Matt Piucci of Rain Parade: Return to the Paisley Underground
Matt Piucci reflects on the deluxe reissue of 'Crashing Dream,' the value of long-term creative partnerships, and how Rain Parade's influence shaped a generation of musicians from My Bloody Valentine to the Stone Roses.
Today, the Spotlight shines on Matt Piucci, founding member and principal guitarist of Rain Parade.
Rain Parade helped define LA's Paisley Underground scene in the early '80s, creating music with psychedelic textures and punk energy. Their 1983 debut Emergency Third Rail Power Trip remains a touchstone album of the era, cited as an influence by everyone from My Bloody Valentine to the Stone Roses.
Now Matt and the band are revisiting their catalog with deluxe reissues, including the newly expanded Crashing Dream, their so-called "lost double album" from 1985. It's part of an ongoing project that's given Matt a fresh perspective on work that continues to find new audiences decades later.
(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Rain Parade's album Crashing Dream)
Dig Deeper
• Visit Rain Parade at rainparadeofficial.com and follow them on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram
• Purchase Rain Parade's Crashing Dream Deluxe Edition from Label 51 Recordings, Bandcamp, or Qobuz and listen on your streaming platform of choice
• Also be sure to check out these other Rain Parade albums: Last Rays of a Dying Sun (2023) and Emergency Third Rail Power Trip (deluxe edition)
Paisley Underground Scene:
• The Dream Syndicate - scene contemporaries led by Steve Wynn
• The Bangles - most commercially successful Paisley Underground band
• The Three O'Clock - Los Angeles scene peers
• Green on Red - fellow Paisley Underground band
• The Long Ryders - country-rock influenced contemporaries
• Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate on the Spotlight On podcast
(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)
Lawrence Peryer: We were brought together to talk about the reissue of Crashing Dream, and I do want to do that, but I'm hoping to maybe use it as a little bit of a launchpad or a framing to talk about what's happening now too.
Matt Piucci: Oh, that'd be great. I appreciate that very much because I mean that's a dish I made a long time ago. The music, you can keep eating it. Food, unless it's McDonald's, it doesn't last.
Lawrence: Well, it's funny you say that because spending a lot of time with the catalog and spending a lot of time with that record recently, there's something in the production that you wouldn't—I don't think you could necessarily pinpoint when that record was made. And I wonder if I say that, and I also wanted to ask, when the catalog is being revisited, how much do you have to do? Are you in it and what's that evoking and doing to you?
Matt: Where to begin? The process we are heavily involved in. We have people who help us. First of all, this is out on Label 51 Records, which is run by Bill Hein, who is the guy who signed us 40 years ago. And so there's really only now—well actually when all is said and done, he will have all of them. Crashing Dream was the one that he didn't have, the one that got away. He didn't want to let us go and we probably should have stayed with him.
But in the process of going back to this record and last year for Record Store Day we went back to our first record, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip. And it was actually the record company Bill's idea to make these deluxe editions and to dive into the archives and see what was there that could fill them out, which was appreciated. We got some help from a guy named Dave DeSanzo and somebody else named Pat Thomas. Pat's a good friend, Dave I only know through music, and a guy in England named Clive Jones. These guys dug into the vaults to try to see what they could find from those eras.
So we did ultimately end up listening to them. And the process is a little more involved than one might think. I mean, at least for us. For this particular record, we went back to the original. There were some things that we didn't really like about it. It was mostly probably due to our experience at the time. It was a little bit rushed and the producer that we got, nice guy. Nothing wrong with him. It just really—he wasn't really, didn't really get us. So there's a few things that we changed. We switched out a version of one song because we had done that with our previous producer, whose name is Jim Hill and we work with him now and have since forever. He's done all of our stuff recently. Some of my stuff, in between the long gap of Rain Parade's hiatus.
So he's helped. He's really good at making crummy things sound good. So for this particular record, we went back to the original. We remastered what was there. One song we slowed down a little bit. Another song we liked the version that we did first, and we replaced that, and then we added, at least to what the original was—the first disc. We added a couple of live songs that were from that era that we'd never recorded, that we felt rounded out where we were at. So I think that's a long-winded answer to your question. So yes, we do get pretty heavily involved in that process.
Lawrence: It's a really interesting take that you have because the idea that you could reopen the work and fiddle with it and not have to be a fetishist about it and say, this is what it was at that point in time. That's all it can be. I love that idea of using that opportunity to revisit it with the benefit of hindsight and years and maybe even, you know, not to speak for you, things that maybe had always stuck in your craw about it, but that's a really interesting approach as opposed to being so ossified about it.
