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An Interview with Dick Valentine of Electric Six
Posted: Friday, November 23, 2007
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

Beginning life in 1996 as The Wildbunch, Electric Six is a strange entity in modern music. Having achieved a small amount of mainstream success, particularly in the UK, with their singles "Gay Bar" and "Danger! (High Voltage)," the latter of which featured an appearance by Jack White of The White Stripes, along with some rather whimsical videos to boot, the Detroit sextet is headed by Dick Valentine, who now stands as the group's sole original member after more than a decade of lineup and stylistic changes. Playing the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2004, the band released its second album in the UK in 2005, though Señor Smoke would not find distribution in the USA until more than a year later when the band signed to Metropolis Records. An odd move, considering that label's underground status, but Electric Six's odd mixture of indie rock, electronic, and New Wave has given their sound a unique and danceable quality that more than fits the bill. Always ones to stir up controversy, the album featured a cover of Queen's "Radio Ga Ga," the video for which featured Valentine as the ghost of the late Freddie Mercury, dancing on his grave site with a backing of poodles—strange to be sure, but furthering the band's reputation as being just off-the-cuff. That same year, the third album, titled Switzerland, emerged with the distinction of being the first of Electric Six's discography to not have a single song with the word "dance" in it, though their trademark sense of campy humor remained intact. Now, the band's fourth album (their third on Metropolis), I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me that Restricts Me from Being the Master shows the band's style in fine form, with plenty of the disco falsetto vocals and danceable frenzy they've become known for. While on tour, Dick Valentine calls ReGen from an Applebee's restaurant to explain the band's philosophy and methods of writing, the reasons behind the cumbersome album title, their videography, and how they like all music (including the Gin Blossoms).

About the new Electric Six album, I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me that Restricts Me from Being the Master: the title comes from a George Grosz drawing. Why did the band go for that title? Does it pertain to any kind of theme that is presented on the album as a whole?

Valentine: No, I just thought it sounded sweet. I saw the drawing at a museum and just said, 'That's awesome.'

The drawing isn't on the album, is it?

Valentine: No, all the artwork is original and has nothing to do with the actual drawing. We just went with it because it sounded cool.

You've done a music video for the song 'Down at McDonnelzzz,' which features you as a centaur. Is there any kind of meaning to that? What is the point behind the video?

Valentine: I don't know if there was a point. I thought the idea was to make a video that really didn't make a lot of sense, yet would still have elements of centaur culture and hip-hop culture, and then to fuse them together.

On the subject of videos, you had planned for your previous album to film videos for every song, and out of the 13, only eight were done.

Valentine: About seven or eight videos were done. I don't know that I ever really kept track, but it's around that percentage.

What ever happened to the rest of the videos? Are there still any plans to continue with the rest of that album?

Valentine: Well, no, we've moved on for a couple of reasons. One is when you're dealing with lower budgets, you can't really impose deadlines on people, and then you find out that when people don't have deadlines imposed on them, then they never get things done. There were actually a couple of videos planned out where the people disappeared, or we'd shoot half of it and never get to the second half. We got tired of that, so we pulled the plug on that.

What was the original intent behind that? Was it just to do something different?

Valentine: I think we took a stab at it because in between the second album and the third album, YouTube sprung up, and you can do more with Internet videos. Also, other than 'Radio Ga Ga,' we didn't do any videos for Señor Smoke, so I think it was kind of an attempt to catch up.

Your new bassist, Smorgasbord, joined after the new album?

Valentine: He joined around the time that we were actually making the record.

How would you say that his contributions have affected the sound of the band as a whole?

Valentine: I'm not entirely sure. He might have played a token lick on the record, but I can't even confirm that. I know that he was not involved in the writing of this record, but he will be involved in the writing of the next record.

On the subject of the lineup, which has shifted so often that you are now the sole remaining original member, and seeing as how the band has been around for quite awhile, how would you say the new album compares to past albums? If you had to track the evolution of the band's sound, how would you describe it?

Valentine: I would say strange to cosmopolitan to adult to back to strange. [Laughs.]

So you've come full circle.

Valentine: I think so, yeah. I think that's what a lot of bands do from their first and fourth album, and then the fifth album is when they make a lot of money.

Is that what the band has in store next?

Valentine: Yeah, well, I think we've written a lot of radio hits that never became radio hits. I think when it's all said and done, I'm going to be a bitter old man who's going to talk about how the system railroaded him.

On that note, Electric Six has had some radio success in the past with 'Gay Bar' and 'Danger! (High Voltage),' and now you're signed to Metropolis Records, who are more known for underground and electronic groups. How did you come to sign with them?

Valentine: Their leader, Dave Heckman, approached me at a show in San Francisco, and I think he knew that we were free agents at the time. He liked our band, and he was in the process of expanding what his roster was. He'd been known for one thing, and he was trying to get on board with different sounds and stuff. He just walked up to me and said, 'I have a record label,' he gave me his card, and when it came time for us to find a new label, he definitely came forth with the best package.

This is your third album with Metropolis in just two years.

Valentine: Well, he took an album, Señor Smoke, which originated in the UK, and released that in the States.

How would you say it's been benefiting the band as far as your exposure in the USA? What is your audience in the USA like, verses other countries in Europe?

Valentine: We tour more in the States, and I think it just kind of depends. Whereas in the UK we were getting radio play and so forth right out of the gate, in the States, we weren't really that well known. We've built it more in the States, and there is more of an indie culture in the States anyway, whereas in the UK we've kind of dropped off a bit, because they don't really support bands that are no longer on the radio to the extent that they do here. In the States, we've been able to tour and tour and build a following that way.

