What We Missed 2025: Exene Cervenka of X

X. // photo credit Michael Hyatt

While 2025 was a year for the books in terms of concerts in and around the area, there were, unfortunately, a few cancellations, which led to some disappointment here at the Pitch. Not least of these disappointments was the fact that we’d already conducted interviews with some of these artists. So, in the interest of making lemonade out of sour grapes (or some other such mixed metaphor), we present a couple pieces which might otherwise have been lost to the ages.

We spoke with Exene Cervenka, singer for legendary Los Angeles punk band X, ahead of what was supposed to be a double bill with fellow Angelenos Los Lobos at the Uptown on Sunday, October 12.

The Pitch: Over the last 10-15 years, X has come back to Kansas City and Lawrence really regularly. What’s the appeal of playing around here? I know you lived in Jefferson City for a good long while.

Exene Cervenka: Yeah, I grew up in the Midwest. The appeal is if somebody wants us to play, we’ll come and play. If somebody says, “Hey, here’s five grand”–or whatever it is–“You wanna come make a stop here?” it’s “Yes, we will make a stop there.” We’re not like, “Oh, we love that place. We’re gonna play there.”

We’re not that selective. We can’t afford to be. If anybody wants us to play, we’ll play and thank God, because it’s been a great life. It’s been great having people wanna see us, and I’m glad they still do. And we’re hoping people come out this time and see us. I don’t want to hear next year, “Oh, I wish I had gone see you guys. I’ve never seen you play.”

I don’t wanna hear it. It’s, “Yes, we’re playing. Come see us or not. I don’t care. But if you don’t tell me later.”

I love the fact that you all have such a deep catalog to play from now. You’ve got everything going back to that first single in 1977 all the way up to recent albums in the last five years.

Yeah, two of them. It’s weird because there are a lot of songs that I would like to do that we don’t do every night because we just can’t anymore, and there are some songs we have to do because they’re our favorite songs or because people really wanna hear ’em. We’re not one of those people that’s, “If you wanna hear our more popular songs, screw you. We’re only playing new songs.”

It’s not like that. We love to play all our songs and I’m excited when we start a song and people go crazy. That makes me very happy.

Is there a song that you particularly look forward to playing every night?

No. I really do love all our songs and really, it depends on what mood I’m in for singing. If I’m in a really soulful kind of mood, then I’m really happy “White Girl” is on there. I’m really happy “Adult Books” is on there, or “Blue Spark”–songs I can really get into. But then I love doing “Los Angeles” and all the other songs. I still like ’em all. They’re great songs.

The band is playing with its original lineup. Did you ever foresee that you all would still be making music together in 2025 when you started the band?

I have a simple answer to that: of course not. How could we have? But the other one is thank you for asking because isn’t that crazy? People say, “How is it you can do that?” And I’ll tell you, it’s all luck. Because my sister got killed in a car accident in 1980, the day that Los Angeles came out. She didn’t make it. I had a whole bunch of friends who died of overdoses, or they just drank themselves to death, or all that. People die in accidents. People get cancer, people get strokes, people get old. People can’t walk, people can’t sing anymore. People get tinnitus in their ears and it’s too painful to play drums, all that stuff. That’s just stuff that happens to people, and it didn’t happen to us that way.

Billy [Zoom, guitar] has had cancer twice, and he survived. And here we all are, and I think the other thing is–did we think we’d play this long? No. So let’s not ruin it by playing too long. ‘Cause if I’m singing really great and I’m still dancing around and I’m still loving it, that’s when I wanna stop. I don’t wanna stop if it’s, “Oh, she used to be good.”

I don’t wanna be that person at all. I could do it for a lot longer to tell you the truth, but, also, I think that the thing is with live music and rock and roll will never die and all that’s all true. At some point people migrate away from bands that they’ve seen before or, if they’re into other things, maybe, so you have to also judge that.

How do you occupy your time when you’re not performing with the band?

There are a lot of things that I do, and some of them I don’t talk about because they’re–let’s just say anonymous. But the other thing is I do a lot of art. I do a lot of art shows, and I make a lot of art, and I do a lot of sewing. I make a lot of quilts and I do clothes and I do all that kinda stuff and that takes forever. I know that stuff’s so slow. To do all that stuff, you have to work and work so I do things that are disciplinary–going to the gym every day, or not every day. I do a lot of holistic medicine. I like to help people a lot. I just helped my neighbor move and pack up her whole house.

I think the thing is, if you’re grateful to be alive and you’re grateful for the life you’ve had, then you need to do things like that. It’s important to be of service to other people and help other people, because that’s a way of expressing gratitude for what you have. Every day I tell myself about that–about being grateful, and that way it’s not sad. I don’t wanna be sad.

