By rights, The Shaggs shouldn’t even be a footnote in the history of rock, pop or jazz. Their first and only real album, Philosophy of the World, came out in 1969 in an edition of just 1,000, paid for by their disciplinarian father, Austin Wiggin, who only bankrolled their endeavors because his mother, a palm reader, told him he would marry a strawberry blonde and have three girls who would go on to form a successful band. In the age-old tradition of people buying into prophecies without thinking about the caveats, after the first part came true, Austin gave his first three daughters some instruments, paid for lots and lots of tuition, and then let — no, let’s not beat around the bush — made them get on with it.
The catch would be that Austin died in 1975, unaware that the band he christened The Shaggs — Dot and Betty on guitar and vocals, and Helen on drums — were about to go on a very strange journey. Back in 1969 (had anybody heard it then), their woozy surf-guitar girl-group pop would have simply seemed to be on the outs, and so the album’s first reissue, in 1980, couldn’t have come at a worse time. Pop was now big business and about to become over-produced and synthesized almost to death, which meant that The Shaggs’ wacky, lo-fi garage-band racket — with entirely unironic song titles like “Who Are Parents” and “My Pal Foot Foot” (about a missing cat) — was suddenly ripe for a kicking.
Those sh*tty reviews come up in Ken Kwapis’s adorable documentary We Are The Shaggs, and the surviving members — Dot and Betty — still can’t laugh about them, as well they mightn’t. But The Shaggs had forces bigger than pop behind them, and the backing of renaissance rocker Frank Zappa (who supposedly declared them “Better than The Beatles”) gave the humble New Hampshire sisters a credibility they’re grateful for but, understandably, still don’t feel OK with.
Nevertheless, it’s interesting that although The Shaggs were arguably no less manufactured than many bands at the time (or even around today), their anarchic but somehow sincere pre-punk compositions (and they were composed) later gained the respect of some very serious musicians, partly because, as a reaction to the shallow ’80s, the ’90s were more inclined to embrace noble failure than mindless success (which is why they found a champion in Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain).
Given his background in (largely) light mainstream comedy, director Kwapis might seem an odd fit for the material, just as it seems strange to think that there have been several attempts to make The Shaggs’ story into a feature film, including one pitch to cast Dakota and Elle Fanning as Dot and Betty. (For the record, in an ideal world, Dot says she would like to see herself played by Alison Sweeney, from TV’s Days of Our Lives, while Betty opts for Patty Duke, who, as Deadline pointed out, could have played them both.) As he explains here, Kwapis once pursued the movie option himself, and although, for now, he prefers not to think about the possibility of returning to it, this doc does leave the door open.
In true festival style, and much to the discombobulation of Dot and Betty, this interview with Kwapis and the Wiggin sisters took place in the lobby of a very busy hotel on the day of We Are the Shaggs’ world premiere at SXSW.
DEADLINE: Ken, I want to know when you first came across a copy of Philosophy of the World and how it came into your possession.
KEN KWAPIS: Sure. I was a film student at the University of Southern California in the early ’80s, and at some point during 1980, I went to a record store in Los Angeles and bought a copy of the album, Philosophy of the World. I think I bought it solely because of the cover. I thought, “What? Who are these girls?” And when I first listened to it, like a lot of people, I was pretty mystified. It was not like music I had heard before — and I like to fancy myself as somebody who listens to adventurous music.
I’ve said before that when I was a kid my favorite cut on The Beatles’ White Album was “Revolution 9”. But, having said that, I was not prepared for how really unique Philosophy of the World, is, so I was pretty fascinated. And over time, I just never lost my fascination for the music. And then in the early teens I saw the play written by Joy Gregory — a wonderful screenwriter — and songwriter Gunnar Madsen entitled The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World. For several years, I developed a screenplay based on that play, but I was unable to get it off the ground. So, rather than throw in the towel, because I loved the subject so much, I reached out to Dot and Betty and they gave me their blessing to make a documentary.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] How did you feel about that? Did you want to do it immediately or did you have to be persuaded to do this?
