Questions sent from the Japanese Magazine Strange Days for issue #26 October 2001

May be it would be best to go to the biography page at my website: http://www.ronanderson-molecules.com

Date of Birth, Place of Birth?

I was born on February 22, 1959 just a few days after the sudden death of the original bad boy of music George Antheil, which is the same a birth day of another trouble maker Luis Bunuel. The place where I was dropped, Jersey City, is just on the other side of the Holland Tunnel from Manhattan.

How did you start playing guitar?

My very first instrument was the piano. My family had one, I guess my brother tried it before I was born. So, I used to bang on it when I was very young, three or four. I took formal lessons when I was about ten. That lasted maybe one year, then I pick up the electric bass guitar when I was 14 or 15. My first guitar was an acoustic I was about 17. The first electric guitar (a Gibson) I bought at 19.

I started on bass because there was a band in my high school whose bass player had just quit. So I bought a bass, practiced for a week, and than told the guitar player of the band that I could play. As you can imagine we where quite bad. But in about one year and half we went from doing covers of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Cream to free improvisation. This is about 1975 or 76.


What was your first work as a professional guitarist?

I did not do any gigs in High School, as I said by 1976 we (my band at the time) where just interested in improvisation, we started doing covers, and then writing our own material, but soon just improvising. This is in the suburbs of New York at the height of Disco, so you can see why we where not going to get any work. The First professional concert was with Rat At Rat R, 1980 or 81.

What did you do for the Molecules?

The Molecules was my band so I did everything. Wrote half of the music; the other musicians in the band would also bring their ideas. I produced, recorded, over saw the production of the artwork. I was the manger of the band and the press agent, Everything. I had good people helping me out in Europe. I guess you could say that I’m a true independent artist, end of a dying breed maybe, I still do everything myself. By the way there is a triple CD of the last version of the band with John Shiurba sitting in the vaults waiting to be heard called Complete Self Indulgence.


How did you get interested in Avant-garde / improvised music like the work
you are doing for RonRuins?

It’s hard to say how I got interest in Art, Music, the avant-garde, books. I come from a very normal family. I’m sure that my family thinks that I’m completely nuts, no one in my family (I have one Brother, 11 years older than myself) was the least bit interested in art or music. Just television and sports, no one in my family ever read books, like most teenagers my bother listened to music, that was my first influence. But I grew up listening to avant-garde music, I remember my brother coming home and playing me, Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles. I loved that record, I was 10 or younger, and I’d played that thing a million times. That was some pretty out music for a kid, but to me it as just normal, and in reality it was. It was a pop record by the biggest pop band ever.

I’m not sure when it happened but one day I stopped watching TV with my family and started to read and listen to music. Then I started to play in bands and it was just a learning process, from Cream a kind of improvisation, and then Progressive Rock, then the music of Frank Zappa, then all the doors sort of opened up for me, Modern Classical, Jazz, world music. I was doing noise guitar improvisations in 1977 with no knowledge of Fred Frith or Derrick Bailey. I first heard Frith’s guitar records, around 1978, I was pretty shocked that someone was doing improvisations like that and putting it records.

Which bands / artists have you been influenced by?

This is a pretty long list that is always changing. Many things and not just things musical influence me. Frank Zappa was a very big influence. Fred Frith, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, 20^th century composers, this is just an endless list; writers, I like the work of Yukio Mishima, film makers, I just saw two early films of Kinji Fukasaku, it’s great being back in New York, that’s an influence, the New York City Subway is an influence. I’m influenced by the people the around me, I’m influenced by things that I have not even seen or experienced yet. It’s true; time does not travel in a straight line.

What is your main work at the moment?

My new band PAK, Will Redmond - guitars, Jesse Krakow - bass Race Age - drums. We just got back from Festival Fruit de Mhere in France and at the moment we are recording our first CD, Elliott Sharp is producing it with me here in New York. PAK is really a great band. I hope we can come to Japan and do some concerts, we did a 10-concert tour with Ruins here in the states, big fun.

Do you have any musicians to collaborate with?

