LFB

LFB:

How is the album going for you?

NOODLES:

It's doing great.

LFB:

Do you like it better than the other ones?

NOODLES:

No, I like Ignition better. I think it's more solid. For me, I can listen to every song on Ignition over and over again, and with Bad Habit (I think he meant Smash) there's a couple of songs that I'm not as happy with. I think in a lot of ways, though, with Smash, there's some songs where we're kind of coming into our own and getting the sound that we really want - like Bad Habit for instance. I like that a lot. I think that's one of the best songs we've ever done.

LFB:

How did the MTV thing come about?

NOODLES:

Shit. No one really expected that to happen. The song started to get some radio play, and we wanted to do a video. We wanted to do one for Bad Habit 'cause it would be fun, but it just wouldn't be played anywhere, I mean who's gonna play it? So we ended up doing the radio song (Come Out and Play). We didn't think it was gonna make it on MTV, so we just went in and did it and had a lot of fun with it.

LFB:

Does Epitaph have a lot of pull with MTV now? I've heard that they're turning into a mini-major.

NOODLES:

Not really. They're the same people - they have hired a couple of people recently. It's the same people, they're just working their asses off now. We're calling in at 10:30 at night, and they're still... like Rhonda is still in there pumping out shit on computers, getting shit ready to mail. There's still what - maybe ten people working for them now, in a little warehouse off Santa Monica Boulevard out there in Hollywood.

LFB:

They're just getting recognition.

NOODLES:

Yeah. They've got ties with Bad Religion, which has always been a popular punk band. Their sales have really been good for a punk band, so that helps. I think what did it for Smash was that it got picked up by KROQ, which is a big radio station out of L.A. It is pretty well known across the country. It's one of the top five alternative stations in the nation, and they got ties to MTV. When they started playing the song and other stations started playing the song, they turned MTV onto it.

LFB:

It's knowing the right people.

NOODLES:

Well, It's not anybody we know, it's just... I don't know how we got it. They just picked us up. They liked the song, it was like the catch of the day, they got a lot of phone response from it, and they kind of ran with it.

LFB:

How did you land the soundtrack of The Chase?

NOODLES:

That was weird. I don't know. Actually, it was through this guy Rick Devoe who got us into a bunch of the surfing videos and skating and the snowboarding videos. He turned somebody on at The Chase to us and Pennywise and NOFX - he likes all that Epitaph stuff. He's just this little surf rat from San Deigo and he just turnin' people on to this music. He's everywhere. I don't know how he does it. It's really cool, though. He's just this young, crazy surf rat, running around getting into people's faces with this music and people listen to him.

LFB:

I noticed that you don't play anything from the first album with the exception of Beheaded.

NOODLES:

Actually, we haven't played Beheaded in quite a while. We've been doing Tehran more lately. When you play a lot of shows, it's something you want to feel good about and part of that is crowd response. If the crowd is responding to the songs, that makes you feel good. We don't want to cater to the crowd, but at the same time we want to play the songs that are gonna keep the set going. Not a lot of people know anything off of the first couple of records. We'll do songs off the first records if it keeps the crowd going. We're still playing a lot off of Ignition, but we change it every night, too. Some songs we'll do because we want to try to work them out live, some songs we do just because we like playing them live. Some songs we do because the get a good response.

LFB:

What gave you the ideas for some of your song topics - for example off of Smash -Bad Habit?

NOODLES:

First off, Brian (aka Dexter - vox) writes all of the songs lyrically and musically. He'll come into the studio and show us a basic riff for a song - the phrasing and everything and we kind of hash that out. Primarily, it's all Brian. He'll have some songs entirely done, and we just come up with...

LFB:

Lyrics and everything?

