BV Interviews: A Podcast About Music

This week we're talking to the one and only Robyn Hitchcock about his 50-year career, his new album The Confuser, and his biggest electric-band tour in decades. We also talk about how REM and MTV’s “120 Minutes” helped his US profile back in the '80s, his current Nashville-centered touring band, and working with his wife Emma Swift, producers Paul Fox, John Leckie, Jon Brion, and Dave Rawlings.

 

Plus: polka dots, Robyn's new memoir Stranded in the Future, five records he thinks everyone should own, and lots more.

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Credits:

Hosted & produced by Bill Pearis

Mixed and mastered by Nick Gray

Theme music by Michael Silverstein

This week we're talking to Mike Ness who has led SoCal punk icons Social Distortion since 1978. The band just released Born to Kill which is their first album in 15 years. It's been a long time coming, delayed further by Covid and Mike's cancer diagnosis and successful treatment.

 

Mike discusses the making of Born to Kill, the '70s inspirations behind it, and working with producer Dave Sardy and collaborators Lucinda Williams and Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. We also talk about how beating cancer energized his desire to make even more music, Social Distortion's upcoming tour with The Descendents and The Chats, early Social D documentary Another State of Mind, playing Little Steven's Underground Garage Cruise, five records he thinks everyone should own, and more. 

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Credits:

Hosted & produced by Bill Pearis

Mixed and mastered by Nick Gray

Theme music by Michael Silverstein

This week, we're talking with Alex Edkins who you might know as the singer and guitarist for late great Toronto noise rock trio METZ and who now makes insanely catchy and still noisy powerpop as Weird Nightmare. His new album is titled Hoopla and is out via Sub Pop.

 

Alex and I discuss how Weird Nightmare came to be, and how the first Weird Nightmare album influence the final METZ album. Other conversation topics include: METZ reforming not long after calling it quits to play John Mulaney's Netflix talk show, Alex's youth behind the counter as a record store clerk,   moving from Toronto back to his hometown of Ottawa, working with Spoon's Jim Eno on HOOPLA, records Alex thinks everyone should own, and more.

This week, we're talking with Swedish singer-songwriter José González who just released his fifth album Against the Dying of the Light. He's currently on tour in North America and our conversation happened the day before it started in Boston. We discuss his new album and its somewhat apocalyptic themes, including AI which you'll learn he has a more complicated relationship with than some do.

We also talk about his use of distortion in his mostly acoustic music and how that will play out on this current tour which is at rock clubs and not the seated theaters of his last few tours. He also tells us how his punk and post-hardcore youth continues to influence his music, what he listens to when he runs, the acclaimed video for his cover of The Knife's "Heartbeats" and how he may be doing more covers in the future, and more.

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Credits:

Hosted & produced by Bill Pearis

Mixed and mastered by Nick Gray

Theme music by Michael Silverstein

photo: Ellika Henriksson

This week, we've got filmmaker Chandler Levack who actually has two new films out. The first is Mile End Kicks which is based on her own life as a music journalist and is set against the backdrop of the Montreal music scene of the late '00s and early '10s. The other film is comedy Roommates which was made for Netflix under Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production company.

We talked to Chandler about recreating the Montreal of her 20s for Mile End Kicks, getting the music and other details right, getting indie musicians to score her movies, how she got hooked up with Adam Sandler's company just after releasing her terrific, feature film debut, I Like Movies, Montreal bands she thinks deserve more attention, and more.

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Credits:

Hosted & produced by Bill Pearis

Mixed and mastered by Nick Gray

Theme music by Michael Silverstein

Photo: Greg Gorman