Posted June 2, 2007
For near on two decades, Johnny Casino has been an impossible presence to ignore on a generous smattering of underground rock scenes around the globe. From Sydney to Perth, to his sometime home of Philadelphia and to parts of Europe, the big man has been cranking out soulful, searing and loud rock and roll for longer than most can remember.
Whether it's as leader of the always forceful and spirited Asteroid B612; a primary part of spontaneous ensemble The Egos; as guitarist with the rotating-member party that is Johnny Casino's Easy Action; or (more recently) leading a trio of groups using the brand name Johnny Casino & The Secrets, Johnny (aka John Spittles) has been lighting a fire under crowds in any number of bars and pubs. On record, however, on his own admission, he's never quite made that indelible mark of an album that sums up where he's currently at.
Well now he has. "Old Clothes New Shoes" was more than two years in the making and involved a guest list of seasoned players. The likes of Kent Steedman (Celibate Rifles), Brad Shepherd (Hoodoo Gurus) and Bill Gibson (The Eastern Dark) head an all-star cast on a long-player with a stunning stylistic vision.
If you've caught Johnny Casino & The Secrets live you'll know that a band that embraces songs by people as diverse as Mary Weiss and Bob Dylan to make them its own doesn't have time for pigeonholes. So it goes with this record. From steamy, bayou blues to soul-driven horn rock, to bright country to dark pop-rock melodrama, this is an album that sounds like anything else currently in the racks. Casino himself steps up to the mic on most of his own tunes and injects a good part of his irascible, passionate self into the music. The result is easily one of the best albums of 2007 and one that anyone with an ear for rock and roll's broader palette will take to.
After much too'ing and fro'ing of schedules, THE BARMAN finally tracked down Johnny after a hard day's night of colouring customers at Sydney's enduring tattoo shop, The Illustrated Man. The I-94 Bar's resident cartoonist RICK CHESSHIRE provided the artwork.
Q Did you end up inking many last night?
A Oh it kept me busy enough. It slows down in winter time. That's OK.
Q You can get out and play more.
A Yeah.
Q Wish it were that easy.
A It seems like it's not as hard as it used to be. I seem to be able to do things when I want to.
Q You have the advantage of flexibliity with a different band in different Australian cities. Do you miss the security of having the same band all the time?
A I don't actually. I love playing with each and every person that I play with. I consider myself very luck that these people are wiling to do what they do with me. I actually consider it more of a challenge because each band is a steady line-up and each band plays things in a different way. It keeps me on my toes and keeps it exciting for me.
Q You're playing with Mick Poole (guitar), Ben Fox (drums) and Mark Horne (bass) in Sydney. Who are the Melbourne and Perth bands?
A In Melbourne it's Chris Wilson playing the drums. Chris is in a band called the Palenecks who are great and for years he was in Warped, from Geelong. Michael Evans plays bass. He's in Tiger By The Tail and was in Johnny Casino's Easy Action.
And James Saunders plays guitar. He's also in Easy Action. He's played in a bunch of bands like Red Shift and the Stunt Car Drivers. He was in a Casnaovas for a little while. And he's also played guitar in Johnny Casino's Easy Action as well.
In Perth, it's Warren Hall on drums. He's in The Volcanics. They're a great band. And Kenny and Brad from The M-16's, playing guitar and bass. A great band as well.
So I'm just lucky that there are people out there who get something out of what I write and want to play.
Q How long was the album in the recording? It's been in the pipeline for a while, hasn't it?
A It's been something I've been chipping away at for about two years. Might even be longer than that. I'd go in and record a couple of beds for a couple of tracks and chip away at them...think about them and maybe re-do them.
I had the luxury of being able to work with a guy Mike Burnham, in his studio Tardis, . My job can be flexible and I don't work regular hours. That's how a studio works as well. So I'd just ring and say, 'What are you doing in two days time?'. He'd say, 'I'd don't have anything on' and I'd just go down there and -
Q Plug into the down time?
A Yeah, we'd fuck around with different ideas for things and not use some things. It was good experimenting. I learned a lot of things about recording and about songwriting. Taking my time doing it.
Every other record I've ever played on has been crammed in to a - the only record I've taken a little more time with was the last Asteroid B612 record "Reading Between the Lines", which we demo'd a little bit and worked with Kent Steedman, who was producing it. We didn't spend a lot of time in the studio but we spent more time than we had with other records.
Q What's the status of the Asteroids these days? On hiatus or is it all over?
A I wouldn't say it was all over. I never say never. I'd like to think that if we were all in the same place, we'd play again. The only member who are actually in Sydney are me and Ben. Scott (Nash) is in Melbourne and my brother Grahame is in Perth.
Q He's living in Perth? I didn't realise the band had scattered.
A If something happened, we'd play. We enjoy playing with each other. We enjoy each other's company. There's no reason not to play., If you're asking if we'll play again, I don't know, but there's no reason we couldn't.
Q I had the impression for you guys there was a feeling of playing the same old places, time after time.
