From: dfong@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc,alt.music.alternative
Subject: Chris Knox (NZ) interview
Date: 18 Nov 92 16:38:48 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Sorry this is late, but it still has some intersting info in it.

Hiya to all those NZ music fans out there !


   Taken from NEXUS, The official magazine of the University of
   Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

   Vol. 24 Issue 16. August 4 1992.


   Interview done by Adam Hyde.

   ---------------------------------------------------------

   A Quick Talk with Chris Knox about...

                              Chris Knox


     Chris Knox, as you'll know if you've ever seen him, is short
   but solid, has short dark hair (that has been known to vary in
   length and colour), a sharp nose, beady eyes and is a member of
   the species known as Homo Sapiens (oddly enough, a common
   characteristic in most of those who are immersed in the
   rock'n'roll mystique). Tonight he models the original black
   jersey and Levis (both now available from Warnocks [male clothes
   store chain]), and a pair of blue Para jandals.

     While he is probably best known for his song 'Not Given
   Lightly', Chris Knox's career reaches back much further to the
   early days of New Zealand punk. He was the vocalist with the now-
   dying legend known as The Enemy, arguably New Zealand's premier
   punk band. Unfortunately, they left behind no released
   recordings, but some of their songs ('Swimming Pool' and 'Pull
   Down The Shades', for example) were carried on by his second
   band, Toy Love. Their self-titled album, although reportedly
   criticised by Chris Knox for not being a good reflection of the
   band, is a New Zealand classic (supported by three great
   singles).
     After Toy Love disbanded, Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate
   (guitarist in both The Enemy and Toy Love) formed a duo which
   still exists today called the Tall Dwarfs. And, somewhere along
   the way, Chris Knox embarked on a solo career (if he ever shared
   the same body with Alec Bathgate, the effects of the successful
   surgery are barely visible).
     He also recorded many of the early Flying Nun albums on his
   trusty TEAC 4-track and, extra-musically, he has been known in
   the past to write a music column for the Listener [national TV
   magazine] and is the author of the well-known cartoon strip Max
   Media.
     As he sits down for the interview, the most pressing question
   is :  When is the next Tall Dwarfs/Chris Knox release due ?

     "The next thing will probably be a Tall Dwarfs 7" single. It'll
   be the first time we've done one of them. That's already been
   recorded - it's just gotta be mixed. There's also a solo album
   from me coming which I haven't started yet."
                          
     Any tours to come ?

     "In late October, Alec and I will be off to the States for a
   fortnight. Then he'll come back, and I'll carry on to Europe do
   some West Coast (USA) gigs as well."

     How well do they know you over there ?

     "Pretty well - Tall Dwarfs always get well reviewed, and both
   me and Tall Dwarfs seem to be always be pretty high up in campus
   radio playlists. Their knowledge over there is remarkable. When I
   went to the States in 1989, the fans knew more about Flying Nun
   than I did."

     What exactly is your relationship with Flying Nun ?

     "Me and Barbara [Ward] were basically the Auckland branch,
   together with Doug Hood and Ian Dalziel but, when they moved up
   to Auckland, they didn't need me anymore to take the records
   around shops. I worked for them for a while doing slave-type jobs
   but I was so pathetic at it that I decided that it wasn't very
   profitable for Flying Nun to have me there. So now it's more just
   on a friendship basis - I'm working for them as an artist but I'm
   always welcome in the office."

     Do you think that the success of Flying Nun, and bands like the
   Chills and Straitjacket Fits, is all good news ?

     "It's got its good side and bad side. It's really good that the
   bands that want to get that big are able to. Unfortunately, I
   think that's caused a lot of financial problems at Flying Nun
   because there's bills to pay. In the old days, recording costs
   were between fifty and a thousand dollars, but now they are
   generally between five thousand and twenty thousand dollars.
     It's more difficult for Flying Nun to do as many things as it
   used to, but it's always a label that's been driven by the
   artists. If the artists want to do that stuff then Flying Nun is
   going to do everything it can to [help] them.
     lately there is a move to cheaper recordings at places like
   Fish Street Studios (Dunedin) or, to a lesser degree, Writhe
   (Wellington). It's an economic necessity, really. If you're only
   going to sell 800 albums in NZ then you don't want to do a
   $20,000 album."

    Do you think the more pure alternative ethic is on its way out ?

   "Oh shit yeah - I mean, it was like such a pure thing, eh...
   Unsullied by commercial interests."
   [My refined interviewing sense detects a faint aroma of sarcasm.]

