Nash Kato (Urge Overkill) & Jim Thirwell (Foetus)

Bad Obsessions

The Perils of Rock and Roll Decadence

I had a gig with Caged Heat one night at this club. The owner was a real piece of work. He had this office with all these dolls in it. I was in there talking to him about something and he was molesting these dolls as I was talking to him. Not consciously or anything just kind of caressing and stuff. He had this one real pretty one in particular that he seemed obsessed on. When we were about to play I snuck into his office and grabbed that favorite doll to bring on stage with me. I don't even know what possessed me to do that. Just on a whim I guess, when I got up I barely even got the doll out when this guy totally loses it. He screams like a girl and comes racing towards me. I didn't really know what to do. I kind of panicked and threw it out into the crowd. It landed on some burning cigarette in an ashtray and burst into flames. This person dumped their drink on it but it was already too late it was spreading to the table. The fire extinguisher put it out before the whole club burnt down. If that man hadn't been in total shock over the loss of his beloved doll, we probably would never have escaped with our equipment and lives. I don't think we are welcome back there. - Jill Kurtz (Caged Heat)

Several days prior to our Saturday January 28 gig at the Coach and Horses in Windsor, Ontario, Canada (right across from Detroit), the Trailer Park Sex Cowboys wrote a new song. The music was dark and incredibly sexual. Johnny said it reminded him of "cum running down the inside of a girl's leg". He quickly wrote the words around a bondage/S&M girl and the song "Sadie Masochistic" was written. In the middle of the song, the song tempo goes from an aggressive grind to a slow psychosexual driving bassline. It was decided to make this slow interlude into a platform for Johnny to talk to the audience. Now after their first few shows, the Sex Cowboys were beginning to build a rather loud and brave following of females so an evil plan was hatched to test the loyalty of their fans. Just prior to the gig, all four members of the band masturbated into a pint glass. Then, Johnny added half a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream and combined this DNA Juice into a ghastly syrup of sorts. He kept this glass on stage with him. During the debut of "Sadie Masochistic" the plan unfolded. When the slow part arrived, Johnny began his monologue. In it, he demanded absolute loyalty from the female contingent of fans. He said that to be of the TPSC faithful, you must take a part of the TPSC inside you. He grabbed the glass, swirled it in the lights for all to see and announced that "within this glass is the complete DNA of the Trailer Park Sex Cowboys" and that he was looking for a volunteer to come up to the stage. Several women cheered and finally one brave girl approached the stage. She appeared nervous and excited, all at once. Johnny handed her the Love Potion and she held it in her hands. As the music swirled and the temp began to rise and fall with brutal sexuality, Johnny told her to drink it all down. And, after taking a deep breath, she did! The complete spunk of the band ran down her throat! And live, in front of over a hundred people! And so, the legend of the Goop Girl was born.... - Johnny Ten Inch (Trailer Park Sex Cowboys)

Salvation through Saturation: Nash Kato

Rock stars come and go, but genuine rock and roll heroes- well, they lay a winning hand no matter who's dealing. The suavest monarch in this desperate land, the King Midas of the Billboard charts, Nash Kato took his wiseass power pop band, Urge Overkill, to the heights of Rock excess with giant guitars, killer hooks, and the best wardrobe since the commie era New York Dolls. Theoretically. Urge stared out as a punk band in the early 80's, were even on gnarly noise rock label "Touch and Go' for awhile, but Motown records, not Black Flag, fueled the Urge machine. Local success had them riding around town in horse drawn carriages, Steve Albini publicly hated them, and the hustle for superstardom was on. Snagged from the obscure "Stull" ep., The Neil Diamond cover, "Girl, you'll be a woman soon", found it's way into a pivotal scene in 'Pulp Fiction', and suddenly the Urge were household names. "Saturation", Urge's first big time major label record, is quite possible the greatest rock and roll record ever. With it's winning combination of heavy, 70's influenced rock, the crystal sheen pop choruses, and the overall vibe of rock and roll redemption, Urge brought the concept of total victory back to the masses. Their equally stunning follow-up, the double concept album "Exit The Dragon", was laced with introspection, and the millioniare song writing team of Nash Kato and Eddie "King " Roeser took divergent paths. Moody, darker songs like "This is no place" and "Mistake" found Eddie enjoying the private jets and super models a lot less than Nash. In 1996, the band dissolved . Nobody's stepped up to the plate to meet their challenge since. Ever a gentleman of class, distinction, and leisure, Nash went on vacation in Costa Rica. For a good year or so. From the haze of this tropical hedonism came a clutch of glossy new hits that would soon find their way to Nash's first solo album. With his usual swarthy cheek, he named it "Debutante", scored some new white threads, and jumped back in the trenches to rebuild the empire. I caught up with the National Man right before he jetted off to Europe for a 6 month tour... 

