You may know them best for the songs they released in the ’90s, but Portland rockers The Dandy Warhols have been going strong for 30 years, and have just released their 12th studio album. The new album includes collaborations with The Pixies’ Frank Black, Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Guns N’ Roses’ Slash. We talk to singer guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor and keyboardist Zia McCabe about the band’s legacy.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today with the Portland band The Dandy Warhols. They formed three decades ago and released their first album a year later. Eleven more have followed, in addition to dozens of singles. Name a style of rock and roll from the last 30 years or so, and there’s a good chance it’s been used to describe some of their music, from neo-psychedelia and alternative, or garage rock, to shoegaze, power pop, country fried Americana. Their latest album, which includes collaborations with the Pixies’ Frank Black, Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Guns N’ Roses’ Slash, is called “Rockmaker.” I’m joined now by the Dandy Warhols keyboardist Zia McCabe. It’s great to have you on the show.
Zia McCabe: Thank you.
Miller: I want to start with the opening song from your new album “Rockmaker.” The track is called “Doomsday Bells.”
[“Doomsday Bells” playing by The Dandy Warhols]
Ring-dong, ring-a-ding, dong
Ring-dong, ring-a-ding, ding-dong
Ooh, I can’t keep from wanting to find a way back
To the world that I left behind me
I could walk for a long, long time
And I’ll never get
I never could find it …
[Song fades out]
Miller: That’s “Doomsday Bells” from the new Dandy Warhols album “Rockmaker.” Zia, what was the starting point for this new album?
McCabe: Well, there’s kind of the philosophical side and then the sound side. So each song was meant to start with a rock riff.
Miller: Like a crunchy, metally riff.
McCabe: Yeah. And Courtney [Taylor] and Peter [Holmstrom], this is very much their brainchild. They wanted a hard rock album that wasn’t a knuckle dragger. They wanted a hard rock album that still had nuance, intellect and innovation, which when you think of a hard rock album, you kind of think of the formula, and we all know what that is. And you’ll hear it in there. But you can also hear where they deviate from that original concept.
We operate on the premise of, the inspiration in theory is just whatever it takes to get you started. Once you’re started, you sort of owe it to the song to let the song become what it’s meant to become. If you’d adhere too much to the theory, you might miss out on really where it was supposed to organically develop into. You can really hear that on this record – there’s hard rock elements, but there’s still the elements that we’ve included over the years on our other albums.
Miller: Do you consciously say, what haven’t we done, what is a new thing? Or is that not part of the process?
McCabe: I don’t know if we quite word it that way. But we all spend a lot of time discussing what is exciting for us in that moment. And oftentimes, that’s reactionary to what the market is saturated with. So when grunge was really becoming something you couldn’t get away from, we didn’t want to write angsty music about being mad at our parents. We wanted stuff to be a little more sexy and loungey, and that was a reaction to grunge. Though when I listened to our first records, they still sound pretty grunge. But at the time, it seemed very, very loungey.
If there’s too many guitars, we want to make a keyboard record. If there’s too many keyboards, we get excited about guitars again. So it’s very reactionary.
Miller: I mentioned that list of folks that are on this contributing songs: Frank Black, Debbie Harry, Slash. Do you have an ongoing wish list, legends who are next?
McCabe: So, that brings me to the other kind of inspiration of “Rockmaker” – the times, the dumpster fires and the protests. We all know what we were all going through, fires, COVID and all that stuff, and it felt kind of apocalyptic, right? And you can hear it in the music, you can hear it in the lyrics, and I think guest musicians sort of fit that … though Debbie Harry is an anomaly, but Slash and the harder stuff.
For me, I need the next record to be a response to this. I need it to be sort of that overgrowth that comes after the apocalypse, that you can’t kill the planet, that things do recover, that life does sprout again. And I need that record. I think the world needs that sentiment, that we can survive anything. So in my mind, I’m thinking of the Brian Enos of the world, the more ambient, more lush, more beautiful, more sensitive and legato; less aggressive, pokey, angry and frustrated. So now, we’re kind of developing the wish list of who might we get on this next record.
