THE GORIES STORY part 1 - MICK COLLINS

The first part of the Gories interviews. Mick Collins, arguably the coolest voice in rock’n’roll. Still kickin’ it with the Dirtbombs. Also chats about Blacktop, King Sound Quartet, the Screws and what comics he likes. First published in 1998.

I’ll start with the Gories… When did you start and how did you meet the other guys, Peg and dan?

Uh, let’s see… Well, we’d actually known each other for some years before we formed the band. Dan and I met uhm… God, I don’t know, we started in ’86. Dan and I had met about three years before, two or three years earlier at a show… I’m sorry, I take that back. Tom Lynch, who was in the Dirtbombs, I met Tom at a show and Tom introduced me to Dan about a week later. And Dan and I met Peg at a… Well, we were both mods, we were heavily into soul music, 60’s soul, 60’s jazz, 60’s ska, the whole nine yards. And Peg came to a party one night and Dan liked the way she was dressed and that’s how we met Peg.Ok. [Laughing] They were boyfriend and girlfriend before we were in the band.

Ok, when was that… ’86?

Yeah, yeah we formed the band ’86 so they started goin’ out together in ’85 and they broke up in ’86.Because of the band…Um huh, it was either… They could either be in a band together or they could be in a relationship.I guess that’s true.

Yeah. [Laughing]What did you do prior to that, where you in any bands?

I was in a band called the Floortasters and it lasted from about ’81 until schucks, I don’t know. We stopped doin’ the Floortasters in ’85 I think was the last records. The better we got the less we recorded.

What kind of band was that? What did you play?

It was a punkrock band. More or less… We sounded a lot like Wire on Pink Flag, except that we didn’t have a guitar player. [Laughing]. It was bass, drums and organ and we’d never… You know, a lot of the bands we sounded like we’d never heard.

That’s even better.

Right, yeah, so we had no idea what we were really doing until about five years after we broke up. We said: ”You know, we sound a lot like these guys”.

Didn’t you have project called Man Ray Man Ray or something like that…?

Man Ray Man Ray is a solo project that’s off and on. It’s just me, I still do that one. Most of the bands that influence Man Ray Man Ray are not stuff that anyone would really listen to. It’s just me sort of you know

Experimenting?

Yeah, uh not experimenting, I mean I know what I’m doing. It’s just for my own personal jollys.

Ok. So, what was the scene like in Detroit when you started the Gories?

There wasn’t a scene really, I mean we actually thought we were on the end of the whole garage punk thing. ’Cause there had been all these bands out in ’84, ’85 and ’86 and it was starting to peeter out. Nad we thought, oh well, we missed this buss. With luck maybe we’ll get a 45 out. That’s pretty much all we thought about it. It wasn’t you know… Because we really, you know we’d heard all these garage bands and none of them sounded as wild as we thought the music deserved. ’Cause you know, we’d been listening to Back From The Grave. We said: ”None of these bands sound like Back From The Grave. Why don’t we be this wild. Why don’t we try to be wilder than this” you know.

So that’s what inspired you to start the Gories..

Um huh.Where did you record the first stuff? What’s that, the Garageland compilation

The first recording was at, yeah, Garageland studio in ’85 I think. We recorded everything we knew at the time. Somewhere there are tapes of all of that I’m sure.

That’d be great to hear. You should look for that.[Laughing] When did anyone show any interest to put out records with you and stuff like that? Did they see you live

I think when Wanghead first started recording us they thought we were just so weird and you know, we fit in cause Wanghead did records by just, you know, freak groups. They tried to make the crudest and stupidest music they could find and they thought we fit right into that. We didn’t think that was very funny, but we wanted to make a record. [Laughter] We thought, well, if they’re gonna pay for it. Let’s go ahead and do it.Yeah, sure.

How did you get in touch with Len Puch (Wanghead chief)?

