We Are Scientists are known for making straightforward pop-rock, but they're not known for giving straightforward answers in interviews. I didn't want to be the millionth person to ask "Are you really scientists?", so I set out to find the answer on my own. After reading through several... more

We Are Scientists are known for making straightforward pop-rock, but they're not known for giving straightforward answers in interviews. I didn't want to be the millionth person to ask "Are you really scientists?", so I set out to find the answer on my own. After reading through several conflicting accounts of the band's various areas of scientific expertise, I finally found the answer. A piece from the college magazine at Pomona, the California school where the band originally formed, revealed that guitarist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain weren't actually science majors of any sort. Well played, guys.

Needless to say, We Are Scientists like to keep people guessing. They first broke out in the UK with 2005's formidable collection of indie-pop, With Love and Squalor.The 2008 follow-up, a less upbeat but more lyrically complex record called Brain Thrust Mastery, also climbed the British charts. A predictable band would stick with a major label and put out another album following the same formula. This is no predictable band.

We Are Scientists have left their label and decided to strike out on their own for their third full-length release, Barbara. They've changed drummers, as well, recording with ex-Razorlight member Andy Burrows and touring with Australian Danny Allen. What happens next is anyone's guess, but the catchy lead single, Rules Don't Stop, suggests that the new album will prove at least as strong as the previous two.

Chris Cain, W.A.S's notoriously witty bassist, answered some questions for SuicideGirls about the new album, the band's future plans, and his awesome mustache.

Jay Hathaway: Was SXSW your first live performance with Andy on drums? How did he do? Also, what's his background as a scientist?

Christopher Cain: SXSW was definitely not Andy's first live performance with us, for two reasons, and I don't know which is more important: (1) He played three shows in the US with us last summer, and a couple of shows in the UK in February; (2) He didn't play with us at SXSW. I know, I know: your head is spinning right now. Rightly so!

Here's the back story: Andy signed on to drum with us on the new record roughly a year ago. At the time, he was also in the beginning stages of planning a solo record. Both of these things — our third album and his solo effort — were nebulous, theoretical entities at the time. But — like two cars that were built at the same time in factories in different countries, but that later end up going opposite directions on the same chunk of highway, and crash right into each other — our record and his record are crashing right into each other.

As a result, Andy will often be unavailable for live dates. SXSW was one of many examples of his unavailability. Thankfully, we are rich beyond most bands' means, in terms of drummers: we have two. The other guy is Danny Allen, an Australian who kind of looks like Lemmy from Motorhead, kind of looks like a Beatle, and kind of looks like Hugh Jackman.

As far as I know, neither Andy nor Danny has any background in the sciences, but it doesn't really matter, since Keith and I more than make up for it with our weirdly extensive, discipline-spanning backgrounds in the sciences.

JH: After doing "Steve Wants His Money" for MTV in the UK, and now getting a British drummer, are you perhaps thinking about moving the band to London in the future?

CC: We will never move to London — we love American health care too damn much to ever leave it.

JH: You've said you're called We Are Scientists because you are scientists, and that Brain Thrust Mastery didn't really mean anything, so — why Barbara? Is there a story behind it, or did you just like the name?

CC: We just liked the name. We've retrofitted a whole song & dance about how Barbara is from the Latin word meaning "foreign woman", that it shares roots with "barbarian", that it's an insinuation about our occasional difficulty relating to/living peacefully with women, etc, etc. What a load of nonsense, though! Things couldn't be more frictionless between the sexes, as far as we can can tell!

JH: Tell me a bit about the new songs. I know you've said they sound more stripped down and more like songs on Love and Squalor — could you elaborate on that a bit, or comment on the direction you took with the lyrics?

CC: Lyrically I think they occupy the same fraught territory the last two albums did (amorous/anxious, neurotic/flirtatious, lustful/considerate...). In terms of the songwriting, it's a refinement of past stuff — it's better without being a big left turn. The arrangements are definitely closer to With Love & Squalor, in that they're written for three instruments (drums, bass, guitar), but there's a clear progression in songwriting from WL&S to Brain Thrust Mastery through to Barbara.

JH: I've read about how you used the names of classic video games as working titles on the previous album. Did you guys do anything like that for Barbara?

CC: For a while, before the songs had titles, we'd refer to them by their fairly distinctive drum openings. So we might say, during rehearsal, "Wanna play tacka tacka tacka?" Or, "What do you think about that part where I drop out in dooka-dook, dooka-dook, dooka-digga-dooka?" We got pretty attached to that system, but our management insisted that we use more traditional nomenclature for the release.

JH: Are any of you serious gamers? Video games? Tabletop? If so, what are you playing now?

CC: Both of us can easily spend a few hours on the couch with some beers and a friend or two and the old blob-with-buttons in hand. We're not very thorough about titles, though — we pick up a grand total of two or three games a year. "Recent" purchases have included Call of Duty: World at War and Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Vegas 2, or "T-Clan" as we refer to it to save time.

JH: You've left your label — what were the circumstances there, and who's putting out the new record?

CC: We got into a position with EMI in which we had the choice of whether to renew our contract with them (even though technically it was valid for several more records), and we decided to bail, largely because we're control freaks, and we thought it would be fun to put it out ourselves. Boy were we wrong! It's like having a real job, and less job security, and less overall ability to get your music out to people. On the plus side, we make all the decisions, which is something that pricks like us think they want.

Actually, it's going pretty well. We formed a label called Masterswan Recordings — which may or may not, at some future time, put out something other than W.A.S. records — and we've negotiated distribution through a couple of different partners in different territories. The long and short of it is that Barbara will come out June 14/15 worldwide (I write confidently; if you could hear me say it, you'd probably detect a slight quaver) and it's going to be an incredible amount of work even just to avoid total calamity, but if the next year goes okay then we'll be about the smuggest bastards in all of New York City, which would be significant.

JH: The Rules Don't Stop video has a pretty heavy Hall and Oates influence (awesome 'stache, by the way!), and there seems to be a real Hall and Oates revival happening this year. Any thoughts on everyone's sudden interest in Hall and Oates? Why now, and what's so awesome about them?

CC: This will sound a little arrogant, but I'm confident people are really into Hall & Oates lately because our last record, Brain Thrust Mastery, is heavily H&O-influenced (see closing track That's What Counts) and was a gigantic tastemaker record, even if it's sales were quite diminutive indeed. (Hey, Picasso only sold one copy of Guernica, but it changed everything. Right? Right, you guys?!?!?!)

JH: I actually considered trying to do an entire interview about facial hair, but I will limit it to this one question: if With Love and Squalor were a style of facial hair, what kind of beard or 'stache would it be? (I am going to assume that Barbara would be your current mustache, but feel free to correct me on that.)

CC: Well, With Love & Squalor featured a mustache, too, on my face, so I'm not sure presence or absence of mustache is a great way to differentiate between W.A.S. records. Although in those younger days, my mustache was significantly wispier and patchier, whereas today it is full and briery, so maybe the mustache will ultimately prove a useful analog for the music. As the mustache develops, reaching new levels of thickness and luster, thus shall the songs do (maybe in direct response).

JH: I also liked the cheeky OK GO reference in the description of the new video on YouTube. What do you think of OK GO? Video artists who happen to be a band, or a band who are also video artists?

CC: I like 'em. I think they're both video artists and a band, not either/or. As OKGO have made clear, the two are complementary, not contradictory.

JH: What are you reading these days?

CC: Sam Lipsyte's new one, The Ask, which is his best yet and which I recommend to lovers of profane, funny contemporary literature with a humanist overtone. I paused in my reading of Lipsyte for about two hours this weekend to barrel through Robert Crais's latest L.A. detective trifle, The First Rule, which is far from his best (his best is his first, The Monkey's Raincoat, and his worst has been his most recent since book 2, which was like ten books ago — yet I can't break my habit).

