Very few RRIICCEE shows have vocals, but when they do Gallo feels like “they’ve been some of the best things I’ve ever done vocally. But they were way over my head, way over me or anything I’ve ever done in the past.”

Do you tape the shows to have a catalogue for yourself?

“I do, but I have yet to listen back, but I have done it. It will be interesting one day to reflect on them for enjoyment, but I highly frown on anyone else doing it because we don’t want to be bootlegged and we don’t want people to pass around those things and we don’t want to be photographed or filmed because, again, that’s missing the point. Subversive, negative, internet kids who are belligerent in that way feel obligated to do so, but I’m going to make it clear that they have to leave and if things are put up [on the internet], I’ll do my best to have them removed—not to control anything and not for any monetary reasons. I don’t care about mon
ey. It’s just insulting. It’s insulting to represent works like that, you know.

“It’s so gross to me. How can anybody be there to really, I mean you’re there to really connect with the vibe of what’s going on in that moment. If your idea of the mental world, of this diminished exchange of relics, if a one dimensional relic is what you saw in your life, if that’s the only way you can connect, then I feel sorry for you. I don’t have any photos or video recordings or tapes of the best concerts I’ve seen in my life, and I promise you they remain alive within me so strong and inspire me still.”

Amen. Listen to Gallo. I’m so sick of the vibe at shows now, that need to be captured by everyone for YouTube, etc. I went to Grinderman shows, Nick Cave’s side project, in San Francisco, and everyone had their iPhones out the whole time snapping photos. So, if I’m behind these idiots, I get to see most of the show through their iPhone. Of course, I solved that by just pushing my way to the front to have the actual Nick Cave experience while way too many people have their precious photos, but weren’t really there as Gallo describes above.

None of the RRIICCEE performances have carried over from night to night. “If we become unconscious and we start repeating things because we’re unconscious, then I’ll be uncomfortable being in the band,” Gallo says.

How do you get into that creative space before a show, because it seems like it would take a lot more work than a regular tour?

“Yeah, if you go out and you play pre-rehearsed songs, I mean, you could sleep through them. Look at the Chili Peppers, look at the other bands out there. And the Chili Peppers are an example of people who are… I mean their hearts, Flea is a beautiful person, Frusciante is a beautiful person, Chad is a beautiful person. So it’s not like these are not three beautiful people, and it’s not like Flea’s heart is not in the right place. But when you play that many live shows and you’re obligated and have that level of expectation, and that kind of financial pressure, etc. etc., how open can you be and how much can you really grow and how much of your growth can you really release to the public mainstream like that? I mean, I feel sorry for them because I know a couple of them personally and I know how beautiful they are as people, and I feel sorry that they’ve allowed themselves to invest so much energy into something that’s really taking them away from opening your own mind. And they may think they can do that without damage to themselves, but I think they’re wrong because when you invest energy into something, you make it bigger. It takes a lot of practice as a person to practice away from that. You know, you invest in the Peppers for 15, 20 years, a cabaret act like that; it’s going to be hard. And I know Flea and Frusciante are so creative, but it’s not going to be easy for them to do original breakthrough work that transcends itself that’s better than them. Better than their ego, and better than their own self-glorification. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to do that.”

And part of that is the big financial risk they’re taking where the financial risk is minimal for RRIICCEE?

“We aren’t part of the problem in any way, so we have no connection to all that stuff. I mean, one of the greatest things about the New York no wave scene that I was a part of in the late ’70s was that no one was connected to any of that. The audience was very supporting and it was a self-supporting, self-contained universe. It had its own rain and water and lakes and trees and roads and highways all within this microcosm of a community and so, you know, the expression was to entertain one another and to be entertained by one another in vocabularies that were growing and changing and shared amongst one another, and it was really beautiful. And I don’t want to go back to that time and I’m not interested in that time and I’m not interested in music of that time, but I am interested in that type of collaboration and that kind of mood. I do remember that mood and it was really exciting.

