Plucked from obscurity by a lucky spin on the wheel of fortune, the Chris O' Conner story sounds like a rags to riches Hollywood movie. What do you think the chances are of a guy making a record on a broken down ampex 16 track for about a thousand dollars and getting a major label release with just that recording? Um...let me see, I'd say about ah...a Gazillion to one!
Like any overnight success story it is never overnight. Chris O' Conner was a California kid who joined the navy when he was 18 to make some cash and see the world. After coming back he played in bands around southern California, especially with The I-Rails who recorded four indy records. After tiring of playing and getting nowhere, Chris decided to get a kick back job - air traffic controller at LAX. Realizing that that job would probably kill him, he decided to go back to the music business. Moving away from The I-Rails guitar pop sound Chris started experimenting. Using samples and hip hop beats, Chris blended his rock sensibility with the newly acquired influences of N.W.A. and Public Enemy.
Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand. [328k .wav|328k .au] off his record, Rocket, on Columbia Records is a perfect example. The song starts with the sound of an LP being dropped on the turntable followed by a loopy hip hop groove finally giving way to a great sample of B.B. King off of 'How Blue Can You Get' as B.B. repeats the phrase "I've been downhearted - I've been downhearted baby." Chris drops in with a vocal reminiscent of (and I know, it's overused), The Velvet Underground.
When Columbia Chairman, Don Ienner, heard Phone Booth he declared it a smash and put it on the soundtrack on the label's big summer soundtrack for the movie The Cable Guy. By now the record had a life of it's own and Mr. O' Conner was in for the ride of his life. I talked to Chris first at the Sony building while he took a small break from the rocket that is shooting him to stardom.
UD: Hey, Chris...So how are you doin'?
O'Conner: Pretty good, gotta' little fuckin' bronchitis action goin' so I'm heavily sedated.
UD: Okay, that sounds good, well this will be a good interview then.
O'Conner: Oh yeah.
UD: How's the band going; have you been rehearsing?
O'Conner: Yeah, we've been rehearsing and we played a few gigs already; we have one comin' up this weekend and we're going to start the tour on the 27th.
UD: Cool. How's it goin'?
O'Conner: A couple of shows sucked just because of the sound and the venues and stuff, but we had a really good show Saturday in San Diego. So hopefully that's an omen of things to come.
UD: So the band is excited and ready to go?
O'Conner: Yeah. I think there's a little bit more reality to it now. I took the band, the drummer and the guitar player, down to L.A. They hadn't even been to the Sony building yet.
UD: Let them see all that shiny chrome?
O'Conner: Yeah exactly...I was on Alternative Nation with Kennedy, we taped that in Malibu yesterday so I think they're starting to see the reality of it.
UD: Because, you know, once you meet Kennedy you know you've arrived.
O'Conner: It's a special little fuckin' circle you've entered into - the Kennedy circle.
UD: Where she does all the freaky little gestures and flippy hand movements...
O'Conner: Right, right...you know it's funny because...with this sickness I've been on the wagon for two days and I'm going nuts, when you're doing interviews, you get a little nervous - you gotta' have a cigarette.
UD: Yeah, when we first met we were both smokin' like chimneys.
O'Conner: Yeah that's right...So anyway I had a cigar with me yesterday so I had a little bit of it but I was just like...'fuck I can't do this sober,' so I got fuckin' stoned. So it will be interesting to see what it looks like on T.V.
UD: That'll be good, cotton mouthed and slit eyed.
O'Conner: Yeah, but I had my sunglasses on.
UD: Oh that's good. Good move. I know you've answered these questions a lot so you probably have your answers down by now, but why don't you run down the gestation of this whole record.
O'Conner: The gestation - well it kinda' started around '86. I was in this band, The I-Rails, in the Ventura area. We made four independent records that we put out ourselves locally. We broke up I think early '91. I was pretty bummed out because we had been close to getting a deal. I was pretty burnt out on the whole music thing too and basically that's when I did Rocket. We had laid a couple of tracks down that were going to be the next record, and when everybody split I was like: 'what am I going to do? Should I just leave it?' There were two drum tracks and a guitar track in each song. I said, nah fuck it. I'd already bought a sampler and I was getting into...well I'd been inspired by a song by Public Enemy - I thought it would be cool to experiment with samples in rock songs. And basically I said: 'fuck it, I'll just do a record on my own,' and that's how Rocket happened. And after I got done with it, and it basically went nowhere...because, not only the music scene...
UD: Yeah the whole grunge thing was going on then...
O'Conner: ...and I wasn't going to get another band together to play for record companies and that's the first question they ask. Where's your band? I didn't have a fucking band, so I quit. Basically I just quit. I got not response and just shelved it.
UD: What happened then?
O'Conner: I got a job at LAX as an air traffic controller and went down to L.A. and didn't write a song. I had a sub woofer in my car before (which was one of the things that got me into rap finally, like you gotta have a sub woofer, you gotta have that shit fucking cranked) and that got ripped off right before I moved down to LA so I didn't even listen to pop radio. I just listened to a.m. radio for like three years and then I moved down to San Diego. My job took me down there, and I was really getting burnt out on it and I realized that there is no fucking way I can do this until I'm 55 or 60. So I started having all these like: 'How am I going to get some money? I need some fucking money so I can quit.' You know, what am I going to do? I started going to Vegas a lot and I sent away for these horse betting things, stock market, shit like that. I was getting desperate to make a quick buck and I thought about opening my own business and I figured if you're going to open your own business you should do something you know something about. Obviously music came to mind so I figured I would start my own label. I already had Rocket done and I printed up a bunch of CDs and mailed them out to college press and radio and that was just a real drag because you have to get on the phone and talk to people and I just couldn't do it I just sat there for a half an hour one day and just...that first call after I'd done the mailout ....
