LARRY KATZ: The Boston Herald calling John Trudell?
JOHN TRUDELL: Yeah, speaking.
John, how are you?
Just fine man.
Good. Hey, I been listening to your album a lot. Really enjoying it.
Well I’m glad to hear that. I really am.
When did you start adding music to your words?
Well, in 1982 I did it with the traditional drum and singers and that was the first pass at it. Just to lay the poetry with the oldest musical form. So I went on, into my own Indian culture to get that, and then, right after we had done that by ’83 I wanted to put the poetry with the newest musical form. Drum machine, synthesizers, electric guitars. But I didn’t get around to doing that, I didn’t get an opportunity to do that, until 1985 when I met Jesse Ed Davis. I met Jesse and he said he could make music for my words. So we went for it [laughs].
And was that the start of Graffiti Man?
Yeah, that was the original album, AKA Graffiti Man. We recorded that in the summer of 1985. We shopped it around at some record companies. I think actually because Jesse was known in the music industry all of the record companies looked at, but nobody picked it up. They said that, you know, people weren’t ready for it. They couldn’t dance to it, etcetra. And so we released it ourselves and we made a label called the Peace Company to start putting it out the best that we could and continued on with the process of making new songs and things.
Was Graffiti Man a nickname for you, or was it conceived as being a band name? Where did the graffiti part of it actually come from?
Actually the first album, see, this is why it became AKA, also known as. Because there’s a song on the original Graffiti Man album called Lavenders Blues, which is what I wanted to call the album, right? I wanted the album to be Lavenders Blues. But we had a cut on there called Graffiti Man, right, and Jessie preferred Graffiti Man, because musically it would happen in more the way that he wanted it to be right. So what he did was, on the master tapes where I had written Lavender’s Blues as the album title, Jesse had written AKA Graffiti Man, alright. And in the end that became the name that stuck.
I see.
So to me that album is Lavenders Blues. To the rest of the world it’s also known as Graffiti Man.
You know, I’m from New York City originally where certainly graffiti was everywhere. Was graffiti just as, like, Gaffiti art sort of thing?
It had to do with political messages being graffitied on walls. Just the graffiti one sees on walls. Statements, right?
So is that something that was part of what was being used on the reservations as well to get messages across?
It’s just kind of like everywhere in the course of my travels, right. Graffiti. But what I, in a way what I had intended–I took the word graffiti, but what I’m looking at is you know–I guess what I would say I was attempting to do is graffiti the walls of the mind, right. Because I feel that, you know most people in this day and age, you know there are walls everybody puts up right, so conceptually in my mind, it was grafiti for those walls.
I see. Was it when Jesse passed away, I mean, was that, aside from the obvious feelings that it would cause, was it also professionally for your musical ambitions a setback in getting anywhere with it?
Well, it was a setback in the sense of I didn’t have Jesse any more. I mean my friend, you know? But I guess in the clinical sense or professionally, no. It was like–cause the man that writes the music now he has written some of the songs on this Rykodisc album, Mark Sharp, see Mark was the rhythm guitar player in our band. In Jesse’s band, right and had worked with Jesse for three or four years by that time. It was like family in a way, right. Everybody in the band. And Jesse was the leader of the band. But he had taught Mark a lot. And Mark is a musician in his own right, I mean, I think Mark is an incredible musician and that maybe he will get recognition for that. If he gets exposure, I know he’ll get the recognition.
But what it was is, it became just like a continuing progression. So what I was doing–the albums I got to make with Jesse, and then now the work that I’m doing with Mark, like, it’s all like a progression. You know it’s like each one, there’s a little more experience at it, so to speak, right.
I know that this album is a compilation of sorts. That’s on Ryko. Did you do anything with the pre-existing tracks to update them for this record?
Yes, everything was remixed. Well, for one thing, see the original Graffiti Man album was done in an 8-track studio. So there’s an obvious technical adjustment that must be made when we’re going into CD because of the business noise in the back, so to speak right, and things like that. So everything was remixed in some form or fashion, right. Had been fed into the system. but I personally don’t have a problem with that because we have, you know–because if Jesse had lived, that was always his intention. I mean, because in a way our 8-track things were our demo things right. Looking for the opportunity to get to the bigger tracks.
Well, he really comes through on this album too.
Oh, we did everything we possibly could to protect the integrity of Jesse’s playing, you know, because this is the last of his music. I mean the material that I basically have, and I know he did some studio sessions at the time. He did some songs with Dylan that haven’t been released yet, but I mean for people that are fans of Jesse right, this is, you know, I’ve got the last of his original work and Dylan’s got the last of his other work.
I think I saw in some of the material I was sent on you, that before this Ryko disc that you had done five albums worth earlier. Is any of that stuff available to anyone or is it basically, forget it?
