Ch-Ch-Changes: Chris Connelly's Post-Industrial Era
Option, Jul-Aug 1994
Leaning against the dimly lit stage at the Khyber Pass in Philadelphia, Chris Connelly looks more sensitive than his public image might suggest. Lean, dark, and marked by a classic facial rigidness that reveals his Scottish heritage, Connelly is wearing a Thrill Kill Kult T-shirt while otherwise dressed completely in black. His shoulder-length dreads are pulled back into a ponytail and hidden under a leather cowboy hat.
He's marveling over the ease with which he has been able to pull off his recent "Swinging Junkies" tour, a series of non-industrial performances previewing material on his upcoming album, Shipwreck. "Compared with anything else I've ever done, whether it was with Ministry or Revolting Cocks or Pigface this has been slow and quiet and easy," he says, in his thick accent. "You wouldn't believe the amount of gear we hauled around on the last Ministry tour. The noise alone was enough to make me want to take a day job -- 130 dBs onstage. It was like the sound of a fucking jet taking off."
After a short sound check. Connelly heads up a flight of stairs at the side of the club to a dark second-floor dressing room. A jukebox blares singles by everyone from to Frank Sinatra to Pavement to Public Enemy.
Tonight's show is the fifth in a two-month acoustic excursion for industrial rocker Connelly and his partner, guitarist William Tucker of the Thrill Kills. The tour and new album represents Connelly's continuing search for independence from Chicago's Wax Trax techno-industrial mafia, where he played important roles as a member of Ministry and Pigface, Iead vocalist for the Revolting Cocks, and sideman in numerous projects including Acid Horse, with members of Cabaret Voltaire. Shipwreck, set for release this fall, is Connelly's third solo outing.
"I'm beginning to see some people recognizing- my art for what it is — songwriting," he says of the way audiences have responded to his techno-folkie shows. "It's not been easy. When we went out on tour for my last album, Phenobarb Bambalam, people were bumming out 'cause they expected the Cocks. We got a lot of hate mail from our fans, and I tried for a long time to tell people this solo thing is more me than I've ever been. It's not industrial rock. I don't play that anymore.
"In fact, I've never viewed RevCo as an industrial band. To me, we were just pushing the parameters of sound much in the way a band like Can did in the '70s. We just took advantage of the technology around us and injected humor into it. That was almost ten years ago. I mean, here I am, there's another side to me."
Growing up in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the '70s, Connelly was a product of his David Bowie records and the punk rock his older brother exposed him to. Born in 1964 to a non-musical family, he got his first taste of performing in school, singing classical music. "I was way more into music than I was into my Iessons," he says. "My mum was always on my ass, telling me to stop doing music. After I moved to America and sent her a gold record, I think she appreciated more what I did."
The three musical events that shaped his future were hearing the Residents' version of "Satisfaction," Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop," and "Hamburger Lady" by proto-industrialists Throbbing Gristle. "Those records were so powerful, yet they were recorded with minimal instrumentation. I had a reel-to-reel and would just start making tape loops; I got very experimental at that point."
With his primitive loops of various rhythms and noises, he formed Rigor Mortis, which by 1978 had evolved into Fini Tribe, an industrial dance-oriented band. "We had a rock-band setup but we weren't into rock music, we just tried to explore what we could do within the confines of our ability to play our instruments. At this time it was de rigeur to do experimental music. Bands like the Pop Group were around, and we also really liked Wire."
Connelly's involvement with Al Jourgensen, Bill Rieflin, and Paul Barker of Ministry began innocently when he rook a Fini Tribe single to the London Wax Trax office. "I remember hearing 'Nature of Love' by Ministry and 'En Voyae' by the Young Gods, and they were the only things I could relate to at the time. So I went to Southern Studios in London, where the Wax Trax offices were, and met Al. One night we all got drunk together and they asked me to sing a song for them. I went into the studio and did the song and the next thing I knew they asked me to sing for Revolting Cocks. I mean, they were my favorite band. In the summer of 1987 we played our first RevCo shows, which were recorded and released as a double album, You Goddamned Son of a Bitch."
