Gas Huffer

FB: I HEARD THAT NONE OF YOU HAVE BEEN JANITORS YET YOU PUT AN ALBUM OUT CALLED “JANITORS OF TOMORROW”. IS THAT BECASUE YOU WANT TO BECOME JANITORS?
Tom: I’ve never been an actual full fledged janitor but in connection with other jobs I had frequently, and still to this day, permformed janitorial duties.
Joe: Mopped many floors.
Matt: I’ve swept many a floor.
FB: DID ANY OF YOU HAVE A TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE WITH GRADE SCHOOL JANITORS BECAUSE I KNOW THERE’S ALWAYS THAT BALD GUY WITH ONE EYE AT EVERY SCHOOL. (laughter)
Tom: Weird old guy. (laughter)
FB: (in grumpy old janitor voice) “GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YOU KIDS!!!”
Matt: Actually I have. I was putting up posters for some event at a high school, not my high school, but I was advertising for an event at my high school and the janitors came out. They were yelling at us, “Tear those things down!!!” (laughter) ‘Cause it was like for some dance or something, it was like a big monster face and all the A’s were circled and stuff. (more laughter).
Joe: I prefer to say “custodial engineer”,
Matt: That’s right.
Tom: I’m sure that someday I will be a full blown janitor.
FB: DO YOU LIKE TO HAVE A THEME FOR YOUR ALBUMS?
Don: Yeah, we like ‘em to be round.
FB: TWELVE INCHES WIDE.
Joe: We haven’t done a rock opera yet if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.
Tom: I don’t know if we ever really conciously thought of one.
Matt: I think the only one that really had an album title before we started recording the album was “Integrity, Technology, & Service”. So I don’t know if that...
Don: We finally did have a title song, it was the “I.T.S. Creedo”.
Joe: No “One Inch Masters” theme.
Matt: But the title for that album came after the album was actually (done).
Matt: But I think getting the four of us to unite around one concept (couldn’t make it out).
Matt: We’re already united around the concept of Gas Huffer, man.
Joe: That’s about it.
FB: BUT ALL YOUR ALBUMS HAVE THE THREE LETTER INITIALS THOUGH RIGHT.
Matt: I guess so.
Tom: Oh wait it’s “Integrity, Technology, AND Service.” (laughs)
FB: I’VE SEEN IT AS I.T.S. A COUPLE TIMES.
Matt: It’s always—for some reason it’s always in catalogs as “I.T.S.”.
Tom: I haven’t heard anybody call the new album “O.I.M.”.
FB: I’VE SEEN IT INITIALED SOMEWHERE.
Don: I saw that.
Joe: In the add for the comic book.
Tom: Yeah, “J.O.T.”, “I.T.S.”, “O.I.M.”.
Joe: Well it’s just like one of those things like those supermarket best seller kinda things like “The Client”.
Tom: “The Parcifall Books”.
Joe: You find the favorite words that people recognize and they’ll buy every one.
Matt: OK, we’ve got three cups with a bunch of words cut up in them and we pull one out of each cup. Do you want us to admit that?
Tom: Our next album is going to be “Huge Step Forward”. (laughter)
Don: actually our next album’s gonna have to be three words too, “Brain Cell Massacre”.
Tom: Then again all the ideas we came with so far like “Brian Cell Massacre” and “Christmas On Ice” all have three words.
FB: IS BEER THE FUEL FOR THE GAS HUFFER MACHINE?
Joe: No. I prefer freah fruit juice.
Don: Usually, usually.
Matt: That is one of the fuels for the Gas Huffer machine.
Joe: It’s more like a (something) ‘cause it puts you in the skids.
Don: It’s not the fuel, it’s more like the oil in the Gas Huffer machine.
Tom: The actual fuel that would be Hardee’s. (laughter)
FB: I’M SURE EVRY BAND HAS A STORY OF WHEN THEY WERE DRUNK AND SOMETHING STRANGE HAPPENED, DO YOU GUYS HAVE ONE OF THOSE STORIES?
