Interview with Jimmy Gnecco of OURS

Legendary Ours frontman Jimmy Gnecco took a break from the band’s action-packed tour to chat with Music Fiends this week about the trajectory of his storied career, his unforgettable collaborations, and the unique capacity of music to bring us all back together.

AARON

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us at Music Fiends. Let’s talk about the long-awaited new album, which has a kind of uplifting tone that feels at once both epic and intimate. As cliché as that sounds, your brand of relatable optimism is something we can all use right now in heavy doses. What was your overall ambition for the album?

JIMMY

Well it was basically that. When I started out years ago in ‘92, we were pretty deep in the grunge thing. I haven’t gone back to that time and that music and stuff for awhile. There was some amazing stuff there. Naturally, it all becomes a part of you because you lived through it and you get inspired by things here and there. But the next step for me, taking that to a newer place, was to put some light, some hope, into some of that darkness. And to be cautious that I wasn’t getting into this self-loathing kind of space that sometimes that music had to it. Without any shade – sometimes you can get caught in that dark place.

So I made a point on the first record to look at only songs that felt dark and they went to a dark space – but they were also lifted out of it by some light or hope or something, and didn’t leave people in that dark space on that record.

That meant going back and jumping into a lot of these songs and thinking about how Ours would continue. Go back to around 2010, after the Mercy record: basically for me I’m trying to find a way back to that space, which was about music that was supposed to look outward, but still be personal. Music that would somehow connect to the universal pulse of what was happening, in a way that hopefully spreads some love and brings people together. Even then, when I started working on a lot of these songs, I felt like we could use it. Before everything that’s happened even in the last five years, six years. Even before that, I still felt like ‘Wow, I think we’re beginning to really, really drift, and I feel a massive divide.’ So, I kind of set my sights on that and made sure that we didn’t specifically participate in anything political – i.e. one side of any topic, or support. No bashing of anybody – just looking for where we go after all that. I wrote a lot of the songs before the election in 2016 and all that, so it didn’t necessarily have to do specifically with that. But it certainly kept everything on track to make a point that the record had to be an uplifting message: a feeling of something that I felt we could all really use and were going to really need in the times to come.

If you look at lots of dark periods, even in fairy tales like Alice in Wonderland, everything goes completely black during certain times. It takes some love and life to re-fertilize the world, our spirits, and everything. I wanted the music to feel like that. I wanted it to be something that felt like some color was beginning to pop up and sprout from what may have potentially been a really black existence and time.

AARON

Great metaphor, too – bringing the color back into life. You said you wrote some of these even before 2016, and you ended up writing a lot of songs and picking through those. You wrote over 200 songs, which you had to narrow to the scope of the album. Inevitably, kind of an exhausting process.

JIMMY

Yeah, if you have so many ideas that you’re excited about, sometimes there’s maybe seven or so ideas you feel really great about. Some of the other ones you hope you’ll be able to fill in from there. And sometimes it’s easier having less.

This was a process of literally going through years and years and years of footage that had continued to build but that I never went back to look at. That’s kind of what happened. I just put my head down and wrote and wrote and wrote, and wasn’t anywhere near recording them. So then just looking at all of that and realizing, ‘Wow, there’s over 200 songs here that we have to pick from.”

AARON

Do you record all of them? Do you revisit all of them? Or do you simply chalk some up to the collateral damage of being so prolific?

JIMMY

I try to get at least everything down on a quick audio memo. I also have bags of cassettes, so I have to sit and open up the bags and say, ‘Okay, let’s go back and listen’ and ‘Okay, there’s one.’ And then some lists here and there. It’s pretty overwhelming. Some of them, I would do a quick voice memo and then completely forget about it. So the time was really spent doing that. At the same time, more and more songs are coming, new ones. Some of these songs, like you said, you just chalk it up and you go ‘Let’s see if, or when, we ever get to that.’

It’s really difficult to be objective about it and to pick which are the ones that you say ‘Okay, this is what we are going to work on, and go into this direction.” That part was really confusing because there were some really, really beautiful sad ones that felt like some of the best songs I’ve ever written – that felt like some of the best vocal performances that I ever had taped. But I was faced with the idea that this is not what I set out for this record to be. And then there were some that were so intense, and in a space that felt a little more like punching your way out of a bag. That also felt like ‘Okay, well that’s super powerful.” It’s difficult.