During our recent SXSW trip, which included a handful of shows on the way back to NYC, I finally employed Jane & Michael Stern's Roadfood, an impeccably reliable guide to delicious, usually cheap, food all over the U.S., with a focus on experiencing local specialities and a mandate of avoiding national chains. The guys from (now defunct) The Oxford Collapse had recommended this amoral bible for years, and I have to say they were very much on point.

JH: If We Are Scientists were going to officially endorse a product, what would it be?

Hollywood movies. Also Blenheim's Spicy Ginger Ale, Sauza "Hornitos" Tequila, Nudie Jeans, the Apple iPhone, mother nature's house cats, Shipley & Halmos clothing, and the detective novels of Lee Child — these brands, like W.A.S. itself, connote attainable excellence.

JH: If you could write and record a new soundtrack for any film, which one would you pick?

Watching Avatar, I couldn't help thinking I'd have done a lot better with the score. Basically I'd have gotten a guy to wail on the didgeridoo the whole time — it would've brought a connection to primitivism that was missing, and it would've upped the intensity a lot, as didge' scores always do (see Jaws, Heat, etc.).

Barabra from We Are Scientists will be available in June. Until then visit their website wearescientists.com for more information about the band.

The Yes Men started when Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno put up a fake George W. Bush campaign website during the 2000 election. Their next target was the the World Trade Organization. The WTO supervises trade regulations between countries. GATT.org is the Yes Men's version for an official WTO site... more

The Yes Men started when Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno put up a fake George W. Bush campaign website during the 2000 election. Their next target was the the World Trade Organization. The WTO supervises trade regulations between countries. GATT.org is the Yes Men's version for an official WTO site (based on the organization's original title, General Aggreement on Tariffs and Trade.)

GATT.org was so convincing that The Yes Men were invited to speak at conferences. This was a priceless opportunity to continue their satire into the real world. Posing as representatives of the WTO, they found that corporations actually believed their ridiculous ideas were WTO policy. This tour became the center of their first movie, The Yes Men.

Their second film, The Yes Men Fix the World, takes on Dow chemical, Haliburton and ExxonMobil. Andy posed as a Dow spokesperson on the BBC promising to pay the victims of the Bhopal chemical plant disaster in India. Dow stock dropped three points before the company assured stockholders they weren't actually being generous. The Yes Men presented an oil conference with plans to manufacture fuel from human flesh, and the oil folks applauded. Posing as Halliburton reps, they demonstrated the Survivaball, a full body protective suit for living in a scorched earth. People bought that too.

Andy is traveling on new adventures right now while Mike is at home tending to his baby. He took a break from this interview when the baby's cries could be heard in the background. Speaking about the issues in the film and beyond, Bonanno sounded more like a concerned paternal figure than some corporate terrorist. It's all in good fun, right?

SuicideGirls: With your movie coming out and Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, why do you think so many filmmakers are addressing the problems of capitalism at this time?

Mike Bonanno: Well, I think a lot of people have known that the idea of continual growth would eventually do us in. It just seemed like it was a really long way off. I think that there are some things, among them the economic collapse, that helped accelerate people's sense that that might be going on. But, there are other environmental problems too that are looming like climate change. I think with climate change it's really a kind of do or die situation for many of the people of the planet. So I think it's accelerated the need to change the system.

SG: Do you see films like yours and Capitalism: A Love Story making a difference in educating people?

MB: I do think that films make a difference. I think that sometimes they work very quickly if they're very popular and sometimes they're a slow burn, but they do influence people. I mean, we wouldn't make them if we didn't think they made a difference.

SG: In the last year since these two started coming out, have you seen any quantitative change?

MB: Unfortunately, I think the change is happening incrementally and I think there will be some tipping point, hopefully soon enough to deal with some of the major problems before they get the better of us. I think that historically what you see with social movements, big period of upheaval where systems change a lot, like the Civil Rights movement for example, there were really more than 100 years of agitation and work that went in before things really hit the boiling point in the late '50s and early '60s. Hopefully, our boiling point as far as the social movements doing something and trying to create a sustainable future happens soon enough that climate change and other problems don't get the better of us.

SG: How did Bhopal escape the public relations exposure that Chernobyl had?

MB: Well, I think that in Bhopal, the plant was built and operated and then eventually of course had an accident in a place that most of the western world doesn't really care about. The reason you don't think about it is because of the double standard there. I think also, we do have similar plants here. In fact, there's a plant that's very similar that makes the same stuff in West Virginia, but it's been operated entirely safely and built to higher specification than the one in Bhopal. It was actually built prior to the one in Bhopal. So I think it hasn't had that big an effect here and it's largely not remembered because it's not people in the U.S. who died basically, unfortunately.

SG: Have there been any developments on that issue since your stunt in the film?

MB: There have been some developments on that since the stunt. Among other things, they've now just recently, successfully fought for having a clean water pipeline installed and it's being installed as we speak. So the whole section that we did that was about water contamination, they're now getting clean water in most of the communities that were suffering.

SG: Did that have to do with Dow or other attention that was brought to them?

MB: It had nothing to do with Dow. Actually, the Indian government is the one that's been forced to now bring in the water.

SG: What does it say that oil companies would rather seriously consider fuel made from human flesh than just investigate alternative fuels?

MB: I mean, it just says that the profit motive is what's governing their decisions. Until we actually change the rules that establish what corporations can and can't do and what corporations are rewarded for, they're going to continue to seek short term profits, which right now is really mortgaging the entire planet. Right now, a good example is Shell, which had in recent years developed a large alternative energy program. They just appointed a new CEO who's more like one of the financial guys, who just went through and cut their entire solar program, really gutted the program basically. His job was to make them money and that's still not making them as much money as simply controlling the supply of oil. It's a shame. Unless we actually force them to change, they're not going to change.

SG: Wouldn't someone see even being the first company to master an alternative fuel source would make them profitable?

MB: Yeah, there is definitely room for innovation. In theory, the research should pay off but historically it's not corporations that have done most of the research. It's usually government that does it and then corporations capitalize on it. They're the ones who make the money. That's happened in just about every field, pharmaceuticals included. Most of the big money pharmaceuticals have initially come from government research that's then turned over and capitalized by corporations. So it's curious to think about where we would draw the line and to acknowledge really where the innovation is coming from and put our efforts in those areas as well. We can't expect the corporations to innovate because they're going to do things that are profitable. The innovation is often actually incredibly expensive so if they can just keep selling oil, they're not going to necessarily want to do that.

SG: I'm interested in the bank fiasco. Their loan modifications are already a joke. What prank could you pull to bring that to light?

MB: Yeah, I think there's a lot of room there and we haven't really given it enough attention. I think that's one of those things where we'd have to turn the question around and ask people reading this what they would do. If they have something they want to do, maybe we can help in some way. They can e-mail us and we'll communicate you.

SG: They say we'll help you if you've defaulted but if you've defaulted we don't trust you with a loan but we want you to keep paying the loan you can't pay.

MB: Unfortunately, it's hard to satirize some of these things that are already incredibly sick and would be or should be funny. It's just that they're true so they end up not being funny. You laugh guiltily reading about it. I think that's one of the reasons also that we've in some ways abandoned some of the satirical approach that we are so fond of, doing really funny announcements or sendups like the Survivaball, Haliburton's answer to climate change. You can only go so far because that's so close to the truth that you may as well announce what you'd actually like to see sometimes.

SG: How do you take a satirical approach to Survivaball when people are taking it seriously?

MB: I think over and over again, we've tried to turn the volume up past 11, to quote Spinal Tap. The more and more kind of absurd that we get, it just doesn't matter. As far as we can tell, there's no threshold to how strange or violent or absurd our proposals can be if people think we actually represent someone quite powerful and important whose business card they want to get a hold of. That's a reason why in a way we only employ that approach when we think it will be really entertaining and there will be big rewards for the viewer, because it certainly doesn't do much for the people in the audience.

SG: Have you ever blown a prank by cracking up?

MB: Not by cracking up. We've made some bad decisions and we've got some stuff that we'd rather not have spun done, but we've never actually had the problem where we started laughing in the middle of it. I think it's because when you're actually doing it, it doesn't seem funny. It's funny to watch but to participate, not so much.

