Reunited Jesus Lizard To Play Agora in First Cleveland Concert in Years

Jesus Lizard singer David Yow famously takes an interactive approach to live performances. During the band’s heyday in the ‘90s, he would often leap off the stage and dive into the crowd, sometimes sitting atop the shoulders of bouncers as he made his way through the audience, delivering his coarse vocals over the band’s relentless sonic attack that draws inspiration from art-punk acts like Pere Ubu and Gang of Four.

“It wasn’t like that from Day One,” says Yow, who fondly remembers a three-night stand in Cleveland that local graphic artist Derek Hess booked in the late ’90s at the now-shuttered Euclid Tavern, via phone from his Los Angeles home.

Jesus Lizard returns to Cleveland for the first time in years to play at 7 p.m. on Sunday at the Agora.

“The first show the Jesus Lizard played was an invitation-only dinner and show at a Thai restaurant in Chicago,” says Yow. “We played first and then another band played and then [the indie rock act] Slint played. That night, I stayed on the stage. It was in front of a group of people having dinner.”

But Yow, who had previously fronted the punk band Scratch Acid, went into the crowd for the next Jesus Lizard show that took place inside the friendly confines of a Chicago-area record store. It would become his modus operandi.

“I used to do that with Scratch Acid but not as much,” he says. “Now, it’s weird. You might get some weird disease if you fuck around with people too much. Or you might get #MeToo-ed People might say, ‘Well, he did this to me.’ It could ruin your life.”

Over the years, Yow has sustained numerous injuries, some of which required medical attention.

“I don’t even know how many times I’ve been hospitalized,” he says. “There are some injuries that have stuck with me. Each injury is named after whatever town it happened in. St. Louis is just left of my spine where the top of your pants go. There’s this numb patch if you put pressure on it. The audience threw me back on stage backwards. I couldn’t break my fall, and I landed right on the monitor, which was a diagonal cube. It was bad, but I don’t think the show stopped.”

Yow says very few of his injuries were what he refers to as “showstoppers.”

“There was one where I got completely knocked out in Zurich and one time in Tucson, the stage was too high, and this kid grabbed my hand and pulled me, and I did a backflip and landed right on my tailbone,” he says. “I couldn’t stand up. My legs weren’t working. All these people were trying to help me. I pushed myself up against the wall and told people to get away from me. I had to get anti-inflammatory pills and use crutches.”

Through the late ’80s and ’90s, the band had a great run on the indie imprint Touch and Go Records, the record label that signed the group in 1989 and paired it with the late Steve Albini (Nirvana, Bush), who recorded several of its albums. Yow describes Albini as a great friend who “remembered everything he ever learned” and was “extremely eloquent.”

In the wake of some underground success, Capitol Records picked up the group for an ill-fated three-album deal.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of difference to us with Capitol,” says Yow. “Once we realized we wanted to leave Touch and Go — and we had [owner] Corey [Rusk]’s blessing — we talked to a handful of labels. [Capitol Records CEO/owner] Gary Gersh seemed like a great guy. He wasn’t an asshole. [Interscope’s] Jimmy Iovine was just a prick, and we were not interested. [Capitol] did their best at keeping their fingers out of our whatever you stick your fingers in. When we had these meetings with Gary, I told him we wouldn’t sell any more records on Capitol. He said he didn’t agree, but we didn’t. Not too long after the second record, they said we could go and cut us.”

The band broke up in 2010 but reunited in 2017 to begin playing festivals. The new record, Rack, began to come together in 2019.

“We all live in four corners of the country, so it was very unnatural and inorganic sending MP3s back and forth and trying to make changes,” says Yow when asked about the recording process. “It was not nearly as fun or naturally collaborative as it has always been. It was slow-going and arduous compared to the old days. I hope that if we do another record, which would surprise the fuck out of me, that we don’t do it like this last one. I had suggested we should go to Bermuda for two months and write a record and record it and come home.”

The album represents a terrific representation of the band’s raw power. Album opener “Hide & Seek” features beefy bass riffs and chugging guitars that build in intensity. Another highlight, the proggy “Lord Godiva,” dates back to the ’90s. Yow says the group began working on it in 1997. The tune finds Yow howling about “shooting his balls off every night” to distorted guitars and dramatic cymbal clashes.

“I think the first three Nick Cave records are pretty good,” says Yow. “After that, it’s mostly adult contemporary crap. Then, he put out that record Murder Ballads, which I like a lot. I think it’s the only record that doesn’t have his face on the cover. Some of the songs on that record about bragging about killing people and being a real asshole is what ‘Godiva’ is about. I’m really proud of those lyrics. I think that’s some funny ass shit: ‘I’ve given golden showers to folks who have been dead for hours.’ That’s great!”

Yow says the preponderance of festival dates that the band has played has made it difficult for him to indulge in his usual stage-diving antics. But he hopes that will change on this winter tour and on the dates the band has already booked for 2025.

“We’re hoping do more club dates, which are more fun,” he says. “We’ve been doing festivals, and it’s a little dangerous because the stage is 8-feet high, and there are barricades. Generally, I’ll figure out a way to get there.”

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