Blind Melon - Debbie Boxer

INTERVIEW: Blind Melon

- Debbie Boxer

Blind Melon's success story is the wet dream of every teenage boy whose whole life consists of school, girls, masturbating, and his guitar.

Glen Graham, Shannon Hoon, Brad Smith, Rogers Stevens, and Christopher Thorn converged on L.A. after leaving their small-town surroundings behind. Together as Blind Melon for only a week, they recorded a four- track demo just to hear how they sounded The tape fell into important industry hands, and the record labels fell over themselves to get to Blind Melon. Released in September 1991, Blind Melon's debut CD was a quiet success until the video for "No Rain" hit MTV's buzz bin. Enter the Bee Girl, the epitome of geekdom, and the rest is chart history.

Being part of such a whirlwind fairy tale, one might expect Blind Melon to be inaccessible or cocky, But when bass player Brad Smith called me one afternoon from a pay phone somewhere on the streets of Buffalo, he exuded the same deep, engaging earthiness of his band's music.

Along with Rogers and Glen, Brad grew up in West Point, Mississippi. (His thick southern drawl gives him away). Shannon hails from Lafayette, Indiana, and Christopher is from Dover, Pennsylvania --two equally small towns. Top 40 was the only music to get through the airwaves in West Point, and says Brad, "If you wanted to go find some new cool music, you had to go to Birmingham, Alabama, which is a bigger town, to get it."

But growing up far from the maddening crowd, so to speak, isn't something Brad necessarily regrets. Although limiting, he fondly describes it as "...very relaxed, slow, calm. You're able to keep your thoughts more close to yourself and more real and not so scatterbrained. Having that kind of background has really helped me because it really established a base of sanity. I've tapped into that base so many times in this past year tryin' to find myself and make sure that I was real and I'm not having a nervous breakdown." And anyone who's heard Blind Melon's music knows that the mood of their past contributes heavily to the lazy-hazy vibe that characterizes their sound. About their relaxed, jammy feel, Brad says, "Yeah, because we were so [into it], about to wet our pants, so we kind of conveyed that energy into our instruments "

Being together for only a short time before the majors came knocking didn't phase Blind Melon for long. They chose Capitol Records, who made the highest bid, but more importantly says Brad, "they were meeting our ridiculous and naive demands at the time." As an afterthought he adds, "Money talks. Bullshit walks, ya know?" On why Capitol put up with them, he speculates, "I don't know. They knew that we were original, and that we were for real, and that we couldn't have possibly contrived our hickness." It shouldn't be too surprising that such big time haggling wasn't intimidating to the small-town boy. After all, Brad spent five years playing folk music, and half that time was in L.A. "That's what I was doin'", he says, "I was writing songs and going out and playing by myself or with my girlfriend or with other folk musicians

Although it was the "No Rain" video that broke Blind Melon, it wasn't the first video they tried to get MTV to play. Brad has his own enlightened view about the MTV big wigs. "I mean, ya know, it takes a long time for some people to get into you. Nobody up there at MTV liked us, and those people only play what they like which is a good thing in my opinion because they represent what a lot of people outside of the scene wanna hear. They represent those people out in Oklahoma who don't get a chance to see all these alternative bands or mainstream bands live. They have to watch 'em on TV. Nobody should be denied music." Cz: So, how did you finally manage to get MTV's attention? BS: We had to make a lot of people wake up through our live shows. People from MTV used to come up when we played New York or L.A.. They would come out and see us and after a certain point a lot of people at MTV had seen us live, and they were convinced, and that's what it takes. They're just people, too, and they have to be convinced firsthand that we're a good band. They get so many fucking videos (that are amazing) everyday, but they have to like the band. And that's what it came down to. I think finally they got to come out and see us, and they started supporting us... for which we are eternally grateful. Cz: So, it's safe to conclude you're completely happy with the MTV thing? BS: Oh, yeah, because ya know why? It's like one of those things where as musicians we've come to terms with where we stand in this day and age. We're in the 90s. We're in the TV-headland and we can t play every city in America in one year. MTV is the quickest way to reach everybody. We have a message to tell and we have a vibe that we wanna get across, and what's wrong with gettin' it across on a bigger area? I think it benefits everybody greatly. I hate these alternative hardasses: `Well, ya know; now that they're huge, we don't like'm.' That's stupid. All bands have to do is to stay good and stay real and everything'll be fine. What happens to alternative bands when they get huge is they lose their balls, and that's what sucks.

Brad sees his band's success as a dream come true. A dream, however, that he never dreamt to begin with. "I just wanted to play and get along and make a living. To tell you the truth, all this stuff that's been happening has been just a complete bonus. I don't even know why I deserve it. That's what kinda freaks me out." Riding their still- growing wave of success, Brad wonders what it's purpose really is. He asks, "How am I gonna use all this recognition that we're getting? Is it gonna be for positive causes or negative causes 'cos everything that goes to your ego is a big negative vacuum." He quickly responds to his own question, though. "I think that the next message that I wanna get across to people as far as song writing goes is just to calm down. It's not a heavy thing what's goin' on. It's that simple."

Although Blind Melon has a message to tell, he claims they won't be a political or cause-oriented band unless an issue happens to effect them personally. When I bring up the point of his band being role models to kids even if they stay away from specific issues, he jumps right in enthusiastically. "Right. Right. But see, that's my first message right there - just to tell people to calm down and it's not such a heavy thing. Like I said, I just wanna tell ya somethin'. It's like if YOU wanna go tell somebody something, I mean, are they gonna freak out on YOU? What's the difference between you and I, ya know? Nothing. They don't have to freak out any more than if YOU were telling them. And that's kinda the energy that I wanted to disperse a little bit because its annoying. They're missing the message. I mean what if what I was saying, or what the band was saying, was just full of shit and everybody bought it? Those people would be in trouble. They have to be able to challenge it and have their own input and apply it to their own lives before it's even good. That's all there is to it.

This isn't just Brad's singular vision, but the band's as a whole. "We played last night in Toronto in front of 14,000 people and it got to where we came out and people were expecting this big Pearl Jam rock show type situation and Shannon started talkin' to 'em, and about halfway through the set, everybody was kinda calmed down and relaxed and payin' attention, which is where we want 'em. He got to where he would talk and everybody would be quiet. There'd be no cheering. They'd be really listening to what he had to say."

Brad and his bandmates intend to keep the walls down between them and their fans. "Ya know, you re just shootin' the shit with the crowd basically. That's what we'll always do. Ya know, it won't be like, 'How's everybody doin' tonight?!' (His thick southern accent turns into a Vince Neil scream). None of that shit. Hey, we're gonna play this song. It kinda came from here. Brad's kinda sick. Our monitors are fucked up, but just bear with us. You just have to tell 'em what's goin' on exactly and they relax and they'll get into it."

After touring for around two years now, Brad says he keeps going because he's gotten used to it, and enjoys seeing so much life in a short time. When he finally comes off the road and rescues his belongings from storage, he'll make his home near Baton Rouge, right outside of New Orleans. "That's where all the southern vibes are, and that's where the jazz influence and the good cooking and the art and all that stuff is really heavy down there. And I'm a southern guy and I'm not gonna deny it."

And looking ahead, naturally, to Blind Melon's follow-up album, Brad knows exactly the direction he wants it to take. "I want it to be more of the same but different. Yeah, it's gonna be as scattered as the first album, like we don't know what we're doin' because we still don't. But it's just gonna be more extreme. It's gonna be a lot softer and it's gonna be a lot heavier. So, it's just gonna be more of the same but different." Yeah...