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Ohgr
Interview by Max Michaels
Very excited about the new album. It's great, you and Mark went in
some great directions with it.
Yeah we definitely found a fluidity with the record which is great,
and we found a way of thinking of it outside of the box in regards of
production of it and just approaching the overall thing a little more
thematically than the first record I think.
Did any of that come from the tour or from
touring experience with the different music live?
Mmm. A little bit. I think touring just confirmed to me that the
material works. I think abstractly, not purposely, the move was away
from a more live sound on some of the songs like Watergate definitely
does not have the same sound as when we played it live. It's a bit
more subdued and atmospheric and personal and a bit more intimate. We
kind of played both sides of the fence a little bit. I think the goal
was to try and make Magik a bit more of an anthem just because of how
it went over live. I think it's something that we always knew anyway
based on what was going on within it and how churning it was. And I
think all of that stuff just reinforced the fact that the material
works live and the album kind of just self manifested in the fact of
the things that were going on in the world and inspirations that are
just boundless in this time and space. And the fact that we had a lot
of time to go over a lot of these songs once again and not rewrite
them necessarily but try and find a different aesthetic approach to
them. For instance Jacko sounded so different a few years ago or a
year ago, the vocal melody stayed the same but the actual music went
through a huge, huge transformation.
Hmm. Yeah, it is definitely some bizzare
times to be alive in.
Yeah, downright scary, I mean like for real.
Yeah, it does seem that we're right on the
edge of oblivion.
Well, maybe not on oblivion, it won't be that quick I'm sure, but
there's definitely a lot of interesting kind of subtext to it all too.
There's a real Baron Munchausen feel, a lot of mistakes that have been
made and for the first time in American history some calculated steps
that have been made that were erroneous and really should have been
looked at differently. Especially like how we are administrating this
whole thing with Korea and how that kind of backfired in our faces a
little bit and so I'm really interested in seeing what happens. And
all of these chimera viruses that are coming around now, yeah, you
just kind of have to wonder. I mean the paranoid little person in me
kind of goes well just as Magik was just a code word for
extraterrestrial knowledge, are these chimera viruses just code words
or overlays for tests of bioterrorism that will eventually be carried
out in a greater degree in both an adverse way from like enemies to
like enemies from within that know that maybe populations are a bit
too high and that the model is a bit overstuffed right now, this model
of capitalism and democracy. And that you kind of have to cut away
some of the wheat in order to make the system work more effectively.
We may have reached that saturation point. I mean we have reached that
saturation point already in so many things. I mean in 2050 we will be
using 10 times our resources on the planet, and right now we're using
more than we produce.
Right, we can't even keep up with it as it
is.
No. And you have things like the world meteorlogical organization
coming out last week and saying for the first time ever and the United
Nations, a highly technical and scientific body that studies weather
has come out and given a dire warning about global warming saying that
it's here, that June is the hottest June on record around the world in
the most places. And every place is up around like 2 to 5 degrees
celcius so that is going to have some effects and along with that they
say comes all of this unstable weather we're having. Like in Los
Angeles here, even in the valley where I live it's the first that I've
noticed that the humidity levels are way up. Like way up. Like so many
days of humidity. And I was talking to somebody who is my age who grew
up here and he said, "You know what, when I was a kid it was hot here
but it was a dry heat and you could deal with it, but now it's
becoming a really humid heat." I think because of these storm patterns
down in Mexico and off the Pacific coast are becoming larger and
reaching farther. Like subtle things like that, then you have like the
massive tornados that are happening in the midwest and you know the
storms in Texas and where they're moving and everything, it's kind of
interesting.
Yeah, I know what it's like to live in
humidity I'm in Florida, it's like swimming over here.
I know, I fucking hate humidity. I mean it's not nearly as bad as it
is in Florida, don't get me wrong I sound like a bit of a fucking baby
but it's a big change that people who have lived here their whole live
notice.
Right. Well that's one of the things that I
did notice when I went out to L.A. was that there was no humidity. I
stepped off the plane and it was like a hundred degrees and I didn't
break a sweat.
No, it's tolerable, because you have a breeze and it just evaporating
the moment it comes off you. Oh, it doesn't matter, it's fine. I've
got AC in my house. I mean I can close myself off of it. And I'm kind
of actually happy to be living in this type of environment because I'm
sure that this type of environment is going to be moving a lot further
north at some point.
Well first on touring, you've mentioned
touring with Al, are you planning on going out with Ministry?
