As part of this issue’s weirdcore focus, we present an interview with Flipper conducted almost ten years ago after Flipper’s ill-advised reunion, resulting in the American Grafishy album. While this period of Flipper’s existence revealed a misguided direction, the album produced at least a couple fine tracks but ultimately lead nowhere. It wasn’t until 2000 that Flipper would, sort of, reunite again and redeem their career with two (final?) tracks. One for a Metallica tribute compilation (“Sad But True” uh… that’s the song title) and another tribute album for Nirvana called Smells like Nirvana in which they deftly handled “Scentless Apprentice.”
The following interview, by Rif Raff was originally published in Mute magazine, Volume 3, Issue 3, back in 1993. Here’s the band, but mostly Bruce Lose.-
I haven’t seen you guys since ’83. I saw you in Santa Barbara and Perkins Palace. An important part of the show seemed to be the reaction of the audience, you always pissed off half of them. You played really slow stuff that was at odds with the ultra popular thrash hardcore music.
Ted Falconi: In Santa Barbara we played with the Dead Kennedys. Everybody was expecting thrash out of all the bands. Part of the “hardcore” attitude is not necessarily fast and thrash.
Bruce: Basically it was bands playing fast, so we played slow. We just play what we play. I consider ourselves to be real punk. People have been labeling us the originators of grunge and shit like that. The Sex Pistols came on the scene and did your typical rock and roll chords and just sped them up. We came in and just played what we wanted to play.
It almost seemed you were baiting the audience.
Isn’t that what punk was about? To push the limits to the edge. Do something different and make it a challenge. I love shocking people and being different. Right now being labeled the originators of grunge, I think it’s wonderful that we’re coming out in semi-coordinated clothes and me wearing glitter make up, just to fuck with their god-damn heads.
What have you been doing these past years?
Did the family thing there for awhile. I had a kid, got to be a father. His name is Montgomery. I got to father him by myself for a whole year. He’ll be seven years old this Sunday. He was born on my birthday. For the last couple of years I’ve been living in total hell, and having a total nightmare. I got divorced , it took me years to get over it. I’d been living in kinda an emotional turmoil.
Voice of Someone: Painspring is the well of creativity.
There you go. What inspire or fuels you besides other music?
Ted: The trauma of life.
Bruce: The trauma of life is definitely something that inspires us.
You mentioned before, you think America didn’t learn its lesson the first time around. Do you think they’re gonna learn it this time?
I doubt it. ‘Cause if they do. I’m out of a job.
Do You catch any flack for being signed to a major label?
I like doing this job, I’m actually glad we’re signed to a label. I know in S.F., a lot of the hardcore punks who used to like us think we sold out and shit like that. We’re not driving in a limousine, I’m not even getting my rent paid by the record company.
It’s like the Maximum Rock and Roll people…
There’s always been a battle with them. Will (Shatter) always had a problem with Tim Yohannen.
What is he like? It seems like he’s treated like some sort of “guru” up in S.F.
He’s probably an anally repressed homosexual and doesn’t realize it. There’s nothing wrong with that. He’s should just probably come to grips with himself. When he came on the scene he thought that Marxism and socialism is what punk rock was going to be about. So to go and attach yourself to some sort of old dogma that has been proven itself to be just as bad and awful as capitalism.
What was the last album you bought? What music do you listen to right now?
I used to collect a lot of punk rock stuff; collected singles like crazy. I never listened to a lot of Black Flag or any of those kind of bands. I like listening to… did you ever hear of the Fatal Microbes? They put out one single. It was some sixteen year old girl with purple hair. It was a bunch of kids and they played fairy tale punk rock. It was funny stuff. It was great. It was different. I also like a lot of the Residents’ stuff and things like that. Hip Hop came around and I started collecting a lot of Sugarhill shit. The first time Grandmaster Flash came out, I was at their concert having such a good time. At the end of the night we were to go hang out at the touring bus, and the roadies were telling me that I should be learning break dancing and shit.
How about newer stuff?
I always like rap. I was into my wife’s band for a long time, The Housecoat Project, which was kinda rhythm and blues, jazzy soul. She thought she was Billie Holliday reincarnated. I liked her band, she had a good band, other than that I just kind of petered out.
Were you involved with a band before Flipper reunited?
Had a couple of bands after Will died. Steve’s done some other bands. Ted did a band in L.A. for awhile. He originally started SWA.