Tom: No. (laughter) It happens every other night. The funny things about stories that we have is that we can’t remeber
exactly what happened. (laughter)
FB: NOW THAT YOU’RE ON EPITAPH IS THERE ANY PLANS FOR YOU TO DO A VIDEO? ‘CAUSE A LOT OF THOSE EPITAPH BANDS HAVE VIDEOS.
Tom: Yeah, we actually did a video that’s supposedly coming out soon.
Don: We have a video.
FB: WHAT SONG DID YOU DO IT FOR?
Don: “Crooked Bird”.
Tom: Yeah. We’ve actually made a few videos, they’re all just totally low budget things.
Joe: Now we’ve made a high budget video. It’ll be out in January.
Matt: Not high, higher.
Joe: Well for us it high, the last video we made was free and the one before that cost $400.
Don: This last one we made cost $4,000.
Matt: That’s extremely cheap.
Don: We had a budget of five (thousand), we brought it in a thosand dollas under budget what are you talkin’ about.
Joe: The last Madonna video was some like fifteen million dollars, something like that.
Matt: I thought it was $40,000 not...
Joe: How the hell do I know? They filmed in New York city for like fourteen days solid filming.
Matt: It thought it was in Spain.
(They debat the locastion & cost of the new Madonna video).
FB: DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY DESIRE TO MOVE TO A MAJOR LABEL ANY TIME?
Joe: I couldn’t see any possible reason to. Epitaph basically caters to the the type of music that we want to play and they treat us like kings.
Don: They treat us better than any major label.
FB: A LOT OF BANDS GET LOST IN THE SHUFFLE.
Joe: Definetly.
Don: We don’t get lost in the shuffle at Epitaph.
Joe: We get a lot of personal attention from them and I don’t think we ever had any real interest in a major label. Of course we never got any real offers from major labels, so it’s easy to say that but I don’t think it’s somehting we’re interested in.
Don: I don’t see even why bands like the Offspring would even think about going to a major label. If you can sell over two million copies of a record on an independent label I don’t see any reason to go to a major.
Joe: You know where your money’s going, more or less. I mean you know it’s not goin’ to....
Don: You know who your friends are.
Tom: We’ll just sign on with an indie label and let the indie label turn into a major. (laughter)
Matt: We’ve avoided the whole problem. (more laughs)
Tom: (jokingly) Then I’ll say, “We signed with ‘em before the Offspring hit”.
Don: I have a certain amount of faith that Brett will not sell out to a major label.
Joe: He’s had offers already.
Don: Sure man, I’m sure everyday he gets offers.
Tom: He’s a pretty sharp business man.
FB: HERE’S ANOTHER QUESTION FOR YOU TOM, ARE THERE ANY MORE PLANS FOR THE MONKEYWRENCH TO DO ANY MORE RECORDING?
Tom: Uhh, no. It seems like the summer before last we were supposed to go down to Austin to record an EP but everybody’s beem real busy.
Don: Explanation: Tim Kerr won’t do it.
Matt: Tim Kerr is the one that wants to do it.
Tom: Yeah, he wants to do it.
Matt: Yeah I was talking to him...(couldn’t make out the rest)
Don: He couldn’t get his fuckin’ lackees to get him down there?
FB: DID YOU EVER PLAY ANY LIVE SHOWS? (the Monkeywrench)
Tom: Yeah, three live shows. They were all in Seattle. We were hoping at one point to go down to Texas to do so shows. ‘Cause you know Steve & Mark are pretty busy with Mudhoney, Martain’s in Bloodloss.
Joe: Tom’s in Gas Huffer.
Tom: Tim’s in—well I guess he was in Jack ‘O Fire.
Matt: They did some Poison 13 reunion shows. Did you hear about that?
FB: YEAH.
Matt: It was pretty amazing. I only saw one.
FB: I BOUGHT A POISON 13 RECORD FOR 50 CENTS AND I THINK IT’S A HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN SHIT YOU COULD BUY FOR 15 BUCKS.
Matt: Yeah. (Laughs) Sub Pop re-released all that Poison 13 stuff too. Is that out yet?
FB: YEAH I SAW IT TODAY.
