Famous People

by Justin Kuritzkes

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  #85—Right bicep. This is a tattoo of that little girl from “Leader’s Sacrifice.” You remember that video that was being passed around the internet a few years ago? She lived in one of those dictatorships—one of those places where like, the whole society is just on lockdown 24/7—and in the video, she’s performing at a singing pageant they did on the official state media channel for like, the leader’s birthday. And the girl had to sing this crazy song about killing anyone who criticizes the leader and torturing anyone who calls him a liar. And people were passing it around as this horrifying thing that proved how insane that society was and how unfree they all were, and like, people were writing all these messages to go along with the video like: “Look how horrible it is that they’re making this adorable girl sing about these horrible things,” and: “Look how horrible it is that she has to say all this shit.” And I watched the video, and like, yeah, the song the girl is singing is crazy as fuck and it makes that whole society seem absolutely insane, but the main thing I was focusing on the whole time was like: This girl is really GOOD, you know? Her voice is so pure, and her diction and her pitch and her rhythm are so on point that I kind of left the video feeling like the society can’t be that bad if it produces a voice like that. I mean, it obviously didn’t make me change my opinion of that society, or like, make me start thinking that I should move there, but in the moments when that little girl was singing, she was a superstar, you know? She was in the fucking clouds. It didn’t really matter what the rest of her life was like. I think the thing that actually disturbed people about the video was like: When was the last time THEY felt like that, you know? How free are most of the people THEY know compared to how free that little girl is in the moment that she’s singing? How many people around them are EVER going to feel the way she feels?

  #46—Back of my neck. This is a drawing Oddvar did of those shrubs from New Zealand. Right after he told me he was naming the seeds after me, I asked him to draw me a picture of what they’re supposed to look like when they’re fully grown, and he did it and sent it to me, and I went straight to the parlor. They don’t look like anything special, but I figured if the seeds are gonna have my name, I might as well plant one on my body. And Oddvar fucking loved it when I showed it to him the other day at the seed vault. He was like: WHAT? You actually did it? And I was like: Of course, man! LOL. People have just recently started to notice this one because it’s kind of small, and in a lot of the stuff that’s been written up about it, they think it’s a weed plant—like, they think it’s a pot leaf or something—and it’s like: No. I’m not gonna get a fucking weed plant tattooed on my neck. I mean, I know plenty of people who would—I can’t even count how many pot leaves Z Bunny has—but that’s just not really my vibe. Anyone who knows me at all should know that.

  #72—Inner left forearm. This one’s pretty self-explanatory. I’ve been gradually piling up my discography here since HERE we Go dropped five years ago. I haven’t included all the EPs or the Christmas tracks or the feature spots I’ve done on other people’s shit, because if I did that, it’d cover my whole arm, but this list is all of my albums so far. There’s: I. Be My Baby, II. HERE we Go, III. Roses and Mud, and then IV. with a blank space next to it for whatever the video game’s gonna be called. I don’t get the ink until they’ve been officially released, because sometimes I change my mind about the title at the last minute, and obviously it’d be a hassle to change the tat. The “IV.” is just kind of sitting there as a reminder to get to work.

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  I guess it’s worth mentioning that, like, when it comes to Roses and Mud, all the shit that happened with Mandy in Berlin and France had a pretty major effect on what would eventually become the second half of the album.

  In the months immediately following my father’s suicide, I was kind of lost in terms of, like, what I was supposed to be doing with the album. I mean, you know, at the time that he did it, I was halfway through recording all of the stuff in France, and all of the songs I had recorded at that point were like, these super-low-key, super-delicate piano songs, and I had originally wanted to make a whole album that way, but then with my dad killing himself the way he did, the album just started making less and less sense—just going to the piano felt like an escape, you know? It felt sentimental—and so I was actually sort of at a loss for how to proceed. But then the shit with Mandy happened, and it was just like: Oh, okay, I think I see what this has gotta be. I mean, that’s when all the grunge found its way onto the album, you know, and when you think about Roses and Mud, you think grunge, right?

