Interview: Exene Cervenka (X)

So the back story on this conversation is that I did the interview for The Princess Anne Independent News in conjunction with the performance that X had scheduled for Elevation 27 in Virginia Beach. They were supposed to play there in late June, but due to one of the members needing unexpected surgery (from which he has since recovered, thankfully), they were forced to cancel their date. Unfortunately, when the band rolled out the rescheduled dates, there wasn’t one for Virginia Beach. D’oh…

Anyway, here’s the deal: my very nice editor, John Henry Doucette, only ever uses a portion of my interviews (he prefers proper articles rather than Q&As), so he’s made it clear that he doesn’t mind if I post the unexpurgated versions of my interviews on Substack. And although I was going to wait until the date was rescheduled to run the interview, if that’s not happening, then there would seem to be no reason to keep waiting on running it.

So here’s my conversation with Exene Cervenka. Yes, she’s offered up some controversial opinions in the past, and I certainly couldn’t get behind some of said opinions, but this was an extremely enjoyable chat for me, and I hope you find it to be such as well.

I'm thrilled to talk to you. I've been a fan since See How We Are. So technically I'm a latecomer, I guess, in the grand scheme of things.

Well, it depends on how old you are. How old are you?

I'm 52. 

Okay, so we'd already been around for awhile, but that makes sense. 

And I've done my time as a fan now.

So you went backwards, right? "Oh, what else did they do?"

Exactly. And I was also able to cement my fandom by seeing you guys open for David Bowie at Spartan Stadium.

Oh, yeah! That was, what, '87?

That's right: it was the summer of '87, because I'd just graduated from high school a few months earlier. It was quite the graduation present. So are you excited to get back out on the road? 

Oh, yeah. I can speak for everybody when I say that we really are glad about it. You know, when you go through a long career of 45 years, there's gonna be peaks and valleys, there's gonna be times when you don't want to do it anymore, there are times when people aren't as interested in you. But we're at the best part of our career right now. It's just joyous. So many people come to see us that are all ages, and they're happy to see us for the first time, they're happy to see us again, they can't believe they're getting to see us one more time... There's really nothing negative about it. Except that it's physically hard to be in a van. [Laughs.] The hardest part of touring is the van riding, the hotels that aren't that great, the dressing rooms that aren't that great, the late hours... But the show itself, that's amazing.

I was ecstatic when you guys released Alphabetland in 2020. I bought it immediately upon release, and I was thrilled.

Well, you know what happened with that, with the pandemic and all... Not to bring that up, but I was kind of, like, "If the pandemic hadn't happened, we would've released that record and we would've toured endlessly, and then we might've said, 'Well, it's been a good run: we did a new record, and maybe we'll tour some more or maybe we won't.'" But because we couldn't tour it and had to release it at a time we didn't want to because of the pandemic, I think we just went, "You know what? Let's do it again!" [Laughs.] "Let's make another record and do it right!" You always have to look on the bright side. 

Do you still enjoy songwriting?

Well, I write at home, and I love being home, and I like writing. And I have tons and tons and tons of writing from many years, and I can always just open up a box and pull out some paper and go, "Oh, I almost finished that song. Let's do that today!" And then, you know, I write with John [Doe]. I send it to him, he sends it back. He does music, sometimes I do melody. A lot of the last record, I wrote the songs and sang 'em, and he put the chords. But there's different ways of doing it every time. 

When you're going out on the road, you've got a tremendous discography to draw from. Do you just make a point of trying to mix in a little bit from each album?

Well, you know, John does the set list. He always has and he always will, and he does a great job. I think it's tricky, because we've been doing four songs that are unrecorded that we just wrote, and then we have three songs from Alphabetland, and that doesn't leave as many of the old songs as we usually used to do. So we have to be careful that we don't shortchange people that want to hear certain things that they came to hear. You know, they really want to hear "White Girl," they really want to hear "Adult Books," they want to hear "Your Phone's Off the Hook." So we have to work all those songs in. But we do the best we can to make ourselves excited and to have the people be excited.