(We talk more about Poison 13 and the new tribute 7” on Bag of Hammers records that Gas Huffer contributed a song to)
Don: Mr. Fotheringham did the cover.
FB: WHAT’S THAT GUY LIKE? IS HE PRETTY WEIRD?
Tom: He’s a total nut, he’s really funny. He likes to play out the artist angle. You go to an opening and he’ll be like standing there in the corner with a beret and a big mustache on & a big coat with a paint splat.
Don: There was this picture that Mudhoney did, Dan Peters is baby Jesus and the rest of Mudhoney are the three wisemen and Ed Fotheringham is a sheep and he had cotton balls pasted all over his entire body & he’s down on all fours.
Joe: He posed in that Teriyaki Asthma record too. (a compilation on C/Z records)
FB: WHAT’S THE SEATTLE SCENE LIKE NOW THAT ALL THE HYPE IS DEAD?
Don: Just like it used to be, thank God.
Tom: It’s kinda cool, we’re on the map anyhow. There’s a lot of labels so it’s a lot easier for bands startin’ out to just get a single out. I used to take years and years and years to get a single out, Basically the only way to put a single out was to finance it yourself.
Joe: I think a lot of kind of the negative aspect of it was some of these bands got a little more obsessed with it in the business aspect of it. Because all of a sudden there became a reality that that was maybe a possibility at all. But I think that’s kind of tapered off, that’s kind of over. I’m sure there’s still bands that kinda shoot for that. But there’s always a real supportive scene, more like helping each other out. I think that kinda spirit has sort of come back.
Tom: There’s always clods like that in the music scene who are just obsessed with, “We’re gonna make it to the top, we’re gonna get signed!!”. It used to be in Seattle we had this weird situation where people from L.A. were moving to Seattle in order to get “signed to thr big time”.
Don: Now Epitaph is gonna suck all those people back to LA..
Tom: (laughs) Yeah it like the migration of tribes of bozo rockers.
FB: DOES IT RAIN IN SEATTLE AS MUCH AS EVERYONE SAYS?
Don: Yes.
Tom: It rains a lot.
Joe: It just rains a lot of days, it doesn’t rain hard.
Matt: It kinda pisses.
Tom: It always grey and overcast.




	It’s not every day that you get a chance to meet and interview a band who’s music you truly enjoy, but that day did come for me on December 2, 1994 when GAS HUFFER finally made their way to Lawrence, KS while on tour with the Cramps. After two great albums on eMpTy Records they decided it was time to move to a new label, Epitaph Records, and release their third album “One Inch Masters”. Interview by Mike Watts.

	Matt Wright - Vocals Tom Price - Guitar Joe Newton - Drums Don Blackstone - Bass FB: (to Tom) LET ME GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY, I ONLY HAVE ONE QUESTION ABOUT THE U-MEN. HOW MANY RELEASES DID YOU GUYS HAVE OUT? Tom: Two ep’s, one LP, two singles and some compilation cuts. FB: ARE THERE ANY PLANS TO RE-RELEASE ANY OF THAT STUFF? Tom: Sub Pop has been talkin’ about it in conjunction with Amphetamine Reptile Records; releasing all that stuff on CD but there’s no big rush. I don’t know what’s goin’ on with that, they’re probably waiting for us to get more famous. FB: HERE’S A QUESTION YOU GUYS ARE PROBABLY SICK OF ANSWERING ALREADY BUT WHY DID YOU MAKE THE SWITCH TO EPITAPH? Tom: To make more money!! FB: DO YOU FEEL YOU RAN YOUR COURSE WITH EMPTY? Joe: That’s pretty much the case. Don: Gina works for Epitaph. Joe: Gina’s a lot better lookin’ than Blake. Oh just—it’s kinda, we did two albums with them. They (Epitaph) just can offer us a lot more support, help us out because we couldn’t go any farther than we were going . Don: Still the biggest independent label in the world. Matt: It was not an easy decision to make. FB: HERE’S A QUESTION ABOUT ANOTHER SEATTLE BAND, DID ZIPGUN REALLY BREAK UP? Tom: They broke up. Matt: They