Ben Weasel vs Jesse Michaels

The Hit List, April/May 1999

Ben : OK, I'm sitting here with the elusive Jesse Michaels, formerly of Operation Ivy. He was the singer and primary lyricist in that band. That band broke up, and he seemed to drop off the face of the earth. Now, in a shameless display of self-promotion, w e're talking to him because he has a new band, called Common Rider, that's releasing a record on Panic Button, which is my label. So, what have you been up to for the past ten years?

Jesse: Well, nothing too fancy. I've done a couple semesters at different colleges, I have worked various jobs, I studied Buddhism for a little while, and I have played some music, but not in any formal band-type setting.

Ben. But I know you did more than that in ten years. The one thing you did was Big Rig, which was more of a project, whereas this is a real band.

Jesse: Right.

Ben: But, other than that, you haven\rquote t been heard from musically. What about studying Buddhism? There's crazy rumors about you, so we wanted to clear them up.

Jesse: As far as Buddhism goes, I never really was a monk, but for a period of about one year, I studied Buddhism at the San Francisco Zen Center, just for my own personal enrichment.

Ben: One of the things I know is that you had a pamphlet that I think you said you handed out at shows because s o many people were coming up and asking you about being a monk, since there was that famous photo of you in Harper's magazine wearing a big, long robe. You came up with a little pamphlet about meditation, which was a really simple, secular, nonreligious thing. Do you still maintain meditation practice?

Jesse: Yeah, I still practice meditation, but like you said, in a very nonreligious fashion. For me, it's just a very simple practice that helps you lead a better life, and also helps you in your treatment of other people, hopefully. Something like Tai Chi or martial arts, just something to do that helps you lead a deeper and more fulfilling life, rather than a major religious involvement.

Ben: So you were in the Zen center of a year. I know you were in Florida for a while. You did some community college. You also went through some hard times as well, right?

Jesse: That's correct.

Ben: Do you feel comfortable talking about them?

Jesse: Yeah, I can talk about that without getting too deeply into it. I basically went through a period of my life where I drank a whole lot.

Ben: (laughter) I'm sorry, I\'m holding a beer.

Jesse: To make a long story short, or maybe I should make a short story long, I'm not sure.

Ben: Yeah, let's take up space in the magazine.

Jesse: All right. Basically, I drank too much. I don't really know what to say about it. It was never very colorful, it's just that I went through a difficult time in my early- to mid-twenties, as I think lot of people do, and one of the ways I dealt with it was b y drinking. Since then, I have made big changes in my life. In fact, I no longer drink, although I am not doctrinaire about not drinking. I\rquote m not straight edge o anything like that. But, it's just a matter of where, yes, for a while I drank a whole lot, and now I don't. It's much better this way.

Ben: And let it be known that the tape can't see this, but I'm smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer right now, and he's not knocking it out of my hand or growling at me or anything.

Jesse: Yeah, I hang out at bars, I'm very low key about the whole thing.

Ben: What do you drink when you hand out at a bar and you don't drink alcohol?

Jesse: I drink club sodas with limes

Ben: Wow, that was decisive! OK, let's talk about Operation Ivy, an influential band, obviously. A lot of people were influenced by the band itself, and also by that time in the late '80's and what was going on at Gilman and with Lookout, and to a certain extent, that magazine that I can't remember the name of that really sucks now in San Francisco. It was a pretty short-lived band. You did a seven inch, you did a tour, you did an album, and then you broke up, but it sold probably- I'm guessing now-close to half a million copies,so it's like this major, successful, influential album. Kids have tattoos of the logos and everything all over their legs and arms and buttocks and things. So, naturally, people are asking themselves why you broke up. There are people in the punk rock sce ne that do know why, and know that it's really because of mundane, boring reasons, but with Operation Ivy, because it's a legendary band, people attach more importance to it. Especially since you've been so elusive. So, what do you have to say about that? Why did the band break up, or why did it come and go so quickly?

