Cass McCombs

I first meet Cass McCombs in a dressing room. I have a terrible cold, watery eyes and a clouded, weird, fever head. His first sentence after “I’m Cass” is “Give me a minute to get changed into my outfit.” He returns 25 seconds later wearing a round straw hat and a denim jacket with a bright pink, airbrushed scorpion on it. Across his shoulder blades are the self-referencing bubble letters “Lion Killer.” Also sunglasses.

“It’s easier to be somebody when you have an outfit,” he tells me as we spill from Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom out into an alley through alarmed fire doors. We hit Granville Street and wander.

Full disclosure: I am a big fan of Cass McCombs. And so in order to make the interview experience a little less ordinary I thought about doing it somewhere other than backstage, like on a rooftop where we could look over Vancouver Construction City while gabbing about whatever.

It turned out to be harder than I thought. After inquiring everywhere I could think of within walking distance of the Commodore, I got nothing but frowns and terse looks. Next time I’ll say I’m interviewing Bryan Adams.

But, two nights before the show someone from the Vogue called me. A pleasant dude, extremely kind, and a definite member of the Johnson Family agreed to letting Cass and I hang around inside the historic old theatre.

The plush and comely Vogue is dark in the lobby. The main auditorium is under renovation, covered with random wood, tools and activity. Cass disappears up the aisles boyishly, hands in his jacket pockets, exploring the place high and low. We eventually find the basement, which is quiet and away from distraction, and we settle onto a dusty faded heliotrope sofa from the Sixties in an odd sloped room directly under the theatre’s seats. He takes off his hat and shoes and pulls his knees up to his chest. Cass doesn’t do a lot of interviews. He doesn’t enjoy the pressure of something so unrelated and removed from the creative process. In a dirty, disheveled maintenance room, a single fluorescent lamp shines down onto this mysterious and esoteric man.

The first things I notice (besides the outfit) are his pale humble eyes and mischievous teeth. You can tell a great deal about someone’s personality by his or her teeth. At one point during the interview he tells me that he is a “reactionary person”—if you put him in a corner, he’ll bite back.

In our strangely fitting location, I bring out the Catacombs double LP, his fourth and most recent full length. “Ritchie Valens or not?” I ask, pointing inside. Sevreral of the photos in Catacombs involve the Chicano rock legend Valens. Three show a high school-aged Valens, taken before he died in a plane crash at 18. The other is of an airport in Pacoima, California, not far from where Catacombs was recorded, and also the area Valens was from. Cass is a huge fan. Once, when asked whom he would choose if he could play a show with anyone past or present, he responded: “Merle Haggard, The Grateful Dead, Ritchie Valens and The Germs.” I ask him about this. “Those are the four cornerstones of California music: the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All California artists have to base their art on those artists.” He repeats the names for me slower, and, hearing the conviction in his voice when articulating “The Dead,” he makes me seriously reconsider ever slagging those hippies. No joke. Darby and Jerry together at last.

The records Cass has put out so far reveal him to be a weird maverick, never following any one particular style, but deploying them all successfully. In order that he keep his art evolving, the California nomad approaches every song a new way, which at root could possibly be attributed to his peripatetic lifestyle. He’s lived all over: California, San Francisco, Baltimore, Chicago, New York City and London, all before the age of 31. Cass doesn’t have an apartment, nor astonishingly, is he or any of his four-piece band getting paid anything for their opening slot on the Band of Horses dates they are playing. “They are good friends,” he says. “Where they say, we go.” It is clearly about nothing to him but the music.

And for Cass it seems that friends also are synonymous with the creative process. On a few different occasions he speaks about the importance of his friends not only to his music, but to his creativity in general. For example, a regular contributor to his projects has been best friend Aaron Brown, who co-designed the board game which appeared in the foldout of his last full-length outing, Dropping The Writ, created the cover art for Catacombs, directed the “Dreams-Come-True-Girl” and “Executioner’s Song” videos and, as a gift, designed Cass’ previously mentioned custom denim jacket.

As it often goes, Cass was born into the troubadour life. He grew up in and around music. When I ask him who in his family played what instrument, he rubs his eyes with his palm heels and then all his fingers, and through his hands in a long exhalation tells me he doesn’t like to talk about his family.

“Were there ever any profound musical experiences that helped you understand things or changed the way you felt about the world?”

“It’s continuous,” he states. “But growing up there was a lot of thrash bands and metal in the Bay Area, a lot of hip hop and punk… and it was a really polarizing time and different people felt so attached to certain styles of music and I never got on my high horse like that and—wait, I don’t know where I’m going with this…”

There is a long silence.

I remember hearing that Cass loves digging in thrifts for old cassettes while on tour; it’s how he collects music. I reach into my bag and hand him two from my collection when the hang time begins to seem ominous.

“OH! LEONARD! O.D.B!! I lost my Best of Leonard Cohen… and this O.D.B. tape is in great condition!” I tell him that I had another cassette just of howling wolves in the Canadian wilderness, but that I couldn’t part with it. It’s perfect starting-the-day/shower listening.

Again there is a long silence. And then he switches on: “Don’t even bother digitizing it,” he says sarcastically to no one in particular with an intonation vaguely reminiscent of the late, great, Bill Hicks. “There are these people who digitize their cassettes… it defeats the purpose! Let the thing degrade and destroy itself… and then it’s gone forever like you will be someday. What is our obsession with permanence?! It’s a bull**** concept!” And, remembering himself, he adds, “I hate when I curse, I really didn’t want to curse.” I tell him I’ll cut it out. “Cut it out he says,“ and then revises, “It is a… hollow concept.”

Industrial vacuums rattle and whine overhead and the dusty renovations continue. I ask Cass what he thinks about something Jorges Luis Borges casually dropped in a political description that went something like: “America, hampered by the superstition of Democracy….”. I ask this in regards to the song on Catacombs “Don’t Vote.” His reply: “Let’s look at the lyrics.”

“It’s about how there are systems put upon you, and you are judged by not following those systems… and it is a choice not to participate… although you will be judged. Last night at the bar we were talking about the supposed tradition of giving cheers, clinking the glasses and making direct eye contact, and whose tradition is this and how important is it exactly and what if you don’t follow these traditions—what are the consequences?! And the song is about the consequences of not following a tradition, whatever it is.”

Changing gears, I inquire about the video for “The Executioners Song.” I tell him I thought I saw bones and human remains in it.

“You may have. But when you’re making a video it’s just all laughs, you’re just goofing off,” he says. “It’s free! I mean you just keep the thing rolling until something happens… Oh there’s some sheep, let’s just wait for an hour until the sheep do something… you know? Slowmo? Fine! There is no genius behind video making.”

When I ask him about the amazing bar we see in the video with money all over the roof, he tells me that it’s somewhere in nowhere, near Sonoma, near Petaluma in Northern California. Lowering his voice a bit he adds that it is supposed to be haunted.

Jokingly I tell him that the Vogue, too, is haunted.

“Let’s go,” he says, getting up and grabbing his hat. “Let’s seriously get out of here.”

Later that night, Cass and his band pull off a brilliantly tender set, despite an inattentive, chattering crowd. With the help of Melanie Moser (keys, vocals), Christian Owens (bass guitar), Blake Mills (electric guitar) and the player of the best (and most reduced) drum solo I’ve ever seen, Andy McCloud, the band coax out the shimmering spectres from around us. It is the first appearance of Cass McCombs on a Vancouver stage, and for those of us paying attention, he and his friends let us in on some of his remarkably graceful secrets.

Words: Jesua
Photography: Kris Krug www.staticphotography.com