What happened is I’ve had to stop distrubuting it because the agreement with Ryco. And, that’s kind of the status of it right now. I mean, we’ll see how things go. I mean to me, yeah, I’ll see how things go, because at some point I would truly like to rerelease the original material in its original form.
Is it? Is it all somewhat similar to what we hear on this? Or is it, some of it quite different?
No, it’s all basically similar? No wait, actually no that’s not true. Because we have more material where we utilize Quiltman, the tribal singer aspects of it musically. The next album will have more of that. We’ll definitely have more that incorporated into it. It was just the luck of the draw on the selections of this one right. Because what I did was I made– of the five albums, two of them were with this Quiltman, they were called Tribal Voice, right, and it was the poetry with the traditional drum and singers. And two of the albums were graffiti albums, Heart Jump OK and AKA Graffiiti Man, which I wrote with Jesse Ed, right. And the fifth album called Fables and Other Realities which I co-wrote with Mark Shark. With a song or two by Quilt and a song or two with Jesse. Of Jesse’s old material. So when it came time to make this compilation we drew mainly on the graffiti material, right, from the older, the older stuff from Heart Jump and Graffiti Man. And so the next thing that comes out, the main variation on it will be that there will be more the tribal sound incorporated as a part of the band. And I’m remembering now and I think that the most notable progression will be that there’s more singing incorporated into these songs right. I mean, the poetry is the core of it. Every line is spoken. But we have our harmonys alright and our things that are sung. And we’re experimenting more and more with that too.
When you write the words. Do you put them down thinking of them as–I mean are these poems that you had to start with and then adapted, or do you write the lyrics with the idea in mind that there’s going to be some music behind them?
Some of them, that way. Some of them I write it, knowing there’s going to be music. So I try to write them to make it more comfortable for that music. And some of them are things you know, like I have one called Blue Indians. Those lines, see some of that, they’ve got long words and they’re hard words to put to music. But see on songs like that, I write the lines anyway. And it’s up to my partner to figure out the music. But my routine is, if I can find a rhythm in a line, then I trust that my partner can find it musically. He can find a rhythm. They may not be the same rhythm, right, but I’ll make the adjustment. But if I can’t find a rhythm in the line then they’ll never go into the song category.
Well it, uh, you know, really seems to work. I mean, I was kind of uh, before I even put it on I’d say you know, I was kind of sceptical. Just the combination of, you know, the idea of spoken word set to music sort of sounds like it gonna be kind of, uh, boring to start with, or something like that. Did you have a lot of experience in reading your work before an audience? Had you tried doing poetry reading sort of things?
For one thing, for me, working in front of groups of people, right, I’ve always been, let’s say, able to do that. So you know I started out as what we’ll call a political activist. So I spoke, I did a lot of public speaking which was just often from my mind, not off of paper. And when I did start writing I had to get used to working off of paper, to reading the poem. Once I had been writing poems for a year maybe, my compulsion was to go out and impose them upon any audience that happened to be in front of me, right, it was like, ya know, it was a compulsion to do this, you know, and what the deal is is that it became well received, you know, and then so the next thing became, the thing was now to working with music. Once I evolved into working with the musicians, then what I had to do was, I no longer– the test to me was working with music because I was used to being on a stage by myself, and I’m not a musician, so you know, I don’t know a note from the letter when you come down to the music scales. Things like that. you know, I don’t know a harmony from a melody, by definition, right, or whatever all that means. I mean, and you know, and I’m not a dancer. And I’m not a singer, right? So the whole thing was, it became very–to me if I was going to get on to that stage then I was gonna have to talk my way in there. That’s all there was to it.
And so when did you first perform with music?
I think, my first path at it with the electric music, right, I did it with the Tribal Voice music. Uh, eighty two, eighty three. With the electric music–and the Tribal Voice just being the drum and the indigenous songs–the electric music, I think it was in May of eighty-six we did our first performance. It was April or May. But by the fall of eighty six, it was with full band.
And have you done a lot of gigs since then? Is that something you’ve…
Well they seem to add up over the years. We spent the first fifteen months from the fall of, about approximately fifteen months, from the fall of eighty seven, oh wait, the fall of eighty six until sometime into eighty seven, the beginning, after the first year of eighty seven. Well we playd as many shows as we could get, but that was for me to learn, you know, so we went into the clubs, anywhere we could get a show and we went in there so I could have my training and I could learn to work with the band, right, the sychronicity, and um. and then, after that year and a half, then we, we no longer took the position of playing every show we can get. We just played in periods of time, but we stayed busy in the course of a year.
So this has been a regular thing for you for a while. And now that you have uh, this album coming out that gonna garner national exposure and certainly greater exposure than you’ve gotten before, is it the same musicians are gonna be behind you as you’ve been working with, or is it kind of uh, gonna become more grandiose or something at this point?