Matt: I mean, we certainly could have been a lot more anal. I mean, we didn't bust out the multi-tracks. If that's what you mean, we could have remixed it. That seemed like—first of all, I don't even know where the hell the multitracks are, but even if we did, we probably wouldn't have done that. What we did do was there was a couple of songs that kind of bugged us, and one of them, we slowed down and we liked the way that sounds better. I don't know if you could tell the difference, but you know, it's like sausage making. That's why they have doors on kitchens.
And then there's a song called "Sad Eyes Kill," which was the very first thing that we did with our new five-piece lineup. Not to jump all over the place, but to quickly go through Rain Parade. Rain Parade started originally with me and my college roommate, David Roback. He and I both went to the same small college and very early on it became clear that our roommates did not share our ideas about what college was supposed to be. And we got kicked out of those rooms and then we ended up rooming together.
So that happened. And then, you know, we'd always talked about being in a band together. And finally I moved to Los Angeles in 1981, and then we did this thing. So then Rain Parade held up for about a year, and we did things kind of backwards. We recorded first before we actually played live. So we put out a single before we ever played. Then we met all these people who are associated with this that you probably know about.
And after that first record became pretty obvious that three songwriters and one band wasn't going to work. David left. We did another EP with just the four of us where I played all the guitar, and then we realized we needed another person to play guitar. That is when that Crashing Dream era started. And my friend John Thoman, who also went to school with David and I back in the day, known him well—both of them for 50 years, although David is no longer with us, rest in peace. And actually John was in the very first band that we ever had with David and I, which is just a crappy punk cover band.
And the reason that he was in it is because David and I were trying to figure out a song and John came over to David's house to buy some goods and we're trying to figure out this song and John's like, "Oh, here, gimme that guitar." And I'm like, "Oh yeah, okay, you want to play with us?" So he joined the band and he moved out in '84. And the very first thing we did with them was for a flexi disc for Bucket Full of Brains. And it was paid for by Enigma Records. And that version of that song, "Sad Eyes Kill," is the one that we used on Crashing Dream. So that gets us back to Crashing Dream with a slight whirlwind digression into the history of Rain Parade. And John is still with us today. I see him all the time. He's probably my best friend and everything either Steven or I have done since then, Rain Parade or otherwise, he has been involved in, and that's John Thoman, guitar player who was on Crashing Dream. So yes, that is a different version than the one we did in the studio and we liked it better. Usually the first thing you do, first time you do something, it's the best. Not always, but usually. So that's the one we replaced for this particular deluxe edition of Crashing Dream.
Lawrence: When you guys were approaching the making of that record, I mean, you'd had kind of a whirlwind few years, as you said, you know, David had split, you signed to Island, you had a pretty acclaimed debut record. And then a few moments ago, you alluded to the fact that, you know, maybe we shouldn't have signed to Island. Did you do it because that's just what you did back then? It was like, oh, the major label came calling, isn't that what we should do? Could you talk a little bit about the headspace y'all were in?
Matt: I guess we're just young and dumb and it was flattering, of course, and we felt that—so we'd made one record and then we made an EP with the four of us with the producer with whom we work now. His name's Jim Hill and he's the one who did all of these reissues with us and has done everything with us since then. And I don't know, that really wasn't broken. I'm not sure what—I think we did try to get Island to allow him to produce it, but they didn't want him, they wanted somebody else. Who knows, you know, the grass is greener and, oh, an English label. We'd gotten a lot of attention from England that was—you know, we couldn't get arrested in LA.
Most of the attention that Rain Parade got was from the UK and Europe. I think that there was certain sensibility about what we were doing that appealed to those folks more. I'm not really sure. I don't think you could ever accuse Rain Parade of being Americana, although I mean, who knows what we sound like? That's, I'm probably the worst person to ask, but there is—you know, there's the Byrds in there and there is American music, but perhaps it was we really liked Pink Floyd a lot and early Pink Floyd and that kind of stuff I think really appealed to the Brits. So maybe that's why, I don't know.
