ago when I told him I was coming over, that I was going to kill a man, to be outside. He was actually waiting outside. Very loyal. That was before he was even in the band, that was back in ’93 during the Great Killville Skirmishes. We didn’t end up killing the guy but it was nice to know that he was there and he had my back, no questions asked. He actually WAS out on the sidewalk. So, I gotta watch what I ask him to do, make sure I really want him to do it. Takes things literally.


When I first heard about you guys, you always got slopped into a bucket with all that “Americana/No Depression” shit. To me, that’s just a hang-tag for boring music. How do you feel getting lumped in with that label? How would you sum it up? It’s a pretty unique thing you’ve got going on there.


I never know what to call it. The Village Voice, when they wrote that we were the most rip-roaring, kick-ass combo to come out of the so-called alt.country thing, I liked that. But the problem with that is we never get played. There’s a station up here that’s actually a pretty good station. They play everything, they play a lot of crap, too, but they play all the kind of stuff that we would totally fit right in with, but for some reason I don’t think when people are thinking of that, they think of us. Maybe it’s the name and stuff. So we end up lost. I don’t know where to lump us in. I don’t even wanna say “rock n roll” ‘cause then you lose the hillbilly bloodgrass, we’ve been saying “bloodgrass”, but then when you say “blood-grass” people go “what?” And when you’ve got “grass” in anything…we’re not really a bluegrass band. I always thought we had this bluegrass vibe but we got a drummer for one thing, plus, we’re pretty much not bluegrass. We’re definitely not newgrass, which I hate. All the newgrass bands pretty much suck, I think, ‘cause they’re lame. They don’t understand the dark side of bluegrass, you know? Where are the murder ballads?


That and you guys almost come out of this timeless pocket. You mentioned murder ballads, there’s not much difference in listening to you guys and Dock Boggs…


That’s what Entertainment Weekly said. That’s funny. You didn’t read that there? You just came up with that….that’s funny. That’s who they compared us to.


Well, I’m looking through my CDs trying to grab some sort of comparison and there’s Dock Boggs and Cactus sitting there and I can’t compare you to Cactus…


And see, I don’t really know any Dock Boggs, I don’t know where this came from. And even like that great Louvin Brothers song, what the fuck is it, where he kills the chick and everything?


Knoxville Girl?


Yeah. I didn’t know that song when I started Angry Johnny and the Killbillies. I didn’t know any of this stuff. We just came from Killville. I didn’t know there was alt.country when we started. The thing that was going on up here before we started playing was kind of all the indie shit going on at the time, ya know? Then we started and like maybe a year or two later everybody around here was in an alt.country band. Nothing to with us really, it’s just….we had already sorta been doing it but I guess we’re not really, I guess we’re more “alt.country” than we are…actually, maybe we’re more “Americana”. I don’t know what the hell we are. We got lumped in with rockabilly forever, which I don’t think we are at all unless you really go back to real rockabilly and then I think we’re more rockabilly than most of the rockabilly bands I see. ‘Cause they all sound exactly, I shouldn’t say that ‘cause I have some rockabilly friends, but you know what I’m saying. After two songs you wanna go sit at the bar. I mean how long do you wanna hear “baby, baby, baby, baby”? I dunno, I’m sure everything we do sounds the same to, but at least it sounds like us.


You brought up the hillbilly flavor. A lot of people think that’s gotta be a Southern thing, but you guys fit that bill more than 90% of the people that try to pass that off, even the ones from down here.


I know. Everybody’s always shocked we’re from here.


There is such a thing as a northern hillbilly. You have a very, I don’t wanna say backwoods, but a very rural American Gothic, kind of countrified thing that runs through your songs and paintings….


Yeah, kinda like the milltown meets the farm. That’s right where I’m from. That’s Killville. It’s the Killville of my youth. It’s here. This whole area. When we’re on the road, people are always like “I hear you’re from Boston”. No, we’re not from Boston. We’re so far removed from Boston, and this whole section of the state is treated like crap by Boston. We’ve got some cities, I mean I don’t have to drive 10 miles to get a beer or anything, I only have to walk down the street. Actually, to my refrigerator right now (laughs). That whole American spooky gothic thing, I got it from my brother and my dad. My dad used to take us out to places like Killer’s House. It’s way up in Middlefield where this guy blasted his wife and her boyfriend. It’s this mansion out in the middle of the woods and it’s all burned down. He threw ‘em in the inground pool. That’s the kind of places my dad took us, and they’re around here, ya know? I’ve always wanted to do this murder tour of my town but if you did it, it would be in bad taste for all the people that are still around.
It actually reminded me of you when I watched “The Devil and Daniel Webster”…
Now see, that book affected me. I love that ‘cause it’s from fuckin’ Massachusetts. That and Sleepy Hollow’s actually not far from here. It’s about two hours away. And then we’ve got Daniel Shays, the Daniel Shays Rebellion in Hatfield, that’s right down the road. That was the second great rebellion, after the Revolution. There’s only been four great rebellions and that was number two. They marched on Boston but they got so cocked the only made it to Worcester, I think. They stopped at every tavern to get recruits. I’ve referenced Daniel Webster in a couple of songs. “Old Scratch”. That’s in Daniel Webster. That’s a colloquialism. That’s what everybody says around here.


