How We Connect with Dan Boucher

Dan Boucher (he/him) is a musician, sound explorationist, busted-gadget-tinkerer, designer, and gardener who self-identifies as “old.” Across four decades, he’s been a major contributor to underground and experimental music in America—just one of his projects, Neptune, has north of 20 releases and his label, Wrong Way Archival Bureau, has put out even more. Neptune recently toured and played AS220, so we thought it’d be a nice time to catch up.

The Well (Tw): Hey Dan. You’re from Boston; was that how you got into music—just being in a place with a lot of venues and bands?

Dan Boucher (DB): I grew up in Boston and became obsessed with music at a very young age. In my teenage years I started following the local music scene and by my early 20's, found myself almost entirely bored of it. I started looking elsewhere for new sounds. Around that time, I was working at a Boston drag bar called Jacques where I met a slew of like-minded oddballs...

TW: Jacques! Let’s pause here for a sec. Sorry to cut you off, but kind of a legendary place...

DB: Jacques was a rather wild scene for a bit; it was truly amazing. I started working there sometime in the mid 90’s. A band I was playing in at the time, Lil’ Sexer, had a Friday night show that got canceled because some city government folks observed underage patrons getting served alcohol and suspended operations for a spell. Apparently, it was a total setup by “local enforcement,” but the show got moved to the following Sunday. We ended up playing on the upstairs stage, and at that show I met Deb Nicholson and Jessica Rylan. We all became instant friends, and they were both beginning to regularly book bands there at that time. I got involved with the booking and did a respectable stint as a drunken doorman for a while. 

TW: Deb and Jessica were into more experimental programming—stuff most venues look the other way on. What made it work here? 

DB: Jacques was atypical at the time because it is a drag bar that was very intertwined with the experimental music community. There was a downstairs bar that essentially shuttered during the AIDS crisis of the 80’s, but they started letting bands play down there in the 90’s. I don’t know if they didn’t care what happened down there, but we could essentially do whatever we wanted regardless of the level of depravity. Oftentimes drag performers would join the rock bills; it was very open and welcoming. All the communities involved had a strong mutual respect for each other, and it wasn’t an overly aggressive douche scene—that could be found in many other typically rock venues of the time. That was so tiresome and prevalent in Boston then. I heard a great story that the band Upsidedown Cross played Jaques once and during their set, they rubbed a raw piece of liver on a statue of the Virgin Mary and smashed it in the middle of the floor. Apparently, the day janitor heard about it and never entered the downstairs room again. I saw so much crazy shit there and may have shaved a few years off my life but it was well worth it.

Above: Dan (left) in the late 90’s with Jessica Rylan & Abby at Deb & Jessica’s loft. “A Street, South Boston, MA…Jacques after-party of sorts.”

TW: Great stuff. So going back, what was growing up like? Years before Jaques.

DB: The first 11 years were awful and really tumultuous. My father was a raging, violent alcoholic who was insanely racist, homophobic, and harbored a deep hatred of women. My mom told him to fuck off after 27 years of abuse; when my parents divorced things became much better. My mom was incredible and she encouraged me to explore music and pursue things that made me happy.

TW: Is it cool if we ask you to expand on some of that—those early years' impact on the music you’ve made since? Your drumming style, live anyway, has at times felt like a controlled chaos—it's exuberant, playful, and joyful, but also kind of stressful.

DB: I love that you used stressful as a descriptor, that warms my heart more than I can arcuately articulate. Growing up my life was always some sort of controlled chaos, so I think I have always been drawn to that in other forms of art. I would say from a performance perspective those early days had a strong impact on me. There were a bunch of great Boston bands at the time like The Grand Island and Bullroarer, and the Providence bands were coming through all the time. 

There was always this heightened sense of volatility where shit could go very wrong very fast, and it had nothing to do with any kind of lame mosh pit bullshit. The players themselves creeped me the F out. I would drink a little—perhaps way more than a little—whiskey and stand right in front of the bands and dance. One particularly favorite moment of mine from back in the day was standing right in the front watching Arab on Radar downstairs at Jacques, and at some point, Steve Mattos hit me so hard in the head with his SG that I had 6 perfectly spaced cuts from the tuning pegs on the right side of my head. I told Steve that story several years later, and he felt bad about it, but I think I successfully assured him that I would not trade that memory for anything. It was incredible. I bled a lot. 

