The R.E.M.
guitarist on the joys of makingHindu Love Godsand the strained aftermath.
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Peter Buck cant deal with the cold anymore.
He is ostensibly a man who doesnt want to be bothered.
Im done, he says.
So Ive been elsewhere.
side project that Zevon sauntered his way into without the need for lawyers, guns, or money.
With Buck and his fellow R.E.M.
(To put it in R.E.M.
terms, this was betweenLifes Rich PageantandDocument.)
The sessions culminated in a series of blues-oriented covers that were repackaged as Hindu Love Gods eponymous album.
One song in particular, a cover of Princes Raspberry Beret, even got decent radio play.
On April 12, the album is beingreissuedfor the first time.
At the time, the reviews were kind of like, What do these guys think theyre doing?
Well, we were having fun.
Hindu Love Godss release, though, was plagued by internal dissent.
In the name of friendship and Zevons money troubles, Buck relented and never took a penny.
(It was a favor for a friend, as he puts it.)
In fact, it hasnt dampened how he feels about the experience to this day.
You and Warrens manager, Andy Slater, were familiar with each other in college.
started, he was like, Im in the music business.
Within two months, he signed Macy Gray and other people who were big deals.
He was managing people as a young guy.
He was working with Warren.
I absolutely loved Warrens records, but he had no career at the time.
Part of this was because he drank himself out of a career.
No one really trusted him; he didnt have a record deal.
What were your first impressions of Warren?I liked him.
He was really funny.
He came to Athens to do some demos before we did the record.
He used to tell us, You guys are just kids.
And Im like,Im not that young, Im 25.
Hed been through the world, and I hadnt.
We demoed four songs.
Warren linked up with Hindu Love Gods during what seemed to be the worst period of his life.
The songs, all of thosesongs.
You just cant deny that, man.
I dont believe that goes away.
When he came to Athens, he was … how shall I put this?
In the last stage of almost being sober.
There was one night where things got a little out of control.
I was supposed to be in charge of him.
Andy said, Dont let him drink.
I went, Hes 45, what do I say?
So I suggested maybe not drinking was a good idea, and that really didnt go over well.
It was the first time Id ever seen one of those alcohol personality changes.
It was like,Oh yeah, thats really fucking dumb.
He went home, and to his credit, he called Andy to apologize.
He was a mess, and he sobered up.
As far as I know, he never had a drink again until his cancer diagnosis.
So when they came to hire us for Warrens album, it was a done deal.
The three of us said, Yeah, well do this.
And we actually got paid.
I had never gotten paid for anything.
They put us up in nice apartments in Los Angeles overlooking a hill.
We came into a $2,000 a day studio with no idea what were doing.
I found an old newspaperfeaturefrom 1984 in which Warren says you made him feel okay to be shy.
When Warren and I were hanging around, we didnt have to talk a lot.
It was like,Lets get some Mexican food.
Okay, lets go back and work.
He didnt have to regale me with stories about Linda Ronstadt or Mick Fleetwood or anything.
We were just making a little record and getting together.
Thats what we did.
It was also the weirdest working habits Ive ever had in my life.
We all would get steak and green salads with no dressing.
We were cutting ten songs in three weeks, so it wasnt a rush process.
Between takes, we would just play songs.
We went to see the Georgia Satellites; one day, we played Battleship Chains in the studio.
Another day, the new Prince record came on the radio, and we did Raspberry Beret.
We recorded none of it.
We just did it because it was fun.
We were working on a language that we shared together.
Was there any deeper intention here than just enjoying the company of a fellow musician and getting a paycheck?
Were you perhaps trying to give him a bit of stability?I personally wasnt.
You could just tell he was in a different place and ready to go.
All we did for those short hours a day was work, and it worked really well.
had that young, go-for-it, live-in-the-studio energy, which he hadnt had recently.
The three of you transcended the backing-band assignment and co-wrote Even a Dog Can Shake Hands with him.
Its a big fuck-you to the industry.
How did you all arrive at this conceit?Warren loved words.
Hed come in and just start repeating the most random shit: Monkey wash, donkey rinse.
Does the monkey wash the donkey?I dont know.
One day, he came in and he had this song called Even a Dog Can Shake Hands.
I thought we should play it, but he never got around to finishing the lyrics.
And Warren goes, Okay, thats it.
He had words almost immediately, and we knocked it out.
My house was a shared rental.
It wasnt a home.
He was at the bottom of the barrel.