Jesse: OK, first of all, I've never been elusive, I just haven't been playing in bands. That's a misconception. There's a popular idea that someone who's an entertainer or is in the arts isn't entertaining or isn't in the arts for the period of time that the y've disappeared, when in fact they just might be doing different things with their life. As far as Operation Ivy goes, the reasons we broke up just weren't all that interesting. Just a lot of arguments that came up, to be honest I have to take responsibi lity for my part in it, insofar as I was a much more egotistical and difficult person than I am now, I hope. I certainly have never felt resentment over it. We just had some problems and it was time to move on. And I still took back on the times of Operat ion Ivy with a lot of fondness, and I consider it to be a formative and very happy period of my life. But basically, not every relationship is meant to last forever, and I think that was the case with Operation Ivy.

Ben: I hate band interviews where they sit and talk about goofy shit, but at the same time, people are so interested in you because you do seem to be this mysterious character, whether it's really true or not. What do you do for kicks? What's a day in the li fe of Jesse Michaels like?

Jesse: Well, It varies a lot from month to month. I have a very short term memory, so it's very hard for me to take a survey of my life. If you asked me what I was doing a year ago, I lit- erally and quite honestly can't remember. But, I like movies, I exercise a lot, I snowboard, and I also spend at least four or five hours a day alone. I'm a person who loves solitude. That's a lot of the reason I'm not always eager to jump into the public eye, because the source of my personal strength, and also whatever strength my music has, derives from quietness and solitude. So that's a big part of my life, and also explains my interest in meditation. I do a lot of art, too.

Ben: Jesse is involved artistically with his new band, and did the front and back cover of their album, and then the drummer, Dan Lumley, did the illustrations that go along with the songs.

Jesse: Right. My whole lifestyle, and what I like to do with my life-and I don't mind talking about it, really- is to spend a lot of time with silence, or going within and exploring the more quiet sides of life, and then to interact with other people, hopefully bringing some of that insight into hanging out with other people. I'm not a recluse, but at the same time, I'm not a social butterfly. I like to strike a balance.

Ben : On a personal level, it sounds like because of the way you interact with people, people are more inspired by the way you actually conduct yourself. Perhaps that's better than saying "well, this is what you should do, and this is what you shouldn't do".

Jesse : Well, you haven't seen me on a bad day.

Ben: You don't want to address every rumor, but one of the big rumors about Operation Ivy was that some of the other guys in the band wanted to become more of a big-time band, and that Jesse Michaels was the "punk rock guy" who wanted to do everything at a grassroots level. That's a rumor that's just sort of taken on a life of its own but it's not really the case, is it?

Jesse: No, that's basically complete mythology. In fact, I have no moral qualms about bands becoming more successful or doing things outside the confines of a strictly underground setting. As a matter of fact, a lot of my friends are now in highly successful bands. I don\rquote t think I really need to list them, but a lot of them have become rock stars, and I'm basically proud of them and very happy for them. So that whole idea that I was some kind of spokesman for garage-based punk rock is a myth that doesn't reflect who I am at all.

Ben: So, the band breaks up, and you go and do a bunch of different things with your life, and at one pint in '92, you do the Big Rig EP on Lookout. Since then, you haven't done anything musically, at least that's been releas ed to the public. You have a new band, you're about to mix the album. It's called"Last Wave Rockers" and is a 14-song album. I've heard it, and I know how great it is. Why now?

Jesse: This might be worth mentioning. For a long time playing music made me so depressed that I couldn't even consider being in a band, because I would pick up the guitar and play, and then I would go through terrible depressions. Sometimes I would even jam with people, and afterwards I would be so unhappy and mentally fucked-up that I couldn't even consider being in a band. At some pint that shifted, and I suddenly was freed up emotionally in such a way that I could do something musically. So, that was a lot of my motivation. All of a sudden I felt like OK, I was trying to force it before, but now I really feel like this is something I want to do and it's going to be fun. That's the personal side of it. The more worldly side is that right now, looking at the world around me, and also at the music around me, I have a feeling that peo ple could use these songs. Not that my songs are better than anyone else's but just that I do have something to say and there's a lot of people out there that want to hear it.

