RO: You had mentioned your anniversary tour for Bloodletting last year, and I always wondered what pressure you guys had on you to just coast and sort of release three sequels to that following the album's success.

JN: Oh, it was intense. It was intense. It was full on, and it was really difficult after that because you don't, it just doesn't work that way. I mean, if you care about what you do, if you're that kind of an artist. I mean because the first three [albums] we churned out pretty quick, you know. The first one took a while because we still had our day jobs and shit then, so that was like us making the first record, you know, that you didn't know what was going to happen with, and then it did.

And then the second one and then the third one...um, that was gonna make or break. I mean, that was the one, by that time, you know, it was perfect; we toured our asses off and the groundswell was there, the company had it all coordinated right for once and it just slammed and that was good. But yeah, they wanted us right in, immediately, like "go do another one." And it just, it just...you can't go and do the same thing, you know, again and again and again.

RO: And you've kind of taken that to the extreme, branching out and incorporating different styles, I know you've recently talked about your love of flamenco music...

JN: Yeah, that's been for years and years and years. For a long, long time.

RO: And you talked about going to China. Are we going to see any of that influence coming in as well? You seem to draw a lot from wherever you go and I think that's always informed your music to a really impressive degree.

JN: That's over my head, that stuff, for sure. One of the things that we did notice, and I took a lot of footage and I just got a program that I can edit decently so I can do something with it, by the Hangtze Lake there, all the old people got together on Sundays and were singing all the old songs. And it was just very moving to say the least, because you know, here we are, playing rock and roll: Here's your Starbucks, there's your Subway, there's your...Donna Karan and everything else.

Obviously, it's China and they're aware of the preservation of their culture, but there's no stopping, you know, what's happening. And so I felt like I was really blessed to be able to see those old people singing the old songs, and I'm just sitting there going: you know these people have known these songs all their lives, 'cause all the other old people knew 'em, you know, they'd clap and you'd just go "shit."It was intense. That would be the thing I'd be inspired by.

In the same sense, you go through experiences in your life, and if you're an artist that's why you're an artist, because you manifest them creatively in some way. That's what art is, basically. And so, you couldn't really go through an experience and expect to process it the same way ten years later as you did when you were maybe in your 20s and 30s, do you know what I'm saying?

So if I went through the same shit I went through back when I wrote that record, in the Bloodletting years or whatever, I wouldn't react the same. I'm a different person now so I wouldn't write the same songs about it, I wouldn't feel the same way about it. I would have a different perspective on it.

If you have the same perspective for like, 10 or 20 records, you know, who wants to do that? Who wants to hear that?

RO: Oh, you might be surprised.

JN: No, I'm not, I'm not at all.

Concrete Blonde plays with Girl In a Coma 7 p.m. Sunday at Fitzgerald's. Come back tomorrow for Part 2 of our interview.