So, after Urge Overkill broke up, you split for an extended vacation in Costa Rica. That's the goddamn move, Nash...

Well, with Urge, there was such a tight schedule all the time, you never had the time to chill, or to wander around aimlessly. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do that, and to get away from the music business for awhile. I packed my bag for a few weeks, but I ended up staying for 10 months. 

What'd you do out there?

I didn't have any game plan. I just cruised around, hung out at the beach. I really wasn't interested in writing music or anything while I was there, but I kind of told myself that as soon as the songs started forming in my head, I'd come back. After 10 months, the dust started to settle, so I came home and started working on the new tracks.

"Debutante" seems like a logical progression from "Exit the Dragon" in that you seemed to write all the pop songs in Urge, and King wrote all the darker stuff.

I guess I was responsible for the poppier elements of Urge Overkill, and Eddie wrote more of the straight ahead rock songs, the dirgier stuff, which I thought was a great blend. I've pretty much always had the same writing style, you know ,the conventional pop songwriting- verse, chorus, bridge...all my favorite songs are like that. I think those kind of songs, the kind we grew up with, have become like a lost art form. It's the supply and demand thing. There's no demand for the classic, 3 and a half minute pop song, so no one's supplying them.

I heard there was an Urge Overkill one-off reunion gig recently.

What? No...

Really? Because I also heard that you said there would never be an Urge reunion, so I was wondering what the deal was. Man, I've got to stop reading fucking websites.

Well, A, I never said that, and B, there was no reunion gig. We're not stupid, you know, we're aware that that's a card we have in our hands, but I think we all feel it's a bit premature, and that we should wait another five years, and then really cash in. (laughs) Think of when Jerry and Dean embraced after 20 years on the telethon, it'll be more like that.

So you're still on good terms with the other guys?

Oh, yeh. I talked to Eddie a few days ago, and last time I played in LA, Blackie got up for an encore and sat in for a couple Urge standards. This one girl was crying in the front row...I think people are under the impression that we don't speak, or something.

So it wasn't even an ugly break up?

I'm sure it was at the time, but no uglier than any other band of guys that needed to take a break from not just each other, but the whole thing. We operated at such a fever pitch that we got burned out, and everybody needed time away from the band. It wasn't something that was even discussed, really, I mean, there was no knock down drag out fight. It was just something that we all understood, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when it was over.

What's your relationship to Chicago like these days?

I don't really have one. It's a good, centrally located place to operate a rock band, I mean I can get whatever I need day or night, but I don't really have any kind of relationship with this town. 

Your local press used to try to bring Urge down all the time.

That's just a Chicago thing, really. They do that with everyone. Until you sell out arenas, then you're like, the home team or something.

One of the defining moments of Urge history was when you met Neil Diamond on the hotel roof, and he gave you the classic showbiz advice, "The dogs may bark, but the carnival rolls on."

We met Neil Diamond on a roof?

Yeh, you were on a hotel roof in Las Vegas. Something about a helicopter.

(laughs) Yeh, well, he did give us the advice, but it was back stage at a show in Chicago. One of the other guys must have embellished the story.

You guys were way ahead of the curve on the Neil Diamond exploitation.

We were all just really big fans. I think people think it was just another Urge Overkill gag. Granted, Urge had a lot of gags, but that was never one of them. We truly were fans. As far as doing the Diamond cover, we liked that song, and we needed material. It's funny that it became the biggest thing that ever happened to the band.

Well, that song, and the whole Uma Thurman dancing around thing, is what everybody remembers about Pulp Fiction.

It was just this shitty demo that we did four years earlier, and it was just a fluke. It was just a fluke that Quentin was looking for the perfect song for this pivotal scene, and he finds that record in a used bin in England for like 50p... I always wanted to find the sap that thought we sucked and sold it to the record store.

You ever get to meet that supermodel you wrote that song about on Debutante?
Leticia Casta?