  This is super-dark—like, this is a kind of crazy thought—but sometimes I think my dad was trying to send me a message with his suicide. I mean, obviously he was trying to send everyone a message, but sometimes I think he was trying to specifically send me a message about the direction I needed to take my career in. A part of him must’ve known that something needed to HAPPEN to me, you know? I think a part of him knew that I needed to GO THROUGH something or else, like, people were gonna be done with me. Because how long is anyone really willing to root for a kid who’s been famous since he was twelve? After a while, that becomes a story that’s pretty hard to relate to. And so this really dark part of me thinks that my dad almost did what he did so he could give me some edge, you know? Or send me off into a different direction. I mean, I don’t know. This is the kind of crazy shit that being famous does to your head: A suicide isn’t just a suicide. You start to think of it as just another ingredient in the story of your life, another facet of your brand.

  I remember coming home from the airport after saying good-bye to Mandy, and like, sitting in my house and finally reading all the news articles about the aftermath of what had happened in Berlin—you know, like, the police manhunt, and the stories coming out about all the victims, and the sort of in-depth descriptions of the actual attacks—and, I don’t know why, but something inside me was just feeling so raw and so torn up that I just wanted to listen to that recording my dad sent me a few days before he killed himself. You know how sometimes you get like that? You’re just like, feeling something so intensely that you want to lean into it: like, you just want to sink into the bath or like, dig the knife into the wound? And so I started listening to that recording—I was just sitting there in my living room, like, listening to my dad doing this gut-wrenching version of that song I did with Deez—and, all of a sudden, it hit me. I was just like: Whoa. It flashed in front of my face like a stock ticker. And I immediately called up my guitar teacher, and I was like: Yo, we’ve got some work to do today. And he was like: Dope. On my way.

  I mean, it’s crazy that I hadn’t realized that’s why I chose guitar in the first place, you know? I started the lessons a week or two after my dad’s funeral—honestly, I just needed something to distract me, something I could noodle around with that wasn’t the album—but, all of a sudden, it became so clear why I was doing it, and it was because my subconscious mind knew way before my conscious mind did that I was recording a grunge album.

  And so my teacher came over—his name’s Martin. I don’t know why I’m calling him my “teacher” like he’s some dude who puts up flyers in Starbucks. He’s this dope session musician who’s played with everyone from the Pagers to the Sprinklers to the Rat Kings—and I tell him what I’m thinking, and he’s like: Okay, well, let’s go through some basic chord progressions. And within a week or two, I already had the skeletons of a few tracks. I mean, everyone I told about this new direction just thought I was absolutely crazy. Like, my manager was just basically like: No. And my mom and Bob were like: I don’t know about this. But they all knew, you know, that once I get my mind set on something, it’s pretty hard to get me off of it. And, you know, I mean, it’s not like the whole thing was coming out of left field. I DID grow up with grunge—like, all those records were sitting around in my house—and when I was like five or six or seven, my dad would take me with him to all his band practices, so I would just take it all
in, you know? Soak it all up. It’s not totally crazy to say that grunge is my musical inheritance more than like, pop is, so when it came time to actually find my way into the songs, it was actually a lot easier than some of the stuff I had been doing before.

  And the real stroke of genius—I mean, the real sort of moment when the whole project opened up for me and I realized that this wasn’t just some crazy thing that popped into my head but it was actually a dope idea—was when I realized that Chris Jeffries and I had to do a collaboration.

  Chris was always my dad’s favorite—if my dad ever wanted to be somebody else in the world, it was Chris Jeffries. Like, seriously, when I was growing up, Chris and the Thunderbums were like, practically gods in my house, and we’d just be listening to them all the time. My dad would buy all these collector’s edition recordings, and like, we’d go see them in concert whenever they came to town—they never rolled through St. James proper, but like, if they were playing anywhere near us, like, anywhere within a couple hours, we’d drive there—and I’m actually almost positive that like, the Thunderbums were my first concert—when I was four or five or whatever: as soon as my mom would let my dad take me.

