RENNIE SPARKS of THE HANDSOME FAMILY talks to LYDIA LUNCH for

"SEX AND GUTS MAGAZINE"
published June 1, 2002
SEX & GUTS #4

Lydia Lunch: Since the gentlemen of this scenario seem to be the sensitive ones, I guess we'll just plow through this interview ourselves.
Rennie Sparks: I was worried about Gene, is he okay? He sounds like he's been sick or something.
LL: Well, that's an understatement..
RS: (laughs) Okay. Give him our best.
LL: He'll survive. Yeah, so I've been hearing about you, and reading reviews of the Handsome Family. Actually when we were on tour, is the first time I read a review and just stuck it in Gene's face, and said "We have to get these CDs! Where are they?!" It took us a long time to track one down, and finally, someone I know had one, and that's how we originally heard you.
RS: OhI'm glad you found us. We're not exactly on billboards along the highway. (laughs)
LL: Yeah I understand, although that could be changed any day now, who knowswith a bit of pranksterism
RS: I think it's fine the way it is, really.
LL: I know, I know. Believe me, flying under the radar is much better.
RS: I think in a way, I'm safer this way.
LL: I understand. Alright, so let's just start in with this. Now, did your mother really tell you that Santa Claus started World War II? (laughs)
RS: (laughs) Yeah. I was brought up Jewish, but my parentsthey're really into art, they're athiests, and they claimed that religion was the cause of all troubles.
LL: I agree with them.
RS: And I agree, in certain respects. I mean, when I was a kid, they thought that if I didn't know about Christmas, I would be safe. So they didn't tell me anything about it. Then one day, we were in the mall, and we saw this man wearing a red suit, out front. I said "Who is that?" She said "Don't go near him! He's a very bad man." (laughs) And I said "why?" She said, "because he started World War II."
LL: Oh, that's so wonderful.
RS: (laughs) So I was terrified of him for a very long time. But then I heard from someone in Sweden who told me that they were always told that Santa Claus was in red because he was wearing bloody reindeer skins.
LL: Ohhhhhh.
RS: There's a lot of blood and guts involved with wearing that suit.
LL: Exactly. That's what Christmas is, using your blood and guts, fraudulently, to celebrate a pagan holiday. It has nothing to do with the original theme other than to spend all your money. I'm very anti-Christmas. Gene loves Christmas.
RS: But you know, it's encouraging to me that people still seem to need the red, even though we have taken it so far away from the blood. And the green of trees, and we still know there's some reason why the red and the green are important. Even though most people don't want to consciously talk about nature and blood and all that sort of stuff.
LL: Well, exactly. And speaking of nature, you have a lot of animals and wildlife and nature mentioned in your songs, and in the CD artwork. Nownature: friend or terrifying foe?
RS: Oh both, I think. I'm a cuddly kitten and a venemous snake all at once.
LL: Probably, much like us, prefer their company to that of other humans.
RS: Yeah, I think it's a little more honest, anyway. But a cuddly kitten will bite you, and pee on you, soit's always a much more genuine relationship.
LL: My cat has a three-stroke limit and then she attacks.
RS: (laughs)
LL: So, it's like three pets, and then
RS: Oh, but that second pet, when you know about the third one
LL: Uh huh.
RS: So like a cat.
LL: Yeah. To quote Bill Hickshe claimed that humanity was a "virus with shoes".
RS: Yeah, there is something strangely different and other about us, we just don't seem to be able to sit comfortably on this planet the way other animals do. We make a big mess, for one thing. We don't clean up. I don't know why that is, neccesarily, that we need to leave our mark. I was so intrigued once, when I went down to southern Indiana, there's these caves thatI don't know, some Indian tribe that we killed off not long ago, they lived down in these caves, a hundred years ago, they lived down there for a hundred years, and they didn't leave anything. Except maybe two broken pieces of pottery, and in the late 1700s and late 1800s, when white people first started going down there, they covered (laughs), littered EVERY inch of the cave with graffiti, initials, everything. Every single person, it seems between 1740 and the present, put their initials up. I mean, it's not every human being that's like that, but most of them.
LL: PAIN
RS: (laughs)
LL: is a bloodline, especially to people that are so obsessed with the truth, and since most truth is completely painful, you deal with a lot of miserable
RS: (laughs)
LL: intensely miserable subjects, in your songs.
RS: Thank you!
LL: Of course. But I hope that like myself, because I deal with a lot of negative obsessions, and maybe you deal more with miserable obsessions, but I know that in my private life, there's certain things that I have to find. If not joy, or happinessI mean, satisfaction is my goal, and I'm just wondering what brings you joy, and if not joy, then respite?