broke up on the rocks. FB: DID AN INTERVIEW WITH THEM ONCE. WE WERE IN THEIR VAN FOR LIKE A HALF HOUR, THEY KEPT RAMBLING ON. THEY WOULDN’T SHUT THE HELL UP. (lots of laughter) Matt: Was it good though? FB: YEAH IT WAS GOOD. Don: They were probably high on acid. Tom: I produced and played organ on their last album. FB: YEAH, I NOTICED THAT AND I SAW THE LINER NOTES ON THE DERELICTS (compilation). Tom: I haven’t seen that yet. FB: YOU HAVEN’T? Matt: You did the liner notes? Tom: Yeah a Derelicts retrospective. Matt: Oh yeah. Were you Charles or were you Tom Price? FB: I THINK IT’S “T. PRICE”. I THINK THEY LEFT OFF SOME PRETTY GOOD SONGS DIDN’T THEY? Tom: I’ve been on tour for like ten weeks and that came out just a while ago so I haven’t seen it yet. FB: A LOT OF YOUR LYRICS TEND TO BE ON THE HUMOROUS SIDE. DO YOU FEAR THAT SOMEDAY YOU MIGHT BECOME SERIOUS? Matt: (Laughs) Wow! I was waitin’ for something else there. I don’t know. Tom: Waiting for “Do you ever fear that some day you might become the Dead Milkmen?”. Matt: Uhh I don’t know. (laughs) At least I feel pretty serious a lot of the time any way. FB: WOULD THAT BE THE END OF GAS HUFFER THOUGH? IF YOU GOT TOO SERIOUS WOULD YOU HAVE TO QUIT? Don: Humor’s just a shield for Matt’s frail... Matt: True tortured identity. Tom: Personally I like a nice mixture of serious and funny. If it got too serious I would just go, “Oh my God, we’re turning into..... Matt: Candle Box. Don: Danzig. Joe: Fugazi. Tom: “We’re turning into everybody else”. Matt: I was talking to someone else about this recently, it’s just like to me it’s like rock music is kinda already a cartoon man. Because they were talking about “Oh you guys are totally cartoon like”, I was like well you know even when a band is really serious, in a way even more so they appear to be kinda like a cartoon so might as well just play for the hell of it. I think there’s a lot of serious stuff goin’ on, it’s just all mixed together. Don: If you want to see a serious band you should go see Dan Rather’s band. He’s got a little side project goin’. FB: I DON’T KNOW IF I COULD HONESTLY LISTEN TO ANY OTHER BAND SING ABOUT WASHING DISHES AND LIKE IT OTHER THAN GAS HUFFER. Matt: Thanks. Don: It’s only what it seems to be about, it’s not really... Tom: Actually it’s about the angst of America’s youth. Don: It’s more about drying dishes really. FB: DOES A LOT OF STUFF FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD LEAK INTO THE LYRICS LIKE THE SONG “BMX”? WERE YOU ALL INTO BMX BIKE RIDING? Matt: Actually to me that song is kinda about the people that I used to deeply fear when I was a kid in elementary school. Like all kinda like tough BMX... Don: I was a skater and we all ways hated the BMX riders. All the skaters had the ongoing war with the BMX riders. Matt: Those guys were fags. But it came around like I was just imagining this sort of feeling of like being sort of like a stoned teen, like really cruisin' fast on a BMX bike just all high and just feelin’ good basically. But I mean that character type it’s like...We used to be really afraid of teenagers, “LOOK TEENAGERS!!!!”. One time me and my brother were walkin’ home from school and I yelled “TEENAGERS!!” and he ran really hard man, we were scared of them. They shot BB guns at us and stuff. (laughter) They walked like this (Matt stands up and does a shuffle walk) there was like a teenager walk. FB: WERE YOU GUYS ALL OUTCASTS AT SCHOOL? Don: Actually I was one of those guys that Matt used to be afraid of. (laughs) Joe: You still are. Don: I was a stoner tough guy. FB: IS PLAYING WITH THE CRAMPS KIND OF A DREAM COME TRUE FOR YOU GUYS? Tom: Oh yeah. Matt: Yes. Joe: Yeah it’s been cool because they watch our show every night. FB: WERE THEY INTO YOU BEFORE YOU WENT ON TOUR TOGETHER OR DID THEY NOT EVEN KNOW WHO YOU WERE? Joe: They’d never heard of us. Matt: Epitaph put out the