Well no, I was thinking of going out with this festival that they were
thinking of doing. This kind of little reach back into all things Wax
Trax, and all things that vibe. And they were thinking of taking some
other more current bands out with them to. And that was something just
based on a conversation we shared at a dinner, and when I was doing
those shows in New York and Philadelphia, and I know that they just
got back from Europe, and uh, I know that they're going through jet
lag right now. So I'm not sure that that is going to manifest itself
at this point. As each day goes by I have more and more doubts about
that package coming together because it was all hypothetical anyway.
Well, you know how rumors can go.
Yeah, well, of coarse.
We've heard a lot. A lot of possiblilities
anyway.
Yeah, well I wanted to do it too. It's just all these things either
come together or they don't. Right now we're looking at something out
there on our own, just seeing what else is out there. And if I have
time this fall then we'll probably do something like that. The one
thing about the record too, is that as you can tell too, the album's
kind of come out a little bit early as far as the set up of this
thing. Which isn't a big deal, I'm not really worried about setups on
records anymore because I kind of would rather the record be done and
come out before it gets download shit. So I'm kind of alright with
that.
Well, it's good, it gave us a chance to play
it in the clubs a little early.
No, and that's totally cool and I think it's all good as far as that
goes. And its not like I have to stay on a schedule. It's not like
nobody knows about me and I have to, well actually less and less
people know me now as time goes on, but I don't have to stick to a
schedule to totally coordinate a release date with a tour with press
and stuff like that. We're doing okay but we're just kind of a little
behind with the domestic press, we've already done the European press,
but it will all work out.
How is life out in L.A.? How are your pets?
Everybody's doing really good. My wolf is getting older and she's got
a little bit of a hip problem, so I end up being more of, because I
deal with injuries for myself like everyday, so I can't make her do
yoga like I do, but I end up being the guy up at the dog park up up in
the corner of the field giving my dogs stretching things where I
stretch her legs back. Like when it gets cold shit really hurts her
and it's tough, but I'm trying to just keep all of those things
lubricated so that she has a good quality of life, because she used to
run so much when she was young. She used to run up in the hills
chasing coyotes and whatever, and so she'starting to feel that a
little bit. So they're all getting a bit older. My squirrel is
awesome, she's kind of gone through menopause I think and has lost her
male hating tendencies, but she's really friendly.
You've had her for years. We've talked about
her a couple of times.
I know, I've fucking had her a long time. And apparently they live
quite a while, so I'm hoping that she hangs in there and stays to be
like 16 or 20. Cause I think it would be really cool to have a
squirrel that old, cause she's gotten so much tamer and she's
definitely accepted me as being a valid part of the clan, so you know.
And she stays in my room here too. I mean I have a big room and she's
right by the window that overlooks the balcony, so she's pretty stylin'.
Right on.
And my cats are good. My ex-wife has two of my dogs now, she's finaly
found a house. She's kind of in Eagle Rock so she's taken two of the
dogs. I've got two of the dogs and she's got two of the dogs and two
of the cats. But I've got two of the cats right now because she's in
Texas.
Right on, full house?
Well, yeah. Kind of. And Marks down here. Mark Walk is down here. He's
living with me now. It's really good for working and getting stuff
done. And he's got his dog down here, and his girlfriend has a dog
too. So there's always kind of new critters, and my girlfriend has a
little dog that she rescued from the pound that is awesome and comes
over too. So there's either three dogs in here, or five. ::::laughs:::
So it gets a little crazy sometimes, but that's cool.
Well, I got to talk to him a lot about you,
I'd like to talk to you a bit about him. How did you end up meeting
Thomas Kuntz?
I think I met him the first time at either a Last Rites or Too Dark
Park autograph signing. And he was there with his girlfriend and he
came up and just put down a model he was doing of, I can't remember
the name of, do you know horror films really well? Do you remember the
Evil Dead? Oh I know, it's Henrietta, you remember Henrietta right?
The scientist's wife who ended up in Evil Dead 2 she was under the
floorboards. The big fat bloated female zombie whos head extended. A
whale with almost like an elephant trunk. He gave me a model that he
made of that and I was just fucking blown away. I was into painting
resin kits back then and stuff and he did this one up and it was just
like perfectly done because he's a pro at that stuff. So we met then,
then we happened by chance, I was in line at a restaurant and he was
right in front of me by chance so we talked and we ended up… he came
over to my house and we ended up watching mostly old silent films. And
I ended up falling asleep snoring, and he'd be up watching, and my
wife would come wake me up and blah blah blah. We just got to be
really close friends. I think we just kind of empathize. And I think
our hearts are really in the right place though I think he has a much
purer heart than me at times. I mean maybe not now, but in the past
anyways, he's just a straight up, really honest person, that doesn't
pull any punches, isn't duplicitous and is completely what you see is
what you get basically.