KEN: Good question.
DOT: No, I didn’t need any persuading.
DEADLINE: Betty, you seem a little bit more cautious.
BETTY: No, I think I was OK with it. At first, I didn’t know really, but then it was like, yeah, go ahead.
KEN: We already knew each other a little bit.
DEADLINE: Where did you first meet?
KEN: I think we probably met at an Applebee’s in Epping [New Hampshire].
DOT: Yeah, that sounds right.
DEADLINE: And what was the occasion?
KEN: The occasion was that I had been working with Joy Gregory to adapt her play and decided it was time to do some research. And not only meet Dot and Betty but visit the town of Fremont. And it was a wonderful meeting. It turned out to be the first meeting for our documentary.
DEADLINE: In the film, we meet an incredible amount of characters from the band’s story, especially from their first recording session. Were you expecting that?
KEN: Well, let me answer that one. The two key people who were present at the original recording session were Russ Hamm, the engineer, and his colleague, Bob Olive, who was a record producer in New England who worked at that studio. Remarkably, no one had interviewed Russ Hamm about The Shaggs. He said I was the first one to actually reach out to him. I can’t believe that. And then he, in turn, recommended that I meet Bob Olive, who was also there on that memorable day where the first recordings were done. So, I’m just grateful that these two guys are around, because they also have wonderful memories and good stories to tell.
DEADLINE: Dot and Betty, did this film bring back memories for you? Does this stuff feel very fresh to you or did you have to really rack your brains?
DOT: The recording part refreshed our memory. Some of the things that were said, we don’t remember.
DEADLINE: Betty?
BETTY: Oh yeah, yeah, we’ve both got memories of it [Laughs.] Just different, I guess!
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] Something that comes across in the film is that the reason The Shaggs have endured might be because of your two personalities. You’re very similar, but also very different, and I think that might be what people respond to in the band’s sound. Would you agree with that?
BETTY: Yeah, we’re really different.
DOT: I never thought of it that way.
BETTY: I didn’t either.
DOT: Makes sense.
DEADLINE: Talking about your sound, I’d really like to know where it came from. What music were you listening to? It’s a rock and roll sound — surf music and rockabilly, almost. I wonder what records you were listening to.
DOT: I always listened to The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, The Dave Clark Five, all in that era.
KEN: Betty, you told me that you were a fan of Dino, Desi & Billy.
BETTY: Yes!
KEN: I can’t believe anyone remembers Dino, Desi & Billy. [To Betty]. So, Dino was Dean Martin’s kid, Desi was Desi Arnaz Jr.’s kid?
BETTY: Right.
KEN: So, anyways, they were a trio. I think they only made one record. [To Betty.] But you remember liking them.
BETTY: Yep.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] I know you split the songwriting duties, but who was the most prolific writer of the two of you?
DOT: I was.
DEADLINE: And what inspired you to write? I love your lyrics, they’re very poetic.
DOT: They just came to me once our father said we were going to be in a band. We had guitar lessons, voice lessons, and then I just started coming up with words. And when I wrote the words, I already had the lyric. When I wrote the lyrics, I already had the melody in my head.
DEADLINE: The film makes the point that you played the melody on the guitar exactly as you sang it. Were you aware of that?
DOT: I wasn’t aware that it was… not popular. But that’s the way I did it, yes.
DEADLINE: Did you ever meet Frank Zappa? Did you even know who Frank Zappa was?
DOT: No, I never knew that he was a fan or liked us like he did until probably, well, once we saw it on the internet and saw all the things that came across the internet. Was it him that said we were better than The Beatles?
DEADLINE: Yes, that was Zappa.
DOT: Which I did not believe.
KEN: Take the compliment!
DEADLINE: Did your father ever steer you in any direction? The lyrics seem to be very much from your imagination. Did he just leave you to it? It’s very interesting that he put pressure on you to be a band but then left you alone to be the creative people that you are.
