Royal Trux

Accelerating

Jennifer Herrema and Neil Hagerty are just your average rural farm couple living in Rappahanock County, Va.-- shooting guns, tending the garden, etc. By night,though, they become Royal Trux, the most dangerous, sloppy, bluesy-woozy rock band in the world-- a band that has since returned back to its original indie label (Drag City) after a bitter (and oddly fortunate) stint at a major (Virgin), to release two back-to-back winners, Acclerator and the new 3-Song EP.

Don Harrison recently talked to Jennifer Herrama about farm life, the rock biz, golden parachutes and (whaaa...)her love of the Electric Light Orchestra

Grip Monthly Tell me about living in Culpeper? Why?

Jennifer We're actually in Little Washington. Culpeper is just down the road from us.

Grip So Do you go to the Inn at Little Washington a lot?

Jennifer (Chuckles) No. Not a lot.

Grip I know that area well, it seems like a pretty conservative place.

Jennifer Culpeper I didn't even discover until about two years after we moved here. I drove in the opposite direction one day and found it. We had spent some time out here (in Little Washington) around'89 or '90 we were here for a couple of months house sitting . . . and we just liked it.

Grip What is a typical day for Royal Trux out there?

Jennifer Ah, typical day. . . wake up, have some coffee,smoke some cigarettes, go outside and check on the garden, feed the cat. We have three cats.

Grip Are you on a pretty big spread? Do you have much contact with your neighbors?

Jennifer No people. we've got seven acres and the nearest house is not very near. We;'re in Rappahannock County so everybody's pretty spread out. We can shoot (guns) on our property so that's pretty good. . .

Grip I heard about your deal with Virgin. The money you got from being on their label pretty much paid for the place, and for a home studio, right? That's a pretty strange deal.

Jennifer I don't even question it. Y'know?

Grip All of the bands that got screwed out of thei rearnings and then you guys get this golden parachute of money before they drop you. That's so cool.

Jennifer Yeah, very cool. The key thing with (contracts) is you don't leave your self open. When we decided to sign with Virgin we demanded our own terms from the start. That's how bands get screwed they sign over everything before it happens. You gotta do it on your own terms or you are just destined for trouble.Music's such a subjective thing and we are always moving so. . . Virgin was the label that accepted the terms of the contract.

You've got to know what you want.It's important to have a good lawyer too, but you've gotta remember that what ever lawyer you have, he's going to be closer to (record executives) than he is to you. He's got to work with those people again, long after you are signed or whatever. He walks the tightrope.He wants his percentage but he also doesn't want to piss them off. We knew exactly what we wanted. He thought I was crazy but he said, 'All I can do is submit this proposal.' He didn't think they'd go for it at all.

Grip I remember when you got signed that people were wondering what Virgin was doing in the first place. Your indie stuff was pretty uncompromising.

Jennifer I never really asked them why they were doing what they were doing. It might have been a good question. In the end, I don't think we were going to change their minds and I really don't know where all the initial enthusiasm came from in my mind, they must've liked what we'd done before. But we also aren't going to make the same record over and over.

Grip When you passed in Thank You (the first record in their Virgin deal), was there trouble from the start?

Jennifer No, not with Thank You. There was no objection at all. But I think they were having some inter-office political problems. The guy that signed us was the President of A&R, a really great guy actually, and I had really good communication with his right hand woman, the vice president of A&R. Good rapport, 'Cause there were a lot of questions I had and I lot of information I wanted .

Grip I would've liked to have sat in on that boardmeeting "Okay, here's what we expect out of Royal Trux."

Jennifer Right, exactly. The problem is that they were soprecious about the subject that I don't they ever had that boardmeeting. They should have.

(Virgin) had a lot of really weird hangups, too. When we went on tour and wanted to buy some new equipment, bigger amps 'cause we'd pretty much only had shit to play with before they were worried that we would alienate our audience. You've got to be kidding! The word 'organic' kept coming up, an'organic transition period.' That's pretty much where it brokedown for us.

Grip Do you think they wanted their own "Sonic Youth" or something a band that had achieved some indie acclaim?

Jennifer Oh, oh yeah. There were a lot of labels that wanted to sign us, like Geffen and Warner Brothers, and we knew that because we were the coolest band around.

Grip Now you are back on Drag City, where you started, and Accelerator sounds like the most commercial thing you've made yet. Maybe not commercial, but certainly lively. It's a rock and roll record.

Jennifer We come up with a plan for each record.

Grip What's the purpose of the 3-song EP? Was it just something that came out after Accelerator or was it something that wouldn't fit on the album?

Jennifer We started working after Accelerator, working on newsongs for the next record. But we came up the lyrics for "Deffer Than Blind" the day before (the band, which include ex-Tortoise member Dave Pejo) And we decided to record it. Those guys came and we spent a day working on the music and finally came up with the second song and then the third. We just wrote and recorded it in a day.

Grip How does it feel being back at Drag City?

Jennifer Being the first artists on Drag City, and being so tight with them, it's really whatever we want to do. Neil wants to do abook, they'll put it out, we wanna make movies, they'll put it out. ..

Grip How do you maintain a personal as well as business relationship with someone like that for so long? Isn't it difficult ?

Jennifer We are really pretty different. I can't expressit in concrete terms. If I ever figure it out, I might do something (laughs). I mean, we fight a lot, like any couple I guess. I'll put on a record and he'll say, 'I hate this fucking record. What is this? The Move?' and we'll have a fight about it. No big deal.

Grip What do you listen to around the house?

Jennifer Oh, everything. The new stuff is mostly what people send us. I mean, like, one day we'll play the blues and then the nextday I'll put on E.L.O. for a half-hour and he'll hate it and then a month later he'll want to listen to it. A pain in the ass.