Singer/songwriters Jason Hill and Brian Karscig have been busy with their own solo stuff – Jason produced and played on the new New York Dolls album and is putting together a platter of his own, while Brian created Nervous Wreckords. But after their late-year CONVOY reunion (a band most of ‘em were in before even Louis), it seemed that the air had not totally gone outta the LouisXIV Zeppelin. (Woo double entendre!)

Fans at the show described it as a bit tentative, that perhaps newly-reformed-ish Louis lads (Hill, Karscig, drummer Mark Maigaard and bassist James Armbrust) were a bit nervous. They also commented that the stage was a mile too high, thus negating much crowd interaction, but hey,whatchoo expect? First gig in two years? Uh hello, rusty!

Nevermind. When I asked, Karscig described the gig as fun, “familiar…and right.” So that’s good, hey? But I had a few more Q’s for the bearded hatman. Questions, such as:

Did you arm wrestle over the set list?
Brian Karscig: Not really, I think we all agreed that our 19 song set was what everyone wanted to hear, and we each got to have our one selfish moment with our individual favorites in the set as well.  But songs like “The Distances From Everyone to You”, “All the Little Pieces”, “Hopesick” and other big epics I know Jason and I have been really enjoying going back and listening to those recordings.

What brought the reunion about? And why now?
Well, before LXIV, Mark, Jason, and I were in  CONVOY.  We did a reunion of that band largely for one of the most instrumental members who left the music scene, our good friend and CONVOY star, band mate Robbie Dodds.  That reunion got Mark, Jason, andmyself back on stage, and playing music together again for the first time since the hiatus of LXIV after the last UK/EU/AUS tour.  It was so much fun, and really put us back in touch, and I think we all realized, even with our other musical endeavors we are happy pursuing individually now, we also realized how much we miss playingtogether as well.

New album in the works? Girl needs details.
Well…we’ll see. Jason and I holed up in a Los Angeles studio for a couple of days, drank wine, made dinner, caught up with each other face to face for the first time in a long time, then the next thing you know…..something really magical happened.

Creatively, we hadn’t lost a step as far as how we work together, and it was almost scary how cool of a song we came up with after not really collaborating together in awhile.  If we can do that 9-10 more times, there could be an album, but we’ve put no pressure or plans in writing, so to speak.

Jason is working on some solo material that sounds great! [BSR note - Hill sent me a couple of tracks a year ago and they're total earworms. Loved them...if they make it on this platter, one's a groovy slow track, the other's a T-Rex-ian stomper] and I am working on a new Nervous Wreckords album as we speak that we are really excited about.

After this show, our chemistry, and the time we have been spending together, I think we both realize that we love having our creative freedoms and individual outlets, but we do write some great songs together. \m/

Thanks to Indi Flowers for the photos!

Nope. Not often.

So when LouisXIV’s singer, producer, musician-type Jason Hill casually mentioned this, I was all over it like a rash.

Like, Sylvain Sylvain and David Johansen? PERSONALITY CRISIS? Fah reals?

Naturally, I did what only the BackstageRider would do: I sent him off with homework: answer my questions, keep a bit of a diary and send me some photos that nobody else would have.

Here’s my interview with Jason Hill, conducted during the recording of the irreplaceable New York Dolls’ new album Dancing Backwards in High Heels:

What’s it been like recording with the New York Dolls?
It’s been a true pleasure, one of my favorite experiences I’ve ever had. A lot of work. But the kind of work that, after a 16-hour day, you still want to hang around and can’t wait to get back the next day.

"The view of Newcastle from my hotel room during our interview"

Where are you recording?
All the recording has been in Newcastle, England at a studio in an area called Stepney Bank. It’s been nice to get away from California for the month and a half. We started in New York, writing with Sylvain and David and I in a rehearsal space for a few days and then came here. We played six shows, with me on bass, in Scotland and a few here in Newcastle down the street from the studio. Just to try out some of the material, although by the time we started recording we completely changed the tracks that we had been performing for the most part.  I’ll end up mixing it here over the next week.

The record label rented us a six-bedroom house with a nice indoor pool and a gorgeous view of the city. The view at night actually looks a lot like the view from Mulhulland Drive into the valley just up the way from my place in Los Angeles. So it actually felt a lot like home.