With the first record, we’d never put anything out before. So, if you’ve never done anything, you don’t have any idea what anybody thinks of you, expects from you, or wants from you. And you just follow your gut about what you’re really like. I’ve tried to stay true to that. Because if you start doing that other thing, you start to alternate your own universe based on what you might think others want you to be. It’s like the potential Star Wars universe that could potentially influence Lucas and fuck up the movies.

I think I witnessed that. I’m a big fan of Trent Reznor. Now, you’ve got to be careful saying Trent Reznor’s name because he’s a bad motherfucker and you don’t ever want to piss off Trent. I watched for a bit as the fans tried to tell him what he was supposed to be. I remember at that time thinking ‘Well, that’s not going to work.’ The guy’s allowed to be happy if he wants to be happy. You have to follow your inspiration.

There’s going to be certain songs and certain feelings that people are drawn to and that they like. Because we have always been so all over the map, it’s difficult to say ‘Oh, they want to hear songs like our first single, “Sometimes”.’ We get so many requests for some of these other slower, ballady songs. You can’t get caught up in that. It’s just going through and saying, alright, what are we excited about? What stays true to where we want to end up as a result of the record, emotionally? Not in a financial way, or monetary way at all. More just about where we want our spirits to be at the end of listening to this record. I can tell you, very, very specifically. The whole time, for April [Bauer] and I, we were very, very much in the space of not wanting to be pulled too far down into anything that felt too inward or self-loathing. Or too ‘attacky’. With some songs, there’s so much aggression from us. It’s passion. It’s not heavy, like heavy rock, as you can tell. It’s just this intense passion. I think those songs are powerful, and I think that’s part of our strength.

But we stayed away from most of those ominous songs. We have a few of them that ended up on these other EPs that we put out. We might do a compilation record that would be all of the more high-energy, extreme, high-passion songs – all in one place for people who like that side of what we do and that don’t want to go ‘too far down’. Otherwise, we’ve always tried to make the record an entire art. If you hear two songs in a row that have a lot of energy – in the sense of tempo, high vocal output, and sonic intensity – then we try to give your ears a break. We try to go on a natural ride of what at least we feel as we listen: our up-and-down and what we can handle. We don’t want to do too many songs that are too ‘up’ for too long – you have to find a balance.

It was an extremely overwhelming, daunting task. And then even when you’ve got it down to 17 songs, then you have to make a sequence of 17 songs that do not have any specific repeat ‘scenes’. I look at songs like scenes in a movie and say ‘Okay, well that scene already happened. We built up to that, and that happened, and that’s a turning point.’ You don’t want to repeat that ‘scene’ just for the sake of putting more songs on.

AARON

Excellent point. It’s not about how good the song is, sometimes, it’s about how it fits as a piece into the whole.

JIMMY

Exactly. That’s what I feel. When you’re making an album, sometimes the best song, or even the most commercial song, doesn’t fit the sequence. We’ve had that happen a few times now. When we made the record with Rick Rubin (Mercy), I left the more commercial songs off the record. He laughed and said ‘What are you doing?’ I said they just don’t fit the sequence – they don’t sound like they belong on the same record to me. And he just said ‘You know, you’d sell a lot more records if you kept those on.’ And I said ‘We’ll find the record for that.’

There are a couple of records that I really, really love from top to bottom. Achtung Baby by U2. What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye. And I used those as examples. As much as I love “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” and “Heard it Through the Grapevine” – I don’t think those would work well on What’s Going On. Or “Sweetest Thing” by U2 – I don’t think that would work on Achtung Baby. It just doesn’t fit. I was really trying to not disrupt the whole vibe. Super tricky, man, super tricky.

AARON

I imagine. It seems that as you’re writing these 200-plus songs, you’re on your own journey, which perhaps connects to another journey – the trajectory in your career as a whole. A few of your upcoming shows have you playing Distorted Lullabies in its entirety, which was your first major label album. So where do you see yourself at this point in time, versus where you were at the time of that album.

JIMMY

You know, when we go back and play those songs, it’s a trip. I just don’t feel like that person in a certain sense anymore. No better, no worse – just different. There was a lot of intensity that I felt back then, as we do. On the first record, it’s your whole life going into that record. Everything makes it onto that record – everything you’ve thought about in your life, that you want to say, and that means something to you. Once you’ve said these things that are that important to you, then on the next few records, what am I supposed to talk about, really?

