If you didn’t already know, I’ve posted my 30-minute backstage interview with Skinny Puppy right over here, so watch it at your leisure and spread it like wildfire.
A few people have asked for details on how it came to be, “what they’re really like”, and a number of other assorted details. To that end, I’m going to try and explain it here.
The way we often get interviews here at M+ is by putting feelers out to PR firms and telling them what shows cover what kind of bands, what we can offer those bands in the way of PR, etc. and then they respond with “Well, X band will be in Y place for Z amount of time” and then someone e-mails the necessary VJs here at the station saying “we’ve got X band on Y night, who’s available to cover that?”
Last week, quite out of the blue, I got an e-mail just like that. Here was the correspondence :
From : Tracy
Subject : Skinny Puppy…
Message : ..is in town for a show on saturday. they’re willing to be interviewed but we have to send a crew out to the venue (henry fonda theatre) @ 6pm on sat, june 23. anyone wanna do the interview? let me know!
—————-
From : Rev. Mitcz
Subject : RE : Skinny Puppy…
Message : OOH! MEMEMEMEMEMEMEEEEMEEE!!!!
…And so it went back and forth setting up details.
(fast forward to Saturday)
I tried getting tickets to the show both on Friday night, and then again on Saturday. For some reason, Ticketmaster’s site kept giving me an error, and then a possible list of reasons why I might be getting that error. One of the possible reasons is that the show might be sold out. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate Ticketmaster? Well, I do.
Anyway, I talked to their PR person (to protect her anonymity, we’ll call her “A”) and asked if there was anyway to get tickets and she said she’d see what she could do.
I got to the venue, they let us backstage and I met Otto Von Schirach who suggested we do the interview in the dressing room – since there would be an opening band doing their soundcheck, and the room might be a little more quiet. Despite how insane Otto looked when I saw him open for SP back in 2k4, he’s incredibly normal and down-to-earth and polite in person.
We sat back on the couches, waiting for Ogre & cEvin to come down from their soundcheck. There’s something very goose-bumpy about hearing a soundcheck from a band you’ve long admired. It’s like a private concert just for you and a handful of other people. Even though we were beneath the stage and the sound was muffled, I got shivers when I heard them run through Hardset Head.
Ogre came down first, and just kinda paced back and forth, talking to “A” about some PR stuff, ads they’d run in papers, and “A” thanked Ogre for making an appearance at a puppet show (which I’d later find out was this (pdf link)). Ogre sat down with a little plastic case of raspberries, and offered to share with myself, Nad, and Misi. I declined, but thanked him, because I was worried about the sometimes-sour aftertaste of raspberries affecting my speaking since I was about to do an interview. As he ate them, he said “mmm… damn…. berries are my friend”.
A few minutes later, cEvin came down, we all introduced ourselves, and then we kinda wandered around the backstage area trying to find a good place for an interview. Amongst all this running around, I just turned to Ogre to break my nervous silence and started a convo. I’m writing out the parts of the convo that I remember:
Me : Hey, I really wanna thank you for agreeing to do this interview. I’m honored
Ogre : Yeah no problem, man. Thank YOU. I appreciate the coverage.
(don’t remember…)
Me : Back in like ‘97 or ‘98, I worked with an industrial band in Phoenix doing performance art and they opened for Download at this tiny little club. It was insane how packed the place was, and although I’d always heard of Skinny Puppy, I knew very little about your impact and/or which songs I’d actually heard.
Ogre : You did performance art? Like what’d you do?
Me : Uhh.. like I’d get tied up, and I’d flail around, sometimes burn myself, or burn candle wax and let it drip on myself, light shit on fire, feign sex with a blow-up doll… ya know, just kinda give some visuals to the beats.
Ogre : wow man. that’s really cool. But you say you opened for Download, and didn’t know who they were?
Me : Yeah, the band I was performing with opened for them. You know how seemingly everyone gets to a certain age and it’s like their Pink Floyd phase and they get into Pink Floyd. Well, I hit my Skinny Puppy stage back in about 2k1 where I said “okay, it’s time to really dig into the archives and find out more” and.. it just took hold.
Ogre : Heh. That’s cool to think – like we’re in that same veign as Floyd. Wild.
Some notes on the interview itself :
1. I’ve had a few people (on and offline) as well as someone on the Litany forums ask about my theory about oldschool SP fans and where I got that idea. It’s safe to say that if you’re on a message board for SP fans, you’re probably not the fan I’m talking about. But if you need an example of where I got that idea, there’s a few recent mentions of SP during a post a friend of mine made over on LJ (do a ctrl-F or command-F for “puppy” or “SP”) right here.
2. Someone else, offline, asked why I’d bother bugging SP about the NIN/Manson stuff. I don’t think I need to defend that – it’s a genuine curiousity and I thought it turned into a great discussion.
3. I had one person on the Litany forums bring up their mild annoyance about me not knowing SP very well. It seems they’ve since rescinded that remark (before I even got a chance to respond), and are calling the interview “wonderful”, so I feel good about that. However, in all fairness, I don’t think they’re way off-base about that and I’ll say this : I make no claims about being a longtime SP fan, nor that I’m any kind of expert on their history. What little I did know, I had to suddenly ramp into overtime as I had but 2 days to prepare for the interview. During that time, I tried gathering as much info as possible and you’ve no idea the nervousness of double-checking and fact-finding and reading up on interviews and listening to fans to see what common questions are, etc. It’s like casually taking an interest in Physics and then someone says you’re going to be on a Physics-based game show to win $100k. It can be nervewracking. The song I meant to be referring to from Mythmaker was actually haZe, the 3rd track. Again, my apologies for inaccuracies, but I really was trying my damnedest to remember shit clearly and keep my head on straight in the face of these legends.
