Pat’s Modern Life: An Interview with Pat Irwin (2024)

Pat Irwin was a part of New York’s No Wave scene; he makes ambient country; he created the score for Rocko’s Modern Life; and he was a member of The B-52s for 18 years.

Chase

SUSS has become one of my all-time favorite bands. Your music sounds like the soundtrack to a lost episode of Pete & Pete directed by Alejandro Jordorowsky. Can you tell me about SUSS and ambient country and SUSS’s artistic process?

Pat

El Topo!

SUSS was really Bob Holmes’s idea. Bob came up with the name and called the music Ambient Country. I liked it.

For years, Bob, myself, Gary Leib, and William Garrett would meet at Eisenberg’s Deli on Fifth Ave in the Flatiron District in Manhattan for lunch. Bob, Gary, and William had been friends for years, and William and I were neighbors in Long Island City. We’d talk about music we were listening to and music we grew up with. We’d talk about Music For Airports; Apollo; Paris, Texas; and Evening Star. One thing led to another and we decided to form a band and make a record. Bob, Gary, and William all knew Jonathan Gregg from their days in Providence, RI, and the Boston music scene. Jonathan is a fantastic Pedal Steel player. It all seemed right.

We got together in my studio in Long Island City, and made some music. The first track we recorded was “Wichita.” I started it off on the National Steel, Jonathan joined in on Pedal Steel, and the track evolved from this improvisation. Bob had a few ideas for edits and loops, Gary added a couple of things, and William mixed it. That pretty much set the template for how we made our first record, Ghost Box.

The next couple of records were made in pretty much the same way, although we started exchanging computer files and contributing overdubs during the pandemic. I mix all the records at my studio.

Sadly, Gary Leib passed away in 2021 and he’s sorely missed. We completed Promise, our third record, with Gary, and did a few shows, including SxSW, but the pandemic shut live playing down. William got busy with other projects and wasn’t able to work on SUSS after we recorded High Line, our second record. Our fourth record, the self-titled double LP, SUSS, was completed as a trio and got us back into recording live in the studio. Gary had contributed a few things, and we were also able to build a couple of tracks based on some of his sketches and ambient improvisations and soundscapes.

We’ve got a new record coming out called Birds & Beasts, which will be released on Northern Spy in early Summer 2024. Jonathan and Bob did some recording together, and I started a couple of tracks at my place. In general, we did much more playing together. One of my favorite tracks is called “Migration,” which was started by Bob and I improvising over an eighth note figure. It ended up being unreleased for years and never felt like it belonged. It’s got a place on Birds & Beasts. Our music has a very unique combination of improvisation and more structured compositions. We never know where things are going until we get there.

Chase

You were a part of one of my favorite music scenes ever, the No Wave scene. I can’t get enough of it. Every band I’ve ever been in took something from Raybeats and 8-Eyed Spy. Can you tell me what it was like participating in New York’s legendary No Wave scene?

Pat

When I moved to New York City, No Wave was already a thing. No New York, the legendary LP produced by Brian Eno, featuring The Contortions, DNA, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and Mars, was just coming out. I’d never heard anything like it.

I had a loft on W. 27th. It was a huge space with no heat on the weekends, no hot water, no shower or bath, no kitchen, etc. It was raw. R.A.W.

I met George Scott, who had just left the Contortions, through a mutual friend who was crashing at my place. George and I had a lot in common, including a love of instrumental Rock & Roll. George was friends with Lydia Lunch, who was tired of Teenage Jesus and looking to form a band. We started 8-Eyed Spy with Lydia on vocals, George on bass, and I played guitar and sax. Lydia brought in Jim Sclavunos who had been in Teenage Jesus and George knew Michael Paumgardhen from a record store called Musical Maze. Things moved fast.

The music scene in New York City at that time was thrilling and thriving. There were places to play like Tier 3, the Mudd Club, and Danceteria. Of course there was CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. Maxwell’s, in Hoboken, was hugely important.

There were magazines and newspapers that would publish articles about the music being played. There was The Village Voice and the Soho Weekly News. There was the New York Rocker. The late Robert Palmer, would write about the music in The New York Times. This was no small thing. If you got a review in one of these papers, you could then play outside the city. The word spread. There were fanzines that you’d find in the records stores. With both 8 Eyed Spy and Raybeats we walked our 45s into the local bars, and they’d put them on the jukebox.

The music was phenomenal, and timeless. There was Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham, who were doing unheard things with the electric guitar. New music was being played by Philip Glass and Steve Reich that was finding its way into the Rock & Roll clubs. Musicians were making movies. Painters were in bands. I got opportunities to write music for choreographers and performance art. There was a support system and an infrastructure. You could dare to experiment. You could dare to be yourself.

Chase

What is your opinion of the current state of the music industry?

Pat

I’m so far removed from the music industry that I don’t even know what the music industry is. All I know is that when I started to play in NYC in the late ’70s the support system and infrastructure that I mentioned was very real. Sure, things have changed, and that’s the way it goes, but musicians need to be paid for their work, otherwise they can’t make music.

Chase

Rocko’s Modern Life is my foundation. My weird sense of humor, my storytelling style, and my taste in music began with this show. The Rocko’s Modern Life soundtrack is my all-time favorite music. Can you tell me about the creation of that perfect score and a little about the vinyl re-release?

Pat

Writing the music for Rocko’s Modern Life was really important for me, and recording that score was what I thought making records was going to be like. It opened up another world. The band was alive and full of musicians who were on a very high level. Just listen to the drumming! That’s Kevin Norton who at the time was playing with Anthony Braxton. David Hofstra is on bass. David had played with John Zorn and Elliott Sharp, and had played in the Contortions as well as the Raybeats. Kevin and Dave played on every episode and I couldn’t have done it without them. Rob DeBellis played the woodwinds and had been with Don Byron as well as Muhal Richard Abrams. The one and only Art Baron played the trombone. Art had been in the Duke Ellington Orchestra and had also played with Stevie Wonder and B.B. King!

We would set up in the morning, play all the music from the episode in a couple of takes, mix it in the late afternoon, and rush the tape down to FedEx so it could make it out to California by the next day so it could be mixed into the show. This went on for four or five years. The music was either recorded and mixed at Globe Studios, in the Meatpacking District, by Bob FitzSimons, or at Sorcerer Sound, in SoHo, by Patrick Derivaz.

I’m knocked out that the music is now available. I went back to the tapes and pulled together all the cues from each episode and turned them into “suites.” There’s miles of this music, and I could even release more at some point. Rumor has it that we’re going to get the band back together for a live concert.

Chase

Next to the Rocko’s Modern Life soundtrack, The B-52’s entire discography is my also favorite music. Can you tell me about how the marriage of you and America’s greatest party band came about, and can you tell me a little bit about your time with them?

Pat

I love the B-52s. When Kate called me to join the band after they had recorded Cosmic Thing, we all thought it was going to be for just a couple of weeks. The tour ended up being 18 months long, and I stayed with the band for 18 years. There’s nothing like having a couple of top-ten hits. “Love Shack” and “Roam” are still played everywhere I go. It was a thrill playing in a stadium full of fans and having them sing along with “Planet Claire.” Can you imagine?