Interviews

Mettler: The sequencing on Fables is key to telling the story. By the time we get to "Sweetheart," you feel like it's in the right place—it couldn't have been, say, track 2; it had to be track 12.

Doe: I let Steve Berlin do the Fables sequence. He said, "Can I have a shot at it?" And I said, "Sure, go for it." We all agreed it was a good sequence. I think we made only one or two changes. We left "Sweetheart" off the vinyl, so don't be too disappointed. We did that because the sides were a little uneven, and we didn't want that.

Mettler: Well, you can put "Sweetheart" out as a Record Store Day 45, or something.

Doe: There you go. Absolutely.

Mettler: Was the opening track, "Never Coming Back," recorded first?

Doe: I had written maybe two or three other songs before that. Once we worked up "Never Coming Back," I thought, "Oh, well, this can open the record." It was sort of a defining moment. I had that happen before with a Knitters record (footnote 6) and even an X record. When I started working on "Alphabetland," the first, title song of the 2020 X record, I thought, "oh, this has got substance. It's weird. There's something about it that's different."

Mettler: Where did the name Alphabetland come from?

Doe: That came from guitarist Billy Zoom. Exene Cervenka and I were calling it something like Oh Mercury, a phrase from the song, but Billy just kept going, "there's something about the alphabet," you know, "alphabet mine," "alphabet wrecked," that sort of thing. [Those phrases are also in the lyrics.] There's a kid's game called Alphabetland, and Billy kept referring to the song as "Alphabetland," so we just threw our hands up and said, "Okay, fine." And then we realized, "Oh, this is a great title!" After that, we got artist Wayne White to do artwork for it. It was really wonderful.

Mettler: Describe your songwriting process and the collaboration.

Doe: If I thought some chord changes weren't working, I'd just open up and ask, "What do we do, Billy?" or "What do we do, D.J.?" (footnote 7) They came with more confidence and more experience, and I just let go of my ego, and it was really productive and rewarding. Everyone was invested. Everyone was bringing something to the table.

It was like that, too, working with Louie Pérez, of Los Lobos, and with Terry. And when Shirley Manson (footnote 8) says, "Hey, let's write a murder ballad," it's like, "Fuck yeah—I'll write a murder ballad with you!" That was "Destroying Angels." And then Exene added a bunch of lyrics to the chorus.

Mettler: It's such a great, collaborative piece of work. So you got some help from Louie Pérez with the Spanish lines in "El Romance-O."

Doe: Oh yeah. That name, "El Romance-O," came to me in a dream, and I thought, "Who is this character?" Since the name is kind of Spanglish, I thought maybe it should have a verse in Spanish. Louie is an old friend and an obvious choice for something like that.

Mettler: Getting back to the Fables album: In the song "Missouri," your articulation of the word "go" in the phrase "let me go" changes slightly each time. I feel like those subtleties are the kinds of things that take the listener deeper into the story.

Doe: Ah, that's the goal. That's the hope. Also, having Carrie Rodriguez hold that one note, on violin, is ... . Yeah, she's awesome.

Mettler: I've been listening to those four X reissues from Fat Possum on vinyl, and I'm struck by how a song like "Nausea," from Los Angeles, comes across differently in today's context.

Doe: Well, in 1980, Los Angeles was received by a very small number of people. But now it continues to be exposed to other audiences, and so—God, we won the lottery! It's like putting $100 into a T-bill and 40 years later, you're still reaping rewards. We're incredibly grateful for that.

Mettler: The lyrics of the title track, "Los Angeles," had to be adapted a little to modern sensibilities. But its subject matter is as relevant today as it was back then.

Doe: Yes. Using the N-word at that time is the same as it is right now. I'm not gonna be an egotistical artist and say, "Well, that's the way it was written," because we just changed it. Now, the song's narrator is saying "Christian and Jew" rather than "N-word and Jew" in it (footnote 9). The point of it was to hold a mirror up to people and say, there's rampant racism, and when you get into crisis and you're pushed to the limits of your will and your patience, you're gonna see things in black and white. You're gonna lash out. Your worst traits are gonna be amplified. And that's obviously still true.

Mettler: The line in "Guilty Bystander" that hits me the most is "Open your eyes and save someone else."

Doe: It's not savior mentality; it's don't be selfish and have some fucking empathy, you know? It's sad to me that people have responded to the last couple of years with fear and anger, though I do understand it—I do. Once you've seen the chaos, it makes you afraid. One would think you might have some empathy, because you've gone through a hard time and, oh gee, maybe the other person has gone through a hard time as well. Why not go, "Okay, cool. Let's work together"? But it doesn't seem to be the case.

Mettler: The very last song, "Where the Songbirds Live," is an optimistic end to the record. It's about redemption. You give us a little bit of hope there at the end.

Doe: Yes. I felt like the narrator travels from somewhere in the south across the country and maybe ends up looking at a lake or the Pacific Ocean and thinks, "Well, this is a little bit safer and gentler; maybe

I can stay here." That was influenced by the song "The Big Rock Candy Mountains," which I've covered (footnote 10). It's a little bit of a wish. Musically, it is a little bit of an outlier. When Kevin and Conrad came up with that drum/bass thing, I immediately thought of Ennio Morricone and what he did for Sergio Leone movies—you know, the marching kind of drum pattern and that really melodic bass. See, another advantage of having just a trio is that the bass and drums are much more melodic. They have the room to do that.

Mettler: What do you want listeners to get out of your music?

Doe: I want them to experience a good story, poetically told, that makes them feel something or see something they didn't think they could, something surprising. If there's anything I hope for us—and that's kind of the basis of this Fables record—it's, I'm gonna make a little world for you, and I hope you like it enough to get in there and walk around, see what it feels like, see some things and smell some things. And then you come back and go, "Oh wow, that was a trip. That was beautiful," or "that was terrifying." Whatever it was, you went somewhere.

Even with Los Angeles, on the song and on the record, we told stories. They're people, they're places, they're things. I've always been drawn to cinematic songs and the cinematic telling of stories. It could be "Gentle on My Mind," or it could be something outrageous like "Ballad of a Thin Man" or "Apartment No. 9" by Tammy Wynette (footnote 11). In all those songs, you're seeing something, and you're feeling something. It's like, "Oh wow, I just went someplace for three minutes."

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Footnote 6: The Knitters is an X side-project band featuring Doe, Exene Cervenka, D. J. Bonebrake, Dave Alvin, and Jonny Ray Bartel. Alvin was the subject of a feature story in Stereophile's February 2023 issue.

Footnote 7: D. J. Bonebrake, X's drummer.

Footnote 8: "Terry" is veteran outlaw country singer-songwriter Terry Allen. Manson is the lead vocalist for Garbage.

Footnote 9: The full line in "Los Angeles" Doe is referring to is now "She hates every Christian and Jew."

Footnote 10: "The Big Rock Candy Mountains" is a country/folk standard first recorded by Harry McClintock in 1928. It has since been covered by Pete Seeger, Roger Whittaker, Tom Waits, and Lisa Loeb, among others.

Footnote 11: "Gentle on My Mind" was written by John Hartford and released on his 1967 album Earthwords & Music, and it has been covered by Glen Campbell, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Aretha Franklin. Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" first appeared on 1965's Highway 61 Revisited. Tammy Wynette's signature version of Bobby Austin's "Apartment No. 9" was released as a single in October 1966.