No. I thought the whole Susan Lucci thing would work twice, but it didn't.

So, writing the Erica Kane song worked out for you?

Yeh, we got pretty tight with the cast of that show. I think they wrote us into the script once. Like, some kid was turning on the jukebox, and he said, "I want to hear that new Urge Overkill song."

But you never got to appear on the show?

No, but we told them if they ever needed extras, like guys sitting in the restaurant, that we'd be there. Me and Blackie were so hooked on that show. Little Sarah Michelle Gellar, she played Erica's daughter, she used to come to Urge shows, she was just this little thing... we loved her. We thought she was the best actress. We were quoted at the time as saying, "Keep your eyes on Sarah Michelle Gellar, she's going to be a big star." 

I don't know, maybe it's just marketing or whatever, but I'm surprised the songs from Debutante aren't being played on the radio. They all sound like hits.

That's the mindset I have when ever I'm writing songs, I write as if they're going to be all over the radio. So if they sound like that, that's because they were designed to. It's too bad radio didn't figure that out (laughs).

What did you think of the way it was received?

It was on Loose Groove records, and just when the record came out, They merged with this neighboring label that really only handles soundtrack records. They had no experience selling a record like Debutante. So I really don't blame them, their heart seemed to be in the right place. They wanted to do everything right, but they just had no experience doing it. Consequently, I don't think anyone even knew that this record was out. So it'd not like it was received well or badly, it wasn't even really received. People are talking to me, going, "so, are you doing anything these days?" and I'm like, "well, yeh..." (laughs) I can't really get upset about it, because it's nobody's fault, really, but it's a shame because it's a good record.

How did you hook up with Loose Groove in the first place?

It's Stone Gossard's label, from Pearl Jam. He was a fan of Urge, and he said, "listen, if you're doing anything on the side, I'd love to hear it, " so I was sending him demos, and he was digging it, and after awhile there was like 9 or ten of these songs, and he was like, "We gotta make this record." At first I was skeptical, I thought maybe I should hold off a little, and shop around, but his staff over there were all excited about it...it was good to kind of come back up, not to get to the back of the line, or anything, but to come up the way Urge did, cautiously come up through this independent route. I mean, that could be the kiss of death, to come up with this shiny new major label record, and then nobody buys it. Then I'd have been fucked. That's why it worked for us in Urge, because we built up our own base. The crowd came ready- made by the time we made the jump. But what I wasn't prepared for was Stone selling the label almost over night. That kind of screwed things up a bit. But you gotta play the hand you're dealt.

How'd you find the players for Debutante?

Josh Freese, he was a friend, and he was always a big fan, he had all the demos for the songs, and he was like, 'I'm playing on this record!'so he flew down, and he knocked it out in two days. Evans came on recommendation from some people in San Francisco, he was another one that got it in two days, just bam, bam, bam. And my guitar player at the time, Nils, I collaborated with him when I was putting it all together, he's kind of a riff meister. It was a cool experience. It was different, working with such pros. The thing with Urge was, we weren't the greatest musicians, but what we lacked in musicianship we made up for in personality. So it was a different experience, it was more of the Steely Dan approach.

You see any bands out there that have the Urge Overkill vibe to them?

Well, for a while, it seemed like every band was wearing suits, swigging martinis, and playing crushing power pop. Of course, we didn't exactly invent that. When we did that, it was punk rock to us, flying in the face of the underground, grunge or whatever. So that was our version of punk rock. There certainly wasn't anyone else wearing suits and playing pop songs at the time. Now it's become the norm, but I don't know if that's just the pendulum swinging back. We were always just going against the grain. So people say, "Hey , have you heard this band, they're totally chumping your style", but I figure, fuck 'em, it's all rock and roll, it's just 'Johnny B. Good', really.

Urge always played 'Big Time' rock and roll.

We always carried on as if we were huge, and then it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That was an excellent plan.

I'm just glad that it worked.

So was it weird going back to playing smaller clubs on the solo tour?

The first tour was little weird, yeh. But on the second one, it was just a perfect fit, us opening for Cheap Trick. Their fans are a real rock and roll crowd, big arena styled rock. So that was good, I felt like I was back in the saddle, where I belong. You can only slug it out in the clubs for so long. Although last Christmas, I was doing these acoustic shows... Nash Kato unplugged.

Righteous.

