Heartland

this interview was taken one day before the gig by Aleksis Broulis, it s
available on line for the greek speaking of you,the rest can see the pictures which are interesting.


http://www.avopolis.gr/interviews/default.asp?ID=241

Here are some parts of the interview , the most interesting i think:

What do you remember from your last time in Athens

-Megadeath(they played on the same festival-different day)
we played with NMA which is always nice. We meet a lot

You have just returned from a 25 dates , tour in the States
how was it?

-Two of us went to the hospital,which is good if you consider we were there for only 5 weeks

A lot of people are complaining about your live - sound

- they usually complaint about the smoke...

Which is your favorite audience?

- In Mexico and probably Brasil

Alot of people that tour along with the band going from one country
to the other do complain that you dont communicate at all with the fans

-What should i do? Tell stories and jokes? I m not very good at stories
and jokes. The time gap between the songs we have is bigger than the
one the Ramones had which already makes us better in communicating.
I ve seen the Ramones many times and they never told stories..

When Joey passed away his picture was on the sisters homepage for
24 hours. What was your relationship with him?

- i have travelled many times my self to see them.

Do Alice and Marian exist?

-Alice yes . Marian no!

Is she alive?

- i don t know , i hope so.

What is your opinion about bands like the Nephs, garden of delight,elusive?

- i could tell you my opinion about REM, Neil Young or Motorhead.
i dont know these bands you re telling me.

Do you still speak to Wayne?

- i speak to any civilised human beeing i meet... if he talks to me first!

Have you met recently?
We meet other musicians all the time in festivals, airports and embassies
we meet NMA all the time

Are you doing this for the money?
-anyone who s asking this question dosen t know how the music industry
works, you can t make money by touring

Have you thought about recruiting a bass player?
- the songs are written so they ll be played by a machine , they sound
better that way.

If you had a spare copy of damage done i d love to have it

- i dont have a copy of it,even for myself

- they usually complaint about the smoke...

How true

Thanks a lot.

Ozpat wrote:Thanks a lot.

Indeed

Do Alice and Marian exist?
-Alice yes . Marian no!

Had that been covered before

Silence is platinum wrote:If you had a spare copy of damage done i d love to have it

- i dont have a copy of it,even for myself

Hm. Interesting.

thanx! weird, I thought Marian was his ex. So she should be real. Guess I was wrong.

an interviewer wrote:Have you thought about recruiting a bass player?

Mr. E wrote: the songs are written so they ll be played by a machine, they sound better that way.

I must ask: Never Land (a fragment), Romeo Down?

Thank you Silence is platinum.
There's links to 3 more pages there though. It's quite a lot of text. Are you sure the parts that you've translated are the only ones that are interesting? Pleeease... *sheepish eyes*
You know, reveiews are mostly s**t, but an interview is always a gem, and it's become so rare these days....

This was done within 10 - 15 minutes
i promise ill translate a bit more today

Silence is platinum wrote:This was done within 10 - 15 minutes
i promise ill translate a bit more today

You know you were booked on the same date as NMA but eventually their
gig was postponed a week later

-we talked about it with Justin while we were waiting outside the american
embassy. We meet each other all the time but i didnt expect we would meet in Athens, i thought we d run in to each other in a super market in Yorkshire

How do you feel beeing in Athens again?

-I like the weather. Last time we didnt had much time to see around,now we ll stay for 3 days but we have a lot of interviews which is a bit anoying
as i d prefer to be somewhere outside in a cafeteria

We could do that if you want

-No , Athens is far too noisy to have a conversation somewhere outside

Why took it so long to come back?

-Ask the promoters, we weren t ask while we play often in Belgium cause we been asked all the time.

Justin told me exactly the same thing

-Him again!!

You ve brought 4 smoke machines with on this tour, why so many?

-Usually two of them don t work! As for the sound usually we bring our own equipment but sometimes we use the ones provided by the organisers
as it is not possible for us to travel around Europe with our own two trucks
of equipment as it is very expensive. We ask the promoters for specific equipment but that dosen t mean you ll get what you ask for.
Also very important is where you play,if its a stadium or basket ball stadium it s very difficult to get a decent sound

So how about Athens?

-i dont know where we playing

In a basket stadium

-so i can tell right now it s not our fault!

Are your lyrics fictional or not?

You can only write about things you have lived or seen or you think you know


(question about Marian and Alice)

Some kind and 9 while 9 are written for this person?

-No, why does everybody think i have met only this one dark mystery woman in my life? ive met more than one women in my life you know!