  And sitting here writing this now, I’m actually remembering this one time way early on, like, way toward the beginning of my career, when we were about to play a concert at the Staples Center in L.A., and my dad was like, looking at all the pictures of the people backstage who had performed there—you know, like, they just have all those pictures hanging up in the green room—and he stopped in front of a picture of Chris, and he was just like: Wow. Incredible. I mean, I think that’s when he first realized, you know, that we had made it.

  So, anyway, I started asking around to see if I knew anybody who knew Chris, and it turned out that he and Trick Hatz were members of the same country club. LOL.

  I mean, that’s something I find so funny about the whole industry, you know, is that like, everything is presented as if it’s these totally separate categories—like when I used to go to the record store, like, especially if it was a big one, like a Virgin Megastore or a Tower Records or whatever, the different genres of music would be in totally different corners of the room. You’d have to walk like, ten minutes to get from Country to Rap. And even now, like, even on the internet, the sites are still set up to make you feel like you’re entering a different world when you’re looking at a different style of music—but the truth is we all know each other. We all go eat at the same restaurants, and we all send our kids to the same schools, and like, yeah, fucking Trick Hatz and Chris Jeffries are both members of the Seaside Club in Malibu.

  Their kids even played on the same volleyball team, so I asked Trick if he thought he could set up a meeting between the two of us, and Trick said he’d give it a shot. I didn’t want to go through the managers or whatever, because I knew Chris had been in retirement for a while, and I was pretty sure if he just got an email from some assistant or some secretary, he’d just be like: Nah, I don’t think so. And so Trick mentioned it to him at one of their kids’ volleyball games, and Chris was a little apprehensive at first, but I guess as a favor to Trick, he eventually agreed to meet with me.

  And it was funny, you know: I guess at that time, Chris was spending pretty much ALL of his time at the Seaside Club. Like, he had his own beach house, you know, he had his own spot to chill, but I think he just really liked it there. Or maybe he just liked the ritual of it. Like, I think he just liked getting in his car and driving down to the club and saying hi to the valet guys and going and sitting in his chair by the pool, and like, I think he mostly just liked having somewhere to go, you know? He had become known around town as the “Mayor of the Seaside Club” because, like, he was super-involved in all the organizational decisions, and like, all of the membership drives.

  And so anyway, one day I dropped by the club at the time Trick had set up for us, and Chris was sitting there with his shirt unbuttoned by the pool, like, chilling in a pair of board shorts, sipping on a daiquiri, and when I approached him, I guess ’cause I’m so young or whatever, Chris thought I was one of the busboys, and so he was like: Oh, I’m still working on this one. And I was like: No, no, I’m not—I don’t work here. I’m here to talk to you about a few things. I’m friends with Trick. And Chris was immediately laughing, like: Oh, man, I’m sorry. It was just—the way you were approaching me—it was like you were scared of me or something. Here, please, pop a squat. And so I sat down in one of the pool chairs next to him, and he ordered me a daiquiri—usually, I hate that shit, but these were legitimately next-level—and we got to talking.

  And the thing you have to understand about Chris is like, he took his retirement REALLY seriously. Like, he really meant it when he was like: I’m never releasing another record for as long as I live. Because the Thunderbums, at the height of their success, were pretty legendary. I mean, there was a time not that long ago when the Thunderbums were literally the biggest band in the world. I know it’s kind of hilarious to think about that now—like, how long ago does THAT feel?—but it’s still undeniably true that during their moment, during their time, they were THE band to listen to. And so Chris was really allergic to the thought of ruining his legacy by putting out new music way past his prime. He had just seen it with so many people, you know, like, people who were really at the core of their moment who stuck around too long, or like, became too desperate to stay in the game and ended up becoming jokes in the process. And the way Chris looked at it, he was like an athlete, you know? If he couldn’t win the championship, he didn’t want to be on the field.

