curt magazin münchen #57 // SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2DD8

------ 14. curt fragt
bullshit, you know. We wanted it to sound real
and live!
curt: recently, one big newspaper here in new
York wrote that you are “… urinating in the
ears of your listeners”. What’s up with that?
JOHN: Who wrote that?
curt: entertainment weekly.
JOHN: Well who else gets paid to urinate in
someone’s ear? I think you must really love
someone to let him piss in your ear. you know
media like that never liked us, which is part of
why our fans love us so much. I mean look into
the tour section of Rolling Stone. We’re not
mentioned. We have a concert in front of ten
thousand people next week and we’re not in
there. I think that’s fucking great.
andy setzt sich neben John aufs sofa.
ANDy: Rock ’n’ Roll on a certain level is a
bunch of bullshit, but music, man, music is not!
curt: so this record was intended to shock
people quality wise?
ANDy: When we released “let it all hang out”
in 2003 it sold so many copies they wanted to
put us on number 0 in the top ten, because it
was so much bigger than just a number one
hit. We told the press that we don’t care about
what they write and they started to write bad
about us. We still don’t care. I’ll piss on their
graves (beide lachen).
Independent music is here to stay and we have
done more staying then anybody else, you
know! … actually don’t write that.
curt: is it that kind of rebellion that makes you
happy?
JOHN: It’s like Arnold in that movie “Pumping
Iron” when he says, “when the girls see my
muscles, it’s like I’m coming. I’m coming all the
time”. you know, that’s how I feel about music.
curt: the concerts are selling well?
JOHN (etwas in Gedanken): Oh yeah man.
Crazy. Really crazy.
curt: i have to ask you, since i am German:
where does that name “the schwanz” come
from?
ANDy: Oh you’re German? Well, our first gig,
we had hockey sticks instead of microphone
stands and we played at a college party and
when we took a break in-between sets, they
would put on a ghetto blaster. So when we
came back out to play again they wanted to
keep listening to their ghetto blaster pumping
Michael Jackson.
JOHN: It was “beat it…..bababa….just beat it.”
ANDy: John got angry and wanted to fight the
host of the party who said that we sound like
his grandmother (lacht). So we said we should
name ourselves after our grandmothers.
JOHN: Eventually, we took my grandmothers
name. She is German. She was a great woman.
curt: aha. and how come everybody in europe
thinks you guys are from Britain?
ANDy: I guess the haircut. But I had that
haircut when I was nine years old. That was
way before Liam Gallagher decided to hold the
microphone like an old woman.
JOHN: I love that guy.
ANDy: We are St. Marks born and raised.
Robert de Niro grew up one block away from
my house. And whenever …
in diesem Moment steckt ernie rodriguez, der
tour-Manager von „the schwanz” seinen kopf
zur tür rein und will mir zu verstehen geben,
dass meine Zeit leider um ist. andy schmeißt
eine leere Bierdose gegen die tür und schreit:
“fuck you, you fucking tool!”
ANDy (ernst): Sorry, but I think we have to go.
No offense.
ich danke den beiden für ihre Zeit und gehe
mit dem Gefühl, echte indie-luft geatmet
zu haben. die holzplanken des alten hotels
quietschen herrlich, als ich an ernie und zwei
anderen Journalisten vorbei die treppen nach
unten laufe. lässig zünde ich mir auf der
straße eine Zigarette an und stelle fest, dass
meine hand ganz schön nach pisse riecht.
the schwanz werden am 11. november im kölner e-werk und
am 13. november in hamburg in den docks spielen. bis jetzt
sind noch keine termine für süddeutschland geplant.