The Dwarves : interview

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BLAG THE RIPPER (DWARVES OVERLORD)
When you’re strolling alongside a fellow that’s so accomplished and still pushes on you no ego trip whatsoever, you know you’re in the company of someone who deserves the respect they maintain. Originally formed as Suburban Nightmare in 1986 outside Chicago, THE DWARVES have steadily left their mark on the world of punk.
Known for the iconic imagery featuring scummy little people engaging in a plethora of non-Ann Landers appropriations, DWARVES are visually known for their two leading original members. Heroin-thin guitarist He Who Cannot Be Named has an over-riding penchant for Speedos, leather gauntlets, and luchadore wrestling masks. He’s like a forked tongued, fire-breathing El Santo Villain.
Vocalist Blag The Ripper is an unmistakable mutant, standing 6 foot 5 with a menacing lurch and cocky hip-hop swagger as he spins the microphone like a medieval mace pouring sweat and blood all over the crowd. Other members go by pseudonyms such as Rec Tom, The Fresh Prince of Darkness, and XXXXX, who supposedly disappeared in Detroit while on tour in a massive, ungodly crack binge.
One is never certain the antics of these ghouls. In fact the entire punk world turned on them viciously when He Who Cannot Be Named faked his own death via international press statement in 1997, causing the band to be dropped from the famous “grunge” label Sub Pop. In response, DWARVES began their own label Greedy Worldwide.
Seven records in, many of which are hard-sought collector vinyl’s, DWARVES have toured on both sides of the Atlantic AND Pacific. From the seminal hardcore album Blood Guts & Pussy to their latest genre-spanning opus DWARVES Must Die, their filthy legacy has left a mushroom-shaped imprint on the foreheads of their hapless fan base. Sleaze, dirge, nudity, insults, violence, hysteria – all in a nights performance, guaranteed…”
“Tell me about San Francisco.”
Blag Dahlia: “Well right now you’re in The Fillmore… I don’t know, I call it The Fillmore. A lot of people call it the Western Addition. It’s somewhere between a slum and a cool place. There’s beautiful houses and Victorians. But people get shot periodically in front of their house.”
“Is this what Seattle is kind of like?”
“It’s a little different. Women aren’t quite as ugly as Seattle. The farther north in California you get the less attractive the women get.”
“They have pimples running down their backs like the mane of a lion…”
“Exactly. You start down in San Diego and LA, the women are gorgeous. By the time you get to San Francisco, they’re starting to slip heavily. By the time you get to Seattle, its bad. But I love it here, it’s my neighborhood. People get shot here, but it’s also a family environment. It’s hard to explain.”
“Tell me about The Dwarves.”
“The Dwarves are rock legends -- the undisputed, sonic champions.”
“Has the ‘Illuminati’ took notice of The Dwarves?”
“(Laughs) I hope so.”
“Where’d you come from originally?”
“Illinois, the suburbs of Chicago, a place called Highland Park. I moved here about twenty years ago. We played all our early shows at The Cubbie Bear, The Metro…”
“Oh yeah, The Metro. I went to Columbia College in Chicago for a bit...”
“Our old drummer went down there. I always considered myself Chicago originally. I think its good to come from the Midwest to figure out the world is not a glittering picnic like California appeared to be.”
“This is my first real excursion in California. How’d you feel about Hollywood and seeing that for the first time? I felt like it was glamorous as I expected and just as empty but not as sleazy. I was a little disappointed.”
“Wow, I guess it depends on where you went. If you’re in West Hollywood on the strip there’s lots of fake tits, people with money running around, but when you get east of Hollywood it’s a little dodgy, you can get in some trouble down there for sure. LA is bigger with people firing guns.”
“[Waitress hand us the menus which list huge prices] Oh wow…”
“(Chuckles) That’ll give you some idea… that we built this city on rock and roll.”
“What other cities have been built on rock and roll thanks to The Dwarves?”
