The Robert Millis interview
Are you originally from Seattle, WA? What was your childhood like and how did you initially get into music? Was music something that was relevant around your household, or was this something you found entirely on your own? Do you have any siblings?
I’m from New York. Long Island to be precise. Music was not terribly relevant around our house; my mom sung along, usually out of tune, to schmaltzy hits of the day. Barry Manilow. Rod Stewart. But also weirdly liked the Pogues and also Meatloaf. My dad simply insisted he was tone-deaf. He was always interested more in equipment—he built his own amplifier and stereo, but never listened much to music. Not sure exactly how I ended up interested in music and pursuing it as a career, if you can call what I have a “career”. I listened endlessly to Beatles records as a kid, though also loved old Disney and comedy records. I think the interest was always as much in sound as it was in music. Sound effects in TV shows, footsteps in echoey spaces, voices, birds, cars on uneven roads…I grew up near the water and always loved harbor sounds: waves lapping, boats rattling and vibrating while at anchor, halyards gently slapping against masts. A heavy impression was left by accidentally listening to Jelly Roll Morton’s 1920s recordings when I was in high school. So the 78rpm/vintage music rabbit hole opened up and I fell in and have never been able to dig myself out.
What would you do for fun back in the day before music took over? Who were among some of the first groups, or artists that left a heavy impression on you?
Further impressions were made by books and films—Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout, Herzog’s Aguirre the Wrath of God, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali. Ursula K Le Guin, Paul Bowles… Too many to mention. Perhaps the biggest impression was made by moving to London when I was about 12. My Dad was a journalist and was stationed in London for 15 years. The sights and sounds and art and music of London completely blew my tiny isolated American suburban brain. (Before we moved, a cousin asked me if I had to learn a new language… To move to England? You know, where ENGLISH comes from… There are morons everywhere.)
How did you initially meet your bandmates Dave Abramson, Jeffery Taylor and the great Scott Colburn? When and where did you guys first get together to jam/rehearse and what was that initial chemistry like between everyone? When did the band officially start playing gigs and what were those early days like?
Jeffery Taylor and I started working together as Climax Golden Twins in about 1993 (NOT Golden Climax Twins… Not sure why people always move the “golden” to be in front, perhaps the thought of a golden climax is too good to ignore). We met while working for glass artist Dale Chihuly. I’d moved to Seattle to escape New York and to live some place new, driving across the country Jack Kerouac style in a 1962 Ford Econoline van with a cat and girlfriend. Jeffery and I shared an instant bond over out-jazz and unusual sounds and experimentation. By this point I was very interested (still am) in musique concrete, tape music, collage and traditional music, especially traditional music from non-western cultures. What exactly is “traditional music”? Who the hell knows. But I’m trying to find out. So Climax Golden Twins has always been more of an art project than a proper band, if that makes sense. We have occasionally made a run at being a “proper” band—playing for a few years with the fantastic drummer Dave Abramson for example—but always at heart CGT was a duo trying to realize on tape what we heard in our heads; trying to wring an interesting composition out of a field recording or sound experiment. All sounds seemed to be fair play. Our work has gone in many directions—meditative drones, field recording, collage, rock, horror film soundtracks, but always there is an interest in tone and texture. There is music and melody and harmony in so many different sounds, not just what we think of as “music”. Scott Colburn, who we worked with in the early 2000s, recorded some of our records and styled himself our “producer” but really we produced ourselves, as CGT was all about our own idiosyncrasies and prurient interests.
The band has recorded a huge, electrifying body of work from ‘94 up until now. What is your favorite work that you’ve created with the group in the last nearly 30 years and why? What are you most proud of when it comes to GCT?
I suppose the Climax release I am most proud of is Dream Cut Short in the Mysterious Clouds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oSzI2ObLNM ), composed with many short experimental vignettes. I also love our latest record—just released (https://climaxgoldentwins.bandcamp.com/album/climax-golden-twins ) which relates stylistically and compositionally to our very first release from 1994 and features many guests and friends. Forced Exposure called it a “Sprawling double LP masterpiece” Haha. They should know.
‘02 saw the debut of your solo work with the great Sir Richard Bishop as well as your CGT under the moniker “Messenger Girls Trio”. Can you tell me about writing and recording that record together? How did the deal with Anomalous Records? How did you want to approach this collaborative project?
