A Conversation with The Sadies’ Dallas Good – HuffPost 9.30.13

Mike Ragogna: All right, let’s talk about your new Yep Roc record. Dallas, take us through the album?

Dallas Good: Okay, I’ll do my best.

MR: First off, it’s called Internal Sounds, right?

DG: Yeah.

MR: So Internal Sounds as opposed to…?

DG: Did you see the cover? When The Sadies started our North American tour to support our Darker Circles album, I slipped on some ice in Saskatoon and had a compound fracture of both bones in my leg. It made a gruesome noise inside my body.

MR: And thus the beginnings of the new album.

DG: Yeah, it’s very much along the lines of deadened, considering it was two major bones snapped in two, but I had a lot of blood to baffle it.

MR: That must have scared the crap out of you, seeing that happen to your body.

DG: Yeah. Actually, the first thing I did was put my foot back to where it was supposed to be, and I just remembered, “If I go into shock, I’m twice as f**ked.” I tried my best not to be scared and just be more practical about it, but that’s easier for me to say two years later.

MR: So this was what was the impetus for the creativity that went into this album, its core message, its beating heart, if you will?

DG: Well, at least it was the impetus for the artwork and title.

MR: Alright, back to that let’s get that album tour of the album. You have this way of looking at the world that’s uniquely Sadies.

DG: That’s true, I suppose. I’ve developed a bit of a formula to my misery.

MR: Can you walk us through the infirmary?

DG: With “The First Five Minutes,” that particular song was actually the first one that I started working on and as a result, the roadblock. With that one and “The Very Beginning,” I was kind of working on simultaneously pretty much right after our last album Darker Circles. So that was sort of like the hardest crossword puzzle I’ve ever had to do; it took me months to finish them even thought they’re by no means profoundly good or anything. It was just the system of writing, I had the music first and it sort of presented some obstacles. But I’m really happy with the way “First Five Minutes” turned out just given the fact that it’s a five minute track and it doesn’t bore me to death, which is pretty rare.

MR: Which brings us to “So Much Blood,” which, let me see, what’s that song about?

DG: [laughs] Well, Travis is the primary writer on that one, so I’m not going to try and redirect the meaning of that song. I will take credit for naming it. Again, it would be hard for me to cite his major inspiration for that one, but it’s certainly not a left turn for Sadies material. From there, we’re at “The Very Beginning,” which is more of my existentialist miserable crap, although I don’t consider it a dark song at all. I don’t consider anything I write “dark.” They’re more just funny and morose. You know, I’m cool with the word “dark,” actually. I think I used “miserable” earlier and that’s maybe not the best description.

MR: Recently, I heard somebody describe another person’s music as “Darkwave.”

DG: [laughs] I’d say we’re more “Oldwave.” So from there “Starting All Over Again” would be the next one, which is part of “The Very Ending,” we separated the two songs so they could be, well, two instead of one. Again, Travis was leading on the lyric of “Starting All Over Again.” One time, we gave Exene Cervenka a copy of our Darker Circles record, or maybe we just told her what it was called. She went, “Oh, Doctor Circus? That’s the coolest name ever!” And we had to agree it was way better than our title. So for the longest time the working title for “Starting All Over Again” was “Doctor Circus.” I had to include that.

MR: And a great name for someone’s group, that’s great, man.

DG: [laughs] Yeah, it’s both my pride and my curse. Then “Another Tomorrow Again” and “Another Yesterday Again,” That comes from a tradition of songs I’ve been writing; we have a song called “Another Year Again” and “Another Day Again” on our previous records. The songs themselves are pretty straight ahead. Not a whole lot of profound ideas in those two.

MR: Yeah, of course you have the very ending in the middle of the record, so let’s just face it, Doctor Circus, you and Travis are wiseasses.

DG: [laughs] I don’t know, I guess so. Art is art. Being a wiseass is better than being a dumbass.

MR: Eeeexactly. And now for an Andre Williams story break. Kidding, let’s continue with the album.

DG: [laughs] So “The Lesser Key” is a song I named after the book of demons, spells and incantations known as The Lesser Key Of Solomon. It was originally called “Song For The Mekons,” but then I realized Bonnie “Prince” Billy already had a song called “For The Mekons.” How weird is that? We were going to write a song for our dear friends and we find out somebody else already did it.

