|
 The Bloodhound Gang's legend grows bigger every year. From the huge success of their song 'The Bad Touch', to bass player Evil Jared getting fined $20,000 following a stunt with Bam Margera (and for those that can't wait, there's more on that later in this interview!), and through it all, the band retain a very fancentric view of the world.
This is one band who are proud of their fans, and hang out with them at every opportunity. It's very unlikely you're every going to see one of these guys refuse to sign something for you, about as likely as it is to see them without a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other!
It was a cold night in Bournemouth when Komodo Rock's Mike Elliott sat down with Lupus Thunder, the second longest serving member (Only frontman Jimmy Pop has been with the band longer) of the unmistakable Bloodhound Gang, outside the B.I.C., exposed to the wind before the bands set as part of Bowling For Soup's Get Happy Tour.
Mike Elliott: So the tours been going well then
Lüpüs Thünder: Yeah this is actually a really cool tour. Right before the tour we started a little email list, just saying hello, cause we had never toured together, our paths had never crossed. It’s always a worry when you start a tour because your gonna be like “are this band a bunch of jerks”, “are their crew a bunch of assholes”. But everyone, crew, bands, everyone’s cool.
So every night, no matter where you go, you find half a band, half a crew couple of guys from this band in a circle over here and over there it's exactly the same thing but different groups. Everybody just hangs out.
Last night we tried breaking bottles over our head for a few hours. So it's been a lot of fun, the music works well together so everybody’s having a good show, the kids are happy. I think we've got a good four band bill.
ME: You've got a single out tomorrow
LT: Yeah is it tomorrow? Yes i guess it
must be. I don't even know what day of the week it is right now!
(laughs) So that's the problem right there. It's pretty cool because we
released it initially in America on iTunes and everything and our
drummer just started up a label so we were like cool, we'll do it
through him and everything and so far it's been number 1 on 7digital
since it came out on that and we're like sweet , people in England do
actually like us.
There was a while there, we've never been hugely popular here, like
show wise we play big shows everybody comes to the shows but we don't
sell a lot of records, it's kinda of a strange place for us, we can
sell out venues by ourselves...
ME: But nobody's buying the records?
LT: Yeah so maybe they're just
downloading them and trading them with their friends as everybody does.
That's fine by me, i made cassette copies of every Metallica record
ever put out so don't tell Lars cause he'll get mad, but I did back in
the days I’m guilty.
Me: That's the admission of the night right there!
LT: I pretty much just ruined myself right there, Lars is coming for me now!
ME: Do you think that it's a big problem with the downloads, or do you not care as long people are coming through the doors
LT: That’s the thing I don't really
care. It kinda sucks, I see everybody’s point about like, I know I
worked hard to do that, and it's my job, so i need to make money out of
it. But bands have just worked out that you can't sweat that and you
need to find different ways to make money that you used to make on
record sales. It literally has change, we were talking about it this
afternoon like one day we woke up and touring is now the profitable
thing where everybody makes money, like years ago you couldn't make
money on a tour no matter what you did, you went home with no money and
now it's exact opposite.
 You just have to adapt to it.
My only problem was that kids you used the argument if you put our
record that was full of good stuff we'd be willing to pay for it. No,
don't justify it by lying to yourself, that was always my problem with
it. “But we didn't like the other songs on the record”, but you
downloaded all of them anyway didn't you!
It was just the way people justified it, it all the time it was this
whole lie, and everybody was lying to themselves. And that bugged me,
but like I said I made cassette copies of stuff, everybody does it,
everybody copies VHS vids back in the day, and now they burn DVD's. I
mean movies on tour they all come on a blank DVD. Every band is like
“hey did you see this movie? Here you go”, and it's just a blank dvd,
somebody downloaded it yesterday.
Me: And that's the way of the world now?
LT: And that's the thing and everybody
needs to wake up and figure out a different way to market and make
their money, because people should get paid for what they do, it's just
a matter of figuring out how to do it. Like the Radiohead thing, they
put the record said you decide you can have it for free if you want or
you can pay what we think it's worth.
Me: And they've made loads of money on the sales.
LT: And it's their money, that's the
brilliant part. That's why I think the record companies fought the
downloading so much, because they realised that we can now do it all
ourselves. We still need people to hang a poster and get press to come
to shows, but you can do that all through independent companies, you
don't need that machine anymore.
