Add it Up: The Violent Femmes, 40-plus Years On (Part 1 of 3)

Though guitarist and lead vocalist Gordon Gano might take issue with the label, Violent Femmes spearheaded a king of punk-folk renaissance with their debut album, 1983’s Violent Femmes. Songs like “Blister in the Sun,” “Add it Up” and “Gone Daddy Gone” – all composed by Gano – combined punk energy with a stripped-down, acoustic character that favored nuance over noise. Whether they meant to do so or not, the Milwaukee trio of Gano, Brian Ritchie and Victor DeLorenzo exerted influence, making an impact on alternative rock (or college rock, as it was then called by critics) that far outstripped the band’s record sales figures.

And the group has endured. Making subtle changes in their sound yet holding true to the musical values upon which the band was founded. Violent Femmes are still a vital live act more than four decades after they debuted on record. In our recent conversation, Gano reflected on the band’s early breakthroughs as well as the current musical state of things for him and his Violent Femmes band mates.

I’ve heard the story about Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott supposedly discovering the band busking on a Milwaukee street corner. How much of that is truth, and how much is legend?

Gordon Gano: For most people I know, “discovery” would mean somebody was at a drugstore in Hollywood [Schwab’s Pharmacy], then they got a screen test, and then they they’re a Hollywood star; that kind of scenario.

But it’s remarkable: every time I’ve ever read [that story] being reported, it’s really true, even in a lot of its details. It was an incredible, amazing experience, but the next day, we still couldn’t get a gig anywhere! It didn’t lead directly to anything. [Later] when we got our first album out on Slash and were playing all across the country, we had a really fun story that we could tell people about when they would interview us. But at that point, that had already happened a year or two years prior.

Yet after all these decades, we found out another aspect to it. In the last year, we met James Honeyman-Scott’s widow at one of our shows. She had some old photos from that very night, and – speaking of drugstores – she said something that I had never heard. There was a drug store right on the corner near the venue, the Oriental Theater. She had gone out to get something for her teeth, and that’s when she heard us playing on the street. She went back to the theater and got her husband to come out and hear us! I’m grateful that she was conscientious about taking care of her dental hygiene, and that she needed to get something. So there you go!

How did the band end up getting signed to Slash Records?

Our producer and then-manager was Mark Van Hecke. He just threw himself into getting our recordings [out to prospective labels]: everybody, anybody. And then never hearing back or getting rejections from everybody we could think of. In fact, Slash had turned us down; they rejected [our demo tape] and then later came back, interested in signing us. And the reason given by Bob Biggs, the president, was that he got tired of coming into work every day and hearing his employees playing the music of the band he had rejected. I remember some years later, a couple of the people who worked there were each one thinking they were the one who really did it. I’d like to think it’s both of them.
And that got our career started. Otherwise, who knows? You and I might not be talking right now.

Can you recall a particular gig that felt like a breakthrough for Violent Femmes?

Yes. We were on our first tour across the country, playing everywhere. I believe we were in Corvallis, Oregon. We were playing, and it probably took me until the second or third [song] that I put this together: “People are singing along! How is this possible? We’ve never played here before!”And then after having had that thought, I thought, “Oh, wow. We have a record out, and they must be playing it here.” College radio is really what got our band’s music around at the start, and for quite a while. And playing in Corvallis was when I realized something different had happened.

In those days, there was the idea that the Violent Femmes were pioneers of the folk punk movement. Is that how you thought of yourselves?

Well, it might be different depending on who in the band you’re talking to. For me, I never have thought of us in any kind of category. I can look at it and then think, “Yes, this does make some sense. And it could be called this for these reasons.” But even the labels have changed.

We probably thought of ourselves mostly as a punk band; that was the music – as well as lots of other things – that [bassist] Brian Ritchie and I were really into. But then not too long after we started playing, [even though] our music was exactly the same, it was being called new wave. And then at a certain point it became alternative music. And that lasted for a long time, I think.

So I’ve never thought of us in a particular [genre], except in the broadest sense. Elements of so many different kinds of stuff are an important part of how we sound and how we like to make music. There are aspects of country, aspects of jazz. But we’re not a jazz band, and we’re not a country band, even though there’s a lot of that in what we do. So in the most broad sense I think of us as a rock band. The folk punk thing, I never think about it.

One time long ago I was asked, “What do you call your music?” And this is probably a good response, or it was at the time. I said, “Well, I’ll just read the last review of us, and whatever we’re called, that’s what it is.”

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