DOT: Yes, but he was very strict when we practiced, to make sure we were both singing the same thing. And had us do it over two or three times until he liked it. So, he did that part of it, but the writing the lyrics and the music, he left that up to us.
DEADLINE: Did he ever give you any notes on any of the songs?
DOT: [Puzzled.] Any notes?
DEADLINE: Like, “change the tempo” or “change this lyric”?
DOT: No, I don’t think so. Not that I remember.
DEADLINE: The film alludes to this, but what did happen to the 900 copies of Philosophy of the World that went missing?
DOT: We really didn’t know until recently. Who was it said it? One of the engineers, I think, said that they found them years later down in the basement of one of the studios. I’m not even sure which one. I’m assuming it was the first one.
KEN: Well, in the film we interview the record producer Joe Chiccarelli. He’s based in Los Angeles and he’s worked with a lot of big people, but when he was a teenager he worked at Fleetwood Studios [in Revere, Massachusetts, where the album was recorded]. He swept up the floors in the basement and claims to have found — as he says in the documentary — a couple of boxes of the records. Meaning they were at Fleetwood in the basement, I guess. But, even after doing all the research, it’s still pretty mysterious.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] You must have thought, at some point, that it was all over, that this was all in the past. When did you realize that The Shaggs had a new lease of life?
BETTY: Oh gosh.
DOT: In 1999.
BETTY: Yeah. Couldn’t believe it. Didn’t believe it at first.
DOT: It was NRBQ’s 30th anniversary as a band, and they invited us to perform on stage for that with them. And that’s when we found out how much of a following we had.
DEADLINE Were you at all prepared for that?
DOT: Not really. We didn’t realize we had that many followers or fans. I mean, there were NRBQ fans too, but a lot of them came for The Shaggs and they were from Japan and California and probably the UK, I’m not sure.
DEADLINE: What do these people talk to you about when they come up to you?
DOT: How much they liked our music and how different it was. One fan, I don’t remember his name, but he had a tattoo of Foot Foot on his ankle. And he had me fill in the lines in the middle of it. He just had the outline. I thought that was pretty cool.
DEADLINE: How does it feel to look at the documentary now? Is there anything you’d change about it? [Laughing.] Obviously, Ken’s sitting next to you…
BETTY: I think he’s done a very good job.
DOT: Yeah, it was pretty honest. A lot of the negativism came through too, the ones who didn’t like us, as well as the ones who did. But it was honest, so I was OK with it.
KEN: We actually haven’t had a chance to talk much about it.
DEADLINE: OK. So, Ken, how do you feel about it? You obviously had a lot of material. What hit the cutting room floor? And if there was a director’s cut, would you put anything back in?
KEN: I’m very happy with the cut. I mean, there’s obviously more stories, but there’s a little part of me that wishes I’d spent a little more time talking about Dot’s lyrics. And if I can compliment Dot in front of her… Sorry, guys.
DOT: [Embarrassed.] Shush, nobody wants to hear!
KEN: [To Dot] I was thinking about one of my favorite songwriters, Brian Wilson, and I was thinking that I think that you and Brian Wilson have similar sensibilities. I was thinking about a song like The Beach Boys’ “In My Room”, which I think is a remarkable song: “There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to / In my room.” That feels like a song you might’ve written, a song about your bedroom.
DOT: Yeah, we listened to The Beach Boys too.
KEN: I mean, I feel that for lot of people, when they first hear The Shaggs, what stands out is the musical uniqueness of it, the musical textures, hearing chords that you don’t normally hear or chords played together in a certain way. So, sometimes I feel people don’t get past that to appreciate the lyric writing. If there was a director’s cut, and I could add a few more minutes, I think I’d focus on Dot’s lyrics a little bit more.
DEADLINE: Well, do you have anything you’d ask her now? We can put it on the record.
