Nixon Talks

Rip It Up, Issue 147, 1 October 1989, Page 16

Nixon Talks

Hello Mojo

Mojo Nixon is nota man to be taken lightly. He’s bordering on legend status.

After three LPs and an EP of primal dementia (who can can forget classics like ‘l'm Living With A Three-Foot Anti-Christ’ or ‘| Hate Banks’), Mojo has produced his most mature and musical effort so far in Root Hog Or Die and has even crossed overinto TV and movies. Appearances on MTV led to Mojo appearing in Great Balls Of Fire as Jerry Lee’s drummer, James Van Eaton. Evenifthe part did only consist of “Getting into a car, then getting out of a car,” it's still a fine start for an ex-Bible School student who met his musical sidekick in a prison for bad Elvis impersonators. Yes, Mojo Nixon is definitely a serious man — why else would | be dragged from my sick bed, given 40-something pages of bio and made fo talk to someone who sounds like Foghorn Leghorn and describes his music as a cross between Howlin’

Wolf and Hunter S Thompson. Under the circumstances, | decided the safe approachwould be best. So Mojo, | hearyou got married, congratulations. “Yeah, the Go-Kart Track extravaganza. It was a truly sick and pagan event, flaunting in the face of decorum everywhere. We had the - traditional victory lap that all Go-Kart weddings have, we had fireworks - goin’ off, and Country Dick Montana from the Beat Farmers was the Universal Life Minister there. We had pretty twisted vows, part of them was she has to keep Mountain Beerin the refrigerator, and | have to bring the Tallywhacker home clean ofter each tour and what not. Thenwe had a 21 water balloon salute—we had a grand old time!” _ That seems like a suitable : Hollywood style wedding fora burgeoning film star such as yourself —how's the solo project coming along? ; : “Well, we're working on that, we've gotwhatyou'd calla

pre-production deal, some kind of pact with the devil going on this thing tentatively titled Citizen Mojo and we're tryin'to get a screenplay writ, then we'll make a movie that'll make John Ford turn over in his grave. Basically, I'll be having visions concernin’ Mojoworld, and Il - probably be getting messages from the TV. Otis the Drunk from the Andy Griffith Show will be speakin’ to me through the TVso as only | can hear, and there will probably be some evil shopping mall developers who I'll have to battle with, not by traditional weapons but by subterfuge and anarchy and pandemonium — all the thingsllove!” -

On the subject of pandemonium, | understand thatyou got quite a few calls to the Elvis Hotline (619) 239-KING (It's a real number, folks), around 16,000 in fact.

“And that was justin one month! We've had a whole bunchsince them, we're getting like 500 a day — things are totally out of hand!” What's the general reaction? “Most people say nothin’, justa fewwords orthey hang up, and a few people say abit. Butaboutone in 10 are true nutcases, ranting and raving, someone who'sin a mental hospital or just got through worshipping the devil— we're talking real nutcases.” And what about this Debbie

Gibson thing—why Debbie? I've always thought Tiffany was a more raunchy role model, the sort of wild mallkid.

“Well, Debbie is the one | made love fo. | didn't make love to Tiffany because her mom wouldn'tlet her.

But Debbie Gibson just rolled off the tongue, you know: “Debbie Gibson is pregnant” — it flows. “Kylie Minogue is pregnant” just doesn't sound as good. Kylie and Debbie and Tiffany have apact with the Devil, it's some lluminati plot to take overthe world —l'mtrying to warn people.”

There's a definite social conscience on this new LP. Not only is it quite musical, butyou're approaching issues. Outside of the lluminati plots, you attack censorship, greed, excess and complacency. Do you see yourself becoming a sort of 90s Woody Guthrie? : “Woaah doggie! | don'tknow about that. I'm just being the nutjob that! am. | did make a conscious effortto make a more musical record. | wentto Memphis to work with Jim Dickinson, and | wanted the record soif you heard it without me singin’ overthe top you'd say, “Yeah, that's

pretty good, you can dance fo this, you can ride around in'your car and getdrunkto this, it's okay.” So | tried to make a more musical record, and I've been saying polifical or anarchist orwhatever things all along, so they justwent over the top of that. So | don'tknow about Woody Guthrie, but! do plan onstirrin’ up as much trouble as possible.”

Ifyou were doing something other than being a reluctant spokesman for crazies, what do you think it would be?

