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

Popshifter: (laughs) I was going to ask about your favorite song, on the record.

Dick Valentine: On Flashy?

Popshifter: Yeah.

Dick Valentine: Oh, it’s a tie between the last two, I think. I’m way into the use of vocoder.

Popshifter: I love the vocoder. “Making Progress” is such a happy song until you hear the lyrics and realize that it’s not as happy—

Dick Valentine: (laughs)

Popshifter: (sarcastically) “Yeah, that’s making progress.”

Dick Valentine: Yeah, that’s pretty good. That’s why we included the lyrics, in the booklet, because it’s all vocoder.

Popshifter: What that reminds me of is the last song on Fire, “Synthesizer”?

Dick Valentine: Mm-hm.

Popshifter: It’s one of my favorites. They’re both interesting tags, I think. Kind of a different coda to the whole record.

Dick Valentine: Yeah, we always take the last song of the record and try to make it a big one. That was the thing with Switzerland, we realized we didn’t really have a strong closer, so we threw in the “Chocolate Pope” song. But on all the rest of them, I think the closer has been pretty epic. And this next record, the closer I think is going to be pretty great.

Popshifter: That’s great. I really appreciate when bands think about the sequence of the songs, and say “OK, this is going to be the last song.”

Dick Valentine: Yeah, that’s the only one we really ever think about. Every now and then there are wars about what’s gonna open it, but nobody cares about what the ninth song is going to be.

Popshifter: That’s the deep cut.

Dick Valentine: Yeah. (laughs)

Popshifter: That’s the one that you pull out separately and play on your 70s radio station.

Image from Waymarking.com

Dick Valentine: That is the one. Yeah, it runs pretty smoothly, but I’m pretty stoked for this next record.

Popshifter: What’s the timeline on that?

Dick Valentine: Well, we hope to have it out in October. We generally record in January, February, and turn it in in summer, and they can have it out in October. So, that’s the plan, anyway.

Popshifter: Fantastic. Is there a potential title for it?

Dick Valentine: Working title right now is The Sign of the Beefcarver, which is a restaurant in Detroit.

Popshifter: That’s what it sounds like, or that’s what I hope it sounds like.

Dick Valentine: Yeah, that’s a working title. I mean, it’s subject to change, but right now, unless something else beats it.

Popshifter: Come on down to the Sign of the Beefcarver.

Dick Valentine: Pretty much. (laughs)

Popshifter: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me.

Dick Valentine: Yeah, no worries, man.

Popshifter: Really looking forward to the new album, and I just love the hell out of Flashy.

Dick Valentine: All right, thanks, and yeah, hopefully one day we’ll get back up to Portland.

Popshifter: Keep on doin’ it.

Dick Valentine: All right, man.

Popshifter: Oh, last question: Would you consider yourself to have the heart of a lion, and if not, what part of a lion would you lay claim to?

Dick Valentine: I don’t know, maybe on weekends the mane? Maybe on weekends I have a little bit of a mane.

Popshifter: Now that’s a flashy man.

Dick Valentine: Yeah, there you go. (laughs)

RELATED LINKS:

Review of Electric Six, Flashy, Popshifter November/December 2008 issue

If Money Talks Then He’s A Mime, Popshifter May/June 2007 issue

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”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9