Fused - Articles - John Cale

It's not quite right to think of your granddad rocking out, but aged 63, John Cale, the grandfather of punk (archangel to the avant guard apocalypse), has released his 24th solo album. An incredible achievement, especially when you consider that the co-founder of the Velvet Underground, has collaborated, guested and written for many of the great musicians of our time and time to come. That's not forgetting the countless film scores he has created from American Psycho, Sid and Nancy and Basquit, did I mention the on-screen debuts, the poetry, the formal compositions and the art? I think you get my point. Getting beyond those two mighty New York Warholian years, Cale made with original line-up of the VU and you can begin to understand the enormous contribution he has made to contemporary music and in the wider sense, our counterculture, for the past four decades.

John Cale is a very busy man. With a new single ‘Turn Out the Lights’ available for download, the forthcoming album ‘blackAcetate’ out on October 1st and the first leg of a UK and European tour starting on September 18th. This is the story of what happens now and next, and dare I say, for all tomorrow’s parties.

Your new album has a very deep and warm sound. How would you describe the sound of your new material?
Well, in some cases I drop the bass, which was a relief that puts quite a lot of honky rhythms in there. ‘Hush’ is my favourite for that. I was working with a drummer Herb Graham Jr, who has worked with Macy Gray before, and most of the times I just sat around with a keyboard and just made up grooves. But it wasn't heavily quantized, I used one MP3 on one track (Woman) and that sort of jumps out when you listen to it. Most of the time it was pretty subtle, I didn't pump it, I didn't want to make it sound like a hip-hop record.

How important is improvisation in creating your music?
None of these songs are written before I get in the studio. We started in September and by December we had something like 30 songs and when we finished we were choosing out of 48. I don't think we really settled for instance ‘Woman’, ‘Hush’, ‘Turn The Lights On’ and ‘Perfect’ were all done in the last week, somewhere around February. As soon as I have a grip on where I wanted to go with it, then things moved fast.
So I'm sitting around now twiddling my thumbs because I want to get on with more writing again!

Working with new technology, Pro Tools, Cubase or Logic, do you try to push the technology?
Because we didn't quantize any of it I didn't go that way this time. I mean I only used MP3 for Woman and that leaves that song with a little bit of a split personality. So it wasn't heavily reliant on tricks with the technology. Mickey Petralia did the mixing and he really just goes for the meat of the song, which is where the vocals should sit and he got it right pretty much all the way through the album.

In the same way that you subverted traditional instruments in the past, playing the viola with banjo and guitar strings or the scraping chairs across a studio floor, would you do the same with new technology today, from soft synths to even traditional tape?
It’s always interesting to put them in an unfamiliar setting and that sort of thing comes from cinematic thinking as well. I mean people do it in a lot of different genres, some novelists even use that technique, putting something in which is out of its original context.

Would you ever consider disseminating your work through viral networks, like the Nine Inch Nails recent release of their single, ‘The Hand That Feeds’, through Garage band for fans to remix and produce themselves?
At the moment with the little slip-ups that happen trying to get something simple done, you can end up tearing your hair out. But once it gets down to something a lot simpler, like that, I am sure there are a lot of different things that we can do. That’s a really good idea.

How do you know when a song is finished?
When you know that (listening back to the track) the next step in the process is going to be chiseling the stuff so it’s in the right profile. You've got to carve it, carve all the images and sounds down, and that's the mixing process. There's some editing to do as well, but you don't want to do the editing until you are in the mixing process because you want to make sure that the rhythm section is right before messing around with the guitars, and so on.

How influential is the work of the American composer John Cage on your writing?
He made me relax about mistakes. I was an uptight little European for a while. I wanted to make everything perfect. I came to New York with that same sort of accuracy. His theory of responsibility by performers and improvisation was what really started me off thinking that the mistakes are more important than accuracy.

You originally studied musicology at Goldsmiths (1961-63), with quite an exciting rock exit (playing La Monte Young's X for Henry Flynt on his knees whilst hitting the piano keys with his elbows, and a performance of Plant Piece, whereby Robin Page screamed at a pot plant until it died), how do you balance your classical training with contemporary music?
I don't think I can. It plays a role; it's what really excites me. What I didn't have together at Goldsmiths was how much I loved rock and roll. I was more interested in the Avant-garde. When I got to New York and The Beatles arrived, that's when I thought, wait a minute, I've missed out on a whole bunch of fun here.

You have produced a wealth of material, the debut album for The Stooges, Patti Smith and The Happy Mondays. How does the experience of producing compare to writing music? Do you differentiate between them?
I think I spend more time making my own records than other peoples records. There has always been a pressure that when you make a record you have to go out and tour. Right now I start a tour in Europe in September then I go back to Europe again in January. It's finding time you have to allow at least six weeks for producing. How do you balance all that out? If I've got six weeks, then I really have the time to concentrate.

You've worked with so many great people, who has been the most inspirational person you have worked with? Who would you like to work with?
Wait a minute, there's a tonne. I enjoyed working with all of them. I got different things from each one. The one person I would like to work with is Bob Dylan.

John Cale's single Turn The Lights On is available for download from his website. His UK gigs are as follows: London on the 30th September, The Coal exchange in Cardiff on the 1st of October and the Liverpool Philharmonic on the 3rd of October.

www.john-cale.com/ - John Cale's official website.
www.xs4all.nl/~werksman/cale/index.html - An excellent John Cale fan site and archive.

Words by David Osbaldestin