This interview took place at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle, in the noise and confusion of the opening band's set. Keep in mind the place was pretty packed that night. Some of the interview we had to cut because of the heavy background noise.
AZ:
How about you guys introduce yourselves.
Matt:
Nice to meet ya. I'm Matt, the singer of Gas Huffer.
Joe:
I'm Joe. I will soon have my mouth full of food.
Tom:
I'm Tom, the guitar. I will also be representing Don Blackstone, our bass player. He's not here tonight.
Matt:
We forgot to bring the Don Blackstone puppet.
Tom:
We get all the formalities out of the way.
Matt:
You can pull the string and it says "Six years. Pretty good. Yeah, they're treating us real well."
AZ:
So how long have you guys been around anyway?
Matt:
Six years. (laughs)
AZ:
The standard questions.
Tom:
We started back in the eighties.
Joe:
Back when punk was still punk, man! Before this whole retro revival!
AZ:
Where did you get the name Gas Huffer?
Joe:
Tom?
Tom:
Just thought it would be amusing. And we've since gotten in trouble over that, particularly when we play at the Redmond YMCA, which is by the old firehouse. I guess there's a really Christian center out there who complain that some of their children come home from Gas Huffer concerts with Gas Huffer t-shirts with the guy huffing gas and getting all fucked up.
Joe:
I admit it's a pretty sick-looking t-shirt.
Tom:
Apparently they thought that we were trying to imply that the guy huffing gas on there was real cool and that kids should strive to be like him.
AZ:
Kids should strive to inhale gas fumes and get all screwed. Well hell, why not? (Sarcasm, of course) One thing I noticed. I haven't heard much of your earlier stuff, but I was listening to your Epitaph...
Matt:
What?!
AZ:
...I was listening to your Epitaph release "One Inch Masters" and I noticed that... (Waitress interrupts by bringing complimentary food to the band while AZ editors stifle stomach grumblings)
Tom:
There you are.
AZ:
Oh, food's coming.
Joe:
Food has arrived!
AZ:
Sandwich and cole slaw.
Matt:
Turn on the smell, the olfactory microphone.
AZ:
I don't think this one came with one.
Tom:
Is that turkey in there?
Joe:
Yeah.
Tom:
Jeep, you're gonna fall asleep.
Joe:
I know. Turkey's full of triptofans, make you sleepy.
AZ:
I've heard about that. Turkeys, bananas and squid.
Tom:
What was your question?
AZ:
Oh, I don't know. No, it was, uh...
Matt:
You noticed something about our Epitaph release "Once Inch Masters"...
AZ:
Yeah.
Matt:
Which is still available for sale.
Joe:
Then something about bananas and squid.
AZ:
I noticed you have a real penchant for storytelling in your songs. I mean, the lyric writing is really good...
Matt:
Thank you!
AZ:
That must be you then.
Matt:
Actually, I'm channeling a six thousand year old warrior named Ramtha.
AZ:
And he likes to write Gas Huffer songs.
Matt:
That's right.
AZ:
How long has he been in the band?
Matt:
He's been in the band about six thousand years.
AZ:
Man, you guys go way back! (laughs) Do any of your do any writing on the side or anything like that?
Matt:
Not anymore.
Joe:
I'm working on a great American novel.
AZ:
Well it's about time somebody did.
Tom:
Actually, I contribute to fanzines occasionally, like liner notes and stuff like that for my buddies' bands and stuff. I'm a big contributor to Cool Dust magazine.
Matt:
I write freelance ransom notes.
AZ:
On your earlier release on Empty, you had a release on Empty...
Tom:
Two albums.
AZ:
Yeah, one of which was "Integrity..."
Tom:
"Technology and Service". That was the second one. The first one was "Janitors of Tomorrow".
AZ:
I noticed on that CD you guys had a silly-punk sound meets country-type sound on some of the songs.
Tom:
Well, we don't think of it as being silly so much as just...like the one thing that I think unifies all four of us as far as our musical tastes go is that we hate pretentious bullshit, with some guy standing up there singing about his pain, and you know...
Matt:
Unless it's really good.
Tom:
Yeah, I mean...some country pain songs can be very good but I almost prefer the ones that are so overblown and over-the-top that they're almost ludicrous. But no Nine Inch Nails fans in this band. We've always tried to keep kind of an upbeat and sort of a fun vibe going. Not necessarily, I mean we do whatever we feel like doing at any given time, but it's always turned out to be trying to avoid pretentiousness and coming off like our pain is so important.