Plus, the other thing that's weird about England is England is really a lot smaller, at least in terms of music than the United States. Because the US is like LA, it's Nashville, it's New York, it's Chicago. There's just so many different areas, it's not as contiguous. And in England, if you make it, that's it. You know, I have friends who like had one hit in the eighties and they're considered pop stars for the rest of forever because it's the London press and everything else. So once you're hooked up there, it kind of is—it's more provincial than here. So I don't know if that's—we did it probably just the allure of it as well. Anyway, we did it and that's what happened. And you know, the consequences were what they were both positive and negative. And I'm not going to complain about it. I mean, we were very lucky to be able to do all the stuff that we did. So I'm grateful. And maybe in hindsight we should not have, but we did. So there you go.
Lawrence: Around this time last year, maybe a little later in the year, I talked to Steve Wynn. He was talking about Dream Syndicate forming because they wanted to be the band they weren't hearing. So to me that lands as like a real almost reaction to the musical landscape you find yourself in, and that seems to contrast a little bit to your origin story. It seems like you were just like buds who were simpatico and did the thing. Did you guys have like a rallying cry or a mission?
Matt: I think that you're probably correct. I mean, I love Steve. He's a great dude and a pal. As a matter of fact, he's much more of a pal now than he ever was, which is probably true of all of those folks. I mean, not that he wasn't—I've grown to know him a lot better, and he is just a great dude. We didn't feel like we were on a mission to do something that wasn't being done. I think that was a little bit more subconscious because I don't feel as if that is the way we approach stuff. I think that in retrospect, it turns out that we actually did end up doing something that other people weren't doing.
And there was something in it because we would get there—we would play like, you know, waltz tempos with acoustic guitars in these punk clubs. And people were like, what the fuck is that? And to us that felt so—I mean, in that sense we felt that that was punk. It's like, okay, we have to be ripped t-shirts and sweating and screaming and playing really loud, bad guitar—not that there's anything wrong with punk, I love it. But it was like, we're not doing that. And in the same sense it was like, we love Chuck Berry. We love the blues, but we're not going to do that. That's not going to be us. And I think that that's very important for any young artist. It's almost what Miles says about, you know, it's what you don't play that's just as important as what you do. And I think he was talking about space, but it's also about the techniques and the instrumentation and everything, it's important to not be negative, but just define your own space in that way. So I like contrarianism. (laughter)
And we didn't know that until we got out there. I mean, like I said, we holed up for a good year plus before we even played, we recorded before we even played, and had a single out before we even had a gig. So we didn't know that was going to—well, I guess we kind of knew because we went to clubs and we weren't hearing anybody do what we were doing. So, I mean, it wasn't like we weren't aware, but I don't think that was overtly conscious, perhaps subconscious, maybe. But I don't recall us thinking, oh, we're going to—like, nobody's doing this, so we have to. We didn't feel like we are on that kind of mission. And I can dig what Steve says. He can think why he said that because they—nobody really does sound, did sound like those guys. They basically what Dream Syndicate was, they were a punk band who played guitar solos is what Steve once said to me. And I'm like, yeah, okay. Because they are really very raw, visceral band. We're maybe more impressionists maybe. And those guys, a lot of 'em were more expressionists, if you will.
Lawrence: I think about The Flaming Lips that say, you know, when punk started taking acid?
Matt: Well, those guys are doing okay for themselves, so that makes sense. And we certainly had done that, but you know, like Ringo says, he goes, "Yeah, you did that but you didn't do while you're playing because you can't play when you do that." So yeah, perhaps that perspective informed the way we wrote songs or how we approached instrumentation. But no, I tried that once. It didn't work. So no.
Lawrence: You know, that early to mid-eighties time to me is so interesting because what I kind of—at the time didn't really care about because I've always just liked good music. I didn't really care what it was called or where it came from, but this idea that there was all this sort of like synthesizer heavy European influenced pop music. But then the guitar music never really went away in that era. I think about like George Thorogood was an MTV superstar or you know, Dwight Yoakam playing in punk clubs. It's all very similar to what I think you're saying there, which is what was going on in the clubs was really—there were people that I don't know if resistance is the right word, but the contrarian or just doing their own thing, and that really was what punk was. I mean, it wasn't a style. It's just fascinating to me that that era and what was going on.
Matt: I mean, it is an ethos more than it is an actual sound. And I always thought it was a silly term. Anyway, I mean, there are almost zero American punk bands to me. That's, you know, The Clash and The Sex Pistols and maybe The Damned and stuff like that. And then all the stuff that came after that's kind of past my time, but the stuff in New York from the mid-seventies that none of that is punk at all. To me it's just original songwriting and unique bands who are approaching things differently.
