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Reunited, and it feels pretty good

By John Kenyon

When Cris Kirkwood returned to the Meat Puppets after a challenging and at times devastating 11-year absence, the band was looking to do nothing more than get a record out and go on tour.

“That was the one under the belt,” says Cris Kirkwood’s brother, Curt, of Rise to Your Knees. "We didn’t make any plans. I tried to make it as easy for us as possible. We recorded it close to my house.”

The Kirkwood brothers formed the Meat Puppets in Arizona in 1980 with drummer Derrick Bostrom. The band’s mix of punk, rock and country kept it out of step with prevailing trends, but did nothing to lessen its appeal. After toiling in indie land for 10 years and six albums, the band broke through with a major label contract — thanks, in part, to the patronage of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain — and actually scored a hit with the song “Backwater.”

But the easy access to drugs afforded by the band’s new status steadily unraveled the band’s tightly wound bassist, Cris Kirkwood. After the band’s last major label album, 1996’s No Joke!, the trio disbanded, and things only got worse for Cris Kirkwood. He was eventually imprisoned for felony assault, serving two years before his release in 2005.

The Kirkwoods began playing together sometime in the next year, and formalized the reunion in early 2006. Bostrom was replaced by drummer Ted Marcus, and Rise to Your Knees was recorded.

Curt Kirkwood, who sings, plays guitar and writes the songs, says the new Sewn Together is a more polished release because the band had been touring for about 10 months before recording, with the result being “more like a real, actual rock album.”

Though one might think it would be emotional to be playing again with a brother that most others had written off, Kirkwood initially is matter of fact when discussing it. He formed another version of the band for awhile in his brother’s absence, and says those players were able to replicate the harmony singing his brother did. But, he admits, “He and I sing a certain way, I guess.

“We play together a certain way,” he adds. “It’s hard for me to see it, stuff just sounds kind of good. It’s splitting hairs. This bass note is different from that bass note.”

He seems to warm a bit the longer he talks about his brother. “There’s a level of commitment there that’s definitely deeper than your typical contract signing thing,” he says. “I know how deep his love and lust for this shit is.”

On a personal note, Kirkwood says he has a very small family outside of his kids, so “it’s nice to have an actual relative back in my life.”

It becomes clear that Kirkwood is still getting used to having his brother around. He seems to have cut ties with Cris Kirkwood during his brother's trouble, and is working to re-establish that connection.

“I tried to make it not that big a deal when he was gone,” he says. “Not that I’m cold about it. When somebody’s messed up, you just have to make those decisions.”

He says reforming wasn’t simply an exercise in nostalgia; the two wanted to make good new music together.

“We said, ‘Let’s see what we can do with this, make this thing fly. Not something on its laurels, its past standing,” he says. “We didn’t break up because we had some sort of artistic disagreement. We took a break because he was sick, messed up. When he came back, we didn’t have anything to get over. We just got back to it.”

While Rise to Your Knees was a scattershot affair, Sewn Together is a cohesive album that sounds like something the band might have made after the one-two punch of its first two major label albums. Some reviewers have grumbled that it doesn’t sound like the band’s breakthrough albums Meat Puppets II or Up On the Sun, both issued more than 20 years ago.

“I think it sounds very little like those records, neither of which sound like one another,” he says. “I suppose there are similarities in the songwriting, but that was longer ago than between 1955 and 1974, which was essentially Elvis’ entire career, you know?”

Kirkwood says the band’s live shows are better now than they were during the band’s first incarnation.

“We were pretty good back then, but we’re better now,” he says. “You don’t quit learning, it’s a big playing field. We had certain skills, and then we honed them.”

The alternative music boom helped bands like the Meat Puppets, because audiences now are conditioned to embrace things that once seemed strange.

“Certain artists have made it easier to do what we do,” he says. “It makes us, not any braver, but have people not scratching their head. ‘I’ve heard of the Meat Puppets , but this is too weird.’ It seems like they’re listening now, and that always makes things go better.”

Meat Puppets play the Mill, 120 E. Burlington St., Iowa City, at 9 p.m. Saturday with opening bands Sam Locke-Ward & the Quiet Men and Birth Rites. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.