But it was really such a wonderful time with all of us being around each other all the time along with Mara, David’s girl whom was such a nice stabilizing and relaxing force around us. Because of Mara, we met a few nice girls who ran a bar just down the street called the Ship and they would come around each day to feed us and sort us out with whatever. Without them it would have been like we were sailors out at sea. We so far have worked every day except two in the last six weeks. But, really, the entire record was written and recorded in around three weeks. Ridiculously creative period.  I’ll probably finish mixing the album here but maybe mess about a bit at my studio in LA called Ulysses if need be. But something is telling me to just finish and capture the moment.

What is the band like to work with?
Some of the best fun I’ve ever had making a record. David and Sylvain both have very strong qualities that complement each other, very different strengths. David is so good with words and so funny, and Syl has a very intuitive way with songs.

Most of the songs came from these little demos that Syl made in his basement in Atlanta, where it would be him on a organ and that’s all, or maybe a guitar and just humming out something with a bit of a chorus sort of tag. And then we just came in and made something out of them. A lot of the inspiration came from these demos because they had such a raw and primitive quality that we instantly knew that we had to keep the songs that way while still making them actually into finished thoughts and songs.

But nobody was rigid about anything and they let me sort of lead the thing and trusted me very much. So for me, I was able to really feel like we could make something incredible. It can be really uninteresting to produce something that you have no control over, at least for me, it’s not really fun. So with this, I was very much in the band and allowed to build off and bring out the others’ strengths and help create something unique.

How is the music sounding? What did you and the band want to achieve?
I think we all just wanted to have a good time and make something cool. I’ve gotten asked to do a lot of records and most of the time I say no, because you have to really believe in what you are doing or don’t do it, you know.

But when the Dolls asked me I instantly said yes.

I wanted to make the record that I wanted to hear from The New York Dolls, at this place in their lives, after all the drugs and touring, years of living, the make-up and high heels, the big ups and the big downs, find a true place not just posturing…

…which was a bit of an empty canvas, and I think the guys wanted to make the same kind of record. I’m not exactly sure what they wanted aside from making something that was relevant and cool.

I think once we recorded the first song a slow moody track called “Kids Like You” that we all realized we were actually making something important. I say that with humility, knowing the pompous statement that it is but for me something just clicked with that song.

We had spent a couple of days with Brian Delaney (Dolls drummer) and I experimenting with the drums, trying to find out what the sound was going to be and then we just leaped and stumbled into it magically and once he could hear it, I had him play to Syl’s organ from the basement demo he had done in Atlanta and this glorious, lazy Cuban shuffle of the drums came about.

We called in Frank and he picked up a slide and in one take played this incredibly weepy and drugged slide guitar, I then put on the bass in a take and then as I nearly cried pacing around the control room listening to the beauty of the track, David who was sitting quietly in the back of the room, said “I think I have something”.

David Johansen (lying) and Jason discuss lyrics, pic by Mara Hennessey

To be honest, I was nervous because it sounded so breathtaking I wanted to swim in it for a while without any vocals, just bathe in its sound.

It was so mesmerizing, but he went in and in one take he just laid out the most inspiring vocal performance and words, that just moved me so much. I was floored and at that moment I realized as I think the others did too that we were making was something important. It wasn’t going to be big bash heavy guitars, no World War III that was going to move us, we were going to make beautiful landscapes with grand canyon depth.

I truly was holding back tears at that moment, I was moved so deeply. Now not all of the record is like that, it’s raucous, wild and fun at times, but we started in a true place that made us all raise the bar and see what the record could be and that was a new place, a place that none of us had seen before and we were all excited and felt blessed to be there.

Other places, like the girl-group influence of the 60s like Patti Labelle and the Blubelles or the Ronnettes, that we always heard on the Dolls early stuff, in their scrappy and adoring way, is very much there.

We just went places that turned us on. I certainly didn’t care to do a record, and I know David and Syl felt this way as well, that that was what people expected from The New York Dolls. They’ve already done that, they invented it. So that meant we could do anything. They are refreshingly in love with the process of making a record and just letting what comes out happen. That adventurous spirit is really why we gelled so well. Frankie Infante (original guitarist from Blondie) was also playing for the first time with the Dolls and he’s the same way. He was so funny, always a little spaced out in a very amusing fashion. But a hell of a player, usually his first impression was the best, same with Brian who was so talented that we just hit it off as well. We really spent a long time on making the drums sound unique, which is a big passion of mine, but in that it was so easy to explore with Brian. For such talented guys there hasn’t been a trace of ego around at any time.

