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EPOXIES Sixteen years of my life wasted on punk rock (that's over half my life now for all you young'uns out there)! And after 16 years there are very few surprises, very few bands that seem to be changing the direction of punk rock. Of course, the first time I heard the DEAD KENNEDYS (my first punk record) my life was changed forever, and once again my life has been altered. Enter THE EPOXIES, a five piece from Portland, Oregon that has been around about a year now. I remember the way they were first described to me: "new wave influenced punk" was the best my friend had to offer. That was not what I heard the very first time I dropped the needle on the newly acquired 7" of theirs. Sure, fronted by a woman, a synthesizer and quirky outfits but what I heard had never been heard before. Quickly followed up with the comparisons, BLONDIE, BERLIN, JOSIE COTTON and a host of other late 70's to early 80's "new wave" bands but they just don't cut it. Either the lyrics are wrong, the sound isn't there or the comparison was some reviewers attempt to categorize, as we are all guilty of now and again. THE EPOXIES are forging new ground, attempting to blaze a new trail for others to follow instead of following like so many others. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing with that, but today a trailblazer seems to be so uncommon, almost frowned upon but when a band takes that brave first step, you, the fan can never lose and the band, well, read on my friends... MRR: Standard intro interview question, who are you and what do you do? Roxy: <yawn> Viz: I'm Viz Spectrum and I play guitar. FM: FM Static, I play keyboards and sing backup vocals. Roxy: Roxy Epoxy, vocals. Shock: Shock Diode, bass. MRR: New bass Shock: New Bass MRR: So let's start with a little history of the members…at least one of you has been in a band before and I am assuming that most of you have been in bands before, do you want to shed a little light on past experiences and how that affects what or who THE EPOXIES are? FM: At this point we've got a pretty…pretty long list of bands that this band has been in before Viz: Yea, kinda most of us I guess. MRR: Not to hash up old memories… FM: I think this band is a direct response to every other band we've ever been in Viz: it's kinda anti… FM: It's an anti…for me it's my chance to do everything right that we've done wrong before in a way, or even just to do things I couldn't do in other bands. MRR: Like playing the keyboards? FM: Not exactly that because I didn't even set out to play keyboards in this band it just sort of happened because we couldn't find another keyboard player. Some of the chances we're taking, not being tough, writing songs that are kind of musical, deviating from the rock-n-roll formula a little bit. Viz: Not being punk. FM: Not being punk, which we totally are in a sense, it's a pretty direct response to the current trends in the northwest as far as band I see like Nashville Pussy and Zeke. I think those bands are good but their so imitated, and its become that sort of down and dirty, tattooed, black leather wearin', dirty rock-n-roll that's been put on such a pedestal that it almost seems necessary for someone to stand up and say "hey, what about ridicules new wave." Roxy: We're gay! FM: We're about being totally un-cool. MRR: So does the different styles of bands you've come from cause any tension? FM: Its kind of fascinating to me, any band with five people is going to have some tensions as far as what everybody thinks is good or thinks is not good but its pretty surprising that there seems to be this middle ground that we've all found that's so far away from anything else we've done before but it sounds right, it works. It's like we hit on this really unexpected type of music that we all like. Viz: It seems like the bands he (points to FM) and I were in before, were kind of like projects anyway. FM: Right, but they were so far away from… Viz: Totally different from each other but we had a lot of the same experiences FM: Yea, right, right. Viz: We were inundated. MRR: (While FM is away) Anyone else want to share their experiences? Roxy: I've never been in a band before; this is my very first band. Shock: It's been a couple of years almost since I've been in a band. MRR: Ummm Roxy: We're coming across as so boring. Shock: The lack of sleep is definitely not helping… Roxy: That should improve your responses! Be creative. (FM returns) MRR: Why did the band form…why this style of music and dress? I know a few band members said the bands makes a lot of their clothes and that there is a statement behind the clothes as well as the music you play. FM: Not so much a statement I would say. It's just like… Roxy: We're just not worrying about it. FM: Yea Roxy: We're just kinda dinkin' around. FM: We want it to be something different like the jeans and t-shit thing is so played out…like these earnest guys that are just like everyone else and their nice guys, like regular fellows wearing these regular clothes. We want to be more of a show and dress really ridiculously and not in and pants, stuff like that, because that automatically makes you look like a total asshole. Viz: (laughs) In the bad way FM: Yea, in a bad way. Duct tape just offers so many possibilities too and it's cheap. Roxy: Of course we don't look like assholes at all. FM: