For a few decades now, it seems like Doug Gillard is everywhere. He's the second longest tenured member of the wildly prolific Guided By Voices, behind frontman, Robert Pollard, having been in and out (mostly in) of the band since the mid-90s. He is also a long-time guitarist for alternative rock stalwarts, Nada Surf, having played with the group since 2010. His work has earned him spots on the linear notes of many of indie rock's biggest names, as he continues playing with a variety of of groups, including the early Beatles homage, Bambi Kino.
Doug Gillard 0:12
No, and you can't even play, you can't even survive by just playing gigs. Here anyway, you almost have to pay to play just the expense of the just the expense of getting around and,
you know, getting to and from places, especially with gear, if you don't own a car, well, it's hard to keep a car, we don't really have one anymore. It's been a while whether you use one of the rideshare services, or the subway, you know, you're paying either way.
Brian Heater 0:52
What brought you out here initially,
Doug Gillard 0:54
it was a place where my wife and I just both wanted, wanted to live. And she was able to give transfer. And that's sort of the next logical choice for us, at the time, so
Brian Heater 1:14
did you move from Cleveland? No,
Doug Gillard 1:17
we were in Charlotte, North Carolina for a couple years. Okay.
Brian Heater 1:20
I mean, that's a pretty nice spot, and there's a lot happening in the triangle musically. Yeah, I
Doug Gillard 1:27
found I found some some kindred spirits there that the made music and it wasn't too bad. You're
Brian Heater 1:35
in so many bands, and play on so many bands records that I don't know how much geography really matters to you at this point.
Doug Gillard 1:47
New York is still a place that you have your your proximity to some some studios and, and, you know, still sort of an entertainment hub, and you can sort of convene with more people that way and come into contact with with, with more, I guess, more professionals, if you really seek it out,
Brian Heater 2:21
in terms of the last few years, and I actually, you know, as you know, I used to do this show, like exclusively in person and was very stubborn about like, I missed out on a lot of really great interviews because I, I insisted that everything be done in person, and then a pandemic happened. And you know, I started using this setup for you was, was there a certain amount that you could do remotely?
Doug Gillard 2:53
Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of projects that we still do remotely to a degree and some not, but I prefer the in person. And pandemic or no pandemic? Sometimes that's just hard to do.
Brian Heater 3:16
You strike me as somebody who really thrives with collaboration?
Doug Gillard 3:22
Well, not necessarily, but I do find that it helps when I have an engineer. I prefer that having an engineer to kind of do everything and do the housework and as far as how or what housekeeping, whatever you call it. With computer files, this and that, and engineering the session, and I can sort of do that, but I'm really not that
Brian Heater 3:53
great at it. We're both in Queens and Queens was like the epicenter of COVID in this first few months. How How'd you make it through?
Doug Gillard 4:04
I don't know. I don't know. Just resource. really careful, I guess. I mean, eventually. I mean, it comes around to everybody and we did get it dimensionally but
it wasn't until the next year really I don't think anyway. There might have even been something very early on but who knows. But just were careful and follow the protocols and stayed in found found where to order food you know, a
Brian Heater 4:41
good percentage of your job was just just kind of grind to a halt because touring went away and you know, were you were you actively were you like doing a lot of songwriting. Are you doing a lot of recording?
Doug Gillard 4:56
Not really. There was still recording projects going on. The I, I did a one of those, what do you call them? COVID shows COVID show, okay,
Brian Heater 5:11
like a live stream.
Doug Gillard 5:12
Yeah, live stream show, it was a way to make a little bit, I made a little bit of money from donations from that. And it was a it was a solo thing. So I just played for an hour, hour and a half, something like that. And it was part of another Sierra bigger series where they had other artists play in different nights. But God that was sort of early on, it was around May, May or so 2020. And then a couple months later, got to my voice did one through noon chorus, that service where he can sell tickets and people can watch the online show. And we went to date into a club to tape that. Then went really well, I'd say it's not around anymore. Maybe
Brian Heater 6:01
it doesn't always feel this way when you're in it. But from from the outside, it seems like you've always it seems like you spent a lot of plates, it seems like you've got a you know, a ton of different projects all more or less happening at the same time. Like, during the period when you were forced to, you know, forced to stay home and forced to slow down in a sense. I did it. Did it drive you nuts?
