webpage: http://www.dementlieu.com/~obik/ email: obik@dementlieu.com Interview with the Big Boys from Pages of Rage 4 (1983). I only corrected the worst of the grammatical atrocities. BISCUITS- Vocals TIM - Guitar CHRIS - Bass RAY - Drums WHAT'S THE WEIRDEST THING YOU'VE SEEN IN CANADA SO FAR? B: Funny colored money, Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! C: That guy stiffed on Main St. on the sidewalk. IN THE STATES YOU CAN GIVE A GUY A FIFTY AND THINK IT'S A ONE. C: Only if you're a bonehead! R: The McKenzie brothers ya know, you guys talk just like them. YOU GUYS TALK LIKE WILLIE NELSON. R: I swear to God! I know ya don't think ya do man! B: Do you make any money off this? YEAH, ALOT. B: I like how everybody here really likes the mounties. THE MOUNTIES? B: Ya, postcards and stuff. WHY DO YOU THINK SO MANY SKATERS ARE PUNKS? C: When we all started, like Tim, Biscuits and I had know each other for a long time from skating, and skating was at this point in 78-79 when it had gotten really dull, all the magazine ever covered was skate parks, and parks were real boring. WAS THAT THRASHER? C: No it was Skateboarder, all you saw was pictures of people in parks with their nice new boards and nice new pads. It was so dull, and everybody who was skating was going back underground, skating ditches and stuff, but you never saw that, so all the skaters were really losing interest in the skate scene itself and thats when a lot of them became punks. Then skating almost disappeared, it didn't die but it almost completely disappeared. Then it resurfaced about a year later because all the skaters who had become punks started forming bands and then all the new kids who were coming to shows started skating. T: Thrasher has really helped alot all the new kids starting skating and the bands and stuff, but the biggest thing about parks was it wasn't so it was boring as it was rules. It wasn't grab your board and go have fun, you had to grab your board and put on all these pads and do this and that. C: And don't be radical, how many times were we kicked out of the parks? T: Just all these rules, and skating isn't rules it's going out and having a good time...yourself or your friends or whatever. C: It's along the same lines as going to a show... T: And being told what to do. C: Parks are like going to a heavy metal show where you have a reserved seat. There's one place you're supposed to sit and if you don't they'll get mad at you and you gotta stand in line behind everybody else before you drop in. Where as at a punk show it's chaos, just like skating a pool in a backyard. T: Do you guys skate? I DID ONCE. B: Skateboarding is such a crazy event in itself you're right on the edge all the time, it's like wild energy a real crazy release, everybody just looks at skateboarding as one of the weirdest things in the world and it is. It's dangerous as shit. DO YOU THING SKATING'S BECOME SOMEWHAT OF A FAD AMONG PUNKS? ALL: Yeah! C: There's alot of people now that carry boards who don't skate. B: Cosmetic skateboarding. T: It's not a bad fad though, it's kinda funny in away, it's kinda neat too, seeing all those kids walking around with skateboards. R: That's your aspect though, see I don't skate that much and I look at it from a different viewpoint though. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU READ IN A MAG, "BIG BOYS A SKATE BAND?" C: Skate band is kinda like a ridiculous concept, we're a band and we skate but what does skate band mean ya know? R: I hear skate band and I think of bunch of 15 year old skaters out there that go, "Okay, I got a couple of basic riffs together lets start a band." That's what I think a skate band is. C: I mean we skate and we're tied to skating--that's how we met. I mean before this, that was the biggest thing we did. It was the only think that held our interest. C: Wo definitely now spend alot more time on the band than we do skating, but we still skate. T: A skate band is like JFA which literally has alot of songs about skating whereas we don't have alot of songs about skating but we skate. I would imagine theres alot of bands around who qualify for the same sort of thing, I mean Minor Threat is a skate band--alot of them skate--but they don't have any songs about skating. B: We've got alot of publicity through Thrasher mag which is great, man I love that, and skating is a big part of my life, I'm proud to be called a skate band. C: But it's come a long way, we were one of the first bands tied to skating like MINOR THREAT and JFA whereas you got this whole generation like ANKLECHOPS whoe we played with in Minneapolis. Really, like JFA is like the forefront of that