UD: Just like stared at the phone?
O'Conner: Yeah, what am I going to say? Like, you know...
UD: "Hi I'm nobody."
O'Conner: "Did you get my record? Do you like it? Are you going to play it?" It's like, fuck I don't care. So another went year by and that just kinda fell by the wayside then one day I was cleaning out a closet and there they were ( The Rocket CD's) and I said, fuck, I'll just do a blind mail out and fuckin' got lucky. One guy actually listened to it and he played it for one guy who played it for another guy and finally it ended up in the hands of the guy who runs the Columbia office in England and he just called me up on the phone and said he really liked the record and really liked that single especially and I didn't think much of it because I figured they were going to ask where is the band and there is not going to be a band so don't waste your time and mine. He just called up three weeks later and said he wanted to put it out; hadn't even seen me, didn't give a shit about a band or anything and I was like " yeah cool."
UD: That's the kind of guy we like.
O'Conner: (coughing painfully)
UD: You're dyin'.
O'Conner: (still coughing) Nah, I'm alright.
UD: In the interview, I'm gonna' have right there; cough, cough cough.
O'Conner: It's pretty brutal.
UD: Have you changed your view of the record industry?
O'Conner: Well my problem with the industry is the diving through hoops part to get to a certain point, but, I mean somehow I just navigated around that. And obviously once you are on the inside it's a lot nicer looking out. I mean as long as things are going well. I mean if the record woulda' come out and gone nowhere and wasn't a hit I'm sure it would be like...
UD: Just the same.
O'Conner: Yeah they wouldn't be answering my calls and I'd be dropped already. It's like, I'm a realist and that's part of making records. Part of the process is dealing with that aspect of it. You know obviously it's nicer having a record deal than not.
UD: So you started out these songs with a rhythm track and a basic structure for a song?
O'Conner: It was always different. Most of them I think I wrote on guitar first and in my head I would figure out the drum parts and put that down. A song like Phone Booth really just happened tinkering around with the sampler. I got like a really cool drum loop and just sort of built off of that.
UD: So you write songs different ways then.
O'Conner: Yeah I mean sometimes what's really cool is to write off a title. A title will just inspire a mood for a song.
UD: Do you hear any comparisons between you and other artists?
O'Conner: Mostly Beck for some reason. Which I don't see because I mean, Rocket is just a rock and roll record and Beck is a slacker funk dude you know...I mean the whole setup is similar we are both one guy that goes into the studio and...
UD: I guess it's probably that you put down semi hip hop grooves with songs, melodic songs. I guess that's the connection there.
O'Conner: Right, right.
UD: So have lived your rock and roll fantasy yet?
O'Conner: Actually, it has already been fulfilled man. I was thinking the other day man, the song on the radio wasn't that big a thrill - you can put a cassette in your car and hear the cassette through the speakers in you car so it's not like a shock, 'here's my song comin' through the speakers in my car'. Not like it was thirty years ago when there were no tape decks. And I saw the video on TV before, so when it comes on MTV its not something that is out of the ordinary. A local band can make a video and watch the video on TV - it's not that big a deal. So I was thinking like how am I going to measure when I've reached a certain level. Then I was in Ventura there was this strip joint down the street that I used to go to, me and Tim were playin' pool and this chick gets up on stage and picks two songs from Rocket and starts dancin. And I thought, you know, when you fucking' walk into a strip joint and some chick is dancin' to your tune, you know you've fuckin' made it.
UD: So basically your gauge is when strippers start dancing to your music.
O'Conner: Exactly.
UD: Okay. Taking that into account, now that people know who you are in certain places, strippers anyway, have you got your super model picked out?
O'Conner: Well they are all kinda' the same to me once you get up in that 10 area as far as looks go it really doesn't matter - I just want full access to the backstage area maybe to pick like a dozen of them or something.
UD: Get a stable?
O'Conner: Yeah that'd be hot.
UD: Did you feel when you finished this record, 'Fuck this is a good record'?
O'Conner: Definitely, at the time I thought I was a genius. (laughs) At the time it was very different from what was going on in Ventura. It was a real power pop thing going on and it was very uncool to use keyboards. When I was making Rocket, I went over to see some guys I played and hung out with and I brought three songs off of Rocket and they said, 'oh I hear you're making a dance record,' you know, like real cynical and I was like, well here, check out these songs and I put it in (these are friends of mine) and they totally ignored me and got up and walked away.
UD: Get the hell out!
O'Conner: Yeah, while I'm playing the song they just got up and left. So at that point I realized, wow, this must be pretty cool cause it's inciting a real violent reaction from the purists. But I did go through my periods of grave doubt especially when Kip called and said he was going to put it out in England I went through these moods where I thought this is awful, people are just going to fucking laugh. It was like, go home, go home dork, keep your day job, you suck.
UD: So those guys who walked out of the room; have you spoken to the recently?
O'Conner: Yeah, well they know what's going on. There is definitely a little envy there, but fuck man, what can you do?
UD: What are the plans for the tour?
O'Conner: We're doing a national club tour, were going up the California coast. San Francisco, Sacramento, we're playing In-Fest in Seattle, doing a couple Canadian dates and then work our way to the east coast.
UD: Are you coming out to New York?
O'Conner: Yeah, yeah were doing a couple of dates there.
UD: Well, I'll definitely come out and see you. Do you want to say anything to all those aspiring rock stars out there?
O'Conner: Yeah, don't quit your day job.
If you want to hear some more of Primitive Radio Gods try these on for size.
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Or check out Columbia's P.R.G. website at: http://www.sony.com/Music/ArtistInfo/PrimitiveRadioGods/index.html.