SG: Are any of the corporations onto you?

MB: They probably are. I think that at some of the events that we've done, people in the audience have recognized us, but they usually keep quiet because they want to see how it unfolds.

SG: Who might your next targets be?

MB: Next targets, it's hard to tell right now. Obviously we're doing a lot of work around climate change still, so that includes pretty much everybody as far as the targets go. But there's also health care is a major issue. The Obama health care plan is just very sad. I mean, it's sad that it's gutted. We want real public health care. What they call single payer. In other words, what's also called socialized medicine. I don't really see what's wrong with that. I've lived in Europe and was the beneficiary of socialized medicine. It was incredible how easy it was compared to doing it back in the U.S. These countries are not exactly bankrupt and there's not exactly no freedom. There are so many issues, so we don't know. We'll see what lands on our plate.

SG: The protests against it were amazing. Were people okay with not being able to see their doctor?

MB: It's just unbelievable. Back in upstate New York, I have a good job and I have what's considered a really good health plan at work. Still, the bureaucracy of being part of this HMO thing is just insane. It's just absolutely ludicrous the way the referral system works and the way doctors and your insurance companies are always encouraging you basically to take a path that's less costly for them. It's stupid. I've done the same thing in the health care system in the U.K. and it's been really a breeze. It's not the same kind of pressures.

SG: Again, it's so ridiculous, how do you satirize that?

MB: How do you satirize something like that? I don't know but there've been some really fun actions related to health care and some really straightforward actions, sit ins and things like that. One thing that was really funny was the health insurance lobbyists have a big meeting every year in Washington and at the meeting, a group of activists sang a musical in the middle of it. They got up and did it really well. They'd practiced and everything so it was a really funny video on the internet, viral video. There are things like that that I think aren't exactly satire but they are activism that works in a really creative way to get a story out.

SG: Is that more along the lines of little stuff for the web than for a next movie?

MB: Hard to say. I just don't know what we're going to do next. I really don't. Right now, we're in this period of kind of regrouping and trying to build a little bit of capacity because we're sort of overwhelmed. Me and Andy still have fulltime jobs so we can't really juggle everything that needs to be done. We're trying to raise money to hire somebody to help us.

SG: Wow, the Yes Men doesn't pay for itself?

MB: No, it doesn't actually. In fact, the more ambitious we get, the more money we lose. That especially happens in the movie business right now. I think with the exception of Hollywood blockbusters, pretty much everybody is losing money. It's hard to find examples of independent films, and especially documentary, where people are doing well. Even Academy Award winners like The Cove. It's not like they're making a fortune on it. They're doing okay but it's expensive to make the film, expensive to finish and in distribution now it's really hard to get anybody to go see a movie in the cinema. You need to advertise a lot so that costs a lot. Then in the area of DVD sales, we'll see. Most things aren't selling a whole lot of DVDs either. There's a lot of other ways of watching films.

SG: Is it like running a nonprofit almost?

MB: It actually is and if we had more administrative capacity, we would have incorporated as a nonprofit. It's just that it took more work to do that so we didn't. It's as simple as that. To do that we would need a board and we'd need to spend more time dealing with the bureaucracy.

The Yes Men Fix the World is now available on DVD.

Chloe Sevigny must be a veteran of film festivals. The types of movies she usually does often get their start at Sundance or Cannes looking for distribution. At this year's South by Southwest film festival in Austin, TX, she had two films, Barry Munday and Mr. Nice. Barry Munday is a comedy starring... more

Chloe Sevigny must be a veteran of film festivals. The types of movies she usually does often get their start at Sundance or Cannes looking for distribution. At this year's South by Southwest film festival in Austin, TX, she had two films, Barry Munday and Mr. Nice.

Barry Munday is a comedy starring Patrick Wilson as a womanizer who loses his testicles in a comical attack. He finds out he's impregnated one of his one night stands, Ginger (Judy Greer) and tries to do the right thing for his last chance at fatherhood. Sevigny plays Ginger's sister Jennifer, an antagonistic provocateur who may or may not be a stripper by night. Mr. Nice is a stylized true story of British drug smuggler Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans). It would screen later in the week.

It's been 15 years since Sevigny's debut in the controversial indie drama Kids. That film tackled promiscuity, rape and AIDS among New York City teens in 1995. Sevigny also won acclaim and notice in films like Boys Don't Cry, American Psycho and The Brown Bunny (notoriety in that case, giving on-screen fellatio to ex-boyfriend Vincent Gallo). Now she stars on HBO's controversial polygamist drama Big Love, which just wrapped its fourth season.

Jennifer seems the polar opposite of Sevigny, and indeed Barry Munday is a rare comedy in her body of work. She took the previous interview out into the hallway of the Four Seasons hotel in Austin, because she was nervous with all the onlookers in the interview suite. She kept this interview in the room, but still remained shy and guarded. It's cool. That's what makes her such an independent enigma, the rare actress who's not trying to be the center of attention.

Suicide Girls: You look very stylish today with a striped top and a blazer. How did you put this outfit together?

Chloe Sevigny: My friends are designers in New York. I went into their showroom and just pulled a bunch of stuff to wear during the festival.

SG: Is that how you usually pick your clothes?

CS: I guess so. Sometimes I look on Style.com and I pick stuff and I have it sent, but usually that's more problematic because you don't know if it's going to fit. So it's easier always just to go into the showroom and try stuff on. I always like to have new stuff when I go to festivals. You feel a little more sparkly.

SG: Was it nice to get to be funny in Barry Munday?

CS: I don't think I was that funny though. I think I was more the straight person to Judy's comedic [one], but I tried. I tried. It was really scary. It was hard.

SG: Her aggressiveness at making Barry uncomfortable, didn't you find that funny?

CS: I hope so. I think she was kind of more bad than funny, more of a troublemaker, but I hope it's funny. I hope some of it is funny. I feel like my stuff with Judy at the dinner table was kind of cute and funny.

SG: Are you just self-critical?

CS: I think also because I've only seen the film one time and the first time you see it, you're always just kind of like, "Oh my God, no." So I think I'd have to see it a couple more times to feel more confident about the performance. The first time you're always so critical.

SG: How would you describe the rhythm of this comedy?

CS: I don't know, how would you? It's very odd, no? It's kind of flat. It's not ba-dum bum. There's something different and I think mainly that's Patrick Wilson's performance. He's so hilarious. He's so good in this. His looks, every nuance, every face I was rolling on the floor.

SG: You do it well too.

CS: Do I? I'm just impersonating him though.

SG: Jennifer wouldn't wear something as hip as you are right now. What did you think of her basic suburban style?

CS: Oh yeah, I thought she was very boring. I mean, I think she was supposed to be more contemporary, kind of looking pretty cool but not too cool as opposed to Ginger. I think she was just supposed to kind of be her opposite. It was Ginger still dressing like she did when she was in elementary school in the '70s. I think Jennifer was more just supposed to be her opposite.

SG: You looked great with dark hair in the stripper scene.

CS: Oh thank you. It was a terrible wig. Really bad wig.

SG: Were you happy with that look?

CS: I wasn't crazy about the wig but I liked the look. It was fun. It was fun to do the dance sequence. I practiced the dance sequence a lot and then of course it only lasts for a few seconds and you barely see me once, but it was kind of fun to do although I vowed to myself I would never play a stripper or a hooker, but I thought in this case I could kind of get away with it.

SG: Does it count as playing a stripper when it might just be Barry's fantasy that it was Jennifer?

CS: Yeah, it might be a fantasy. It might not be her. That's how I justified it.

SG: Performing it, were you playing the dance straight and sexy or hamming it up a little?

CS: I was just trying to get through the routine. I wish I had hammed it up more. I wish I had been more comfortable. I think I was dancing pretty straight.

SG: You must be a veteran of film festivals. What are your film festival survival tips?

