Interview with Koffin Kats

Some photos from the show after this interview was conducted can be seen in Koffin Kats, Cowboy and the Corpse at The Louisiana. You may also be interested in Koffin Kats at Lady Luck!

Strap in.

Let’s kick off with the musical history stuff. What kind of shit did you listen to growing up?

Vic: I initially got into punk rock music around the age of eleven. Ten or eleven, and that was with getting into Bad Religion, Green Day, Offspring, those bands were all really popular around that time. It was like the second, in the states (I’m sure it was worldwide) but it was like revival, it killed off grunge. Beforehand I’d always just listened to whatever was on the radio or whatever my parents were playing in the car and whatnot. It was right around that age where I started developing my own taste and what I wanted to listen to. I picked up very early on psychobilly, via Beavis and Butthead, Reverend Horton Heat and they had other psychobilly videos on there. I always thought that was such a cool band and that started my wanting to get into learning about other bands with upright. So, it’s just a slow progression.

That seems to be the way most people go. It’s like, punk rock and then kind of work your way backwards in time and then merge it all together later.

Vic: Yeah! I mean, it was at that age where I heard something that I really liked and I got deep into those bands. Then once you get into bands you start reading about the bands that they listen to or you know, what inspires them so you go back. By the age of like fourteen I had like the whole Clash collection because everyone talked about The Clash. I was always more of a Clash fan than I was a Ramones fan or Misfits fan. Because everyone picks their big, you know, their forefathers of punk rock, they talk about The Ramones, Misfits, The Clash and whatnot. I was always into The Clash. And a band like them, when I started making bands, a band like them was one of those bands where it was “yeah they’re a punk band but they have so many other things to them” so that really opened up my mind into thinking like “Just because you have a band doesn’t mean it needs to be this one pigeon hole of music.”

The Clash, some of their later albums are pretty weird, but then they did a mean Brand New Cadillac as well…

Vic: Yeah, it doesn’t mean it always works out for the best, but that’s being a musician and being your own musical project. You’re allowed, you should be allowed to do whatever you want and experiment with those things. That’s the only way that music progresses. Same thing with the psychobilly scene where if it only stayed to a blues progression and playing fast, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

Then there’s the whole “Only The Meteors Are Pure Psychobilly” thing, and to me psychobilly has always been a combination of different styles anyway, so it’s well suited for that. Especially, I think The Peacocks were like the first band that I ever saw with the upright bass, and they’ve got a pretty big ska influence going on, similarly The Long Tall Texans .

Vic: yeah, for me it was The Living End. They had a radio hit in the states. That opened up my mind to more like the punk rock. Like, “Oh you can totally have a punk band and have an upright bass and everything.”

John: What year was that?

Vic: That was ‘98, I think.

John: Wow! Okay.

Vic: Yeah. That was the Prisoner of Society song. That was all over the radio. It was the coolest thing ever! It was like the coolest thing to hear on the radio.

I remember one time when we were drivino, I’d konked out and my wife was like “wake up, wake up!” because that Imelda May song, Johnny Got a Boom Boom was playing on the radio.

Vic: You wake up and there’s slap bass on the radio!

She was like “There’s a song!”.

much laughter ensues

What about John? It’s hard finding stuff out about you because you’ve got the same name as the guy from Steppenwolf…

John: Yeah, yeah

So you google “John Kay guitarist” and it’s like all about his solo shit.

Vic: Yeah. So we share that and also Bill Haley.

John: Bill Haley and the Comets, John Kay was his guitarist. I first got into punk rock, I’m two years older than him so he says ten or eleven, I was twelve or thirteen. Same thing when Green Day hit and they were on MTV it was like “that’s cool. The guy’s got stickers all over his guitar”, so we really got into that. The band that I was in at that time, we had been playing Metallica covers, and Mötley Crüe covers, Pantera, and Megadeth, metal stuff. Then when grunge hit with Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, and then Green Day followed, and then you have Rancid in the mix there on MTV for a bit, I started going that route, and at that time I’d been, from thirteen until like twenty five, I was doing punk bands. I actually still have a pop punk band back home. We do shows very, very sporadicly. Prior to that it was like classical music and The Beatles, oldies, and pop music like Michael Jackson and stuff like that.

I used to watch that Thriller video so much as a kid. Dancing behind the sofa n stuff.

John: Right on, right on.

The punk thing seems like common ground though.

John: Yeah then with Koffin Kats, I’ve been working with them since ‘07, recording and producing singles. And they have introduced me into the psychobilly scene, so they were really my first taste. I mean, just like him I’ve seen the Psychobilly Freakout video on Beavis and Butthead too. You know it’s really funny when he talks about this and I’m like “I’ve seen this stuff!”, but it wasn’t until I started to work with them that I started to see and hear more artists.