NOODLES:

Not so much lyrics, he usually just has the music done. Lyrics always come last. With a song as fast and kind of pumping like Bad Habit, he'll put a message that kind of fits that - that he feels fits the music there. Drive-by shootings and freeway shootings were a hot topic in L.A. and they still happen all the time. It's a weekly occurance out there. He decided to write a song where you got into the feel... I think that anyone who drives in that kind of traffic out there knows the impulse to want to pull out a gun and shoot somebody (chuckles). We don't do it, but you kind of understand the impulse behind it, so it's kind of a tongue in cheek look at that phenomena.

LFB:

How about Self Esteem, is that a personal story?

NOODLES:

Oh, God, I think it's something that we can all relate to. I know I asked Brian, "Is this a song about me?" and he goes, "No, this is a song about all of us." It's just different experiences from people we know and made up experiences.

LFB:

It's the next single, isn't it?

NOODLES:

Probably, yeah.

LFB:

The Lazer (105.9fm - Lawrence) has started to play it.

NOODLES:

Have they? It's startin' to get more airplay.

LFB:

They play Come Out And Play here around three times a day.

NOODLES:

Yeah, it's pretty sick. People are getting sick of that song.

LFB:

I personally don't listen to it anymore.

NOODLES:

(Laughing) Yeah, I know. It's time to go get a bag of chips or something.

LFB:

Do you ever have that problem - hating a song after a while?

NOODLES:

Oh, yeah. Like with Nirvana, when I first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit, I thought, "Fuckin' wow! a song with some balls on the radio." I've never been a big Nirvana fan, but as far as the music goes, that was the closest to anything that I was listening to at the time. When that came on the radio, it was like, "this is cool," for about a month, and then it was just overdone. That was what we were kind of weary of, but once you put a record out and the radio starts playing it, you have no control over how it's going to get played or where.

LFB:

I called up Epitaph in a fit of despair once. I was watching the Leeza Gibbens Show and they had makeovers for their grunge kids - their mothers wanted them to look nice, and they played Come Out And Play in the background before going to a commercial break - and I about cried.

NOODLES:

I heard it got played on Rush Limbaugh - like the lick, "do do do do do do do...." (the COAP lick) and I thought, "oh, God." See, and there's nothing we can do about that, and it's fucked. We want to call Rush Limbaugh and tell him to hose off, but there's really nothing you can do about that. It's unfortunate. If they're advertising, it's a different thing. They can't use it in advertising.

LFB:

There's a place around here that used the slow version of that.

NOODLES:

(intrieged, but not pissed yet) Oh, really? You mean the hidden song?

LFB:

It was some clothing store or something. It got on The Lazer and it got onto 98.9 The Rock in the Kansas City area. I think that's bullshit.

NOODLES:

That is bullshit.

LFB:

...Because you guys have been basically starving for four years and...

NOODLES:

Yeah. Totally. Up 'till about two months ago (June '94), seriously. I kept my job until three days before I left (on tour).

LFB:

I talked to Dexter when you played here in March at the Hideaway and he said you couldn't leave work. But there was a guitarist that replaced you on the Ignition tour - was he the guitarist from Pennywise?

NOODLES:

No. That was a friend of ours named Rob.

LFB:

He looks just like the guitarist from Pennywise.

NOODLES:

(laughing) He does look like a stunted version of Fletcher, but no. He's a friend of ours named Rob that we grew up with. He was in a bunch of punk bands.

LFB:

Do you have any ambitions to further your popularity, or do you just wanna keep it basic to the music?

NOODLES:

We don't really think beyond our next line of shows. We're looking at things in 'tours', you know - lumps of time that we're away from home. We like touring, we like being on the road, but it's kind of a double- edged sword, because I have a daughter, our drummer has a son, we all have girlfriends and stuff, and all of a sudden, there's a lot more time that we are going to be away from them. It's kind of a weird thing. We do have a good time getting out on the road and playing, especially when we're playing. We've had two days off, and that's kind of a drag. I like to just play a show every night and just keep it goin'. You just get into a groove.

LFB:

How many of the first album were pressed on Nemesis Records?

