Print the Legend: Interrogating The Paranoid Style

Interrogations – sorry, interviews – with brilliant musicians are never not a little intimidating.

But though one of Elizabeth Nelson’s many knacks is for putting you at ease – she’s stratospherically down to earth – rarely is your subject much better at this than you are. “It’s like making Robert Quine watch you play guitar,” I tell her beforehand, having agonized over which cult hero to reference.

No band furnishes a rock song with obsession-flattering references (quite often to cult-hero artists) like the Paranoid Style. Between that and their uncommonly trenchant sense of politics, stanza for stanza, they might well be the most intelligent band out there. Oh, and they rock – if you’ve never put them on, rush to your preferred stream (or the source) and be prepared to drink deep for a while.

I could wax rhapsodic about the band for countless grafs. But since Nelson knows from “the torture of word count” – as a brilliant rock critic herself – I might do better to just pass her the mic…

You’ve stated elsewhere you wanted this record to sound like ZZ Top’s Eliminator.

In many ways, we had a little bit more time and money, so we were able to make a more commercial-sounding record, if that doesn’t hurt my indie cred. [Laughs] We had other influences in mind – They Might Be Giants’ Flood, Elvis Costello’s Trust. But we were really kind of chasing that ‘80s sound: a lot of high end. I don’t know if it’s apocryphal or not, but part of the reason those recordings have so much high end is because everybody was doing so much cocaine, and that’s all they could really hear. We weren’t doing the cocaine, but we were chasing that cokey, hyper-produced sound.

Tell me how Peter Holsapple got involved with The Paranoid Style.

I’ve known Peter for a few years now – I think I met him in 2016. I was working at a record store, and he came in on Record Store Day, and I was like, “holy shit. That’s Peter Holsapple.” Because I am exactly who I am, I happened to have a copy of the original Rock and Roll Just Can’t Recall EP on me. You must always go out prepared, Ryan – if you’re not carrying all of your records in case somebody famous walks in, or at least one of your indie heroes, you’re doing it wrong. So I’m like, “hi, Mr. Holsapple, my name’s Elizabeth, and I wanted to give you my CD.” And he just turns it over and he goes, “the ‘Master Jack’?” So he was already vibing to it, because we had this weird South African cover song on it.

And so he took it, and was very gracious, and he got on Facebook that night, and was like, “oh my God, I’m listening to this band, and they’re so good.” That was really, really validating. So we kept up with him over the years, and he played keyboards on our Underworld, U.S.A. EP. Later on he reached out about something I had written, I think it was that Lowell George story, and I started chatting with him and was like, “We should do something!”. Because he’s Peter fucking Holsapple. Also, the studio where we record is like five minutes from his house, so it was a good fit for him. And so he came in with a couple of guitars and his pedal board, and everything he did was just great. He’s such a great musician.

VIDEO: Peter Holsapple “Don’t Worry About John”

What I love, and I feel like a lot of people love about your band, is this enthusiasm for history. It ignites the ardor of a certain kind of thinking nerd – especially, I think, with the way you write about artists. What struck me is the idea of a band who writes about things like the rock ‘n’ roll canon, at a moment when that kind of canonization is not really happening in the same way. The economics are fucked, the field is crowded, the gatekeepers and champions are all in disarray. It’s harder to have the same cultural impact now as some of the musicians you write about. I’m curious if that’s ever occurred to you – and what it’s been like finding your place in the current rock ‘n’ roll landscape.

This industry has more or less imploded and eaten itself, and technology has not really been a good friend to us trying to get by – obviously I don’t do this for my living, and that was never even an option. So to think about rock ‘n’ roll from the past, and try and pay homage to them, write lyrics about them, steal things from them, that’s fun, and that’s nothing new. Dylan does it, Costello does it, and all the people who are on my Mt. Rushmore of great lyricists. But yeah, making art is really hard in… what should we call this. Late capitalism? The death of capitalism? I’ll have to check.

I bring her up constantly, and I should come up with another example, but she’s the most ubiquitous – Taylor Swift. I love her, I think she’s great, but she’s inescapable. If you go on Spotify, and you’re like, I would like to listen to the Mekons, they’re like, “how about Taylor Swift?” And you’re like, “maybe the Beastie Boys?” They’re like, “Have you tried Taylor Swift? Maybe you’d like Taylor Swift.” But for us, a band that nobody’s heard of – our fans are diehard, so I guess you could say we’re a “cult act” – when one can sort of crack the firmament of critical appreciation, that’s huge. That’s really hard for a band to do, and we’ve been working at it for a decade-plus. And we don’t do things correctly, but I don’t know if there is a correct way to do things anymore. Album cycles are not the same as they were for, like, Van Halen. It’s a totally different landscape you have to figure out how to navigate, and unfortunately it’s a very unkind landscape. I frankly don’t know how a lot of working bands even survive.

