Yawning Man: And the Revolt Against Tired Noises

Yawning Man: And the Never-Ending Battle with Boredom

by Christine Leonard

14 September 2017

Waging a never-ending war on boredom, the lumbering Californian desert rock entity known as Yawning Man dates back to the golden era of the psych-rock fringe when the likes of Brant Bjork, John Garcia and Josh Homme caught wind of their free-wheeling space rock ways. From pulling off clandestine generator parties for a few friends the desert back in the mid-80s to performing in front of thousands of devoted fans at venues around the globe, founding guitarist Gary Arce has never forgotten the desolate internal and external landscapes that informed his early years.

“I actually lived at the Salton Sea, and believe me, the Salton Sea is not that romantic!” Arce recalls with a chuckle.

“I used to live near there, I grew up in the Palm Desert also known as the Low Desert. The place is a running joke with locals; cuz tourists would go there and find just a toxic puddle with dead fish on the shore everywhere. I just remember going there and walking along the shore thousands of dead fish and meth heads walking streets like the walking dead. In between where I lived and Mexican border, there was this weird culture of illegal immigrants mixed with meth heads mixed with dead fish.”

These days Arce is looking forward to hopping the border together with the band’s original bassist Mario Lalli and their 2014 addition known as drummer Bill Stinson, as Yawning Man prepares to bring their ponderous machinations to Canada for the second time in recent memory. Having fallen under the thrall of the land of ice and snow at last April’s 420 Music and Arts Festival in Calgary, the sidewinding trio is set for autumnal return, but this time as headliners.

“I’ve toured all over the world and I love Canada. It’s so beautiful and breathtaking and the people are super sweet and it’s just a rad place. This tour we really wanted to go back there, so we asked the agency for that to happen. This time we’re going as a headlining band and it’s our first time going out on our own!”

Hard to believe for a band that’s had such a lengthy and influential run. Although admittedly inconsistent, Yawning Man’s discography has attracted ample attention and garnered them many comparisons to other so-called stoner rock acts, although he understandably shirks that unimaginative label.

“I’m excited and I’m just hoping that people come out to see us because we get type-cast into this weird metal-desert-rock thing like Kyuss and all those bands.

And yeah, we’re from the same town as Kyuss and we’re friends with all those bands, but we are nothing like Kyuss. And I think hopefully people will start to realize that we are our own band.

We’ve never followed trends. Never tried to be metal or this or that. We’ve just done our own thing.”

Sighting the work-ethic and nonconformity of his favourite punk acts for a point of reference amidst the ever-shifting sands of public opinion, construction-worker-by-day Arce’s primal howl dredges up the heart of darkness from the bottom of the Salton Sea.

“Music for me is like another job; I do have a hardcore job. I do concrete and construction and I have to have a side of me where I’m mellow and I do love ambient dark music. I’ve always found something in it that’s mysterious and innocent. I’ve always been into that kind of sound.” 

Known for his ability to take a simple musical phrase and spin it out into an epic multihued shamanic yarn, Arce has come to realize the importance of channeling his creative impulses into increasingly defined forms. Edging away from amorphous compositions like those found on their foundational albums Rock Formations (2005) and Vista Point (2007), the threesome’s newest constructs refer to a predetermined set of musical blueprints.

“I started all these projects,” Arce explains.

“I’d call up all these friends and go ‘Hey, dudes let’s drink beer and jam!’ We’d take the best of improvised jams and make a record. It got to the point where all of the recordings I was doing were all fuckin’ jammie with no song structure and that started to get boring for me. I was under the gun and I just stopped. I told myself Yawning Man was one band where I couldn’t afford that attitude of just working off-the-cuff. Mario has moved and now he lives right near me, so we have closed the distance. We’re starting to get focused and write more structured songs, coming up with riffs and going back and forth and playing it until we both think it’s cool enough to keep.”

He concludes honestly, “I’m kind of a dick about the beats being a certain way. I always tell our drummer ‘Don’t play a silly four-four beat. Give me something different that fits, don’t play a dumbass rock beat over again!’ cuz I’ll get bored and once I get bored I get lazy and lose interest.” 

