Nothing Wrong With Liking A Flashy Man: An Interview With Dick Valentine

Dick Valentine: Yeah, the journey that I’ve been on since I started in ’96, doing this, and just seeing the way different people approach it, you notice a lot of good bands that go by the wayside when their sales start to go. I think our band’s really good at adapting, getting dropped and re-signed and dropped and re-signed, and doing different approaches. I think a lot of that had to do with personnel changes, too (laughs). I’ve just always noticed that maybe a lot of bands should still be going, but they get caught in the wrong way of doing things. It has to be this way, or once you’re this big you can’t go back to being less big.

Popshifter: Right, like “this is your sound,” and you can’t make a record that’s not. . . I’m not gonna say Def Leppard’s name, but. . .

Dick Valentine: Yeah yeah yeah.

Popshifter: . . . this is what’s expected, so. . .

Dick Valentine: Although Def Leppard tried, they made a record called Slang where they were trying to do something different, and nobody would let them do it. They were very upset about that. I remember watching Joe Eliot, he had done an interview, and he was like, “How unfair is it that R.E.M. can do a 180, and U2 can do a 180, but when Def Leppard does it. . . ” I’ve always been a Def Leppard fan, and I felt for them at the time.

Popshifter: Absolutely. I love how much they love David Bowie. . .

Dick Valentine: That’s true.

Popshifter: And their covers, I think their musical taste and stuff. . .

Dick Valentine: Well, here’s the thing now, you know how everybody talks about Seattle in the 90s or Detroit, all these music capitals? Sheffield, man, Sheffield, England. I mean, you got Arctic Monkeys, you got Def Leppard, you got Pulp and the Human League. . .

Popshifter: All over the board.

Dick Valentine: Yeah, you got one of everything.

Popshifter: So it’s not just a particular sound, you know, like the Motown Sound.

Dick Valentine: I think Sheffield is the most musical city that we’ve ever had.

Popshifter: Austin might be a close runner up, they’ve had—

Dick Valentine: Oh, Austin’s a crock of shit. I mean, I don’t even know about the music, I guess there’ve been some good bands there, but that’s the most overrated town, bar none, that I’ve ever been to.

Popshifter: Duly noted!

Dick Valentine: (laughs)

Popshifter: So, do you ever visit Austin when you’re on tour, or do you avoid it?

Dick Valentine: Well, we always have good shows there, we like playing Emo’s and stuff, and I guess it’s pleasant to walk around in, but—

Popshifter: The hype.

Dick Valentine: Yeah, the hype, it just never lived up to the hype, to me. At all, I mean, it never came close.

Popshifter: All right.

Dick Valentine: Walking down 6th Street it’s like Gold’s Gym just let out, you know?

Popshifter: Is everybody in tank tops, and muscled, and showing off?

Dick Valentine: Steroids and so forth, yeah.

Popshifter: I’ve never been there, but. . . yeah, duly noted. I think that’s coming off my itinerary.

Dick Valentine: Yeah, go to. . . go to El Paso. That’s a good town.

Popshifter: Is that right?

Dick Valentine: Yeah, I’d much rather spend the day in El Paso.

Image from Chuck’s Toy Land

Click to read more from Dick Valentine on. . .

Touring and bad reviews
Vocoder and marketing music
Current lineup and Alexyss K. Tylor
“Heavy Woman” and Larry Craig
Sheffield and Austin
Alternative music and honesty
Florida and Election Day
The new album and “the heart of a lion”

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