Violent Femmes’ Gano: ‘We’re some kind of rock band’

When people ask Gordon Gano — co-founder, guitarist and songwriter for Violent Femmes — what type of music the Milwaukee band performs, he tends to be elusive in his answer.

“I make it a point to evade the question because the music is so difficult to describe,” says Gano. “At one point I started quoting whatever the last article that I read said about us and used that description to respond.”

Over time, the band has been tagged “post punk,” “folk rock,” “alternative rock” and even “classic alternative rock.” All fall short.

“Co-founder Brian Ritchie likes to call it ‘Cubist blues,’ but that means nothing to most people,” Gano adds. “We’re some kind of rock band, but I go to great lengths trying not to describe it.”

For Gano and Ritchie, music is a matter of exploration. It’s the pursuit of new sounds, new combinations and an ability to play with a variety of artists in ways that bring out the best in all involved, Gano says. Such variations in formula are necessary to keep Violent Femmes vital and evolving.

“I keep discovering this wonderful thing we call music,” Gano explains. “It means more to me than ever and it keeps becoming a bigger, more beautiful thing in my life.”

New album, new tour

July saw the launch of two Violent Femmes’ projects.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, July 7, the group opened a 21-date North American tour, co-headlining with Echo and the Bunnymen, an English rock band from Liverpool. The tour makes a stop July 21 at the BMO Harris Pavilion on Milwaukee’s Summerfest grounds.

The British band, founded by current members Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant, went from cult to mainstream status in short order, much like Femmes did. How the bands plan to work together was, at press time, still unknown to Gano.

“I’m really interested in the answer to that question, but I have no doubt that it would be good or even great,” Gano says. “We’re going to flip who’s the last to perform from date to date.

“We actually like playing earlier so we can sit back and relax, but that’s a personal thing,” Gano adds.

Violent Femmes’ other new project is its album, Two Mics & The Truth: Unplugged & Unhinged in America.

The live album was released by PIAS as a digital download, CD and double-LP vinyl on the day the tour launched.

“The album was really Brian Ritchie’s concept,” Gano says. “When we do radio station interviews and other public events, we find it more conducive to play a few songs along with talking about our music.”

Two Mics & The Truth was recorded last year as the band visited public radio stations and music media outlets across the country in support of its ninth studio album, We Can Do Anything.

Gano and Ritchie brought along with them a pair of Ear Trumpet Labs Edwina microphones, specialized bluegrass mics that allowed the pair to record the impromptu songs they performed on acoustic instruments, both on the air and in live venues.

The streaming of other musicians, including Femmes’ drummer John Sparrow, saxophonist Blaise Garza, banjo master Tony Trischka, the Horns of Dilemma horn section — which often accompanies the band — and a few more helped fill out the recording’s acoustic sound. Sparrow’s innovative use of a Weber Grill as a percussion instrument meshed well with Ritchie’s acoustic bass and Gano’s strummed guitar during some of the live segments.

The recording found Violent Femmes reinventing its own canon with rearranged classics, songs played live for the first time, spontaneous requests and random improvisations. It also gives listeners a true taste of the band’s creative process, Ritchie says.

“This is the first time we’ve delivered a full-scale recording that captures the sound and spirit of the band the way we play together when we’re working out songs in the hotel or dressing room,” says Ritchie. “This project refocuses attention on the repertoire as a whole by stripping songs to their essentials, conveying them without artifice, and removing them from any timeline.

“It’s the closest we’ve gotten to the essence of Violent Femmes,” he adds.

‘Opportunities for improvisation’

In a now legendary 1981 incident, Violent Femmes had lost out on an audition to play at a Milwaukee club. The failure found Gano, Ritchie and former percussionist Victor DeLorenzo — who had all co-founded the band a year earlier — busking outside the Oriental Theatre on the city’s east side, which that night was hosting a performance by The Pretenders.

The late James Honeyman-Scott, The Pretenders’ initial guitarist, happened upon the group. In short order, the trio was invited onstage to perform an opening acoustic set for that night’s Pretenders performance featuring co-founder Chrissie Hynde.

Gano remembers Hynde’s professional courtesy, which helped set the band on its way to national and international stardom.

Violent Femmes has reciprocated — at least once.

“I remember when we played in Cologne, Germany, Brian heard some Scottish guy playing bagpipes on the street and invited him to play with us onstage,” Gano says. “He ended up joining our tour.”

Such steps are part of the innovative approach taken over the years by Violent Femmes, which points to avant-garde jazz group The Sun Ra Arkestra as a primary musical influence.

“There are aspects of what we do that are not normal for other bands,” Gano says. “We never work from a set list and we like to play jazz in little sections throughout our music. In fact, we have probably played more jazz to more people in audiences worldwide than a lot of jazz bands.”

Improvisation — as well as a commitment to exploration that’s captured on the new live album — is what drives Violent Femmes forward, Gano says.

“There are sections of our music filled with opportunities for improvisation,” he adds. “Anyone can play anything. And they should.”

On stage

Violent Femmes will perform with Echo & the Bunnymen July 21 at the BMO Harris Pavilion on the Henry Maier Festival Park grounds, 639 E. Summerfest Place, at Milwaukee’s lakefront. Tickets are $41.20 to $66.30 and are available at the Summerfest box office, through Ticketmaster or by visiting pabsttheater.org.