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a fix with the pills
interview by chuck
the
pills are a five piece over the top power pop smack you in your face and
make you want to shake your ass band from Boston. I call them the american
supergrass, and others call them god. I had the pleasure of doing an interview
with Corin Ashley the band's bassist and here's what we talked about.
What type of
music would you describe yourself as if you were talking to a retarded
baby?
I would say: "Retarded baby, while we embody much of the passion and skill
associated with the bands of the 60s, and also the energy of some of our
favorite post punk late 70s bands, and while it should be noted that bands
like the Who, The Small Faces, The Jam, XTC and The Buzzcocks are big
influences on us, to call us revivalist and/or retro would be misleading
and shortsighted. We are, in fact, an amalgam of past influences and a
form of musical anxiousness that is strictly late 90s. I hope you can
understand that retarded baby, baby." Since most reviewers are actually
retarded babies, that should serve us well.
Who has the smallest
dick in the band and how long has the band been together?
In both cases the answer is that it's been 3 1/2 for all of us. What is
your favorite beer/liquor?
While I am a fan of brandy and ginger ale (it
did wonders for Keith Moon's disposition!), our guitarist, Clyde O'Scope
feels strongly that anything other than Bud in a can is strictly bourgeois.
He drinks scotch on stage but he doesn't feel very good about it. David
likes gin and tonics (except when i knock them out of his hand) and I
think Jamie is pretty well into showing up at rehearsal with a single
Coors. It's pretty low rent, I know. Who are your favorite
bands to play with?
Well, we've opened up for all sorts of people - The B-52s, The Boo Radleys,
Rev. Horton Heat, even the Village People once! But I think our favorite
bands to play with are the Figgs and The Revelers (the pride of Cleveland)
and our Boston pals Boy Wonder. We had a really great show opening up
for the Selector once, but the lead singer was a total cunt to us. Now is the spot
where you can say anything you want, clear up rumors... list some up coming
albums or events etc...
OK, incredibly witty mother jokes aside, we have a new CD called "Wide
Awake With The Pills" on Monolyth Records. You can check it out on our
website www.pillsrock.com but basically, if you like fast pop songs, we're
your band. If you're sick of the crappy tunes on your radio and you're
longing for something that kicks your ass but has some underlying substance,
we're your band. We've been playing all over the Northeast in our trusty
van (Doug) serving up our band of hepped up, over the top power pop for
Pillheads from DC to Toronto. Eventually we will make it all the way to
Jacksonville so we can bust out some Skynard. Our guitarist Clyd is actually
from Tarpin Springs (by Tampa) and he gets all funny whenever he's exposed
to Southern Rock. He says we wouldn't understand. We played at a festival
in North Carolina with The B-52s, Sloan, The Smithereens, some really
cool bands and he insisted on watching Molly Hatchet. One thing I would
say is that we play a lot of Mod oriented shows but we don't really consider
ourselves to be a mod band per se. Our first single was a song called
"Scooter Gurl" which got a lot of radio play and also got played in nightclubs
a lot. Through that we started seeing lots of kids with classy haircuts
showing up at our shows. We do have that influence - we're all big fans
of the Small Faces and the Action, the Creation etc. but we're equally
influenced by Cheap Trick. You don't want to pigeonhole yourself too much. Favorite drugs?
I don't normally avoid such questions but I'll give you a tale of
excess. Last fall we got a sponsorship from a big whiskey company that
paid for us to have a tour bus for a month. At the end of the tour we
had a 4 day drive across the country and nothing to do but drink the bourbon
they gave us in Arizona. There was also a lot of beer left over from the
dressing rooms of all the bands we opened up for, some incredibly mossy
trip-weed left over from Colorado, Acid from some chick in San Francisco,
'shrooms from God knows where and our road manager had a cyst on his back
and picked up some major pain killers in Wyoming. So in the interest of
geography, we took all of it and watched "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory". Mind you, outside the windows was the fucking desert so it was
incredible scenery anyway. It was like this complete sensory overload
situation and then we saw it... the all you can eat steak house! Whomever
could finish "El Diablo" - 64 oz of pure Texas beef, would get it for
free. We all ended up paying. Man, did we pay. What do you have
to say about inspection 12?
Yeah, fuck them, they're weak. Inspection 12 are like Faith No More wannabes!
We'll kick their hippy asses for them if they ever come up to Boston.
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