Screeching Weasel were a pop-punk band from Chicago who existed from 1986 until 2000. During that time they released a great slate of albums whose seminal influence can be heard in the current pop-crop of young Turk punk bands, in the US and beyond.

The guitarist for the band was John ‘Jughead’ Pierson. After SW split he got together a new, great acoustic pop-punk meaty beat combo called Even in Blackouts, with a choir-trained female singer and a ragged band of wandering musical minstrels, and they have been touring, in various guises, all over the US and Europe since 2001.

What you may not know about Pierson is that he is an accomplished playwright and theatre performer, and that he owns a small publishing company, Hope And Nonthings, where he publishes not only his own wordwork but that of various Chicago punk luminaries including Ben ‘Weasel’ Foster, the ex-Screeching Weasel frontman. In this interview John lays down a few thoughts on music, theatre and writing...

How would you sum up your time in Screeching Weasel, in retrospect? Not looking for too much here, just a few thoughts, around 100,000 words or so should suffice…

This is what my book is trying to achieve, and already it is over 200 pages and painful at each step. You can’t be involved in anything for 16 years and not be entirely engulfed by its affects. I think any decision I make on a moment to moment basis can not be separated from conversations, fights, and situations I have been a part of with SW and specifically Ben. This happens on both a conscious and subconscious level. It has helped fuel my inherent insistence of doing everything myself. My experiences with promoters and being on the road has affected how I pick friends, it has given me stories that I retell and retell, which causes a domino effect of people being affected. This is all very vague, but any more specifics and it would be nearly endless.

How many instruments do you play? Any you still want to master?

The guitar is the only one I can play competently, but I have been toying around with the Mandolin, Harmonica and Flute since I was a Junior in high school. I have now acquired a Banjo, this one I would love to master, but I can’t truthfully say that I have even mastered the guitar yet. And I have been playing that damn thing for over 18 years.

As far as I can remember, you never wrote lyrics for Screeching Weasel. Was this a conscious thing? Did you just want to leave the writing to Ben? Did it even occur to you to want to write lyrics? I know people like Danny Vapid wrote lyrics (I was A High School Psychopath), it seems odd that you never (if indeed you didn’t)…

I wrote a lot of music in the early days, later my contribution became subtler. I liked it this way. I thought I was incapable of putting lyrics to music, so I was quite content to just add to a basic structure. Little subtle guitar parts and strums are where I focused my energy. I tried to write a song early on, but it was just stupid. I didn’t have the talent then. When Vapid joined the band I realized even more that it took a certain type to be able to create songs with Ben. It was like a secret society that didn’t even have to communicate in words. They just knew what each other were thinking. I didn’t have this with them but I loved to watch them at work. And I would add my octaves and basic scales. But it was my band, along with Ben, and most of the content was subjects I felt just as strongly about. And I do feel as if we had an affect on each other that is difficult to distinguish. (That is for two people in a band who could hardly be any different than Ben and myself.) I didn’t discover I could write a song from start to finish, until I went to Italy and cleared my brain. ‘Missing Manifesto’ just flowed from my borrowed acoustic guitar and me. I spiraled into a joyful shock, and since then my guitar playing has increased like it never has before. Leaps and bounds.

How would you characterize your musician partnership with Ben Weasel? Are you still on good talking terms? Did you learn things about writing lyrics from him?

The question before answers part of this. How could I have not learned from Ben and Vapid, and yet I can’t dismiss my intense interest in underground music. And music in general. I must have learned something from all those years of collecting vinyl.

I introduced Ben to the mute, and he taught me plenty about slight changes in simplistic songs that gives it an elusive and often subconscious depth. I was a strummer and Ben was a down stroke man. The insistence of downstroking on the later albums almost broke my spirit, but I think it has made me better as a musician. I don’t think I learned lyric writing from him. I have been writing short plays, poems, and essays since before SW. I have been writing since a very young age. This hasn’t made me a master of the English language; writing is my way of dealing with my inability to express myself. It is a frustrating struggle to find the words to invoke emotion and convey my perceptions. It is extremely difficult. And then add on top of that that you want it to be poetic, catchy, and entertaining.

