Airin (Bass) - Airin,
I would say quiet, artistic and weird. Airin's a trippy dude, he wears black clothes and hangs out in
doors all day but hes a very interesting dude too.
Kenny (Drums) - And
for Kenny, hilarious, he's a total crack-up, hes really funny. Id say he's very...solid. And I would say loyal.
Let's say hilarious, loyal and he's also very business-minded, he's very smart as far as music business goes.
And for me,
Id just say fantastic, fabulous and positively fucking sexy.
Do you honestly like touring
the UK? We've been reading these magazines lately in which a lot of American bands are slagging us off, saying they don't
like the Brits.
We
love touring the UK. Most of our biggest influences artistically and culturally are from over here. Some of our favourite
bands from when we started the Sugarcult; Elvis Costello, The Clash, The Police, The Beatles, The Buzzcocks, the list goes
on. They're all from the UK so we love to come over here as a bunch of rock'n'roll tourists because that's what we are. You
play in a band, you go on the road because you wanna have adventures and meet new people. There's no bigger thrill than going
to another culture and checking it all out, kind of like going into a pub and having a pint of Guinness or watching a soccer
game on TV, just walking down the street and mixing with people. Hearing the accent, that's totally exciting. Unfortunately
a lot of Americans, as free as a country as its hyped up to be, it can be very limiting. I always say "freedom is wasted on
the free". There's a lot of people that opt to use their freedom to just be retarded, just not do anything; sit around all
day, all apathetic, sit on their couch, just work a dead-end job, not really pursue anything in life. So, a lot of times that
mentality will bleed over to musicians. They're lucky enough to have made it into a band where they can tour, then they'll
get over here and complain that theres not enough ice or the mayonnaise isn't refrigerated. And to me that just has to do
with the way you were raised. The last thing you should do if you just wanna have something consistent everywhere you go is
go travel. You need to embrace all the differences rather than fear them. Like "wow, they call this thing something different
here - fuck yeah, that's so rad," or they put mustard on their fries and here you call French fries 'chips' and that's
totally cool.
How does the press treat
you over here?
I
think the music journalism over here is really good but the sad side is its also very genre-specific. Rock Sound and Kerrang!
will listen to our record and Black Velvet, they all seem to like it. But then there's
magazines like NME and Uncut that wont even review our record. I would accept a bad review, just any review, something to
show they actually listened to it. But Press isnt that important, I think the most important thing is that people actually
come see you play live and they listen to your music. Its not good to choose your opinions because of what you read.
Favourite tour in the past?
All
the tours with Sugarcult, we've been pretty lucky, they've all been pretty fun. One of my favourites was last June, a year
ago, when we came over here for the second time and played with Motion City Soundtrack as our first headlining tour. We flew
straight from there to Japan so it was like a world tour. We flew from America, to here and then straight from here to Japan
so that was definitely a thrill.
Who is the most difficult
to put up with on tour? Who just does your head in sometimes?
I
don't think if anybody was difficult we'd keep them on tour with us cause when youre around each other all the time in an
environment like this, we need to all be able to get along. But the first time we ever toured America, we bought a guy with
us from our home town and we thought he really worked for us and instead he went out and hung out with Rancid, partied all
the time while we were left to do all the work. So we were like "dude, what are we paying you to work for us for? Youre having
more fun than all four of us put together". So you gotta watch out who you take on tour, you gotta make sure its someone who's
got a good work ethic and is a good hang and is willing to put up with the crazy sleeping schedule. It's a pretty crazy lifestyle.
Most difficult song to
play live?
There's different songs. There's songs that are harder for me to play and there's songs that are harder for Tim to
sing. We have a song called Crying and it's really hard for Tim to sing so we hardly ever play it live. For me, I'd say our
slow songs. Slow songs are the hardest to play because they're the most vulnerable and you cant stand behind all the noise
and thrashing, you're just there. We recently did an acoustic tour in America because Tim had some ear problems and
that was really a challenge. I haven't felt nervous before I play live, normally I feel totally confident and I was freaking
out, every night I'd go on stage and I was trembling. It's so stripped down. Playing live rock'n'roll songs, really loud with
distortion, fast, is like running across the stage in your underwear, exposing yourself infront of people. Playing songs really
slow is like slowly walking across the stage, stark
naked. And its super cold. And if you've ever been with a guy when it's cold, you know what I'm talking about. Its very
vulnerable, youre out there just going "um, we promise normally its a lot louder".
Headlining or Festivals?
Festivals
Start Static or Palm Trees and
Power Lines?
Palm Trees and Power Lines
Guitar or Bass?
Guitar
Tea or Coffee?
Tea in England, coffee everywhere else.
Beer or Spirits?
Both.
Weapon of choice?
Charm.
Usually we get a really detailed
description of a guitar or a hedge trimmer.
No, I'd say charm. That's how I've gotten
out of every jam I've ever been in in my life, when I was a little kid. Teacher would sit there yelling at me and I'd just
go "did anyone ever tell you have really nice breasts?" Worked every time.
Most vain member of the band? Who
spends the most time in front of the mirror?
Probably me.
That's a powerful admission,
well done.
Yeah,
probably me. It's me, in second place is Tim. Airin and Kenny, it's probably been a year since either of them guys looked
in the mirror. I mean, just take a look at them.
Guilty pleasure?
Magazines.
Im addicted to magazines. I have so many books and I have the best intentions of reading them, but it'll take me forever because
I just buy magazines. Books are said and done and they're written in stone but magazines are today and tomorrow. I think that's
my biggest weakness. I'll go to a store and just look at tons of magazines all day long.
Favourite new band?
I
really like a band called Maxeen who are signed with Side One Dummy in America. Another band is a band called Communiqué who
are on Lookout records. And Jackson, Chris from the Foo Fighters' band who I think are called Jackson United now.
Something I've always wanted
to know is how do you play the guitar solo in Pretty Girl?
The
guitar solo? Y'know, theres no set way to play it, I play it differently every night. The key is turning your pedal up full
and you just run your pick up and down the strings super fast. Like I said, it comes out different every show.
Post-Interview
we taught Marko how to say Birmingham properly. After too long putting up with Americans saying Birmingham with an accent
on the A, Marko went ahead and showed us that somewhere inside he has to have Brummie roots by pulling off the correct pronunciation
(Birmingum) without the slightest problem and with a damn good accent too.
