Screw “Supergroup.” Diamond Rugs are rock’s “Superfriends.” Its members scale tall buildings, flip wigs, and deliver swift justice to eardrums everywhere in their own bands. But together, they combine to form a ready-to-rumble Voltron-like behemoth, whose only kryptonite is this morning’s hangover.
Remember that scene in Predator when Arnold, Jesse the Body, Action Jackson and the rest are airborne in the chopper blasting “Long Tall Sally” about to be dropped into “the shit”? Well, that’s Diamond Rugs, a new band comprised of members of rock mainstays Deer Tick, Black Lips, Los Lobos, Dead Confederate, and Six Finger Satellite. They formed last fall for an off-the-cuff recording session that evolved, to everyone’s surprise, from a few songs to a full album (Partisan, 2012), and from a lark to an actual band. The team first assembled last August. Standing in for the “Hall of Justice” was Cosmic Thug Studios in Nashville, the newly-adopted home of Deer Tick frontman John McCauley. McCauley telepathically lassoed his Diamond Rugs compadres from their homes across the far reaches of the continent — Portland (Steve Berlin of Los Lobos), New Orleans (Ian Saint Pé of Black Lips), Athens (Hardy Morris of Dead Confederate), Providence (Bryan Dufresne of Six-Finger Satellite), and Nova Scotia (Rob Crowell of Deer Tick). Then again, “home” for these guys is a relative concept at best. They’ve spent half their lives on the road, and have all made the requisite sacrifices to be “all-in.”
The group will return to the road for a week of shows starting on Saturday at Carnegie Hall of all places. I recently sat down with Diamond Rugs’ principal songwriters John McCauley, Ian Saint Pé , and Hardy Morris during their weekend in New York to uncover the source of their powers and hear their origin story. Ian was up first.
Ian Saint Pé: Look good, feel good, smell good. Make looooooove good. That’s James Brown man.
That’s what he says?
Yup. In an interview I was watching online. “Make looooove good.” Totally checking his butt while he’s saying it, “The credentials, I call them. My credentials.” It was a good interview, James Brown was. Little Richard’s real good too. So flamboyant. Jerry Lee Lewis too. Just Google “Jerry Lee Lewis interviews” and you’ll see what I mean. I like to be online. I didn’t go to college but I feel like that is my college. Check this! [points at John McCauley, who lies next to him passed out on a couch]. Now THIS is a good interview.
Rock n’ roll.
Rock n’ roll is what happens in between the 45 minutes you play … it’s true. Anybody can do this for 45 or 50 minutes. That ain’t hard. It’s the other 23 hours – that’s called “hurry up and wait.” You always got to hurry up and get somewhere and then wait to eat, to shit, to sleep, to get on the bus, to get on the plane, to get on the train, to get to the interview. But do I like it? Hell yeah. I’m 34 years old now. I never had a fall back plan. The reason you don’t have a fall back plan? Cause then you never have something to fall back on. That is the truth. My mother, God rest her soul, used to always tell me to get a real job. I said this IS a real job. Otherwise, it’s go to college for four years and just throw my dick in the wind and hopefully get a job. This takes perseverance, dedication, a little bit of luck. Personality helps. A little bit of luck too. My brother’s an engineer — his house is bigger! He drives a Mercedes, I drive a Cadillac.
I bet he admires you for following your gut though.
Well, he told me one thing that was real important to me. I love him, he’s the only person in this whole entire world has the same blood as me. He’s your fucking kin, right? He said, “Ian, I’m proud of you,” and I said, “Patrick, I’m proud of you, man. Look, you’ve got a lot.” He said, “I do got a lot but there’s one thing that you have that I don’t.” I said, “What’s that?” “Your dream.” And I went … “Yeah, man, I guess you’re right.” I couldn’t say anything because that’s true. When we were those 15-year old kids and we bought our instruments, we’re like “Man, really cool.” And I guess I was just stubborn enough never to stop. And the fact that it actually has happened, yeah, I got my dream. I ain’t got no degrees but I got my dream … and a Cadillac. And a house and a bunch of good friends. Top of the world.