“You know I think that we, in some small way, helped put Seattle up on the map. We were there before those people were, a lot of people thought we were from there, we were on Sub Pop long before.”
“Did The Melvins like you?”
“We always had kind of a feud with The Melvins. But as the years go on those things are kind of wiped away. We’re all friends now. We used to feud with a lot of bands, because that was the nature of The Dwarves.”
“So did Good Charlotte really sleep on your couch at one point?”
“No. (Laughs) Good Charlotte never slept on my couch. I helped work on their big hit record. I threw some lyrics on it and I made some money or it. I’m not very proud. I think they suck. I think they’re one of the worst bands ever. They didn’t give me any credit. I think they knew that I didn’t think very much of them.”
“What about the Creed reference in that song?”
“Creed I never actually met. But they’re just so loathsome. And I hate rock bands that push god. It’s completely fucked. Its two separate things. Don’t push your god in rock and roll. Like Great White. Their shows sucked so bad. And you know it’s always the people running around talking about god that are the most hypocritical, cheap, lazy, fucked up, ignorant men. That’s why they need god to convince everyone they’re a nice person. They think they’re actions don’t bare them out.”
“What do you think of Fidel Castro?”
“Wow. Castro? I thought that he did a pretty interesting thing when he first took over the country. The US government wasn’t quite sure which way to go with him. He asked the large multi-national companies there to put a value on their company for tax purposes. Since they all put so many low values, much less then they were actually worth, they thought they’d pay lower taxes. Fidel turned around and asked ‘are you sure?’ They said yeah, and he paid them that in cash and said get out and nationalized their industries. I thought that was a good move.”
“So when you walk the streets do people identify you or chase you?”
“You know it depends on the context. People are more likely to do that at a show. It’s not like I get mobbed walking down the street. Occasionally people do, but I don’t really care as long as its girls.”
“The last time I interviewed you it was in Detroit in 2005, and you told me that the meaning and the message of The Dwarves was to snort a lot of cocaine and have sex with 14 year old girls. Does that still ring true?”
“(Busts out laughing) That sounds like something I’d say… I’ll relay this story: I was watching television with a friend of mine, an older woman that has a kid that’s 22 years old. And we were watching a show called Are You As Smart As A 5th Grader. I wasn’t really paying attention and I looked up and I see this girl on there with glasses, she’s cute, she looks like my type and I said ‘wow, she’s hot.’ And my friends like ‘she’s in fifth grade!’ That gives you some idea of how my brain works. But I don’t act on those things. That wouldn’t be fair.”
“Yeah, it’s great to be a dirty old man to some degree.”
“They can’t sue you for what you’re thinking you know?”
“I was curious… Why can’t HE be named?”
“That’s a good question. Why can’t HE be named? He’s like an icon. To me HE represents what rock should be. He’s a rock legend. We’ve been friends over 25 years.”
“Did you ever meet GG Allin?”
“Yeah, GG stayed at that house you were just at.”
“Did he smell as bad as they say?”
“He didn’t smell very good.”
“Are you a big Batman fan?”
“I just had this conversation the other day. I like the 60’s fun Batman. The ZAP, BAM Batman. I hate the sad Batman. I like my Batman to do the Bat-too-see. I was always a bigger fan of Marvel than DC as a kid. I had every X-Men comic -- Captain America, Daredevil…”
“Have you done any weird television appearances in Japan?”
“We only went to Japan once. We had such a great time. People there are so sweet. Everywhere you go they take you out to a big meal and after the show people hang out. It’s much different. People don’t really understand that a lot of countries, especially a lot of places in Europe – England excluded but everywhere else – people are very amiable in the way they treat you, especially with shows. In America people try to give you the worst foods they can, just whatever cheap crap they can toss on you. At night they just throw everybody out of after the show… There’s a different vibe in other countries that makes it more fun to do. In America I’m basically out to get paid as much as I can because that’s all you get out of it. There’s no experience. The show itself is fun, you meet cool people. Sometimes you get to sleep with women, all those things are good.”
