Friend of a Friend: Scott Davis

Friend of a Friend spotlights people of interest to the greater AMR community: poets, rockers, artists, aesthetes, and assorted bon vivants. The series is called Friend of a Friend because all the interviewees are my friends, and hopefully you’ll be their friend too once I introduce them to you. – Nick Courage

DISCUSSED IN THIS INTERVIEW: What to do when a friend is in SPIN magazine; Drinking the International Christian Youth Kool-Aid; How to get a lady in the way; Embarrassing high school acrostics; Which party to identify with in sleazy barroom sexcapade stories; Being happy and staying free; Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young”; The correct emotional response to a split perineum; &c.

Nick Courage: The first time i met you was, I think, my first day at JIS (Jakarta International School). I was wearing a Dropkick Murphy’s shirt and sort of marveling at how much more attractive everyone was than at my old school (sorry Franklin). You liked rock and roll so came over and introduced me to all your buddies, who then became my buddies… and the rest is history. It was pretty much an unforgettably sweet gesture – which makes sense because you were super religious then and wouldn’t go out on binges and tried to get us all to stay in and pray and play boggle on friday nights. But i think you were just nice regardless. And now you’ve given up on Christ, been through a series of bands, moved to Austin, TX, gotten married, and are on your way to being a new dad. What’s the dish?

Scott Davis: Well – firstly, in Jakarta I was a clique jumper. I could hang out with the christzors as well as tehroxors without too much confusion. I would hang out with your guys all day at school, then go lead worship at Friday Night Live (a christian group for kids through 8th grade – which was also held at my house) then go to ICY [ed: international christian youth] on saturdays. Sandwiched between those – I would kick your ass in Tony Hawk and puyo puyo and get drunk and go to see lock, stock, two smoking barrels.

It was funny, because the summer before junior year I went to jesus camp in Louisiana (another common ground we have) and it renewed my faith in the lord (no capitalization). So, from 8th grade through 10th, I was a hellian – drinking lots of alcohol and generally having a grand time. 11th and 12th grade, I don’t believe I drank more than a half a dozen times. I think it’s good that we didn’t meet before 11th grade because I have a feeling that we would have both died in some sort of vomit-asphyxiation suicide pact.

After my dad got transferred back to states, i had no friends so i decided to take up the drums. Playing 4-6 hours a day for a whole summer. When the school year began, I played in a sophomoric street punk band called scaryville. We played really fast and our singer would kick you in the face if you stood too close. Also – people (dudes) would pierce their (hairy) nipples on stage to get in our list. So that was fun. I graduated high school, went to Cal Poly SLO for 3 quarters as an electrical engineering major (hated it) then finished off a business degree at Cal state Bakersfield. In that time, I was playing in a band called Gramercy Riff, which drew well locally but we were too lazy to break out.

Boring!

So then I got married to a Bakersfieldinite, moved to Austin, got a job with [redacted: Major Animation/Lifestyle Company] and now my wife is pregnant with a baby girl (due date: June 11, 2009).

NC: So, and I’ll get back to more of this deeply personal life story stuff later, but – quickly – what do you have against remotely recording drum tracks for my songs? Because we could be like the postal service only more rock and roll, and we could go by LadyBlazer! and be on like, tv shows or something. It seems like it’s all upside from where I’m standing.

SD: Nick, you both know that if we were to start a joint venture project, it will be called, intermittently, Lady Boner and The Ether Bunnies. It will be a split 7″ with us doing both sides. My drums can’t be captured by mere internal computer mic alone – unlike your tasteful guitar riffs and soothing vocals. I need to get some equipment. make an investment. Or I could just do some wicked double bass beats in reason. Despite your daily message to me: “where’s my beatz?” – I can’t get off my ass (or on my ass in front of my computer) to make beats and delicious synth leads for you. I’ll probably have lots more free time when the baby comes so – let’s shoot for a september album drop.

