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74 The Word with
You’ll be playing in Brussels in November.
Do you still know some people here?
Oh, I don’t know anybody there. Even one
year later I never spoke to any of those people
again. That’s the story of my whole life, you
know. Be somewhere, experience it, leave and
forget about it.
What about the time you spent in Texas?
Well you know there is a huge amount of
time there. When I moved to Texas I was 16
years old, in 1996. And a lot of things happened.
I spent about nine years there.
So nine years after you moved to San
Francisco?
Yeah. When I moved to SF I was 25.
But you were always into music, like back in
Texas, you were already playing in bands?
No, when I first moved there all I did was
just buy albums. It was the first time for me to buy
albums. I spent about four years just buying as many
albums as I could. I was just a fan, a very honest fan
of bands that were on MTV. That’s all I knew. And
then I got into punk and that’s a very different thing.
A part of the thing that came with my punk lifestyle
is that I moved into a house where a lot of us played
music together. There’s something about getting
into punk very seriously where you do start playing
music, and I did, but it wasn’t like this. I never
wrote any songs, I didn’t care about music. It was
just like in the same way that religious people sing
in a church, and they have a huge musical history,
well it’s the same for punks I think. Every punk
will tell you “Oh yes, I’ve been in a band.” I feel
like in my youth I had religious music, and then in
my teenage years I had punk music and it was only
when I became an adult that I wrote my own music.
What do you qualify your music of now?
How would you describe it?
I really don’t know. I think it’s just pop
music or you know, rock and roll music. Like
I’ve seen our CD on iTunes and it’s says “alternative
music”. You know I think that’s really
nice but I think that’s also very big. Like “alternative
to what?”
A lot has been said regarding your upbringing
and how important religion was, so I don’t want
to go into detail about it. But, your album’s
name evidently conjures feelings of some sort
of religious reference. Now I’ve also read that it
was not your attempt at all. But I guess what I’m
trying to get to here is that seen from our eyes,
the current political climate in the US is really
highly charged on religion. So I just wanted to
know: where do you stand on that?
I don’t really agree actually. I think that’s a
mess. It’s kind of like the idea that America is
free or something like that. These are lies. I think
that the “in God we trust” and the American
Republican sort of Christian thing is a lie that
is presented to the rest of the world so you guys
think we’re very religious. It’s propagated by the
American government and by the culture here.
I spent a lot of time in my life travelling around
the world, living in countries for years and years.
I still travel now and I follow the world news
and I’ll go so far as to say that a lot of European
countries are more strongly Catholic and traditionally
religious than America! For example if
you go to Belgium, it’s the same kind of feeling
in America: some people are religious, some
people aren’t. Nobody really cares. You know,
Bachmann, Rick Perry those people are not religious
people. They’re hypocrites. They do that to
receive votes. The population here is just stupid.
You know I guarantee you that those people all
have really disgusting demons in their closets.
I feel really similar
to Biggie or 2 Pac’s
personalities;
they both were raised
by a single mother who
was very dynamic with
a lot of personality
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Do you have religion overload? Given your
upbringing, is there a point where you’re
like “Gosh these guys are making so much
out of this!”
Hum I don’t know, I kind of understand the
whole reason why people are saying that. I think
it’s because of the 60s American “hippie cult”,
you know, it’s something that happened here,
and half of the country (maybe 75 percent)
subscribe to this. They all said: “Yes we should
drop out, we should take drugs, we should
have free sex…” I mean there was a time when
the Children of God were very normal - I mean
not specifically our cult but – these were the
very normal feelings that America was turning
to. And then everybody knows that these things
came and failed. I mean people killed themselves,
the Government went in and killed the
branch deviant. Everybody knows that free sex
lead to AIDS. America has literally shifted.
So there are two elements. One, it’s interesting
to see the child of this very specific American
culture come and say ‘this is my take on what
actually happened’. But then for other people
this cult is just so bizarre. This crazy sexual
cult. All these things they don’t know about.
You know: yes there is a religious aspect but
I don’t think it’s so much religion, I think there
is a political and historical element to it taken
by the adults. You know, I feel like I got fucked
over by the older generation, by the hippies.
I realise that. But then for the people of my age
it’s like ‘he was born in a cult’. This is very dark.
I think nobody has ever asked me any questions
about religion, it’s always like ‘So then, what
happened?’ They want to hear juicy things ‘Oh
your brother died’, ‘Oh your mom did this,
your mom did that.’ I never had anybody ask me
about the religious beliefs of the John Booka.
Do you still, to a certain extent, live the
way you where brought up? Do you still
believe in certain of the things of The
Children of God?
No I can’t you know, it’s not possible. In
order for me to do that, I’d have to separate
myself from the world again and live in a community
with hundreds of people, I’d have to
stop earning money, I’d have to… We used
to live in a very complicated way and I think
I would never live like that again. I would have
to go back to them. I’m 100 percent free right
now. I had no freedom before.
Is it a part of your childhood that you look
back at negatively?
No. Because I don’t want to do that. I did
that for a long time but it’s very unhealthy. You
know I would not just be upset; I’d get so angry.
It’s not even an option for me to be upset about
that. If you research anything about this group,
you’d know what I’m talking about. You’d
know that the children try to kill the parents
that brought them up and kill themselves.
This is not a fucking joke! I’ve been out of the
Children of God since 1996. It’s a long time
ago. And I’ve learned how to appreciate what
happened to me and like myself. If I don’t do
that, it’s all over. I’d be finished, other people
would be finished. You know, there is just no
option. The only option that I have is to say
“everything is fine”.
One of the things in your childhood is
that you couldn’t discover music directly.
Apart from going to record stores, how
would you discover new music now?
On YouTube. (laughs)
Personally, SF is a city I love. I’ll always
remember the record store “Amoeba
Records”? Does that still exist? Does it hold
a lot of meaning to the city’s musicians? Did
it help in anyway for you? Did you play there?
Yeah we played there for our first album
release. I go there all the time, I live in that neighbourhood,
so that’s where I buy my albums.