The Connells: Doug MacMillan ( Vocalist & Tambourinist)
November 16th, 1996
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Video Vision (VV):
How did you choose the title for your album Weird Food & Devastation?
Connells: Doug (D): We went over to Europe a bunch of separate
times last year because we had a song from our previous album that did
really well. So it was a real Spinal Tap sort of thing. We were big in
Europe. (Laughs) So one time when we went over, Steve Potak, our keyboard
player had brought a camera with him and Mike Connell said "Why do
you have a camera? What are you gonna take pictures of?" And Steve
said I am going to take pictures of "Weird Food and Devastation2,"
because in Germany there's a lot of weird gelatinous sort of food with
hard boiled eggs and herring in it.
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VV: So there's
no relationship between the devastation and weird food. Was it just that
they were captured on his camera?
D: Yeah, that's about it. They were just the two major
themes of his photographs.
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D: The main difference is that we have more guys writing songs on this album. In the past Mike and George wrote most of the stuff. This time we had a situation where if anybody had a song, they could bring it in. We recorded 23 and there's only 14 on the album. But everbody still seems to think that it sounds like us. I think it's good for all of us because everybody gets an outlet and take a little bit of the pressure of Mike.
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D: I don't think so. A lot of the lyrics come about from personal experience. There's been a few exceptions over the years but we're pretty much sitting down with a guitar and coming up with some kind of chord progression and melody and you try to apply some words to the melody. It's not like brain surgery or anything, it's just trying to find words and make some sense of it. Usually there's some sort of feel or mood attached to the melody that lends itself to certain types of themes. It pretty much stays the same that way.
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D:Yeah, its a great place. Nirvana, Soul Asyllum and a bunch of bands have recorded there. The best thing about it is that it's an old house with a late 50's early 60's swinging pad look with a pool and sauna. The guy who owned it, owned the hops factory in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. And he used it to entertain prospective buyers because there was nowhere to go in that tiny one horse town. He sold it and people put a great studio up next to it and it's a great place for bands to record. There's a good trout stream out in the back.
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D: Oh, yeah, I went almost everyday. It was very good for me to go do that.
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D: Maybe is the one with a Deliverance sort of theme. The word "deliverance" is in the song and we're all big fans of the movie. The idea was that we'd make the video around the movie and we just went with it. The two guys who directed it were Norwood Cheek and Grady Cooper and they've been doing film and videos for other bands for a long time now. We flew to Chattanooga, Tennessee and drove to this river in a campground.
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VV: How did
you have a big hit in Europe?
D: We had been touring 3 years ago in the States with our album,
Ring and we had been told that a German record label wanted to
release it. So we said sure. We had never had anything release over there
at all. We eventually ended up in the Top 10 radio lists in Germany. And
then it went up to number two and they started a whole bunch of albums
and singles and so we went over there. It was the most bizarre thing.
We did some touring opening for some people and we'd go out and do our
30 minute set play a few songs and they'd (people) kinda just look at
us and then we'd play 74, 75 and they would be like "Oh!"
--they knew who we were now.
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We've been together
for ten years with five albums and they'd know us just by this one song.
It was kinda weird at first and then the whole thing just took off all
through Europe and it was on the EMI record label. We went back to play
festivals. We did a lot of lip-synching. We did France's version of the
Mickey Mouse Club and we had a bunch of kids dancing around us.
It was very strange. It was a really successful radio song in Hungary,
Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium
and we just kept on touring in Europe.
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D: The idea was that there's a character in the video who's a clepto-maniac. Phil Harder (video director) took the lyric of "He takes everything" made it the literal narrative in a Psycho kind of story line where the guy brings home these things that he steals to his mother in the attic. That was really fun to do. And we're not really the kind of band that wears suits but we all wore them to fit the look of the video.
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VV: What is
the music scene around North Carolina, especially around Raleigh?
D: It's great. Chapel Hill has been getting a lot of attention
over the last few years because of bands like Superchunk, Squirrel Nut
Zippers and Polvo. A lot of do-it-yourselfers. I really admire the idea
of not messing around with any major labels. They don't want to get chewed
up and spit out. That does happen. Raleigh's got a lot of great bands
like Whiskey Town, Jolene and the Backsliders. There's a country-rock
revolution going around the town. It's a great place to see music because
of the three colleges.
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VV: Is the
sound of the Connells unique to that part of the country?
D: Ten years ago, we started in the wake of like the DB's,
REM and Let's Active which were guitar pop bands. For most the guys in
the band a common denominator were bands like Echo & the Bunnymen,
New Order & Joy Division, Chameleons which is the slant that we have
that makes us sound a little bit different. We also have a lot of Beatles
and Clash fans in the band.
Click here
for more Live Concert Photos.
Connells Links:
Official
Connells Site
Boylan
Heights: Unofficial Connells Fan Site
Interviewer: Patrick Kinney
Camera & Photos: Rodwin Pabello
Transcription & Editing: Rodwin Pabello
© 1999, 2000 Evans Media Group, Inc.