I did a couple in Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Ohio... it's was great just riding the rails to shows, it was so old school, that was they used to tour, the old jazzers, you know? It was just me and a six string. I never did that before, there was no bullshit, no crew. I was really surprised at how well they were received.

What tunes were you doing for those shows?

I did some stuff off of Debutante, some of the more obscure Urge songs. At first I was real skeptical, like I don't do this, I'm a band guy, I'm not that good of a guitar player, how could it possibly be entertaining? But I ended up taking that 'VH1 Storyteller' approach. Talking about how the songs came to be, and people love that shit, they eat it up.

Well, your lyrics usually tell stories anyway.

I didn't actually realize that until I started doing these acoustic shows. I didn't realize that I had been around long enough to be the old crusty guy on the stool, going " I wrote this one about this bar brawl I was in, in Tucson.."(laughs)

You obviously like playing bigger shows.

Well, I feel like I graduated from playing the shitboxes. We did that in Urge, then we moved on to the bigger clubs, and by the end, y'know, we were doing shows with Pearl Jam, doing hockey stadiums, and it culminated in Brazil, with 70,000 people in the soccer stadium, so I worked my way up there. I know how to rock the big house. But it was kind of nostalgic to go back, I didn't really mind, it kept me humble.

How do you feel about playing old Urge songs live? Would you rather just play the new stuff?

I just put myself in the spot of being a fan , you know. If I went to see a guy because I liked his former band, of course I'd be interested in hearing the new stuff, but I'd also be going, "Please play this one song..." So I don't take it personally, they're fans, they get nostalgic. I don't think they expect me to be a jukebox either, but it's cool to drop one in now and then to keep everyone happy.

There's always a short list of guys that can bring back the rock. There's you, Josh Todd of Buck Cherry, Dave Wyndorf from Monster Magnet...

Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters. He's all about the rock.

Yeh, and sooner or later it's gonna be your turn again. You'll have to save rock and roll.

It's all on my shoulders? Well, that's all right. Nash Kato's on the scene.

Go to www.nashkato.com to find out what happens next.

Pepper Spraying the Metallica Guy

"I lost reality long ago, and now I live in a horror show"- Hallow's Eve

I went to high school with this cat, Kyle. I never liked the motherfucker, to be honest, but his house was on the way, and his father's liquor cabinet was easily pried open. Every morning, before we left his house,he had this weird ritual where he would go through all the cabinets and drawers and take one or two pills out of any bottles he could find. Then he'd wash it all down with Sudafed. His mom wouldn't let him have any caffeine because he had ADD, and I think he figured popping all that shit would soothe his shaky mind. It never helped much, though. Kyle was prone to sudden fits of violence. Instead of just hi-fiving you like everybody else, he'd come running up behind you, and tackle you into the pavement. He'd get a glazed look in his eyes, and the next thing you know, he'd punch the math teacher in the face. Once he literally smashed his sister's head right though her bedroom door. Girls all said he was a little fucked. But hey, he had the whiskey. 

After graduation, I went off to drop out of college, while Kyle stayed in the neighborhood to stare at the sun, or whatever. I didn't see him for years, and then, around five years later, I was visiting my mother when I ran into another high school friend, Luke. "You seen Kyle lately?" he asked me. I told him I didn't, and he said, "Well, there's something really wrong with him." "Of course there is", I said, "He's a fucking nutcase." "Yeh , well, he's a lot worse now. Anyway, he was asking about you, so I gave him your phone number." Son of a bitch. With friends like these...

About a month later, I get a call from Kyle. He sounds panicky. "I've got something really important to tell you. It's a matter of life and death. Meet me at the Store 24 in ten minutes." No thanks. I hung up on him and went back to staring at the walls. He called me back about a week later. He didn't even remember calling me before. He launched into the weirdest, scariest monologue I've ever heard. "You brainwashed me with Metallica", he started. I figured he had to be putting me on, so I laughed. He wasn't putting me on. "This shit is serious. You were the one who played Metallica for me when we were 15. Now my life is ruined." Metallica ruined him? I figured the drugs would've done it. "I got obsessed with Metallica after that, I fell in love with James Hetfield, and then I married him. Now he lives in my closet, and won't leave me alone." Yikes. "I had to kill Lars Ulrich because they were suing me for $200,000, but they replaced him with a clone." At this point in my life, I was a certified mental health counselor, so I was familiar with the convoluted ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic. Still, it was pretty jarring hearing it from a cat I used to run with, even if he was a prick. He kept going with his terrible true tale, and I was planning on just hanging up on him again when he said, "...and that's why I'm going to fucking kill you." What? "Are you threatening me, man?" I asked him. "It's not a threat, it's a reality. I'm going to find you and stab you in the face. My family is under constant surveillance because of you. I figure, if you're dead, then they'll leave me alone. Watch your back". Click.

