Van Gogh’s Daughter

Jane Woodman is one of the singer/songwriters in Van Gogh’s Daughter, my favorite new band. A band you should definitely check out. No gimmicks (hair color notwithstanding) just really good songs that are well written and beautifully executed. This is what she had to say…

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SLUG: Well, first of all I think I know Rachel.

Van Gogh’s Daughter: Oh, you do? 

SLUG: I used to live in San Francisco. I don’t know if it’s the same one or not. I saw Frightwig. I saw Frightwig a couple of times and I think that I know who she is but I’m not sure. 

VGD: She was in the Mudwimin too. 

SLUG: I never saw them. I saw their name but I never saw them. 

VGD: They’re so cool. 

SLUG: Were you in any other San Francisco bands besides… 

VGD: Yeah, I was in a couple of bands but nothing noteworthy. 

SLUG: So what’s the plan for the band first off? 

VGD: Well, we’ve been touring. We were just really excited for the record to come out. Finally it did on February 13th. We’re working up an acoustic set right now to like do on the radio and in stores. 

SLUG: So you play guitar, Rachel plays bass, and who’s the other guitar player? 

VGD: Paige Webber. She is also the other songwriter. 

SLUG: She is also the other blonde. 

VGD: Yes, the other blonde. 

SLUG: There’s two blondes and then Rachel and then I can’t really tell about the other women. 

VGD: Red. 

SLUG: Red. Okay. Well on the original… 

VGD: The hair color is important. 

SLUG: So you and Paige do all of the songwriting. Well, first of all, your father, what’s his name. 

VGD: My father? 

SLUG: Your father. 

VGD: Arthur Woodman. 

SLUG: So did you call him Mr. Woodman? 

VGD: No, I call him dad. 

SLUG: See, if my dad’s name were Woodman, I would call him Mr. Woodman like on Welcome Back Kotter. 

VGD: Oh, God, that’s right, his name is Mr. Woodman. 

SLUG: So you met in San Francisco. What’s the tragic accident that they don’t want to talk about?

VGD: Everybody asks that. 

SLUG: I’m sure they do. Well, that’s kind of a teaser thing to put in your bio. 

VGD: I was playing my guitar at this open mic and Page happened to be there and I think she played before me and she was picking up my guitar by mistake and I ran after her and was ready to fight. 

SLUG: So you were going to kick her ass. 

VGD: I was going to kick her ass. Well, actually, I’d known the drummer. We’d played a little bit and I was playing solo as VGD for a while and then Jeanne and I… 

SLUG: Your father’s not a painter, is he? 

VGD: No, he’s an architect, actually. But anyway, so Jeanne and I got together. Everyone was telling me why don’t you put together a band. And I said well maybe I’ll play with Jeanne again and I got the bass player from Seven Day Diary cause we actually had some studio time available at the Record Plant and I really wanted to use it up. I eventually decided to get another guitar player too. Because the studio time fell through. And so then I met Paige and discovered she was a songwriter when I was actually just looking for a guitar player. 

SLUG: So how did you hook up with Rachel then? 

VGD: Well, Rachel came later after Nancy had to go work with Seven Day Diary. 

SLUG: So you had an original bass player and then she left and was replaced. 

VGD: Yeah, by Rachel, who was totally different. 

SLUG: So did you and Paige write most of the songs or all the songs? 

VGD: All but one. “Bad Ralph” was sort of a collaboration. 

SLUG: What does “Slag” stand for? 

VGD: Well, it’s not an acronym, that’s a misprint. I was looking up words in the dictionary and I didn’t even know that it was an English word and I didn’t know what it meant and I wrote this song around it and I was just thinking… If you look it up in the dictionary it refers to the residue left by a metal, melted, like melted iron, what’s left when you pour the iron out and they call it slag. And I thought, wow, what a great analogy for a person who is ostracized from society. You know, left behind. 

SLUG: Like, through the eyes of Julie. If you don’t really listen to all the verses it seems like you don’t really know that it’s about like a junkie-type thing, you know what I mean. Because if you just listen to the choruses it’s like, oh, this Julie girl, she’s all cool. If I could only be like that. You know what I mean, a lot of the songs have double entendre meanings. A lot of them have… 

VGD: Well if you do get into the lyrics they’re usually pretty dark regardless of what the music sounds like. 

SLUG: So how did that happen? How did you guys hook up with Hollywood [Records]? Did they choose you? Or were you shopping for a deal? 

VGD: Well, we were sort of shopping. We were working with Green Day’s old manager, Jess Olsen, and he sent out a bunch of tapes and Hollywood didn’t really get one. It was given to Julian Raymond the A&R guy by Tommy Stinson. 

