Part 22 (1/2)

I've seen all the typical first alb.u.m mistakes over and over again. Things like, ”We don't really need a producer, just get us a good engineer.” You hear that one a lot. Or, like, just because CDs give you the opportunity to make records seventy-four minutes long doesn't mean everybody should make a really long alb.u.m. I mean, CDs have made people much less interested in the totality-so even though they're longer, they're shorter. Because n.o.body listens to them. Everybody plays a CD once and they go, ”Oh, tracks three and nine are the ones I'll listen to again.” Which you would never think of doing with a record alb.u.m. I mean, I'm not going to go out on some vinyl bender here, but with the record alb.u.m you either like the first side or the second side. Sometimes you liked both sides. At the very least, you were digesting a twenty-minute piece of music. But with CDs now you go and play, like, track three. And you might actually think that's a good record because you really like track three. You don't care what the rest of it is. So there's just no point filling out seventy-four minutes. The thing is to get a few good singles. But a lot of kids don't wind up making that judgment. Which you kind of don't want to argue because it's like a bad thing. I mean, what can you say?-”Well, don't worry about it, n.o.body's going to get to track eight anyway”? I mean, you could make a good argument for that, but it's kind of like, you know, thinking about death all the time. [Laughs] Why get up in the morning?

So I see a lot of first-time mistakes. A lot of self-absorption. What is rare is an ability to sort of have any kind of perspective and get any distance and look from the outside at what the work feels like. Every once in a while you meet somebody like that. And that's really exciting. They can finish a record and then go away and call a week later and say, ”I want to change this and this and this.” And apply logic to that as opposed to just emotion like, ”Well, it has to be there because Joanie and I were breaking up when I was writing that song.” [Laughs] Or, ”Remember how long we worked on the guitar sound for that? You know, we spent all week working that! I can't take that song off the record.” You know, just stupid things that they get attached to.

But that's my favorite part-working with some really smart artists, seeing them develop. In the best situations it gets easier and easier and people learn from their mistakes. And it's beautiful for me to get the material and then lend, hopefully, some sort of critical judgment, and, you know, help them develop artistically. To me, by far the most exciting part of it is watching people who are really smart and really talented learn and grow. It's the only part of the job that I really like.

The rest of the job is just-well, it's just become very f.u.c.ked up. What went on in the business over the last few years was, you know, Nirvana sold some records and then, whatever, the Stone Temple Pilots sold some records and so then, you know, like the whole industry went alternative rock crazy. The whole world kind of did grunge for a moment and there were torn jeans on runways in Paris and stuff and a lot of very marginal artists were signed expecting that there would be a quick return as per these other examples that had just turned over.

So, like, Kurt Cobain, what do you do after someone like that? I mean, the fact that lightning struck and one really troubled kid was able to put his thoughts together in his art that was at the same time both emotionally effective and also culturally entertaining, it excited a lot of people. It was a rare kind of event. But it wasn't going to keep happening again and again and again. So a lot of things were signed that shouldn't have been. And too much money was spent. And now the industry has kind of backpedaled out of that period into sort of a high entertainment value period. Which would be exemplified by, like, the Spice Girls, Hanson, whatever.

The end result of it is that more and more I have to go chase after these bands I don't even give a s.h.i.+t about. Like their music, I think, is just garbage. And I find myself asking questions that I never would have asked. ”What do they look like?” Or, ”Can she dance?” You know? I mean really stupid stuff like that. It's about what's going to get it on television, what's going to get it on MTV, you know? What's going to turn into mall fare? That's what's making it all work right now.

And the industry is-it's becoming more and more a mirror of the film business. It's turning into this giant monster that's basically just s.h.i.+tting all over the place. [Laughs] And the funny thing is, like, n.o.body seems to notice. You know? I mean movies-I rented The Wedding Singer last week-have you seen that? A friend of mine said it was funny. And, you know, it was like the number one movie in America for a while and its sound track did outstanding business- and it was f.u.c.king awful. It was really like just having somebody s.h.i.+t on your face. [Laughs] It was so bad, so not funny, you know? Just sentimental, cliched c.r.a.p. I mean, I was embarra.s.sed to watch it. And I've been feeling like that for years now as I've watched the film industry just churn out worse and worse stuff, and now I'm starting to realize it's turning into the same thing in the record business.