second generation where they skate more than they play music, or they're skaters who happen to be in a band, instead of a band who happens to skate. T: JFA aren't like that though, I wouldn't put them like that. I wouldn't say we were the forefront, we were one of the first bands to come out and say, "Hey, we skate and we play in a band." DO YOU GET ALOT OF SKATERS AT YOUR SHOWS BECAUSE YOU'RE BILLED AS A SKATE BAND? T: The last three shows we've played the skaters have been right up there because of Thrasher and they come up and start talking about parks and things, but that's cool because I'd just as soon hear about that because yeah, tomorrow I wanna go find where this ditch is and go ride there, because it's all wrapped up in my life. I don't know how to explain it, when the BIG BOYS first started the original four were just like that, it's real hard to explain, it's a lifestyle and it's a part of your life, you just do it. It's like when you drive down the highway you're constantly looking for places to skate. when I'm 60 years old I'll probably still be doing it. Now Ray, see, is the fourth drummar we've had, so his opinion is a bit different, he feels a bit different about the whole thing because, okay some kid will come running up to him and start talking about a ditch or something... R: And I won't know what the fuck he's talking about! They'll go, "Hey! Hey! We got this really cool half pipe man," and its going, Zoom! right over my head. T: So in that sense we're a skate band, we don't sing about skating but we're all skaters for damn sure, at least us three, and it's like a day doesn't go by where you look at something and think, God, that'd be good for skating! R: I mean I can skate, I skated for a long time before I ever decided I wanted to be a muscician, but being a muscician comes way before skating. YOU'RE NOT SINGING ABOUT SKATING, SO WHAT ARE YOUR SONGS ABOUT? C: Social things, T: Personal things that happen to us, and just social stuff trying to keep the scene together things like that. WHATS "WE'RE NOT IN IT TO LOSE" ABOUT? C: Basically the title was inspired by this thing that's been going around the Houston skate scene for a long time, all the skaters had "we're not in it to lose" t-shirts, it was like one thing after another. Punks would get busted, clubs would get closed down, you'd get busted for skating. The phrase came up having to do with Hymnal fanzine, I just thought it was great phrase. That song itself is basically about us being banned from Clubfoot back when they were giving us this runaround telling us one thing when that was totally not it. Like the line "Now is the time you have to say what you mean." They'd be telling us this and that but it was all bullshit, they knew and we knew it. So it was like, quit fuckin' with us cause we're doing this for one reason and one reason only. I don't care if you hate us, I'd rather they tell us that than just lie to us. REALLY RED HAVE A SONG THAT GOES, "FOR EVERY KID THAT SAYS ITS FUN, FUN, FUN, WE REFUSE TO SING". DOES THAT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE BIG BOYS IN RELATION TO YOUR "FUN, FUN, FUN" E.P.? T: I didn't even know that. B: I hear alot of people make comments towards that one song. T: And they don't even realize that "Fun, Fun, Fun" is not about Just hey! Fun! Fun! Fun! The whole song was written about slamming about Clubfoot trying to stop everybody from slamming. C: It meant, "Hey we're not trying to hurt anybody, we're just having fun." The second verse is about, I wanna listen to what I wanna listen to and I don't give a shit what you think: It's pretty obvious. T: See at the time when that was written there was this thing going on in Austin where it was like, "Okay, I'm hardcore and I listen to this." Then you had these other people going, "I listen to JOY DIVISION and this." It was like two brick walls, they wouldn't even talk to each other. It was just stupid as hell, this big division starting up, and we wrote the song because we were supposedly, the people on the JOY DIVISION side liked us, and all the hardcore kids liked us. So we almost like stepped out and said, "Here's what's going on, we like JOY DIVISION and we like the stuff you're doin, so what's the problem?" C: We were catching alot of shit for it. T: You'd go into a record store and buy a jazz record or something that wasn't hardcore and you'd catch a bunch of shit about it, cause you were supposed to be hardcore and vice versa. DO YOU GET ALOT OF SHIT FROM PUNKS FOR PLAYING JAZZ AND FUNK AND STUFF? B: We used to. C: All the way up to last summer, we'd been to California twice and the second time we still didn't have any