Doug Gillard 6:33
Not really, I was enjoying it sort of enjoyed not having to go anywhere. see anybody you're doing anything but many of the other side of the coin was you don't don't didn't know what the future looked like. And if it was survivable. And you're hoping your family and friends and close people close to you were would make it through as well. But in a way, it was exciting, because because he didn't know really what was gonna happen next.
Brian Heater 7:12
When I was talking to people really early on, like, some of them would admit to me in hushed tones that they were actually really enjoying it. Because they you know, it's like, no, it's not something that you and especially in the early days, we want to broadcast the eat out that exactly. This big benefit for you all, obviously a lot of people are suffering.
Doug Gillard 7:32
No, no, of course. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Some people did come out and say it on social media, but I'm not the type to really say anything. So I wasn't gonna wasn't gonna do that. Was
Brian Heater 7:45
it fruitful for you, in terms of songwriting or creativity? Yeah,
Doug Gillard 7:50
yeah, I got some things written. The band did two or three records that year during lockdown. That year in the next year, I guess you could say that's
Brian Heater 8:02
a slow year for Guided by Voices, right. Yeah, it
Doug Gillard 8:06
was it was it was normal as far as recording output goes, but it wasn't as far as live shows go, obviously. So that was sort of normal. There were other things happening. Bandy. Kino did a. He did something. Well, one thing was the tribute to Adam Schlesinger. And he had engineered some really early Bambi Kino things and so we were part of this sort of online tribute celebration to his life. And so we, so we did that thing you do. But we did it Bambi Kimo style, which means Hamburg, Hamburg era. cavern, Beatle style, instead of, you know, the way he wrote it, so that was fun. But, you know, it was it was for a cause as well, so.
So we made a video and we were all in our own places. Only Mark Rosa and I live in New York and Ira lives in Florida and Eric lives in LA. So we got together, hired a guy to sort of put the videos together and we're part of that. I did recording for a guy I know named Matthew boscovich. From Cleveland. He has a project called scarcity of tanks. It's that's the general band name, but he forms other bands with people from all over. They're called different band names that are different recording projects. So I'm part of a few of those And they still haven't been released yet, but they're, I guess they're kind of getting close. But I started that in 2020 with him he already had a bunch of things going on, but I'm just saying I sort of was part of some of those. And I think those are finally going to see the light of day. Like there's one with Mike watt Nels Klein, there's one with some Cleveland folks down the Pew who used to be part of gotta be voices and some other people there and there's one with James McNew of Hilo tango, Brendan Canty, and does Kadena. Matthew singing Matthews doing the vocals for all these. And they're more they're more sort of experimental slash punk sort of feel to these things. So that'll be fun. They have different different band names. God, there's another one. Yeah. Johnny from Crystal antlers as part of it. Raul from Mike Watson. Yeah, so norm Westberg? Yeah. I'm just trying to remember the names, but
Brian Heater 11:11
was the intent to create an ongoing thing?
Doug Gillard 11:14
I don't know. I I guess. I wasn't there during the inception of that band. But it was mainly Mark Razon IRA, Elliot. And Eric. Paparazzi was in from the beginning as well. But they formed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles first going over to Hamburg, which that was in 2010. That was the 50th. So tower. So now we're in the 63rd. But um, so we did do that. And we were the only band that really noticed or was doing anything, there were there weren't any German bands or British bands. Sort of celebrating their first going over there in August of 1960. So we went and we played the Indra, the very first place they played. We did four nights. The European, sort of, sort of the NPR of Europe, RJ channel. It's French, it's French, French is French and German. They did a whole special on us. And so that was that was a lot of fun. That's on YouTube, the whole thing. So that's the reason we formed then we went back a year later and played a couple shows, and we played some New York shows. And we usually do something at least once a year. We're all in different coasts. So it's hard for us to get together.