That's so refreshing.
Which is completely refreshing, especially down here. And so I think
even though I kind of beat myself up about who I was, and who I
thought I was, he saw that in me too. So I think our friendship kind
of grew out of that. And then we moved in together when I moved into
this house nine years ago. He lived here for about five years, six
years, maybe seven years? And at that time he also got a warehouse
space, and he turned that into Artomics and a haunted house basically.
I mean the place is totally tricked out. He has one of the rooms as a
spirit room which is like walking back into an eighteenth nineteenth
century kind of opium den, kind of something from like a hiesmann's
novel or something like that. Against the grave. You know,
everything's specifically done for his own tastes and it deals with a
lot of subject matter that we both find interesting. So he built a
whole space around that. You literally transform yourself back in time
by walking through his shop a little bit. And there's obviously the
workspace with all of the tools and the big equipment and everything
as well. He ended up living there almost all the time so I had this
invisible roommate. Which was great for me, cause I mean it was
somebody who was occupying a room but was never here almost.
Right, those are the best.
Yeah, it was really good. So that's kind of where our friendship has
always been. We share a childhood love for a lot of stuff that we both
have a fascination with. Certain things Disney, which are like the
Haunted Mansion and stuff like that, Pirates of the Carribbean to a
certain degree. So we both historically have that bent.
Did you go see it yet?
No, he went and saw it and didn't like it. Is it good?
I liked it.
Oh you did, well good.
I did. It was Disney, so it's not going to
be… you know…
Yeah, but Disney's put out some good stuff. I don't knock Disney for
that really necissarily. They put out Spirited Away, which I thought
was fucking brilliant. I mean I understand what you're saying but…
I think what I liked the most is that it had
all the scenes from the ride in it.
Nice.
You know, it had the guy waving the bone to
get the keys from the dog. And the big fat guy laying drunk at the
bottom of a bunch of kegs, liquour pouring all over him with the girl
with the big huge knockers.
But did they have the woman being chased?
Yeah.
Oh they did. Because they actually took that out of the ride.
Oh they did?
Yeah they totally did. Thomas keeps talking about these things they
made changes to based on what is now considered politically correct.
Even though pirates would do that. I guess to a bunch of kids coming
through you don't want to show them woman being… I guess it's close
enough to women being raped and pillaged.
Yeah, so it was pretty much like going through a more extended,
detailed ride, with Johnny Depp at the helm.
Yeah, I had a little problem with the computer generated skeletons and
stuff like that. There's something about that that I thought they
could have put a little more into, like automatons and stuff like
that. I'm definitely going to go see it. I respect Johnny Depp a lot.
He's a fucking amazing soul, and a great actor.
He did a good job with the character.
Yeah, I mean in all the commercials all of his expressions and stuff.
He always chooses really interesting material. And approaches it in an
abstract way, so hats off to him. I'm definitely going to go see it
now. On your recommendation.
Yeah. What made me think of it too, as soon
as you said haunted mansion, they had the preview for that.
Oh, how does that look?
It's Eddie Murphy.
Oooooooooooo……
Yeah. It's Eddie Murphy and his family
getting to stay in the haunted house.
Ooooooooooo……
You know, they have the ballroom scene and
the graveyard out back. They have the hitchhiking ghosts. The whole
deal. They all make their appearance.
It's not going to go over well.
But it's Eddie Murphy, you know?
I mean that's bad. Why would he do that?
Daddy Day Care. It's Disney.
Was Daddy Day Care Disney?
No I mean, it's the last thing that he did.
It was more family oriented. He's kind of into that mode.
Yeah he is really going for that family vibe. Oh, that's
disheartening. I think I'll just bloody wait for that to come out on
DVD.
Did you see House of 1000 Corpses?
No I didn't see it. It was only showing at a few theatres and I was
out of the country when it came out. So I kind of caught the tail end
of that one, was it good?
It was good. I heard that it wasn't rated
what he wanted, that he couldn't put all of the scenes in. I'm sure
that it will be better on DVD.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to pick it up on that.
But overall it was a fun story though.
It was? I heard that it was really disjointed though, that it didn't
really make a whole lot of sense.
Yeah, I mean it was like an extended music
video.
Where the fuck did the zombies come from? What were they doing? What
do they do on their off time when there's not people around?
::laughs:: I mean you really have to suspend all of that when you go
and see horror movies.
Well there's certain things that I go for and
I went to that movie to see pretty much a B horror movie with an edge.
Which I did see that so I enjoyed it.
