Photograph by Brian Fagnani
I leave a hopeful but tentative message for experimental musician Tory Z Starbuck; I am not of his world, and soon we’ll both know it. In reply, he leaves a booming voice mail informing me, Ed McMahon–style, that I’ve won $8,000, an assortment of cacti, and a schnauzer. When I call back and ask to exchange the schnauzer for a standard poodle, Starbuck says he’s always wondered, “If there are standard poodles, are there automatic poodles?” He suggests meeting at Starbucks, “not because of my name, I swear.” He and his wife—yes, wife, stop making assumptions—live near the Loop but never go there: “It’s full of brainwashed Wash. U. student hangouts. They study what people like us do and then go work at Blueberry Hill.” Starbuck should know; he’s been teaching at Wash. U. and COCA. Respectable, after all these years.
[Asked for his life story, he starts explaining sound waves, compression, and ambient noise…]
I like recording the way they do in England. You record with your effects, and if you don’t like it, tough. In America, they record everything dry and add the effects later. But I might not like what a producer adds.
You’ve had a few nightmares with crazy sound technicians, too, like the guy who showed up drunk.
Yeah. But the more you learn about karma, revenge is so uncool. I’m a punk rocker who—I use violent energy to do the music. I guess I use it as kindling. Because I’m a very depressed and angry person.
Are you sure? Because you’re really playful.
I have this dumb, Monty Python sense of humor. People say, “All you do is joke around.” I say, “You don’t understand. You don’t want to see me if I don’t.”
What’s the first music you liked?
My memory starts at 2, when I was always asking my dad to put “the bird record” on. It was Arthur Lyman—the band lived in Hawaii, and they’d mix pop standards and African music and realistic native birdcalls and lots of in-your-face percussion—congas, bongos, dumbek and djembe, wind chimes…
What came next?
The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” for the heavy use of reverb, like you were in a cave. Three Dog Night, not their hits but their psychedelic “filler” songs, guitar running through fuzzbox, phase shifters, flangers…
What intrigued you were always the special effects?
I like people that add their own flair to things. [He waves toward his eyes, their pearlescent lavender shadow nicely matching the lavender streak in his hair.] The reason I do to my face what I do—I’ve never ever been gay or bi in my entire life, and it had nothing to do with being feminine. I wanted to look as cool as the animals I was interested in: chameleons and tropical fish and birds. Their amazing coloring, and all the interesting things they do like puffing up or piling rocks of the same color—it’s all just to get laid.
You put on makeup to get laid?
Well, I couldn’t impress a girl with my athletic skills—I used to pass out all the time. I had an overactive vagus nerve. Besides, I didn’t like where competition went. This whole thing of “You have to kick someone’s ass, or you’re not a man”—I never saw that with musicians and artists. They were into communication.
Still, it’s pretty paradoxical.
[Shrugs.] I’m dyslexic and left-handed and colorblind, so leave it to me.
You’re colorblind? How do you put together these outfits?
My wife helps me. We lay out my clothes like Garanimals.
How did it all start?
In middle school, I did the Elton John thing: big pink glasses and platform shoes.
And your father said…?
We never had a good relationship. He pushed me into the sports thing, and his way of teaching was basically with force. He just didn’t get it. So I created my own world.
You weren’t the typical wild child, though. You spoke out against drugs, and in your early twenties, you became a born-again Christian.
Yeah, and in those days I had a purple mohawk and this slender silver darning needle in my nose. I was one of those rare Christians who are still themselves. I figured, Jesus was himself, why not?
So why did you stop going to church?
It wasn’t Christianity; it was the people. I’d leave church and go to a filling station, and some Christian from Texas would come up to me, hand me a flier, and say, “Even though you’re a homosexual Satanic drug addict, you can be saved.” And I’d say, “You know, you are the same person who would attack Jesus if he came back wearing a dress and long hair.”
When you were 12, you moved to Warrenton. How did Elton John go over there?
This is what I would tell all the rednecks that would beat me up at school: “What I am doing with my face is no different from what you do with your muscle cars. I can’t afford a Camaro to paint flames on. I’m the car.”
What came after Elton?