“Well, I've contemplated becoming a stock car driver or maybe a used carsalesman ora preacher or maybe a big time wrestling manager.” Yeah, I've always wanted to be a wrestling manager—whenyou're young they seem like these totally evil geniuses who can make these big monsters go wild. “Well, you've got those New Zealandguysthatarejust embarrassing the hell out of y'all | imagine.” : The Bushwhackers? They're actually pretty popular here; like you

see kids doing that Bushwhacker walk down the street. "HAHAHAHAH! Boy, | like the” Bushwhackers, that's true theatre. That chicken-shit stuff they've got in New York ain't theatre but the Bushwhackers is. Shakespeare. would be diggin’ on the ‘ Bushwhackers!” : Wow, that'd be cool, Shakespeare meets the Bushwhackers. ; “Yeah, maybe if you took some peyote you could conjure it up!” Speaking of drug-crazed lunatics, have you ever considered going into

politics? . "HAHAHAH! Yeah! But the problem with politicsis'd have to be honest and my honesty would run me out. I think politics in Americais a giantquagmire, | don'tthink I'd want to be involved directly, but I try to giveitsome impetus. You know, the two party systemin Americaisas

dead as a doornail. We need a third and a fourth and afifth party. We need to rethink everything, and hopefully Il be one of the thinkers who'llmake others think as well. |

don'thave Mojo Nixon's 12 Steps To Nirvana, butl do know if we keep goin’the way we are, we're going to blow our own asses away. We're just sittin’ on our butts frefting when we should be explorin’ and doin’ new

things, too many people are afraid, we've got a lot of fearful chickenshits here, we needalotmore - headstrong nutcases. Americans should have some weirdness in them. I mean, America was foundedby people who were slaves or were kicked out of Europe or wherever. The average American ain'tno high-toned blueblood —they stayed in Europe! America was founded by nutcases, religious nutcases mainly, andwe needtorememberthat. America should be the home of the weird, the freedom-seeking—-instead we've turned into some huge, bloated monster!” Yeah, what ever happened to the nation that gave us stuff like the Addams Family, flower power, processed cheese and Evel Knievel —you're a big Evel fan, aren'tyou? “HELLYEAH! He's atrue American, atrue psychopath.”

He definitely sums up asort of wild approach fo life. e “And he hasthe same tailor as Elvis! Actually, Elvis, Evel and the Pope goto the same tailor!” Whatever happened to Evel? Did he die in some huge canyon? “No, no.|don'tknow if | fold you aboutthis, but we had this master planto get Evel Knievel to do the album cover artwork! Evel’s now painting Remington-style western landscapes up in Montana and we were going to get him to do our cover. We talked to himand everything, but it was going fo cost s3s,ooo.said, well maybe we can get SSOOO out of the record company, but 35— helll We were going to have asticker on the album saying “Artwork by Evel Knievel”, but maybe next time. Actually, | really wantto have Evel and George Zamphir, the master of the Pan flutes, involvedin the same project. That would transcend all boundaries — in Americathere'sthese TV commercials and this whole Zamphir cult.” : ~ Really? “Yeah, they do these commercials, “the haunting melodies of George Zamphir, Master of the Pan flutes.” Totally insane stuff, so we've gotto get Zamphir and Evel Knievel on one album. We'd ruletheworld.” You'd definitely get some cool solos. “True, then we could get another sticker saying “Solos by Zamphir, Master of the Pan Flutes”. And all these white trash connisseurs would buy it because of the Evel Knievel artwork. Isn't Zamphir from someplace down under?” What? ; Atthis point, the flu drugs must have really kicked in as the remainder of the interview is, well, creative. Mojo discussed his project supergroup and why the police would be naked; and he told me aboutthe Mojo Nixon revelation

and how to mix the Skylab Fallout that caused it (although if you drink more than three you tend fo be

somewhat paralysed). And then we gotdown fo the truly ugly stuff, like why Mojo wants to come here to cause havoc and why he ended up drinking out of the commode plunger in Las Vegas. But this is a family magazine and | can't really gointo details about such things (although buy me a beer sometime and all will be explained). Butl will say thatwe should definitely listen to the likes of Mojo Nixon. Sure, he's alunatic, but when the world is as homogenised and boring as itis, maybe, just maybe, lunatics like Mojo will start making sense again. ' ; ,

“I've contemplated becoming a stock car driver or maybe aused-car salesman, or a preacher or abig time wrestling manager.” : _ »

“Kylie and Debbie and Tiffany have apactwith the Devil. It's some Illuminati plot to take over the world — I'm trying to warn people.”

“Actually I really wanted to have Evel Knievel and George Zamphir, the Master of the Pan Flutes, involved in the same project.” : ’

“The average American ain’t no high-toned blueblood — theystayed in Europe! Americawas founded by ' nutcases, religious nutcases mainly, and we need to remember that.” : e

KIRK GEE