  And so even though he wasn’t that old at all—I mean, he’s only like, a little bit older than my parents, so … late forties? Early fifties?—even though he still had a lot of years left in him, he was essentially in permanent retirement. When the Bums were still touring and making those four albums, every single one of them just MURDERED—like, hit after hit after hit—and they used “Broken Sparrow” in all those Hyundai commercials—probably at this point, it’s gotta be like, a hundred?—so we’re talking about millions and millions of dollars. And so Chris just had no reason to ever pick up a guitar again unless he really, really wanted to. And he didn’t. LOL. He was just like: I’m gonna drink my daiquiris, and get involved at the Seaside Club, and go pick my kids up from school every afternoon, and, every once in a while, we’ll go skiing in Colorado, and that’s gonna be my life.

  But still, I just had it lodged in my mind—I don’t know why, but I was just so obsessed with this idea—that if I could somehow manage to pull Chris Jeffries out of retirement and make some music with him, it was gonna be the dopest shit ever, and so I started talking to him.

  And at first, obviously, he was super-dismissive. Like, I didn’t dance around it at all—I don’t know, I just think something I’ve learned from Bob is like: Life is too short to bullshit your way through any conversation—and so I just launched right in with: I wanna make a song with you. And Chris was just immediately, like, laughing his ass off. Like, I think his reaction was like: Look at the balls on this kid, you know? But I started talking to him about grunge—like, I started talking to him about the scene way back in the day—and he ended up actually being really impressed with the depth of my knowledge. I mean, it’s sad, you know, because this meeting would’ve been the highlight of my dad’s life—like, he literally would’ve killed to be at this meeting—but looking back on it now, if my dad ever did end up meeting Chris Jeffries, he would’ve just totally blown it, because he would’ve brought this energy with him that would’ve been completely the opposite of what Chris responds to. Like, yeah, my dad was able to keep his cool and sort of keep up his chill vibe in the beginning when it came to our stuff, but my dad actually LOOKED UP to Chris, you know?—like, Chris was his IDOL—and so he would’ve just turned into this nervous, anxious, horrible little guy, and Chris would’ve sniffed it out immediately.

  But anyway, after a little while talking to him, Chris decided that I was pr
etty legit. Like, he made up his mind that I was at least knowledgeable and appreciative of the music he had made and the scene he came up in, and so he kind of warmed up to me. And, I mean, he was still sort of joking around, you know, like he was still smiling about it, but eventually, he was just like: Why don’t you show me what you’ve been working on?

  And obviously, I had the files on my phone. I brought a pair of headphones with me for exactly this reason, and so I loaded up the demos, and I gave Chris the headphones, and I just watched as he listened to them, like, sipping his daiquiri. He didn’t move his head at all—it was just like, very serious, very stoic—and after I played him the first song, he was just like: Is there another one? And so I played him another one. And after that one, he was like: Is there another one? And I played him another one. And he kept doing that until I played him all the songs, and after the last song, he took the headphones out of his ears, and he handed them to me, and he took a long, sort of contemplative sip of his daiquiri, and he was just like: These are great. LOL. This is some of the best shit I’ve heard in years. And I was just like: Boom. I mean, I’ve honestly never felt so good showing anything to anybody. It was like the whole sky opened up, and I could see the ocean over the hedges of the Seaside Club, and the sun was glinting just perfectly onto the pool, and for a moment, it was like the Seaside Club was the best place on Earth. I completely understood why Chris loved it so much.

  And it turned out that Chris was actually a big fan of the songs I had recorded with Deez for HERE we Go. He didn’t even know it was me at the time, but apparently when they first came out, he was like, obsessed with them for a couple of weeks—he kept listening to them on repeat and singing them in the car with his kids—and at first he was kind of embarrassed about it, but after a while, he was just like: No, this is some of the best shit in recent memory. This is the real deal. And so it was pretty clear that we had at least been vibing on the same frequency for a while.