"Tales From The Deep"
B-SIDE Vol. 9 #1 Feb/Mar '95

Chris Connelly can't find the safest route to his own success. An artist of his immense vocal skill and considerable writing talents should be able to easily adapt his work to the current status quo, right? If you're good of course you can fake being mundane. But safe and easy just isn't for Captain Connelly, our intrepid sailor on the seas of the soul. He arrives at his final musical destination via a series of puzzles and mazes, along with a few spiraling high dives into the deep end of his psyche. These wild spiritual baptisms keep Chris musically honest and firmly free from the status quo.

But after the surprising beauty of his first solo album "Whiplash Boychild", the Scottish singer dove a touch too deeply into himself and almost hit bottom. The shallow dark waters that created his second album, the uncontrolled "Phenobarb Bambalam", were very dangerous. Under pressure to produce an album, and still working on Ministry's "Psalm 69", Chris forced his creativity into chaos.

The newly shorn Chris sighs, describing, "The circumstances surrounding that album were really adverse. I wasn't ready to do an album, then once I was doing it I wanted it just to be over. My life was really a mess at the time: I just wanted everything to be over. And now I have to live with that. There's two songs on that record that I like ... the record could have been good if I spent another few months on it. I just blundered through the whole thing and didn't pay enough attention to what I was doing."

"Having said that, I still can't ignore that record. It certainly was representative of a time and a place, whether it was a bad album or not, and I do think it was a bad record."

"I can't forget it, because it's there for people to buy and for people to judge. But in a strange weird way I am happy it's out, because it is true, and honest. It reflects exactly what I felt at the time. If I had been in my right mind at that time I wouldn't have done that record, but it is honest, purely by mistake. It's coincidence," he softly concludes. "Into the cesspool of history with it."

Send that album into the depths with a rock attached to it. Now it's time to get "Shipwrecked" with Captain Chris at the helm. For all that the title suggests a disaster, this album finds Chris at his most confident, offering deft musicianship, lyrical dark diamonds, and those poetic tones that make tales of drunkeness, drowning and death sound seductive. If all sailors had voices this gorgeous the Navy would have a much sexier allure.

"The way I did this album was completely different. I took some time off. And let me tell you, I wrote a lot of these songs with no intention of releasing them. I had no intention of releasing an album. What I was doing was just what I am usually doing, writing songs and also trying to perfect the art of writing songs. Whereas with "Phenobarb", I wasn't trying to perfect anything: I had this 'fuck you all' attitude. But this time, I wanted to develop that craft. I just sat down and started to write. Then one day I decided that I had enough songs to do a record."

Chris allowed this album to sneak up on him in "Whiplash Boychild"'s manner, in a slowly blossoming experience. He jokingly refers to those "Boychild" sessions as musical "romper room", since the band played as they pleased over many months. But it worked!

Of "Shipwreck" he further describes, "I wanted to do something that captured the spirit of "Whiplash Boychild". "Whiplash" is very black and white. There's a very up tempo song, then there's a more laid back song ... no, laid back is the wrong word. OK, a song with drums and song without drums," he laughs. "I liked the highs and lows, I liked the dynamics of that, and I wanted to capture something that was of an LP length that had that dynamic, plus that also had that dynamic within the song. What I want to do is to marry the music to the words. I want the chords I am writing to relate and evoke a certain mood that the lyrics are evoking at the same time. I am trying to capture that dynamic."

"With "Whiplash", there were sprawling moods, and sprawling songs. And I wanted to encapsulate that into a three minute pop song. Like "Solid Gold", trying to capture that in three or four minutes. And I am satisfied that I did that. I didn't want to be long winded. I wanted to make it palatable. I wanted to make it be pop, as much as I can be pop, and say what I have to say without taking up the whole side of a record doing it."

Within those three minute shots Chris creates many moods, nuances and levels of emotions. But there's plenty of breathing room: no one will get the emotional bends. Chris has achieved a song designer's dream: cramming in as much emotion as he could without ever crowding the listener out.

"What's so brilliant about it to me is that it captures my mood. And my mood changes like the wind. And it can change within one and a half minutes. I can be sad one minute and happy the next. I can't afford therapy," he suddenly laughs, "so I decided to do it on a record."

The Captain certainly performed little head games when he embarked with affable guitarist William Tucker on the Swinging Junkies tour. People who were only familiar with Chris from his aggro excursions via Ministry, the Cocks and Pigface abruptly stopped their socializing and fell into rapt silence. It was utter hypnotism using voice, guitar and a flickering candle.

