It’s the first night of music at the 2025 edition of Primavera Sound Porto, with the night already in full swing on the festival grounds. Just a few hours before they’re set to play their first-ever show in Portugal and close out the final date of their European run, The Jesus Lizard arrive backstage in deep tour rhythm, stepping off the shuttle and into the last interview of the day. Despite the kind of fatigue that only weeks and months on the road can deliver, they’re immediately sharp, relaxed and down to talk, wise and sincere in their thoughts while never taking themselves or anyone too seriously. Above all, their knack for being hilarious in that chaotic, offbeat type of humor is still fully intact, maybe even more refined with age, joking about broken bones, their trademark sound and even Tom Morello with the right dose of sarcasm and bite that only a band of their caliber - undeniably one of the defining noise rock acts of all time – can convincingly pull off.
They’re riding high off the release of Rack, their first album to be released this century and their first new studio material since 1998. In a rare full-group sit-down with the entirety of the group’s original lineup (vocalist David Yow, guitarist Duane Denison, bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly), we talk about how recording and writing again felt more like muscle memory than a complete restart, Yow’s recent move to Porto, how aging bodies and sharper minds might affect the way they approach performance, and how it feels to still play music this loud and unrelenting to crowds full of younger faces, who weren’t even alive when Goat or Liar first dropped.
How’s the tour hitting you so far? Do the shows feel different now, emotionally and physically, compared to when you last toured regularly, or is it still like muscle memory kicking in?
Duane Denison: We've got a lot of new songs from the new album [Rack], so it’s kind of a mix of the old and the new. Then it just falls into the routine of soundcheck, eat, drink and play the show. But it seems to be going really well.
David Yow: It does seem like things have changed in the last 27 years, because we're much more popular, it seems, than we were back then. And I think it's because of the internet. We'd show up at a place in Paris, for example, walk in the room and go “this is way too fucking big for us”. And it was sold out somehow. I think that's pretty cool.
Do you see those changes in the crowds as well? Do you feel like the audience is more composed of older fans getting the chance to relive the classics or newer, youngers fans that discovered you through the internet? Or do you feel like it's a 50/50 situation?
David Yow: A lot of the shows are old ages.
David Wm. Sims: Yeah, it's a mix. There are definitely fans from back in the day, but there are also people who are obviously much too young to have been there back in the day.
Did you have a moment of spark where you suddenly knew you wanted to get back into The Jesus Lizard and record something brand new?
David Yow: I know they were working on some ideas that I didn't know about and they ended up showing them to me, almost like a pitch or a presentation. I really liked the new shit and just asked them “what do you want to do now?”.
Duane Denison: Yeah, we’d started playing shows again in 2009. We were just mostly playing the old material and it seemed like we still sounded good together and got along well. We just ran out of reasons not to do it. We started playing again in 2017 or 2018 and it just seemed like, since we'd been playing shows so consistently, why wouldn’t we do a new album? And then we could get more shows, play more sets and have more stuff to pick from, so it just worked out from there.
When you stepped back into making the new album, did it feel like picking up where you left off, or is there something different in how you approach music nowadays?
David Wm. Sims: The approach had to be a little different, because we all lived in Chicago back then. We all live in different states now, countries even. There was a lot more of the current fashion of sending files back and forth, commenting through emails about what we think of the new songs and Zoom calls. The whole 21st century experience, essentially.
Mac McNeilly: We would still get together to work on the details and the arrangements.
David Wm. Sims: Yeah, we would meet in Nashville to have actual rehearsals in the same room together.
Was there ever tension between pushing forward and staying true to the original feel of the old records?
David Wm. Sims: Back in the day, I never felt like we had to do something because this is what The Jesus Lizard sounds like. And we didn't do that now. We just wrote the songs the way we thought that we would enjoy them if we were rock fans listening to it out in the wild. And that's how they came out.
David Yow: We kind of can't help but sound like The Jesus Lizard, because…
David Wm. Sims: [The new tracks], they're going to sound like The Jesus Lizard [laughs].
Has your relationship with performing shifted at all with this new chapter? Do you all feel like different performers now, still finding new ways to just let loose on stage and try out new things?
David Wm. Sims: The experience for the people out in the audience is probably similar to what it was back then. I feel like both the shows and the spirit of them are very similar. If anything, we're probably more consistently reliable. We're probably a little less intoxicated and a little more practiced and experienced on our instruments.
Duane Denison: It's more comfortable for us all on stage, I think, to play with each other. We’ve been doing this for a while at this point.
Mac McNeilly: Yeah, we have to pace ourselves. We’ve gotten good at that, at both pacing the set and the day as a band. Do a soundcheck, don't get too fucked up, don’t wear yourself out.
David, are you more cautious about throwing yourself into the crowd at this point, or is that still just an integral part of the ritual for you?
David Yow: A little bit. I got hurt in Copenhagen jumping in the audience and I don't like getting hurt. There have been as few times, like in [Primavera Sound] Barcelona, where Duane and I were looking at the audience, to see the space between the stage and the barricade. And I could definitely clear it. I could get a running start from the back of the stage and clear it. But I wasn’t going to, it's too dangerous. I'm not fearful, but I was just more reckless in the old days. I'm tired of getting hurt [laughs].
Do you think the different parts of your creative life (acting, visual art, design, etc.), David, also contribute to how you perform on stage? Or do you feel like music and performing are totally different beasts?
David Yow: It’s a totally different beast, but you said the keyword, which is performance. That's the only thing I see in common between playing in The Jesus Lizard or doing other things like acting. They're both performances. With The Jesus Lizard, I can pretty much do anything I want at any time. With acting, I just can't. There’s always specific things you have to say and do. So yeah, the performance is the only thing they have in common.