So who's in the touring band? Is it the core four?

Yeah, as it has been for 30 years.

Which is as I thought, but I just wanted to be sure. Things change.

You know, you're right. You should be sure. And we also have Craig Packham, and he's been with us for a long time now, because he plays drums when D.J. plays vibes, and he plays rhythm guitar on some songs. So he's our extra guy to fill in. He's actually more known as a drummer. He plays with Deke Dickerson and a bunch of other people. He's a really, really great drummer. So he's perfect for those quieter, jazzier songs, because that's his forte.

Well, as I say, my sentimental favorite of your albums is See How We Are, just because it was the first of yours that I ever heard, but when you look back at the X catalog, do you have, if not necessarily a favorite, one maybe that you feel like is underrated?

No, I don't know what people think about me, and I don't care. I just did the best I could at the time. I don't care if it's rated or underrated. I think of them as songs. I don't think of them as albums. We did a tour awhile back where we did each album in a row, and I had no idea that that song was on the same album as another song. Because, you know, you've been playing them live for so long. I just think of them as separate songs. Like, "Where does it go in the set?" I think there are some songs that we end up playing more than others, and that might just be because we're better at it or we like a certain part of it or it's easy to play one night. "Oh, let's play that! That's an easy one!" You know, it just depends. I might have a favorite song that somebody else might not want to play as much, or vice versa. 

Do you have any personal favorite songs?

Well, most of them are my personal favorites. [Laughs.] There's only a couple that we don't do, and that's because collectively we decided that they don't go over as well live or they're harder to play live or whatever. Having Craig in the band helps a lot, because we can play all these other songs that we wouldn't be able to play without an extra person. I'm excited about the new ones. The four that we've been doing live went over really good, and I'm happy with them. I like them a lot. And they seem to be pretty realized. Usually you play a song live to try and make it better, because playing it in the rehearsal room only takes you so far. You really have to play in front of people to get it to really go somewhere. But they all went over really well. They were all just pretty good the way they were. That was kind of surprising. It doesn't usually go like that! You know, they're all good songs, it's just...how good? [Laughs./] Are they good enough?

Did you enjoy the experience of making your solo albums in the late '80s and early '90s?

Oh, yeah, I guess I did an album in '89, and then another in '90. I've done a lot of solo albums. I think probably with spoken word and stuff, I've probably done six, maybe seven total, under different names. At least. I liked those because I get to play guitar on all of those. Like, the Auntie Christ record, I was the only guitar player. You know, they're hard, because you have to self-finance usually, or you don't have much of a budget, and then you tour, and that's hard because you don't get as many people to see you, and you end up kind of breaking even if you're lucky. It's kind of an expensive hobby to have a solo career, and I'm not really that into it anymore. It's just, like, I've done everything I want to do. I just want to do some X stuff. 

Do you see yourself rocking 'til you drop, so to speak? Do you have any plans to retire?

What does "retire" mean?

Good question. 

No, I really don't know what it means. I've been working every day since I was 16, and I've had regular jobs up until right before when the pandemic happened because I can't not work and I can't not make money and I can't not save money. I've been driven to do that since I was a kid, and I'm never going to stop doing that. I think that I'm, like, old school. I'm 67 years old. I'm not the kind of person who's waiting for a handout or waiting for somebody to take care of me. No one ever has, I don't think anyone ever will. I think as long as we can do this and do it well, we're gonna keep doing it. If for some reason we hate it or we physically can't make it onto the stage, we'll stop. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. And if it happens, it happens. I'm accepting of that.

This is completely outside the box, question-wise, but what do you remember about working for William Friedkin (on a 1985 episode of The Twilight Zone)?

Well, William Friedkin is Wililam Friedkin, man. If you've worked with him, I don't need to say a word, and if you haven't, I can't explain it.