As far as drumming style, I was always drawn to bombastic drummers, but at that time I was very much into the drumming styles of Katherina Bornefeld from The Ex and Wilf Plum from Dog Faced Hermans. They stayed far away from the typical yawny kick/hat/snare combinations and employed a more tom-heavy non-Western style of rolling, propulsive percussion. I suppose I tried to fuse some of that ideology with a heavy dose of chaos and stress.

Above: A life in sailor suits. Age (3) on the left, and on the right, Dan with Mark Pearson at a Young Sexy Assassins show in Brooklyn, NY.

TW: Sephen Mattos! Chrome Jackson, himself! So let’s go with that—what’s Providence mean to you?

DB: The Providence music scene changed things for me greatly. I was excited about what felt not only very different sonically, but there was a strong element of danger which I found very appealing. Bands like Arab on Radar, Astoveboat, Thee Hydrogen Terrors, Six Finger Satellite, etc. Through this, I started exploring the city of Providence and fell in love with its underdog vibe and more manageable number of inhabitants. In my last 10 years of living in Boston, I spent a ton of time in Providence, which became my refuge from a city I was learning to really hate. Over the years I was fortunate to make a lot of great friends from Providence and really get to discover it on a very intimate level. After a brief stint in the desert, I had to return to the northeast for family reasons, so Providence was the only option. My husband & I lived there for a decade that was truly amazing. Every time I go back east, even to visit family in the Boston area, I find myself staying in PVD. It feels closest to me as what I think a hometown would feel like. If it weren't for winter, we probably would have stayed longer, but Providence will always be one of my favorite places on earth.

TW: We wanna get back to Katherina Bornefeld and The Ex in a minute here but, what are some other favorite places? Or a memorable tour stop? 

DB: Well the furthest I have been is Zagreb, Croatia. I played there with Neptune I believe on three different tours. The cold-war-architecture was incredible to be around because I grew up in the 80's where there was still so much red scare mentality, especially after Chernobyl. I spent a lot of time just wandering the city and it made me just want to explore more of Eastern Europe.

TW: Always heard touring Europe is not necessarily easier but, maybe more welcoming? Has there been truth to that for you? 

DB: Touring Europe and the US feel like two entirely different things to me at this point. After a few European tours we generally abandoned large-scale US treks altogether. European audiences are much more receptive to experimental music, and I would say fringe art in general. That’s not to say our US tours were all bad, some were great, some dreadful, but it was just exceedingly more difficult to pull off here. Physically, mentally, and financially. The major difference is how bands get treated over there. Bands get fed well, paid well (in many cases, DIY venues receive government funding for programming), housed reasonably and 98% of the bands and promoters over there do it solely out of true love. I think what is most appealing to me is how little ego exists. There is a great deal of mutual respect and we’ve made a lot of great friends through our European travels. I never gave much of a shit about the fact that someone is in a band or is a “talent buyer” for a club. Who cares? Everyone is. It’s not that special. In my experience that kind of thing was nearly non-existent. We would typically play, then hang out with the other bands/promoters until we had to leave the next day. Explore cities, make food, and meet pets. It is such a wonderful communal atmosphere.

Above: Jacques Cabaret, 1999. Load Records release show for You’re Soaking In It comp. “No idea who that terrifying woman was shoving her hand down my shirt. She was positively frightening, but that was the magic of Jacques in those days.” Josh Kemp pictured below Dan.

DB: Here is a pretty telling story about the European mindset. When I was booking Neptune’s first European tour, someone told me to contact a specific promoter in Switzerland which I did. He got back in a few days and said, “I very much don’t like this music at all, but I will send it to my friend who will.” I thought that’d be the end of it, but his friend got in touch a few days later and ended up booking us four Swiss shows. The sense of honesty and community is immense.

That said, the US tour Neptune did last June was hands down my favorite American excursion. There is hope! Hopefully we will do more.

TW: Okay so The Ex. Neptune played The Ex’s 25th anniversary party at The Paradiso in Amsterdam.

