K Is For Questions

An interview with DQE, 1991,
Writer's Block #7

by Mike Appelstein

DQE have existed since the rnid-1980s. Their early material was perhaps the epitome of home-taping brattiness, as if very early Half Japanese were teenagers and recorded in basements. They returned with a track on a Lowlife single, and then a 1990 tape, N Is For Knowledge, which, simply, is something that must be heard.  It begins with a suicide note ("I'm not going on/I can't change the world/And I can't live this life!") and closes with a housewife drowning her abusive husband and reflecting on the scene with cold, muted horror. At other times, like "Carnival," it's deliriously blissful.  Like I said before, I can't really go much more into it without getting seriously tongue-tied.

What makes the story even more confusing is that each member of DQE has been in several bands at once over the past few years.  Grace and Zak were in Nature Protein Biscuit, a fairly spacey foursome with eerie vocals from Grace. Zak was also in Greige Travail, who put out more than half a dozen tapes, and Chris was in Mental Paint and the Glamour Twins. Best of all was the Shrinking Violets, which was Grace and Jan Ollis and two acoustic guitars.

As it turns out, though, DQE is where they jell together best.   Even though the band members live in separate parts of the country, they have been smart enough not to call it quits. In fact, they planned to reunite for their first shows in at least a couple of years (well, a long time, at least) in late March. If all goes well, they'll possibly end up in the New York area, so let's hope no one electrocutes themselves on stage or something.

It also means that the logistics of doing a DQE interview are difficult. Nevertheless, all three members agreed to answer some questions through the mail.

How did you all get together, and why did you decide to form a band?
Grace: Chris and Zak and I were all the children of professors at the sane university in Atlanta. When other children were playing house, we were playing band.
Zak: I've known Chris since I was 10 or 11. I met Grace through him about a year later. I don't know how it first got started -- at some point we all had instruments and we sort of went from there.
Chris: The first DQE was Zak on an electric guitar, and me on paint cans and a snare drum and cardboard boxes, and Grace singing her own lyrics and covers of X and the Police.  Zak was 12; Grace and I were 15. We just wanted to play music. I remember real inspiration for the songs coming because of the feeling of playing back a tape and hearing what you had done.  It was the greatest thing -- like seeing pictures you've taken. You take some music and then the tape plays hack and then the whole world hears it. The machine interprets what you've done and it's magic.
Grace: I got my first transistor radio when I was about 4 or 5, which is when I started piano lessons. My father was a bassist and guitarist in a folk-jazz-bluegrass band and my mother plays classical piano, so I grew up with a diverse education musically.

Why the name?
Chris: Dairy Queen Empire is a secret name that came to Grace one night. We only now have revealed what it has stood for since its invention.
Grace: We felt that as a band it would be a good idea for people to have something to call us.

Describe the early days of DQE. Did Lowlife have much influence?
Zak: The three of us used to hang out at Chris' house a lot and one day we started banging on paint cans and shouting and recording stuff.  It was a pretty nebulous thing at first; I was still in grade school, for one thing.
Chris: The early days included hearing (by accident) the Destroy All Music show on WREK. I couldn't believe what I was hearing on the radio sounded like us. What I mean is, what Glen Thrasher and Ellen McGrail were playing was recorded at home with a tape deck.. you can tell. It makes the music so honest, and so accessible.
Grace: Our early days were marked by constant fighting, owing to both the fact that we all had very diverse musical tastes and that there was romantic tension. Of course, we were not as skilled musically either.  Lowlife and DAM and WREK were sort of foster parents, and the first welcome haven for a kid who had been teased and laughed at all through school for being different.

When and how did you record the Ride This Ride tape?
Grace: We recorded it in 1986 or somewhat. About half of it was prewritten (by us) and if you have it you can probably guess which half.  We brought in a little influence from an Atlanta band called Medicine Suite.
Zak: The stuff with all three of us ("You Took Hold," "Dinette," "Have A Nageela") was mostly improvised in a practice room at Emory University.
Chris: It was mostly improvised and then sold sealed in plastic and floating in jars (like pickles) in water at record stores.

Have many people called in response to the Sound Choice review?
Chris:  We were also reviewed in MRR.  Just like the overwhelming sales of DQE tapes now and then, I got about 10 different calls from people who didn't know why they called. That's the best kind.

Do you still perform any of those songs?
Grace: Yes: "Down," "It Must Be Love," "Come On Home," "Fall Snails."

Why did DQE break up for awhile? When/why did you get back together?
Chris: We broke up because Chris and Grace couldn't get along.  We got back together because Grace and Chris belong together and we were asked to do a song for the Lowlife record.
Grace: You might say that romance has rearranged my life. It certainly rearranged this interview. The friendship between me and Chris was confounded over a girl. Later there was a domestic violence case between me and a young man in Atlanta, and at that time, Chris and Zak became legally involved as witnesses. Since we were all together again, we reformed DQE. I guess we broke up in the summer of 1987 and reformed in April 1989.

How do you account for the more structured sound on N Is For Knowledge?
Grace: Aside from the fact that Chris and Zak had become kickass at their instruments and I had learned how to play guitar, it was produced and recorded expertly.   Nature Protein Biscuit had also taught Zak and me about ensemble playing and Chris' experience likewise.  Also, the songs had a solid, although psychotic, prewritten core.  I wrote them when I was sick and practiced them for months before we got together.
Zak: Part of it's just that we learned to play instruments.