What would you say is the main difference between Even in Blackouts and Screeching Weasel (I know you’ve played for other bands but haven’t heard that material so can’t comment on it), apart from the obvious electric/acoustic thing?

Well, the most obvious difference is the lack of Screeching Weasels most predominant creative contributor, Ben Weasel. I am not a Ben Weasel. My center of being is drastically different from his. And yet we share a deep respect for each other’s way of looking at life. This may sound like an abstraction but I think this is the core of what makes SW and EIB both the same and different. Having been a co-creator of a mythological band such as Screeching Weasel establishes a tradition of what I think is “excellence”. I do not want a band that is Screeching Weasel, but I want a band that deserves respect as much as I think SW will continue to deserve, whether or not the credit is apparent or not. Less abstract. I purposely put together elements in EIB that are contrary to the sound of SW. A female singer, acoustic compared to electric, we hardly ever use the bar chord in EIB, and that is pretty much all that was used in SW. I write differently than Ben. His writing is much more forceful, precise, and succinct. I’m all over the place.

It is a different decade: It would be ridiculous to approach music as SW did in the late 80’s and 90’s. It is no longer challenging and different.

Why did you decide to go acoustic with EIB as opposed to electric?

I play acoustic much more than I do electric, the basis is that simple. There is also the communal feel that acoustic has inherent. You can talk more freely without squealing feedback in between songs (this is mostly in response to the all-acoustic living room shows) it was also a challenge to myself to create music with immediacy and energy. But even in this goal, which I don’t know if I have actually achieved yet, we discovered other musical approaches. Energy and immediacy is important to me, but I now no longer let it guide what type of song I write.

You’re a very talented lyricist. Sometimes your lyrics can be pretty poetic and difficult to understand though the meaning of the words generally become clearer after a bit of scrutiny. Do you think they’re perfectly easy to understand, or do you like a bit of mystery and having an oblique side that invites study of your lyrics? How would you describe your lyrical agenda with the band? It’s certainly very original.

I do like the fact that my lyrics can be pondered over. This is often intentional, but I think more often, like my play writing, I write with no clear answer in sight. I think there is a big question mark behind most of my writing. This is my style, and it too is often restricting. But I write more from a place of trying to figure out who I am within the confines of my understanding of the English language. We are who we are, and that is what I try to portray in my lyrics. But on the other hand I have nurtured a sense of mystery. I think it is a technique that forces the listener to engage in what they are hearing. That is what I would like to think.

I understand you have written, staged and published many plays. How did you come to the theatre?

I have been acting since high school. I love entertaining. I’m good at it. I never completely commit to any one aspect of theater. I don’t like the idea of only doing one or the other, so I tend to float between all the arts, often to my detriment. I am not very good at any one talent; I just have a bunch of them.

How do you find running a publishing business? Do the books sell well? What kind of print run do you normally do with them?

The punk books sell ok; they help to support the theater books. People just don’t buy theater books too often. But my intention was more allowing these pieces of work to have a life after their short stint on a small stage in the show box theater community known as Chicago. I do ok. I don’t try too hard. It is not a career. I don’t have a career. God help me!

What do you look for in an author you want to publish?

Well... since I am a bad reader, I mostly look for people I know personally and trust that they have something to say in an interesting way. That’s pretty much the full answer.

Are you self-taught at writing, or did you take classes?

I am a self-taught writer. I graduated from Columbia College in Chicago with a split degree in theater and literature. I once asked my favorite teacher, Mr Christiansen, who happens to read one book every two days, “Don’t you get plagued with your own ideas when you are reading so much?” And he said “No, I just read a lot.” It occurred to me then that not everyone has the instinct to write. It has taken me many years to try to convince myself that I am a writer. I admire writers like Somerset Maugham and John Updike who seem to have mastered the English language and character development and grammar, but I feel I write more from a place of someone who is struggling to understand the English language. I struggle to understand what my own brain is telling me.

