Author notes

Filler: Interview Eddy Lytenyng

Hero

on May 23, 2006

Cid: So, Eddy Lytenyng, Lytenyng. Mr Lytenyng.�.is that German? It sounds German to me.
Eddy:Well, my real last name's actually Cryzkewicz. You see why I changed it for the stage, of course. I chose Lytenyng because it just sounds cool. Like, nature's power of… of electricity and stuff.

Cid: So I hear you been in a couple a bands, mate. How many ya been in total?
Eddy: Well, I guess it all started with singing back at Boulder Elementary– you know, the whole Happy Hands chorus thing. I realized, though, that singing the same thing as everyone else just wasn't my bag, so I dropped out of it.
But music had already wrapped itself around my soul, so in high school I got in a crazy little garage band that someone– I think it was Gary Saunders, the drummer– named Lurv. There was me on vocals and lead axe, Gary, Gary's chum Kevin Choats on bass, and a freshman named Walt Jimenez on rhythm guitar. To put a long story short: We sucked eggs, and we kind of split after a couple months– I think we all wanted to go in different directions with the band.
I did meet up with another band from Detroit a little while later, though: The Shock. I started singing with their band, 'cause theirs had died onstage after getting beaned with a motel door key, and we were Lytenyng and the Shock. (See? The stage name fits!) We rode our successes all the way to two smash hit albums, four Grammys, a TV documentary series, and loads of concerts. It was great.
But recently the Shock just kind of… well, we went our seperate ways. I think that that was when I realized I needed to do some serious soul-searching on my own behalf. It was probably for the best.
Other than a performance with Walt Jimenez's band, the Flaming Croutons, at the WQXZ Battle of the Bands (and they were a pretty awesome band; I think they're still flying around somewhere), I've pretty much focused my efforts trying to put together a solo album. It's great because I can really sort of do what I want now. I can sing about what I want now, deeper stuff, stuff that's closer to the core of human emotions, and that's really kind of liberating.
I've got this one song that I'm working on at the moment– I got inspired by a bunch of Canada geese in flight and it just poured out. Now, it's not really finished yet, but it goes something like this: [picks up guitar, strums a Dmaj7] To-niiiiite! Wo-muuuun! Get your get-it-down on toniiiiite! Toniiiite! Wo-muuuun! Gonna make you fe-heeel all right! …And that's about it. I still have to work out, you know, some of the kinks, but I really want to keep it, you know, raw and energetic.
…Fresh. That's what I want this solo album to sound like. Also, possibly moist. Moist works too.

Cid: Okay, Okay. I definitely dig the music. Do ya do anythin� else? Recreation-type I mean.
Eddy: Well, we're up here in the Adirondacks, aren't we? Sometimes I like to bike around, swim in the pond, you know. A lot of people hunt up here, but I don't– not because I think it's inhumane or anything, I'm just scared that one day some deer might learn how to use a machine gun, and, well, we're all screwed then, right?
My favorite thing to do, though, is sit out on this porch and sip a tall, icy glass of iced tea while watching the sun sink into the West, followed of course by a night of crazy, crazy lovin'. I mean, I've matured from the debauchery of my days with the Shock, but, you know, ladies just throw themselves at me. It's like some weird social illness or something. Psoria-sex, maybe. Anyways, I don't care what you've heard, the truth is that New England girls have got the major hotness goin' on.

Cid: Er�yeah. So, you�re a guitarist, eh? Got any special preference a instrument? I know Mint likes them there Flyin� V�s.
Eddy: I used to have a guitar…
I used to have a guitar that was so glorious it defied comparison. If it were a car, it would be a stretch Hummer with a warp drive. If it were a person, it would be Jesus reincarnated as Chuck Norris. Every time I set it down next to other guitars, the others would silently weep before spontaneously combusting out of shame. I won it off a hooded stranger in a bar by chugging two bottles of absinthe and then playing the guitar solo from "Heartbreaker", you know, the one that's all doo dweedly dweedly doop, doo dweedly dweedly doop, doo dweedledy dweedledy dweedledy etc. etc. without once keeling over.
I dubbed it the Glittar for the way it glimmered like the sun whenever light caught it. It was my best friend. And now… now it's…

[gets up, walks to bathroom. Unspeakable noises are heard from the inside]

[some five minutes later, comes back]

Yeah. Sorry. Anyways, I've been using this Guild twelve-stringer recently. It's got a nice warm sound to it.

Cid: Who do ya think yer biggest influences are?
Eddy: Oh, I usually draw on really old rock. I really defined myself by listening to the big arena rockers– Rob Plant and Jimmy Page, of course, plus Angus Young, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger, David St. Hubbins, David Lee Roth, that one guy from Tesla. My first record I ever listened to was a beat-up old CD of Black Oak Arkansas that I got from the Salvation Army, and they've sort of become one of my strong influences. Jack White, he was big for me, too. So was Alex Kapranos, or whatever his name was. And of course I was secretly kind of into the Gorillaz growing up, though they were totally passé back then. Now, of course, they're releasing their 24-DVD Retrospective Collection Box Set, so I guess they're ironically hip or something now. …Though if you ask me, after 2D ran away to Nepal and died in that freak blimp accident, the band just fell apart from there. But yeah.

…Oh. Is that it? Well… uh… thanks for comin' out here. Could you tell the fans to remember to keep visiting my weblog for more updates on the album's progress?
Cid: I don't reckon anybody uses blogs anymore. No.
Eddy: Oh. Well, thanks, anyways.

*Interview provided by TEO