Chris notes, "It was rewarding, and it's something I might do again, I can't doubt it. We were playing in some places to six people, which is fine! It was nice, playing little coffee shops in places like Provo, Utah. It was fun, it was cool, and it was another experience. It was also fun to travel, that's for sure."

An unpleasant traveling experience for Chris occurred when he moved to Kansas City. Admitting that sometimes he does the rashest things, he got married, promptly fell out of marriage, and found himself in Kansas City, which he describes as a "debilitating experience." It did help his music in certain ways, by making him concentrate on his lyrical ability (there was nothing else to do!) He also realized that Chicago isn't as bad as he thought. Now he's back in Chicago and admits that he's finally very happy.

But when Chris finished "Whiplash Boychild" back in 1991, he wasn't satisfied with the Ministry / Revolting Cocks axis, having butted musical heads with Big Al one too many times. He now looks upon that long musical relationship as a flexible day to day dynamic. "For sure. I did the last Cocks album, and we decided not to tour for it. But as for Ministry, I am not working on the new Ministry album, but I am going to spend Christmas with these guys. If I was asked to do something, that would be fine. I love working with Al and Paul. But now I want to put all my energy into my solo records."

It's about time: Fini Tribe, Pigface, Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Murder Inc: is there anyone Chris hasn't worked with? "For a while, I collaborated with everyone on the face of the earth and their daughter" he laughs. "I got stuff out of it, and I learned a lot. Even though I did some things that I liked, I did some things that were strained. So now I am a lot more choosy about that. I want to pour my energies into my solo career, and that takes a lot of energy, especially when it comes to developing your own craft of songwriting. I am satisfied that I am getting somewhere with it, so it's worth it to me to just buckle down and not be a jack of all trades."

He still loves his friends and collaboration's interaction, but Chris realized collaboration distracted his own personal focus. Now the most important agenda for Chris is growth: he only decided to work on the last Cocks album for involvement in the actual musical structure. "I have an inquisitive mind: I want to learn about stuff. Therefore I will only collaborate with people if I think I will get something really good out of it for me. I am not being selfish there, but I want to be proud of what I am doing."

That's not selfish, that's self-perseveration! The same quality that makes Chris such a sought after collaborator is revealed when he speaks of his lyrics. The man doesn't have enough ego! For all the accomplished lyrics that Chris has penned, he's still incredibly modest about his achievements. "Lyrically, I still feel I am in my infancy, and that is to keep concentrating on it, keep developing how I feel. I keep reading, and keep experiencing things, to find new ways of saying things. It's all like paring something down to the core."

"I am really happy with the lyrics on this new record, because I've found a synthesis of tangibility and emotion that came into fruition and made the lyrics what they are. They were true to me, and I am happy about that. It is like arriving at the station, and waiting for the next train out."

Chris might claim that as a lyric writer he's an infant, but this infant wields an extremely polished pen. Unlike many lyricists, Chris doesn't shy away from poetry: he embraces his lyrics as poetry. Chris also acknowledges he's much more influenced by verbal artforms found outside the musical realm. "I am a music junkie for sure, but ... let me see here, I've found a new favorite poem. I found that when I moved to Kansas City. I spent a lot of time in the library, for lack of anything better to do. I have been reading a lot of books, and I went back to Yeats recently, and my favorite poem by him at the moment is called "The Stolen Child," which is a beautiful poem, and you can find it in the "Collected Works of W.B. Yeats", which is a book that anyone interested in lyricism should own. He is my favorite poet."

"I really enjoy reading. There's so many books out there that I have to read more. I learn a lot from them. I am absolutely awestruck by someone who can write a story like that. I've not really tried for a while, but writing prose is a bit of a mystery to me. I keep getting dumbfounded, 'cause I think maybe I could do that, then I read a book that just blows me away."

This intense love affair with words began very early, and has been an ongoing passion in Chris' life. Chris offers, "I don't exactly know what style I write in, but I have seemed to arrive at this place. On "Phenobarb" I was trying to be a lot more straightforward, and that really didn't work for me. I like to use the words as images, and try not to be so obtuse. For example, the song "Solid Gold", I think to a listener, knowing these words and listening to these lyrics, you do conjure up certain images. I would be very happy if someone were to tell me what these images suggested to them, and it would be similar to what I was thinking. A lot of people say "what the fuck are you writing about?" I say "listen to the words, listen to the music ..." "passed by 'til they're frantic / staring through peoples at me ..." That song is a really almost Dante-ish, or Hieronymus Bosch ... it's a really hellish overview of a personal situation. The images are pretty ugly ... I like to use really ugly images juxtaposed with beautiful images, or images about movement. To imply rather than state what I am getting at: I do have a specific meaning, and they're more imagery based than just saying what the hell is going on."