You drive a Cadillac?
Hell yeah I got a Cadillac. Coupe De Ville. ’84. Pimp from the front all the way to the back. CREAM! Blue velvet interior. It is…I love my car.
In addition to Diamond Rugs, you’ve been in a couple of other bands outside of Black Lips, including the Original Three.
Oh my God, Lord Jesus, yeah. Original Three was really … the last day job I ever had was in 2004. I made coffee. A barista. A girl I worked with had a drum set and we made some demos as friends. Drinking buddies. And we had another guy play with us — two guitars and a drummer. And I eventually got into The Black Lips and after I’m in The Black Lips, I had all these demos so I just put it out as The Original Three, so it was never like a real band. It was real, just like anything, my heart was into it but it wasn’t like, you know, I don’t know, not like a real band. And with the Black Lips — I used to live in Atlanta when I was 21 and everybody has these older kids that buy you the dope and buy you the beer and cigarettes, so I was returning the favor.
You were that guy?
I was that guy to the Black Lips! We were called The Renegades at the time. We had a punk band, or they had a punk band called The Renegades, they were 15 or 16 years old in high school and I kind of worked at … I think they call it a “head shop,” where they sell paraphernalia and water pipes. That was one of my jobs, “You want a water pipe? I got one.”
Just for tobacco though.
Yeah, I got it, I’ll sell you, right here. You need any enhancers, I could do that. They’d shoot people’s faces off nowadays, bath salts and all that. Oh Lord. Man, I’m glad I never messed with that. But yeah, so I worked at one of them head shops in Atlanta and I had these 15-, 16- year old punk motherfuckers that all looked like Iggy Pop — skinny and blue jeaned out. And we became friends. I would buy them dope and cigarettes and beer. And of course they knew what they were doing by asking me to play with them — they’re gonna be able to get all the fucking booze and everything like that on speed dial! Which I did do! So long story short, I was the pusher man for them, and I played lead guitar for them. We had a little punk band. Just punk. And Cole [Alexander], the other guitar player in The Black Lips was the singer. Jared [Swilley] was the bass player. I was the guitar player. We had a different drummer, God rest his soul, who died. But we had a punk band and long story short, they just decided to start Black Lips and they called me up when their guitar player quit. I’ve been in the band since 2004.
So yeah so in 2004 I was a barista when I had The Original Three group so it wasn’t a real band but I had demos. When I joined The Black Lips, I said, “Man, we got chemistry here and I love what you all done before I joined. We just got to do two things – tour our motherfucking asses off, and TUNE.” Because they did not know how to tune! I bought a tuner. I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to use this!” [mimes holding up a tuner]
What was the genesis of Diamond Rugs from your perspective?
Black Lips are literally rock n’ roll — diehard motherfuckers who travel India, Israel, Palestine, Russia, South America, North America, Japan, everywhere. I’ll just put this in there, after this tour, I have nine days off, I’m going to go tour Europe, then Mexico, then the Middle East. We’re going to Iraq. We had to cancel Syria — if you haven’t read, Syria is not a good idea. We go to the embassies, we talk to everybody. We’re legit, man. We really have a love, like anybody does, to travel. We just want to do it rock n’ roll. Even though we might not speak the same language, we all know how to do this [mimes dancing] — a little pep in the step, a little boogie in the shuggie. It’s just a good time.
So back to answer your question. Black Lips did a four-month tour. We bought a round-the world-ticket. The beginning of the tour was in North America. When we did the East Coast, we hit Providence, Rhode Island and John introduces himself to me. We had previously met at Coachella. I was so loaded, I didn’t remember at the moment. I do now. But he came to a Black Lips show, reminded me about our meeting. The rest of my band was tired so me and him ended up raging that night. He brings me back to his buddy’s house, I think it was Ian [O’Neil]’s house, the guitar player in Deer Tick.