vinyl of their new one, the domestic vinyl release of their new album and the Euro one. So they asked Epitaph for a band (to tour with), a compatible band so Epitaph gave them our CD and we were sittin’ around goin’ “Oh they’re not gonna like it” and I guess they liked it. Don: And all the other bands they wanted to go couldn’t do it. Matt: That’s true, there were other bands that they wanted to tour with that weren’t available. (roadie guy picks up a nasty looking pair of panties that were stuck on a nail) (Laughter) Matt: Where’d that come from. Everyone: Uhhhhhhheeeeuhh. Matt: That’s a tour veteran for ya. Joe: He’s not with us. (more laughter) FB: ALL RIGHT WE’VE GOT A BUNCH OF QUESTIONS ABOUT THE COMIC BOOKS NOW. WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THOSE? Matt: Other comic books. FB: WERE YOU THE TYPE OF PEOPLE THAT GOT RECORDS AS KIDS AND LIKED GETTING FREE SHIT WITH THEM? WAS THAT A FACTOR? Joe: Our first album we were thinking like what kinda cool free shit can we put in a record. I remember one of my favorite packaging deals in a record was that (couldn’t make out the rest) Don: I remember getting the Beatles “White Album” when I was a kid and getting a full color poster and four 8 by 10 glossies, Magical Mystery Tour had a big book and Sergeant Pepper had like cut outs. And even when punk rock started you’d always get like a cheap fold out poster or a lyric sheet or something else besides just a record and a sleeve. Matt: We also feel like it’s necessary to reward people for buying vinyl too these days. Tom: Also the first comic started out—I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but the comic that came with the first album it was just the lyrics illustrated. I think part of the idea might have been that we kinda wanted a lyric sheet but didn’t want to call it a lyric sheet and then from there it just kinda evolved into just do whatever you want. Don: I personally like that idea, I think the lyric sheet worked real well, the lyrics were just so fuckin’ stupid though. (laughter) Tom: I feel like the lyrics are usually fairly audible. Joe: (to Matt) Mostly we’ll just ask you “What’s that one line you’re saying ?”. Matt: I think the lyrics on the new stuff is a lot quieter too. Joe: A lot of people are having a hard time understanding Matt’s lyrics since he lost all his teeth in a horrible disfiguring accident. Now his speech is real nutty. FB: IS IT A LITTLE MORE FUN JUST TO WRITE JUST STUPID STORIES INSTEAD OF DRAWINGS TO LYRICS? Tom: Just being able to do whatever you want in it you know. The story I did in the last one has no real significance whatsoever to Gas Huffer. Joe: I like the aspect that you put something in addition to what was offered in the music. I mean I like the lyric sheet aspect of the first one but I think it’s kinda cool that you get something that’s like more informative... Tom: Like self mythologizing. Joe: Yeah. Don: It’s definitely easier to write it with the lyrics ‘cause your storyline’s already laid out, you don’t have to think about it, you can draw a lot quicker. Joe: Yeah but you’re always thinkin’ Don. Just not about writin’ the comic. Don: I always thinkin’ I’ll get out of doin’ hard work. FB: WAS YOUR FIRST COMIC LIMITED TO THE FIRST ONE THOUSAND RECORDS? Tom: Yeah. Joe: There were two thousand copies of it actually. FB: I’VE GOT ONE. Tom: We didn’t think the album was really gonna sell much. FB: ARE THE OTHER COMICS LIMITED? Joe: The second one was limited to four thousand. This new one will be unlimited. FB2: IS THERE ANY OTHER FREE STUFF YOU’D LIKE TO INCLUDE Tom: Like an iron on patch. FB: THAT ONE COMIC BOOK HAD THE CUT OUT MASKS. Joe: Yeah, that was our first one, that was just in the back. Matt: I’ve got a shitload of those masks if you want one. I’ve 300 masks some place. Joe: Right now at his house. FB: DO YOU REALLY HAVE A “LOVE HURTS” FAN