KEN: Oh my gosh. [Pauses.] I do have a couple of questions, actually. [To Dot and Betty.] It’s so funny, because when I was cutting the film I kept thinking, “Why didn’t I ask you this?” But I do have a particular question about your dad. When the band started, I was curious about the fact that you immediately started writing your own songs as opposed to recording covers of other people’s. Was there any discussion with your dad about the general direction? Was it better to cover The Dave Clark Five or to do original songs?
DOT: I don’t think there was any discussion.
KEN: You just jumped right in and started doing it? Because I was thinking… Even a band like The Rolling Stones, their first album is almost all covers, if I’m not mistaken. So, I think it’s pretty audacious that, right out of the gate, the first thing you’re doing is writing original songs. Anyways, that was just something on my mind.
DEADLINE: That’s a good point — how many covers did The Shaggs ever do?
DOT: We did a few, we did The Carpenters, what was that song? [“Yesterday Once More.”]
BETTY: I don’t remember. I know we did the rose garden song.
KEN: “Paper Roses”.
DOT: Marie Osmond.
DEADLINE: How did you choose a song to cover; did it have to be a song that you liked?
BETTY: One we liked, I guess, and we sang. We knew them.
DOT: We sang them at the dances.
KEN: “Wheels” [by The String-A-Longs]. “Wheels” is a cover. Again, this is something I wish we had put in the doc. But am I correct, every Saturday night that was your opening?
BETTY: That was our opening.
DOT: I didn’t realize it until recently, but there are lyrics to that*.
KEN: Really?
DOT: Yeah. I don’t remember.
BETTY: I didn’t know it either.
DOT: Yeah. You’d have to google it.
BETTY: New to me.
(*Amazingly this is true.)
DEADLINE: Dot, did you continue to write songs after the band split up?
DOT: Yeah, I’ve written a few.
DEADLINE: What inspires you? Is it something you do every day or every now and then?
DOT: No, just when it… [Pause.] Probably the last song I wrote is “Phone Tag”. We were in New York with the Dot Wiggin Band. And [fellow musician] Jesse Krakow and I kept trying to get in touch with each other. And we always left texts… Well, we didn’t do texts at the time, but we left voice messages. I’d miss his call, and he’d miss my call, so I just came up with that song. I wrote it right while we were in New York actually. I wrote the lyrics; he wrote the music.
DEADLINE: Is the Dot Wiggin Band still going?
DOT: No.
DEADLINE: Is that chapter of your life over with now?
DOT: That’s probably pretty much over, as far as playing and singing.
DEADLINE: Something Ken mentioned at the start is the album sleeve for Philosophy of the World. What do you remember about the photo shoot for that?
DOT: Not much.
KEN: Do you know where it was? Do you have any idea where that was?
BETTY: It was a picture of us on it?
KEN: Yeah, the one with the green curtain.
BETTY: Yes, that must be the… Isn’t that the one we did at Ted… Not Ted Herbert’s, the one in Exeter, no?
KEN: Was it a photo studio?
BETTY: Yeah, yeah, I think it was.
DOT: Yeah. Ben somebody. Ben’s Photo. I don’t remember his last name though.
BETTY: Yeah. Ben’s Photo.
KEN: I love that photo, also because Helen only has her snare drum. The whole kit’s not there.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] You all seem so happy in that photograph, it seems very, very natural. I wonder if you remember that…
BETTY: No, I don’t remember that.
KEN: [Interrupting.] Can I ask another question?
DEADLINE: Sure.
KEN: [To Dot and Betty.] I can’t believe we didn’t talk about this, but did your dad write the liner notes [to Philosophy of the World]?
BETTY: Yes.
KEN: Because they’re pretty amazing. And, no, it’s not in the movie. And that’s something else I would’ve put in the director’s cut. [To Deadline.] Definitely, if you get a chance, look at the back cover of the record.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] What memories does that cover bring back? Do you recognize those two girls? What do you think of when you see that image of yourself?
DOT: It brings back memories of our outfits.
BETTY: [Laughing.] I was just going to say that.
DEADLINE: Is there anything that you would do differently, looking back?