So what’s your plans from here on out? You proclaimed this as “The Year of the Killbillies”…what’s on the plate?


We’re gonna go to the top and beyond(laughs). No, we’re gonna record that album down there and record another album up here. There’s another guy that wants to put us in a movie, I think it’s another zombie movie. We’re in five movies so far. One real, like, we’re in that “11:14” which has rented over a million copies, so over a million people have heard “All American Girl”, that’s a good thing. Jim Stramel’s working on another movie we might be coming down and doing the soundtrack for. That one is called “Degenerate Ink” and it’s about these psycho tattooers. I’m the first to die.


The greatest hits thing, is that gonna be you guys going in and re-recording stuff?


Yeah, we’re gonna be using a couple of things that are already done. The stuff on “What’s So Funny?” and “Monroe” are recorded really well, in real studios, so the couple of songs he wants of there, we’ll use from there. Then we’ll redo a bunch of other stuff, I guess. That seems to be the plan. It’s kind of influx, we’ve got relearn that stuff.


You’re so busy…you’re recording, you work, you’re gigging all the time….where the hell do you get the time to do these paintings?


Good question. I haven’t done any in a little while. It’s weird, when I do start painting, like, I’ll crank out a few paintings. Everything’s in spurts. That’s what happens when I write songs. I used to worry when I hadn’t painted and written in a while but I don’t anymore because I know it’ll come around again. No point in pushing it. When the time comes, you paint.


I heard you gave it up for a while. Were you really done or was that just one of those long periods of….


That’s actually when I met Wes (Freed). I hadn’t painted in three years, I dunno, I just hadn’t painted. I painted the covers of the albums during that period, maybe, but I just really wasn’t painting. I didn’t feel like painting. Then the first time I met Wes, I went to his house and I had to get home and paint. He’s the greatest painter I ever saw, the only painter I ever saw that inspired me. Outta everything I ever saw, art history books and everything, fucking Wes Freed. Well, you know that.


You have any formal art training or is this just something you come by naturally?


Na, I got kicked outta community college and that was it. I always drew and shit but I didn’t do anything. You know, in high school I got beat up enough and you don’t want to draw even more attention to yourself by drawing pictures and shit. After school, I went to work in a grocery store and I decided that sucked so I just went down and signed up for some courses the next year and then I got booted. Once I got booted out, that’s when I exploded painting, actually. That’s the best thing that ever happened in that respect. Luckily I was saved from going to art school or they woulda sapped the soul out of me. At least if most the people that have gone there that I’ve seen have been any indication….


Where’s all the stuff in the paintings come from?


I dunno. It’s pretty much the same painting everytime. I write one song and and paint one painting. I wish I could actually explain. It all comes from Killville. It’s like a John Fogerty thing, only I really live in Killville and he made up the whole bayou thing. I don’t know what it is but I guess I’m very comfortable in it. And I’m not out to, like, you know when you’re in art school or something, you have these grand ideas of like “Yeah, I’m gonna be an artist” or “Yeah, I’m gonna do something nobody else did”. I didn’t have that for very long, ya know, the delusions of that grandeur. I’m sure I suffer from megalomania in many other aspects but as far as that, I know my paintings aren’t changing nothing, I’m just painting pictures. I might as well paint what I paint well.


But that pocket of wherever that’s coming from definitely connects with people. You know the first time I saw you’re paintings, I was like GODDAM! It drew me in. Before that, I couldn’t give two shits about a painting…..


That’s how I feel about when I saw Wes’s stuff. As far as paintings, I dunno, I guess I’m kinda self-centered, I put my own paintings up. I actually like my stuff, which is weird. I like listening to my stuff. I hear these famous people that are like, “Oh, I don’t see my movies”. That’s bullshit I think. I don’t know, maybe not. The reason I write ‘em, I guess I write and paint what I enjoy, and if somebody else likes it that’s cool. I’m always amazed that there’s all these people that like ‘em. I’ve pretty much been an underachiever my whole life, not heralded as anything, so. But then you can let it go to your head. One person that you don’t even know goes “ooooohh”, and then all of a sudden you start thinking “Oh I’m something.” When you’re still nothing. As long as I can keep sellin’ ‘em and payin’ the rent, you know?