"...We ended up coming up with this crazy amusment park with rides that kill you and characters that were really strange and we called it..."

Many bands today that  might sound Heavy Metal , tend to call themselves either Hardcore, Alternative or some made up title just to stay away from the big hair stigma that follows.  But you won't see that with this Happy Fun group.  They are a self-proclaimed Heavy Metal band with a message of God , and they are anouncing it very loudly. Here is our very own P.R. man Gilbert Hernandez to dive deep into the minds behind the music of Happy Fun Town.

GILBERT: Today people, we are here at Rhythmstx with Happy Fun Town. Happy Fun Town can you please tell me your names and what you guys play, starting with you.”

DEAN: My name’s Dean and I play the bass.

BRIAN: My name’s Brian Anderson and I play the drums.

GILBERT: Brian Anderson.

CHRIS: Hi, my name is Chris and I scream real loud.

GILBERT: Heck yeah.

SAM: I’m Sam and I play the guitar.

GILBERT: Sam plays guitar.

GILBERT: So, can you guys tell me how Happy Fun Town got started?

HFT: Well, December ‘93 we went to Superfest up in the mountains and we saw one of our favorite metal bands, Tourniquet. We’d been jamming for awhile, and we had been up for about two days straight so we ended up coming up with this crazy amusment park with rides that kill you and characters that were really strange and we called it Happy Fun Town. Then we came back down the hill and we figured that would be a good name for a band ‘cause in a sense the world is this amusment park that draws us in with money, materialism, pornography, alcohol, drugs, and it will kill us no matter how fun it is and it’s better just to not go in.

GILBERT: What is your goal in Happy Fun Town as a band?

CHRIS: Basically right now it’s just to have fun and minister the Lord when He gives us an opportunity and just go where the Lord leads us, we don’t have any expectations other than to do the Lord’s will.

GILBERT: What about individually starting with you. What is your goal for Happy Fun Town?

DEAN: Basically what Chris said, we’re out playing, having fun doing it for God’s will. Um, most of us all have some type of calling in some form of ministry whether it be teaching in secular schools or the police, working on the police force or on the computer, or stuff like that. So basically we have a ...... what the Lord’s called us to, we’re just playing music because we like to play and we also like to minister to people and share the Lord with them.

HFT: I think Dean said it pretty well, um also we would like to keep playing for as long as we feel it is right. It always needs to be for Him, no compromises and if it just gets to the point where we’re not lead to play, where the ministry is not getting done we’ll just stop doing it. It’s not about how many people we can get to the show. Or anything like that, or we are not here to meet girl or get alcohol or anything like that, you know that stuff is not important. Except for Chris, he’s married he has a harem, so that’s about it.

HFT: Just the same thing, just try to have fun and just be open minded about it. Well, you know to add to that, we would like to push ourselves creatively. Maybe do something that people might like, that’s kind of what we are in the music for, the music part of it, but also to be edifying for the Lord and to bring up some issues that maybe don’t get brought up in our type of music.

GILBERT: What kind of people inspire you or what inspires you to play the style of music you guys play?

HFT: Tourniquet.

HFT: Yeah, the only band we have ever listened to in our lives is Tourniquet.

HFT: Tourniquet.

HFT: We don’t know who any of these other bands are.

HFT: Most of us are over 30, except for Brian so we were raised on ‘80’s metal.

BRIAN: I may be under 30 but I still like metal.

"...the world is this amusment park that draws us in with money, materialism, pornography, alcohol, drugs, and it will kill us no matter how fun it is and it’s better just to not go in."

GILBERT: So what do you guys think about, since you are old and everything, what do you guys think about Winnie the Pooh?

HFT: Ah dude.

HFT: Tigger too, man.

HFT: And Eeore, thanks for noticing man.

HFT: I’m more into Roo.

GILBERT: Roo. What about Little House, that’s more about your time.

HFT: Little House on the Prairie

HFT: Alfonso was a fruit though, I’m sorry.

GILBERT: I forgot about Alfonso. That guy was like a flake, huh.

HFT: I think Mrs. Olson was very picturesque and metaphorically Satan.

HFT: Yeah, she was.

HFT: Mr. Olson is a little wuss.

GILBERT: Did you guys see Christmas at the Ingles place? You know, Laura and her pony. That tore me up man.

HFT: That tore me apart too.

HFT: I couldn’t stay up to watch Emergency after that.

HFT: Bunny was a cool horse.

GILBERT: He knows Bunny!

HFT: I didn’t even see Dukes of Hazzard that day.

GILBERT: He knows Bunny! Awesome.

HFT: Pa made her the saddle and everything dude.

GILBERT: So what do you guys think of Michael Landon?

HFT: The guy lived hard, man.

HFT: So basically Tourniquet and Metallica those are basically the two bands we are into.

(Everyone laughs)

GILBERT: So are there any venues down the line for you guys, anything you are looking forward to? We’re going to record another demo here in another couple months. And we’ve got to write some more tunes.  And hopefully we’ll start playing bigger shows, you know, whatever the Lord leads us to do.

GILBERT: So how has it been working as a band together? Do you all like the same style of music?

HFT: Yeah, pretty much. We just have slight differences in like tempo that we dig, you know. Certain members of the band.

HFT: I like slow driving.

HFT: Basically three of us like fast music and one of us doesn’t. (laughs)

HFT: Because it’s harder for me to play fast music, than slow music. My fingers don’t cooperate.

HFT: It’s a practice issue.

GILBERT: So, what are your plans from now on, when you leave this place besides going to Denny’s or wherever you are going to go.

HFT: Let’s go to Carrows.

GILBERT: You know, I put some tiles in Carrows up here. Yeah, the kitchen is dirty, you don’t want to eat there.

HFT: Oh great.

GILBERT: It’s dirty.

HFT: Taco Bell.

GILBERT: Go to Denny’s

HFT: Have you ever eaten a taco that tastes like a forklift blade? That’s because they someone rammed a fork lift into your taco meat and sold it anyway.

GILBERT: So is there any plans?

HFT: The next plan is we all evidently need to bleach our hair because that’s what’s in right now.

HFT: I would like to if I had hair, but um.

HFT: Stick a javelin through our tongue because that is evidently the style as well.

HFT: I’m going to put a stop sign in my ear.

GILBERT: That’s awesome. That’s totally punk rock.

HFT: We’re not punk though.

GILBERT: Anyway, Tourniquet was bad when I saw them live. They had that punk like da, da, da. And they got like the circle like moving. It’s like, it’s in. So how are you guys on stage?

HFT: This is like our first mosh pit like ever.

GILBERT: Are you serious?

HFT: We have, parts of our songs are pitable then we quickly go into something that’s non-pitable because we want people to have fun and mosh, but we don’t want them to get hurt. Because every time I’ve been to like a major show where people pit, some little girl gets in there and gets her leg snapped over her head and it’s not cool, so.

GILBERT: Any last words for the people out there on the internet surfing and trying to look for Happy Fun Town?

HFT: My thing is just, don’t be afraid to get into any kind of Christian music or any type of music you want. You know, there’s music that’s popular right now, but you don’t have to get into that if you don’t want to. Find what you want. We all dig metal and we always will and it’s not popular right now, and that’s ok though because it’s basically what we like and it’s what we want to do.

GILBERT: Heck yeah dude.

HFT: Go to our website and listen to us, please, real audio.

GILBERT: What is the address to that?

HFT: Ok, it’s kind of a long one. It’s http:members.xoom.com/happyfuntown

GILBERT: Well people, that is Happy Fun Town for you guys. Thank you guys.

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