"I think people can relate to them more, because they're so obviously ugly or beautiful, they are so obviously juxtaposed. They're dream-like, and that's easier and more tangible for people to relate to. Plus I am trying to inject a sense of humor into that as well, as with "Spoonfed Celeste", which is a pretty straight forward narrative. People have picked up on that, and they think it's hilarious, and it's meant to be hilarious musically and lyrically, even though it's black humor. I can't help that, it's the way my mind works."

Chris confesses, "It's not even a conscious effort. It's very sub- conscious. It's not like I sat down and said I am going to write this or I am going to write that: it was very subconscious and fluid. And it just jelled. I think that's the most beautiful thing, because it did jell, and came out exactly like I wanted it, like a really difficult recipe. But you don't have a recipe to read from! There is a lot to say for that subconscious way of thinking. You can arrive at truth. It's like someone had hypnotized me, and made me do that album. That's the level of honesty I am trying to get at, and that's what's happened without being hypnotized. Or maybe I was hypnotized, I'm not sure ... that would have been nice," he softly laughs.

"You know, there's probably easier ways of going about it, but as yet, I haven't found that," he murmurs. "No one has given me any ground rules. I listen to a lot of songs, and I admire how a lot of songs are written, but I can't go in and copy that. So the sum total of everything I've heard comes and thankfully it sounds like me. That's a heartening thought."

A Chris Connelly album offers an experience far from the maddening commonplace crowd. One never knows what to expect ... not even Chris! He uses "Swimming" as an example: it began as a Beach Boys piss-take and came out as the dirtiest song on the album. "I start at the beginning of a thought process, and I can say that for every song. When I started writing it was like a dark tunnel, and I just wandered. No, not a tunnel: it was more like a maze. I wandered about and in the end there was the song that was written."

Speaking of "Swimming" brings up the constant references to water and death in Chris' albums. Water's a very spiritual symbol, and it's often used for rebirth and the emotional conflicts found in one's life. On "Shipwrecked" Chris creates water metaphors then mixes them with sex and death. When I hear "Spoonfed Celeste" I think of the Marie Celeste, the legendary ghost vessel of the late 1800's, even though that raunchy song has nothing to do with boats nor ghosts! There's even an albatross reference ... Flying Dutchman, anyone? Did Chris have a near drowning experience at an early age?

"I have had a few close shaves!" he playfully admits. "I've always had this feeling that I am going to die by drowning. Which is fine, I think it's a really romantic way to die. I'd rather do that then burn to death: that's wishful thinking in a way. I have these amazing water images that reoccur in my dreams all the time. It's always very dark water, and very stormy, with dark rocks. I have a lot of these images all the time. It's a subconscious thing: I keep going back to water. "The Last of Joy" on the first album, and on this album, I mean how many more drowning references can you get on one album? The answer is not many. And I didn't want to write an album about drowning. I didn't even come up with the ablum title: Bill Rieflin did!"

That's because Bill's an old friend who knows Chris' inner conflicts. "Exactly. But it was perfect. The whole water thing is a wonderful metaphor for so many things, and it attracts me, and I can't get away from it. It's there all the time, I can't get away from it. I have a fascination with it. I like to spend extended periods of time just sitting by the water. It just appeals to me."

No wonder Captain Chris shriveled up in Kansas City! He took himself away from a city that's strongly influenced by the mighty Lake Michigan. "Yeah, it's really nice to go down there. I go to this little lighthouse and just stare into the lake and pretend. What I really like to do is just to shut out everything else and look at the water. I sometimes go down there to write. Actually, a lot of the things I've been writing have a lot to do with animals. For some reason I have been writing a lot ..." Chris fetches his book he's been writing in, then he quickly pages through it. "The last poem I wrote, which was actually by the lake, OK, here we go ..."