CLUB? Matt: Uhhhh. Tom: No. Joe: Maybe. (laughter) Tom: We’re suppose to. We keep sayin’ one of these days we’re gonna get that goin’. Joe: ‘Cause we’re so busy out on the road all the time bringing our word to the people. (laughter) Matt: We actually used to answer all of our mail, that was about two years ago. We’ve got two years worth of mail, so if any body wrote us a letter in the last two years and didn’t get an answer we’re real sorry. FB: DID YOU USE TO GET A LOT OF CRAZY MAIL? Matt: We’ve got some crazy mail. Tom: We had some pretty funny letters. We got this one, I think the best one I ever saw was from an artist who wanted to do an album cover for us. Matt: Oh yeah. Tom: He sent us photographs of his paintings right. And his paintings were just ridiculous, it was like kinda yuppie design sort of new wave stuff. And then he included a picture of him. He’s this kind of regular looking guy with a suit and a mustache and he’s in what appears to be a hotel lobby and he’s got one of his horrible paintings on an easel and he’s standing next to it going (standing with a weird facial expression) and there’s like a ribbon, like a first place award hanging off this horrible painting. (laughter) Don: There was a sinister aspect of that guy that I didn’t remember. There was something wrong with that person. Joe: I think it was just his paintings. Don: No there was something that he was talking about, something bad, there was something real bad. Joe: (as the artist) “Yes I killed my mother”. Don: There was something bad. FB: SOUNDS LIKE THE TYPE OF GUY THAT WOULD BUY ANDY WARHOL’S CORPSE. Tom: I was thinking for a while that we should just the picture of him and his suit with the painting (for an album cover) (laughter)

	*photos by Charles Peterson* GAS HUFFER LP DISCOGRAPHY: Janitors Of Tomorrow - 1991 Empty Records Integrity Technology And Service - 1992 Empty Records One Inch Masters - 1994 Epitaph Records The Inhuman Ordeal Of Special Agent Gas Huffer - 1996 Epitaph Records Just Beautiful Music - 1998 Epitaph Records The Rest Of Us - 2002 Estrus Records		FB: I HEARD THAT NONE OF YOU HAVE BEEN JANITORS YET YOU PUT AN ALBUM OUT CALLED “JANITORS OF TOMORROW”. IS THAT BECASUE YOU WANT TO BECOME JANITORS? Tom: I’ve never been an actual full fledged janitor but in connection with other jobs I had frequently, and still to this day, permformed janitorial duties. Joe: Mopped many floors. Matt: I’ve swept many a floor. FB: DID ANY OF YOU HAVE A TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE WITH GRADE SCHOOL JANITORS BECAUSE I KNOW THERE’S ALWAYS THAT BALD GUY WITH ONE EYE AT EVERY SCHOOL. (laughter) Tom: Weird old guy. (laughter) FB: (in grumpy old janitor voice) “GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YOU KIDS!!!” Matt: Actually I have. I was putting up posters for some event at a high school, not my high school, but I was advertising for an event at my high school and the janitors came out. They were yelling at us, “Tear those things down!!!” (laughter) ‘Cause it was like for some dance or something, it was like a big monster face and all the A’s were circled and stuff. (more laughter). Joe: I prefer to say “custodial engineer”, Matt: That’s right. Tom: I’m sure that someday I will be a full blown janitor. FB: DO YOU LIKE TO HAVE A THEME FOR YOUR ALBUMS? Don: Yeah, we like ‘em to be round. FB: TWELVE INCHES WIDE. Joe: We haven’t done a rock opera yet if that’s what you’re gettin’ at. Tom: I don’t know if we ever really conciously thought of one. Matt: I think the only one that really had an album title before we started recording the album was “Integrity, Technology, & Service”. So I don’t know if that... Don: We finally did have a title song, it was the “I.T.S. Creedo”. Joe: No “One Inch Masters” theme. Matt: But the title for that album came after the album was actually (done). Matt: But I think getting the four of us to unite around one concept (couldn’t make it out). Matt: We’re already united around the concept of Gas Huffer, man. Joe: That’s about it. FB: BUT ALL YOUR ALBUMS HAVE THE THREE LETTER INITIALS THOUGH RIGHT. Matt: I guess so. Tom: Oh wait it’s “Integrity, Technology, AND Service.” (laughs) FB: I’VE SEEN IT AS I.T.S. A COUPLE TIMES. Matt: It’s always—for some reason it’s always in catalogs as “I.T.S.”