Despite this, last year’s 30th anniversary tour proved the members haven’t lost touch with the classic material. “I don’t feel disconnected at all from the early songs. It might be a sign of lack of growth as a person,” he laughs.
Even though Violent Femmes contains such timeless compositions as Blister in the Sun and Gone Daddy Gone, it’s the work of a band with a total disregard for pop salability. This characteristic remained on the Femmes’ next release, 1984’s Hallowed Ground. Though, the way Gano remembers it, they weren’t trying to be overly aberrant.
“We always hoped and believed that our music would have an impact, and it did,” he says. “We also hoped that we would have a hit song or album on the charts, and we never did. But, between the two, I am grateful that we have the first one. We – or at least I – never thought about if what we were doing was musically daring or not. We’ve always tried to do what sounded good to us and excited us musically.”
Album number three, 1986’s The Blind Leading the Naked, indicated the band were in fact interested in broadening their commercial appeal. Produced by Talking Heads guitarist Jerry Harrison, it’s a relatively clean and densely textured affair. “A lot of thought went into every record beforehand,” Gano says. “Sometimes we decided to be very focused on the trio, stripped down and acoustic, live or mostly live recording. And other times we wanted to expand arrangements and make use of the recording studio.”
The Blind Leading the Naked was the Femmes’ first entry into the US charts, but instead of pouncing on the heightened interest, Gano and Ritchie went off to pursue separate side projects. The wait for another Violent Femmes record didn’t last too long, however. Their fourth record, the curiously titled 3, landed in 1989 and announced a return to the stripped back aesthetic of their earliest releases.
Following 1991’s fifth LP Why Do Birds Sing?, DeLorenzo left the group. Ritchie and Gano chose to persevere, birthing three more Femmes’ records with new drummer Guy Hoffman behind the kit. “I am more pleased than not with the history of the band,” Gano says. “I was 15 years old when I knew that I was going to do what I’ve been doing now ever since. And I knew I was going to do whatever I needed in order to do it.”
While there’s been no new material since 2000’s Freak Magnet,Violent Femmes continued to play live throughout the first decade of the 21st century. Then, in 2009, things came to an ugly standstill. In response to an ostensibly unscrupulous licensing deal, Ritchie took legal action against Gano in order to gain greater control over the band’s catalogue. Suffice to say, the likelihood of Violent Femmes ever performing again was seriously dim.
However,last year’s anniversary proved significant enough to incite a reunion. And the group remains in tact nearly 24 months down the track. “Brian Ritchie and I continue to play music together because, despite our publicly documented and undocumented differences, I think we both know it sounds good,” Gano explains.
This New Year’s Day, Violent Femmes will hit the stage at Hobart’s MONA. After all these years, Gano confidently states there’s no place he’d rather be. “Playing music is always a joy. My love of music only increases, and [so does] my awareness and appreciation of the privilege and honour of being able to create and share in it with others.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
