The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack Interview: John Doe, Pt. 1

X’s singing bassist talks with Tim about their final studio LP, Smoke & Fiction, the final tour, the art and science of setting Xmas trees on fire, and Pee Wee Herman.

John Doe (foreground) and Exene Cervenka, Louisiana Countryside, 1980. Photograph by Michael Hyatt. From X: Lucky 13 Postcards, 1983. (Collection of Tim Stegall.)

Saying X is important damns them with faint praise. True, in a scene that already had The Weirdos and Screamers, it possibly took a moment for Los Angeles to understand what it had on hand. Once it did, X was more vital to the city and its mental and artistic health than any punk band had a right to be.

X redefined what it meant to be punk, in many ways. Contrary to The Clash’s “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones in 1977” posturing (which they later recanted), X  proudly featured a guitarist in Billy Zoom who’d played with Gene Vincent. And every member would likely have gladly showed you all the Chuck Berry and Hank Williams 45s they owned. And like many a New York band, X had a pair of poets at their core, elevating their lyrics beyond cheap nihilism – co-vocalists/songwriters Exene Cervenka and bassist John Doe.

What X created across pivotal albums such as 1980 debut Los Angeles and follow-up Wild Gift  defined a Holywood punk ethic with an implied politics, more concerned with bohemian living than anarchy, as informed by both Charles Bukowski and being down the street from Frederick’s Of Hollywood as, say, the Ramones  or The Damned. It knew where to find the cheap beer and burritos, maybe even a handful of pills, and where to dumpster dive for cool home decor and an outfit to wear to The Masque that night. It also knew the best bookstores, and where to watch some Nouvelle Vague film. John and Exene’s poetic rigor either informed or encouraged the songs and lyricism of the best bands/songwriters on the scene: Darby Crash, The Blasters’ Dave Alvin, The Flesh Eaters’ Chris D., and The Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce. LA – and the rest of us – are better for it.

So hearing that John, Exene, Billy and drummer DJ Bonebrake have just released their final studio LP, Smoke & Fiction — on the ever-classy Fat Possum Records — is just about the saddest news in punkdom. So’s hearing that they are promoting it with their last tour dates, as well. At least the record’s a great note on which to end a brilliant history. Once the news got out, I arranged to speak with Mr. Doe — no stranger to the Napalm Interview Technique — for an hour of his time as he packed for the road dates’ first leg. It’s my pleasure to present this conversation, recorded July 3, 2024, as documented in this post from the following day.

But first, a little musical interlude:

 

TIM:  This interview appears to mark the end of an era.

DOE:  Yes and no. I mean, music lives on and we're just gonna make our touring more selective. We're not going to do 70 dates a year in clubs and stuff like that. And yes, this is the last record.

TIM:  Well, that's interesting because I know it took a long, long time for the original X lineup to finally say, “Hey, let's finally make the next studio album.” [2020 ‘s Alphabetland]

DOE:  Yes. 

TIM:  That one was great. This one is equally great. Why have you decided to stop doing studio albums?

DOE:  Because it's too damned hard, and I don't think we've got the time and determination to mount another campaign like that. That may be wrong, but I think I'm right.

TIM:  Well, nevertheless, I'm sorry to hear it. 

DOE:  Don't be sorry. We made great records, and I'm proud of this one. And it was difficult writing, rewriting. Once the lyrics started taking shape — of times that are now and times that are past –  they seemed to say, “Huh, this would be a good stopping point if you wanted to.” And we might do a one-off, but the idea of making LPs is kind of antiquated anyway.  Most people just put out a record, a song at a time nowadays. 

TIM: Singles.

DOE: Yeah.  So I like the idea of doing a full LP. I like the idea of taking two or three years of your life and all the time and Influence and images that came before that and putting it into one package. Yeah, I mean we can talk specifically about songs and how that came together, but that's the way it feels.

TIM:  The way you're describing it, it sounds almost like an author talking about writing different chapters for a book. 

DOE:  Yeah, could be. Yeah, that'd be fair.

TIM: You're talking about the content of the songs reflecting X's history. It seems like X's music has always been autobiographical.

DOE:  Absolutely. With a lot of creative interpretation, poetic license, or whatever you want to call it. 

TIM:  Our mutual friend Chris Morris once wrote something along the lines of how it was like you and Exene invited people into your living room and just said, “Well, excuse the mess over here.”

DOE:  [laughing] It would be a metaphorical living room, at this point! 

TIM:  Is it that you're opening up your scrapbooks this time around, perhaps?

DOE:   We're opening up something, but I think we opened up our memories, especially on the “Big Black X" song. And that title comes from when Exene and I first got together. She said, “If I had a band, I'd just put a big black X up on the marquee.” And I replied, “So you want to call your band Big Black X?”  She said, “No, I just want to have a big black X up there!”  

