Culture Brats

Vaden Todd Lewis: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-09-09T10:54:00.000-04:00

On Friday, September 11th, you'll find the Toadies at their eighth annual Dia De Los Toadies music festival in Fort Worth, Texas. On the 18th, the band will be release Heretics, their new album of reconstructed Toadies classics and more. Last week, we spoke with singer Vaden Todd Lewis on his fiftieth birthday about Heretics, the new songs on the album, the "Heart Of Glass" cover, Dia De Los Toadies, beer, and The Blues Brothers.

Happy birthday, man!
Thanks!

You have anything exciting planned for later today or tonight?
We had a big day yesterday and then tomorrow we have a big party over at a club around the corner.

Cool. I love Heretics and I love what you guys did with some of your classic songs. What made you decide to go back, deconstruct, and recreate these songs?
Well, it started with our festival, which is called Dia De Los Toadies. This year is the eighth one and starts a week from today, the 11th and 12th. Two stages, all day long, fun in the sun, it's a blast. In the third year of Dia De Los Toadies, we decided to bump it up to two nights, and the first night would be Friday and we'd keep it kind of scaled down and play acoustic, sort of semi-unplugged. So we did that, and the next year we added some keyboards. The next year we added a mandolin. We just morphed into these weird alternate versions of these songs. After last year's Dia De Los Toadies, we decided that it would be great to do this where it's a totally controlled environment, where we could run wild with it. We only have so many hands. We have extra players come up for pedal steel and vocals and guitar and whatever else, but we can only do so much live. We thought, "What if we went in the studio with our good friend Rob Schnapf, who did Rubberneck and Hell Below and Feeler, and have him just go to town?" We went into the studio with the basic idea that we'd do these songs that we'd worked on the arrangements. We got in the studio and cranked out two brand-new songs as well as a few songs that have never made it onto a recording and a cover song. It was a blast, man. It was a great time and I'm looking forward to seeing how people receive it.

It's like listening to killer new songs that you already know the words to.
Yeah! What struck me while deconstructing and putting them back together with this different instrumentation, they just have a different feel, a totally different vibe. I'm really happy with it.

Were there any songs that you redid that didn't make the cut?
We have a couple that are bonus tracks. We have one, "I Come From The Water," it's going to be on the vinyl release. But on the CD or download, it's going to be a bonus track. That one, it just didn't fit in. We wanted to limit it to x number of songs. We didn't want it to be too long on the regular release. It didn't fit, and we always need bonus tracks for whatever. We did a version of "The Appeal" with our good friend Will Johnson from Centro-matic singing. It's chilling, that guy's so good. But we decided in the end that the album should have my voice on it since I'm the singer, so that's a bonus track too. So if you buy the LP, you get a four-sided LP with all the stuff on it.

Tell us about "Queen Of Scars," one of the two new tracks.
Of course, the two new ones are my favorites. The newest songs are always my favorite ones. "Queen Of Scars," we wrote that in the studio. At that point, Doni had gone home for a little bit. It was just me and Rez and Clark in the studio in LA. I can't even remember what we were tracking, but it was one of the songs we had arranged and worked out. We were using all this vintage gear and it breaks all the time because it's old. The keyboards broke. Meanwhile, Rez and I are still in our isolation booths with our headphones on and our mics are still hot. We can still hear each other. I just started dicking around and wrote this little turnaround on the acoustic and Rez was playing along and accenting just the way he does. By the end of the next night, we had a full arrangement and we recorded it and sent it off to Doni to get tracked.

Does it have anything to do with "Jigsaw Girl?"
Yeah, it does. I didn't have any words at that point. I had the arrangement and I knew how I wanted the words to go, but you fill in the blanks with what you want to say. So I went home. This recording session was done in spurts. It was like a week or two here, and then a week there, just did it when we could get away. So I flew out to do vocals on that one and a couple of others for the very last session. And yeah, I had always wondered what might have happened to the main characters in "Jigsaw Girl." You wouldn't know it by listening to them, but a lot of them have recurring characters that pop up here and there throughout these different albums. I'd always wondered what if this guy used his magic on this girl and did his spell or voodoo. That's what "Queen Of Scars" is about. It's like a sequel.

Let's talk about Blondie's "Heart Of Glass." You didn't change any of the words, but it feels like you're listening to a totally different song.
Yeah, I've got a backstory on that. I've got a little girl who's now twelve. She's in band, singing, into music, all this stuff. Having a girl that sings--I've always liked that Blondie song--my ear is more attuned to females singers because I think of her singing. Anyway, I heard that song for about the 1,000,001st time but it was the first time I really listened to the words. If you pull the words out of that song, they're really sad. So I took it home and sat with my daughter and worked on the arrangement. We just kind of messed around with it a little bit, slowed it down, and figured it out on guitar. I sent it off to the guys and they loved it.

You mentioned that the eighth Dia De Los Toadies is next weekend. How did that festival come about?
We broke up in '01 and got back together periodically for radio festivals. Those are fun to do, but it's just a bunch of bands that are on the radio, which more often than not, are not my favorite bands. Nothing against them, it's just not what I would pick to have us headline for or open under. When we got back together in '07 and we were working in pre-production for No Deliverance, we started spitballing the idea, "What if we stopped doing those all the time? What if we cut back on those and create our own demand and do our own music festival where we get to promote it ourselves and we get to pick the bands and pick everything, the food trucks, the beer, everything?" It just took off from there.

Within a couple weeks, we had a couple ideas for the site for the first one. The very first one was out at Possum Kingdom Lake in Texas. The next one was in central Texas, out near Granbury. It was out in the country, way out in the middle of nowhere. Then we went down to New Braunfels for a few years. Now we're on our third year in Fort Worth.

You guys are doing a short tour of Texas dance halls in October before mounting a US tour in November. Why Texas dance halls?
We just thought it would be fun. I've always wanted to go to these places and hang out. We've always wanted to play these places but we couldn't because we're a rock band. We're too big, it'll get too raucous and too crazy. But this current incarnation is more chill and more laid back. So we're going to go do it, film some of it, and record some of it. It's going to be a lot of fun.

But you're not going to be performing behind chicken wire like in The Blues Brothers?
We should set that up! That would be awesome.

You guys have your own beer. How did that come about?
It started about two-and-a-half years ago when we were working on the re-release of Rubberneck. Last year was the 20th anniversary of that album's release. We were thinking, "What can we do to blow this up and make this cool and weird?" A little backstory on me: I'm all about everything Fort Worth. I love this town, I love the people in it and the creativity here. Such cool businesses and such a unique perspective on what life is like here. So we started looking around. We knew some other bands that had beers, like one-offs, done and we thought, "That would be great if we could do one to commemorate the record." There's a brewery here in Fort Worth called Martin House and they said, "Around the time the 20th anniversary of Rubberneck happens, it'll be our first anniversary as being open as a brewery, so why don't we get together and make a beer?" So last year around May, Rubberneck Red came out and that sold like crazy. It sold all over Texas. It was a limited run so it's gone now, but my understanding is they're bringing it back for Dia De Los Toadies next weekend in kegs. I think you'll be able to get it there. But that went so well, they came back to us and said, "You want to work some more with us? What do you want to do?" We came up with a different slant on a kind of beer. There are very few bock beers that you can find. There's Shiner Bock and a few others. They're good, but they're not our beer. They put together this kickass beer [Bockslider] and it's out now. It's really good.

I've got one more question for you. I know you already have Dia De Los Toadies, but we ask everyone this question. You're in charge of a music festival and you can get any five artists, dead or alive, to appear on the bill with you. Who do you choose?
That would be AC/DC with Bon Scott and Phil Rudd. Queen. You gotta get your Zeppelin in there. This is one you're going to have to Google: Brainiac. The fifth one? Probably Mousetrap. Those two are bands that were on Grass Records way back in the day with us. They just kicked a lot of ass.

What song do you all perform together as the final jam?
That's tough, man. I think it would be fun to do "Feel Like Makin' Love." That's one of my guilty pleasure rock songs.

More Toadies: Official | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Kim Shattuck: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-08-19T10:41:00.003-04:00

Last week, Omnivore Recordings released a remastered edition of The Muffs' debut album, which also contains ten bonus tracks. We caught up with Muffs singer Kim Shattuck to discuss the debut album, the excellent new Omnivore reissue, The Pandoras, the Pixies, the five songs that define The Muffs, and "Kids In America."

What made you decide to do a resissue of your debut album now?
Actually, we just got asked. It's not like it's a significant anniversary or anything. When Omnivore presented it to us, it sounded really cool. And they're tied into Warner Brothers, so it wasn't like just anybody was doing it.

In the liner notes, Ronnie Barnett mentioned that there may have been too many cooks in the studio during the recording...
Oh my God, that's even an understatement. Everyone seemed to have a say. Everyone. Seriously, even people walking by when we were picking mixes. It was super horrible. It was not a good way to operate a band. Everyone should get a say, but not everyone should get a say at the same time. The person deciding should probably be the producer and not everybody. It was very frustrating. It pretty much formed the way I ran the band the rest of the time.

So how much of that album was your vision, given that everyone had an input?
The songs were songs that I had been writing since 1988. The ones before '88 sucked. There was nothing good coming out of me until about '88. I got better and better at songwriting in my own opinion. I was like, "Ok, I can see this being a song. I can see a band playing this song."

The songs were the vision I had, but the collection of songs weren't necessarily the collection that I wanted it to be. That was more Warner Bros. having to do their A&R job. Some of the demos that I presented to them were rejected. When I listen to them again, I'm thinking, "Hmm, these are actually pretty good. I wonder why these got rejected."

He also said that you and he used to dismiss the album. Have you come to embrace it?
Now that it's remastered, yes! The mastering job was so terrible. In the past, I always blamed the mix. Bad mastering can make a good mix terrible. I knew I liked a lot of the songs, but I didn't like the recording of it. Now that I hear the remastered thing, I've changed my mind completely. I love it.

Let's talk about the previously unreleased demos. Were they recorded around the same time as the original album?
They were recorded pre-band. A lot of my demos were recorded around 1989 or 1990. That was pre-band.

I really like songs like "Do You Want Her" and "I Don't Expect It." What kept those from showing up on future albums?
I had forgotten about them completely. I did the demos and I put them away. They were rejected for some reason, I'm not even sure why. They kind of went on the back burner. Eventually, I got rid of my 4-track or it broke or something. I really had no way of listening to them. Part of the process of this Omnivore record was to go through the demos. They wanted to know if I had stuff and I thought, "You know, I do have stuff but I can't listen to it." So I went on eBay and I bought a new TASCAM and I listened to them like that. It was hard because it kept breaking down. I had to hit it like Fonzie to make it come back on.

The answering machine messages at the end of the album... Who's Dave?
Who's Dave? Dave was one of the co-producers of the album and also our co-A&R guy. We had two A&R guys, Rob Cavallo and Dave Katznelson. We decided to have both of them produce, even though Dave had never ever produced before and Rob had only produced one thing. I had never produced.

Does he know those messages are on the album?
He does. We reconnected with him. He's a super nice guy. This answering machine message came after the record was recorded and released. I was really mad at him and I didn't want to talk to him so he drunkenly called me up one night and tried to get me on the phone. He thinks it's funny. He has a really good sense of humor and he was like, "Yeah, put it out. It's funny."

I read on Facebook where you're working with Melanie Vammen again. What are you working on?
The Pandoras. We put The Pandoras back together with me obviously singing. We're not trying to do new songs, we're trying to do the old songs the way we remember them and the way we like them. Melanie and I hadn't worked together in forever, so we're excited to work together again. We've done some shows and we're about to go to Europe and do a big European tour, so that's what we're doing Pandoras-wise.

The Muffs recently did a string of dates in Spain. How did that go?
That was really fun! It was the most sweatiest time. Every club was super hot, super packed, super excited and fun.

Before the end, what was it like performing with the Pixies?
Before the very end? Actually, it was fun playing with the Pixies. It was really fun. Their crowds, the people that go see Pixies shows, are really into it. It was fun performing for those people. The behind the scenes stuff was a little bit awkward. Sometimes it was fun, but sometimes it was awkward. I feel like it was a good experience overall.

I've got one more question for you: what five songs do you feel define The Muffs?
I always pick my favorites, I don't know... I'm going to say "Sad Tomorrow," "From Your Girl," "Honeymoon," "Lucky Guy," and unfortunately or fortunately, "Kids In America," not even a song I wrote.

Were you involved in anything regarding the twentieth anniversary of the Clueless soundtrack?
We were asked to play on the VH1 morning show with Nick Lehee... Is that his name? Lahee? I don't know how you pronounce it.

The guy who was married to Jessica Simpson?
Yeah! It was his show. We played "Kids In America" on his show. We had to learn the song because we had never ever played it. We learned it and now we play it live sometimes. It was funny. We had never really considered playing it live. It was always a thorn in our side but we ended up doing it.

Why did you feel it was a thorn in your side?
The lyrics are really stupid. It's very embarrassing to sing them. I just had an attitude about it because I didn't write it. We play other cover sometimes... I don't know. It was just kind of weird and awkward for us to play it but once we started playing it, we realized people really enjoy seeing us play that song and the fact that we didn't really play it was kind of rebellious for no reason.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to talk with me today and I hope this reissue leads to further reissues down the road, too.
There are more coming down the pipe!

More Muffs: Facebook | Twitter

More Kim Shattuck: Facebook | Twitter

More Omnivore Recordings: Official | Facebook | Twitter

Vanessa Carlton: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-06-30T11:15:00.002-04:00

Vanessa Carlton will be releasing Blue Pool, a four-song EP, on July 24th, which will be followed by the full-length album Liberman in October on Dine Alone Records. We recently spoke with her about her new singles, what fans can expect from the new album, her grandfather, and motherhood.

You've released two songs, "Blue Pool" and "Young Heart," in the past three months. Tell us what "Blue Pool" means to you.
"Blue Pool" is a really dreamy song. The verses are these vignettes that are set in reality that have happened to me and the chorus of that song is kind of based on The Secret Garden. It's a very decidedly feminist chorus, but that doesn't mean it's about a man or a woman. It's correlating the secret door that she finds to the garden to the secret door to a woman's mind. The song, sonically, it's a waltz. I love to write waltzes, which is very much inspired by my past as a ballet dancer, but I wanted it to not feel traditional at all. I wanted it to go psychedelic.

Many are calling this a new direction for you. Do you agree with that?
Yeah. I've been honing this type of sound for years now but kind of under the radar. People are rediscovering me with this project, that's really cool because I feel like me and Steve Osborne have spent time working together. This is our second album together and we've really arrived at this recipe that we really love.

What led you to name your upcoming album after your grandfather?
It didn't occur to me until after the record was done and people were asking me why did I name it after him. He was a painter. He was a church designer and a shopkeeper and also a painter. When he passed away, my grandmother gave me this enormous oil painting of his that was hanging on my wall in New York where I wrote most of the album. It has these really unusual colors in it, bright turquoise and hot pinks. It's not the traditional colors that one would paint. It's an image of three nude women and he makes really unusual choices. It just occurred to me that what I wanted to create sonically with the album was how I felt when I looked at this painting.

In addition to the painting, Liberman, that was a name that was changed. I was raised thinking my Grandma and Grandpa Lee were Grandma and Grandpa Lee and my mother's maiden name was Lee. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that my mom told me that's not their real name, it was actually Liberman and my grandfather changed it when he opened his business because he felt it would be better if it didn't have a Jewish last name. Coincidentally, Ralph Lifshitz was this tie designer that really liked my Grandpa and his store and wanted to sell his ties at my grandfather's store. Ralph Lifshitz went on to change his name to Ralph Lauren.

I just felt like I wanted to go back to what was true.

What else can we expect from Liberman?
I think we're doing a nice roll out, preparing people or giving them a cool hors d'oeuvre of what the meal of the album is, a taste of what the journey of the album is. It's not a long record but it's very otherworldly. When I put it on, I am totally in that space of the album. I really hope that people find it as some sort of escape or it enhances the moment that they're in. I really look at it as absolutely a great thing to put your headphones on and take a walk with it. If you live in a city, it's a great walking album. I love those albums. You listen to those types of albums forever. They're not at all about the time that they were released. There's nothing timely about it.