I've read a lot about him. That's all I can say personally.

I couldn't explain it, and I just don't know what to tell you. But it was kind of amazing, that's for sure!

He's certainly a legend.

He is a legend. It was quite something to be able to work with him.

Do you see yourself venturing back into acting again?

Well, X did a really fun thing. We did an episode of Children's Hospital with Henry Winkler. Oh, my God, that was so much fun. And I just loved Henry Winkler. I think he's amazing, and I've always just loved him to pieces. So I was really happy to get to hang out with him a little bit. And I think Billy had just come out of some kind of treatments, so it was kind of hard for him, but he did it with a great sense of humor. He's amazing. I'm not into the whole acting world or the entertainment business thing. I've seen it from all different angles, and I don't really respect it or care about it that much. Having said that, when something like that comes up with super cool people and it's super fun, then of course I'll do it. But to pursue it? Not on your life!

It can be exhausting, I hear. And draining. 

I just don't need to be doing anything that I'm not in control of. Why would I? I can write a song, I can play a song, I can go on tour with X and it's totally satisfying and wonderful and I love the people. But like I said, there's all these cool people out there doing cool projects that might say, "Hey, I've seen you, you wanna play this weird character?" And I'd be, like, "Absolutely!" So I'm not saying it's out of the question, I'm just saying that, as far whether I'd actually go pursue it, the answer is "no."

Were you surprised when you got such a reaction to your political views and opinions?

You know, I'm not surprised by anything, but, yes, I was. Because I thought we were still living in a country where you could talk. But over the years... I mean, I haven't voiced too much of an opinion over the last ten years because I realized that it's not real. None of it is real. The dialogues aren't real, the debates aren't real, the system's not real, the media's not real... Nothing's real! It's just this weird mind-game thing that people do to manipulate the public. I'm just very much at peace with who I am and living life and being positive and understanding that there are things that are way beyond our control. My only political view, I guess, is that there's humanity and animals and the planet and nature, and then there's these forces that don't want that to exist, apparently! [Laughs.] So I'm one that does want us to exist, and I love life, and I love people, and...I just love being here! And I don't want to go past that, because past that is nothing. Past that is not real. The only thing real is the back yard. 

I'm sure my editor is going to want me to just ask the question: are you still pro-Trump?

I'm not pro-anybody. I don't like anybody. I mean, I think there are some interesting people, I do follow it a little bit to the side, but I don't care about any of those people. I think that they're all fighting a war against each other that has nothing to do with us. 

That's true.

It is true! When you think about Congress and everything, all that stuff... It's all their world, we're just watching. And then they tell us what we're gonna do, and we go, "Okay." So I just try to stay out of it. Like I said, I stay in the backyard. 

Lastly, is there any artist that you listen to who you think deserves more attention? 

Anybody I listen to deserves more attention, because none of them are mainstream. I don't know what's going on with music now. I like the same bands I've always liked, the same music I've always liked. I love the Old '97s still. I love Skating Polly. I love Dead Rock West. I love Dave Alvin, and I love the Blasters. I love Dick Dickerson. I love all the American roots music and the big band stuff from the '20s and '30s that people play nowadays. I love Lucinda Williams. And I like going dancing. I love doing that, especially to the old, old music.

As far as new bands go, I'm just trying to get information from people on what they like to kind of check people out. But it's hard because, you know, when I started out playing music in '76, I already had a history of rock and roll under my belt because I was a kid growing up in the '50s and '60s. So I remember all that music was on the radio, and we had some records. And then when I got to be young, Billy and John were, like, "Oh, you have to hear this record. Have you heard this record?" "No, I've never heard it!" So by the time 1982 came around, I knew pretty much the history of rock 'n' roll. But if you're 20 now, you've got to go back 70 years to learn the history of rock 'n' roll. That's hard! It's hard for young bands. It's hard for any band! And then you're gonna repeat everything that's already been done. To be original is gonna be so hard now, y'know? So I try to cut people slack with that.

