In this exclusive interview, I had the pleasure of talking to Cryptic Corporation president Homer Flynn. Homer is also the spokesperson for legendary anonymous San Francisco music collective The Residents. With a very exciting project on the horizon, we chatted about the eyeballed foursome’s upcoming exploits, recent reissues and releases, and the possibilty of future UK tours. There are a few other surprises too.
The Residents’ upcoming project is something called ‘Doctor Dark,’ which seems like an interesting project. It’s an album, but it’s also got a punk/classical thing going on. You are working with a classical composer. There seems like a lot of components going on there.
This is probably The Residents most ambitious project in a while. It’s based on two news stories. The character of Doctor Dark is based on Doctor Kevorkian. He is a character The Residents always found fascinating. There are primarily 3 characters: Doctor Dark, and then two teenagers.
controversial euthanasia activist Jack Kevorkian AKA ‘Dr Death’
Back in the late 80s or early 90s, you had two teenagers in Reno, NV. They listened to way too much heavy metal music, drank too much beer, smoked too much marijuana, and decided that they would kill themselves. so, they went out to a playground with a shotgun, and bam. One of them was successful. The other one was only partially successful and blew off part of his head. What happened was the parents sued the record company and Judas Priest for having corrupted their children.
The trial got all the attention. There was a documentary filmmaker from New York who came out to document it, and he discovered that one of them was still alive. Ultimately, he wound up shooting an interview footage with this guy and it wound up in this documentary film.
You can see it on YouTube now, [‘Dream Deceivers.’] It’s a train wreck that you cannot take your eyes off. The Residents saw this film when it came out and were fascinated by it and wanted to do something with that, but they weren’t quite sure. They talked it over and then worked on something else, and then they would come back to it.
Then, finally they got the idea of connecting Doctor Kevorkian with these two teenagers. The result is ‘Doctor Dark.’ It’s an interesting piece. It connects two different aesthetic styles. One is more kind of punkish and the other is more classical-ish. I think it’s going to be an interesting album.
I read somewhere that you were thinking of adapting it into a stage play as well?
Well, in their mind, they feel like they’re creating a modern opera, and they would love to see it get produced as such. That depends upon a lot of things more than what the Cryptic Corporation can provide. So, we’ll see. Edwin [Outwater], the conductor that The Residents are working with has a lot of connections in that way. If he gets really involved and interested in the album, it’s possible that he may be able to make some connections and make that happen.
You do a lot of the art for The Residents, and you’ve talked with this most recent project about your use of AI in creating a lot of the art. Obviously that’s been a bit of a hot button topic at the moment. Could you talk about how you’ve used AI as a tool in creating the art for the album?
The Residents’ ‘Animal Lover.’ Credit: Pore Know Graphics (Homer)
As you said, AI is a controversial subject these days. I just see it as another tool. It’s very easy for it to create beautiful imagery, but when I’m creating stuff, I try to go beyond just the surface. Doing AI stuff, I reject 95 to 98% of what it spits out. You can’t just stop at the first pretty image, you have to tweak it. Sometimes you get lucky and find something really, quickly, but not very often. Like any art, you must work at it.
I just wanted to segue briefly into some of the recent or semi recent live performances that The Residents have done. There was a CD/DVD set of the Secret Show that came out recently that was at the San Francisco Conservatory, and then there was also the Night of Ideas performance of ‘Eskimo’ recently as well. Obviously, both of those are quite different things so I wondered how you gauge them in terms of success?
Personally, I have to see both as quite successful. The secret show was extremely demanding, mainly because they went out on tour like 11 or 12 days after that show. The school year of the Conservatory meant that they couldn’t do that show until a week or 10 days after the holidays were over. Their tour had already been scheduled months in advance. So they they wound up having these two things almost piled one on top of the other, and it made for a very difficult and stressful time. On the other hand, there were so many people that were willing to get involved. I think The Residents’ performance is fine, but it’s other people interpreting their material that me and the band found to be the most interesting and fun part of it.
The ‘Eskimo’ Night of Ideas came out of nowhere. There is a French art documentary filmmaker called Marie Losier. She’s in the process of making an art documentary about The Residents. She came to San Francisco last September, and was here for about 3 or 4 weeks. She got a residency at the French consulate in San Francisco. It’s the French consulate that were responsible for the Night of Ideas.
They came to The Residents and said, “hey, would you like to be the finale on this show?” The Residents said “sure,” but they didn’t want to do the same material that they had been doing on tour. They decided that Eskimo was something they had wanted to explore for a long time. It came together amazingly quickly, and they were extremely happy with that. So they’re very strongly considering expanding that into more of a full show as opposed to just 30 minutes.
On the 50th anniversary tour, The Residents came to Leeds, possibly for the first time ever. Given that that was like their first “fully fledged” tour of the UK, how did they find the audiences? Are they planning to play more shows further down the line over here?
They are. Cryptic has recently connected with AEG, and they’re like the second biggest promoter in the world. The guy who runs AEG UK is a big fan. So, I suspect next time they do a more normal tour They’ll do a lot of shows in the UK.
You announced recently that The Residents had parted ways with one of their long time collaborators, the guitarist Nolan Cook. He’d worked with them for something like 25 years. I just wondered what either your or the band’s perception was on the influence he had on them and their relationship working together.
Nolan did work with The Residents for 25 years, and personally I think what happened was… Nolan is obviously a great musician. They were really wanting to go with a quite different sound in terms of their live performances, and they did not want to go with such a heavy guitar sound. What they’re doing is they are replacing him with a woman who is an Incredible electric violin player and singer.
When they go out with a tour, again, it’s going to give them a really different sound, and that’s exciting to them. I think in some ways they felt like their sound had gotten too predictable, and The Residents pride themselves on not being predictable. Hopefully this will be successful in terms of giving them a new sound.
This new member played with them previously in 2021. Credit: Brian Wilk
The only other thing that I wanted to touch on is the ‘Demons Dance Alone’ pREServed set. I believe you were quoted as saying that’s one of your favourites. Obviously, The Residents constantly strive to evolve, and change, and adapt. With the pREServed series, it seems like they’re also not afraid of admiring what they’ve done before.
The thing about ‘Demons Dance Alone’, there were a lot of unexpected happenings or occurrences when that residents put that show together. One was the dancer who played the demon. The Residents wanted to experiment with a dancer who was the primary lighting person for the show. For that performance, you have this dancer dancing with two lights, moving the lights around in a way to focus the audience’s attention. Paul Denning, a nice guy, liked him a lot.
Paul brought a level of personality to that character that elevated it way beyond anybody’s expectation. Plus, I really like a lot of the music from ‘Demons Dance Alone’ anyway.
Yeah, there is absolutely some fantastic music on that record. You might even call it one of The Residents’ more accessible records.
I would say that too. It’s an album of songs, and it’s not as strongly conceptual as a lot of their other stuff. The songs are all united more in terms of mood. Yeah, there’s a lot of strong material on there.
I’m sure fans of the album will be delighted that it’s in a pREServed set then. There’s some demos and outtakes and stuff. It seems like a must get for fans of that record.
Really, it’s Richard Anderson, product manager for Cherry Red, who is responsible for the pREServed series. I think he’s done a fantastic job with it. I’ve worked in terms of trying to dig out obscure material for him, and I’ve had a good working relationship with Richard. I like him a lot.
The Residents’ ‘Doctor Dark’ is due out via Cherry Red Records in Summer. You can check out their other products on their online store or Cherry Red’s website.