Do you have any special guests appearing on the album?
Yes, my husband John McCauley, he's a really great writer and musician and great at a lot of different stuff. He has his own band called Deer Tick which is a totally great band. I was able to steal him and get him to play some guitar on a couple of the tracks. When you have the chance to work with John, you take the chance to work with John. He's like that level of musician. It was really amazing to me to have Steve Osborne collaborating and playing everything. I recorded seven tracks in England with Steve and three tracks in Tennessee with Adam Landry. Adam created a bunch of stuff on the tracks he produced as well.

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. How much has that changed your music and writing or has that not even been an issue yet?
I don't know. I haven't really written much since she was born. I was working a lot on the artwork for this album. I was writing some instrumental pieces when I was pregnant. I think having a family is really cool. I feel very balanced. I wonder how that will affect my future work. I have some ideas about what I'd like to do for my next project already. This project, I finished most of it before I got pregnant, so I've been sitting on it for like a year. We'll see but I do know a lot of organic changes definitely happened.

I saw on Facebook where you took her to a Wilco show. Are you planning on having her hit the road with you as well?
Totally. We are a traveling family. We are a circus caravan. I also travel with my dog Victor. We're a motley crew. Sid and Victor are hilarious together. We have our own unique style of touring, let's put it that way.

We have one question we ask everybody. You're in charge of a music festival and you get to pick any five acts, living or dead, to appear on the bill with you. Who do you choose?
I would choose Deer Tick. I would choose Neil Young, Linda Perhacs, Kurt Vile, and Steve Nicks.

What song do you all perform together as the final jam?
I don't know. Maybe we could all play "Rockin' In The Free World." That sounds kind of epic.

More Vanessa Carlton: Official | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

Neal X: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-05-11T10:35:00.001-04:00

Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist Neal X has a new band, The Montecristos, his successful attempt at bringing "some life and excitement and adventure back into my life and the lives of the people I know and love." Neal had just gotten off the road with Marc Almond and was nice enough to talk with us about Born To Rock 'n' Roll, the new band, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and more!

How are you doing today?
Really great, thank you. It's Election Day here. My kids got a day off school because their school is a polling booth. So I've taken my daughter and three of her ten-year-old friends out to the movies and we went to see the new Avengers movie, which is plotless but it's kind of fun. It's really dumb, but it's fun.

You just got off the road with Marc Almond. How did that go?
I've been working with Marc over twenty years now, touring with him, and this was the best and most fun tour and I think we did really good business. It was strange. These days, I don't know what it's like in the States, but in the UK people buy tickets at the last minute. I guess they wait and see if something else may be on or we're of a generation where people don't like to commit to things too far ahead because the audience is aging with us. All the shows were really full, better than expected business. Everyone made money. Promoter was very happy. Band was happy. Audience was unbelievably happy. It's good all around.

Let's talk about The Montecristos. What brought you all together?
I had a real need for it. I've kind of been sitting on the idea for ages. I really wanted to do a rock 'n' roll band and be in a rock 'n' roll band. I felt a bit like time might be out. I'm the last of a dying breed almost. My contemporaries have either lost it, lost the spark, dying, or stopped trying to shock or be inventive or do anything new. And I figured it's about time. The next generation hasn't got anything coming. There's no great rock 'n' roll bands. The Stones are still out there, okay. There don't seem to be any great young ones coming through. There's no New York Dolls. There's no Iggy. There's no Sigue Sigue Sputnik even. There's no Clash. There's no Pistols.

Were you friends with the members of the band or did you find them?
I found them. It was more like I had a dream and I found people to fit that dream. I met Gemma, the trumpeter, playing with a guy called Roy Wood. I don't know if you're aware of him in the States. He was in a band called The Move in the '60s. He then had a band called Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne. He left to form a band called Wizzard. If he was American, he'd be celebrated like Phil Spector. He's a really inventive English guy, but he talks a bit funny and looks a bit weird so he's kind of ridiculed a bit here. But he's really great and I found Gemma, the trumpeter, playing with him. She had it all from the back of the hall. She had the charisma. She played great. And I thought, "Yeah, yeah, if I get this together, I'm going to be calling her." So I tracked her down. It's kind of easy these days with the Internet.

Sophie, the sax player, came with her. They were a ready-made unit. Emma, the bass player—I really wanted to work with girls. Women rule my world. I'm married, I don't know if you are. Look at the happy marriages, women make all the big decisions. I love and respect women. I wanted a girl bass player, didn't want a thuggy dumb guy. I wanted someone with charisma who could really play and I found Emma after much research on the Internet on a video on YouTube which has got 200,000 views or something now, doing a slap bass solo. And she's only twenty minutes up the road. The dummer, Hugh, he's actually a doctor of Latin percussion. He's a phenomenal percussionist, plays piano brilliantly, really superb multi-instrumentalist. Marc Almond found him actually. Antony, Antony and the Johnsons, ran a Meltdown festival in England at the Royal Festival Hall. Marc found Hugh and said, "I found a percussionist," which alarmed us because normally it's not his thing, but Hugh was just phenomenal.

What can people expect from your debut album, Born To Rock 'n' Roll?
Hopefully, it's just a slice of energy and it's a statement of intent of where we aim to go. It isn't a be-all end-all of it. I referenced a couple tracks from the past. We do a Gene Vincent song. We do a song by the Young Rascals, which was a big hit in the States but unknown in Britain. One of my friends, an American mum from my kid's school, her mum's uncle wrote "Good Lovin'." I recorded a version of that with Stiv Bators for Stiv's album in 1990 and unfortunately he died during the recording. He got hit by a car in Paris and died. I just felt it was time to show the world what we were trying to do with that. I just wanted to bring some life and excitement and adventure back into my life and the lives of the people I know and love that love the same sort of music.

During the recent run with Marc Almond, what were the fans' reactions to the new songs?
We cherry-picked just a few shows that we played the opening, basically the shows where we had a day off afterwards. Marc's shows are long and fully energetic, it's full-on hour and forty-five minutes. I've got to pace myself. But we got a really, really favorable reaction. In fact, I was just talking to a friend today who saw it and she said, "It was amazing that they responded the same way as they did to Marc's songs." People really seemed to love it. Dancing, super enthusiastic and attentive. Sometimes being the opening act, people are there to chat and order drinks, but I felt we really got a lot of attention.

What led you to update a few Sigue Sigue Sputnik classics for the new album?
I felt we were much maligned by the media in the UK, I don't know whether it was the same in the States. When we first came out, we were treated as a breath of fresh air and the saviors of rock 'n' roll. It very quickly turned. The press turned on us and just seemed kind of trite and comedic. And I thought, although maybe we weren't really as good as we thought we were, we sure weren't as bad as the media made us out to be. I wanted to reclaim some of those songs and reimagine them for the 21st century and show they were really great songs and we did have something.

You guys were unlike anything that came before you. You had such had a unique style and sound, how did you go about creating that?
I felt the big thing was to go back to basics. In starting anything, I think it's really good to understand the history of where you're coming from. With Sputnik, it was very much a conscious decision not to be influenced by what was going on around us by our contemporaries. Everyone was sort of eating off the same table there. So we went right back to the '50s, the roots of the '50s and rock 'n' roll, and studied the purity of that. We imagined, "What would it be like if Elvis from the future crash landed on the planet and found this world of super high-tech equipment, but only had a stack of Roots Of The Cramps or Elvis records or Eddie Cochran records? Would it sound like Soft Cell or The Thompson Twins or Depeche Mode or whatever or would it sound much more rock 'n' roll-y?" That was the vision, to make it absolutely kind of contrived to be that very, very simple rock 'n' roll. That's why we had the fifth generation of rock 'n' roll concerts. The '50s and Elvis was the first generation, Beatles second generation, Velvet Underground third generation, punk rock fourth generation, and we were the fifth generation.

I feel like you guys, like you alluded to earlier, you never got a fair shake. You were known for the commercials or the hair and people weren't paying enough attention to the music.
It depends on how you're perceived. I can't tell how we're perceived. I think musically, we did have great strong points. It is difficult listening to some of those early records now, I have to admit. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to rework them. I do feel the songs are strong enough that David Bowie covered "Love Missile F1-11." I didn't feel that was a footnote in history when Bowie covered us. I felt that was a warm glow of a kindred spirit that really "got" us. I met David's original drummer from the Spiders Of Mars last week on tour. Woody Woodmansey, he came backstage. From his reaction, he wasn't thinking, "Oh, that's just some stupid hair band back in the day." He was very gracious and very kind. I feel maybe it's a media attention thing that people have short attention spans. I feel that we did have a bit more going on than we were given credit for.

You're in charge of a music festival and you can get any five acts, dead or alive, to appear on the bill with you. Who do you choose?
It's got to be Elvis. T. Rex because I never saw them. The Velvet Underground. David Bowie definitely. And Suicide, who I'm going to see in a month-and-a-half's time in London. They're playing the Barbican in London and it's so great that they're back out there and still playing. I'm so thrilled for them. The last time I saw them was possibly 1987 at CBGB. I was one of seven in the audience. Now it's a sell-out show in front of a thousand people or something in London. How great is that?

Hopefully the same will happen for you with The Montecristos.
You know, it feels good. It really does feel like there's something going on. There's a buzz and everyone's positive about it and you gotta have that feeling that everything you touch just works for you. I really feel that at the moment. Sometimes you grab out for it, reach out for it, and it's just a little bit out of reach. Now it seems fate's dealing us a lucky hand.

More Montecristos: Official | Facebook | Twitter

Ted Allen: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-04-24T16:21:00.000-04:00

On April 30th, you have the chance to make a huge difference with your mouth. Dining Out For Life, a yearly fundraiser benefiting people with HIV and AIDS, will once again receive proceeds from restaurants in sixty US cities. Earlier this month, we spoke with Dining Out For Life spokesman Ted Allen about the event, what drew him to it and keeps him there, Chopped, fast food, and lots more!

Tell us about Dining Out For Life.
Dining Out For Life is a unique fundraiser, or at least it was. I think other people have borrowed the model. Dining Out For Life across the country in sixty different cities, 3,000+ restaurants, raises in a single day four million bucks, perhaps a little north of that, to fight HIV and AIDS right in your own community. All of the money raised in each city stays in that city, helping your neighbors, helping people with HIV and AIDS, helping prevent other people from being infected. I like to think of it as a simple thing with very little overhead. I also like it because it's good for the area restaurants who seem to always be the first place we turn when we're trying to raise money for a good cause. Chefs and restauranteurs are wonderful people, I love being around them, I work with them all the time. Generosity and community involvement is in their DNA, it's just part of what chefs and restauranteurs do. I just think it's a win for everybody.

You've been involved with Dining Out For Life for seven years now. What first attracted you to the event and keeps you coming back?
Its simplicity, the fact that it's so effective. I always say the real heroes in this fight and in similar fights are the volunteers and the activists and the researchers and the people who devote their whole careers to fighting this plague. Not everybody can do that. Other people have chosen to become Marines and police offers and school teachers and postal carriers. But everybody needs to eat and as long as you can afford to go to a restaurant, this is a way for you to participate in a really meaningful fundraiser without having to devote your entire life to it. The numbers speak for themselves. If you can raise more than four million dollars in a single day in a simple way like this, why wouldn't you?

Let's talk about your Food Network shows. Which is your favorite to do?
I'm thrilled to be able to do any of them. You know Chopped is clearly the mothership for me. We do somewhere around fifty episodes a year. We just finished, I want to say, Episode 325. It's great. That's a lot. Even though we've been doing it for years, it just doesn't get boring. It's different every time. Different people, different ingredients, different approaches. The food's not always great, but when it is, it's just such an achievement for these chefs. It's hard. Chopped is really hard.

I also really love All-Star Academy, the newer show that we're doing. I watched it last night, the episode from this past Sunday with Robert Irvine. So much talent, so much expertise from our mentors and the home cooks did a great job. I meet a lot of people who feel like they have a Food Network show in them. They're not all correct, of course. I think that's one of the things about the network that's just so appealing to so many people. It is a very fun place to work.

Which is the most stressful show to do?
Most of the time, shooting Chopped is not stressful for me at all. But the times when it does get stressful--for example, we just finished another teen tournament, a five-part tournament with teenagers ranging from fourteen to eighteen. Teenagers are not as coordinated as trained, professional chefs. Many of them are quite small, especially the fourteen year olds. It's hard for them to handle knives. It makes me nervous about people cutting themselves. That's stressful.

We've been doing a lot of themed episodes the last couple years because viewers really love them and we bring in people from the military, the people who serve lunch to your children at school, firefighters. Those can require more work for me because I have to memorize a lot more and explain to the audience what we're doing. But the real stress and the real stars of these shows every time are the competitors. They're the ones who are under stress. My stress is really minuscule by comparison.

What would viewers be surprised to learn about Chopped?
A lot of people are surprised to learn that we can only shoot one episode a day. It's a twelve-hour day to make one episode, longer really for some people. The winner and second-place person, they're still sitting there in the chair being interviewed I go home. I think people would be surprised at how complicated it is to do a cooking show. We have three rounds in every episode of Chopped. The kitchen has to be cleaned after every one, cleaned and completely reset. That alone takes time. I think people would be surprised at how hard it really is. I think we all sit there and yell at the television when we watch a show like Chopped or All-Star Academy or when we watch a basketball game with Duke. It's one thing to sit there and say, "Why would you cook the egg that way? That's obviously wrong." It's quite another thing to have to do it yourself and most of our competitors say that. "I knew this was hard. I didn't know how hard." It's really hard.

Your Best. Ever. barbecue episode... how come you didn't step foot in any North Carolina restaurants?
Well, I have to say first of all, I don't pick the restaurants that go into Best. Ever. and I also have to say that I've been cooking Elizabeth Karmel's North Carolina Pulled Pork recipe for at least ten years and I love it and that's the kind of barbecue I eat more often than any other kind. So hats off to North Carolina! I'm just the host of that show. I just come in and throw to the segments in different states. Those choices are made either by producers or the individuals themselves. Here's the thing: I got in trouble recently for criticizing a particular fast food hamburger that I won't name now. I realized when people were complaining that we all have our regional preferences and our particular favorites of everything. I came up with what I feel is the perfect response to that, "The great thing about America is that we all get to pick our own favorite hamburger." Our own favorite barbecue. So no insult intended, certainly.

Are there any plans for a restaurant?
Absolutely not! No way. No! The restaurant business is extraordinarily difficult. We often ask chefs, "Why did you become a chef?" One chef had a really good answer which was, "It's the only thing that I know how to do." I love to cook, I do it all the time. But I'm not a trained chef and I've never worked the line in a serious restaurant. I would just as soon enjoy cooking as a pleasure as opposed to banging it out every night. You just have to be like eighteen hours a day. It's difficult. It's difficult to make money. If you make a 10% profit margin, you're hitting it out of the park. I would rather create something like a book or a TV show and get paid to do that and then it's finished. It's out there. You can copy it. You can rerun it. When you're selling pizza, you're only as good as your last pizza. I have nothing but respect for people who can do it. It's a tough business.

We've got a few questions from our readers. I don't even know if you can answer the first one based on what you said earlier, but do you ever do fast food?
Sure. I mean, I don't like American fast food very much when you talk about the chains. It's just not very good food. It's not. It's frozen, ground up, corporate, the cheapest possible product that's designed to make lots of money for big corporations. That doesn't mean that I'm a food snob at all. I love hamburgers. Love 'em. I make them all the time. I love a great french fry. I have a local restaurant in my neighborhood, a few blocks away, that makes a gorgeous hamburger. They buy really high-quality meat. They grind it themselves so it's got a beautiful texture. They season it with salt. They put it on a good bun. They serve it with good condiments. I love that! I only eat fast food when I have no other choice. The bad thing is there are still a lot of places in the United States where that's the only choice. On the highway, in most airports. And a lot of people eat fast food because it's been made so cheap that it's all they can afford. That's something I'd love to see change.

What's your go-to comfort food?
I have lots of them. I love to make pulled pork. And when I make it, I do it over charcoal, slow and low for as many hours as possible. Six, eight. Go-to comfort food? I love all of it! I love meat loaf. I didn't used to, but I have a really great recipe for it now. Pizza, fried chicken, mashed potatoes. I like green beans the way my grandma cooked them, with a ham hock and a piece of onion until they're really soft and pale. It's not the way that fancy chefs cook them.