Listen, I'm all for a righteous knuckleduster, but I also know better then to take on a fucking lunatic. I started looking around for protection. All those months in rehab don't look good on a hand gun application, so I ended up with a can of pepper spray. It was shaped like a big ball point pen, and I started carrying it around in my pocket. It became a bad obsession of mine. I started getting mouthier in any weather, looking for an opportunity to use it. I was dragging around this little fire-stick for 2 years, nerves frazzled, looking for a fight. I used to go over the inevitable confrontation in my head, waiting for the chance to put an end to this nightmare. Finally, last summer, I'm standing on the corner near my parents' house, when Kyle walks right by me. He's all disheveled, and a hundred pounds bloated, but it's the Metallica guy, all right. Crazily enough, I was pissed that he didn't even recognize me. I started chasing him down the street. I caught up to him, and grabbed his shoulder. "Hey, Kyle, it's me, Ken." He looked at me with vague recollection, but zero malice. "Oh, hi," he says. "Uh...what have you been up to?" "Listen, fuck all that, " I say. I'm pissed. "What about all this Metallica shit? I thought you wanted to kill me?" "Oh." He's not even giving me any eye contact. "Listen, I was in the hospital for awhile, they gave me a lot of shock treatment. I don't remember a lot of stuff. I'm sorry if I was threatening you, or whatever. I wasn't doing to well before." And that was it, the end of the whole mess. Years of paranoia for nothing. So I sprayed him in the fucking eyes anyway. 

Clams on Brillo: Jim Thirwell on the Foetus

The Musique Concrete of Jim Thirwell, and his many permutations of the Foetus name, is the music of God in a rotten mood, looking for souls to crush. Since his earliest incarnation in the late 70's as a snaggle toothed New York art punk, lighting himself on fire to the tune of barking industrial tape loops, Thirwell has a had a distinct vision of total sonic devastation. Like a booze-drenched mad scientist, Thirwell slowly perfected his studio craft, creating intricate, lusty epics filled with lippy anti-heroes in desperate scenarios that usually end in deep bruises or mushroom clouds. Albums like 'Hole' and 'Nail' snatched sounds from everywhere- metal, punk, blues, lounge, surf; anything remotely satanic got blenderized in Thirwell's infernal machine and spat out like silver bullets, with deadly accuracy, and all of it punctuated with the croaking braggadocio of JGT himself, the Grand Poobah of industrial strength apocalypse rock. The last decade saw less Foetus albums and more Thirwell collaborations, as he became a superstar producer, remixing bands like Nine Inch Nails and the Cult into ferocious cyber frenzies. He recorded death ballads with long time girlfriend Lydia Lunch, tortured Torch with Marc Almond, forged the world's first rape metal band, Wiseblood', with the Swan's Rolli Mossiman, and brought the kitschy lounge music trend kicking and screaming into a dark and scary place with 'Steroid Maximus'. And he drank himself nearly to death while he was at it. But Thirwell called the funeral off at the last minute and cleaned up his filthy act. Fast forward, and the modern day Thirwell is back in the saddle, leaner and meaner, with a roster of no less than 6 new records due to hit the streets this year, and the first Feotus tour in years, always the definition of rolling thunder, tearing through the US this summer I caught up with JGT on the verge of the release of the new Foetal pummel-job, "Flow" to see what makes this time bomb tick so loudly. Very rarely do I feel honored to talk to anybody. This was one of those few times...

'Flow' is the first new studio album in 6 years...

'Flow' stands up there with anything I've ever done. It's different, too. Since the last studio album, 'Gash', there's been a lot of reissues, and live albums, some of which should never have seen the light of day, all of which document the rise and fall of me. I've put out a lot of albums, but I consider the primary ones to be the 4 letter Feotus records that are conceived as an entity to themselves, unlike compilations or side projects. So if you consider that, than this is only album number 7. And when you consider that, right about the time of 'Nail', 'Thaw', and 'Gash', the statements were increasingly striving for a kind of, 'listening music for when they drop the big one', music to kill yourself by, and your parents by, well,you can only make that statement so many times. You can't keep going back and saying, "And another thing..." 'Gash' was the penultimate statement for what I wanted to do with that. 