Right, with Charles Dukowski.
Steve Worked on a band called The Jungle Studs with D.H. Peligro. He played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I moved to New York for awhile and started a band called The Altered States of America, which has kind of become our credo. I don’t live in the United States of America, I live in the Altered States of America. Recently I’ve become involved in multimedia things like poetry, drawings, paintings, art and music. I like studying many different types of esoteric things.
Can you give me some examples?
Well, practicing Zen Buddhism while reading Nitzche. Take it to those extremes. At this point human beings have got to take their male and female energies and combine them. Not for the use of sexuality but for the use of creativity. You get a much more balanced form of creativity. The people I’m hanging out with are opening those doors of perception. I’m calling it World War 7 or Nine.
(laughter) Skip Wars, 3, 4, 5…
Well, a lot of that has already happened. People are still fighting those. The gays are still fighting for their rights. In ’82 – ’84 it got bleak. We thought “1984 was coming (here it is in 2002 –ed.). In 77 when I first got into punk rock, it felt like the world was going to end. I’ve grown up a bit. I’m almost 34. I’m starting to realize I made it through that age of 19 to 30 when you think “oh, I’m never going to live past 27.” I starting to realize there’s a lot more out there in life and I’m just going to go on and continue.
Have you done many interviews since this album was released?
Yeah. a lot of interviews. Tons.
Are you getting sick of them?
Uh un. No.
What question do you hate the most?
That’s one of them.
Ha ha!
I do get sick of certain repetitive questions.
You must get sick of people hanging on the past and the 80s, even I’ve done that.
I’ll tell ya, I’m going out with this girl right now and all she says is that I’m just an 80s throwback kinda guy. The best thing she did for me recently was tie me up with hair ribbons and chains and make me bike around in her apartment naked in front of her roommate.
Wow.
That was the most exciting sex I’ve had in a long time.
How was it working with Rick Rubin?
We didn’t work with him. He gave us full artistic control. The only thing that he did do was pick the order of the songs and made a couple of critical comments on how certain songs were sounding and being mixed, which I ignored.
I like the lyrics in the song “Flipper Twist,” it reminds me of how I first saw you ten years ago. It really captures the flavor of Flipper’s music.
John had kinda come up with the concept for that. He kept singing “Flipper twist, Flipper twist.” To me, the idea came to try and explain what Flipper was and what we were doing.
The song “Fucked Up?”
You know, we got this review in BAM magazine and this guy put all these drug connotations in it. It had nothing to do with that. The Lyrics are “Oh I fucked up once again,” all people hear is “Oh, fucked up once again.” The lyric “No more rivers of blood” is two things; no more bad dreams of horror and death, and a hoping and a blessing that females will not have such bad periods in the future. “Taking over my dream of love,” that fits in both of those situations. “Feel a bit of poetry in my life” meant things were getting better for me but that could change overnight. The song is about discovering change within your self and seeing patterns. Realizing some patterns are repetitive on purpose, you’re supposed to do them so that you learn a certain thing out of them. Some are meant to get away from and escape. Some are made to have you take an action and try and change something. I was really offended by the fact that the reviewer had just put all kinds of drug connotations behind that, you know. Some heavy metal enthusiasts have come up and said “Oh, I really like that song ‘Fucked up once again.’ I can relate! Yeah man, fucked up!” I like to grow and change. I thought that was partially about with a nihilistic, anarchistic approach towards that.
Punk quickly took a strict uniform, almost a doctrine of behavior, a dress.
Yeah, same thing with other types of music, hip hop for instance. Look, it’s the turn of the century. Every turn of the century the masses freak out. The world’s gonna end. I got a message from way out there…
What’s your message for the turn of the century?
It’s not the message. I’m saying I received a message from a frequency that’s way above what any radio or TV can pick up. There’s a few humans I know who can pick up on this high frequency. I pick up on the low end frequencies as well, but miss all the ones in the middle. It’s like , this is one of our last chances. The planet just keeps doing the same thing, fucking up once again, just being in this cycle. It’s time to break that. This is our planet. This is our spaceship. It’s time to be responsible for it and do something. I hope that’s what Flipper’s doing. If not, then I’m a hypocrite and a jerk and I hope to make a lot of money, get rich, and everybody can go suck, and the cycle can be fucked up.
Once again.