“It was still stuck in the story a little bit; I mean if you listen to DNA and you listen to Contortions and you listen to Mars, they’re still in a sense making records and they’re repeating songs over and over and they’re sort of like industrial abstract versions of things you heard in the past, but it was very good stuff.”

Music was the beginning of Gallo’s creative efforts. When he was nine-years-old he was in a band and by the time he was 15 he moved from Buffalo to New York City and has been doing music ever since. He scored some films and has done much collaboration. There haven’t been too many gaps in time when he wasn’t performing or creating music throughout the last 34 years.

Is music the most important outlet in your creative endeavors?

“In my creative endeavors, when you say ‘important’ I’m going to translate that word to the thing that I do most or the thing that I seem to come back to most. I like fixing things, making things, engineering things, cleaning things. I like driving across country. I like listening to hi-fi gear, collecting things, fixing them, cleaning them. That’s what I enjoy the most and that’s where most of my creativity is put. But as far as the creative things I’ve done that people know in terms of entertainment, movies, photos, music, etc. etc., I feel the most satisfied or I get the most pleasure from music in every form. From listening, playing, and the instruments and equipment around it… it’s been something that I’m drawn to, since the time I heard my first real hi-fi system and had a record. There’s something about the equipment, the engineering, the phenomenon of the 20th century of electronically reproduced music and electric instruments and the growing musical forms. There’s something about the excitement of all that that is specific to me and my story, the story of my life. But it doesn’t mean that if I never made music again, or if I never did another movie again, that I wouldn’t be able to entertain myself in other ways or occupy my time, so I’m not, nothing’s sacred like that, you know… I’m not like… Frusciante, John, not to dwell on Frusciante so much, but John, who was my friend for a while, I remember that music was everything to him, period. He couldn’t function in any other way other than his music and he wasn’t interested in anything else other than his music, and everything else around him had to relate to or enhance or promote his music. And he played guitar everyday, everyday, everyday. I’m not that kind of a person at all. When I get involved in something, like right now I’m involved in the project and that’s how I feel about it; it’s taking up all my energy and I’m giving it all my thought. But nothing’s sacred. If you plugged my ears and made me deaf, I would continue to have a very active mind and would not notice it. I would not feel like it’s a tremendous loss, like it was my only way of expressing myself.”

When a RRIICCEE gig doesn’t feel like it has gone over well, is it a group thing or is there a weak link?

“Yeah, that’s a good question because we’re reflecting off one another. We had a member of the band named Cory who’s not with us anymore, and there was a show we did in Japan where Cory was sort of distracted and not comfortable and it affected the band a lot. But still, every performance is interesting. Even if it’s a struggle, then that struggle on some level is interesting. It’s still more interesting than going to see all those bands that are doing pure, 100
percent cabaret. And if it’s cabaret you want, then I understand that, that’s a form of entertainment and, you know, I totally relate to that, but that’s not what we’re proposing here.”

Roger Ebert gave a bad review to Gallo’s film The Brown Bunny when it played Cannes. Gallo publically hexed Ebert to get bowel cancer. Ebert ended up with thyroid cancer and has had other health problems, which kind of makes me scared to write an article on Vincent Gallo since doing so could put me on his hex radar.

Seriously, his candor is refreshing in a world where publicists train their music monkeys to say the right thing and pretend that the band is doing great and we’re just happy to play here and blah, blah, blah. Canned responses don’t make for interesting conversation, and music writers end up making the musicians sound a lot cooler than they really are, continuing to create the illusion. I’m guilty of that myself.

The music industry is the worst offender with the necessary images of pop stars, rock stars, and others who have to project themselves to the public as something different than the person they really are. I don’t sense that from Gallo. I know he’s conservative in his politics and also very vocal about that. While I disagree with him on many levels with his political mindset, I have more respect for him for giving us the real Vincent Gallo. We all are guilty of saying and doing things that we regret and wish we could take back, but they’re not on the same radar as when Gallo says something that’s an automatic Page 6 or Daily Dish entry.

Not to say that Vincent Gallo doesn’t give a good nudge to create his own public controversy.

For recorded music from Gallo, check out his excellent solo release, When, as well as some of the film scores that are available on CD.

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