Where do you take it from there? 

Well, my life was being mirrored by those statements, and when you feel them creeping up on you, when you smell that death is singeing your nostrils, you either go through with that, or you take a step sideways.

Did quitting drinking have an effect on your creative process?

Absolutely. You know, if I didn't stop, I would have ended up dead. I don't think it's any secret that my reputation preceded me in that department, I was well known for my chemical intake. That kind of turnaround in life takes a lot of getting used to.

So, you obviously had to take a break, and figure out what to do next...

I didn't have much of a choice. I wasn't even able to turn on the studio for some time. Some time life gets in the way, it serves up the things that you have to deal with that preclude putting out rock records.

Flaming pig's heads on sticks was definitely a statement of cultural dystopia 20 years ago, but it'd just be flash at this point. I wonder what your next 'statement' is?

Well, the whole idea of 'Flow', like the name, is a continuum, as opposed to a finality. It's a flow of ideas as well, it's a series of songs which made more sense to me after I completed them. I think all of my albums have been pretty stylistically diverse, very jarring in that way. 'Flow' had a different feel. It's still intense. I think sonically, I'm moving in different directions, and musically...I don't know if the word to use is sophistication, but it's got a different edge to it.

Every time I turn on the radio I hear all these bands that were obviously influenced by your music and don't even know it...

Or influenced by someone else's band that was inspired by Foetus.

Right. Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails...

It's funny. I don't know how true that is. I don't see the direct link, I'm not sure what elements people are talking about. But I get told that often enough, so I guess it must be true. You put your statement out there, and after awhile it becomes public domain.

It's just strange that you don't get mentioned very often by all these bands.

Well, I don't know where I fit in the pantheon of all this either. I don't survey the market place to hear what's out there, certainly not in the arena of music that you're talking about. Post-industrial rock is just not what I listen to.

But it's really just one riff, one minor meditation of yours, that's getting repeated endlessly.

I hate it when someone takes the dumb bit and runs with it.

I was surprised to hear you were spinning records as DJ Ofestu. That seems like the Foetus getting too close to the people.

You underestimate the power of the headphones as the great divider. 

I just can't imagine people coming up to you and making requests...

No, I don't do requests. DJ Ofestu serves more as a backdrop for what's happening. It has nothing to do with the BPM, turntable culture. The playlist doesn't usually even have anything on it made after 1975. Sometimes the whole set is crime/spy/cop show oriented. I might go on little ethno-jaunts, heavy drum jaunts...

Do the same people that go to Foetus shows go to hear you spin records?

Well, most of the time, there's something else going on, and I'm just adding flavor. In New York, something like DJ ofestu is chopped liver, because there's so many other things going on. But I've done it out of town, and people have treated it like it was more of an event. Those would be the Foetus fans. People dig it when I dj, it's very user-friendly. I'm not trying to drive everyone out of the club.

It's hard to pinpoint just who is going to be into the Foetus. Most rockers dig you because you're evil, but there's academic, collegiate types that like your music too...

Plus, it seems to cross age barriers a lot. There's a lot of younger kids that show up, which I think is great.

The early days of Foetus live was just you on stage with tape loops...

Just me, tapes, and a baseball bat.

But that wasn't because of lack of players, it was because you wanted to stick with a singular vision.

Along the way, I've always had these ideas of purity that stood in my way, really. I should have just put a band together back then, but I had this stupid youthful idealism, that of course just gets squashed like a bug, like a defenseless dandelion. (laughs)

Well, the nature of things is that as soon as somebody else shows up, the vision begins to change.

Right. I didn't think I could capture that immensity of sound, and at the time, around 1984, sampling technology wasn't accessible enough to take on the road, at least not at the level I was on. That came later. Most of the songs were created as a studio beast anyway, so it took a lot of reinterpretation to perform them with people in any given live permutation of Foetus.

The earlier days were almost like solo acoustic Thirwell.

I felt a bit like I was cheating with tapes, but it came down to how well one person could command a stage. Nowadays, everybody does it. Only with dancers.

