CREEM ONLINE: The Von Bondies

"It's curtains for the Von Bondies, see? Nyyah! Curtains!"

Back in December, as the holidays were just about upon us, Von Bondies frontman Jason Stollsteimer sounded weary.

"I've had better weeks, I guess," said Stollsteimer.

The Von Bondies had spent the previous months consciously distancing itself from the Detroit garage rock scene that had spawned it. And with a promising major label debut in the can, irony of ironies, something happened that will permanently link the band with the scene, and its presumptive figurehead, Jack White.

The details of the December beatdown administered to Stollsteimer by Jack White at Detroit's Magic Stick are still unclear. Eyewitness accounts fly around the Internet, as does a splattery picture of Stollsteimer's face. What caused the fight is the source of much speculation. But what is more interesting is the question of what would lead a band to separate itself from one of the most vibrant regional scenes in the country?

"Because it pigeonholes you, that you'll never do better than what those bands have done," said Stollsteimer. "Two years ago, our thing (in interviews) was: 'So, your guys' biggest influences are the White Stripes, right?' and we were like 'Are you serious? We came out at the same exact time.'

"We basically spent the last year and a half—with all of the bands in Detroit knowing that we wanted to do this—trying to separate ourselves as a good band from the U.S., more so than a good band from one city," said Stollsteimer. "We've been working hard to get away from the White Stripes thing, too, which, uh… (laughs) we found our way back in."

Bassist Carrie Smith said that being identified so closely with the Detroit garage scene has been a mixed blessing.

Meet The Von Bondies
As the frontman and songwriter (and guy from the evening news), Jason Stollsteimer is the most recognizable member of the Von Bondies. We asked him to tell us a bit about his bandmates.

Carrie Smith Bass, Vocals
"She's the vegan in the band, she's the one who does yoga, and she's the one who's most at peace with herself. I guess that's the way she'd want to be described. Carrie and I have known each other since we were 8. We went to elementary school. She was one of two Carries in my school that everyone was in love with , but she can't remember it that way. So I always pick on her for that.

Marcie Bolan Guitar, Vocals
"She is the one that is a lot more free-spirited than the rest of us. Me and Marcie would be looked at as the little kids in the band. We kind of go on impulse, we don't think before we do things, which gives Marcie the charm that she has. She does what she wants, and it's almost like an innocent thing. But then again she can kick ass. She's given a few people concussions. Boys—these are full-grown guys. What happens is people start drinking and they want to wrestle, play-wrestle, and Marcie just takes them down in like one move. She weighs like 80 pounds, so it's kind of funny."

Don Blum Drums
"You know the Jay and Silent Bob movies? He's the Silent Bob. When he talks, it's so random, but it's always the most amazing thing and it always makes sense. He's kind of the one who sits back and just listens to other people make stupid comments and mistakes, and then he puts it all into perspective in one sentence. He is the funniest person in the band. He doesn't talk much, but when he does it's the funniest shit in the world."

"Being from Detroit and being part of that scene was definitely helpful for us and our careers. Being able to go on tour with the White Stripes and being associated with them at first was really helpful. It gave us a leg up on everyone," Smith said. "But it got to a point where we were just 'God, this sucks.' We're not just a Detroit band. We're a band. We're an American band, if you want to expand that. We really wanted to appeal to people outside of this select group who were really into Detroit or whatever.

"We tried to separate ourselves from that on purpose because we wanted to broaden our horizons," Smith said. "The record reflects that, too. It has a certain sound to it. With this record we really wanted to prove to people that we weren't just a Detroit band, and that we could definitely go beyond that."

While the band grew weary of the association with the scene, Smith said she still loves the bands.

"I love this scene. I love so many of the bands that in the past have come from Detroit and bands that are now from the city. It's great. You go and half the crowd is filled with your friends and they happen to all be musicians in these bands that you love. That's really nice. I love that and I will always love that," said Smith.

If the band was looking to expand its sound, it succeeded. The band's Sire debut, Pawn Shoppe Heart, is a 13-song manifesto that has the band pulling out of the garage in a new wave car. While the current situation isn't broached, there are a couple of other beatdowns on the record.