Connelly left his family and band behind and was quickly immersed himself in the deviant world of Al Jourgensen's blossoming high-tech empire. "To say that it was a very productive period is an understatement," Connelly relates, and then spins a few vales of his reckless days with Ministry and the Cocks. He also toured with Pigface, the industrial supergroup presided over by ex-PiL member Martin Atkins which ax various times included Trent Reznor, Killing Joke's Paul Raven and Skinny Puppy's Ogre. (Currently, there's a dispute brewing over Pigface royalties supposedly owed to Connelly and Tucker; Atkins denies that any conflict exists.) According to Connelly, members of Pigface once dropped acid for 5a days in a row; likewise, he recalls the "fun hours of endless bulk recording with Al and Ministry," and "the campy, trampy, go-go-bar-like atmosphere of the RevCo shows.
"The thing about RevCo and Ministry was that the personalities went a long way towards making the music My contribution was to introduce a more humorous, tongue-in-cheek side to the music, to channel all that incredible energy from the studio into some interesting lyrics. As a newcomer to America I was able to offer a different perspective on the scene. I also screamed a lot."
Connelly appears nervous. "The primal scream therapy was the way I worked things out, but now I'm concentrating on singing and writing songs," he stresses. "After years of having a headache 24 hours a day, and a constant sore throat, I am enjoying finding the other side of my voice. You don't need to scream to be heard "
He may not be literally screaming, but Connelly's quiet, inner voice remains shrill with despair. His solo recording began with 1991's Whiplash Boychild followed by Phenobarb Bambalam, an album which he confesses "is a cross I'll always have to bear." Phenobarb was recorded during a particularly stressful period induced largely by the suicide of his girlfriend Tracy. On Shipwreck he's trying to heal.
"There's something cathartic about reaching bottom," he says. "I'll never fully understand what happened and why. I don't expect to fully. When people die young it's a shame. My girlfriend. Kurt Cobain. River Phoenix, whom I wrote the song 'Early Nighers' about.
"The focus of Shipwreck is about my life falling apart, and working my way back up. It has allowed me to work some stuff out," he says. reaching for another Camel Light. "It's not fair that people leave their lives so young and you can't ask them, 'Why didn't you just do things this way? I miss you. I want you to be here so l can ask you why you did it?' Short of having a seance, there's no way to reach out to find those answers.
"Kurt's death was very sad," he continues. "Fame is a hard thing to deal with, especially when you didn't want it in the first place. It's a new restriction that is inflicted on you."
As a songwriter trying to communicate an image and message, Connelly also wants his songs to evoke the honesty he feels has been a trademark of his writing. While he appreciates all the Bowie comparisons, he also sees in his music the sensitivity of '60s pop-folkie Scott Walker.
"Scott is my complete mentor, a major influence on my work," Connelly says. "I have just about everything he's done right down to his early 45s on the Orbit label His Boychild is one of my favorite records. Whiplash Boychild has all kinds of references to his music. I first heard 'No Regrets' in 1975 when it came out and I immediately fell in love with his voice and his Iyrics.
"To me, artists like Tim Hardin and Leonard Cohen are beautiful. I feel honesty and genuineness in their songs, and that's what I strive for. What I want to do with music is like what Lou Reed did: he's taken of often witty, of often sad poetry, added music to breathe more life into it, and de-intellectualized the myth of poetry. I'm trying to introduce something farther away than rock Iyrics."
William Tucker joins Connelly upstairs, and after a couple of whiskeys they begin talking about the ironies in today's post-industrial music scene. They bash techno-industrial music for selling out and becoming popular. And they note Al Jourgensen's recent move to Austin, Texas, in light of Johnny Cash's signing to hip-hop/metalurgust Rick Rubin's American Recordings. "I mean, just what the hell is going on?" asks Tucker.
"The funny thing," says Connelly, "is that people think that when the Cocks are done in the studio, or when William gets off a Thrill Kill tour, we all go back to our rooms at the end of the night and blast techno music. What people don't understand about industrial music is that it has more to do with the sharing of musical reference points than it does with listening to other kinds of industrial music."
"We might listen to the Residents' Third Reich 'n Roll," says Tucker.
"Or Bobby Womack and Chaka Khan," Connelly adds.
"Or the fucking Meters — what a rhythm section!" Tucker bounces back.
"Or Prince and David Sylvian — they capture moods," Connelly replies. "The people I admire are those who are constantly changing. A good artist is someone who is faithful to himself or herself because they accept change as a natural process. It shouldn't be viewed as a contrived process to change, but that, as you learn, you apply what you've learned to your art.
"I'm a case in point," he sums up. "I think it's important to know that you can change. One of the best phrases that Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker always said was that the best music's not been recorded yet. I will always think about that as l record."