Who would you regard as your writing influences, both in music and lyrical word work? Albert Camus, Milan Kundera, Nick Drake, Donovan, Paul Auster, Kurt Vonnegut, and my deeply missed friend Peter Flynn (Flynn was a friend of John’s who committed suicide. The beautiful, poignant, heartbreaking eulogy song For Pete’s Sake/is it the beauty that remains from the first EIB album is about this writer – Graham)

What does theater do for you that music can’t, and vice versa?

That is a good question that I don’t think I can give a fulfilling answer to. But I will try:

In my unique relationship with Ben Foster, Screeching Weasel gave me the opportunity to be part of a creative unit without being its main focus. I didn’t have to bear the creative weight of Screeching Weasel. It freed my mind to take on the business aspect and to remain fairly happy in a business that tears apart your nerves. On the other hand, if I hadn’t been writing for the theater simultaneously I would have been miserable. In theater I got to stretch my writing, performing, directing and producing abilities. So without Weasel there may not have been a theater outlet. The two were inter-dependent. Each supported the other, financially and creatively and yet they were totally separate and almost never clashed or overlapped.

In terms of performance differences, this is a gray area. I don’t have a preference over musician or actor. They both have their challenges to improve. They both force me to deal with the idea of being observed and trying to remain in the moment simultaneously. It is a talent that must be nurtured, and isn’t like riding a bike. Both are about being interesting, a little unpredictable and fresh. This is difficult to maintain night after night. It is the biggest challenge.

What’s happening with the oft-promised book about being in a punk band you’re writing, Weasels In A Box?

I am going to New York to try to wrap this up for good. I can’t get the damn thing done. There are so many memories involved with the 15 odd years of SW that I am having trouble making it a unified novel compared to a collection of anecdotes. I don’t want a collection of anecdotes. I’d rather share those in human-to-human conversation.

Do you think Ben’s novel ‘Like Hell’ accurately depicted what being in a successful punk band was like? Can you characterize any major differences in his literary approach to that material and yours?

He did not enjoy touring, I did. That is a significant difference. And yet I can’t say that mine has an even remotely happier conclusion. It may be possible that mine is a little darker in tone. Ben is also a great straightforward speaker, a quick read. My writing is disjointed, non-linear and purposely more poetic. I can’t say one is more enjoyable than the other is, just joyously different.

I understand that you had to go to Italy to get the inspiration to start writing for EIB, and you started writing Missing Manifesto (the first song of yours I heard and one I think is one of your best). Do you think you somehow subconsciously needed to physically go that far away from America and your proud punk past to get a different perspective on the whole previous decade-and-a-half or so of music you’d been involved in?

Of course. Distance always helps, but it may sound cliché but you always have to return in order to stay honest to yourself. And another cliché my Mom likes to say: Wherever you go, there you are. It is one of the simplest yet complicated statements. The writer has to be estranged to varying degrees, in order to believe that they have achieved some sort of objectivity. This objectivity may be an illusion, but it is an important illusion. It is near impossible to be a writer and to live in the moment, that is why we have extreme personalities like Bukowski, Wilde, Wittgenstein, Fitzgerald, Ben Weasel, and countless thousands and millions of others. Trying desperately to grab every moment they can and throttle it to death. I’m always going away in order to find my home.

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Graham Rae is a Scottish scribbler from the cheery charming picture-postcard-perfect post-industrial up-and-coming internationally renowned tourist destination of Falkirk. He has been writing for as long as he can remember (started at any early age, carving graffiti into womb walls) and is halfway through his first novel (well, third, but the other mishmash misfires don’t count),’ Weekend Warriors.’ He has been writing about film for various electronic and print publications for 16 years now, and you can see a sporadically entertaining eclectic selection of his ramble/rantings at www.filmthreat.com. He also has a website featuring some of his other non-film writings which you can subject yourself to at www.hateliterature.com.

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© 2005 Laura Hird All rights reserved.