Ben Weasel interview on Feb 18th 1997 by Jennie Tinyflecks

While many of the punks I know over in America were debating about the whole Screeching Weasel reformation - over here in England, many didn’t respond. Zip. Nada. Nothing. No raging comments about lawyers and how the scene is falling apart. No pro-Lookout arguments about loyalty or backstabbing... not even a shed of emotion about the subject at all. Not for them anyway. May be they didn’t know about it, may be they didn’t really care?! Me... well, being a fan of both parties... I was just disappointed that the band left their longstanding home of Lookout Records the way that they did... Anyway, that’s all getting to be old news - and so here’s all the latest ramblings that I got from Ben when he rang me up from Chicago, not long ago.

j: Did Suspect Device just interview you? Was it Dave?

Weasel :Yeah...

j:Cool!

Weasal :You fanzine people all know each other? I think it’s good that the fanzine people out there know each other and they seem to have respect, like I never seem to hear anybody talking bad about another fanzine... and that’s nice! (Laughs) Because out here...

j: It’s different! (laughing)

Weasal : Yeah, even if the people do know each other.. it’s like "Ah, yeah, and his fucking fanzine - fuck him!" I’m trying to get away from that, it’s real hard, I practiced all that stuff myself... there’s no need to fucking attack somebody else, people do their own thing and you don't need to fuck each other over.

j: We’re actually all meeting up at the Descendents gig tomorrow - and everyone is going!

Weasal : I know.

j: O.K, I’ll start - what’s the current situation with Screeching Weasel?

Weasal: I think this week we’re gonna move all our equipment out of our practice space & give that up cos we’re taking the rest of the year off.

j: What’s the worst thing to have come out of the whole reformation and label ordeal?

Weasal: The worst thing is that we had a new record come out and instead of doing interviews that where we talked about the record, the weather, politics or fucking anything... I’ve done a bunch of interviews where I’ve talked about LK records and Fat Records.

j: Don’t worry, I know all about it...

Weasal: And it’s like, you know what? Fuck this! I’m so tired of talkin about it And in fact, and we got slammed by people who would go on and on about Fat, about LK. and say... "oh yeah, & the record’s really great...BUT..." and so the record didn’t have anything to do with it and it became this political issue. In those times when I did review records, I reviewed records but I didn’t use my reviews as a soap-box...

j:For the review (of "Bark like a dog"), I said that it wasn’t a politics review - so I won’t rant and rave - and just get down to it. Um, okay... I have a couple of Qs to ask you about the whole Fat/Lookout thing, do you mind?

Weasal: I don’t mind... if you want to run an interview like everybody else is running, what it’s gonna end up like, then I’ll talk about it, but be forewarned - you get me going on this, and you’ve got me going! No,it’s not like I’m gonna get pissed or anything. So proceed at your own risk...

j: (laughing) I was thinking before you rung, and I was thinking... God, Ben’s answering the same damn Qs over and over again!

Weasal: Well, may be you’ll ask different questions.

j:I know you’ve never been keen on running your own label, has your latest experiences put you off even more or has it changed your perspective of going out and doing your own thing?

Weasal: For a while when we were making the record, I seriously proposed to the others that we release it ourselves... The main reason why we decided against that was because we wouldn’t have enough money... It’s too much like a regular job, a record label, and I suppose that I should be preparing for another career since the band stuff isn’t gonna last much longer, people get tired and we won’t sell like we used to... if I do go into a business for myself, unless I’m really desperate - it won’t be in the music business.

j:You’ve expressed your preference for older audiences at your gigs as opposed to the whole younger Pennywise/Offspring crowd. But by signing to a label like Fat Wreck, don’t you think that you’re marketing yourself more to that crowd?

Weasal:That was a broad statement, but yes. I think I made comments a couple of years ago, out of frustration. It was more and more difficult to relate to teenagers and I don’t feel that way quite as much, anymore. I don’t really know... at this point the record has been out 4 months and I don’t know who’s buying it. I know it has sold better than any of our LK releases did - I don’t know if that means we’ve become a favorite of the baggy-pants crowd. I kinda doubt it because if we had, we would be selling twice as many records, the really popular bands on that label sell a lot more records than us. I don’t think that we’ve been picked up by that crowd, except for the fringes of it.

j:I’ve got your record here, I think the songwriting is great, but compared to your last record, it seems to be less aggressive - would you say that your form of inspiration has shifted much?

Weasal:Yeah, I think you’re probably onto something.I think if you look at the records, going back to our very 1st record, and go to this one - you’ll notice that you’ll see the word "fuck" a lot less, as time goes on. It’s certainly not the best collection of songs that I’ve written lyrically... I think that next time around, the lyrics probably will be better, musically, it’ll be better as well in terms of being more aggressive. I think some of the tunes should have been played faster, it wasn’t a conscious thing to play slower, I literally didn’t realize it until after the record came out. The reason was because we went too closely with the click track, which was the same problem with the 1st Riverdales album - those were the only 2 records we’ve done where our drummer used a click track. Sometimes a tune in practice or live can sound a lot faster than it is because there is a certain energy level there but if you play it at the same speed in a studio you’re not gonna capture that same energy, so basically what you need to do is to make it a little harder for the musicians (guitar/ bass) to play, and that way you get an amount of urgency in the songs. I think we did that very well on How to Make Enemies and Irritate People - we were having almost a little bit of trouble keeping up with the drums and yet it’s a really tight album, there’s a certain amount of energy there that I think is missing on some of the tunes on the new one.

j: Are you running the show again with sw or are responsibilities divided up between yourself and Vapid like in the Riverdales?

