Eric Avery - Dec 1997
telephone interview by Dominique Falla

Is the video you've shot for Monkey going to be shown on TV, or is it just for on stage?

I don't really know yet. We did it initially for our old guitar players' [John Curry] reel...he's a graphic artist, and so we just kind of did it, The idea, when he told me, I thought it was kinda hokey and I didn't think it was going to work very well and so I just kind of resigned myself to it as being "Well it's something to help out John really" it's not going to be any real use to us but he was getting like free film and free post time and everything, so we just decided to help out, but I haven't seen the footage yet. Biff saw a rough cut that John put together and he actually said it looked really good, so maybe we will do something with it.

Was it just a live set up, or more involved?

There was a whole story behind it, like a noir setting that had virtually nothing to do with the song...which I always think is funny 'cause I've had experiences of videos that have really made people 'get' a song in a way they didn't get before, but so often it's just totally arbitrary.

How did you and Biff get together?

I had known him for a long time because of the connection through Carla [Bozulich, previously in Ethyl Meatplow with Biff, and currently in the Geraldine Fibbers] and we were just kinda always on opposite sides of town, but I was working at this place in Santa Monica with another friend of mine and I don't remember exactly how we decided to take the first step, I think we just saw each other and we talked and I told him I was doing the digital stuff, and the ADAT thing and he said "well, just throw me some stuff."

So were you just messing around in the studio anyway?

Yeah, it was a few years ago when I was first just really getting into it, because I'd always been very much like "I know how to drive the car, but I don't know a thing about how it works" kind of musician. So I was actually really making a concerted effort to learn a lot more about the engineering side.

To get your head under the hood?

Yeah, exactly!

So was this before Deconstruction? Because there were some samples and stuff in there.

That was really conceptually done, but engineered by other people...I really wanted to know how to do it myself, the actual kind of hands on recording and editing of the clips....but I swapped tapes with Biff and I really liked what he was doing to them and I went to see his studio downtown and when I walked in, I just totally felt like this was supposed to be my home, because where I was working was like weird Berber carpets, and grey everywhere, and blond wood and it just didn't really feel much like my soul, or whatever.

So what's Biffs' studio like?

His was great, just like a downtown loft space, like an 80's artist loft and it was over this "Dime a Dance" place and it had this really great feeling, this great vibe about it, and art on the walls and beautiful hardwood floors and in a great old theatre building, so I totally felt more at home, and that afternoon, I actually went back to the other guy I'd been working with and told him I was gonna move.

Polar Bear songs appear to me to be like a collage, rather than a linear structure. Can you explain the process of constructing a song?

One of the things I find interesting about working with Biff, is sometimes I like to write the song, bring it downtown. Lay a basic guitar part down and put the vocals on, and then we build on it and then we remove the original guitar, so we take the original structure of it, build around it and then remove that first thing and just leave the periferal stuff.

Well that is also how a collage artist will work. They'll draw an initial line drawing, but by the time the different elements are pasted over, that initial linework is gone.

Yeah, it's interesting that you should say that too, because I've said about this process that it feels much more like the process when I paint or do some kind of visual thing rather than songwriting so much, because it is, in a way like adding a little bit of red here and a little bit of black there.

Is Biff a visual person as well?

No, he is one of those people who has such a real particular genius for audio, he does everything pretty much with his ears, like editing and stuff like that. Some guys you work with are really technical and they want to see waveforms and clip and slice everything almost like mathematicians, whereas Biff's not like that. He would probably like to do more technical stuff, 'cause we both enjoy all the 'tecky' stuff, all the toys, but he's very much "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks".

Does that apply to the samples you use as well? Do you hear things in movies and tape them, or go looking for a particular sound?

Usually what happens is I go to sources where I know there's going to be some interesting sounds, like going to the library, because the libraries have great collections of historical recording on CD's so you don't need some weird wind up gramophone in order to hear something that was recorded in the 30's. I guess it's kind of like selecting your colours, to continue the analogy, but sometimes there will just be a particular film where there will be a a certain sound.

When you're writing and recording songs, do you sit down with all your samples and sounds ready to draw from?

Like I said, it's a real haphazard way of going about it, like sometimes it's one way, sometimes another, but most often we'll write the initial musical parts and just [weave them through], but sometimes it'll be real specific, like I'll come in with a simple guitar thing and go "I wanna hear a really borderline, out of tune violin, do we have one of those?" So we'll look through our library.

How do you play the songs live, do you work with tapes or just play a more stripped back song live?

It's a little bit of everything really. It's difficult to tell what's what, unless you're a player. We like that idea and sometimes it's very distinct, the difference between the live instruments and stuff, because we have a tendency to just play kind of purposefully sloppily sometimes, like I was very particular to be not interested in making music that sounds like how television looks, I didn't want to make really slick stuff. We don't play with a click, we just play along with our music. I always refer to it as "having some hair on it" like it's just a little rough around the edges.

