Exclusive Interview

Justin St. Vincent from Xtreme Music interviewed Ches Smith and Devin Hoff of Good For Cows on July 13, 2004 San Francisco (CA), Bottom Of The Hill.

Xtreme Music: I’m here backstage at Bottom Of The Hill, San Francisco, with members of Good For Cows. I have Ches and Devin with me, thanks very much for being here. I’d like to start the interview by asking, how exactly would you describe your music?

Devin Hoff: Well, it’s instrumental bass and drums..

Ches Smith: Basically, we write these tunes and then we play on them.. meaning improvise. There’s different degrees of improvisation in each tune and different ways of improvising.. We try to keep them as concise as possible and each piece has it’s own thing going on, well, that’s the goal at least!

Xtreme Music: Great! I really enjoyed the live show tonight, it was fantastic. Could you tell us about some of your main influences and how they’ve shaped your musical direction.

Devin Hoff: Wow! The influences specifically on this band would include Anthony Braxton, Black Flag, Ornette Coleman, Blowfly (chuckles)… Joe Ellian..

Ches Smith: Dose or Mike White.. probably Deerhoof..

Devin Hoff: Yeah, Deerhoof have actually been one of the bigger influences..

Ches Smith: And whatever the average Slayer fan listens to..

Devin Hoff: But not Slayer, just what they listen to..

Ches Smith: Yeah, I mean Slayer is an influence on me and Devin individually but we can’t really cite that per-se.

Xtreme Music: When you’re recording the various songs for your albums, what innovation production techniques do you incorporate into your music?

Ches Smith: Recording? It’s pretty much live. I’m in a band called Theory Of Ruin with this guy Alex Newport, and he’s actually my favourite engineer. He’s really into you-know getting natural drum sounds and he turns out to be great for this project! And he works cheap for us, coz he’s a friend.. (laughter)

Devin Hoff: Yeah, absolutely! He is a bit of a throw-back, everything’s using actual tape, razor blades, and good microphones..

Ches Smith: I think that’s kinda his fortie you-know, and also using the room sound and not a billion mics on the drums. You-know just trying to get the sound of the people playing.

Xtreme Music: Could you tell us about some of the Bay Area musicians that you guys have worked with?

Devin Hoff: Yes, first of all we have Ben Goldberg who’s a clarinet player around here. I guess we’ve only been working with him for three years or so. I met him through Graham Conner who’s a pianist, composer around town. We are both good friends with Scott Amendola who I play with in some other bands.. And Carla Kihlstedt from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum..

Ches Smith: She’s a violinist and she’s a great friend and musician. Devin has a band called The Red Dressers actually, and she’s in that.. and that record is coming, right?.. this week..

Devin Hoff: Yeah, I guess so.. Ches and I also play together with John Schlott, guitar player, Will Bernard, another guitar player. Played together in a lot of bands and then separately in other projects.

Xtreme Music: You mentioned Ben Goldberg and Scott Amendola, they’ve also collaborated with Trevor Dunn from Mr. Bungle. Have you guys crossed paths with him?

Devin Hoff: He’s in his band [gestures to Ches Smith]..

Ches Smith: I’m in a version of Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant. We recorded a record in February that comes out.. either next week or at the very end of July. That was recorded in New York with Mary Halvorson, she’s a guitar player I really like out there. Trevor introduced me.. he kinda put the band together. I guess I just did some work with Trey Spruance also, from Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3, on this album which just came out, “Book Of Horizons”.

Xtreme Music: Fantastic! Could you tell us a little bit about the latest edition of the Secret Chiefs 3 album?

Ches Smith: Yeah, I can tell you some.. but Trey basically had me come in and record these parts that he had written. The rhythms really support the songs in all his music, so there’s all this stuff I didn’t know. I was kinda listening to the demos and I didn’t realize it was as important as it was until we met a few weeks before the recording. Then I was scrambling to learn all this.. it’s all really precise! It’s amazing music, he just basically recording it with people at his leisure, and then mixed the whole thing. I just really like the album, I’m on like half of it but I just like the whole thing. I like it in spite of the fact that I was on it (laughter).. I think it’s a good record!