He saw us live a couple of times. We played with Lenny’s band Snakeout a few times. There was a band, a local band called the Hysteric Narcotics and they really liked us, and they would let us play. And a couple of times Snakeout would headline and then Hysteric Narcotics were the second string act and we would go on as the opening act. And yeah, that was long before we learned how to play.

What kind of instruments and amps did you use then?

Uhm, at first I had a Fender Mustang copy and I borrowed a Fender Twin from the guitarplayer in the band Dan was in previous. And Dan had a Vox AC15 and a Vox Spitfire and he traded both of those for his Jaguar. And I got some cheap guitars and borrowed a Silvertone amp and somewhere along the line Dan picked up an AC30. His stuff… His guitar cost much more than my guitar and Peg’s drums together. And when we first started this stuff wasn’t expensive at all. It wasn’t like the big collector’s market and even at that his guitar and amp cost $800. In 1986 that was a ton of money. Now those things are both $800 a piece.

”Houserockin’ ” is also on a label called Fanclub

No, that’s a bootleg. ”Houserockin’ ” was never officially released on CD. The only legitimate release was the Wanghead vinyl issue and the Crypt vinyl issue.Okay.Just so you know.

Now everything is clearing up here.

Yeah, and by the way, I don’t have one.Okay, hahaha…I’d like one though. I still don’t have a CD player but I mean, just to have every issue, I would like to get a copy of the Fanclub CD.

Where did you record all the other 7”s?

Uh, in our bedroom.

The Crib?

No, that was a basement in somebody else’s house. That was almost a real studio.

What’s the P+L studio?

P+L was Tom Conway. Tom conway was in the band that Dan was in before the Gories. And he bought the recording equipment that Wanghead used to cut ”Houserockin’ ”. He bought it and when we did the singles he was living in the house at the time and he just set the stuff up and we just used it and recorded. Yeah, P+L stands for Plowed and Loud.

Uh, when did you get in touch with new Rose?

Uhm, we never did actually. Hahaha, Alex Chilton did that. A mutual friend, a friend of both of us and Alex introduced Alex to the Gories. He played ”Houserockin’ ”. And Alex loved it. And so Alex wanted to do a record, so he talked to New Rose and set all that up.So that’s how it happened!Uh huh

How was that? To work with Alex I mean

It was fine. We took our time and did it. Hey, I don’t really know what to say…it was just…you know… We cut an album. There are no wild stories.

Oh no, that’s what I wanted to hear.

Nothing really strange happened. There were no huge drunken freakouts. We just sat around and cut the album. [Laughter]

Didn’t you take over producing a couple of tracks? I think I read that somewhere

It was more of a collaborative effort. Some tracks he would do everything and one or two tracks I did everything but most of the time we would sit there and talk about what he wanted to do versus what we thought it should sound like. I don’t know, we’d reach a compromise and that’d be the record.

Sounds good to me.

Hahaha…it was just y’know, like a standard recording session.

Okay, just to get this whole album deal over with. When did you get the Crypt record deal?

Crypt offered us…Crypt wanted us to do another album. But we had actually broken up and we were like ”Well, we don’t wanna! We hate each other.” And he goes ”C’mon, do another record. We’ll bring you over to Europe.” And we said ”That’s what New Rose said, and they didn’t do that either.” ”No, I promise, I’ll bring you over to Europe.” So we said ”Send us some plane tickets and we’ll record an album for you.”

Yeah, that’s Tim…haha

Yeah, hahahahaha…And that’s pretty much how that happened. We didn’t record the album until we had some plane tickets.

Aah, that’s great.

And we cut the album, so the album was actually delayed. It was supposed to come out before the Gories toured Europe and it didn’t because we…we only cut it…y’know it only took us two days to cut it.

Where did you record it?