CS: Well, I always do the wrong thing, like last night I went out too late because I want to experience the city. You have to work but you want to go out and have fun, so it's always a balance that I can never get right. Plus, with the time change, it got me all screwed up last night. Film festival survival, bring a friend or a companion. As an actress at least, I have one of my best friends here with me because sometimes when you're here alone it gets lonely and it's more fun to have someone you're with to go to parties with and run around town with and what not. Visine, for an actress. Drink lots of fluids, remember to eat. I can't obviously see a lot of films because I'm working the whole time I'm here but I think if you go as a viewer to a festival, just to be educated on everything that's out there and pick and choose. Like for me, when I go to music festivals, I always know who's playing on every stage and have mapped out what I want to see.

SG: Do you get to make any new friends when you're at all the events for your own films?

CS: Well, at events you're always meeting tons and tons of people of course. Sometimes you make new friends. I once made a boyfriend in Cannes. I met a boy in Cannes who was a journalist and he became my boyfriend. So you never know.

SG: Which film was that on?

CS: Oh, it was a long time ago. I don't want to talk about it.

SG: When can you sleep? I'm having a hard time with that one.

CS: God, hopefully I'll be able to sleep for a couple hours this afternoon because I have another premiere tonight, Mr. Nice. So I need to rest my head a little bit.

SG: Since you have two films here, are you being pulled every which way?

CS: Not so much. I think we're trying to keep it to a minimum here. It's not like Cannes or one of the bigger festivals where there's so much press. I think the press is more like a grass roots kind of thing around here, South by Southwest.

SG: Have you gotten to see anything?

CS: No, I kind of want to see that Lemmy movie. I don't even know how to get in. I have to ask one of these publicist people if I can get in.

SG: It's hard to believe it's been 15 years since Kids.

CS: I know, shocking, right?

SG: How do you look back on that movie?

CS: I'm really proud of my career and my trajectory and the films that I've made. I'm surprised it's been that long. I'm just glad I'm still around. I'm glad people are still hiring me. I'm glad that I've remained true to myself and only worked on films that I want to work on. Now with the TV show, I feel like people are more exposed to my work which has been really great. I'm pretty satisfied.

SG: Would Kids have to be different if made today? Would it have to address all the texting and social networking?

CS: I don't know. I was watching that How to Make It in America on HBO which has a little bit of a Kids feel. It is a different time. There were a lot more freedoms in the '90s, at least in New York City. You could get away with a lot more on the streets, less distractions. You could say, "Well, let's meet in the park" and you'll meet there. You're not like, "Oh, I'm late" or "I'm not going to make it." You couldn't just cancel on people. It's just a different feeling, different time.

SG: Where are you in your life now, 15 years later?

CS: I'm really happy as I said before with my work. I'm a homeowner. I don't know where I am in life. Just trying to do my thing. Working, hanging out with my friends.

SG: Is it different being part of an artistic community as a grown-up than it was when you started out as a young adult?

CS: I don't know. There's a lot of young kids now on the scene in New York, at least the scene that I'm in. They seem really wild and they're acting out and they're doing their thing. It's kind of amusing. Then you see a lot of kids that behave really crazy and oh, well, they're young. I say, "When I was young, I didn't act like an idiot." I was more of the observer which I still am I guess. I feel like now I have more confidence as a person, walking into an opening or doing whatever. I feel more comfortable in myself and that's a great feeling.

SG: Is there a different TV world you've traveled in now?

CS: I guess so. There's definitely the HBO family because I go to a lot of their events and I think they have great programming and great actors on their shows. I never really felt embraced at all by the film world. Definitely indie film but Hollywood never. I've never even made a studio film. Well, Zodiac, but I feel more embraced by the TV community. I feel like there's less snobbery and elitism.

SG: Is Big Love done for the year?

CS: We're done. We start shooting again next August, the fifth season.

SG: Do you have any insight into why polygamist wives are common but not multiple husbands?

CS: I mean, that was their religion. Brigham Young, what can you say? That was the religion they started. It's kind of stuck. I'm sure if there was another religion, the other way around, of course men as they say rule the world so the men are going to be a more dominant force.

SG: Do you think the women of those communities are getting to see Big Love?

CS: No, I don't think they even know who the president of the United States is. I think that they're kept really repressed and it's really shocking that it happens in America right now.

SG: Do you see awareness happening?

CS: No, no. Not within the compound. I don't even know if they get to look at newspapers.

SG: But at least are people on the outside trying to reach in and help?

CS: Oh, I hope so. I hope so. I think that would be great. I think hopefully people are supporting these different organizations where women can go to to escape. I know I have.

Barry Munday is currently seeking distribution. Look for it later this year.

(image) Epic Shooting Road Trip Commences Tomorrow! I cant believe I leave so soon! So if you email me, and its not involving said trip.. Please don't get annoyed with me if I don't respond till i get back! (I'm gonna be a busy girl..) But I hope to be able to update from the road! ... more

Epic Shooting Road Trip Commences Tomorrow! I cant believe I leave so soon! So if you email me, and its not involving said trip.. Please don't get annoyed with me if I don't respond till i get back! (I'm gonna be a busy girl..) But I hope to be able to update from the road!

So I have the best road trip buddies/shooting team going with me that I could possibly imagine..



Sunshine & Lainey



Radeo

&

Frolic

I simply can not wait! There are still a few cities were i have some open shooting slots so email me if you wanna try to shoot!

In other news....
Congrats to Ohio's newest SG's
Parish


&
Buffy


Both these ladies are amazing & I'm so excited to have them be a part of our little Ohio family! Thanks for giving them the love they so deserved! They are both so hot!

Speaking of sets,
I have a few of 'em in MR right now! (and some more on the way too!)


Phecda - Coming VERY soon!!!!


JesseMay shows of her new rack in "Little Runaway"



Rainbow shows her quiet nerdy side in "Cross My Heart"



I got to meet Nymph a few weeks ago and we shot "Slick".. Good lord, that woman is hot!



Here is a little clip of Parish "Helping" on the shoot!


Luscious gets dirty in her new set "Afternoon Delight"



Here is a little clip of her getting ready to shoot!

To check out all my MR sets CLICK HERE!!!!!

I have been having some fun playing with videos lately...



Here is Lainey trying to show us her moves after shooting new Hopeful Shmuela a few weeks ago.. ( You can see Shmuela at the end a bit.. stuffing dollars down Laineys pants.. )



Durb & our buddy Ryan goofing around.



Frolic is such a good dancer....


Have you seen the pictures from the SG Party @ Mozaik?

























Fun times were had by all... to see more CLICK HERE!!!!

Well I better get back to packing! Hopefully I'll see you on the road

We Are Scientists are known for making straightforward pop-rock, but they're not known for giving straightforward answers in interviews. I didn't want to be the millionth person to ask "Are you really scientists?", so I set out to find the answer on my own. After reading through several... more

We Are Scientists are known for making straightforward pop-rock, but they're not known for giving straightforward answers in interviews. I didn't want to be the millionth person to ask "Are you really scientists?", so I set out to find the answer on my own. After reading through several conflicting accounts of the band's various areas of scientific expertise, I finally found the answer. A piece from the college magazine at Pomona, the California school where the band originally formed, revealed that guitarist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain weren't actually science majors of any sort. Well played, guys.

Needless to say, We Are Scientists like to keep people guessing. They first broke out in the UK with 2005's formidable collection of indie-pop, With Love and Squalor.The 2008 follow-up, a less upbeat but more lyrically complex record called Brain Thrust Mastery, also climbed the British charts. A predictable band would stick with a major label and put out another album following the same formula. This is no predictable band.

We Are Scientists have left their label and decided to strike out on their own for their third full-length release, Barbara. They've changed drummers, as well, recording with ex-Razorlight member Andy Burrows and touring with Australian Danny Allen. What happens next is anyone's guess, but the catchy lead single, Rules Don't Stop, suggests that the new album will prove at least as strong as the previous two.

Chris Cain, W.A.S's notoriously witty bassist, answered some questions for SuicideGirls about the new album, the band's future plans, and his awesome mustache.