Xtreme Music: It is an incredible album available on Mimicry Records via WebOfMimicry.com. Which particular bands on “Book Of Horizons” do you feature in?

Ches Smith: Um, you-know I’m not actually sure what they’re called. There’s about seven bands.. and he mentioned a couple more albums also that I believe are coming soon. There’s at least one of two things that I recorded that haven’t come out yet. I’m pretty sure that they were like finished songs. I actually recorded the drums last, which is the opposite of what normally happens.

Xtreme Music: You’ve also done some work with John Zorn on “Voice In The Wilderness” for the Tzadik label. Could you tell us about some of that work which you guys have done?

Devin Hoff: That was with the Ben Goldberg Trio..

Ches Smith: It was pretty much set up through Ben.. Zorn called Ben and just had him produce a track for the record.. He just called us to make it a trio piece.

Devin Hoff: We just finished doing a recording with Ben for what should hopefully be his new record with Carla Kihlstedt and Rob Southerth, a really great tenor player from around here. Well, was from around here, but now is from New York.

Xtreme Music: So you’ve collaborated with numerous musicians from the New York downtown jazz music scene as well as Bay Area improvisors here in San Francisco. How have your live tours been going and what has the crowd reaction been like?

Ches Smith: For Good For Cows?.. it’s been good, we’ve pretty much done regional stuff only. I think the farthest east in the states we’ve made it is Colorado, which is roughly a third across. You-know, we’ve also been concerntrating on the North-West and L.A. It always surprises us how well it goes, right?

Devin Hoff: Even from the first show, I’m surprised people liked it!

Ches Smith: We have low expectations you have to understand.. (laughs)

Xtreme Music: What do you feel has been the most enjoyable or most memorable moment in Good For Cows’ music career?

Ches Smith: I guess for me just having our third record out! It kinda started out as this semi-nebulous idea, maybe a bad idea you-know.. we were just like “Ah, just fuck it! We’ll just do it!”. Then we kept getting encouragement! I always think it’s Greg, of Deerhoof’s idea.. this band, just because he was always.. he and a few other people that we really respected were always just like “Yeah! That’s was great!” and we were like, “O.K.. we’ll just keep doing our thing”.

Xtreme Music: Could you tell us a bit about your latest album with Good For Cows?

Ches Smith: Yes! Skip passed the first song! (laughter).. first of all

Devin Hoff: Especially if there’s heart problems in your family!

Ches Smith: It’s our usual park slash rollercoaster warnings about it I guess! (more laughs)

Devin Hoff: What else.. I would say the new record we finally allowed ourselves free reign to give into all the, maybe..

Ches Smith: Juvenile impulses?

Devin Hoff: Absolutely!.. that we had prevented ourselves from on the first two records.

Ches Smith: Yeah, it’s uncensored and we don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not!.. No guarantees!

Devin Hoff: It’s the sound of two guys spending too much time alone together (laughs).. in a Volvo Stationwagon on I5! (laughter).

Xtreme Music: And for my final question, could you us a little bit about the future collaborations you’ll be working on, in the near future?

Ches Smith: Well, you have a new record out with the Singers, right?

Devin Hoff: Yeah, I have a new record coming out with Nels Cline Singers, that’ll be out soon. It’s done and good! The band Red Dresses, we’ve got coming out. We’ll hopefully being doing a tour with Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant, Nels Cline Singers and Good For Cows..

Ches Smith: Trevor doesn’t know about that, but he will soon! (laughs).. coz I’m doing a U.S. tour with him, supporting The Melvins and it’s like two months long, from August to October. Yeah, other than that.. just the usual stuff.

Devin Hoff: (laughs).. We stay very busy, but it’s hard to say exactly what we’re busy doing.

Xtreme Music: It’s been great to meet you both! Thank you very much and I wish you all the best in the near future!