An interview with US punk band No Age on sound in railway stations, performances with whips and collaborating with Doug Aitken.
MS: Some theorists suggest that performances are one-time events that can never be re-experienced. What does it mean for your music and performances to be distributed via other formats: zines, books, and video?
Dean: We tackle things in a similar way no matter what the outcome. It’s just us two forming ideas, and throwing them in the ring until something comes out. It doesn’t have to be a song or a set.
MS: It can be an image?
Dean: Yeah, I’d like to think anyway.
Randy: I think it comes back to our creative process. Whether writing songs or creating albums, we don’t really have a pre-determined plan that we follow. When we’re working on a song, we start to feel where something gets exciting and for whatever reason turns us on. That is true with sound, or performance, or with the visual elements. It has to resonate. You have to find that intersection where art starts to become stimulating.
MS: Doug often refers to the live events that you’ve created with him as Happenings: scores or a set of instructions that determine a set of actions.
Dean: We use that in our own art all the time, whether recording or creating a live performance. You have a loose idea, or a set list. But something happens and you run with it. It usually makes the show more interesting for everyone.
MS: Were you guys creating in this way before you started working with Doug?
Dean/Randy: Yeah.
MS: So, until you two get your clones you’ll at least have your samples.
Randy/Dean (in sampled unison): Exactly.
MS: Do you think there is such a thing as a “Doug Aitken stage”? Familiar visuals, spaces, or motifs that you now recognize and respond to in your collaborations?
Randy: Well, there’s definitely gonna be a whipper!
Dean: There will be whips!
Randy: There’s a visual, visceral, tactile passion that’s going to be there. Doug wants things to operate with a high level of passion. You’re feeling it, and it’s frenetic at times. It’s definitely a “heightened reality stage.”
MS: Can you talk about the role of the performer in a Doug Aitken Happening? Are you a participant, a performer, or some hybrid of both?
Dean: In Doug’s performances specifically, I think we become both performer and participant because a lot of times we don’t really know the outcome, and the audience sure doesn’t know. In Barstow, I feel like we just played to the sunset and the energy that was there. In that sense, we’re not just performing a work we’re also witnessing. But sometimes it can go south pretty fast. That’s when you become performer, and you figure out how to put the train “back on the track.”
MS: Using your skills.
Dean: Yeah, and not just on our part. You don’t normally see a guitar, some drums, a whipper and a tap dancer together. The collaboration between us has just barely been worked out. But each person is so technically skilled, that as long as we hold it down on our own ends - usually it works! I’m not going to know if a tap dancer fucked up, and nobody else will. I don’t think…