Are your fans mainly curious Jane's Addiction fans or have you built your own following, because you have been gigging for about 2 years now?

Yeah, we have a small, deeply disturbed following, at this point and it's actually very separate it seems.

You've been playing new songs at recent gigs, so is an album being workshopped at the moment?

Yeah, I'm kinda constantly that way, I was that way in Jane's Addiction too, I just like to keep writing, I don't ever really stop and say "O.K. here's 8 songs" [for an album] so I'm always just pushing ahead, especially because of the fact that now I'm singing, which is a new instrument and learning all this new stuff too, technical stuff, and I really wanna just keep pushing forward. And when it comes time to make a record we'll see where we stand then I mean, we have so much material already.

So how do you know when it's time to make a record?

In this particular case, we'll know when the cheque gets written (laughs) we're pretty ready ourselves.

Do you think which ever record company you decide to go with will make you leave Biff's studio?

Well actually, we're really anxious to get out of Biff's studio, we're anxious soundwise to get away from the familiar territory. There are certain things you have a tendency to do, like everything that we've recorded there has a certain sonic quality to it, and we'd like to have a different sonic quality. And actually, really give the reins over to someone else to engineer, so it's not just Biff and me...and really get another strong opinion in there, as well, production and engineering wise.

Most people go the other way, they start out with appointed people to help them, and strive to get more independent as they progress.

I think that both Biff and I aren't really precious about anything, I mean we're precious about ultimately making our own decisions, but we're not precious in the sense that...I always try to be open to anybody's opinion and try to consider everybody, and so, in that sense, especially as I get older, I'm coming to appreciate more and more the jobs that people do. Like when I was younger, I think I had more arrogance, like I believed that I was the one most qualified for just about anything, any of the periferal jobs, be it artwork for something, or direction of videos, or whatever, and I think that as I get older, I'm appreciating more and more other peoples input and just how invaluable that can be for making your work much more multi-dimensional and not just your own precious expression.

What are your plans for Polar Bear, have you any thoughts on where you want to go?

Well, not really, the way I feel is that I've already had my time, in a sense, and so if Polar Bear were to take off and go through the roof, that would be fine and great and I'm up for another adventure, but if not, I'd just like to work for a little while longer and then get out. I'm in a position where I feel like the only thing I wouldn't want to do is desperately hang on and try to do a bunch of stuff that would just like murder my soul. But aside from that, I'm really just kinda open to whatever life is gonna present, in terms of what to do. I'm only just going to keep writing and I would like to make a couple more records and tour.

Has Thomas' leaving affected things, or are you and Biff the core?

It affects things, there were definitely things about his writing style that I really liked and that I will miss. But he's not really much on anything that's recorded, so in a sense, the core is still there. The core was, and continues to be Biff and I, but yeah, he'll be missed as a songwriter. As a performer and player, he won't so much be missed because he wasn't really great. (Laughs). And also anytime you have to bring someone else up to speed in a situation like this, it's a bit of a momentum drawback.

How's it going looking for another guitarist?

I actually just talked to my manager just now, and collected together the initial list of people that contacted us and gonna give her a list of names to set up next weekend. It's such a weird process to go through, it's like going on three dates a day or something, like looking for a wife.

Why do you plan to release the ep in Australia, Japan and Canada, why not Europe?

It's actually just happenstance...it's just how it has transpired. I would be surprised if it did as well in America as I think it would do in Europe, so I'm anxious to get it over there [too].

What aspect of the music industry are you most jaded about ?

I saw this friend of mine on TV last night and I just went "All these fucking people are just selling out kind of left and right" and what's surprising to me is that it's really...alright, that it just seems to be O.K. for people to do this kind of behaviour that I would've thought ten years ago we would have all agreed would be just heinous, that would have been totally unacceptable.

It is a mute point though, the definition of what exactly is 'selling out', and then those definitions change as you start to approach them. The goal posts get moved.

Yeah, that's true, but for me anyway, the way I feel about it is if a man has a family and children that he needs to raise and at some point he decides, "Rather than be precious about my creativity, I'm gonna put food in my babies mouth." I can't argue with that, at all, but for me, I think we know, for ourselves when it is a 'sell out'. Like if I was 18 years old and I looked at who I am now, there have been things, I'm sure that I would have considered dicey, that I've done along the way.

But haven't you redeemed yourself by getting out?

