Lilys Interview: Part Four (The Conclusion)

What’s your favourite song on the album?
Um, I think the one that makes me consciously smile and giggle is probably Scott-Free by David Rappaport and I’m not saying that the ones I wrote or the ones that I was more in charge of are not as good, but there’s something kind of timeless about it.”
It’s lovely.
“That’s it, it’s just fucking lovely. David Rappaport did a fan-fucking-tastic job. He wrote it, he recorded it on a four track in ‘99, he changed it when he recorded it in the studio and he did a cover of the 4 track version that’s actually sampled from the cassette tape.
How many singers are there?
Well I sing predominantly the lead vocal. If you can call it that. I sing the head or the melody. Michael Johnson sings the kind of beauty school dropout, the Queen or Grease vocal, he’s doing a total Todd Rundgren thing a mile wide and once again, I always find my self learning more from what we didn’t do, and the energy we could have put in…”
Your songs are very economical though.
“Yes absolutely. Well it’s not about ELO anymore. That’s what makes it sad about the early 90s because everything was becoming a joke.
I was into rap then. Talk about your economical songs.
“Yes, I was going to say, once again, I turned pretty exclusively to R&B and hip-hop and really it’s only been in the last 3-5 years watching the Gorillaz rise up with Demon Days and Kanye West…
See I don’t know if I like them all that much.
“I’m not talking about liking. I’m talking about the unit shifters. Those with multiple publicists, multiple stylists. They have tour staff of upwards of 25 people and two tour buses and an 18-wheeler bus and they are not even the booshy boosh-country superstars like Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, who have eight buses and twenty tractor trailers! See where I’m going?”
It’s ridiculous.
It could shift people’s awareness of the history of music and their earned lineage. We are at the threshold. Either there will be misinformation about how music is done or the current winners will rewrite this is how reggae always has been played uh you know Faith Hill will do a reggae version of ‘Take Another Piece of my Heart’ by Big Brother Holding Company. (Kurt gets distracted. There is noise in the background). “Baby Mama just said, communication is truly my occupation.”
You guys coming to Australia, or what?
“We’re on our way, that is, I’m just hoping a political party or a corporate entity finds value in bringing us over there, because it really is such a turning point in both our careers and I think we’re looking outside of how bands have toured before. I probably will have to give a media psychology lecture to be able to underwrite this or Australia might have a task, as they might say, a janitorial service, a toilet that might need scrubbing, someone’s got to get this shit out of here, oh and Kurt Heasley’s the man for the job. Figuratively speaking.”