Johnette Napolitano is a hard rocking bass player, songwriter, and band leader. She first made her mark on rock history among the trailblazing women of the 70s and 80s who included Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads), Kim Deal (Pixies), and Kathy Valentine (Go-Gos).

At the time of this interview, Johnette was excited about her solo recordings and her creative work with Holly Vincent in their project Vowel Movement.

I began my conversation by asking if she had felt creatively restricted within the context of Concrete Blonde.

Johnette: The format was restricting in small ways. But, as we built up a catalog, I no longer felt that I had to do things that we could play live. If I wanted to record twelve or thirteen gospel vocals, I could do it and not worry about it. It was tremendously confusing for marketing people because whenever we made a record we would throw a little bit of everything on it. We enjoyed the diversity. We’re fortunate because our fans are extremely loyal people, they’re the greatest. We have good support there with people who are sensitive and intelligent. So I never felt restricted, but I could see that starting.

And that led to your decision to try something new?

I wasn’t challenged musically anymore and I just felt like I needed to do some other stuff, and I didn’t even know what it was, which was the scariest part. I had said that when our recording contract ran out, that would be it. I had thought that by that time we would all be ready to do something else.

And for you at least, that turned out to be true.

Yeah. I felt like a jerk last year sometimes, going out and doing the same songs and doing the same things. I felt like I could have kept doing it. You know, it’s money in the bank, all you have to do is go out and tour and sing ‘Joey’ a couple more times, but it just wasn’t any fun anymore. I was very unhappy, and it wasn’t the band’s fault, it was just the position that we were in. Jim and I are still the best of friends, and I’m really grateful for that because he’s a very special person. I was obviously worried about the guys, but I decided that everything would work out for the best.

But what a leap of faith that must have been!

Huge. People thought I was crazy, and that’s why I had to leave the country. In the situation I was in, you have various people who make their living off of you saying ‘what am I going to do now?’ It’s not just a happy little band anymore, it’s an actual organization with people depending on you, and it all got to be very much and that’s not the reason to make music. Just to create jobs is not the reason to do it. I realized that in years past, everything that I liked to do had become a job for someone else. I was left with a lot of time sitting around while someone else did the directing, the makeup, the stage and the guitar tuning, until a lot of the creativity of existence was not there for me. Finally I just wanted to get back in touch with what made me want to get up in the morning and really dig playing music and art and thinking of album covers and cool photos and all that.

How did the change affect your life as an artist?

Holly Vincent and I were given a small budget by Mammoth to film a music video for the Vowel Movement project and we shot it ourselves. It was so much fun because we were able to take the camera out and do our own shooting and do whatever we wanted. It really put the creativity back into what I was doing. I was an art student, and this is the kind of stuff that used to get me off. It was so much fun.

I’m happy to hear that you’re creating as much music as before.

Probably even more. My most important goal that I did reach was actually recording my own music myself for the next album. There really aren’t many women doing that. Kate Bush did it, but there really aren’t that many women that do their own technical work. For musicians in general, it’s hard to translate a sound unless you know the language and what the equipment does. I got my ADAT (digital recorder) and I’ve done some of the recording for the next album on my own. When I took that tape into the studio the other day, I was so scared. My engineer was there, and I said that I wanted to use the tape I had made on the new album. We put the music up on the big speakers and it sounded great. My levels were alright, everything was EQed properly, and I was so happy I couldn’t believe it. I really needed the boost because that was the same week that somebody stole my ’56 Les Paul Jr. that Jim Mankey gave me for Christmas two years ago. I was so upset I cried for three days. At the same time, to put my music up on the speakers having achieved something that meant so much to me was so cool.

What a thrill to hear the music played back and have it sound the way you wanted it to.

Oh, man, you wouldn’t have believed how good it felt. I almost started crying but I would have made a fool of myself. I couldn’t believe I did it. It was a really good feeling. So now I’m really encouraged and you can’t get me off the damn machine (laughs). I’m thirty-seven years old, and by this age a lot of people have stopped the learning process. That process should never stop, whether it’s acquiring another language or bettering your skills at work. So learning the technical end of recording was a major goal for me.

Had you already asserted yourself in the process of recording the last few Concrete Blonde albums?

I do get a lot of respect from the engineers that I work with and I’m glad about that. I worked at Gold Star for three years which is where Phil Specter did all his stuff. Plus, Jim and Earl Mankey are studio kings, and you don’t hang around those guys for ten years without learning a few things. So generally I have a whole lot to put in to that. I’m pretty obsessed with everything, down to miking the drums. Everything. A lot of people just want to smoke pot and not get invoved with the technical stuff, and then wake up frustrated with what they’ve done. It helps to be able to communicate in the language. When I used to work in the studio, the engineers would get so pissed off when bands would complain, ‘uh, it sounds like crap.’ The engineers would say, ‘Well, I’ll turn down the crap buttons, what sounds like crap? What are you trying to tell me?’