4. The night before the interview, I watched this conspiracy-laden online film “Zeitgeist” (check Google Video for the 2-hour version). It ended by wrapping everything up, showing how we’re moving towards a one-world government, under the guise of protecting us from terrorists. This thinking was juxtaposed with footage of Hitler speaking, and Nazi rallies, and all manner of fascist regimes. That’s what inspired me to write that last question, about what’s the biggest trouble facing us. When I asked it, I had the clear image in my head of the one-world government, and I thought “I wish I could think of an easy way to explain that fear that I’m thinking” and Ogre nailed it. Empire. He hit all the same points I was thinking about – almost as if he’d just watched the same thing. He even made the Nazi Germany connection to our current administration. That’s why I said I could talk politics all night (you can subtly hear Ogre saying, underneath cEvin’s “on the internet”, “so could I, man” and “that was really good”)
5. According to Nad, cEvin had “amazing weed” (cEvin and Nad shared part of a joint before the interview) and managed to go through 2 joints throughout the interview. I only mention this cause someone asked if he was smoking a cigarette and they didn’t think cEvin was a smoker.
Afer the interview, you’ll hear Ogre say “you hope?? awww…” when I said “I hope to catch the show tonight”. Right after that, he turned around, very concerned, and said “are you going to be able to see the show?” and I told him I didn’t know because everything was last-minute and I didn’t know if there was spare tickets or anything. He said “don’t worry dude, I’ll make sure you get in”.
He came back into the room to film two “bumpers” (promo reels for MusicPlusTV) and we’ll be airing those pretty soon. I thanked him again, and he walked off.
We went outside and waited around to get some footage of people waiting in line. Once Nad left w/the camera, we realized that the line was “hiding” on the other side of the theatre and that’s why we didn’t see them.
We went across the street to get something to drink from the convenience store, and walked back to the theatre. Just after crossing the street coming back, about 150 feet from the line of SP fans waiting to get in, Ogre was in a car at the stoplight and rolled down his window to yell at us..
Ogre : HEY! HEY MITCZ!
Me : Huh? Oh… hey
Ogre : You guys gonna get in okay?
Me : Oh. Yeah, yeah, we’re all covered. Thanx, man
Ogre : Okay, so you’ll be there? You’re gonna see the show?
Me : Yeahdude. We’re so there
Ogre : GOOD! GLAD TO HEAR IT!
No one in the line was the wiser. But, man.. how cool was that? Ogre wanted to make sure I was able to see the show. And, I was even given passes to the “after party” on the roof.
Needless to say, the show was fucking amazing. According to set lists I’d looked at before the show, they usually played 2 encore tracks. That night, they played 4. I apologize that my brain is too hazy to recall exactly which 4.
After the show, Misi and I headed up to the roof. I just wanted to thank them for being so hospitable, and congratulate them on a great show at the nearly-end of their tour.
Ogre came out, and was immediately surrounded by people who had been waiting on the roof since before the show had ended (because they’d require a pass to get there after the show), he took a few photos, signed a few autographs, and then talked with some friends. I waited a few minutes, until he was basically up there alone, and I walked up to him. This is what I remember of that convo :
Me : Hey, GREAT fuckin’ show, man.
Ogre : YOU MADE IT! Glad you liked it..
Me : I appreciate you getting us in like that
Ogre : Ohhh it’s SO tough to write a name down
Me : Well it’s the thought that counts and.. ya know
Ogre : I know, and you’re welcome. Hey, do you still do performance art?
Me : Uhh… not really. I’m doing stand-up comedy now
Ogre : Comedy? (turns to Misi) Is he funny?
Misi : I think he’s hilarious
Me : Yeah… I’m letting her answer that one.
Ogre : Where do you perform?
Me : Pretty much wherever I can. I do the show most nights, so it’s tough to find the time. But, hell, I get weird gigs. I did a few gigs at an underground BDSM club for instance. I even told Skinny Puppy jokes
Ogre : You told Skinny Puppy jokes? I’ve never heard that before
Me : Yeah well, I was talking about evil shit, cause the club was really evil looking. So I said “Oh I was at this Skinny Puppy show and it’s really fuckin’ evil and he’s shooting a bloody gun at George Bush and he’s teaching the Killing Game and at the very end of the show – he FINALLY talks. And he says ‘It’s been a bad day. My cat ran away’
Ogre : Ohhhman. Yeah, I remember when that cat ran away. I miss that cat. He got kidnapped by a coyote, and came back all bleeding. But, he managed to live on for another 2 years. Great cat.
Me : Well, I didn’t mean anything offensive by it. I have a cat, too, as I mentioned onstage that night.
Misi : ..and I have 10 cats
Me : Yeah, we’re heavy on the cats. I just thought it was funny cause a girl in the crowd, up where I was sitting, was on her knees going “NOOO!! NOT OGRE’S CAT!! NOOOO!!!!”
Ogre : Well… ya know. Those goths cry too. HAHAHAAAaaaaa
And then I handed him my business card and told him if he wanted to e-mail me, I’d be happy to send him the interview when it was online. I’m pretty sure he won’t – but I wouldn’t be offended. I just wanted to put that out there.
Misi would later suggest that perhaps he asked about my performance art because he may have wanted to use my work in some project later down the line. I don’t really know, and I assume he was just interested to be nice – but it’s an interesting thought to say the least.
I know, long fuckin’ entry. But that’s pretty much all I have to say about that. And now it’s in the public record.
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