Legendary New York Doll David Johansen fetches a cup of tea, pic by Mara Hennessey

Who’s the most fun out of the band and why?

I love all the guys. Syl is the most social by far. He is always with a glass of wine and no matter whom it is, he loved to just talk with strangers or anyone. He was born in Egypt and then moved to Paris as a kid to escape from anti-Semitism that was sweeping Egypt at the time.

So I would often wake up to him listening to French radio or talking in French with Mara.  He reminds me a lot of Brian from Louis XIV in a lot of ways actually. Very sweet guy. Syl always has a mischievous little smile on his face and when he starts laughing, it’s really great, he’s like a little kid that way.

David, though, is the funniest, he’s quite a comedian and his attitude about life is just contagious. He’s very smart and deep and has a huge knowledge of old music, amazing 50s doo-wap and so much about life.

He’s truly a philosopher, but not in the smug aspect, more in this lust for living and truths of sorts. The guy has been through so much, you can see the hardship in his eyes but there’s always a sparkle in there too that lightens the entire room. I’ve definitely learned a lot from David, mostly about the life I’d like to live. The way he is with Mara, the two of them together is quite inspiring as well, they are always joined at the hip, but it’s a nice thing. We spent a lot of time laughing in the studio and back at the house. He is always spouting out whatever comes to his mind, always with strange and unique references.  His mind is a very fascinating place.

A late night with Jason Hill

Who’s the most intense?
No one is really intense. Not in personality. I think I always take recordings very seriously, this record has reminded me not to be so precious. I mean, it’s always a big fun time, laughing and joking around but there’s a seriousness in me about art and the importance of it when it’s really good.

I am always trying to pursue something that I find interesting and moving, and when it’s not, I can’t rest my mind. I love just making something from nothing, they do as well. When we came here we had next to nothing except a few very raw demos of chords and moods and few phrases, but we made it into something. I love that, I live for that actually. My first conversation with David, he just laughed and said there weren’t any songs yet but they will come. He was right.

This record has proven more to me once more to trust in that.

As David said to me last night around 3am, as we were going back and forth on a line in a song, “It’s just a rock n roll record.” And then he belted out a big David Johansen laugh.  David has taught me a lot just by being around him. But to answer your question, I would probably be the most intense, as I was the whip cracker.

Did you ever stop and think, holy crap, I’m working with the New York Dolls?
Yes, on several occasions. My highschool self that had a Dolls t-shirt and the first Dolls record and a Johnny Thunders bootleg record, thinking I was so cool, I’m sure, would be very jealous but probably insanely proud.

When’s the album meant to be coming out? What’s it called?
Dancing Backwards in High Heels. We finish tracking tomorrow night for the most part, as everyone flyies back to the states. I’ll still be here for a week though mixing it with my assistant at the studio, Adam, who’s been alot of fun to have around as well and a tremendous asset. It’ll be out by next March.

I think a lot of people will be really surprised by this album, its unlike any other New York Dolls album, it’s not just an ordinary record, I think it’s a statement of relevance. And for all of those that think they got the Dolls pegged or the ones that say that it’s not the same without Johnny, they are right, but it doesn’t mean it’s worse. This record some might even say is their best, or an incredible bookend to their first.

In fact what I think might be the first single a song called, “Fool for You Baby” doesn’t even have a guitar, just me playing two basses and a small piano bit, Syl on vox organ, David on vocals and Brian on drums.  So on that one we didn’t even try to fill Johnny’s shoes. I figure Johnny might be up there in the cosmos finding a part to play and we left a hole for him. \m/

Dancing Backwards in High Heels by the New York Dolls is out March 15. Jason Hill will be playing with the band for shows in March, then will return to LA to work on his own Expensive Love album, as well as possibly a new LouisXIV platter.

