Out stepped Billie Eilish.
I was so starstruck, I was hyperventilating, he says on a phone call.
She walked, like, inches behind me into the restaurant.
The Jesus Lizard.Joshua Black Wilkins*
No makeup, nothing fancy, just Billie Eilish.
I couldnt believe it.
Then theres Eilish, whom hes become a really big fan of in recent years.
Rackis the groups seventh album and its first since 1998.
Making a record that lives up to the groups legend after so many years was a tall order.
Yow tellsRolling Stoneit took a little work to find his sea legs again, but hes happy he did.
And then they came to me with six or eight songs, and I thought they sounded really cool.
I said, Well, what do you want to do with this?
They said, Lets make a record.
So we thought, What the fuck?
I mean, it seemsweird.
Any kind of reenactment or reunion stuff is weird.
I dont even know how to articulate this, but its sort of like fucking an old girlfriend.
I thinkRackmight be our best record and were having fun, so, I guess, why not?
When Mac left the band, Ihatedit.
I hated not having him in the band.
It became a job instead of the most fun thing you’re free to do.
I think they expected that I was not going to want to do it.
I think thats partly why they worked on some stuff without really saying anything to me.
And there was a large contingent of, I use the term loosely, fans of the earlier stuff.
Youd recorded with the band Qui and did a solo album since the last Jesus Lizard record.
I did feel like I dont know what Im doing when I first started [writing forRack].
It doesnt have to be good.
It doesnt have to make sense.
You just dont stop writing.
And that was very helpful.
A lot of ideas came out of that.
Also, the current events in the last eight years or so.
I dont know how blatant it is, but it was unignorable.
Are you familiar with her?
I think it might be the best record ever made.
I like how emotional she is, how good she is at conveying really strong feelings.
But no one would ever know if I didnt say anything.
To me, it implies motion.
That really helped me just sort of run with it for that song.
You mentioned Trump earlier.
I was wondering if in Is That Your Hand?
where you repeat I forecast them stupid, over and over, was inspired by him.Yeah.
It sounds like Im saying, I sawCaptain Stubing.
You could change the lyric sheet.Its too late.
Its just like it goes on and on.
[Yow retouches photos for ads as his day job.
]Im so grateful to him.
]Oh, wowie.
And I love bands like Wire or even XTC bands that are kind of intellectuals.
And I just get a kick out of putting things together that you wouldnt necessarily think would work together.
You knew him as Big Blacks frontman before you recorded with him.
When did you know he had a knack for recording?I dont know.
Im not sure how he arrived exactly on the experimental, groundbreaking ideas that he did with microphone techniques.
Did you recommend Steve to them?I dont think so.
What do you think the David Yow button is?I dont know.