Me: And Nine Inch Nails are going the same route.
LT: He just announced he was done with it.
Me: I don't think it was all his choice. When you go on stage and tell your fans to steal your music.
LT: They ask you to leave at that point?
Me: I think so yeah! So, other than the single coming out, your also on
the new Bam Margera CD 'Viva La Bands 2'. You said on the website that
you got on the record because you went out and got trashed with him
every night.
LT: Yeah, he actually lives real close
to Jim, and Ville Valo from HIM was friends with Jim because Jim puts
the him records out in America, and he said “do you know Bam lives just
up the road from you”, and Jim was like “no really?”, and so he
introduced the two of them and Bam loves going out and getting trashed,
and we love it too, so we all started hanging out, and they were on a
few episodes of Viva La Bam.
ME: The scavenger hunt episode?
LT: Yeah I wasn't on that cause I was
still living in LA at the time. Bam will just show up in the weirdest
places, like he came out to see us in Hungary one time, he just flew
out and was like “hey it's me Bam, came to hang out”. He's quite an
interesting crazy person. Super nice guy, fun to drink with, you just
gotta be careful there's no cameras around. You don't want to get into
one of his stunts.
ME: Has that happened to you before then?
LT: Not to me no, he's always kept me out of it so I’m always pleased with him.
ME: Was it true that Jared got fined $20k over that show?
LT: Yeah he actually got arrested
because I think one of the deals was they had to get video footage of
someone peeing off a building into a cup that somebody was holding on
the street. So, Jim was holding the cup and Jared went to pee, and
suddenly the cops turned up, and there's cameras everywhere, and it
turns out that Bam wanted to win so he called the cops to set them up.
So Jared got arrested.
ME: So he set them up?
LT: Yeah just so he could jerk them off and that it would make good film and they'd get some good press out of it.
What he needs to do is one day release a DVD of all the stuff they
couldn't show on MTV because they have rules and regulations. We did
MTV cribs at Jared’s house, and the end of it the idea was to drive the
banana cart from the foxtrot video into Jared’s pond. So they do it,
they both get up on the roof and they're dancing around, there’s
cameras everywhere filming. So, Bam turns around to Jared and says “how
deeps your pond I want to dive in” and Jared says “oh it's really
deep”. The ponds only this deep (motions not so deep). So Bam jumps in
does a flip, lands on his head, splits his head open blood is pouring
out of his head, cameras are everywhere filming it. MTV are freaking
out, there's a woman phoning the office to see what she's supposed to
do. They rush Bam to the hospital, he gets stitches and nobody saw the
footage because MTV was like “nah we can't show that”, but they had
cameras on top of his head, and he's like “make sure you get in on
film”.
He's got somewhere an archive that the world needs to see.
 ME: And that's where the album name came from, from that night?
LT: Yeah. I started with Jim and me
emailing each other and we were talking about contracts, and I said “if
you ever fuck me over you'll have to pay me a million dollars”, and he
was like “ok that's a pretty hefty fine”. So the words were already
there, and then we started getting sued for ridiculous stuff on that
tour, a kid breaking his foot at the show and it was just lawsuit after
lawsuit, and we got sick of it. Jim was like it all adds up, we’ve just
been sued by everybody, fined by everybody, there's the name of the
record, how easy is that.
ME: So why were they suing you?
LT: You don't get it as much here, but
we're just lawsuit happy in America. There was one lawsuit, a kid
bought tickets to a show, but his friend couldn't take him so he didn't
go, but all his other friends had fun, so he was suing us because he
bought a ticket to a show he didn't go to. We were trying to read the
lawsuit and everybody was like what exactly are you suing us for, I
don't understand.
ME: Did it go to court?
LT: No not that one, it quickly
disappeared. We had one where a guy jumped off a PA. We told him to go
sit on top of the speakers, he was gonna enjoy the show from up there.
So he was sitting up there and we told him don't move, but he jumped
into the crowd, lands on a girl, paralyses her, and starts to walk out
of the building.
