Emily Riley

AND THE GODFORSAKEN NOISE

by Maranda Dabel

In the midst of the January ice storm, Emily Riley and the Godforsaken Noise braved the elements to be interviewed by MLP staff member Maranda Dabel at Etc. Tavern. Any hysteria perceived in the following conversation should be attributed directly to the crushing weather, and the lesbian vampire movie that preempted The Simpsons.

Adam:  Ask somebody a question.

Emily:  Just not a loaded one.

A:  A completely loaded one.

MLP:  Where do you guys want to go with this band?

E:  That's a good question. We never intended to do this much.

David:  Yeah it just kinda came together

E:  I don't think there's really....

D:  Emily really just suckered us into it.

E:  We haven't really answered where we want to go with it though.

D:  Okay, well, I'd like to get a 401k and some health benefits.

Jesse:  Royalty checks or two

D:  A couple royalty checks would be nice. I want to do music for a living and if this goes better, great, if not that's fine too.

E:  But I don't think we're trying for that. We don't expect that.

MLP:  You all have other projects too, and that helps.

J:  I don't expect that from any of my projects.

MLP:  But the more bands you have the better the odds.

D:  Maybe, maybe, but you could be spreading yourself too thin. How many bands are you in Adam?

E:  Ten.

MLP:  Six.

A:  I'm in a few.

D:  Do you ever feel like you're spreading yourself too thin?

A:  Not really, I don't think I do, because the bands are all different. Luckily for the most part, most of the stuff that I do is simple, but manages to challenge me in a lot of ways. I'm always having to come up with new stuff. It's kinda cool to transfer information from one band to the next, it's kind of this self-perpetuating inspiration.

J:  I've noticed there's a lot of a people in this world who do stuff that's easy, yet it still challenges them. The most mundane things, like making a bed, can really be hard for some people but...

A:  I'm don't necessarily mean that, I'm just saying that each project I do is creatively demanding. And I have never made a bed, I just want to make that clear.

E:  I've heard that.

D:  He also wore a helmet in high school, and he wasn't on the football team.

A:  Yeah, and I was given those not sharp scissors, and crayons exclusively. I just learned to read last week.

MLP:  As far as I know you guys formed the band to put on a fundraiser to send Emily to the Slam finals in Chicago?

E:  The 1st time around it was just a spoken word show at the Goodfoot, which was originally a spoken word solo thing. That's part of the issue; it's so lonely doing things solo. So the first time was us getting together to play that show, and that was a lot of fun, and then we dropped it.

D:  Yeah, we don't do it for fun anymore.

E:  It wasn't a serious thing at the time, it was thrown together at the last minute.

D:  In about two days.

E:  Four, but anyway, we all knew what we were going for a little better.

D:  The cool thing about it was we didn't have much time to get the thing going, so we just had to come up with ten songs really quick. We just used all the best ideas we had and fleshed them out. That kinda presented the style that we ended up liking, because we just did whatever came naturally. We've honed it more since then but....

A:  We're like a style cover band really....

D:  Yeah, totally.

E:  Awful.

D:  Our songs aren't really calculated. It's nothing more than verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus.

E:  Some of them end up being surprising mistakes.

D:  Yeah. Some of them just end up being a verse.

J:  It's great because it takes the pressure off you to deliver in a musicianship sense of the word. Like, "I have to be the best goddamn drummer in the world," or whatever.

E:  You're still playing the best drums.

J:  But I mean this is more like we're a band that is adding to spoken word poetry.

E:  I wouldn't say adding.

D:  No, really, the thing that we're listening for as an audience is the poetry. That's the thing that carries it through. If someone were to sing to this music it would be totally banal. [Pronounced bay'-nal]

J:  Uh huh,

D:  But because...

E:  I can't believe you just said that...

D:  Because...

J:  That's a good word.

MLP:  I'll make sure to add the way you pronounced that to the dictation.

D:  No, I looked it up. It's pronounced banal {bay'-nal] and banal [buh-nal'].

E:  Banal sounds anal.

D:  It's true.

J:  Dude I don't mean to be anal [uh-nal'] but I think banal [bay'-nal] is not excepted even though the dictionary says it's okay.

E:  Where were we?

D:  Okay, I guess I don't have anything more to say.

J:  I guess I'll just go back to my uh, banal world.

E:  I think it probably started out though with the idea of trying to fill out spoken word, but now it's becoming a bleed between the two worlds instead of just being a backdrop for spoken word.

D:  I disagree. If we were to take out the poetry and put in a regular singer, singing songs, it wouldn't be interesting. The thing that pushes it forward is the poetry.

E:  That's why it's fusion. I couldn't do what I'm doing vocally without you guys.