There are a lot of side projects at the present time. Of course there is RonRuins, which is Ruins and myself, on the new CD Big Shoes there are two improvisations with Haco recorded in Kobe. THE INFUSIONS is with French bass player Olivier Paquotte and French-Algerian acoustic guitar player Camel Zekri. Olivier has a very textural approach to his instrument, Camel runs his guitar through effects and at times has a very percussive African sound. We will have a new CD coming out very soon on the French label 33 Revpermi. I have another group with Olivier and German drummer Peter Hollinger called NO PLAN. The best way to describe this music would be free rock. There will be a CD with Jason Willet call Be The First On Your Block To Eat The Snake released by the Baraka Foundation. Jason is the madman behind Megaphone records and collaborates often with Jade Fair. I have a duet with Steve Buchanan an American living in Switzerland called Metal Eater. I did a concert at Festival Fruit de Mhere in France with Terrie EX of the Dutch group and The EX and French guitarist Jean Sebastien Mariage. I have a new CD called Anything is Possible that has 27 different musicians, there is one track, a vocal improvisation with recorded live in Osaka with Tatsuya Yoshida and Seiichi Yamamoto of the Boredoms.

Do you have any musicians you want to work / collaborate with in future?

I hope to do some concerts here in the states the end of this year with David Chiesa a French double bass player from Bordeaux, France. I have been talking to Weasel Walter of the Flying Luttenbachers about doing some kind of project together. I would like to do some thing with Seiichi and Eye of the Boredoms. Atsushi Tsuyama, Kawabata Makoto, lots of other people whom I can’t think of at the moment.

You first worked with Tatsuya Yoshida for the album "First Meeting" in 95.
How did it happen?

I first meet Tatsuya in San Francisco in 1993; The Molecules and Ruins did our first of many concerts together. In October of 1994 there was a concert in San Francisco of Ruins and Happy New Year, (another band that I had at the time) I invited Tatsuya to come over to my studio in Oakland to do some recording the CD was from that session.


Were you interested in Japanese improvised music at that time?

I was very interested in the music of Ruins and the Boredoms and all of the spin-offs. I was played this music in 1991 at a radio station in Berkeley, CA. We were playing the first Molecules CD and doing an interview. The DJ asked us if we knew of the Boredoms, we said no, and he played us some of Soul Discharge and then some of Ruins Stonehedge CD. I was surprise and excited that someone was doing music with similar ideas.


What do you think of Japanese musicians after you are working with
Tatsuya?

The Japanese musicians that I have worked with are all very technically proficient, but what is surprising and what I enjoy, is a fantastic sense of humor. They are not bound down by their Technique, or afraid to let it go and have fun, or search for something new.

You have been working with Tatsuya regularly?

Yes, we have done many tours and concerts together, Big shoes will be are fourth CD together. We try and work on projects when we are in the same cities or around touring.

What do you think of his music?

Tatsuya has many various projects that I like and enjoy listening to. He always finds some way to surprise the listener.

Do you think your music match well with his music?

I think so, but the point of working with other musicians is bring different ideas to each others music, to go in a direction that the other person would not think of. We also seem to have a good sense of when to hold down a groove and when to play free, when not to groove or anti-groove, how to improvise in a song or compositional form. But we rarely, almost never, talk of these things, mostly we just play.


We are impressed with two particular elements in your music, the thrill of
improvised music and the well designed structure. Your music seems to have a good balance between improvisation and structure.
How do you make this music?

First I like and do both; improvise and compose. To me they are both one and the same, and reflect each other. An improvised idea can become an improvisation; a composition can be played as if improvised. Mostly I compose using the guitar, and my ideas come usually but not always from improvising. Sometimes a song or idea will just appear to me, as if by magic and I will just start playing, as if I already knew the piece. I keep a small hand held cassette recorder near my guitar at home for just such moments. The Ideas can come very fast, so I have to get them down on tape quickly, once the mood is broken, the idea is gone. Sometimes, I work on things for weeks or months. I also work with a multi-track working on ideas directly to tape and then editing with a razor blade, (soon I will edit with a computer) doing overdubs, using the recording studio as an instrument. I’m just starting to work with traditional notation, working with a computer typing ideas directly from my head to notation. I can not read notation very well, but I’m finding this as an interesting way of working.