No, at this point I like the sounds we make with what we have. And then I have this thing about rock and roll anyway, and music, things that I hear in my own head, right. But the band, the band that I have–let me think for a second of all the individuals–but everyone in this band was brought to me by Jessie Ed Davis, right, and I would have no inclination to want to change my band, right, because it’s like, in a way you know, we’ve all been a part of this for a long time. and I wouldn’t say I am–I have a definite interest in sounds, right. So I wouldn’t limit everything to my band, but no, I don’t look at everything getting, you know, grandiose. But I do look at not limiting myself experimenting around musically.
Are any of the band members Native Americans?
Just Quiltman. Me and Quilt.
And what does he play?
He’s does a traditional thing with the drum. Percussion. We’re short one band player right now actually, and I don’t know who this person will end up becoming. But we have our lead guitar player who’s Mark Shark, and our bass player at this point, Bobby Tsukamoto, and Rick Ekstein, who alternates between rhythm guitar and keyboard, and then our drummer Gary Ray.
And Jackson Brown gets credit as executive producer. What’s his role in your music?
I think that, uh, Jessie Ed Davis and Jackson Brown, without the two of them, there would be no music. He’s been a part of this from the get go. What is this 1992? For the last thirteen years Jackson has been very much a part of, like, he’s been an ally to me. You know, none of this would have happened without his participation. That’s one of the realities.
Has it been mainly, his role, mainly been in his music business connections, or has he actively been really more in the artistic part?
To me it’s always been more at the level of a human being. Being human to another human being, right, and it’s always been at that level, because you know I was very careful. I didn’t want him to use his show business place to further me, you know. Because whatever my abstractions are, you know, I had to do this, which is not something someone else could do for me, you know, I mean just in the sense of, otherwise it wouldn’t be me so in that sense, because I mean, we’re talking over thirteen years here, you know. And so he was there very supportive of me in a multitude of ways through those years. And then you know, we come to this point, but when it came time to getting a record contract or making a record agreement, it turned out with Rikodisc, Jackson was very very instrumental in that, you know, he did–at that level without him I doubt that this would have happened, you know. So I mean yeah, but it was always. It was never. Business may be a part of it. Politics may be a part of it. But it’s always been much more deeper than that. You know it’s like there was a time in my life I needed an ally and one appeared and it happened to be him.
You know the first time I heard of you, which was about a month ago, when I got the copy of your album, an advanced copy of it, and uh, they said you know John Trudell blah blah blah, he’s got this out and oh yeah, and he’s going to be in this movie that’s coming out Thunderheart, ok. And then they said Thunderheart’s opening and you can go see it and I’m going to give you a copy of this documentary, Incident at Oglala. I said alright fine, fine you know and I got that and you know now that I’ve listened to the record, I’ve seen both of the movies. Is it the fact that these three pieces of work are all arriving more or less at the same time. Is there some sort of uh, is it just coincidence, or is there some sort of uh plan afoot that is going to all of a sudden make the world very aware of you and also of some of the issues that the you’re discussing?
I think it might be a combination of things, you know. Uh, definitely coincidence, luck, chance, whatever you want to call it, right, played a definite role in this. But then there is also the course that I have chosen to follow, you know, to try to accomplish. But it’s a combination of the elements because you know, I mean, I’m approaching it through making my music and the records and stuff you know. Ah, and these two particular films, Incident at Oglala, Thunderheart, and Michael Apted, the director of both of these films–You know our world, we entered, we entered one another’s world here, but in a way it was by chance you know? And when you look at it–and I did the interview for Incident.
So that came first?
Right, and then when the Thunderheart part came, you know, and we made the agreement that I was going to be Jimmy Looks Twice in this movie, again you know it’s like no matter how good my plan may be, if I couldn’t pull it off right, if I couldn’t be this person you know so it’s credible with an audience you know, so again, I look at it as a combination of chance and plan. And the timing for me is very fortunate that these three things, I mean way back six years ago, right, I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if I could get some exposure for more than one medium, right, simultaneously I remember that you know, wouldn’t it be nice, but it was very abstract. And so it’s a little bit of a whirl to me to see some form of that happening now.
So did it happen that Apted encountered you in the course of filming the documentary then came back and said hey, I want you to have the screen test for this role?
Yes.
And was acting something that you had any previous experience doing?