Jay Hathaway: Was SXSW your first live performance with Andy on drums? How did he do? Also, what's his background as a scientist?

Christopher Cain: SXSW was definitely not Andy's first live performance with us, for two reasons, and I don't know which is more important: (1) He played three shows in the US with us last summer, and a couple of shows in the UK in February; (2) He didn't play with us at SXSW. I know, I know: your head is spinning right now. Rightly so!

Here's the back story: Andy signed on to drum with us on the new record roughly a year ago. At the time, he was also in the beginning stages of planning a solo record. Both of these things — our third album and his solo effort — were nebulous, theoretical entities at the time. But — like two cars that were built at the same time in factories in different countries, but that later end up going opposite directions on the same chunk of highway, and crash right into each other — our record and his record are crashing right into each other.

As a result, Andy will often be unavailable for live dates. SXSW was one of many examples of his unavailability. Thankfully, we are rich beyond most bands' means, in terms of drummers: we have two. The other guy is Danny Allen, an Australian who kind of looks like Lemmy from Motorhead, kind of looks like a Beatle, and kind of looks like Hugh Jackman.

As far as I know, neither Andy nor Danny has any background in the sciences, but it doesn't really matter, since Keith and I more than make up for it with our weirdly extensive, discipline-spanning backgrounds in the sciences.

JH: After doing "Steve Wants His Money" for MTV in the UK, and now getting a British drummer, are you perhaps thinking about moving the band to London in the future?

CC: We will never move to London — we love American health care too damn much to ever leave it.

JH: You've said you're called We Are Scientists because you are scientists, and that Brain Thrust Mastery didn't really mean anything, so — why Barbara? Is there a story behind it, or did you just like the name?

CC: We just liked the name. We've retrofitted a whole song & dance about how Barbara is from the Latin word meaning "foreign woman", that it shares roots with "barbarian", that it's an insinuation about our occasional difficulty relating to/living peacefully with women, etc, etc. What a load of nonsense, though! Things couldn't be more frictionless between the sexes, as far as we can can tell!

JH: Tell me a bit about the new songs. I know you've said they sound more stripped down and more like songs on Love and Squalor — could you elaborate on that a bit, or comment on the direction you took with the lyrics?

CC: Lyrically I think they occupy the same fraught territory the last two albums did (amorous/anxious, neurotic/flirtatious, lustful/considerate...). In terms of the songwriting, it's a refinement of past stuff — it's better without being a big left turn. The arrangements are definitely closer to With Love & Squalor, in that they're written for three instruments (drums, bass, guitar), but there's a clear progression in songwriting from WL&S to Brain Thrust Mastery through to Barbara.

JH: I've read about how you used the names of classic video games as working titles on the previous album. Did you guys do anything like that for Barbara?

CC: For a while, before the songs had titles, we'd refer to them by their fairly distinctive drum openings. So we might say, during rehearsal, "Wanna play tacka tacka tacka?" Or, "What do you think about that part where I drop out in dooka-dook, dooka-dook, dooka-digga-dooka?" We got pretty attached to that system, but our management insisted that we use more traditional nomenclature for the release.

JH: Are any of you serious gamers? Video games? Tabletop? If so, what are you playing now?

CC: Both of us can easily spend a few hours on the couch with some beers and a friend or two and the old blob-with-buttons in hand. We're not very thorough about titles, though — we pick up a grand total of two or three games a year. "Recent" purchases have included Call of Duty: World at War and Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Vegas 2, or "T-Clan" as we refer to it to save time.

JH: You've left your label — what were the circumstances there, and who's putting out the new record?

CC: We got into a position with EMI in which we had the choice of whether to renew our contract with them (even though technically it was valid for several more records), and we decided to bail, largely because we're control freaks, and we thought it would be fun to put it out ourselves. Boy were we wrong! It's like having a real job, and less job security, and less overall ability to get your music out to people. On the plus side, we make all the decisions, which is something that pricks like us think they want.

Actually, it's going pretty well. We formed a label called Masterswan Recordings — which may or may not, at some future time, put out something other than W.A.S. records — and we've negotiated distribution through a couple of different partners in different territories. The long and short of it is that Barbara will come out June 14/15 worldwide (I write confidently; if you could hear me say it, you'd probably detect a slight quaver) and it's going to be an incredible amount of work even just to avoid total calamity, but if the next year goes okay then we'll be about the smuggest bastards in all of New York City, which would be significant.

JH: The Rules Don't Stop video has a pretty heavy Hall and Oates influence (awesome 'stache, by the way!), and there seems to be a real Hall and Oates revival happening this year. Any thoughts on everyone's sudden interest in Hall and Oates? Why now, and what's so awesome about them?

CC: This will sound a little arrogant, but I'm confident people are really into Hall & Oates lately because our last record, Brain Thrust Mastery, is heavily H&O-influenced (see closing track That's What Counts) and was a gigantic tastemaker record, even if it's sales were quite diminutive indeed. (Hey, Picasso only sold one copy of Guernica, but it changed everything. Right? Right, you guys?!?!?!)

JH: I actually considered trying to do an entire interview about facial hair, but I will limit it to this one question: if With Love and Squalor were a style of facial hair, what kind of beard or 'stache would it be? (I am going to assume that Barbara would be your current mustache, but feel free to correct me on that.)

CC: Well, With Love & Squalor featured a mustache, too, on my face, so I'm not sure presence or absence of mustache is a great way to differentiate between W.A.S. records. Although in those younger days, my mustache was significantly wispier and patchier, whereas today it is full and briery, so maybe the mustache will ultimately prove a useful analog for the music. As the mustache develops, reaching new levels of thickness and luster, thus shall the songs do (maybe in direct response).

JH: I also liked the cheeky OK GO reference in the description of the new video on YouTube. What do you think of OK GO? Video artists who happen to be a band, or a band who are also video artists?

CC: I like 'em. I think they're both video artists and a band, not either/or. As OKGO have made clear, the two are complementary, not contradictory.

JH: What are you reading these days?

CC: Sam Lipsyte's new one, The Ask, which is his best yet and which I recommend to lovers of profane, funny contemporary literature with a humanist overtone. I paused in my reading of Lipsyte for about two hours this weekend to barrel through Robert Crais's latest L.A. detective trifle, The First Rule, which is far from his best (his best is his first, The Monkey's Raincoat, and his worst has been his most recent since book 2, which was like ten books ago — yet I can't break my habit).

During our recent SXSW trip, which included a handful of shows on the way back to NYC, I finally employed Jane & Michael Stern's Roadfood, an impeccably reliable guide to delicious, usually cheap, food all over the U.S., with a focus on experiencing local specialities and a mandate of avoiding national chains. The guys from (now defunct) The Oxford Collapse had recommended this amoral bible for years, and I have to say they were very much on point.

JH: If We Are Scientists were going to officially endorse a product, what would it be?

Hollywood movies. Also Blenheim's Spicy Ginger Ale, Sauza "Hornitos" Tequila, Nudie Jeans, the Apple iPhone, mother nature's house cats, Shipley & Halmos clothing, and the detective novels of Lee Child — these brands, like W.A.S. itself, connote attainable excellence.

JH: If you could write and record a new soundtrack for any film, which one would you pick?

Watching Avatar, I couldn't help thinking I'd have done a lot better with the score. Basically I'd have gotten a guy to wail on the didgeridoo the whole time — it would've brought a connection to primitivism that was missing, and it would've upped the intensity a lot, as didge' scores always do (see Jaws, Heat, etc.).

Barabra from We Are Scientists will be available in June. Until then visit their website wearescientists.com for more information about the band.

Our story begins with a poker game gone bad... a lifeless body on the floor, hand still clutching its cards... whacked on the head with a bass guitar. In the background, Mike Patton's haunting film score crescendos over the radio waves as the other two poker players argue over what to do with the... more

Our story begins with a poker game gone bad... a lifeless body on the floor, hand still clutching its cards... whacked on the head with a bass guitar. In the background, Mike Patton's haunting film score crescendos over the radio waves as the other two poker players argue over what to do with the body. Incinerator? Garbage disposal? They haven't a clue.