A Yes, plus in writing these songs for the Secrets record, I began to learn that they maybe weren't Asteroid B612 songs. Asteroid B612 had a certain personality, although it changed a little over the years. I don't think a lot of these songs...the deeper I got into them, I found I had to sing them. They were things that I had to do myself. My brother's a great singer but there were different things that I needed to say myself, as opposed to handing them to someone else.
Q So these songs are the most personal you've written? "Readin' Between the Lines" seemed that way.
A They're as personal - or more personal - as I've ever gotten. "Reading Between the Lines" was a personal record for me. It was basically written in about three or four weeks at a time in my life when i was as much up as I was down.
Q There aren't that would have worked with the Asteroids, i agree. There's an amazing variety, Is that something you tried for or did it come about organically?
A There wasn't a thought process in trying to find different feels or moods or rhythms for songs. It was more, 'This is good' or 'This isn't good...I will use this or I won't'. It wasn't even a case of finding a bunch of songs that fitted well together. It was more like 'These are the songs I like the most'. The ones I got something out of. There was no thought of going in a different direction. Maybe it just "is".
I definitely worked much harder on this record than anything else I've done before and like I said, I learned a lot about different instruments and how they affect different things.
Q Speaking of, I didn't know Brad Shepherd played banjo.
A I think Brad is such a talented guy he could play just about anything he wants. I don't know much about the harmonica, I just know what I hear and what I like, but he plays harmonica like Chuck Berry plays guitar and that sounds alright to me! He plays banjo, mandolin and, like most people would know, he plays guitar fucking like just about no-one else in this country!
Q Apart from the obvious country influences - and I know you've done the odd thing in country over the last few years - I also made the comment offline to you that I thought some of the songs were very much like the Aspersion Caste, with that swampy, deep south blues feeling.
A As far as the stuff that is sorta outlaw country, I think it's something I always listened to as a kid. My father always listened to country music. When i was a kid, as much as I was into punk rock and I thought country music was shit, it was something that was always around in the house.
Over the last 10 years or so I've become a fan of bands like Wilco, the Jayhawks and different things like that. I've always been a big Bob Dylan fan and I've always loved The Band. I hear country in a lot of different music.
And as far as Louis Tillett and the Aspersion Caste, I think it's probably borne out of when I was getting introduced to what I call 'real music' - when I was 16, 17, 18 - I was seeing bands like The Aspersion Caste and Paris Green and the Ego Trippers at the Gates of Hell. The line-up of the New Christs that had Charlie and Jim and Loujis Burdett or Nick Fisher. So I saw a lot of those things.
As much as I loved Louis' music (and still do today), I really didn't understand a lot of where it came from until the last 4-5 years, when i started listening to things like The Meters, Dr John, Allen Toussaint, Little Feet. New Orleans funk-soul. I suppose when you cross that with loud rock and roll...maybe somewhere in the middle is where it's ended up.
As opposed to writing songs that I thought were a vehicle to go fast, I was trying to write songs to make your hips move in a certain way. It was more about rhythms. And I guess they were the types of rhythms I was listening to.
Q Had you worked with a brass section before? Who did the arrngements?
A I did the arrangements. For the lack of having someone like Jackie Orkasky come in and tell people what to do. The lucky thing is that the people who played those part son the record are great players. James Greening - who played on the first two Louis Tillett solo records - is on there. And these guys have jazz guys around town.
I hummed things to them...'I want it to go ba-da-da-ba-ba'...you know what I mean? And they know straight away. They're working guys and they're talented musicians - as opposed to someone who's a beggar and a thief like me! They hear things and
they'll play something for a second and go, 'What about this/" and I'll say, 'Yes, that's it'. They're guys who are used to working together and having to work quick because a lot of them aren't in bands. 'I need a horn player' and they turn up.It's actually great fin being in the studio, watching them work. They don't work like singers or drummers or bass players, they're like a thing unto their own. They have their own sort of language that they talk. It's an education, working with them.
Q Did working with a series of different people in something like Easy Action a catalyst for this album happening?
A The Easy Action thing is borne out of me being overseas for a while and being the type of person that needs to play. In periods of my life when i haven't felt good about myself or certain things, I've worked out that they're periods of my life when I haven't been playing.
In being, say, in Philadelphia and thinking 'I'm going to be here for three months, six months or a year', I decide after a month or so that I need to find some people to play with.
With the Easy Action I tried to keep it as simple as I could. The two records I recorded with that band were made in 4-5 days. In fact the second one was written - I showed them the songs the morning we were recording, on Howard's basement floor!
When you're there and you have shows lined up, you basically have to get the band to work on material you're going to play live. And if you're going to make a record - I sat 'em down and said, 'OK, this is what I've got'. Eight or nine songs. Those guys are talented guys. I guess it's easy for me because i play the songs and write the songs. Those guys are going in cold and I think that's what makes me respect them. Not that I need to validate my respect for them.
Q Is Easy Action ongoing?
A Again, if I'm in Philadelphia and need a band to play in, there are guys over there who are happy to do it. Yeah, if I'm there and it happens, it happens.