Do you plan in advance or do you play following your instinct without thinking?

Sometimes I have a "plan", but I mostly like to follow my instincts. But I would say that I am thinking and following my instincts. All creative thought comes from the brain. For some reason people are afraid of instincts or they feel that instinctive ideas are some how of less value than an idea that was planned out. Who says so? And why should I have to play by their rules? There are no rules! Instincts are almost never wrong. Second-guessing is when the problems start. But, I have to say that this does not mean that I never get stuck or that I won’t take months to work on a problem until I find a solution. It’s just that I do not have one set way of working or thinking. To be an artist is to be flexible.

What do you think of these two elements?

Improvisation keeps the structure fresh and alive, structure can give improvisation needed form. I like to break rules and people’s preconceptions of music, and the meaning of these two elements, I have written very structured songs that sound like improvisations, and then inserted improvisations that sounded composed. I did this a lot with the Molecules. No wonder people would be confused by our music.

Also, your records seem to have been recorded over a short period of time.
Is it better for you to make records that way?

That is not really true, or I’m not sure what recordings your are referring to. The Molecules CDs and my solo CDs where worked on over a period of months, sometimes six months. I owned recording studio when I lived in Oakland, CA that was in fact very limited 8-track analog. The Big Shoes and the new PAK CD that I’m working on now, is the first time that I’ve worked with 16 tracks. But when I had my own studio I had the freedom to take my time. With RonRuins and the other projects with Tatsuya we usually had only one day to work. For example Ruins would be in town for a concert and would have one day off, so we would go into the studio and record something. At the moment here in New York I don’t have a studio (but I’m setting up something for mix downs) and studio time is expensive, so I have to get in and out of the studio fast. But I would prefer to have a little more time to work on recordings.

Improvised music reminds us of Jazz and Free Jazz. Your music does not have that flavor but has a 70's Rock atmosphere.
Do you thinks this is something to do with your background?

Well the 70’s is the era that I came of age, so it makes sense that I have that sound, 70’s prog, but I use to listen to a lot of free Jazz and punk rock in the 1980’s so this sound is also in my music somewhere. You could say that I’m a rock composer of the avant-garde or something like that. These days I rarely listen to any rock music, lots of American Jazz, I like the period from late 50’s to about 1967 very much. Mingus, Miles, Monk, Ornette Coleman. I like composers like Varese, Legeti, Schoenberg, and Webern. And also some world music, especially if is a field recording, one stereo microphone, the music recorded in the street or some place other than a recording studio.

The Ronruins album "Big Shoes" is going to be released in Japan in
September. We heard that this album was recorded during your first Japanese tour. How was that tour?

Big Shoes is mostly from a concert in Tokyo, with two additional tracks taken from a performance in Kobe with Haco. The tour was really a wonderful experience, the music was played very well at all the shows and we really enjoyed ourselves. I was in Japan for three weeks, I took some time at the end to travel a bit with Sasaki Hisasi Ruins bass player. We ate very well, I love the Japanese cuisine. Wish I had more time to see more of your country. It was the first tour of Japan for RonRuins, 10 concerts, but this was not my first tour of Japan. I toured once before with The Molecules in December 1995.

Are there any themes or concepts for this album?

There is not really any themes or concepts for Big Shoes. The first RonRuins CD was completely improvised, Big Shoes is different in that it has a lot of Compositions by Tatsuya and myself.


The main listeners of the kind of music Ronruins are making in Japan are
sort of music fanatics, not ordinary music fans.
What do you think of it?

Most people, ordinary people listen to music mostly as background, but not too deeply. The music that I make requires a little more effort on part of the listener. But, I don’t think that you have to be music fanatic to enjoy the music that RonRuins or I make. All the listener needs is an open mind and some time to listen to some thing that might be new to them.

Are you going to carry on collaborating with Tatsuya Yoshida / Ruins
regularly?
If so, how do you want to develop it in future?

Yes, I’m sure we will work together in the future. At the moment there is a recording made here in Brooklyn last march of new improvisations by RonRuins. This fall and winter I will begin working on this material. I’m not sure how it will develop, but the recordings that we made last fall have a more open sound, more silence, more space.