JW: I think Jon makes these records, really. His style of playing is so different than guys who are noticed. He and Andy Gill [of Gang of Four] are my two favorite guitar players. Jon was the guy who sort of carved the sound in the studio as well with different ideas, all of the piano stuff, most of the studio decisions, and weird things we threw in there. He had the technical know-how as well. Jon is just a great guitar player. Some of the stuff he plays on these things and his decisions still amaze me 25 years on. Just a totally underrated guitarist, nonexistent in folks’ mind really. But he has the most to do with how these records sound if you ask me.

DK: These records are so raucous and manic. How did you keep your energy up during the recordings? Did you just burn through these songs in a few takes, or was it more painstaking than it sounds?

JW: We just went at it and did it quickly. Orange was made for about 800 bucks I think. Lotus for a thousand or so. We recorded fast and made studio decisions the same way.

DK: How do you like the sound of the reissues? Is there a significant improvement sound-wise or are the re-releases mainly just a way to make the music accessible again?

JW: This sounds like a cliché, but I like the way these sound MUCH better than the records. Bob Weston took so much time on them and in a weird way I think we were able to tweak them in ways we never were able to before. I remember us being in the studio and having to scrounge up 30 more bucks on a mix to stay another hour or so. Bob did a phenomenal job on these things.

DK: What are you up to these days musically and otherwise?

JW: I don't play in any band. I play alone, and Jon and I have been slowly working on something over the years at his studio. Really slowly. I am a mailman for a small town in Vermont.

DK: Do you hear the sound and/or the spirit of Volcano Suns in any bands these days?

JW: No, I don't, but that might be a good thing when it's a good band. They should have their own sound. Beyond that, we never got big enough for anyone to really imitate us. Sell a lot of records and people will imitate your sound no matter how bad it is.

"Evan Dando may be a lot of things, but I can assure everyone that he is no James Joyce."

DK: Fair enough, and I agree that the sound the band made was original, but what were the elements of that sound built on? Were there certain touchstone records or bands that you guys held sacred? Or did you just draw on the feelings that certain records gave you and make it into something that was your own? Certainly you made heavy records: do you think the Stooges or Blue Cheer or MC5 or Sabbath wormed their way in?

JW: We had bands we loved of course...the Stooges, Wire, Cheap Trick, Brian Eno, New Order, the Kinks, lots more. So as far as that goes, sure, but I don't think there were any reference points. Just some great bands we were into when we were younger, and so that had to form us in some way.

DK: Somehow New Order seems the most surprising. Amazing band. Get Ready was the first thing--record, movie, whatever--that helped me past 9/11. It came out around then, and the killer energy of that first track, “Crystal,” was so undeniable that it gave me the rush and thrill of rock that that tragedy made me forget all about. I was in downtown New York on that day--watched the buildings come down. Never to be forgotten.

JW: Yeah I can see that that record would hit certain people in the right way after that atrocity. There is something about that record. Not sure what its mood is, but it is a moody, rowdy record. Jon gave it to me shortly after it came out. It really blew me away. Of course, a totally ignored record with most people, I think. I still listen to that record all of the time actually. Just a great, great piece of work. That line, "I believe this world of ours is just a den of vice and sin..." from “Rock the Shack,” and that song right before it, can’t remember the name [“Slow Jam”] with that line “I had to go to sea/The sea was very rough/It made me feel sick…" Yeah, what an album. The one after that isn’t as good, but still a strong one.

DK: Definitely a hard act to follow. All Night Lotus Party came right on the heels of Bright Orange Years. It seems even more balls-to-the-wall and revels in noise even more than B.O.Y. Was that just a natural progression or did you consciously decide to kick it up a notch in terms of aggression?

JW: It was just a natural progression. There was nothing conscious about it. It's a more spaced-out record than Orange. There was no point to remaking Orange really. We had enough material for the third album and had started recording. The last four songs on the remastered Lotus CD were for the next record, and that would have sounded different from Lotus. You know, the one thing I am surprised about [with recent] reviews is how no one picked up much on the last four songs on Lotus. Those were the things we last recorded for a third album and that I like the best because they are moving towards some other territory. And to me [they] just sound very different from other stuff we did and never heard a band doing that sort of stuff (good or bad). I think “Time Off,” “Magic Sky” and “Junior” were pretty great and different. And it would have made a very different sounding third record.

