Let The Musicians Speak!! Blabbing With Malchicks

DA: How/when did the band get started?

JIMMIE: Well, Fitz and I have known each other for a long time... we have played together ever since we have been playing our instruments. He and I were in our first band, along with another friend of ours, Dave Dear, along with various other rhythm guitarists and vocalists... typical High School band stuff. I met Alex and Curt in early 1987, while Dave Dear and I were fighting... that meant that our band had broken up (happened all the time!). Curt and Alex had bought a Tascam 4 track recorder, and were writing songs, even though they had really never been in a band (i.e. played live a lot) before. I liked what I heard, so I started hanging out with them. Well, Dave Dear and I made up (as usual), so our band started up again... but I stayed friends with Alex and Curt. I moved to Sacramento in 1988, and Fitz, Alex and Curt talked me into moving back up to Tacoma in 1990, after they had done some recording on Alex's new 8 track Tascam. The demos and songs were excellent... I couldn't resist. Besides, they were all my friends as well.

DA: Any lineup changes since the original conception? (If so, any better than others?)

ALL: Well, Curt recently quit... he felt that our and his musical directions were no longer the same. We are currently playing as a three piece, and looking for a new rhythm guitarist. We are having fun as a three piece... it isn't better or worse. We kept playing so we wouldn't feel under pressure to find a replacement right away... we can wait until the "right" person comes along.

DA: Where's your "home base" these days?

ALL: Tacoma, Washington... where it's always been! Tacoma is like 32 miles south of Seattle... kind of Seattle's ugly kid sister...

DA: Does the band have any particular goals (musical, artistic, political, etc.)?

FITZ: I would be happy to have the band be self-supporting financially... i.e., recording sessions...

ALEX: Just to make good music. The whole reason I got into rock and roll in the first place was to make music that I liked to listen to. I wasn't hearing very much that I liked... it IS out there, but you have to dig for it.

FITZ: It's nice to have a style that's not what everybody else does. It's nice to fill a gap... playing more "adult" alternative, without being overtly commercial.

JIMMIE: I agree with Fitz... we are definitely a rock band, but we aren't so "angst"-ridden... we aren't afraid to have a melody, or use acoustic guitars, or what have you. We don't let ourselves be hemmed in by any preconceived notions of what a band "should" be.

DA: What kind of influences have shaped the band's music?

ALEX: I just write mostly about what I feel...

FITZ: 60's and 70's pop rock... what we grew up with...

JIMMIE: Don't forget our formative suburban heavy metal butt-rock years... down in the basement when we first started playing...

FITZ: The junior high school heavy metal band, pounding on our instruments...

ALEX: As far as a philosophy of writing, it's just personal experience. I don't really try to copy too many people lyrically...

JIMMIE: Shit... I steal from whoever I can! (laughs)

ALEX: I try to steal more from poets than other lyricists...

JIMMIE: My main influences are Star Trek and acid... (laughs)

DA: A lot of the songs on BAD ACID COMEDY are about the country or outdoors; was that intentional or did it just turn out that way?

ALEX: It was definitely not intentional...

FITZ: Our bass player has a certain fascination with a large glowing object in the sky... or at least it seems that way.

ALEX: that's because my personal philosophy is: If I had to choose a religion or God, I would choose the Sun, because it's the most tangible.

JIMMIE: Well... we practice in a house that is on the water overlooking the Tacoma skyline... that could be something to do with it...

DA: I see the album as something like the Replacements and other "down-to- earth" bands, where the music has less to do with attitudes, scenes, or politics than it does just plain good songs.

ALEX: I think you hit the nail on the head! You couldn't have described it better!

FITZ: Thank you for noticing! (ALEX and JIMMIE in unison: Yes, exactly!) It's nice to have someone realize what we're trying to do, instead of having people think that we're a glorified Neil Diamond band.

ALEX: Or their idea of what they want us to be... you are very observant.

ALL: Thank you for paying that much attention. That was very nice!

DA: I hear a lot of influences in the music that aren't terribly fashionable at the moment -- do you think that's caused problems for the band in the current musical climate?

ALEX and JIMMIE in unison: YES...

FITZ: It's tough not being the flavor of the month sometimes... we have certainly been passed up plenty of times for not being the proto-typical "Seattle" group, or Tacoma group, for that matter. But we don't have a problem sleeping at night knowing that we're doing what we want to do. We have no one to answer to but ourselves.

ALEX: We can't help it that we're fucking geeks...

JIMMIE: Well, we ARE doing this over the Internet, for God sakes... what do you expect?!?! (everyone laughs)

ALEX: JIMMIE reads Isaac Asimov, watches Star Trek...

JIMMIE: ...plays on the computer...

ALEX: Fitz is married, is a manager at an AMC movie theater...

FITZ: I read CAR & DRIVER....

ALEX: NEVER goes out...

FITZ: ..nope...

ALEX: I spend most of my time with my girlfriend, and babysit her 3 cats and her dog... my job is working for the city of Auburn doing AuotCad.

FITZ: and we all love baseball...