Ben: A lot of people might be surprised or disappointed, although frankly I was elated, that there's no any ska on this record at all. There's a lot of reggae influence, and a lot of almost straight up reggae songs, there's a lot of punk song, there's a lot of poppy punk songs, and to me it sounds like almost a logical extension of Operation Ivy with lyrics that are even better, because you've had ten years now under your belt to sort of have more experiences and learn how to write better, and musically, it's less haphazard. Of course, the Operation Ivy record is a classic, but at this point it seems like everything has sort of come together and, certainly, having read the lyrics, it is in many cases something where you really have something to say. How much of it was really just your recognition that you had something to say and that now would be the time to say it?

Jesse: Well, it's a case where I feel like I've become more emotionally alive with maturity, so the songs are much more emotional, they're much more emotionally rich. The album is about half love songs, and as you said, the music is moving from the hyperactive ska tempo to a more rock steady tempo. In the songwriting process, I was very influenced by Toots and the Maytalls, and by other music from the rocksteady period. I think that no matter what I write, I'll always be influenced by Jamaican music, because I just love it. Whereas in Operation Ivy, speaking personally, I was more influenced by stuff from the Two Tone period of English ska. As far as the songwriting, part of the reason I chose to include a lot of love songs, and part of the reason I've gone in that direction, is quite frankly because I think that the world needs a little bit of tenderness right now. We live in extremely cynical times, and I think that one of the most rebellious things you can do in a time w hen people are afraid to feel is to feel and to actually express feelings regardless of what people think of you. If you took at a lot of Jamaican music, or any kind of music from Third World countries, they have everything in the world to complain about, but the music's always pretty joyful. There is a lot of very revolutionary reggae, but actually, I'm much more inspired by the uplifting and celebratory aspects of reggae music.

Ben: Do you see yourself primarily as a songwriter? Because you actually play guitar on this, whereas you didn't in Operation Ivy. You played guitar on it, and I know you down- play your guitar- playing ability, but it's really good. And you sing, and of course everybody knows you're a good singer, and you wrote all the songs. How do you view yourself?

Jesse: Well, I do see myself as a songwriter. Right now that's my life, that's my main means of artistic expression. And that's a big change from all the bands I played in in the past because usually in the past, I've collaborated i n some way. For the record, I pretty much wrote everything. That's something I'm really comfortable with, and I think I've sort of found myself as a musician.

Ben : I absolutely agree. Knowing now that you weren't the elusive Jesse Michaels and that you were around, and that in the past ten years you have been to punk rock shows, and that you have at least peripheral ly kept in touch with what's been happening in underground music, specifically with punk rock, what do you see that's changed for the better and what do you see that's changed for the worse? I think it would be interesting to learn the perspective of a guy who was in this incredibly influ ential band and then chose basically not to play music publicly for so long. I certainly know, and everybody's talked this subject to death, but what's your feeling on it? What's the good and what's the bad, compared to ten years ago?

Jesse: To be quite frank, I really don't care that much. And I don't mean that to say something against punk rock, but I don't identify with it the way that I used to. If I had to pin down something, I would say that obviously punk is larger, and that there's good and bad aspects of that.

Ben : We've talked about things like the balance between sexuality, on one hand, and danger-there's always this controlled danger at good punk shows. Nobody usually gets seriously hurt, but it isn't completely non-threatening. I'm not really asking how your band fi ts into that, but more about how you view that whole dynamic. Do you think that it's become more Pat Boone-ish and wimpy and non-threatening?

Jesse: If anything, it's become preachier. At some levels, it's become preachier, and at other levels, it's become less threatening, like you said.

Ben : But not threatening in a senseof violence, but threatening in the sense of challenging people with ideas.

Jesse: Yes. A lot of punk rock obviously is a lot less exciting.

(Everyone in the room is nodding in agreement.)