Just as an aside and though you didn’t ask about it, Jon and I wanted to call the Lotus record "Smoke Pot.” I loved this idea for its absurdity, and no, I didn’t even smoke pot. Pete wanted something horrible like "The Horn of the Mind." So as a compromise we threw all the names we had into a hat. Pete had like four or five in there (me and Jon, just "Smoke Pot") and pulled out All Night Lotus Party. So that is how the record got named. I don't like the title, but always liked its anagram "An LP" (if that is indeed an anagram, I can't remember...) I think though, that the ‘smoke pot’ idea returns incognito (or half-assed, however you want to see it) with Pete's next lineup and Bumper Crop and all the little weed patterns.

the Volcano Suns - "Jazz Odyssey"

DK: Is "Jazz Odyssey" [an instrumental extra on A.N.L.P.] based on the actual bass riffs that Derek Smalls plays at the puppet theater gig in Tap?

JW: We were very big into Spinal Tap. Used to carry a videocassette of it in the van when we toured and watch it in motels out on the road. I figured we too needed our own “Jazz Odyssey.” We would pull it out and play it on lousy crowds, say, when opening for Suicidal Tendencies in front of 800 of their fans. Stuff like that. Usually when we got stuck playing with the hardcore weirdos. The funny thing about Spinal Tap is how its relevance to rock music and bloated egos and pretensions never seems to go away. Other forms of music don't have it quite the way rock bands do. Just the other day I read a thing in the Guardian about Evan Dando, him talking about wanting to write short stories and how influenced by James Joyce he is. If that isn’t a Spinal Tap moment I don't know what it would be. Evan Dando may be a lot of things, but I can assure everyone that he is no James Joyce. As for the song, no, it's not the actual bass riffs from the movie. I gave my buddy Derek Smalls co-writing credit because it seemed very fitting. Being a fictional friend, I don't have to split songwriting royalties with him, so that is a bonus.

"Hey, don't kid yourself. Sir Dennis has just mutated into Gerard Cosloy."

DK: I agree that Spinal Tap is timeless. Before "reality" became such a force in entertainment, Guest & Co. created the prototype--something made up but more real than real--and you're right, it hasn't aged at all. I mean, if the record biz hadn't been forced to change its act, you know that the Bobbi Flekmans and Dennis Eton-Hoggs of the world would still be running the show in just the same way. And of course, rock star hubris hasn't changed a whit.

JW: Hey, don't kid yourself. Sir Dennis has just mutated into Gerard Cosloy.

DK: Something you don’t notice at first about Spinal Tap is its restraint. When all the extra stuff came out on the DVD I thought I'd be all over it, but in the end I realized how well directed and perfect the original was. They were smart not to overdo the herpes thing, you know? Just that one shot zeroing in on the sores was enough.

JW: When I saw the expanded version that was the detail I zeroed in on as well. I thought, "Now that was a really smart move on someone's part to just show the sores..." it carried so much better. Rather than broadcasting the joke, you give your audience enough credit to be clever enough to get it themselves. And not to turn this into a cliché, but I think rock music is like that. My favorite guitar players underplay. A guy like Andy Gill is a genius as he knows where not to overplay. Tons of guys at Berklee can technically play better than Gill, but cant go near him as a guitarist because of that understanding and taste. The Birthday Party had two great guitar players. More than three quarters of the time, neither are playing.

the Volcano Suns - "Jak"

DK: Is "Jak" about anyone specific? I figured if "Sea Cruise" was about Mark E. Smith, "Jak" might also be.

JW: I think that song is about Steve Michener [guitarist in first Suns lineup, later formed Big Dipper]. I remember Peter telling me that at some point.

"The groupies were a lot of fun, but I couldn't point to any particular one."

DK: Peter referred to him in the Bumper Crop notes as "professional tall drink of water," which in light of “Jak” seems sort of a sarcastic swipe. He refers to you as "Jeff "Fly High or Die" Weigand. Is that an established nickname or is there a subtext?

JW: Not sure how Pete means it from his own thing. “Fly high or die” actually isn’t bad as a description back then though. Again, never heard any of that before. I do know that there is a song on one of the records with the line "philosopher at large, trusty eagle by his side" called “Brother Superior,” I think, that Pete wrote about me. Pete had this tendency to sort of vent about former band members in songs. It's an interesting way to deal I think. I think “Brother Superior” is a pretty good song.