Q So with this record, are you taking it to Europe?
A I think we're heading to Europe in October-November.
Q With which band?
A (Sighs) I dunno. I've got a lot of players to chose from. I'm guessing there will be a bunch of people pissed off with me - or won't be pissed off with me and will understand. What I'd like to do is ask one group of players, as opposed to taking someone from here and someone from somewhere else. As I'm saying this I'm realising I may sound like I'm pompous or have a ridiculous ego but it's not meant to sound like that.
Q Well, taking one band that's played together is the only practical way.
A I enjoy playing with all three line-ups, each for different reasons. It's a case of who can do it and who can't.
Q I know the album's only just out but of the people who've heard it, what's the reaction been?
A Really positive. Gushing. For my self-esteem, it's good.
Q The reason I'm asking is that over the years - especially with Asteroid B612 - you've suffered from stereotyping.
A Yep.
Q People might have tagged you a Detroit band, taking the easy way out, which is crap.
A Yep. I think we were to blame a little for that. When we were young, we went out of our way to say, 'This is the type of band we are'. As opposed to just playing music. That was a mistake we made early on. Once someone labels you like that, it's hard to get rid of it.
Q The extension from that is that this record really goes beyond any one label..
A I think it goes beyond it, underneath it, it goes pretty much everywhere. I love listening to it. I'm a fan of the record. I'm proud of it. I just think it's a great record.
Q Have you found it hard to listen to other stuff you've done before?
A I definitely find it hard to listen to the early Asteroid B612 records. i think they're honest for what they and the band were at the time. Maybe, as you grow older you learn new things. I listen to some of that stuff and think, 'Fuck, what was I trying to do there?'
Q You probably grow out of songs to an extent. The spruce up job was great, for the re-issue.
A They're not bad but if you're asking me what i listen to, I listen to this record I've just made, I listen to "Readin' Between the Lines" and little bits and pieces of Easy Action stuff. The rest of it, I don't disrespect, I just question my ideas and what the band's ideas were at the time.
Q So what is on your turntable generally besides that stuff?
A Phew, it changes all the time. I've been listening to Dustry Springfield. I really like Greg Cartwright as a songwriter - he's in the band The Reigning Sound, he was in the Compulsive Gamblers and other things. Um, I dunno...I really like a band called Calexico, who were just on tour in this country recently. Even if I think the record they've just put out is pretty awful. Overall, a great band live and I first saw them years ago in Philadelphia. They just blew me away.
The mainstays are Dylan, Lennon. Been getting into Roy Orbison a lot. Sam and Dave. I dunno, fucking changes all the time.
Q Turning back to the new album and I have a feeling I should know who Megan Bowden is. She does one of the few vocals spots that you don't do.
A She's a Melbourne singer-songwriter who lived in Sydney for a while. She had a band called Patsy's Wake. She's just this wonderful women I met from going and having a drink at The Excelsior Hotel now and then. She became friends with my ex-girlfriend. We just got to know each other. The first time I saw Megan sing, she sat in with a jazz group and sang whatever she could make up over the top of it. The next day, I turned up at the pub and said that she had to sing this song I'd written: "I Should Have Killed You When I Had The Chance".
It sounds like a heavy title. When a guys says that, you just think he's blowing off steam. A male ego thing. When a girl says it, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Fuck, she means business.
I had that song written for a few years. Asteroid B612 may have played it live, here and there. Lucky enough for me, Megan was totally into singing it.
Q What's your favourite thing to play off the record?
A Ahhhh...I'm really liking the two tracks I recorded in Perth. For totally different reasons. One of them is a big barrel-house, horn sorta thing. It sounds like the fucking Roman army's coming into battle at one stage.
Q "Keep on Keeping On".
A Yeah. Blowing horns everywhere. It's a little bit outta control. The other one, "Cowboys and Indians", has a real summery sorta, soul pop edge to it.
Q Probably the lightest thing there.
A Yeah. Like you said before, there's lot variation on the record. I put it on today. The main thing on this record - I just love the things people played on it. From Ben playing drums to Mark playing bass, to Scott playing bass. All the people on it. I just love what they did on it. Brad and Kent. Carl singing a song. Megan singing. People playing violins. Trumpets. I dunno.
Q Who would have thought, 10 years ago?
A Yeah!
Q For that diversity, it holds together and has a common thread. You're it, I suppose.
A There's one song on there, "The Country Mile" and I was actually trying to make it that it was the only song where I did nothing but write. Instead of recording it from the drums up, we did it around my acoustic guitar. I was hoping to take it out but in the end, when it came to mixing it, Mike the engineer was like, 'Nah, we have to have it in there'. 'But I wanted a song where I did nothing'. 'Too bad'.
Q Since we're in a Bar, what are you drinking?
A I drink Coopers Red but have been to known to tamper with lots of drinks that should be drunk in Hawaii, but you tend to drink them late at night when members of the opposite sex are involved.
Q And no-one can see you.
A Yeah.