Joe:
We feel pain.
Tom:
We feel pain, and we feel your pain. But we talk to our mommies about it, we don't try to write songs about it too much.
Matt:
If you feel pain while you're watching us, don't worry, it'll be over soon.
AZ:
I did notice on a song called "Do the Brutus," you guys had kind of a country-western sound.
Tom:
We're pretty influenced by roots music, blues and country and rockabilly and R&B, we all like that kind of stuff. We never really sat down at any point and said "Hey, we're gonna do a cowpunk band, we're gonna fuse hillbilly and punk" or anything like that but it just kind of came out that way, there's just a little bit of a twangy edge to a lot of stuff we do.
AZ:
I really like the style. It's not normal to see a band that's going out of their way to have fun in the recording studio.
Joe:
As long as it's fun we'll keep doing it. If it's still fun after six years, it's still the same guys, so... If it loses that edge, man, you won't be seeing any more records from us. Or maybe you will. We may have gotten so wrapped up in all the pretentions and songs about pain by that point we'll have forgotten our roots and we'll just keep making records.
AZ:
What's the widest exposure you've been able to get? I mean I mention Gas Huffer to a lot of people and they've never heard of you guys.
Matt:
That's 'cause they're dumbasses!
Tom:
There are still a few dimbulbs out there that ain't heard the word yet.
Joe:
We played on the stage at the Paramount, that was pretty wide.
Tom:
We've been on MTV.
AZ:
I've noticed that the Offspring, you know, they're on the same label and they've been having this sort of wild success, is that kind of hard to take or...
Tom:
Nah, we don't care.
Joe:
It's really easy to take because Epitaph has a whole bunch of money they can spend on us now.
Tom:
Yeah, that's fine with us.
AZ:
One thing I've also noticed is that Rancid has had a real big following, but I've noticed that you guys really keep away from the style, that kind of attitude.
Tom:
Not really consciously, you know...
Joe:
We just do what we do and they do what they do, they just happen to have a way more stylized, kind of super-stylized look.
Tom:
I don't know if our music's really for everybody, but we seem, you know, the last couple of years especially we've been doing real well, the tour's been going good and the album's sold pretty well and Epitaph is real happy with the way it's sold, it's still going...
AZ:
We'd like to have a big following too.
Tom:
But we still have day jobs, but we don't have to work too much. I guess nowadays we've been making a living off the band. So everything's cool with us, we just keep plugging away and touring and just adding on to that following bit by bit...So it's going, it's working.
AZ:
The video you did was for "Crooked Bird" wasn't it?
Tom:
Uh-oh.
AZ:
Are you planning to do any other videos at all?
Tom:
Yeah. In fact next week.
AZ:
for which song?
Tom:
It's called "More of Everything", off the new album. Then we're going to Europe. We already did one tour in Europe, but you think nobody's heard of us here, boy, nobody'd heard of us in Europe other than a handful of fanatics.
AZ:
Well actually, Empty's original office was out of Frankfurt, Germany.
Tom:
Right, the guy who started Empty was in Germany in the army.
Matt:
Nuremburg.
Tom:
Yeah, he started it with couple of German fellows... Well, one German and one German-American person who lived in Germany, and then when he got out of the army he moved back to the states and they started a sister label, or brother label...
AZ:
But you guys still didn't really get any exposure out of that?
Tom:
Well, you know , the records on EMpTy did fine, sold pretty well. But, you know, we've never been really looking for like, there'll be one sudden moment where we break through to the masses...
Joe:
(jokingly) It's sort of like the tortoise and the hare. I mean, sure The Offspring, they're like the hare, but soon they're going to get lazy and we're just going to go right past them.
Matt:
We'll eat their bleeding carcasses!
Tom:
We've never been all that worried about, you know, being in the top forty and all that stuff. We pretty much all come from a pretty punk rock background, so to us being successful has never been like a huge priority. It's nice if it happens, but we're not worried about it. Success hasn't happened and we've been doing it.
Joe:
It never even seemed like a reality.
AZ:
Do you guys think you could really handle big success if it happened?
Tom:
I'm sure we could. We're not, you know, a bunch of teenagers with stars in our eye.
Matt:
I'd be kind of bummed if I couldn't walk around. That would be a drag.
Joe:
You see Eddie Vedder out all the time.
Matt:
Yeah. Sure.
Joe:
There he is now! Quick, jump him!