. Tom: I haven’t heard anybody call the new album “O.I.M.”. FB: I’VE SEEN IT INITIALED SOMEWHERE. Don: I saw that. Joe: In the add for the comic book. Tom: Yeah, “J.O.T.”, “I.T.S.”, “O.I.M.”. Joe: Well it’s just like one of those things like those supermarket best seller kinda things like “The Client”. Tom: “The Parcifall Books”. Joe: You find the favorite words that people recognize and they’ll buy every one. Matt: OK, we’ve got three cups with a bunch of words cut up in them and we pull one out of each cup. Do you want us to admit that? Tom: Our next album is going to be “Huge Step Forward”. (laughter) Don: actually our next album’s gonna have to be three words too, “Brain Cell Massacre”. Tom: Then again all the ideas we came with so far like “Brian Cell Massacre” and “Christmas On Ice” all have three words. FB: IS BEER THE FUEL FOR THE GAS HUFFER MACHINE? Joe: No. I prefer freah fruit juice. Don: Usually, usually. Matt: That is one of the fuels for the Gas Huffer machine. Joe: It’s more like a (something) ‘cause it puts you in the skids. Don: It’s not the fuel, it’s more like the oil in the Gas Huffer machine. Tom: The actual fuel that would be Hardee’s. (laughter) FB: I’M SURE EVRY BAND HAS A STORY OF WHEN THEY WERE DRUNK AND SOMETHING STRANGE HAPPENED, DO YOU GUYS HAVE ONE OF THOSE STORIES? Tom: No. (laughter) It happens every other night. The funny things about stories that we have is that we can’t remeber exactly what happened. (laughter) FB: NOW THAT YOU’RE ON EPITAPH IS THERE ANY PLANS FOR YOU TO DO A VIDEO? ‘CAUSE A LOT OF THOSE EPITAPH BANDS HAVE VIDEOS. Tom: Yeah, we actually did a video that’s supposedly coming out soon. Don: We have a video. FB: WHAT SONG DID YOU DO IT FOR? Don: “Crooked Bird”. Tom: Yeah. We’ve actually made a few videos, they’re all just totally low budget things. Joe: Now we’ve made a high budget video. It’ll be out in January. Matt: Not high, higher. Joe: Well for us it high, the last video we made was free and the one before that cost $400. Don: This last one we made cost $4,000. Matt: That’s extremely cheap. Don: We had a budget of five (thousand), we brought it in a thosand dollas under budget what are you talkin’ about. Joe: The last Madonna video was some like fifteen million dollars, something like that. Matt: I thought it was $40,000 not... Joe: How the hell do I know? They filmed in New York city for like fourteen days solid filming. Matt: It thought it was in Spain. (They debat the locastion & cost of the new Madonna video). FB: DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY DESIRE TO MOVE TO A MAJOR LABEL ANY TIME? Joe: I couldn’t see any possible reason to. Epitaph basically caters to the the type of music that we want to play and they treat us like kings. Don: They treat us better than any major label. FB: A LOT OF BANDS GET LOST IN THE SHUFFLE. Joe: Definetly. Don: We don’t get lost in the shuffle at Epitaph. Joe: We get a lot of personal attention from them and I don’t think we ever had any real interest in a major label. Of course we never got any real offers from major labels, so it’s easy to say that but I don’t think it’s somehting we’re interested in. Don: I don’t see even why bands like the Offspring would even think about going to a major label. If you can sell over two million copies of a record on an independent label I don’t see any reason to go to a major. Joe: You know where your money’s going, more or less. I mean you know it’s not goin’ to.... Don: You know who your friends are. Tom: We’ll just sign on with an indie label and let the indie label turn into a major. (laughter) Matt: We’ve avoided the whole problem. (more laughs) Tom: (jokingly) Then I’ll say, “We signed with ‘em before the Offspring hit”. Don: I have a certain amount of faith that Brett will not sell out to a major label. Joe: He’s had offers already. Don: Sure man, I’m sure everyday he gets offers. Tom: He’s a pretty sharp business man. FB: HERE’S ANOTHER QUESTION FOR YOU TOM, ARE THERE ANY MORE PLANS FOR THE MONKEYWRENCH TO DO ANY MORE RECORDING? Tom: Uhh, no. It seems like the summer before last we were supposed to go down to Austin to record an EP but everybody’s beem real busy. Don: Explanation: Tim Kerr won’t do it. Matt: Tim Kerr is the one that wants to do it. Tom: Yeah, he wants to do it. Matt: Yeah I was talking to him...(couldn’t make out the rest) Don: He couldn’t get his fuckin’ lackees to get him down there? FB: DID YOU EVER PLAY ANY LIVE SHOWS? (the Monkeywrench) Tom: Yeah, three live shows. They were all in Seattle. We were hoping at one point to go down to Texas to do so shows. ‘Cause you know Steve & Mark are pretty busy with Mudhoney, Martain’s in Bloodloss. Joe: Tom’s in Gas Huffer. Tom: Tim’s in—well I guess he was in Jack ‘O Fire. Matt: They did some Poison 13 reunion shows. Did you hear about that? FB: YEAH. Matt: It was pretty amazing. I only saw one. FB: I BOUGHT A POISON 13 RECORD FOR 50 CENTS AND I THINK IT’S A HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN SHIT YOU COULD BUY FOR 15 BUCKS. Matt: Yeah. (Laughs) Sub Pop re-released all that Poison 13 stuff too. Is that out yet? FB: YEAH I SAW IT TODAY. (We talk more about Poison 13 and the new tribute 7” on Bag of Hammers records that Gas Huffer contributed a song to) Don: Mr. Fotheringham did the cover. FB: WHAT’S THAT GUY LIKE? IS HE PRETTY WEIRD? Tom: He’s a total nut, he’s really funny. He likes to play out the artist angle. You go to an opening and he’ll be like standing there in the corner with a beret and a big mustache on & a big coat with a paint splat. Don: There was this picture that Mudhoney did, Dan Peters is baby Jesus and the rest of Mudhoney are the three wisemen and Ed Fotheringham is a sheep and he had cotton balls pasted all over his entire body & he’s down on all fours. Joe: He posed in that Teriyaki Asthma record too. (a compilation on C/Z records) FB: WHAT’S THE SEATTLE SCENE LIKE NOW THAT ALL THE HYPE IS DEAD? Don: Just like it used to be, thank God. Tom: It’s kinda cool, we’re on the map anyhow. There’s a lot of labels so it’s a lot easier for bands startin’ out to just get a single out. I used to take years and years and years to get a single out, Basically the only way to put a single out was to finance it yourself. Joe: I think a lot of kind of the negative aspect of it was some of these bands got a little more obsessed with it in the business aspect of it. Because all of a sudden there became a reality that that was maybe a possibility at all. But I think that’s kind of tapered off, that’s kind of over. I’m sure there’s still bands that kinda shoot for that. But there’s always a real supportive scene, more like helping each other out. I think that kinda spirit has sort of come back. Tom: There’s always clods like that in the music scene who are just obsessed with, “We’re gonna make it to the top, we’re gonna get signed!!”. It used to be in Seattle we had this weird situation where people from L.A. were moving to Seattle in order to get “signed to thr big time”. Don: Now Epitaph is gonna suck all those people back to LA.. Tom: (laughs) Yeah it like the migration of tribes of bozo rockers. FB: DOES IT RAIN IN SEATTLE AS MUCH AS EVERYONE SAYS? Don: Yes. Tom: It rains a lot. Joe: It just rains a lot of days, it doesn’t rain hard. Matt: It kinda pisses. Tom: It always grey and overcast.