(and then I sort of giggle because I think I am being kind of silly, but Brian probably just thought I was a big freak, as his answer is rather serious.)
B: "Well, why? Um, well I started as sort of a joke because a friend of mine started playing and uh, I realized pretty soon that I was really into it and I've just kind of always done it. And even though over the years it's been kind of frustrating at times and I've wanted to quit, it's something I always do, so I don't know, I've always liked music, so I find it really easy to play guitar a lot."
M: "Ah-ha. What was the first record you owned?"
B: "Uh, I think the first ones I had were just tapes friends made me."
M: "But did you own any records when you were little?"
B: "Yeah, my... I remember going to the mall with my Mom and buying "Thriller" in one of those long like cardboard box tape things they used to sell tapes in."
M: "Oh yeah! So, did you consider yourself a Michael Jackson fan?
B: "Um, probably. I remember I mean at the time I didn't really have a tape player or anything- so all I had was a clock radio. I mean, the only thing I heard music on was the radio and things like that. I remember the first radio my Mom gave me was this 8 track player that looks like a- it was about the size of a TV set.
M: (laughs) "Oh my gosh! (pause) Did you like Madonna?"
B: "No... I never really liked that kind of stuff. Pretty early on, a friend turned me onto rap music."
M: (look of sheer shock and surprise) "Rap?"
B: "Uh-huh."
M: "Like what?"
B: "that was sort of when I got, when I really sort of wanted a tape player and that's when I started getting tapes, um, this kid played me- a friend of mine at the time- played me Roxanne Roxanne"
M: (very blank look of sheer Rap ignorance)
B: "It was just really, really awesome. He of course had a tape player. I did not. So, I couldn't even borrow it or anything... but I remember him making me a tape before I even got a tape player and after that I only listened to Rap really for years... until I was in High School."
M: "Oh my gosh. I just find that so suprising (in respect to the music that he plays). You don't seem like you'd like Rap." (for some reason this is very funny to me and I start laughing.)
B: "No, I'd say all through the 80's- although there was a few exceptions- just from skate boarding and things I was exposed to that I liked, but I didn't really go out and buy anything except for Rap, but when it was but the Rap section at the mall at the time was maybe two rows of tapes- so anytime they got a new one, you immediately noticed it as one you didn't have, so, we would just sort of, another friend of mine was really into it too, although not many others were at the time. In the town I grew up in, um, we would go and buy whatever they had- and so, I must have... I think the first non-rap tape I got was... it might have been 'Appetite For Destruction'."
(I start laughing like a crazy person)
B: "...and it was given to me as a gift and I remember not even opening it till it was really, really popular."
(I'm still laughing)
B: "...that uh, yah- I mean it was like a year or two after it had been on the radio before I got around to listening to it."
M: (now down to a controlled giggle) "Oh my gosh."
B: "...and it was right around then sort of when I started playing the guitar- is when I went to High School and that's when I started listening to things other than Rap."
M: "Like what?"
B: "Um..."
M: (no longer laughing) "Besides Guns and Roses."
B: "Actually, um, the first tape I got into I guess was The Joshua Tree because someone had actually let me borrow the tape- told me to borrow it and told me it was like Rap. I didn't know what it was, but..."
M: "That's so weird."
B: "I knew I'd heard of them, but you know- such a small town, ya know, you don't know what you have heard of and especially if you're not playing attention ya know... to anything outside of Rap- ya know... U2 can be pretty...ya know, they're easy to confuse with millions of other 80's bands at the time... at least from where I was, but um, someone had told me it was Rap, so I ran home and put it in and it was "Where The Streets Have No Name" or something and I remember thinking... this isn't like Rap at all!"
M: "So, what did you think of it?"
B: "Well, I was pretty surprised it wasn't Rap. But I had kind of figured it out by looking at the album cover, but, um... the thing about that was- I had just started learning the guitar and I recognized almost all the songs on the album- from the- I mean there were like five songs that were radio hits, so I don't know- at least a couple, so I recognized enough of the songs that I started listening to the tape again mostly just because I was starting to listen to things that were more guitar orientated and I ended up becoming a really big fan of U2 for I guess the beginning of High School- which is soft of funny because everyone- it was in between Rattle and Hum and when they came back in the 90's and had totally redone every... their style... and in the middle of no one listening to them all the time, so and then I never really got into them again."
M: "Yeah... did you ever- were you ever into the punk movement?"
B: "Yeah, a lot of that stuff I got exposed to just through skateboarding and although I was only listening to Rap at the time, um, a lot of it I liked a lot of The Dead Kennedys, Violent Femmes, and stuff like that were stuff that my friends listened to really often, um... Ya know- Black Flag was a big one, so I definitely got exposed to a lot of that stuff and heard it peripherally... I didn't run out and get the records or anything... I liked a lot of it but sort of I liked a little bit of everything... I mean when you're that age, ya know, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grade- ya know, but um, I mean the only stuff that... that was sort of shoved down your throat at the time."
M: "Like what?"
B: "Oh goodness... like Paula Abdul."
M: "Oh sure!" (laughs) "Do you still like Rap?"
B: "Um, I wouldn't say I still listen to old records but I don't really listen to what's coming out now. My sister does and she plays me a lot of stuff and a lot of it is just... and after listening to it so devotedly for years and years and all through college even... up until a couple of years ago that I just like I think I would know if I liked it and I'm sure that what's coming out now just isn't doing it... I still listen to old records and it's... they sound so great to me."
M: "Like what?"
