First of all, if you don't know COMETBUS magazine, let me get you up to speed. COMETBUS was started by Aaron Elliot, who began with a handwritten, xeroxed 'zine of stories about his adventures as a semi-homeless part-time wandering punk from the Bay Area. Over the years he has put out many issues, always hard copy only. There is no COMETBUS website, and no COMETBUS on the internet. Reading COMETBUS is a very intimate, personal thing, and you always feel like part of a little anarchist family. At least I do.
I met Aaron in 1987 or so in Richmond. He came to a show or something and ended up coming over to drink tequila on my porch. We stayed in touch ever since, and when he asked me if I would want to do an interview, I was really thrilled. And because I've known Aaron for a long time, and because it's such a homemade personal 'zine, I talked about some stuff I normally don't do. Usually it's considered career suicide to ever talk bad about anybody, besides just being rude, since the other person isn't there to defend themselves. But in this case I felt OK about venting, because unless you buy COMETBUS in your local alternative bokstore, this interview won't be on the internet except right here on my site. And I'm HOPING that if you are reading my site, you're already on my side!
Well, enough chit-chat. Here's the interview:

1) You join a band and quickly realize that the guitarist is a psychotic asshole. What do you do? You've already committed to a tour.

Aaron, it is so timely that you asked me that, because that actually happened to me recently! Here’s the story, for anybody who doesn’t know:
After 3 ½ years of constant touring with the Moby band I was really tired and needed a break from all that traveling. So I quit and went back to Richmond, where I joined a really good metal band. The guitarist was sketchy right off the bat (it seems like the guitarist is ALWAYS the problem!), but he said all the right things about sharing publishing and everything, so I ignored the fact that he has no friends who have lasted more than about 2 years, and that he never once invited me to his house. It was like a bad relationship: I really loved the music, the drummer was great, and I knew that with my experience and good will in the industry, we could really make something happen, so I just chose to ignore all those red flags telling me “Something is wrong with this picture”. And I kept ON hanging on and refusing to face reality all the way through recording and pressing the CD, which I spent all my Moby savings on. I loved the music so much that I just thought that I could make it work by force of will. But instead it just got worse.

Everything finally went into the toilet when I tried to get my money out of the other members for the recording; the drummer and singer paid up, but I could not get the guitarist to pay his share. Eventually, while I was out of town, the other band members STOLE the master tapes out of the studio where they were being stored, and then they BROKE INTO MY HOUSE and stole the safety masters, which were supposed to go be stored at the studio as soon as everyone was paid up. I can’t even imagine what was going through their little pea brains to make them think THAT was a good idea. I guess they thought I was going to take the record around and act like I wrote all the songs, and try to get MYSELF a record deal or something. Which would be ridiculous.

They lost custody of the tapes, anyway, when they took them to another studio intending to record over my parts, but then they got in a fight with that studio when they didn’t pay their bill and that was the end of that, so, NEENER-NEENER-NEENER!!! Yes, I AM still in kindergarten!!

My boyfriend thinks I should just get over the whole thing already, because it’s been a couple years, but it still bothers me that I could have been SUCH a bad judge of character, and been so willfully blind, when I was old enough to know better. It really is exactly like a very intense relationship that goes horribly wrong. You obsess on it and regret all the lost potential, and kick yourself for being a fool, and wish you had done things differently. I have vented about it in a couple interviews already, which everybody knows you are NEVER supposed to do. In interviews you are supposed to be Mr/Ms Shiny-Happy-Positive-Pants, and never say anything bad about anyone else, otherwise you come off as bitter, and that is a big no-no. But I must say, talking about it really does help! In fact, I feel much better now! Who’s ready for a sandwich?

2) You've talked about returning to Richmond once New York is done with you--literally, and also, I think, as an analogy for your career. But is it really so easy to go back? Doesn't a public life and the roar of the crowd become addictive and hard to live without?

I tell you what, right now I am SO SOUR on the whole music business, that I kind of don’t want to even BE in a band again as long as I live!

Aside from that, though, for me the best part of being a musician is traveling around, seeing the world, and making new friends. I’m not playing all that much right now, but it isn’t really the “roar of the crowd” that I miss, it’s the chance to travel. I don’t think I ever told you this, Aaron, but - how long have we known each other and how long have I been reading your adventures in Cometbus? About 20 years, I think - there have been times in my life when I was horribly trapped, mostly by being poor. As you know, when you’re poor, your choices are few and your horizons are narrow. When I was stuck in Richmond earning 75 dollars a week or whatever, I used to read Cometbus as a way to vicariously get the feeling of going somewhere. It really helped.

