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Diesel.
 Mark 'Diesel' Lizotte's first ever DVD release, 'The First Fifteen '89-'04 Live', is a visual and aurally spectacular documentation of one night at Sydney's Metro Theatre. Lizotte - or Diesel as he'd rather be known when dealing with all matters musical - is, as always, affable and enthusiastic and easily distracted: here we share a mutual respect for Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, the latter which Diesel had just completed a national tour with as part of the Day On The Green concert series. He was also still coming down from just seeing the theatre production of the Waits/William S. Burroughs inspired 'The Black Rider. "The next day when I was working on a song, a bit of a Tom Waits chord change crept into the middle eight of the song," he blurts effusively. "It's probably way too obvious when you hear it."
And that appears to be one of Diesel's main motivations; to be continually open to ideas; old, new and left of centre, and then use them to broaden his own horizons. "When we were thinking of a title there was this realisation of it being 15 years since I put my first release out, and it was like, 'Wow! How the hell did that happen, you know? Where did fifteen years go?'" he chuckles.
In that time, whether it was when he first adopted the nom-de-plume Johnny and fronted The Injectors, or after going it alone, Diesel has left behind a number of Australian rock staples: Tip Of My Tongue, Soul Revival, Man Alive, 15 Feet Of Snow, to name but a few, all of which he now undertakes with a greater, more mature degree of confidence.
"I think I've sort of grown into them, you know? There was a sort of naivete when I first started playing which is never to be gotten again. Especially with a song like Cry In Shame which I think is only now reaching its potential because it's like a blank canvas that I can interpret any way I like. And that's the thing about time, you know? It's funny to watch some of the newer songs like Angel Face and Faith & Gasoline - I can remember when I first toured them and watching them go down, but now people are calling out for them and singing along to every word."
Over the years Diesel's had a number of opportunities to record a live video, none of which for several reasons were right at the time. "We picked the venue and I worked with the director by telling him that I basically wanted to do this amount of songs. And he was like, 'Okay, we're going to have to change the film this many times, so you're going to have to do a little talky bit here while we're doing that and then if you want to play a little music there while we're changing another roll...' So we worked out all the breaks and everything, the end result really flows just like a gig because it was a gig. There was no actual stopping and talking to the crowd like they were a studio audience, it was amazing because it all went off without a hitch.
"The thing that I'm more proud of than everything is that some live music DVDs are more overdubbed than others, but very few are void altogether," he says, as he 'fesses up to a modicum of digital trickery on the DVD. "With this one, during I've Been Loving You Too Long Ritchie [Wez, bass] had a bit of a brain-fart and completely forgot where he was and he sort of randomly went up and down on the neck just making sounds. I did take the next part of that song, which was the same, and just move it over and that was it, so I wouldn't call that an overdub," he admits. "And it's quite funny because with that you see his hands going all over the place and we all just laughed when we saw the DVD. The director could've cut to another shot but I think it's one of those things. I think he did an amazing job and he spent hundreds of hours on it and he didn't even notice. I doubt whether many people would unless it was pointed out, and you sort of notice more because he breaks into a smile and has a little chuckle to himself."
Steve Jones
 | 'The First Fifteen '89-'04 Live' is out now through EMI. |
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