Nifty. How did the Koffin Kats get started? With the whole instrument swap thing, you’re evidently pretty good on a guitar too, so did you always play bass or did you start off as a guitarist?

Vic: No, my dad gave me a guitar when I was like ten and then I was a guitar player first, and still kind of a guitar player sometimes. I can play the shit out of the one part I play in the set!

laughter

I know a few solos from songs I like and anything I can play on bass I can blag on guitar because its power chords and root notes.

more laughter

Vic: When Koffin Kats first started, I wrote all the material and I had a lot of material established before Koffin Kats existed. I wrote it all on guitar and then I teamed up with the first guitar player, Tommy, and actually showed him like the rockabilly guitar playing techniques and all that shit and he had no idea. It’s funny because at that time I also showed him the Bryan Setzer video and we both sat there like “yeah, that’s the most impossible thing to learn from” but it’s fun to watch! Throughout the history of Koffin Kats, I would generally start with something I figured out on guitar and then whoever’s playing guitar, I would show it to them and say, “Capitalise on this. Do something with it.” you know?

Were you in other bands before Koffin Kats?

Vic: Yeah. I was in a bunch of local Detroit bands, but never really anything that got out of Detroit and that was the biggest influence for wanting to do something like Koffin Kats. To get together with two other guys that could actually go hit the road. I was sick of just playing the same shitty bars all the time and of not going anywhere. I was turning twenty and I was like “I really want to do music but I’m not going to be able to do it if I just stick around here”. So, I got together with Tommy and we got an old friend of ours, Damien. We got together, we started practicing and said, Damien actually said, that was the summer of 2003 “One year from now let’s be out in California.” and in the summer of 2004 that’s where we were touring.

Nice! So, nerdy bass talk alert! You’ve got your actual bass in the states, do you use the same one live that you use for recording or do you have a road one and a “nice” bass?

Vic: I don’t have like a plethora of basses! At one time I had like five upright basses!

I’ve got two, I don’t think there’s room for any more…

Vic: They fell apart or I sold them all but yeah, in the states, I use the same bass all around. I’m getting a new one at the end of the year. That’s going to be neat!

Cool, where from?

Vic: Knight String Bass. They’re a company out of Florida. It’s supposed to have a Koffin Kat head, headstock on it. Which is awesome. They’re supposed to be carving it.

John: That’s badass as fuck!

Vic: I’ve got plans to wire it up with my pickups and everything. Do all the wiring and channeling internally.

Cool, you gonna have a door in the side?

Vic: Yeah, yeah.

And you’ve got the wireless so you’re not getting tangled up?

Vic: Yeah it has to be wireless. I’ve been running wireless now for like, probably eight years.

Your pickups you make yourself, and The Deuce Bridge?

Vic: Yeah.

Strings?

Vic: I use Rotosound strings. I use them bumped over so what I do is, there’s Rotosound RS4000 is the name of the set but I buy the five string set.

Then run the C as the G, etc?

Vic: Yes.

Nerdy. That part is gonna have a limited audience!

Vic: yeah. There’s like three people reading this that have any idea what we’re talking about!

The bass you got over here is like is the same as mine, a cheap chinese one from Thomann? It looks like it’s taken a bit of a pounding!

Vic: Yeah, The Quakes toured over here with it about four years ago, then I bought it from them and they left it over here for me. I got it and then within my first two shows of playing it, it fell over and the neck broke off so I had to go and put the neck back on, and it wasn’t a clean break either, it snapped above the joint. So if you ever see it, it’s got brackets. It wouldn’t be a bass of mine if it didn’t have all kinds of shit screwed together on it!

Yeah, mine’s got a metal plate glued to the back from where we were recording a while ago and the engineer guy tripped over the bass and landed on it and ended up sat on it, putting a nice crack in the back where the soundpost tried to escape. It was not a good time

Vic: My bass back home, my soundpost is a drumstick!

I saw that! Nekroman was posting his weird adjustable one… They should definitely have character, they need to take a bit of a pounding or you might as well be in an orchestra or some shit. Screws and tape. Spray paint.

You’ve got a pretty individual vocal style going on. Did you practice that? It reminds me a little bit of Faith No More, the contrast between the “singy”, almost operatic parts, and the shoutier stuff.

Vic: That all came like trial by fire. I never set out to be a vocalist and it was one of those things where we weren’t finding any, Tommy couldn’t sing. We’d sit down there in the basement like “We’re gonna have to sing.” and I just kind of took the reins with it because it was easier that way. As far as any type of training, I never sang in school or anything like that. People ask me “You must’ve had vocal lessons.” And I’m like “no, no.” I’m just learning how to not do it wrong, I guess. Over enough shows, you know, you just, you ask me to sing anything else other than Koffin Kats, it’s barely going to happen, but as long as it’s in the realm of what I know, I can do it.