We stop the show and say somebody grab that guy, the girls being
wheeled off on a stretcher and he’s the guy that did it. So they grab
him and it was actually the only lawsuit where we were rooting for them
to win, cause this girl got really hurt, and was a big fan. We sent her
cards and everything in the hospital. She wound out coming out of it,
and she's fine now, and can walk and everything.
That was the only real lawsuit we had, like everything else was like “I
was leaving your show and tripped on a bottle and hurt me arm” “some
kid kicked my head during the show” So? Wasn’t me was it? But that's
the worst part, cause it makes touring hard, cause you have to pay for
insurance.
ME: You don't find that so bad over here?
LT: In Europe we get away with murder on
stage. The other night we played in France and we probably had half the
audience on stage, and two completely naked guys dancing on the stage
for the whole show. People everywhere. We could never do that in
America. We have a policy in America, we don't got to the crowd, and
the crowd don’t come to us. And it sucks but we have to, cause our
insurers won't carry us, and it's that bad. We used to invite everyone
up on stage.
ME: It's not like your unapproachable.
LT: I'd rather be hanging out with them than hanging out backstage with my band.
ME: You see them everyday.
LT: Exactly! I spend all day with them.
Just any chance I get. Today I went out to the line and talked to
people for a little bit. Tonight I’ll be out here drinking. My job is
to travel around the world, drink and meet new and exciting people.
ME: And you get paid for that?
LT: And I get paid to do it! Sometimes
anyway! Depends on how well we are doing. You hear about people
sometimes that are like, you know, we don’t want to go out there.
 ME: And they are the people that are paying you to do this?
LT: Well A: they are paying for it but
B: they are actually cool. There are a lot of people that I’m now
friends with through touring. There is a girl outside today. She was
there the other day. We sat outside chatting to her for a little bit, a
nice girl. She said “hey Lupe it’s good to see you again”. So it’s
nice. Otherwise it could be really lonely. I would sit by myself at
work.
ME: Yeah its bizarre cos a lot of bands don’t do that. I was
interviewing Geoff Tate from Queensryche earlier in the week and he was
saying he was really surprised that every band didn’t do that. And he
was like, “what do you mean they don’t do that! I thought that’s what
you did. People come to our shows so we go and meet them. We hang out.
We sign things and then they leave. Then they come back next time.” You
know what I mean?
LT: Well the other thing too, not to
sound too serious, but it’s that it’s just good business. If you meet
them and chat with them for a few seconds then they will remember and
they will buy your next record, or maybe he’s going to buy a t-shirt.
It’s stupid to not do it because you are getting all the benefit out of
it and you get to hang out!
ME: Yeah it’s like you may not remember them cos you meet a hundred
people but they will remember you and they will tell all their friends,
man that Lupus he’s a top guy.
LT: Yeah we do meet and greets at all of
our shows. We just randomly pick ten people to come backstage for 5
minutes to get some photos and just hang out and say hello. What you do
is find a group of say five people pick one of them, because that one
person is going to tell their friends how cool it was and how they
missed out. Then those 4 kids are going to hope that next time they get
it.
ME: Then whatever happens they get to see the show anyway so it’s not like they are missing out.
LT: Yeah that’s right they were already coming. Why not add a little extra something on it?
ME: So are you working on a new album?
LT: Actually this is our last tour.
We’ll stop on Friday and go home and unwind a bit. This tour has been
going on since 2005. It’s been good though. We’ve done 3 weeks out, 3
weeks home. It’s all short. We used to do 2 months then a 2 day break.
Then 3 months and maybe 4 days at home. That kills you. This is a lot
easier and you can do it for a lot longer.
So we are going to go home, take a break, recharge a bit then start
writing some new songs. I think what we are going to do is maybe write
3 or 4 then release a single. Kinda like we are doing with this one.
And kinda build our way to a record. Then when we have 10 songs or
whatever record 3 more cos not a lot of people want records anymore so
they can get them one by one.
Then if they want the extra 3 songs or whatever then they can go buy the record.
ME: Doing it like that is also going to keep the band fresh.
LT: It allows us to keep touring. You
know if you have no music out then promoters don’t want to pay you
money. They don’t want to book tours. By keeping it going you can keep
touring and keep everybody happy cos you are always out there.
ME: Is that a problem you had after the Hooray For Boobies album?
LT: Yeah I was just about to say that.