“Do you own Greedy Worldwide [Dwarves Label]?”
“Yes, I’m the president and owner of Greedy.”
“Do you use that as a pick up line at the bar?”
“You say ‘Hey I AM Greedy.’ Not that many people seem to know about Greedy, not that many people know about Blag, but a lot of people seem to know about The Dwarves. So I ride off that when I can. I’m pretty square looking these days. It’s fun for me to be backstage somewhere and people kind of brush me aside or don’t know what I’m about. When it comes up what band I’m in you get this kind of hushed silence. They know we’ve been around forever and they all claim to be punk bands but we’re an actual punk band. It’s that kind of thing you know. Sometimes I meet people that are real big fans that you wouldn’t think would know about us. It’s a real underground thing because we’ve never sold a lot of records, we’ve had a few big tours and done some big stuff but yet somehow it’s come to be this important thing. It’s a cult fan base. We had a lot of vinyl and record collectors catch up with it. A lot of people tend to ignore punk records because there’s so many mediocre punk records. Years later it catches up.”
“[The waitress hands us warm olive appetizers] These remind me of that scene in Funny Farm where Chevy Chase eats lamb testicles. You a Chevy fan?”
“Great in Caddyshack. Fletch was kind of ok. I’m not the hugest Chase fan.”
“What are your favorite comedians?”
“Chris Rock to me is the funniest man in America. He’s brilliant. I like Bill Maher a lot. He’s not particularly funny in his stand-up, but he’s great when ripping on political stuff. As a kid I loved Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live. The biggest thing was Monty Pythons Flying Circus. I saw them live when I was like 10 years old. I made my parents take me in New York. I love Kids In The Hall. I didn’t think their movie was that great, but I thought their show was really good.”
“Ever meet any of those guys?”
“No, I’ve never met any comics, but I’ve always been a big comic person.”
“Got any good celebrity stories?”
“Well you were asking about GG Allin. I went and visited GG in a maximum security prison in Michigan. That was interesting. He like shaved patches in his head so he looked like he had AIDS. That was pretty amazing to see someone in that type of situation. Years later he came here and was supposed to play with us, but he was so sick from the show the night before – he cut himself with glass, spraying shit everywhere. He had blood poisoning because he was infected. He went to the hospital leaving his band at my house. I let them spend the night and the next day GG was still in the hospital. The band was like ‘what are we gonna do now?’ Well you’re gonna get the fuck out, cause you canceled a show with The Dwarves and that shit doesn’t happen. I was like ‘look, I told you I’d put you guys up, I paid you to do a show, you guys canceled. I know GG, I don’t know you, get out.’ And they were kind of like the very weird… They reminded me of institutionally bi-sexual kind of weird guys…”
“Was the naked drummer with them?”
“Yeah. But he was the weirdest one. At one point he’d taken the Lunachicks album cover and the guy was filming him masturbating with the chair leg up his ass. It was one of the weirdest things I’d ever seen.”
“As far as the new album is concerned, you’ve got some silly rap songs. You ever think of doing a straight hip-hop album for fun?”
“I don’t think I would. I don’t think I’m qualified to do a whole hip-hop album. The idea of Dwarves Must Die was to do an album with every possible genre in it. My idea was to do a hip-hop track that had live elements so it was bigger and heavier than most hip-hop acts, but also talk about rock bands and how whack they were. Their whack-ass managers, doing everything behind everybody’s back. Fronting like they’re real bands but their producers are playing their instruments. In rock and roll you got bands that can’t play, they got signed when they’re 18 to some big major label cause they thing they’re cute, and they market it as if they’re some real band. Then you read an interview like they’re real people. I’ve watched albums like that get made. Like Good Charlotte. The other hip-hop song was ‘I’m Demented.’ The big hip-hop thing that no one picked up on is that there were a lot of loops. But we didn’t loop James Brown or Ozzy records, we looped odd garage songs that no one knew about. It’s a very deep album though. People only caught the surface of it.”
