The Customers are back, after a hiatus, releasing the first album in 20 years (Sweet Fatality) and it’s like they never missed a beat. The songwriting is sublime, the music is eminently danceable, and it was great to learn more about what’s happening with The Customers. (You can see their album release September 21 at the Driftwood Char Bar.)
The Customers have a long illustrious history, with a couple substantial pauses, what brought you back to the music in 2022?
Pauses is right! The whole damn thing happened as backwards as one could imagine. Elliot Roberts, who was Neil Young’s manager, heard a demo of some of my songs and asked me if I could put a band together to make an album. The ‘perfect storm’ of it all was that Neil was starting his own label called Vapor Records. This was in Los Angeles. I gathered up a few friends I knew from the alternative music scene there, called ourselves The Customers, and made an album called “Green Bottle Thursday” (1996). We recorded it at Jackson Browne’s studio in Santa Monica- a place called Groove Masters. It was all very heady; two weeks of “are we really doing this?” and the like. During one guitar session George Harrison walked in, and with Jackson at his side, said “Sorry to interrupt.” So, before we even played a live show I had a Beatle apologizing to me. And though I can’t recall exactly, I bet we played onstage, as a band, no more than a few dozen times before appearing on the Conan O’Brien Show. So THAT’s backwards. And as the record business goes, if nothing happens or “breaks,” things go stale. Here is where this “pause” you speak of comes into play. While I’ve always believed in the songs- always had fun with the process- there was never really an organic foundation for the band to thrive as a going concern. So one’s mind wanders, all the predictable self-doubt moves in like a freight train, and maybe you start drinking too much. I went about aimlessly like this for a bunch of years. But- and there’s no other way to say this- I got sober one day; realized I had a ton of songs; that maybe some of them didn’t suck; and that I might like to hear how they sound with some cool musicians. Fortunately, I had the good sense God gave me to hornswoggle the brilliant Kevin Bowe into producing an album of said songs, which became “Sweet Fatality.”
Watching you guys on stage is so much fun. The energy is palpable. How does it feel to be back on stage?
Well, I started out as a kid actor in the Twin Cities. I went to school at The Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis and acted in plays and musicals at The Guthrie, CTC, and the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. Suffice it to say that playing music onstage satisfies- satisfies with extreme prejudice- all those learned and culled skills and instincts, but without the restraint of some Shakespearean diction coach or choreographer. It’s a blast! And as a band I feel as though we are at the very beginning of creating a stage dynamic which has a form and movement to be memorable.
The video for One Delight is a delight but I’ve got to know, which came first, the idea for the video or the trip to Mexico?
The idea for the video was the genius of a dear friend I’ve known for many years, Todd Hughes, who also happens to live in Merida Yucatan, Mexico (See what I did there?). Todd is a brilliant filmmaker who, along with his partner and fellow auteur, P. David Ebersole, make up the much lauded Ebersole/Hughes Company. I had sent him some of the early mixes of the album and we started tossing about ideas for a video. What it finally came down to was that the best way for us to both catch up with each other, AND create a video work, would be for me to travel to Merida and utilize some of the ancient and beautiful scenery of the city for “One Delight.”
You’ve got such a great group playing with you. Can you tell us a little more about them?
I put the word out while making the album that putting a band together was obviously the next step. Drummer Kirk Hall was recommended to me by a drummer friend in town, Mark Devaraj, and he (Kirk) knew a terrific bass player called Jon Sawyer. And of course Terrance played on one of the album tracks, “One Delight”; his contribution to that song was profound, and since the rest of the album was pretty much in his wheelhouse as well, he and I became a natural fit.
Please tell us about the upcoming show and the release and how best to connect with you for updates.
The record release show will be Thursday, September 21 at the Driftwood Char Bar in South Minneapolis. Larry Sahagian, who books the club, also fronted legendary and seminal Minneapolis band The Urban Guerillas, and he does a fantastic job at getting the right acts for the space. It’s not a huge room, which is cool because we plan on it being a fun party as opposed to being some kind of special showcase.
Facebook and Instagram is where you’ll find most stuff about what’s going on with us!
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