Well, there was a movie called PowWow Highway, out three or four years ago right, and I had two scenes in that, but, but I didn’t really, my character had no character, you know what I mean? I was just a prop with some lines. But there was no–but when I entered into that one, that was very agreeable to me because yes, I do have an interest in acting. And I entered into the PowWow Highway thing because I wanted to find out if I could work with the camera, right. I mean, if the camera doesn’t like you, then you know, give it up is my attitudea but, but it turned, I felt I could work with the camera, and then, so I had had the interest in acting but I don’t have, but I’m not really an actor in a sense of that I’m going to go out and try for every part. Try to get any roll just to get the exposure as an actor. I basically am an actor who doesn’t go out looking for parts. That tells you how high it is on the priority. That’s what I mean about chance, right. Because it came, it ends up coming along. Here is a part, you know, that was compatible to my attitude. I was approached and asked if I would like to try for it. And I read the screenplay, or the script. I read that. I could identify with the character, you know. So then I thought well–and one of the things I thought was ideal about this character to me as I’m reading it, right. If he gets–my character was a good character in the sense of, he gets a lot of visibility in this film, even though he only has a couple of scenes. Because he’s a character who’s name keeps getting mentioned. See so what I was given I was givin an opportunity to have a good high profile character, but not have to back it up with too much acting. I did not have to carry the film.
Well, what’s impressive is, I mean, I don’t know how many minutes you’re on screen. It’s got to be less than five minutes total. But when you’re there, ya know, you’re watching you. The audience is watching you. It’s definitely all very intense stuff, every second that you’re on the screen there. I saw Thunderheart before I saw the documentary and you know you have the same haircut in both of them. Was that a haircut that you had for the movie or I mean was that just the way you looked at the time?
That’s just the way I looked at the time. I’ve got this thing here about, well attitudes, right. But in the, wait, last year was ninety-one. So they had a thing going on in Canada in ninety. Oka with the mohawks over the golf course. The confrontation between the Canadaian Government and the Indigenous people there. And so in August nineteen-ninety, that was my act of solidarity with them. With what the mohawks were attempting to do up there. So I couldn’t go there and participate, right? So I just thought well I’ll wear my hair a mohawk style for one year. So from August till August was what I decided to do. And and I just so anyway, we did the interview for Incident at Oglala and the character they changed, they had to change the Looks Twice character, quite a bit of things about the physical appearence because I ended up getting the character right. But anyway, he originally had long hair in this and that right, like you see in the FBI mugshots in the film, right? But that was just a wig, right, and then I told him I would prefer not to wear that hot wig, right, in the middle of August and July in South Dakota, you know, and maybe the Mohawk thing would work. And so we just shaped it up. And they said that would be fine.
In the whole Oglalla incident, and it’s a little bit unclear in the documentary, were you there? Were you involved in the incident in any way?
You mean the physical confrontation that took place that day?
That or just being in South Dakota or Pine Ridge at that time.
Well, I happened to be in Oklahoma. In Norman, Oklahoma, when that fire fight started, right, because I was just leaving Oklahoma to go to Nevada. And so I drove up to South Dakota and was there the next morning right, and I can’t really remember very precisely what my, what times I was there in South Dakota, but I was in and out of the area in the time preceding the firefight.
Was that because you knew the firefight had taken place that you just hopped in the car and went there?
Yeah I went there because I wanted to know what was going on, you know. Because I mean you know, by that time I’m very sceptical of the government’s side of the story, you know. And I was concerned for the people that were in that camp because I knew people who lived there and I didn’t want them, anything to happen to them and you know so it is a matter of concern here about my own partners.
Was that during the years that you were chairman of AIM?
Yes, I became chairman in the fall of seventy-three, so this was right there yeah.
And so, was Leonard part of the group at that point?
Yes.
In watching Thunderheart, the role of the FBI in the whole thing. I mean, obviously it’s you know, after you see Thunderheart if you see it in the order that I did seeing Thunderheart and then seeing Oglala, it’s very, uh, one informs the other. And you learn a lot more about what was going on in what the fiction, what the reality that it’s based in. But the movie presents the FBI sort of as being dupes and being manipulated by the goons and their leaders rather than, you know it’s not like the FBI’s are the bad guys, but it’s almost, it seems like they’re the bad guys through ignorance rather than actual malevolence.
I think that Sam Shepherd, Cooch, I think he kinda maybe addresses the reality cause he knows what’s going on.
Right, but the way the movie sort of makes it like well, you know, he’s the rotten apple in the bunch, but you know, the other FBI guys you know, maybe they’re just uh, you know, they’re more stupid, more victims of the fact that they are entering a situation which they don’t know anything about.
Well there was a reality to that, but they weren’t being duped by the goons. They were being duped by the Shepherds, the ones who knew what was going on, I mean in the reality of the thing, and see what it was about it for me is like it told the story of what happened, you know, and from the very get go when I read the script, you know, when I’m sitting there with the script in my hand I realize this is only a movie. Right, and so whatever story ‘s gonna to get told here has to be done in the context of a movie. Because that’s the way it is, right, and um, because I mean, obviously in reality there were no FBI agents that became nice guys. That had a conscience or a burst of consciousness or anything.
Well that was what I was wondering.