“Who are the epitome of horrid bands of this respect you speak of?”
“I try not to dwell on it. I’m not that interested in what’s happening in rock n’ roll because so much of it sucks. The other funny thing is sometimes you meet people from bands you hate that are really whack and they’ll love my stuff. It’s not that I have to be nice to them. I’m not really worried about my career, it’s just if someone likes me and likes my stuff and its influenced them, maybe there’s something I’m missing in their music, or I just don’t want to be mean to them. I think there’s a bigger problem within the industry itself, it’s so warped in the way that people are rewarded. It forces bands into strange situations and they never get the chance to play live and get better at what they’re doing. If you look back at The Beatles, obviously so many years playing cover songs as teenagers made them really good. They knew how to play and they knew how to write. Bands don’t really go through that process anymore. It’s not that suddenly people aren’t talented anymore. It’s that big companies pick up people with no real ability and plug them into a producer and it makes for this great, uninteresting, homogenized rock scene. It also robs a lot of people their chance. If you have a pool of a million dollars and you spread it over 20 bands that’s one thing. If you have a pool of a million dollars and you spend it all on one band then you can’t really escape that you’ve closed off a part of the culture. You bet the whole farm on one set of people to try and make money. And generally those people tend to be the ‘safe bets,’ so they think. It’s a self perpetuating thing where you get less and less variety, more and more concentration, more and more marketing. It makes for the scene we have today and you can’t necessarily blame the bands that are in it, even if they are whack. 50, 60, 70 years ago they would have gone onstage and if they weren’t good they would’ve been booed off and that would’ve been the end of it. Frank Sinatra isn’t somebody that some guy at a record label thought would be a real big thing. He’s a guy that sang with Tommy Dorsey for a couple of years and that makes you good.”
“What do you think of Glenn Danzig?”
“Danzig is someone that I stole a lot from.”
“Do you wear a skull buckle or jiggle your tits in any videos?”
“I didn’t really steal his style stuff, and I’m a foot taller than him. But I stole actual parts of songs and plugged them into my songs. The Misfits were a big influence. Even the name ‘He Who Cannot Be Named’ was a Samhain song.”
“What’s the creepiest, most bizarre fan moment?”
“You get some people that really feel because they like you that you own them a lot. To me it’s like ‘nice to meet you’ and that’s about it. Some people are really insistent. First you get the weird guys that are like ‘do you wanna fuck my girlfriend,’ ‘do you wanna shoot up with me’ or ‘punch me as hard as you can.’ Then there’s guys that want to get hit with the microphone. I remember meeting these guys from Idaho. My brother was at the show and they were just fascinated by the fact that I have a brother and that he looks like a regular adult man with kids. He’s irregular in lots of ways, but some people are amazed that I’m a human being. I do kind of put myself above them because I do feel you kind of have to be elitist, otherwise you’re sitting there living for somebody else. I don’t want to sleep at every crash pad. I don’t want to hang out, I don’t want to have a conversation with every drunk guy in the middle of the night. I was never into drinking. I haven’t had a drink in a year. So to sit there with drunk people in the middle of the night at their drunk house being drunk… They think they’re real amusing and they’re boring. And then you look real snotty or snooty, but shit dude, I’m just doing whatever I like. I don’t owe you shit.”
“This is my first time in Haight-Ashbury, I’ve never been here. I grew up reading a lot of the radical 60’s counterculture books from Kesey, Leary, Hoffman. We’re here in San Fran, the birthplace of it all. Is any of that still around? Are they totally underground? Are there the acid-headed bums who still think it’s the 60’s? What’s the climate with this?”
“The Grateful Dead thing kind of morphed more into this tribal… It’s very materialistic, more so than you would think. They’re out there selling each other Tofu, tye-dye stuff, whatever it is they do. A lot of the punk rock foundations, the kind of communal things have largely disappeared. There’s people that pay lip service to it. I was never on that end. I’m more of an elitist in that way. I don’t wanna hang out with every hippie on the street. I believe in it somewhat politically, but that’s as far as I go. I need democracy in my life. I don’t owe everybody a night out on the town, I don’t owe everybody a confrontation. But yeah, the hippie thing is largely dead. It’s morphed into the new age movement. I think the difference is the New Age movement is about helping yourself and enriching yourself, thereby you make the world better. The hippie movement at least paid lip service to making the world better. People have largely given up on that. It’s a super-narcissistic culture and people, the generation before mine, can’t even imagine anything but a super-narcissistic culture because they’ve never experienced anything else.”
“What’s the Blag method of self-enrichment?”
“Sometimes I have spiritual experiences. I’m not a religious person but certain things make me feel that way. I don’t have a program of meditation or any of those things. But having close friends that I’ve had my whole life, I think you’re lucky if you can have people like that. A lot of people just glide through life looking after their own ass. They don’t really know anybody, they’re not close to anybody, and I feel sorry for them. But some people that’s how they’re approaching the world. You never really can judge other peoples things. Some people don’t get close to people because maybe their in tune to the universe in ways that I’m not.”
“You ever met Dick Dale?”
“Dick Dale, what a legend he is.”
“He’s still kicking too. I saw him in 2003, he was like 68 years old and summoning this music from another galaxy…”
“I remember going on Space Mountain and they were playing Dick Dale when you go through the tunnel there. To me that’s an innovator. He threw Middle Eastern mode into rock music. Most people I call ‘social musicians’ because they play music to hang out with people that dress like them, and sort of pay some lip service to giving a fuck but they really don’t. I can’t be bothered you know?”
“How do you feel about Detroit?”
“I was never very partial to Detroit. I love a lot of the history of it, bands like Stooges and Motown stuff. I think their garage revival is pretty overblown. I think the White Stripes are ok. That guys a magnetic performer, he writes some good songs, but I don’t really like anything that surrounds it. As far as that whole rock revival they were supposed to have, I was pretty under-whelmed by it. We never got much of a reception in Detroit. Nobody ever really gave a shit about The Dwarves there. You have to kind of come from the Midwest to get that whole ‘blah’ attitude. Blah blah job blah. I was never really impressed by the cities in the Midwest.”
“Is Chicago your strong point?”
“Yeah. To me the only Midwestern town is Chicago. You do ok here and there, you might have some fun in Cincinnati. We do great in some weird places like Columbus Ohio. I think college towns tend to have people more into music, whereas some off-brand city doesn’t have a fuck of a lot. I think Detroit just suffered so much economically and is such a shell of a place that it’s come back some. Especially though in the 80’s and 90’s – it was just a barren wasteland. There’s nothing there. You couldn’t find a 7-11 that was open past 8 o’clock.”
“Tell me about your new projects.”
“I’m not really working on a new Dwarves album now. Part of the idea of Dwarves Must Die was that we would die.”
“So is that your final album?”
“I don’t know. That’s part of the fun of it. The Dwarves can die but still be alive. Its transcended life and death, so I can resurrect it if I feel like it. It’s my party and I’ll die if I want to. I thought that was an important album because it transcended every genre. All of the forces got together there with a great version of the band, but also to have a bunch of cool people that were in the band before play on it. I had an amazing producer who’s real big-time and gets hundreds of thousands of dollars to do records and he does mine, which was very kind of him. There’s guest stars on it – Dexter Holland, Sam Quen just cause he was on the street and I smoked a joint with him. It would be very difficult to make something like that again. I don’t know if I’ll do another Dwarves record. If I do I might make something more like Blood, Guts, And Pussy where it returns to the hardcore. I’m working on a bunch of tracks now that are more built up where I play acoustic guitar and sing funny songs. Whereas in The Dwarves I’d never talk to the audience or engage anybody. This thing is just the opposite, it’s more of a comedy act. It’s kind of solo live, because I find it’s easier to do that way, more manageable. And it’s hard to carry around a band on tour because there’s a lot of shit involved in that. I’ve been developing this into an album. Some of it is 60’s-ish and retro sounding, some of its 50’s rockabilly, some of it is more mid-tempo rock. There’s a lot of sides to it. I’ve gotten more into writing and put out a book called Nina which is about a really dirty 14 year old girl. I’m working on things that are more self-contained and you don’t need to deal with a lot of people.”