Yawning Man performs September 21 at the Palomino Smokehouse & Bar (Calgary) and September 23 at the Starlite Room(Edmonton). 

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE - An interview with Troy Van Leeuwan by Christine Leonard-Cripps

No one knows they’re insane...

 Queens of the Stone Age rock the cradle with fatalistic fables

You know you have made the big time when warming up before the big show is the only way to get daily musical practice in, but for guitarist extraordinaire Troy Van Leeuwan, it’s his preferred mode of operation.

With bands such as A Perfect Circle, Enemy and Failure to his credit, Van Leeuwan takes the pressure and adulation that comes with being in Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) in stride. In fact, it was while on tour with Failure that Van Leeuwan initially made the acquaintance of QOTSA’s front man, space cowboy Josh Homme. At the time, Homme was playing for the Screaming Trees and the two made an instant connection, due in no small part to Van Leeuwan’s admiration for Kyuss, the groundbreaking stoner-rock giant formed by Homme and his longtime collaborator Nick Oliveri. Van Leeuwan’s past experiences put him in the enviable position of knowing what he was getting into when he signed a deal to team up with Homme for his next foray into rock ’n’ roll history.

"I’m just doing the music thing until I can launch my own accounting firm. That’s where the real money is," Van Leeuwan says, with dubious sincerity. "But seriously, being in A Perfect Circle and Failure was like polar opposites. Failure didn’t get its due. We were broke the whole time. And the whole process was driven by the sheer love of music. A Perfect Circle was something that Billy (Howerdel) had been working on for years. I was one of the last to join and was only there to record two songs at the end…. It just shows how much you can achieve when you know how to orchestrate art and commerce.

"This situation… is somewhere in the middle. It’s more chaotic, which in turn creates energy. It’s more intense."

Diagnostically speaking the departure of bassist Oliveri was a gaping wound in the Queen’s side and could be considered a mortal blow for a band who’s previous album, Songs For the Deaf, signalled a swift and steady rise to success. But Homme was not about to give up the ghost, and splitting with Oliveri afforded the hard rockers the freedom to take on fresh players and a new sense of style.

"It’s something that we grew into," says Van Leeuwan, who now shares bass duty with Homme and Alain Johannes. "It doesn’t feel like I’m replacing anyone. We’re still evolving as a band. We all write and we all like to stay busy. The last thing you want to do is to become stagnant. Because then you’re just treading water."

The addition of Natasha Shneider on keyboards brings a "space-country-rock-ambient kind of a thing" according to Van Leeuwan. "Not typically the way things were supposed to go," he says. "The one thing we discussed was making different colours and shades and dark and making space – something I’ve been known to do."

Indeed, at the time he was invited to play guitar and electric piano for the QOTSA, Van Leeuwan was already well reputed for his ability to create an instant sense of atmosphere in the studio on recordings for A Perfect Circle, Failure, Orgy and Deadsy. Van Leeuwan‘s talents made him the perfect fit for Homme’s re-banded circle of merry men.

"We were still finding out new things about each other while we were recording the last record (Lullabies to Paralyze)," he says. "When you do most of your playing in the studio, the intensity is at a much higher level. If something had a character or a vibe we liked, we would get to go off the page and explore it. You put pressure on yourself to do your best, but you have to be aware that you’re only competing with your own expectations. The temptation is to over analyze every song, because you’re so focused on it. If something requires more than five takes it’s not working. It’s like beating a dead horse."

Ex-Screaming Trees branch Mark Lanegan has also ventured across the bridge to bring his vocals along for the ride with the Queens on the new album and on tour. Bonding during the production of Lullabies to Paralyze, the album’s central story was modelled after a fairly twisted tale akin to the fatalistic fables penned by the Brothers Grimm.

"The theme of this album was our own dark fairy tale. Most of the old stories were really dark and now people are trying to clean them up for the kids. But that’s so wrong. Sometimes when you’re searching for something you wind up going into the dark and you have to do that in order to see that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel — and it’s not always a train that’s about to hit you."

by Christine Leonard

Originally published in FFWD April 2005