So we’re just slamming it. Partying. Coors Lights. Good times. His friend Bryan [Dufresne] comes over, who’s the drummer from Diamond Rugs, and we started talking about this idea of having a band – maybe call it Stoner Drama. But I literally had just started this four-month Black Lips tour! But John’s so persistent. Throughout the four-month tour, when I’m in these random countries … when I’m in Japan, when I’m in Turkey, I’m getting these calls and emails — “Hey Man it’s John. Are we doing this?” And I mean, I really love John as a person. But as a musician? I don’t really know him. But I do and I kind of want to, but should I do this? I’m not sure. So I said, “Ok man, let’s do this.” But I STILL wasn’t set.
What made it set was this. He calls me up about two months into our four month tour. “Steve Berlin from Los Lobos — Grammy award winner Steve Berlin from Los Lobos — likes Black Lips and likes Deer Tick. And if [John] and I are involved, Steve’ll do it.” At that moment, I knew I cannot give up this chance. I mean LOS LOBOS?! I grew up with them! I’ll try it. So my tour ends August 5th. I flew out to Nashville August 9th. Literally, I was not even home but five days after a four month tour, and I flew to Nashville and went in the studio with these dudes. And it just worked. Just one of those things. I’m here to say that sometimes shit does just happen and sometimes it does just work. We’d been planning to just do a few songs, but instead we did a whole album. So we decided to have a band at that point because all the same kind of personalities are in this band. I don’t name names, but not everyone in Black Lips is the same. Not everyone in Deer Tick is the same. But in Diamond Rugs, if you took the same people out of all these bands and made a band? It would be Diamond Rugs. I know that sounds corny but it’s true. We’ve all toured enough to understand that we all do is eat, shit, sleep, breathe and live out of a suitcase and don’t mind it. Rock n’ roll — that was my point. And what’s the worst thing about playing rock n’ roll? Nuthin.’
And I’m sure it’s nice to be appreciated for your art.
To achieve something, and give 110 percent, there doesn’t have to be a college degree. It comes from here [points to his heart]! And it feels good that if you work hard enough, people will take notice. And like I said, my mother passed away a while ago and she always said, “Get a real job,” and I said “this CAN be a real job!” and she never got to see it actually happen. But she sees it every day, man. Every day [points up to the heavens]. I’m driving around, Cadillacs, good living, you know what I mean? I got three bedrooms…they’re empty, who really needs three bedrooms?! You know what I got in those bedrooms? Guitars.
Are you married?
No. I’m not saying I won’t one day, but if I have an animal, it will die. If I have a plant, it will die. If I have a relationship, I don’t want to say it will fizzle out and fail but unless some girl wants to put up with nine or ten months of me gone … Lord, if I meet that kind of woman, that’s pretty cool. Here’s the problem, man. Unless you’re a different man than me, I don’t talk on the phone all that well. I’m better in person. But how can you talk in person with a girlfriend you see two and a half months out of the year? You can’t. I know. ‘Poor me, my pussy hurts.’ I play rock n’ roll for a living. I never forget, I always remember where I come from. I came from nothing, so to have something is everything. Rock n’ roll. Did you ever read those “Choose Your Own Adventures” books growing up?
Having that moment when I was young and I had to choose between page 36 and 27 and I had a little bit of a scenario. You got to take a chance, man. Complacency will kill you. It will kill your fucking dreams. Those ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books was probably the best thing that my mother ever gave me because it makes you have to decide. When you’re seven fucking years old, what am I going to pick? “Well, you got to pick something, son! You got to make a choice!” “But Dad, I don’t know which one to pick.” That’s life! Life’s not fair. Life’s not fair, man. Go with your gut instinct and I’ve raised you good. It made you man up and realize….tomorrow? You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.
END.