It’s the punk thing again, just get on with it. What was the transition like from being a band, having “normal” jobs and then being able to say “Forget this, we’re doing the band full time now.”?

Vic: It was very gradual. It used to be we’d go off for a couple months a year on tour and that’s all we could get away from our jobs. We were fortunate in that Tommy and I worked at the same place, and Eric worked for the post office. Se always busted ass when we were working, so we’d be able to suck up and go “Heeeeey, can I have three months off next year?”, and then finally it got to the point where our jobs were like “Hey, you guys are gone for half the year, we’re going to have to knock you down to part-time.” We were doing that for a while but then we decided that between being able to tour in Europe and tour North America, we could tour all year round! So we eventually made the decision to go “Okay, well we’re going to have to let our jobs go and we’ll focus mainly on just touring.” and that’s why we do so many shows a year. It’s not like we’re getting rich doing this! We play for three months and we’ll take like couple weeks off and then we go hit the road again because all the savings have been used up.

You got to the point where it made sense.

Vic: It was, yeah, we go out a little bit longer, go a little bit longer. The other thing is that we were always very fortunate to never take any major hits to put us behind, so we didn’t have to go back to work and remake all the money. We actually would come out, we’d break even on the tours. So, we saw this, that we break even and then sometimes we even have a little pocket money afterwards. But we saw this as a good thing and that pushed us to keep going out more and more too. We’re like, “We must be doing something right here because we’re not losing money doing this.”

What are the major differences between touring the states compared to coming over to Europe, and is the UK different to the mainland?

John: Yes, yes, and yes, and yes to all those questions! This is the first touring band that I’ve been a part of. I quit my job though in early 2008 and moved across the United States to get my degree in audio engineering. My whole plan was to be a freelance audio engineer, focus on that. It was getting to the point with my job where I was turning down clients to record because I had to go work in a store and make less money than I would be making in the studio. So it’s like, “Okay I quit my job.” I did that right before the economic downturn in the states so I was like, “Ah!”. But anyway, I went out, got my degree, came back to Detroit and I’ve been a freelance engineer since. You know, we come out here. We tour the states, it’s cool, everything’s good, I’m finding my rhythm as a guitarist and we get over here and it’s like, bang, there’s a whole new world with a whole new set of challenges and learning experiences. Not only that but, the languages are different, food’s different, the culture’s different, it is a different experience. But it’s not bad, it’s good! Lufthansa broke my pedal board, so the first show over here, we found out an hour before we go on and it’s like “Shit crap!” So then we’re scrambling to get an effects pedal, and then the next day, we have another show so we go to the music store and buy another effects pedal and it’s faulty right out of the box and it’s like “Arg, what are we gonna do!?”. So, other than gear issues, everything’s been pretty smooth. He (Vic) had a horn blow in his speaker cab, so we had to replace that. Other than gear it’s just been pretty smooth, but really the crowds are just as big, they just react a little differently here than in the states. Then again, as I say it out loud, I feel like the crowds that are our age, they’re hip to just stand there and nod their head and drink their beers, but the younger crowds, well I guess it depends on how many beers they have in them, because the more beers you get in you start getting wild! One of the things over here is that a lot more venues are made of stone, vs when we’re over in the states.

We’ve got more old buildings than you guys.

John: The thing is, we play small places, we play big places, we play big stages, we play small stages, and we’re going to put on the same show every night, regardless. So, you know, people ask me, “What do you think of Europe?” I’m like, “You know what? I’m sitting in the backseat of the van and we get to the place and I load in and I play the show just like I do over in the states.” so it ends up kinda evening out. The biggest difference coming from Europe to over here is I grew up watching a lot of British TV, I got my little killer rabbit… I watched a lot of British stuff and I’m really into British humour and comedy and what not, so it’s refreshing to hear some of the jokes, everything translates like “Yeah, just like that, in the movies I’ve seen!” so that’s pretty cool. And then, driving on the left side of the road isn’t as much of a trip as I thought it would be. It’s nothing.

I’ve heard other bands complain about how even when they’re touring Europe or Japan or wherever, it’s still like being in America because there’s McDonald’s and KFC and etc everywhere?

John: We don’t really do fast food.

Vic: One good session of shitting your pants and “Oh yeah that’s why we don’t do that!”

John: I haven’t eaten fast food in almost two years now and it’s like, I feel now with the internet, you have all this information out there about what’s bad for you and what’s good for you and if you’re not using it, it’s like being ignorant, I guess. We try to eat healthy. Though we’re kebab crazy over here. Magnum bars have changed my life.

