Shirtless, Peerless

David Yow is a wailing dervish, canonized in the annals of
alternative rock for his unique barking and frenzied onstage antics.
He’s been arrested for dropping trou at Lollapalooza, sued for throwing
beer cans at fans, and in 1996 was “permanently” banned from performing
in Seattle by the fire marshal due to reckless stage diving. After 12
years apart, the original lineup of the Jesus Lizard has reunited for
one final tour, and Yow has given The Stranger access to the darkest
corners of his mind.

How would you describe your vocal style?

Just really good, you know. I’m a really good singer. I pay close
attention to tonality and that kind of thing. No, I think my style is
like somebody shooting in the dark. I don’t have any formal training,
and I do the best with what I have. It’s kind of like making soup when
you don’t have anything to make soup with.

It seems like performing the way you do requires a lot of alcohol.
Would you say that’s true?

Not necessarily. There have been many, many times when I had a lot
of alcohol and did, uh, whatever I do, but it’s not necessary. I’ve
played sober, and I’ve played with just a couple drinks.

Was the drinking something you did more back in the early days than
now?

It’s hard to say. We’ve only played five shows so far, but I’d like
to continue on this way: I always called it being “lubricated.” It’s
the fine line between being drunk and being way too drunk to play a way
where you’re still proud of what you did. I like to be
lubricated—that’s a few beers and maybe some bourbon before the
show. But on these five shows, I wasn’t really drinking any bourbon
before we played.

How have those shows been?

Completely amazing. The first show in England at [All Tomorrow’s
Parties] kind of blew my mind. I think I was more taken by the whole
thing than I recall ever having been before. It had been 12 years since
we played with Mac [McNeilly], and I was really, really nervous. I’m an
old man and stuff, and I had kind of planned on not taking my shirt off
when we were playing that night. Within 10 seconds, I had my shirt off,
in the first line of the first song. I was in the audience, and I swear
I did not plan on that, it just kind of happened. Even halfway through
the set, I said something like, “Wow, I didn’t think we were going to
be this good.” And I’m not the kind of guy who goes bragging about what
I do, but particularly that first night I thought we played incredibly
well, and the audience was really receptive. It was really
something.

What would you say was the catalyst for the original breakup?

Mac was sort of forced out of being in the band. He quit because he
had family obligations. At the time he quit, to me the band was over. I
always thought that none of us were replaceable, but we had a contract
with Capitol Records to do three records and we’d only done one, and so
we continued on or else we would have owed the record company a
shit-ton more money than we had. So we did the other record with, uh,
that other guy, and then not long after that record, Capitol called and
said, “You know, you guys aren’t selling any records, you can go.” And
so I said, “Great, I quit.”

And after that you stayed away from being in bands for quite a
while, right?

Yeah, I didn’t really have much desire to do it. I started doing
freelance photo retouching and I enjoy that a lot and it pays really
well, so I was happy doing that.

What’s the main reason you guys are doing these reunion shows?

I think it would probably be fun and money, in that order. I might
be inaccurate on this, but sort of the way it came about was that Mike
Patton and the Melvins were going to be curating an ATP, and Mike asked
Duane [Denison], our guitar player, if the Jesus Lizard could get
together for it. Duane got real excited about it and got in touch with
me and Mac, and we wanted to do it, but the timing was such that there
was no way we were going to get it together in time. Then Touch and Go
wanted to do these reissues and remasters [Pure, Head, Goat, Liar, and
Down, out October 6], and we decided maybe it would be cool to do a
couple of shows, and those couple of shows turned into about 35 or 40
worldwide. So far they’ve been really fun, and hanging out with the
guys has been a blast, so there’s that aspect, which is probably the
most important one. But they are paying us a shit-ton of money to play
these shows, too, and that’s pretty cool.

Is there any part of you that still feels you’ve got something to
prove?

[Laughs] Probably more so now than before, because we’re old and we
want to prove that we can stand up for a whole hour without
collapsing.

Is the intention to reward older fans or to try and win over newer
ones?

Oh, I don’t know if there’s either intention of that. We don’t want
to embarrass ourselves. We want to kick ass as much as we can. I don’t
think there’s any drive to try to impress anybody.

There are quite a few bands right now that sound heavily influenced
by the Jesus Lizard. How does that make you feel? Accomplished? Ripped
off?

I haven’t heard bands where I could hear an obvious influence, but
I’ve read about it and I think that it’s flattering. I don’t have a
problem with it. Better us than… uh… the Offspring.

What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done onstage?

[Laughs] Oh, I don’t know. Something really weird. I think I smoked
a cigarette once. That shit will kill you. I may as well have just shot
myself in the head.

Are antics still a big part of your reunion performances?

Yeah, I suppose so. I act silly and make a fool of myself.

What’s the probability of you pulling down your pants at Block
Party?

Really unlikely. I’m 48 years old, and nobody wants to see that.
I’ve been taking my shirt off—that’s one thing, but nobody needs
to see my saggy old paper-bag ass.

Who would you say is better at not wearing a shirt, you or Iggy
Pop?

Well, he’s older than me, so he’s probably done it more times than
me, so he’s probably better at it… I don’t have a shirt on right now,
though.

That was my next question. You beat me to the punch.

Well, this isn’t my first interview.

How did you decide which songs you were going to play for the
reunion tour?

When the whole thing first came about we were all e-mailing back and
forth—we each made up a list of what we’d like to play, and then
any that overlapped we definitely stuck with. I think the original list
was 29 songs, and then we went to Nashville, where Duane lives, and we
practiced there in January, and we took that list and added and took
away from it. I think that “Pastoral” was originally on the list, and
we all kind of said, “You know, I don’t want to do that song.” Before
we play Seattle we’re playing Pitchfork in Chicago, and the deal there
is that the fans get to pick your set list, and the funny thing about
that is the list that the fans made up is pretty much exactly the same
as our list. I think you could go to 50 different fans of the Jesus
Lizard and ask, “What are your favorite 29 songs by the Jesus Lizard?”
and they’d all have the same list. They might not all be in the same
order, but they’d have the same songs. We only had 10 good songs
anyway.

How long do you guys expect to be reunited?

I think we finish up in Chicago right after Thanksgiving.

So there’s no plan to record any new material?

No. I think that there’s a possibility that we might do a live
record out of this. I think that would be cool. Especially if we could
get some really great recordings of two or more shows and just pick and
choose what sounds best.

Do you have any regrets?

In my life?

It could be just about the band as well, either way you want to take
it.

Um… yeah.

You don’t want to say what they are though?

[Phone connection starts breaking up] Are you saying anything?

Well, I didn’t know if you were going to answer.

Well, I did.

The answer is just “yes”? Okay.

Yeah, I don’t want to tell you what they are. That would be
embarrassing. That’s why I regret them. It’s none of your business.