B: "Um, geez, like- we were just listening to 'Tougher Than Leather' the other day."
M: (another big blank look in my eyes)
B: "RUN DMC."
M: "Oh, yeah, okay." (laughs) "I've never been that into Rap, so I don't know."
B: "Ya know, I mean a lot of The TRIBE CALLED QUEST stuff. Even though after college... it gets sort of shoved down your throat so much cuz everyone there constantly plays it... like WU TANG albums and things. Although most of them had been stolen in college.
M: "Stolen? How?"
B: "For some reason when I left college I probably had like seventeen copies of Lemonheads CDs that I didn't buy that people left in my dorm rooms or apartments... but um, no Rap CD's at all- cuz I guess everyone would take those with them I guess.
M: "Um, what, um tape do you have in your car tape deck right now? Do you know?"
B: "SLOWDIVE, I think."
M: (smiles) Is it?
B: "Yeah."
M: "Hee hee... Yeah! I love them!"
(Just now Brian's very tall and pretty handsome roommate comes wandering through- turns on the TV without volume and looks briefly at a baseball game, lights a cigarette, goes to the computer for a bit, makes a few funny, smarty-pants remarks and then disappears again.)
M: "Um, so did you have a happy childhood would you say?"
B: I'd say so. I mean it was- I always felt really sort of- even though I grew up in the country- I didn't- I felt sort of like a fish out of water there- and uh, I mean, growing up on a farm is kind of a strange thing- you sort of wander around day dreaming a lot, but I've always felt very at home since I moved to the city, so other than being in such a rural environment- which wasn't a bad thing as a child- but, can be a drag as a teenager."
B: "Um, no... I don't really have any complaints."
M: "No? Are you close to all of your family now?" (Gosh, who do I think I am... Barbara Walters?)
B: "Um, yeah... I'm fairly close."
M: "With both of your parents? They're not divorced or anything?"
B: "No, they still live on the farm and uh, yah... I keep in touch with them."
M: "And you have two sisters?"
B: "Yeah."
M: "Do they like what you're doing with your music?"
B: "Yeah, they like it a lot... they've sort of been kicking me to do more with it for a long time."
M: "Uh ha. So, um, if you broke both of your arms, what would you do?"
B: (Long Pause) "What would be the first thing I'd do?"
M: "Yeah" (giggling)
B: "Um, probably try to get them in casts as soon as possible so they could heal properly."
(I bust up laughing at his dead pan sarcasm.)
M: "So, now I am going to really put you on the spot- regarding that review I read of your CD online- one of the songs is about having a crush on one of your cousins or something???"
B: "No!"
M: (laughs)
B: "Well, I should say that, for the longest time I wouldn't tell anybody what the songs were about. I didn't- I never really thought that they were that particularly mysterious. Um, but for years and years I never- I sort of- I mean- I like the idea that things are open to a very subjective interpretation, so I tend to leave those question marks- or leave those doors open if I can- depending on what I'm writing or what the songs about, but and then just recently- I guess In the last year or so- I started blabbing about what a couple of the songs were about and everyone was just, ya know, disappointed I think because they had these different ideas of what they were about and so I think I'm gonna go back to my old rule of thumb and my old convictions about just never explaining them cuz I think it's better that way. I mean, there have been songs I've really liked in the past and then you read an interview and ya know, whoever wrote it goes, "Well, yeah, that's about my car!"
M: "If you were an animal, Brian, what would you be?"
(very long pause)
B: "Um, a fish, maybe. Some sort of aquatic. I've always been... I've never lived too far from the water- on purpose because of growing up near the water and that's always been a big priority for me."
M: "Oh yeah, me too. Absolutely."
B: "Yeah, something that likes to be in the ocean. I don't know that it would be a fish, but something like that."
M: "So, if you were a fruit or vegetable- what would you be?"
(another long, but thoughtful pause)
M: "Like, to give you an example- some of my friends have told me I'd be a Maraschino Cherry."
B: "I think I'd like to be a cherry- or something vibrant. Nothing too boring- I wouldn't pick a potato or celery. I'd like to be one of the more interesting, but nothing too exotic. I'd probably be something everyday- like an apple."
M: "Like a red apple? Not a green one?"
B: "Maybe a green apple, I like green apples better, to be honest."
M: "Yeah, yummy. Um, when you were growing up, did you have any imaginary friends?"
B: "Uh, yyyeeess. Yes."
M: "What were their names?"
B: I don't remember them having names. I think their names changed. Um, but there were a lot of them. I don't... it wasn't really so much friends as just like, imaginary people. Imaginary strangers I think I had.
M: "Did you believe they were real?"
B: "No."
M: "Did you hang out with them?"
B: "Um, yeah. I mean... and like I said, it, were he grew up, was a pretty rural, so... um, when um, there weren't people around... you could always imagine that there were."
M: "Thank you and that's it!"
Sweet! And I must say- I think Brian was quite on his best behavior during this interview and he did later admit to being more serious than normal, just because the whole interviewing process is rather trippy. He later joked, for instance, that had he just been hanging out with friends and been asked that same fruit question, he probably would have said he was a half eaten, rotten apple. Silly.
So you really need to check him out and pick up his CD too! The music is so mirthful and refreshing- invoking those cheery 1960's influenced poppy melodies, but mixed with some very deep sentiment and raw emotions. For more information and to hear some of Brian's songs, find out about his upcoming shows, etc... go to: http://www.geocities.com/brianpuseymusic
(Mary Lenoir Bond is a staffwriter of No-Fi "Magazine" and this is her first interview for us!)
