It’s a bittersweet welcome back for Los Angeles punk legends X. Their new album, Smoke & Fiction, is everything fans could ask for, a wild ride taking in everything from Americana to jazz and beyond. It is also, the band say, the last one they will ever make. Vocalist Exene Cervenka joins us from her home in Orange, California to talk us through their spectacular swansong.
Is this really the last record you’ll make?
Well, we made a record and we’re going to tour. For us, touring means as many shows as we can string together, so that isn’t a screeching halt. But studio albums are a whole different thing. It’s a lot of work. I think if John [Doe, bassist and co-vocalist] and I write the most amazing song we’ve ever written, and we knew it could be a great X song, and someone said: “Hey, we need a song for a movie.” Well, sure. But to go and make an album? Nah.
There’s a feeling of nostalgia in the record. Was that deliberate?
That’s what people are hearing. But we’re not nostalgic, because we never stopped playing. It’s not like years ago we had this amazing moment in our life, let’s try to recreate it. It’s more like, say, the song Los Angeles, the first words are: ‘She had to leave.’ So you’re already past-tensing. And some of the songs are older lyrics that I wrote a long time ago and recently put together. A lot of it is playing with words and rhymes for me. I don’t always know when I write a song what it’s about or where it’s going, I just know that those lines sound great together.
You’ve never pigeonholed yourself musically. How did you manage that?
DJ [Bonebreak, drums] knows a lot about big-band music and jazz. Billy [Zoom, guitar] is into rootsy rock, country, obscure stuff, and John knows Mose Allison, Thelonious Monk… I like bluegrass and old country. But we grew up at a time when what was on the radio was pretty darn amazing. It was The Supremes and Ray Charles, Johnny Cash and The Beatles. And then it was The Doors and The Kinks and The Hollies and The Zombies. The radio here when I was a kid was the best songs ever written.
So that’s what influenced me. We’ve never been corporate rock people. And we never had to try to fit in because we were never going to, and it would have been a lost cause to try to become something we weren’t.
Was not fitting in part of your success?
No, it’s our grand failure! It’s only now that we’re getting any recognition. But the best success in the arts, without a doubt, is longevity. Did we ever have a number one song? No, we didn’t have hit songs. But we’re still together playing music.
How do you keep shows fun for X?
It’s physically hard. But the smartest thing John and I ever did was sharing the vocal duties because I’m 68 and I’m the youngest one in the band. What’s great is that John’s singing, and I’m dancing, then I’m singing and he’s running around, so we get to split it up. And I think part of our longevity is just that we all share everything.
Performing keeps you young, then?
I love it. And when we say it’s our last tour, I think what we mean is that we’re going to play until we can’t play anymore, however long that takes, but it’s not going to be for ever.
Smoke & Fiction is out now via Fat Possum Records.
