Photo by Rahav Seveg
Atlanta psychedelic garage flower punk foursome (and I’m not sure if that genre definition does them any justtice) have never been known for holding back. Their riff-packed live shows include heavy moshing, even during the Lips’ slow-paced doowop numbers. Are they gay? Not in the least. Does that stop them from making out on stage? Of course not! If you’re familiar with these guys’ discography, then you know they’re not just a novelty act. 2009 saw another stellar release from the now-veterans, but they never stay off the road for long. A short time ago they ended up at The Slowdown in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s where IF’s Colin Kennedy found band members Joe Bradley and Cole Alexander.
Inflatable Ferret: So let’s start off by talking about the label Vice, how do you guys like the label?
Cole Alexander: I love it, its awesome. We were on a lot of smaller labels before Vice, so it was good to get out to a lot more people and have like wider distribution, but we love it.
IF: Who is your favorite label that you’ve worked for thus far between Bop, In The Red…
CA: Well, we’ve done Bop records, In the Red records, and an assortment of other smaller labels. We’ve done some other stuff for Dusty Medical, kind of like a one-off live record, we’ve done some 7 inches for Norton, we had our own label for a while called Die Slaughterhaus but it’s kind of on hiatus now.
Joe Bradley: But they’ve all been great, I really have nothing bad to say about any of them.
IF: Are there any “left field” type of influences that your fans might now expect?
JB: Chipper Jones, the switch hitter.
IF: Haha, right on.
CA: But yeah, we like classical music, I mean I guess you could say it’s an influence. We’ve started using samples during our live shows. We use an Edgar Varese sample on “Short Fuse.” What’s the name of the other composer we use?
JB: Um, yeah we got Johan De Meij, he did a symphony for Lord of the Rings – it’s like five movements that came out before the movie did, basing the music on his experience with the books. We use movement 5 “Hobbits” on the intro to that.
IF: Nice. You also used a sample from (at least I think it was) the Jonestown massacre that you used on the song with GZA: “The Drop I Hold.”
CA: Yeah, it was Jim Jones that took everyone down to Guyana and had a mass suicide, and some kid’s dad was in the FBI and they were using those tapes and he had brought them home in the late 70’s and that kid made a dub copy on the internet they have audio archives, so I scored it from that.
CA: And I listened to the whole thing – it was like 
45 minutes, but that part really stuck out to me because it was like “Ok everybody is gonna kill themselves,” but this one lady was like “No, I don’t want to die. And my baby too, I don’t want my baby to die, I want us to have a choice.” And the other lady was like “I don’t know about you, I’m ready for this lets do it brothas and sistas!!” She just had so much conviction, the lady that wanted to die; we had to put her on there.
IF: Oh wow, but it’s a great song. Probably one of my favorites off the album. You also worked with Bradford Cox on “I Saw God.”
CA: Yeah, King Khan was on that too just not as loud. They just did some little background vocals, might not be easy to pick them out but they’re on there.
IF: For sure, for sure. I’ve heard people think you [Cole] look like John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and you [Joe] look like Colin Hanks. Do you look at these as compliments or put-downs?
JB: Who is Colin Hanks?
IF: Uh, Tom Hanks son. He was in Orange County.
JB: Orange County? I don’t really watch TV.
CA: Is that The OC? I like the show.
IF: No, no it’s the movie that came before the show, with Jack Black. He looks like the kid from there though.
JB: You think I look like Jack Black? Yikes.
CA: No, not Jack Black, well if we don’t know what he looks like…
JB: I’ve heard that I look like Josh Hartnett.
IF: Oh, a teenage heart throb… nice.
CA: Frusciante though, I mean for RHCP he seemed like the coolest one, but I don’t know if that is a compliment. I guess it’s not an insult, but whatever.
IF: I hear ya. There is a lot of homoeroticism in your shows. Is that an expression or reflection of anything or is it just kind of like an avant garde thing or what?
CA: Yeah, just kind of avant garde.
IF: So I hear you guys like to shotgun beers.
CA: Occasionally I do like to shotgun beers. I like the buzz you get off of it. It’s a different kind of high; you get more energetic if you shotgun beers. If you just drink beer you get kind of lethargic.
IF: What do you guys drink while you are on tour anyway?
CA and JB: Budweiser in a can.
JB: It’s really carbonated.
CA: Yeah, it’s not so much the best beer but when you get it really cold and really carbonated it just hits the spot.
IF: What has it been like touring with the Box Elders, and what made you choose them?
CA: I honestly didn’t know much about them. I heard a few songs and liked them. Our booking agent was pushing them on us. I actually really liked them. They have some good Beatles-esque hooks. We also toured with Flowers Forever, so this is the second Omaha band we’ve toured with which is kind of cool.
IF: You’ve got a big following here and before you guys started really taking off and touring pretty heavily, what was life like back at home when you got back from a tour? What’d you do for work, did you sleep on couches, did you have your own place, keep a lease, month to month?
JB: A little of all that.
IF: Was it worth it?
CA: Yeah, even when we weren’t having much success I really enjoyed washing dishes and playing in a band around town – kind of party all night sleep in a little during the day, and get back to work.
IF: Kind of doing it for your friends?
CA: What? Oh uh, I do it mostly for myself. It was a shit job. I was working, but I liked the music and I was really happy.
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