The fact is that over, I don't know, the last ten or so years, with the merger of Seagrams buying Polygram, and MCA and Universal and Polygram all being under one roof, there's only like five companies putting out music in the world in a major way. There's a bunch of different labels, but only like five companies own them all. And that's the same in movies. And, with music, four of the five companies are owned outside the U.S. So you've got these big corporate alien headquarters directing-or dictating-a very kind of subtle business. And what made the record business exciting once upon a time- what made it such an important cultural element-was that there was always innovation. There were always exciting kids. And now it seems like there's a preponderance of people who are so far away from kids in the street, and all they're trying to do is ape what was done last week over and over and over and over again.

Historically, you know, record companies go through this cyclical thing where sales go up and down based on whether their superstar acts are in peak periods or in sorting out periods where, if they're serious artists, like any writer or painter or whatever, they'll go through periods of maybe three, five years of like sorting through a new idea or a new life experience that will then manifest itself in some great breakthrough-that will, you know, excite or inspire ma.s.ses of people. I mean, look at the career of somebody like, say, Bob Dylan or Neil Young-they've had real ups and downs, but they've made great music in four different decades. And that's the way it always has been, but the industry is set up now to not tolerate that. As soon as you deliver less than the demanded return on the stockholders' investment, then you have failed and you're out the door.

The companies that have traded in sort of high art value, high innovation level sort of work-like Warner Brothers through the seventies and the eighties-were dismantled effectively a few years ago because they went through a couple of bad quarters. I mean, seriously, after like seventeen, eighteen years of unparalleled success, Warners had a couple of soft quarters and that was enough.

And the music industry is dying now. I mean, it's dying kind of a strange death with a lot of protest, but it's dying. It will, I think, fall apart to an extent. Partly because of the Internet-which is going to just destroy a lot of the current distribution stuff and just change everything-but also, partly because the industry isn't doing what it's supposed to do.

I mean, I'll hear at a convention or within the company, when people will get up and make speeches that music is playing a different role in people's lives than it ever has before, because kids are more interested in computer games or whatever, and music is not as important. But it's like the tail wagging the dog, because truckloads of s.h.i.+t are being dumped on the street, and n.o.body's clamoring to get out there and pick some up, you know? And the companies are like, ”What's wrong with people?” Music is not as vibrant, as interesting as a youth trademark or as a lightning rod for whatever brings kids together. And I think it's crazy. I think that music has essentially played like a really important role in people's lives because it is essentially an emotional medium. And for hundreds of years this has been going on. And now it's ending?

I'm actually thinking about going back to an independent label. Independents have always been underfinanced, disorganized, usually based on one good idea or one good act. But I think that in the next few years, you'll see a lot of independents that are well funded by people who see that there is room to make a very steady, nice profit if you're not looking to run over hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And this financing will be available because the big companies like mine don't know what the f.u.c.k they are doing anymore. So the music of quality will wind up on these little labels. And hopefully that's where I'll wind up. Unless I'm too old. [Laughs] Because, you know, how long is somebody viable in this business? I mean, I've always thought that there's a ceiling somewhere between forty and fifty when you're really too old to be signing up bands, unless you're going to move into more seriously adult music-cla.s.sical or jazz or whatever. Which I know very little about.

So I don't know. I would like to be done doing this by the time I'm fifty, that's for sure. [Laughs] I actually used to think that about forty. But you know you always keep that line-five more years. I've been saying that every year since I can remember, ”Five more years and then I'll be too old to do this.” [Laughs] Maybe I should quit today. Seriously. Just put it to bed.

It used to be so easy when my specific job instruction was just, ”Follow your gut and anything that's exciting to you, that's what you should be chasing.” You know-just be you. It's different now, because what's selling has nothing to do with what I'm interested in. So I have to listen to things much longer just to see if I maybe like them. Not if I really like them, but more like, if I maybe might like them-given what's going on now. So I'll listen and listen over and over, and I'll go see the band, and I'll walk out because it sucks, but I still won't know what to do. I go, ”Well, G.o.d, that could be the next Matchbox 20.” Or whatever. It could be anything. It could just be another record in a sc.r.a.p heap. But you can't tell the difference. I mean, I don't know what you're looking for when you decide like that. And to find the next Matchbox 20, I don't know how good I feel about that. [Laughs] You know what I mean? I don't know if that's a goal worth pursuing. But even if it is, I don't know. I don't know what the h.e.l.l's the difference.

