Thursday, June 19, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Music: Quoth the rocker

Lou Reed talks past, present and Poe

By Newt Briggs

The '70s were a fickle time for Lou Reed. Hailed for his visionary--if somewhat narcotic--work with The Velvet Underground in the 1960s, Reed struggled to reconcile this critical acclaim with his lack of widespread commercial success, and he soon left the band to pursue a solo career. A year later, he charged into the mainstream with the only Top 20 single of his career, "Walk on the Wild Side." But celebrity proved a bad fit for Reed, and with 1975's Metal Machine Music--an hour-long onslaught of unlistenable guitar noise--he effectively sabotaged his own fame (his label later issued a public apology to all distributors that carried the album).

Still, Reed waited until this year to do perhaps the most unexpected album of his 30-plus years in the music industry: a two-CD homage to Edgar Allen Poe titled The Raven. Featuring guest performances by David Bowie, Elizabeth Ashley, Ornette Coleman, Steve Buscemi and Willem Dafoe, The Raven blends original musical arrangements with Reed's contemporary interpretations of Poe's stories and poems. Coupled with the release of a new comprehensive retrospective, NYC Man: The Ultimate Lou Reed Collection, The Raven has aroused a renewed interest in his work, and recently, the 61-year-old Reed found a moment to talk with the Mercury about the past, the present and his passion for Poe.

Mercury: I recently saw you play "Walk on the Wild Side" with Conan O'Brien and Jack Black and Adam Sandler on that "Saturday Night Live" TV special for autism awareness. If you don't mind me saying, you looked rather miserable.

Lou Reed: Oh, come on. It was a joke, Newt. You didn't think it was funny?

M: To be honest, once Adam Sandler started singing gibberish, it looked like a joke gone terribly, terribly wrong.

R: Maybe you just didn't get it.

M: Maybe. So how many "Best of Lou Reed" compilations are there?

R: It would be easier if you asked, "How many are there that I approved of?"

M: How many are there that you approved of?

R: Five.

M: What makes NYC Man different from the rest?

R: The technology I was able to bring to the project. Also, we got the original tape for every song. It made it possible for us to improve things and make it sound in some cases better than the record, which I was never able to do on the other ones. I was able to do some stuff that for me was really wonderful and for the listener will certainly offer more bang for the buck than any other compilation that's out there.

M: Is it tough for you to try to encapsulate three decades of work in a single album?

R: Well. I would like them to do a part two. I've still got 500 songs left.

M: That's amazing. Did you ever consider including something from Metal Machine Music on the new compilation?

R: Not on this one. We did on a Canadian one once.

M: It seems like such a significant musical departure in your career that you'd almost have to include at least an excerpt from it to have a true retrospective.

R: We've tried that before. It's just not fair to the work to break it up and include only a snippet.

M: Some critics might say it wouldn't be fair to the audience to include it at all.

R: [Silence]

M: What kind of band are you traveling with for the tour?

R: A cello, synth guitar, real guitar, keyboard synth, synth drums, stand-up bass, bowed bass, fretless bass and another vocalist--Antony--who was featured on The Raven.

M: That's quite an entourage. What kind of material are you doing at your shows?

R: We're doing everything from the Velvet Underground on. We're going to perform "The Raven"--the actual poem set to music--and two other songs from The Raven.

M: Will you be reading the poem or is someone else handling those duties?

R: No, me. The author will read it.

M: But he's been dead for 150 years.

R: You're kidding.

M: Since we're talking about Poe, some critics have linked you two artistically--the bleak world view, the history of drug use, and so on. Do you feel that kind of personal connection with him?

R: He is a great writer. He's one of the greatest of American writers. His vocabulary is incredible. His understanding of human psychology is masterful. That's the reason I took on the project.

M: Were you ever concerned that by changing the stories and poems you were somehow corrupting the work?

R: No. Never. Not for a second. It's amazing that people ask that. It's so silly.

M: What about with the album itself--did you worry that people would think you were crazy for trying to pull something like that off?

R: I follow my passion. What else can I do?