"Where did the wind's missile end all of us no wind or water green and supreme the catch the squeal guarded victims' resignation of motor functions arrest victory There can a bird's eye slowly feel or fail to rise its bony beak as it splits another surface to heal There can birds claw peel inward from misery too late to miss its ghost prey like walls bleed in fathom, growing to old ones and shrinking with a whimper back to ragged birth An island, a skinny flaw, a frail moon or avenue Jupiter Thus the planet for hidden treasure."

"That was the last poem I wrote. I have been writing a lot about animals and birds of prey. That day was about seagulls, and how they were circling and heading down and completely ravaging fish. Not the innocence of animals, but how animals hunt, and they know nothing more than giving birth and catching prey. When you're younger you associate them with good and evil in a way. Like you'll see a rat and think evil. But rats don't know evil. They have not the capacity to know that. They know reproducing and eating: I mean their brain is the size of a raisin, so come on!" he laughs.

"They're not evil, but you can't say they're super friendly. They're not domesticated. They're just doing what they do. They serve a purpose." "It's actually existential to think that: they're there, and they serve a purpose, and they die. That's it. And that's fascinating to me at the moment."

Whoa, Chris swerved into existentialism while I'm still mentally recovering from his lovely poetry reading. Who needs dry existentialism when fluid voices like Chris' exist? Sartre, eat your dead cold heart out.

For now, Chris isn't sure if this new fascination with animals and their lives will work into his subconscious to influence his lyrics, since he regards these new works as poems, not to be used for musical purposes. So when are the collected works of the poet Connelly going to grace the bookshelves? Chris admits, "I am more likely to do that now. Befoe I wasn't ... I thought do I want to do that or record a spoken word tape just for fans? But I actually have courted a British publisher that has an office in New York called Serpent's Tale. I sent off a bunch of my poetry just to see what they said."

Chris steams on to a topic dear to him: the state of poetry and its place in music. "In many ways I think that poetry can be saved by rock music. 95% of the lyrics out there I am really snobby about and I don't like. But there are some lyrics ... have you heard the Palace Brothers? His (Will Oldham) lyrics are wonderful. I have always been into people like Scott Walker and John Cale, who are real poets. And Nick Cave, who is really a wonderful lyricist and a wonderful poet. There's not a lot of them about."

"Poetry was something that was read widely sixty, seventy years ago, and for centuries before that. But now we have television and blah de blah. It's not a dying art, but it has to work its way into other things. And I think that rock music is a wonderful forum to express poetry, and I think it can work well as long as you forget when you're writing a song. OK, it gets really heavy and loud here, and I'll yell oh baby! Or say something political!" he laughs. "As long as you can forget about what you're doing, it's a wonderful medium that should be explored more by writers out there, because I think the poetry world is incestuous and rather boring."

"I know for a fact that, I speak to people all the time, a lot of people don't listen to lyrics: that's cool. But when they're good, they can say so much!" But when you compliment some artists by claiming their lyrics read like poetry, they become very scandalized. Don't you call me a stinkin' poet!

Chris' quick response is a furious one. "People intellectualize poetry all the time! It really pisses me off! What is intellectual about Dylan Thomas? The only thing intellectual about Dylan Thomas is the people who dissected his poetry to get work. But he was a Welsh drunk: give me a break! He wrote beautiful poetry, and he's one of my favorites, but I don't intellectualize his work. The intellecualization of poetry is something invented by lecturers. You don't have to have some one sit down and explain it to you. That's not what he intended. He just felt like writing, and he was good at it ..."

As Chris said, poetry has been around for centuries as entertainment for the masses. It's logical for it to move into a popular mass entertainment realm in this century. Chris exclaims, "I mean who went to see Shakespeare? Everyone went. Back then, going to see MacBeth was like going to see "Mutant Gun Two" or whatever! It's the same shit! That's all there was for entertainment. They were good storeis: some of them hilarious. That's what was going on back then: if a play was funny, they'd laugh their asses off, If it was sad, they cried. But now it's made into this high art thing, and it's not high because it's there to be enjoyed, and it can evoke so much in someone. It's a beautiful thing. But people shouldn't intellectualize it."

"It can cause a lot of arguments. I have argued the point with people before. It can be really funny. But that's my point of view of the whole thing," he laughs, ending his poetic tirade. Sigh.

Chris will be available for arguments in February when he washes astage with his impressively talented crew that features William Tucker, Chris Bruce, Mark McNaulty and Bill Rieflin. This could be the most memorable voyage of your life ... bring a life preserver if you can't swim. Remember, drowning's the romantic way to die, so no one's going to pull you out.