That's interesting, because in the underground, one would assume that it's the opposite.

Valentine: We've had an interesting go of it, that's for sure.

Because you have had a flirtation with the mainstream, having radio hits, and now being on an underground label, what are your thoughts on the mainstream aspects of the band? Do you deliberately write radio-friendly hits? Are you gearing yourselves towards the mainstream, or is that even a consideration?

Valentine: There is no consideration. We're not a band that's ever consciously or intentionally sought mainstream success. When it happened for us in the UK, we just figured it was a happy accident. We just write the songs that we write and let the chips fall where they may. There is no plan, because we've never looked at ourselves as the sort of band that mass amounts of people would ever go for. There are people out there that do, but we're not Fall Out Boy and we're not Blink 182, and at least in the States, those are the bands that sell records. It's pretty bad, but it is what it is, and we're not complaining. We have a nice career. We're able to pay the bills and do the music that we like and play rewarding shows. I don't really look at it as a bad thing. I think a lot of people go into music thinking that you have to make millions or everything else is considered a failure, but if you make hundreds of thousands, then that's okay too. [Laughs.]

On the topic of the live show, how would you say that you've altered it over time? If you had to describe your show to someone who's never seen you perform live before, what would you say have been the major changes over time?

Valentine: I would say that we are a bar band, and we're just a rock and roll band that sometimes plays bigger stages and bars. We don't do any pyrotechnics or lasers or demon skulls or anything like that. I try to dance a bit, people try to make guitar moves and guitar faces, but other than that, we're really just a rock band.

It's funny that you say you're just a rock band, but Electric Six is known for mixing different genres, such as funk, disco, electronica, and New Wave. How do you approach mixing genres as you do? Does it ever become a consideration that you're sounding too much like one or the other?

Valentine: It's nothing we really think about. We're all into all types of music. Like, the Gin Blossoms are playing now at this Applebee's that I'm at, and we're even into that. We just try to write the songs that we want to write at the time we write them. We like all styles, we try to incorporate all styles, and we just try not to be phenomenally boring.

It was on Switzerland that you made the statement that you'd done an album without the word 'dance' in any of the song titles, and now on the new album, you yet again have a song with the word 'dance' in it. Is there any particular reason to include the word 'dance' in your song titles, or is it part of a running joke?

Valentine: It's not really a joke. It's an attempt to make ourselves sound more exciting than we actually are.

Would you say that your music is dance-oriented? It obviously is, but is it ever a major consideration to say, 'Is it danceable? OK, then it's good?'

Valentine: Well, not really. We just have the ability to do something like that, so every now and again, we play that card. You know, if you have a deck of cards, there are 52 cards in the deck, and you're going to play them all eventually. If you turn over all 52 cards, you'll have a different card each time. That's the best analogy I can give you.

So what are your future plans?

Valentine: My future plans definitely do include going to another Applebee's, so that would be fantastic. [Laughs.]

We really never approach this longer than maybe one more album, or six more months, or one more tour, and then let the chips fall where they may. So far, the chips keep falling. Again, there are all kinds of things we'd like to do, like maybe start our own planetarium or something. We don't necessarily have to just be a rock band, but we'd just take the path of least resistance.

On that note, what do you guys do when you're not a rock band? What would you be doing if you were not doing music?

Valentine: I think people have different abilities and special qualities. I think we'd all be making the people around us happy, no matter what we did. We have a tremendous ability to reach into people's hearts, and whether we're working to do that in a cubicle or mowing somebody's lawn, we always do it with aplomb.

Electric Six has been around for quite awhile, and before you changed the name to Electric Six in 2002, you were a different band.

Valentine: Yeah, we've been around for awhile, and like I said, it's the path of least resistance. I even tried to quit music for a year, and ironically I wrote more songs in that year than I've probably written in my life. It's just one of the means in my life to alleviate boredom. I don't know how other guys do it, but we do have six people in the band who are all capable of writing songs. With that many people capable of writing songs that know each other, chances are you're going to be writing songs and sharing them with each other and letting those songs ingratiate themselves into the fabric of all six of us.

What is the writing process like among the six of you? Six people is a big number for a single band, especially these days, in which a band can easily be just one person.

Valentine: There is no one way. Sometimes people write an entire song by themselves, and sometimes it's a three or four-man collaboration. We just pick the best ideas and songs that have been written at that time. Every album is a snapshot in time, a cross-section of time.

So are any future songs based on material that you've come back to?

Valentine: Oh yeah, we've done that before, and we will continue to do that. We just don't let you know that. [Laughs.]

We're so far under the radar that nobody knows or really even cares about what we're doing. We've never had anyone come to visit us in the studio. That's how you know you're a really big band, if some kid with a broken leg comes in from Make a Wish and wants to see you in the studio. That's never happened to us.

You did work with Jack White from The White Stripes on 'Danger! (High Voltage),' but you couldn't reveal that it was him?

Valentine: We could've, but we chose not to. It was a mutual decision not to reveal it, but now I don't think he cares or we care. I don't think anybody cares anymore, so we revealed it.

Since you have worked with someone who is now a bigger figure in music, what is the possibility of you working with someone of that stature now?

Valentine: We're in a position where we think it'd be great to work with anybody, but it would be a matter of what they think of us. You name somebody, like, say, the guy from Nickelback or something like that. I don't think the guy from Nickelback needs to work with us; I think we need to work with him, or Phil Collins, or somebody like that. We need them a whole lot more than they need us, and generally that's just human nature. If you don't need somebody, you won't use them.