DK: Did you and Jon both add background vocals? Who did what? Were there vocal overdubs? It sounds like you're all in the same room. Were most or all of the vocal parts done in one take?

JW: Yeah, Jon and I did backing vocals. Sometimes it was all of us in one room, other times in single vocal booths. All pretty much one take if I remember right.

the Volcano Suns - "Truth is Stranger Than Fishing"

DK: Don't you think "Truth is Stranger Than Fishing" has a kind Burma-ish feel? The sort of mathematical pattern of the guitar figure?

JW: I don't really hear it, but you could be right. The thing after the bridge towards the end is sort of Burmish I guess.

DK: What's your fondest memory associated with the band?

JW: Um, that's a tough one. The groupies were a lot of fun, but I couldn't point to any particular one. I guess a story I always remember is breaking the strings on Bruce Springsteen's Telecaster. We were playing at Maxwell's [in Hoboken, NJ] and had to do an interview. Springsteen had been there the night before filming a video (“Glory Days,” I think) and they had probably gotten so high they moved everything out but left the boss's famous Telecaster. We are doing the interview in the apartment upstairs and the manager comes in and points to the guitar, telling no one to touch it, that it is the Boss's guitar and holy, etc., and leaves. Blah blah blah. So during the interview, bored, I of course pick it up and begin strumming it. Then I start plucking the single strings...plink plink plink, and snap a few. Most of being in a band was pretty boring. Studio, touring, driving etc. So, little, weird moments like that always stick out to me.

DK: Peter Prescott called the third lineup definitive because it was the one that got signed to SST. Do you think V.S. III took the music to the next stage, so to speak?

JW: That lineup was together the longest and I think from talking to Pete those guys got along great without much tension. I can't speak for him about the records. Personally, I was never a big fan of further Suns things. They are OK, but I think are missing something. I thought the songs became pretty formulaic. Maybe that was the point, I don't know what they were aiming for, but that is just my opinion. God knows, my opinion doesn't mean much as a listener. So commenting on later work by them, a band I used to be in, it's relative. Consider the source after all. I did like the last one though, Career in Rock. Thought that sounded different and a strong record.

DK: The more I listen to these records, the more I hear small hints of the Minutemen and the Meat Puppets, which makes some sense.

JW: Other favorite moments [were] probably getting to play with bands that I was a huge fan of. The Minutemen were one of those. Getting to know D. Boon a little, going out to dinner with him sometimes. The Fall, we did the east coast with them and getting to know Mark was a pretty big deal to me when I was a young guy. Those sort of things were a big kick. Anyhow, trying to answer and not just off the cuff.

Weigand hangs with the Kinks' Ray Davies, backstage at a recent concert

DK: Did you earn your Ph.D.? What led you out of academia and into the more rural life in Vermont?

JW: I was done with everything with the doctorate and had my dissertation left. I was working on Freud. Near the end of it, my promoter and I got into an argument about Freud. He didn’t like what I was doing, whatever. At that point, I knew I was done with academic philosophy, and when another professor said he liked the thing and after we worked out all the politics of changing promoters, etc., I could then defend it. I was burned out on philosophy as a profession and didn’t want to jump through any more hoops. Philosophy departments are probably one of the more depressing places you can find; weird intellectual clinics for people with odd nervous disorders. Doing it academically at that level for so long had pretty much killed the thing I loved, so I decided to do something else. That's when I came back to Vermont and became a mailman.

DK: Do you have a strong affinity for the bucolic life, and did that contribute to the band's twisted back-to-nature vibe? Was it something you all shared?

JW: I grew up in Arizona and Missouri as a kid, out in the desert and in the woods. So yeah, I do like that sort of life. I live on an island on Lake Champlain. It's about 15 miles from the Canadian border, very rural and very north. There is no way I could live in the city again. Even Burlington, which is a cow-town, gets on my nerves when I have to go there. It's tiny, not even a city really. I am not a big enough fan of other people to live in the city. The last time I went to Boston was for the Burma reunion thing seven years ago or so I guess. I got three parking tickets in 24 hours.
Jon has lived up here in Vermont for the last 20 years; he grew up here. So yeah, Jon and I have that. Pete, he's a city guy entirely. I think he's horrified by nature.