RS: I think for the first half of my life, for twenty or so years, I just moped. I became an excellent moper. And I think that through that intense moping period, I think I started to understand that there was a lot of despair and sadness everywhere, and it wasn't anything that I was personally experiencing all by myself. You come to a point, where you realize either that all this sadness is overwhelming and I'm going to jump off a bridge, or I'm going to figure out a way to understand it. My way of understanding it is that, I feel that so many things are sad because so many things are beautiful. And I think that if the world wasn't beautiful, and full of these miraculous moments of graceand I can't really explain, necessarily, one way or another, but if it wasn't for those things, and the way that they pass or are fleeting, there wouldn't be any sadness at all. I would just be this sort of fish, eating and pooping and then killing myself in the end. I think that because there's so much depth to the world and so many strange and mysterious qualities to it, that that's what brings me joy and keeps me sane.
LL: Yeah, and that's what all the other mopersas I like to accuse people of having their "special pain", and no pain is special. It is the most universal
RS: It's so nice to know that, but I think everyone has to come up with their own way.
R: You can tell somebody, oh you're just like everybody else, but they won_t
really believe it.
L: The whole world is suffering, to rebel against that isnot to pretend it
doesn't exist but you have to appreciate every vein in every leaf, the way that light refracts off of a plant and falls on to the ground. Once I started seeing the beauty in shadows, shadows cast by light...
R: That's beautiful, right the two are necessarily entwined. It_s really a
great gift to be able to see so much of the darkness, because it ends up
being a way of seeing a lot of light.
L: When you can turn it around.
R :Yeah... but it's hard, and I do think there are so many people that feel
that way and there's so little art out there, so few comforting voices that it's important to talk about this and at least commiserate with your fellow human beings because if you just turn the TV on, you think, god, I AM crazy, everyone else is just smiling. What DO they think?
L: Name three perfect authors or films or songs that you think personally have
inspired you.
R: Films, I was really inspired by SALO..
L: THANK YOU!
[Oh god. Were I present during this interview, I'd be forced to scan the room for an escape hatch-ed.]
R: I think about it all the time. It was an unbearable thing to sit through, but at the same time, every day I think about it, three, four times a day. I saw it maybe ten years ago,
I think it was so important, for someone to depict that kind of human thinking that we all
have, but very few of us actually act upon. It's there in everybody_s brain, the concept of beauty and ugliness and just wanting to destroy beauty. I guess it_s part of humanity, unfortunately.It was a really powerful movie.
L: I was born on the same day as the Marquis De Sade. I'm very familiar with all of his philosophies, which I think have been completely underrated.
R: (laughing with glee) I think he was a really beautiful guy!
L: He was very brave, I don't think any of us would have been able to write
such a copious amount of litanies, while being incarcerated in prison for 17 years.
R: It's so funny, though, sometimes I laugh at the Marquis De Sade, because
it_s as if he_s somewhat snickering behind the curtain as he wrote it.
L:His poetry and philosophy are often overlooked, especially considering the
time period he was bookended in. What about authors? Does your favorite
change every few years?
R: Yes it does. I really like Virginia Wolfe a lot, most people whenever I
mention Virginia Wolfe, say...ooh it sounds really boring, because they've
usually read only one thing. But she had this way of writing really really
long beautiful sentences that capture these moments in time. She really
captures what it feels like to be alive to me, more than anybody else I
know, that incredible longing and sadness that goes with every second of
life passing by. I think she was another one who was incredibly depressed,
also incredibly aware of the beauty in life. I think she really really tried
to stick around as long as she could. Because it was such a beautiful world,
and god, every day it seems like it was hell for her, but she still wanted
to get up and do something, even though I think it was struggle, and there
weren't any anti-depressants back then...(Big laugh) but I really liked her a lot. I like "To the Lighthouse".
L: Music?
R: Music! I really like Leonard Cohen a lot, he's a big inspiration to me,
I think I like him because he's a Jew and I'm a Jew. I feel his perspective
is pretty close to mine in a lot of ways. I think he had a lot more sex than
I did, with a lot more beautiful women.
L: Hmmmm
R: Beyond that , I think I can relate to him.
L: Now he's Buddhist.
R: Yeah I think a lot of Jews become Buddist, there's a real link to it, they_re both so much about suffering and existence and not trying to pretend that everything's going to be a brighter day tomorrow. There's certain tenets of Christianity that just repel Jews
and make it impossible for them to accept . One is sin, and two redemption. But Buddism is a nice stepping stone for Jews, for them to think they have a way of understanding all the nastiness of the world without having to resort to "We're all doomed."
L: I hear a little Pixies in some of your songs, and Gene says he hears some
Pere Ubu. Were either of these groups an influence to you?
R: I'm sure they are, I've listened to both those bands quite a bit. But I
don't sit down and say now I'm going to rip off the Pixies but I'm sure if
you listen to a band enough and you like them, then those kinds of things
trickle through.