And now that you mention that kind of stuff, yeah, we would listen to that sort of English guitar sound that's all chorusy and we didn't really like that. A lot of people might say about us that, oh, that we were kind of quote wimpy unquote, but I never felt like our guitars were wimpy. I mean, there's nothing wrong with pretty music and we liked it and we liked, you know, the introspective approach, but I never felt like we had wimpy guitar sounds. We like guitars with meat. You know, I guess that's for others to say, but I kind know what you mean though. I wouldn't say we were contrarian in that sense.
The other people who were also involved in that same time and place that are associated with this—I think those people too, I mean, you know, The Bangles have—that's gritty guitar. Even The Three O'Clock—Louis's a nasty guitar player man. And The Long Ryders too, or Green On Red, I mean, any of those bands. It's not that watery English kind of sound, which is a little odd because it's funny how things go back and forth. The original rebound of like really gritty American music from the blues. It went over there and then, you know, you get like John Mayall and that whole group of people who saw that kind of American music and like super got into it and then it came back here and you know, like obviously Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page and those kind of guitar players, nasty guitar players.
But then, you know, in the eighties, the guitar coming out of England wasn't that, and maybe because they were rebelling against that being the status quo, you know, the last really nasty guitar player from England would—I don't know, it would be like Mick Ronson maybe, who I adore. And then that was kind of old hat to those guys. And then they did this other thing and we heard that and we went like, yuck. We like the grittier stuff.
Lawrence: We've made it almost a half hour without saying the dreaded Paisley Underground word.
Matt: They're not dreaded. (laughter)
Lawrence: And now I'm going to say it. But it's—I think less about that term because, you know, I think like genre and those types of terms, they're not that interesting to dig into, especially with an artist. I think what I'm more interested in as it relates to that term is how much of a part of a scene did you feel you were? Or again, is that just all something that gets layered on in retrospect? Were you part of a community of musicians or was it like you and a band of brothers?
Matt: I think scene is probably a very good way of putting it. You know, I think I heard Danny Benair say that it wasn't really a genre as much as it was a scene. And you know, I once said, and this is true, all the plumbers in Fontana know each other too. And we were musicians in Los Angeles at a particular time. But there were pockets of—you know, we weren't the hardcore bands, that's for sure. That was a different thing going on. There's nothing wrong with that, but that wasn't us, even though we bumped into those people, and there's nothing wrong with what they were doing.
But the—it was, there were kindred spirits that we ran into and it was very supportive. And so when I think of, you know, The Bangles and The Three O'Clock and Dream Syndicate, Green On Red and The Long Ryders and—there are other bands there too. Those were kindred spirits. We felt we were playing the same clubs at the same time. But we did—you know, we played with the other people too. I guess we were the freshmen and we played with the seniors like Los Lobos and X and The Blasters. And some of them were super—or like The Plugz. And I remember Tito Larriva was a super, super friendly, nice guy, or a guy like Dave Alvin, who's a sweetheart. And other people were kind of like, eh, whatever. And it's certainly a different kind of music. And we played with them too, so I don't necessarily—but you could never, you would never say they were part of whatever the heck it was that we did. They were a little earlier. And those are all legit cool bands, you know, and X—they were great and Circle Jerks, all good stuff. I don't think we played with the Circle Jerks, but some of the earlier Paisley bands like say Green On Red, Dream Syndicate, Salvation Army. Those guys were more of garagey type.
Of course anybody played with The Bangles for obvious reasons, they were amazing. And so that had a little bit more crossover. But the ones that we truly identified were the people who were like our age. So that is that peer group. You know those—say, you know Dave Alvin or John Doe, who I don't know, those guys are probably a few years older than we are, and there were some guys in our scene who might be almost that old, but most of us were five to 10 years younger, so that it makes sense that we would be in the same position at the same time. So I don't think that term is bad. It's a little silly, but people need labels and that's kind of the label. Your parents give you a name, you don't—I mean, I guess you can change it, but that's the one you get. It does address proximity and similarity.
Lawrence: It's a good shorthand.
Matt: There's nothing wrong with it.
Lawrence: Tell me a little bit about Jim Hill. I mean, it's so fascinating to have such a long standing career and it's just super interesting to me. I also love the idea that he seems to—I mean, it's a tenuous analogy, but he has almost a George Martin role for you in that he even oversees sort of the archival work. Or is involved in the archival work and it's fascinating to me. What's the deal there?