The first single from the record, "C'mon, C'mon" is upbeat and has a sing-along chorus that seems destined for sports montages on the evening news this summer. But while the song's sound is upbeat, its words aren't.

"The words are really evil," Stollsteimer said. "After I wrote it, I showed it to the people in my band and they were like 'Is this about spousal abuse?' It basically sounds like a guy who was beating on this woman couldn't leave. But actually I was the woman."

Come again?

"I had a girlfriend who was very controlling—actually physically controlling. It was crazy. I was at a different place in my life way back then. I had like almost like an abusive relationship, but I was the one being abused. She was a lot bigger than me," he said. "She'll know exactly that it's about her."

"Broken Man" is probably the most quintessentially Detroit cut on the record. This one-chord freakout is reminiscent of the MC5's "Come Together." In it, Stollsteimer sings "I'm a broken man / This here's my broken band / From a broken land / Called Detroit City," also noting that "There's no blood on these hands." (According to the police reports, it sounds like the blood was on Jack White's knuckles)

"I wrote that when we were on tour, ironically with the White Stripes, two years ago. It was our last tour with them. I wrote the song while we were playing a show live.

We only had like nine or 10 songs that we could do live. We were opening, but all of a sudden these people in Germany wanted us to keep playing. I just wrote that song, like immediately at that second," he said.

Stollsteimer said the inspiration came from some internal struggles the band was having.

"It was our first real tour as a band, and of course we were having problems like every band does, especially on their first tour," he said. "Back then, I was describing how I felt about the band."

He said he was also sticking up for Detroit.

"I felt guilty, because nobody ever sticks up for Detroit. A lot of people were taking hits at Detroit: 'Oh everybody sounds like the White Stripes.' That's just insane. Nobody sounds like the White Stripes anywhere," he said.

The strongest part of Pawn Shoppe Heart is on what would be the album's side two (if we were talking vinyl). The songs "Not That Social," "Crawl through the Darkness" and "The Fever" show a different side of the band. The women in the band sing more on them, and the songs all have angular beats and catchy, sing-along choruses.

"'Not that Social' was easy to write for me, because I got to write that about Carrie, because Carrie is not that social," Stollsteimer said. "A lot of people are bad drinkers, when Carrie drinks she becomes a very social person. Carrie wouldn't dance at a club unless she had a drink, and that only happens once a month. She doesn't drink at all, normally. Like once a month she drinks, but when she does, everybody has a good time. I got to write a song, word-for-word about her, exaggerated a little bit, but everybody does in every song. It's pretty factual."

It's also the only song on Pawn Shoppe Heart that Smith sings lead on. Stollsteimer said he tricked her into doing it.

"It was kind of funny, when I was trying to get her to sing lead, she'd never done it. So we sang it together like a duet. After a week of practicing it together, I just stopped, and she didn't notice. And I was just like 'See you can sing.' I kind of tricked her into singing by herself."

That's not exactly how Smith remembers it.

"Originally, I think he kind of wrote the song about me, And I was like 'No, I'm not going to sing a song that says I'm a good drinker.' That's not me at all. I don't drink at all. It's actually about someone else, at least that's what I like to think. Jason, in his mind, probably wrote it about me and tricked me into singing it about myself, when I think I'm singing it about someone else," she said.

The next year is set to be a busy one for the band, with extensive worldwide touring in support of Pawn Shoppe Heart. It's something that Smith is looking forward to.

"I love playing, and I love playing live and I love being on tour. I love being somewhere new every day. For me, it's really exciting and it's probably the best thing about being in this band. I'm really looking forward to it," she said.

If everything works out, this record could launch the band to a greater level of fame. Ironically, when Smith considered of the pitfalls of fame, her thoughts turned to a sometime nemesis of the band.

"I started thinking about Jack White and how he can't go anywhere without people recognizing him how much that much suck," Smith said. "Fame effects people differently. I like to think its not going to change me and I'm not going to be a different person. I like to think that it doesn't get to the point where I can't go anywhere or do anything.

"I don't want to start worrying in case nothing happens," she said. "I'll deal with it if it comes."

—Brian J. Bowe
March 2004

Photos by Patrick Pantano