David Yow isn’t trying to relive the '90s. Hell, he’s not even sure he wanted Rack, the first Jesus Lizard album in 26 years, to exist. “It’s kind of like fucking an old girlfriend,” he says, with all the grin and grit that’s defined his entire career. “You broke up for a reason. Why go back?”
And yet, here they are.
Rack is raw, violent, weird, funny, deeply unpleasant in all the right ways—and somehow manages to sound sharper than a band half their age. “We’ve changed,” Yow admits. “But we’re still the same guys. It’s always gonna sound like the Jesus Lizard, even if we tried not to. Which we wouldn’t.”
The album doesn’t feel like a throwback. It feels like a left hook. “We weren’t trying to recapture anything,” he says. “We didn’t do that when we made Liar, and we weren’t about to start now.”
The origin of Rack was almost suspiciously casual. “Dwayne played me a couple riffs in a hotel room, and I said, ‘What are we doing with this?’ And he goes, ‘You think we should make a record?’ I said, ‘Well, fuck, that’ll be a lot of work.’ And then… we did.”
You’ll know within 30 seconds that this wasn’t some nostalgia cash-in. Yow’s lyrics still bounce between grotesque surrealism and absurdist one-liners. Take “Hide and Seek,” which opens with a woman so brutal she might be a witch—or just a stand-in for Lars von Trier’s entire filmography. “That one was kind of inspired by The House That Jack Built,” Yow says. “You know, when he ties her to the bumper and drives home, and by the time he gets there she’s half-sanded off? That bit.”
As for the witch imagery, blame Lhasa de Sela. “She had this line—if I could stand up to angels and men—it made me think of this witch. Or at least a woman who’s so powerful, she seems mythological.”
Then there’s “Lord Godiva,” a holdover from 27 years ago, featuring the immortal lyric: I’ve given golden showers to folks who’ve been dead for hours. “I’m really proud of that,” Yow says, without a hint of irony. “That song’s been sitting around forever. We demoed it, never released it. Seemed like a good time to bring it back.”
If you think there’s a hidden theme running through these songs—violence, decay, maybe even spiritual rot—well, you’re not wrong. But don’t expect Yow to confirm anything. “It’s just a bunch of crap I like, mashed together,” he says. “Some of it’s folklore. Some of it’s movies. Some of it I just winged.”
Movies, in fact, seem to bleed into the music more now than ever, thanks in part to Yow’s increasingly busy acting career. “I’ve definitely started looking at our songs differently after I got into acting,” he says. “I started thinking, why would a character do this song this way?”
That theatrical lens hasn’t led to concept albums or narrative arcs—just a bit more psychic wear and tear. “It’s fun for me to mess with,” he adds. “But I don’t think anyone watching can tell.”
He might be underestimating himself. His acting résumé is growing by the month, with starring turns in the surreal detective film A Desert and the upcoming chaos-fest Free LSD, where he plays a character called the Boner Doctor. (“I said yes to that on the title alone.”)
And still, Yow somehow finds time to make books about cat puns (Copycat: And a Litter of Other Cats), which he’s pleasantly surprised to learn has helped fans get through existential spirals. “I’m not really a cat guy,” he shrugs. “But I do love a good pun.”
So what now? Is this a one-and-done reunion? Or the start of a new chapter? Even Yow doesn’t know.
“I didn’t think we had anything left to say,” he says. “Turns out, maybe we did.”
And if Rack is what happens when you fuck the old girlfriend, let’s just say she aged better than anyone expected.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