Miller: So you have this idea, almost like your response to your own record. How does the conversation go? When you bring it to the other folks in the band, “This is what I’m feeling, this is where I want to go next,” what happens next?
McCabe: It’s never been so distinct as this, I don’t think. But this last record was so hard for me to connect with. It’s very masculine. Peter did a lot more of the songwriting. I’m much more used to contributing to Courtney’s songwriting. So there was a style newness that had more changes and stuff that I just wasn’t as used to. I relied heavily on my percussive abilities, and much less on bassline writing or even other keyboard parts. I kind of stayed away from melody and really focused on percussion.
Eventually, me and Courtney were talking about it, I felt a little bit of shame that I didn’t have the same level of enthusiasm. Though we all have waxed and waned over the years of where each person is motivated. Courtney’s like, “This is not a Zia record.” It’s really not. But no hurt feelings, your percussion slaps.
Miller: Would you have said the same thing early on?
McCabe: I might not have said it in public.
Miller: You would have felt it, but would you have been as OK with saying, “The next one, I’ll have a bigger role, and the next one will be closer to me emotionally?”
McCabe: I think sometimes I was surprised to have a big role or not a big role. Sometimes it was what’s going on in our personal lives and you just get a little distracted. Or people are so motivated, you don’t see your way in because they’ve just got it, and you just kind of fit in where you can. This one was so far from my sentiment and feelings about music these days that I just really felt reactionary in our own band, rather than reactionary to the world outside as much. It’s a new vibe. We’ll see how this next circuit goes …
Miller: You still have to play these songs.
McCabe: And it’s not that I don’t like the songs. The record’s done, and I trusted that they would find their way into being authentically Dandy Warhols songs. But I couldn’t see my way before it was shaped. And usually, I can. So it was a unique experience.
Miller: Let’s go back to the beginning. I want to play a track from the debut album, “Dandys Rule OK.” This is “Ride.”
[“Ride” playing by The Dandy Warhols]
You’re my ride
And I’m out my window
And it’s alright
If you’ve got candy-o
You’re so cool
And I’m not much older …
[Song fades out]
Miller: What is it like for you to listen to this song right now?
McCabe: Again, that’s got some grunge elements. I had no idea what was going on.
Miller: You were 18?
McCabe: I was 19 when we made this, and it was to 2-inch tape. We’ve literally done records on every recording media that there is. They called me “one take wonder,” they loved that I had good rhythm, I played the root notes. There’s a passing note in there once in a while. I didn’t know the role of bass player, I didn’t know how to play keywords. I knew I wanted to be in a band, and the rest was just sort of show up, don’t complain and try to be on time. I failed both of those things. [Laughter]
Miller: So many bands flame out, they break up, people die early. Back then, if you imagined the future of yourself in this band, how far did your imagination go into the future?
McCabe: Every new thing felt like … To play La Luna – to speak of old Portland – to headline La Luna and see kids lined around the block and girls with my hair cut, I’m like, “We’ve made it.” To drive to San Francisco and play a house party, “We’ve made it.” To open for Love and Rockets, “We’ve made it.” To get a tour bus, “We’ve made it.” Everything came at us at a pace where each thing just felt like, I can die happy.
So looking that far into the future I don’t think was something maybe Courtney was doing, but I certainly wasn’t. I was just in a wonderland of amazement. But you say people flame out or break up, we got to our kind of dark place where you get petty, you lose focus. You think it’s more important to tell each other what your problems are – “You know what your problem is?” We all know what our problems are, you don’t need to go around telling each other all day long.
We’re pulled over on the side of the road, it’s a blizzard, everyone’s in a bad mood.
Miller: When was this? Or was this more than once?
McCabe: No, this was a very specific time. We’ve been in a van for a long time and we were playing venues with no heaters. And I was getting pretty sour. Me and Courtney are the people that confront each other the most aggressively. He just looked at all of us and was like, “Are we doing this or not? Because if we are, we’re not doing it like this. This is gross.” So it was this moment to just go, “This is about the music stuff, the rest of it, let’s go do our jobs. Have fun as often as we can. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Just sweep it under the carpet. We’re not here to fix each other. We’re here to make cool records and have fun on the road.”
