m e l l o w d r o n e

M: Who are you on tour with?
MD: FireTheft? Have you ever heard of them? have you ever heard of a band called Sunny Day Real Estate. It's three main guys. They're the headliners and then The Secret Machines from New York...


M: That's a great name.
MD: And then we're just gonna hit the east coast by ourselves for awhile...


M: When you recently came through and did a little tour... you hit Florida... you were gonna come to Jacksonville but for some reason it was cancelled... are you guys redoing these dates?
MD: No we didn't have to make any of those dates up... we just wanted to come to the East coast because we hadn't been on the east coast in so long.


N: You were also running around LA... you live out there?
MD: Yeah , we all live real close to each other in LA. I love it but I was getting tired of the same places...


N: How's it going so far?
MD: Absolutely great. Last one we went on, the first couple of shows... it was really, really bad and then got it got progressively better and this one so far every shows been good.. and people haven't booed us. If people aren't fuckin' throwing shit at you... you're doing okay.


N: Sometimes you're doing okay even if people are throwing shit at you.
MD: Yeah... in a cool way... but that would never happen at one of our shows. It 'd be really cool if I was flailing around and someone threw a bottle at my head.. it is a beautiful thing when done just at the right time.


N: So you have a different live band setup for touring than you did before? Cause you started off with pretty much solo recording, didn't you?
MD: Yeah, it was just me and I would go out and play open mics and I would have an electric loop repeater which would have four tracks that I could sample stuff and move it and so I would just build loops live. And then Scott joined on with me for this [Johnny Marr] tour that I did in the US, it was just me and him. Then we went to Europe with him and then came back. I just got tired of playing versions of my songs instead of the way it was supposed to sound... so these other guys just came around naturally and since then we've become an actual band and whoever comes up with the best idea, that's who gets the credit. It's a lot of fun for me because now I get to hang out with friends...


M: How was touring with Johnny Marr?
MD: Fucking great. The stories he had about Morrissey were awesome... they were just usually little funny ones like things involving other bands... like Van Halen... if you can imagine... I'll let your imagination take care of that...


N: So who's your line-up now?
MD: Scott Ellis is playing drums, I'm singing and playing guitar, Tony DeMatteo is playing guitar and keyboards and Greg [Riffin?] is playing bass and singing... we're all just doing as much as we can ...


M: You said earlier that you're working on an album?
MD: We finished it. We recorded it over 6 days in LA, it's live... and dude I'm such a self-deprecating guy but this is the coolest shit I've heard in so long and I'm so fucking proud of it and I can't wait for it to come out which I don't know if it's gonna be the end of the year or the beginning of next...


N: What's the name of it?
MD: I don't know yet. No idea... the whole record is about sex though... literally it's worshipping the female body and I want to have a cover of the most beautiful woman I can find, but tastefully shot, but not because of sexual reasons but just because if, dude, look at her... the records mostly about sex.. so I have to figure out a nice word for that...
 

M: How many tracks do you have on it?
MD: 12 or 13.


N: Yeah you've just been piecemealing us... couple of EPs here and there...
MD: That was the only way to do it now... an artist just can't put out a record these days... especially with distributors and all kinds of shit involved, so I figured I'd rather take forever and do it right than try to go fast. My way of doing it.. is bit by bit.


N: Gauge it by audience response?
MD: Yeah, cause if nobody was into it, I wouldn't fucking waste the time - I would do it for myself - but I wouldn't waste the time recording or try to make a living off of it - I would just hang out, smoke pot and do it like a hippie... Oh Tony's got a rad story... so he and I used to jam together when we were trying to put the band together and then he got in this car accident and literally died... and then came back to life... how long were you dead for Tony?
T: About 2 weeks.
MD: He was in a coma and then he died, obviously not for very long, they resusitated [sp?] him but it was supposedly going to take four years... and then he just woke up one day and said I can walk, I said you wanna go on tour with me dude and he said yeah, sure, whatever...