What is the background behind the Shrinking Violets?
Grace: Won't bite!

(for Grace): What are your vocal/musical influences?
Grace: I could talk for hours about this question. Daniel Johnston has been a special friend to me and has encouraged me to face up to and enjoy parts of my heritage that I had not fully appreciated in the past, like hymnals, books of Blues from the library, books of madrigals and arias which I had from high school, folk music my dad taught me from childhood, and most importantly, improvisational singing.  My parents, Daniel, me and now even Chris sing all the time: at work, first thing in the morning, while cooking, sing to pets children lovers and friends. If I don't know how I feel, I just sing until I know something.  And I try tape as much as I can.  As far as naming names, of course there's Daniel, Half Japanese, Jad Fair solo, Pixies, Greige Travail, my housemate Mike Rhine, Beat Happening, the Stones, Television, Talking Heads, Syd Barrett, Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, ad nauseum.

Why are DQE tapes so cheap and include phone numbers?
Grace: Haven't you ever had dates like that before?
Chris: DQE tapes are so cheap so that many people will buy them. $1.89 is a magic price. Grocery stores know this. They usually include phone numbers because we want to make sure someone can reach us if they are really interested.

Do you play live? What are your live shows like?
Chris: We play live any chance we get. We love to play live; it's a big deal. The end of March in Atlanta, DQE will play live around town and in Athens. We will play live on WREK also.
Grace: I wish we played live more. As I get stronger and can travel more we will. We play a good entertaining show. Chris is funny and Zak is handsome.

Where do each of you live now? Does it become difficult keeping a band together and living in different parts of the country?
Chris: Grace lives in a halfway house in Chicago. I live in Atlanta. Zak goes to Harvard in Boston.
Grace:  I don't worry because Half Jap has been pretty spread out and look they've been here forever and they are still a band. I keep a picture of dad up next to all my other pictures to remind me that even though I am in isolation I can still get music out into the world.
Zak: Being in three different places creates a lot of problems, but it also keeps us from killing one another.

Will you ever rake a record or play outside the Atlanta area?
Grace: Are you being coy? I want Austin, TX, NYC, DC and Nashville.  We want a record like bread wants butter. Chris has worked very hard for that. I've written about 20 songs since January (not counting last year's batch) and I believe our hard work will pay off.
Chris: DQE very badly needs to make a record. We are really hoping for some response. Next we are trying to reach Shimmy Disc. The scene here in Atlanta is much like the Shimmy scene. Yes, we'll play anywhere -- it's just a matter of getting things rolling and they are rolling.

(for Grace): What inspired Boneless? What other booklets have you done?
Grace: Boneless is an extended dirty joke about pornography. It is a part of Golden Books with all my other comic books, which are mainly black humor about mental illness and sex. I do mainly cartoons now and net much collage, and although my initial cartoon inspiration was communication with Daniel I don't know why I go on. Maybe I'm just letting off steam.

What's wrong with today's youth, anyway?
Chris: They don't understand where music comes from. They don't know why stuff sounds like it does. They think that black blues music is only that, but it made everything else. They hear samples in dance music and think it's original. They think Pink Floyd is OK without Roger Waters or Syd Barrett.  They think technological progress is real progress. They don't understand their origins or know how things are put together. Real progress is remembering.
Zak: Bad drugs.

(for Zak): How and when did Bangaway Productions begin?
Zak:  It's a tape label that I started in 1988 to carry Greige Travail tapes. Bangaway has more or less been on hiatus since I moved to Harvard; I haven't had the time to put into it.  Chris will be helping to run Bangaway form the Atlanta end of things. The major new release is a compilation called Summer Dreams Ripped At The Seams.

Who are you listening to/reading/etc. these days? Does DOE have any favorite rap groups?

Zak: I'm just starting to get into metal.  Musical influences have always included '77 punk, X, Violent Femmes, but the roots go back to the blues. There are a lot of connections between experimental music and rap. I think Public Enemy has done most of the interesting stuff with sampling.
Chris: DQE' s favorite rap groups are really the favorites of my friends Matt and Andy: Geto Boys, Ice Cube, BDP, De La Soul, Public Enemy.
Grace: Lately I have been reading a fantastic study of symbolism and the process of civilizing children called Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. I have a friend, Geoff, in the beatnik mode right now so I'm getting a refresher of Kerouac. I also admire Ross Macdonald (got his picture, too), but I've really had no stereo no radio since September so I can't say much more musically except I practice about 3 hours a day so I've been working a lot lately with baroque and cowboy music. I also read a lot of mail. I have a lot of pen pals and I love the mail.

Lowlife was an Atlanta-based publication that specialized in Atlanta's experimental music scene of the time.  Its later issues included free 7"s and albums.  Many members of this scene (Chan Marshall, Glen Thrasher, Benjamin, Debbey Richardson, Shaking Ray Levis) are still active in music today.

1999 notes:  DQE has gone through several lineup changes over the years, and exists today as Grace and her husband Dugan.   Chris has pursued a career in photography, and has had his work exhibited in museums.  Zak had a radio show at WHRB, and presumably graduated years ago.