It was by the MANTIS DANCE TROUPE, aka DNACEVENOM aka a sillystupidfun “thing” that Jason Hill from LouisXIV has been doing with his time since sort of coming out of seclusion last year. Yeah, if it reminds you a bit of the bastard child of something like Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg’s “Dick in a Box” and OK Go’s officially awesome “Treadmill” video, then you and I clearly share the same small brain.

THIS VIDEO IS WHAT ALL IKEA INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS SHOULD BE LIKE.

As my friend Karen said:  “Sing it in the Key of A (for Allen)”.

There’s also an uncensored version with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blooper at the end.

And because that’s no’ all, we wanted to find out how the HELL THIS CAME ABOUT. Over to you Jason Hill:

“The video started from the song, I just wrote it one night really just for fun.

It sort of pervertedly fell out of my mind, very quickly. I wrote it about as long as it took to write the words down on paper.

Then a few months later,  my friend Adam Barker -  he and I have been making stupid videos together since we were kids – were sitting around laughing over ideas. He told me that his wife’s friend Trish [Sie - Grammy Award-winning choreographer] was really funny and the one that choreographed the OK GO video with them on treadmills. Randomly, she told Adam that LouisXIV was one of her favorite bands to dance to or something. But she said it not knowing that Adam and I had been so close since we were kids.

So we all got together and hatched this idea. The building of the shelf was Trish’s idea. Her thing was that there was nothing that turned her on more than when a man assembles something mundane like an IKEA bookshelf. [Editor's Note - I have the same one. A Black "LACK"] So we put it to dance and just had fun.

It was really for no reason at all and quite hysterical that we went to such trouble, as we never planned on doing anything with it. It was just to make ourselves laugh. The best part of that was the whole group, from the camera man to all the people in the video and Trish, we all put so much effort into getting it down, it’s so ridiculous. The funniest moments were after hours of rehearsing and trying to figure it all out, to build and do a routine in the time of the song, was the arguments between Adam and Mark Leone, the other dancer. It got pretty heated on who was slacking on their moves. I think we’re going to do another one when I get back from the UK.”

Take note, Particle Board People….THIS IS HOW YOU BUILD SHIT. \m/

Like, July 8 sort of late.

Jason Hill – Jay to his friends, eyelinered-waist-coated-dapper-often-beardy singer in LouisXIV to his fans – had been off the grid for nearly a year.

San Diego rockers Louis XIV had decided to put the band on ice precisely at the time when their currency was increasing. They’d been opening up to thousands on a world tour with The Killers, gaining some critical attention for their last album Slick Dogs and Ponies (one of BSR’s most played) and gaining a new fanbase.

Then it all went tits up.

The band – which included longtime friends Brian Karscig and Hill – split. Karscig immediately poured himself into a new venture, The Nervous Wreckords, which he’d recorded bits and pieces of with Anthony from Cornershop and Mark from the Killers. The Nervous Wreckords are now a four-piece and they tour. Do videos. Proper catchy songs, too. The debut full-lengther, Valuminium, drops on August 31.

But Jay?

He seemed….quiet. Which was strange for someone so prolific and driven. He was on Facebook, well, sorta, but wouldn’t reply to people. His photo hasn’t changed for about a year. There was no sign of gigs, or new music. No SoundCloud or BandCamp or MySpace. There was no sign of Jay, really.

Then, just this month, came a flurry of photos. Of a new studio he’d built, out the back of his new, reclusive hideaway. He called the studio “Ulysses” because that was the name that came to him when he walked in to the stone room. Suddenly, Jason Hill was back. And to be honest, the Backstage Rider is a little f*cking excited about this fact.

But where was he?

In his own words and based on a conversation between us over a few days last week, HERE’S WHAT JASON HILL DID NEXT:

“It’s been an amazing year for me, actually. I’ve spent all my life since I was 14 being in a band with the exception of a month or two when I was 19, so I was in need of not having to travel or think in a pack. I was in a dark place before we went on our last tour and then just after. Not so much because of the band, but now I’m actually doing quite good.

A dark place? In what way?
“Just feeling a bit claustrophobic and trapped from my life. I guess, the band, some business associates we were having issues with, and my girlfriend of several years and I had just broken up in Spain. The last tour we did was about two-and-a-half months in Europe and Australia, and although it was a great and huge tour, playing to enormous crowds of 15-25,000 people a night, I just wanted to step away and stop having to run in a pack.