The ice creams?

John: Yes. They’re fantastic!

Don’t go for the silver ones! They’ve got some anniversary thing going on at the moment, it’s not great.

John: Yeah. I bought the silver one, the champagne one, it’s not good. I’m looking for the elusive double caramel. I’ve had one of them and it’s my favourite. And I haven’t been able to find one since.

They’re around somewhere, someone’s stockpiling em.

John: And mint, also very good!

Vic: He’s becoming a Magnum connoisseur!

laughing

Vic: Back to that original question though, the biggest difference between touring the states and here: we go coast to coast in the states, and you’re always going to have pretty much the same culture. And you drive two hours in Europe and you’re in a completely different culture, different customs and everything. People hear that rock n roll no matter where it is. In some of these countries that we go to, they just go nuts for it, whereas in the states a lot of times the crowds are just kind of jaded, it seems. I mean, for us we’re very fortunate, we have a really awesome fanbase and we have a crowd that consistently comes back to our shows. It’s always gotten better and better for us in the states but I can definitely see a huge difference with how people appreciate music in Europe compared to how they do in the states. Just having live music, it seems much more appreciated. That and the arts in general over here, there’s just more appreciation.

Yeah I think we go through fits and starts. At certain points we kinda push live music and art and then it kinda dies down again. There’s a few all ages shows on your tour list, do you find that the kids go a bit more nuts than “grownups” do?

John: It depends how much alcohol is served!

laughing

Vic: If I had my way every show would be an all ages show. I mean I love to play for a young fan base because those are the people that are going to spread the word and tell all their friends and all that.

John: They’re the future.

Vic: Yeah. And they’re going to be there fifteen years later coming to the shows still.

These are the kids that are going to be in the bands that you go to see in a few years.

Vic: Growing up it was always the worst, especially being into Reverend Horton Heat and stuff like that, to be looking through the papers when I was a kid and it felt like I was under eighteen forever. All the bands I wanted to see were playing 18+ or 21 and over shows. Because in the states you have to be 21 to drink, and especially a Reverend Horton Heat show, it seemed like it was never an all ages show. So I had to wait a long time to see the bands I wanted.

How have you seen things change? It’s been ten years since Koffin Kats kicked off. It seems the whole music industry is still in a process of change with record sales vs merch and distribution and the internet-

Vic: The record sale thing doesn’t really affect us because we’re one of those bands that most of our sales are done on the road. Our distribution has always been from our hands to your hands. I mean we would have CDs go out through distributors and all that, but we’ve always been able to just offer them at our shows, so we never really felt the huge shift of everything going over to digital. It’s a double edged sword, because with everything being digital now, it’s way more accessible for a band like us that doesn’t get huge distribution. It used to be hard to get any of our material, but now you can get it on itunes. At the end of the day I think it’s actually better for us.

Good! This seems to be like a bit of a thing now with everyone doing vinyl.

Vic: Yeah and we’ve started pressing vinyl again.

You’ve got that limited edition aluminium one!

John: To that point, at this point in time we’ve had over a century of recorded music. For over half of that time it was dominated by vinyl because it was essentially the only option. Then you have cassettes, eight-tracks and obviously those went the way of the dodo. Cassettes you know, for portability, you can play it on the car and then the car started to become where people listened to music instead of on their hi-fi system. Then CDs, then you got the portable digital MP3 players and whatever now and people are realising that we’ve had MP3 players for a decade or more, and people are realising “I like the portability of this but I like the sound quality of vinyl.”, so what I’ve seen, vinyl sales are up this year 14% over last year, and what we’re seeing now is the trend of artists that they don’t make CDs anymore. They’ll just make vinyl and then include a coupon in it for a digital download of the album in any format you want. So I get my quality and I get my portability, you know what I mean? And plus with the vinyl you get the artwork and what not.

Vic: It’s like why am I going to pay twelve bucks to download an album when I can pay like fifteen to get the actual vinyl record, you know?

That way you get a thing to hold. I remember buying CDs and getting home, one of the first albums I bought was Guns n Roses, Use Your Illusion 2, and you get home and you put it in, and you sit there with the little book and you read along-

Vic: That’s the one sad thing, I think. When I was 13, 14, I’d save up and ride my bike to the CD shop and get a used punk rock CD. I’d just go and pick one that had a cool cover just to find new bands and stuff but I would, for that whole month, I would just sit there and check the liner notes out. It was generally, if it was an Epitaph band, I would buy it. If it was a Fat Wreck Chords band, I would buy it. You actually had to put the CD in, you had to listen to it, you couldn’t skip through everything. I mean, you could but not like the way you can now. So I think that’s one big issue today is a lot of kids don’t understand the whole format of listening to an album from front to back and taking the time to appreciate the album.

