Today we've got an interview with Austin's own Leatherbag (aka Randy Reynolds).



Leatherbag (Randy Reynolds) - Photo: Mary Sledd


It's dangerous when you get two music nerds into a room at once. And mind you, I mean nerds, not snobs. The difference? Well, it's slim, but a music snob probably wouldn't admit the influence Tom Petty's had on his latest album Love & Harm. Leatherbag (aka Randy Reynolds) is by every definition a music nerd. Between all the nerding-out over Wilco demos and Sonic Youth interviews, he and I managed to chat for a bit about his new album, his production credits on Graham Weber's latest album, Door to the Morning, and, true to our nerdom, books.

Big Diction: There are a lot of obvious influences on the album that you've talked openly about, how do you see them fitting with you own songwriting on the album?

Leatherbag: Well its hard, its really hard. I mean this past week I'm obsessed with two things: Dwight Twilley… and Tom Petty. And people laugh every time I fuckin' say it, there's something about Tom Petty. I can't explain it, but he knew when he had really good songs, 'cause the songs are really well taken care of. Every part works exactly the way it's supposed to. And I'm only listening to stuff from '76 to '81 where they're still trying to figure out what they're doing, nothing that went platinum yet except Damn the Torpedoes which is awesome, awesome. But dude, when you listen to "Refugee," you can walk down the street and play that, and people know exactly what it is. It doesn't matter if they know who's singing it, but they know the song. Part of me at least, wants to get to the place where you can do that one time at least, and say that's my thing. His song "Listen to Her Heart," it's awesome. It sounds like them and nothing else.

So the main thing is that every week I've got something new that I'm into. It keeps me from getting involved with a band for a month or so, because then the writing really stats to take on a very... I wouldn't say it's like a chameleon effect or anything like that, it's that this stuff, when I hear it, I just love it, and there's nothing I can do about it except fall for it. When I listen to Tom Petty, I know it's making me dumber in some way, it's making me stupider. But from a songwriting standpoint, if you can get to one of those, you know you're doing something correct. And it's like I said, if you listen to the parts – all the lead guitar versus all the rhythm guitar – nothing gets in the way of the song, and that's what I really value about it; it has nothing to do with how dumb kitschy it is, nothing gets in the way of this perfect thing that they made. It's a strive for perfection.

Photo: Ron Baker

I'm looking for stuff that's real and sincere, mainly that's what I want to come through the songwriting, more than anything else. I'm looking for sincerity, and when I hear that sincerity there it's so exciting to find a song you've never heard. It's a drug, man, it's musical porn. You can say whatever you want, it's a drug. You're constantly looking for that thing, like it's the first time you've heard "Eleanor Rigby" or "Misunderstood" and you're going, "I want to feel this way every time I hear a new song." So you're digging and digging and digging, and it renews your faith that not only did this person do something, but all these other people that aren't really talked about did something really great. So it's mainly striving for that sincerity of that influence, instead of the influence itself.

BD: From listening to some of your older stuff, I can hear a lot of influence from your old "self." Like on "Caroline" or even "Love & Harm," the title track, I get more things I'm used to when I put on a Leatherbag record. Was that intentional, at least so far as showing some of your other influences was intentional?

LB: Well, "It's Over" was written first for the new record, and it was written effortlessly, and exactly how I felt at the time. I had three jobs and I was tired, and I didn't feel like I could really say anything. So that's what I said.

"Caroline" was part of a record I was trying to write that was all female names. And that was when I was in my groove with folk. I was in the groove, man, like I still have a ton of songs that I didn't record, like 5 or 6 more, that were all written about people I don't know, women I don't know, situations that I don't know. But I was in the groove where I felt like I had a hold of something, like I got to a point where I knew I had a hold of something and instead of doing what people normally do, I decided: fuck it, I'm going to try to spread my wings here. If I feel like I got a handle on this, I don't need to do this anymore.

Ray Davies was talking about the Kinks, and he said, "The Kinks was never a problem writing, I had a muse for that. I knew how to do that, it was a simple "1+2=3" math problem. How do I get to the hook? What do I do here? Talk about these weird characters, a few puns and it works." But when he was talking about himself, it was very hard.

That makes sense to me, you can get to a place where your own idea of who you are, the music that you make, can become its own thing. And that's scary to me; I don't want that. My whole idea is, whatever we do next, it has to further itself. We could've made another Love Me Like The Devil record and it would've been no problem at all. But the big thing that happened to me was, Indie rock, I completely abandoned it, and it's the most freeing experience of my life.

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We've got a new interview up with Blake, who heads up local band Aliens, as well as the label Misc. Music.







Blake - Photo: Andrea Bucci


It's ironic that, even though I'm interviewing the mastermind of what is perhaps the most unique band in Austin, at least in terms of not quite fitting in with the "scene," I'm in the interview capital of the city – Spider House. Blake, of Aliens, has agreed to join me for the evening, and we're now crammed into a secluded booth, sharing ideas on the nature of "genre labels," the exclusivity of "the Austin sound," radio commercials and, most importantly, Aliens.

Big Diction: People have a hard time classifying the aliens, I've heard "Punk," I've heard "Rock," I've heard just "Noise Rock." Where do you put the band and does that matter to you?

Blake: Yeah, it doesn't really matter, I mean it's just music. To me it's music that I think about and it just comes out that way. But it is intentional too, it's something very specific that I'm trying to do. So I kind of shy away from labels, but only because people use them as a way to forget you. They use them as a way to negate any power you might have. They stick you in this little box and say, "This is all you are." It seems like a way to pigeon hole people and forget them, "Oh they're that – they sound like this band."

Aliens at CBGBs

But I do use the punk thing – some people have said, "just get rid of that and you'll be fine." Punk rock, while I wasn't paying attention changed into this classifying thing. When I think of punk rock, I think of Sex Pistols and Ramones and all the early stuff, and if The Clash is punk then that's a different area of punk. So punk to me is really not a label specific thing that people use it for, it's more of an idea system of being able to let your self not be held by that stuff. So it's ironic that it's become a thing where you have to wear black and you have to wear a leather jacket, and and you have to have gel in your hair, and an arm bracelet. I can't do that stuff, I just won't. I don't care… I don't have a leather jacket!

Big Diction: The album has a diverse sound to it; songs like "Stow Away" sound like a hard version of some kind of demented R.E.M., whereas "Guinea Pig" has punk elements to it. Is that something you've done intentionally?

Blake: I did want to make it diverse because I didn't want all the songs to sound the same. It seems like there are a lot of bands right now who do the same thing over and over again, and it was never something I could do. Even playing a song straight through with 3 or 4 chords can be taxing. I come from this background of noise-jazz-improv-music, but using a guitar and distortion pedals.

It gets tricky with the monikers, but I wanted to put together an album that showed a broad range. I could've put it together where the songs were close to the same, with the differences being more minute, but it didn't really show everything. I have two different modes that I tend to go to a lot. One is a really lo-fi kind of songwriter thing, which is probably highly influenced by Daniel Johnson, Jad Fair, and other people – like blues stuff, but it comes out differently. And then there's futuristic punk-rock n' roll that just happens. It works with the lyrics.

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