|
 It's was a wet and windy night in Southampton when Komodo Rock's Mike Elliott sat down with Little Jimmy Urine, frontman of New York's self proclaimed "industrial jungle pussy punks" Mindless Self Indulgence, in the kitchen of the bands dressing room at The Brook. Well renowned for their desire to hang out with their fans after shows, and for the often crazy antics of Little Jimmy, Komodo Rock wanted to find out more.
And it was long before the interviewed was gatecrashed by guitarist Steve Righ? to add his opinions to matters as well.
Mike Elliott: So, how's the tour going?
Little Jimmy Urine: Great. Fantastic!
ME: You've been in the UK a couple of weeks now?
J: Yeah a couple of weeks now, we just kinda started rolling in to
towns. We started up in Scotland with the Glasgow and Aberdeen, then we
came down to London and all the major cities. Then we went to
Amsterdam, and we just came back into the UK, to do more UK, and go
back around again. In and out.
ME: That's just after you got off the Project Revolution Tour?
J: Project Revolution was the summer tour.
ME: Was it good?
J: It was great! It was fantastic! We
enjoyed ourselves immensely. Usually we hate that shit, we hate all
those festival things, cause they're usually kinda clusterfucks, but
that one was really well done you, gotta hand it to them. We were
really surprised.
ME: You played the second stage out of choice?
J: Yes. We were offered early in the
first stage, but then we decided that we wanted to give our fans a
little longer set time. If we'd played there we'd have 20-30 minute,s
but we wanted more like 45-50, and we could hang out with our fans, and
cause we were headliners, when it was done we could jump right off the
stage and be like heyyy and hang out with everyone.
ME: So is that how you got the My Chemical Romance tour here in the UK?
J: Yeah, well we knew them from a while
ago cause they're from Jersey we're from New York, but we hadn't really
seen each other for a while. They'd been kinda busy, we'd been busy, so
we kinda got a re-aquaintance.
 [Guitarist Steve, Righ? walked in at this point, and hops up onto the draining board of the sink.]
J: You know this motherfucker right?
Steve Righ?: Yeah he was watching me rant on my phone outside, and now i can't find that phone!
ME: So, you had a DVD come in September. Any plans to bring it out over here?
J: It's coming out soon and we've got some import copies with us tonight.
ME: And that's all tour footage?
J: It's 3 shows from Webster Hall, plus extra, lots of kids, and some other bits of video.
S: I like the stuff outside the show.
J: Yeah that's my favourite shit.
S: All the extras are the line, the que outside. Asking them what their
favourite sex positions are and also curse words and singing our songs.
ME: Did you film that yourselves?
J: You mean us personally? No no, the people we had put it together did that.
S: We've done that before though. We call it the que game. You stand
out there, and you dress so people won't recognise you right away, and
you go in front of them and watch them try to hit you. then go hahahaha
it's me, fuck you!
J: Sometimes they never figure it out though.
S: Nah sometimes they don't, and that's when they hit you!
ME: Does that happen often?
S: Once or twice.
ME: Is it worth it?
S: Oh it's totally worth it!
J: It's fucking hilarious.
S: Then you get some girl who goes “that wasn't cool, your not really
cool blah blah blah be nice to people”, not realising that I'm in the
band or whatever, and then I'll give them all free stuff and watch them
feel all embarrassed.
J: I'll put you on the list right now.
S: Yeah, I'll put you on the list right now and you get this and this and this and they're like “oh”.
ME: And they'll talk about it to their friends forever more.
S: Yeah exactly, it's all bullshit.
 ME: So, your working a new album for next year?
J: Yeah, your looking at it here.
S: It starts like this [turns tap on] and ends like this [sniffs armpit].
ME: After three weeks on tour that's not good!
S: That's after two days on tour man!
ME: So is any new news on that, have you started it yet?
J: Yeah we've started it, we're almost done with it actually, but we've
got no tentative title or anything like that. We're playing 2 of them
from the new record tonight and yeah still mixing, so maybe early next
year.
S: Yeah spring.
J: Yeah early next year, early to spring.
ME: Is that for a US release or worldwide?
S: Both.
J: Yeah US release, but i dunno when the rest of it comes out.
S: We'll probably do it all at once.
ME: So, with that in mind when do you stand on downloads? Is that something that's big for you?
J: That's just such an old issue, it's
just how it is, regardless of whether it's a good future or bad future.
I think the only thing it really did was squish the whole medium so
people who were like Aerosmith who had a giant back catalogue got made
into nothing, and people who couldn't get arrested can all of sudden
have one flash in the pan YouTube video that makes them famous. It
kinda evens the playing field, so there's a mediocre playing field in
the middle, so music isn't really anything other than to sell something
else, like a DVD or a T-Shirt. That's my feeling anyway.
S: It sucks for the old guys retirement, but they've also already made their money and shot at it.
J: So they should shut the fuck up.
S: Yeah, I'm sick of hearing them calling me up all the time... wankers!
ME: So the other side of the downloads thing is the illegal downloads is that something...
S: That's what we were refering too!
J: Yeah.
ME: Oh, ok...