Were you involved with putting together the Concrete Blonde compilation?

That’s a good record and I had nothing to do with it. I.R.S. exercised their option to do that and they did a fantastic job. One song on the album, ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ is one of my favorite things we ever recorded. I barely remember doing it because we were so plowed, but it was the kind of thing where we thought ah, this is for nothing, it’s never going to be heard so we’ll just do what we want. But sure enough, Miles and the CIA found every tape. He must have had a bug on my eight-track at home, you know?

I love the sound on the live tracks, too.

Yeah, we’re pretty much into that. That’s always been our thing.

Are you comfortable expressing yourself on a variety of instruments?

Oh, yeah, I’ve always done that. I don’t play everything that great, but I really like to play everything. I’ve even got a set of drums and I’m working on combining the live drum sound with the drum machine, because I like the steady kick and snare, but I also like the human toms and high-hat. It’s a blast. I could spend all night and all day doing it, and I practically do!

It’s cool that you’re picking up on the drums, because I’ve always had the sense that you take a lot of joy in the physicality of playing music, especially as a bass player.

Definitely. Yeah. And that’s important on a lot of levels. Any art is a physical manifestation of a human emotion, and to do that makes you feel good, like you’ve worked off that energy. I’ve never been known for writing cheerful happy songs. I don’t know why that is, I don’t think I’m a really depressed person. It’s just that that’s the solace. When I’m down, that’s where I turn. It’s the physical act of doing it that makes it better. When I’m happy, I’ll be out hiking, or hanging out with the dog, or painting.

Is it hard to maintain that level of physical involvement night after night on a tour?

On the road that kind of gets over the top, it’s really physically a bastard. I’ve had trouble the last couple of years just keeping up. When Concrete Blonde cut ‘Sex Beat’ by the Gun Club, my God, we had to sit down like three times during the take because it was so fast (laughs). It was like, ‘Whoa, were we on speed when we were fifteen and we used to do this? Jesus, I’ve gotta rest!’ But you’re right, there is a fine line between your mind and your body. I work out and I’m very much into the mental and physical balance.

Well, I think you’re a great bass player, and I think the bass is a particularly physical expression of music, especially the way you play.

Yeah, I love the bass for that, bass and drums are just amazing. Guitar is my first instrument, and when the band broke up I contemplated returning to it, but I’m much more comfortable singing and playing bass. I always loved the bass but I only took it up because we had trouble keeping a bass player before we signed a record deal. The Police were happening at that time, so I thought, hell, I’ll play the bass.

I was just thinking of The Police, because Sting took up guitar as a solo performer, but went back to playing bass himself.

He’s fuckin’ good, man. It’s easy to trash him, but he’s a great songwriter, and on his worst night he’s just mindblowingly good. When we were playing with him, we were playing a lot of converted ice rinks and just huge places, and nothing would stay in tune. He came up to me and said, ‘If you ever need to use my bass, go ahead and use it,’ and the damn thing is fretless (laughs). I just said, ‘Thanks, Gordon, thanks very much,’ and I’m like, you bastard, you know I can’t play a fretless bass. It was really funny. But Sting’s got a lot of class. I saw him take a whole full water bottle in the chest when he was playing and he never even blinked. He just kept on playing, and I thought, wow, this guy’s got a lot of class. Anybody else, me included, would have gone flying off the stage.

I’ve been very impressed and inspired by how many artists and musicians are taking a DIY approach to recording and marketing their own music.

Well, that’s what punk rock was all about, especially in L.A., that was the spirit of the early eighties. Life is short and you should be doing what you like to do. It’s absolutely no fun when you get to a certain level and you have to compromise your art. It’s much more fun to work a day job, take the money, come home and rehearse, have a good time and put out your own record. You know, we had made our first record independently and we were going to put it out when Miles Copeland heard it and he said it reminded him a lot of The Police. He liked the versatility of the three-piece format.

That was how you started out?

Yeah.Those are the days that I really miss. There were no CD’s then, it was actually records, so you’d spend more in cardboard mailers and postage than you did actually pressing the record. We would stay up all night packing up records and sending them out. It was really cool.

It’s a gamble putting your money and your music on the line.

Yeah, I like that. And if there were a way to figure out how to make a hit… You know, a lot of the press will give you that shit about ‘Joey.’ Which came out of nowhere, and thank God it did. I’m fine, you know? But some people will say, ‘Oh, that was crap.’ Hey, man, if I had known how to write a hit I would have done it on the first album, but I had to work my ass off for that long. If it were that easy to sit down and do that, I would have done it the very first time around. So that’s just silliness

And how do you feel about the prospects for making interesting music now?

Things are in a very interesting stage now, musically. It’s really opened up for a lot of things to happen. As evil and stupid as the music business is, you never know what’s going to happen. You never know what’s going to hit or what’s going to miss. You never know what’s going to come along and blow everything out of the water and change the face of everything. And I think that’s really exciting.