I find your comment about technology not being friendly interesting, because your tweets, the fact that you’re an excellent Tweeter – or whatever you call it now, X-ecutor or whatever – have actually led to greater exposure for this band, which I don’t think is a very precedented model.

It’s definitely an unintended consequence – certainly not an unwelcome one. I got on Twitter as basically a professional obligation; as you know, when you’re a working journalist, you have to have a social media presence, and Twitter is a choice place for people who are good with words. I suck at Instagram stories; I wouldn’t go on TikTok, because I don’t think I have the ability for that kind of content. So when I got on Twitter, I was like, “Well, this clearly sucks.” It sucked before Elon; I often wonder about these people who are like “it used to be so great.” Really? When? It gave us Trump. It’s a terrible, terrible, terrible place. I’m not their publicist, so I don’t have to say anything nice.

But it has been good for me! And I think part of it was, when I got on it and I realized how much of it sucked, I was like, well why don’t we try to make it interesting, at least? That was where the idea for the capsule reviews came from, and it was surprising – people really liked it, and we managed to get traction with some heavy hitters. I’m sure I’m very popular with Russian bots, too, but people seemed to appreciate it, and that’s really cool. And so when people say, oh, I had no idea you also did this band, I’m gonna check you out, and then they’re like, oh, your music is kind of like your tweets – layered, a lot about rock ‘n’ roll – it’s been really nice. So I guess if I ever win an award, it’ll be like, “I’d like to thank God, my parents, and Twitter.”

Obviously, you are in the guitar-guitar-bass-drums mold. You even allow yourself moments of classic style, Chuck Berry-adjacent rock ‘n’ roll, like with The Interrogator’s title track. But we live in a very “pop” musical moment. I invite you, as an honorary musicologist, to opine about the role of the “rock band” in the current musical landscape.

I feel like this critical shibboleth of “guitar rock is dead” or “guitar rock is back” – this is an editorial hook that we hangs things on. It doesn’t really mean anything. I’m a copywriter for Fender guitars, and I know for a fact that people are still buying guitars. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Boygenius is a guitar band – it’s maybe a little mannered for me, but they’re amazing. They have an organic fanbase, they’re cool, they seem to be really good friends, and it’s three women. And they all play guitar. Some of them Fenders.

VIDEO: The Paranoid Style “Last Night in Chickentown”

I’m curious about you as a singer. What heroes are in your head when you step up to the mic?

So many. Chrissie Hynde. Sally Timms. Joe Strummer. Bob Dylan. Elvis Costello. I bristle at a lot of vocalists who are really closely miked, and kind of garbled. People really like this stuff, so I’m not trying to piss in anyone’s punch. But personally, I like lyrics that are really pointed and direct, and that you can hear. I admire the hell out of John Linnell’s instrument – I think he’s one of the best singers.

I wonder if there’s an obscure reference in the lyrics on this record that you’re particularly proud of, but not necessarily confident will be caught the first few times around.

I’m always very amused, and God bless everybody who’s written about us, when they misquote the lyrics. I’m like, “aw.” As always with Paranoid Style lyrics, these songs are pretty packed. So I wouldn’t be surprised if some kind of throwaway thing didn’t get noticed.

I’m particularly fond of… well, every lyric, they’re all my children, but I do think there’s a lot happening in “The Ballad of Pertinent Information”. You’d have to be at least doing a lot of Wikipedia, I think, to be able to pick up everything. I’m not sure a lot of people know about Pratt & Whitney. So if you’re not a fan of defense contractors… I would love it if someone was like, “yeah! Alright! Way to go, DC Beltway insider!” But I probably will be able to sleep at night if they don’t.

There’s a stray line in “Styles Make Fights” about “the many things that Pitchfork got wrong”. This is the point in the interview where, in light of the recent news, I invite you to comment about the state of music journalism in general.

And yeah – the state of music journalism is terrible. I’m very sad about what happened to Pitchfork. I remember when it happened, people getting on their social media and being like, “I’m fucking glad that Pitchfork is dead”. And these are like, musicians. But how dare you say that? I’m sorry if you feel your band got ignored, or if they trafficked in a little snark in their initial iteration or whatever – and it was definitely a dude-centric publication for a long time. It’s not perfect.

But the argument that kept coming up in this one thread I was following was, “yeah, we don’t need music criticism anymore.” And that broke my heart. I think that that’s untrue – first of all, as a critic. This is where I live, this is how I pay my bills sometimes. And for people to be like, “well, we’ve got Spotify now. What the hell. You just listen to everything and make your own decision.” And it’s like, “go fuck yourself”. Because it’s helpful to have somebody to help you navigate.