NC: Fair enough (sort of). Let me ask you about this beautiful baby girl, by the way. You’re the first of my friends to have a baby on purpose – would you mind walking us through it?

SD: My wife is a year and a half older than me – so she’s wanted a baby for like 3 years. I’ve always said – let’s wait, let’s wait…but to be honest “we weren’t trying, but it’s not like we were doing anything to prevent it happening”. Then I got this new job, got a house, and got a new car and I was like, “I don’t really have any reason to not have one” or so I told myself. So I had the whole positive mental attitude going – then it was just a matter of “trying” a whole lot. Then her peeing on something and then some rejoice then some calls to the parents – and now we play the waiting game for Sofia Cross Davis. I drew a picture of how it works in MS paint:

NC: Well, even without seeing what I imagine will be a lovably tawdry scrawl [ed: he sent the above jpeg later on], congratulations are in order! Although, I’m trying to work out the math: my girlfriend is 3 years older than me and has wanted a baby for no years. So when should I start making living wage?!

segue: that symbol back there – the combination question mark/exclamation point… if you collapse it into a single punctuation mark you’d be able to call it an “interrobang” – in french: point exclarrogatif.

Designed by a forward-thinking ad man in 1962, i’ve always considered us to be sort of interrobangs reified (especially in highschool). But you, you’ve been seeming to have your affairs pretty much completely in order these days and maybe I’ve been overly projecting. Do you identify more strongly with some other punctuation mark these days?

SD: I don’t see any reason to ever make a living wage. I say, if you have the ability to live off your wife: do it. Remember Nick, your first marriage is for money and your second marriage is for love. I got that flip-flopped.

(Secondly) I don’t really subscribe to any punctuation more than other others, although I’m using a lot more hyphens these days. I just try to live by what Kurt Vonnegut said about semi-colons: “But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

NC: Recently a co-worker told me that his friend saw Kurt, in his later years, on a bench in a public park, bitching about his health on a cell phone. Saddest Celebrity Sighting!

SD: Sadder sighting than the dude that found Michael Hutchence [ed: hanged INXS singer, unofficial cause of death: autoerotic asphyxiation]?

NC: Whoa – going there since ’09! So, since we’re down here – actually, forget that. I’m not going to ask you a question that’s gonna bum everyone out. So – you’re a funny guy, what’s the funniest story you got?

SD: Funny story? Funny things don’t really happen to me. I’ve known lots of funny people who have funny stories. Some of the funnier stories I’ve heard involve horrible sex acts not fit for print or bodily functions and the subsequent sliding through said bodily functions on kitchen floors.

The person with the funniest stories I’ve ever met is named Joel and he played guitar in Gramercy Riff – the band I was in with him. One time he successfully disrobed while playing a show – completely disrobed. When the last song was played he dove into the drums ass-first and managed to tear his perineum and started gushing blood. He was taken to the emergency room where he received stitches. best.finale.ever.

NC: Gross out!

SD: That’s the most tame story I have about Joel…

NC: And now that you’re a married man you’re a part of… what, a weekly song circle? That sounds pretty fun and utopian, right?

SD: We call it Tuesday Night Music Club – not Kumbaya style, more like John Prine’s “Paradise” and Garth Brooks’ “That Summer” (note: a song of unrequited love between a teenage boy and his post-menopausal lover) style. It’s a good way to keep up the music chops and make you learn and write new songs. It’s super utopian. It’s no vacation bible school – but then again, what is?

	John Prine – Paradise
	Found at skreemr.com

NC: Speaking of music chops and bible schools, we both have… you know, i guess you could say we know a handful of objectively successful musicians between us. A trend in these interviews has sort of been… well, dealing with the comparative successes of other artists. I remember one time when I was having a particularly shitty week in grad school I opened up SPIN and saw [shared high school acquaintance] Kemble’s picture, a half page in the party section, and was sort of like: all my life decisions leading up to this point in my life have been exactly wrong. Now i live in NYC, which is terrible for that; if you’re not careful here you can get a sort of seething jealousy behind your eyes and 1. stop embracing your folk punk ethos; 2. start doing terrible stand-up that nobody likes. Living in Austin, TX – is that something you ever think about or feel?