Most people won’t sit down with headphones on and just listen.

Vic: A lot of my favourite records weren’t my favourite records right off the first listen. It took a while for it to soak in, but I think when you have things on your iPod, I’m guilty of it now, I have a lot of good shit on my iPod but I skip over it or haven’t even had the time to really listen to it because it’s always on shuffle. Bouncing from one genre or artist to the next.

John: It’s hard to stay committed.

I’ll often go →Koffin Kats and play everything on random, in a “I want to listen to this particular band” stylee.

Vic: Yeah. It’s weird like I just got that new Morrissey album, and it used to be if I got a new album that I’ve been waiting to hear, I would sit down and listen to the whole thing. I haven’t even listened to it front to back yet, I’ve had it for like two weeks.

Your last one, I got that, I think I probably put it on while I was pottering about, doing the dishes or whatever, and I was like “No, you need to actually sit down and listen to this at some point.” but that took until just a few weeks ago, not doing anything else, just that.

Vic: That’s the beauty of vinyl is that you’re committed to it and you actually have to go over and flip it over.

You’re committing to the process of listening to music rather than just having some background noise going on.

John: Oh, radio changed the way we listen to music too. My dad was a DJ for 25 years and right in the mid 90’s, radio flipped. A company called Clear Channel started buying all the radio stations or the broadcast companies out, and they switched from having DJs that would find music in record stores themselves and play stuff, and that being what they like or had picked, maybe they wouldn’t play the hit single from the album, maybe they’d play one of the deep cuts or whatever. After the song they talk about the song or talk about like the concept of it. It wasn’t just “Hey, so and so’s coming out with this tune” or whatever. You know, like it is now, it is very formatted. They have a playlist. You can only play these songs, you have to play this one every two hours…

Yea, you can listen to twenty different radio stations and hear the same forty songs.

John: Exactly that. In the seventies and eighties and early nineties, it wasn’t like that, man. You could play whatever you wanted, and if you were good… DJs were rockstars, you know. Now, they are just personalities that are on the radio.

Pressing play and doing some talking.

John: Yup, exactly.

I think it was a bit different over here, because we are like this big (making pinchy gesture with fingers) and America’s huge, so we had, in the fifties, sixties, we just had FM radio, so you could sit in your little studio in London and reach the whole country. So I think we didn’t have such a range of radio stations and personalities.

Vic: Yeah, there are a lot of different markets in the states.

I suppose we had the pirate radio thing too, people in little boats, broadcasting from international waters or whatever.

Vic: Like the movie?

So, yeah, I think our radio’s a bit different over here!

Vic: You feel me though?

I get the general idea, yeah. Now there are very few shows that run on the actual radio that are worth listening to. Internet radio is a big thing now though. I think it tends to be very specialised, like if you know what you’re looking for, you can just go and be like “I want to listen to psychobilly” or whatever. And that’s all you’ll hear and you won’t get that random song I guess. You lose some of that chance discoverability. Anyway, John, how are you fitting into the band?

John: I think, I feel good and, really, my feedback on that is I know how I feel, but my feedback on that comes from him and Eric, and then the fans and our friends. Really, the people that I’m concerned with what they think of me and how I’m settling in are the people that have been seeing Koffin Kats for years and years and have been through the change from Tommy to Ian and now from Ian to me. My biggest thing is, I just want to honour their legacies, bring all their good stuff to the table. We get along great. We’ve been working together for years already, so we knew we could work together. At first it was just a question of “Can I handle being on the road? Can we get along on the road? Am I going to annoy them?”. Which I do. All the time, all the time…

That’s what people do! There’s a difference between getting along with someone to talk to for like half an hour…

John: You know, you’re married. It’s close quarters all the time. Can you stand being around each other for extended periods of time? Yeah, we’re good. I think we’re doing just fine. At this point, you know, Europe has been different for me in a sense that, we did the states tour, where you got the flow of the show, you know, you’re settled in. Now, let’s work on your guitar more. Let’s get you more versed on the guitar, like what we just talked about with Tommy, showing show them the Brian Setzer stuff. He’s downloaded a few videos for me to watch on the rockabilly style and stuff like that, and I’m working on different fingerings.

Vic: Yeah actually staying true to the Koffin Kat model of getting a guitar player who really isn’t versed in anything that has to do with the ‘billy world…

laughter

John: Right, yeah! If it’s musical background, I’ve got it, but ‘billy background, not so much. To that point, though, I’m not bringing preconceived notions into the group. I’m coming in with the open mind of “no matter what I know, what I don’t know, or what I think I know, I can learn.”

