When Jet Black Berries’ Sundown On Venus first appeared in 1985, the album embodied a particularly potent collision of punk, psychedelia, roots rock, pulp science fiction and underground lit, its nonlinear narratives drawing heavily from William S. Burroughs, Aleister Crowley and low-budget horror flicks. At the time, the Rochester, N.Y., band was already familiar to genre enthusiasts through its contributions to the soundtrack for The Return Of The Living Dead, released the same year. Four decades later, Propeller Sound Recordings gives fans the opportunity to reassess the album’s sprawling original presentation with Sundown On Venus (Definitive Edition). And though it’s rumored the album was originally conceived as a double LP, singer/guitarist Gary Trainer recalls a messier succession of events that saw the project expand as the Jet Black Berries’ enthusiasm got the better of them.
Trainer and drummer Roy Stein got into the nitty-gritty of Sundown On Venus’ evolution with MAGNET’s Hobart Rowland.
How do you remember Sundown On Venus taking shape?
Trainer: It wasn’t originally conceived as a double album. It became a three-sided record due to some old (pre-Jet Black Berries band) New Math songs and some covers. We wanted to record as much as we could in the time we had. I didn’t want all these extra songs on the album. But I’m afraid our ambition got away from us.
William S. Burroughs and Aleister Crowley were significant influences. What did you take from those writers?
Trainer: William S. Burroughs was one of the originators of the nonlinear schools of writing. The story doesn’t follow a linear plot—I’d rather have the listener imagine their own plot as the songs about masked astronauts, zombie rituals and space outlaws collide with Aleister Crowley magicians at high noon in Cairo. Songs like “Articles” use the method of writing where I take words, cut them up and mix them around, letting them form images. Then you take songs and apply the same methods, and you have a kind of concept album. My fascination with Crowley, Jack Parsons and Kenneth Anger came about because I believe rock ’n’ roll music fits well with these characters and images. I was asked to write some songs for The Return Of The Living Dead soundtrack while I was writing Sundown On Venus, so the b-movie horror songs come into the mix of the record: “Macumba Love,” “Shadow Drive” and “All Is Lost.” It’s pop culture at its most fun, as we pass through this life on our way to our final resting place.
“Rocketfire Sex66” returns to that world four decades later. What made you want to write a genuinely new chapter in the Sundown On Venus mythology?
Stein: I went back and listened to the record when Propeller Sound Recordings graciously reached out to us. It had probably been the first time I’d heard the songs in more than 35 years. What struck me was how much sinister fun the album was—and I’d always loved the title, Sundown On Venus. Outer space, rayguns, desperados souped up with the occult and other inner and outer worlds … That was irresistible to me regardless of the years that had passed. To quote a line from the great 18th-century Japanese Zen master Hakuin Ekaku’s “Song Of Zazen”: “In coming and going, we never leave home.” I threw a literal battle of the sexes into the lyrics while embracing a T.Rex vibe, and off we went.
Did you feel like you were part of a scene at the time?
Trainer: I was a rabid follower of mostly New York punk, like the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Television. They all also pointed toward William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and the Beat poets as inspiration to mix with rock ’n’ roll and electric metal music. It seemed like everyone was discovering this as a cultural experience at the same time. Jet Black Berries were—and are—a part of what emerged out of the psychedelic and punk culture that occurred from the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s.We’d just express what we wanted to express using the record business as our palette. Recording studios, vinyl records, album art and electric guitars were our paintbrushes. Independent record labels would partner with us to release our experimental ideas.
Has revisiting Sundown On Venus reopened a world you could potentially continue exploring?
Trainer: Sundown On Venus is our third album to be reissued by Propeller, who previously reissued the New Math albums They Walk Among You and Gardens. Revisiting this record 40 years later has been a great experience. Hopefully this time around, the ideas we intended will reach new minds and ears, taking more people on our cinematic journey through space, time, mindless zombies and Venusian western lands.
Stein: Since we got together again as Jet Black Berries a few months ago, we’ve been working on new material from that same inexhaustible wellspring. We have gigs booked in upstate New York and are currently working on booking gigs in the Northeast and Spain.Who would’ve thought? But what a gas—we’ve returned from the dead.