In reality it wasn’t even close to that, ya know. But it became a vehicle to tell this story. So, I think that under the circumstances that they did a good job with it. But you know, I mean, I remember reading the script and thinking to myself, well, you know if I get involved with this, if these people don’t have their act together, you know, this could be a bad film, right. It all depends on the characterization, so to speak, right. And, And, but, but I basically trusted the integrity of the individuals I dealt with, so I went with that trust.
Well, you know for yourself in real life, I mean, it’s rather an impressive statistic when we went to see that the FBI has seventeen thousand pages on you. Um, is that a file that uh, through Freedom of information that you’ve actually had a chance to look at and read?
I never went to look at it. I mean to see, the only way I get access to it is go to Washington DC to the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building to read it. Or I can pay ten-cents a page for it. And I really choose not to do either one at this time in my life. And another thing that I’m more curious about, I mean, I have two curiosities about it. One is you know to me it speaks to the paranoia of those who claim to be in power. Because, I know I lived my life. There was no. I didn’t do anything in the course of my life that would justify seventeen thousand pages. Ya know, I know what I did, right. Even the most extreme or bizarre, there’s nothing to warrant that kind of coverage. But that covers the time period I’m assuming between nineteen sixty-eight and nineteen-eighty, but I would have real curiosity as to what’s been added.
Well it seems astounding not to mention sickening that the United States government would go to such lengths to squelch the Indian movement. Is it uh, are we to think that the threat Native Americans present, I mean, what had you interpreted? Why does the government feel so threatened by you?
Because we represent another perspective of life. We represent a perspective of life that says, our spirit is very vital to how and who we are. Is very vital to our well-being. Our spirit is basically, it’s a part of a larger spirit of life, that of the Earth and the universe itself, alright. And because we have that spiritual relationship to life, we have the right to be who we are, alright, but we’re living in a time in society where they want the workers to behave and pay ther rent. They want the workers to go to the office and they want the workers to put up with mistreatment and abuse. Economic abuse, you know, emotional mental abuse. They want the workers and the citizens of the society to behave themselves, you know, so to speak. So if the Indiginous people, theso called Indians, if the Indians, if we respect their rights as human beings, then the citizens are going to want it. That’s what I think it is.
Is it also the idea that if the Indians were organized well enough, Uh, that because of your moral, certainly possibly legal claim to much of the wealth of this country, that that would, you know, actually pose a threat?
Yes. I mean it poses a threat because the whole principle of democracy, no matter what the rhetoric is, the principl of democracy is to control everyone so that you can turn their energy into a profit. I mean, that’s what it’s really all about. And so for, like, if the Indigenous people, if they demand the right to live as who they are, right, then you have to jeopardize everything. It jeopardizes all of it. Because you see, they want the citizens and the Indians alright to not–they don’t want the citizens to see what the Indian sees. I’ll put it like that. Because it would change everything. Yes, it would. You know, see it’s always been a prolem, it’s been a prolem from the very beginning, right. See, because when the boats first started coming, and the first European started coming, the two sets of Europeans that came were the owners and the owned, alright, and the owned, they liked the Indians. I mean, if they ran away from their owners, the Indians would take them in. See so that was a serious threat. That’s why a lot of that racial hatred became a part of the indoctrination. Was to keep that from happening. And my feeling is since the system still exists today, alright and as an example of that is the Wounded Knee occupation in nineteen-seventy-three. There were more people in America supported that armed occupation of Wounded Knee then supported the existing government in power at that time. The Nixon administration. I mean it was because of Watergate, right, but the deal is, the significance of that is tremendous because more people sympathized with the so-called militants. All right, and then the second thing that happened, out of the American Indian Movment experience in this generation was that in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in nineteen seventy six, Daryl Butler and Bob Robidou were acquitted on the killing of the FBI agents on the basis of self-defense. So what you have here is you have a nice average white jury saying yes, we recognize that you may have to defend yourself against the government, even when the government says it’s acting in the line of duty. Now the implications of that, right, are truly revolutionary because this came out of citizens. See so it’s in that kind of context that I’m talkin about. See, they don’t want, the government in this situation, the multinational, the industrial government in this position, in this situation, they have to be, they have to attempt to keep everything under control because if one thing gets loose, then the rest of them are gonna get loose maybe. I’ll put it in this context. When you have a political meeting, there’s always someone comes to the meetings to run back and tell on you alright as to who said what, alright. Now, let’s look at this, you know, clearly for a second. Alright, I’m dealing with a democratic form of government alright, that has all the power by its definition. It controls the economy. It controls the means of destruction Militarily. It controls the politics. It controls the religions, alright, and it controls the enforcement of the laws. And yet they are paranoid about a group of people getting together and having a free exchange of ideas about how they feel. There’s a certain reality there that I feel should not be ignored. Because to me the reality is, if these people change their minds, then we don’t get to do this any more.