Oh, we did most of it in the garage behind Dan’s house. We did some of it in a recording studio and a piece of it, uh…”Bo Diddley” on the vinyl LP was an outtake from ”Houserockin’ ”. And ”Ichiban” was a single so… ”Telepathic” was a single. On the Crypt record ”Telepathic” is taken off Larry’s 45 [The In The Red 7”], because the mastertape got destroyed. So we just played the record and recorded it.

Did you split up several times?

We broke up after the second LP came out. We broke up after we recorded the singles. We recorded them and we broke up and it took forever for them to come out cause we didn’t talk to each other for six months. And then we broke up… I think that was probably the longest we broke up, was during ’91. Cause we didn’t get back together until we started recording ”Outta Here”. The third LP. The singles were actually supposed to be our third LP.

Okay, so you recorded that as an LP?

We were recording it as an LP, right. We were gonna do more than four singles. We were gonna do like seven or eight and take one song off of each single and make that an album track. Something like that.

For what label?

Oh, what ever wanted it. We realised at that point that people were actually willing to pay us to put records out. Which, you know, had never actually happened before. So we thought well, we’ll make an LP and see if anybody wants it. It was probably going to be Get Hip.

Oh… What’s the ”Voodoo Stew” LP?

”Voodoo Stew”…right. That was the third LP, that was supposed to be made up of the singles. Tim actually paid us.

And sent you plane tickets.

Tim Warren is the only person to ever pay the Gories for a record.

Really?

Yeah, Larry Hardy paid us too but… Actually, the people who made the singles paid us and as far as the albums go Wanghead never paid us and New rose certainly never paid us.

Shit! Haha

Haha. According to New Rose we owed them $130!

No shit! What kinda deal is that? You pay us to put it out.

Yeah.

What about the new In The Red single? ”Again and Again” backed with ”New Orleans”

It should be…maybe it’ll be out this year. What keeps happening is uhm, we had trouble finding another tape machine like the one we cut it on. So we can’t mix it. And now we found one, but I sent Larry the tapes so he could find one and he never found one. But now I found one, but the tape is in California and I have to go get it. The tape will only get mixed when I go out to get it. Hopefully by this summer, it should be out.

And then Warner wanted to do a record with you…?

They thought about it, but that’s as far as it went. We got back from Europe and Warner Records contacted us and by this time Dan and I had thrown Peg out of the band. Haha. So we just…you know we were like ’Nah.’ ’But we’re gonna offer you blah blah blah money’. And we were like ’Eh…no.’

That’s tough!

[Laughter] Aah, you know, if you can’t work together no amount of money can make you try, so

Yeah, but you were looking for a new drummer for a while?

Yeah, we did. We looked for some… we auditioned some drummers. Most of them turned out to be too good or they couldn’t keep time. You know, Peg was just good enough. She kept time fantastic and you know, she sort of knew what we needed in a drummer. There were other drummers, but most of them were too good. That was kinda embarrasing.

So what happened with the break up? You just threw Peg out of the band?

We threw her out! And we thought about getting another drummer until 1994. In 1994 we officially broke up.

So, was that when Blacktop started?

Uh hmm

Right afterwards?

Right about that time anyways. I think, a few months later I was approached about Blacktop and I said ”Sure, I’m not doing nothing.” I’ve just spent two years not doing anything.

Did Darin just call you up?

Yeah. He just called up. He said ”Do you wanna make a record?” and I said sure. Haha I used to…there was a point, whenever anybody asked me to make a record I said yeah.

So…do you wanna come make a record?[Laughter]

Well, if somebody says do you wanna come make a record, I say yes, usually. But these days nobody’s been asking so I haven’t had to think about it. Aah, you know, I went down to Texas and we spent a month writing songs and we spent a week recording the record.

Where did you meet Alex?

Was he with Darin and Janet?Yeah, he was a guy that Darin knew. I…he was in a band called the Oval Teens and they were kinda playin’ around Dallas and stuff and Alex wanted to start… Everybody else in the Oval Teens had sideprojects but Alex. So Alex said ”Well, I want a sideproject too!” He was complaining to Darin and Darin said ”Well, you know, this guy is coming down from Detroit to record a record. Do you wanna play bass?” Alex said sure!

