Violent Femmes singer/guitarist Gordon Gano is friendly when he gets on the line – but when asked where he’s calling from, he quips that he’s in “an undisclosed location.” Then he relents a little: “I’m in the United States,” he says, adding with a laugh, “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to hang up – you’re just asking crazy questions!”
Gano is more forthcoming when talking about Add It Up (1981-1993), his folk-punk band’s compilation album that is being reissued on May 21 via Craft Recordings. It includes all of the most memorable Violent Femmes songs, including “Blister in the Sun,” “Gone Daddy Gone,” and “American Music,” as well as numerous B-sides, outtakes, and live recordings. This reissue also marks the first time that this album will be available on vinyl.
Although Add It Up was originally released in 1993, it lapsed into being out of print a few years ago, which Gano says was distressing for him and bassist Brian Ritchie. “It had always been our favorite compilation,” he says. “We were the most involved with it, selecting everything with it, including little odds and ends from our own archives. We were very happy with the whole thing, so it was disappointing and surprising to find out that it was no longer available. I’m really happy that it’s back [in release].”
It’s been exactly 40 years since Gano joined Violent Femmes, which Brian Ritchie and drummer Victor DeLorenzo had formed a year earlier. (DeLorenzo departed the band in 1993 to concentrate on his own solo music and acting work.) The group quickly hit upon a truly distinctive sound, blending acoustic instrumentation with an aggressive punk-inspired playing style.
“Even when we play different kinds of music, it still is recognizable – you know that’s our group,” Gano says. “And if you are familiar [with us], then you’ll probably know pretty quickly that it’s our group on whatever song, even if you hadn’t heard it before.”
Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the band started out busking in the streets. They got their big break when they did one of these impromptu curbside concerts outside a venue where The Pretenders were set to perform. Impressed, The Pretenders’ members helped the Femmes get noticed by record companies. With their 1983 debut album, Violent Femmes, the band were immediately embraced as alternative music pioneers, and have retained that status ever since.
Gano has a few theories about why his songs (he is the band’s primary songwriter) have stood the test of time. “The sincerity of them, even if they’re being playful – and they certainly have playfulness in there,” he says. “But also, it strikes people as a willingness to say something that maybe other songs aren’t saying.” His lyrics, he says, “In many times would involve very sincere Christian-based songs, and other time a completely different kind of thing being expressed. And then, sometimes, where they’re both in the same song.”
Another factor, Gano says, is the fact that Violent Femmes have never aligned themselves with the current trends as the decades have passed. “We’ve never been the thing which has been in style, the thing that has been the most popular or what would be considered fashionable,” he says, “so I think that also means that we’re never not that.”
Violent Femmes have remained popular on the touring circuit, and Gano expresses frustration at not being able to hit the road because of current COVID-19 restrictions. He says he never gets tired of performing their best-known songs: “A song [like] “Blister in the Sun” – which people expect, and I want to play it – never feels old or stale in the moment of playing it, with an audience who engages so strongly with it. There are six or seven songs that get very intense and strong reactions and involvement from the audience, so it never feels tired.”
Gano wrote some of those beloved songs when he was still in high school in Milwaukee. By then, he was already a seasoned songwriter, having started working on his own songs when he was only twelve years old. “It was and it is a passion,” he says, adding that despite his young age when he finished his first original material, “I felt confident. Now, some of the songs I thought were good, I think of them and shudder because I think they’re so not good. But a lot of them, I still think they are good.”
Even though he knew he could write well, Gano says he never could have predicted the career that he’s had with Violent Femmes. “I didn’t really think about how popular or successful we would or would not be – I just was convinced that this was going to work at some level,” he says. “Brian and I thought we’d be like [punk musicians] Richard Hell or Johnny Thunders. Or, the other reference was Rolling Stones and Beatles and Pink Floyd. So we would have thought it would have been one of those two. But we’ve now been sort of in a middle area that we wouldn’t have even imagined.”
With ten studio albums to their credit (most recently, 2019’s Hotel Last Resort), Violent Femmes are showing no signs of slowing down. Four decades into their career, it seems that Gano and his band intend to keep bringing their folk-punk anthems to the world for many more years to come.
Photo by Rocky Schenck