Jesse: However, there are still a lot of great bands. Dittinger Four are great, Teen Idols are great, New Bomb Turks are great. Even in the ska scene, even though ska has gotten so big and trendy and there's a lot of crappy bands and everything, there's great ska bands. I'm really excited about the bands that are playing roots-type s ka like the Blue Beats, or like Hepcat. There's really exciting music out there, but I think it kind of depends on what aspects you look at. Personally, I like a lot of other types of music as much, if not more, than punk rock, so it's not my main- stay. But i f I had to be pinned down, I'd say that in many ways, it's become more bland. Also, there's a lot more PC preachiness than there used to be. But by and large, there are still a lot of great bands and a lot of exciting stuff happening.

Ben: You recorded this album in Chicago with a couple of guys who also play in my band, Mass and Dan, and made kind of an interesting choice for a producer. I used him on our last album as well, and I know that's not why you used him. It seemed to come toget her in such a great way, where all these elements fit together in a thing that by all rights should have just not have worked out.

Jesse: I have been remarkably lucky, or whatever you want to call it. Without getting too new age, sometimes things just seem to happen because they're meant to happen. For example, I taught Mass and Lumley 14 songs in three days, and they nailed them. Brendon was able to completely understand what I was talking about when I said I wanted a raw sound but not a trashy sound, which is a rarity t hese days. A lot of people, when they hear the word "raw" they think in terms of very advanced studio techniques, a sort of processed rawness. But Brendon, because he grew up listening to the Stooges and really was involved with a lo t of punk stuff, he knew what I was talking about and he helped us to achieve that. We also had a couple of people come in and do sax stuff and organ stuff who were just incredible musicians, but at the same time were able to get into the right frame of mind for the simplicity o f the songs. And for what it's worth, if anyone out there is recording an album, I can tell you right now that the key to recording is organization. Because a lot of the reason that everything went so well is because I had the songs so well-structured and written, and I knew all the parts that I wanted people to be able to play. Thus we were able to do something that involved 8 or 9 musicians, and do it successfully in a period of nine days. And we're talking about 15 songs, which is kind of an accomplishment, especially in this day and age, when punk bands take as long as eight weeks to record a record.

Ben: Yeah, they'll spend a $ioo,ooo on a record.

Jesse: So we're well organized, and I've been working on the songs for a long time. I know the songs are good. Whether that's egotistical or not, fuck it. It came out really well, and I think we were able to incorporate the other musicians without it turning i nto a concept album or a VH1 special.

Ben: This is a real band, it's not a project. It's an actual band. The album will come out May 25th, on Panic Button/Lookout. Just as an aside, we know that Lookout has been incredibly supportive and really great about the whole thing, and has had a really good level of involve ment in it as well, because obviously they have ties with you going back years. What happens after the record is done and released? Then what do you do?

Jesse: Basically, right now, after the record is done, I'm going to go somewhere and forget about music completely for about two to three we eks, and then I'll probably start writing more material so that when we play live, I'll have enough songs to pull it off. As far as touring, when and where we're going to start playing, it's up in the air only because I don't live in Chicago right now, so there's a lot of things to figure out, as far as whether or not I'm going to move and how the logistics of the whole thing are going to work out. So, there's noth ing chiseled in stone yet, but we're definitely going to continue on some level.

Ben : Is it fair to say that you're back?

Jesse: Well, you could say that if you wanted to, though I don't think I ever went anywhere.

Ben: But you're back musically as far as releasing stuff, and you\rquote re not going anywhere anytime soon.

Jesse: Well, I'm not making any promises.

Ben : Make a promise! I'm trying to sell fucking records here, god damnit! Make a promise. You're going to play Dallas, Texas on September 14th, 1999. One of the things I love about the record is that there's certain phrases that are repeated in other songs. Sometimes it only happens once, and sometimes it happens a couple of times, but "Last Wave Rockers" is a phrase in particular, and another is "Classics of Love," which repeatedly comes up. It's really cool, but why? \

Jesse: :Last wave rockers" sounded cool. A lot of the point of songwriting is to put something in words that you can\rquote t explain. So, when asked to explain it, I'm at a loss. But if I had to say something to explain the overall theme of the record, I would say that the theme revolves around a group of people, not necessarily punk rockers or rebels, people that have been disappointed by the modern world, who are returning to values of the heart and the emotions. People who feel a need for warmth in these modern times.