Cool. Cool. I'm going to go check that out then too. I just, I read a
lot of really bad, you should believe everything you read, but I read
a lot of really bad stuff.
I read a lot of bad things about 28 Days
Later too, but I like that too.
Yeah, I like that too. I read a lot of really mixed things about that,
but I thought it was really really good.
Yeah I thought it was good. I heard some people talking about plot
holes and this and that…
Well the ending was kind of, the hello thing was a bit much. But
overall I thought it was a good. What I really liked about it was that
it was subtle in the sense that again the real monsters end up being
humans, which I thought was really interesting in that Lord of the
Flies sort of way. Once it was diminished down to a small group of
people, I thought it was kind of interesting too on how he commented
on how a small group of people could administer so much power and
change, you know?
Yeah, well that's a perfect example on the
way it actually goes because that's happening every day.
Absolutely.
A very small group of people running
everything, we're just sort of… you know?
It's amazing to me that in this country that's allowed to be.
Yeah. Well I don't think it's allowed to be,
I think that's just the way it is.
Well, we're conditioned to accept it.
It's face is something different and it's
much easier for the general public to see that face and accept it.
Yeah. I think that's the interesting thing with the media here and how
we present ourselves, even to the outside world, as kind of this
puritanical culture of people.
Well, if you watch FOX but if you listen to
NPR it's something totally different.
Yeah, that's true. But even NPR is definitely. It is National Public
Radio so it's government funded, it is kind of still under the same
moniker although they have more detail
Well, it's publicly funded.
Is it publicly funded?
Yeah, it's publicly funded like PBS. I listen
to NPR constantly and they always have those annoying pledge drives.
Yeah, I always hear the pledge drive but I question even that within
the idea of that it is still tempered by the government.
Well, I hear so many anti-government
conversations on there, well not anti-government but more honest
outspoken sort of truth forward um…
Yeah, but more critical…
Critical but very well thought out by some
intelligent people. They have a lot of phone in shows where they let
the people say whatever, some people say some pretty inflamatory
stuff. Well compared to FOX it's an incredibly liberal source.
Well, FOX allows people to say what they want but then they have this
editorial where they comment on it and they can totally negate people
or make them sound crazy… which kind of freaks me out.
It was weird, I was watching this news bite the other day with Jane
Fonda talking during the sixties about Vietnam and she was really well
spoken about why isn't there more criticism allowed on these media
avenues to the mainstream public of America, and why it's not allowed
and just questioning that. I was thinking about it and it was just
really well spoken, it was really well worded, and it was really well
delivered. And I began thinking, how did she get turned into a nutbox
over the last forty years.
Well because anybody who speaks out would be
labeled by that by the media or made to look like that, everybody
nowadays.
It sticks. Because even in the back of my mind I was going, 'There's
that nutbox fuckin' Jane Fonda. Ted Turner, fuckin' idiot.' You know?
And it was like wow, you know? She was really putting herself out
there back then.
Well and now the people who did this last
time got really burned by the media.
Oh they got fucking blasted. Tim Robbins and his wife. Susan Surandon.
You don't hear anything from these people anymore.
Yeah, Martin Sheen was another one.
Yeah, they just had to step back. They really got put through the… I
mean even the… there's a website someone pointed me to, it's a rap
site that was reviewing Sunny Psyop and the guy basically in so many
words with these 'yo motherfucker' and 'nigga' and that's how he was
talking and writing and he was a white kid. And a lot of it was really
pro military. They had a lot of comments about the music from military
personnel and stuff like that. So I kind of got that bent from that.
But the review was nothing about… it was more about how the song
titles were written and how fucked up that was. And the reason why it
was so fucked up was because we were a bunch of faggots. So I was just
like, okay, well there's the homophobe bent. When you can't really
critique something, the whole thing ended up being based on that kind
of language. And I was really going wow, its really odd because it was
so homophobic and yet what a great way to get a lot of peoples eyes,
you know, it's like casting a stone. 'Cause I mean I can definitely
hear effeminate things in the approach to the record, but nobody
involved in this record is gay at all. So it's just like when people
use that approach I just wonder is that something being used in some
way to deface and make less of certain things to a group of people
that would probably react that way in any other given situation.
Sure. You know, it's how much can that
matter?
Well, I mean it doesn't. It's just interesting that people even take
that approach. The most amazing thing about the internet to me is
just, you're looking at criticism and reviews and again you have small
small groups of people can affect many. And you propagate this tribal
dilemma where you have a few alpha males spreading gossip to a bunch
of other males and it just reproduces itself like a virus.
I definitely know that feeling. When I do
editorials online they frequently get attacked, for one reason or
another.