How do you decide who's going to be in the live band?

Personal hygiene, whether I can stand sitting in the van with them, the aesthetic...most of the people that play in the live band have other commitments, so it's like a revolving door of players. We've already done a few US dates last year, which were warm-ups to playing a big show at the Royal festival hall in London, so I'm going to pop my cherry there. We're touring the US in June, then Europe in late August/September.

Can we expect a big, scary noise to be coming off the stage?

I think it's big, yeh. Scary? I don't know, scary is in the eye of the beholder. Scary to some is seductive to others.

Whatever happened to the ill-fated "Foetus on the Beach" project?

That ended up stillborn. What happened was, that was conceived quite a long time ago, and Mad Max 2 came out, and that was the whole fucking story. Except it was going to be a musical. Otherwise it was going to be just like that. That movie blew it for me.

There's never been a Foetus ballad.

Sure there has, I have plenty. The Wiseblood song, 'Someone Drowned in My Pool"- that's a full on ballad.

Pretty fucking evil for a ballad. 

No, it's not. Well, maybe a little.

"She started to bleed, so I had to get rid of her"?

Hey, I just call them like I see them.

You also have a new project called 'Manorexia'...

For sometime I've been wanting to do an ambient album and sell it exclusively through the website. It was actually on thanksgiving of last year, stuff just started popping out, and I couldn't stop. It's not an ambient album, really. It's actually 14 seperate movements that cross fade into each other. It's got a spatial quality that may have been missing on some of my other projects. It leaves the brain to fill in the holes, to listen to and devour each sound...it's like drugs without the drugs. I think it came about from being so deeply engaged in the business side of things, to the preclusion of creating. I think that happens a lot to people in my position, you get so caught up in the hustle of the business, that there's no time to create any more. This thing had been welling up in me, Manorexia is the musical pustule that I had to burst.

And then there's Steroid Maximus. At the time that first record came out, there was a surge of interest in lounge/exotica music, and Steroid Maximus took that in a completely different direction...

I hate to say it about myself, but the first Steroid Maximus album was a little bit ahead of it's time, not only for the exotica sound, and the cover's tribal cat holding a martini, but with it being all instrumental music. I mean, years later there's all these people buying instrumental music, and it's like, where the fuck were you when that album came out?

People seem to like that record a lot more now than when it first came out.

Yeh. Well it'd be nice if people could find the fucking thing. You seem to have to look really hard to find it. But soon I'll be launching the Foetus Shoppe on my website, www.foetus.org, and you'll be able to get a lot of the back catalog straight from there, as well as out of print 7inches, t-shirts...

I love the 'Ask JGT' section of your website.

There aren't any definitive answers to a lot of those questions. I like to leave some threads dangling. That's the thing about answering any question, in print or even on the internet, they then follow you around for the rest of your life. "Well, you said in this interview you did in '88 that you like vanilla ice cream..." I mean, for fuck's sakes. (laughs)

Well, most of the questions seem to be about your lyrics. Is there really that much of a specific, methodical theme to them? Because I always thought that you were constantly taking different facets of culture and putting them into a loose theme for each record...

There is a specific message in them, but I don't stick to any one formula, or why I'm doing it, or what the fuck I'm talking about. Or whether it's third person, or I'm talking through a character, or through me. There's a series of masks to unravel, or not, and sometimes that leaves me wide open for misinterpretations...

Wild speculation...

And it gives me a lot of armor too. Maybe I'll be able to strip it down as I get more mature, but I don't see that happening tomorrow.

But on the whole, I think you're one of the more literary minded lyricists in the rock world...

Really?

Yeh, along with Andrew Eldritch.

The Sisters of Mercy guy? I'm not really familiar with his work.

He's the kind of guy that name drops Mark and Engalls in a rock song. Seems like the something you would do.

I'm more likely to talk about Mary Kate and Ashley Olson in a song.

In all your sonic experimentation, has there been any back masking we should know about?

Oh, there's been back masking, but none that you should know about. You'll have to work that out yourself.

I guess that you'd know if it actually worked, then.

Well, who knows what's nestled on page 93 of the New York Times?

Sleazegrinder Top 5

Iron Boss - "Rides Again"
Scratching Post - "This time It's Personal"
Devil's County Death Cult - "American Heavy"
The Malakas - "Too Good To Be True"
Swampass - "No Means Go"