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conducted by John Clay
Rothko Club, Suffolk Street, New York City
12 June 2005

i n t r o d u c t i o n

I squeezed myself into the human mass and found Paul at the center of it all. It was a club called Rothko, on Suffolk Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, a neighborhood newly bloated with high-end shops and restaurants but hemorrhaging artists and generally still irritable from its skyrocketting trendiness. "SO ARE YOU READY?" "WHAT?" "IT'S PRETTY LOUD IN HERE!" We were already standing a quarter inch from each other, and I didn't really know this guy well enough to get any closer. What I did know is that he had been playing bass for a good long time, with David Byrne among many other musical greats, and with the great unknowns—a musician's musician who just wants to be a part of good music, wherever he finds it.

I had met Paul a couple weeks earlier when he was playing bass at my neighborhood hangout in North Brooklyn, Black Betty, with a local band called Brian J and the Pimps of Joytime. I liked Paul's style right away, and we agreed we would do an interview at this gig he had coming up at Rothko. Now, with an indeterminate period of time available before he would have to rejoin the chaos of Rothko's bandstand, we made our way to the basement bar, where different music was blaring from the speakers, but blaring more quietly than upstairs.

i n t e r v i e w

CLAY: Do you come from a musical family?

FRAZIER: My parents weren't heavy duty into jazz and rock music. My father is a baptist minister and my mother took music lessons growing up. But I think her sister was an influence on me; she's a classical pianist, an incredible player. And her brother is a saxophonist; he played for a couple of Jazz greats.

CLAY: Did you start by playing music at church?

FRAZIER: No, I started taking classical piano lessons at like five, and at school I picked up the trombone and drums at around eight or nine years old. Trombone worked for a couple of years, but I didn't want my lips to look like I played a horn. So I went to bass guitar.

CLAY: Were you exposed to a variety of musical styles?

FRAZIER: I grew up in New York, but when I lived in Jersey I went to a high school where you heard mostly Linnard Skinnard and Allman Brothers. But when I'd go to record stores I'd see names of people I didn't know and I'd say "Oingo Boingo—What does that sound like?" So I'd buy it.

CLAY: When did you realize music was going to be a career?

FRAZIER: I played in a band with my cousins, friends, and my brother when we were all in our early teens. Some guy saw us playing at my father's church fair. He said, "I want to get you to play in this festival". So we played the festival and somebody from Kool and the Gang said, "Hey, do you want to open up for us at this college concert in New Jersey?" And we did. From that point on, I knew I wanted to be a professional. Worshipping Paul McCartney, Jermaine Jackson, Stanley Clarke, and Miles Davis really helped me along the way. Paul McCartney was a creative player, writer, and singer. The Jackson Five which was a great group—my favorite group, beside the Temptations and Sly and the Family Stone. And Miles Davis was playing music that I thought was wild and crazy. That's what set me on my path.

CLAY: What bass guitar are you playing right now and what do you especially like about it?

FRAZIER: I use three basses. I have my Fender Jazz Bass, which is my typical four-string bass. I also play a five-string fretless bass made by Rob Allen which is just an incredible guitar. All it has is a volume knob, and that's all it needs. It's hollow with no ports. Of all the fretless basses I've ever played, this one has a distinct character because of the nylon strings, which get warmer as time goes on, and the crystal pickup mounted underneath the bridge. Wherever I decide to strike the string, I get a different sound and color. And it has the sustain of life.

And then there's the Bossa. I was in France when I saw this bass in a magazine, and I thought "Wow, this bass really looks good. I wonder if it sounds good!" The guy who made it, Toshio Setozaki, was in Osaka, Japan, where I was going to be touring with Imani Coppola. So when we went there, I called him up. He came down to the soundcheck and brought a bass to try, and I really loved it. It's the bass that I pretty much play everywhere. I have others. I have an MTD bass, by Michael Tobias, which kind of reminds me of a Musicman, and I like that. But the Bossa is my favorite one to play. It's very versatile, and I can get pretty much any sound I want out of it.

CLAY: How did the Osaka gig come about?

