Carleton student, Charlie Taylor, will be performing with the Charlie Taylor Banned at the Mayfair on Dec. 10. The Charlatan’s Larissa Robyn Johnston spoke with the comedian/musician about eating off silver platters, running around in briefs and a bowtie, and Ho Ho Hos.
The Charlatan (TC): Quite a few of your song titles – like “Never Been Too Drunk Too Drink” and “Eternal Hangover in Hell” – are about booze. Describe your relationship with alcohol.
Charlie Taylor (CT): Wow, you’re not pulling any punches. It’s a good question, I’m just trying not to incriminate myself. I guess I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with alcohol. My drinking has provided opportunities which I wouldn’t have had if I was not a drinker. But I mean there’s also obviously consequences that come from that lifestyle choice. There are, you know, health consequences, it’s an expensive hobby. But I wouldn’t change it for anything because I’ve had wonderful opportunities that I would not have had if I was not a drinker.
TC: What’s the craziest story you’ve had from drinking?
CT: Back in ’98 I got to party with Coolio, Public Enemy, Cypress Hill and The Roots at a bar in Tokyo. That was pretty fun, partied with them all night, drank champagne, food on silver platters.
TC: On your MySpace page, there are several pictures of you in nothing but briefs and a bowtie. Why do you have to be like that?
CT: I like fun. One of those instances was at a music festival in Taiwan. I was running around promoting my show and I think there were five or six different stages so you want to try to get as many people to your stage as possible. It’s a good way to get attention to run around in briefs and a bowtie. . . . We had a good turnout for the show.
TC: So it was good attention that you got?
CT: Oh yeah, it’s a music festival. Everyone’s there having fun, everybody likes something a little out of the ordinary.
TC: What will your be wearing at your performance at the Mayfair?
CT: That’s a trade secret, I can’t reveal that.
TC: Can you give us a hint?
CT: It’ll be fun.
TC: Will it be more or less clothing than these briefs and bowties?
CT: Well it won’t be less, I don’t think that’s legal.
TC: Back to your MySpace and Facebook pages, it says, "Fuck the music industry," and beside "Record label," you wrote, "No thanks." What created this attitude toward the recording industry?
CT: I don’t like the way that music has become an industry. I think that music should be about art and creating art, and not about making huge profits. The way that the music industry has been taken over by major corporations is really not a good thing for art and artists. And they always say, "Don’t pirate music because you’re hurting the artist," but really you’re hurting the corporations and any damage you can do for the corporation is actually god for artists.
I’m not interested in becoming a millionaire through my music. I would play my music for free if nobody ever paid me a cent to do it because that’s what I like to do. If you corporatize anything you’re going to be taking away a certain amount of soul. The corporatizations have decided that it’s easier to manufacture pop acts than to let them sort of develop in the grass roots.
That’s why you get the Britney Spearses where you’ve got somebody who writes the words, somebody who writes the music, somebody who records it, then a pretty girl in a tight outfit to dance and sing. That’s not good music. If we manage to bring the record industry to its knees by never buying another CD, then that would even be a good thing for the state of music.
TC: How will artists perform and produce their CDs if there’s no more music industry?
CT: I’ve been off and on as a professional musician for 11 years and I’ve never been signed to a label and I have no interest in being signed to a label. Clearly I’ve had other jobs to supplement my income. It’s not like you need to be writing songs 24 hours a day to be productive.
TC: How come you decided to combine music and comedy – because a lot of your songs do have a humourous aspect – rather than perform them separately?
CT: That’s a shear coincidence. When I started writing songs, I wasn’t trying to write funny songs but they just kind of came out funny and then when I tried to write serious songs, they came out cheesy and crappy so I decided I didn’t want to do that. And also there’s millions of better guitar players in the world and almost everybody’s a better singer than I am so I had to find someway to be able to make my music appealing for people and definitely the humour gets people out.
TC: Do you find that the humour kind of distracts people from what you call the lack of vocal talent?
CT: Yeah, definitely. People would never come out to see me play a show of cover songs because it sounds better on the radio. . . . But people do come out because they like to laugh.
TC: What can the audience look forward to at your Mayfair performance?
CT: It’s a Christmas extravaganza. . . . We’re doing some Christmas songs. . . . We’re going to have some sexy dancing girls in nice outfits and Pimpin’ Santa . . . and the girls are going to be the Ho Ho Hos.