Brian Heater 12:52
One of the things that's interesting to me about it is that I mean now. So the inception obviously was connected directly to the Beatles and kind of everything around the Beatles has been done to death for good reason. But you it seems like you still managed to find a pretty unique way in
Doug Gillard 13:13
it's it's a high concept tribute man. I guess you could say it's because we do the only the covers they did from 60 to 63. That's the basic premise. We wear the leather jackets, but that's about that's about as far as we go. As far as costuming. Well, we try to have some sort of, you know, Beatle boots, I guess you could say and and sort of period correct guitars. But while I could benefit from one there, there are no wigs. Nothing like that. But it's a lot of fun. And we sort of we sort of, we do it in that style, but we rock it up a little more to
and what else was I gonna say about it? I'm not sure I
Brian Heater 14:07
get the sense that the idea behind it isn't to hew as closely to the Beatles versions as possible.
Doug Gillard 14:17
Yeah, I mean, we do go from that though. We sort of we come pretty close to there BBC session versions and Star Club album. Versions that's that's kind of what we go that's a kind of where we go on. Some songs we do live there aren't any recordings of them doing so we just kind of go from the originals. There's a couple Fats Domino things we do. There's a Ray Charles couple Ray Charles songs we do. There's no recordings of them doing those songs. So we just kind of do it how we think they would have done it. You know? And we especially Guess we did a record with Mark Lewisohn. This year, the writer, Beatle author, kind of guests sang a song with us. It was a Joe Brown song.
Joe Brown was a guy that he's still around. They covered a lot of his songs. Sort of a Cockney, London guy that he wrote sort of country ish songs in a way. And
he's got to play the ukulele on the concert for George, if you ever see that, but yeah, he's still around. And he had a pretty good career. They're in the early 60s. Anyway, but we have a lot of fun with it.
Brian Heater 15:42
Are there a number of projects like that for you? Where, you know, it's ostensibly still a group, but they only get together, you know, once every year once every couple? That's kind of the only one. I think but
Doug Gillard 16:06
Well, there was there was a death of Samantha reunion that happened around 2011 and subsequent years.
You guys are kind of based in Cleveland. And I'm here so we would do a show every now and then. But
we were they. We existed in the 80s, mid to late 80s. That's John Petkovic and we are on homestead records. what spurred that reunion, just kind of his desire to re record those songs and get them back out.
Because everything's out of print, and we just kind of decided to rerecord everything. Do some shows just sort of, you know, celebrated a little bit.
That was around 2011 or so. For a few years, we would do a show here and there. That felt right. But Dave, James and John, from that band are now doing a project called Metro light is more like, sort of a electronic or synthpop sort of a sort of a band. I'll help them I'll play some guitar every now and then on that. A couple of their things. I mean, they're they're predominantly electronic. So
I only play on stuff a mask too. But it's fun to add some subtle guitar to that Dave
James is really great at programming, and it sort of has a early 80s vibe. I'd say that that's kind of a fun thing. In a
Brian Heater 18:03
case like that, when you're playing again with this group of guys. So you've played with, you know, literally decades before. How quickly does it all come back to you?
Doug Gillard 18:20
It's time goes on, it doesn't come back that quickly. I have to go back to the songs and study them again. And go Oh, yeah. Okay. This goes that way. I remember now. But yeah, it's not it's not immediate sometimes. I mean, it depends on the song or depends on how frequently you played it in the past as well.
Brian Heater 18:42
I mean, clearly, it was a good experience though if you guys continue to do it every so often.
Doug Gillard 18:50
Yeah, that's that's that's abandons a lot of fun. spent several years now since we've, we've done anything, but it wasn't meant to be a project we pick back up and make new stuff with either. That wasn't really the intention. But we had our crowd in Cleveland that we, at the time 30 plus years ago, that we tracked it. And we had some records out on homestead. They're kind of nationally distributed, internationally, I guess. But at that time, it wasn't called indie rock. It was Underground. Underground rock college rock.
Brian Heater 19:47
You actually opened for the replacements at one point? Yeah.
Doug Gillard 19:49
And 84. We, we opened up for them in in Kent, Ohio. They were on there. Let it be promotional to Were jayvees down as a small club in Kent that we we played with them at I think we did another show somewhere with them as well that year the next year but I don't remember remember it at all. For some reason there's just no memory of it. I only thought I always thought that was the only show we did and I still think it is but I'm not sure. But I remember they were it was great. Bob Spencer was wearing a cardboard box as a dress and yeah, they were taking napkin requests and it's a big drunken bash you know but let it be was just out and it was sort of climbing the college charts and Ray was really into it and you
Brian Heater 20:45
were away from Guided by Voices for a number of years. But was was it similar that experience of reuniting with Bob?