SD: Oh yeah – I mean my several of my friends here were either formerly or are currently signed to major record labels. It’s a constant reminder of how my life could have ended up. But – if I was touring I never would have met Kimberly and then I would have never put a baby in her uterus and we would have never gotten our dogs: Mitchell and Alton. I’m not much on revisionist history. I’ve made some rad decisions to end up where I am – and I’m not sweating it. My only regret: that I’ve never snorted coke off a dude’s boner.

Mitchell and Alton:

NC: I’ll be interviewing our friend who did that some other time. I think usually, though… the trick – if you want bragging rights – is to not be the snorter but the surface. Is that the right idea or am i just being… insensitively heteronormative or something?

SD: Nick, my friend, you are so sorely mistaken. Most “surfaces” are creepy, 40-something, foppish dandy club owners. I know that’s not the life that you imagine for yourself. Trust me – you definitely want to be the snorter. Then you’re just a wide-eyed capricious youth living in the big city.

NC: Whoa – okay… we’ve reached that point in the interview.

(Intermission)

NC: Are you familiar with acrostics?

SD: Is that where you spell your name using adjectives that start with each letter in your name?

NC: Yes, good! What I want to ask you to do is: give me an acrostic of your name, but instead of adjectives use bands you dug in highschool that remain largely guilty pleasures to this day.

SD: Okay, but you have to do it too…

Slapstick
Cake
Oasis
The Lawrence Arms
Thursday

Dead Milkmen
Aquabats
Vandals
Israelites (Desmond Dekker and the…)
Steve Winwood

NR: Alright- but most of the bands that i used to define myself in high school don’t start with these letters…

NoFX
Impossibles
Crimpshrine
K – no K bands

Crash Test Dummies
Operation Ivy
U – no U bands
Rage Against the Machine
Alkaline Trio
G. Love and Special Sauce
Ezra (Better Than)

NC: Two more questions. The first comes out of the acrostic: We’ve been friends through a lot of stupid shit. Near-evangelical christianity, nineteen-year-old poetry exchanges, the birth & death of AIM, hyper-ridiculous psychosexual drama, having to pay full price for the same old russian vodkas. I mean, fuck, you had to live in what the rest of the world considers Death Valley (Bakersfield, CA). What I want to know is – are you still essentially the same fella I left weeping on the tarmac in Jakarta, ska punk kid who can fit 100 sticks of gum in his mouth to my 80 something, or has there been some sort of qualitative shift (and i’m not talking about the moustache, which is clearly quantitative)?

SD: No large differences – still a bit in awe that I’m becoming a father. Still make jokes about my future daughter growing up and having “daddy issues”. Still pretending to push Kimberly down the stairs. You know, fun stuff. I have never taken anything in my life seriously but I’m sure that if we have a follow up around July, I’ll be taking at least one thing in my life VERY seriously. Maybe it’ll happen by the time I come to NYC next month. If not, you’ll find Nick and me at the Jamaica Queens F-train stop busking for loose cigarettes, playing Bob Dylan’s “forever young”.

NC: One of my favorite authors once wrote: “Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account” (DFW). Is there any part of you that hopes for the unpredictable, or are you fairly content with your successes so far and your life as you’re living it?

SD: I’m always looking to have fun – I’m certainly not comfortable with being a financial analyst all of my life. I’m in the video game business – I’d love to own my own studio and make my own games.I’d love to tour in a rock and roll band – even though “they say the road ain’t no place to start a family” (Perry, 1983). I’d love to live in NYC for year as well as one in SF. I’m just comfortable to do it whenever the moment arises. I’m not in a hurry – I’ve got a lot of years left. They say that 26 is the new 6.

NC: Hey thanks so much, any parting words for the kids?

SD: Denim goes with anything.

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