When did you record the album and the singles?

Everything on the same day. Everything was cut…not the same day, but the same week. It was all cut in August of ’94. I think it was…yeah, ’94.

What about the Au-go-go LP?

That was cut…that was all the same stuff.

Wasn’t it supposed to be on Crypt first?

Yeah, Crypt was supposed to put it out as a 10”.What happened?They didn’t. He decided not to. That’s all…hahaha. There’s no story behind it, he just decided he didn’t want to.

Did you do any touring?

We toured the US in ’95. In the summer, we did that. 35 cicites and we broke up in October.

Why did that happen?

Uhm… It’s a long story! Very long and very sad. It basically boiled down to…y’know, Alex and I thought we had been lied to pretty badly by Darin. About $3,000 missing… A lot of money was involved. So we said, well, let’s not do this any more.

Did you record the double 7” on the tour?

Yes.

How come it took so long to come out?

Cause we broke up! Hahaha… It would’ve been a different story if we were still together, but we broke up and it became a low priority.

Did you put out everything you recorded?

Yes. Everything we recorded is out, there’s one…there’s a little piece of a jam session on tape. It’s like a minute and a half long. That’s the only thing that’s not out.

So after that you and Alex hooked up with Tim Kerr and Stephanie?

Yes, we did. It was in ’96. About a year later. Fall ’96. We went down to Austin, which I’ve never been to and recorded the King Sound stuff. In a week! We were there for two weeks. That was quite a drag. I don’t like recording…having to record an entire LP in less than a month.

Did you just rehearse the week before?

There was no rehearsals, no nothings. There was only ”Okay, I have a song here”. We’d go and we’d learn the song and we’d record it like pretty much the same day. And then, you know, the rest we filled with covers. The Sun Ra cover and Government Issue

Did you do any live shows?

No.

Okay, and you’ve broken up now or…?

No, no, we were never a major band. It was just something that we did. In fact, we’re probably going to record another record this summer.

Wow, that’s great!

And maybe a single or two singles or something like that. We’ll get down there, and we’ll actually take a couple of weeks. Take a couple of weeks to just record.

Did you start the Dirtbombs at the same time as the King Sound Quartet?

No, the Dirtbombs was actually started in, let me think now… We broke up in ’92 and I started the Dirtbombs in Fall of 1992. The Dirtbombs were actually started between the Gories and Blacktop. That was the only thing…that was pretty much the only thing I did. But I had problems keeping… I couldn’t find people who would stay in the band longer than a week. So I went thru’ a lot of people. I mean, at last count I think the number of people who were ex-Dirtbombs were 21 or 22

That’s pretty amazing

So now I actually found a stable line-up… Yeah, that’s like… I don’t know anything to compare that to.

You should use that as a fact to put on the record

Hahaha. That’s really sad. I went thru’ so many people I don’t even remember everybody’s name. Kathy, Carol, the drummer from the band Inside Out, they’ve been to Europe a lot, she was in it. She was one, she was one of the first members actually. And Eric Johnson who’s the Wedge Magazine, he was in it. He was in it on two singles, on two records. And that’s pretty much all I can remember. Members from lots of local bands. It was like this revolving door. They would come in and they would stay for about a week and then leave. They wouldn’t care what I was doing, they’d just leave. Haha. Finally I got a stable line-up, more or less, and we started recording, recording the LP, and still people were leaving. And… I think the line-up that I had last year, in ’97, was the longest line-up I had. From April ’97 up until November. April to November ’97.

So, who’s in the band now?

Uhm, in the band now… Let’s see. Only one person left in November ’97 – Tom Lynch, who introduced me to Dan. He got an offer for a really good job in California. And it was a really great job and he didn’t really wanna leave. He kinda wanted to stay in the band and we were like ”Tom, you should leave!”. The job was really great and the band wasn’t doing a whole lot in comparison. So, he took the job. And he was replaced by Jim Diamond, who’s the engineer

Oh yeah..