Do you think you could do as good of a job as some of the competitors with those wacky Chopped baskets?
I don't think I can do a better job than many of them, I'll tell you that. I'm not a professional chef. One of the skills you need as a pro is speed. Ironically, I'm a very slow cook. I tend to have music playing. I tend to have a glass of wine in my hand. I'm cooking for fun. I've had parties where I've had professionals like Marc Murphy and Amanda Freitag push me out of my own kitchen because I was frustrating them so much with my lackadaisical approach. When you go to Marc Murphy's house, which I often do, and he's cooking dinner, he only has one speed which is Fast. It's just the way he operates. He gets everything prepped, he goes out and throws the baseball with his son, he comes back, he bangs out dinner for twenty-five people without even thinking about it and it's delicious. That comes from a lot of practice. People ask all the time when am I going to compete on Chopped. My answer is generally, "How's never? Is never good for you?"

Final question: where's the best cupcake you've ever had?
You know what? I don't really care very much about cupcakes. I can tell you one really good one. The creator of Chopped, her partner, I don't think she owns it anymore, she started a cupcake business in New York City called Butter Lane. I loved her cupcakes because they're normal sized. They're the size we make at home, not the crazy giant ones. They're made with organic ingredients and French buttercream and they're really, really delicious and real. Everything in them is honest and real. But I'm not a big sweets person. Honestly, I'd rather eat cheese.

The Damnwells' Alex Dezen: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-04-21T18:06:00.000-04:00

Last week, The Damnwells released The Damnwells, their kickass fifth album and first featuring the band's original lineup since 2006. Back in February, we had a chance to speak with singer Alex Dezen about the new album, reality television, the record industry, and more.

Your upcoming album is your first featuring the band's original lineup since 2006. What made you all decide to get back together and record an album now?
We had been talking about it for a while and I think that it was always just a matter of time before we got back into the studio again. Timing was also really important. Steve had two kids, Ted just had his first child, Dave had just moved into a new house upstate with his wife. So we were just waiting for the right time. The Damnwells have historically waited a long time between records sadly. It had been a couple years since we made a record so it just seemed like now or never.

Was the recording of the album awkward in any way since it had been so long?
No, not at all. It was like a homecoming. We all got to hang out again. I think when you've been in the business for a number of years you either start to really truly hate each other or really become like a brotherhood. We were always very much like brothers. It felt right. It felt really nice to be hanging out with them again and running over the same jokes again and reviving some old pictures to embarrass each other.

What's your favorite track off The Damnwells?
I try not to listen to it too much because I know I'm going to have to be listening to it forever. But in the process of making it, I think "Wreck You" was such a fun song to record because it was the first time that Dave and I really got to do the Angus and Malcolm rhythm guitar part together which we hadn't done in years. That was really fun to do. I love things that are minimal like that where you just don't need much, just a couple chords and a simple beat. That's one song I love to play for people. Their reaction's usually like, "Whoa. This is different."

The unhappy kid on the album's cover, is he any relation to any of you?
He's a very good friend of mine's son. We couldn't subject our own children to something so horrible.

Let's talk about "Kill Me." I assume you're not a fan of reality TV?
It's not that I'm a fan or not a fan, it's just that--sure, if I'm sitting in a hotel room and The Housewives Of Orange County Atlanta came on and there was going to be a fistfight on television, I would definitely watch it. It's like culturally rubbernecking. You can't look away it's so completely ridiculous. I'm not a fan of bullshit. Mostly I just think, as the song reflects, it's like, "Really? Just kill me. What is this this? Why are you concerned about Kim Kardashian's outfit?"

So there wasn't a particular show or event that prompted you to write that?
No. I remember being in a hotel room, being really hungover, and being by myself. I think we had just played a show somewhere. Just flipping around in bed, in a comatose hungover state, and I just had this melody. "Kill me. Kill me now." Originally, I thought it might be cool to make it a ballad but when we went into the studio, our producer was like, "Nah. We have to turn this around." I think I probably came across some show or something but I can't really remember if it was a particular incident. But I do remember being in that hotel, being hungover, and seeing some reality show for a second and contemplated either jumping out the window or writing a song about it.

You've had a record deal, given an album away for free, and done PledgeMusic several times. Does it sometimes feel like it's difficult getting your music to your fans?
It used to feel like it was difficult getting my music to fans, but now it's the opposite because of Pledge and things like that. When The Damnwells were on Epic, just trying to get the record out, it was like, "OK. Let's put it out this date. No, not this date. Let's put it out this date. Okay, that date but let's put it out through this other label. Let's rerecord this song. Let's not put it out yet." Mostly it's a nightmare because record labels, for the most part, have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of what to do with a band. They know what to do with a sixteen-year-old kid. They know how to make a pop star but they don't know what to do with a bunch of independently minded somewhat cognizant adults who play their own instruments. So now that we deliver our music through Pledge or give it away for free, there's no middle man. It's super easy. We've worked with several indie labels and the way it works for us is we make the record, we go knock on a few doors, and we're like, "Here's the record. Does anyone want to put it out?" So far we've been really lucky that a couple of these really cool indie labels that put the blinders on and say, "Ok. Ok. Go for it. We'll put it out."

You've written songs for lots of other artists. Has there ever been one that you wish you would've kept for yourself?
I think if there ever was, I just did. "Lost," the first single, we were writing it as an exercise. Steve said we could pitch it to someone. Maybe there was a country artist that could take it and make it more country. But t was never the intention that that song would be for me. As soon as I played it for my manager, he was like, "This is amazing. This has to be on The Damnwells' record."

Final question: You're in charge of a music festival. You can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Which five do you choose and what song do you all perform as the final jam?
Definitely Van Halen. Not Van Hagar, gotta be the original four. And I want it to be in 1984, right around the Diver Down era just because it would be so amazing to see. My mother got to see Janis Joplin when she was in her prime and said it was a life-changing experience, so definitely her. Another concert my mother was at was the Simon & Garfunkel Central Park concert in like '84. I would love that version to come play the festival. We've toured a bunch with Cheap Trick over the past ten years and they're just so good so I would love to have them play. They're like the quintessential American rock 'n' roll band. And then probably... I'd have to put Tom Petty on the bill.

What song do you all perform as the final jam?
We'd have to do something like "All Things Must Pass" by George Harrison. It would be amazing to see Alex Van Halen playing drums on that song.

More Damnwells: Official | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

The Darkness's Dan Hawkins: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-03-18T11:30:00.000-04:00

On June 1st, 2015, The Darkness will release their fourth studio album, Last Of Our Kind. Last month, they released the album's killer first single, "Barbarian." We had a chance to talk with guitarist Dan Hawkins about the single, album, his new guitar pedal, new drummer, and more.

Let's talk "Barbarian." It's an awesome track, an awesome video. But what made you write about the Viking invasion of East Anglia?
Yeah, that's a good question. Well, it's my brother really. On this album, the riffs came first and then we turned the riffs into songs. It was clearly reminding him of a battle of some sort. We got onto a discussion about Vikings and their appearance in East Anglia back in the day and I think he did a bit more research into it, found the story and was inspired by it and picked it up from there. We got as far lyrically as the bridge before the chorus and we ran out of words so we just put a big scream. Hey, presto! There you go.

It's the first track off of Last Of Our Kind. What can you tell us about the new album?
I'd say it's our heaviest album to date, probably most riff-based album. We have a new drummer who's kind of changed the sound slightly. We took a year out to write this album. We didn't do any gigs and just concentrated on doing something that was an album we were really proud of rather than one that was just made in a certain amount of time and a fit schedule. We went to a remote island off the coast of Ireland and didn't come out until we had an album that was something we were proud of.

You worked as a producer on Hot Cakes, but you are the sole producer on the new album. Was there any added pressure with that title?
Yeah, I guess so. I solely engineered it and produced it and mixed it which is the big thing for me this time. I was so sick of producing the band or other bands and handing it over to someone to do the mix. I read somewhere that Steve Albini said, "You can't call yourself a producer if you have to hand it over to someone to make it sound good in the end." I thought, "Yeah, that's a fucking good point." So I wanted to mix it and be proud of the mixes and I knew it would help my production, which it really has.

It's challenging. It's challenging because you kind of have to not be in the band right up to the point to where you're playing on it and then you have to switch to being in the band. That's the difficult bit, actually playing on it when you're producing it because sometimes your quality control goes out the window.

You mentioned this earlier, but Last Of Our Kind is the first album you recorded with new drummer Emily Dolan Davies. How did you find her and what does she bring to the band?
For whatever reason, we had various problems with our previous drummer. I've had Emily Dolan Davies on the radar for a couple of years, actually. We were thinking about when we move on, if we got another well-known male drummer to replace the last one, swap one middle-aged man out for another, that's not very exciting and that chips away at The Darkness. If we got a young male drummer, it's like we're trying to reduce our age and whatnot. We just someone different and exciting, someone who excited us. Why don't we just have a look and see if there's any female drummers out there? To my knowledge, I couldn't name a female drummer in a male hard rock band. I did have a look on the internet, did a bit of scouring about and there she was. I thought it was a perfect match straightaway. She's done a few bits and bobs, sessiony bits and bobs, but nothing that she would be known for and I just felt that she was at exactly the right moment to join a big rock band. We hit it off straightaway and she's just totally awesome. Our shows over the last week with her have been going really well and people are just blown away by her. Happy days.

You guys did a PledgeMusic campaign for the album and one of the perks was a guitar pedal created by you. What was that like?
Awesome. It's been my dream since a really young age. Any guitarist will tell you they become like Star Wars figures to some people. You rely on them and you end up collecting them and to actually have your own one is just awesome. I'm working with these guys who are hand building these things. I'm tweaking, changing the levels each night, different modes as we go along this tour to try and get it perfect. I'll send it back to them with my options and then start producing them. I just thought it'd be a really cool thing to do.

"Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)" is one of my favorite contemporary Christmas songs. What made you guys write a Christmas song?
I think I woke up one day and realized, "Fuck, I haven't got a pension. Better write a Christmas song." It had been a particularly hard touring year and my liver was about to burst so I thought, "Fuck it, I'm not going to being around forever. Best to write a Christmas song."

Fair enough.
The truth of the matter is I was in a bar having played on a big TV show in the UK. Things were going really well. We'd had a hit with "I Believe." I was just chatting to the head of the level and he was asking me, "What do you want to do next? I suppose, coming into Christmas, we'll release "Love Is Only A Feeling" as a ballad for Christmas." I said, "It's a shame to release a ballad just before Christmas without it being an actual Christmas song. That was the last year before the stupid X Factor fucking came and ruined that for the UK. The race for Number 1 was a brilliant thing that just captured the nation's imagination every single year. Unfortunately, that went out the window when The X Factor started releasing their winner's single before Christmas because it was guaranteed Number 1 and so people stopped making Christmas songs basically. When we released ours, it wasn't like that. It was still a big race to Number 1 and I just thought, "Well, fuck it. Let's just do it for laughs." We had half a Christmas song that we pissed around with for God knows why a few years before. I kind of lied and told the head of the label, "We've got a Christmas song and it could be a Number 1." He's like, "Great, let's do that then." So we had to scramble it together, try and finish writing it which we finished in the back of the tour bus supporting Metallica in Dublin. The rest is history.

Cool. I've got one final question for you. You're in charge of a music festival and you can pick any five artists, dead or alive, to perform on the bill with you. Who do you choose?
We're playing as well, are we?

Yes.
Well, we're on first so we can actually watch the other bands and get drunk and not have to worry about playing. We'll be on first. I'd have Led Zeppelin on early. They'd be on next, the mid-afternoon slot. Not because I don't think they're worthy of headlining but just because I want to take in everything that Jimmy Page is doing. I'd have them and then AC/DC to get things back on track, drinking-wise. I'd have Neil Young on. He'd go on after AC/DC to clear the air. We'll bring The Beatles on for a bit of a singsong and then we'll finish with Queen.

What song do you all perform together for the final jam?
Have you ever seen the footage from the Moscow Peace Festival? It's a total disgrace. All the metal bands of the day, just completely off their heads, doing a big jam at the end. I think it was "Rock And Roll" by Led Zeppelin. It's utterly atrocious. So what would we do? Blimey. It would be quite funny to count everyone in and everyone plays whatever song they want and the result is a horrifying noise. We've done that before. It used to be our sound check thing. I would count everyone in, "1! 2! 3! 4!" And then each individual member of the band would play a different song from the set, but no one plays the same one and no one knows what the other one's going to do. It's a soundman's worst nightmare.

More Darkness: Official | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Katrina Leskanich: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-03-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

Katrina Leskanich, former lead singer of Katrina & The Waves, is getting ready to start a solo US tour (dates below). First, she spoke with us about "Walking On Sunshine," the tour, her photography book, Hanoi Rocks, and more.

Let's talk about "Walking On Sunshine." It's thirty years old and you still hear it on the radio today. Did you think it would have such staying power?
No, we didn't. When we were first running the song in the early '80s, Kimberley Rew, our guitar player who wrote it, presented it to the group and we though it was pretty lightweight. It wasn't really where we were at, at the time. So it was really curious that he came up with it except I know that he really liked The Supremes and he liked that beat, that "You Can't Hurry Love" beat. It was in the dead of winter, early '80s, February and he rode his bike twenty-seven miles to get to our little homemade studio. Vince the bass player's first thought about it was it was a little irritating. All I could say about it was having lived with it a couple of days, it just kept going through my head, so we thought that was quite hopeful. At the time we were doing a lot of shows on military bases, US Air Force bases and Royal Air Force bases around the UK. We would play the song and we eventually took it out of our set because it was just a dance floor emptier. People didn't really know how to dance to it. We took it out of the set, but we did have a couple of attempts at recording it. When we finally got signed with Capitol Records, they signed up a hotshot new-kid-on-the-block producer named Scott Litt. Scott was kind of a cool guy. He hadn't done a whole lot up to that point. "Walking On Sunshine" was his first hit. After that, he went on to work with R.E.M., Nirvana, Indigo Girls, and a few other very uber-cool bands. Scott had the idea to start the song with the drum introduction, which was really inspired. We went to The Power Station in New York City, which was a studio that was known for a fantastic drum sound. That's where and when we got the track. That was in '84. We had just been signed by Capitol and by '85 we released it and the rest is history.

It's such an iconic song and it's been featured in plenty of television shows and movies like High Fidelity and American Psycho. What's your favorite place where it's popped up?
American Psycho. That's pretty cool where Christian Bale is post-murder and he's walking down the corridor and he's got the old headphones on and he's listening to "Walking On Sunshine." When I first saw that movie, I didn't really get it. As I got older and wiser and figured it out, I saw how ironic the moment was. I didn't really get it before.

I suppose it was quite cool, if not a little bit cheesy, when John Travolta is the babysitter and he's dancing with the babies to "Walking On Sunshine." That was nice. Dolly Parton covered the song. She did a very interesting version and changed some of the lyrics. Instead of "don't it feel good," she sang, "and it's time to feel good." I don't know where she looked up her lyrics, but they're not quite right. But she's Dolly Parton and obviously we all love her and she can whatever the hell she pleases.

Tell us about your latest album, Blisland.
Blissland is the first album I've recorded in ten years. Last year, I was invited onto a tour called Retro Futura with The Thompson Twins, Howard Jones, Midge Ure, and they all had new material. I thought, "I don't want to join this tour--and it will be the first time I've toured America in twenty years--without some new material." So I didn't know if I would be able to do it, where it would come from, what it would be about, blah blah blah. Picked up the guitar and pretty much had a go and bashed it out. I didn't have a long time to work on it, which is probably a good thing.

The name Blisland is the name of a village in Cornwall, which is in the southwest of England. It's a place I like to go because it's very beautiful, a very spiritual place. Blisland, the little village, is one of the first that you get to when you're entering Cornwall. The little village probably has around 127 people in it, but they also have a lovely little pub with some fabulous ales. It was all just a very good feelgood experience so I thought, "If I ever record another album, I'm gonna call it Blisland."