Well, I think at the same time though, I don't believe that my 18 year old take on things would have been right. That's where I agree with you about the goal posts changing. There are just things that are different, but I know in my soul when something feels like a sell out and I think for me, I knew that if I did the Jane's Addiction reunion thing, that I would feel like a sell out. That's how it would feel to me. Now obviously, playing bass for Jane's Addiction would not feel like a sell out for many people, but I think that we all have our individual parameters that we're all working with, and our own histories and everything, and so I don't know if there is like a blanket rule. But I think when people have lots of money and still do things for no other reason but just more, larger amounts of money, for absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever for major corporations that are really horrible and fucked, that's like an incontrovertible sell out. So that's kinda what I saw the other night and it was just disappointing to see people not show a lot of character.

What aspect of the music industry are you most excited about ?

I think there is an interesting, bittersweet thing going on in the industry right now, which is on one hand, exactly what you'll get me to complain about at any given time, but also is the thing that I think is really great about it, and that is the whole confusion that the industry is in right now about what 'Alternative' is. Like everybody is really gun shy and scared because we said "What's popular and what's good and what's mainstream is what's different and weird and a little left of centre", and so all of a sudden, we have this proliferation of all these really odd acts. I kinda think that there is something good about the No. 1, biggest band being bands like REM and U2, as compared to being bands like Motley Crue or Twisted Sister or, y'know, the Spice Girls (laughs) so I do believe that there is, in a sense, a wider berth.

I guess it's this label of what's 'Alternative'. By definition, it means an "alternative" to the mainstream and yet, the musical genre that's classified as "Alternative" is now the mainstream. Now the industry has to find something else.

That's the part that I think is funny, or interesting to watch happen right now because everyone [in the industry] is like scared to take a step because they have no fucking clue, because this whole alternative thing bit everyone in the ass. At the time you could have applied any number of rules...reasons why alternative would not have made it to the mainstream. I mean, the idea that the Pendletons became a trend! That's like, so funny, because you look at the kind of music and you would have gone "Well, see, one of the problems is there's no way to dress. No way [for the industry] to tell people how to dress," so therefore they won't respond.

Well Marilyn Manson fixed that problem didn't they? The fans know exactly how to dress.

Part of it I think is interesting, just as a human being, is to watch trends come and go and you start to get that perspective where you look at Marilyn Manson and you go "Marilyn Manson/Peter Murphy/Bauhaus", y'know what I mean? It just kind of loses some of it's power when it becomes, I dunno [old]. At least to me, not to somebody who's 16 now, and this is the first time they've seen it. It's interesting because I remember my great grandmother was always the one in the family who was the most accepting of all the weird stuff. While my grandmother and parents were going "Uh, his hair is BLUE!" She was going "Oh well, I preferred it pink," 'cause to her, she was like "Oh, so there were hula hoops, and ripped jeans and now it's this." She was so nonplussed.

Do you still paint?

Actually, I've been having an itch lately. There's this girl I've been seeing who's a really great painter, so she's kind of got me interested again. A friend of the family once pointed out something, that I've since found to be true. He said, when I was 18, he experienced that with a lot of artists, that they abandoned their first gift, like the gift that they had when they were 5 or 6, to pursue something else creative, and that fit for me, because growing up, I was always a visual art kid, sketching and drawing and painting and all that kind of stuff was all I ever wanted to do. So I've been having that itch again lately, to break out the canvasses again, and actually, she's going to Mexico for a bunch of days and I'm going to stay at her place and she had a big easel and I'll crack open the old acrylics.

So do you do big abstract canvasses, or are you into realism?

It's kind of non-specific. I try to keep it that one naive place, creatively. I try not to allow the same artistic criteria to apply there. I think it's important to keep your creative spirit alive if you start to make money at one of your creative things, to find an area where you're not gonna make money, and you're not gonna make friends and influence people. It's just gonna be that place, that part of you that has drive and that itch that needs to be scratched.

I guess the idea then is to not let people see it?

I actually write a lot of songs [like that] too. I call them my afternoon songs, that are songs no one'll ever hear except me, that I like to write.

Isn't that really poetry? Your lyrics all read like poems.

Yeah, definitely, I've been trying to write lately...I was actually thinking about this today, as I was driving around, that I actually feel like I'm making a shift these days, like the last couple of songs, really trying to make an attempt to write lyrics rather than poems and sing them.

Why would you want to do that?

Well, just because it's interesting to me to communicate my ideas in ways that are phonetically interesting or playful at the same time. I'm just kind of paying more attention to the rhythm of the phrasing and stuff like that, rather than simply the idea. It doesn't mean that every line is going to end with "pants" and then the next one will end in "dance" (laughs).

Have you thought about releasing a book of poetry, like an independent, limited edition thing?

Yeah, actually I have. The only problem is that when I collect the poems of my life, they're just not really any good (laughs). What I thought I might do is just collect up stuff and create a website of it, 'cause I figure I would feel better if I wasn't asking anybody to pay for it. I can let the criteria ease a little. But I write these things called riffs - which are basically a page and a half long little essays about things I'm thinking about - and I was thinking of putting them together into like a little booklet or something. But the great thing, and the horrible thing about the web is you can just throw stuff up there and it doesn't cost anybody anything.