Without a doubt, Derrick Scocchera's short film, A Perfect Place, is a dark comedy, wonderfully directed and acted. But it is Patton's striking film score that ups the ante on this noir story; it transforms every scene, drives the action, and pushes the audience into a surreal world that they have visited only in late night, restless dreams.

While some musicians skulk and idle in the corners of your iPod, Mike Patton charges forward like a maestro possessed, and continuously delivers transgressive albums that one-up the status quo. In recent years, we've watched the former Faith No More and Mr. Bungle frontman push new ground with bands Fantomas, Tomahawk and Peeping Tom (amongst others) and now with A Perfect Place, we get to enjoy his debut as a film composer.

Released April 1st on Patton's Ipecac Recordings -- a geeky enclave of the alternative underworld, marked by a distaste for run of the mill, rock-n-roll schmuckery -- both the film and score to A Perfect Place are packaged as a double-disc and are a must-have for cult connoisseurs.

SuicideGirls had to get the details so we dusted off the ol' video camera and met up with Patton over sake and fresh eel in San Francisco's Japantown to chat about his foray into film scoring...

Check out video footage from our interview here.


Erin Broadley: How are you?

Mike Patton: I’m good! How are you?

EB: Fantastic.

MP: Hungry?

EB: Hungry indeed. You live around here… how do you like Japantown? Come here often to buy Samurai swords?

MP: Or 39-cent Hello Kitty stickers.

EB: [Laughs] Oh, my favorite. So let’s talk about A Perfect Place, which you scored. First film score you’ve ever done, correct?

MP: True.

EB: How was this experience compared to some of your other projects or bands?

MP: It’s 100 percent different. If it’s one of my own projects or even a band, it’s done when it’s done. You have the ultimate veto power. When you’re working for someone else, you’re a hired hand in a sense and he tells you when it’s done.

EB: Right, the director gets final cut.

MP: Yeah, and rightfully so.

EB: How did you meet the director, Derrick Scocchera?

MP: I was a big laserdisc guy and he had a store in my neighborhood and I used to go shop there a lot. So being a regular customer, I got to know the people who worked there and I got to meet him. It was really a great store. It was so great, [laughs] of course it went out of business. I spent a lot of money in there. We got to be friends and from that point on, he was working for Zoetrope for Coppola for a while and we’d call each other from time to time to talk about film and talk about music. I’d invite him to my shows and he’d send me stuff that he was doing. He started an independent company [Fantoma Films] where he was putting out great DVD box sets from really historic directors… Mario Bava, Fassbinder… he put out lots of great stuff that, even if I didn’t know him, I’d just go to the store and buy it. He put together great packages and I was a fan of what he was doing and he said, “You know what? I also write scripts,” and sent me a few scripts and it’s hard for me to tell what a movie is going to be like from reading it on paper, but there was a kinship there and when he said, “I’m going to make a short film and I want you to score it,” who was I to argue?

EB: With the 2004 film you starred in, Firecracker, some wondered why you didn’t also score the film because a lot of the music you make has a very cinematic element to it.

MP: Yeah. For a musician, using film is part of your vocabulary. At least for an untrained musician, I think it’s important. It certainly works for me. With Firecracker, I did not want to act in the movie; I wanted to do the score. And the director -- again, sort of an acquaintance who turned into a friend -- he was adamant and said, “No, no. I’m not letting you do the music; I want you to [act]. I want you to stretch out. I want you to try something new.” And I said, “Well, okay, I’ve looked like a fool before, why not again?”

EB: For A Perfect Place, was there any point where you were down on the set, checking it out?

MP: No. I would have loved to but I happened to be out of town when they were filming it and, you know, a film like that is pretty renegade. I think they barely got the permits that they needed to do it and a lot of it was done at night. It’s a short film, black and white, beautifully shot, almost like a play in that there’s just very few characters and very few sets, but the strength is in the writing.

EB: And the characters. One of my favorite characters is the little old lady who has a collection of bow ties in her house, which is just one of those simple quiet elements that can really define a character.

MP: Yeah. The best part of it is, it starts out with guys playing a card game and they basically, quote unquote, kill their friend who was cheating, [laughs] or so they thought. And somehow, even though we maybe wouldn’t be driven to those lengths, you can relate. If you were to kill someone, all these questions would come up. It’s not as easy as Scorsese would have you believe: you kill somebody, you drop some lye on them and you bring them out to the suburbs. It’s a lot harder sometimes so I think that’s one of the premises of the film.

EB: One thing about the score, it taps into a lot of the same themes that are in the film. Were you crafting these compositions scene by scene or was it more, “Here’s a word, here’s an idea, go with it.”

MP: A lot of the film was basically done, or close to being done, before I started. Being friends with the director, he showed me a couple of scenes. Also, he would just describe a scene to me and say, “I need a theme for when the old lady puts on a seventy-eight and I want it to sound like Enrico Caruso.” One of the best directions he gave me was from the outset he said, “I want one major theme, and I want you to come up with a zillion variations including the source music, including a seventy-eight record, or when the guys are in a car, flipping the radio dial, I want you to write a piece like that.” In a sense, I was doing the score and the source music, in one. It was fun.

EB: The music really moves the scenes along. That’s one thing I noticed; it’s tied into the scenes enough that it helps the narrative progress.

MP: One can only hope!

EB: How did you strike the balance between somewhat heavier sounds and dark subject matter and still retain a sense of humor within this score?

MP: Didn’t think about it. To me every project or every piece of music has a certain amount of requirements. Maybe I’ll set out to create some sort of heavy and dark atmosphere and in the end it becomes comedy. To me, it’s about maintaining a balance and it’s really hard to quantify that. It’s hard to describe what that balance is but I know it when I hear it. The most important part is when it’s done, let it go.

EB: Right. You’ve said before that one of the hardest things to do is to pull back and press stop.

MP: Yeah, yeah.

EB: Does it get any easier over the years?

MP: Eh, depending on the project. To me, certain projects are easier than others. Fantomas… I know exactly when that music is written and done and there’s no more tweaking to do. Something like this film score is a little more difficult; I was on unfamiliar ground. Sometimes when you’re dealing with a collab or maybe a guest vocal for somebody it’s also hard to know because ultimately, you’re deferring to someone else. Usually it works out. But I’ve done a few collaborations or guest spots where it just didn’t work out, either the artist wasn’t happy with it or didn’t feel that it suited the track. You do your best and ultimately if you’re a guest you’ve got to know when to go, “Okay! You’re the boss.”

EB: It’s like being a guest in someone’s house. You’ve got to know when to step down.

MP: Oh yes, I’ll leave now. I pissed on your couch but I’m leaving.[Laughs] I tracked in mud on your expensive carpet…

EB: [Laughs] I’ll pay for the cleaning bill.

MP: Yeah, exactly.

EB: Back to A Perfect Place, the score you did is about twice as long as the actual film so how did you decide which music was included? Or why the choice to include extra tracks in the CD available?

MP: Ultimately, it is the director’s decision. There were certain scenes, certain cues where I did two or three different versions. Like, the thing we were calling the “Alley Theme,” where they’re dragging the body out to the alley, he wanted something with a beat and percussive so I gave him two different choices. He chose one and used it and then, you know, had the other sitting around so it’s like, I guess you just put them on the soundtrack.

EB: Yeah, why waste something good?

MP: Yeah. Also, I didn’t want to put out a CD that was 20 minutes long and a film that was 20 minutes long. I wanted to extend the CD a little bit and make it a little more desirable.

EB: Right, and to have them be able to exists independently on their own…

MP: Well, yeah! Actually, the director made some great suggestions… it was his idea to do a vocal version of the main theme, almost as a single, or whatever. It never got used in the film and was a complete afterthought, but that was his idea. That was [the] “Twist” theme that I did with vocals and it’s probably one of the standout tracks on the album.

EB: It’s a fun track, yeah.