My mom will hate me if I don’t ask this question: when it comes to quilting, are you sewing by hand or are you machine quilting?

I do both. I did one pretty big quilt by hand. And I’ll tell you, when I told the women in my quilting bee–who are older even than me–that they were like, “Oh, she’s gonna do this by hand?” and they all looked at me and went, “Okay.” I thought they were gonna go, “Wow, that’s great,” and they just looked at me like, “Oh. Okay. Okay. Good luck,” and I did it.

As long as you’re making something with labor of love, if you make it with a machine or by hand or both, there’s a lot of hand stuff to do. So I don’t know, I just I. I like old-fashioned things. Yeah. I’m an old-fashioned person, as you probably know.

You gotta cut all those pieces by hand, regardless.

Yes, you do. You have to cut lots of little pieces by hand, and if it’s off by an eighth of an inch, you gotta do it again.

I say this ’cause we have so many quilts that my mom and my grandmothers have made all over the house. There’s one sitting on the chair right here.

Ah, isn’t that wonderful? They made it with their hands. That’s why I always wore aprons. That’s why I love aprons so much is because they’re all handmade. All of ’em. None of ’em came from the store. You go to a thrift store, and you see an apron–somebody made that apron. It’s American folk art made by women, and I love aprons. I have so many aprons.

American folk art is a really good connection to X because you all have such a deep connection to roots music. Even if you’re playing it loud and fast, there’s still some country in there.

You know what else is super loud and super fast? Bluegrass. It’s just punk rock. Bluegrass and punk rock? Identical.

What’s it been like getting to regularly play with Los Lobos and to see them every night?

There’s this weird thing that I get, and I’ve had it since before this tour, where, when you see people on tour, or you go out on stage, there’s this weird knowingness that’s like–I can’t even describe it. It’s like, “We made it. We’re here. It’s us, man. We’re here,” and it’s such a weird feeling. It’s just kinda congratulations. I think of it as being rescued or something. You got rescued and you all end up in the same place.

It’s very weird. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not a feeling of victory–“Yeah, we made it!”–it’s more just a feeling of, “We’re the guys we did it. We’re the only bands left that are all original members, and here we are. Crazy. How did we do it?” I don’t know. I think it’s luck.

I have to imagine there’s some amount of skill in there that people are still responding to this, a generation or two later?

Yeah, that goes without saying. Los Lobos is a tremendously important and an amazing band and hanging out with them–like talking with Steve Berlin. I did a really long interview with Steve Berlin, who’s the sax player, and we were talking together. We’d never done an interview together, and it was a long interview in person and he prefaced everything he said with, “The way I remember it is …”

I thought that’s so great because none of us–if you talk to Dave Alvin or John [Doe] or me, or Tito [Larriva, the Plugs] or any of the people, it’s yeah, “You were at that point.” It’s no, I wasn’t, you can’t remember everything.

It’s just so interesting to hear his stories and hear them and that Louie [Pérez, Los Lobos] and their stories. They remember a certain city in a different way than we do because they had a slightly different trajectory, a different path, and different places, but the same. It’s neat.

The first show we played with them that I remember–as I remember it–was, we were in The Knitters. Dave Alvin said, “Hey, you know what? We’ve got this show coming up at Club Lingerie. Let’s get this guy from Kentucky. I just met. He’s really good, and let’s have Los Lobos open.” Dwight Yoakam opening and then Los Lobos.

They were still in their earlier phases, and I think they had more folk instruments, and they were doing a lot of Spanish, and then the Knitters were headlining that show. It was probably $10 in a little club. We go back a long way and we go back in a really interesting way. Everybody found each other back then.

The whole “that’s how I remember it” thing is the vibe I got from when you all contributed chapters to that book that John Doe put out, Under the Big Black Sun. I love the fact that everybody is very honest about “This is my recollection. It may not be 100% accurate, but this is how it appeared to me.”

The thing that astonishes me when I hear people talk about that time is that some people, who had that as their only experience with playing music or being in that scene, were only in the ’70s and ’80s. For me, it’s never ended, ’cause I’ve always been doing the same thing since with poetry and art and everything, and music and going to see bands, and supporting whatever.

But what isn’t surprising to me is what people recollect and the motivations people had. Someone will say, “I don’t know, I just started playing guitar ’cause it seemed cool and girls liked it,” and I’m like, “You didn’t wanna change the world? What’s wrong with you? I thought you were gonna change the world with me, you traitor to punk rock.”

Then, over 20 years later, I’m like, “Yeah, I can see that.” It’s weird how all those people came together for different reasons, gravitating towards a magnetic object.

You can find more information about X at their website.