A Conversation with The Moore Brothers (continued)

Puremusic: I love that film with Annie Heringer on your website.

Greg Moore: Oh, yeah. Isn't that thing funny?

PM: How did that take place? Was it well planned?

GM: Kind of. Actually it wasn't that well planned. The guy who stars in the movie, Ben Davis, now, that guy had made another movie that Annie directed. It was a just a short film. And she showed it to me, and I thought it was hilarious. It was about--okay, Annie is filming her friends in the park. And then you see Ben like popping out from behind a tree, in the background.

And then all of a sudden he has stolen the camera, and he's running, so you just see the camera shaking. And then Ben gets into his car and puts the camera down into the passenger seat, but it's pointed right towards him. And he's like checking it out, and he's like, "Yeah! This thing is awesome," and stuff like that. And then he's just driving. It is just really funny.

So I'm asking her, "Who is this guy? Is he a professional actor?" And she's like, "No. I think he's done a little bit of stuff. But he's just this guy I know who's really funny." And then she told the story, or then Thom told the story, but that situation actually happened in real life.

PM: Oh, the biggest fan situation?

GM: The biggest fan situation, yeah. And Ben Davis was doing that at one of Thom's concerts. It happened to Thom, in reality, but we kind of said, "Well, let's get Ben to make this movie where I'm playing a concert, and he does that." So then the whole party thing was just kind of like everyone got together to film it, and I don't think there was a script. We'd plan it out a little bit, like "Okay, you're going to come bursting out the door. You're really mad." It took me a long time because I kept on laughing.

PM: [laughs] But in real life, Ben Davis was doing that at a Thom show?

GM: Yeah, he was.

PM: [laughs] Well, that really makes it crazy. So what about Annie Heringer?

GM: So what about her?

PM: How do you know her, and what do you know about her?

GM: She's a really dear old friend that we grew up with. I think we went to youth group together, and we sang in choir together, or something like that. Then we also went to high school together. And we both went to Germany and spent time over in Germany, so we both have that connection, too. She's one of the few people from my childhood that I still feel pretty close with.

PM: Now, what is the record you did with Lois Maffeo, Owl and the Pussycat?

GM: I would say it's pretty similar to--at least my songs are pretty similar to my songs on Murdered by the Moore Brothers. And I think it's a really stripped-down recording. Lois' songs--have you ever heard her music?

PM: I don't know her music yet. I've heard now a lot of the Brothers and Sandycoates, but I don't know Lois' music yet.

GM: She was a big inspiration when I was first starting to write songs and play out in front of people. She was part of the Olympia punk rock thing. She did it all with an acoustic guitar. And she's got a really commanding presence, and told really witty stories when she broke strings. And I really looked up to her.

PM: She was an acoustic figure in the Olympia scene.

GM: Yeah. So she'd been playing shows with Fugazi and Nirvana and stuff, playing acoustic. And she was kind of looked up to as a starter of the whole Riot Girl thing. [aka Riot Grrl]

PM: Right.

GM: So that was kind of her scene, and she's still involved with that. Well, she doesn't do so much music anymore. But she goes to the Ladyfest thing and stuff like that, and she's like the goddess, basically.

PM: Wow.

GM: She does more freelance writing now, that's her main outlet now.

PM: Freelance writing of a fictional nature, or what?

GM: I think some music reviews.

PM: A journalist.

GM: Yeah. All kinds of stuff. She reads a lot. She probably writes book reviews--I wouldn't be surprised. You really should check her stuff out. She's great. So for me it was really a dream come true to make a record with her, because I really was into her stuff.

PM: So if she was from the Olympia scene, and you were either from southern or northern California, how did you tie up with her?

GM: Well, just at her shows, and then I gave her tapes. I'd come with a tape of some of my songs.

PM: Did she get it right away, where you coming from, musically?

GM: Well, she's so organized that she actually wrote me back a postcard, and it was like, "Hey, I enjoyed it." And that was really cool.

PM: That's so rare.

GM: Yeah, so rare, and so nice. Then I'd just keep on going to see her, and I'd give her a tape of the newest things I was working on. Or maybe even by then I had a CD together, or a single or something. And she wrote me back again, and she was like, "Wow, I really like this." And then I think I didn't see her for a couple years, and then when I did, I was in L.A. And she was like, "Hey, I was looking for you in San Francisco." And I was like, "Wow, she remembered me." She was all, "Hang out for a second and talk." And eventually she wrote me this letter and was like, "What do you think--let's make a record."

PM: Wow!

GM: It was really strange. So she came down to Oakland, and I picked her up from the bus station. It was just this surreal experience. I took her back to my apartment, and we just played each other some of the songs that we'd been working on, and had dinner, and just hit it off. So we've been really good friends since then.

PM: Picked her up at the bus station and brought her back to the apartment and started playing songs.

GM: Yeah.

PM: That's like a frickin' movie. That's unbelievable.

GM: Yeah, unbelievable. It was like a dream.

PM: Damn! And you still are good friends.

GM: Uh-huh. She always sets up a show in her backyard, and so we play in her backyard.

PM: Wow! [laughs] It's a cool scene.

GM: Yeah, totally.

PM: And I love the look of the scene of the friends that you'd gathered for that movie.

GM: Oh, yeah. [laughs]

PM: It was like, "Wow, this is a neat bunch of people."

GM: Yeah, I don't even know a lot of those people, but I do know some of them.

[laughter]

GM: Just the random L.A. crew.

PM: Oh, so that's where that was shot?

GM: Yeah, that was shot in L.A.   continue

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