The Weird Weeds Percussionist Talks About Antony, Xenakis, and a Certain Representative from Corwood Industries

Nick and some dog

I first heard Weird Weeds shortly after moving to Texas, and when the song was over I felt sure I'd come to the right place. Percussionist Nick Hennies' range is as vast as anyone's I've heard in the realm of songs. One minute it'll sound like a swarm of cicadas exploding out of a cave into the night, and suddenly he's communicating with whales by bowing things God specifically forbade us to ever bow. I spoke with him about his involvement in lots of great projects.

Listen to Weird Weeds on our compilation.

W & A: How's life?

N.H: My dogs are jumping on each other and trying to hump each other right now and I just finished practicing with Aaron (Weird Weeds guitarist). So, tonight's pretty good. On the other hand, I sat in a half-cubicle all day while my dogs were home peeing and pooping on the carpet. The moral of the story is the more music and dogs in my life, the better.

I'm pretty curious about your musical background. Clearly there's a huge influence from 20th century avant garde percussion on the Weird Weeds, as anyone who's taken a bow to a cymbal will attest. You got your M.A. in percussion from UCSD, right? Have you played stuff by folks like David Gillingham and Bill Kraft? Who do you like best from the concert hall scene?

I got my M.A. from UCSD in percussion, yeah. I went there specifically because it's one of the only places in the country where the entire school is geared towards the performance of experimental music. Plus my teacher there, Steve Schick, has got to be one of the greatest percussionists who ever lived. I played some amazing music while I was there, not the least of which was both percussion sextets by Xenakis, two of the most powerful pieces of music ever written. I
don't recall ever playing any Gillingham but I actually played a Bill Kraft solo called "French Suite" when I auditioned for college at U of Illinois. It's a pretty dorky little piece for small multiple drum set up. After that I started leaning more towards more radical folks like Xenakis and Helmut Oehring. I have never played any of his music because he barely wrote for percussion at all, but Luigi Nono is by far my favorite composer of the last 500 years. Do you know any of his late work? His final opera, "Prometeo" is astounding. Also, someone who I have played a lot is Stuart Saunders Smith, a guy who has really changed the way I think about music. He has written a really large amount of percussion music and he's one of the only contemporary composers who is unafraid of human emotion and introspection. His work is really important. Nicolaus Huber, Georges Aperghis, Gerhard Staebler, Kunsu Shim, Bernhard Lang... basically anyone that is
interested creating unheard sounds.

Whiskey & Apples will soon publish a review of Hold Me, which among other things once helped me chill out while hopelessly lost in Cleveland. What do you feel are the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the recording?

Oh, great news! One of the biggest strengths of the Weird Weeds is that each member is doing exactly what (s)he wants. There are no power struggles or "leaders" and each person's individual interests are fully on display which contributes to how unique I think it sounds. As far as weaknesses, well those recordings are already nearly a year old and we've gotten a lot better since then, so it's a bit out of date by now. I'm really eager to make the next record because it will do everything I like about Hold Me but better. I'm beginning to understand what the band means to me and what we do best.

When you handed me your solo EP, it seemed that letting people hear it was pretty unusual for you. Do you still feel that way or would you like to release your solo songs?

Well, calling it an EP is a stretch. I've never played any singer / songwriter stuff in public because I generally throw things out before it gets that far. One of the reasons I love singer/songwriter music so much is because it can be such an unfettered and naked expression of a person's life. It's a little scary to write honest lyrics about my life without the protection of having a band around me. I would love to release my solo stuff one day, but it's going to have to get a lot better. I like things to be as good as they could be and right now I'm not there with this stuff yet. Just need more practice... and maybe some better recording equipment. I'm playing at your house next week, so I better get good. Brad Rose, the proprietor of Digitalis, is pressuring me to finish my solo album but I think it will be a long time before I'm satisfied.

Let's talk a little about Antony. We both agree that I Am a Bird Now is a major record, I'd like to hear you ramble about a few of the songs on it that really hit you and why.

Oh boy, where to start? I don't know if I can talk "a little" about him. I forget who said it, but somebody said "a singer like Antony comes along once in a lifetime" and it's the absolute truth. I'm not sure if any particular songs hit me really hard as much as his body of work as a whole. I've never been so moved by a single musician in my life. Antony has made something astonishingly beautiful out of living a life that is terminally filled with grief and sadness. I've noticed his music seems to resonate most deeply with people like me who have gone around feeling like a freak their whole lives. His music is so heartbreaking but somehow hopeful and beautiful. It's this contradiction where a person celebrates their individuality while internally cursing it. It's just the most beautiful music I have ever heard.

If I had to single out a track then I'd say the duet with Boy George on "You Are My Sister" is a really special moment. It's already a gorgeous song, but Boy George's presence makes it so much more effective. Antony idolized Boy George as a kid. He said something like, "I saw him and I thought, 'oh, so this is what people like me do.'" I guess you could say Antony is to Boy George as I am to Antony... though I'm hardly suggesting I'm anywhere nearly as good as either of those people.

How did you end up contributing sounds to Xiu Xiu's La Foret? What do you think of that record?

The Weird Weeds played a few shows with Xiu Xiu in Texas when they were on tour for "Fabulous Muscles". I gave Jamie a copy of my solo drum CD because Aaron thought he would like it. A few months later Jamie asked me if I would record some sounds for him to use on his next record. "La Foret" is probably my favorite thing Jamie has done so far, with the exception of the version of "Helsabot" where Caralee sings (one of the greatest songs of the last 10 years, easily). My presence on the record is pretty nominal but I'm really happy to be associated with what I think is one of the most innovative pop records in recent history.