ALEX: We don't make ANY effort to get involved in the "scene"... as a matter of fact, we almost make an effort to NOT be involved, or alienate ourselves by going so far as playing covers like "Holly Holy", or doing "Just The Same Way You Love Me" by Journey... nobody got the joke...

JIMMIE: I don't understand that... the 'Mats did that shit and it is legendary... I guess that people around here in the scene take everything a little TOO seriously...

DA: Favorite Dylan song, Credence song, comments on why? [curiosity killed the angel....]

FITZ: "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "Lookin' Out My Back Door" or "Bad Moon Rising." I've always liked "Subterranean Homesick Blues." [DEAD ANGEL TRIVIA NOTE: chinawhite was born the same day this was recorded. Back to the interview at hand:] I just think that is a great song. CCR... I mean shit... close your eyes and pick one. With the exceptions of "Heard It Through The Grapevine" and one or two other ones, I could listen to them all day. Fogerty was a great songwriter. I feel that he is underrated... they were like us in the sense that they just did what they did...

ALEX: As far as Dylan, that's a tough one to pick, but off the top of my head I would have to say "Masters Of War", or "Tangled Up In Blue." "Masters OF War" because it says everything that I've always wanted to say to anybody who supports war, or is involved in war, and then some, that I couldn't ever say... "Tangled Up In Blue" because it is a great folk legend type song, with a great melody. For Creedence, "Have You Ever Seen Rain", because of that great Hammond organ part; that one note comes in in the second verse... it's like, wow... so simple, yet so effective... who'd ever thought....

JIMMIE: For me, Dylan... I don't know... I think that I'm gonna have to go with bands that have done Dylan, 'cause I'm not that familiar with his actual work. The obvious ones, "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds, "Like A Rolling Stone" by Hendrix... as a matter of fact, "All Along The Watchtower" off of "Electric Ladyland" is my fave Dylan as done by another artist. Hendrix really did a number on that one. It's fucking Hendrix, what can I say? I think that he translated the song very well into a full-on electric rock environment... if you listen to it, there are quite a few things happening at any one time... very well orchestrated. And for Credence... well, shit! (to Fitz) Well, you know how I was when we first met... I had mass Credence albums... one of my favorites has always been "Down On The Corner"... I don't know why... great catchy happy song, I guess.... It's a childhood thing I guess...

DA: What does the band think of the sudden explosion of the Seattle scene and the "grunge" thing in the last year or so? [raises shield in self-defense]

ALL: We're tired of the question! (Laughter)

FITZ: Will someone PLEASE tell me what a "grunge" is... 'cause after being around while all this was happening, and seeing all these groups succeed, I'd like to know how you can say that Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, to take the big ones, all sound the same. I mean of the ones that are left, I think that Soundgarden is the most original... but they don't sound anything like Pearl Jam. I think that there are a lot of groups from this area that got signed, that I like better, and have more originality than the so- called "big bands," like The Posies, for example...

JIMMIE: Yeah... I am partial to Flop, myself... I mean they are on Sony, for God's sakes, and you NEVER hear their songs on the radio... and don't forget The Young Fresh Fellows...

ALEX: They haven't changed through all this... they are still the same ol' guys... same place in their careers that they were in 7-8 years ago...

DA: What's the scene in Seattle like now that the city's gone nationwide?

JIMMIE: It fuckin' sux!! (everyone chuckles)

ALEX: Too many bands, too many clubs, too few fans!

FITZ: I think that in the last year, we have got a better reception in Seattle than we have in Tacoma, easily. Now Tacoma has this thing, it thinks that it's becoming this big important place, even [though] there are only two clubs to play at...

ALEX: Yeah... they're trying to be jaded and cool... yeah, now Tacoma has a stick up it's butt, instead of Seattle!

DA: Who's Willie Smallberries, who appears as a guest on the album?

JIMMIE: Wow... you really read the liner notes, didn't you?!?! [DA: yep] He is Eric Erickson, who co-produced and engineered the album... that is what he wanted to be billed as... I guess there is some inside joke with him and a friend of his about it... I don't know... He produced The Squirrels first album, and was in the band for a time, so if you know The Squirrels, you know that they are a goofy bunch...

DA: What's the situation on the new album you're headed into the studio to record?

JIMMIE: We are going into pre-production in July, and hope to be recording by August or September... send us money!!!

DA: Noticed the censorship warning in the liner notes -- was that prompted by the "Erotic Art" bill enacted a while back ago?

ALEX: Yes, it was... and yes, the bill was ruled as unconstitutional, but they're trying again... [DA: ick.]

DA: What's in the immediate future for the band?

FITZ: Well, we are still seeking a replacement for Curt... and we are trying to think of a name for the second album... that will probably be the hardest part about it!!!

JIMMIE: I thought of a good one, but forgot to write it down... so I forgot it... we should probably call it "Who Fuckin' Cares?!" (laughter)

The band also appears on the SEATTLE SCENE VOL. 2 compilation (Insight Records) with an edited version of "A Central Infinity (Defined)."

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