Doug Gillard 20:57
Um, yeah, I'd say so.
Except in that I knew how things worked already coming back to it again and you know, sort of knew the drill and so it wasn't too hard kind of getting back into it
Brian Heater 21:21
in terms of the way the band operates and the I guess the you know, the drill as you said, and the mechanics behind it is is kind of my voice is fairly unique in that respect.
Doug Gillard 21:38
I think so. In years past, though, we were on labels, actual labels that had some major distribution and and lots of other bands and on their roster so they limited us to one one album a year maybe two at the tops. No, usually one you know and at that time, Bob had other side projects and a side label to to get other things out his other projects that he had, he could sing on and collaborate with with folks on so that was the outlet then and now there's no need for it because the band has its own label. So I guess that's why we do three albums a year because we fulfilled we fill that that gap.
Brian Heater 22:42
I'm always blown away by by people like you or you know, John Wurster is a good example of this people who just seem to be in so many projects at the same time, but it's it strikes me that it would be especially difficult if Guided by Voices was one of those projects just given like the sheer volume of music you're putting into the world.
Doug Gillard 23:07
Yeah, that's true. Well we always we dropped songs from the Live Set when we put new ones in so and with new albums, there's usually maybe five at the five or six anymore at the most that we'll put in but if it's a brand new record but sort of the subsequent records from recent years past recent records we'll maybe those will be down to maybe two or three per album and then there's their more classic songs that are always always sort of in setlist.
So it's really not that difficult to to make sure you know as far as learning new songs, you know, there's not that many to to make sure you know, for live anyway. And the other ones you need to need to brush up on, I guess you could say, again,
Brian Heater 24:22
something that I'm always curious about with people like you or John is the just like pragmatic question of like finding the time to do things and, and scheduling. You know, it's hard enough if the bands that you're in are release an album every couple of years, but it must be just incredibly difficult to get that schedule together when you're in a band that's both touring and putting out multiple albums in a year.
Doug Gillard 24:55
It is a little bit we haven't been playing quite as many shows. was as we used to, when we go out, it's usually for a weekend at a time and separated by a couple of weeks at that, at the least, mostly most times more, but I think next year, it'll ramp up a little bit. So the life schedule isn't as hectic as it used to be,
Brian Heater 25:23
how would you say your role is not a serve is similar or different from Guided by Voices
Doug Gillard 25:38
a sort of a not a surf
I didn't fill in a lot of the meat of the guitar like I do with GVV I would play a solo every now and then or add sort of I would add some color to the music and add some licks or colorful chords, which is something I really enjoy doing more than more than making up solos and leads but
but also what was different without a serve, I had a hand in sort of helping write every now and then some of the songs were more collaborative and nothing nothing that meaty but I would come up with an intro or come up with a bridge idea you know, here and there and so when they sit down and write a record it's they get together and kind of Bandy about ideas and and, you know, Matthew will have a good amount he'll have a pretty good idea of how he wants the the main part to go, usually, but um, it's open to discussion as far as structure and so everyone has input with that. Guided by Voices, the songs come fully formed, for the most part. Yeah. So I'm fully formed excepting the occasions where I will say I want you guys to write a couple songs for the record. Or, Hey, Doug, I'm going to we're going to do the symmetry song. That was back Well, that was back in 96. But the band members did write songs for August my cake, which was our 2016 album 2017. And that was to kind of fill out the time on a double double record. That was a double LP So each member kind of brought two songs to the table as well as the ones above that so so that was a lot of fun.
Brian Heater 28:08
I feel like a dummy because I only just discovered that I am a tree is not a Guided by Voices original.
Doug Gillard 28:16
Oh, yeah. Well, it didn't come out. It did come out as under Jim's name, but only after Mega we came out. We'd recorded it back in 93. And I didn't put it on our the gym album that came out in 95. I left it off for some reason. And Bob had already had it on a cassette I gave him of stuff. When we gem opened up forgot to buy voice in Saudi Cobra verde back in early 90s. And that's so we were all reef all friends and everything. And in that, that one of those times I gave him cassette of Jim stuff. Hey, hey, here's what we do. Blah, blah, blah. So when it came time to record mag gear week, he said, Hey, I liked that song. Since you didn't do anything with it. Would you mind if we record is it No, it'd be
Brian Heater 29:15
great. That was your first album with GVV is that right?