What does it take to have fun on the road? It’s like family. There’s stuff you don’t bring up to keep the peace. And you just learn that. Thirty years – we have spent more time together than most families for sure.
Miller: Many marriages.
McCabe: Many marriages.
Miller: So is the secret just put up with each other?
McCabe: Yeah. Let it go, man. We all know I am never going to be on time. I am never going to be on time. It doesn’t mean I’m not trying. It’s not out of disrespect. I don’t have the ability to get out the door. They can decide to keep being mad at me or not. That is something they will have to hold in their body.
Miller: You said it’s like families, you have to stick together. Obviously, some families don’t, some people decide that their family dynamic is so toxic or so damaging that they make a break. And you don’t have to stay together as a band either. You do it, I imagine, because what you get out of it is worth it.
McCabe: Courtney asked not that long ago, “Why are we still doing this?” Because sometimes it is stinkin’ hard, right? And the rewards seem either far away in the front or the back of our life. And I was like, “Because if we didn’t, we would be sad.” At this point, it is our life defining piece. We are in The Dandy Warhols together. We have been and ever shall be. Courtney says it every night after the show, “we have been and ever shall be The Dandy Warhols.” We have our side projects, we have our families.
We have de-centered it. Like it used to be, if something came up, everyone was expected to cancel. We’ve missed family members, funerals. I moved my wedding, I moved my honeymoon for tours. I planned my pregnancy around the cycle of an album. That, we don’t do anymore. We understand that life is complex. So we tour as much as we can stand. We look for balance so that we can keep doing it. It needs to still be life fulfilling.
Miller: Let’s have a listen to another song. This is from “Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia,” what remains now your bestselling album. This is “Godless.”
[“Godless” playing by The Dandy Warhols]
Hey, I said you were Godless then
It seems like you’re a soulless friend.
As thoughtless as you were back then,
I swear that you are Godless.
Hey, I guess you’re lonely, when
I gave, you only took, So then
It’s stranger then its ever been.
I guess it’s what you wanted …
[Song fades out]
Miller: As I noted, this is from your bestselling album – “Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia,” this is “Godless.” What does success look like now? And how has your understanding of what it means to be successful changed?
McCabe: Well, success in business and success in, like, fame are very different. To keep a business solvent looks very different. It’s something we have to be very involved in. If you’re at our level or smaller, if you are asleep at the wheel, you are losing money. So to stay solvent, we have to really, really stay in the driver’s seat of our finances and keep a really close watch on where the money goes, which is something I’ve kind of made my responsibility. And then, as far as success …
Miller: Where the money goes, but also where the money comes in, right?
McCabe: Yeah. Well, you watch it go a lot more than you watch it come in. I think we all know that about finances … most of us. But yeah, we are able to remain solvent. I’m in my eighth year of real estate, so it’s not like we haven’t found other income sources.
And then as far as the fame goes, we came really close to the level of fame that typically corrupts your personality. We kind of watched our audience grow to a level where we didn’t feel like we had something in common with all of them. There’s a size of audience that you can kind of feel like you all relate, or for us, we feel like we’ve cultivated a vibe and a scene in a community. And then it hits this tipping point where you’re just popular. So you might not have people there that you connect with. Also, you start to have the amenities that can make you a little selfish, a little privileged, a little bratty.
Miller: And it seems like you were saying you got close to it, you got a taste of it, and then your popularity went down a little bit.
McCabe: I started to see it. We peaked and then kind of leveled off. And honestly, for our wellbeing and people that we can like … I can like myself. I started to not like myself so much.
Miller: So, what is an example of what you saw in yourself because of the adulation you’re getting or who you were getting it from? What did you see in yourself that you didn’t like?
McCabe: Well, I remember the day. I was on the stage and I said, “Until there’s something in this dressing room I can eat, I’ll be on the bus.” And I pulled the strings on my hoodie tight and I stomped off. And as I was walking away, I was like, “That was gross. Who are you right now? You grew up poor, you know what government cheese tastes like. What is this behavior? Yuck.”