I think I've probably been attacked more

than any other artist in history. Except

maybe Andy Warhol.

PAINTER.

Julian Schnabel.

I'm a painter. And a few years ago, I made a movie about another painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat. And right now I'm trying to make a movie about a poet. So [laughs] I guess I'm a film director, too. But you know, my job is-I mean, I make paintings. I sell the paintings. And with the money I get from the paintings I support my family. I pay for the house and everything else. And that's very lucky.

What kind of paintings do I make? I don't know. I can't find an easy answer. I don't want to use someone else's words to describe what my paintings are about. Basically, I paint because I can't communicate in another way. So sometimes, my paintings, they can be on flat canvas, or broken dishes, or some are made out of velvet or on an old theater tarp from j.a.pan or something I might find. Sometimes they have images in them that you can name. And other times you can't. But all of them mean the same thing to me, in a way. They form a philosophy or an att.i.tude toward life, a moral code, or some truth that you can't really define until you have some physical fact where all these different elements converge and embody some kind of a soul. It's only later on, in retrospect, that they became my ”work.” You know? People go, oh, that's-and then they can name what it is. ”It's a Schnabel.” You know? But what's a Schnabel? To me, they're just something close to me. They come out of me in some way.

I've been painting since I was three. My brother and sister are a lot older. I spent a lot of time by myself, and it's something that I did naturally. My mother encouraged me to do it, and I kept doing it. I just drew whatever came to mind. They used to have these advertis.e.m.e.nts for the Westport, Connecticut, Famous Artists School in Life magazine or something. Like, ”If your child can draw this they might have talent,” you know? And my mother saw one of those. It was like draw a horse's head. And I drew that. I don't know that they ever sent it in. I know I never made it to the Westport, Connecticut, Famous Artists School. [Laughs]

But I liked drawing it, so I drew a lot of horses when I was very young. And I drew a lot of-the Cyclops in Sinbad the Sailor was one of my favorite images. And also Theseus and the minotaur. Whenever my mother bought me tubes of paint, it was like getting candy. Mineral Violet or, you know, Mars Yellow. I liked the smell of them. I still do.

I went to art school at the University of Houston. I had a lot of trouble there. I think the main thing I learned was how to fight with people and protect myself. You know? Because it's hard-you don't know what you're doing all the time and you can't explain it. Why should you have to? You're dealing with your subconscious, you know? Just make the thing. Through the making of it you figure out what it is that you were thinking or what you were feeling.

I guess I think school isn't particularly healthy. There were things that I wanted to make there that I was discouraged from making. And since then, I've given talks at Columbia University or at Yale or wherever, different universities, and talked to students. And while I think it's great for them to be meeting other artists, I've sort of told them on different occasions to, like, save their money, not pay tuition, and rent a studio in New York or somewhere and just do their work and get on with their lives. [Laughs] Not that I followed my own advice- I almost didn't graduate from the University of Houston-but I did. And then I came to New York City.

I was accepted into the Whitney Independent Study Program. That was a program set up where artists can work by themselves and meet different, older artists. And then, basically, I stayed here. I had different jobs. I was a cab driver for a while. I was a cook in a few places. Nothing fancy. I met a lot of artists at that time. And I think that's good. I think New York is a good place for people from- whether it's Padua, Italy, or Osotamwi, Iowa-you know, to converge, even if the rents are high and it's hard to live here.

When I was twenty-seven, I had my first one-man exhibition. It was at Mary Boone's gallery in February 1979. Mary really believed in the work, and it was great to show with her. These were wax paintings. And, they were about-what were they? Three thousand five hundred dollars or something? Three thousand two hundred? I don't know. I think I got like twelve hundred for each painting. And people bought them. Some really good collectors. It was a great moment. I was able to stop my cooking job. I was only making two-fifty a week as a cook, so even if I only made six or seven paintings that year it was still enough to stop cooking.

And then in October of 1979, I had another show. I think I showed four paintings in the first show, and five in the second one. They were eight by nine feet and they were covered with broken dishes, about a foot deep in dishes, and I painted diagrammatic kind of drawings on top of them. They looked kind of like closets or something.