D:  So it is a fusion?

E:  That's how I'm choosing to look at it at least, I could be wrong.

J:  It's a fusion but we don't have to write like insanely tricked out interesting songs to keep people's attention because that's what the poetry does.

A:  I think that the last couple songs we've been working on have been more song oriented.

MLP:  Why, because you're composing your music around the poetry and vice versa?

E:  We lucked out because a lot of my poems are already rhythmic. And if they're not straight up hiphop like The Awakeners is, then there's a lot of inner rhymes. The stuff we've done lately is more song oriented.

A:  Mr. America has more of a song flow then any of the other songs. The Awakeners has more of a song structure to it. It's verse/chorus/verse...not like a constant verse. There are sections to it and we worked it out as a song.

A:  With Mr. America it was the same thing. It worked out.

D:  Emily is good at poetry. The shit doesn't rhyme. If it did, it would be lame.

E:  Sometimes it does.

D:  Very rarely though. That's what I love about it, is that it doesn't. I mean it fills it out the same way a vocalist would, but it's a poem and it's not built to fit the song. Somehow it creates a sort of tension that I like.

E:  I like that.

J:  Yeah, I don't want to be a bad band, basically is what it comes down to.

D:  I think that if it served the poem we would write math songs. We would get really intellectual with the way the music comes out. But the way it is, we just do what feels good.

J:  Yeah, and if we do do that it's great, but we don't have that pressure that we would have if we were a band.

D:  If you do do that, I hope you wipe it.

J:  Dude... Well...that's... what do you, do...

A:  do?

D:  I do do. Everybody do dos.

MLP:  But not everybody wipes.

E:  Where were we?

D:  I think that topic was exhausted. Did you guys listen to the democratic radio debates? There was this point were Dennis Kucinich held up a pie chart, and Neil Conan interrupted him to say "I should point out to Mr. Kucinich and to the people at home that pie charts don't work very well on the radio".

E:  That's awesome.

D:  Yeah, he's still my favorite. I tell you what though, after listening to that debate, I would be happy with any of those mother-fuckers. I think the Democrats have a pretty serious hold of the topics. I think any of them would do a good job, a better job than Bush.

E:  But not any of them have a good chance of getting elected though, can't forget that. I mean what I'm saying is we can't get too cocky.

D:  I'm just saying that G. Bush is probably going to be the president again, but the conversation I was having with Adam was that Anybody But Bush, to me, seems like a backlash....

J:  My beer tastes like shit.

D:  ...and reactionary.

E:  As an idea and as a slogan it works.

D:  I don't agree with Anybody But Bush, I wouldn't want to see Tre Arrow get it. Pretty much any of the Democrats are all right except for Al Sharpton and Pat Buchanan.

A:  I agree with you about that, but what Emily is saying is true. Not just anybody is gonna get elected, it's not like Tre Arrow is gonna be on the ticket. Anyone that gets the Democratic nomination is gonna be worth voting for.

E:  Exactly.

J:  I'm gonna go freshen my drink gentlemen.

E:  Did we ruin the interview?

D:  That's why I brought it up, is because it's a good topic, and being that this is a pretty political group of kids... We have songs like Mr. America.

E:  I should update the lyrics to that.

A:  As far as a slogan, it sends a strong message that, "We don't want you in office." It makes a point. It makes people rally.

E:  A vote of no confidence.

MLP:  Where do you get inspiration for your poems?

E:  I think they're pretty vast as far as subject matter.

J:  Inspired by vastness.

E:  Especially this new poem, a lot of that older stuff was geared toward performance. I'm trying to mix it up when I write, but a lot of it had a social or political agenda…not agenda, but I definitely have pieces that are about changing society as we know it, but that's really cliché, and I don't want to talk about that.

J:  It's not like it's to inspire a revolution, it's just your reaction to the state things.

E:  Yeah, so I tend to get worked up.

J:  I should be your spokesperson.

E:  You should be. I'm really bad about talking about myself

J:  What she means is she's really bad about talking about herself.

E:  A lot of my stuff is really abstract, so it never did well in slam because of that. It's using metaphor and imagery in a way that's not really straight forward, so it's not necessarily gonna be interpreted right off the bat. We're doing a lot of stuff right now that's inspired by my personal history growing up, and varying landscapes of where I was living.

MLP:  Do you think the fact that you get worked up is why you didn't do as well at slam?

J:  No.

E:  No.

J:  I think that showing vulnerability is actually what's exploited.

E:  It's not vulnerability at that point, but yeah.

J:  Take your most inner demons and sell them out in a poem, that's the thing.

E:  It wasn't straight forward enough and easily understood.

MLP:  So, you're too smart for people?