“Are you going to work on a Dwarves memoir?”
“I’ve thought about that and I’ve written some of that stuff down, but it’s a ways away. You wait until you’ve done everything, and then you write the memoirs.”
“So I talked to Pig Destroyer right before I came out here, and JR told me to tell you that your band rules…”
“I actually wrote them and told them that I was pissed because they covered a Dwarves song, which is fine, but they didn’t credit us which happens sometimes. But in this case they also did a Helmet song, who I can’t stand, and an Iggy Pop song, who I love, and they credited them. That pissed me off. It’s like saying ‘we wrote this song.’”
“Why do you hate Helmet?”
“I don’t like math rock. I always thought bands like Helmet were really boring. I’m sure they’re nice guys, but I have no interest in heavy metal music. Nirvana got huge and everyone was like ‘Helmet’s next.’ Well Nirvana’s catchy and fun to listen to.”
“Ever met Kurt Cobain?”
“Yeah, I met him twice. One time he was passed out on dope with a bunch of people around him. The other time was at a show, and he and Chris Novaselic did the kind of ‘we’re not worthy’ Wayne and Garth thing. Not in front of me but in front of my bass player because they really respected good bass players. I always thought they were great. I was a booster of them from very early on. I kind of predicted the ascendancy of a few bands. I didn’t predict they’d get as huge as they did, but Nirvana and Green Day I called right off the bat.”
“Never go into much metal then?”
“It never hit me. I’d much rather listen to an old musical like Guys & Dolls or The Music Man than listen to some asshole in spandex pants and his fucking pretentious shit. If you spent anytime around heavy metal bands, they’re a fucking joke. They are so asinine and are so obsessed with the rock hierarchy of whose bigger, who gets the biggest dressing room, they just ruin everything with their bullshit. The jokes on them. They don’t have any fun, they’re so busy comparing their cock-sizes with each other that it holds no feeling. Having said that, I like a couple songs by Iron Maiden, I like a couple metal song by this band or that band. I think Slayers brilliant. Black Sabbath is amazing. I like some Metallica songs. There’s stuff that I like, but the general genre is just unappealing to me. The music doesn’t rock. Slayer to me rocks, its hardcore, I can feel where it’s coming from. A lot of death metal, even though its kind of hard to listen to, at least it feels like it rocks. Metal, of the kind of Alice In Chains variety, or Henry Rollins, its just chukchuk-chukchukchuk. If it doesn’t rock, it’s not rock. And they dress it up with big amplifiers.”
“What about Manowar? Do they get away with it?”
“(Laughs) Manowar? I like the goof appeal of it. But when it comes to my ears it’s easier for me to listen to Louis Allen. The memories just always angered me. It’s like eating a bad meal. You have to eat, so I don’t want to eat something bad.”
“Who’re the epitome of metal assholes?”
“Guns N Roses fully deserved the title of average ok band that made one kind of ok record. I’ll give them that. But I’ve been watching those pricks get the spotlight since 1988 and the fact is they’re boring. If you compare something like Guns N’ Roses to Slayer, which came out about the same time, Slayer – whether you like it or not – was moving rock n’ roll forward as far as going faster, doing stuff in a more brazen, over-the-top way. Guns N Roses dressed up like Aerosmith, played a bunch of sauce rock crap that was produced like bad 80’s metal. It doesn’t hold up. Look at The Ramones. They made a classic first album, the made five more great records in four years. Then look at Guns N Roses who work forever to make one ok record, and then five years later came out with Use Your Illusion, this double-album mediocre shit. They don’t deserve jack shit. I think the reason why they’re so synonymous with rock has to do with marketing. When I was a kid, The Monkees were on TV, they were playing with the Banana Splits, and I recognize it for what it is – marketing. That’s what inspired me because A) it was forced down my throat so I like it and B) it had a fun, hippie, kid-like feel. Modern rock, it combines all the worst elements of that. It gets forced down your throat.”