You know certainly in watching the documentary there are several individuals who almost matter-of-factly refer to personal tragedies that took place, which it’s just unbelievable and devastating and I know that that was one of them. In the movie there’s no, we are told that there was a fire of suspicious origin in which your family was killed. Do you believe that you know who was responsible for this fire today? Was it the FBI?
Well, let me put it like this. I don’t believe anything, because to believe is an assumption. Means there’s doubt. You don’t know. What I do know, is I do know that people connected to the American government did this. Started this fire and other individuals also connected to the government did the cover up. There were two aspects to this thing that happened. One was the assassination itself and the second with the cover up of that assassination. And the coverup became the misinformation, it was an accident, etc. That I do know. And there are individuals whose names, and they stand out very clearly in my mind as to what roles they played in this process. I have not forgotten them at all.
And can you say their names?
I would not at this point say their names because if something were to happen. If I say their names and something happens to them, right, I don’t want people beatin on my door about it.
Can you say what governmental organizations they work for?
Well, a part of it is. There are the FBI connections, but what I was told alright, is that the FBI had a different operation. They were trying to set me up for a sting, and the fire was initiated by someone who was considered a loose cannon belonging to another organization. And the FBI was gonna sting me and they had to call it off because of the fire. Now that’s what I was told.
I guess in the eighties, certainly the notoriety of the American Indian Movement was much less, uh, there wasn’t this kind of violence and confrontation and just in terms of the media coverage, as a media event, it wasn’t a big deal but is the movement alive and still involved in battling for human rights?
I’ll answer it like this. The consciousness of the people is still alive. The spirit of the people still lives. So in that sense the movement is still happening. AIM, the American Indian Movement, as a part of that, is still functioning in different areas. But it’s not a national organization, or it is not the center of that. My inclinations are to think that we will never create–we will not attempt, not in my lifetime anyway, I don’t think it will happen right, that we will attempt to create a political structure the same way we did with AIM because it was centralized. It centralized for the government who they needed to destroy. What happens is like a natural result of the way the government waged its war against us is that, yes, the cultural aspects that AIM represented. These cultural things are still living, and they’re still going about it, but the form is changing now. Because the reality is if we show our faces, they get us.
Well, is there for someone such as yourself who is gonna to be more in the public eye than ever before does this you think place you in any kind of danger or is this in a way you’re cover that’s going to give you the security?
No, I think it places me probably in more danger.
Because they still don’t want to hear what you have to say?
That’s correct. What I feel at this particular time and I, I really can’t go into all the details at this time, but I feel that I am probably the target of a counter-intelligence program at this time. Because I have reasons to suspect that. And I’ll have to see how the time unfolds over the course of the next year, but I, I think that it increases the potential for danger to me because I, I survived my destruction, and with, with at least a thread of coherency.
Have you been imprisoned at any point?
Well, thirty days, sixty days, whatever.
But they haven’t managed to send you away for a longer stretch. Yeah, I think you know for some people who encounter either of the two films, you know, maybe they’ll be left thinking well, this is something which happened in the past. What’s going on today would be a question. Are the conditions of Native Americans on the reservations and off the reservations as dire as they were at the times of these films?
I think in some aspects yes they are. People are poor. The poverty is overwhelming. Overwhelming. Especially on the reservation. The waters are becoming contaminated. People’s accessibility to their hunting and fishing is becoming more and more restricted. You know the health services, you know, I mean, look at it like this. If there’s no money for health services to the general public, then imagine what that does for us. So I think in some aspects the conditions are much more harsh. But then when I talk about–what I see as our culture, the spirit of the people, I see that it’s flourishing in spite of those things. Because the spirit hasn’t been broken. And so when I look at it in the context of all this, you know all this having happened fifteen years ago, what I really see in it is that any people who see this and they write it, they dismiss it with that frame of mind, then I think they’re missing the whole point that you know what they are seeing is the principles of democracy in action, and they may be seeing their own future.
Well, I mean, wouldn’t it be maybe more accurate to say what we’re seeing is a perversion of the principles of democracy and action?