Just about everything I’ve done the last two years, Jim Diamond was the engineer on. He also played keyboards, he played organ with Bantam Rooster and he’s got a band of his own. He’s the permanent replacement bassplayer.Who else is in the band?

Anybody I might know of?

Naah, haha. No, nobody else you know, I’m pretty sure. Oh, oh, I take that back… The drummer for the Hentchmen is one of the drummers

What inspired you to have two drummers and two bassplayers?

It was something I hadn’t heard before. I wanted to do something I hadn’t heard before.

When did you record the 7”s?

The Sympathy record and the In The Red 7” were both recorded in ’95. And aaah… They didn’t come out until last year. The Sympathy record came out a year later and the In The Red record two years later. But they’re out now and ”Horn-dog Fest” was recorded. We have a 12-song triple 7”… We don’t know if it’s actually going to be a triple 7” because everybody is getting on my case to make it a 12” vinyl record. [It did turn out to be an LP]

I think I’d like that better too… I mean, the idea of a triple 7” is cool but I think I’d like a 12” more. Did you record it in Ghetto Studios?

Uh hmm, we did that in April.

What was that like?

Oh, I love it! I love it! One of the best recording studios, as far as atmosphere, it’s one of the best I’ve ever been to. We… I pretty much made up all the songs as we were standing there. The band would sit there and they’d talk and they’d drink beer. I’d be standing around going ”I need a word that rhymes with orange”. And I’d think of something… ”Okay, I got the song” and I’d teach ’em the song. And we’d record it on the spot. No one’s uptight about time bein’ money or anything like that. Jim would just sit there and whenever I was ready, Jim was ready to go. That’s how I record these days. You know, I sit there and try to think ”hell, where am I gonna get a bridge from?”. And we do it.

You also recorded the Dirtys and the Red Aunts

I did, yes. I did the Dirtys there and I did the Red Aunts there and I did Andre Williams there.

What about Demolition Doll Rods, where did they record?

They recorded at a place called 54 sound. We did that recording just before I found out about Ghetto Recorders. If I had known about Ghetto Recorders I’d have brought them down to Ghetto Recorders. And for the next album they’ve expressed an interest in going to Ghetto Recorders. So I’m thinking, that’s probably what’s going to happen.

Are you gonna produce it too?

Yes, I’ll be doing the entire album this time.Instead of splitting it up.

How come that happened?

You know, I don’t know.

Ok, good answer.

They said ”ok, what songs do you wanna do?” and I had a half dozen songs I really wanted to do and they said ”ok, we’ll do those songs”. We did them and I gues Jon wanted to do the record as well. I wanted to work with them and Jon wanted to work with them so they just did half the album with me and half with Jon. Oh, Jon Spencer I should say.

What about… How come you recorded the Dirtys and the Red Aunts?

They asked. Yeah, they called me up and said ”we’re doing an album, would you like to be the producer?”. And I said sure. Now, I really do that. Whenever somebody asks if I wanna produce a record I just about always say yes. Haha, without thinking about it.

How do you go about producing these bands ’cause I mean the Red Aunts and the Dirtys are more punkrock based and the Demolition Doll Rods are different.

I mean, I don’t… It doesn’t matter. Hahaha. I mean, not to me. What type of music the band plays isn’t… I don’t see that as being a stumbling block. Just making the best record the band can make. My job is to make the band sound the best they can sound. I’m not trying to put my stamp on a record, I don’t do that. For me it’s almost unethical.

I can see what you mean, yeah.

If it was a rap group I’d still do a pretty decent production and folks would know it was me. Haha.

Definitely. Haha.

The type of music isn’t important. It’s all music y’know… I guess Epitaph said that the Red Aunts album is the loudest record the Red Aunts ever did.