You're getting ready for a solo US tour. What can fans expect from the shows?
I'm using three badass New Yorkers who have worked with Blondie, Joan Jett And The Blackhearts, John Cale, list goes on. These guys are cool. They've been around awhile. I played with them on Retro Futura and we just clicked. I'm paring it down to just four pieces: drum, bass, guitar, and I'll handle the rhythm guitar. I'm doing a lot of Katrina And The Waves material, some material from Blisland, and I'm doing a few cool covers, stuff that I like. Sometimes it feels like we're living in an ugly world, but it's only because we're constantly bombarded with bad news. News is everywhere. We can be attacked by news and it's all bad. I just think it'd be nice to try and turn it around and look for some joy. So I thought it's a good time to wish "Walking On Sunshine" a happy birthday and remember what it's like to just go out and have some fun.

What inspired you to create Peggy Lee Loves London?
Peggy Lee Loves London is a photographic book of all my favorite places in London. I've lived here since 1976 and the tour books don't know about places that someone who's lived here awhile knows about. I'm talking about pubs, clubs, bars, coffee shops, bakeries, parks, all the places I love to go. Peggy Lee is my little toy poodle and she gets in every shot. So if I take a picture in one of my favorite pubs, she's in there. Wrote a little bit about it, little captions, done. Little book. Joyful. Joyful and informative.

One thing I just discovered today was that Hanoi Rocks' "Don't Follow Me." How did that come about and what was it like?
In the early '80s, we were doing the rounds and we played in a club called The Moonlight. One of the guys from the music business we were working with was looking after them. He said, "Come on, you've got to meet these guys." They were so sweet. They were lovely and they said, "Can you come in and sing backup on our record tomorrow?" We'd had this huge night out and we'd all stumbled into the studio the next day. I think I sang on two tracks. We just did it in one take and it was just a really nice experience because they were really sweet. It just happened like that and probably happened as the result of quite a few pints of beer.

Final question: you're in charge of a music festival and you can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Who do you choose?
I would choose Mama Cass Elliot. I would choose Karen Carpenter. I would choose Nina Simone. I'm choosing all women, aren't I? Deborah Harry's always invited. I'd probably have The Shangri-Las.

What song do you all perform together for the final jam?
That would be "Top Of The World" by The Carpenters.

North American Tour Dates
March 17 Glen Cove, NY - Page One
March 18 Somerville, MA - Johnny D's
March 19 New York, NY - Iridium
March 20 New York, NY - Iridium
March 21 Londonderry, NH - Tupelo Music Hall
March 22 Hamden, CT - Outer Space Ballroom
March 23 Lancaster, PA - Tellus 360
March 25 Stanhope, NJ - Salt Gastro Pub
March 26 Rochester, NY - The Lovin' Cup
March 27 Buffalo, NY - The Forum
March 28 Hamilton, ON - This Ain't Hollywood
March 29 Toronto, ON - Hugh's Room
April 1 Dayton, OH - Canal Public House
April 2 Chicago, IL - Reggie's Rock Club
April 3 Milwaukee, WI - Shank Hall
April 4 St. Paul, MN - Amsterdam Bar + Hall

More Katrina Leskanich: Official | Facebook | Twitter

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-02-23T18:25:00.001-05:00

Guitar god Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal is releasing his tenth solo album, Little Brother Is Watching, on February 24th. Last week, we had a chance to speak with him about the new album, collaborating with Scott Weiland and Run-D.M.C.'s Darryl McDaniels, Guns N' Roses, and his dream music festival. Here is an edited version of our conversion (I had to cut out all the fanboy stuff where I talked about seeing him play live):

I saw on Facebook where you were giving your new CD your first listen a few hours ago. How did it sound?
It sounds just like it's supposed to (laughs). Which is funny, because I remember years ago I did one CD and they actually put the wrong music on the CD. They put one of my other albums on it. I started sending these out and people started writing saying, "Um, dude. Something isn't right." And then I had a friend that I produced his CD and it went to the manufacturer. Halfway through the CD, it switched to this other band's stuff, all this Latin music. I think it's gotten better in the digital age, but human error, things happen, so it's always good to check. I had an hour ride home so it was perfect. I pretty much finished listening to the whole CD as I pulled up to my door.

I've been listening to it today too and I've got to tell you it sounds really awesome.
Oh great. Thank you.

You stated that Little Brother Is Watching is about life in the digital age. What led you to tackle that topic?
Just looking out the window and turning on the computer. This is our life that we live in, you know? It's the next phase. The government would watch the powers that be, whoever it was—and I'm not this big government conspiracy dude or anything like that, but it's a reality that they have the eyes and the ears—but the thing that was not anticipated years ago when people were predicting the future was that we would have the technology as well where we can watch each other and watch those who are policing us. It's pretty interesting living in a time where everything you do can and will be posted on YouTube for the world to see and judge and enjoy. This is how we live now, part of normal life.

This is your tenth solo album. How do you feel it stacks up to the rest?
I like it! I feel like this one is a lot more melodic. I guess it's a little more grown up in the sense that it's not trying to be anything, not trying to prove anything. I wrote the best songs I could write and tried to perform them the best that I could and really cared a lot more about the space and dynamic moments within the songs and multiple melodies working with each other between guitar lines and vocal lines. I just tried to make it a lot more musical and I think it's less about the angst and the energy and it's more about melody and emotion.

You recently collaborated with Darryl McDaniels of Run-D.M.C. How did that come about?
Yeah! That dude is great! It goes back to the band Generation Kill. They've been working with Darryl. The singer of Generation Kill, Rob Dukes, is an old friend of mine and he told me about it and said they were looking for someone to take care of production and mixing and we started working together. We got one song done called "Lot Lizard," a real nasty song that sounds great. I threw in some fretless guitar solos and stuff in there as well. It's a nice collaboration. It's some really cool dirty rap metal. It's dark. The stuff is definitely dark as far as subject matter and how it makes you feel. It's got some creepy stuff going on. You just got to hear it.

When can we hear it?
Now that is a good question. I know they're in the studio working on some more tracks and some writing and getting some other stuff done. They're going to be getting me some more music to play around with then hopefully they'll start sharing the stuff and giving people some sounds very soon.

You also collaborated with Scott Weiland, Disturbed's John Moyer, and Jon and Vince Votta as Art Of Anarchy. What brought that group together?
That started off with Jon and Vince. They're brothers, one plays guitar and the other plays drums. I've known them for about eighteen years and I've been producing all their bands that they've had. They wanted to start their own music company and the first thing they wanted to put out was a supergroup-type album. They wrote the songs, I brought them into my studio and we tracked all their parts and then I laid all my parts. John Moyer came in and laid the bass stuff. Scott did one song and then he decided to do the whole album. It's all about the music. It's really... it's an album. It's some really interesting stuff. A good solid rock album and that should be out hopefully by May or June. It's something that's been in the works since 2011. It's been a long time of just taking our time with it and trying to get everything right.

Let's talk Guns. Appetite was such a pivotal album and I'd just like to know what it was like joining them.
It seemed very normal. I always had my own band and was doing everything a band does: touring, putting out music, and everything. Every once in awhile, I would play with other people. Interesting people. I played with Nancy Sinatra. Lita Ford. I never joined another band, though. We just had a run or a show or I would even just pop up as a guest for one song. This was the first time I was going to be joining another band. Originally, I turned it down when we were talking about doing it eleven years ago. In 2006, we started talking again and I was like, "Alright, what the hell." We got together in New York. We jammed together one night on three songs. They were like, "You want to do another three tomorrow night?" "Alright, sure." I pretty much knew all the songs already because who doesn't? We jammed seven times and hit the road. For me, doing that kind of stuff is pretty normal. You get together with people and you make music and the more unexpected the situation is, the more fun it is. And that's what makes being a musician something that never gets old, never gets dull. You can never predict who you might be jamming with at some point and what an interesting moment that can be.

Final question: you're in charge of a music festival and you can get any five artists, dead or alive, to perform on the bill with you. Who do you choose?
Five artists dead or alive? Wow. That's a tough one! Of course, The Beatles gotta be there. Hendrix has to be there. Who else? I would want to see... Man, this is tough! There's so many I want to say. Manowar. I want Manowar on there. That's three. I'm going to say... Yes? Yes with Rick Wakeman and Bill Bruford. That's four. Who else... GG Allin. GG Allin to get naked, cut himself with glass, and piss on people, and then run off the stage and start beating the crap out of random people.

What song do you all perform together as the final jam?
Final jam. One song. This is even tougher now. What would they possibly play together? "Dancing Queen" from ABBA. Just because it's so out of place.

That's just wrong and so messed up. We've got to go with a different song. You bring back people from the dead to do that? No! Something from Steve Wonder maybe? What a tough one. You know what? I'm going to say we'll all do a Manowar song together. What could it be, though? Could it be "Black Wind, Fire, And Steel?" "Valhalla" because the verse keeps changing keys. Hendrix would have a chance to solo over it, Wakeman could do something, perfect. There you go.

More Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal: Official | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley: The Culture Brats Interview

2015-01-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

On January 23rd, Spandau Ballet will embark on their first US tour in thirty years. We were lucky enough to catch up with singer Tony Hadley to discuss the tour, Band Aid 30, and which Guinness World Record he'd love to have his name attached to.

In about ten days, Spandau Ballet will begin its first US tour in 30 years. What did we do to you guys to make you stay away so long?
It's what we did to ourselves. We had a twenty-year fallout which was pretty acrimonious. In our film, Soul Boys Of The Western World, it's all documented there. A pretty painful breakup, really. Sometimes bands keep going because they think they have to. If I'm looking back on it, Through The Barricades should've been our last album, we should've taken five years off from each other, and then probably we would've survived. But unfortunately we pushed it too far and for various reasons, we just weren't enjoying it anymore and so we ended up taking a break from each other for twenty years and ended up in court which was very nasty. It took a lot of soul searching to get ourselves back together again. We got back together in 2009 and 2010 and I said at the time that carrying all that baggage, all that nasty energy, doesn't really do anybody any good. There I was on television saying, "No, we're never getting back together. We don't like each other." It doesn't do you any good. It took a long time, but we finally managed to rekindle our friendship.

I don't know why we didn't tour the States back in 2009 and 2010. I think we made some mistakes with America. I think maybe we were too clever. We certainly spent lots and lots of time in Europe and especially in places like Italy and Spain and Germany. What I think people forget, or what we forgot as a band, is in America there's so many great bands and so many great musicians, you've got to tour. You have to keep going back. You have to prove to people that you can cut your chops as a musician. Once you do that and once you get a following, and Duran was very good at doing that, then you've got your place in America and American pop. We unfortunately for one reason or another didn't do that and we needed to.

After thirty years, [we're] coming over to America with a very short tour. There's already talk about coming back in the summer and doing some festivals and outdoor shows. I toured there as a solo artist several years ago which was great. I toured small clubs, it was great fun. I enjoyed it. Hopefully this is the start of coming back to America on a much more regular basis.

We were in Austin, Texas for the SXSW film festival. We did the premiere of Soul Boys Of The Western World, but we also did a small club gig while we were there and the reaction was fantastic and I think that was what spurred us on to say, "Right. We're definitely going to come back and play some shows in the States."

What will the shows be like?
We've been in rehearsals for over a week. The one thing about the States is it was "True" that was the big hit. That was the thing that broke us in America. Previous to that, I'm sure that some Americans are not even aware that we were a culty band. We were a synth-based band that came out of this massive music and fashion explosion in London called The New Romantics. There were songs that were really kind of synth dance stuff: "To Cut A Long Story Short," "The Freeze," "Reformation," "Mandolin," all these songs before we ever got to "True." We're going to be looking at some of those songs, which are sounding great actually. And obviously "True," "Communication," "Lifeline," "Only When You Leave," and stuff that hopefully the American audiences are going to love and know. We did three new songs for the new album as well and we'll be playing those, too.

Will the songs be true to the originals or will you be doing any new arrangements?
Pretty true to the originals. Obviously you update sounds and things like that, solos might be different, although the "True" solo is written in stone. That never changes. Steve's sax solo, that can never change. You might introduce slightly new elements into the songs, but what I've always found as an artist is if you detract too much from the original, the fans don't like it. I've seen other artists try to be too clever and it just doesn't go down very well with the fans. When we play "True," everyone's going to know instantly that that's "True." We're not going to be too clever.

I've got to tell you I watched your performances on Kimmel and your voice, it still sounds amazing.
Cheers, mate!

Do you have to follow a crazy routine to keep it sounding so great?
I'm sort of lucky that I've always had a strong voice. I took it seriously from an early age. I've always been touring. I've toured with orchestras all over the world. I've sort of been singing all the time and I think the most important thing about any singer... It's when you stop, I think you've got problems or if you don't sing correctly, then obviously you've got problems. Touch wood, I've always been pretty lucky. I think that I'm singing better than ever and musically, I think the band is playing better than ever.

The Jimmy Kimmel show, bit of a weird one really in lot of ways. Spandau Ballet, where have you been for twenty-eight years? Well, we don't really care. So to get a chance to be on the Jimmy Kimmel show, and everyone was so gracious and kind and all the fans were there and they were all crazy. It was like, "Wow. This is good. This is nice." It was a great opportunity for us and hopefully the fans will be equally as kind when we come over to play next week.

You alluded to this earlier, but last you released the greatest-hits package called The Story and it contained three new tracks. Were these tracks from the vaults or were they new songs?
No. We spent so much time and energy on the film that Warners decided they wanted to release a greatest hits. They wanted two new tunes. We had a rehearsal and I went home and sort of wrote "Soul Boy" with a view to the film. If you listen to the lyrics, there's loads of references. "Died in your arms," which is Cutting Crew. There's song references in there as well. I went home and wrote that and Gary must've gone home and wrote "Steal" and "This Is The Love." We had probably half a dozen songs when we were there but we decided on those particular three. We had very little time in which to record and Trevor Horn was available which was fantastic. I was going on holiday. We had one day to do the vocals, one day to do the backing tracks. Went in, did three vocals in an afternoon and popped in the next morning to repair a couple lines and that was it. It was a very quick process, but sometimes that's the best way. We've spent time in the past when we've spent months going over stuff and rewriting. Sometimes, it's good to just fly off and be spontaneous.

Any chance there's a full album in the works?
Yeah, there is. We're doing a few dates in the States and then hopefully coming back in the summer. We've then got the rest of the world to tour. We'll finish round about September. Then I've got a new album I'm releasing, a new solo album. Then I'm going to be touring around the world. So it'll be I reckon in a couple of years. The good thing about Spandau now is we all love working together, but we've all got our own solo projects. So we'll go off and do our own individual things and give everyone a break from Spandau Ballet because they'll probably be sick to death of us by then and then get together and write a whole new album. So the next time we go out on the road, there will be a whole new album. There has to be.

Since you were one of the performers on the original "Do They Know It's Christmas?," I'd love to hear what you thought of the Band Aid 30 version.
The original is the original. You come out with the first Aston Martin car, it's a classic, it's a beauty. It's never ever going to be the same, whatever you produce after that, and that's the same with Band Aid. It was a very interesting decade, the '80s, and Band Aid was almost the birth of modern charity. It was the first time that music could really make a difference. Band Aid 30, I don't have a problem with it. I thought it was a pretty good version but the original is the original. From my own point of view, whatever those artists are doing, they're helping to raise awareness and make money and so I don't have a problem with it. I thought it was great.

You hold the Guinness World Record for "Highest Concert" for performing with Kim Wilde at 43,000 feet. If you could hold any other Guinness World Record, what would it be?
First pop musician in space.

More Spandau Ballet: Official | Facebook | Twitter

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES

01.23.15 San Francisco, CA Warfield Theatre
01.25.15 Los Angeles, CA Wiltern Theatre
01.27.15 Denver, CO Paramount Theatre
01.30.15 Chicago, IL House of Blues
01.31.15 Detroit, MI Masonic Temple Theatre
02.03.15 Toronto, ONT Massey Hall
02.05.15 Boston, MA House of Blues
02.06.15 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
02.07.15 Westbury, NY Theatre at Westbury
02.09.15 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
02.10.15 Red Bank, NJ Count Basie Theatre

Neon Hitch: The Culture Brats Interview

2014-12-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

You probably know her from "Yard Sale." Or "Fuck You Betta." Or possibly from guesting on Gym Class Heroes' "Ass Back Home." Well, Neon Hitch will be releasing her debut album, Eleutheromaniac, soon and you can help by contributing to her Indiegogo project and help her create a fan label. We recently spoke with Neon about the album, the fan label, her Yard Sale Tour, and what she wants for Christmas.