Then it also refers to reality, when you're in the Midwest somewhere and nobody knows who you are. There's a tiny black X on a white marquee, right? Because that's all they have. They only have a lowercase X. So they have a giant billboard and then they have just a tiny little X up there. And 55 people come and you think, ‘Oh, well! Yeah, it's the first time we've been in Boise!”

TIM: Yeah, well it's that tiny X, unless maybe an X falls down from the Ex-Lax building for you! [NOTE: Watch the amazing documentary X: The Unheard Music to get the full story.]

DOE: [laughs] Yes, I got it cut down for me! That's true. That X is sitting in my office right now. 

TIM:  I noticed all the details in “Big Black X” because I know your history so well, like Jeffrey Lee Pierce and you guys lighting up the Christmas tree and all that good stuff.

DOE:  Yeah, well that was a cheap form of entertainment. It turns out that you can set a Christmas tree on fire with just a couple of matches or a lighter. 

TIM: Especially if it's dried out a little bit, huh?

DOE:  That's the way they end up in the alley.

TIM: I saw the reference to Cherokee. If I'm not mistaken, that was the alleyway where The Masque was? 

DOE:  Yep, they're all there. Oddly enough, that was the one song that was created in the studio, the last song we did. And we changed the chords and then made the chords longer, and then we had a bad chorus and then we got a better chorus, and then switched things around. Exene rewrote a bunch of stuff. She put her two verses into more of a lyrical song form and I just read some of the raw documentary prose style. I didn't even know what Billy was gonna play. I heard it much later.

TIM: Mr. Zoom is in quite good form on this one. I'm hearing some of his surf guitar background popping up a lot more with this one.

DOE:  I think maybe that's what he'll do after X, maybe he'll start a surf band. I also believe that he may appreciate playing slower melodic lines, rather than his fiery rockabilly lines which he does I think on “Flipside.”  He has a part with some of that, and also in “Smoke & Fiction,” maybe. He's got a very big, kind of gritty sound. It's a hard-edged record.

Billy Zoom, San Francisco, 1981. Photograph by Michael Hyatt. From X: Lucky 13 Postcards, 1983. (Collection of Tim Stegall.)

TIM: I can't wait to hear it on vinyl. I've been listening to the mp3s on my computer and it sounds great even there. 

DOE:  Oh, I don't know. It depends on your stereo whether the vinyl sounds better or not. [laughs]

TIM:  Well, I tend to prefer vinyl for my listening pleasure. You just mentioned “Flipside” awhile ago. Is that some sort of reference to the old fanzine? 

DOE:  No, it's just a narrative that Exene wrote most of, about someone who's unreliable and actually sort of frightening. But there's something about the excitement, you're fooled by the fact that it's exciting. Then after you're pulled into the relationship, you realize, “Oh, this isn't exciting. It's actually dangerous. I’d better get out of here. How do I do that?” You know when it talks about the spark, that's how you know something's going to happen. Maybe it's like Bill The Butcher in Gangs Of New York:  You’re gonna remember the night, but you may lose a finger.

TIM:  We could talk about the album song by song. Let’s start with “Ruby Church.”

DOE:   Well, that was inspired by Paul Reubens, who was a good friend of Exene's from Florida. And it just kind of came to me when he passed away that his superpower, his greatest gift, was the gift of joy with a little edge. And I also am part of a poetry group where we meet on a Zoom call once a month, and that started as a poem. I'm not sure where the line “he stood in the middle of a ruby church” came from. But it ended up feeling like it was about Paul.

TIM:  Yeah, Paul came out of some of the same circumstances that helped create punk rock. His art definitely felt of a piece with what was happening in punk.

DOE:  He and Exene knew each other back in St. Petersburg, right before they came to LA.  And Paul was part of The Groundlings, which were a very definitely alternative style of comedy. He hadn't even created Pee Wee Herman yet. So he came to X shows, and it was all in the air: You can do whatever you want and just be creative.  He started Pee-wee's Playhouse at The Roxy. I can't remember when, probably ‘81 or ‘82, that was early on. So yeah, he definitely had that spark and that glint in his eye, a grin, but everything was joyful. All of his sassiness and eight-year-old kind of character was true and beautiful and completely joyful. But it was just a little bit… you had to be careful. You didn't have to be careful, because nothing bad was going to happen, but you could get a little poke here and there, which was just incredible.

TIM:  It was like he had taken things like Pinky Lee that had come before and just processed it a little differently, gave it an edge. 

DOE: Yeah, that's true.

I know you are, Pinky Lee. But what am I? Meet Pee Wee Herman’s grampa, kids!

End Part One

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