MP: He gave me some direction that was a little hard to follow, just because he was aiming really high. Like, “I want a main theme that sounds like Elmer Bernstein.” And you just don’t press a button and…

EB: …become Elmer Bernstein!

MP: Yeah. That’s like saying, “I’ve got an idea for a street fight and I want you to be Mike Tyson.”

EB: Just do it, channel it.

MP: Yeah, just grow and kick some ass.

EB: And get a tattoo on your face [laughs].

MP: Yeah [laughs]. Bite somebody’s ear off. It was very challenging in that respect but I’m glad he was aiming high and forced me to aim a little high.

EB: Last year you got a lot attention for the sound effects you did for the creatures in I Am Legend. Any afterthought on that whole project?

MP: It was great.

EB: You and Will Smith best buds now?

MP: Oh yeah. He was in the studio, patting me on the back.

EB: You guys are gonna put out a rap album, like Fresh Prince.

MP: There you go. Fresh Mike.

[Both Laugh]

MP: No, uh, [doing the sound effects] was clinical and dry and fun and easy.

EB: Was it flattering in the least that they wanted a more human element to the scariness of the film?

MP: Yeah, it was great. It was a completely unique opportunity and it probably wouldn’t have come my way unless someone involved in the film didn’t put their ass out there and suggest me. So I’m really thankful and would love to do more stuff like that.

EB: You’ve said before that to keep things interesting, you have to continually reinvent or find new ways to say what it is you want to say with music. How do you find ways to make that happen without feeling redundant?

MP: That’s a difficult question and even harder to realize. You just keep trying. My way of doing it is just to keep doing things. Stay busy. My way of learning and getting better and growing is by doing.

EB: You started Ipecac in 1999 with Greg Werckman. Coming up on your 10-year anniversary, obviously you have expanded your roster and are still going strong. How has it changed in recent years compared to when you first started?

MP: It’s been great. I would say the main struggle has been [that] we’ve kept the same amount of employees and the same business model, if you will, meaning Ipecac is like three or four people. Always has been. Yet, we’re getting more and more submissions and personally I’m finding there’s more and more great music that needs to be put out! But we don’t have the manpower. I’m a little nervous about expanding. What we’ve done so far has worked. If we were to listen to our distributors and whatnot, we’d hire 15 more people and run it like everyone else runs a label.

EB: Then again, you don’t want to be like everyone else runs a label because we’ve seen what happens there.

MP: Yeah. If you really think about it, the reason we’ve been successful is because of the way it’s gone. Ultimately the way we do it, if you’re looking for half a million dollars and a bunch of hype, we’re not the right label for you. If you want to record cheaply, which is not to say that it can’t be a great sounding record or an amazing record, but do it smart, and then you will ultimately be rewarded because you will make royalties and not dig yourself some sort of loan shark hole where you’re constantly in the [dark]. Our label is not for everybody, but people who understand that aesthetic will be really happy with us and we’ll be happy with them.

EB: Another thing you have coming out in 2008 is [the video game] Bionic Commando. You do the voice of one of the lead characters. Tell me a little bit about how you got involved in that? You’ve always been a bit of a video game enthusiast.

MP: Yeah, that sort of dropped out of the sky and I think it sort of came about because I did a couple of other video game voiceovers and once your name is in the hat…

EB: …You’re on their contact list.

MP: Totally. So I got the call and I was familiar with the old ’80s Nintendo game .

EB: What character do you play?

MP: The main guy, Nathan. Basically, what I did was… I will tell you that my best point of reference was I was trying to channel Henry Rollins [laughs]. It was a real drill sergeant, tough guy.

EB: Did you method act it? Getting into character, weight lifting every morning?

MP: I didn’t go quite that far but you have to have some point of reference and Henry was mine. And Henry… no offense [laughs]. Hey, eat your eel!! I’ve already eaten my eel.

EB: Okay, I’m going to eat my eel and you tell me what else we can expect from Ipecac in 2008.

MP: New Melvins, new Dalek, Farmer’s Market, Desert Sessions, Mondo Cane, Rhazel… Finish your eel. Be a good girl.

EB: I’m finishing my eel… dad. [Laughs]

MP: [Smiles] I’ll take that as a compliment.

EB: Mike Patton’s my daddy, telling me to finish my eel.

MP: Finish your eel.

EB: [Laughs] How do you balance being a businessman and an artist without completely losing your mind?

MP: I don’t think about it, just kind of do what I do. The label is a part of every day; it’s just a matter of how much of that day. Sometimes it’s more; sometimes it’s less. To be honest, it’s rewarding and most of the things that I do, my contribution to the label is things that I’d be doing anyway. Listening to music, listening to new artists… I would do that anyway, even if I didn’t have a label. So to have a purpose in doing that is even better.

EB: And to put a roof over their heads and not have them be wandering, homeless stray pieces of music.

MP: Yeah, like I said before, the real trouble is there’s too much great music and we can’t do it all. And that’s in the last year or two become a reality. It’s a bitch. If I heard something great tomorrow, I’d have to tell an artist, “This is great, I’d love to put it out, but I can’t do it until late ’09.”

EB: There’s no promises of grandeur right away like there are with other majors.

MP: [Laughs] There’s no promises of grandeur, period. But just on a timeline vibe, no artist wants to hear that. I can totally relate but we’re in that position right now and that’s just the way it is.

EB: So what’s your next release we should be looking out for?

MP: Mondo Cane. It’s a new project of mine. It’s an orchestral project of ’50s and ’60s Italian pop tunes that I arranged.

EB: Fabulous.

MP: It’s a crooning record but with an orchestra. Not many horns. And, I wouldn’t say very jazzy, but much more orchestral ballad stuff. Lots of singing. But it’s not in English. Summertime we hope.

EB: Well, any parting words of wisdom?

MP: Eat your fuckin’ eel!

EB: I’ve eaten pretty much all the fuckin’ eel.

MP: Pretty much?

EB: I just didn’t eat the skin!

MP: The skin’s the best part!


Video Exclusive:


For more information on Mike Patton and to buy A Perfect Place, go to ipecac.com.

Brendon Small's career has taken him from music student and aspiring guitar hero to creator of some of the best animated comedies on TV. His first show, Home Movies, was part of the original lineup of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Although Brendon wrote the music for Home Movies, he didn't... more

Brendon Small's career has taken him from music student and aspiring guitar hero to creator of some of the best animated comedies on TV. His first show, Home Movies, was part of the original lineup of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Although Brendon wrote the music for Home Movies, he didn't find an outlet for his love of wicked guitar shredding until he created Metalocalypse.

Metalocalypse is the saga of Dethklok, the biggest and most brutal metal band in the world. When they're not fighting amongst themselves, the five members of Dethklok play absurd, elaborate concerts that usually result in death and carnage for the audience. Naturally, Brendon had to take this show on the road.

He put together an all-star metal lineup, with himself on guitar and doing the vocals of lead singer Nathan Explosion, to record full versions of songs like "I Tamper with the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin." Now Dethklok isn't just the world's most popular metal band on TV. Their latest album, The Dethalbum II, is the best-selling death metal record ever, and they've co-headlined a tour with Mastodon.

Season 3 of Metalocalypse is currently airing on Adult Swim, and Dethklok's song "Laser Cannon Deth Sentence" was just added to Guitar Hero 5.

Jay Hathaway: How did you decide to get into TV instead of becoming a professional musician or joining a band?

Brendon Small: When I went through music school, I went to Berklee College of Music‚ I entered thinking I knew what I was doing or I knew what I wanted out of music school, and I left being very confused by what I wanted out of music. The music I cared about wasn't really being played. Guitar-driven music kind of wasn't cool anymore. In the meantime, I was being drawn toward this world of comedy, and I was hanging out with kids that were at Emerson College in Boston. Everything that they were doing sounded cooler, because you could still do music, you could score stuff, you could write it and you could act in it yourself. So, I think they had a better idea than what my music school was offering, which was basically, "Hey, here's a wedding gig. Learn some old standards and you might scrape by this month."