Do they sound different from their other stuff or…?

Uhm, the songs are tighter. But they wrote the songs, I didn’t have anything to do with that. They’re compact and they don’t really ramble that much. And you can dance to most of them.

Sounds good.

I like ”Saltbox”. I think ”Saltbox” is a really good album but you can’t dance to any of the songs. I thought it was good but you couldn’t dance to it. So if you can make a record that sounded like this but that you can dance to

Do you get a lot of offers to produce?

Not as much as I’d like. I haven’t had one yet this year.

So, what about the Andre Williams LP?

Uh, Larry asked me to do that one. They’d already worked out a deal to do the album and Larry said ”Well, if I’m gonna record an Andre Williams album I want Mick Collins to produce it”. He called me up and said ”You like Andre Williams right?” and I said ”Yeah!” ”Great, ’cause I’m doin’ an album with him, do you wanna produce it?” And I said ”Are you kidding?” Hahaha. ”How soon can we start?”

And you also play with him on the album?

Yeah.And Dan too?

Yes.What was it like?

Uh, the show… It was only one show. We only did one show and it was fun but we didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse so that part wasn’t fun. But when we got up on stage it sounded great.

Did you play on the record too?

Yes.

Ok, what does it sound like?

It doesn’t sound like the Norton record. Hahaha. I can guarantee you that. Well, it’s all new songs. There’s no old stuff, no blues standards. It’s just Andre being his usual self. Haha. And y’know, it was just a big party in the studio. Folks would come in… There’s a lot of people on the record ’cause… Once people found out that we were recording Andre Williams they thought ”Man, I gotta see this”. We said ”Hey, you can play guitar can’t you? Come here and play this!”

It’s gonna have a long line-up

Yes, a long line-up. What I really wish we could have done… At the same time I was recording Andre Williams somebody else was recording Kim Fowley. At the same time at Ghetto Recorders and we were like ”Man, wouldn’t it be great if we could get Andre Williams and Kim Fowley on the same record.” Hahaha. But it didn’t happen. It would have been great.

Who else was in the band on the record?

Uh… I don’t know. Let me see who I can remember… The Dirtbombs as a band played on one song. There’s people from bands all over town… The Hentchmen, Johnny from the Hentchmen plays on one song. About two dozen people.

Did he have a band he wanted to record with or just people who came in?

No, it was just people who came in. On one song the band that we played with on the live show, I got the same people to come down and play on one song but there wasn’t really like a set band. But it was fun though. We may do it again.

Really?

Yeah, we might. We’ve been talkin’… Uh no, there have been rumours.

Are you gonna tour Europe with the Dirtbombs?

I would like to but the problem… It’s not a problem, I’m just worrying that people who wanna see a garage punk band are gonna be dissapointed. Hahaha. Everybody in Europe who knows me knows me as playing some garage punk blues stuff and the Dirtbombs are not. We’re not any of that. Well, we’re a punk band but that’s about it. But that’s why I remember you. You were the guys that did that review. Hahaha.

Where did you see that?

You sent one to In The Red and I happened to be visiting In The Red the day that magazine came in. So I saw it, otherwise I’d never have seen it. I wasn’t offended, I knew that was gonna happen. That’s cool, at least somebody’s just gonna say ”I don’t think I like this”.

But I like it a lot more now. I can’t wait to hear the album.

The album… I personally like it a lot. I think it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever recorded.

Really?

Yeah, as far as me making records and being in a band I think ”Horn-dog Fest” is probably the best record. I love it. I hope I can do it again.

You also have a new band with Matt Verta Ray from Speedball Baby?

We don’t have a name yet. It’s me and Alex again and Matt Verta Ray and a friend of Alex’s. The drummer from the band Alex is in. Alex is in a band called Sleazy Mancini and it’s Alex and the drummer from Sleazy Mancini and me and Matt Verta Ray. I just finished mixing all that stuff. We haven’t really found our sound yet. We did five songs and we’re still sorta bouncing around from style to style. We don’t know yet what it sounds like.

