Caught in the Carousel

Wussy

By Alex Green

Wussy’s self-titled third album is filled with little birds, catapults, magic words, outer space, Las Vegas, mother-daughter banquets, fire escape kisses, muscle cars and Independence Day Parades.

And songs. Great, great songs.

Led by former Ass Pony Chuck Cleaver and singer/songwriter Lisa Walker, this Cincinnati-based quartet are one of the most inventive, idiosyncratic and intelligent bands around. Although they’ve got two superb albums under their belts (Funeral Dress, Left For Dead), Wussy is their finest to date.

Falling somewhere between Pere Ubu’s David Thomas and Neil Young at his twisted, twangy best, Cleaver is one of the last great enigmatic frontmen; his lyrical acumen (“Tramping through the brambles til our pants were all torn/Searching for a paper bag of mildewey porn”) placing him deservedly beside Tom Waits and The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne. Meanwhile, the elegantly eccentric Walker is Cleaver’s perfect musical foil. Articulate, intelligent and possessing a subversive, sonorous delivery, her strength is blending the quixotic with the romantic, like on “Gone Missing” when she recalls: “We met the other day on our sinking ships/Trading souvenirs from our summer trips.” The two share songwriting duties and while Cleaver’s oddball charm is as sharp as ever (“I remember stumbling down the side of the road/Reeling from the ill effects of licking a toad”) Walker can match him lyrically pound for pound: “On the other side of town/You’re sleeping through all the fire alarms.”

The songs themselves are just gem after gem: “Little Paper Birds” finds Cleaver and Walker harmonizing perfectly; “Happiness Bleeds” is punchy indie pop bliss and on the spry little rocker “Muscle Cars” Walker willfully, even hopefully, suggests, “We could row against the undertow.” Elsewhere, “Magic Words” and “This Will Not End Well” both jangle sublimely away; “Dreadful Sorry” is both wistful and portentous (“The bathwater ripples/Predicting an earthquake”) and “Death By Misadventure” is an enervating blast of rootsy pop.

But Wussy’s most stirring moment comes on the album closer “Las Vegas.” At her most weary and vulnerable, Walker tells the tale of a long farewell set against the endless luminescence of Las Vegas. It “looks like Christmas/When you’re high,” she confesses, then dolefully adds, “What a way to say goodbye.”

CITC caught up with Cleaver and Walker earlier this month for a chat about the new Wussy album. The result? A wonderful conversation that references Tori Amos, Weird Al and bugs.

CITC: Do you find yourself returning to common themes or specific iconography when you write song lyrics?

Chuck: Oh yeah. I can't really imagine trying to write without 'em. Mine are loss, insects, regret, mammals, blood, reptiles. Small town / rural imagery. Very special people. Fortean Times stuff. What else…hope, violence, death. You know...cheery, uplifting.

Lisa: I tend to write about whatever inspires fear or fascination. It's not a pre-conceived thing, but looking back there are definitely trends. I seem to like bugs, Bible stories, unlikely heroes, and bad T.V. I never noticed this before, but my songs also usually reference either vehicles, weather conditions, or both. At the end of the day it's just a love song.

CITC: I've always found with the Ass Ponys and now Wussy that, like Robyn Hitchcock, you can take the themes you mentioned and straddle the line between comedy and tragedy. Sometimes this happens in the same song, sometimes in the same line. For example, in "Happiness Bleeds" you mention "searching for a paper bag of mildewey porn" then wonder, "Why had we been born?" Is it hard to communicate tragedy without humor? Do they need each other to be effective?

Chuck: If they aren't at least somewhat equal you either get Weird Al or, I dunno, Tori Amos, maybe? I mean, there's nothing wrong with either of those people, but when you combine the two—not literally, that would be horrendous—when you combine humor and tragedy it's more like real life. My real life, anyway. The thing is, I don't really think about it all that much. It's just the way I write.

Lisa: They definitely need each other. In fact, one is insufferable without the other. It's just not believable otherwise. I don't think I could stay sane if I didn't approach it that way.

CITC: How are you able to write so well together?

Chuck: Even though our styles are different, I think we write well together because we share a lot of the sametopics but have enough differences to keep it interesting.

Lisa: Someone described our combined output as 'rural dystopia', which I kind of liked. I think that's where Chuck and I meet in the middle. Or themes overlap because we grew up in similar places.

CITC: Was this a hard album to sequence?

Lisa: I thought it was pretty easy to sequence. Easier than the others. “Little Paper Birds” and “Las Vegas” seemed like the most logical pair to open and close the record. So we started with the end pieces and worked our way in. Every song fit into place. It's nice when it works out like that.

Chuck: I'd rather be set on fire than sequence a record so I'm always grateful that the others are into it. I'm not lazy or anything. It just hurts.

CITC: Where was the bulk of the album written?

Lisa: This record is split pretty much 50/50 lyrically. Most of mine were written at home and then brought in for the band to flesh out. “Gone Missing” is an exception—I came up with the skeletal structure during practice, so we all kind of built it together. I didn't reallyhave words for it when we went to record, so I wrote those in the studio. Chuck did a lot of writing in the studio this time around. Deadlines are great motivational tools.