Well we look like total assholes. (laughs all around) Viz: It's low budget. Roxy: You can look like an asshole for much cheaper. FM: We don't think we're cool, we look like we know we're assholes. Viz: Yea. FM: It constantly walking a fine line with this band. Roxy: We hear a lot that people just think of us as just the biggest fucking assholes as we walk on stage and sometimes we change their minds but generally people say "what the fuck are these morons tying to pull off?!?" FM: I've heard that a lot, like "as soon as I saw you guys walk on stage I was ready to hate you but then by the end of your set I really liked you." Viz: It's all in good fun, that's the thing, to make it more fun. Just looking like normal people it's not that big of a show "…here I am amongst normal people just like I always am…" but you watching a bunch of people dressed like big idiots. FM: It's just to make it more interesting. Kind of a sacrifice on our part, we'll sacrifice our… Roxy: Dignity Viz: (laughs) Dignity FM: We totally sacrifice our dignity and our every weekend and moment of every free time we have putting together ridicules outfits and creating stage shows. MRR: Choreography? FM: Choreography - exactly! If it pays, if people can see the effort involved. MRR: A lot of people out there want to call THE EPOXIES "new wave" but I call it "anti-wave." Can you explain your stance new wave, anti-wave and "wave" in general? Roxy: It's pretty wide spread. FM: That's a pretty tough question to answer, ya know, you have to define your terms a little bit. New wave is just a marketing term for punk rock. It's a real catchall. The bands that got called new wave are everything from powerpop to reggae to this crazy synthesizer noise to punk rock bands. Viz: I know that the Dead Kennedys use to call themselves that, all the bands did, it was just more easy to stomach. Punk rock was "scary," ya know "…those are the people that poke things in our faces, hurt other people…" but new wave was… FM: Punk rockers just want to hurt people. (laughs) Viz: Well that's generally my sentiment, you know. FM: I think we get the wave band thing just because we're drawing from a lot of influences that…I dunno, we're totally a punk band but the term punk has gotten so narrow over the last 20 years that people soon fall into two or three rigid categories if you're called a punk band. MRR: Yea, punk means nothing, punk is sort of the top-level and then you sub-categorize… FM: Yea, yea, it's like so many bands that are part of the punk echelon, or whatever, wouldn't be called punk bands anymore. Like somebody…if BLACK FLAG came out now people would say, "they're not punk, they're some kind of weird arty noise experiment." People would call them indy rockers or something now. Now you have something like the '77 bands, or one of the RAMONES rip off bands, it's like they've dialed it down such exact formulas… MRR: Lo-fi, garage… FM: Right, right, right, you could go on and on because there's hundreds of sub-genres but I guess maybe we fit one too now but I think that's why people grasp at new wave; it's another way of explaining it. MRR: I think that answers the question well… FM: I certainly don't reject it. If people want to call us a new wave band that's fine too. Viz: I mean honestly, we did say, "let's start a new wave band." FM: It's true. Then we tried to figure out what that meant after the fact and it was very confusing because as it turns out it doesn't mean anything. Viz: Yea. MRR: About the keyboard…past and present…though there may be influences but I feel that there is something new going on, almost revolutionary. FM: In the use of synthesizers? MRR: Yea. Viz: You mean for us? MRR: Yea. FM: Well thanks first of all. It certainly feels revolutionary because they're so out of fashion… MRR: …and yours is the cool guitar style. (laughs) FM: Right, but, ya know that was made 20 years ago it can only be so revolutionary to actually play the thing but it is strange because you do see nowadays a lot of the bands the kids are listening to, I go to these all ages shows, stuff that's not really considered punk rock but they're using a lot of the synthesizers, old synthesizers 'cause it's… Viz: Cool FM: Cool, ya know, it's the same as picking up an old guitar back in the 80's when people the shreddin' metal guitars and the kids were snatchin' up these old slivertones and stuff and started playing garage rock. Now you've got these cheap synthesizers hangin' around and everyone's playing guitars so what are the kinds gonna do but look for something different. Viz: It's always kina like a 20-year cycle too. MRR: (points to Viz) …and you have a flying V guitar too, right? Viz: I, not…well I actually have a flying V but I don't ever use it. Shock: Speaking of metal guitars Viz: The guitar I have is more out of hand that a flying V Shock: Yea it's a super-metal guitar! Viz: It's an Ace Freely Washburn actually…it's got a lightning bolt on it, it's super-silly. It the most ridicules guitar every made I would imagine, or close to it. It works for this band, it's real science fictiony looking - it's Ace Freely who's a space ace… FM: It fits. With all the angles, you can't play it sitting down. Viz: A flying V would work, maybe my flying V will work someday. MRR: The one thing that I have always said about THE EPOXIES is this: when you drop the needle on a record you