Me First and The Gimme Gimmes // Fat Mike interview about DIVAS. (New Noise Magazine Cover Story #09 - April 2014) - Damian Burford: Freelance Writer/Podcaster from Denver, CO & Napa, Ca

Me First and The Gimme Gimmes // Fat Mike interview about DIVAS. (New Noise Magazine Cover Story #09 – April 2014)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors.

A Diva is a force to be reckoned with. A powerhouse singer with an overwhelming, powerful attitude to match. A Diva is likely to get their own way, no matter what the cost. Regardless, a true diva can shape significant portions of the cultural landscape of popular music.

It’s a fitting theme for the Avengers-esque punk rock powerhouse of Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. The band is known for its general infighting and party time attitude, while taking popular songs and crafting them into their own songs.

Those powerhouses who form Me First and The Gimme Gimmes have always been Joey Cape (Lagwagon) mixed with the might of Chris Shiflet (Foo Fighters/No Use For A Name) with the added prowess of drummer, Dave Raun (Lagwagon/RKL) and the almighty Fat Mike Burkett (NoFx/Fat Wreck Chords) on the bass centered around the majesty of singer, Spike Slawson.

Each generation has their own Diva to look up to and call their own. In the punk rock world we have Fat Mike.

Hours before he heads to Japan for a week-long Gimmes tour, we speak with Mike from his San Francisco home. Mike sounds tired when he picks up the phone and explains that he had spent the day at the beach riding bikes with his daughters. What we get is a Fat Mike who is very open and honest about his feelings towards the project, the newest album and his past feeling about Divas.

In my head I associate Divas with the 70’s. You grew up in the 70’s, and do you have any memories of the then Divas scene?

Well, My mom and my dad divorced when I was four. They only had two records. They weren’t music listeners. They just had a stereo and when they had people over, they would put on a couple of records. They only had two. One was Barbara Streisand. I grew up with very little music in the house. I knew Second Hand Rose by Streisand for sure. That’s not why we did Divas. We like to come up with a theme and this way we could play popular songs of the past five decades.

What I like about Divas is that you guys cover a little from every decade with this record. Is there something about these songs you choose?

We just listen to a bunch of the songs, and it’s surprisingly hard to do a Gimmes album. With the country album we went through about a hundred songs to get twelve good ones. People don’t really think about that. People are all the fucking time [telling me], “Hey Mike, Why don’t you do this cover? That would be a really good one!” I’m just like, “Shut up. You have no idea how hard it is to do a song that sounds good in punk rock style.”

We went through every Britney Spear song. We couldn’t find one. We couldn’t find one that was good. There is nothing for chord progressions. They are all dance songs. We tried it with Beyonce and Pink. The only Pink song we liked was the Tim Armstrong one and it’s kind of lame to do that. [Editor’s note: Rancid’s Tim Armstrong co-wrote and produced songs for Pink’s 2003 Try This album. The song “Trouble,” a Rancid outtake was reworked for Pink and won a Grammy. The song was later recorded by Tim Timebomb And Friends in 2012] It’s really hard to find good songs.

When you go in to make a record like this, do you think to yourself anything along the lines of, “What would Celine Dion do?”

Yeah, we don’t take it that seriously. We just try to get through it. What’s cool about the Gimmes now, we get to record at the Foo Fighters studio for free. They have a HUGE awesome studio now, the 606. It’s with the board from that movie, Sound City, came from. So we go there, hang out and go over songs. We just try to knock them out. So we’re not really thinking. I was wasted the whole time. Joey [Cape from Lagwagon] wasn’t there. We don’t really like recording with Joey. We argue too much. He comes in and does his parts, but he is on his own.

What are the tours like? All you guys have such big personalities, how do those personalities fit on the same bus?
We have a good time. We are all interchangeable, which is kind of cool. We’ve done tours without everybody, well everybody except for Spike. Spike is the only person that we really need. It’s just easier that way. Chris [Shiflet] is in the Foo Fighters. He only plays three or four shows with us a year. His brother [Scott Shiflet, also of Face To Face] plays with us too. Brian Baker [Minor Threat & Bad Religion] has been in the Gimmes and Warren [Fitzgerald] from The Vandals has been in the Gimmes. Some people from RKL [Rich Kids on LSD] and some people from Screw 32. Nowadays if we are going to replace any of us, we have to replace them with somebody who is kind of popular.