Ben: So, even though you're talking about things like heart and warmth and peace and things like that, it's still ultimately a punk rock spirit in the sense that it's elitist in a good way.

Jesse: Well, no.

Ben: Don't disagree with me, I'm interviewing you!

(Laughter)

Jesse: When I say a group of people, I'm not talking about punk rockers.

Ben: I'm not talking about punk rock, either. What I'm saying is that it's elitist in the sense that you're either going to get it and be at the right point in you life when you get it, or you're not going to get it.

Jesse: I wouldn't say it's elitist, I'd say it's universal.

Ben: But there are a lot of people who won't get it

Jesse : Hmmm....maybe so.

Ben: Edit all this out! Edit it all out, because I'm starting to sound like a jackass!

Jesse: Well, what the fuck?

Ben: I don't want you to lie.

Jesse: OK.

Ben : No, but when I use the word elitist, I mean it in a good sense. I don't mean it in a snobby sense, like this is our club, and you're not allowed in. I mean it in the sense of laying it out there and saying this is what it is, and if you don' t get it fine, maybe you're not ready to get it, or maybe I'm so fucked up that I think you should be getting something that you shouldn't be getting. But either way, there are some people who will get it, and some who won't. So, it's not a "right" or "wrong" thing or a snobby thing at all, but simply that I think you're conveying certain values that are definitely going to speak to a lot of people. To the people that it doesn't speak to, I'm not necessarily saying fuck 'em, they're not ready for it yet. And that's how I made the connection to pun rock as the way it was ten years ago, where it attracted weirdoes and freaks and rejects form society and the type of people that didn't fit in, not because they chose not to fit in, but because they just couldn't manage to do it. I think that that\rquote s the theme. I know that you don't like to be restricted to the confines of punk rock, but at the same time there's a spirit there that really evokes that, and it really hearkens back to Operation Ivy, I think, in a lot of ways. In all the right ways, the positive ways.

Jesse: Right. Well, the music I write is for everybody. I consider it something that I'm good at that I'm offering to anyone that likes it. Some people might get one thing, and other people might get another, but as long as they enjoy it then it's successful. And it doesn't matter if that person is a rich person, or a poor person, or a punk rocker, or someone who has never even heard of punk rock. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of the stuff on this record will appeal to a wider group of people than Operation Ivy did, without losing any of the sense of intensity.

Ben: The common thread, going back to my efforts to hook it up with Operation Ivy, the one thing that's similar is the spirit of it. And the spir it of it is genuine and sincere, and I think that that's one of the things that I find fascinating in somebody your age. (For those of you who don't know, Jesse is 29 years old.) There is a punk rock spirit, in that sense.

Jesse: If you want to say so, you can say whatever you want, but what you're saying really has nothing to do with me. Like I said before, the record is for everybody. If you want to talk about punk rock, that's fine. Frankly, I don't really give a shit, because it's not particularly my life.

Ben: I don't mean it in the sense of there being a punk scene or anything like that, but for lack of a better term for that type of spirit, it's been defined as being the "punk rock spirit". So, it's just a matter of semantics. Melanie says it's rebellious in a positive way, which is a good observation.

Jesse: Look, the message of music is basically love. That's where I'm at now. It might sound corny, or it might sound hippyish or whatever. But that's the way I'd put it, and anyone else who wants to put it differently by calling it punk rock or something else, I don't really give a shit. This may be an interview cliche which has already been used by a million bands, because I think a million songwriters have been put in this very same position, but it's not my job to categorize music, it's my job to write songs. I don't think I'm Paul McCartney, but I think I'm pretty decent at it, so I do it, and I offer it to people because I think it makes people happy. Beyond that, people can say whatever the fuck they want. Interviews are really difficult, because the point of music is really nonverbal, and it's emotional and it's spiritual, and it involves the expression of joy, and hopefully it touches people on a deeper level than normal language and helps them to have a better life and get through the day.