Matt: Oh, well, one, he's a dear, dear friend, number two, he's an absolutely astonishingly amazing engineer, and we met him after Rain Parade made our first record. It's funny how history repeats itself. We made our first record on our own Emergency Third Rail Power Trip. We met Bill Hein, who, with his brother Wesley, established Enigma Records. Their very first thing that they did was Mötley Crüe. So they hit a home run on the first pitch and that allowed them to do what I think Bill's really all about. He's just a music fan and he loves all kinds of music. He never really gave a shit about genre. If he liked it, he would do it. So he was the one after we finished that first record and it was obvious that three people—you can't have three songwriters in a band. That's just too hard. Ask George Harrison about that, or Buffalo Springfield, they lasted what, two records?
Anyway, so David went on to do whatever he was going to do and good for him. Opal was great, but then Bill introduced us to Jim Hill. Not that David and Jim are even remotely similar in their roles, but Bill thought, hey, I think this guy would be a good producer for you. And we just hit it off right away. He had worked with Wall of Voodoo, couple other bands, Prime Movers, and we didn't really know him from Adam, but we liked him and he knew what we were trying to do. Probably had a wider palette than we did, but once we started working with him, it was great. And I think that first EP is as good as anything that we've ever done.
Then we moved on to Island and we wanted to keep him, but they didn't want us to do that. I think we covered that. Then, you know, after Rain Parade ran its course, in the interim between the eighties and 2010 or so, Steven and I did work a lot together. We did records in other iterations, but once we got back together, I mean, I had a realization going back to listening to older Rain Parade and also some of the stuff that I've done, I'm like, every single thing that Jim did sounds better than every other thing that you didn't do. So it's like, I don't know why I'm—so that was it. So I just—I'm not doing this shit unless he's going to do it.
So we hooked up with him again after the sort of brief Paisley reunion, if you will. We did a few shows with the Dream Syndicate and The Bangles and The Three O'Clock. Jim certainly knew about it. We were in contact with them, but we're like, listen man, we got to go record. Actually, he had—I had worked on something on my record that I had done before with this band called The Hellenes, and he worked on that was when I had my epiphany. Thank you. That's the word I sought. Once again, you articulated that, which I could not. Once I had that epiphany, he worked on that with me and then it was clear that's it. I'm not doing anything without this guy. So he did that three by four stuff with us where all the bands cover each other's songs and that was a hoot.
Lawrence: That's fun.
Matt: And then we went again and did what we did the last time back in the day, we self-recorded Last Rays of a Dying Sun. And Jim was the producer. And then Bill was in town and I had lunch with him and he said, "Hey, I have this new label and I want you guys to be the first band that is on it." And boom, there we are again. And Jim—he has done all sorts of stuff for their label. He is kind of their go-to guy for making crappy old things sound good. He's done some work—he did some of the Dream Syndicate stuff. He did—there was this super cool band from San Francisco called Sister Double Happiness. I don't know if you've ever heard of them. This guy, unfortunately he passed. He was in a band called The Dicks. Gary Floyd and he passed recently, but they were the coolest band in San Francisco in the late nineties. They were awesome. Very blues punk bass, but super cool. He remixed some of that stuff and mastered it. It escapes me what else he's done for the label, but he has. So he went back to all of our older stuff and even when we had re-released some of this stuff maybe 10 years ago on a different label, he had done that as well.
He's just really good, as he says at making digital sound analog. He's just got the ear and he can make it happen. So he ended up remastering or mastering the first record that we rereleased, which was Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, Deluxe, if you will. And that came out last record store day. So he did all that and then he did this Crashing Dream stuff too. Just a little ironic because he wanted to record Crashing Dream with us in the first place. Well, at least he got to mess with it. Jim Hill gets his due. He does. It's funny. I was going through some of the old stuff and I think there's a song on there that we recorded live at one of our rehearsal studios that says, "Jim Hill," I'm like, oh shit. He was there because I remember I asked him to come over and he helped us record it.
I mean, he's been lurking in the background. And he's a great dude. We love him. And he's—I mean, he might as well be in the band. He kind of is. He does that sort of George Martin-y thing. I mean, he's not like a whiz keyboard player like George Martin, but he always—on all this stuff, there's just all these weird—I believe Eno called it the treatments and manipulations. He is always doing something like, "Hey, I found this out here and I made it backwards, and I put it through this and that." And I'm like, "What the hell is that? That's cool." A lot of that is Jim. So we love that stuff. We do pop music, but we really like to stretch things. We really like weird sounds and try to make things sound a little bit less stock. And he's certainly good at that.
Lawrence: I think that is definitely a British tradition in pop music. Like they like their pop music with a little weirdness. You talk about the early Pink Floyd, like nothing exemplifies that more than that, like those records would not have been made in America.