I do think criticism is a skill, I do think it is important, and it bugs me that Pitchfork was one of the last fucking vestiges of a tradition that helped many bands get attention that might not have otherwise. And without it, it’s just more consensus. Let’s just bring in more Taylor Swift. Let’s just agree that we all like this one thing. And that’s fucking fascism. Well. Maybe fascism is a little strong, but.

Here’s a quote from Robert Christgau’s Underworld U.S.A. review: “Nelson probably knows more about the ins and outs of Washington politics than any other songwriter working, and it would be nice to think she could make something of what may not actually be an impasse.”

I think you’ve dealt with the subsequent complaint about “a more limber rhythm section,” but I’m curious about what your response was to that prescription.

It bugged me a little bit, because I felt like Rolling Disclosure was actually a very political record, and he seemed unhappy with that too. I mean, who am I to complain about an A-. But we put that record out before the election, and it was really trying to signal to people, hey, things are about to get really super weird and really bad. American politics as we know it is going to change. And that was not noticed.

I felt like so much of the political music coming out was so ham-fisted. He’s got orange hair, he wears a stupid tie – let’s be really fucking obvious. And that’s just not my style. I felt like we were going beyond that on Rolling Disclosure. And Superchunk put out a record a few months later, and no shade on Superchunk, but it was basically the same record. We just got there first. But that was like A+ material. It was like, yeah, Mac McCaughan’s really finally getting at it, and it was because it was after this terrible election had happened. OK, fine. I happened to get there too soon. As always. [laughs]

You referred to this record reflecting the despair of our current moment. Would you expand on that?

For sure. For Executive Meeting was like our party record, I guess, if we party? And we were trying to do a pivot back into the themes of class and consensus. Like, I don’t think it’s getting better, this bleak landscape in which we exist. People are like, “oh, it’s a really fun record,” and I’m like, “is it, though?”

I was pondering what it means to be a good person, what it means to be a moral person, and I also, just tangentially, was on a real noir jag. I was watching Poker Face and Justified – I love both of those shows, I love noir generally. Characters who are trying to extract justice and goodness and get the bad guy, but they’re also kind of bad, or at least bad at their jobs sometimes. The struggling to get to the truth of something in the most law-abiding ways, that was a real theme in my mind. I wanted to understand how we navigate around the cruelty and duplicity of our systems.

What is your experience being in a band with someone who’s also your partner?

Maybe this is unique, but it’s legit great. Timothy is my best friend and my creative partner in everything. It helps that we get to live together, so we can collaborate on things and make demos together. I’m sure if you interviewed my bandmates, they might be a little frustrated, because we’re a voting bloc. And so when decisions get to get made, we obviously win the day. So maybe I am for totalitarianism. Tim’s the smartest person I know, he’s one of the best musicians I know. He’s just always very encouraging of me, which is 95 percent of why I do what I do – because he’s like, “You’ve gotta keep doing this.” I can’t advise everybody to get involved in a creative collaboration that’s this intense with your partner, but if you can make it work, it’s fantastic.

What musicians are you most interested in working with, given ideal circumstances?

I would love, if he’s listening – cuz this is radio, right?

Right. We’re live.

Depending on how his ears are, I would love to have Mick Jones produce a Paranoid Style record. I think he and I would really get on. I’d love to cowrite with Costello. I would love to produce Costello, and try to bring him back to the Nick Lowe days, away from his genre experimentations. I’d love to hear They Might Be Giants cover us – I love them to death, and if they want to collab I’m available, but they’re so insular, they’re like the Coen Brothers of music. So I’m a little afraid of them. But if they enjoyed one of my songs and wanted to cover it, I’d be absolutely chuffed.

And because we went to high school together, I have to shout out Aesop Rock. I think we’re kind of working in the same lane, lyrically. And we have Northport in common. When you meet somebody from Northport, you immediately fall into this patter. So I think that would be a good studio hang.

Last question – you’ve referred mysteriously to this title character, The Interrogator. Now that she’s been loosed upon the world, I wonder if you’d like to conclude with some advice for our readers should they visit her, or run into her.

I encourage everyone to go see The Interrogator – you go in, you tell your truth, you walk out, you feel better. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to. Obviously I’m doing a bit, but… yeah, The Interrogator’s very, very scary. But she’s not just arbitrarily cruel. There’s logic behind the justice that she metes out. I can’t even tell you how much better you’ll feel if you just spend 40 minutes with The Interrogator.

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Ryan Maffei

Ryan Maffei is a freelance writer, musician and actor in the Dallas area. He was a member of the lost punk group Hot Lil Hands and the lost pop group the Pozniaks. He loves the Go-Betweens and was lucky enough to write liner notes for their box sets.

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