MR: Scary. No really, all of this is quite scary. But continue, please.

DG: Anyhow, “STORY 19” was written solely as an ode and hat-tip to the Dutch band The Outsiders, one of my all-time favorite groups. Ronnie Splinter, the guitarist, was willing and able to actually collaborate on the song with me, but sadly, about three days before the record was totally completed, he passed away due to a battle with esophagus cancer. So that sucked. In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than a posthumous tribute to an artist if you don’t have much affiliation with them. It just seems silly to me, so it really does suck that he wasn’t able to perform on the record because again he was such a huge influence and such a great, great man and they were a great band and it just kind of sucks that we weren’t able to high-five about it.

MR: Sorry, man.

DG: Thanks. And then lastly, we suckered Buffy Sainte-Marie into singing with us. Don’t ask me how I talked her into it but I did.

MR: Dude, she’s one of my favorites. I love her.

DG: Mine too. She had such a crazy diverse career, but her work in the sixties was untouchable, and then her work as a humanitarian is untouchable too. I cannot stress how lucky we are to have worked with her officially. That song was a bit of an experiment going into it. We recorded all of the instruments in 432hz tuning, Pythagorean tuning, and my cat, who passed away at the beginning of the year, is featured purring heavily on it. It’s a special track.

MR: Scared again, thanks. It’s pretty obvious you guys are having a blast, all you Sadies.

DG: Well, we’re lucky. We do what we do and fortunately–I don’t want to say there’s a market for it, because that’s not true–but we’re able to exist. People don’t mind that, and we have a circle of friends that make it easier to have fun. So now, we’ve gotten to André Williams. That’s the worst thing to do to somebody, because anyone will come up with one story off the top of their head and then come up with ten more the second they hang up the phone. Well, just about two weeks ago, we did a show with him in Kitchener-Waterloo. Gee, we’ve had such a sordid past with him and then such a great recent past with him that it’s really hard to come up with something good that’s dirty and still protects the innocent.

MR: [laughs] He loves you guys, Dallas. He adores your band. He had all these amazing things to say about you when I interviewed him. I was actually looking forward to this interview because I’d get to see where the love was from the other side.

DG: Thank you for saying that, because something more important for me to say is that one of the biggest accomplishments of my career and of The Sadies is being able to not only work with somebody like Andre Williams but actually become friends and family with somebody like that and to watch him. Frankly, ten years ago, we thought we were saying goodbye to him. He had been living so hard all of his life. It’s just such a testament to the human will, the human condition, and especially Andre’s condition, that he’s able to bounce back and still play. I’ve never seen him more lucid and happy. Having said that, on tour, he would go through no less than one bottle of Bacardi every day. No less. So here’s my story. One time, we were in France and somebody presented Andre with a bottle of really fancy Jamaican dark rum and he was furious. He told the person to get the f**k out of the dressing room and to bring him some Bacardi. My brother was like, ” Andre, you’ve got to try this. It looks like a really fancy bottle, you might love it.” And he goes, “That’s the problem, Trav, what if I like it? Where the f**k am I gonna get it tomorrow?”

MR: [laughs] Ooh, now that’s pretty darkwave. And I love his album Night And Day, which is almost autobiographical.

DG: With the Night And Day album we made with him, I’ve got to say, he was on death’s door. That first session with him, he had just narrowly escaped a sentencing, a conviction, prison time. He was really in rough shape and shortly after, he suffered a stroke of some sort. That’s when The Sadies did everything in their power to really stay in touch with him and make sure that our friend comes back to us. We helped out a little bit in the hospital and just waited patiently.

MR: You’ve got an unreleased project?

DG: I doubt you have any knowledge of this record, but The Sadies put out a record in May on the Cowboy Junkies label Latent called The Good Family. That’s The Sadies–my mother, my father, my cousin Darcy and my Uncle Larry. It’s mostly bluegrass and old-time country, but it doesn’t have an American release date. So no fouls for not knowing about it.

MR: And I thought your family also might have been on Internal Sounds.

DG: Well, they’re on most of my records, but not this one.

MR: What is The Sadies’ mission statement?

DG: I’ve never really thought about it in terms of that. One time, Andre gave us a mission statement. He just said over and over for a whole tour, “Just do your job. Everything will be fine.” Our mission statement is to stay alive and to reach more people.