Once I showed the plate paintings, that was it. A lot of people got very excited. Some people got very shocked. There was a big hullabaloo about the whole thing and a lot of writing about the paintings and people trying to come to grips with them. And from the time I showed those paintings my life changed drastically. I don't know if you'd call it success, but there was a lot of attention. They caused a big upheaval. And put me sort of in the center of a storm of debate that is still going on.

And-I feel like I was lucky to get recognition so young. So many artists go crazy. It's great to get some attention when it's important to you, when it really means something to you. For most people, if it comes, it comes when you don't care anymore. Or when you're dead. But on the other hand [laughs] it seems like I've been attacked for it ever since it happened. I think I've probably been attacked more than any other artist in history. Except maybe Andy Warhol. I mean, we keep a record of all this stuff. [Laughs] It's shocking. Most of the time it's not really criticism. It's just an attack.

I remember, you know, the critic Clement Greenberg saying to me, ”Early success doesn't last.” He said it in an airport in Los Angeles. And one of my favorite reviews somebody wrote was that I knew how to make garbage out of garbage. [Laughs]

I don't like critics. They knock things that they don't even do. That they can't do. I think what happens is as soon as somebody says, ”Hey, this is it. This is good.” Then there has to be someone who says, ”Well, I disagree.” The writing becomes much more about the writers than about the work. They like to hear the sound of their own voice and their own ideas, and they have a lot of preconceptions, so it's very hard for them to have an open, free experience. I mean, the idea of writing a few quick lines about somebody who spent their whole life doing something is a little bit out of scale with, like, the idea of a person making this thing that's supposed to be a gift to-you know, whoever-to the world.

So, I don't know. I don't care. I think some people like me and some people don't. There are people that know me that don't like me. [Laughs] And I think there's a lot of people that don't know me that think I'm some way that I'm really not, you know? But I have a lot of friends. And my focus is never skewed by any kind of criticism that I've had, good or bad. It's never an issue. I mean, it might be upsetting but it has nothing to do with making art.

When I stopped cooking, I stayed focused. Sometimes people like to blame their day job and say that's why they don't-why they haven't achieved what they wanted to achieve. But the fact of the matter is when people get the free time, most of them don't know what the h.e.l.l to do. And then they have nothing. No job to blame. n.o.body to blame. Now, I've been showing my paintings publicly for more than twenty years, in museums all over the world. I've bought a house from my paintings, fed my family from my paintings. [Laughs] I mean, this is all I can do now. I'm unemployable. But I'm lucky.

When I'm making a film, it's just like using a different tool. As a working process, painting is more fun, but sometimes you don't feel like painting. Paintings are, in a sense, mute. They're nonverbal things. Whereas with movies, there's a narrative, it's conversational, more understandable, and it reaches a wider audience also. So sometimes I want to make a movie and communicate that way. And I'm lucky to be able to support myself selling my paintings, so when I make movies, I don't have to address the lowest common denominator just so I can make a dollar. I didn't make Basquiat so I could make a bunch of money. I made the movie because I wanted to tell the story about an artist, who was my friend, and I wanted to tell it with what my idea of the truth was, as close as I could get to telling other people the way it is or the way it was.

My goal is-to work. Just to work. I don't care how much money I get. I mean, being able to make these things-paintings, movies, whatever-and enjoy looking at them is the thing that really is the success, not how many people like them or how much you got for them for selling them. Money-I think I worry more about money now than I did when I was broke-but still, it's more about the opportunity or the privilege of being able to make the work that I want to make, when I want to make it. Just to have that privilege is a success.

My father had to work all the time. He didn't have time to think about what was going on in his head, really. He had to just think about feeding us and doing, you know, whatever had to be done to make everything float. And somehow he gave me the opportunity to sit back and ruminate a bit and think. So I was able to realize that maybe I didn't have to, you know, go and do the same job that he did. I had the luxury to kind of pick what I was going to do. And [laughs] that's it. [Laughs] You know? I've been able to stay a child. I think I'm a baby basically. I think that that's my job. To stay a child. And so that's what I do.

There is a huge gap in the art world

between the haves and the have-nots.

You are either making big bucks or you

are just a schlepper of some sort for