records that anybody had really heard. We got there right when "Fun, Fun, Fun," came out and nobody really knew who we were. We got alot of, "Fuck you, you suck if you play anything besides fast and loud." But then over Christmas when we went to the east coast, "Fun, Fun, Fun" had been out for several months and people sort of knew what to expect. We met alot more open minds that were sort of willing to listen. They'd at least stand there and not scream "Fuck you, you suck!" at us. So when we went to California again "Fun, Fun, Fun" had been out for a year, and the new one came out while we were there. T: There's still people that get turned off by it. C: That's their problem. They're not going "Fuck you, you suck!" though, and that's the difference. There's this backlash now that you don't have to play three chords and be real fast to be hardcore. There's so many bands that are so terrible playing three chords. DO YOU EVER GET DISCOURAGED? C: No, not in Austin, cause it's almost always been real open. T: It has gotten bad there but for the most part, in Texas in general, it's attitude. It's not music, hardcore is attitude, so the BUTTHOLE SURFERS are hardcore but if some kid who is like "Oh, hardcore, MDC," all this stuff and heard the BUTTHOLE SURFERS, going on the phrase he read in some magazine that BUTTHOLE SURFERS are hardcore, he wouldn't know what to think. It's the attitude. C: Alot of places we've been, there's been 20 bands with names like, Youth, Circle, Army, Red, etc. and they're playing like three chords really fast. There's never really been a scene like that in Austin, there's never been more than three bands playing specifically thrash. From the word go we played what we wanted, like REALLY RED, and the DICKS who were never a thrash band by any means. So like the bands who have done the most weren't thrash bands you know second generation CIRCLE JERKS or something. So it's like theres never been a real genaric thrash scene in Austin, which is good, because everybody will have their minds open enough to listen. Ray: But alot of people will turn their noses up at thrash in a second. We've all seen people just walk away from bands, I can't understand why, just because thet play stuff that's fast. They think, well this is just a fast thrash band and we've heard a million of them before, and we don't want to hear it. WOULD I BE WRONG IN SAYING TEXAS IS SUPPORTIVE OF ITS BANDS? T: I get real tired of hearing about all these people talking about genaric thrash bands comin up. It's just like in the sixties except all the garage bands now aren't playing CREEDENCE CLEARWATER, they're playing BLACK FLAG and stuff that they can play, and it's cool, and yeah out of five bands three of them may do nothin, but you may have two bands that'll learn what the hell's going on and start doing individual stuff on their own. I think it's real neat y'know? C: At least they're busy. I don't have any qualms about it, I don't listen to alot of that stuff, but I'd rather have em play in a band... YOU GUYS SAY THAT ON THE BACK OF YOUR RECORDS, "NOW GO START YOUR OWN BAND" C: No matter how much rehash any band is they're gonna have at least one song that makes it worthwhile that they're a band. I've never heard a band do a whole set where there wasn't one gem that made the whole thing worthwhile. B: They're doing something that they enjoy inside. There's so many people walking around with no purpose, punks included, going, "I'm a Punk, well what for? I don't know, cause there's nothing else to do." That's not a good enough reason. Get out there and do something, start a band, make a fanzine, do something. Don't limp along being a punk because you can just as easily limp along being a heavy metaler. You should be here for a reason. When I started going out everyone that was at the club was there for a reason, it was that far underground. Now it's at there the point where there's people that it's just a vacation. But mostly it's still that conscious thinking type thing, that's why I still like it. As long as it stays where 70% of the scene is thinking. B: I think most percentage of people on the punk scene do because of the amount of fanzines that come out, people that do sideline stuff, weird art. C: It's so easy, it's easy to make a fanzine, it's easy to make posters and put em up on the street. There's no reason why you can't do something. R: To come out with something that you think is really good isn't easy. In Austin there's alot of competition with fanzines and music, alot of bands will come to Austin and won't last cause there's so many other bands. IF YOU EVER STUMBLED UPON SUCCESS ON A WIDE