How are you doing today?
Doing wonderful. I'm surprised if you can hear me over the crickets. They're singing very loud right now. Or frogs, whatever they are.

It's taken four years, but your debut album is going to be released soon. Would you like to talk about all the dealings you've had with the music industry over the years that's led you to this place?
All of the details would take too long for this phone call, but I will tell you this: I have learned so much along my journey and I am so much wiser. But I'm also kind of back to where I'd begun belief-wise and I feel good about it. I feel like I've been to college and I now have a degree and I'm ready to go out into the world on my own. So that's why I've teamed up with Indiegogo because the only thing that I really need is the financing because I'm ready to do this, just me and my fans.

You're funding the album, like you said, through Indiegogo and you're also starting a fan label. What exactly is a fan label?
A fan label is something I'm doing right now. In Puerto Rico, I'm working with a fan and she's actually on The Voice in Puerto Rico. I decided to do a song with her.

It's basically giving fans power. They give the artists power, I believe they deserve power equally. Fans are taking the place of the executives that were in my life. They're far more excited and passionate about me as an individual and they understand me so much more. I feel that it's the answer. It works for me.

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Tina Teeter: The Culture Brats Interview

2014-10-13T17:37:00.001-04:00

The townspeople of Jasper, Alabama have been making a zombie movie, Thr33 Days Dead. But here's the rub: it's taken them six years to do it. Syfy has told the group that if they finish making the movie, Syfy will air it. Syfy is also documenting the townspeople's attempt to finish filming Thr33 Days Dead in the hilarious weekly series, Town Of The Living Dead. We spoke to the film's funny and honest producer, Tina Teeter, about the movie, being a producer, how much support she receives from the town, and that boat.

How did you first become involved with Thr33 Days Dead?
I was buying my daughter a telephone at Radio Shack and that's how I met John and kind of how I got involved.

Did you have any producer experience prior to the movie?
Absolutely not. I had been an actress for many years. I was a theater actress for a long time. I had piddled around, people had asked me to do things, some directing, which I never did. I frankly enjoyed the acting part rather than the production part. I'm not a producer. I'm just playing one on TV.

It's rumored this film is based on a local urban legend. What is that legend?
There was a legend around at one time that there was a body that was buried and it was opened and it bursted. The guy was really sick and he went into the hospital and he stayed in the hospital for a long time. That had been around for a long time. I had never heard it a whole lot. But since this has come up, I have heard it a couple of times. I wasn't involved when they first wrote the movie. I'm sure John picked that up probably in a bar. That's what I understand. He heard somebody talking about that in a bar and that's how the urban legend got started. It is true, I understand.

Why has it taken so long to film the movie?
One of the reasons it's taken so long to film the movie is because we had so many hardships come up along the way. First of all, we could only film on Thursdays because John's off day was Thursday. Our computer went down on us and we lost almost a year's worth of footage. When I initially started, the cast and crew that we had at that time, it was just a problem. Some needed to go back to work. It was getting to where they were not cohesive as a cast. We shut down for a little while and regrouped and recast a few things. It took us six months because I didn't want to go forward until we found people that clicked with each other. We finally got rolling and then we lost footage. And then we were rolling some more and John had a stroke. John was thirty-two and had a stroke, so of course that set us back. And then one of our co-stars, Gary Carreker's little son Colin Pickle, he was sick for eight or nine months. He stayed in the hospital that long. We lost Colin a few months ago, it hasn't even been a year yet.

Just life in general. Maybe if we had been filming every day, seven days a week, I'm sure we could've finished this film earlier, but circumstances just weren't convenient for us to do that. We just had to do what we had to do and that was just chew away at it a little piece at a time.

Has there ever been a point when you've just thought, "Heck with all this, let's just shut the whole thing down?"
Yes sir. I think I've probably quit now ninety-eight times and still rising. I've quit many times but I love this crew and I know we've struggled together so as upset as I got, we were still in it together and I'm not a failure. Failure was not an option. It's still not an option.

In the second episode, you tell the boat guy that you'll bring the boat back when you're done. What was your plan had you successfully blown up the boat?
Well, that's one of those instances where being a producer, it's either you is or you ain't. I would've had to thought on my feet. Actually, I would've made that right if I'd of had to pay for that boat myself. I would've righted it somehow. The man's name was John. He was a really, really good sport. I did speak to him a little bit and he was good about it. "It'll be okay. You're going to bring the boat back just like you said." I didn't have the faith he did in me. I guess he knew the boat wasn't gonna blow up. Maybe he didn't think we had the technology to do it. I think he was so supportive of us for what we were wanting to do, he knew that if anything did happen, I would make it right somehow. I might've had to sell my car, but it would've been okay.

Speaking of support, how much support do you receive from the town?
We actually receive a lot of support from the town. There's mixed feelings, too. Not everyone's going to like it. We do get that here. And because it's a small town, sometimes we get more of it. Everybody really supports us. Even the ones that don't support us are sitting back right now thinking, "I hope they make it." I don't think there's anyone that absolutely wishes that we'd completely fail. We've been at it so long that even if they don't like what we're doing, even if they don't like zombies, I still think the town is supporting us and pushing us forward.

The season previews show Robert Englund showing up. How did that come to happen?
How about that?

Yeah!
Well, I don't know. We just needed him. I got wind that he was around. He did a big favor for us and you'll just have to tune in to see what it was and how he helped us. He's a wonderful man and it was just one of those situations where it was luck on my part.

Where did the phrase "You just got Teetered" come from?
Just me being silly. I was always saying, "Boom! Boom!" when I get excited. Somehow or another it just came about and the next thing I know, "You've been Teetered!"

Do you remember the first time you ever used it?
I do. We were actually trying to find a location and everybody was in the car and I just turned around to them and said, "Boom! They just got Teetered!" and it just stuck and never went away.

You're probably not allowed to tell me this, but did you guys finish the film?
Now you know I'm not allowed to tell you that.

I thought maybe I'd catch you slipping.
You'll have to tune in and see!

Final question: any plans for a sequel?
We are rolling around something, sure. I wanted to do a prequel. John, the director, wasn't crazy about a prequel. But yeah, we've got some marbles rolling around in the pot. The only problem is if we don't do better than we did this time, I ain't gonna live to see it. I'll be 70 years old!

More Thr33 Days Dead: Facebook | Twitter

Town Of The Living Dead, Syfy's docuseries on the filming of Thr33 Days Dead, airs on Syfy on Tuesdays at 10:00 PM.

Foxy Shazam's Eric Nally: The Culture Brats Interview

2014-05-21T10:33:00.000-04:00

On May 27th, Foxy Shazam will launch a massive summer tour in support of their fifth (and totally awesome and totally free) album, Gonzo. But first, singer Eric Nally was nice enough to drop by and talk to us about the tour, the album, recording with Steve Albini, balancing his career with fatherhood, and Twisted Sister.

You're going to be launching your summer-long Gonzo tour next week in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. What can fans expect from the upcoming shows?
Well, we're definitely challenging ourselves as a band with this tour. We're taking ourselves to a new place musically and physically and everything. We're going to bring an all-new show. We're going to play Gonzo in its entirety first. We're going to play about a half an hour, the whole record, front to back in sequence. We're going to take a break, go offstage, come back on and play the older songs that we have.

Larry And His Flask will be opening on the first leg of the tour. What led you to choose them?
I've always been extremely particular with a live band. I don't come across very many bands, even if I like their music, where I'm watching them live and I'm saying, "Wow, this is really entertaining." Where on top of liking the music, I'm being visually entertained. I don't see that very often. Even the bands that I go see that I really like sometime bore me when I'm watching them. I'd rather just be at home in my comfort zone listening to their record.

But with Larry And His Flask, that's not the case at all. Their show has always impressed me and we toured with them on the Warped Tour and that's where we met them. I remember thinking how fun they were to watch, on top of them being great music. Foxy's somebody who takes the show very seriously and we wanted to take it to the next level for our fans and I think Larry And His Flask's a band that does that. Putting a package together like this is basically just trying to give people a great ticket.

Let's talk about Gonzo. I love the album, especially "In This Life" and "Don't Give In."
Cool!

You dropped the album with very little fanfare. There were hints on your Facebook page that new music was coming, but that was about it. Why did you just basically say, "Here's Gonzo. Enjoy it. You can have it for free."
I wanted to break down the wall between our band and our fans and new fans and anybody who can access the music. I wanted it to be as easy as possible for people to find Foxy Shazam and to listen to them and hear what we're doing and what we stand for. I feel like Gonzo is the record that best defines Foxy Shazam so far in our career. For us to give it away for free and make it available so easily for people, it was important to me because it's really what we are and I want people to be able to access that easily without having to save money or talk their parents into buying it. Any obstacle you could possibly come across, I didn't want that to be in the way. And at the same time it lets people know we're not in this for money. I want to make a career, I have to because I've got to support my family, but the core of this whole thing isn't because of that. It's not because of money. It's because I love to play music and I want to spread my music to everybody.

What drew you to Steve Albini? Was it one album he worked on in particular or his entire body of work?
I liked his attitude towards the artist. In this business, it's hard to believe but there's very little respect towards someone who's an actual artist. That part of it has been kind of lost. In the industry, it's not about the art, it's more about the business. With Steve, reading his interviews, it seemed like he was someone who really supported the art of something and he just lets you do your thing.

And he did I'm assuming?
Oh yeah. He just did his thing which is record our album. We just brought it to him. We got everything ready. We produced it ourselves. The album was done before we even stepped foot in the studio. When we got there, we just literally played the album straight through and he recorded it. I just think he's really good at doing that. He's good at capturing what you're good at.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. You recorded the album live, in order, all in the same room, and during Halloween. Was there any particular reason?
When we were writing the record in our practice room, we would always say to ourselves, "With computers nowadays, you can add as much as you want after the fact." Your songs are done and then you can go back in and add anything you can possibly think of. Even if you don't play it, you just add it. For us, I wanted it to be the meat and potatoes. I wanted people to hear the power of our music in its purest form, in its most minimal form, but it would still exceed the bigness of any record that we made in the past. We would say, "This is how it's going to sound. We're not going to add anything. This is it. What we're hearing now is how it's going to be, so let's perfect this. Let's make this as strong as it can possibly be." And that's the reasoning we did it all live because it sounded the way we wanted it to in that state.

You mentioned that the music is a bit toned down this time around. Was this done intentionally to give the lyrics, which are great and more heartfelt than your previous albums, the chance to have the main focus?
Yeah. I kind of wanted to tell a story a little bit and hone in and focus a little bit. For me, it's weird when I think of Gonzo being toned down because I had to take it up so many notches to get that out of myself. I think musically, it does come across as a little bit of a softer record but I think content wise, there's definitely more energy and more force than I've every applied before.

Yeah, I was mainly talking about the layers of music and the lack of big background vocals and all that.
This record, I'm not hiding at all. There's no part of Foxy Shazam--and I'm speaking for myself and everybody in the band--nobody's hiding behind anything. What you see is what you get.

When you spoke with USA Today about your new video for "Tragic Thrill," you said "I have to fight hard to preserve that sense of reality so as to bring up my children." I loved that. How do you balance being a musician and touring and success with being a father?
It's pretty hard because there's places I've gone in my head mentally that my kids haven't been yet. When I go to these places, I'm excavating and I'm writing about it. I'm basically mapping parts of my brain and parts of the things that I figure out as I get older. I write about that and some of that is heavy stuff. Sometimes I feel scared to just put that all out there and let my kids hear it. This album has a lot of emotional issues that I dealt with my father. It's not just my kids, it's every kid that hears the record. I just want to go these places in my head and document what I find there, but I don't want people to think that they have to go there themselves. That's a scary part about being a father and being an artist because sometimes it's not always happy, it's not always good. But the fact that I'm able to get it out in an art form and not in some other destructive way, that's what I try to get my kids to focus on.

It's hard balancing that. That was a quote from Marlon Brando that I took. He's a way different artist than me but I feel he was talking about the same things. I feel very connected to what he said there. I feel you have to get certain things out of yourself as an artist but at the same time you got to be considerate how people might perceive that if they don't understand where you're coming from.

Finally, we have one question we ask every guest. You're in charge of a music festival and get to pick five other artists, living or dead, to appear on the bill with you. Who do you choose?
Oh wow. Gosh. That's a hard one. I'm gonna go with Van Morrison. He would be the headliner. Paramore, just to put a little relevance in there. Queens Of The Stone Age would be cool to put on there because I love a lot of their records. Do you remember this band called OMC? They sang that song like "How bizarre, how bizarre. Da-na-na-na." They're a New Zealand band. The singer, Polly, he died a long time ago but they're a great band and I've been into them lately. I'd have OMC. I think Richard Pryor would open the night and just put a little funniness there.

What song do you all perform as the finale?
"Unstoppable" because we'll never stop.

We actually asked the music festival question to Dee Snider and he picked Foxy Shazam as one of the five acts to appear on the bill with Twisted Sister.
Really? Wow. Hang on...

No take backs!
Okay, okay. I would invite Dee just to hang out and he'd just have the night off and he could relax and have fun.

More Foxy Shazam: Official | Tour Dates | Facebook | Twitter

GONZO by Foxy Shazam

Michelle Williams: The Culture Brats Interview

2014-04-22T10:00:00.000-04:00

We've got a special interview for you today: Destiny Child's Michelle Williams. She took time out of her crazy schedule to talk with us about embarrassing moments, her new album, Jesus Christ Superstar, her WNBA team, and what fulfills her.

Looking over the list of your current projects, the first I have to ask you is when do you sleep?
Oh my goodness, I know. I have to find it. There are many times where I'm calculating, "I know I'll get three hours of sleep here."

I'm sure. Tell us about the Play On Playbook.
Play On is a campaign with Playtex. It's just basically a way that I get to celebrate women, letting them know, "Hey, I've made mistakes along the way." You know as well I've had some stumbles and embarrassing moments. We're women. We're human, and what a great way to celebrate with a company that also celebrates women in many ways.

You talk about getting over embarrassment in the program. I'm sure you've already talked talked yourself to death about the 106 & Park incident--
I have.

So let's go a different direction: what's the most embarrassing thing to happen to you on a date?
On a date? It's unfortunate because I don't even go on many of those. And the ones I do go on, I'm like, "Is this a date?" The most embarrassing thing that's happened to me on a date? I haven't had anything embarrassing happen to me on a date. Right now.

You're pretty luck then.
Trust me. I'm still open so you'll never know what happens.

CONTINUE READING >>

Melanie Martinez: The Culture Brats Interview

2014-04-17T13:00:00.000-04:00

On May 20th, Melanie Martinez will release the eagerly awaited The Dollhouse EP. We spoke with her about the EP, the awesome first single, her hair, her time on The Voice, and her upcoming tour.

I love "Dollhouse" and its video. They're both very dark. What was the inspiration for the song?
It was actually the first session I had with Kinetics & One Love and we co-wrote that song. We just really wanted to write a dark story. That was the start of the whole vibe for the EP and the album. It's basically a dark story at the root, but it's kind of sugar coated with a childlike aesthetic--dolls, the dollhouse, the colors. It's all very childlike, but it's a dark story about a dysfunctional family. We thought that was a great start to something.

It also has a double meaning for how I feel people view celebrities, how people put them in glass boxes and expect them to be perfect even though clearly they're all human.

What can you tell us about the rest of the EP?
They're all separate stories and what makes them all cohesive is the production and how every song has a dark story, but it's all very babylike almost. It's all honest stories that I would like people to put more attention on instead of writing about heartbreak and almost cliche-by-now subjects that everyone has been writing about lately. I just wanted to do something different and tell real stories that happened, whether it happens to me or whether it happens to someone I know. I just wanted to be honest with people and be able to tell them a different story than what they're used to hearing.

