Jonathan Segel played a multitude of instruments for the eclectic ’80s band Camper Van Beethoven. His wildly imaginative playing is prominently showcased on the band’s first two albums; their second album (II & III) remains their masterpiece (witness the surreal trance of Circles or the anthemic and shambolic We’re A Bad Trip). The band became more “normal” after this but still managed to record a couple more excellent records with Segel in the lineup (as well as another strong album, Key Lime Pie, without him). Segel is arguably one of the most creative multi-instrumentalists in rock history; he remains, for my money, the most important member of Camper Van Beethoven. Our conversation follows:
1 | II & III stands as Camper Van Beethoven’s masterpiece, in my opinion (i’m specifically referring to Side 2). What are your thoughts on it?
Side 2, not Side B? Really, this is the most disparate record from that period! We recorded half of it right after the first album came out (June 1985), then the other half later that year, and mixed them together. Around then Chris Pedersen (drums) and Greg Lisher (lead guitar) joined the band so the sound was changing. There are actually two versions of that album with an earlier and later version of We’re A Bad Trip with different drummers!
Cooking Vinyl is rereleasing these albums — II & III is next, and since Victor (Krummenacher) is a professional graphic designer, he’s seeing to the artwork. One thing we noted was that the lyric sheet had a lot of dumb shit all over it, things we thought were cool or funny when we were 22 that seem kinda dumb now, so we ditched some of that stuff. Regardless, there are some good songs on this album that we still play (when we play).
2 | Did you like Cracker? Did you feel that David Lowery was selling out?
I didn’t like Cracker in the ’90s — I was listening to other things — but I’ve grown to like them and I really appreciate the musicality of a lot of it, even if the songs come off as purposefully boneheaded to appeal to some audience (an audience that I’m not even sure David really wanted to interact with, just sell to). The whole idea of selling out is sort of dumb; it’s so tough to make a living as a musician to begin with, and nothing lasts very long. I’d sell out for any length of time too.
The fact that they were successful lies in the financial ruin of CVB, who broke up in the middle of a tour and essentially owed Virgin Records a bunch of advance and tour-support money, so they needed to make it back somehow! And they understood how to market Cracker — at first. They seriously blew it by The Golden Age (I think 1996?), which had amazing, deep songs on it and they chose to try to push a song that was similar to their previous work (I Hate My Generation) instead of pushing the boundaries and marketing something like Big Dipper. I mean soon thereafter, Radiohead proved that could be done having a seven-minute Fake Plastic Trees as the single.
3 | I hear echoes of the Holy Modal Rounders circa Indian War Whoop in your playing. Were they an influence on you? If not, who was?
Well, if so it wasn’t intentional. I’d probably heard them; I used to play at the Davis Pickers and Singers nights at a friend’s parents’ house when I was in high school, but by college I wasn’t listening to folky music at all (except for other cultures’) and that’s when CVB started. For example, people came up to us and asked if we were really into Kaleidoscope after we started playing around, and we had never heard of them (which is sort of ironic because they were from an area in the L.A. megalopolis near to where David, Victor and Chris Molla grew up). So we started listening and eventually did a cover of their cover of O Death. We as a band were influenced by so many disparate musics, each one of us listened to our own weird things, it was all influential and way too much to list. We were music heads. Still are.
4 | What are the best and worst Camper Van Beethoven songs, per you?
Best is probably All Her Favorite Fruit, I’d say. It’s got everything: The storyline, the emotional peaks, the intensity and softness. It’s breathtaking just to play it.
Worst is probably (one I wrote) Don’t Ya Go to Goleta because it’s just stupid.
5 | Camper Van Beethoven seemed to deliberately shun success (No More Bullshit is an obvious example). Accurate?
I wouldn’t say we shunned success, but we shunned bullshit, and the whole star-making industry is so much bullshit. There’s so much bad music that’s made famous by people who bullshit it up and put money behind it. We wanted to be ourselves — and at the time we signed with Virgin, they even said “just do what you do and you’ll produce something we can sell,” which also was bullshit, because they couldn’t figure out how to market us to begin with and then insisted on having Pictures Of Matchstick Men (a cover song, by Status Quo) as a single on the second album we/they did for them (I got booted at that time) so they could market something they understood. It didn’t really fit on the album.
6 | If you were to compile a list of the greatest bands of all time, where (approximately) would Camper Van Beethoven rank?
Jeez, I dunno. Greatest bands of all time? probably near the bottom. There are so many good bands in the history of rock music! We’re a drop in that ocean.
7 | Where would you rank The Beatles on said list? I personally would exclude them from the list entirely.
I like The Beatles and would put them toward the top. I started listening to them when I was maybe four, so they steered my taste into the whole rock music thing. They defined so much that came after them, they were great players (I mean, watch that Peter Jackson doc; the ease with which they play and sing is quite something) and they sort of led culture by the ear for the period that they existed. They did a lot in those six or seven years.
I think that’s pretty rash to say you would exclude them entirely; it certainly couldn’t be on any criteria involving musicality, writing, playing instruments or being iconoclasts within a changing cultural period, so it would have to be just on some personal grudge.
8 | If Camper Van Beethoven is remembered by future generations, what should they be remembered for? The songwriting? The fusion of countless different styles? The creativity of the playing and arrangements?
Shit, you know, if — IF — Camper is remembered at all it will probably only be by having some sort of novelty song as an early hit (i.e. Take the Skinheads Bowling). What’s sad to me about that: If that is the keystone, then we would only be remembered (for) that peak when we were like 21 years old, and we’ve all grown a lot as musicians and writers since. I think the last two California-themed albums are amazing (La Costa Perdida and El Camino Real, 2011 and 2013) but if you take, for example, New Roman Times (2004) and the story it tells of the red/blue political division dividing the U.S. into several territories, each side unknowingly controlled by different alien races… well, if that wasn’t prescient, I don’t know what is.
As we’ve grown and played more, when we play now we’re a really good live band. It’s fun! I would like to be remembered as that as much as anything.
Also I think our cover album of the entire album of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk may be our best work.
9 | Many newer bands could use a willfully experimental multi-instrumentalist such as yourself. Would you ever consider joining one?
Well, yeah. I play and have played with many bands. Let’s see, in the 1990s there was Dieselhead, Granfaloon Bus, Sideways, The Container/Clyde Wrenn and then I played with Sparklehorse for a couple years. (I’m not even listing my own bands). There are many instances of doing overdubs for people from back in the CVB ’80s and ever since. More recently I’ve been playing guitar or violin or mandolin (mostly) with Øresund Space Collective for the past decade, also for Astral Magic for the past five years or so. I’ve sat in with a lot of bands for various lengths of time. And my own records are very widespread as to genre and style, and I play tons of whatever on those — though admittedly when playing live with my own songs, I mostly just play the electric guitar. Here’s a list.
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Brett Abrahamsen is a lifelong connoisseur of the experimental and obscure. He is also a science fiction writer (and an amateur philosopher of sorts). He resides in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