You recently did some imrov at End of an Ear records, and I know you were involved with the No Idea festival and a zillion other things like that. To me, improvisation is sort of a meditation that helps generate ideas for songs; I'm sure you look at it very differently. Where does improvisation fit into the big picture for you?

I've been involved with improvised music in some form since I was about 15 years old. It's something just happened naturally while I was playing in a rock band in high school. I got into noise and ambient music which eventually led to more experimental stuff. I stopped improvising for a long time because I felt like it was something of a dead end. A teacher I had in Illinois hated improvised music, he called it "the spontaneous use of an already learned language", meaning
that since you already know the language of the music it's impossible to do something new. I don't really believe that, but it's certainly true of a huge amount of improvisation out there. My interests now lie in making extremely quiet and unusual sounds and seeing how much I can do with as little material as possible. As far as "the big picture" goes, I just think of it as something else I'm interested in. Since I left school I've found that I have an insatiable desire to play music of any kind, so I'm happy exploring as many avenues as I can. Songwriting, playing in the Weird Weeds, improvising, composing...
I've been wanting to make electronic music lately but I have no idea how to do it so I think I better just leave it alone.

All right, it's time to get into a certain let's-call-him-Mr.-Smith who's been putting out records for 25 years and has only recently begun performing. Tell me about his first North American concert in which you were invited to perform as percussionist.

I don't have much to say that the music can't tell you. The representative from Corwood Industries who performed in Austin is an artist who is executing his vision with absolute perfection and efficiency. I'm honored to have been part of the performance and to help make some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard.

Did you meet and talk to the guy, and do you have to keep mum still even though the dude's playing sold out shows? Seems like he's done w/the whole reclusive part...

I'm not sure he was ever a recluse, he just chose not to perform until last October. Even though he is playing live we still don't know more about him than we did before Instal '04. But we don't need to know about him; all we need is his music and that's what he has given us.

Any idea where all the recent performances is leading? Will he play more?

Again, I don't know better than anyone else other than Corwood Industries, though the number of shows scheduled for the remainder of 2005 seems to be an indicator that there will be more to come. I certainly hope so because hearing the music live at full volume and seeing him perform makes it even more visceral and arresting than hearing it on CD.

When/where can folks hear your Austin radio show and what's the latest bunch of stuff you played?

I co-host a radio show with my friends Rick Reed and Alex Keller called Commercial Suicide on KOOP, Austin's local community station. It airs on Sunday nights from 8-10pm CST and I typically host every other Sunday. We've started doing a live performance series where people are invited to come sit in the studio and watch the performance while it goes out over the radio, as well. I tend to play music that I feel is pushing boundaries and possibilities. Lately I've been having a
personal revival of electronic music by people like RLW, John Duncan, and Lionel Marchetti. Between the three of us I'd say we cover just about everything that could fall under the term "experimental". You can see our playlists here:

http://commercialsuicide.blogspot.com/

You have some great livejournals: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nhennies/ and your reviews have also been published in Digitalis. Anywhere else? Is writing editorials & reviews something you'll continue doing even as your music projects take off, or do you see it a means to that end?

Thanks, all of my writing online started for one reason: my job is unbelievably boring. Blogging and writing about music is an easy thing to do in an office that still vaguely resembles real work. The only place other than my blog where I have writing published is in Foxy Digitalis and Pop Culture Press. I enjoy writing about music but in general I think it's kind of a pointless exercise. People should be allowed to make up their own minds about things without being biased by overly opinionated people like me. I keep trying to get out of doing it but am always sucked back in, somehow. Ideally I wouldn't have the time to do such things because I'm busy contributing to society in some valuable way.

It'll be cool to watch your first solo acoustic performance with the Shivers this month. What can we expect, and how do you feel about playing solo?

Well, I'm pretty nervous about it. I was going to be performing with Kurt Newman on pedal steel but he's not gonna be able to do it because of a scheduling snafu, so it'll be just little ol' me. I'm excited to do it and have a couple surprises planned but it's going to be difficult. The recorded versions of my songs are impossible to play live because of all the multitracking so I've had to invent new versions that work on their own. Hopefully it won't be stupid.

What music do you recommend people check out that they maybe haven't?

Hm, where to start? Ivor Cutler is the sweetest man who ever committed sound to tape. He's an old Scottish man who writes surreal poems and songs about things like baked beetles on toast, pushing your granny up the stairs, and God telling you to "go to hell". He didn't start writing or playing music until he was in his 40s so everything he has released is impeccable. He also has the esteemed title of being the man who appeared on John Peel's radio show more times than anyone else. Who else? Antony, of course. Baby Dee, a transgendered singer/songwriter and friend of Antony's plays music that is just as beautiful. She released a 7-song CD last year that came with a hand-bound and signed book including a photo and lyrics. It's the most beautiful packaging I've ever seen.

And of course, W-S Burn, probably my favorite band in the whole world right now. We have toured with them twice and every night they played I was on the verge of tears. This is not something that happens with just any band. They are truly something special.

What's on the horizon for you collaboratively and with the Weird Weeds? Tours, recordings, etc.

Lord knows... The Weird Weeds is my primary interest and will remain in that position. "Hold Me" is finally getting a proper release this fall thanks to the fine folks at Digitalis Industries. We're planning a brief west coast tour in January (finally!) and then will probably start work on recording the next record. We have quite a few songs written now that are unrecorded, most of which I'm awfully keen on.

Also, I've started playing more in a group called The Long Telegram, a freeform heavy metal band with Kurt Newman on guitar. We are playing at Emo's soon with a bunch of hardcore bands whose fans may want to kill us after we're done. Maybe one day I'll be as good as you and Keith from The Shivers and I'll feel comfortable writing songs.

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