Paradise: Land of the Meat Puppets"The Straight Dope"
by John Davidson
Campus Circle, February 28-March 13, 2001
After losing close friend [? They really play up and exaggerate the Cobain-Pups connection, don't they?-Editor] Kurt Cobain to addiction, Curt Kirkwood kicked his brother to the curb and brought the Meat Puppets back from the brink of a breakup.
Many of you weren't even born when the Meat Puppets released its first album back in 1981. Most of you weren't even in grade school when the seminal Meat Puppets II was released on SST in 1983. In fact, most of you probably didn't even know who the Meat Puppets [were] until Kurt Cobain sang one [three-Editor] of the band's songs on MTV "Unplugged" - ironic that the "Brothers Meat" were backing up Cobain since they were such a huge influence on him. The "Unplugged session proved prescient for the Pups when they got their only hit, "Backwater," as it cruised the burgeoning alt-rock landscape and into mass radio consciousness.
For lead Pup Curt Kirkwood, that brief period of success, complete with huge tours supporting Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, began a long period of frustration when he watched his brother Chris, the bass player, take the band's good fortune with him into drug addiction. After five years of wrangling, Curt was able to get things going again with a new band, a new label and new album, Golden Lies. The loquacious Kirkwood recently gave us the straight dope on his 20-year career.
With your long career, it seems like you're one of alt-rock's elder statesmen. How does it feel when you see all these young kids out there?
What it really is to me doesn't have anything to do with youth. It's nice that people are youthful at one point, but what I've always done has nothing to do with trying to pry the youth away from the authority figures or turn them against their parents, you know -- get them to bond over something stupid. I've never really been about that, even when I was younger. When I started the Meat Puppets, I was 21, and that's old.
A lot of people tie you in to Nirvana and being on 'Unplugged.' Are you tired or annoyed by that?
Nirvana came from us - I couldn't be annoyed by it. It doesn't matter what people think. I know the truth: I know what Kurt Cobain thought. I know he came from Black Flag and the Buttholes and Flipper and Bay City Rollers and Cheap Trick and shit. How could we come from them when we were eight years before them?
Was it weird to be playing with Nirvana on a support level since you were so influential to them?
No, because they were a way better band live. I mean, they kicked the shit out of us, and it's not strange to get the shit kicked out of you as an opener. Nirvana did it every fucking show. It would be strange if you were out opening for somebody and you were blowing them away, but it doesn't happen that much. It never happened to me, and most of the bands I've opened for through the years have been like Black Flag - bands that really hurt us. Los Lobos, the Chili Peppers - bands that are just really popular because they're really good. They just blow you off the stage. Stone Temple Pilots were awful to open for because they were just really good for their crowd. It puts you into perspective, which is a good thing.
How's your brother Cris doing?
Oh, he's fine.
Sober?
I don't know about that...
Do you guys keep in touch?
No.
If he were clean for a few years, would you want to play with him again?
I don't know. That's not realistic.
It's amazing that you were able to steer clear from addiction like that.
Let's clear that up. I've just never been into the high levels of use like him. I'm like Hunter Thompson - I say whatever I feel like. Hunter recently admitted that [his exaggeration of his drug use] was all shit, and I knew it, because nobody can party like that! I've hung around people who can party really hard, and they've all died, including my brother's wife. I've drunk to excess in my life... I saw this quote in Rolling Stone's "Random Notes" where it said I had an ounce of Ecstasy... who ever had an ounce of Ecstasy?! It was total bullshit!
What do you tell your kids about drugs?
The truth. They know it all. We've hidden nothing, and they've grown up next to Cris. Pretty much until Michelle [Cris's wife who OD'd] died, they lived next door to us... I think when you grow up around that stuff, you can get enamored of it or not. I've been lucky, and I just tell them to pay attention to the people they know and have grown up around. They've seen people go from being real people to not being real people. You can't do anything about it. If they're gonna do stuff, they're gonna do it.
How do you see Golden Lies compared to the rest of your albums?
It would be pretty hard to duplicate what happened in the '80s because there was no qualifications or justifications that had to be made. I look at Golden Lies as compared to what we did in the '80s because, until they put money into it at Atlantic [Records], nobody except people who were into the band [knew] it came out. That's the '80s for ya, as an indie label.
I mean, I got a nice Atlantic sweatshirt for Christmas, but... I don't wanna disparage the work the record company's done because [it's] tried. But whatever work we did in the '90s was negated by time. I'm trying to just see what the marketing thrust is, if there is one. Even with SST in the '80s, what [it does] is marketing. I's nice to have a record out, but I know what's up. I'm just lucky to be doing it. I'm pretty arrogant about what I am in the business. I don't care about how much validation millions of people give Def Leppard. They're fuckin' hacks.
It's not bragging if you can back it up. You guys can certainly play...
I'm a punk, too. I don't have to back it up.