Doug Gillard 29:19
Meg? Here we go. Yeah.
Brian Heater 29:24
And I don't know how many cases of this I can't think of many off the top of my head, but have you know, the bandleader effectively like bringing an entire band into the fold and I respect that because you know, like there's no you know, that these you know, that this group of guys like, play well together and get along so it's kind of like a it's an easy kickstart there.
Doug Gillard 29:54
Yeah, it's it's kind of like Bob Dylan or the band or something. There's probably better examples I don't know.
Brian Heater 30:07
One of the so you sent me the vanity keynote stuff. And the other thing that you sent me that was really interesting was the the Scott Miller collaboration I want to say I want to say he was at the cake shop but But shortly after he passed, there was a TV show and I'm sure
Doug Gillard 30:23
right, yeah, it was part of that tribute show. Yeah, it wasn't a cake shop.
Brian Heater 30:28
I wasn't super familiar with his music I just went because like the the list of people that are performing are great but I after after the event I really connected with with his music I bought I'm actually looking at it's on my bookshelf right now. The music What happened book he was like, ignore it. Yeah. Music writer in addition to, to songwriter, yeah. How did? How did the two of you start working together?
Doug Gillard 31:00
Oh, well. I only met him once for a very short period of time, meaning a few minutes. My wife knew him when she lived in the bay area a little bit, but she was a big fan. And that wasn't Yeah, this wasn't a true collaboration. It was it's a pause posthumous collaboration, I guess you could say. So this record is super callus fragile album came out 2014 or so? No to them. Sometimes I forget till 16. Too little or no fanfare and it was sort of it was a very soft release. And I think it's on Bandcamp. But that's about it. And I only kind of remembered it and brought it back up because I think there might be a reissuing. Coming Forth. I'm not sure. Maybe in the next year or so. But at the time, Ken Stringfellow head was working closely with the estate and he got a lot of Scott's song ideas in progress that he hadn't finished. This included voice memos from iPhones and things and so he assigned a few different people, these these snippets. And our job was to finish the song. And the one that I got say goodbye was very it was very hard to decipher what some of the lyrics were or where he was going with the chord progression. So a lot of that I had to sort of make up and I just kind of imagined Scott's style from you know, years of listening to game theory and loud family and stuff like that, what he might have done and so a lot of that was guesswork while trying to use as many lyrics as I could make out and as much melodies as he had in these sort of disembodied few second long voice memos from the phone, which is also a strange thing to hear. After he was gone, you know, and also not having been that close to him. But um, it was a challenge, but I enjoyed doing it. Travis play drums on a Travis Harrison, and he and I recorded that at a studio
and when it was all done, I turned it in and he's Kensit. How about hey, I want to have Pete Buck plays a mandolin over this I said Sure. That'd be great. So that happened there's a Pete Buck mandolin track on it and and it never it wasn't really on an official label so it didn't really get reviewed
and didn't really get any press so like I said, I don't know what's going to happen with it. It's still it's not official that it's going to be re released but I think it's going to be resequenced and gone over a little a little more.
Brian Heater 34:39
Yeah, it'd be nice if it got to a second life that the process is really interesting it like the best analogy I can come up with is when they just find like a femur like a dinosaur femur and attempt to reconstruct the entire yeah animal based on the one bone.
Doug Gillard 34:56
That was kind of like that. I think John our was one of the other other folks that got a song like this to sort of finish or sort of fill out, you know? So it was quite, it was quite an undertaking I, I made sure to try to put sort of math like rhythmic parts in or unorthodox counts not just straight for, like Scott may have done. He might not have done anything like the way it turned out for
Brian Heater 35:30
sure. Yeah. Obviously you can never know. But he, yeah, based on everything I know about him. He didn't seem like a very mathematically minded person. Yeah, he
Doug Gillard 35:40
wasn't he was a drafting engineer. I think he was, you know, he's very mathematically minded, but had a great talent for for music, obviously. So
Brian Heater 35:53
I think just with his stuff with the game theory stuff in general, it's it's like, it's criminally under underrated, but also like, but also unheard. You know, it's he, you know, he got when he passed, obviously, you know, some more people reconnected with him. But, you know, it's a good opportunity to kind of to expose people to this, this artist.