Well, I don’t know. See, because I have to look at it this way. My people were free. Democracy is the one that imprisoned us. My people were not on the verge of extinction, but democracy keeps us on the verge of extinction, right. I have to place it in a realistic context. And let’s look at democracy. Look at the society in general. The women are still second class citizens trying to get some form of equality. Who did that to them? It’s part of the founding papers of democracy. You look at your white male who doesn’t own property. You know he’s got to worry about how he’s gonna feed his family, alright. And you look at the blacks, you know, you look at whats happened to them. And you look at the foot on your throat situation that almost all the citizens in this country are in. You know, and it’s like, and what I find the most bizarre aspect of all is they’re afraid to even question whether democracy is the right way for them to live or not. And I’m not talking about communism, or many of these other oppressive parasite, preditor vampire, you know systems. I’m just talking about reality, you know, and I live in a democratic society. For what I am saying to you now there are many many people would become afraid or dislike me just because I question democracy. Even though I have valid reason to, and I think that every person has valid reason to. See it to me it’s like you know, I come from the tribes, and to me the tribes, that’s the way it should be right. But I’m not going to imppose that on anyone. That’s my view. But larger than that alright, we have a responsibility. We have the ability, therefore we have the responsibility alright to create how we’re going to live with our environment within each generation. Nowhere is it written, whether it’s in the religious rules of God, or whether it’s in the spiritual perception of the universe, nowhere is it written, alright, that we have to follow the rules of those who have been controlling us for the last thousand years, or twenty years or fifty years. And I think that what people need to look at when we’re thinking in terms and looking in terms of democracy. You know, I mean, let’s just look at it. Don’t look at it like they’re in a drug, drunken state. Look at it with a clearer mind. We live in the democracy– when I was a child going to school, I remember them telling me about the Soviets and the KGB, and how the KGB, they were political police and thought police, and you got dragged off from your homes in the middle of the night. You got persecuted for the way you looked and believed. And one day I see a KGB agent flashing an FBI badge. Really, I see them flashing an IRS badge. Secret Service badge. A bankers mortgage. So when we go back to democracy alright, about the theoretical ideals of it. If any one can tell me where it’s been practiced, then I would be inclined to trust those ideals. But I know of no recorded history has the idea has been practiced?
That’s the rub huh?
That’s the rub. You know maybe democracy is, you know, maybe it’s not really that real after all. Maybe it can be made real, created right, but we have to create it because it does not exist.
I know you’re going to be performing here in Massachusetts in a couple of weeks for the Earth Day concert. Participating in an event like that, and with the Earth Day thing, is that a forum where you feel like, you know, I mean you have a lot of middle class white people who are kind of in the forefront of the ecology movement that go, you know, Earth Day, this is really great, you know, I’m gonna bring my deposit bottle back to the store and you know, take my newspapers to be recycled and stuff like that. Is it also a forum for other ideas that you have to be presented?
Well to me it’s like, when I look at it at this point I think that as a society, as individuals first, and as communities or society second, we need to make peace with earth. We need to make a conscientious thought out peace with our relationship to the earth, alright. And if we will do that step, then the rest of it will start to fall into place. But we have to reconnect ourselves to what it’s really all about, you know. And because, I look at people, you know, these people, the very people you are mentioning about taking the bottles back to be recycled. I can’t fault them. Or blame them. Because they’re trying to know more about what is happening. It’s just the availability of the information that they’re given, right, is done to keep them unclear, and you know, because I mean, no matter what our programs may be, we do not control the mass media, so we ‘re not there. We don’t control that continual programming, right, and the information that the people receive. I think it’s something that needs to be thought about in relationship to making peace with Earth. And not peace on Earth, peace with Earth. That has to be thought about. Another part of that is our role as human beings. Our power comes from the earth. You know we’re a part of that power connection. Earth gives us life. It sustains our life. You know, I mean there are middle men, distributors, the industrialists and the manufactures and whoever who seize control of the production or means of production, or whatever all that terminology is about. You know, the division of resources, or the accessibility to these resources. But all of our life comes from the planet. Comes from the earth. And I think we really need to have an understanding of that because most people–I think a majority of the environmentalists at this point, alright, want to save the earth because they’re afraid of what’s going to happen if we don’t. And I think that it has more–there’s more spirit. There’s more life in the spirit. It’s more focused. It’s more energized. It’s more real, right. There’s magic to it when we start to do it. Because we say we appreciate life and we want to perpetuate life. And you know, we can achieve that state of mind if we decide to do so.
You know I was I guess in recent months we’ve seen, you know, Oliver Stone with the JFK movie, has actually had a tremendous effect on the way people are talking about the assassination and what really went on, and they want to reopen it, and etcetera etcetera.
Interview – Boston Herald 1992: Part 2
You can have your general plan, let’s say, direction your headed in, and there will come these opportunities or chances along the way, and at any given moment you, can, you know, it can really be very helphful and it can really go a good way for you, or you can miss it completely, or you can think you’ve gotten it and it can backfire on you, but it depends upon the perception of the people at that time,
right, when we encounter these things. So yes it, you know, and I think that for Leonard there are some real opportunities coming up to maybe get his story heard. You know, get some justice. Why he’ll never get justice is because they’ve taken as many years from his life as they can, But maybe to get out of prison.