There was a darkness around and I wanted to leave it in the shadows.

It’s very liberating being able to completely wake up and have absolutely nothing planned for the rest of your life. Being able to be my own man for the first time since I was 14, because it was the first time I didn’t really have a band. I didn’t have to make decisions about where I lived…or anything really.

I also wanted to work with other people, Brian, Mark (Maigaard), Jimmy (Armbrust) and I had been playing with each other a long time and we were all just in need of some time apart. It was getting to that point of not really helping each other bring about new music, not working together, we were really only recording separately at that point, and not really leaving room for each other. It was just time.

So I split town.

I moved to Laurel Canyon in Tinsletown, built a studio out of this 100-year-old house tucked high into the canyon, and been writing with people and producing for their albums. Really busy but it’s been a wonderful time mostly. Been writing and recording like crazy, my own stuff as well. A number of songs with the old bass player of Jamiroquai, Nick Fyffe, and Alex Carapetis who played with Phoenix but now plays with The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas. But mostly just been producing. It’s been nice to just be in the studio creating music.

Ah yes, Ulysses. Tell us more about the studio.
I have this wonderful old Spanish house in the hills originally built in 1916. It’s very isolated and a place where I see deer several times a week on my deck. Yet it’s just about a half-mile from Sunset, so I don’t get too bored.

First night I moved up here I found myself sleeping on a wood floor in front of a roaring old fireplace after having dinner with Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran, Matt Bellamy from Muse and Mark from The Killers and it’s been pretty much eventful ever since.

Woah. Rewind. Nick Rhodes?
We had a mutual friend, and he actually asked all of us for dinner. Only Mark and I knew each other at the table. Pete Katsis is a big manager who manages lots of big acts like Jane’s Addiction and Korn and many others were there as well. I actually hang with him a lot. Nick was really cool, very funny guy. We were laughing a lot. I remember a big discussion on how once any great artist gets a beard, they stop making good music, at least while they have the beard. This was mostly funny because Mark and I both had the makings of beards at that moment…which was a bit of the joke. Nick referenced Bowie with a beard in Tin Machine.

Okay, back to the studio.
So I built a studio out of the old house and immediately just starting to get all sorts of requests to produce other people’s records. The Virgins, Sky Ferriera, Mark Stoermer from the Killers, all sorts.

Seemed like it would be fun and I needed a change. I just wrote and produced a song with a boyfriend and girlfriend from Seattle called Thomas and Lonnie that I absolutely love. Been asked to write for and with a lot of people, and that sort of thing.

What about the LouisXIV lads? Are you in touch?
I do keep up with Brian, Mark as well, we send messages back and forth a lot lately. We decided to do a show in October with our band prior to Louis XIV called Convoy, mostly to get the other guitar player Robbie Dodds back on a stage – he’s an incredible player, it will be good to play with him again. We all thought it would be fun to do all the early stuff of that band. We all weren’t very happy with our last record, similar to how we felt in some ways to our last Louis XIV record, so we wanted to sort of get back to those basics. Just for a laugh really.

When will see you play live again?
I’ve gotten to that point where I’m thinking of playing live again. It’s been a year and some months since I’ve been on a stage and I’m starting to get the itch to play. I can feel the twitch in my legs creeping in, my fingers getting a little jittery, my walk gets a little more upright and swaggered, it’s like a magnet to a refrigerator.

So how is your own music sounding? What shape are the songs forming?
Songs have just been pouring out, all sorts. Hard to explain what they sound like. Just very different, I think, unlike anyone else I can think of. Some are very dancey, some of the ones with Nick Fyffe are sounding like nothing anyone else has heard from me. Some very  ‘70s French disco sounding and others are very stripped down rock numbers with saxes and Serge Gainsbourg Melody Nelson-era string sections. Some just a vocal and a horn. All over the place, really, I’m now at the point of assembling the year of recording.

