Renaissance Man

Actor, writer, musician, poet — from fronting one of the pioneer bands of American punk, the Los Angeles-based quartet X, to getting his ass kicked by Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse, John Doe has pretty much done it all. Born in Decatur, Illinois in 1954, Doe moved out to California in the late 1970s and met up with fellow X members Billy Zoom, D.J. Bonebrake and former wife Exene Cervenka shortly thereafter. After putting out their first single (“Adult Books” / “We’re Desperate”) in 1978, the band went on to release music together until 1995.
Since then, the members of X have mostly gone their separate ways. Cervenka went on to her own solo career, as did Doe, who also landed himself roles on television’s Roswell, and more recently, the critically acclaimed film The Good Girl with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jennifer Aniston. Though he and X still get together from time to time to play live — the band has upcoming shows in Los Angeles in May and will hit the road in June — Doe’s punk rock days are behind him. Now, armed only with his voice, poetic lyrics and acoustic guitar, Doe’s new music (showcased on his latest album Dim Stars, Bright Sky) has a decidedly mellower aesthetic. Outside Old Ironsides in Sacramento, CA on February 3rd, 2003 — before he was to take the stage — the Synthesis was lucky enough to meet up with Doe in person, as he fielded a few questions on his long and multi-faceted career.

You’re an actor as well as a musician. How did you get involved in acting?
Allison Anders and Kurt Voss — they did a movie called Border Radio. It was right after they got out of UCLA film school. They had a lot of LA musicians in the movie, and we had no idea what they were doing. They [Anders and Voss] did; I didn’t. They didn’t have a script; we just made up shit as we went along, because Allison had worked on Paris, Texas with Wim Wendors, and the majority of that was adlibbed. But I wasn’t Harry Dean Stanton, and the girl wasn’t Nastassja Kinski. It was alright — [Border Radio] is shown on the Sundance Channel once in a while.

Are there any roles you’ve done in film that you’re particularly proud of?
I’m proud of different moments in each, because that’s really all you can hope for. Georgia was a pretty rewarding experience, because the level of talent was really high and the director was an older director. Ulu Grosbard, he’s just an amazing director. But each thing has its moments. If you get to see 10 or 20 seconds of true honesty and true reality, true reaction, true delivery, that’s pretty much all you can hope for. I’m serious. Maybe Daniel Day Lewis — Daniel Day Lewis as Bill the Butcher — he can do more, but that’s about all I can hope for. And I’m sure as Daniel Day Lewis watches that performance, I would bet a quarter of it he cringes at.

How would you compare the experience of performing live with the band and performing in front of the camera?
In front of the camera, everything has to be a lot smaller. You just have to be convincing in your thought process. If you can just think it, and really believe it, it’ll usually show up on film. Film is internal, live is external.

I really liked what I heard of your latest album, Dim Stars, Bright Sky. How do you think this album reflects how you’ve grown over your career both musically and personally?
[laughs]

Yeah, that’s the essay question…
I’m not sure I have time to answer that question, James [laughs].

You can narrow it down, if you want.
I guess the simple answer is you do what you’ve experienced; you do what is concerning you at the time and try to represent the reality of those stories and situations. To be specific, I felt that I said what I needed to say with the rock band — the rock trio [The John Doe Thing] — in the last three John Doe Thing records. A couple of songs that I was working on didn’t work with the drums and the electric guitar, so rather than discard the songs, I sort of shifted the delivery.

One song in particular that struck me was “Forever For You.” Can you tell me a little bit about where that song came from?
Well, the verse is somebody obsessing over someone else — the obsession of this meeting across the table. That had happened a few times with different people. And the chorus is more about our current political situation — more about not feeling united, not feeling patriotic, resenting the fact that everyone says you have to be. So, you can interpret it as a protest song, just transfer the one person obsessing about another person to one country obsessing about another country. Where it came from was that feeling of wanting to be so close to somebody that you want to be them, which is a big mistake, but nonetheless…

You just got together with the old band, X, to play a show on Valentine’s Day, and you have some shows coming up in May in LA. Now that you’ve all gone on to do different things, how does it feel when you all get together?
Great. It feels great. It’s fun. There’s no pressure. It’s not as much of a creative statement as it is a representation of something from the past. I wouldn’t do it if it sucked — I wouldn’t do it for the money. I do it for the audience, because it’s fun. We’re having fun, the audience is rocking the fuck out — some of the people in the crowd are only 18, so when X started, they weren’t even born, or they’re 25 now, so they were in third grade…which is weird [laughs]! But it’s cool. I think the first time we played with Billy again was in ’98 after we released that Elektra record, the anthology, and we played at the Palladium. We played in San Francisco first, and the sales were so good, that we ended up playing two shows in the same night. It was like, ‘Okay, motherfucker. The gauntlet was thrown down.’ Two-thirds of the way through the first show, me and DJ looked at each other and were like, ‘Fuck. Why couldn’t we do this when we were 25?’
The second show was in LA at the Palladium, which holds, I dunno, 4000 people. There were 20-year-olds singing every word, [most] of the audience was in bliss. We were like, ‘This is good. This is fun.’

You’ve been a part of a highly influential band, branched off into acting and now are embarking on a solo career. At this point, what still drives you to make music?
I think the same thing — empathy — wanting to write a song that someone listens to and says, “Wow, I felt like that too. And I’m not so fucked up. He’s more fucked up than I am.” Sorta like the reality shows, but not pathetic and crass. I think it’s important for people to recognize the human condition for what it is. And it’s okay — it’s okay to have a bad relationship; it’s okay to try to fix it; it’s okay to get through it…

You were talking about “Forever For You” and how it’s a political statement and a personal statement. As an artist, what do you make of the social and political climate in the US, and how do you deal with it through your music?
I wish I could deal with it more directly through my music, but I’ve never been one to preach. The way I deal with it is to e-mail my senator, to distribute what I consider important information about protests and how you can have your voice heard. I don’t know if it’s going to make any difference — when we have such an arrogant president who says that hundreds of thousands of people are a focus group… that’s so fucked up… That’s what I do. I write letters and e-mails and try to spread the word, and hope that it’s not too horrible when it happens. I really thought about moving, but I can’t because I have a family, and they have lives, and if I did that, they would hate me forever. But even if you do, you’re still subjected to the United States without being here. If I lived in Mexico, I’d still be subjected to the [US’s] bullshit, but from outside and with no voice in it. You can’t run from it, because the United States is fucking up the whole world, and I hate that. There’s no reason to do that.

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