Tell me about the band... how did you guys start out?
We’re from Texas. Murry, the bass player, and I have been playing together for years. Then we hooked up with Ken
and Phil... we’ve toured our asses off and got on Elektra Records... just put out our third record for them - our fifth
record overall. It’s crazy... goes on and on.
What are your influences?
I was a huge David Bowie fan. Generally we get compared a lot to The Clash and Live... and I like them... so that’s
a good comparison. I like songwriters a lot, I’m a big Elvis Costello fan... all the way from Hank Williams... I like
Rob (Thomas) of Matchbox Twenty. One of the bands that I like on the radio.
Do you like where rock music is heading... with all the Limp Bizkit bands out there?
No, of course not. It’s a frustrating time, but you have to... it’s like we’re on the brink of some kind
of change, and hopefully quality will sort of win out, but who knows. Yeah, Limp Bizkit and all of those bands are really
depressing to me. It always happens - the media always tries to make kids stupid so their expectations are low so they can
put out shitty product and the kids will buy it. It’s working so why will they change? Why would they put out quality
music by people that are killing themselves to write good songs - when they could put out this really cynical crap that’s
formulated to move units... if you put together a boy band where there’s six lead singers instead of one lead singer
you can go on the cover of Rolling Stone with six different covers... so all the fans will go buy six copies of the magazine
when normally they’ll buy one copy. You’re exploiting kids, and really selling out your culture. You’ll
wind up with a country full of stupid fucking idiots because you made them that way so you can sell them records.
You’ve basically already covered this, but what rock bands do you guys listen to right
now?
Badly Drawn Boy. The Pernice Brothers had a new record that I fucking love.
Are you guys labeled "alternative country"? I read that somewhere...
It’s so funny, I was watching John Mellencamp from the 80's... nobody called him alternative country, and what he
was doing was way more country than anything we’ve done, but we happened to come at a time where that label was flying
around. In the mid to late 90's we played with a bunch of bands that also wore that label, and it’s not totally inappropriate...
we are from Texas. And if Tom Petty or R.E.M came out today they would have to wear that as well... and I think they’ll
have a hard time shaking it.
