razorcake issue #16

er dude named Lloyd. He’s actually on thecover of the record. He was trying to start afight.Shawn: He tried to fight all of us, individually.Russ: Yeah. He was a laid off old trucker.He was asking for change and being a dick.He wanted to play Johnny Cash. He was literallygrabbing my hand and trying to getmoney. But, by the end of the night, wewere all hanging out around the jukebox,listening to “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” withthis dude, and he was saying, “Johnny Cashis the greatest singer of all time.” It waskind of a cool experience.Shawn: We went from almost fighting thisold dude to hanging out with him. It was agood time.Sean: What are the “keep Russ happypills”?Russ: Russ has been on some medicationfor some time. They’re Scoobie snacks,basically. I’m a dog fucker. [laughs] No, Iget anxious. I get bummed out. And I guessit’s just me being a pussy, but the pills evenme out. They take the edge right off.Sean: What kind of pills are they?Russ: It’s Paxil, which is not a big deal.Everybody I know is on Paxil now.Everybody I know is on medication orshould be. I got off it for a while, but I waslike, fuck, I hate life. I’m back on it now.It’s not a big deal. You can still drink onthem. You’re not supposed to, but you can.You’re not supposed to tear the tags offmattresses, either, but we do that everyplace we stay.Sean: What about the rest of you? Havehardcore drugs made you better people?Scott: Basically.Shawn: Not me. I’m straight edge [laughsand takes a sip of his beer].Mike: We’re predominantly a beer band.Scott: That was just a funny song title(“Hardcore Drugs Made Me a BetterPerson”). I saw it on a t-shirt on someunderground, web site, t-shirt business.Some old lady – a Leave It to Beaver-typeold lady – was shooting heroin on the shirt.I thought it was funny.Shawn: Sometimes the song titles changeas we go along. We didn’t name that songfor a while. Then, we were doing a showand a Christian thrash band played beforeus, so I said to Scott, “We’ve got to playthis song first.” So Scott goes up to the micand says, “Hi. We’re the TimVersion andour song’s called, ‘Hardcore Drugs MadeMe a Better Person.’” The name stuck.Sean: Shawn, were you really in a SteveVai video?Mike: Yes. He had a permed mullet.Shawn: Yeah. A long time ago. I went toGibbs High School. It had a bunch of oldbuildings. And basically Steve Vai’s conceptbehind the video was him being ayoung kid. So they were at Gibbs to scoutthe location and shoot the video. And theydidn’t have a drummer. They needed adrummer for the video. Gibbs was an artshigh school. I was there for the drums.They came and asked me to do the video.I’m twenty-eight now, but I look like I’mtwenty-one. So, when I was fourteen, Ilooked like I was ten or eleven. But I couldplay the part, so, next thing I know, I was inSteve Vai’s “The Audience Is Listening”video. If you ever see it, I look like someoneout of the Stray Cats with eyeliner tattoosdrawn all over my arms.Sean: What happened when a Japanese guytried to set up a show for you in SantaMonica?Mike: I don’t think he fully understoodwhat was going on. There’s this outdoormall where they have street musicians (theThird Street Promenade). But they don’thave full on rock bands.Shawn: He went down to City Hall and gotthe contract, but he couldn’t read it. I couldn’tread it, the way it was written. And he’donly been in this country for three months.So we meet up with him and we’re like,“Okay, where are we playing?” He says,“Here.” And Scott explained to him that wecouldn’t play. He showed him in the contracthow the stores could shut us down andfine him a bunch of money. So we gotdrunk with him instead.Russ: The crazy thing about Santa Monicais that I don’t know anything aboutCalifornia. Whenever we told people wehad a show in Santa Monica, they werelike, “Oh, that’s weird.” Apparently, it’s areally ritzy part of LA. No one there wouldeven talk to us when we asked them fordirections. It was wild.Sean: Scott, when was the last time abunch of drunks destroyed your guitar?Scott: It was all kinda sketchy. I don’tremember exactly what was going on.There were a bunch of people all over thestage. All I remember is that I wanted totackle people while we were playing. Idon’t know. I think I tackled somebody andthey hit Mike. I’m not sure what happened,but when I got up, my guitar was snappedin half. I wasn’t very happy about that, so Imade sure it was fully destroyed. I soberedup the next day and realized, shit, they gotpeople to fix these things.Shawn: One of our friends droveoff with the guitar duct taped to thefront of his van. It looked like aunicorn. It was very majestic.Mike: It was a big van boner. 53