Classically trained violist John Cale made the jump to pop music when he joined Lou Reed's short-lived band The Primitives in New York City, to help promote Reed's novelty song "The Ostrich." After The Primitives dissolved, Reed and Cale joined guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Moe Tucker to form The Velvet Underground, which started as an adjunct to Andy Warhol's art experiences and became the most influential alternative rock act of all time. Dumped after the group's second album–Reed and Cale have since reconciled and disowned each other countless times–Cale began an eclectic career as a producer, an A&R label representative, and a performer with more than a dozen solo records under his belt. In the last role, Cale has veered from catchy, pretty pop to avant-garde noise, depending on his mood and his interests at any given time. In conjunction with the release of his rhythm-minded new album HoboSapiens (now being distributed in America after a successful run in the U.K. last year), Cale spoke with The Onion A.V. Club about his past, his eclecticism, and his drive to keep working.
The Onion: When you first arrived in New York, you were involved closely with the avant-garde music scene. What drew you to people like John Cage?
John Cale: Well, John was great. He was an inspiration. He was more mischievous than anything else. He didn't approach classical music from a serious point of view at all. There was a lot of giggling and a lot of silliness. I was from this really repressed Welsh village, where I'd lived under the gun of religion and language. You try and become a composer in Europe in the '50s and '60s, and more than anything, you have to prove your social value. Whatever you're going to write, you've got to prove it's redeeming. There's a huge hangover from the war, when people submitted their services to dictators and fascists and all that. It's just a huge headache. Then along come Cage's Zen koans, and it just took a huge weight off my shoulders. Yeah. There's life after music.
O: Does your upbringing also explain your affinity for Dylan Thomas?
JC: Dylan Thomas is more of a challenge. About 15 years ago, I really wanted to find out what it was that got me going in music in the first place, so I went back to Dylan Thomas to try and write a song cycle [Words For The Dying]. It was something I was a little intimidated by, because the poems themselves have a lot of noise in them. But then "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" happens, and after that, it's fine. I think there's a lot more fun in Dylan Thomas than how people portray him. The way they taught him at schools in Wales was a little suspicious: They teach him in the Welsh language, which is extremely rigid and organized. They try to explain the Dylan Thomas poem in terms of that Welsh tradition. I don't think it works. It's a little spurious.
O: You made a shift in the '70s from prettier records like Vintage Violence and Paris 1919 to ones that were more ragged and noisy. What prompted that change?
JC: Going out and starting a band in New York. You can do albums like Paris 1919, and that's fine, but you don't just put them out there and not support them. My period working in A&R at Warner Bros. was a learning experience, about corporate activity and how to survive. But the real issue for me was, "What do I do about this performance business?" When I came to America, I was really interested in improvisation. That was kind of the basis of Lou's and my relationship, he with words and me with music. And La Monte Young, and The Dream Syndicate, and all of that. So I couldn't spend the rest of my life in an office and not go out and perform. But what do you do? You've just left The Velvet Underground, you've been at Warner Bros., should you go out and put together a band? Yes. And basically, I'd try and do the same concepts I used in the VU. Always have a song on stage where you improvise, so you have one cacophonous ending for a show. Always put a song on the album that's improvised. And when you go out on the road, you realize that that's how you keep people's interest in what you're doing, making things up onstage. Everybody pays attention.
O: You did have a reputation for being a wild man, onstage and off, in the '70s.
JC: Yeah, yeah. I was living the dream. When you come out of the box with your first band since The Velvet Underground, you have to do something that's kind of rabid. I knew people would be watching and comparing. For me, it was a fun time. We used to dismantle clubs when we went there. Make every show different. I'd get in the club and I'd turn all the lights out when we went on stage. Walk out in the dark, sit down and do "Close Watch" in the dark, and then go straight into "Gun" and hit them with that while the lights come up. Whatever you could do to make it interesting.