If it sounds a little bit like something else, I'm, like, "Well, what do you expect? How could it not sound like something else?" Even accidentally. If you're wearing your influences on your sleeve, how could you not understand that it's gonna be hard to be original? So my whole key with music is, I'd rather hear something that's kind of clunky and offbeat and maybe not perfect and have it be original. I don't care how polished it is or how great it is or how loud it is or how perfect the production is. None of that matters to me. I just want to hear originality. I want to hear something I've never heard, some kids trying some stuff that's totally off the wall. That's what I like. So that's what I'm always looking for. 

Actually, I do have one more, because a friend of mine wanted me to ask a very specific question: was it cathartic for you to write "Come Back to Me"?

No. I mean, I wrote it. I wrote those words, and then it was a couple of years later when John was, like, "Hey, let's put music with this." And I was, like, "I don't want to. I don't want to sing about that." And he was, like, "Yeah, but it'll be a great song!" I was, like, "Yeah, I don't like it." So it wasn't cathartic. It was...not very pleasant. I mean, I wasn't crazy about it. We do that song live now pretty much every show. I like that song because of what it means to other people, not because of what it means to me. Because I know that that song means a lot. I just had a really close friend pass away last week who was a big X fan and was at a lot of the shows and traveled to see shows and was part of this whole X community of people that would all meet up and go to shows. His name was Troy, and he's not going to be there when we go on tour, and that's gonna hit me really hard. And the first night on tour when we do that song, I don't know if I'll even get through it.

So, no, it's not cathartic. It's just hard. We all lose people, and I know there are people in the audience who really want to hear that song. It's just part of life, you know? We lose our little animal buddies and we lose our friends and family. As we get older, that happens. Part of being in a band and part of doing music is about the big issues. You asked about politics. Who cares? Who cares? There are people out there who are in pain and suffering. There are people out with addictions. There are people losing their loved ones. There are people who are sick. That's what matters. That's why there's music. Not to talk about that other crap that doesn't matter and never will. We're here for a very short time. We have to make the most of it in a very special, spiritual way. We can't just... [Stops and takes a breath.] We have to have that communion with each other. And music is that. It's fellowship. It's a very profound connection. And when you're doing that, you realize, "This is all that matters, right here."

Music has created a bond between my daughter and I. She's 17, and this summer we're going to see not only Taylor Swift for her but the Cure for us.

She likes Taylor Swift?

Loves her.

That's interesting. A lot of kids like her a lot. She resonates with people quite a bit, more than some other artists, I guess. I don't know, I'm not familiar with her stuff. But I know she really does resonate with people, so I respect that. That's neat! That's great. You've got to like what she likes, or you've at least got to give it a shot, right? 

And she likes at least some of what I like. Her very first favorite song was Nick Lowe's "Cruel to be Kind." So I started her off with a musical education from the very beginning.

And that's such a great song. I can see why she'd like it: it's a pop song, but it's a smart pop song. That's neat! Well, good for you. That's wonderful. Like i was just saying, that's all that matters. That's all that I think matters, anyway.

Well, I think that should do it. I look forward to seeing you guys. I literally haven't seen X live since I saw you open for David Bowie, so I'm excited that you're playing in my back yard.

Wow! So what show are you coming to?

Virginia Beach.

I figured, because of where you're from, but I wasn't sure. Sometimes people travel and go to Philadelphia or wherever. Okay, well, good! And Melissa's gonna get you in, and you're gonna have a great time, it's gonna be super fun. Are you bringing the kid or no? 

It depends on what she's doing. She's 17, so who knows? But I'll try to sway her. What's funny is that she literally still wears my David Bowie tour shirt from that show to school on a regular basis.

Oh, I'll bet that goes over well. That's a real artifact right there!