POWERMAN 5000 INTERVIEW WITH SPIDER featuring special appearances
by ADRIAN, SIGGY and the not present but very loved DAVE PINO! INTERVIEW
AND PHOTOS BY LENA LAMORAY. Photo artwork and layout by SHAWN
MARAZINE. LL: Do you miss the East coast? Spider: That’s a loaded question because if I say no, you know, then I get in big trouble. Well, I miss certain things about it. I don’t really miss it that much because I am here so much. We are always playing here, it seems like. It’s a very interesting place. I was telling Dave now that he lives in Los Angeles that every time he comes back to the East coast he’s going to realize how bizarre it is here. You don’t realize it when you live here. It’s a very unique place. You know what I mean? It’s just cool to come back because I get the wave of nostalgia growing up and the weather so I suppose at a certain level I miss it. LL: Do you still have any family members here? Spider: No, not really. Maybe a few that I probably wouldn’t bother to look up but you know, I’m pretty much West coast now. It took me a long time to get used to Los Angeles coming from here it’s very different but I don’t miss the weather here that’s for sure. In LA I can wear a t-shirt and jeans in February and you guys are under a foot of snow in sub zero temperatures and I can just laugh. LL: Yeah, you don’t have to remind us. Spider: But I paid my dues. It’s so different here now from when I grew up. My memories of Boston are not there anymore, playing the Rat and the whole dirty punk rock vibe on Kenmore Square. All of that is gone. It’s a very different place then is was when we were coming up. I don’t even know where bands play anymore. They play at strip clubs I guess in New Hampshire. Adrian: Yeah, pretty much! LL: It’s not even open today. I’m happy because I knew we would lose Dave because he just wants to watch them dance. Spider: Well, we will be here tomorrow and on our day off
so I’m sure we will get our fill. Spider: Um, good question. I think it’s a combination
of just loving all kinds of music and being musically schizophrenic. One
day I want to do a metal band and the next day a rap band and then
a country band you know it’s all over the map for me and
I think that the revolving member situation of this band has really
added to that change. It’s never settling into that
one sound. To some fans I think it’s a problem and
others really appreciate that. It’s just always been
this weird eclectic mix of people. The original line-up was
comprised of me, who grew up listening to punk rock and then some
Berkely guys who liked jazz and you know it was just this weird
mesh of people coming together to just sort of try to force their
particular sound into it. I think it’s ultimately more
exciting that way. You build up a catalog of music that is
very different. You know that every time we do something
we are not going to get the same rehashed formula. That maybe
would have been better in the long run for us to do that, I don’t
know, in terms of commercial success but it’s kind of boring. Spider: Um, Who are you talking about? I don’t know if it’s been easier. I think in some ways it’s easier and in some ways it’s been much more difficult. The biggest benefit to it was to actually have a success story to look at and be like, wow, it can work. That’s how I looked at it. A lot of people, our friends and second cousins all have horror stories about , “my friend was in a band and it sucked and so on.” Everyone has a million of those stories. It was kind of cool to have a story to look at and say wow, you can do something kind of weird and bizarre and do it on your own terms and it still can work. After that the negative parts just continue like comparisons, questions and assumptions. That has kind of become a non issue after all these years. There are people who finally are saying ok, I guess it’s for real. LL: Is he going to put you in one of his movies? Spider: I doubt it! LL: Yeah, why not? Spider: I’m too good looking! LL: Yeah, you are definitely the better looking brother. Spider: Oh….well, thank you! LL: Where did you film Wild World? Spider: Oh, the last video was filmed in a house in Los Angeles that is owned by the city but it’s basically a crack house. The city just owns it but like anything in Los Angeles it’s a potential movie set. So we just called up the city and they looked into it. We found the grossest house we could find, an actual crack house. It was really a pleasant shoot with no electricity or working bathrooms and it smelt like piss and vomit. The best part about it is that we really didn’t have to do any art direction because you just walked in and it was just awful. I was like, cool, let’s start shooting. LL: What will be featured on the live EP? Spider: I don’t know yet. We’ve got a bunch of stuff that we’ve recorded over a certain amount of time that we are in the mist of mixing. We are kind of looking at a live best of. The songs that people know most and the ones that go over the best live. We’ve been doing a lot of filming as well so hopefully we can make a companion DVD to go along with it. So that’s one of the projects that we are going to get working on when we get home. LL: What is your favorite movie that has featured your music? I know you’ve done a lot of them. Spider: Yeah, we are usually in terrible movies. LL: You were in some zombie movie and the best thing about it was your music. It was awful! Spider: Oh, one of those made for TV Sci-fi movies. I don’t know if we have actually had any music in any good movies. Have we? LL: Freddy vs. Jason. Adrian: Zoolander. Spider: Yeah, I think Zoolander would probably be the most prestigious movie, in terms of people loving that movie. It’s funny because when that movie first came out it really didn’t do that well. It kind of died and then like a lot of comedies it just gained a second life on DVD. A lot of people didn’t realize that we did the end credit song and when they find out they are so psyched: “Oh my god Zoolander..I love that movie!” That was a fun one to do because we got Danny Boy from House of Pain to do a rap on it. I always listened to those guys when I was growing up. Actually, I don’t know old they were but I was very young. LL: Have you allowed Dave Pino to wear his Mariah Carey shirt? Spider: I didn’t know he had one. If I knew he would be wearing it every night. LL: You would allow him to? Most bands veto it on him. Spider: Oh absolutely, I would rather have him wear that than Motorhead . I think it would be way cooler. LL: Oh, he still wears that. Spider: No, he lost it. He got his Motorhead shirt stolen. Dave Pino learned his first lesson when he hung his stage clothes on the side of the bus to dry. Some kid stole them. LL: Of course, they are going to steal them. Spider: You bet, so he lost his Motorhead shirt, it’s unfortunate but if he does have a Mariah Carey shirt I will be happy to have him wear it on-stage. LL: You should see his house. Have you been to his house? Spider: Not yet. LL: He has Mariah Carey pictures up like people have porn. Spider: Um. LL: He has a room covered in Mariah Carey pictures. Shawn: It’s his drum room in his studio. Spider: Weird, wow! I thought he was into JLO? Maybe he switched. Adrian: Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the whole Dave