In the early days you released only singles and no albums. Why?

-Only because we were short of cash..

Is there a deeper philosophy behing you live -presence(smoke - darkness-shades?)

-Not really. we use the hawkwind-pink floyd stage pressence, which means
on stage you create your own "battlefield".

Which criteria do you use to cover a song?

-Sometimes to have fun or to trash it

What was the reason behing covering "gimme shelter"?

-to show people we are very much alike the stones, only smarter and we sung the lyrics they should have sung in the first place

You covered knockin on..which later became a succes by GnRs, you covered Jolene which became a success by the white stripes..

-we still wait for the cash!!

Now the difficult part: 1985 tour

-it s been a long time and i dont remember anything, and im not interested anymore in that time to be honest. The press loves this time because they can t think of anything else to write about. i find it frustrating to talk about after so many years, there always has been disagreements in bands so why bother about this one..

Do you believe that this grunge helped build the legend of the sisters

-only the wrong kind of a legend.

More later boys and girls..

Lovely

thank you!

You're a star!

You covered knockin on..which later became a succes by GnRs, you covered Jolene which became a success by the white stripes..

-we still wait for the cash!!

and thanks

Very much looking forward to more of this very amusing interview.

To me, if seems that VON was in quite a good mood!

Like any interview, it doesn't necessarily mean he's telling the whole truth, especially when he is being somewhat wry and playful.

I don't agree with his statement that you can't make money out of touring - there'd be no point in touring if at the end they'd lost money! And with no album to promote either. Practically the only way artists and bands make money these days IS from touring because the record company doesn't get a cut.

Sounds a bit on the cheapo side to cut costs and ask for equipment to be supplied at the gig - from the reports on this tour, the sound has been up and down probably due to that fact and that is short-changing fans.

Obviousman wrote:Lovely

Yep!

Looking forward to more!

Ozpat wrote:

Obviousman wrote:Lovely

Yep!

Looking forward to more!

part IV (last unfortunately)



Why do the sisters keep selling out gigs?

-i dont know. Maybe cause the press is writing about us in a way that makes us look legendary and mythical. i d prefer if they wrote about us
the same way they write about REM but we are not as good as they are.
That would be a challenge i d like to face,but the press wont ever do this
they think of me as some mythical lord.

Your reactions dosent help much

-people say in our website there arent alot of moving images,not enough music, just too many words.The fact that i spend 6 months writing every single word on the web isnt exactly arrogant now, is it? We just don t use
fake ways of communication like the rest.

So you deny that you are an "arrogant bastard"?

-No i dont. for example when you leave this room when this interview is over and you still believe i am one, then that is the thing you should write.
the problem starts when someone after 25 years asks me "where do you got your name from?" in that case i am an arrogant bastard and it s their fault, not mine. A lot of people are saying this without ever hearing our songs, or know us, they just hear it from someone else.

This is because you don t do many interviews

-it is true that we can choose if we want to do interviews or not and yes we are avoiding them. But we only do so cause we are interested in doing other things more important. We all d prefer to sit in a cafe on the beach right now instead of beeing here.

is there any meaning by having the drum machine pre-recorded?

-it s not . the nurse operates the drum machine, so it s live. But since you insist about the bass player we will play a couple of songs for you . But you wont see him cause there will be too much smoke and you ll sit at the back of the venue ,at the same place everybody sits that has a free ticket,
A lot of people come to us after the show and tell us how great our drummer is!!, you see there s too much smoke and they can only hear him..

Do you consider of playing "more" live again?

- the boys want it but i believe the song needs backing vocals.

Which is your favorite sisters song

- i like playing "i was wrong" live without drums.

Will you play it

-probably..

In 20 years time how would you like to be remembered?

- i d like people remembering us the way they remember neil young , rem or the motorhead , only better, but we could never be better than the
Motorhead

What did Lemmy say to you at the RAH gig and convinced you to do a last encore in 1985?

-i was in great pain and didn t want to do another
but Lemmy told me that for some reason it is my duty to go out and do it

One final question . Did you realy kissed the carpet?

- i ve been very near to a carpet but i never kissed it,at least not in the way you kiss a person you love

So that s it, sorry for any mistakes, this is the first
time i translate anything...

it was fun though

Silence is platinum wrote:So that s it, sorry for any mistakes, this is the first
time i translate anything...

it was fun though

And was a great and very pleasant read, Efcharisto

Very nice! Thanks!

top one

thanks!