Do you get jealous when these people are out on the road in place of you?
Oh no, not at all. I’m busy doing other stuff. I was kind of bummed that this last European tour was our most successful tour ever. So that was kind of a bummer. It’s nice to know that after twenty or so years, our tours are bigger than they ever have been before.

Are the tours bigger thanks to the internet making you guys more accessible?
I don’t know if it’s the internet. The internet doesn’t help some bands, and it hurts other bands. The Gimme Gimmes are one of those bands that nobody loves, but everybody likes. The longer we’ve been around, more people will like us. Our bar back catalog is probably the best back catalog on Fat Wreck Chords. People are always playing our records and people are always hearing us. So maybe it’s the internet, but I don’t know. We don’t do that much on the internet.

What about Boy George, and the cover of Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon?” How does it fit into your Divas theme?

It’s a great song. He pretty much acted like a Diva his whole career. He became more famous; WAY MORE FAMOUS than the band. He’s got his own, for real, dolls. He’s a diva! Who the fuck knows where the other guys in the band went, right? So I think he qualifies. And he dresses like a girl.

The Carpenters “Top of The World” is an interesting choice for the album, as is Donna Summer’s “On the Radio.”
Yeah, [Karen Carpenter] wasn’t really a Diva either, but we really liked that song. She was a popular singer. The other one, [On The Radio], was alright.

I think the Celine Dion song is the funniest. That song is just not very good. We did it anyway. We wanted to include Celine.

I love the cover of “I Will Always Love You.” It seems to both pay tribute to both the Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton versions of the songs.
Yes! Yes, it does! It was a twofer! Two credits for that one.

Is it daunting to take a song that is so universally well known from two different artists and throw your own spin on it?
No. Oh no no. It’s not very hard for the Gimmes to make all these songs better. Punk rock is better than other styles of music. Thank god we have a great singer. If you take a good song and you do it well, it’s not hard to outdo it. You can’t cover an AC/DC song and do it better. You can’t do it. You can take a Barry Manilow song and make it better. That’s the whole idea behind the Gimmes. We’re not going to take great rock songs and try to make them more rocking. You can take shitty pop songs and certainly make them better.

On that subject, I really enjoy the Gimmes version of “Crazy For You,” by Madonna; better than the original version. I know you guys have pissed off artists such as The Eagles, but have you met anyone who likes a Gimmes version better than their own?

I know R. Kelly liked our version and gave us permission to do the video for it. But I haven’t met anyone, and I should really try harder because I know some people and I could probably meet someone.

I might be reading too much into this, but with songs such as “I Will Survive,” “My Heart Will Go On,” and “I Will Always Love You,” my first instinct was that this album was a way of dealing with the death of No Use For a Name singer, Tony Sly.
No! You are totally reading into it too much. I like that, but that’s the whole thing with the Gimmes, we don’t put a whole lot into anything. That’s the beauty behind it. We have a band that we like, and we don’t have to write songs for. We don’t have to try very hard and obviously we don’t.

You’ve got to try a little bit right? The albums come out great and people around the world love the band.

There is a secret to it. The secret is that we pick good songs and we have a great singer. If you listen to a lot of the records, the production isn’t that good. It’s sloppy. We don’t rehearse. With our past few records we didn’t even rehearse. We just went into the studio, find a song, work on it for an hour or two and record it. So no. We don’t try very hard. We had a t-shirt that said: “Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. We don’t try very hard.” So sure, I think we’re good, but I don’t think it is because of our effort. I think it is because we know how to pick good songs, and that Spike is great! You need a good singer. With punk rock bands there are so few good singers. There really is a very few. Especially with bands that are big. Bad Religion is it. If you look at all the other punk bands, the singers kind of suck, me included. NoFx, Dropkick Murphys, Rancid, AFI, Blink 182; Are you serious? They can’t sing. We can sing our melodies, but try singing an Elton John song. Fuck. No way.

Spike has his own cover side project with UKE HUNT. Do you see Spike breaking out on his own, or are the Gimmes his mainstay?

I think Gimmes will still stay with his band, but he wants to travel and tour all around the world, a lot. The rest of us are all in other successful bands. We can’t tour as much as he wants to. So Uke Hunt gives him a chance to do that.

Where will this new album take the Gimmes in the next year?

They just did Europe. We just did California. Tomorrow we are going to Japan. Then I’m doing stuff with NoFx. I think we might do Riot Fest. We don’t tour very much. I party too much. I can’t tour.