That could be cool though, because you’ll always have different influences from someone that’s a “psychobilly guitarist”.

John: One hundred percent. When we’re at these shows, I’m picking their brains, you know? Asking “how long have you played guitar, I like that lick you did, how do you do that?” stuff like that. I’m all about learning new stuff and that’s not a problem. Certain things are challenging for me, because I’ve always used the guitar as a tool for songwriting. I have been drumming for over thirty years. So guitar has always been a songwriting tool. Kind of like the way he uses the guitar now in Koffin Kats, it’s “Okay, here’s the idea, make it better, guitarist. I’m going back to my bass.”

Vic: That’s exactly how it is. I’m done with this, your turn!

John: That was the way it was with me. I would write all the songs for my bands and it started on guitar. Then when I got to those sick lead solos, I’d defer to the lead guitarist. “Here, take the guitar, I’m getting behind my kit”. So now, it’s a three piece band, I’m the only guitarist, I don’t have a second guitarist to lean on, and you’re not just playing rhythm, you’re playing leads so… I busted my ass getting these songs down before the first tour. I holed up in the basement and just over and over just practicing and getting my fingers working on it, getting the calluses and all that stuff. I’m not a novice by any means, but at the same time I know my limits, so I’m pushing my limits every single day. When we ride in the van, that guy is a companion, and I’m warming up and stretching and you know, working out fingering techniques, and all that stuff, tremolo picking.

Are you still practicing everyday or have you got it down to the point where you’re over that?

John: I go through all of the lead solos before we go on stage. Like tonight, I had to change the strings on both my guitars here in a hot minute and then, stretch them out and all that stuff and then I’ll do my stretches and my warm-ups and then I go through every single lead solo or any part that is new to my skill set in the songs, if that makes sense? I have a certain way that I play but there are certain parts in certain songs where it’s like “I’ve never played guitar like that.” So I just get it in my muscle memory. Seriously it’s just the way it is. He was looking at me the other day and he’s like “You don’t do power chords with your ring finger, you do it with your pinky? That’s weird.” and I’m like “I know!” So now I’m breaking old habits and creating new ones. So that’s good.

That reminds me of a podcast with John Roderick, of The Long Winters. He played bass for Harvey Danger for a while. I think he blagged his way in because their bass player got pneumonia and they were booked to go and play on some tv show and so he learnt that one song they were going to play.

Vic: Flagpole Sitta? That was probably that song.

Then he said the first time he ever played through an amp was on that show. They got there, the stage manager was like “Your amp is over there” and he went and plugged in, hit a few notes to test it out, then the guy is like “we’re live in five, four…” (seriously, click that link if only for the unspoken conversation just after the 2 minute mark. “You’re playing bass!”—“I know!”)

Vic: That’s amazing!

John: Shit!

He plays the song, doing backing vocals and everything! After that they were on tour and he was running through the set every night after the gig, and working on it in the day time before the gig, and after a couple weeks he’s like “I know what I’m doing now, I don’t need to practice it today.” And then that night just sucked! He didn’t have any clue what to play.

John: I’m going through these solos and stuff, it’s not like I’m practicing them but I’ve got to warm up. What better way to warm up than playing what I’m about to play, you know? Get it up in here ahead of time.

And you’ve got the solo album coming up too, right?

John: Hopefully. Eventually. I don’t know when it’s going to come out. It really all depends on money because I spent quite a deal of money to get it mixed, and I’m going to do the same to get it mastered and then I have a couple people that I’m talking to. Not management-wise but I’m talking to a couple people about what’s the next step. Should I shop it, should I put a group together and do some mini-weekenders when we’re not on tour, you know? I don’t know how to approach it and quite honestly, my focus right now is on Koffin Kats. That’s something that I will handle when we’re not on the road. But yeah, I’ve got a ten song album that’s mixed and ready to be mastered.

Did you have other people playing on it or is it a Nine Inch Nails/Foo Fighters job where you’re doing everything?

John: Everything in the album is just me. I had a female come in to do some high harmonies on one particular tune and then I had a few buddies of mine who I have recorded in my studio before do drums, bass, and lap steel on the first two cuts but other than that, the whole album is me, drums, bass, guitar.

Cool, I look forward to it.

John: Thanks.

Stage show, because you guys put on one hell of a show, do you have to practice that too?

Vic: No, that’s “Get it right or else you’ll get hurt!”