After John Lennon wrote something like “Imagine” – and I’m not comparing myself to him at all – but as an artist, once you’ve written something like “Imagine” and like “Love”, then what do you keep writing about that would be real. You could of course be inspired by other things, here and there. But if you’re thinking about timeless, classic subject-matter that’s rooted in deep spirituality, I think you say it and then you’ve said it. Sometimes making two records might be all anybody should do.

That being said, since writing the songs on Distorted Lullabies, I’ve had a few lifetimes. I do still relate to a lot of that – I can sing all the songs, I can sing every word and not feel like ‘Oh wow, what was I thinking?’ Because at that time, like I said, it was all meaningful, spiritual stuff to me. There was nothing timely or gimmicky or trendy about it. The songs hold up for me and I love to sing them. But as far as where they leave me, they are really in a semi ‘down’ place, personally. I think about how much I’ve worked on myself through the years and I don’t want to necessarily go back to what I was. It was a beautiful time, don’t get me wrong. But what I feel now is that I have a set band, finally. We’ve had a consistent, set band for the last seven years, which we never had. And I feel like the songs on the new album do what I’m talking about. No shade here, because I think I still did that on Distorted Lullabies, especially on a couple songs like “Fallen Souls” – that’s the light I’m talking about, as far as it being super personal. Really reaching out and looking outward, well beyond ourselves, and looking more toward being connected to everyone and how it all matters to be that way.

Mostly, right now, I feel evolved. But still rooted in much of the same stuff. I think I just found clearer ways to say it. Distorted Lullabies was meant to be slightly abstract at times, leaving a lot to the imagination, lyrically. And with the new album, I tried to be extremely clear about what I meant. That’s a challenge – how do you be really clear but still maintain some sort of mystery and intrigue without spelling it out so much? It was a great challenge to dig deep and write the lyrics that were able to do that, able to be really clear. I felt that if I could be super clear, and really say what it is that I’m going through, what I’ve been through, then it would be a more evolved place.

I’ve given in a lot more to the beats and the sonics – not everything just relying specifically on the spoken word. Distorted Lullabies has a lot of guitars, parts, and production on it that I came up with. I came up with all those parts because, back then, I didn’t have a set band, so it was always so important that I could just go out and play those songs with a guitar and my voice. Now, musically, I really wouldn’t want to do that with most of these songs. We’ve built them up so that much of it is dependent on all the other instrumentation. That’s also part of what’s really different about it.

The moment we fire up the new songs, I feel elated. I feel happy, but without being blindly happy for the sake of ‘Okay, we’re having a party.’ I genuinely feel more uplifted.

AARON

That’s a great perspective. I’ve always thought that when you return to the songs on an earlier album, to your earlier output, it must feel different. It must feel like you’re hearing someone else talking, someone else’s thoughts.

JIMMY

Yeah, there are those moments. I don’t feel embarrassed, or that I can’t still relate to it. I do feel like ‘Oh, that was a younger me saying that.’

AARON

You talked about Rick Rubin. Of course, you’ve also worked with Brian May, Steve Lillywhite, Chester Bennington. The list goes on. These are also fans of yours. Your fan base is an all-star cast. Working together with them, there’s opportunity to be dynamically inspired. What emerged from some of these collaborations that were your personal favorites – whether it was a song, an album, or even some different production value?

JIMMY

It’s going to sound slightly contradicting – what I’m about to say – so I want to explain it. The interaction with all these other musicians through the years, and producers (when it was working right), that was the biggest gift.

Being a music fan, still first and foremost, the idea that, holy cow, here’s a song that was written for Spider-Man 2 (“Someone To Die For”), that Chris Cornell wrote, that I’m sitting here playing with one of my heroes, Roger Manning from Jellyfish.

Or jamming with Jason Faulkner, the guitar player from Jellyfish, in the middle of the night at my old girlfriend Zoë Bonham’s house, John Bonham’s daughter. I’m at Zoë’s house in the middle of the night with Nigel Godrich, the Radiohead producer, and Jason comes to hang out and we jam to a Jellyfish song. In those moments, I’m sitting there pinching myself, going ‘Wow, is this happening?’

Or singing that Spider-Man song while I’m in Rick Rubin’s home studio. Or when Rick would come to my parents’ house and lay on the floor as we were rehearsing. Those moments, all the different collaborations, have been the greatest gift to me on every level – whether the person was well-known or not, if they came in and it was just a special time as we recorded together or wrote together. That’s the first thing. That’s the most rewarding aspect of it. To be a part of that, to be a cog in that whole machine, is super meaningful to me.

