6/10/2003
Been waiting a while to do this interview with this great up and coming band. The music is alternative friendly to the ears with a slight undertone of edge rock. The words are English British style Beatles lyrics. Sometime it tells stories. This interview was conducted via the Internet. Thanks to lead vocalist and founding member John Andrew Fredrick for taking the time to do this.
Where did the title of your latest album Jiggery - Pokery come from?
John: Jiggery -Pokery comes from John Lennon's response,in making Let It Be,to George Martin. John Lennon wanted to get back to roots, minimal overdubs. Thus our title and the record (as it has lots, as usual, of overdubs)is kinda ironic.I love the Beatles more than I love strawberries or crab cakes.
You are currently a teacher at Santa Monica City College teaching English. Would you seriously give up teaching for the music scene?
John: I would like to be on tour. I teach at USC now and am very happy with my students there, but I would like to go out on tour again this summer. We need a booking agent. It would be hard to give up teaching forever but I don't think I will ever find myself in that position. I wouldn’t put myself in that position. I love literature and talking about it almost as much as I love making the pop rock.
Is there such a college course in English that teaches how to make lyrics for songs?
John: I think they do teach lyric writing but I would never be the instructor. It is an art you hone for sure but a class in it would seem to me to be really phoney. Maybe for high schoolers..
You have been on so many independent small labels. For your next record are you still going to be on Stone Garden Records or will you find yet another independent label to put your new record out?
John: Stonegarden Records is putting out our new CD this summer and it is called Very Mary Beth.
Was the Christopher Smart EP supposed to be a full album?
John: Christopher Smart was meant to be an EP cause Scott Cambell only had time to do a few songs.I always have a backlog of songs so it could have been a full-length but time did not permit. So we went on to work with Irishman Tim Boland, an awesome guy as well.
I found a single version of you doing the cover of Eleanor Rigbyby The Beatles, will this version ever appear on an album or CD?
John: The Eleanor Rigby 7" was just for a laugh...not pleased with it enough to include it on any CD.
Your song asked the question What Is The Color Of Happiness? So what is that color? Where did the song come from?
John: The color of happiness is up to each individual, it seems. Mine is orange sherbet and fire red mixed with unripe strawberry and bongwater green. It is a question everyone has to ask. What color is your parachute kinda thing. A hard one, as we all it seems spend our lives trying to figure it out. Other voices than our own get in the way. What mommy thinks your color should be, what daddy does, what your husband or wife or whoever.
Mr. Ordinary Man is another title of one your current songs. Who is this ordinary man?
John: Mr. Ordinary Man, like most of my songs, was written for someone very close to me who I think (and I have no right to judge just fashion opinions) has let someone else tell him how to live. He's made a lot of compromises for the sake of a marriage, and that's up to him.I can't tell anyone what to do. But,like all of my songs, the perspective is either one of great compassion or great resentment.In this case it is, reluctantly, both. I am sorry for him, I am angry for him and it's none of my fucking business.
Explain the title for your song Bathyscope To Astronaut. What is this song about?
John: Bathyscope to Astronaut is for J'Anna Jacoby. Her career with Rod Stewart was skyrocketing and I missed her and felt like I was under the sea while she was in the stratosphere.
Alice In Lotusland? As an English teacher writer how did you change the story “Alice In Wonderland and make it so much better?
John: I don't think I made "lice In Wonderland anything other than my very own. I wrote a book on how Alice (I think) is the first self-help book for adults. Go back and read it that way, everyone. It really helps people learn to deal with a lot of fools and ninnies!
What is your next album title? What is the album about?
John: Very Mary Beth. It's all about this girl I am very much in love with. She's beautiful and strange and I hope the beauty and strangeness of the new disc will do her justice.
You played acoustic at a show recently to open for Small Brown Handbag’s CD release party/ How did you like doing that? Do you think your songs still had the same meaning and power as they do with a full band?
John: I love to play acoustic about as much as I love playing with the band that is to say, sometimes it is awesome, sometimes awful. My great love is for the studio. It depends on how hard I have to try to win over a crowd and how much schtick I have going. I like to be hilarious if I can and other times I am really super shy.
The Black Watch have a total of 5 full length CD’s, 1 extra long CD which includes a retrospective and an EP. Looking forward to the next album by this Los Angeles California local alternative pop band. Special thanks to Stone Garden Records and to The Black Watch for giving me this great intuitive interview. This was an honest pleasure doing this.