CONTINUE READING >>

Sara Barron: The Culture Brats Interview

2014-04-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

Today we're talking to the extremely hilarious Sara Barron, author of The Harm In Asking: My Clumsy Encounters With The Human Race, about her writing process, her mother, what she finds funny, her taste in music, and imaginary friends.

First of all, I have to tell you I loved The Harm In Asking.
Oh, thank you! I'm so glad.

Tell me about your writing process. Have you kept a journal your entire life?
Interestingly, I haven't. It's one of those things as an adult that I always want to do, and then I go through two-month periods and I never get back to it. It's not sustainable for me as a grown-up.

But as a kid, I did a lot of diary writing. Not once I got into high school and once you get all the homework that you can get into. Prior to that, without writing restrictions set down on me, I would always keep diaries back then.

You really expose yourself in The Harm In Asking. Is anything off limits?
No... I don't think so. I like to try, and I always make a point in saying that I don't necessarily think I succeed, but I always try to write about something in a way that feels funny and where the language hopefully doesn't feel... For example, if I'm going to write an essay about farting, I'm going to put a lot of effort into how I do that in a way that I hope doesn't feel like someone standing up on a stand-up stage and being like, "So, farting, right? Like what the f?" That's what I'm trying not to do which is why I wanted to write it. You have so much more control and so much more time you can invest in the language that you use and the way that you present things. You have so much more power than you sometimes do when you perform live. So if I can figure out a way to do it that feels funny to me, then I don't think anything is off limits.

Just for the record, I had made a conscious effort that I wasn't going to mention farting at all but you just blew that out of the water now.
Thank you! I really, really appreciate that and look at what I did. I punished myself because you were being good to me and respectful, goddamn it.

You've had imaginary orphaned teen models and an imaginary bulldog. Do they still come to visit from time to time?
The imaginary orphaned models don't but the dog absolutely does. But the thing is I don't live alone anymore. I went and got myself a husband. I feel that has cut down on my visits from my imaginary friends. However, I do work from home and my husband doesn't, so as anyone who works from home knows, you do get to do quite a bit of talking to yourself. The dog... Not quite as much as she used to, but she's still around.

Cool. But no new imaginary people or animals?
No. I kind of wish that the answer was yes, but I feel like I'm getting less and less creative as I get older.

Well, you finally have a roommate now that works for you.
Here's hoping!

How does your mother feel about your books?
Um.... she is happy that I have work, I think. I think that overrides most things. She has a a good sense of humor, so she's okay. I think. I hope. Unless she's being dishonest with me, but she's not a great one for stifling her natural feelings, so I cant' imagine that that's actually happening.

Have you had any backlash from people that are mentioned in your books?
No, I haven't. I feel like the people I write about negatively--what I think of as negatively--are mostly people who aren't in my life, you know what I mean? Who knows what can happen. At the moment, I've come out relatively unscathed. But I say that and someone can send me the email tomorrow that I would feel horrible about. I'm a ticking clock with that.

Are people are a little more guarded around you now?
No, I don't think so. But again, who knows if I'll have a different answer to that in another two years. I find that the more you do something professionally that paints you as a very honest and forthright, it actually brings out that same quality in other people. I feel like I'm one of those people who ends up hearing everybody's secrets instead of having them kept from me because somebody thinks I would end up writing about it, which, if we had a real relationship, I would never do.

Any chance we'll see a reading tour from you?
I'm currently making my way through our fair nation. Relatively limited stops, though. I'm in New York, where I've been doing a bunch of stuff. I'm onto Chicago next and then finally onto Los Angeles.

Let's talk about your taste in music: it can't really be as bad as you make it out to be, can it?
Well, you know, it can and it can't. With any of these things, you take what's funny and what's true and you sort of blow it up and ignore the parts of the story that aren't funny. What is true is there's music that I do think that you, as a man of taste I'm sure, would think is good music and you would like to listen to and I would also like to listen to that music, too. To that extent I suppose I have okay taste. But when I write about my passion for really bad music, or if you were to see what's on my workout mix, it's that bad. If I'm working and I want to treat myself to something, I am going to put on a really bad Rihanna song or something by Alanis Morissette and that's going to be my four-minute break from what I'm doing. That is very real.

What do you think of the new Tori Amos song?
Listen, my taste isn't even good enough that I'm staying up-to-date on the new Tori Amos songs. That would be too fashionable for me. If you want to talk about Little Earthquakes or something like that, we can get into it. But I don't even know what you're talking about now.

Final question: what do you find funny?
What do I find funny? I find self-deprecation really funny. People who hate themselves and make that into art, very funny.

More Sara Barron: Official | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr

E.G. Daily: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-11-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

E.G. Daily has had an incredible career. She was Loryn from Valley Girl and Dottie from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. She gave voice to The Rugrats' Tommy Pickles and the Powerpuff Girls' Buttercup. And until last week, she was a contestant on the current season of The Voice. We spoke with E.G. about her time on The Voice and what she gained from the experience, Valley Girl, working with Pee-Wee and Tim Burton, and her favorite voice acting gig.

Let's talk about The Voice. What made you decide to audition for the show?
What made me decide was a friend of mine who I didn't really know very well, that I met a birthday party, she asked me to sing on one of her shows that she produced called BalconyTV. It's a show they do on the Internet. Artists will play a song and it's usually acoustic and it's usually sung on a balcony. She said, "Would you sing a song on my show?" and I'm like, "Sure!" I ended up hosting some of those because it was so much fun talking to artists and what inspired them. I was just so moved by those things. The next thing she called me one day and said, "I hope you're okay with this, but I got you an audition for The Voice." I was flattered and I thought, "How sweet of this woman" that I didn't really know that well to do that for me. I decided that I would go for it. I said, "I don't know if they're even gonna on the show because of my history and my experience." She was like, "No, they're familiar with you and they'll still give you a time slot." It didn't matter my history, it didn't matter that I was Tommy Pickles or Dottie. None of it mattered. The next thing you know I'm on the show and then chairs are turning and I'm like, "Is this really happening at this age in my life?"

What was being on the show like? Were you given a lot of input from Blake?
Yeah, actually. We had a really nice rehearsal and we had some rehearsal times. He's awesome. He's very spot-on about his comments. He knows his music and he knew right away what my little issues were. He was like, "E.G., I need you to wind it back down and blow it out later." He knew and he was like, "You're not wanting to feel the softer notes. I want you to feel them." He was right.

So you pretty much answered my next question, did you learn anything from your time on the show that might help you down the line?
I learned so much and how to really enjoy the process, that it isn't winning the prize, it's that it's being willing to fall on your face no matter where you are in your life, take a risk at things. It was a risk for me. I could have gone on that show and had no chairs turn and that could've been "Woman in her 50s goes on The Voice and non chairs turn." I think the lesson was to keep continuing to be willing to fall on my face. And when people are like, "Oh, you can't do that!" Oh yeah? Watch me.

Let's switch gears. Valley Girl is just an iconic '80s movie. For many of you working on it, it was your first starring role. What was it like to have so many young faces working together on a major movie?
Well, we didn't know we were going to be famous at that point in time. We just got this funny little movie that was very low budget. We didn't even know if it was going to come out. But we had a blast making it. We did it because we were actors. At the time, it was pretty much like a b-movie because it had no funding. I think we even had to wear our own clothes at one point.

I've got to ask about Pee-Wee. What was it like working with him on Pee-Wee's Big Adventure?
I got cast as Dottie. I had to go through a regular casting situation. Tim Burton, that was one of his first big movies. I remember them showing me a little movie saying, "This is the director, Tim Burton, and he's known for doing this really great short about a dog." I didn't know what his work was because he was new then. When we were on the set, I was like, "This is going to be fun!" because the sets were so goofy and childlike. He was such a genius director. Paul Reubens is such a genius himself. The next thing you know, we're filming and it's a blast and it was a huge movie for Warner Brothers. Huge. You never know. I never go into them thinking, "Oh, this is going to be the thing." I'm always pleasantly surprised by how things work.

How did your incredible voice acting career begin?
Wow, thanks! I actually got cast in a play that ran in LA called Tarzana Tanzi. It was a musical and I had to do all these voices. The play was about a female wrestler and I was the star of the show. It was in a boxing ring, and each round of the play, I was a different age. Opening night at this big theater, it was standing room only. Some guy was there and he handed me his card and was like, "Wow. You are really good with your voice. You really know how to do children's voices." I was like, "Oh, thanks. I'm an actress. I'm a singer." I didn't really think much. He said, "I'd like to send you out on some voiceover things. I think you'd be really good at this." He just heard something about my ability to manipulate my voice and do different characters. I was like, "Sure, I'll try that!" The first thing I went up for, they showed me a little claymation character and I started thinking, "Hmm, that looks like it would sound like the voice I've been doing my whole life since I was a little kid." A little voice that I had been doing, it was so developed. When the producers walked in, I started doing that voice. They were blown away and the next think you know they're bringing more producers in and more producers in. And the next think you know I was cast as Tommy Pickles.

What has been your favorite character to voice?
I really liked doing Baby Mumble (from Happy Feet), he was really cute. Tommy Pickles, of course, was amazing. Buttercup (from The Powerpuff Girls) is real fun. I played a character once called Germ Girl (from Bump In The Night. She was like this really sexy germ. She lured you in with her sexiness and then she kissed you and infected you with a cold. That was a pretty funny character. Voiceovers are so fun because you can be an inanimate object, you can be a ball, you can be anything.

You do so much: live acting, voice acting, singing. Which is your favorite?
I like them all. I can be doing live shows for awhile and I love it. I love singing and working with an audience and connecting with people. But when you get a character role where you get to dive into a certain character... Like, I did the role of Candy in The Devil's Rejects. I remember when I got to the set. Something about the clothing, I got to wear little baby doll things and patent leather go-go boots and my hair in Princess Leia braids. Something about transforming your body is really cool for an acting role. The voiceovers? Forget about it. It's off the charts because you're not limited by anything physical. You're all about your voice. For me, it's all fun.

More E.G. Daily: Official | Facebook | Twitter

Roger Manning Jr.: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-10-30T09:02:00.000-04:00

Years ago in the hazy '90s, Roger Manning Jr. and Andy Sturmer, two guys who had survived the implosion of the San Francisco based Beatnik Beatch, shook off the new psychedelic moniker assigned to so many bands coming out of that area and formed the fantastic Jellyfish. Along with bandmate Jason Falkner, they produced 1990's Bellybutton and 1993's much heralded Spilt Milk. The sharp jarring melodies and lush sophistication of the music thrilled fans and critics alike, but sadly before they were able to show us more, the band split acrimoniously, leaving us with the question of what could have been.

We spoke to Roger Manning Jr. about the upcoming Radio Jellyfish, his current projects, and what the future holds.

Okay, so I want to get right into what's happening on December 10th which is the release of Jellyfish's live radio performances, coming out as Radio Jellyfish. It's a ten-track collection, nine of which were unavailable to your fans before. I know you guys are no strangers to live recordings, but there is something about the stripped-down raw honesty of the recording and the simplicity of a song when it's laid bare like that. Do you think a band and a song delivers when it's performed simply like this and live? In other words, does it test whether it's actually a well-crafted, well-written song without all the bluster of production?
Well, it really depends on what kind of style or genre of music we are talking about. I mean, there is some amazing dance/pop stuff that I guarantee you that if you took away all the computerized programming and computer sleight of hand, there wouldn't be much to stand on. And that's just fine. That music is built more around beats than it is actual melody and harmony content. But when you do any kind of music that's classic in a melodic sense and is built on very strong hooks, harmonic movement, with a lyric, it works well with all that. As far as I'm concerned, I love hearing artists do that--just a guitar and vocal, as well as the other side of the coin with full-on production from top to bottom. I love listening to what producers and bands come up with as far as arrangements. But that's only going to work with a strong catchy hook that can hold someone's attention. So I'm proud of those recordings because that's how the songs were written. They were ideas that came from me and my guitar and me and my piano and with the wonderful musicians we had working at our side. We filled in the blanks and we all enjoyed creating very colorful arrangements.

CONTINUE READING >>

Jeff Kinney: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-10-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

If you have a kid, chances are good he or she has read one (or all) of the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid books. The series already has 115 million books in print and looks to increase that even more with the November 5th release of the eighth book in the series, Hard Luck. We spoke with author Jeff Kinney about the new book, his favorite character, his favorite authors when he was a kid, Poptropica, and whether or not his own kids are fans of his book.

Hard Luck, the latest in the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series, will be released on November 5th. What does Hard Luck have in store for Greg Heffley and his friends?
It only has something in store for Greg Heffley because he has no more friends. Greg is, for the first time, on his own. He and Rowley have sort of gone in separate directions because Rowley has a girlfriend. So Greg is left scrambling, trying to figure out where he falls on the social ladder now that he is solo. Greg decides to start leaving his decisions up to fate because he decides that the choices he's made on his own haven't gotten him very far, so he's going to give himself over to fate.

There are an astonishing 115 million books in print from the series. When did you first realize that this was going to be so big?
I don't think I really realized that it was going to be so big. In fact, just recently that number jumped up a lot when we counted up our foreign sales and things like that. That was a big shock to me. I thought that if I ever got to 100 million... I thought it was an unachievable number, actually. I'm still not sure what to make of it.

What made you decide to focus on the middle school years for Greg and his friends?
I think the middle school years are just ripe for comedy because they are the years in which kids can be physically so different from one other. I thought that would be a great setting and usually authors try to avoid it because it's such an awkward time period. Most people don't want to hear about middle school kids.

Which character do you relate to the most?
I think I relate to Greg the most. He's the most like me, but I think that Rowley is my favorite character because he likes being a kid.

Will we see any further films based on books from the series?
I think that now we're going to move to animated holiday specials. As far as the live action films go, we're moving away from that because the kids have aged out of their roles.

Are your own sons fans of your work?
I think they are. My oldest son has enjoyed the books, but he moved past them pretty quickly. He moved into more challenging reading. His favorite books are the Percy Jackson books. My younger son is in third grade and he's just now getting into my books and it's very exciting to see that he's enjoying them.

Do they ever try to give you ideas to put in your books?
Not often. We really don't talk about my books very much in the house. That might seem weird, but we keep those worlds separate. We try not to overwhelm the kids with the Wimpy Kid stuff. They treat my books like any kids would, as a new book in the house that they read through. I don't think they really interpret it any differently than that.

You're also the creator of the hugely successful Poptropica. What led you to create that?
I was mowing my lawn one day and thought, "Wouldn't it be neat to create a virtual place for kids to play?" So I came up with the idea and I pitched it to my company, Pearson, and they liked it so we built it. That's still my full-time job.

What authors connected with you as a child?
I really liked Judy Blume. I liked those coming-of-age stories. They were probably written more for girls than they were for boys, but I really liked those. When I got a little bit older, I liked fantasy. I liked Pierce Anthony and J.R.R. Tolkien. Those are some of my favorites.

Finally, you get a lot of kids interested in reading through your books. What advice do you have to any of them wishing to follow in your footsteps?
I would say that if they have an idea, to take your time with it and nurture it. Make it grow into something good because you'll be tempted to put your first idea out there, but you'll have a better product if you take your time to develop something.

More Jeff Kinney: Official | Twitter

Too Much Joy's Tim Quirk: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-10-22T09:02:00.000-04:00

On December 10th, SideOneDummy Records will reissue Too Much Joy's 1991 classic Cereal Killers on vinyl. I caught up with singer Tim Quirk to talk about the reissue, KRS-One, what kept TMJ from being the biggest band of the '90s, and the five songs that define the band.

First off, I've got to tell you I was a huge fan of Too Much Joy, so I have to ask: why weren't you guys the biggest band of the '90s?
That's a mystery for the ages. I don't know. The honest answer is probably because we were funny. It's hard to be taken seriously when you're funny even though we always thought our humor was kind of dead serious. That's pretty much what it comes down to. We had lots of people advising us to cut down on the wacky shit as career advice and at the time we were like, "Fuck you." Not that I would've done anything differently, but maybe they had a point.

