We
also come prepared for the festive season with a couple of Christmas crackers.
You see, in America, there is no such thing as Christmas crackers. Or
at least it's not a tradition as it is in Britain. So nothing could be
more amusing that watching the guys looking puzzled wondering what the
hell they're supposed to do with their crackers! Hahaha. This was funny.
Adam took one cracker and Willie took another. Willie just ripped his
open! Adam said he pulled his but we heard no bang. In fact, it was a
few minutes later when he found the banger inside. I did try to tell them
that they should have pulled the cracker with someone else (ie. Chris
and Damon) but it was too late. Adam appeared not to have found his little
gift inside the cracker either - although Willie got a miniture pack of
playing cards - and was messing with them sporadically during the interview.
So to the interview then. Damon… Pick a question for Willie.
Damon:
Willie, James left the band a few months ago…
Willie: Correct!
Damon: Did you know he was going to leave?
Willie: Yeah, we knew probably about a month before he actually left.
Damon: How were things going before he left?
Willie: Things were always the same with James. He wasn't really so
into the music or into being in the band. He was kind of our last hope
of finding a guitar player between the time we needed to go on tour.
We had pretty much a week to find somebody who was going to learn all
the songs and go out on tour. And he came out on tour but he wasn't
really excited about being in the band, wasn't really having fun. But
he stayed because he wanted to. But when we started touring more and
more and never got a chance to go home he was like 'ok'.
Damon: What's the plan regarding getting a full time guitarist?
Willie: I think we've found one (he says looking and pointing over to
Chris Lewis).
Adam: But he's got a fucking attitude problem (laughing).
Shari
(to Chris): Where do you come from then?
Adam: The bowels of Hell!
Chris: I live in San Diego.
Damon: One night we were playing with the Ouija board and they told
us where to find him.
Chris: They were having an audition in San Diego and I was playing in
another band.
Adam: He tried out more than one time and we thought he sucked.
Chris: I did not like you, man!
Willie:
What's been the best day of your life so far?
Adam: Let's see. I really liked that one time when we played that New
Year's show. In that big ass arena for the first time. It was huge and
it was the first time we ever did it. It was the place where the New
Year's Eve show always is.
Willie: On the Blink tour?
Adam: I think so. It's huge and it was the first time we'd ever done
it. I don't know if that was the best day but I remember that being
a big day.
Chris: I couldn't say the best day.
Willie: Hopefully there will be better days.
Adam:
Tell us something about yourself that a lot of people might not know.
Chris: I put baby powder on my balls.
Willie: I do that too.
Chris: Even over the top, like porn stars.
Willie: He even shaves the tip.
Damon: The shaves go straight down.
Adam. Oww! That sounds bad!
Chris:
How did the terrorism of September 11th affect you and do you remember
what you were doing on that day? How did you find out about the planes
crashing?
Damon: I was sleeping and a phone call came and said "we're under
terrorist attack" and I said "wow". I turned on the TV
and I was like 'Holy shit'.
Adam: I was in San Diego and I was sleeping and I woke up and our business
manager called me. He told me to put the TV on. He wouldn't tell me
what was wrong, and I saw that shit and it's gone crazy. We were supposed
to go to the East Coast to play two days later but we didn't. We stayed
home for a while. It's bummed up, bummed up.
Willie: We were supposed to come here actually.
Chris: If you hadn't I wouldn't have come. I was in San Francisco recording
still. I couldn't get out of it. We'd already paid for our studio time.
I'd already gone down and tried out once and then when that shit happened
and cancelled the tour over here, they had more time to have a second
audition. Terrorism worked out well for me.
Willie: I don't know if it affected our lives other than just business-like,
but personally... Things like that happen on the other side of the world
every day and nobody says anything about it. But then it happens in
America and it's a bit deal.
Damon:
It's almost Christmas. What do you think of Christmas in England so
far?
Chris: Booooo!
Willie: I can't wait to get home for Christmas because that's where
our family is and our house is and the Christmas presents.
Shari:
Are you having much time off?
Willie: We'll have Christmas through the New Year but not like months
and months off, but a little while.
Damon:
Since this issue of Black Velvet is out in February, the month of Valentine's
Day, are you a romantic? Do you send Valentine's Cards? Do you receive
many Valentine's cards from fans and other admirers?
Willie: You know what? I never received a Valentine's card from a fan.
Damon: Me neither.
Willie: But yeah, I send Valentine's cards.
Adam: Actually I haven't been home for Valentine's Day in about three
years.
Willie:
If someone offered you $1,000,000 to quit the music business, would
you do it?
Adam: Nah, I can't do anything else, I wouldn't want to.
Damon: With a million dollars I could do a lot of shit.
Willie: A million dollars isn't that much money. A billion dollars maybe.
Adam: I'd think about it and I'd build an underground dwelling where
I could play music. I'd say "yeah I quit, cool, give me the billion
dollars".
Willie: Just the business, not quit playing.
Damn: Oh yeah, I'd quit the business for a billion dollars and just
play music and be in a band and not worry about the business.
Chris: You got a million bucks? We can do this right now!
Adam:
If you could play one song from 'Lechuza' to someone who's never heard
the band or album, which one song would you play and why?
Willie: It depends on the person.
Chris: I think 'Pasture Of Muppets' though, just 'cause I think it's
the coolest one.
Adam: Maybe 'A Song For Everyone' because it's a song for everyone.
Anyone can enjoy it.
Chris: All the songs are way different. They'd have to listen to 5-7
seconds of each song.
Willie: It's hard to say. I couldn't just pick one song to almost tell
you what the album is going to be like.
Chris:
Willie has Dave Matthews on a list of his favourite bands on his profile
on the net. What is it with the US's fascination with Dave Matthews?
Adam: He's bad.