MR: Was André right?

DG: Yeah, absolutely! If you just stick to your guns and do your job, for a touring musician, that’s pretty much all you can do.

MR: Tell me about that, being a touring musician and playing live versus recording. I know it’s apples and oranges, but do you have a preference, one over another?

DG: Yeah, for sure. Forever, The Sadies used to pride ourselves on being a live band and that was where our comfort zone began and ended, and our earlier records are very indicative of that; they’re essentially albums made live off the floor. That’s why we went to Steve Albini. Essentially we were just capturing our live performance as best as we could in a studio environment. I don’t think that was a really good thing for us. Now, I really enjoy the studio. I produced the latest Sadies album and I’ve mixed several of The Sadies albums now. I guess the best way to put this is for me to say the stage is a lot more certain to us and the studio is… [sighs] I don’t want to say something stupid. It’s still a stone left unturned. We’re still exploring the limits and all that horses**t.

MR: Well you’ve also become an essential backup band, lending your talents to folks like Jon Langford and John Doe. Why is it that you’ve become that kind of band, where people want to use you to back them up? Do they like your musical chops or do they trust that you’ll know how to interpret their stuff? Or both?

DG: I would definitely say it has to be both. We don’t ever work with people who are outside of our circle of friends. Andre was the closest thing to that when we first met him in 1999. We hadn’t met him before entering the studio together. We’ve always been approached by people who’ve seen something in our music they could relate too. We only say yes to the people that we feel the same way about. I would say it’s a combination of what we already do and what we potentially would bring to that artist. In the case of somebody as versed as Andre Williams to, say, Garth Hudson or Neko Case for that matter, I think that they have really given us a platform to get better at other styles of music and not just be a total one-trick pony, more like a one and a half trick pony. That’s the kind of stuff that validates what I do and why I do it.

MR: I know exactly what you’re talking about. I was actually going to bring up Neko Case because I feel that was a great example of the band sort of morphing into what the needs of the project and artist were. It also seems like you touched on how you bring back what you learned from working with them into your projects. Do you see it like that as well?

DG: Yeah, it certainly doesn’t result in any drastic left turns or anything, but again, it just kind of validates us making any left turns down the road as far as I’m concerned. One of the greatest learning experiences The Sadies have had getting in shape was with Heavy Trash, Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray’s band. The Sadies toured with them a fair bit and performed with them on one of their albums. Yeah man, Jon, we always really pride ourselves on having a high-energy live show that we feel is our strength, and let’s just say Jon took it up a notch for us.

MR: That’s great. Have you noticed that with any of these artists, you’re awed, you go, “Damn, look at what that cat’s doing,” and then you bring it into your own fold?

DG: Well, I guess so, but again the form dictates the style. It’s all just a giant, disgusting, incestuous melting pot and I do my best to stay on the surface.

MR: All right, my traditional question that even you, Dallas Good, can’t escape. What advice do you have for new artists?

DG: Give up. There’s already too many of us. [laughs] Or “do your job,” depending on whether you use that part or not.

MR: You have a very solid career in The Sadies. I don’t want to say you need something like this, but if you had a holy grail, what would it be, creatively, success-wise or career-wise or whatever?

DG: It’s funny you should ask that, because I’ve heard the question posed before and I remember hearing my brother answer that he would love the opportunity one day to work with Neil Young. Well, we’ve already recorded and toured with him, Travis even got to have Thanksgiving dinner with him. So have I, as a matter of fact, so I guess our only grail, our mission statement or whatever, is to just stay alive, keep doing what we do, and hopefully, reach more people in the process. I just say that because I don’t have a list of accomplishments that I’m looking for. I just hope for the opportunity to continue to do the things I enjoy doing. We’re lucky, and I know I’ve said that word a few times. We’re very fortunate that people we like want to work with us, too. They like me, they really like me.

MR: [laughs] Nice, Mr. Fields. That’s a great place to end that. I think this is great, Dallas, is there anything else that we need to let folks know?

DG: I can’t really think of anything off the top of my head, but I really appreciate you doing this. If you feel like calling back, if you want me to embellish or exaggerate, I’d be happy to do it. Don’t hesitate to call. I’m never too busy for you, my friend.

MR: Aw, shucks, Dallas. All the best.

DG: You too.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne