(Cord Magazine's questions are in blue. Artist responses are in grey.)


What do you do when you’re on downtime?

Ross: I watch cooking programs on the television and play the guitar.

Dave: Where we’re from there’s not a lot to do, so I just end up drinking. (Laughs)

What’s your vice of choice?

Ross: Premium fruit juice. (Laughs) Uhh… I eat too much pizza.

That’s not a very rock star thing to say…

Ross: We’re not like that, I worry more about the amount of cheese I eat rather than how much booze I drink.

What’s your favorite city / country / continent to play?

Dave: For me, San Diego. We had a day off there, and it was amazing.

Ross: There’s a great venue in Amsterdam called The Paradiso. They treated us really nice there. We played there early in our career and it was quite an exciting moment to be away from home like that.

What in the world concerns you today?

Barry: Drugs and crime. Especially drugs, the way it’s destroying society, and how no one’s doing anything about it, that worries me immensely.

Ross: Yeah, you see a lot of it in the street and it’s kind of disappointing. You hear people say you can’t be in a band without having a kind of drug mystique… and it’s absolutely not true.

You take on countless hours of press. What’s the one interview question you hope nobody ever asks you again?

Ross: “What do you sound like?” (Laughs)

Jaff: I hate it when people ask me why I’m called Jaff… ‘cause there isn’t really a reasonable response. (Everyone laughs) It’s a nonsensical nickname.

What was your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?

Barry: Sharkey and George, the crime busters of the sea.

Ross: I used to like The Ewoks, the animated series.

Dave: The Thundercats.

Jaff: Fraggle Rock. (Hums theme song)

What did you want to be when you were growing up? And you can’t say musician.

Ross: I wanted to be a rally car driver.

Barry: I wanted to be a chief.

Jaff: I wanted to be a professional cricketer.

Dave: I wanted to be a vet.

If you could trade places with anyone for one day, who would it be, and why?

Barry: Larry David. The guy who created Seinfeld, and did Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’d love to be him for a day and be in that world.

A shark and a bear fight. Here are the rules: The water for the shark is just deep enough for him to exist, and there's a small rock in the middle of the water on which the bear may stand. Neither has been trained, and neither has been fed for a few days. It's the baddest of grizzly bears against the baddest of Great White sharks. Who wins?

Barry: The bear! The bear!

Jaff: I saw a program before, when we were recording, about how bears kill whales. It would be just like that, there would be no battle.

Ross: But bears are underestimated because they’re deemed as cuddly.

Dave: But the bear has got claws which could grab the shark (makes clawing motion). The shark’s got only one weapon, his teeth.

Ross: Bears don’t really have the image of being lean fighting machines, I think he could use that to his advantage. They’re underestimated. (Laughs)

If you could ask me one question, what would it be?

Barry: Uhhhh… are we going to get murdered tonight when we take our gear out back to the bus [referring to the ultra-sketchy back alley behind the Commodore Ballroom, filled with “unsavory” characters]

Nah… when I first moved here, I had to walk home from work and had to cross that alley, and it used to scare the shit out of me. Yes, there are lots of weirdos, but they’re all just doing their own thing. If you don’t’ bother them they don’t bother you.

Barry: Yeah, you’re not involved in their world…

Yeah, everyone’s got their own shit to do. The fact that that it stinks behind [the Commodore] and that some people back there look sketchy is neither here nor there. I assure you you’ll be safe and sound.

Ross: Sounds good, but I still can’t stop thinking about the bear and shark. (Everyone laughs)

Elsewhere

By Rob Anand
Photos : Tk, thefutureheads.com
Published : November 15, 2004.