SLUG: How did Tommy Stinson get it? 

VGD: Well his girlfriend gave it to him and then he met up with Julian who wasn’t really a permanent member of Hollywood Records at the time and he flew out to see us at a rehearsal and really liked it a lot and you know Hollywood was going through hell at the time. They had just, like, replaced everyone. And they really wanted Julian as an A&R guy and his first band was us. So ever since you know, we’ve had a good rapport with Julian and he produced our record and we just love him. He’s great. He joined Hollywood with us trailing behind. 

SLUG: Tell me about some of the other songs. Tell me about “Crystal” and tell me about “World Between Your Knees.” 

VGD: Crystal is sort of a political song about the environment. It’s just basically a frustrating look at how the devastation is, like, really understated and not dealt with, and there you have it. 

SLUG: How old are you guys? 

VGD: We’re all, like, in our late 20s. 

SLUG: So you don’t feel like you’re a part of this slacker generation anymore? 

VGD: Oh, I don’t know. I think we share that category pretty well. 

SLUG: Do you feel like… Well, as a band of women between the ages of 25 and 30 do you feel like you got screwed by the generation of music people in front of you? Do you feel like it was harder for you to do something than it would have been, say, 10 years ago? 

VGD: That’s a hard question. 

SLUG: Sorry. I could ask you an easy question. What’d you have for breakfast? 

VGD: No, that’s okay, coffee actually, and that was easier. I don’t know if screwed is the word? Well it was really hard for us to be taken seriously. Because being four women they don’t really, you don’t get that automatic respect that other bands get, plus they try to compare you to the other four-girl bands that exist in the world and it’s just a little bit frustrating because you are nothing like them. But I have to say we are sick of bad female players and we’re out to squash that stereotype. We all feel like that. It’s just really frustrating and it’s embarrassing to go out and see girls that can’t play. Does SLUG stand for Salt Lake Underground? 

SLUG: It used to. We just stopped calling it that because we’re not really underground and the true underground punk people despise that. 

VGD: They were complaining. 

SLUG: How do you call yourselves underground? But that’s what it originally stood for. So that’s why when I was looking at “slag” I was like, what the hell does that mean? I thought okay, sing like a girl. That’s one. Smell like a girl, that’s one. Then I thought you know maybe it just means slag, which would be important. So that was pretty funny. What girl bands do you like now, that are, like, playing now? 

VGD: Well, I always feel bad. It’s not like they care or anything. Cause I think they are tough bands and I think they’ve got the right idea. I’m just a real song junkie and… 

SLUG: Well, who are your favorite songwriters then? Maybe that’s a better question. 

VGD: Jimi Hendrix. 

SLUG: I’m the hugest Hendrix fan of all time. 

VGD: No, I’m bigger. He just killed me with his innovation. But, see, he is never recognized as a songwriter. 

SLUG: He’s more recognized as a guitar player. 

VGD: Everybody is just like, ‘Oh, what a great guitar player.’

SLUG: He wrote some outstanding songs. Even some of the songs he didn’t write he did justice to. 

VGD: Yeah, I think the fact that he was such a huge Dylan fan and, you know, he was just so open-minded about his influences, and I think that is why he was so innovative. I sort of feel like we have that sort of energy. That we all have a million different influences and somehow they all just, like, come out in one little… Paige and I like The Beatles, too, and we’re into Neil Young and stuff like that. 

SLUG: Okay, so who is the PJ Harvey influence? 

VGD: Mainly Paige but I love PJ Harvey too. I think she’s great. Jeanne has a lot of Motown influence. She loves rhythm and blues but she is also like a Patti Smith disciple too. So you’ve got lots of different things going on there. Paige likes sugar a lot. 

SLUG: And we know what Rachel likes. 

VGD: But it’s funny, Rachel and I both really like the blues a lot. Yeah, I’m a pretty big blues fan. 

SLUG: Just tell me what’s going to happen with the band. What are your plans, your immediate plans? 

VGD: Well, we’re having a couple of meetings with agents right now. We’re going to try to get on a major tour and just tour the whole United States. We’re doing the west coast right now and that’s cool. 

SLUG: Any major things like television appearances or anything like that? 

VGD: We’re supposed to be doing a radio show for Westwood One and we’re having our record release party at the Bottom Of The Hill on the 15th. Our favorite club. I guess they’re bringing out a mobile unit, a 24-truck mobile unit and they’re going to record the show and air it sometime.

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The conversation gets more philosophical at that point, so I’ll let you think what you want. Van Gogh’s Daughter is one of the best new bands around. Regardless of their gender.

Read more from the SLUG archives:
The Stiff Sheet: April 1996
Edwin McCain