Weasal: No no... SW is mine, I’m like the manager of the band, like a subjective democracy - I ask the guys their opinions but if I think they’re all wrong, it’s gets overridden. John deals with all the financial stuff and I deal with everything else, so the other guys between them, they deal with answering the mail.

j: The Riverdales are releasing an album soon on Honest Don’s... I’ve actually got some names, "Mental Retard", "Give it up", "Boy in the plastic bubble", so can you tell me a bit more about it?

Weasal: Sure, I could tell you the name of every tune! I could tell you the sequence. We’re mixing it Monday, we’re doing a photo shoot, Saturday. We recorded that in early January, it was great, the sw album was hard cos we paid for it ourselves, so this one, I said "look, we’re gonna do this one differently", the click track thing, for instance. We only used it for half of the tunes - so it’s faster than the 1st Riverdales album. It’s much more Ramones based, like the first Ramones album. We did it in six days - it was actually a really pleasant experience and one of the only recording sessions that I’ve ever been involved in that I didn’t have a temper tantrum and neither did anybody else. I produced it with Mass Giorgini... production wise, I was going for ‘Rocket to Russia’, so all the instruments were matched up with that. There’s two guitar tracks, rhythm guitar on this one, all the lead vocals are doubled - so there’s some stylistic differences. It’s a much much stronger album... to me, it’s gonna be a great album to blast at a party and at the same time, I think it’s a great album to listen to alone in your room when you’re all bummed out. I’m really excited about it, it’s gonna be out at the end of May and it’s called "Storm the streets".

j:I saw you play "Blitzkrieg Bop" with Billie Joe...

Weasal:Ah! Was that in Manchester?

j:Yeah, it was! And I loved it... it was one of the best things I’ve ever seen... do you plan to cover anymore Ramones tunes?

Weasal: Oh, I don’t know... live, I always wanted to cover "Bonzo goes to Bitburg"... it’s the best tune that they recorded in the 80s and the hook in that is just unbelievable... and that tune came out around the time SW was starting.

j: What do you think of all the Screeching Weasel soundalikes coming out?

Weasal: I have heard some of them, that are supposed to be SW soundalike bands, I don’t think they sound like us - I’d like to think we’re good and they suck!

j: You haven’t got a favorite one then? (laughing)

Weasal: No, what I hear these bands doing is, evidently, they listen to our stuff and the Queers... and they go - "oh, here’s what you do, you get 3 chords and you write one of these cheesy little one string lead solos and you’ve got a tune." A lot of these guys can play their instruments. And first of all - the reason why we play that is that’s all I know how to do, that is all I was able to write and that’s all I’m still able to write. And lyrically they’re horrible!!! They’re just unbearable! All they do is sing these broken-hearted love songs, and boy, I have nothing against broken-hearted love songs, you’ve got to be able to do it well! And they don’t do it well... and they just whine! They just sing about stupid shit that’s not even funny-stupid, like the Angry Samoans or The Queers. It’s just stupid! From what I’ve heard which has been diminutively little, if they are SW rip-offs, they’re ripping off the wrong stuff! I’ve heard a couple of bands that the singer will try and do the weird little vocal-hitch that I always do, that I sorta stole from the Dickies. And the only thing I think of is - dude, you’d be better off listening to the Dickies! It’s something that sounds really dumb... and I can get away with it for some reason, I don’t know why. People are making fun of that... and Joe King loves to make fun of that, he’ll do that (mimics Joe’s imitation of Ben, singing) "I fucked up today"... you prick! (laughing) And so I’ll do my Joe King impression which goes something like... (emulates Joe’s singing) Weasal: Yeah, I haven’t listened to that in a long time.

j: We don’t get much ice-hockey over here but I know about "Blood on the Ice", how’s that coming along?

Weasal: Boy, you’re pretty well informed! The team that I write about...

j: Chicago Wolves...

Weasal: Are on a losing streak... and I’m totally fucking pissed right now. And when I see the general manager and coach of the team, basically just acting like a dick, it really upsets me... I would never say this to them but personally I have more fans than these guys do, my band certainly has more fans. I’d interview some of these players and they’re like oh it’s a big job for them, and it’s like "fuck you, man" - I’ve been doing this for 10 fucking years and I’ll talk to any fanzine, I’ll fucking do it! It’s starting to piss me off. Most of the players are really cool but the team have just been making some bonehead personnel moves lately, they’re not playing well, they’re losing. We got the biggest crowd this weekend...

j: Was this game at home?

Weasal: Yeah... and they took the worst beating in team history... 8 to 1. It’s like, what the fuck are you doing? It’s just really frustrating and I don’t know whether you’re familiar with the legacy of the Cubs, but growing up a Cubs fan, is like growing up a masochist... it’s like they’re losers and I don’t need a hockey team with that same mentality... this is a team that’s well over the salary cap, we have more talent than any team in the league, and we’re fighting for a play-off spot... and in the fucking league, we’re only 3 teams that won’t make the play-offs! And so after this season, I’m gonna make up my own whether I’m gonna support that team cos I’ve gone through enough heartache with the Cubs.

j: Yeah.. you spoke about taking a year out, are there any cool things that you like to do, which you haven’t done yet - within and out of the punk scene?

Weasal: Well, I didn’t go out and fly a kite last year, I bought a kite, so I wanna do that. Of course I’m gonna concentrate on finishing my book that should be out a year from now... and I might do a little bit of travelling over the summer and in fact, I may even go to England...

j: Cool! last question, make your own question up and answer it.

Weasal:Erm... well, I’m not at my best cos I’m still sorta waking up... well, why don’t we go with the fucking, the one people never ask me but always ask my friends... "Are you really an asshole?" The answer, I’m pretty sure, is YES! I’m sure if Joe King had a nickel for every time somebody asked him that whether I was an asshole, he wouldn’t need to tour, he wouldn’t need to make records, he’d fucking retire in a mansion!

(laughing)