John: Yeah, pretty much! We did two weeks in rehearsal before the first tour. I went out on tour for about three weeks with them when Ian was still in the group so he could teach me the songs and then there were two weeks between then and the next tour. The first week was rehearsing together and just getting the songs and the set down and then the second week was “Alright. Now, we’re going to start incorporating the show as part of it.” so we did that. The first tour was only two weeks and by the end of the second week we were all very happy with where I was sitting. Because they’ve gone through other guitarists before, when Ian got sick they had another guitarist fill in too. Relative to everybody else, they were very happy with how I was doing.

Vic: As far as the stage show goes, there’s like two rules: Don’t stand in one spot, and watch out for the bass!

laughing

John: So on the small stages, I never even told you this, but when you lift it up I can feel the wind!

Vic: That’s the thing, with Tommy and Ian, we always joked about like no matter how drunk we were, you develop this matrix-like thing where it’s like, you just knew to lean back or duck. Then I would see footage and I’m like “holy fuck!” it’s way closer than I ever thought! You naturally know when to move or you have this thud

Like last year, when we played at the Lady Luck, Ian nearly got the bass in his face a few times. He’s just casually turning his head as a big lump of wood passes through the air his face was occupying a split second ago.

Vic: For the hour that we’re playing there’s no resting back. You’re always paying attention to something, whether it’s a microphone coming and smashing in your face or just making sure you don’t fall over shit or fall off the stage.

Are there good and bad places to play? What’s the best and worst experience you’ve had?

John: I don’t really ever like to think that there are bad places to play at. Any place that’s hiring us to come and play a show is a good place in my book.

Vic: It could be the biggest city, it could be the smallest town, every night’s a surprise. We always have our expectations right in the middle and we never go and say “this is gonna be huge tonight” and we never say “it’s going to suck tonight.” I mean, we don’t ever say “it’s going to suck” anyway. It’s just not the attitude to have. I always get the question of “what’s your favourite city to play in?”. Honestly, it always changes. I have certain places I like to visit because they’re pretty. Like Denver, Colorado or Austin, Texas, Bozeman, Montana, you know? I like to go to those places not because of what the show is. Basically we have equal respect for every city we go to, every town we go to, every venue we’re at. Yeah, there are some really shitty venues though. Yeah, that’s always going to be a constant.

John: Any stage that has a big pole in the middle of it.

laughter

Vic: There’s going to be the clubs where you know the sound guy doesn’t even give a shit and there’s always those little things here and there.

Do you still get the sound guy saying “there’s a weird clicking sound coming from the bass”?

Vic: Oh yeah, oh yeah!

John: “No, that’s supposed to be there!”

It’s like “no that’s fine…” Cheesy interview question alert! If you were stuck on a desert island-

laughter

Vic: What was it?

You’re stuck on the island, you have to choose one kind of food and one kind of drink and like an album and a book or something, what are you going to bring?

John: Now this is saying that water is already plentiful?

Plenty of water, let’s say there’s a river.

Vic: Okay. I would have spinny kebab meat.

laughter

An old lady’s leg?

Vic: And cider and I’ll be happy.

What would you have to read and listen to?

Vic: Oh, read…

John: Getting off this island for dummies!

laughing

Vic: I just recently getting started into Stephen King books so I guess you could plop me down there with the Stephen King collection and that would last me a while.

Have you read The Dark Tower?

Vic: I’ve just finished the first one, The Gunslinger.

A couple of months ago I finished the last one, it takes a while!

Vic: Yeah, yeah. I mean, those are books you can lose yourself in, so you don’t have to think about being stuck on the desert island! When it comes to music, it’s always a hard one. Your favourite album changes with your mood, you know? But I’d have to always go back to one of my first favourite albums was Bad Religion’s Stranger Than Fiction. So, I’ll be good with that one.

John, same thing?

John: Food, probably be loaded pizza from Albert’s. Which is a joint in our hometown. Drink would be bourbon.

Good choice!

John: Music would be the Beethoven collection and my book would be, aaaaaaaahhahahahaaaahhhhhhh, it’s so hard, I love to read.

Vic: He can read, I’ve seen him!

John: Probably, it’s so tough, you guys! The entire collection of James Clavell books. He wrote Shogun, Taipan, and it’s called The Asian Saga, it’s my favourite fiction work of art.

Oh, I read one of those I think, Gai-Jin?

John: Yes! Gai-Jin, that’s the third in the series it’s fantastic.

Vic: Behind The Paint.

John: Behind The Paint, ICP. Yes, that’s sitting on my bookshelf too.

Sorted. You’re always like super busy, any nerdy computer things you do to keep organized? Or do you leave that to the man downstairs with the beard?

