But since the days of "Blister in the Sun," "American Music," and "Add it Up", the Femmes have been rather quiet. Sure, their second generation of fans has caught their live show, but in the media and on CD, the band has been out of the forefront for some time now.
So as they readied to play their hometown at Summerfest, I caught up with bassist Brian Ritchie to find out what's in store, and to dig into the band's quirky past.
How are things in the Femmes nowadays? Any new studio stuff going to happen?
We have recently released a "BBC Live" CD which documents a concert we did in England in 1991. We are about to release a "Best Of" CD and companion DVD. We also reissued "Viva Wisconsin" and "Freak Magnet." So there is a glut on the market at the moment. We are in discussions about what we want to record for our next studio album.
What's it like to play Summerfest? Did you guys attend as fans before making it big?
We all attended Summerfest as youths. In fact, I was in attendance when George Carlin did his famous comedy routine about obscene words which got him arrested. It's always fun to play there and see the local crowd. We can look into the audience and see some faces we've been seeing for 25 years now.
Do you guys still live in Milwaukee? What do you do on your downtime from music?
Gordon has been living in New York for 20 years. I recently moved back to Milwaukee after 10 years in New York. In some ways Milwaukee has grown up in the interim, but some things never change. When I'm not making Femmes music I play Japanese music and jazz on the shakuhachi, which is a Japanese bamboo flute. I also like to ride my bike around Milwaukee every day.
The band's sound was and is still so original. Did you purposely try to be different back in the 80s? What inspired the sound?
In some ways we intended to be different and original, but for the most part our unique sound is just a natural outgrowth of our interests as individuals. The concept behind the band was to do rock 'n' roll material but with a jazz approach and a folk sound. We wanted to use a lot of acoustic instrumentation both for its beauty and because it puts the vocal out front and makes it possible to focus on the lyrics.
Gordon has shown religious faith in his lyrics at times. How do you feel about God yourself? Do you and Gordon see eye-to-eye on things?
Gordon has some kind of unorthodox Christian beliefs. Victor and I do not share those views. I am a Buddhist. Gordon and I don't see eye to eye on religion, but it's not a problem because we both are open to having friends and relatives of any religious stripe. Between band and wives we have Christian, Buddhist, Moslem and Jewish people. The world is too messed up to worry about religion.
What band(s) inspired you to first pick up a bass? Who inspires you today?
The first bassist who influenced me was Chris Squire from Yes. He plays it like a lead instrument and I follow that path myself. After that I got inspired by a lot of jazz saxophone players like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler. I tried to apply some of that thought to the bass. My attitude is do whatever is possible.
Photos courtesy of the Violent Femmes
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