I discovered The Cars, who were influenced by David Bowie, who turned me on to Philip Glass, Miles Davis, John Cage, the space-rock scene in Germany…and that brought me right back to Arthur Lyman: bands with things that set them apart.
What made you study Japanese and Arabic music?
I always accidentally played my guitar in Arabic scales. I would mess with the tunings, and what I was doing was, I was very underhandedly playing the sitar.
So you learned sitar and koto after learning guitar, synthesizer, piano, bass, violin, viola, and saxophone.
And from there the suona—the Chinese oboe. Rototoms. Zurna. Shehnai. Sipsi. Mijwiz. Snake-charmer pipe…
By the early ’90s, you were on MTV, poised to become the next big thing. What happened?
Grunge happened. It was antimakeup, heroin-influenced, all guitars, and no synthesizers. Here I was preaching antidrug and the whole space-age look, and all of a sudden it was Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
Still, you’ve recorded more than 100 albums. Now your wife, Venus Slick, performs with you, playing synthesizers and theremin. How long have you been together?
We became an item in ’95 and got married in 2002. We made fun of our friends who got married, and all of a sudden there were dental and health things. We made fun of our friends who have kids, too, but we’ve got two cats, an albino corn snake, several praying mantids, and a crested gecko, and we go to three PetSmarts every Saturday. We might as well have something in diapers.
Do people still get outraged by you?
Not as much. Now I’m just a weird old guy. [He pauses.] I’ve dug such a weird hole for myself. Not only am I a heterosexual drag queen, which is a joke, but you can imagine how hard that’s made it to get jobs. Because I never toned down. I felt like that was dishonest—and besides, they’d get to know me later and fire me. I was like the brightly colored lizards that let you know ahead of time that they’re poisonous.
What were your first jobs?
Lifeguarding at a country club. Chuck-A-Burger in Warrenton. Matco department store. A shoe factory for six years. I learned to do everything because every manager got so tired of me. It was so hard to stand at one machine and pull tacks out of shoes all day when I wanted to write songs. I would say things like, “I’d be happy to work for you if you could lose a little of the authority from your voice.”
I’m guessing they had no idea what to make of you.
Yeah, and I spoke with a British accent because I was hoping it would keep me from speaking with a country accent. People would say, “I can’t spot where you’re from, is it Brighton?” and I’d say [he switches accents], “No, Warrenton.” I just like messing with people—not to piss them off but to make them not be in such a hurry.
Did you take the name “Starbuck” from Moby-Dick?
Battlestar Galactica. And Z was my favorite letter. I wanted a new name so everything I couldn’t stand about “Rob Peniston” went away.
About the name, or about your life as a kid?
Just how scared I was all the time.
There was a lot of violence in your childhood—I’m surprised you didn’t escape to drugs.
The only thing I’ve ever seen as a positive in the drug world is psychedelics—people opening the doors of perception and actually coming closer to God. When I was 25, I tried LSD, and it kept me from committing suicide. It let me see all the consumerism, the rush, for how unimportant it was, and I thought of things I’d never thought of before. But I never did LSD more than once a year, because I felt that would be abusing my privilege.
You’ve taken a lot of abuse for dressing colorfully and defying convention. How do you respond when people say, “You’re asking for it”?
I am, as much as a black person who wants to move into a white neighborhood is. People say, “Oh, but they can’t help that, they were born like that.” Well, I was born with a creative mind.
You had a romantic era—leather pants, high boots, puffy pirate shirts—and then realized it was too hot for a St. Louis summer and started wearing skirts.
I called them sarongs. It’s uncomfortable to have something sticking you in the groin.
Agreed. Still, it’s not typical American male attire.
No. Now guys are wearing what look like Johnny Carson’s checkered pants cut down to the knee. And that’s not funny?
You get compared to Ziggy Stardust.
Yeah, but for Bowie it was just a stage persona. I wanted to live the part. My look, to me, looks like my music sounds. World stuff, outer space, and art rock. The greatest art-rock musicians put on a show.
Yours is part science fiction.
Yeah, and I hate when they try to make a science-fiction movie but with everybody wearing suits. It’s ridiculous. I’m the only one dressed for the future.