FRAZIER: I was playing with Imani Coppola who is on Sony Records. We went around the world pretty much, and it was a lot of fun playing with her because she is wild, completely wild. I mean Macy Gray is the closest thing I can compare to her. She's just a girl that I think should be one of the top female artists in Pop or Rock or whatever kind of music—I don't want to put a label on her because she just does what she does, and I think she should be in the middle of the limelight.

CLAY: Tell me about playing with Madame Venus and Swampbytche?

FRAZIER: How did you know about that?

CLAY: I check up on these things.

FRAZIER: It was kind of like playing with Ike and Tina Turner. They had like three girls up front that danced the Tina Turner moves. Madame Venus always had a good band. It was always high energy. I had a lot of fun. Venus is probably one of the most energetic, nicest people I know. Whenever I need a boost, if I talk to Venus, I've got it. There are two people: her and my cousin Chris that I played with on Epic Records. His energy is the same way.

CLAY: You and your cousin played together?

FRAZIER: We were like a four-guy scene on Epic Records. I played my bass. He played a lot of instruments on the album. It was a lot of fun because we were like a modern day Earth, Wind and Fire. In the early 90s. We did pretty well. The only problem was just management and people changing at the record company. But when we were hot, we were hot.

CLAY: Tell me about Pat Ciserano.

FRAZIER: Pat is one of my very close friends. She has gone through a really rough time--a brain tumor. And it took her a while to get back in the scene. But we had recorded something before that all happened. It took a long time, but we finished the project and I still think that record holds up. I think we could sell it to any record company. It's like blues, reggae, R & B. Pat puts 150 percent of herself into her music. I loved working with her, writing and producing with her.

CLAY: How did you first meet her?

FRAZIER: I met Pat I think in 1993, and it was funny because I was at a club called Mondo Cane to see one of my good friends who was working there. My friend wanted me to meet her new boyfriend; she looks to me as like a big brother. So while I was down there, Pat came up to me and said: "You're a bass player?" And I said, "Yeah". And she said, "Well I need a bass player for this gig, and I've never hired a bass player that I never met before, but I'm looking at you and I bet you can play." I sat down with the guys she had on that bandstand and we had so much fun.

CLAY: Tell me about Maryellen McCabe and the album Heroes and Heroines.

FRAZIER: Wow, that's a long time ago. I worked with Maryellen McCabe when she was recording in the studio. I played bass and sang background vocals. I remember her writing these really wild lyrics that had kind of an odd twist to them.

CLAY: Did you arrange the background vocals for that album, and do you still arrange?

FRAZIER: Yeah. Oh, I love it. I write and produce. I like doing it all. I don't really call anybody to do anything. I'll arrange the string section, I'll arrange the guitars, backup vocals, whatever I need to, to make it work. Even though I love working with other people, for the sake of getting things done fast, I do it myself.

CLAY: How did you meet David Byrne?

FRAZIER: I was playing with Imani, and David was doing that show Sessions on 54th Street. We played on the show one day, and I think he enjoyed us so much, that he got her producer to produce his Look into the Eyeball album, with Imani singing backround. Then the producer called me and said, "You know, David Byrne doesn't have a bass player and I told him I hire you all the time." I said, "Great, sure!" So I went for an audition, along with Shawn Pelton, the drummer for Saturday Night Live, who is a great drummer and plays on every set in Manhattan pretty much, and it was just kind of rockin. I think it took David half a moment to see that, hey, this is gonna be fun. We got together to record that album. Then we went on tour, a little over a year, through the US and Europe and Australia.

CLAY: What stands out about playing with David Byrne?

FRAZIER: David Byrne is someone who I admire so much because he is willing to experiment with his band and his music and is willing to always learn more. And it shows in everything he does. Because he doesn't try too hard to be this way or that way. He just writes a song to write a song. Whatever feels good. To me, that's the key to songwriting: To try to get people to hear a song and to love it. And not to feel it has to be R & B or Latin or Jazz or Classical. A good songwriter writes good songs. That to me is the key to music.