DB: That was some soaring pinnacle stuff for me, as The Ex have been one of my favorite bands since I was around 19 or 20. Undoubtedly one of the most influential in terms of how I approach and perceive music. The whole experience was profoundly life changing. There were bands from all over the world that I held in very high regard as well as a large contingent of mind-blowing musicians from Ethiopia. Everyone was awesome. There was Ethiopian honey wine. It was a two-day festival, and The Paradiso is a former church built in the late 1800’s. There is a story that I always feel weird about telling because I don’t want to sound like a boastful ass, but I feel it is warranted for this occasion. 

Another one of my most beloved bands is the Dog Faced Hermans, who are very closely associated with The Ex. I had met their drummer Wilf sometime in the late 90’s…and met their guitarist Andy a few times when we played with The Ex in the states. I was nerdy-fan-boy ecstatic to learn that DFH bassist Colin McLean would be handling our sound for us the Paradiso show. He is an amazingly wonderful human. I was content with getting to meet 3⁄4 of one of the greatest bands that ever existed. Marion Coutts, DFH vocalist and insanely ripping trumpet player, was living back in Scotland and was sadly not able to make the first night of the festival. She is a massive musical hero of mine. So, Mark from Neptune and myself were standing in the band area near a series of doors, talking with Colin when this woman—who I did not recognize at first—walked through one of the doors. Colin said, “Marion, this is Dan & Mark, I wish you were here because they were the best thing last night.” I might have died for a moment. Maybe I’m still dead? I am getting teary just typing this. At that moment I thought I was doing exactly what I needed to be in life. 

TW: And it seems to have really stayed with you, that’s very cool. 

DB: Sometimes being in a touring band that isn’t particularly easy to listen to can be exceedingly grim, so there was some much-needed validation as I recall struggling mentally a good deal back then. I’m not sure I have ever been so elated in a musical sense. Mark (or someone else) took a picture just after this happened, I don’t have a head, it’s just smiles and teeth. I slept in the van that night which was scarily parked at the very edge of one of Amsterdam’s infamous canal banks. As I was falling asleep, I kept thinking if the van fell into the canal, whatever, I’d be going out on top. A few nights later I missed my flight back to the states and slept in a doorway on the street near Gare Du Nord in Paris. I was still so ecstatic that I just didn’t care in any way. I had no money, but I did have my portable discman and the new EX CD.

I would like to add that we absolutely ripped that night.

Above: “Flat tire. Neptune on tour somewhere in the United States. Mid 2000’s.”

TW: Hah of course you did. Thinking about The Ex and bands like Crass, kind of anarcho-punks...the songwriting processes might be more loose, or more cooperative than bands with a lead songwriter. How have you approached songwriting?

DB: The only way I have ever written music has been collaboratively. I don’t know if I would know how to do it any other way. It also doesn’t seem very fun? Different people might come in with an idea, but it has always been a diplomatic process where everyone has input. Not every idea is a good one, so constructive criticism is essential. It’s also just more enjoyable to be in a room with people you love making unlistenable sounds and trying out every odd idea. I particularly love the way Neptune approaches composition. Most things come out of improvising, but often someone will make a mistake that sounds great, so we in turn spend forever learning how to weave said mistakes into our songs. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a mistake, it could be dropping a plugged-in guitar on your foot, malfunctioning electronics, dying amplifiers…practice space roof caving in…tsunamis.

TW: You're most known for the work with Neptune—do you feel that’s your best stuff?

DB: Neptune’s Mother of Millions, specifically. My favorite record I have ever been a part of. I may be the only person who feels this way because it is particularly punishing and bleak. It was the freest we ever were in a writing capacity and we took 11.5 years to further rough it up. I was having dinner with an old friend of the band in Seattle a few weeks ago and the record came up. He said "I tried listening to it..." then trailed off and said nothing else. Nailed it!

Recently I have started a new project called The Never Party with my good friend Andrew. We started as a drums and guitar duo, but we grew bored of that quickly. It has morphed into a dual synth psychedelic dance thing inspired very much by our desert surroundings. We're currently working on a record.

TW: Was just looking up Mother of Millions and noticed the track Colbourne Bells. That’s not a reference to Joseph Colbourne, is it?

DB: Ha ha. Yes it is! At the time we were writing that, Mark was using this old school cassette player as a source to produce and cut up sound. He randomly found a cassette at the old Milky Way with a label on it that said “Colbourne Mix”. I knew Joseph through an entirely different group of people, and one of those friends told me he was a DJ. It was an awesome & weird coincidence, so we kept his name as part of the title as a nod to him inadvertently inspiring the direction of the song. He’s a great guy.

