NICK PARKER (JESUS KILLER): THE ROLLING STONE INTERVIEW
by Jancee Dunn June 2001
If you were to ask Nick Parker, recently reborn under the alias of Jesus Killer, if he has any regrets in the last twenty-odd years of his showbiz life, he would just eye you suspiciously and smirk. The unspoken implication, of course, is that he would take it all away if he could, but fame can't be undone, and perhaps his self-revision is a comment upon and protest of that very inevitable truth.
He is not a showman, and there's only so far the Plaastik frontman can go before you meet the infinite sadness in the eyes of a man who never realized he was bound for a life as a musician. It's already clear from the way Plaastik's erratic releases ignore expectations, to say nothing of their rare live shows.
When the band toured for the first time in seven years in 1994, Parker and the band struggled more than ever before to please a fan base that had grown exponentially since 1987, and came away drained of all energy; the tour was well-received, but the frontman was left wondering if he had any reason to remain in his occupation. "How much can you really say in this context? I had done everything I could do. There was no choice."
His reaction to what he calls a midlife crisis was to give the rest of the band more say in composition and production duties; a third of Plaastik's next album, ON SUCH A NIGHT, and half of the followup CARTOONS, was penned by other members of the band. With another seven years having passed, the pressure was on last spring for Plaastik to create an album to tour behind. Uninterested in another year on the road, Parker's first consideration was to leave the group, but the others insisted he stay behind and reinvent the sound to suit his needs.
"We are his band," says drummer Kevin Keys, "and I don't think there is a band if he's not a part of it." Parker took the urges seriously and made every change in the world to try and drum up more excitement for the band. Feeling trapped by the prison of fame and the persona that had grown up around him, he changed his name (permanently, he says) to the altogether less inoffensive Jesus Killer.
His first action musically was to abandon the feedback-ridden pop sound that had slowly taken over the previous two albums and insisted on returning to the electronic soundscapes that had enticed him in the beginning. "Some nights I wonder why I ever even picked up a bass guitar," he says.
Four months of tumultuous, complicated recording sessions led nowhere, and a strict deadline from Capitol Records was no help. The album could have been finished sooner were it not for the recent messy breakup of Parker and his longtime girlfriend, guitarist Janet Kieran, who refused to be in the same room throughout the making of the record. (They've since reunited.) "That put a wrench in things," says multi-instrumentalist Jeff Jooce.
Plaastik worked for weeks to sequence and distill hundreds of hours of music, mostly "aimless noodling," lengthy jams, and "exactly three real songs," into an eighty minute running order under the title SCIENCE CAN BE FUN, deemed "unlistenable" almost immediately thereafter by the record company, who nonetheless agreed to release it. At the last minute, Parker (Killer) found he agreed and pulled the album from the presses with the promise that he would deliver not one, but two new LPs by May. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Jesus turned control of the project over to keyboardist Christina Singleton.
Instead of compressing some of the better jams, they have been included in their entirety on the six-song FUN album, which also contains two of the three "actual songs," both of which deflated into electronic jamming. Although Capitol allowed no additional recording, the band was able to salvage bits and pieces of other music from the sessions, forming them into comprehensible pop songs for the considerably more conventional SCIENCE album. Although Jesus Killer isn't entirely pleased with the results, he does confess that it's "better than anything I could have come up with," and on the lyrics for the SCIENCE record he has gone to extremes to create a persona that makes him comfortable, and is obviously designed to make others the opposite.
The result is a pair of albums that have upset many longtime Plaastik fans, something that is little surprise to Jesus.
How do you feel about the general reaction to FUN and SCIENCE? Well, I mean, what general reaction? If you're gonna listen to those petty motherfuckers on the Internet, it's like we vomited into some shrinkwrap and sent it over to Sam Goody. They've got something to listen to, you know, but what they're interested in is complaining. And hey, if we really did release our vomit I bet the bitches would buy it all up. They'd probably find some reason to praise it, too, just to be difficult.
So do you resent Internet fans?
Why shouldn't I?
Isn't it biting the hand that feeds you?
Well, I never asked to be fed their dirty money. The little college kids probably just waste their allowance on the shit. And let me tell you how much trouble they go through: They put the damn thing in and decide before they hit "play" what they're gonna think about it, then they sit their asses in a chair and give it one to five stars and go "Oh, I don't think the bass on track 2 is quite loud enough in the left center channel." Well, fuck you, whiny little motherfuckers. Why don't you go get a degree in law or something so you can sue me over it?
Do you ever sense bitterness at putting out two albums simultaneously?
Why? What the fuck? I'm not putting a gun to their heads and telling 'em to buy everything we put out. That's their stupid decision.
Is there any particular reason you frequently release two albums at the same time or in a space of six months?
Frequently?
Well, three times?
Yeah, that sounds like a great question you coulda answered if you look at any press packet printed out in the last decade and a half. Anyway, sometimes we just feel like the commercial stuff should be one package and the far out stuff another.
Some people think you should combine those facets and release a double album.
Some people think pissing in the street is a good idea.
Good point.
Shut up.
That reminds me, is it true you went through a major feud with the pop singer Jimmy Ray a few years back?
Yeah, okay, I don't know who found this out or how because if I knew someone who works for us was listening to that tripe I'd have fired them on the spot, but the no-talent one-hit jackass has a track on his CD called "Sex for Beginners" which is a complete cop of our song "Public Building," so we sued his ass and won. I've never met him personally but I think he's a pissant.
You have also gotten into it with Depeche Mode, Haircut 100, Sting, U2, and who else?
The Pixies. Because Frank Black wants to hook up and although I'm not going through life with one hand tied behind my back, I'm not that queer. Also, the Strokes, just because their album sucks and they refused to open for us, and Everclear because Art Alexalis called me "the scum of the earth." I hope he fucking dies.
I read you toured with Clocktower once. What was that like?
I abhor their music, of course, but they were nice guys and I wish them well.
Are there any other battles we should know about?
Actually, I would like to publicly warn Leslie Van Houten to stop sending me packages. The first few were nice, but I don't want any more leather thongs.
Leslie Van Houten? Isn't she one of the Manson family killers? [long pause] This interview is over!