In 2017 The Gimmes will be celebrating 20 years. Do you have anything in the works yet for this momentous occasion?
No, we were just discussing the other day what our next theme was going to be. Once again we just started arguing with Joey. Well, It was Me, Spike and Joey. We’re the arguers. It’s funny. We started this band because we were all friends and we wanted to start a band that we wouldn’t stress out about. I argue more with the Gimme Gimmes twenty times more than with NoFx. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

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Notes on Depression: The Great Fondness of Now

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The Great Fondness of NowBy Damian Burford I’ve had half a pot of coffee and I keep writing way to much nonsense on this here idiot box and then not posting it. I apologize for the humble/brag post, but this is meant to be an inspirational post after this last weekend’s “World Suicide Awareness Day” & Trve Brewing’s event for Brandon Gay, who took his life last year. I was talking to my friend Kelley the other night and she asked me how I was doing, and I told her about the new restaurant and how I wish it was a little busier, but then she looked me dead in my eyes and asked me, “No, HOW ARE YOU DOING?” She made sure to enunciate every single word, so I would know she was serious. She wanted to know how I was doing. Not some bullshit catch up answer. She wanted the honest to goodness truth. I sat there and thought for a moment before answering with a thought that pops into my head late at night when I’m sitting on the balcony, watching the world turn by me. I sit out there and I think to myself: “When I look back on these days I will look back on them with great fondness.” Sounds cold and heartless, but these are my halcyon days. These days are great and amazing and I’m trying my hardest to take the advice that was given to Kurt Vonnegut: “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” I feel the happiest, healthiest and best I have ever felt in my entire god damned life of misery. I didn’t know how much of a sad sack piece of shit I had been for years, wallowing in my self-made misery. I look back at these Facebook on this Day posts, and I want to tell that angry, shy, scared little boy that things will be alright. You’re only acting out because you don’t actually understand that you are the architect for your own misery. I spent so much time wanting and needing to be a part of something to be excepted that I didn’t realize I had to work to except myself first. In the immortal words of RuPaul Charles: “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? “ I want to tell that stupid little brat of a man, “One day you’ll add those tools to the toolbox you need to not only get by in the world with more ease, but will allow you to share and help others find their ease.” Actually, I think I did this the other night while staring into the mirror after too much nighttime sleep aid. I want to tell that whiny fool, “One day you’ll start working on yourself and you’ll meet the most wonderful and supportive partner who wants to be with you because she sees how hard you work on growing and changing into the best person you can be.” I don’t think that younger boy would have listened. I just have to learn things the hard way, but you don’t have to. The point of this is, If my dumbass can get here, so can you. And If I can get here once, I can get here again. I can do it. You can do it. We can do it. I want to keep ranting and raving and telling you how I did it, but we’re all different beasts. What worked for me, might not work for you, but you have to be open to making yourself a better person. And each and every day I feel like I’m a better person than I was before and I’m just going to keep going in that direction. I get it why people are so annoying when they discovered the Gym, diets, religion, philosophy, crystals, astrology, ect… It’s because it’s a secret Pyramid Scheme. Let me explain, when we start to work on ourselves, when things start to really change for the better… you feel great. But you know what feels even better? What makes that dopamine hit even harder? Is getting other people to join up and feel great as well. You’ve opened their world and you get even more hits of dope. So you become the friend of your group selling lifestyles like it’s Mary Kay. So the point of this is that I I wanted to share a few things that have helped me feel this way. It might not work for you. We’re all super different and have different needs/programming/experiences. I’m not trying to sell you supplements here… *Honesty with yourself. (I’m Damian. I have limitations and I have different strengths and weaknesses. Stop comparing yourself to others. Be you.)*Prozac (I get the shakes and stutters sometimes and terrible leg cramps, but it beats feeling like I’m drowning in my own head.Meditation. (It helps quiet all the damned noise and helps me understand that thoughts are more like annoying little pop ups you get on your phone when you haven’t used an app for a while.)*Empathy. (Maybe if I understand people better, I won’t hate them as much.)*Philosophy (Changes the way you look at the world.)*Reading (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Memoirs: Changes the way you look at the world.)*Drag Race (helped me understand just how different we all are, and how we’re still so much the same.)*Too much Weed. (Helps me relaxxxxxxxxxxx, man. Helps me open my mind! Helps me sleep! Just helps me not take the world so god damned seriously!)*Writing (It helps me find my true voice and it just feels good.)*Service (Helping people who need help. Or writing self congratulatory Facebook posts and hope people gleam something from them.)*Being true to yourself and just how fucking weird you are and then embrace it, cause the only people worth knowing are the weirdos. This is

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Vintage Interview: Adam Carson, Drummer of AFI. On the streets of Dallas, Texas. Halloween 1999?

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Originally printed on HAND CARVED MAGAZINE.(RIP) The Scene: October 30th 1999. Dallas, Texas. In front of Insomnia Coffee Bar.It seems our dear Friend Scandalist was deep in the Halloween spirt. After watching AFI we were left with little to do and even less cash. So what did we do? We stood out in front of Insomnia, while Good ole Scandalist decided to, Moon people, Show people his breasts, Yell in unsuspecting people’s faces and then chase them down the street and yell at them some more. After a little over an hour of watching the master moon taxi cabs and Hippie buses, We just happened to run into Adam from AFI. Here is the interview we conducted that shortly followed: Damian: I’m here with Hunter form AFI. Its that correct?Adam: Nope.Damian: Who are you?Adam: My name is Adam.Damian: Oh. [pause] Now I feel like a retard.Adam: HaHaHa. We’re off to a great start here.Damian: They told me you were Hunter. So I’m going to ask you some questions about you running Checkmate Records even though you don’t run Checkmate Records.Adam: You can ask me anything you want about Checkmate Records. I’ll answer it the best I can.Damian: So, uh, How long have you been in AFI?Adam: Since its conception. Probably eight years. Eight and a half.Damian: Have any regrets?Adam: None what so ever.Damian: None? Now, All Hallow’s EP came out recently. Tell us a little about that. What’s up with that?Adam: The All Hallows EP is a four song EP that came out in the beginning of October. It has three originals and a cover of Halloween, by the Misfits. Its obviously Halloween themed. There’s a thousand, limited edition, orange vinyl seven inches and a bunch of CDs. We like it. We think its among the best stuff that we’ve done.Damian: So have the Misfits heard the cover?Adam: I don’t know. But we’re going to be touring with Danzig in a couple of weeks. So he might start asking us for his mechanical royalties. Damian: Are you excited about that?Adam: Yea, I’m excited about it. We haven’t actually gotten permission to do the song. So I don’t know if he’s going to be fining us or not. The Danzig tour should be cool. We’re going to be playing in front of a lot of people who have not seen us before. They probably won’t hate us. But you know? Its rock ‘n roll.Damian: Well its officially Halloween now. You guys are playing Fitzgerald’s in Houston tomorrow night. Any special surprises for that show, that we’re going to miss because we’re in Dallas?Adam: I think so.Damian: Can you tell us about that because we’re not going to be there?Adam: Nah. You’ll have to read it on the Internet or something.Damian: Read it on the Internet? Come on…Adam: Nothing to crazy. There is a certain Halloween feel that we like our shows to have. Every show so we’re not doing a hole lot different. It will be fun.Damian: Now this isn’t your first tour with Sick Of It All. Have you been getting a better response this tour versus the last tour with them?Adam: I think so. When we did that first tour we were largely unknown in the cities we played. We’ve since toured extensively by ourselves. We have a small fan base in every city. Which is cool.Scandalist: Did I frighten you when i started screaming at you?Adam: No.Scandalist: Oh, well. I’m sure it was annoying.Adam: You actually didn’t scare me. I was expecting you too, I was hoping you wouldn’t….Damian: Alright, Now there were people here tonight just to see you, then they left as soon as you got off the stage. Does that make you feel good?Adam: In a way that makes me feel good that people are coming to see us. On the other hand, I find it ridiculous that people pay money to see Sick Of It All and don’t even stick around. They don’t realize that Sick of It All was the reason most of these bands on the bill are there, the reason we do what we do and love it so much is that Sick Of It All sets such a great example. These guys have been doing it for fifteen years and they love what they are doing. They are not going to stop any time soon. They have made it their life. They have made it their career. I think it is sooo Amazing and admirable that they day in and day out just grind away. Cause they are not a huge band. Its a lot of work for them. They do it because they love it. That’s completely inspirational. I’m amazed that people leave without experiencing that. Such as yourselves…Damian: Well We drove about 3 hours basically to see you guys play.Adam: That’s so flattering. Its really cool. I think you guys missed out on not watching Sick Of It All.Scandalist: So what inspires you?Adam: Pete’s coffee. Then the conversation went to someone talking about sex and then Adam excusing himself because he was, “Missing out.” End.