Matt: No way. It's funny they say—I've discussed this with a couple friends of mine, but when The Kinks got kicked out of the US, I think that was cool because not for them at the time, but if they—can you imagine them making Muswell Hillbillies in LA? It just wouldn't have sounded like that. And part of that was because they had that sort of stiff upper lip. We didn't have a track to do "The Wall," so we certainly don't need it now. They had limitations, but they still had that sort of adventurous kind of spirit. So that was cool that they did that. That I liked that Kinks record and I imagine it would sound completely—I think maybe even, you know, something like Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, which is my favorite Kinks record that was made in England too, right around that time. And I think they probably wanted to do it in LA but they couldn't because they wouldn't let 'em in and probably good that they didn't.
Lawrence: How do you balance comfort and familiarity with not falling into lazy patterns? How do you stay fresh with them? How do you not just—I would have to think that it requires some deliberateness to be, to not just redo.
Matt: Well, he's a stubborn motherfucker like I am. You know, Steven and I are really different people and have different approaches to things, and I think that's why we work so well together. Trust me, not everything Jim wants to do ends up on a record. That's for sure. You know, we're really super good friends and he's really talented and we have enormous amounts of respect for him, and it probably would—I mean, if we let him, it would sound different. Doesn't mean that he doesn't make massive contributions, but I'm not sure this is exactly answering your question, but I think the cool thing about it, and this is also true with say, John Thoman, who's the guitar player in the band, he's got a different approach too. There's a lot of different ideas going on, and maybe that it contributes to what some might think is the richness of it. That sounds pretentious, but it is the result of this collaboration of people with different approaches, even though when it gets down to it, Steven and I will make whatever final decisions there are about the way things sound.
But, you know, you get really talented people and you let 'em run with it. And when you disagree, well then you hash it out. No, I don't ever feel like it gets stale with Jim or Steven or John for that matter, because we're not wallflowers. We know what we like and we know we have enough of a sensibility together that it's going to be consistent. But I think we're all open to things being a little different. Although if you talk to my wife, she's like, "You know, you guys should do something different." So some people may think—you know, may maybe think that it is all the same. I don't know. It depends. I think that it's a good balance and we love Jim. I don't feel as if that it gets tired.
Lawrence: There's something really beautiful about these multi-decade relationships that you have these creative relationships that—and there's a lot of life between all of you.
Matt: Like my friend Billy Talbot says, "It's like, you know, things fall apart. They don't always get back together." You know, it feels more precious now. I mean, precious in the good sense. I don't mean that in the cute sense because life's short and here we are this many years later, not everybody has made it. I mean, there's two guys in our band, geez, if you count drummers, you know, there's about five different people who've been in our group who aren't with us anymore. You know, every day is precious. And the opportunity to work with somebody is—you know, we really cherish that.
So I think we have a good approach. And, you know, we have new blood too. Relatively there. It is been Steven and I and then John. But we also have Stephan Junca is our drummer now, and I've played with him for 25 years in different bands, starting with my friend Billy and Derek See is a guy from Los Angeles. He's younger than we are, and he was a fan, and then he was a roadie and he insinuated himself into the process and now he plays with us. He's a good example of finding somebody who already was there, you know, rather than trying to tell somebody, "Hey, play this." He kind of already gets it. He already is. He already is there. He lives down the street, put it that way. He's not from another country. He gets what we're trying to do and he's a really good fit, good musician. His other stuff's really cool. Gentle Cycle and Meadow Gallery, check that out.
Lawrence: Right on. So, yeah, there's a lot of input. And I think that makes collaborative art both beautiful and challenging. Maybe that's why we take so damn long to do stuff, (laughter) but I hope that ends up in good.
Lawrence: Do you have a sense of like, where do you draw the best right now? Can you still go to the UK and see a lot of faces? Like what's your base? Do you have a feel for that or you just go out and do what you do?
Matt: Well, I think our business model, I suppose maybe in the eighties and if you talk to Bill, kind of views Rain Parade like the one that got away. He thought we should be bigger than we are. Not sure I'd be alive if we were, but I don't know if we're ever going to get, you know, 50,000 people to give us 10 bucks, but we might be able to get 5,000 people to give us a hundred bucks. We don't have—not that I don't want to be so crass as to make it about money, but when you're talking about touring, it kind of is. It's really hard to do now.
