Thanks to Janet for sending this in!<\/p>\n
John Doe set defines `Freedom’<\/strong>
\nBy CHRIS MORRIS<\/p>\n06\/12\/2000
\nBPI Entertainment News Wire
\n(c) Copyright 2000 BPI Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
\nLOS ANGELES — On “Freedom Is . . . ,” his new solo album due July 18
\nfrom spinART Records, X bassist John Doe takes on an unlikely
\ncollaborator who has worked with some high-profile pop acts.<\/p>\nBut X once shared the same management company,
\nShankman-DeBlasio-Melina, as the well-known producer\/mixer Dave Way,
\nand veteran punk rocker Doe wound up hitting it off with Way.<\/p>\nDoe says, “I got to be pals with Dave, and he’s got a beautiful studio
\nin his house. So any time I had some songs, we’d get together. If he
\nhad the time, not mixing the Spice Girls and Christina Aguilera and
\nall these hit pop bands, he’d do the John Doe thing.”<\/p>\nThough a couple of songs on the new album date back to band sessions
\nfor Doe’s 1998 Kill Rock Stars EP “For The Rest Of Us,” most of the
\nmaterial was cut solely by co-producers Doe and Way over a period of
\nmonths in 1999.<\/p>\n“It’s really liberating and sort of iconoclastic,” Doe says, “in that
\nyou only have to deal with one person’s contribution, in addition to
\nyour own. I’m pushing the buttons, and he’s playing piano, and I’m
\nplaying guitar, and he’s pushing the buttons, and then, “Oh, well, we
\nneed one more thing, let’s call up [guitarist] Mike Ward.’ It was very
\nhome-style. Elliott Smith does that all the time.<\/p>\n“It’s frightening, though, because you hear all the eccentricities in
\nyour own playing, and you’re very critical of that . . . When you pile
\nfour or five things that you’ve done on top of each other, you hear
\nall the minor flaws, and think, “This is [crap].’ And then somehow,
\nmagically, it comes together, and you come to accept it.”<\/p>\nAfter the collection was finished, Doe shopped it to a number of
\nlabels, of which, in his words, spinART was “the best of the people
\nthat were truly interested. I’m sort of grateful that it’s not a major
\nlabel, because they’re so backward now. They seem to be concerned with
\nform, not content, and youth and things that I’m not part of.”<\/p>\nDoe calls his new material (published by Verelia Music [BMI])
\n“hopeful-[it’s about] wishing that things were easier but accepting
\nthe struggle.”<\/p>\nHe says of the album title, “Freedom is the moment before death, when
\nyou are truly free. Freedom is not another word for nothing left to
\nlose — freedom is the moment of clarity, the moment of truth, as it
\nwere. I totally believe that you have to suffer in some way to get to
\nthe truth. That moment that you’re truly contemplating ending your
\nlife, or when your life is about to end — that is a moment that leads
\nto something incredible . . . I embrace that.”<\/p>\nDoe cut “Freedom Is . . . ” with a collection of top L.A. musicians,
\nincluding Joey Waronker and Smokey Hormel (formerly with Beck’s band),
\nMoney Mark Nishita (of the Beastie Boys), Tony Marsico (formerly with
\nthe Plugz and Matthew Sweet), and two of his X colleagues, drummer
\nD.J. Bonebrake (who is now in Doe’s touring band as well) and vocalist
\n(and ex-wife) Exene Cervenkova.<\/p>\nX, which re-formed two years ago with original guitarist Billy Zoom
\nback in the fold, continues to play reunion shows, performing its old
\nmaterial.<\/p>\nDoe says of the possibilities for an album of new X songs, “You never
\nknow. Actually, Exene and I have been talking about writing some songs
\ntogether, so we’ll see if they become X songs. You know, just writing
\nis rewarding. Writing for something can be stifling. And sometimes,
\nwhat’s expected of X is a bit much.”<\/p>\nIn addition to gigging with X and his own band (which also includes
\nDrew Ross of Aimee Mann’s group on bass), Doe has continued to pursue
\na burgeoning acting career. His 1999 film credits included “Sugar
\nTown,” “Forces Of Nature,” and “Brokedown Palace”; he also took a
\nrecurring role on the WB TV series ” Roswell .”<\/p>\nDoe — who is managed by Zeitgeist Artist Management and booked by
\nStormy Shepherd of Leave Home Booking — plans to tour this summer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to Janet for sending this in! John Doe set defines `Freedom’ By CHRIS MORRIS 06\/12\/2000 BPI Entertainment News Wire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[92,240,362],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supporting","tag-john-doe","tag-music","tag-x"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}