Chuck: That's not how I usually go about it. I mostly write while I'm driving. I had a lot of ideas all piled up in there and fortunately enough of it came outin the eleventh hour to amount to something. It's kind of a dangerous way to write, though. There's not much time for editing in the studio so it needs to be right on. Hopefully I didn't drop too many turds.

CITC: In my estimation, "Maglight" should be a hit. Or "Magic Words." If hard pressed and you had to choose a single what would you choose?

Chuck: I think abunch of 'em could be singles but if I had to pick one it'd be "Muscle Cars".

Lisa: I'd pick “Muscle Cars” too. It's a bit more layered than some of our other songs, and it's more in the direction we're moving.

CITC: The interplay between your voices has never sounded better—how is it determined who will sing lead?

Lisa: We typically sing the songs we write. There are exceptions. Chuck sings melody on “Paper Birds,” which is one of mine. And I sing “Humanbrained Horse,” which is his. We try to sing together as much as possible. We just wait to see which songs lend themselves to that format. Now that we have four members who sing harmony comfortably, I'd like to do even more with vocals on the next record.

Chuck: Smeller's the feller. Although we both sing on "Run For The Roses" which was written by Mr. Dan Fogelberg.

CITC: Why did this third album end up being the eponymously titled one?
I was thinking: The Other Day On The Catapult or Happiness Bleeds All Over You And Me...

Lisa: Title-wise, everything seemed to lend itself, and nothing seemed to lend itself. There were so many ideas, nobody could agree on any one. But, aside from that, this record is the best document of what we do, so it seemed natural to let it be self-titled. For me, it combines the elements I like best about the first two records into something a bit more cohesive. We wanted people to know, 'Hey, this is Wussy in a nutshell.'

Chuck: "Wussy In A Nutshell" is one of my favorite songs. And "Snowbird"...I love that.

CITC: What new bands out there are you currently enjoying?

Chuck: I mostly listen to older stuff, reissues. New? Frightened Rabbit, Culture Queer, The Fervor. I'm sure there are others.

Lisa: I'm also really stuck in the past when it comes to music. But for newer bands, I've been enjoying Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes a lot.

CITC: What does the future hold for Wussy? Any world domination plans you can share?

Lisa: We've been playing Risk, so we're getting better at the world domination thing. I'd say we're 90% there. Actually, we just plan to tour more. If we sell enough merch in the places we're playing this summer (midwest, east coast, south), we'll be able to afford to go to the west coast and Europe. We're working on material for a new record. That's pretty exciting, really.

Chuck: Play more shows, write more songs and make more records. All before they put me in the home.

CITC: Any parting words to live by, or philosophical quote you'd like to end this with?

Chuck: With spring rolling in I guess I'd like to say "Merry Christmas" to all the folks out there on the "net" as they call it. Other than that, nothing.

Lisa: "I was sad because I had no feet, until I met a man who could not fish."

Wussys’ Consummate Top Ten: Top Ten Actors To Cast In The Live Action King Of The Hill, If There Ever Was One

1. Bill: We're starting with Bill for a reason, specifically concerning the casting of Hank. We feel that John C. Reilly could nail it. No contest.

2. Hank: With John C. Reilly as Bill, we think that Will Ferrell is a natural. Hank's all about subtlety so he'd have to put a cap on the mugging. Rainn Wilson is a close second. He might win in the likeness department.

3. Peggy: Holly Hunter or Frances McDormand. Either one would work but we're leaning toward Holly Hunter, mostly based on her performance in Raising Arizona.

4. Luanne: Brittany Murphy. She's the first of three that provide the voices on the show that we feel could ace the movie part as well.

5. Boomhauer: If Matthew McConaughey could reprise Wooderson in Dazed & Confused, with some slight alterations, he'd be amazing.

6. Dale Gribble: It's a toss up. If you wanted more star power, you could go with Owen Wilson. His turn as a mescaline-crazed wannabe writer in The Royal Tenenbaums suggests he could probably nail the weird pathos required for this role. But Will Forte might be a more convincing match.

7. Buck Strickland: Stephen Root. Another of the voices that are perfect for the live role. Buck's just a Jimmy James whose mojo has fallen on hard times.

8. Bobby: Bobby's a tough one, because we don't know any kids that we feel could pull it off. Do we have the option of going back in time and bringing back young Ronnie Howard and feeding him lots of sugary snacks? Or even better, we'll get pre-pubescent Jonah Hill. But if time travel isn't in the cards, we'll considerY oung Dewey from Walk Hard or the half-man from Two And A Half Men but the jury's still out. It might have to be an unknown.

9. Lucky: Easy. Tom Petty, hands down. Voice = live character = winner.

10. Cotton Hill: We're thinking maybe CGI or a Muppet, though Mark thinks Danny DeVito would work and Lisa's convinced that if they shrunk Anthony Hopkins, he could pull it off. (He can do anything.) They did it with the hobbits. Just a little less hair on the feet this time.

Okay, those are the ten we settled on while returning from a show in Cleveland. As for the rest of the cast, we sort of ran out of steam. Feel free to make up your own. Happy trails.

Discography:
Wussy (2009)
Left For Dead (2007)
Funeral Dress (2006)

Internet:
www.wussymusic.com
www.shakeitrecords.com

Wussy is out now on Shake It Records. What are you waiting for?