Cutting edge

Noise supergroup alert! Various members of Faith No More, The Jesus Lizard, Helmet and The Melvins are coming to Europe this Spring as Tomahawk – a raucous four piece rock band that formed in early 2000.

Duane Denison, formerly of The Jesus Lizard, explains how to form an line up of alternative rock demi-gods the easy way. “I live in Nashville, Tennessee and Mr. Bungle (Mike Patton’s band) came through town,” Duane recalls. “I met Mike after the show and Mike told me about his label Ipecac and asked me if I had written any of my own stuff since the Jesus Lizard broke up. When he heard it, he agreed to give it a go and we started collaborating. I’d known John Stainer for years because Jesus Lizard had toured with Helmet and I’d always thought it would be great to play with him. I just rang him up and he was in. Mike had suggested Kevin Rutmanis who played in The Melvins and I was a big fan of The Cows who he’d also played in years before that. It all just fell into place just like that.”

“One by one the guys came to Nashville,” Duane continues. “I like living and recording on Nashville. It is not a particularly big town and I’d lived in Chicago for years when I was in Lizard so I was ready for a change. The other guys live in California and New York and Nashville is not a big swinging cosmopolitan town. That’s fine with me, because I get enough of that when I’m elsewhere. There is not much else to do at night except drink and go to bars. It’s a funny place with a lot of eccentrics. You could also say its the crossroads of American music – around Nashville and Memphis.

“If you think about it, Memphis is where a lot of the Black African blues artists who worked their way up from the Mississippi delta would go if they wanted to record. And Nashville was where the poor itinerant whites would come to do their thing. To me Tennessee is like the centre of American music.”

Interestingly, Tomahawk did not opt for a tried and tested hard rock producer but chose Joe Funderburk who is best known for working with Jerry Reed, Emmylou Harris, The Judds and countless artists from around the locality. “Because the country music industry is in a downswing, there are some really good studios you can use for really cheap.”

Speaking of eccentricity, has Duane been the victim of any of Mike Patten’s legendary pranks that have involved all sorts of repulsive carry on like putting faeces in a hand dryer to the smelly misfortune of its next user? “Not really,” Duane answers. “Its funny, I didn’t really know about all that stuff and I’ve just been finding out about it recently. He is into a lot of very, very unusual styles of music and he spends a lot of time in very strange restaurants. He does seem to go for extremes, but nothing terribly unsavoury I’m afraid”

Tomahawk will land in Dublin for an Ambassador engagement on Wednesday March 13th. “It will be quiet and subdued and kind of ambient,” promises Duane. “Nah! Not at all.”