Is somebody gonna put it out?

I hope so. Larry, In The Red is thinking about putting it out. But he hasn’t heard the entire thing yet, he’s only heard one song. He really liked that one song but none of the other songs sound like it. When he gets a tape of it we’ll see if he really wants to put it out.

What about this Music For Robots with Teri from the Red aunts and Dan Brown and Marty Moore, what’s that? [Now known as the Screws. Coming out early next year on ITR.]

I don’t know what it’s called. He just made something up. We haven’t done that yet.

Do you have a lot of songs?

They’re writing the music. They want me to come up with the lyrics and I haven’t bothered to come up with any lyrics yet. I’m gonna wait ’til I hear what the music sounds like before I make any words up. We’re gonna record that the last week of this month.

In Ghetto too?

No, that’s gonna be in LA. But Jim Diamond is going out to LA for something else so he might be the engineer. And we’re gonna mix it here at Ghetto.

Have you been touring a lot with the Dirtbombs in the States?

We’ve played some shows. We played Illinois, we just played last night in Ohio and that’s pretty much it. We haven’t played like a tour tour. Our first tour might actually be Canada. We had an offer last year to do a bunch of shows in Canada and we couldn’t do it because Tom couldn’t get the time off work. But now that Tom’s outta the band… Haha. We can take time to do Canada.

What’s the reaction when you’re playing live?

Getting better. Our first show went great. It was actually Illinois and that went really well. We did a show in Ohio that was really terrible. So not a whole lotta people came out last night. Hahaha. But we were a lot better last night than we were the last time we played Ohio. In Detroit we’re sort of like a super group. Everybody in the band has been in other bands for years and years.

What other bands do you like right now? Any good stuff that you’ve heard?

Uh, I don’t hear a whole lotta records because I’ve been in the studio for so long. I wake up, I go to the studio and then I come home and it’s maybe two or three in the morning. I just go straight to bed. So I haven’t really heard anything as far as new bands go. I can’t even think of anything right now. The last big stack of records I got was from Crypt so everything I heard was Crypt records. There’s another issue of the Wedge coming out and I’m doing a column for that but I have to go pick up the records. I’m sure there’ll be a bunch of things I’m gonna like in the stack of records I’m gonna get.

And some stuff you’ll hate

Well, yeah. Hahaha.There always is.Yeah, there always is. Have you ever heard of the band Tab Hunter?

I heard a 5”.

I hope they’re better ’cause I heard ’em and I thought

(End of tape. Good for Tab Hunter).

What’s the label your new single is coming out on?

Spidey Records from Irvine, California. It’s called ”Stuck Under my Shoe” is the name of the song. [The label changed names to Some Assembly Required]

And what else are we doin’ right now

We have two or three singles on local Detroit labels. So those will be hard to get. Hahaha… I should apologize in advance, but those will be very hard to get.

Damn it!

Someone will know that they’re out there. I don’t know how many copies. One of them might even be only 500 copies. [Coughs] I was drinking all last night and now I’m starting to feel it.Well, what else are you gonna do on a Sunday afternoon?

Yeah. Haha

Watching CNN. Hahaha….

Didn’t you record with the Cheater Slicks on their new album?

Yes. I sang on a couple of songs, played trombone. And I haven’t heard it yet. They sent me the CD but I haven’t had a chance to play it.It’s pretty good. It’s spotty at times but I like it.I mean, it’s a double record so it’s bound to be… some low points.

Do you work?

Well, no. Apart from the producing. No, I make records and, you know, I do the shows and that and I produce records and that’s that. For the last year that’s what’s been paying my bills. It’s really nice, to not have to work nine to five anymore. I used to… I did office work. I don’t know if it’s been translated into Swedish, there’s a comic strip over here called Dilbert

Yeah, yeah. I know it.

