Photo by Cel Jarvis
April 2007
There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen to the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror. — John Coltrane
Sitting in Iggy Pop’s dressing room in the basement of the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, Mike Watt is on the 61st tour of his career. It’s a number that’s significant not just for it’s size, but for how engaged Watt is in spite of it. Some twenty-seven years now since he and his best friend D. Boon ignited the explosion of ideas and sounds known as The Minutemen, Watt is still anxious to open up new doors and marvel at what’s inside.
His resume is a testament to this, leaving you to search for a word that is somehow stronger and perhaps more dedicated in meaning than ‘prolific’. In the time since Boon’s tragic end in a fatal car crash in 1985, Watt has contributed his unique and wholly masterful bass playing to an extensive list of bands, projects, collaborations, experiments and excursions; including post-Minutemen trio fIREHOSE, the Middlemen, Banyan, Hellride, the double bass duo Dos, Porno for Pyros, the Black Gang, Ciccone Youth, Unknown Instructors, Pelicanman, and the most recent Kelly Clarkson album (to name a few). He also keeps extensive on-line tour journals on his website - hootpage.com - and broadcasts his three hour radio program The Watt from Pedro Show (now via podcast) whenever he is not on tour. It is a work ethic that springs from a deep and readily detectable desire to honour the memory of his friend and collaborator D. Boon, as well as a sort of spiritual hunger to chase down something real via his music. “I heard this interview with John Coltrane, where he said, ‘I think every musician is looking for some kind of truth,’” explains Watt, “and that’s pretty noble, because it’s not just some schtick to work on people in order to service some kind of lifestyle. Coltrane was on a journey.”
For Watt’s own present voyage, he has been enlisted by Iggy Pop and the Asheton brothers (Ron and Scott) to replace original bassist Dave Alexander (who died in 1975) for the reunited Stooges tour. Watching them play “1970” on the Warfield stage before a rabid audience, the band taps into something that is both profound and entirely ferocious. Perhaps it is precisely what Iggy meant by ‘Raw Power’, or Coltrane’s notion of things in their pure state. By the time Steve Mackay comes in with the wail of his saxophone, the Stooges have got us back to their naked essence… back to 1970.
Today, Mike Watt - or rather, as his fans and admirers know him: WATT (four large letters for the large sound coming from the four string) - continues to point us towards a genuine perception of music unobscured by industry, publicity and marketing campaigns. Although the Minutemen’s closing chapter was a tragic one, the prevailing character and spirit of their story has always been (and will continue to be) utterly triumphant. In this sense, Watt is still very much the Minuteman, arriving at different places and times in various forms to push the bounds to a better place.
Hobo was honoured to chat with him.
Charles Russo. — So how’s it going with the Stooges?”
Mike Watt. — Well finally, I’m the youngest guy in the band. (laughs) It’s quite an experience for me because they’re a primary source, so much stuff is second or third hand. I don’t even know if there would be a punk scene without the Stooges. I was sixteen years old when I first heard them. I couldn’t imagine playing with them thirty-three years later.
— What was the punk scene like when you were sixteen? Was there one?
— There was no punk scene. It came in ‘76 and ‘77…and that was when we graduated high school. I never went to a club until punk. What we knew as teenagers was arena rock: Zeppelin, the Who, Alice Cooper.
The punk shows were played up in Hollywood. We lived in the harbor - San Pedro - which is about thirty miles south. So we went up there and it was a whole different thing. You didn’t sit far away in the dark, you could go right up to the stage. And the nature of the scene was very different too, because it was very small a lot of the dudes playing would be standing out there after they were done. It was like they were taking turns playing for each other. And the first thing I told D. Boon was “Man, we can do this.” I never had those thoughts with arena rock…which was a sort of unreality.
So we came to figure that punk wasn’t even really a style….it was just a state of mind. Because all the bands were just so different. And you can tell a lot of the bands were just starting out playing. But what was really different - was that they were writing their own songs. Nobody wrote their own songs in those days. There were big rock bands, and that’s it. If you played, you copied records. So punk was different, these guys didn’t care about learning other people’s songs…they wrote their own. So that was a trip to us.