DOT: The only thing I would’ve done differently — and anybody that likes The Shaggs disagrees with me — is that I would’ve been happier just writing the lyrics, not the music. But then we wouldn’t be where we are today if that was the case. I didn’t feel I knew enough to write the music.
DEADLINE: That’s also an interesting point in the movie — that had you recorded it on four-track, which was very new at the time, the album might not have been the same.
KEN: [To a puzzled Dot and Betty.] Basically, if you had laid down the tracks separately…
BETTY: Oh, yeah.
DOT: Yeah, I think so too.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] You say in the film that it was very hurtful when the record was re-released and there was a lot of meanness, but what has been the upside of your rediscovery?
DOT: Knowing that we have as many followers and fans as we do — which we did not know at the time — all the positive remarks outweigh the negative.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] You must have seen the play, surely?
DOT: Yes.
BETTY: Yeah, in New York.
DEADLINE: How did you feel about that?
DOT: It was different watching three girls play us…
BETTY: …Even though it didn’t seem like some of it was anything that we did!
DEADLINE: So, there was a lot of “dramatic license”?
DOT: Yeah.
BETTY: [Laughing.] They made me look like a bad girl, and I wasn’t!
DEADLINE: So, Ken, are you any further with this idea to make that play into a feature film? I mean, with the ladies’ blessing, would you go ahead with that?
KEN: OK. I mean, I love the play and obviously I love The Shaggs, but it’s a tough question. As much as I loved the process of developing that script, I also feel like I’m in a different place because of having made the documentary.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] Have your families seen the film yet?
DOT: Oh, the boys? No, nobody has.
BETTY: No.
DEADLINE: What do you think they’ll think? Are you nervous about them seeing it?
DOT: Not my younger son, Matt, because he loves The Shaggs. He has it on his phone, so he listens to it when he’s in his car or whenever. My other son, Will, is more into games, he’s a gamester, he plays video games, that’s his life, basically, and he really doesn’t get into our music. Though I will say, a couple weeks ago he got on the TV and got on YouTube, and the next thing I was hearing was one of our songs.
KEN: Are you serious?
DOT: Yeah. I don’t know why he did it, probably because he knew this was coming up and maybe he wanted to feel part of it.
BETTY: My sons were looking up everything about us on the internet, and their friends kept saying, “Well, when’s this coming out? When’s it coming out?” So, they’re really excited and anxious to see what it’s like.
KEN: We were just talking about holding a special screening in Epping, New Hampshire, [in aid of] the church that’s featured at the end of the film.
DEADLINE: Is that likely to happen?
KEN: We’re definitely going to do it. I just don’t know when.
DEADLINE: [To Dot and Betty.] What would you like people to take away from this film?
DOT: The honesty of it, I guess. The negativism is there because that was part of it.
DEADLINE: Betty, do you have any thoughts?
BETTY: I don’t know. I would just say, stick with what you feel. If you feel it’s right, do it. Don’t worry about what other people think. Because that’s what I did. I thought more of what other people were saying and doing. No. Just be yourself, do your own thing.
DEADLINE: What is the state of play with The Shaggs now? Are there any more recordings? Is there anything left in the vaults?
DOT: I don’t really know.
KEN: One thing I’ll say is that Terry Adams, the founder of NRBQ, is sort of the archivist of the band, and he has a lot of material. I haven’t talked to him about it, but my hunch is…
DOT: He still has all the masters to the recordings.
KEN: Yeah. So, I think there’s a chance that there could be other material that should be heard, I’m sure. But can I just add to something that Betty said? I have, in my career, occasionally suffered really brutal criticism. So, that section of the documentary in which The Shaggs’ record received some pretty negative feedback is very personal to me, and I feel it will be something that a lot of creative people can relate to. I feel like it’s not easy as a creative person to tune out feedback that’s not productive, so, I second what Betty said: You’ve got to go with your gut. It’s hard, but you have to not be so worried about other people’s approval.
DOT: And I would add a note: Don’t get on the internet and look for all of that.
BETTY: Yes. Stay away from it.
English (US) ·