Damn: He's crazy.
Chris: His whole band are perfect at their instruments. He's surpassed
good and they're over here on the other side of it.
Willie: You know what's weird? He writes everything! Everything!
Chris: Dave Matthews is the kind of band that happens when you're too
good. You don't write the greatest songs in the world, you just write.
You are in awe of them.
Adam: Yeah, like I respect him, but there's not one song I'd go 'man,
turn that shit up'.
Chris:
The new album is a harder-hitting, heavier sound. What brought about
that change?
Adam: Damon. Drugs. The smog in LA. No, actually we didn't mean to change
our record at all, we just had a better drummer so we can make better
songs and different days we felt different ways, so… I don't know,
we wrote a lot of stuff in the studio.
Willie: I think we got pigeonholed in one type of music because our
drummer was stuck in that realm of music. He could only play certain
beats with certain time signatures, but with the new drummer, with Damon,
he could play all kind of different beats and take the same old songs
and turn them into songs that sounds like a totally different band just
because of the song.
Willie:
Do you stay in touch of your old school friends and what do they think
of your success?
Adam: Yes, I stay in touch with my old school friends and they're just
like "wow, that's cool man, good luck" but it's not like "oh
my God".
Damon: But then they call and say "hey man, put me on the guestlist".
Adam: They're still our friends, they're just "cool, you got a
better job than we do".
Adam:
How come I lent my vocals to 'Lechuza' for the very first time?
Adam: They made me, they forced me to. I didn't want to do it, we were
running out of ideas. I was writing lyrics to give to him (pointing
to Willie)…
Willie: I thought they were stupid! Hahaha.
Adam: Yeah, so he said "sing 'em". I said "I don't sing"
and they said "just scream and be pissed off"' and I said
"no" and they said "do it now".
Chris:
Towards the end of the Blink-182 tour you were selling 10,000 copies
of the album a week. How did that make you feel?
Adam: Actually it only happened, I think. One week when we did 13,000.
Damon: We did 17, 14, 9, 6. If you're on a big tour people tend to see
you live and they'll go and buy your record. The record sales grow when
you tour. It's cool, for sure. I never thought we'd sell, what is it
- 17 or 16 - the most we did in one week.
Shari:
Do you pay a lot of interest in the sales?
Willie: When it first came out, yeah.
Damon: That's pretty much the only time I pay attention to the record
sales - when they call us and tell us "wow you did this",
'cause we don't know where to look. We just hear about it.
Damon:
If you were taking someone on a guided tour of Texas, where would you
take them?
Willie: Places in Texas that we'd take them? The Alamo maybe. That's
supposed to be a big deal. The Astrodome, 'cause that's one of the wonders
of the world.
Adam: Just drive real far down the 45 until you hit the country and
just show people the country.
Willie: The prairies.
Adam: I don't know, there's not much in Texas. It's flat and desolate.
It's like you see in the movies.
Willie: Take them to Austin and get them fucked up on Sixth Street.
Willie:
Do you know many of your fans? How much contact do you have with them?
Do you ever email fans etc?
Adam, No, no and no.
Willie: There are lots of fans in the States that we know are gonna
be there. We can hang with them any time they come. They try and make
contact with us. None of us are untouchable. We hear that from the fans
that we're cool guys for hanging out with them. After every show we
go to the merch booth and hang out and say thanks for coming and thanks
for buying our records and thanks for buying our merchandise and all
that other cool crap. As far as emails, I don't stay in contact with
people just 'cause I don't have a laptop. So it's hard to hang out like
that on the net.
Shari:
Do you ever look at your message board?
Willie: Every once in a while. But then again, we're never home so…
We hear about things on the net. If they're bad we hear about them!
When it's good, it's just like another day.
Chris:
You have a song called 'Speechless'. When were you last speechless?
Willier: Erm… right now!
Chris:
You have a song on the current album called 'A Song For Everyone'. Which
song from another album would be a song for you. Which song most fits
you?
Willie: 'Can't Touch This'.
Chris:
Hey dude, this one's cool. Damon was inspired by Mötley Crüe
early on. Were you ever really into glam as a genre? Did you ever wear
make-up or PVC/vinyl? What bands are you into now?
Willie: No, I never wore make-up or anything. It was just what was big
when I was growing up.
Chris: He loves Tommy Lee.
Damon: Yeah, Tommy Lee is still one of my very favourite drummers. They
were one of the first bands I ever saw live and got me into music. But
yeah, I liked a lot of that stuff… Mötley Crüe…
Dokken was alright, I thought. There wasn't a whole lot of them that
I thought were really, really good. Then I started getting into Metallica
after that.
Chris:
What sort of buzz do you get when you're on stage playing? How would
you describe playing onstage to someone who's never done it and what
are your feelings prior to hitting the stage and when leaving the stage
straight after a gig? Stage… stage… stage!
Willie: Playing is fun.
Damon: Yeah, there's nothing like it. For someone who's never done it,
it's really hard to describe. There are probably different stages to
it. When I play I just zone out and just play really hard.
Chris: I know I've played in bands since I was 14 and it was always
different 'cause it'd be 10 people and you know them. When I jumped
on this last tour, it wasn't like I was used to. I'd played big tours
with my other band before but it wasn't every day. When I was with these
guys for the first week or so it was like 'wow'. I'd be up there and
get some of that nervousness back.
Damon: That's what's cool. All that stuff mixed together - before you
go on, while you're on and after you finish - people screaming, the
lights going off... Man, it's the coolest thing in the world.
We
left the band to warm up for 'the coolest thing in the world'. And it
was. Sandwiched between Rx Bandits and New Found Glory, they rocked
the house and really went down a treat. Fenix*TX - the coolest thing
in the world - check them out. 'Lechuza' is out now on MCA Records.
|