Nowadays I am very grateful to have done all kinds of touring, from getting in the van with Unseen Force in the mid-80s to touring the world in a bus with Moby in the late 90s. I have to say, it’s great to have a bunk on a big bus and get fed 3x a day, but my favorite thing is still to get in the van and drive to some shitty little nightclub and play with 3 or 4 other bands who will never be on MTV, and just enjoy the creativity and freedom of the non-corporate music scene. And I expect I can keep right on being part of that whether I’m based in NYC or Richmond.

3) Does the contrast between performing and private life lead one to develop a split personality?

I don’t think so. You know how normal people look forward to Halloween and really enjoy dressing up and acting crazy for 1 day? Well, for musicians, every day is Halloween!

4) Anyone ever try to impersonate you or steal your identity?

No, but that happened to Moby. There is a shortish bald guy in Las Vegas who goes around pretending to be Mo, and getting free drinks and chicks out of it! I figure, if you’re dumb enough to fall for that, you deserve to have it cost you a few drinks.

5) My friend Chris says that in 1977, in State College, Pennsylvania, when she was 8, you were the very first punk rocker she saw. Standing downtown, head to toe in leopard print, carrying a boom box.
To her frozen stare you replied, "Take a picture, kid. It'll last longer."
Now, Greta, where'd you get that line?

Ooh Aaron, I still feel badly about that! I should never have been so snarky to an 8-year old. Luckily, I guess Chris wasn’t too scarred by the experience though, since she grew up to be a terrific photographer and the editor of Slug and Lettuce ‘zine!

6) You tour Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. Great--but do all these new experiences only alienate you in the long run if none of your friends can relate?

Hmm, I dunno. You know, I was born overseas and we didn’t even come to this country until I was 7, and then I had a weird Trinidadian accent that did NOT go over well in central Pennsylvania…so I’ve always been an outcast, and I always find it hard to feel like part of the crowd anyway. That’s why I like being a musician; other musicians generally have had interesting lives with some traveling, so we have some things in common.

7) Given any thought to your dying words or epitaph? Funeral plans?

My epitaph, if it were honest, should say something like: “She did pretty well considering what she had to work with”. I have suffered from low-grade depression and poverty (which pretty much always go together) for most of my life. I got off on the wrong foot in this country, too; the other kids HATED me when I got to America, I was too smart and a teacher’s pet. And, everybody knows you don’t get anywhere in the music business unless you have money or family in the industry, and I had neither. Yet I managed to have had a really interesting career, a little bit of financial success, and I have good will all over the industry and am on good terms with probably 98% of everyone I’ve ever worked with. I am really proud of that.

8) Anyone you're still trying to prove yourself to--whether a parent or teacher or elder or idol, or even an ideal--even if they are long dead or never proved themselves or even paid attention to you?

Well, I got affirmation from my Dad when he signed my guestbook on my website “I’m proud to be your Dad” but I already knew he was cool with me. I got a good Dad.

The more ongoing struggle is of being a woman in a man’s world of music. I have to prove myself OVER and OVER and OVER again, and frankly, it gets really exhausting. By now I have earned a good deal of respect thanks to having endorsements and having appeared in ads and so on, but with people who don’t already know me, it’s still a constant struggle to be taken seriously. I expect it’s probably the same for women in all the other areas of life though.

9) And to yourself--are there promises you've made or things you still feel the need to prove?

Well, I’ve done pretty well for myself as far as being a professional musician, as I said. Still, I wish I could be a happier person. I’m way better now than I was 20 years ago when the depression was really pretty crippling, but now that I have nothing to gripe about I’m still moody. What’s up with that? I think the French are really on to something when they say “It’s just not human nature to be happy. Americans are a bunch of dumbasses for thinking they can be.” I’m paraphrasing, but it seems true to me.

10) Band-themed dreams or nightmares you've had?

I have a lot of tour dreams. Even before I was touring all the time, I would have a lot of dreams where I’m with a small group of friends and we are on some kind of adventure going somewhere or doing something. Then when I started touring a lot, the dreams were often about gigs; I’m late for soundcheck or lost backstage. Now that I think about it, I hardly ever dream about actually PLAYING, more about the venue or the traveling.

11) Other uses for a bass?

If you think of any, let me know! Mostly mine just sits in the corner taking up room!

12) Ever get tired of being the session player in someone else's band and want to be the one who calls all the shots and tells everyone else what to do? Or is that just not really your nature?

Well, now that I have had the experience of being the one with the money who could make the decisions, I will say that it is a good feeling to be able to make things happen, but I should have been a lot MORE of a control freak and then maybe things wouldn’t have gone so far off the rails. It really is not my nature to be the fascist dictator; I’m a bass player after all! What I am good at, and what I enjoy, is being supportive of an artist and inventing a good bassline for their material and helping arrange so the artist can express themselves and feel comfortable. I also like doing interviews, and I like driving; I’m great with maps. If only they made maps for life, I would have loved to have one!