Isn't that an artistic cop out though? It doesn't take any commitment, whereas it takes more courage to put your stuff out there in a more permanent form, and ask people money for it.

Yeah, that's absolutely true. I think if I get to a point in my life where I think I have enough, good enough to warrant doing something like that - that's always been something I plan to do.

Is any artist ever happy with what they've done though? Will you ever get to that point?

Well I just mean that at sometime, yeah y'know, that might happen, it's not on my 'to do' list but it's a future thing. I'd like to do a magazine too. At some point in my life. There's kinda like the nebulous, eventual goal area and then there's the 'what do I wanna get done this week?' goal.

I read somewhere you play Ice Hockey. That is possibly a bizarre concept for Australians.

You get a lot of weird looks in Southern California as well! It's funny, people totally assume I'm from somewhere else.

Like you're Canadian?

Yeah, exactly, or from the north east of America. I love playing ice hockey, and I just added to that, the other day actually, the only thing that I'll do just about any time, any place, aside from sex, is travel. I'm kinda constantly hopping in the car and just going east, or north, I just pick a direction and drive.

What do you take most inspiration from?

The first thing that comes to mind is just people. An old girlfriend put it really well, she said "You know Eric, I get your work now", and I said "What do you mean?" and she said "You're a list maker" and I went "Yeah, totally I know what you mean." Because, without calling it that, I've always done that. I like to put together pictures at the same time and their juxtaposition becoming the feeling that I'd like to evoke or talk about. So as I go through my day, I see little pictures. I pay attention to people at bus stops and I often have like a voyeuristic feeling, but like a real compassionate, empathetic feeling as well. For the lost or forlorn looking people of the world, or the gestures, just all the human gestures that we do of kindness, or anger. As I go through my day it usually produces something that makes me then think about.

Do you keep a journal?

Not any more, but I used to, but I've started to have an itch to do that again. For me, I really feel that what I'm thinking about and feeling and everything goes into songs. I was actually remembering a collection of words that I really liked, that have been in two different songs and I thought about it, "gee, I really like those words, I have to remember that." Because my work is really my journal, I'm constantly half way through four different songs.

Your songs really do conjure up scenes and evoke a picture.

My struggle is that I have an opinion for everything. I drive people in my personal life crazy I'm sure, but I definitely have an opinion about everything, so I try to keep a certain amount of ambiguity about things that I'm thinking about, like I would much rather throw the topic out there and have people talk about it, rather than tell them what I think about a certain topic. There's an initial thrust of something. Recently a friend of mine died, and it really affected me. He was a friend of mine from childhood and then in the shower one day, a little bug flew in the window and landed on the roof of the shower, and for some reason, I started to try and splash it and catch it, and it just kind of moved around very gracefully. It didn't dart around like a fly or anything, it was slower, but it managed to avoid all the water and I was struck by that. I thought "God, here's this little teeny, tiny spark of life that's doing what it can to stay alive, and my friend Chris killed himself, this complex creature didn't consider it all worth it." So then I just started thinking all about how some consider life to be a precious thing and some just kinda piss on it, and so it became a song called "agile flyer". But I don't think you...maybe at the very end of the song you would know exactly what I was talking about, but for the most part...

How do you feel about the Jane's Addiction relapse, now that it's over?

Well, I'm really glad that it's all over with. Because I really wish it had never happened, but it's funny though, because I was wondering that very thing. I haven't talked to David [Navarro] yet, since, but I was curious. I thought to myself, "Well, now how does it feel guys? I mean, how how does it feel for you guys to be, now you're just back to your Porno for Pyros and your Red Hot Chili Peppers? Was it worth it? Was it what you wanted it to be? But for me it's just kinda nice because it's just like maybe now, everywhere I go, I'm not gonna be hearing about that girl I went out with a long time ago who everyone keeps telling me about who she's seeing now, kind of. That's really what the experience was like for me. Everybody thought I needed to hear everything about what was going on and it was funny too, because I was fielding phone calls, like this was my little mundane day to day existence, I was like this secret headquarters for all the drama, around that stuff. It was just funny, all these people calling here and I was just sitting there going "There you go...not a lot of surprises there." I was not surprised by anything. It's funny too, because I am so not connected, in the usual sense, to the music industry, I don't go to lots of clubs and don't see bands, or go hang out at all the right coffee shops or whatever. I have not felt an affinity for that for a really long time. It seems like all my friends from Hollywood come out to Santa Monica to have an afternoon where they wanna sit with me and talk shit about how full of shit everyone in Hollywood is, and then they disappear into that world again for a couple of months, until they come meet me for a cup of coffee, to do the same thing a couple of months later.

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