But the other thing is, joining a band, especially as young as I was, you have kind of a social arrested development. People say “yes” to you more often, they laugh at your jokes. You’re at the center of attention, which is something I very clearly liked, desired and get off on. And it’s a drug in your body the way that many other substances change your dopamines. You aren’t challenged the same way by friends. You’re not expected to show up for people the same way. And I had to, in my late 30s, learn what friendship was, which is a weird time in your life to go, “Hey, I don’t know if I have any really substantial relationships.”
Miller: How did you do that? If you had 20 years of get-out-of-jail free card in terms of social interactions because there was love that was just being given to you – if I understand correctly – that wasn’t dependent on what you were giving out into the world …
McCabe: I didn’t have to reciprocate. I got to play rock shows.
Miller: You put music out. So how do you learn those basic skills at the age of 38?
McCabe: Well, I was selling my house and I ran out of free labor. I was feeling bitter about it like, “oh nobody’s helping me.” And I realized, when was the last time you helped somebody move, or spackle walls and paint, and do those things that you do for each other, pet sit or whatever? List some off, and the list was pathetically puny. So I chose the people in my life that I felt were good examples, good influences that had showed up for me without question. And I doubled down on reciprocating in those relationships, and tried to show my body that it meant as much to give in a 1:1 dynamic as it did to be in these bigger exchanges that I was having. So I got deep instead of surface.
Miller: When you say your body, so you could get the same dopamine hit from actually just being a one-on-one friend as opposed to having strangers yell your name?
McCabe: Yeah, helping one person. Exactly. So that was just a choice I made. On my 40th birthday in Mexico, I had 10 women there that were the people that I’d been cultivating relationships with the last few years. And it was this beautiful reward to feel like I had this intimate community with these women, separate from being a rock star.
Miller: Do you mind telling us a story about the time that you met Willie Nelson at the Glastonbury Festival?
McCabe: So, I grew up in a log cabin in Battle Ground, Washington that my dad built in the ‘70s. He built the speaker cabinets and he taught me how to put records on the turntable. And a lot of times on Sundays, it was “Red Headed Stranger” or different Willie Nelson records. He was somebody that I listened to growing up, and I saw him as my hero. Then later in life, his politics are heroic: Farm Aid, cannabis, all of the stuff he’s done. And somebody told me Willie Nelson was playing Glastonbury, as I was braiding my hair unknowingly. So I grabbed my bubbles and ran over – I would always have hula hoops, roller skates or bubbles – and started watching him. And the second he came out with Trigger and started “Whiskey River,” I just started crying, blowing bubbles and crying, and was so overwhelmed by seeing this person in real life who had been such a part of growing up.
He finishes his show and my husband kind of pushes me over to say hi to him. By the time I get face to face, I am hyperventilating, I can’t get a word out. I absolutely cannot get a word out. And he hugged me anyway, he was kind, he was patient. He wasn’t intimidated by my slobbering. So I walked away saying, “If anybody ever feels that way about me, I’m going to be as accommodating.” And went over to our show to play in the afternoon and it was such a beautiful day. As the clouds were parting, the sun rays were coming out, audience members were hugging and balloons were floating into the sky, it was this dream moment. We played “Godless,” and I started to choke up over our own music, our own opportunities and our own audience.
Right after, [there] was a fan sobbing. And I’m like, “Are you OK?” And her friend goes, “She just loves you so much.” I’m “OK, you do not have enough time to love me the way I love Willie. But I just promised the universe to be accommodating.” So I gave her my hat and gave her a hug.
And later that night was the night we met David Bowie. I didn’t actually, my cup was full. My cup runneth over. I left, it was cold. But I did blow bubbles from the scaffolding, and you can see them on YouTube if you look at his Glastonbury concert.
Miller: Zia, it was a pleasure talking with you. Thanks so much and congratulations on 30 years.
McCabe: Thanks.
Miller: That is Zia McCabe, who is a keyboardist for The Dandy Warhols. They have been a band for 30 years now. They’re celebrating those three decades at a show at the Crystal Ballroom tomorrow night. Their new album is called “Rockmaker.” We’re gonna go out with the song “Good Morning,” which they played after that meeting with Willie Nelson.
[“Good Morning” playing by The Dandy Warhols]
In my good good morning
I’m up before the sun can break,
early morning, and everyone
like a shiny thing …
[Song fades out]
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