Messenger Girls Trio… This started as a weekly jam/hang out session with myself, Sir Richard Bishop, Jeffery Taylor and music therapist Dave Knott. All improvising on acoustic guitars, with the odd song thrown in for good measure. There may have been drugs involved. Quite often there was dinner. For some reason we got up the gumption to collage together some of the endless recordings we had made and the result was released by Anomalous Records, a great but now defunct experimental label run by Eric Lanzillotta. There was no “writing and recording” in the traditional sense. Just improvising, making each other laugh, and editing in living rooms around Seattle.
I first heard of your work much later in ‘16 with the release of “The Lonesome High” on Abduction Records. Can you tell me about writing and recording that record and what the overall vision was for it? If I may, I’d like to say how much of a blessing it was to do a split release with you ‘18. What my favorites I released!
The Lonesome High… Well, despite being interested in the avant-garde, I have always had a deep love for song writing and ear worms and pop music. The Beatles, as previously stated, were huge influences, but also singer songwriters—Dylan, Neil Young—and American folk and country music; murder ballads, banjo break downs, cowboy songs, blues… The Anthology of American Folk music was certainly a big influence. I’ve written songs my whole life and since that side of me rarely came out in Climax Golden Twins it seemed appropriate to make a solo recording. It was so easy as I had the songs and they just poured out and bang the LP was done. Alan Bishop always liked my songs and so agreed to put the record out on his Abduction label. I think this record sort of confuses people because if I am known for anything it is Climax Golden Twins, the Session Nine movie soundtrack, 78rpm research, Sublime Frequencies, and so on… In an ideal world I would be better at combining these different directions into one. I work towards that, especially in some of my solo live shows; my listening works the same way—from an LP of old 1920s blues songs to an LP of Indian classical music to Eliane Radigue. It’s not an attention span thing, I don’t lose interest in one type of sound or get bored, I just have wide ranging interests and love hearing how different musics sit together.
I prefer to look for connections rather than differences. I think most people do, but the music industry is so geared towards genre and digital services toward predictive algorithms that we don’t get the chance to exercise our natural curiosity as much as we should. The music industry, surprise surprise, is about making money and not about taking chances. Better to serve up the same thing that worked once rather than risk something new. The art world can be a little bit better maybe, in theory at least—you may follow someone’s carer because you respect their artistic choices, not because you want the same thing over and over. I’m generalizing here, but you get the idea. On the Lonesome High I was obviously influenced by old song styles—I covered The Drowsy Sleeper, an old ballad that comes handed down in many malleable versions. This is something we have forgotten in “traditional” music—these old songs changed depending on who sang them, when they sang them. Verses and characters were interchanged. Morals moved around to suit the audience. Melodies forgotten and then reused in different songs. Dylan understands this. But a lot of “folk revivalists” don’t, despite thinking they do. Music should not be kept in amber, it needs to grow. Sure, listen to the past, learn from it, but don’t copy it.
When did you start working with the fine folks over at Sublime Frequencies traveling and doing film work? I understand you love collecting and documenting 48’ RPM records as well as Victrolas and other “Talk Machines”.
As I said my interest in early recording goes way back to accidentally listening to Jelly Roll Morton when I should have been listening to Led Zeppelin like most of my classmates. What began as an interest in the music—country blues, songsters, 1920s jazz, ethnographic recordings from around the world—developed into a fascination with the history of recording and the old machines (Edison cylinder players, Victrolas, Gramophones, etc—these used to be called Talking Machines). I collect 78rpm records, not 45rpm, you youngster! Haha. I have been lucky enough to get grants to research the first recordings made in countries like India and Japan. I use this research to make historical compilations of music from the 1920s and earlier and it also informs my work as a sound artist and musician—on one hand I play many old songs and the styles of music and music making from back then are influential on my songwriting, but I also use Edison cylinder and 78rpm samples and recordings of old Talking Machines in my more abstract experimental work. You can hear this in a lot of Climax Golden Twins. The early days of recording are fascinating—imagine the entire world hearing itself for the first time, beginning to be able to archive and document its expressions, after thousands of years of silent history… A big turning point in human development and one we have not begun to understand. Some of my work with 78rpm records and talking machines has turned up on the Sublime Frequencies label, along with other projects of mine. I have worked with Sublime from its beginning. We are all friends and enjoy sharing records and videos we made or discovered while traveling. One thing leads to another… 78rpm records, experiments, songs, travel, sound arts—all different paths of my oddball career, interconnected but different… I could talk about each for far too long, but I think I have gone on plenty long enough.
Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
And thanks—I love our split cassette too, I think the two sides compliment each other quite well. Some day soon I hope to work on another “song oriented” release. Plenty of time left. Until there isn’t.
