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Here's an interview i lead with Dave on November, 1st in Hannover. It's a bit strange and a little hilarious, and Dave didn't seem to take it very seriously...but i can't blame him, I was very drunk and quite fucked up (sick) that evening. Read yourself:
entering the backstage room
someone from Chokebore: Who is this?
Dave: He's my roommate.
Chokebore-guy: Really?
Dave: There's a new Dinosaur, uh J.Mascis record out, that he did the artwork for...So, what's up?
Hi Dave. Do you know the german band Trio?
Trio?
Trio.
No. Were they good?
Awesome.
Yeah, but well, man, they were great fans of ours.
I expected you to know them, you should at least know them.
DIO?
Trio.
Man, I love Ronny James Dio! You guys love Ronny James Dio? I LOVE DIO!
Rodney James Dio was fuck! That's in a league with Barclay James Harvest!
My first gig in professional music was playing keyboard on tour with DIO...a lot people don't know that, but that's how I got started in music biz, playing keyboard with DIO on tour...playing the Holy Diver tour. sings in heavy metal voice "Holy Diver...don't do... inaudible". You remember that? Or that one: sings again in dragonslayer voice "A raiiiinbow iin the daaark". You remember that one?
Hell, no. Never heard that crap.
Dio is good for you, man, check it out, spells D I O.
Is it good for my soul?
It's good for your soul, man...it'll blacken your soul.
Do you play the same set every night?
Fuck no, man, you know that, you saw us a couple of nights ago. We've never played the same set twice. We can't, it's impossible, we can't even do the same song twice in a row the same way. It's different every time. I don't know why. Emotions are different, rooms are different.
What's your age?
I'm nine...tyseven. I'm 300. I'm 42.
42?
I'm 25. I'm 16.
No you're not. Just tell me.
No!
Just tell me. You're 28 or 29.
I'm 96 !
No!
No!
No!
NEIN! I SAY NEIN! NEIN!
You're actually...
NEIN!
Nein? Oh, you actually learned some german on tour?
reads from my prepared letter with questions: What's with the "Play at 3/4 of maximum undistorted volume" joke? It's not a joke man! I want people to turn it up! The whole reason behind that is that if you turn it up too loud it will distort. I take a lot of pride in making my recordings sound good so...I don't want you to distort em.
Is there any system that doesn't distort when you turn it up real loud?
Well, what you do is, here is what you do: you turn it up until it distorts and then you turn it down till it doesn't distort and then that's the loudest it can be. You know what I mean? loud, leans close to the microphone If I go like this (and the sound is actually totally distorted on the recording). It's gotta be loud but undistorted. Guitar distortion is good, but overall program distortion is baaad.
Do you believe that there really have been men on the moon or was it all a hoax?
No, Neil Armstrong was there, man, I talked to him about it. He was telling me this, this was incredible. This is the weirdest celebrity moment I ever had, as I was talking to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. I was staying there with Neil Armstrong, and John Glenn, who was the first man to.., the first american to...
what about Buzz?
no wait a minute, I was sitting there with...
what about Buzz?
No, no, hold on... What about who?
Buzz Aldrin, everybody's forgetting about him and Michael Collins.
Buzz Aldrin? I love Buzz Aldrin. But but but but but I'm talking about the Ohio guys, who did other things. So I was talking to some guys, and some guy came after me and he came with 3 other guys, and he was saying: "Hey aren't you actually the guy from "Swearing at Motorists"? And so I was staying with Neil Armstrong and John Glenn! How amazing is that? But I asked these guys "What was it like?". Neil Armstrong told me that his first step foot on the moon, he told me that it was the feeling that he had...was as if everything in his life before that moment...didn't matter. It was such an incredible moment to be on the moon...that his life...was new.
But you didn't see that french documentary that was on german and french TV a few days ago, you could have seen it on TV, maybe in your hotel room?
I don't know about the movie, I'm talking about, like... just what Neil had to say. These guys are from Ohio, Neil Armstrong and John Glenn!
There was this french documentary on Arte, that said the whole first moonlanding was a hoax.
Really ? They were saying it was a hoax?
Yeah, like everyone they asked in that film said it was a hoax.
Well, you know what? Fuck the French! ...No, I'm just kidding. Uh, it's probably pretty good. It could be...these folks could are good liars, I don't know.
Stanley Kubrick...
Yeah, I know him, I know him.
It looks like Stanley Kubrick filmed the moon landing on a set in Hollywood, and this was broadcast as what everybody knows as "The moon landing".
Maybe he did. Stanley Kubrick shot our first video! It didn't really get aired on MTV but it was something we worked on before his death, it was really good...it's uh, it's a little arty. You should see that, it's for the song, uh, "Neighborhood of the sirens". We shot it on film, but it was a short video. Stanley Kubrick...that was great. Stan, I used to call him Stan.
That must have been then before he died, in 1998 or whenever...
Yeah, but that song is from '94. It was on the record in '97, but we did the film earlier.
So you haven't seen the film on ARTE?
No, no...but I wanna see it now.
It was like all the US-Big politician guys from those years, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, Eagleburger, claimed that...
Was it like the ending of "The Lift", like with breasts, and like people were scared in the elevator?
???
We saw this film the other night, last night, Halloween night, and it's called the "The Lift". And these people got stuck in the elevator and they were gonna die, and this one guy, the first thing he did was just like rip the girl's dress open and start fuckin' her...and that's what the Dutch are all about I guess, I don't know. Is that what the Dutch are all about?
To be stuck in an elevator?
Well, to fuck at the sight of death, man! If I was about to die in an elevator, and there was 2 other people with me, 3 other people, I don't know if I just could fuck someone...me personally.
But the occasion is so rare...
I would light someone on fire, that's what I would do, like I wouldn't fuck the girl, I would light her on fire, that would be more entertaining. If I'm about to die I don't wanna get laid, I wanna see something spectacular, like...burning flesh...you know? That'd be good...that'd be good.
I'd maybe like to be stuck in an elevator with...
Sigourney Weaver and just a big ole jar of vaseline?
No, no, no, maybe with Harald Schmidt, a german entertainer guy, who...
A german guy? A big ole hairy german guy? One of this kind'a bare types, that you just could snuggle up to and brave his shavy chest hair? Have you ever thought about what it would be like to fuck a monkey? Travis was telling me about it, he was working in a zoo...ok, the next question is: are you circumcised or uncircumcised? That's disgusting.
Someone told me at first sight of you, that he thought you look like a criminal...are you a criminal?
I'm a criminal man, I'm a motherfuckin' felon, jah. I'm on the wrong side of the tracks. I'm just not convicted...and I wanna keep it that way!
Reading from my paper: My favorite band is not The Dirtbombs. I haven't even heard of them...I never heard of Trio, I never heard of The Dirtbombs, I never heard of Led Zeppelin...
So what's your favorite band?
The Starlight Vocal Band.sings: "Sky rockets in fight, afternoon delight...". No, no...maybe John Denver...
What's with german bands?
Oh yeah man, German bands, the fucking Scorpions, bro! Yeah that's my favorite german band, The Scorpions.
And you can talk a lot German already...
Yeah, I speak lots of it...like I say "NEIN!"..."NEIN!". That's what the german girls say to me: "NEIN!". I can speak a lot of German because I know The Scorpions...sings "ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE"! I know all kinds of German, man...Frankfurter...Deutsch...I'm in there, man...I'm a fuckin' genius.
And so it continued a little more, and became a lot more silly, foremostly also from my side, not understanding nothing anymore, and I'm not ready to reveal that stuff as yet...
--carsten pieper
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