It seemed that you guys were always more famous for your exploits than your actual music which always seemed like a crime to me. Like the Bozo sample and the 2 Live Crew concerts and stuff like that.
It's hard to take that amiss. I think you have to look at shit like that and say, "Maybe people didn't feel like talking about the music." If they were talking about something other than the music, maybe it's because the other stuff was more noteworthy than the music we were making. I don't know. To me, it all felt like it was all of a piece. We said this before: it's not like we went out looking for this shit. This shit just tended to find us, with the exception of 2 Live Crew which was deliberate and I'd do a thousand times over. Everything else just kind of happened. We were magnets for that kind of thing for whatever reason.

You're going to reissue 1991's Cereal Killers on vinyl in December through SideOneDummy Records. How did this happen?
You know, I don't know. I got an email one day saying, "Hey, what do you think about this?" from the label. My answer was, "If you can talk Warner into it, we certainly have no objection."

I'm really pleased with the partnership so far. And the colored vinyl looks pretty.

I see that certain packages come with an issue of Joybuzzer. Is that a new issue or one from the archives?
I haven't seen it myself. My understanding, which could be wrong, is that it's a combination of some new stuff with some "best of," but I won't know for sure until they actually publish it.

Any chance the reissue of the album is your way of testing the waters to gauge interest for a reunion tour or album?
There's zero chance of that, unfortunately. Well, there's not zero chance of actually playing some shows, but it's not testing the waters. I was just minding my own business and an email popped up in the inbox and we were all like, "Yeah, go for it." We're proud of the music and we want it out there in whatever form is possible, but everybody's pretty much slammed with what's happened with the rest of their lives since then. While we were trying to make it work to do at least a handful of shows to celebrate this, nobody's looking to get back together for an extended period of time.

KRS-One guests on "Good Kill" on [Cereal Killers]. Around the same time that was released, R.E.M.'s Out Of Time came out, which also had him on "Radio Song." Were you guys ticked off or anything about that?
We were fucking furious. Not at the almighty Blastmaster, he can go appear on anybody's music that he wants. What pissed us off was we had done it well in advance of R.E.M.

Warner signed us and they reissued Son Of Sam I Am. Basically, we recorded Cereal Killers but we were touring on the reissue of Son Of Sam I Am. So Cereal Killers was in the can for almost a year before it came out. So we had this thing in our back pocket that we knew was coming out and we were really proud of it. We knew it was good and the label was just waiting for the right time to put it out. While we were touring and waiting, R.E.M. got KRS-One to come in and do a song and our albums literally came out on the same day. I've gotta say, I was and remain a huge R.E.M. fan and I can be objective about what's good of theirs and what's bad of theirs. It's a fine song, but I do not think they used him to very good effect on that song.

No. They didn't.
He doesn't really rap on it. He just goes like "Yo!" and "Hey hey hey!" If you're gonna put him in front of a mic, have him fucking say something, you know? [Our] next album, Mutiny, had a line on it that went "I'm ahead of my time, but only by a week." That's one of five times where something like that happened to us. We did a pop/punk cover of Tom Waits's "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" and the Ramones put out the exact same thing. We were doing it for years before they ever put it out. I don't know if they ever heard it, but it's not like it's an idea only one person in the universe can have. We were covering "Seasons In The Sun" before Nirvana did it. Shit like that happened to us all the time. You can tell I'm still bitter about it.

You do such a great job of detailing the thoughts, feelings, and happenings behind the band's songs on the website, almost to the point that it makes it pointless for me to talk about certain songs with you. What made you start the chronicle?
I don't know. That's a good question. Ego, probably. Part of it was when we created the website, we knew we weren't going to be making a ton of new music, but you need a way to keep it updated and fresh and since we don't have a lot of news, I guess the thinking was "Oh, well we can go backwards." When J.D. Salinger died, that was a good time to talk about "William Holden Caulfield." There was the Hartsdale Cheesery, this weird little store in the town where we grew up, closed one day and since we referred to the store in the lyrics to one of our songs, we went, "Let's talk about 'Pride Of Frankenstein.'" That's why we started it. Why we kept doing it is probably just ego and wanting to be understood and not dismissed as a joke novelty act.

Any chance it would lead to a book one day?
I don't see very much chance of that at all.

You're still heavily involved in music as the man being Google Play. What current bands have your attention?
That's a really good question and I will answer it momentarily. But the fact is I've been listening for the past nine months almost exclusively to obscure classic soul from 1964 to 1972 or '73. I don't know what happened, I just got this obsession and now I've become this insane crate-digging geek. Pretty much all I do all weekend long is lie in my hammock, listening to classic soul and try and forget about work.

But when I'm listening to current bands... I'm a great admirer of Okkervil River and their most recent record is pretty awesome. I really, really like The Thermals. All their records sound very similar in a good way, kind of in that Ramonesy way. And they put on a great show. Titus Andronicus, I really, really like even though they cancelled on a Google Play event at SXSW a couple of years ago. I still admire the band. Dick move to cancel, but still I like Titus Andronicus. They haven't put out anything new in awhile, but Canada's Hidden Cameras--they're awesome. They're so good, you can be singing along to a song before you realize it's about pissing on your gay lover. But hey, it's so catchy that even once you realize that, you keep singing along.

Let's finish things off with the five songs that you feel define Too Much Joy.
Oh geez. I'd have to give that some thought. Basically, I'm going to answer your question, and then I'm going to be pissed at myself all day long as I realize I should've named five different songs. Let me do this: let me pick one from each album.

Okay.
I'm going to skip Green Eggs And Crack because we were still trying to figure out what the hell we were doing.

Right. Although "Drum Machine" is very cool.
I get it. I would say "Drum Machine" and "The Otter Song" are the only two songs from Green Eggs And Crack that survived in sets to this day. We'll see. We'll circle back and maybe that will end up making the list.

Off of Son Of Sam I Am: "Kicking." That was among the first songs that we felt we were really hitting on all cylinders when we wrote it, to the point where while we were touring even before Son Of Sam I Am came out, we would literally open and close the set with that song because we liked it so much. We would play it twice. There's funny lines in there, but it's sort of a really serious song. One of the things that made me happiest in my career was when Robert Christgau wrote about that song. I forget what his exact line was, but it was something like "it might be about cancer and it's definitely about turning 23." I was like, "Oh! That's a perceptive rock critic there! That's exactly what that song is about."

Off of Cereal Killers... There's like three off of Cereal Killers that I could pick and I'm trying to limit myself to just one. I'm gonna go with "King Of Beers" rather than "Theme Song." "King Of Beers" is something that sounds like it's frat rocky, but there's actually a bit of self-reflection and depression and sadness in there. "King Of Beers" because it's not just a gag, although you can shout along to it drunkenly at a show and then regret it in the morning. That's pretty much what the damn song's about.

What was our next one? Mutiny. I'm going to say "What It Is." It's just a couple of chords and we weren't really a jammy band, we didn't really jam all that much, but that was one that I don't think we ever sucked when we played that song, even at the shittiest show. There were some nights when almost everything goes wrong, "What It Is" never went wrong. That song just felt right and I'm proud of the lyrics. And it's a true story. I was in Ireland visiting some site from prehistoric times. Literally 2,000 years ago, this fort had been built on the edge of the island.

And somebody actually wrote their name on it.
Yeah, some dick named James. He sees this thing that connects you to the history of mankind and makes you realize, "Wow, look at what we've done rising from savagery and now we have civilization and how weird and awesome that is." And some dude's reaction is, "I'm gonna write my name here!" I looked at it and thought, "Great. Now you're part of history, but your part of history is that everyone knows you're an asshole forever." I just don't understand that impulse. So that's "What It Is."

So our next album was "...Finally." I'm going to change my mind tomorrow, but I'm gonna say "Underneath A Jersey Sky."

It's gotta be that. I think that's the most beautiful song you guys have ever written. I love that song. I think it perfectly captures that suburban feel.
Thanks! We were literally in Jersey, we were in Hoboken. There was a studio we were recording at a lot, mostly because we didn't have any money at the time and the dude let us come in for free and it was an excellent studio. He was having a party, so we were hanging out with a bunch of Jersey musicians and people at the same stage of their career that we were at. We were in Jersey and we were looking up and it was a starry night, although not that you can see that many stars from Hoboken. We just had a sense of our place in the universe that was not necessarily awesome. So that's what that song is about.

So now I guess I either have to do Gods And Sods or Green Eggs And Crack. Yeah... I guess I gotta do "Drum Machine." Like a lot of things we did, it was a song we wrote while we were waiting to do what we thought was the real thing we were doing. There was literally another band in the studio and we were sitting outside the studio with an acoustic guitar and we were bored and we just started making fun of the other band in the studio that was ruining our day.

There was just something about it. It's simple, it's stupid, but you can sing along to it. That sums up Too Much Joy!

Pre-order the vinyl reissue of Too Much Joy's classic Cereal Killers at SideOneDummy Records!

More Too Much Joy: Official | Facebook

Cage The Elephant: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-10-08T11:00:00.000-04:00

Have you heard? Cage the Elephant released Melophobia, their highly anticipated third studio album today, and if the band has its way, you'll be spending a good chunk of time listening to their handiwork and enjoying the fruits of their labor. The challenge for longtime fans and new converts is getting on board with a band who changes sounds like toddlers change underwear. Trying on something new can be tricky but Cage The Elephant has experimented successfully and broken new ground with each new release, delighting devotees and gaining new listeners with every chance they take.

We spoke with guitarist Lincoln Parish about real life, rock star status, and raising the bar.

Hey Lincoln! How are you today?
Hey! Good, how are you?

Doing great. Where are you guys?
We're in Boston right now. Good we're on the same east coast schedule. I like to get up early.

So I listened to Melophobia and I loved it. But I've got to ask you right off the bat if it's a nod to the Talking Heads' seminal Fear Of Music album? I got this wild hair that it was parallel to the whole way that record was the bridge between their first two albums and the rest of their career and Melophobia is your third album as well as actually meaning "fear of music."
That's funny, because someone else brought that up the other day but actually we didn't even think about it.

So now I sound like a completely unhinged hidden conspiracy theorist. Talk about reading too much into something!
Isn't that what they were thinking? What is the meaning behind this?

Okay, so going with the bridge between albums idea... This is your third. And after Cage The Elephant and Thank You, Happy Birthday, I was actually a little surprised by this album. It sounds familiar but also expands out into territory you haven't much covered yet. Was that a conscious decision when you went into the studio? Did you set out to attain a certain something or was it more improvisational?
Yeah, I would say that this one was probably the one that we went into with the least amount of contrived ideas. Before we went into the studio it was kind of like we need to leave some bookends open and you know, not have everything completely sussed out. Just because we wanted to leave some room for spontaneity, for things to happen. We had the songs. The songs were for the most part there, but the general sound of the album was the least known when we went in. And that's kind of where the title of the album came from. I guess that's what it really means as a band, is not having to make music to cater to any one type of particular sound. Not sure it that actually answers your question.

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Adam DeVine: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-09-02T11:00:00.000-04:00

If you or your kids (or you and your kids) are fans of Cartoon Network's Adventure Time or Regular Show, there's a damn good chance you'll be fans of Uncle Grandpa, which premieres tonight. Uncle Grandpa was created by Peter Browngardt, who also worked on Futurama, Adventure Time, and Chowder. It tells the story of the titular character, his talking belly bag, a dinosaur named Mr. Gus, a Giant Realistic Flying Tiger, and Pizza Steve, an egotistical slice of pizza who is voiced by Adam DeVine from Workaholics and Pitch Perfect. Adam was nice enough to take time from filming the upcoming season of Workaholics to answer a few questions about Uncle Grandpa, his favorite cartoons, the upcoming season of Workaholics, and more.

How are you doing today?
I'm tired. We're in the midst of shooting Workaholics and my brain is melted. Besides that I'm great. Hopefully this breakfast burrito will get my mind right.

Tell us about Uncle Grandpa, your new show on Cartoon Network.
It's a cartoon I would have loved as a kid and would still love as an adult. It reminds me a lot of Ren & Stimpy in how cool and raw the animation is.

I've watched the "Tiger Trails" and "Belly Brothers" episodes and feel that fans of Adventure Time and Regular Show are going to love Uncle Grandpa. What attracted you to the series?
I thought the shorts that were on YouTube were awesome. So it helped that I didn't think the show was gonna suck. Truly, I wanted to do something that my extended family could watch and not think I'm a drunk/drug addict maniac who shouldn't be allowed at Thanksgiving. I'm sure that's how they think after watching Workaholics.

You play Pizza Steve, a cocky, talking piece of pizza. Is that the strangest role you've ever played?
It's definitely the most delicious role that I've ever played. Pizza is my life blood so it really is a dream role.

What are some of your all-time favorite cartoons?
Ren & Stimpy, Rugrats, TMNT, and DuckTales. I almost broke my neck as a kid trying to dive into a pile of change. I dunno how Scrooge McDuck pulled it off.

I'm a big fan of Workaholics. Have you started writing the new season yet? Anything you can share about what we can expect in the new season?
We are shooting the new season right now! I'm writing this from set. If you like Workaholics, you're gonna love this season, and if you don't like Workaholics, just go to bed, you're no fun.

What else are you working on right now?
I have my own stand-up show coming out on Comedy Central this fall called Adam Devine's House Party. I basically have a giant house party and invite my favorite new stand ups to perform in my backyard. It was bonkerz. Also, I'm gonna do a few episodes on Modern Family this coming season!

Best of luck to you with Uncle Grandpa, Workaholics, and everything else!
Thanks! Let's be best friends or something?

Here's a preview of "Tiger Trails," one of the two episodes that premiere tonight at 8:00 PM on Cartoon Network:

Kathi Wilcox: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-08-28T11:00:00.000-04:00

During the late eighties and early nineties, you probably noticed the early rumblings of DIY culture fused with practical feminism that eventually turned into what would come to be known as Riot grrrl. Back then, any number of bands took credit for or claimed association with the movement but after the smoke had cleared, there wasn't much doubt left about who was left standing in the shelled-out remains of the initial explosion: the seminal Bikini Kill.

They were the first across a dangerous musical threshold and lay down on a few punk landmines so that other women could follow suit and walk through a little less frightened. Over the years, band members and friends collaborated, stayed active, played under different monikers, and lived their lives fully and artistically.

Recently, longtime friends and Bikini Kill bandmates Kathi Wilcox and Kathleen Hanna reformed the once experimental The Julie Ruin (a side project that originated with Hanna some years ago), recorded the soon-to-be-released album Run Fast, and got ready to go on a national tour. We spoke with Kathi recently about things past and a future that looks more than rosy.

Hey Kathi, how are you today?
Good how are you?

We are here in Washington DC, and you all were on NPR this morning!
Yeah, I know! They put it up last night. We just got finished watching the VMAs and I was just checking online and Kenny from my band was like, "Oh my god, they put it up early." Because we knew they were going to put it up but they went and did it early. Yeah, super exciting.

So you guys have the new full length release planned for September 3rd, Run Fast, and the first ever national tour with The Julie Ruin with a stop here in DC at our beloved Black Cat on September 7th. There are a lot of people really looking forward to this, longtime Bikini Kill fans . I've heard the single and the album and while the old songs you did in Bikini Kill still really hold up after all this time, the new material is fresh and packs a great punch. It's great. Did you think the impact of the older stuff would remain so fresh in the minds of the people who were around for Bikini Kill and that the new material would keep attracting so many new young fans?
I have to tell you that I'm totally surprised. We have only played two full-length shows so far and it has been a lot of young people, but more surprisingly it's just when I do interviews or when I go out and people come up and they say, you know, not that they're necessarily Julie Ruin fans but that they're Bikini Kill fans and they're fourteen and they're kind of like "We just found out about it." Kathleen keeps saying this in interviews but I'm experiencing the same thing. It's like they age through it and there's always a new generation of people that find out about it. And I don't know if it's Rock Camp For Girls or maybe it just fills a void that girls kind of need or something, but I am surprised. Also, I'm happy. I'm happy that girls are finding it and feeling it and relating to it that strongly. And while I'm happy, I'm also kind of bummed because maybe that means things haven't changed very much in this other way, that girls are still experiencing all the same stuff that we were when we were girls, so that might be one reason that they are relating to it.

