The Residents have spent over 50 years now as pop music’s premiere avant garde deconstructionists. Since their first album, 'Meet The Residents' (1974), they have released over 60 albums and multimedia projects, often highly conceptual, varying in tone and genre but all retaining the trademark Residents weirdness. They have also managed to stay completely anonymous, appearing only in disguises like the iconic eyeball masks. They only interact with the outside world through the Cryptic Corporation, the organisation set up to liaise on behalf ot the Residents that controls their publicity, organisation, music releases and merchandising. Their latest album 'Dr Dark', like every previous Residents album, sees them exploring new musical and sonic territory whilst still sounding only like themselves. Homer Flynn, the President of the Cryptic Corporation, was kind enough to talk to OUTSIDELEFT about the ideas and creative process of this unique band.
OUTSIDLEFT: The new Residents album, Dr Dark is coming out on 28th February 2025 from Cherry Red Records. Would you be able to tell us a little bit about it?
HOMER FLYNN: Well, Dr Dark is primarily based on an incident that happened in the late 80s or the early 90s. There were two teenagers in Reno, Nevada who were heavy metal fans. They had too much alcohol, too much drugs, too much heavy metal, and they went outside with a shotgun and went, bam, bam, and basically committed suicide. And it was really their parents, taking no responsibility whatsoever, who sued Judas Priest and Warner Brothers Records for having corrupted their children. When they committed suicide, it didn't really get that much attention. The trial is what got most of the attention. And so there was a documentary filmmaker that came to document the trial, and he discovered that one of them had only been partially successful committing suicide and was still alive, so he wound up interviewing him and and shooting the interview. And one of the Residents saw the film that the guy made back in the mid 90s, I think, and was just blown away by it. I mean, his point of view was, this was the train wreck that you could not take your eyes off of. And so the Residents, in a way, were kind of obsessed with the idea of doing something with this incident as inspiration from that time, but they never could figure out exactly how. They didn't want to just base it strictly on that. It needed another angle. It needed another twist. And so at some point, one of them had the idea that of bringing in, do you know who Dr Kevorkian was? Dr Kevorkian was an American physician who was a huge proponent of assisted suicide. And he even got put in jail for helping people that were terminally ill commit suicide. He's dead now, but, but for a while he was a pretty instrumental figure in American culture. So the Residents had the idea of then combining these two teenagers with Dr Kevorkian. And ultimately, that combination of the two of them, that's the point that Dr Dark pivots around.
OL: Once the Residents had the conceptual framework there, did all the music and lyrics follow on quite quickly?
HF: Yeah. The Residents really see Dr Dark as kind of a modern opera, and in a lot of ways, that's how they structured it. And so it's in three acts. Act One introduces the two teenagers. And so, because there were so much into heavy metal, the Residents felt, in a lot of ways, they could build that act off of that genre. And it's certainly not pure heavy metal by any by any stretch of the imagination, but it's kind of metal-ish in terms of the sound. And then they saw Dr Dark, who's based on Dr Kevorkian, as a much more serene character. And so the whole idea of building the Act Two off of more classical orchestrations that just seemed to make sense to them. And the other thing is that the Residents had recently made contact with a guy. His name is Edwin Outwater, and Edwin is the director of the San Francisco Conservatory. And he's also a classical conductor. And when he came to San Francisco and he moved here to take the job at the Conservatory, one of his main priorities was to do some kind of collaboration with the Residents. So the fact that the fact that they had him as a collaborator, that just compelled them more in the direction of doing something along classical or orchestrated lines. And then Act Three is kind of a combination of more pure Resident stuff, and still a little heavy metal and some classical.
OL: The Residents are well known for their love of concept albums. When they’re writing something like this, does the idea for the concept come first and inform the music, or do they start playing music first and the concept comes out of that?
HF: You know, it's different depending on the project. They've had certain projects where they had written a lot of music with nothing in mind, and then as they continue developing the music and then the concept kind of spills out of that. But for Dr Dark, they had the concept long before the music.
OL: Dr Dark is exciting because it has all these new sounds on it, like for instance the heavy metal elements, which is a first for the band. But at the same time, it's still got that Residents feel to it. So how do the Residents juggle this push and pull between always trying out new ideas and new sounds, but still making it sound like the Residents?