Really? What on?
Well one of them was on, um… by the way
before I forget I've been meaning to bring this up because we keep
talking about it. Small groups of men. Have you ever seen the HBO move
the Conspiracy?
No.
You've got to go find that or buy it. You'll
love it, I'm telling ya. It's takes place in almost real time based on
the only remaining documents from a meeting that were found where it
was the top 12 or 14 Nazis where they all met in a house somewhere
outside of Berlin and decided the fate of 12 million jews.
Shit.
Kenneth Branaugh plays the lead character.
Brilliant.
It's really good, you can look it up online.
That sounds really good. And it's based on actual events?
Yeah, based on actual events where they were
all called in. The top people from all of the Nazi areas met one day
for about two hours and decided the fate of everyone.
Oh wow.
Probably one of the most disturbing films
I've seen in a long time.
Really? Unbelievable, I'll definately check that out.
But with the editorials, there was one
editorial that I wrote about commercials in theatres and how I was
very much against them and how they were talking about putting up in
the slides before the movies wanted posters for criminals.
No way.
And my problem with it was I don't want to see commercials as it is,
and they're the same commercials they're showing on television and I
paid to see the movie, they're wasting five minutes of my life that I
paid for. I don't mind for other movies, but I don't want to see a
wanted poster for a murderer or a rapist before I see Shrek or
something like this. I'm trying to be taken out of reality when I go
into a theatre. I'm paying 8$ to be unplugged and be plugged into
something completely different.
Yeah, instead of looking around at your neighbors to see if they look
like the guy on the screen.
Right right. And kids are going to see this. This mugshot of some big
ugly guy wanted for murder or rape. It never went through I don't
think because it's so horrendous to even think of, but I wrote this
editorial after I heard about it and just went "Wow, I'm disturbed by
this. I don't want this in my theatres. I already don't like the Navy
commercials that are there, just because I see them on television
everyday and I'm never going to join the Navy. I don't want to see
them in the theatre as well"
And so I imeadiately got, just hours after it went online, a nasty
e.mail about it. Criticism about how I was against the Navy and how I
was against the FBI and how I just wanted murderers and rapists to
walk the streets.
Oh my god.
And I was like, you've got to be joking me. I couldn't have said it
any clearer. You know, it wasn't about that. The one thing that
disturbed me the most was that this person said that you could have
nothing without commercialism. That every thing had to be
commercialized. And that was pretty much their opinion and viewpoint,
that I could not escape reality because reality was all around me so I
might as well just accept the commercialism.
What he's really saying is that commercialism has evolved to something
that people take as truth and that It's so seemlessly webbed with fact
that fact and fiction is so easily interwined with all this stuff that
It's become this interface that has become effective for doing stuff
like that. I almost harken back to the days when, I mean this is a
really stupid example maybe but is interesting to me, like when I was
a kid with toys there was all this uproar when they would animate toys
as if this was really going to fuck with peoples heads.
Figure does not actually move by itself….
It does not actually move by itself. But now it's just so integrated
in kids minds. You know? Because kids apparently know the difference
but I question all that still a little bit, you know?
Well it's how they portray products is bad.
The whole this is just fucked up, the world's an ungodly mess, but…
::laughs:::
Theres this great Yugoslavian philosopher, I always have problems
pronouncing his name, it's Zizek?
Slavoj Zizek, have you ever heard of him? And he always argues the
contradiction, and then examines the contradiction, and then he'll
give his hypothesis and then even examine that and use the same
critical methods on his own. And he was talking about this, he was
questioning because he goes through universities all the time and they
were talking about this idea of America being a post-manufacturing
country, and the argument was that we don't manufacture anything here.
And his quip to that was that that's alive and well, and that we are
manufacturing in this country and that our blue collar force is China.
Which is completely true. That's absolutely true. And uh, so I think
we have this kind of really weird thing where, I guess the most
altruistic way of looking at America is that it's all about ideas,
it's the GE kind of tendency where 'we bring good things to life' but
we don't really manufacture anything anymore of any value. So we're
just consumers. And what we buy and what we covet is really what
drives our economy forward. If you buy a Hummer you're supporting the
military complex you know? I mean, a lot of things you buy, I guess
just the communications we're talking on right now are part military.
Cell phones are part military. And we love those things. And certain
parts of the culture love those things even more than I can even
imagine because they become accessorized in a way, you know?
Right. They have to have it. I think I just
want to quit everything and go live on a mountain sometimes.
I know, I do sometimes too. But then I'm just like, well it might be
nice, quiet and just serene. I've had moments of that.
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