Colley: We haven’t written that many songs as
a band. Most of the songs we do are reinterpretations of other songs that we like... This band has
borrowed from the Morphine catalog and has borrowed from the Delta Blues catalog and borrowed
from some Northern African aspects of music. But
yeah we really don’t get together other than to get
on stage and play, so we don't really write songs for
this band as much as saying “Hey have you heard
this song? Maybe we can have fun with that." It’s
like the “Song of Reptiles” came out of nowhere it
was something someone sent us that Jerome maybe
sent around or Jeremy sent around…
Deupree: Yeah, I write the lyrics to all the instrumental songs.
Colley: We all listened to it and started playing
Cider Mag: Is playing live where it’s at?
Colley: When you're there it is. Otherwise it’s
somewhere else. (Lots of laughter.)
Deupree: It’s really why we keep doing it. We’re
certainly not raking in the big bucks or ya know,
we’re not even working that much so it’s completely
why we do it. Every week we show up one day a
week and let ‘er rip.
Cider Mag: I noticed some mixtures of different
sounds like jazz and blues and some more exotic
African drumming. How has the other music influenced your sound?
Deupree: Well, we’re drawing from a pretty wide
Deupree: Jeremy is writing some songs.
well, you know? I mean I probably bring the most
jazz experience to the band. But ya know Jeremy’s
got the blues, and Dana has got all of it really. The
African stuff sort of ties it all together, you know it's
sort of the ultimate roots.
Lyons: But I’ve been getting lots of resistance.
Colley: The drum is the signature sound of Mor-
it. So it’s like the songs sort of materialize out of
nowhere and we reinterpret them.
write until you get down to actually writing the
song--writer's block.
phine, you know, in many ways and Jerome was the
original drummer so that's his signature sound associated with Morphine when you hear him playing,
like the drums on Cure For Pain.
Lyons: Yeah, besides writing good songs is hard.
Cider Mag: I've seen you play live twice and
Cider Mag: It’s like you know what you want to
Even writing bad songs is pretty