Lenny Kaye Interview
In a car outside CBGB's, 1979
RNR: How did you get into rock'n'roll?
LK: I love rock'n'roll. That's always been the bottom line. It never made
a difference to me whether I was working as a writer, as a musician, as
a record salesman, or as a producer. Any phase of rock'n'roll is fun and
interesting and I've never made a separation between any of these lives.
I don't say I was a writer once and now I am a musician, or that one is
better that the next. I simply like to do rock'n'roll in all its forms.
RNR: Do you see any political connections in it, let's say, as a writer?
LK: I've always had a belief in a type of rock'n'roll that has a large amount
of its own desire scored through it. As a writer, I fought for groups, like
the Velvets or the Stooges, that were trying to break the boundaries of
sound. One reason I became a writer was because I couldn't put together
a band that could reflect my beliefs. I felt I was working very much alone
as a musician. When writing came up, it was almost like a natural slide
into it. Propagandizing for the kind of rock'n'roll I believed. When Patti
and I joined forces, it was the beginning of a way to fulfill whatever musical
aims I had. I don't think I could have done it without her because she was
able to crystallize and instinctively lock on to the kinds of music I heard.
It made for a combination which was far higher than anything I would have
dreamed of.
Politically...? Freedom, that's all I ever wanted from music. The ability
to explore itself. I love improvisation. I love the unexpected. I also love
a great hit record. In those two extremes, you have the widest range of
possibilities. In the context of the Patti Smith group, we've been able
to explore all ends of it without compromise. We've never relented on anything.
All our commitment is to our art.
RNR: How about your musical background?
LK: I started out as a record collector. As a person who went out and bought
the Top Ten releases. I like vocal groups. R'n'B vocal groups, that was
like my first real mania. And doo-wop groups. I loved the harmonies, the
arrangements. I liked folk-rock, a combination of two great streams. I liked
free jazz. I listen to a lot of rockabilly now and that's not a kind of
music I knew too much about when I was first starting out. But it seems
to have a lot of relevance to what I'm doing now. Or reggae. The impact
that reggae made on me was really immense.
RNR: As a writer, what sort of music did you orient yourself toward?
LK: Basically toward artists that I would get off on. I wasn't interested
in MOR artists. I liked either total hit makers, great singles... Or the
most exotic and avant-garde of rock'n'roll bands. I also believe that one
does not necessarily preclude the other.
RNR: In particular?
LK: There's millions. I loved the Grass Roots. Some of the songs of the
Guess Who. Some of my favorites records were the Edison Lighthouse -- "Love
Grows Where My Rosemary Goes..." Vanity Fair -- "Hitchin' A Ride..."
Records which drive you crazy for the three minutes. I was also a big Grateful
Dead fan when they were at their wildest, in the early seventies. They would
start playing something and then take it into just any region possible.
I really got off on that.
RNR: Getting back to politics. I don't mean big politics, just personal
politics...
LK: Well, they're both the same to me. You got to deal with it at both levels.
RNR: When Patti was on WNEW and she said "Is this really alternative
radio or is this bullshit? If you can't say shit, then it's not really alternative!"
That's politics, and on a very grabby level.
LK: And it's politics that affect us deeply. It affected the fact that "Radio
Ethiopia" got very little airplay. It affected the fact that we can't
play certain places. We can't play Central Park because we're not acceptable.
People keep coming up to us, saying there are things we can't say, things
we can't do. Last night we played a benefit at the Planetarium and there
were threats to pull the plug...
RNR: What if you had walked off?
LK: We wouldn't have walked off, because we believe in what we're doing.
We never walk off the stage. Not when there are kids in the audience who
have paid to see us, and who believe in us as much as we believe in them.
This is a problem we've always had to deal with. It's a fight we expect
and it's a fight that makes us stronger in our determination.
RNR: If you did make a compromise by saying "OK, we're not going to
say this, we're not going to do that," wouldn't you be able to reach
a lot more people?
LK: The thing is, we're out there. The people want us. They can find us.
If we're banned from every medium of communication, we're going to continue
doing our art. And if they believe in us as strongly as we believe in what
we're doing, they'll find it. They'll force the radio to play us. They'll
force the lines of communication.
RNR: Do they have that kind of strength?
LK: That's what happened in the sixties when radio dried up and sucked.
That's what's going to happen now when the media channels are not open to
experimentation in rock'n'roll. That's what the drive behind this New Wave
fight is. The fact is that it's succeeding. It may be succeeding in kind
of a one-dimensional way. But it's better than no dimensions at all. Then
the prospect is seeing how many dimensions you can take up. Personally,
we're aiming for the seventh dimension.
RNR: What do you mean by one-dimensional?
LK: There's a style now in rock'n'roll, lumped under the name of punk rock,
which is a great style. But I feel there is a great danger in it being thought
of as the only style. I like punk rock. I come down to CBGB's fifteen times
a week. But what I used to love about CBGB's was that none of the bands
were the same. If they're all the same, then what's the sense? You just
have to fight another revolution...
RNR: I read somewhere that when Patti was still a poet, you sat down at
the piano while she was rambling her poetry and it sort of coalesced. How
did it in fact start?
LK: It happened on such a gradual basis that we didn't realize that we had
a band until we actually had a band. Patti would sort of sing-song her poems.
It was relatively easy for me to follow along, figure out chords. Even when
I was a writer, I would play in jamming groups. It was almost like jazz
groups. You get together five people and you get a job somewhere, some club.
Just jam for a week for your room and board.
RNR: How about your direction until then?
LK: There was no direction. When I first started with Patti, I was thinking...
Jeez, I ought to do something, you know... I'm not really expressing the
musical side of myself... When Patti came along, I felt I could enhance,
you know, put a frame around what she was doing. But we never really intended
it to be a band. We'd get a piano player. Then we got Ivan. JD. Suddenly
we had a band. Which in retrospect, was where we were aiming at, unconsciously.
RNR: Patti Smith herself is a poet. People have called her "visionary."
Rimbaud and all that. How do you relate to that?
LK: That's the greatest thing about Patti. That she's smart and knows the
history of art. What's been done and what's been done great in it. It puts
us in a tradition which is very heavy. The kind of artists we hope to emulate
and strike a chord as high as, or higher than, are some of the heaviest
consciousnesses that have existed in the world. We're not in this to make
a hit record and retire to a country farm. We're in it to create something
which we can stand back and be proud of.
RNR: How about your latest album? Why "Easter?"
LK: Because it's a very heavy holiday. The significance of Easter. The Resurrection.
The Ascension.
RNR: There have been rumors that it might be have been called "Rock'n'Roll
Nigger..."
LK: The album has always been called "Easter." "Rock'n'Roll
Nigger" is one of the songs on it. Who is a greater nigger than Jesus?
To me it's our first mature album. Where we're going to make our stand.
RNR: Are any of the songs particular statements of yours?
LK: The whole album is the Patti Smith Group. We all stand behind every
note on every album that we do. We are five fingers of a fist.
