June 11–18, 1998

20 questions

John Lurie

Interview by a.d. amorosi

You wouldn't think New Yorker John Lurie would be the outdoors type. But he is. Just take a look at an episode from his new wildlife series, Fishing With John, which he directs and stars in. Most fans of Lurie's saxophone playing probably realize he's adventuresome. He's trekked through the world of beat avant-garde bop with his band The Lounge Lizards. Their new CD, Queen of All Ears, and Fishing's soundtrack are about to be released on Lurie's Strange & Beautiful Music label. Lurie has scored studio films such as Get Shorty and Excess Baggage, and has acted in flicks such as Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law. Those deadpan performances are very different from the jovial personality found in Fishing. The contrast adds an eerie humor to the show's faux documentary, buddy-flick feel. Lurie's old pals who come along for the ride are just as entertaining: Jarmusch is bored, Tom Waits is vomiting and cranky and Willem Dafoe is frozen. It's often better than The Odd Couple (and just as New Yorky). Just back from a Lounge Lizard gig in London, Lurie is as excited about his TV debut as he is about Queen being released.

Where did you get the idea to do a fishing show and when did you start shooting?

It happened by accident. I videotaped my vacations with Willem Dafoe. We wound up doing a takeoff on early morning fishing shows. A friend showed that tape to Telecom—a Japanese company that gave us some money for the Jarmusch pilot till they went bankrupt. Then the Independent Film Channel picked it up. I figured I'd do it all myself since there was no budget. I hate doing that producing shit.

How and why did Waits, Dafoe and Matt Dillon get involved and how'd you connect them to each location?

Jim, I figured, owed me a favor for all the stuff I've done for him. Tom was already in Jamaica. I figured he would be good for this kinda thing. And Willem and I do fish. He picked ice fishing in Maine. I wouldn't have fucking picked there. I hate the cold. I met Dennis in Japan and got him to do Fishing by asking him where he wanted to go. I get to travel and write it off on taxes.

Were all of the catches real?

The catches with Tom were fake. We bought them from some other fisherman because Tom was throwing up and just wanted to get it over with. But we did catch a lot of fish that we don't show; fair play to me as a sportsman. But catching fish wasn't in those scripts! Willem and I were supposed to be starving to death. Matt and I theoretically couldn't catch anything because we hadn't yet done the magical dance. And Jim and I actually caught three big sharks but I edited it down to one shark to look more dramatic. We threw 'em all back. It seemed immoral to keep 'em.

What do you think your friends learned about you on this trip?

I think they learned to hate me and never to trust me. When you see Tom grumbling, he really was mad.

The last time I talked to you, you were hawking your [previous album]Voices of Chunk by producing your own infomercials. How is it having your own label?

[Laughs] The TV shots were the best way I could think of to lose money. It's like the joke "How do you make a million dollars in jazz?" "Start with two million." The TV thing was an insane idea. I screwed it up because I couldn't follow it up in a business sense. I ended up fucked. Now I have an office. I'm in it every day. I really don't know how this works. I got duped into making Queen [for Warner Brothers]. It was supposed to come out on Warner. It didn't. [Warner Brothers dropped the project.] I had to spend a zillion dollars to get it back. It was painful. But the record's so beautiful I couldn't let it die. Fuck it I'll do it myself.

Does Queen have the same beauty after all the headache? And what differences do you hear in your sax playing after all these years?

CDs are a wild card. I don't like the sound of 'em. And I know what Queen should sound like. I mean, I wept after I heard it completed. On CD it's hard to capture depth and warmth. If I can make the CDs sound like that first test pressing, it will add to me, it will make me bigger in my soul. See, my playing has changed so much since the first record. I'm down from five reeds to four. I no longer blow my brains out. I played hard. Now it's more mature. I know what I'm doing. I can express deeper stuff. I'm no longer this wise guy on drugs sleeping with a lot of girls.… It's weird having to promote the [TV] show and Queen at the same time. It shows all my facets. Fishing's silly and funny, Queen is soulful and serious—it's got to be confusing to people.

Did you score Fishing with existing tracks or did you score the footage?

There were some existing tracks I had that in the back of my mind I thought would work for the Thailand episode [which stars Dennis Hopper]. But stuff like the Jarmusch shark catching scene from 1991, I scored to footage.

I know you love basketball and fishing. Any other sports you love?

You know what I love? Playing with my band when it's right. I'm too busy for much else. I've got this label. I've got this show. I have an R&B/blues vocal record I've been working on for a while under the name Marvin Pontiac cause I'm too shy to use my own name. I'm planning to tour the States, hopefully Philly in September. You've gotta say that my drummer Calvin Weston is the best drummer I've ever played with. He's from Philly.

What will you do if the show gets popular and they renew it?

I think it could be very popular if people could get the fucking channel. I don't even get the channel in my house! It's a funny show, no? Already there's been a couple magazines saying it could take Seinfeld's place. Nothing happens on my show either and it's just as funny. What I eventually hope is that I could sell it to Turner so when he had rain delays during any of his televised games he could inexplicably drop Fishing in the middle of it.

John Lurie's Fishing With John starts on the Independent Film Channel June 15 at 8:30 p.m.