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Animotion's Bill Wadhams: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-08-13T11:00:00.000-04:00

It's not every day you get to speak with the guy who taught you how to play synthesizer. But that's kind of what I did when I spoke with Animotion's Bill Wadhams, whose "Obsession" was one of the first songs I taught myself how to play on the synth. Bill spoke with me about the Lost '80s Live tour, Mandalay Bay, where he was when he first saw the "Obsession" video, and more.

Animotion will be performing as part of the Lost '80s Live show in Long Beach on August 24th. What can fans expect at the show?
Well, the Lost '80s Live shows, they string together a bunch of bands. We all play abbreviated sets, about twenty minutes per band. But we pack as much as we can into that twenty minutes. Each of the bands will be playing their biggest hits.

The tour played at Mandalay Bay's Beach Stage this past weekend. What was that like?
It was fantastic. The show sold out. There were 3,500 people there. The crowd really comes to see bands from the '80s and they're just on fire. They're a really fun crowd. It was a great night.

What's the location like? Isn't that where they watch you in water?
Yeah. It's crazy because at the Beach Stage, you can actually stand in the water if you want. The deepest part right in front of the stage is maybe three feet deep. The actual floor of the stage is ten feet above the water, so you don't want to be too close or you can't see. But if you go online, you'll see pictures of the stage and you'll see lots of people standing in the water with their shorts or bikinis. It's a fun venue.

Why do you think festivals like Lost '80s Live are so popular?
Honestly, a lot of people know the songs better than the bands, I think. For some of us, people are more likely to come out to a show that has a few '80s artists. If Animotion was playing by itself, it's less likely to sell out a venue or bring the people out.

Strength in numbers.
Exactly.

"Obsession" is one of those touchstone songs from the mid '80s. When you guys were
recording it, did you have any idea how big it would become?
No. As a matter of fact, I kind of thought that it would not be a hit. It was kind of wacky how Animotion came together. I had a solo band. I met Astrid and a few other people that had formed a group and they were lacking a male singer/guitarist/songwriter because there had been a shakeup in their band. I joined up with them and to me it was kind of a wacky project, but it had some things I didn't have in my solo career. I didn't have a lawyer, a manager, a producer. Astrid and a couple of the other people were in another band and they had some of that going on. When I hooked up with them and we recorded the album, I thought, "Well this is all good but I don't really know if it's ever going to see the light of day." After we recorded the album and actually put it out, it sort of did nothing for almost a year, from the time we recorded it until the time it was added to a P1 station in Los Angeles. Once it hit that station, it took off. But I did not see that coming.

MTV was so huge at the time. What went through your heads the first time you saw your video on there?
The album was out and it was not doing very much. It was getting local play in LA. The first time I saw the video was on a... a radio station had a video program called Video One in Los Angeles. I was painting a house and I heard the song on the TV in the house. There was some lady living there, a little old lady, and I said, "Excuse me, can I come in and take a look at your TV because I think I might be on it." She said, "Sure. If you're on TV, what are you doing painting my house?"

I don't remember when I saw it on MTV, but I can tell you once it hit MTV, we were being played in power rotation, which meant once an hour. Once it hit MTV in power rotation, I was recognized every time I walked out the door. It was phenomenal.

You guys are unfairly labelled as one-hit wonders. At this point, do you just laugh it off or point them to your two other Top 40 hits?
Well you know, our keyboard player said it best: "You don't see any TV shows about two-hit wonders." They keep pulling us in, whether it's NBC, MTV, VH1 or whatever. "We're doing this thing called Hit Me Baby..." When I first heard the moniker, I was like, "Oh, great. That kind of sucks." But now that it doesn't really matter to me. It's all good.

You also record and perform with Brian Huston. I listened to a few of your originals and covers and you guys sound great together with really great harmonies. What brought the two of you together?
Brian is a film director and I've done some work as an Art Director on film here in Portland. We met on a video set. He put together a jam session with a bunch of people working in film and video in Portland. We had a good old time and after we did it a few times, I noticed that Brian was the one in the group that could really hold a harmony. He was really steady with his melodies and harmonies so we decided to start playing out together. We've been doing that for about four years and we have a bunch of shows coming up in Portland between now and the end of the year.

Final question: Make your dream Lost '80s Live show. Pick five contemporaries to perform on the bill with you and tell me what song you'd all perform together as the final jam.
Ooh, nice. Well the Lost '80s is kind of like... we're not the Princes and Phil Collinses. At least I know we're not the A-list of the '80s, but some of our songs are A-list. But if I had a choice of any '80s groups on the bill, I'd start out with Peter Gabriel. David Bowie. The Eurythmics or Annie Lennox. And Simply Red.

One more.
I'd say A Flock Of Seagulls because they've been great to work with for the last ten years. We've done a lot of shows with them and they're a great live band and they're good guys.

Awesome. What song would you all perform together as the final jam?
"Sledgehammer."

Animotion will be performing at Pine Ave. in Downtown Long Beach on Saturday, August 24 as part of Lost '80s Live. Joining them on the bill will be A Flock Of Seagulls, When in Rome (UK), Gary Myrick, Boingo Dance Party, The Flirts, Naked Eyes, and more. Tickets are still available.

A Flock Of Seagulls' Mike Score: The Culture Brats Interview

2013-08-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

As time passes, the mind plays tricks on the memory. It's an inevitable result of living long and seeing much as you pass through. For those of you lucky enough to have been around for MTV's maiden rocket launch as the first wave of bold and eager new artists beamed into your living rooms, you are sure to remember the daring coiffure and irresistible melodies of A Flock of Seagulls. When I think back to the space-age melodies and the no-holds-barred fashion choices, I chuckle to myself before recalling the music. We all loved the music.

We spoke to Mike Score, A Flock Of Seagulls' lead singer and primary songwriter, who will be rolling out the classics along with other famed '80s artists during a big concert in Long Beach on August 24th.

I'd like to start out by talking about a few big things coming up, one of which is the big concert in Long Beach on Saturday August 24th, hosted by the legendary Richard Blade and featuring A Flock of Seagulls and many others. It's interesting that for so long, all these hugely popular bands from that very pivotal moment in music history stay so vivid in the collective consciousness of the people who love them. Everyone waxes so poetic about everything from the '80s and you ask them to come up with some '90s groups that made the same impact and you only get a handful. It must be rewarding to still have the love. Do you still get that great audience feedback when you are up there playing live?
Oh, a lot of the time yes. Because I think it was an era like the '60s where you tend to remember every band and what they did. I think that what happened in the '90s is that bands became more generic and they sounded more like each other. So in the '60s and the '80s, every band seemed to have its own personality and you knew almost the instant that a note came on the radio which band it was. For me, that's what makes the difference: the individuality of the bands rather than the conformity to each other. I think audiences like that. They like to go, "Well now Berlin are on" or "Now A Flock Of Seagulls are on" or Wang Chung and they know that it's a different sound. You go see a bunch of '90s bands and it's the same sound for three hours.

I've seen a few planned festivals featuring '90s bands that were previously huge either tank or cancel because of poor ticket sales. Made me think hard about staying power.
Yeah, I don't think they write songs. I think the '80s was the last real era of songwriting rock bands, you know? And then it just became formalized and I don't know why. I guess it's just the way that the people who created those bands grew up. They grew up with more of a formula in their heads than trying to be individual.

You've been touring a lot. Now I know that this big concert in Long Beach is you with A Flock Of Seagulls, but you've also come out with your debut solo single "All I Wanna Do" this year. When you are playing with the band do you ever work any solo tunes into the set list? Or is it just hits for the fans?
The Seagulls thing is the Seagulls thing. And I've kind of been working towards keeping that as kind of era specific. When I do my solo stuff live, I might include a couple of Seagulls things but the Seagulls thing, I don't think I'm going to stretch it out with solo stuff. And in fact I did my first solo single but I've got a second one ready to come out and an album right after that. But you heard about the robbery right?

Ugh, yes I did. That was actually the next thing I was going to ask you about. I heard all the rough copies and demos for the solo album were in that van, right?
Yeah, they were. I was going to finish it up right as it was taken. Stuff we've mastered and stuff we've finished mixing, but the album will still go ahead. It just means that I can't do any remixes or add or take away from anything because the main drives with all the tracks on them were stolen.

I'll assume that waylaid and delayed you quite a bit.
Artwork and everything was on them and the funny thing is that one was the main drive and then the other one was the backup and you know I was all like, "I'm fine, I'm good, everything is backed up if I lose a drive," but then they both get stolen at the same time. So even my backup was stolen. It's not a case of "Oh well, at least we can carry on."

You seem to have dealt with it rather well. Even Richard Blade, who is legendarily mild-mannered, came on his show on Sirius SX and each time before he'd play one of your songs he's recount the horrible story of the gear and the van being stolen. He was angry enough for ten men. So they found the van but none of the stuff in it, huh?
Yeah, well they found a couple of bits of gear but nothing that we needed. Just a few old pieces of gear like cabinets and guitar amps but nothing that gives us any hope that we'll get anything else.

Kind of makes you wish the culprits would find themselves surrounded by angry A Flock Of Seagulls fans and hit with the karma stick.
Could still happen.

Never say never.
Well, this has happened and I can't really do anything about it, I've just got to go on. And I mean, of course it makes me angry but angry doesn't get me through the next show or I can't walk on stage and go "I can't play because these bastards stole all my equipment." We're going to go on and do the best we can with what we've got. And it will take us a little while to put our sounds back together but that's what we've got to do. It's just a case of you've got to do what you've got to do.

That was some tap dance you had to do though. You went on stage right afterward with borrowed equipment, didn't you?
Yeah, we just borrowed some gear and played and everyone said it sounded great. We were like, "Well cool." That probably means that we can get by. We play on stage for ourselves, so we wanted to sound as good on stage as possible. But I think fans will be a bit more forgiving, you know what I mean? If little pieces are missing or the lead guitar doesn't quite get it right, the audience is still into the song. But for us it's like every little thing that's missing is a big thing. Like I said, we are just going to carry on and put it back together bit by bit. I think shortly we'll be, "Well, okay that happened but now we'll just be more careful in the future."

Lesson learned but I suppose you can't prevent well prepared thieves from following you after the show to your hotel.
Yeah and we've had long discussions about now and the thing is we've been traveling around with our gear in that van for years and nothing has ever happened to it so we got complacent. It just shows you that no matter what you do, really you have to keep an eye on everything you own.

You are very embedded in the cultural consciousness both musically and visually. MTV's rise and and domination had something to do with that. Now that the music video's time has sort of come and gone and in its place is this strangely manufactured cookie cutter system that rolls out very specific looking and sounding artists. Having been on the cutting edge of a new age of music and having seen that roll through, how do you feel about the dramatic and very corporate change in the music industry? Imagine A Flock of Seagulls tying to break in this climate?
I think the whole corporate thing has ruined the whole music scene. Maybe lawyers and accountants, they've taken over. You know rock and roll was always a chancy thing and you took your chance and most times if you were good, you made it and if you weren't, you fell by the wayside. Now unless you come up through Disney or something like that, then you are not going to get a chance. I know that there are lots of independent bands that put out their own things and they're successful but I don't think it's the same as being, say, a rock star from the sixties through the eighties. In the nineties, corporations took over the whole thing and they ruined the individuality and like I said before, the whole idea that you could come from nothing and play your guitar great and become a big rock star. That just doesn't seem to exist anymore, at least not on in the forefront of rock. Maybe you can do it in the background and then break through later, but I'd hate to be in a band starting out now, put it that way.

Granted not everybody who tried from the '60s through the '80s made it, but it was a lot more freewheeling and dangerous. And seemingly fun. I like it when I remember someone, they leave their mark. When I mention A Flock of Seagulls to someone they get an immediate visual and can sing at least a few songs. I know of no one who can't recall the hair and the videos. But now you'd never get promoted or managed correctly or allowed to do your thing. You make money or you get dropped from your label. I've seen big artists leave or get dropped from their label.
I don't think there are any real labels anymore really.

Giant corporations bought most of them.
It used to be like Island Records would grab an artist and say, "Oh I like these guys, let's put their record out" and it was a chance and the band took their chance. Now it's not a chance, the corporation just says, "We'll spend five million dollars and this guy is going to be huge" and then next year some little girl will come along and we'll do the same with her. Almost like you don't need talent.

And anything considered a mistake can just be glossed over. Auto-tune is the biggest thorn in my side. I hate it.
And I think American Idol and all that makes it interesting and what's the other one from the other side of the pond?

X FActor?
Yeah, it's stuff like that where people will become stars. It used to be if you were good, you got on TV and became bigger. Now they start their careers on television and they can't maintain on TV then their career is immediately on a downward slide. I really look at it and I kind of go, "Thank god I'm not starting out now."

Recently I watched some live footage and I compared it to older recording and I've got to say your voice still packs a punch. When I showed it to someone else they kept referring to A Flock Of Seagulls as synth/pop and I argued saying I remember you more as a guitar-driven band with layered melodies. Weird what you remember. Maybe I've been categorizing you wrong all these years.
Well, when my brother was drumming he was just a nonstop machine, so that drove everything along a lot of echoes and guitars and stuff like that. But you know what I think? That when people like something they add a little bit of something to the music themselves. You start going and little melodies appear in your head maybe just to add to what the band is playing. And of course when we recorded we multi-tracked everything so it probably sounds a little different. I think we're quite raw live and it seems to work for us for some reason. We might be better off with another synth, but it works as a four piece and that's how we've kept it.

Further dates on the tour past the August 24th concert in Long Beach?
We've got more shows, like this weekend we're playing the Mandalay Bay, then Long Beach, then we go out to Flagstaff Arizona, down into Mexico, and then across to NY and back into Minneapolis. The thing is, because it's not a tour where we play every day it can be a week or two between the shows and we could choose a couple more. If it's doing okay, it keeps getting extended by another couple of dates here and there. When it does well, promoters pick up another show here and there.

That's a lot of time and travel. When you work on your solo stuff between all this, that leaves little time where you aren't on the road. Will you just go out and tour when the solo record comes out as well?
Yes, if it gets to that point when the album comes out, I'm going to have agents try to put a tour together. It will be a short tour and then judging the reaction of that and what's going on with the Seagulls, I'll try to slot that into there. If we are doing, say, a Seagulls date in NY then I'll try to do a solo date in the same area in the same time frame. The whole thing will travel out not just as two separate bands but as a whole unit. And as far as the travel, it's better than sitting home and cooking flapjacks or whatever.

True. But you better pack your suitcase for a long trip.
I've lived out of a suitcase for the last twenty-five years really. Apart from I once took a year off and I had a great year doing stuff, but as soon as I got back to doing music I was like, "Ah, this is home." For me, being on the tour bus is like exploration. I like meeting fans, I like playing. It can get tiring with the travel but when you have a good show and you're tired, it lifts you out of that. You go, "Wow, that was awesome." And you know what the other thing is? When you get that call to do a show, it's kind of like they come out of nowhere. Usually the agent will call up and say, "Hey got you another two shows, blah blah blah, can you fit them in?" and you go, "Of course I can fit them in" because this is what I want to do. It's always a good feeling, it's never like, "Oh goddamn it, not more shows!"
As I get older, I'll have plenty of time to sit around and wonder why isn't anybody calling me.

Since you are a musician, if you were in charge of a music festival and you booked the acts and chose their final song to play before the last curtain-who would you choose and and what would be the tune?
So I'm choosing one song that everybody would have to play?

Yes.
I think I'd have everybody sing "Hey Jude," and extend the end by twenty minutes so the whole crowd could get into it. I'd have Jimi Hendrix play a lead guitar solo in the middle of it. Actually I went to go see Paul McCartney a couple of months ago and I don't know how old he is now but he was absolutely brilliant.

Seventy one, I think.
He was brilliant, he had so much energy and his voice was great. I was just wowed. He looked like he was having a great time. The songs he played were brilliant and of course I'm a big Beatles fan anyway. But that to me was like, "This is a true rock star doing the real thing." So yeah, the closer would be "Hey Jude," the crowd can get involved in it and I'd have Roy Orbison, who I thought was brilliant in there.

A Flock Of Seagulls will be performing at Pine Ave. in Downtown Long Beach on Saturday, August 24 as part of Lost '80s Live. Joining them on the bill will be When in Rome (UK), Gary Myrick, Boingo Dance Party, Animotion, The Flirts, Naked Eyes, and more. Tickets are still available.