Not sure exactly yet what I’m going to do with all them, what will make a record and what not. Been just trying to get my head around that at the moment. But it’s been amazing to listen to music again. For a while I was feeling very isolated and wasn’t listening. When a musician stops listening, it’s like a runner wearing cement shoes. Right now I feel more like I’m wearing clouds for socks. \m/

NEW YORK DOLLS UPDATE: AUGUST 2: The Convoy reunion show slated for October has now been postponed until at least December because Hill is going to be producing some new music from The New York Dolls, starting in September, in Newcastle, UK. Jason had met the band over the past few years – apparently David Johansen’s girlfriend and daughter came to a few LouisXIV shows in NYC. And the band contacted hill. “I instantly said yes and there you have it.” said Hill. “I fly out aug 21-25 to write with them in ny and then Ill be in Newcastle Aug 29-sept 21.” Now, THIS should be interesting.

Brian Karscig, LouisXIV/Nervous Wreckords, MikalaT Photo

Always sucks when one of your fave bands kinda breaks up and then one goes off and forms another band and you’re all, like, ‘Should I stay with dad or with mum? Who’s got the better bedroom?’

It’s kinda how I feel about the Nervous Wreckords, the new band from Louis XIV’s Brian Karscig.

Louis XIV
I have a huge, squidgy soft spot for 70s alt-rockers Louis XIV, who hail from San Diego, though I’m not really sure why. I met and saw them for the first time back in Feb 2008 when Louis XIV opened up for The Editors here in Vancouver. Fell in love with their cheeky rock, scruffy beards and stylin’ waistcoats. They’re great live, too.

Ended up bumping into guitarist/vocalist Brian at the back by the bar that night. He was hammered and blathering and told me that he’d wanted everything to be perfect but had to apparently tear a strip off singer Jason Hill for some imperceptible on-stage minor blunder…then he asked me out. I declined, (though I do adore him) but I dug his hat. When he grows the beard, Brian Karscig always does rock a mean Hasidic Jew look.

Jason Hill, LouisXIV, MikalaT

Hill was moping around the back of the Commodore following the show and looked like he needed a hug. He got one. I promised that the next time they were in town we’d sked a proper interview, and we did, last April, when we chatted about their newest album, Slick Dogs and Ponies.

Shagging in the Toilets
The night after the April interview and their headline show at Richards, the band were sick as dogs (Sick Dogs and Ponies?) and had been trading the same virulent strain of tourbus rot for days. Hill invited me to the bus to hang out and drink whiskey. Umm, alcohol kills bacteria right?

Post-gig, tour-bus hanging with a bunch of sick rockers is more civilized than one might expect. (Though I do recall that when one of the bandmembers came back onto the bus after a backstage/bathroom shag – can’t say who because what goes on on the road, stays on the road, but it was the bassist – KIDDING HA HA – he did get a round of applause. Then he complained that the girl’s boyfriend had rung mid-hump.

Sick Blogs and Ponies
I teased Brian about their crap blog writing on their MySpace page and offered to write them one from the night’s show to illustrate how it was done. So I did.

And it ended up on the LouisXIV MySpace page. Got the most comments, too. See if you spot the wee white lie we inserted in there.

To this day, I still help Brian navigate through the social media minefield. A few weeks ago, Brian, via his @nrvouswreckords Twitter account, said I was his “Obi-Wan” of Twitter. I use my powers for good, oh yes.

The Nervous Wreckords
Fast forward to this year, and Brian’s started his own band, The Nervous Wreckords, which came about as a side project with Anthony Saffery from Cornershop and Mark Stoermer from The Killers, whom Louis had been touring with, and some other former XIVers. Now it’s a band on its own. With other people. And a girl in it. And stuff.

Nervous Wreckords

The Music: a kind of 70s Elton John/Bob Dylan/Rolling Stones alt-rock pastiche and one of the songs is called “I Don’t Feel Tardy”, which earns them a medal for the use of the word “Tardy”. “Doin’ it to do it” is a enormously fun little rock song.

The EP: Nailbighter, is now available on the iTunes thing or hispeedsoul.com. Check it out on myspace.com/thenervouswreckords

The Tour: a coupla San Diego shows before Xmas but the newly formed band has been on what seems like a riotous tour, if this text message I got from Brian is anything to go by:

Shit! I’m wasted…in Seattle…this has to be my last martini”

I did a great little phone interview with Brian from the tour van a few weeks back and will link to that when it’s done. Jason Hill is apparently fine and has been gigging and producing.

Like I said, I don’t like it when mum and dad fight. But for now, I think I’m gonna stay with mum. She’s got a better beard. \m/