In 2002, for the group's 25th anniversary, WECB met with singer and frontman of The B-52's, Fred Schneider. An interview cultimate to discover. Flashback!
The B-52's are as weird as James Brown is funk. Flashy outfits, lanky dances, an excessive New Wave style sometimes mutating into pop, screaming voices… At the time, on the occasion of the release of the compilation Nude on the Moon, WECB was able to meet the group during a concert at Irving Plaza in New York.
The B-52's started their adventure with totally crazy jam sessions. How was it?
Fred Schneider: We started by having a drink in a Chinese restaurant, then we went to a friend's house to jam. We made this song, called “Killer B’s” because at the time killer bees were escaping from Brazil. Of course, now they are all over the United States. That proves it was a long time ago. Athens (their hometown in Georgia) was not a place for music like it is today, there was nothing else to do. So we thought we'd try playing again. So I went back to Athens and we played at a Valentine's Day party. It all took off from there. It was our own thing. We just played what came to mind.
What was the atmosphere like in Athens at the time?
It was a pretty fraternal college town. There was a very small punk scene, a bit of a new wave, where people bought records and listened to them – but it wasn't like people were gathering around, dressed like punk and all that. We listened to this music with lots of other genres, it went from mamba to funk to James Brown. This rock guitar – which is not typical LA “rock guitar”, but which makes people dance – was being played and it felt good. We danced to everything, Ramones to Sex Pistols until “Get Up Off That Thang.”
How has your sound evolved?
I have always been influenced by Dada-type surrealist writings and things that are a little offbeat. We all had different melodic ideas. In any case, we didn't try to sound like other groups; even though we found them very inspiring, we weren't really influenced by them. At the beginning, we were quite prolific, we composed quite a few songs that were totally different from each other. We could jam for hours and hours. We each had our own personality and creativity, and ultimately we all found ourselves on the same page. It was just a natural progression!
The first songs were quite hard to compose, our first concerts were complicated… But that's how we liked to live. Since then, it has evolved. Even during the time “Love Shack”I went to the radio while the band was doing sound checks: we literally had to force the radio to play the song! Yet we thought it was the most accessible thing of our career. We were told it was too weird. Thank goodness they were proven wrong. Today, all kinds of radio can play it. Although at that time things were moving more towards grunge.
Ten years ago, Cindy told WECB that when The B-52's wrote the song “June Bug”, she knew the group could move forward after Ricky's death. (Guitarist Ricky Wilson, Cindy's older brother, died in '85) What gave you the confidence to continue?
After Ricky's death, the group was deeply affected. Keith (drummer turned guitarist) and Cindy didn't think the band could continue. Kate and I were ready to try, so we started collaborating. Keith arrived with some music, we all played on it, it gradually took shape. This is a very important collaborative effort. We only did one song at that time, and that was “June Bug.” We didn't say to ourselves, 'This could be our next album' either. We just wanted to see if we could do new things. We finally released the record, and “Channel Z” was the first single. It got a bit of attention, we started playing shows and ended up touring for eighteen months. “Love Shack” was finally a hit.
Did you have the feeling that Cosmic Thing would be as big, when you werez working on it?
We said from the start that it would be good, but we didn't know how good. We didn't really say to ourselves: 'Oh, it's going to be commercial', or 'it's going to be this or that'. We just wanted good songs, and these were really good. We were quite shocked, because we didn't expect this album to go so far. Success also poses some problems… because it is very difficult to tour. First of all, I'm not at all the type to want to leave, doing eighteen months of touring is torture. But hey, you're offered new opportunities and you're going to New Zealand, Australia, all over Europe. It's quite exciting. Everything went way beyond what we imagined.
