Our songs go from pillar to post, but it's mainly first chorus, first chorus, bridge, first chorus, end - even if it does that in a circuitous and oddball way. We've never really been musically adventurous.
Well, maybe in some senses, but we just take the traditional and mess it up a bit. We're not John Coltrane; we're not jazz people who are looking for the 'lost chord.' Even one of our longest songs like "Real Love" is really a blues rock song with a few loose ends let go looser than most. Maybe it's more lyrically adventurous than it is musically. The most complex music we do is written by my brother because he writes on a keyboard. We just did a song today that has six separate voices and yes, that's symphonic. But again, it's first chorus, first chorus, bridge, first chorus, end. It's a pop song.
Rob Wright / Nomeansno interview, Punk Planet #25, 1998
NOMEANSNO released their fifth album, 0 + 2 = 1, on this day in 1991 through Alternative Tentacles. This would be the last album with guitarist Andy Kerr.
My brother went through a pretty good school jazz band program and he took keyboard lessons from a rather good jazz player.
My roots are in listening to rock 'n' roll and a lot of jazz. I never was trained in anything. I started with listening to the Beatles, then everything up to fusion jazz before punk rock hit. Then that took over and it was all I listened to. My brother was the Johnny-come-lately, he was still listening to Cream when I was listening to the Ramones. It took a while to convince him, but then he and all his friends came around and I found myself surrounded by teenagers who had decided to be punk rockers overnight back in 1980. We had a grand old time in Victoria being punk rockers and rebellious, hating all other kinds of music, and being obnoxious and nasty. But then we all grew up and now they all have regular jobs and regular lives except us, we managed to avoid that.
Rob Wright / Nomeansno interview, Punk Planet #25, 1998
Music is feminine. The aural is feminine, the visual is masculine. This is because aural is connected, and visual is disconnected. That's the difference between music and television: You can sit and watch someone get shot in the head on the nightly news and finish your dessert, whereas a sad song will bring you to tears. That's why I hate videos so much, because they reduce music from the sublime to soundtracks of the ridiculous. I reject the idea that music needs to be accompanied by, or is redeemed by, or is not degraded by, visuals.
Rob Wright / Nomeansno interview, Punk Planet #25, 1998