generally expect the typical stuff, right. Every once in a while, when you don't know what to expect and you get that totally unexpected gem - that is what I felt with the first 7". Of the references I have seen tossed out I did not think BLONDIE, KIM WILDE, BERLIN, it was something I had never heard before and that's why I always say tings like groundbreaking. FM: One thing that I've been doing since we started this band has been searching for the band that we sound like and I haven't found it. As much as we're heavily influenced by a lot of bands we don't, I think, sound like any other band. MRR: Unless you lived in that innocent vacuous state how could you not be influenced by some bands? FM: Virtually, deliberately influenced by them and sometimes you can sit down and hear little bits that are clearly ripped from different songs… Viz: Shamelessly FM: Shamelessly, right. MRR: I know I've asked about the lyrics before…there just seem to be a breadth of topics covered. From Nuclear war to social retardation to space aliens… FM: That's purposely left a little vague. Viz: Aliens in the sense of disconnection in any case. FM: Yea, alien as icon for innocence or something like that. MRR: Is there any insight you can offer to some of the lyrics in general like the breadth of topics covered? FM: That's tough because it' a pretty general question. All I can say is that it seems to just stem out of…I don't know. I don't just sit down and say "I'm gonna write a song about this or that now" but there seems to be, as collectively we seem to have some sort of consciousness that gives a direction to the lyrics. MRR: So how do you write songs then? Is it collective? Is it individual then it comes together? FM: It varies, sometimes somebody will bring basically a song to the band but more often someone will bring some elements of a song and everyone will simply add to that. There seems to be some sort of recurring theme involving alienation in society and sometimes we're sort of embracing it, deliberately protesting it but I think all of it is commentary about how distant we feel from each other and how technology in society has a tendency to dehumanize us in some ways. MRR: I just assumed the song "Please, Please" was about aliens just because… FM: Oh it is MRR: The direction of… FM: Yea it absolutely is but you can also look at that as like sort of a commentary on… MRR: But I think a lot of people feel disconnected from society even here. FM: Right, right…well that's sorta where it is. Technically it's talking about an alien but what it's really talking about is what Earth is like and how terrible it is here and how it has a tendency to crush people and If you were innocent of all that you wouldn't stand a chance here. Viz: It's kind of warning us, it's like get out before it's too late. FM: Yea, it's a warning… "I've been down here for oh so many years. I scarcely notice now the things they do." MRR: Eh, they'll crush your soul if they get the chance. FM: Right, and as they have to all of us. That's basically the point. (we are soon met with many aws from rest of the band followed by laughter.) MRR: There are some more songs that I am more interested in…like "Need More Time" I know that one was about the closing of the Portland institution EJ's. FM: Well, we wrote that song collectively Viz: The first few lines are having to do with how after EJ's the punk rock scene just kind of died all of the sudden and it was just kinda sad all the kids were in their basements with their stereo because that's more fun. That's where all the shit happens now is in the basements, kids go to basement shows and there's no real great place for fun things to happen, EJ's was the end of an era. Roxy: It definitely was the case at the time; it's gotten better since then. Viz: Yea, it's not like that now. Roxy: But at the time oh yea… FM: It was really sad. Viz: At the last show, we got all drunk and stole the toilet seat. (laughs - if you had never been to EJ's, just imagine the worst toilet in the world…) FM: Yea we have the toilet seat from EJ's still. Shock: I'm sorry I missed that. MRR: Do you still have it? Viz: It's in the backyard. FM: Yea, we figured that was the safest place to store it. Roxy: In this backyard? Viz: Yea, this backyard. Roxy: I wanna see it. (Roxy gets up and goes into the backyard, asking for a big stick, to see a piece of history…too bad the lawn has overgrown in that spot and it is no longer visible.) MRR: Yea, it's real depressing to drive by. I drove by it today and it a pawn show now. FM: Silver Lining. MRR: A couple of other songs…"Stop Looking at Me" and "Losing Control". Roxy: Did I write those? (laughs) Roxy: Crap! Ah yes, "Stop Looking at Me" is social retardation. We all have those days where you say one thing to someone and you're just convinced that you sound like a total fucking idiot and then everyone in turn thinks you're a total fucking idiot. It's just about those sorts of days. And "Losing Control" that was just a train of thought on how people live their lives with nothing moving, just sit there doing their day today stuff and 10 years down the line their like "oh shit, I forgot to do everything. I'm old now!" MRR: So, Shock, was there a test like an endurance test to be in the band? Shock: Yea, they make me practice on Sunday at 11:00 and that's quite an endurance test but I've passed that so far…more or