Doug Gillard 36:21
Well, they really made a go of it, though. They tried. As hard as they could, they made videos, they got on 120 minutes a few times, you know, MTV did play their stuff. They were on. Big time, via what labels. Game theory was always on. Cloud family, the band after game theory was on some things too, but, you know, independently indie distributed labels. So they tried really hard, but didn't really quite break through the mainstream.
Brian Heater 37:00
It's both very, it's both kind of frustrating. But also pretty great is when you somehow this band that you've ended up loving has gone just completely under your radar, and you have this just entire catalog of music to rediscover.
Doug Gillard 37:21
Yeah, I mean, that's a good thing. Sometimes, you know? Because they're not oversaturated, they're under saturated.
Brian Heater 37:32
Yeah. And it's also just nice to have like a new, you know, like a new vein, you can tap for music. Yeah.
Doug Gillard 37:39
There's also a game theory tribute record that was in the works. I had already recorded a cover of the song called dripping with Lux back in, Gosh, 2014 or something. For an initial sort of Scott Miller tribute record that was going to come out and then that didn't that stopped happening. So this, these other folks kind of picked up the mantle in a couple years ago. And now, I still don't know where it's at. There was a bunch of people slated to contribute at night, I turned in my track and my track. Jewels were down was another, another person that has a track. And lots of other folks, too, but it's been a couple of years, and I haven't had any hurt any word about that. I think it was like, was omnivore part of it? I think I know, big stir Records was part of it. But it was sort of two labels collaborating to do this. And I don't know where the project is right now. So what's
Brian Heater 38:53
the status of your solo career at this point?
Doug Gillard 38:58
It's I can't really say, because I don't know. No, not a big secret at all. But I've been writing and in trying to sort of get get things, get things together to finish recording, I've started recording things stop recording things. Since I mean, I had three solo records out. I think the last one was 2004. Teen, maybe. Yeah, and those are all on Bandcamp right now, pretty much.
But I mean, I've had songs on compilations that have come out during the pandemic and here and there, but it's also sort of the case is everything's all over the place and you You don't know, there aren't really labels anymore. record labels. And you don't know if there is distribution or not? Are you just gonna throw it on Spotify? Is it just going to be a Bandcamp album is it just going to be what you know? So when you don't really have a machine behind you, or label you don't know what things going to end up on. So. But I think what, what needs to happen is you just make it and make it and then it'll find its way somewhere.
Brian Heater 40:43
You know, make things. There's a sense maybe in which it can be liberating as far as not having to not having to work with a big machine like that. And you do have this platform and Bandcamp and you could, you know, just release a song or two every so often if that's what you wanted to do.
Doug Gillard 41:05
Yeah, yeah, that's very, very true. And that's actually not a bad idea. You know, I've done things here and there the special occasion songs or for whatever I did a tribute to p 22. The, the mountain lion that got caught last year and had to be euthanized in.
Brian Heater 41:28
You did that with your friend John chef?
Doug Gillard 41:30
Oh, yeah. John Solomon. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's still up there. It's on Bandcamp. I just put it out there for free.
But yeah, so nothing more to add really to that. But I just want out there to be part of this benefit for Danny lane.
This happened before he passed, but there was a show at The Troubadour. And there was a lot of people involved Tim Heidecker, Neil hamburger.
Paul Shaffer was there Joe Bouchard, bassist of Blue Blue Oyster Cult was there. Mickey Dolan's Peter Asher
Brian Heater 42:21
as a wild mix of people, it
Doug Gillard 42:24
was it was a crazy show. There was a house band and it was mainly guys who were in Denny's touring band. Eric from bamboo. Quinoa is one of those guys. Alex rules and Amin and Brian were also part of his band. But anyway, they learned all the songs in the song that I did was heartbeat is the Buddy Holly song that Denny Laine did on hit a record called Holly days out in 77.
An album of Buddy Holly covers that Paul and Linda produced. So that was fun. That exists on YouTube somewhere now, I think, but that was just a couple of weeks ago. And we raised money that, you know, went to Denny's medical costs