     "I don't know wherein the purity lies, really. I think
   everybody who's in the music wants to make a living out of it to
   some degree, whether it be to offset their dole [welfare payout
   for unemployed] or to replace it, but you'd have to be stupid to
   be greedy in the alternative scene.
     As far as Flying Nun goes, I think it's inevitable that a label
   that starts off small and has a lot of bands has got to get
   bigger to sustain those bands. Flying Nun's attitude during the
   80s was always, "Shit, where are all the other labels", but now
   they're all there - you've got Xpressway, which was what Flying
   Nun used to be but only 'purer', and you've got Failsafe, Pagan,
   and Wildside too. So Flying Nun can relax a bit now. It's a big
   strain having to satisfy the artists who want money, the public
   who want records, and the critics who want everything to remain
   at a certain level.
     I've always wanted stuff to remain at a technically low level
   so I think in those terms - yeah, Flying Nun has lost its purity
   - sure.
     But, then again, I don't think Bailterspace or the Skeptics
   would sound quite the same recorded on a walkie in someone's
   toilet."

     Was the latest Tall Dwarfs record a scaled-up version in
   comparison to previous releases ?

     "No. It was done as cheap as it's ever been. Our most expensive
   record has probably been 'The Short and The Long of It', because
   it had one side that was recorded in 2 days in a real studio
   which cost $700 or something. I think the budget for the last
   Tall Dwarfs record was bigger than the others, but that's because
   we actually wrote in Alec's costs for flying up from Christchurch
   and back three or four times and I got my organ fixed and he got
   new valves for his amp and so forth. The recording costs
   themselves were still only a couple of hundred dollars."

     Is there any Tall Dwarfs material that hasn't been released ?

     "No, there's only some live stuff and that's it. We release
   everything we do really - that's why some of it's some awful!"

     I read somewhere you were going to release some Enemy stuff,
   what happened to that ?

     "This is the fuckin' albatross over my head ! Yeah, I've been
   promising this for years - to release Enemy stuff and Toy Love
   stuff. I actually compiled a Toy Love compilation, to be called
   'Ceiling for Knives', which was of rather superior demo tapes,
   etc. That was done a long time ago but since compiling it, and
   never getting my arse into gear to release it, the tapes have
   adhered to each other so every time you play it you lose 15% or
   so of the oxide - so they're fucked. I did a cassette copy on a
   computer tape which sounds okay. But every time I get
   enthusiastic about putting together stuff by Toy Love or the
   Enemy, I start getting waves of revulsion and nostalgia even
   though there's some good material. I just don't want to get
   people interested in that stuff again. Eventually someone will
   force my hand and I'll do it."

     What do you listen to ?

     "Lots of the small-scale stuff that's coming out of America on
   labels like Shimmy Disc, which is an interesting label. Bands
   like The Tinklers - they're these 2 demented ex-hippy guys. They
   look like they're severely brain damaged. One of them plays a
   rubber band guitar and they play toy instruments. They can't sing
   to save themselves but they write great little melodies, almost
   nursery rhymes - really simple and about the strangest things.
     Daniel Johnstone is another one - he's pretty well known. He
   was last seen in an insane asylum, insisting he was a personal
   friend of Casper The Friendly Ghost. I also listen to a wonderful
   band called Sebadoh. Ween is another - they're a band from the
   States who, I think, are trying to bring glue back into the
   mainstream of drug abuse."

     Any New Zealand stuff ?

     "I buy virtually every Flying Nun album that comes out. I try
   to keep track of Xpressway and Failsafe.  There's a couple of
   bands in Auckland that haven't recorded yet that I think are
   rather good - Figure 60 and King Loser. Another one that's
   interesting is Biplane, which features the lead singer from the
   Chainsaw Masochists on 12-string/vocals and Sue Bridges (from
   Flying Nun) who plays really interesting electric guitar."

     Any Hamilton bands ?

     "Yeah, I really liked Ananaazamawobblewobblewobble. I heard a
   tape from the Crown of Wild Myrtles - they sounded really good.
   Watershed were great."

     And with that (he's yet to do a sound check), I thank him for
   the interview and wait expectedly for his performance. Several
   jugs later, Club Uni [university bar] is filled out. Chris Knox
   plays two entertaining, at times mind-expanding, sets. (The best
   to my mind, being 'Not a Victim', and his explanation of the
   merits of coitus interruptus during 'Not Given Lightly'). Hope he
   comes again soon.

                                           Adam Hyde


   --------------------------------------------------

   As a side note, I managed to get the cartoon by Chris regarding
   the recent cover version of 'The Slide' by Tal Dwarfs,
   so here it is !

   The picture is that of Chris and Alec's heads on a single body.

   caption :
   "for years we've churned out wilfully obscure dollops of musical
   mayhem and melodic mumblings, happy in our tiny niche market, and
   then bloody Straw People come along and do a cover of our minor-
   league soul classic "THE SLIDE" and "bang!" goes our credibility
   forever ! ...at least they haven't done a dance mix..."