So where I think the Rain Parade people are fairly evenly spread throughout the globe with perhaps a strong concentration in England. You know, we're never going to draw thousands of people. I just—I mean, certainly not now that we're in our sixties, but I don't see that happening, but we have some intensely loyal fans. It's crazy. And the other beautiful thing about that that really makes it rewarding for us is some of those fans have gone on to be in super cool bands. I mean, when I read the guy from My Bloody Valentine, or when Mani, who's from Stone Roses, who's a buddy now, tells me how much we meant to them, or when we played in Scotland, we met Gerard Love from Teenage Fanclub and fantastic band. He said the same thing. I go to this Ride show with my friend and they're playing Rain Parade. You know, and then there's bands like Brian Jonestown Massacre, or you know, The Asteroid No. 4, another cool band. That's super, super rewarding. So I don't think we have like a massive following, but we do have a loyal following and that's a career.
Matt: I don't know if it's a career. I had a career and I retired from that, and now I'm a musician again, which is kind of fun. But then again, I also feel that a lot of people get kind of caught up the process of trying to survive and then they forget what it is they were there for in the first place. I don't know how a kid does it today. I was lucky enough to be able to—yes, starve, but at least be able to jump in a van and go play places. There was a way to do that. Gas wasn't so expensive and, you know, there was a network of college radio stations and small clubs that were connected.
And this is before that entire scene, if you will, or that entire network got subsumed into the giant monstrosity of this mono capitalistic thing where now, you just can't compete. You just can't. How can you do that when there's like five guys at a big record company are like, "Hey, I got no tickets and here's Taylor Swift t-shirts." And not that—I don't know, I can't think of somebody or what—somebody like Jane's Addiction or something like that. I realize that's an older band, but I do recall something like that. These people were getting contacted at radio, at the college radio stations by a major label who was taking these previously independent bands. And they—the little stuff just got crushed. Not that there's anything wrong with Jane's Addiction, they were cool. I don't mean to put them down, but it's kind of sad. I don't know how you even get bands anymore. There aren't even any bands anymore. If you look at the Billboard Top 200, how many bands are there? Like none. They're all like individual artists that have been manufactured or—not all of them. There's, you know, I like Beyoncé. I'd even like some of Taylor Swift. There's nothing wrong with any of that stuff. It's just, I don't know how the young bands do it today. I don't know where they go, where they turn.
Lawrence: Hearing you talk, I was talking to another artist a while ago and they were talking about being in New York City in the late seventies and early eighties, being on the Lower East Side. And he said to me back then, we could afford to starve.
Matt: That's genius. That really is, and that's true of just everything. You know, you listen to like a guy like Don DeLillo, brilliant writer. But he was paying like $50 for his apartment so he could sit there and write and not worry about it. You can't do that now. I mean, my son and his fiancé, they make great money, but they can't even afford a house. It's crazy. It's just, I don't know how you do that now. It's a function of where we are at as a society and it's sad because I think, you know, we're losing—we don't celebrate weirdos anymore like we used to. And I think that's even part of what's going on today with our current zeitgeist.
Lawrence: Only some weirdos seem to— (laughter)
Matt: Well, the wrong weirdo. It's a particular brand of weirdo. But I mean, we were just—my wife and I were just in Europe and we visited the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, which is beautiful. I mean, it's block of concrete with a bunch of chairs in it. Those guys are the original weirdos, right? Where is that today? I don't know. I don't know where that is, but they were—they made something up on their own and they were able to do it. They could afford to starve, as you say. Anyway, now I'm complaining.
Lawrence: Well, listen, a couple things before I let you go. I wanted to ask you about—you mentioned My Bloody Valentine, Stone Roses and a bunch of others. Besides getting the gratification of knowing you were, you know, you inspired some other folks on their journey, can you hear the DNA, can you hear the Rain Parade DNA in what they do? Or is it not that overt? How do you connect with that?
Matt: Well, sure, I mean—well at least with My Bloody Valentine, the guy says so. He goes, "Yeah, that"—what he does, they're considerably louder than we are. But yeah, a little bit that and—sure I can, and I don't want to sound too egotistical about it because I think what they are is common influences. I mean, there's, you know, "Sub sole nihil novi est," there is nothing new under the sun, and we are not exactly groundbreaking, but everybody takes from what came before them and you know, reprocesses it and it becomes something synthetic and new. And I think there were elements that we really enjoyed that—and I will say that weren't really being—not so much for that they were forgotten, but people weren't really doing it that much. It gets back to what you said earlier. It wasn't consciously, "Hey, we have to do this because nobody is." Perhaps the fact that we were doing the thing that nobody was doing is why it appealed to somebody rather than we set out to do that because the intentions never work. I mean, we did what we did, we did it to satisfy ourselves, and it turns out that it did end up satisfying other people.