J: We weren't referring to the legitimate downloads.
S: There are legal downloads now?
 J: Yeah i haven't heard of them!
S: I've never heard of them. I'm personally responsible for draining
the bank accounts of many old rockers. fuck them, most of them are dead
anyway!
J: I think it helps. I think everybody's effected by it. I'm really
surprised that interviewers even ask those questions, cause aren't you
guys kinda fucked by blogs and shit, cause you get kinda up to the
minute news.
ME: Nah i think that's a good thing. It's about covering the bigger
bands, but also covering the smaller bands as well. It's like the band
that are opening tonight have been interviewed on the site, nobody
covers the smaller bands. Do you think the whole downloads thing
encourages people to come to shows?
J: You know what i think it does, it
gives you a preview and you can make your own decision about whether
it's something your in to or it's a load of crap. Lets say you like our
band, and even if you download most of the catalogue, you're probably
going to go out and buy something or come to a show and buy a fucking
T-Shirt.
S: I don't think it's necessarily encouraging people, but it's always going to be there no matter what.
J: Yeah,
S: Whether it's free or promo, I think people are always going to want
to see something live, so it's not necessarily encouragement but it
doesn't discourage.
J: What i think it does, that sort of shell game that before downloads,
someone like, some giant band could put out a record with one single
and you'd hear that one single a lot, and be like I love that one
single, then you'd go buy the record and it'd be fucking horrible. You
can't do that any more because now if you're Gwen Steffani and you come
out with a single, the whole record had better be as good as that
single or else everyone's going to download the whole thing, and go
“well this sucks”.
S: Well they probably did do that.
J: On the last one i did.
ME: So do you think as a result of that, you, as a band have to put out a better album?
J: You have to have a better show, you
have to have more stuff, you have to have good artwork, you have to
have some kind of image, you have to put a little bit of effort into it.
ME: That maybe some bands over the last few years haven't done?
S: Yeah, like you rely on the single. It was easier to rely on the
single. We never set out to do any bad albums they just happen.
ME: I don't think anyone sets out to do a bad album.
S: No, but back in the days of singles you could.
J: You could have that one single, and filler the rest.
S: Yeah exactly, like wank in a fucking bottle!
ME: What amused me with you guys though, is the warning to parents you have on your CD's. Where did that come from?
J: Well if your gonna sue us man, we might as well have disclaimer on there!
S: No but they don't download that do they?
J: Mo, you gotta buy the disclaimer!
S: Yeah man, that's why we did it, so they'd buy the actual physical CD!
ME: Is that something that's come from past experience?
S: Just looking at other people and how they get fucking nailed for things, but we never get any of that.
 J:
Parents like us is the problem! We're not like Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh
Prince. Parents actually understand, they kinda get all our references
and shit.
S: It's not just that, it's the same old shit where we get caught out
for things that aren't even real issues. Like there are hordes of Jimmy
Page fans that are still annoyed that we said I Hate Jimmy Page on that
fucking song, and it's not even really about Jimmy Page, but they left
out the part where we said kill yourself.
J: It's like whoops you missed that one. It had less to do with
business, but belief that it's not our job or Wal-Marts job, it's the
Parents. It's like anything, like TV. Why do i have to suffer through
censorship and shitty TV shows just because they're going to “save the
kids” you know. It doesn't even need to be full frontal nudity porn on
TV, but it could be at least...
S: Some underwear.
J: Yeah some underwear would be nice.
S: I don't like full frontal nudity porn anyway.
J: You like full frontal backity porn?
S: Backity!
J: Backity backity underwear porn?
S: Hey, let me have a fetish ok! Let me have my one thing i like! No
seriously, my cousin has kids, and she doesn't let them watch shit, so
it can be done, that's all I'm saying. people say you can't do that,
you can't control, you can.
J: You can control your kids.
S: I see it.
J: You just gotta slap 'em hard!
ME: Anyway moving onwards... you're really big on fan interaction. You
were saying about just jumping off the stage on the Project Revolution
tour.. Is that something you've always planned to do?
J: Yeah we've always done it.
S: We never planned it.
J: It just happened.
S: The only time we were on tour and went back and didn't meet anybody
was when we thought nobody wanted to meet us. That was the first couple
of shows ever on tour. Somebody said “they want to meet you”, and we're
like are you kidding and there you go, bras out sign this, and that was
it.
ME: That's all good.
S: Yeah, we took our bras off. I'm wearing one now.
ME: Do they end up on eBay?
S: They tried to sell us on eBay one time, right before they outlawed
selling people. I was like wow, that's a pretty good price, I'd buy me
for a million.
ME: Who was it that did that?
S: Some girl from the midwest of America.
ME: Not anyone you knew?
S: Nah, I was like all right, I'll split it with you 80/20. You get the 20, move in with someone for 800 grand.
A huge thank you to both Jimmy and Steve for speaking with us, it was a complete pleasure talking with them.
You can check out live photos of the bands set that night at the Brook here, and visit the bands official website at http://www.mindlessselfindulgence.com/ or the bands Official Myspace Profile.
Trackback(0)
|
Twitter
MySpace
Facebook
RSS
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed