"The things I’ve known mean nothing now, because I’m a rock and roll star" — Hardcore Superstar

"I guarantee you we get more pussy than Fred Durst does." — Hari Hassin

We need a new Rock and Roll Babylon, that much is painfully obvious. For too long, we have been sweating it out in the mud and blood of our tawdry existences, shrugging our shoulders and sighing as the Rock lowers it’s expectations further into the gutter, allowing scoundrels, thieves- Jesus, even jocks to run amuck in our once majestic temples of soul, glitter, and sin. More than ever we need something to believe in. We need to build new, monolithic palaces with bejeweled thrones, and we need berserker tyrants and stardog champions to fill them, who will drag us, rattling and buzzing, to our manifest destiny. We need, in fact, to Enter the Dragon.

And I know just the motherfuckers to do it. Here is a band that started, just a scant year ago, as the late night drug bingeing scheme of disgruntled sidemen, methodically carving out gigantic slabs of heavy ass glam rawk - part Zep, part James Gang- out of pain, frustration, and a wardrobe full of solid gold 70’s threads, a side project gone awry. 12 months later, on the strength of just a hastily recorded EP and a handful of legend -making gigs ,they have emerged, voraciously and victoriously, as quite possibly the greatest rock and roll band since Guns N’ Roses. Brothers and sisters, with much throwing of horns from the rock faithful and much heaving of teenage breasts, I present to you the sex junkie slither kings of the new circus of power, the sleaze dealers of maximum super soul, the world’s new most dangerous band, Quitter.

It’s a Sunday afternoon in late January, and the streets are deserted. There’s some foolish football game that everyone’s excited about going on, so all the citizens are at home. It’s like a ghost town out here. Fitting, then, that Ian Ross walks like a cowboy. The black boots help of course, as does the steely gaze currently hidden behind mirror shades, buts as he strides towards me, the overall effect is of a real heavy dude in a killing mood, with an important high noon meeting to make. Ian is Boston’s Total Rock Star, a guitar hero and a lady killer, and Quitter’s main man. This is his very own trip, his songs, his vision, his gold medallion sparkling in the sun. His partner in grime, Hari Hassin, couldn’t be anymore different, in looks or in temperament. He’s a swarthy devil, and his undercover Vegas narc cop threads are always threatening to slip right off of him, but he’s mostly known for the perpetual sly grin spread across his face, as if he’s seen the future, and it’s a stone groove, baby. A born front-man stuck behind the drums for too long, he struts all the time now, even on Mass Ave. After exchanging manly greetings, we slip into someplace dark, order up, and start mapping out our strategies for a brave new world.

Ian and Hari are both tour - hardened vets of motor stoner thunderheads Roadsaw, probably the most under-worshipped metal gods of all time, a fact that has not escaped Ian Ross. "I think Roadsaw has always been under-appreciated", he says. "Everybody in the band is amazing, and we are about as heavy as you can be, and we’re really talented, not like some lazy stoner rock band. The way I always saw us was like a Zeppelin for that decade (the 90’s), and rock and roll like that is just not cool right now, so we went totally unnoticed." As the Roadsaw war machine grew weary from the endless miles and started grinding itself down to sinew and bone, crashing to the ground on a vague hiatus, Quitter readied themselves to rise from the ashes. "I’ve had this band or these songs in the works for years, and when Roadsaw kind of went on hiatus, everybody had their own side projects", Ian tells me. "Tim (Catz-bass, Roadsaw) had Bloodshot, which we were in, Craig (Riggs-drums, Roadsaw and Quitter) had this Soul Machine, and Hari’s got this thing called Mercy Me which is real laid back soul stuff, and I happened to have this, and everybody joined up, except for Tim. So this was kind of my side project from Roadsaw, and it turned into something much bigger than I expected." Roadsaw’s primary scene creators Tim and Craig have a very distinct vision of the rock, all cowboy hats and ‘Bitch-Christ-piss-motherfucker’ and syrupy guitar riffs that chop heads, but Ian and Hari had a more subtle musical vision that they couldn’t explore within the stoner metal confines of the Saw. "These are tunes that those guys didn’t really want to do", Hari says. "Those guys basically called every shot in that band. Nothing against them- we loved being in a band with them, and we still are. But…"

Ian cuts in. "They’re songs we weren’t allowed to play, because they were too poppy." Hari agrees. "I wanted to introduce harmonies into the band, things that would bring us back to classic rock and not so much stoner rock, because I fuckin’ hate it, stoner rock. So, they weren’t really ready to do that. They didn’t want to listen to the young bucks, and we got tired of being stymied. It worked out well for everybody, because Roadsaw still gets to be a band and be friends."

"Everybody wears sneakers and baggy jeans, but I’m sorry, image is important. Image is like 45% and the music is 55%, because when you go to a show, and you look up at that stage, you want to be mesmerized", Ian says. "And you’re not mesmerized by some kid in a baseball cap and a skateboard t-shirt, you know? He’s just your average shit head." In Roadsaw, Ian and Hari are rock musicians. In Quitter, they’re rock stars, and they’ve got no time for apologies or regrets. " I don’t think there’s been a band in the last year, maybe two, that hasn’t gotten big with a song about their dad, that complains about how they didn’t have shit growing up. Listen, my childhood sucked." Hari pokes his thumb toward Ian. "So did his. You’ve just got to take it in stride, and kick ass, get over it, and enjoy what it’s like to demolish an audience. They don’t want to hear you whining, complaining to them. Everybody’s known somebody that was strung out on heroin, so you can all stop writing songs about that. Every one of those bands rhymes ‘pain’ with ‘insane’. Every one." Oh, there’s pain in the lyrics of Quitter songs as well, deep knots of it. It just isn’t their pain. Women of the world, beware. "It’s funny, because the sound we’re going for vocally is so incongruent with the lyrics", Hari says. "It takes a little while for people to realize how horrible the things that are being said are." Although Hari sings all of Quitter’s virgin killer and superstar lover songs, Ian is actually the guilty party that wrote them. "The lyrics I write definitely are about the ugly side of life, but that’s what rock and roll is", Ian explains. " It’s about going through this shit, living through it, and writing about it."

Quitter are only 3/4’s Roadsaw, and with all this talk of fashion and passion, we would be remiss to not mention the bottom end of it all, former Milligram man Bob Maloney. Besides bringing along the low- end thunder of his teeth rattling bass, he also provides the ultra-swank graphics on the band’s debut EP and gig posters. He has also been known to rock out onstage sporting star-festooned, flame retardant daredevil pants, a move that scared even him. Quitter, you see, has changed Bob. No more mister nice guy. "Bob Maloney has an alter-ego that nobody knows about", Ian says. "He’s got this slickster thing", Hari points out, " but he needs a little coddling, and it comes out when you least expect it." Ian smiles. "He’s one of these guys, we’ve discovered, that sits in his room, and he puts on his Evel Knieval suit and does Elvis moves in front of the mirror. We know this for a fact. And that’s when we really started to appreciate Bob for Bob. Bob is a very cool cat." Hari agrees. "He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known. He’s a weirdo, but he’s right on." You have to wonder, though, whether the glitter twins here had anything to do with his current cache of leisure suits and white rimmed sunglasses. "Yeah", Ian admits, "We told him, basically, to try to look like a sleazy PCP dealer from the 70’s."

Dead Jail or Rock and Roll

Roadsaw was over. Hari and Ian quit Roadsaw. Quitter. "You quit jobs, you quit girls, you quit drugs, you quit bands. I’ve done all of it", Hari laughs. "I’ve quit a few things more than once." Ian stamps out his Marlboro and sighs. "Not that we’ve been successful at any of it." One thing they’ll never quit, though, is their unwavering faith in the Super Rock firepower of Quitter. In fact, they both seem willing to take it all the way to the grave or the gutter, whichever comes first. " This is what I’ve wanted to do since I was 3 years old", Hari tells me, "It’s the only thing I ever thought I could do. It’s what I dream about." Ian agrees. "This is all we know how to do. I have no skill other than playing guitar. So this is it, this is our last ditch effort to do something with our lives, and if this doesn’t work out, we’ll be bums, I guarantee it, because this all we know how to do." Quitter won’t be staking out any heating grates just yet, that much is certain- there is a master plan at work here. "We’re going to record and release a record this summer, and it’s going to blow away our EP", Ian says. "With the material that we have, and the direction that we have, I swear to God, it’s going to be the best record you’ve heard in the past 10, 15 years." Ian doesn’t flinch as he tells me this, doesn’t even look at me- he’s stares off into space, as if envisioning some crazy man’s Utopia, the biggest show of all, and he’s the grand poobah of the whole blessed event. Like this isn’t so much an interview as it is a manifesto. Like Quitter aren’t so much a band as they are the once and future saviors of rock and roll. "We’re the only band that’s even capable of doing that right now", Hari says. "Bands that have the juice don’t want to use it. Queens of the Stone Age? Bunch of pussies. They’re already rich, they’re paying their rent, they don’t even care if they sell anymore records. Monster Magnet? They put their fucking rock through Pro Tools, and come out sounding like techno. They all dropped the ball. Quitter’s re-lit the torch." Ian shakes his head. "Nobody’s got nuts anymore. I lose sleep over this every night." You and me both, brother. But we can all rest a little easier, dress a little better, love a little harder, and live a little louder, because I have seen the next biggest band in the world, and their name is Quitter. "We firmly believe that we have what it takes to do that, if the world is fucking ready for it", Ian tells me. "Or, we could be talking about this ten years from now, being bums in the gutter." Hari grins. "We’ll still be the best band, though. It won’t be any less true." Ian drops a twenty on the table and slips his shades back on. "Nobody else is doing it", he says. " That’s why we have to."