Yeah, I do hear that in other people, and I don't necessarily accept—in the case of My Bloody Valentine because that's pretty direct. But other people, I just will go like, "Yeah, that's cool." I listened to Teenage Fan Club and I'm like, "Man, these guys are great." And that's all I thought about until I met the guy and he said, "Hey, we loved you guys and we're trying to do what you did." And I mean, that was very flattering, but I really occurred to me—I don't hear plagiarism, if that's what you mean.
Lawrence: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. My last thing before I let you go, you know, you made the comment about how you went and had a career and now you play music for fun, essentially to badly paraphrase you. Are you able to enjoy it more now? Is it more fun? Is it freer of aspiration and therefore you could be in the moment more? Can you tell me about that?
Matt: Well, sure, I mean, I'm not a kid anymore, so I think that you either get super weird as you get older or you get more comfortable or you just get more comfortable being super weird. I don't know what, but I feel like I'm not broke, which is nice. Did the job. I did a career, I had a family and you know, it is cool to sit back and look at that. And then this legacy is also kind of part of that. It's kind of like the family that I raised and now I get to enjoy it. You know, there's still the bullshit aspects of the music business and we—it still comes back to the joy of collaborative art. For me, that really gets me off to work with my songwriting partner Steven Roback, and to work with John and Stephan and Derek and Jim and make something out of nothing. I mean, it is ultimately—you get a blank sheet of paper. And there's nothing there. And then you put something on it, and that is fun and rewarding and cool. It remains fun and rewarding and cool.
And maybe now, you know, I feel like—yeah, it's not the same thing as it used to be in the sense that there was a little more, not desperation, but that like, that's what you're going to do and that's all you can do. It's kind of like the fine wine, if you will. You know, there's something good about the raw keg, but there's also something about that wine that has really sat around for a while and has gotten complicated and complex and there's a lot going on. I think I just appreciate that more. I'm not sure that's the best metaphor, but I'm—you know, look, dude, we're still here and some of us didn't make it so—amen.
Being able to do this now after so many years, and especially since—and I don't think we would be doing it if, when we started 10, 12 years ago or whenever it was, maybe even 15, when we started doing this again, had we shown up and played for nobody, then maybe I wouldn't feel the same way, but there wasn't—it wasn't like screaming crowds, but we were just stunned by how happy people were to see us and the fact that—okay, so we're playing in Newcastle and this kid comes up to me. And he's probably in his twenties. And he started crying and he said, "I just wanted to tell you that I'd listened to your music with my father. And he died recently, but we would get together and that's one of the things that we did together. He turned me onto your music and I came to see you and I really like what you guys are doing now." And he bought a new record and stuff. And of course I lost it. I mean, damn, when you hear stuff like that, it's just—how can you not want to do it? It's that's beautiful. It's really humbling and flattering and rewarding. And that is an external thing, but it sure helps. It helps get you through whatever nonsense that is associated with it.
And so, I mean, that's—we feel really—I don't really like this word, but I'll use it. We feel blessed. I'm not a religious person, but we feel lucky that we have been able to do things that people really appreciated and that we can continue to do it. And yeah, I mean, there's not a million of them and some of them going by the wayside as is true of everything. But we're digging it. We're happy. We look forward to doing our next record. We're working on it now. Just was right on in the studio last night getting some of the most recent mixes from Jim. He lives in Nashville now, so we're doing that remotely and figuring out what to do next. We enjoy the puzzle, figuring out what palette to pull out, what's the next color or—and that kind of thing. So it's still rewarding. We look forward to it and we hope that other people enjoy it.
Matt Piucci
Songwriter/musician/Rain Parade
Matt Piucci is a founding member and principle guitarist/songwriter of Rain Parade, an internationally acclaimed neo-psychedelic band formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by Matt Piucci and brothers David and Steven Roback. They are widely recognized as among the most important and influential practitioners of the craft, and have been cited by such bands as My Bloody Valentine, the Stone Roses, Charlatans UK, Teenage Fanclub and Ride as one of their main inspirations.
Their Debut LP, 1983's Emergency Third Rail Power Trip has been recognized by critics as one of the best psychedelic LPs of any era. They are current on Label 51 Recordings and continue to release new material that still garners high critical praise.