It wasn't a financial reason, it was because if I can do music and I can do all this other stuff, why wouldn't I do that? Also, somewhere in the middle of all of that, I interned at jingle houses in New York, where they do music for commercials and stuff like that. The musicians were the last people to have a say, creatively. You could come up with something great and have some dildo ad exec come in there and crush the whole thing. I thought, "Whatever I do, I don't want to be in post-production. I want to be in charge of the project." I was probably around 20 or 21 at the time.

JH: Do you find that it's easier to break into doing your own projects in music or in TV, in comedy?

BS: Well, first of all, to have a personality on the guitar is a very difficult thing. There are a handful of people, maybe seven people, where they play three notes and you go "Oh! That's Brian May from Queen," or "That's Jeff Beck," or whoever. But in comedy, your own personality and whatever makes you yourself, no one can actually compete with that. I just thought it made more sense to go with your personality first and add all of the other stuff later. People are looking for a person with a new comedic voice. Not a lot of people are looking for the next new guitar virtuoso. What would you rather hear: someone who's going to make you laugh, or the new guitar player who's going to break all the rules? Most people just want to laugh.

JH: Does that explain why Dethklok has outsold so many other metal bands? Because people just want to laugh?

BS: That may be part of the reason. The records, especially the second record, aren't necessarily funny records. I'm not going for jokes. There are a couple smart-ass and sarcastic things we do in there, but nothing too terribly funny. I think the reason is that it's got a TV show. That why it outsells other metal, because other metal doesn't have a TV show. I really believe that.

JH: When you were a kid, did you want to be in the biggest band in the world?

BS: When I was a kid ... for a while, I wanted to be a dentist. I thought it would be interesting to be a carpenter, for a while, and then I thought it would be interesting to be a toymaker. Then I thought it would be interesting to make monsters in movies. Then I discovered guitar, and thought it would be cool to be a guitarist. Then I went back to the dentist thing, and that's where I am now.

JH: That's your career aspiration at the moment?

BS: I am going to DeVry.

JH: Wow, awesome.

BS: No, when I was 14 years old and I had a guitar, all I did was fantasize about being able to play like Eddie Van Halen or whatever. I didn't know that there was any reality attached to that. I knew that I could study guitar and trick people into letting me go and hang out with this guitar for a long time. Beyond that, I didn't know what the reality of putting a band together was. I was too naive.

JH: Have you run into any metal bands who don't get Metalocalypse or don't like it?

BS: No. I'm sure that there are plenty out there who think it's lame and horribly-written. I'm sure that there are people who don't get the joke, but I don't meet those guys. I think it's good that I don't. Why would we want to hang out with each other? Look at each other, have a weird, stilted conversation, get mad at each other.

JH: Yeah, for sure.

BS: Actually, now I want to do that. I want to have a fancy dinner with one of those guys who doesn't like the show. We'll probably end up going dutch, because they're not going to pick up the bill. I'm not going to pick up the bill. I mean, if they don't respect the show, why would I?

JH: You'd have no reason.

BS: No reason.

JH: Since one of the themes of the show is how bored and jaded the world's biggest celebrities are, what's your own attitude toward getting more well-known? Have you developed a casual disregard for human life?

BS: First of all, you have to understand I work in cartoons. I consider it to be pretend show business. My face isn't plastered everywhere, so I walk down the street and I'm not harmed by or accosted by people. Nobody gives me a better seat at a restaurant. At Starbucks, no one's like, "Hey man, this one's on me." I pay full price for things. Nobody bothers me. I like that I can walk past the line of people that are lining up to see the Dethklok show, and nobody stops their conversation or looks at me. Everything else is Internet bullshit, and that's all fake. That doesn't mean you're really popular. It means people have a lot of curiosity for stupid shit.

JH: I was just reading some of those sites, and people really get into the most minute bits of trivia about Metalocalypse. Did you see that coming at all when you started writing the show?

BS: No, I wasn't expecting that. I'm glad that people enjoy all that stuff, but it doesn't really affect what I end up doing too much. People try to make sense of a lot of the small things like, "Who are these characters all based on?" And the answer is, aside from the singer, nobody. They like to concoct all these thing themselves, but no one seems to be getting hurt, so let 'em do it.

JH: Including all the other voice acting that you've done outside of Metalocalypse, what's the toughest voice you've had to do?

BS: That's an interesting question, because voiceover is the easiest job in the world. The only time it's tough is when you have a director who's bad, who can't really get his point across, and uses absurd metaphors. "Ok, you just got back from Sunday School and you have a very vague notion about you, and you don't know whether you're excited or not. Go!" I've had a couple of bad direction sessions‚ I'm sure I've given them, as well. Doing voiceover is the easiest job in the world if you know how to read. Even if you don't know how to read, someone can tell you the words you should say. I had to create a TV show to get voiceover work, 'cause everyone else figured out it's the easiest thing in the world. I'll tell you the easiest job I ever did ...

JH: Okay.

BS: It was for the Honda Fit campaign. I was like their voice for their car campaign, this big national ad thing. The guy who hired me was a super-nice guy who was a fan of the show, and hired me because of that. They put so many effects on my voice, there's no way you'd ever be able to tell it was me. They asked me to speak like Vicki from Small Wonder. Like a robot lady. [robot voice] But they asked. me. to. talk. like. this. [normal voice] I swear to God, that's exactly what I did. [robot voice] New. from. Honda. The. Honda. Fit. [normal voice] And that was it. The amount of money they pay for that kind of money is just stupid. It's like, the IRS is gonna come down on somebody here, 'cause this is bullshit. Sounding out words and saying them? Not too tough.

JH: What's the most brutal thing that you've done in your personal life?

BS: I know what the most brutal thing I've had to experience is, and that's taxes. I get the feeling of just flopping over and crying, you know? Taxes. Easy. Summer colds would be second. It's the little things.

JH: You're doing longer episodes for Season 3 of Metalocalypse. What was your plan for using the extra time?

BS: There's no one way to do that. If we have a story idea, we try to make it make sense within the thing. Sometimes concluding an episode is ... the Sopranos started doing it a lot time ago. They'd finish, they'd conclude, but they wouldn't totally bookend or stop. It would end in a precarious place. You don't need to know how it's going to finish in order for the episode to be done. You're going to assume that, yes, that thing's going to smash that guy and all those things are going to be released, you know? Aside from the last episode of last season, I think the audience knows what's going on. As far as what we use the time for, it's just trying to develop story. I think, past the first episode, you'll see that it's basically used for comedy.

That's what you're doing when you're working in TV, especially with half-hours. Just trying to make sure that you and the audience both know what your story's about. It's actually very tedious. What is this story about? What does this character want? Simple stuff they teach you in film school.

JH: Metalocalypse is nothing like your previous show, Home Movies. How did you decide to make something so completely different?

BS: Even if Home Movies was successful‚ we consider it a creative success, although it didn't get great numbers ‚ I don't understand why I would want to redo what I did already. Ultimately, I'm doing these weird, absurd little passion projects, and this one seems to have gotten popular. It's stuff that I care about, and if the audience likes it, hey, that's great, but ultimately it's for me. I understand that when networks put a lot of money behind something, they want to let everyone know that This is from the same guy that gave you That. That's fine, but I think it's more fun to be creative and do different stuff.

JH: What's your favorite Dethklok lyric? Is there a line you're particularly proud of writing?

BS: I honestly haven't been particularly proud of any of the lyrics I've written for Dethklok. But I do smirk every night when I sing the "Fan Song" for the kids out there. It's just a direct insult, and they're singing along. I don't truly feel this way, but I think it's very funny to say this to them: "You're a bunch of banks that I'd like to rob / you're my online cash transaction / you're my future stocks." And there are other lyrics, like, "You punched and blinded eunuchs / living in chatrooms / you masturbate on the sheets / your mothers clean for you." I think that's fun. I don't necessarily mean any of that stuff, but I think it's funny to sing that to them, and have them sing it along with me, at the very end of of the night.