E:  No, it's too abstract. The best piece I did, as far as audience response, was Mr. America. I feel like it was cheap bank. I didn't want to write a political piece again after that because people would respond to it, and they didn't know why. I could've been up there saying fuck Bush, fuck Bush, fuck Bush and gotten the same response.

J:  I would like to say "slam poets" are just stand up comedians, if you read it on paper, it wouldn't be poetry. There wouldn't be stanza's and lines, and minimalism. They're just rants, funny rants.

E:  If I try and distill it down, it's personal history I find reoccurring throughout my life. They're still the images of certain moments that extend from me to the cause and effect of the microcosm.

J:  Those are good words to use during an interview. Maybe I shouldn't be your spokesperson. You know, I lifted my beer, and the ring it left looks like a sad face.

E:  I'm not sure if I explained that very well. I guess a lot of things inspire me.

J:  Talk to me when I'm sober!

A:  This holiday beer tastes like those lick-a-sticks you ate when you were a kid.

J:  That's interesting.

MLP:  Is my smoke in your face?

J:  So, Maranda, how long have you been interviewing people?

MLP:  How long is this tape? What time is it?

J:  Let's get down to brass taxes.

(Dave starts pullling his pants down.)

E:  No, no.

D:  Oh, I thought he said ass tattoo.

MLP:  So Adam why do you play guitar and Dave plays bass?

D:  Because Adam's a better guitar player than I am.

J:  And a better bass player.

D:  I just gotta hold down the funk.

A:  Truth be told, I play both instruments, but I hold one behind my back, and Dave just kinda fingers it.

MLP:  Okay, next question.

A:  I just wanna say that Dave actually is a good bass player. He holds down the bottom like nobody's business.

J:  That's a good bass player right there.

D:  I know a lot about holding the bottom.

J:  I guess when you're a guitar player and a songwriter you know what a bass player should do. Whether or not you know how to play it.

D:  Honestly my favorite bass style has always been really simple. I've got a friend who was a really good bass player when he didn't know how to play, and then when he went to school and studied jazz bass, he came out totally ruined. There was no soul left to him anymore.

E:  It ruined him!

J:  The bass is kind of like the drums that way. Less is more - just holding it down. I still wrestle with that. I'm not saying that I'm Fill-Daddy McRoll, but I still know when I'm being superfluous and when I just need to like take some time in my playing schedule, and fuck off and stick to the beat.

D:  Well, that's what Polite Fiction [Adam, Jesse and David's other band] is for.

J:  Exactly. But like I was saying earlier, It doesn't put the pressure on us to have play up, just to play well, and simple. It's nice.

E:  Simple needs for this project.

A:  So the poetry is heard and highlighted.

D:  You wouldn't put Jack Nicholson in as an extra, because he'd steal the show from whatever shmoe you put in as the lead. You don't want to upstage what's going on in front. The lead shmoe needs to stand out.

J:  That's actually why we turned down Jack Nicholson's offer to play bass and had you play bass right?

D:  We're on freakin Mar's.

A:  Not right now we're not.

J:  And not us, but yes.

A:  As humanity.

J:  And the British probe fucked up.

D:  It's like they through a Frisbee.

J:  It was about as miscalculated as...

A:  Hootie and the Blowfish.

D:  Or like Bush's 2nd album.

E:  Dave used to be so into Bush.

D:  Their 1st album was great.

J:  I think he's a great president.

D:  See my problem with Anybody But Bush is nobody recognizes how great the first...term...

E:  Album!

D:  Sorry, I'm getting confused

A:  Glycerine is a vegetable.

E:  This should be Emily Riley and the Glycerines.

MLP:  Do you think the interview is going better now that we found beer?

E:  Yes.

MLP:  Or found bar?

A:  I found beer.

D:  I found a beer in the woods and killed it.

MLP:  Do you guys feel privileged to be part of this group?

A:  I'd like to thank the lord, and my mother, and the right side of my father, cuz that's the good side.

J:  Cuz he beat you with his left side.

D:  No, I don't feel privileged. That's really odd to say, because we're all really talented and what we're doing is really interesting. And I think the whole fusion aspect of it is pretty fucking awesome. I think that there's a lot of merit to this group. Having known Emily as long as I have, and having put together as a band, kinda falling into it, it just felt like "Duh". So I don't feel like I've been gifted with anything. It's just a natural evolution.

E:  It felt really organic.

After the interview, Dave walked home with a 12 pack of Pabst, fell down twice on the way, and learned how high a can of beer can bounce on ice. The rest of the group eventually found its way to his house to laugh at the news coverage, watch Brain Candy, and sleep on his living room floor.

For booking info, or if you need a place to crash some wintry night, call 503-288-1195.