M: has it been difficult for you, writing this album while on the road?
MD: No, it's been a collaborative record. Half the album was already written, I had songs from before and the other half was done where the four of us just got into a room, so it'll be like a side A and side B.


M: Are you putting it out on vinyl?
MD: We're putting this Ep out on vinyl and we're gonna put that one on vinyl for sure. We're just waiting for it to get shipped to us...


M: Has this got all the guys on it?
MD: It's half and half. The first EP was just me, the second one was me and Scott, and some Tony and Greg - the final record is all of us.


M: How long were you on the road with Johnny Marr?
MD: A total of two or three months including US and Europe and then with Phantom Planet we were out for four or five weeks and now we're gonna be gone for three months. I love this... when we get off the road we're happy to be home for about three days and then we're all calling each other with ideas... we really like doing this.


N: Well, it shows. Your emotion really comes out in your music. There's so much overprocessed shit out there... are you originally from LA.
MD: I was born in Venezuela and I grew up there and Miami. When I turned 17 I went to Boston and Berkley collage of music and i was there for three years and then I realized a degree in music doesn't mean anything - I just sold everything and moved to LA and crowd surfed for a year - it was awesome... I didn't exist on paper...


M: How long is this tour gonna go for?
MD: Probably about two months..


M: And you don't know when the album's gonna be released?
MD: My label is doing some kind of distribution switch... I have no idea what's going on with that...


N: You produce your own merchandise?
MD: Yeah we get alot of shit on the website about being so slow but we take it so seriously, we don't want to put out crap. We'd rather put out one really good Mellow Drone shirt, one that's really rad... cause... we're really gay... we take fashion really seriously. and we love it, so with merchandise it takes us forever to decide on something universally... that's why we only have two CDs, a record coming out on vinyl and one shirt. The shirt's we buy are the highest quality so instead of paying $.99 wholesale, we pay $4.99 and we still charge the same price.


N: High quality counts.
MD: It does, because if somebody looks really good in your shirt, there's nothing cooler than that... if you see a beautiful woman wearing your shirt and you're like you look fucking awesome in that!


M: That's what the next record's all about...
MD: Yeah... the next record's just about sex basically, but in a beautiful way... not in a fucking way, well, there's fucking in some parts... it's the complete worship of the female body and if you smoke pot and listen to this record with headphones on, you literally will know what my insides taste like... you'll get it.


M: Where can they email you directly?
MD: Oh yeah, my website, dude...just be like "you absolutely fucking sucked"... I've been washing my mouth out for a week... but that groupie in Rhode Island...damn!


M: Do you have any hardcore fans on the road?
MD: I wouldn't say hardcore... supportive.. we've been lucky enough that every city we've played at least one kid comes up and says hey I came to see you guys... which is the coolest fucking feeling ever... we're really psyched... we feel like badasses and give each other high fives cause.. they know our shit... I told you we're gay, dude.


M: So the next album's...
MD: No we all have girlfriends and we're all very monogamous I swear so the only way we can get out that carnal lust is that way... and it works... i feel great after I'm done singing a song. And people should jerk off too cause that I've done that too and it's rad! We have a song called Orange marmalade I guarantee you it will get people laid. It's our record we can do that. We have a part on our website where people can put their stories on about how they put the record on to get laid - I usually don't write about these kinds of things but...


M: You have an email that you actually check?
MD: No I do it through mellowdrone.com . My friend Shawn McCabe who's a really good artist is redoing our site and making it a little more David Lynchy kind if thing.


M: Are you doing a mix of both EPs at the show?
MD: Two songs off the first EP, two off the second EP and two new songs, maybe a cover here and there.


M: Who are you covering?
MD: Henry Mancini


N: What are your influences?
MD: Call it what it is.. a Beatles rip off. I'm just making shit that I really enjoy listening to. I like listening to my own shit for once.


M: For once?
MD: I never listened to my own shit till this record - i could not listen to anything cause I thought I can do better... and then this record came along and I was like... yeah!

more info at www.mellowdrone.com