L: What I really enjoy about your music is the bizarre androgyny apparent,
for instance in lyrics you've written and Brett sings. I think that's a
really beautiful twist.
R: I like the fact, I think as a woman it's really difficult to...there_s
certain things you want to talk about as a woman, but sometimes it's hard to
have them seem believable coming from your mouth, so he's sometimes my voice
when I want to write about things, like, oh I don_t know, axe murdering.
It's just more believable from a male point of view...
L: THAT'S BECAUSE ENOUGH OF US HAVEN'T DONE IT!
R: I KNOW!
L: Lizzie Border is not enough...
R: We_re not well represented in some areas.(laughs)
L: Maybe we just haven't been caught because we_re just better criminals.
R: Maybe
L: We get away with it more often
R: Poisoning is so much more subtle...
L:I guess....
R: I think Wendy Ruth Judd chopped up a bunch of people and put their bodies
in trunks. There are female ax murderers out there....
L: Well because women usually kill out of passion, their crimes, especially
murder is usually within the family, or within their relationships, where
when men kill, it's often because of what they lack, what they don't
possess.
R:But as a writer, for me, it's liberating to have someone else read, or
read and sing and be my voice because otherwise I feel like it becomes too much like people just assume it's an entry from my diary. I want a song to feel like a song
that anybody can sing, it's not so much about the singer, but more about the
song. It should be interchangeable. A good song should be able to be sung by
anybody.
L: Do you always agree on your material?
R: Oh no...we don't agree on anything, he's all wrong and I'm right. Sure we argue a lot, but arguing's part of the creative process. It's interesting to work with people, most of my life I worked alone as a writer, it's more interesting. We end up coming up with things that neither one of us would do on their own. And usually neither one of us quite 100 percent understands what we're doing. So we have that gray area that neither one of
us can lay claim to. Which is nice.
L: What were you doing before The Handsome Family?
R: Brett was in bands writing music, and I was writing stories on my own.
L: Where was that?
R: We lived in Michigan and Chicago for awhile before we actually became a
band. It was a lot of lonely toiling. It was fun to work with somebody,
especially since I was already living with him anyway, so it was nice to...
L: Put him to work.
R:Yeah. I think that_s kinda how it happened, he was working on the music,
and tired of rewriting some lyrics, so he said, "You look at them, you_re a
writer." So I started looking at them and I said you know that song would be
much better if instead of just saying "I'm sorry I left you, and we had a great night together that one night stand" why don_t we make it that he drags her in the woods, and clubs her and leaves her body in a cave, wouldn't that be much more interesting? We both sort of immediately took to it.
L: And you're living in the Southwest now?
R: In Albuquerque, Brett's from here, we moved back here for him. I've
always wanted to live here. Every time I came to visit, I ended up not
wanting to leave.There's big, big horizons.
L: Music videos...I like the enhanced CD music video on Through The Trees. How do you feel about videos in general. Would you like to make more?
R: Well, it seems a little ridiculous.
L: Yeah, I've never made a music video...
R: Every time we've made one, it_s usually a director who wants to do it for free, because we never have any funding for it, so we're usually kinda under their thumb, and the first thing they say is "I've got this little girl we want to put in it" and the second thing is "I've got this old man"...always little girls and old men...and there's a lot of real trite images that video directors seem to propose.
L: But that's a beautiful video
R: Oh, that's nice, but I've never really made a video that I wanted to
make.
L: Steal a camera!
R: Yeah, I've thought about it...now that it's getting so easy to edit videos. Maybe for our next record we'll do one. I kinda feel like it takes away from the song in a way.
L: That's how we feel too...
R: It takes the fun away. I want people to make the video in their head.
L: And you have so much mystery in your music anyway.
R: I think even on the basic level of , "is this song funny or sad? If it's
funny, then you're tilting the balance one way. And I don't like to do that.
L: So where you going on your tour?
R: We're going all over. England, Ireland, Scotland, Europe. For two
months.We do a lot better over there. Europeans tend to not have so much
trouble with the basic stumbling blocks that most Americans have. Like "Is
that a funny song, or a sad song? It can't be both." And if it's a sad song
then "Why are you so depressed? And why would you want to write a sad
song?"
L: And on your return, then what?
R: Then hopefully we_ll have some time off. Do some gardening, I got some cactuses I need to plant. Everything out here is a cactus though, I'm finding, even plants I'm familiar with from out East, you touch them here and they have thorns on them! And they're growing in strange shapes, they've been distorted from the sunlight and lack of water into these strange killing machines.
L: A lot like your songs.
R: (laughs)
L: You're probably in the right location.
R: And the BUGS! Giant bugs out here. There's a lot to inspire you out here,
so I'll be happy to get home again.
-finis-