Interview: Anna Waronker and Tony Maxwell of That Dog, June 1997

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How Much is That...?


Anna Waronker and Tony Maxwell of That Dog

Interview by Darren Gawle



This is my first ever band interview, and you've got to admire
the patience of Anna and Tony from L.A.'s That Dog. There's a
lot of stammering on the tape, and even more dead air: "Er...um...yeah,
that reminds me of a question I was gonna ask...but I forgot what
it was..." Meanwhile Anna and Tony lean in as I struggle
with my stupidity in not bringing a tip sheet with me (so much
for spontaneity...), half-smirks on their faces as if they're
wondering if this is for real.


We're on some steps behind the Rage as Blur's road crew soundchecks
"Death of a Party." Around the back door lurk about
twenty hopeful Blur fans who fall into two general categories:
1) teenage Japanese girls, and 2) young white males with short
hair and D.J. vests who stand around and sneer at everyone, including
That Dog. (The only member of Blur actually inside is guitarist
Graham Coxon, and the pathetic thing about the male groupies is
that, after they've made the effort to come down here and stand
in the hot sun all afternoon, if Graham were to come outside,
they'd act all nonchalant about the whole thing and probably sneer
at him, too.)

That Dog are actually on tour with Blur,
and are promoting their new, third album, Retreat from the Sun. It's a sunny, more
mature pop-type affair this time around, in comparison to the
more rough-hewn, quirky, teen-angst flavour of 1995's Totally
Crushed Out!

"I'd been through a phase where I was sick of 'modern
music' like Bush or Soundgarden," says Anna.  
"Not that I'm dissing those bands,  but it's just that it had been done over and over up to that point.
I just wanted to challenge myself, songwriting-wise, so I took
a year of just writing and not really thinking about what it would
be for. Just writing, and listening to a lot of the Go-Go's, the
Bangles, Blondie..."

Which would explain the influence of Charlotte Caffey (of the
Go-Go's) on the new album, as well as Anna's and Charlotte's co-writing
of the theme for T.V.'s Clueless? 

"That happened after we'd done the album, but it still helped
for me because it was free of anything... serious. It was for
a T.V. show, so the network wanted it as cheesy as possible. Charlotte
also taught me how to play piano, so that's me on 'Every Time
I Try.' I had learned when I was little, but at that age I didn't
know what I was doing."

Anna and the Haden sisters, Petra (violin) and Rachel (bass),
all grew up in very musically-oriented households: Anna's father
is Lenny Waronker, producer of such 70's chestnuts as "Midnight
at the Oasis" (Says Anna, "We covered that for the Spirit
of '73compilation more as a tribute to him than anything
else."), and more recently the head of Reprise records. Petra
and Rachel are the daughters of veteran jazz bassist and Ornette
Coleman sideman Charlie Haden.


"Oh, Charlie's a big fan," says Tony. "He always has really positive
things to say, [adopting stoned jazz hipster accent] 'You really
listen to each other, maaan, it's really refreshing!' He's very
into it, but he never pushed Petra or Rachel to do anything they
didn't want to do. He's really just happy to hear his kids making
music." (And yet another member of the Haden clan is Josh,
bassist of L.A. lounge-pop combo Spain.)

"Yeah, there was never any pressure for me to be a
performer, but I thought I'd probably end up doing something in
the industry," states Anna.  "Dad never really talked business around the house,
except sometimes to get our honest five-year-old opinions about
something he was working on..."  One shudders to think about
what decisions were influenced by the opinions of the producer's
pre-school children... but in the wake of the 60's, I guess anything
seemed valid. 

That Dog was formed after friends Anna, Petra and Rachel graduated
from high school. Anna enlisted childhood friend Tony on drums,
and away they went. "It was more fun than anything else,"
says Tony. "And it had a chemistry to it that made it stick
out, with Petra on violin, not like a bunch of kids trying to
do AC/DC covers." 

It was when they began to play live that a minor recurring fixture
in their lyrics popped up... so what is 'The Jabberjaw,' anyways?
"It's the first club we ever played, small but very
well-known locally. Lots of bands of all sizes like Hole would
play there, and the next night it would be some unknown local
band," Anna explains.

Tony continues: "It's the kind of place you'd find yourself at about
once a week, just to hang out with people you knew, even though
it was in a terrible, terrible part of town. Like, the place would
get held up while there was a show going on! After a while we
just couldn't handle going there any more." At least the
worst That Dog will have to contend with tonight is an
indifferent headlining act, but the crowd at the Rage will respond
favourably to them, at any rate. 

A few more questions to Tony about his side project Nine Iron,
and our friendly label rep, who's been staring over my shoulder
the entire interview, indicates that it's time to wrap things up.
Anna tries to assure me that I didn't screw things up as bad as
I think I did, but I'm not convinced. I wonder if this is how
Nick Kent or Lester Bangs got their start?



 First published in Drop-D Magazine on August 16, 1997