We had like a 5 year break and it was like too long. We look back and
think, aw man. But at the same time we toured so relentlessly. We did a
year and a half of those 2 months on, 2 days off that we were just sick
of each other after a while. We couldn’t think about anything for a
year and then were like ok let’s start. And then there were things like
legal issues, insurance and all that. It all held up the process even
more. Then before we knew it was like oh my God it’s been like 5 years!
What did we do? I’ve been sitting at home for 5 years!
It’s never good to stay away that long. Luckily I guess we have great fans.
ME: I guess it couldn’t have helped with how big that album got, the
singles on it were huge. I guess it’s hard to think we have that all to
do again?
LT: Well everybody gets a little scared,
you know. Cos even though that wasn’t our first record, that was our
third, because it was such a huge record, that record made us,
everybody saw it as our first record. A lot of times you talk to
someone in the press and they didn’t even know that there was anything
before that.
Then they would say something like, are you afraid of your second
record and we are like, well it’s not our second record. Our second
record was great. We loved that one,(laughing).
But you know it doesn’t matter. With every record you think, oh crap!
Is this one going to be ok? And kids change their mind about what they
like every day. So one day they will go. Oh Bloodhound Gang. They used
to be cool. You just don’t know what’s going to happen. Even if we
released that exact same record and released it today there would
probably be a lot of kids that wouldn’t buy it.
ME: You said that people didn’t know the albums before that you did. Where you there for Fire, Water, Burn?
LT: Oh yeah.
ME: You were. Well this is a most random question. Was that a piss take of Coal Chamber?
LT: No it wasn’t. Interesting story
about that however. It’s actually an old song from the eighties. It was
actually a dance song. It was written about Philadelphia and people
called The Roof it stood for something. They were kinda like black
anarchists.
They lived in this certain section of Philadelphia in these couple of
houses and the mayor hated them, there was a lot of problems with them.
It was like a hippie colony. The mayor bombed the building cos they
went to serve some search warrants so they barricaded themselves in and
there was like guns and the mayor bombed the building.
They burnt the whole city block down. So that is where it comes from.
I met Meegs [Rascon; Coal Chamber Guitarist] on a tour. I went to see a
friend of ours and they said Lupus this is Meegs, Meegs this is Lupus.
He said oh my God I have been waiting to see you for so long. And I
said I have the exact same thing to say to you. We knew what we were
going to ask each other. He said every kid comes up to me and says dude
why did you steal that from the Bloodhound Gang? And I said well every
kid comes up to me and says why did you steal that from Coal Chamber?
ME: And it was completely unrelated?
LT: Yeah I mean how weird is that? We were both just waiting to meet each other.
ME: So it was unrelated. It was just one of those weird things that I’ve always wanted to know.
LT: Yeah if you’ve never heard the song.
ME: Yeah I’d never heard that for the first time until Coal Chamber had
broken over here. Even though it was one of the early singles. So, all
the stage antics that everyone talks about. Are they planned, or is it
completely on the spot?
LT: Semi planned chaos basically. We
have a setlist and it tells us that we are going to be doing this here
but sometimes things aren’t planned like Jared just randomly started
puking on Jim and Jim’s like hey I’m singing here. I mean he’s done it
before but it wasn’t on the sheet. So you never know. What’s in front
of you on the setlist sometimes its complete lies.
ME: Is that the songs as well. Do you stick to the setlist?
LT: Everything is written on the setlist. All our songs and all our shtick, everything.
ME: And the songs change some nights as well, half way through?
LT: Actually the other night we had to
cut a song and nobody knew it except Jared the bass player. He started
introing what we thought was one song with a different intro and I’m
like that doesn’t sound like the intro to the song that I’m going to
play and all of us are like, what do we do? Then luckily he actually
said the name of the song or something then it was oh we’ll get ready
for that song instead. Sometimes no matter how hard you try you just
have to go with it. We’ve been there at times when we were just about
to play a song then start completely playing a different song to
everybody else. Jared probably got drunk and misread the setlist,
skipped like 3 songs and started playing the intro to the song.
ME: So do you just go with it?
LT: Oh yeah. You just gotta go with it and let it happen. Otherwise it gets really bad. Sometimes it is bad anyway.
ME: Thank you for talking with me.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