Well, it also, I mean in a larger sense, this could raise the consciousness of thousands, millions of people about what has been done to Native Americans, and what is being done to them. Is that something that you have much hope for? I mean, I guess in a way it’s easy to be cynical because in a way it’s like, everyone loves Indians, like, oh yeah they’re nice, they’ve got this nice culture, but you know, long as we don’t have to really do anything or really deal with them in any meaningful way. So, I think people are sympathetic in the abstract towards the plight, but.
No, I don’t see–I don’t have hope that it’s going to change our situation for us in a more positive way, right, because throughout history there have always been the members of the citizens who sympathized with us. But because they could not have a say in how their own lives were governed, right, they could really not have a say in ours. I mean, see we had a common problem. Someone was misusing them too, right, and they needed to deal with who was misusing them the same way we were dealing with it. And then I think we would have gotten further, but anyway, I don’t have a lot of hope that this is going to come out and save the people. But what I do see happening out of it is, right, that number one a stories being told, and I think that many people who have an opportunity to see this story, whether any of the incarnations comes through Incident or Thunderheart, whatever, right. As people are brought into contact with it, there are those who are going to be influenced by it and remember it, right, and place, it in a context. So I don’t think that it’s going to hurt us, but it’s not going to save us. But in the long run I feel that it will help us. In the long term. At some point, as they see the conditions, you know, as they start to see that they’re the Indians now, right, I trust that. You know, because we get right down to reality. The Indigenous people of this land are not Indians. Never have been. Never will be. When we deal with reality, they’re the people. Indians live in India. Indians are a term that someone created and coined alright. To give us their mis–they were lost, so they gave us their misrepresented name, right, because they thought they were somewhere else on the planet. And so now, when I looked at it in that context, then see, so they created this name, Indians. And when you look at those who created the name Indians, while in reality they created that name, and to them in Indian is someone you rob. You steal from. An Indian is someone you just take. They’re just there for your convenience, and you take from them. And now, when I look around what is pertinent, the unions that are getting broken. People working at Catepillar right now, can’t have their jobs back, right, and I look at that and I look at the poor, and I’m not talking about race now, I’m just talking about class. I look at the poor, you know, and I look at all those people who are starting to get old and they don’t know how they’re goin to live once they retire. They don’t have money, you know. Then, you know, those people that are losing their farms and their land and they can’t educate their children and can’t get health care and all this and that. Who are the Indians now? When we deal with, in that sense, right. And for us as indigenous people, see as a people, our history goes back to the beginning of our memory. As Indians, it starts five hundred years ago and it’s been nothing but terror and genocide. See, so what keeps us alive is that we can still remember that we’re the People. See, the citizens can’t remember that anymore.
That’s People with a capital P?
Let’s capitalize all the letters.
Just in terms for me as a writer, would using Native Americans be preferable to ever using the word Indian?
No, I prefer the word Indian over Native America, personally, right. But even in the usage of Indian, I think that to me because it’s a term that everyone’s familiar with. I think it’s Indian People. The Indian people. I think that Indian and People right, I think that that’s the word. Those are the words. Or, Indigenous People, right. You know, Indigenous is more accurate, alright. But Indian is more identifiable. Familiar. But as long as we add People to it. The Indian People. Now as far as Native American goes, anyone born in the nation state of America is a Native American. Alright a Native American, you know, it’s like the term–when we first started our political dissention in the late sixties saying we want change, right, and saying the things that we wanted in our political rebellion, let’s call it. See, so the government never really changed anything, except they changed what they called us. So they went to treating us the same way but calling us Native Americans. And then everyone thought we were being treated differently. It was a very slick piece of somethin’, right. I mean, you know because all well intentioned people just took right up to it because they were conscientiously trying to do something good, you know so, the Native American became the thing but in practical reality anyone born in the nation state America is a Native American.
Right. I see what you mean. John, I’ve kept you on the phone for an hour. I’ll let you go. It was great talking to you. Do you live in LA? Is that where your home is now?
Yeah, well, it’s my base of operations, right. That’s the best way I can describe it because I’m making the music. And I mean, you know I’ve been trying to get this national distribution or a record deal, or whatever form it came in, right, and make the music at the same time. So this was the place.
Well listen, I’ll just tell you, you know, I was talking to one of the people at Rycko today and I was saying you know, I’m really glad that before I saw either one of the movies, I listened to the music. Because I think, had I seen one of the films first, that might have influenced me, you know, in how I received the music and maybe would have made me feel predisposed that of you know, uh, empathy or sympathy or something like that toward it. And to tell you the truth, I mean, I had nothing of that. I just slapped it on cold, and uh, I thought it was one of the uh, you know finest most powerful things I’ve heard in a long time, so, uh, that’s my compliment to you as a music writer.
I appreciate that.
So I dig it and best of luck to you with the whole thing, and hope I get to meet you one of these days.
More than likely that’ll happen.
Great, well good talking to you, man.
Take care.~
SOURCE: The Katz Tapes