FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| MUSIC NOMEANSNO with guests Suggest that the 17-year longevity of NOMEANSNO makes them the Rolling Stones of alternative rock, and you get a laugh from Rob Wright. Hell, mention almost anything and his road-worn intellect - jagged from dealing with canceled gigs, dodgy people and huge cities worldwide - prefers to respond with a laugh. And when Wright's not laughing, he's either talking in a caffeine-paced stream of consciousness, driving another 1000K or playing crazed kamikaze rock with his Victoria quartet. Unlike the Stones, however, NOMEANSNO isn't in it for the chicks, the filthy lucre, or to be splashed across the cover of People magazine, although those things are nice, too. To Wright, great rockin' is all in a day's work. "Music isn't about politics or alternative lifestyles or trying to express your unique personality. Basically, we're offering a service. It's a job. For us, it's better than making houses, growing food or baking bread. In a sense, music is the world's second oldest profession." And a job's a job, whether you're following Peter Gabriel's set in front of 16,000 people in Copenhagen, as the band recently did, or playing in an alternative basement club for 10 people, which happened on the same tour. "It's the same show, the same songs, the same energy whether you're playing to 16,000 people or 10. You concentrate on what you're doing." And, unlike the Stones, whose past is strewn with dead bodies, drug busts and selling their soul to Nike, NOMEANSNO, rounded out by Wright's brother John, Tom Holliston and Ken (yup, just Ken), remains intact and unchanged to this day. And after all that time, not only do they not have any dead members, they don't even have a decent road story. "Yeah, well, a good road story is that there are no good road stories," Wright confides. "For most bands, it's always, 'We crashed, we got lost, our van broke down.' Not us. We avoid disasters, show up, play, people like it and we go off and do it again." And after nearly two dozen releases, including their soon to be released CD and uncountable gigs in their lengthy career, Wright, who huddles in his condo and turns into a TSN-junkie couch potato when he's not touring, has some insight as to why this band lasted when so many others haven't. "We were never glued into any one genre or scene, we were never caught up in any one thing so that when it was no longer popular, we were left out. We built our audience by about 10 people at a time. Like country and western, we have a really dedicated core audience we can always count on, people who like us and have for a long time." "If it ends tomorrow, I won't be surprised," admits Wright, who has a perspective Mick Jagger would be wise to heed. "That's the kind of business it is - you wake up tomorrow and no one likes you any more." |