NOODLES:

I don't know, I really don't. I think it's anywhere between 3500 to 5000. Not a whole lot.

LFB:

The first time I heard you was Take It Like A Man - the demo version on The Big One compilation CD.

NOODLES:

That's how we first met Brett (Gurewitz - Owner of Epitaph Records and Guitarist for Bad Religion), 'cause all the stuff, well, at least most of the L.A. stuff was recorded at West Beach which is Brett's studio. We hit him up to sign us then, and he was like, "uh, well you guys are good, but I'm not really interested in signing up any bands right now." He was real nice and polite about giving us the boot. (smiles) And within a year later, we did another demo and sent it to him and he changed his mind - he liked the stuff, and picked us up, and that was Ignition.

LFB:

Were the demos actually released - sold in stores?

NOODLES:

No. We strictly did some demo stuff and sent it out to Epitaph and Alternative Tentacles, you know. We were just shopping around to little labels that we thought were cool.

LFB:

That I'll Be Waiting 7 inch was the first thing you had ever done as a band, right?

NOODLES:

(With a look of reminiscing) Yeah, that single.

LFB:

How old were you when you did that?

NOODLES:

Not very old. Did we have the advertisement in here in '87? (looks through an old MAXIMUMROCKNROLL from Oct. '87 that I own)

LFB:

Yes. It's in there.

NOODLES:

Actually, I think we did it in '86 - the year before Ron joined on. Ron came on in '87, the summer of '87 and we were still trying to get rid of him then (laughs). We couldn't give him away, really.

LFB:

How many of those did you press?

NOODLES:

A thousand. Maybe 1200, we might of done a couple extra 200, but it took forever to get rid of them.

LFB:

Have you been on the road very long?

NOODLES:

Actually, it's almost over. we've got about a week left. Then we go home for ten days, and then we're going to Europe for a month. This tour's coming to an end. It's only been five weeks so far. Looking back at the first date, it seems like so long ago. We flew back in the middle to do the Epitaph Summer National about a week and a half ago.

LFB:

Was that basically everyone on the Epitaph label?

NOODLES:

Yeah, it was.

LFB:

How many days was that?

NOODLES:

It was three days. The first show was our show - it was us, Down By Law, Clawhammer, Ten Foot Pole, Red Aunts, and the next night was Pennywise, Rancid, a lot of great bands.

LFB:

They were supposed to send me some stuff on that show. They told me about it and that it was sold out. That's... that would have been my Woodstock. I love that shit.

NOODLES:

Yeah, I know. All three nights sold out. Bad Religion opened the third night, which was kind of funny.

LFB:

Do they still claim Epitaph? I know Brett's still in the band...

NOODLES:

Brett actually, Brett just left the band.

LFB:

Wow.

NOODLES:

They're on Atlantic now and they've got a new record coming out.

LFB:

Will he just stay with the label now?

NOODLES:

Yeah, he'll just do the label. I don't know what his plans are. This all just happened. He's out of Bad Religion, which is really weird. He writes a lot of the material, which I think was the best material for Bad Religion. There's a lot of talent left. I don't think it means the end of Bad Religion. It'll be interesting to see what they do now without him, though. It's too bad. It's just too bad.

LFB:

I noticed on the first album, you wrote a lot of "love" songs, basically deep emotional stuff, and with Ignition and Smash, the songs came off almost cocky. Like, "girl, get off me. I just can't deal with this."

NOODLES:

Well, Session was written by Brian's girlfriend and her friend. A lot of the lyrics were written by them and Brian kind of worked them into the song.

LFB:

Do you like playing the Midwest?

NOODLES:

Yeah. I've had fun just about everywhere on this tour. This is my first time touring this extensively in the U.S. ever. I've done a number of tours, I mean, three weeks is the longest we've ever done in the U.S. until this tour.

By Shawn Frevele, from Life From Beyond - August 1994