DK: The band had the reputation as a great live act, but there's not even one grainy youtube clip to be found. How close was your live sound to the performances on the record?

JW: I am not sure what sort of live act we were. I remember some very good shows from our side, and some not so good. We were pretty rowdy; maybe that's what folks remember. I don't know if that translates into a good "live' act. We were more rough live than on the records, I am sure of that. While it would be nice to say that we were like Jesus and Mary Chain and banned cameras or something, the fact is there probably nothing out there. No one really gave a fuck. Besides, it's not like we had a stage show like Swans or Skinny Puppy or any of that crap. We didn't even wear black.

DK: Do you still have the desire to go out and make that kind of music?

JW: As I said, Jon and I work on things together sometimes at his studio. It's been awhile even on that. Maybe if we pick that up again. I still like studio stuff. It's more old man speed. But clubs, touring, that sort of thing, no thanks.

DK: When you're out there doing your route in Vermont, what bits of philosophy still inform your thinking day to day? Freud still in the mix?

JW: Christ...a day to day philosophy. Nah, nothing like that. Healthy dose of cynicism. Though of all the stuff I worked on, I still think Freud had it more right than anyone. Not everything, but a basic working reading of how reality goes (i.e. it's a fictional construct.) I think Freud nailed it. Have you ever read any Rousseau? He was one of my favorites as well.

DK: What’s up with “Superhappyfunmysterybonustrack,” the only “new” piece on the reissues? Did you and Jon just decide it would be cool to do a one-off experimental type collaboration for the re-release?

JW: “Superhappy” is always said to be thunderstorms. Actually it's the beginning of the Gulf War segued into birds Jon recorded in his woods. Yes, that was a thing Jon and I pulled up. We used to do sort of prankish stuff like “Jazz Odyssey,” so I wanted to update it as we are all older now, have been around etc., and it's a little more serious. So I pulled the opening minutes from CNN on the initial bombing, Jon added the bird sounds. Sort of a welcome to the new order thing. It was all Reagan when we were young. This wrecking crew is a different species.

DK: Hardcore to indie rockers were all united in their hatred of Reagan. But you wouldn't say that Bush & Company got too many young bands angry and writing songs. It just doesn't work that way anymore.

JW: I agree. Like there is some airtight seam on reality that the kids are not gonna question. I am sure some do, but everyone wants to make it big.

DK: Who selected the bonus tracks? Is there anything in the archives that you wish had been included but wasn't?

JW: Those were all selected by the three of us. We didn’t really leave anything out. There are a few other versions, not as good.

DK: When you selected the bonus tracks, did you all just correspond by email? I guess the larger question is, besides "SuperHappy" and choosing these extras, was that the extent of your interaction with the rest of the band on this? It seems like you were the one who put in the major effort with these CDs.

JW: Yeah we did it by e-mail. All of us listened, picked, went back and forth. Nothing special. Jon was involved quite a bit from sound to artwork. He was really there. Pete sort of stayed out of the whole thing, especially the mixes. He was and is busy with Burma etc., but I think this helped a lot. Three irons in the fire on remastering decisions might have been too much anyhow, so he gave me and Jon his reins on remastering. But Jon and I were working pretty closely throughout the whole thing.

DK: Without being exhaustive, what were your most high-profile gigs and tours? Were there many great moments just watching other tour-mates perform?

JW: I guess by high profile you mean bigger bands. We did quite a few shows with Suicidal Tendencies. These things were nightmares. Doing a lot of shows with the Minutemen, stuff like that, the Fall we toured with, I loved that sort of stuff but I don't remember any really big things, just personal moments with certain people. We never had the opening for REM tour or anything.

DK: Pete Prescott has talked a lot about bad timing. Was there ever a moment when you thought you guys were going to really explode or did you think your sound (coupled with your anti-corporate, anti-BS attitude) was just too wild and wooly for mass consumption?

JW: You know, for the time, I thought we were doing fine. We knew how bad mainstream music was, and Pete is right about bad timing, but we never thought it would go big. Even when majors started calling us, Jon and I were not interested. It just didn’t’ seem like we were that sort of animal and never would be, [and] that the majors were just jacking themselves off. But this was before Nirvana and everything then going big. Maybe we could have imagined something bigger after those years, but at the time I don't think anyone was really imagining it turning into what it has.