less. Roxy: I heard he passed the ultimate test the other day in his room. Shock: Ah yes… (laughs) MRR: And the ultimate test is? Shock: To make a complete and total ass of yourself. Basically we bought these hats for our next show, that I don't think I could possibly describe, but I found that it helps me to practice a lot better with it on. It was warm and I was just rocking out in my room… FM: They're basically West German military hats that look like super-fascist type hats. Shock: I was basically rocking out shirtless in my room with the door open thinking nobody was home and my roommate wandered in while I was bouncing around my room like a fool; wearing only pants and this dictator hat… Roxy: No shoes Shock: …no shoes. My roommate was very entertained. MRR: So, Dirtnap did the 7" and I know that did fairly well, was it a no brainer to stay with Dirtnap for the full length? FM: Pretty much. Ken is super-nice and has just been really helpful and supportive and he was ready to go. The 7" did do really well on Dirtnap and Dirtnap seems like a really cool up and coming label too. In addition to Ken just being a really super great guy having helped us the whole way and also from a it just seemed like a really good label to be on. MRR: How was the recent West Coast tour? FM: It was great! It pretty much shattered all expectations, our record came out right at that time and did just far better than we ever expected and our last SF show sold out. A lot of people were there to see us and it got the wheels turning for us as far as how much can we do this…how much time can we spend on the road, how seriously can we take this. MRR: Are there any good road stories? Leaving band members on the side of the road… FM: We're such a boring band… Roxy: No, it did happen! The four of us got left on the road…well sorta. FM: That's actually when the bass player (note: old bass player name here) decided he didn't want to be in the band anymore was on the road. MRR: Oh really! FM: He decided it by leaving…he left all his gear on stage, just walked out and ended up at some bar. Roxy: We found him annihilated, passed out on the bar. FM: Apparently he couldn't get into the strip club 'cause he was too wasted. He wasn't very talkative after that. MRR: Did you then have to thumb it home? FM: No, no, we had the van. We actually had to track him down Roxy: He would have had to thumb it home with the $40 he had. MRR: How would you compare your first West Coast tour to this one? FM: It was day and night really. We had some really good shows on the first tour too but they were all really good because somebody else was playing. This time some people came to see us which was nice. We had the album out and there were people there that were actually waiting to hear our songs. MRR: You know that even though I too live in Portland I still have never seen the band live yet. (laughs) Roxy: That's OK FM: Actually I kind of happy every time I find somebody who likes us who's never seen us live because our live show is such a big part of what we do. It validating to know the music works on its own. MRR: So what's the future hold for THE EPOXIES? FM: Well, we just got done laying out the next 6 or 8 months of touring planned… Roxy: 12... FM: So we're going to do another West Coast tour in September, we're just going to try to hold down the west coast through the winter and then go out for the whole U.S. sometime in spring. Hopefully we might have a new album out by then. For the September tour we're hoping to have a CDEP together that we're going to do on Dirtnap and that's gonna be maybe 4 or 5 songs and we hope to put a couple of videos on it…we embrace the future and everything…and we have a video camera. (laughs). MRR: I've heard a lot of stories about the current video that you have available on your web site. Roxy: Stories?!? FM: The video has actually been really good for us some people said that it just totally made them fans. Viz: Not too bad for spending an hour and no money at all. FM: Zero dollars! MRR: My favorite part of the interview, what is something you, individually, want to answer or wanted to be asked? FM: We like the let the music speak for itself. Viz: Thanks for not beating us up! FM: Yea, thanks for not beating us all up for being ridicules and richly deserving beatings as we clearly are. (laughter) If you want to find out more about THE EPOXIES including tour dates, downloading the video, song samples, etc. visit them at their web site http://www.theepoxies.com. If you are interested in either their full length or 7" please feel free to contact the Ken over at Dirtnap Records in Seattle by surfing to http://www.dirtnaprecs.com or writing to DIRTNAP RECORDS - P.O. BOX 21249 - SEATTLE, WA 98111. Me, I am outta here off to more work in the trenches and you, what in the hell are you still doing here...were you not convinced that have their record was a must...now get! (Note: This interview was conducted on a Sunday (my birthday actually) and the following Friday I was able to see THE EPOXIES live for the very first time...don't let them come through your town and miss the show, not all of you live in their hometown and it may be your only chance for a year or more to see them...they put on one of the best live shows I have ever seen...not only fun to listen to but fun to watch!)
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