Another thing that I really liked when I started playing with David Byrne is that he made himself a friend to the band—because I consider him a friend. It wasn't, "I'm David Byrne and these guys way behind me are the band." Instead it was, "I'm David Byrne and these guys standing next to me are my band." Not to say that I need that in order to play with an artist, but it's just nice to know. And that's actually funny: People were saying to me, "Hey, you're a front man now!", because David features the band so much and I do a lot of singing with him.

CLAY: Tell me about your autoracing with David Byrne.

FRAZIER: If there's a race track, we're there. I must say, our percussionist Mauro Refosco, he is an amazing car driver. He has no fear. See, I have fear. I fear for, oh, if I get hurt and I can't walk and I can't play basketball anymore. He's just, "I don't care." He's a great driver.

CLAY: Who usually crosses the finish line first?

FRAZIER: Mauro! One time we were in Indianapolis, and we were on this small track. It was like a mini-Indy car. I remember them saying before we got in those cars, "Ok, you break it, you pay for it." And for some reason that slowed me down a lot.

CLAY: You have played music with a lot of artists over the years: How do they influence you? What changes or stays the same in your own approach to music?

FRAZIER: What stays the same is what I grew up on—Paul McCartney, Jermaine Jackson, Weather Report, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, James Brown. David Sancious is one of my favorite musicians of all time. He's very gifted and versatile. He plays keyboards, guitar, bass, probably anything he picks up. He has a style that's just so different from anyone else. Maybe he was influenced by jazz-fusion classical progressive rock, like Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I don't know, but whatever moved him, I can feel it when I listen to him. So the influences are very important for me. It's just the people that I've listened to over the years. It's in my heart, and it comes out in my playing, no matter who I play with.

What changes is that a lot of the people I play with have something to offer and, if I'm lucky, something else to absorb and add to my Rolodex of influences. I mean, I've played with a lot of great people. Nile Rogers is so impressive when it comes to the things he's accomplished in life. He's produced everybody. He is an incredible guitarist. He's written so many hits, not just for himself but for Sister Sledge, for Diana Ross, for Duran Duran, Modonna.

CLAY: Tell me about your own writing.

FRAZIER: I love film scores. I want to write for horror movies and anything that's wild and weird. I've listened to enough Stravinsky in my life to be into that. If something is written in an odd time-signature, it's very comfortable for me. I almost try not to read it: I try to feel it, feel that it's weird. Writing something that's dark, for me, is a lot of fun. Dark music really pulls you in. And in horror movies, if you take out the music, you're just left with people killing people left and right—it would be boring. I think anything would be boring without the music!

CLAY: What else are you writing?

FRAZIER: Actually I'm working on my own record right now. Some of it's new, some of it's old, but even the old stuff can hold its own. I don't know how to label it. It's kind of a mixture of Stevie Wonder meets Jimi Hendricks, meets the Beatles, meets Herbie Hancock.

CLAY: So now I see why you like David Byrne, where everything meets.

FRAZIER: Yeah. Life is a fusion. As long as you can keep it where you're happy. Stevie Wonder was a genius at that. He could write incredibly intense pieces, these really great chord changes, and put a simple melody over it, or he could sing something incredibly difficult and play music that's so simple that people think, Hey that sounds like I could follow it—I'm gonna buy it! The stuff Stevie Wonder does is incredible, but people sing along to it like they sing along to the Rolling Stones. I mean "I Just Called to Say I Love You" seems like the easiest song of all, but most singers cannot start where Stevie starts and finish where Stevie finishes. The range of his natural voice is incredible. Most people have to break into falsetto. Stevie Wonder has it all in his natural range.

CLAY: Are there times when you feel like you just need to write a piece of music even if you don't know that there will be a popular audience for it?

FRAZIER: Sure. I have tons of that stuff, and I'm going to probably put it on my record, because it's me. So I hope this really works out. Because I've worked with a lot of people over the years and I've loved it, but I've really got to finish my own project. Otherwise I guess I'm not being true to myself. I have this music in my head, and I have to get it out.

interview © 2005 John Clay