thing. LL: If you could no longer do music what would you do? Spider: Uh, wow, I don’t know I have a lot of interests in other things and other projects that I am trying to get going. It’s hard to find things that are worthwhile to get involved in. I am kind of on a hell bent quest to get involved in the television world somehow. Over the years, I’ve been trying to develop some kind of TV ideas. I’m slowly getting that going . I’ve pitched a few TV projects around town but in this business it is just nearly impossible to get noticed. So that is what the next dream gig would be, either that or just do nothing. That would be pretty cool but I don’t think that is going to happen. LL: What is something that no one knows about you? Spider: Hum, probably most everything. I’ve spent my last seventeen years in this band not letting anyone know anything about me. I think when people meet me they are either surprised or disappointed that I’m not like they think. My sort of on-stage persona is generally about as opposite as you can get off-stage. I’ve always had this fear of people. When I started this band I wrote kind of nonsensical just like movie references and sort of pop culture stuff because I never wanted to write anything about myself. Which is strange because generally as an artist or a musician that is their goal to spill their guts for the world to see and I was always the opposite. Yeah, I would say pretty much everything and that I wear frilly pink underwear, occasionally. LL: I bet Dave has a matching pair, too. Spider: Oh, I bet he does. In fact, I don’t think he wears underwear. LL: No, really. Spider: Well, when he does it’s usually something pretty exciting. LL: He came to see one of Shawn’s shows with a white shirt with a big taco or burrito stain on it. Only he could pull that off and still look cool. By the way, where is Dave? Spider: It’s a big night for Dave. We generally have two guitar players and our other guitar player had to go to Japan with his other band so Dave’s soloing tonight. He’s very nervous, I think. He’s got all this weight on his shoulders. LL: Is it hard to put on a high energy show every night and did you attend sexy traffic cop dance school? Spider: The first part of the question is yes and the second part is absolutely YES. It’s weird playing a high energy show because some nights it’s really difficult if the crowd is a bummer. If the crowd is cool it’s usually effortless. I can be feeling like absolute crap and have no energy in the world but the second I hit the stage something kicks in. If the crowd is cool, you know, you go to some cities and it’s weird, every city has it’s own personality. Some places you can go and just do the ABC’s and it will be mayhem on the floor and others cities you go to and they want you to prove it. They want you to work for it and those are the tough nights. You feel like you are giving and giving and not getting it back and that’s not good. I think I should of started a band like Oasis where you can just stand there and do nothing. The show has gotten more up tempo and it’s usually the other way around. When you’re young you kind of start out crazy and then you go nuts and as you get older you slow the tempo down and I feel like every time we go out it’s just more and more crazy. When I look back at the old footage it’s not necessarily that crazy in terms of physical performance. I’m not really sure why that is happening. I guess when you wear spacesuits you don’t have to do as much but now you know. LL: Well, it’s hard to more around in a spacesuit. Spider: It sure is. LL: Like the Missy Elliot thing. Spider: Yeah, it sure was difficult. LL: What do you have in store for your fans? Spider: You mean tonight? LL: Coming up and tonight. Spider: Just in general? God, more disappointment
and ha, ha. I don’t know. Hopefully, more of the same. It’s
hard to stop really doing this because it can be so much fun. We
are just going to try to keep what we are doing and surprise people
and disappoint others. There is something about do it that
way that is ultimately more rewarding. When you put out a
new record you energize a whole crop of people and then you piss
off another group I think that’s the only way to do it, you
know, so probably more of that. Spider: (Hearty laughter from everyone on the bus) Ha, ha! What is today? You know that’s a funny question because you get trapped into that .. I never would of thought it would have lasted this long quite honestly. Every record I make I always assume it’s the last record I’ll ever make. It’s like Mick Jagger, we’re never going to do this again and he’s like 65 and running around onstage. I don’t know I think it’s just…there is probably a time when you just know but until that time I think naturally it just keeps going through member changes and record deals coming and going. It’s just the record business going through being incredibly great to awful on one hand. It’s just it’s own entity. I think no matter what I would never say it’s over because it just changes. We tour differently then we used to tour and we are making records differently then we used to back then. I would never say I was done because it will probably continue on in some form or another. Siggy: Remember, we thought we were done in 2004. Spider: In 2003/2004 we did the Transformer tour we did our last show. We did this big Halloween bash in Portland and we were just like on-stage and we looked at each other like that’s it. It was our last show and here we are four years, three years later. No answer to that really. POWERMAN 5000 WILD WORLD
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