Above: “With my sister Denise, who bought me my first kit. Christopher Columbus Park, Boston, after playing in the Animal Hospital Ensemble and filling in on drums for Thalia Zedek Band. I felt cool that day.”

TW: Joseph was (is?) a great DJ. He really helped introduce the indie / post-punk dance scene to Italo, Deep House, etc back in the mid ‘00s. Anyhow…curious to learn about some more influences and/or favorite recording techniques here. Drum-specific.

DB: This is funny, but one of my favorite drum sounds in recent recorded history is Rush’s Moving Pictures LP. There is so little room sound on the drums. Very dry but incredibly clear.

I was working on a record at Machines With Magnets at some point and Seth Manchester played a bit of drums he recorded in the very dead (and very tiny) bass room. I loved it. Very dry and a little bit mean. My friend Alec Redfearn & I made a record there a few years ago and Seth agreed to set up the drums in the bass room for that session. He pushed the mics and dirtied them up considerably and we went directly to 2” tape. To date that is my favorite drum sound I have been a part of. As far as recording techniques in general, I always prefer some things to sound like they are working and some like they are failing. Slowed tape, bad microphones, broken gear juxtaposed with clarity and things that sound well captured. That has always been an interesting combination to my ears.

TW: You remember your first kit? 

DB: One of my older sisters bought me a kid kit when I was three. It was destroyed within a week, but I couldn't shake the love I had for playing it. Perhaps it was what some people get out of athletics, because it had a very physical element to it, I loved the motion of it. My dear mom, Jane, allowed me to get an after school job when I was 14 to save up for a real kit. I got an awful Cosmic Percussion 5 piece kit from Daddy's Junky Music in the late 80's. I think that is when it was clear that this hobby would never just go away.

TW: Alright let’s cover some adult life stuff. How are you affording / have you afforded this life of touring, recording, putting out tapes, etc?

DB: For once in my life I am not struggling and, to be completely honest, it still feels kind of weird. Back when I was touring all the time, I would have upwards of three awful jobs and I was constantly broke. Always late with rent and bills. I lived on pasta and rice & beans (though, this part hasn't changed much). Although difficult, I became very used to it. I also grew up in a house that was always scraping to get by, so it seemed normal. I never applied for grants, but it is something I always wanted to explore. I have never been part of a crowdfunding campaign for an artistic endeavor. That is something I could just never bring myself to do. I am not against others doing it, the practice itself has brought some great art into the world, but it just feels ethically wrong to me.

Above: Dan playing some homemade drums with Neptune in 2003 or 2004, somewhere in CT

TW: What other mediums have you been exploring lately? Or just music?

DB: Since the pandemic, I have gotten back into Super 8 film making. Sadly, my dear friend and former film teacher, Luther Price, passed away in 2020 (non-Covid related) and as an homage to him, I dove back in. I have been mostly making music videos for various music projects of mine or my friends. I am also really into sculptural gardening, which in the Sonoran Desert, is particularly rewarding. This is almost wholly inspired by one of my favorite artists and filmmakers, Derek Jarman. I was turned onto his work by Luther. They both have been massive influences on how I approach and perceive art in general. Very much against the grain.

TW: Dan this has been great, thank you. Always a pleasure. So Mark from Neptune is Mr. Art Books—how about you? Care to leave us with a selection of titles and what they mean to you?

Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan
Mr. Lanegan came up in the Seattle grunge scene of the late 80's & 90's, and in this book he chronicles his struggles with addiction to opiates and self destruction. It is really well written and still a shock he lived long enough to write it down. It doesn't glorify shitty behavior, but rather looks at it through a lens of regret, learning and growth.

The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
This book is incredibly heavy as it deals with the death of her husband from brain cancer. Marion was the lead singer of one of my favorite bands of all time, The Dog Faced Hermans. In this book she writes as artfully and beautifully as the music she made.

The Light Years by Chris Rush
It is hard to describe, but essentially it is about a kid growing up in rural New Jersey and finding his own path with the assistance of psychedelics. He follows his sister to the Sonoran Desert and gets involved with her religious drug cult. It's scary, brutally honest and funny.

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TW: Neptune’s got a new release coming out sometime this fall, a lathe. No more info beyond that is known. Till then, check out the shows coming up at Myrtle here.