HF: Well, it's a good question. I mean, there’s a certain attitude I think that the Residents have. And, you know, the Residents are not trained musicians, they're really self taught. And from a musical point of view, they're very much outsiders. They don't come to it with any any training, and actually have very little musical knowledge. So I think a lot of ways that works to their advantage in terms of everything they do, maintaining their own sound. I think in a lot of ways, they kind of feel like they don't have any choice. They don't really have the capability of making it sound like normal music! And once again, as I see it, that’s to their advantage.
OL: Over the years, the Residents have done a lot of tours with elaborate stage shows. Is there a tour and a show planned for Dr Dark?
HF: No, there's not. Once again, the Residents really wrote this as a modern opera, and they feel like a Residents touring show really can't do justice. They feel like it really needs higher production values, it needs different venues. And so they would love to perform it, but they would like to perform it more in a theatrical context. And the Cryptic Corporation doesn't have the resources to make that happen. So ultimately, it's going to be my job to try to go out and see if I can find producers at a production company that will get behind it in order to create a theatrical production from it. But what they are going to do is they are planning on doing a tour based on their 1979 Eskimo album, and that will be happening in in the Fall and probably, October, November, maybe September of this year. There is an event that happens once a year called a Night of Ideas. And this event, it started in San Francisco, about 7 years ago, and it was the French consulate in San Francisco, working with a different government agency in Paris that created this. And now it is spread around, and it happens in a lot of different places around the world. But on this one night and day, there's a whole lot of different speakers, performers, meetings, lectures, whatever, all happening. And the person who was organizing this in San Francisco wanted the Residents to headline it. This was early in March of last year. The really interesting thing, a lot of ways, for the Residents, was they only wanted a 20 minute performance. So they didn't really have anything that was performance ready at that moment. But 20 minutes is not that hard to pull together. So they did, and it went incredibly easily. They said it was one of the most effortless things they ever did, and it was extremely well accepted. So ultimately, they've been continuing to talk about expanding it into a touring vehicle, and it looks like that's probably going to happen.
OL: Oh, that's really exciting! Looking forward to that. It's been an exciting era to be a Residents fan, because there's been all the pREServed reissues of the classic albums on Cherry Red as well. And there's been so much material found in the archives for the the bonus tracks, stuff that we've never heard of before is there. Are there more secrets waiting in the Residents’ archive for release?
HF: Well, most of it has come out now, but there's but there's still more to come. I have to credit Cherry Red for doing such a great job with this. Richard Anderson, the Cherry Red product manager, he's the one that has kind of carried the ball on this and has done a fantastic job. But the Residents did their American Composer series back in the 80s, and I know the pREServe series of American Composer series that will be coming out soon.
OL: Oh, that's exciting. And you've been involved with the Cryptic Corporation since the mid 70s. Is that right?
HF: Right. The Cryptic Corporation was created in 1976 .And yeah, I've been with Cryptic since the beginning.
OL: So what's it been like to have this this sort of creative relationship with the Residents for about 50 years now?
HF: Well, honestly, for me, it's been quite satisfying. I'm a graphic artist, and so I consulting with the Residents on their album covers and other graphics, even before the Cryptic Corporation. And so once the Cryptic Corporation came along, I was their graphic person. And originally, for Cryptic, there were four of us, but I'm the only one left now of the original Cryptic Corporation, so I have actually taken over more and more responsibility. I'm President of the Cryptic Corporation now, and I'm the Residents’ primary PR person, and still do their graphics. And I manage their legacy, really. One of the interesting things about the Residents is that, since they were never really signed to a major label, they and the Cryptic Corporation control their entire catalog. Most music acts once they sign with a label, then the label controls their material. And luckily, interest in the Residents’ material has maintained. So just being the caretaker of their catalog can be a pretty big job at times.
OL: Yeah, I'm sure! And so what's next on the cards for the Residents?
HF: Well, they have started writing material for their next album, and that's one of the primary things that they're doing right now. You know, writing material for the album and getting ready to tour Eskimo, those are their biggest priorities at this point.
Excellent! Thank you so much Homer Flynn for speaking with us.
Essential Information
‘Dr Dark’ will be available from Cherry Red Records & MVD Entertainment, 2LP and CD, worldwide on February 28th 2025
