PRODIGAL RETURN Roky Erickson & Okkervil River
Apr 20, 2010
When the psychedelic godfather was ready to resume recording after years in the wilderness, his Austin neighbors proved the perfect collaborators.
BY HAL BIENSTOCK
Were you shocked when Pavement reunited? How about when Mission of Burma returned? Nice as those were, their comeback stories have nothing on Roky Erickson. As leader of The 13th Floor Elevators, Erickson basically invented psychedelic rock, writing the classic "You're Gonna Miss Me" at the age of 15.
But things went downhill quickly after that. Soon, Erickson was dropping acid and shooting heroin on a regular basis. Yet it was one joint that really ruined his life. In 1969, he was arrested for having a single marijuana cigarette and sentenced to 10 years in prison by authorities looking to make an example of him. Instead, he pled insanity and was sent to a mental hospital where he received electro-shock treatment. By the 1980s, he was living in squalor and suffering serious health problems.
His brother finally came to the rescue in 2001, winning legal custody of Roky, getting him on medication and into therapy. Within a few years, Erickson had put his life back together and begun touring again. Now, he's releasing his first new album in 14 years, True Love Cast Out All Evil (reviewed here at BLURT). The album was made with an assist from fellow Austinites Okkervil River. We talked with Okkervil leader and album producer Will Sheff about a record few thought they'd ever see.
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BLURT: How did you begin working with Roky?
WILL SHEFF: There was a writer for the Austin Chronicle who was a fan of Okkervil River and a longtime fan of Roky's. She thought it would be fun if we did a show with him at the Austin Music Awards in 2008. Roky loved it. He felt inspired and excited to have a younger band play with him, and we had a blast.
Shortly after that, Roky's management approached me about producing a new record. I was hesitant. I didn't want to make one of those perfunctory late career records that exist just for a tour or get by on generalized goodwill, but aren't very good in and of themselves. I wanted it to be a worthy addition to the canon.
Then they sent me the songs. There were 60 songs from throughout his career - stuff from The 13th Floor Elevators they never put out, stuff he wrote while he was incarcerated and some from his horror rock era in the 1970s. The songs were so powerful and moving and autobiographical. They presented a side of his writing I never knew was there. I felt they were some of the best songs he'd ever written.
What struck you most about the songs?
If people know Roky for something beside The 13th Floor Elevators, it's for horror rock, which was essentially his own genre. He was doing these scary hard rock b-movie themed songs. He was talking about electro-shock treatment and being on Thorazine in a veiled way. I wanted people to know he also wrote about electro-shock treatment and Thorazine and prison straightforwardly and openly. There's no humor, no metaphor in these songs that insulates you from the pain. It's very, very raw, but there's beautiful, whimsical, fanciful language that has to do with who Roky is as a person. It's a very special thing, these pretty, fanciful songs soaked in this really intense pain.
What was your main goal as Roky's producer?
I really wanted people to see Roky in a different way. I wanted them to see the wisdom and tenderness and mysticism that is part of his personality just as much as the wild man rock and roller is. And that [wild man] stuff is great. I don't mean to downplay it, but when you hear this, you see how varied his work is.
The hard rock sound that he's known for isn't really part of this album.
His horror rock songs were happening during the flowering of heavy metal. They dealt with horror, but they were theatrical. When you've been in prison with pedophiles, rapists and murderers, and are getting shock treatment, a werewolf or a vampire isn't scary. It puts a smile on your face, like a Halloween costume. Songs like "Please Judge" or "John Lawman" are actual horror rock. That was the real horror in Roky's life.
How is Roky's mental health these days?
He's doing better than ever. Roky is schizophrenic. There's no way around it. But for over a decade he was not allowed to be on medication, so he was really declining physically and mentally. Everyone in Austin thought you'd never hear from him again. We thought he'd be like Syd Barrett and disappear. It's miraculous what people did to help him out. And once they got him to that place, he helped himself out. He's happier than he's ever been. His whole life was marked by excess. He really even keeled now.
One thing that really frustrated me about the [2007] Keven McAlester documentary, You're Gonna Miss Me, is that they stopped filming at a certain point. It's not Keven's fault. It's just the nature of the project. But the point at which they stopped filming was the beginning of Roky's recovery. People walked away from the movie thinking Roky was beyond recovery. That's completely false. But you don't see that in the movie because it stopped filming in 2001. Since then, he bought his first house, bought his first car, reconnected with his son, and asked his first wife on a date so they reconnected and now live together. He tours regularly. If you saw the movie, you'd never anticipate that. I want to spread the word about it.
What's happening with your own band? Is there a new Okkervil album in the works?
We're working on an album, but we're going real slow. In the past, I always felt rushed. I don't think anything that came out was compromised, but there were moments where the fun was starting to fall away because I was working so hard. I think there's something about music that should be play, not work. I'm always suspicious of people that use the word "work" in reference to art.
You've worked with several legends lately - not just Roky but also Levon Helm. What did you learn from them?
The thing I took from Levon is that he's just so happy to be playing in a beautiful, old-fashioned entertainer way. If you think of humans making music for each other, it's a beautiful natural thing. Being a rock star is like the cancerous version of that, where the cell has grown out of control and become toxic. The idea that you should bow down to this one person or that this person is more deserving of attention is such a gross mutation of what music is supposed to be about. Levon is so great as a musician, and The Band are one of the all-time great rock bands. At the same time, there's such humility with him. Although there are all these people who come to see him, he's bringing the feeling of a bunch of people sitting around enjoying themselves.
Roky is the same way. He has a line in "Be and Bring Me Home" that says "Special and magical music/ These are feelings from one to another." That alludes to something about Roky's life. Music sustained him and kept him going. In the mental hospital, music kept him sane. It kept him from complete and utter despair.
[Photo Credit: Todd Wolfson]
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