Certainly, that song had a lot to do with it.
I have to imagine this would be different in a musical context.
Did you treat theSentimental Hygienesessions as a learning experience?Oh, they were definitely learning experiences.
But I never blamed him.
Have you read the new Thomas Pynchon yet?
And wed talk about books.
We probably did that 20 times.
Have you ever read John D. MacDonald?
Oh, youve got to read John D. MacDonald.
That kind of thing.
So we had a bunch of those conversations.
I learned a lot.
There are certain friends you would never pick up the phone for after midnight.
I would for Warren.
Even though I didnt know it was him, I could guess it was him.
Because I knew it wasnt trouble.
It was always his thoughts, which were good.
You said something when R.E.M.
It struck me as a statement Warren would relate to and agree with.
Did he at all influence how you approached the art of songwriting?Yes.
Hes a classical musician.
Warren started as a professional songwriter for the Turtles.
It was kind of built into him.
He brought in songs.
That was very impressive to me.
The songs that becameHindu Love Godswere recorded after you officially wrapped Warrens album.
Who flipped the switch and initiated the jam?It was the last day.
We were coming in the next day to take back our equipment.
Niko Bolas was the albums engineer, and he had an amazing ear.
He put three amps in a room and four guitars, and they all sounded great.
Why dont we just go knock out some of those?
And we thought,Well, all right.
We were still set up and tuned up.
It was 9 p.m., and we knocked it out in about 45 minutes, maybe an hour.
I liked knowing down the line there would be a boxed set and they would throw that on there.
I didnt expect it to be an album.
So believe it or not, we were sober when we did that.
I was talking to Warren and said, I dont even know what a stone-crab leg is.
I want to get some stone-crab legs.
He goes, I know this place out in the Valley.
So we went up to the Valley, and three of us R.E.M.-ers had a couple of drinks.
Nothing untoward we all kept an eye on Warren.
Warren was driving, and honestly, I shouldnt have had the drinks.
There was a belly dancer there too.
The worst driver Ive ever been with sober.
I cant imagine what it was like when he was drunk.
Im pretty sure Im immortal because I lived through a 20-minute drive with Warren Zevon.
Why dont we collaborate?
I think its a great song.
They were selling it to bookers as an R.E.M.
tour featuring Warren Zevon.
I was booking my own tour with R.E.M.
where I actually got paid for it.
It was definitely exploitative.
He called me on the phone, and we talked.
I told him, Warren, you got to get your management shit together.
The way this works is youre responsible for the people around you.
And if someone around you is fucking me, then you be in charge of it.
How did he respond to that?Oh, he was pissed off.
Then about three months later, he called me up and wanted to talk about a book he read.
But when it came to the album, it was three years later.
He called me up and said, Hey, Im in trouble with the taxman.
My kids going to college, and I just dont have any money.
They offered me $180,000 if I put out that stuff we recorded as Hindu Love Gods.
I considered Warren a friend, and he was a friend who had no money.
At least thats what he said.
Off the top of my head, I went, Yeah.
I didnt ask for our fifth or fourth or whatever.
I just said, Yeah, we could do that.
Our manager thought we were insane.
He was like, Thats a lot of money thats partly yours, and its your name.
Its the name of the band you had before Warren even came in.
With Warren, there probably hasnt been a less financially astute person on the face of the earth.
But the main problem was the record companies.
All of a sudden it was like, Well, you all obviously have to shoot a video.
I dont shoot videos for my own band.
Then they started taking clips of us dancing.
We were just like, This is just really fucking cheesy.
They ended up doing a video where they put bird heads on us.
I was like, I can live with that.
In the days prior to cell phones, I had a familial breakup, to put it lightly.
I lived in my car for a year.
I mean, it was a nice car and I stayed in great hotels.
It was 91 or 92.
I had plenty of money; I was just on the road.
I didnt take my phone book with me.
I knew three numbers by heart, and I didnt talk to anybody.
We sold 30 million records in a couple of years.
If we had bumped into each other, it wouldve been one thing.
But it never happened.
It wasnt until we heard he was sick that we reached out again.
None of us had his number.
His manager came back and said, Everyones coming out of the woodwork to talk to Warren.
And that was that.
When Warren appeared on his finalLate Showepisode,he famously toldDavid to enjoy every sandwich.
Theres this little shack down near my place in Mexico.
Two days ago, I had a torta.
I took a picture of it, and Im like,This clearly is three hot-dog buns stuck together.
It was really, really good.
