1 - Tell us how
your project(s) were started.
In the beginning there was this wannabe southerner yankee butthead (me) who was on his way to Arkansas to visit some friends when his car died in Asheville NC for a week. I'm still here 4 years later. The exact circumstances for how everyone else got here are hard for me to say anything about. I mean, yeah people came here to go to school and maybe they kind of had a friend out here, but I'm talking about the real driving force or forces that brought them here and kept them here. Was it the walls of some other small town closing in on them? Was it this one unprecedented fun day of jumping off an Appalachan waterfall close to town that made them fall in love? Was it the $1.05 40oz. of Miller High Life at the Six Pack Smoke Stack in Swannanoa? I can't speak for them, but those were my reasons. Oh yeah, there was the pink house too. The Pink House was this giant punk house with a beer store around the corner and a party and/or show going on just about every night. One night at this party I met (Big) Mike. A couple weeks later, at another party, he introduced me to Lynn and Jason. By the end of that sweaty smoky party, a band was born of our debaucherous union. A few weeks later the maker of our first show flyer had us under the gun to come up with a name. We got some southpaw and called an 11th hour "practice" to discuss the matter. There was some names with "fire" in them, and one suggestion (I think from me) to name the band "upper decker" which is a term for taking a poop in someone's toilet tank. Also known as "the brown 2000 flushes". "Dead Things" came up and stuck. I guess that's how it all got started.
2 - What does music,
in it's entirety, mean to you?
Music eh? If you want my hippie music nerd answer, well then I'd have to say that it's a manifestation of the collective desire of humanity to speak in a language without words or icons; a language that could cross the boundries of all the geo-/ethno-/economo-centric matrixes and boundries that our society has erected around us. It is the manifestation of a desire to speak the language of feelings. It's got something to do with sweating beer in tour van with your friends too. I don't know which explanation I like better.
3 - What does art,
in it's entirety, mean to you?
I...ummm...I don't know.
4 - Who is your
favorite author, and why?
Kurt Vonnegutt, becuase everything seems so damn stupid sometimes, but it's allright to stay in love with life anyway. It's actually imperative to do so. Abreviated reading list: (novels) Cat's Cradle, God Bless You Mister Rosewater, Sirens of Titan, Breakfast of Champions, Mother Night (watch the movie with Nick Nolte and John Goodman too, it's pretty good). (Short stories) Deer in the Works, Adam...I don't know, there's a lot. I fucking love this man.
5 - As your best
friend, describe yourself.
Wild, curious, angry, ear to the ground, listening and listening (possibly too hard), precariously balanced.
6 - As your worst
enemy, describe yourself.
Dramatic, drunkard, coward, cynic, loser...ouch!
7 - If your persona
were immortalized as a cartoon character, who would it be?
One time I was staying with a friend of mine in Arkansas and she had all of this crazy Japanamation stuff that we would sit around and watch when it was raining. Their was this one character who I guess was the teacher of these little Japanese super kids. He could run so fast, and lift up cars and throw them, and do all of this really kick ass kung-fu, but then he would drink too much and forget how to do all of it, but at least he was still really funny. Sometimes I feel like that, but I rather fancy myself to be the Jerry in some Tom and Jerry scenario which I guess relates to the next question.
8 - Do you think
there are conspiracies against the "everyday person"?
Sometimes I think that yes, there is absolutely a room full of Aliens in the subteranian caverns on the dark side of the moon who have payed extrodinary sums of alien money (or maybe it's cheap) to go there and get handed a joystick with which they can make human beings jump through or choke themselves on all kinds of ridiculous obstacles. Sometimes this is my way of making sense out of the much more horrifyingly real backroom dealings that must be going on in the White House and it's corresponding underground bunkers. Sometimes I think maybe everyone is just trying to do the best they know how to, and then it's all confusing again. It's like David Byrne said: (before september 11th) "...and the laws of men are not the laws of heaven; and angel's breath is like the desert wind; and terrorists are acting out of love, sweet love; to bring us home again".
9 - What do you
do with your spare or free time?
I don't know about free time. I'm not much of a time off type of guy. You ever heard of "time on"? maybe it's a NJ workaholic thing I picked up from my yankee years, but I'm always trying to make something out of whatever is coming at me. Take this interview for example. I've been sitting here for two hours for christ's sake. If "free time" ever does come at me I'm usually willing and ready to throw it on the fire of whoever else's projects are going on at the time. I mean, shit, I'll have plenty of free time when I'm dead, but for now I'm going to play the drums and learn how to cook and answer questions for some interview or whatever...you know?
10 - Please give us your interpretation of "the meaning of life".
I just don't have
the moxie to tackle this one, besides it's late...goodnight.
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