“What of the ‘modern rock’ arena?”
“The worst one of those bands is Staind. Here’s a fat guy wearing a watch and crying about his mom and dad. He plays music that starts and stops in the most boring ways. It’s this mediocre, whiny shit that’s being mass marketed.”
“You got Puddle of Creed, Korn Bizkit, Blink Charlotte…”
“Well Blink 182 is different. They’re pop punk. If we’re comparing it to the middle finger vibe of The Ramones or The Sex Pistols you have a far way to go. If you write a catchy song that I can remember, and you’re not promoting yourself as some great thing, then fine, fair enough. But it’s the pretension that kills me. You better do really good. If you fuck around with pretension, then give me something earth-shaking.”
“What about Motorhead, do they get away with it?”
“I’ve always loved Motorhead. They were to me a rock band with no metal influence. But we went on tour with Motorhead and they were acting like total Spinal Tap heavy metal assholes and we called them on it. They threw us off the tour. I got up onstage during sound-check and said ‘Get a fucking haircut, you look like Spinal Tap, you’re a joke. You’re paying strippers to hang out with you that I already fucked.’ They do all the heavy metal clichés. Lemmy can make twice as much money as he makes if he’d fire half of his ‘yes men’ and idiots. They’re driving around trying to act like they’re Ozzy. It’s over. Why do you need a tech for everyone in your band? Why are you having your techs ordering opening bands around? Telling me to stand here, go there. I’m too old for that man. I’ve got nothing but respect for Lemmy. But you open for any band that you love, you take a big pay-cut. That’s one of the dirty secrets of the music industry. I can make a few grand playing a headlining show. I get to go play with Lemmy, and I’m supposed to be happy that I’m standing next to him, I got next to no money and that’s how it works. I’d be fine with that if they were cool. But if it’s part of the deal, and I’m already taking a pay-cut, treat me with respect. You guys are legendary, you’re Motorhead and I love you. Well we’re legendary too. We’ve been around a long time too, we’re important too. If I took a pay-cut to hang out with you, show me some fucking respect. Don’t send your guitar tech to tell me what to do, don’t tell me I have to pay to use the toilet backstage, don’t fucking try to shush me off or blow me off. Because I will get right up in your face and tell you this is an American art form, you’re a fucking English interloper, you can suck a dick. I don’t care if I love your band. I didn’t sign on to get ordered around by heavy metal assholes or punk rock assholes for that matter.”
“What do you think are some bullshit attitudes in punk rock in general?”
“There’s a lot of people who grew up in comfortable, suburban surrounding like I did, and then they try to act like they’ve paid some incredible dues. They want everybody else to play for free. People get mad at you because you’re making some money. You have to explain to people this is my life and I’m doing it full time and I’m trying to do it really well. Just ‘cause you’re doing it on your semester off or you don’t take it that seriously because you don’t play that well, don’t hate on me. There’s a lot of that in punk rock.”
“Did you get a lot of uniformed, old school guys pissed at your last album?”
“Absolutely. People would say we’d gone commercial, but we’re combining elements from all genres, so it’s even less commercial. You think the hip-hop guys want to wade through the punk songs? Forget it, they wouldn’t buy it. The punk guys? They cry when they hear the gospel track. I’m a fucking musician. These guys don’t make albums, they make wallpaper for their lifestyle. What they’re saying is ‘I like hardcore, I like to dress up, I like The Exploited, so that’s the only music I’ll ever play.’”
“Did you cry when Rodney Dangerfield died?”
“(Laughs) I didn’t cry, but I wasn’t happy about it.”