Hello friends, I am Dee Putman. In the modern era of punk rock YouTube channels such as Anti (formerly known as Jimmy), Turn on The Tube, Harakiri Diat, No Deal, etc, one artist that has especially stood out among the rest is Minneapolis’s Connie Voltaire (Neo Neos, QQQL, Vedicardi, etc etc). Connie is the clown prince of punk. He has a large and infectious discography and if history is kind I think he will be regarded as one of punk’s most talented songwriters/musicians. It was a pleasure speaking with him.
Read on.
How’d you get started in music? Who were your initial inspirations?
I got started after playing Guitar Hero 2 which introduced me to rock music. Up until that point the only music I listened to was math rock/post-rock, video game music, and Weird Al. That stuff still sticks with me. In terms of inspirations to play it depends on what you're referring to. Each project I do has roots in different places.
You have a rather large discography. What’s your writing & recording process? How do you manage to be so prolific?
When it comes to bands like QQQL I'm bringing riffs and then working those into songs with my bandmates. All of my solo projects with a few exceptions are done by recording myself playing drums (I'll think of a drum pattern or two on the spot and just play them) and then write a song over the top of that drum recording. Typically my drum tracks are one take so if you hear a mistake or something weird or a sudden tempo change it's because that's what I felt like doing or I just messed up. I don't start recording with any plans, I just make the drum ideas up on the spot. The Cells release "First Second," for example, took me about 30 minutes to "write" and record the drum parts in one session. Lyrics come last. Usually I'll write guitar parts before bass parts besides for some Neo Neos tracks. I'm only "prolific" because I have nothing better to do with my time and I love the attention releasing music gets me!
You have openly expressed your disdain for drum machines. What is it about them that rubs you the wrong way?
The lack of human element really bores me. There are people that do it well (Dummy for example has very creative drum machine patterns that keep things interesting) but I find it hard to get into when it sounds like someone just hit the first pattern on a Casio and figured that was good enough. Part of it just feels lazy to me, where's the passion in that? But it works for some people so whatever. I just like to complain because often I feel like the actual melodic elements of these songs are pretty good but there's no rhythm there. It's like eating chips with no DIP! Where's the DIP?
Who are some of the most important punk bands right now?
I'd probably have said Toyota but that's dead in the water as far as I'm aware. I really was into Bogus Genius but their live band was last the last I saw of it. It might have to be Gee Tee and Satanic Togas. That being said, I'm not sure how you define important. Is it a band that is well known and is pushing the boundaries a bit or a band very few people know that is something completely new? Also check out Blacker Face from Chicago. To be honest, I'm not all that exposed to new music, I'm not sure where you people find new stuff. Now that there aren't really shows I don't know where to see it, and even then Minneapolis hasn't had an interesting new band since what, 2014? I mean Citric Dummies are awesome but I don't think they're reaching for originality. There was that band Wild Combo, don't know what happened to them.
What was with that Mark Winter diss track? Did you have actual beef with Mark or was it just a goof?
Yeah he killed my dog to impress that guy from Cro-Mags. Also RIP to Terry Katzman.