As fast as producers go, I had a blast with Steve Lillywhite, I had a blast with Rick. Ethan Johns – had a blast. That particular relationship has to be one that allows me to really fulfill what I’m hearing in my head. That was 90% of what it was with Rick, up until we got into sequencing and mixing – at least work it until I feel great about it. Rick was the first producer to provide that experience, to allow that to happen. To say, basically, ‘Well, we work on it until you love it.’ When we did the Spider-Man song, it was Rick’s idea to get Brian May – who was basically one of my top guys when I was growing up. Seriously, on the guitar, it was Brian May. For that to happen was mind-blowing. And after Brian played on it, I wanted to re-sing it. Once he had played, I said ‘Oh man, he just changed the game. I want to do some more now.’ That’s really healthy, that’s a good thing. Normal record company people, managers, and everyone else who doesn’t have any idea what they’re talking about would say, ‘Nope, too bad, that’s it, you’re done.’ I’ve always had such a problem with that because what’s the point of putting it out if it’s not as great as it can be? So Rick said, ‘Sing it until you love it.’ The Spider-Man song was supposed to be in the movie. But to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, we missed the deadline to get it in the movie. It only ended up on the soundtrack. But now the song was complete – we got to complete it, we loved it, and now the complete version is out there in the world. So who cares when it came out? And that’s where I’ve always been.

But people start to get a little freaked out and they start to push their agenda too much. I don’t spend any time around those kinds of people anymore – anyone that pushes that kind of frantic agenda for no reason except that they feel like that’s their job and they need to ‘do something.’ I don’t spend any time around those people. So, the production side of things fell short on a few records, where we finished the songs because of that kind of machine. So I have mixed emotions about ever working with a producer again, unless it’s like it was with Rick.

I’ve just done another collaboration with my buddy from Stone Temple Pilots – Robert DeLeo. I just sang on one of his songs for his solo record. And then two nights ago, he asked me to sing another one. He’s so nice. He’s so great, he’s like, ‘Jimmy, I have a question for you,’ and he presents it to me, ‘Would you sing one more.’ Of course. And that’s the most amazing thing.

I also did a song with another buddy of mine who plays drums, Matt Walker. He plays drums with Morrissey and, from time to time, with Garbage. He’s played with Smashing Pumpkins. An amazing all-around artist, writer, and producer himself. I sang on something that he had put together. I love doing that.

I just did a song with my friend, Boz Boorer, who is Morrissey’s guitar player and has basically written all of the solo songs with Morrissey for all of these years. They had a song that Morrissey and he wrote together, which they demoed but never officially released. So I just sang that. I love to do that. It’s really amazing, when it works.

I just did an unexpected collaboration, a cover of “Kashmir”, with some friends of mine from Type O Negative and a real heavy Jersey band called Hades.

I did an EDM track (“Stellar”) with some friends from New York (Disco Killerz, Liquid Todd) – totally unexpected again and a whole different sound. It ended up on the Billboard Dance charts for a year [in 2016]. I kind of went under the radar with that.

I had done work on a video game [Metal Gear Rising] that’s just blown up. I did some singing on some crazy, high-energy songs on that (“It Has To Be This Way,” “Collective Consciousness”).

There’s a couple things. Being able to really see the ideas that I have in my head through – because I have a lot of them and I write a lot. To see these ideas through to the end, to where I’m really, really happy with them. Then to be able to have people to collaborate with, to take those ideas, and to make them even better – that’s all been really great and amazing. To then also be able to jump on things with other people through the years – there’s so many and I’m forgetting a ton of them. I really love being able to do that and I hope to do that more and more as we continue to do what we’re doing. It’s a true blessing to have been able to do that in this day and age by having my own equipment to really cut the vocal how it should be for a record. Just a blessing.

AARON

There’s something to be said for having control of your output, but at the same time letting go of some of that control as part of these collaborations. A pretty satisfying dynamic.

JIMMY

There are exceptions, there are always exceptions. But for the most part what I found is that as long as you value and like what that other person does, it’s important to let go and truly have a collaboration. You don’t want to over-control that at all.

AARON

Thank you for your time, Jimmy. Have a great tour, stay safe, and thanks for the chat.

Check out our photos from the OURS show in Dallas, TX on 3/19/22.

Watch: OURS video for ‘Bring It On’