God or Monster?
Virtuoso guitarist Gary Lucas compartmentalizes pop
There’s a man in the back, bedecked in all black, smiling like a maniac. A surf green Stratocaster upon his lap, his fingers dance across the fret board urging out blissful tones, his trademark “avant-pop,” with effortless ease. Unable to keep up with the feverish pace or add anything new to the sonic mix, the other players fall out one by one, save a brave guitarist and drummer. All the players look at each other with the same big grin that says, “Damn, this guy can play!” The man in back—still with that knowing smile—is conjuring such a maelstrom that it’s impossible to tell how he’s playing so many parts at once. The jam winds to a close with all eyes still on the man in the back. As the final notes give way to dead silence, everyone in WKCR studios stands transfixed, enraptured, while the man in back just smiles. Eventually, they all shuffle in procession to pay their respects. This is Gary Lucas as the Monster. Seeing that devilish smile and his musical virtuosity, it’s hard not think that he’s followed the path of Robert Johnson and sold his soul to the devil.
Yet, within moments of meeting Gary Lucas the God for a lunch of Chinese noodles, it becomes apparent that this cannot be the case. Lucas the God is the affable, well-spoken Yale grad, Shakespeare and Chaucer devotee, self-proclaimed pacifist, and leader of psych-rock band Gods and Monsters. For an hour and a half, we talk about everything ranging from the pride he derives from his Jewish origins to air traffic controllers to Václav Havel, but whatever the tangent, he always comes back to the music.
“It gives me more joy than any other art form and it just moves me emotionally,” Lucas says. “It’s better to follow your heart, plus I don’t really know how to do anything else.” From his easy-going, self-effacing demeanor, one would never be able to tell that he is a darling of the avant-garde scene in New York and has been for almost two decades since his appearance at the old Knitting Factory in June of 1988, a self-described “turning point” that jump-started the second part of his musical career. Since then, Lucas has played alongside such music legends as Lou Reed, Roswell Rudd, Jeff Buckley, and John Zorn. He has not only held his own, but left such an impression that he has been lauded with accolades such as “the thinking man’s guitar hero” and “a true axe God,” by The New Yorker and Melody Maker, respectively.
“Since I was a little boy, I’ve loved monsters and horror films,” Lucas, the consummate storyteller, says as he reminisces about his childhood. On a fourth-grade musical aptitude test, Lucas received a perfect score, and the band director immediately insisted that he begin playing the most difficult instrument in the orchestra, the French horn, and so Lucas’ proper musical career began. Throughout middle and high school, he played guitar in various combos, often with friend Walter Horn, with whom he would later compose a live film score to the 1920 film The Golem—which Lucas continues to play live around the world to this day. Following high school, Lucas says he spent a lot of time at WYBC, the Yale radio station, but he was also a letterman on the rifle team and a guitar player in the Yale Symphony Orchestra, through which he was able to meet and play with Leonard Bernstein.
A post-college stint in Taipei exposed Lucas to the Chinese pop of the 1930s-’50s, which Lucas would later rearrange for the album The Edge of Heaven. Upon returning to the States, Lucas wrote ad copy for CBS Records, which Lucas describes as “a total prostitution of my writing skills.” Yet, he did come up with some memorable lines. Writing about The Clash, Lucas came up with the tagline, “The Only Band That Matters.”
“And I really believed it for a minute,” he says. “I really liked them.”
“But then I got into Beefheart’s band, and thought hey, we’re the only band that matters,” he says, cracking that smile again. As a member of Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, Lucas played on Doc at the Radar Station and Ice Cream For Crow and immediately began to distinguish himself as a guitar virtuoso. The solo guitar piece “Flavor Bud Living” even managed to fool the great rock critic Lester Bangs, who asked Lucas if he was playing the higher or the lower part (Lucas was actually playing both parts simultaneously, without overdubs).
After Beefheart, Lucas laid low for a while. “For a while, I totally psyched myself out of even attempting to write songs,” Lucas says. “Then one day, I was just doing it and it met with pretty good reception.” Lucas then formed Gods and Monsters and used it as a vehicle for his musical theories; the only problem was finding a lead singer. Who could possibly be able to keep up with Lucas the Monster?
“My experience was it never really worked out on the long term and I had some good ones. The best probably being Jeff Buckley,” Lucas says. “I’m very proud of writing “Grace” and “Mojo Pin”—songs that would appear on Buckley’s platinum album Grace. Those songs put into practice my little ideas about avant-pop whereby, the game was to aspire to make stuff that wasn’t an automatic Top 40 hit, but could function as a popular song and still had art elements with it. And that’s what I continue to try and do.”
Along the way, there has been some criticism. The sheer versatility of Lucas’ playing is astounding and his musical palette is so large he can literally create whatever he wants. However, as he traverses and bridges various musical territories, he alienates fans, critics, and purists who believe he is just wasting his time and talent. Though his work may be “compartmentalized,” a term Lucas himself uses, “it’s the very diversity of what I do that keeps me in business,” he says. Lucas has literally done everything—he’s dabbled in Chinese pop, country, music with Jewish themes, blues, pop, rock, ambient, jazz, film and television scores, but he says, “If you examine all my records ... the one common thread, besides that I’m playing guitar, is that there’s a blues element, there’s a twang ... This is the music I relate to the best. Why? I try to figure that out. I think there’s a spiritual aspect to blues that encompasses all of the dynamic, the sound of a human struggling through the instrument. That I like. I like to hear a wailing, kind of a human cry, and I put it in my guitar playing. It just comes out. That’s what moves me the most of any music.”
The current lineup of Gods and Monsters may be the best evocation of this dynamic yet. The “New Wave super group,” as he refers to the band, includes his friends Ernie Brooks (The Modern Lovers), Billy Ficca (Television), Jason Candler (Hungry March Band), and oftentimes Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads). Their last record, Coming Clean, is an impressive and forward-thinking effort in the avant-pop vein, showing that despite an illustrious past, Lucas is not one to rest on his laurels. This is something that Lucas feels differentiates the generations of musicians.
“People just think, ‘I can make a perfect record that sounds very polished and could even be avant-garde and then just boot it up on the net and I’m in the music business and I’m an artist,’ without paying any dues, without really going and being rejected or feeling what that’s like,” he says. “Cause that informs your evolution and your craftwork. ... Nothing is easy and you can’t really have any struggle if it’s all given to you.” Lucas is fast to point out that he does like a lot of new music, citing Joanna Newsom and Super700.
This year will see the release of a live DVD and a studio album from Gods and Monsters, as well as the new solo Chris Cornell—of Soundgarden and Audioslave fame—album, which has Lucas’ signature guitar work all over it. Cornell, on the strength of Lucas’ work with Buckley, requested that the guitarist play on his album. Beyond recording, Lucas continues to tour the world both as a solo artist, with Gods and Monsters, and with The Du-Tels, a country-folk duo that features Lucas showcasing another dimension to his prodigious talent along with Peter Stampfel (The Fugs/Holy Modal Rounders).
“It’s that youthful energy and spirit and attitude that’s kept me wanting to do this and it’s why I still enjoy it playing live,” he says. “Really when you’re on stage and in the moment and it’s all working, like the audience is digging it, there’s no better feeling in the world. ... It’s one of life’s best things and if you can make it pay as a living, that’s been my goal. And actually I’m proud to say its worked out.”
At the end of the meal, fortune cookies were brought out and Lucas’ read, “Doing what you love is freedom, and loving what you do is happiness.” It really doesn’t matter whether Lucas is more God or Monster. As long as he plays his guitar and follows his muse, he’s got everything one needs: music, freedom, and happiness.