Vic: I hate computers, I hate looking at screens if I don’t have to. If I’m at home I barely get on the thing, but when we’re out here, we’re always doing business. The whole world revolves around computers now. It’s not like a pick-up-the-phone-and-make-something-happen world, it’s send-an-email-and-make-something-happen. So yeah, we’re always using the computers for business purposes. I don’t really play video games. I do have Sim City.

laughter

Vic: I’ve got that on my computer. I nerd out with that sometimes, but mostly we’re buried in our phones when we’re just killing time, phone games or what not. The thing about being on tour, there’s a lot of downtime. A lot of time to do nothing.

Kinda almost like being on a desert island…

Vic: Yeah!

When’s the next album out? Will that be you three?

Vic: Yea, it will be.

John: Haha, unless something catastrophic happens.

Vic: We’re just now starting to write new material and we’re hoping to be in the studio early next year working on it.

Squeezing in time between shows?

John: He’s been backstage and in the hotel rooms a couple times laying down riffs or the bass line, and I’ve got riffs in my head that I’ve got ideas for. I was actually just jamming one earlier before sound check while I was checking my tone. I’ve never written like this before but this is the way Koffin Kats have always done it so everybody has their own ideas.

Vic: Get a bunch of shit together and then go down in the basement and just jam.

John: And just jam and see where it leads to. Then we demo it out and we listen to it. That’s how we did the last album which was very successful. The recording process was so smooth because everything was planned in the pre-production phase, and this is when Ian was still in the group. They demoed everything out while they were on the road and then they sent it to me and I listened to it, and had notes and they had notes and we got together and listened to all the stuff. We talked about it and made new notes, and then they went and rehearsed the whole album for a week on their own, then came into the studio and recorded it! So, it wasn’t “let’s try this, let’s do this.” it was “onto the next one”. We just had a big board with a checklist, done, done, done. That’s the way the major artists do it, you know? A lot of bands, they go into the studio and they’re unprepared, or the drummer doesn’t know that the bassist plays this or one guitarist doesn’t know that the other guitarist is playing the chord with a different fingering. “I’ve always played it like that. I didn’t know it’s not like that. It’s like this. Screw that, I’m playing it like this because that’s how I’ve always played it.” and I’ve seen bands get in fights about it. Sooooo, no.

It’s not the sixties with The Beatles, where they can just have six months studio time.

Vic: Yeah, you know, it’s different now. I never wanted to have that opportunity because that’s how you make a shitty album because you have too much time to dwell on it.

John: Too many deferred decisions.

You think about it too much.

John: There’s like “Oh let’s add this in, let’s add this in, let’s add this in.”

Vic: Every album except the first album has been written under the gun, where we have a time frame to do it, and that’s how we’ve gotten some of our best songs, under pressure. Now, when I’m writing stuff, I have a time frame that I want to get everything done by, so that helps weed out a lot of the bullshit where if I think it’s too weak of a song or sounds too generic, I’m just “No. Scrap it”, you know? Just move on until I get something I really like. That’s always how we’ve done it. Otherwise, I always have this thought that if we spend more than five minutes trying to write a chord progression and match it up with the chorus, then we’re thinking way too hard about this stuff. Some of the most memorable Koffin Kats songs were literally written in like a couple of minutes. So I always like to stick with that formula. It’s worked in the past, it will work in the future. Some of my favourite bands, you can tell that they had a lot of time to write their later albums. It loses that magic if you don’t have that sense of urgency, you know? Get the song done!

Yea, that’s quite a common theme. People will say a bands’ first album is really raw and then by their third album it’s all over-produced. Better to bash it out and get it done.

Vic: Yep.

Is there anything else you want people to know?

John: You can find us, everything Koffin Kats is at koffinkatsrock.com. That’s home base for us. We do all the social media but if people want the most up to date and current information, tours, merch, etc.

Yea, it seems to be getting updated more now, (to John) you’re the nerdy one?

John: Haha, yes, I’m the nerdy one! Thing is when I came into the group I’m like “What can I take off your plate?”, and it was social media. Do the facebook, do the twitter, do the instagram so we don’t have to worry about it. Eric focuses on the website, he focuses on the reverbnation so it’s like we get a tour date, “bang!” he’s on it. He’s on it putting it on the website and I’m on all the other stuff. That’s the other thing too, at the end of this tour, we’ll have merch leftover and so we’re going to be able to put it up on our website for people to grab over here in Europe. It’s like if people want something Koffin Kats it’s all at koffinkatsrock.com. And then of course they can find us on all the other social media platforms as well, but not linkedin, screw that.

Yeah that’s like business jerks n that.

John: So, yeah. That and we look forward to seeing you.

Cool. Cheers guys. I think that’s about it!

Vic: Thank you.

John: Awesome.

That was nice!

John: It was more like talking.

I didn’t really know what I was doing, but that wasn’t too bad!

Vic: That’s always kind of my favourite interviews. The ones that just kind of go.