SCALE, HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH IT? COULD YOU AVOID THE MONEY AND ALL THE TRAPPINGS? ?: We're more successful now than I ever thought. The whole attitude of this band has always been, "If it ends tomorrow, we've done more than we ever thought we'd do." Because we got together to play Raouls once, and now here we are in in Canada sitting in this fuckin basement talking to you. It's beyond me, I mean I know Tony Alva now, it's like, fuck, this is crazy as hell. C: If we hit widespread success it's going to be doing exactly what we want to do. There will never be a point where we'll do something like "Well if we do this, we can make alot of money." That's not the point, we're gonna write the songs we wanna write, we're gonna play songs we wanna play and if that makes us a million dollars, well it does, but we're doing what we wanna do. It's that kind of a standpoint. If we get rich, who cares? Thats not the point, as long as we're writing the songs we wanna write for ourselves and putting them on records the way we want to put them on records, not the way someone else wants them on, then that's all that matters. B: I say to myself I'm not in competition with anybody in the world, I'm out to do what I feel I'm really happy with. Just that people love, and I guess respect us for who we are, and what we are, is the big honor that's above and beyond all this. T: If you say we've already taken it to one of the steps, of being the big band in town, and like okay, we made 1400 dollars a night, we take 1000 and we give the other three bands fifty dollars apiece or something. We just don't do that shit. Because something could happen and we're not a band anymore, I don't want to walk down the street and have people saying stuff, I want to be treated like I treat other people. C: We don't want to be fameless, or this or that, but if you're not doing it to get to the most people you can, why are you doing it? As long as you have your ethics, as long as you're happy with the way you've done it, then I guess that's okay. T: I wanna say one thing before I go upstairs to watch MINOR THREAT, that we were talking about, that's the whole business about people thinking if you're not political then you're fun, and there's no inbetween, it's like if you're not political then you're not saying anything. It's bullshit to me. C: We did the song "Apolitical" that's basically Tim wrote the song. We each have different political views, we're not putting forth a "band" political opinion ala CRASS, ala DEAD KENNEDYS, whatever we don't do that. Our songs in general deal with a more social, changing things at home instead of changing political systems. Because in general, at least to me, if you change the way people feel where they live, then their political views will change by themselves. But you can change political views all you want, until you change things at their house nothings any different. CAN YOU REALLY CHANGE ANYTHING THROUGH A SONG? T: Yeah, I think you can, if it's to enough people, if people really like it. Look at "Police Story", you know, that BLACK FLAG song, "This fucking city's run by pigs..." everytime that song comes on, you just look at kids, it's like that song hits em and they start thinking, people feel that... C: Nothing's going to make a radical difference period. No one song is gonna charge the face of anything. You gotta chip away, it's like an erosion process. If you get one person... T: It's the whole point of like, you hear all these people going, "Oh poser, poser! He just got his mohawk yesterday." The thing that kills me about that is, yeah, yeah, he may have gotten a mohawk to be real cool, but the next day when he's on the street, with people yelling at him and shit, he's gonna have to deal with it like he'll think, well maybe that's what all these people are singing about. I don't know how to explain it. BISCUIT'S TEXAS CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS (1 chicken is enough meat for 4-6 people) Boil your chicken with enough water to cover chicken at least 3 inches. Salt and pepper to taste during cooking of chicken. Taste the broth after boiling chicken. YUM! YUM! Half way through cooking chicken add carrots, celery, onion, corn, even brussel sprouts. (They take a long time to cook, add first.) Get chicken out of broth using a small frying pan to help pick it up. Pick all bones out and sift through broth for bones. Dump chicken back in, keep simmering. Make "Bisquick" as stated on box for dumplings. (One small box per chicken.. Lots of dumplings will break down for gravy effect. Cook 10 minutes or so and keep stirring so they don't stick. NOW EAT! BISCUIT