Yeah, that was based on my life. Hahaha

Hahaha… I see what you mean!

And one day I said ”Fuck this! I’m gonna play guitar.”It’d be a helluva lot nicer to work in a comicbook or record store…Yeah, you know, I’m a big comicbook collector.

Yeah? Cool! Me too. What do you like?

Uhhm… At the moment… Ah, you know, it’s all American comics. We get very few comics from other countries here. We don’t even get that many from Canada and they’re only across the street. So we get nothing from Europe. But as far as for comicbooks I do like, there’s a comicbook called the Invisibles that I think is great.

Yeah, Grant Morrison

Yeah, Grant Morrison. Right! The only other one that I really like a lot right now is Astro City by Kurt Busiek. A super hero comicbook. It turns the entire super hero genre on it’s head pretty much. I didn’t think it was gonna be that great and the guy who owns the comicbook store, a friend of mine, he said ”Just read it okay!”

I’ve been thinking about picking it up for some time now… So maybe I should. I haven’t heard from anybody about it ’cause all everybody seems to read is Hate and Eightball

I’m in the same situation. When I say comicbooks to my friends, they all think Hate and Eightball and pretty much nothing else. Oh man, you gotta check out The Invisibles! Haha

Do you read Preacher?

A lot of my friends buy Preacher. So yeah, I do read Preacher and I like that one a lot too. I got a comicbook artist to do the cover for ”Horn-Dog Fest”.Yeah, who?It was a friend of mine actually, ’cause mainly what I buy, the comicbooks that I buy are all… this is one of the weird things about Mick collins. The comicbooks that I buy are mainly ’anthropomorphic animals’… Like toon animals. In America there’s a whole scene you know, like a big scene for anthropomorphic animal comics. I’m in this scene. It’s what I do outside of music. I had a guy do it… When you see the cover… It’s… You know Omaha, the cat dancer right?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, it’s like that.

What books are that?

There aren’t very many. There used to be a couple of publishers who did this stuff but they… The market’s not big enough so they went out of business. The most popular one is a porn-comic called ”Genus”. That’s the most popular one but that’s because it’s x-rated. X-rated anything sells tons and tons in the U.S. because no one over here gets enough sex.

Tell me about the Sore Losers soundtrack.

I met John McCarthy at a comicbook convention. We were there and he had a booth and stuff and I met him and he said to me ”I’m doin’ this movie”. This was while I was working on the Blacktop album, It was the Dallas Fantasy convention. He said ”Hey! I’m doin’ this movie. Wanna do some music for it?” And I said ”Sure, get back in touch with me.” And he did. I went down and did the music. And while I was down there, hanging out with Lorette. I met Lorette [Velvette] when the Gories were down there recording their second album. In Memphis. So I was in Memphis and I met Lorette and she wanted to record and… ”I want to do a record but I don’t want it to be the kind of music I usually make”. And I said ” Whatever, we’ll come up with something.” I’d been listening to a lot of hip hop and I said ”Let’s do a trip hop record”. Haha… ”Wouldn’t it be cool? You play slide guitar and I’ll make this trip hop record behind you.” That’ll go over big – yeah, right! So we did it. You know, she took the rehearsal tape and I sampled that and we took that to the studio and put the music around it.I was kinda surprised when I heard it. It wasn’t what I expected.I bet a lot of people were surprised. Hahahaha… It got airplay in New York.

It did?

It sounds like Björk so I guess it could get really big…There was a rumour that Aphex Twin was gonna remix it. But it hasn’t happened yet! When we heard that we were just ”This is too much.” They liked it in New york. It got airplay… I wish I could have seen the looks on the faces on some of the people that bought it. I think they pressed three thousand to four thousand copies and as far as I know it sold out too.

About the Sore losers soundtrack, were you supposed to do that kind of music or

He didn’t care what I did. And you know, when people leave themselves open like that, I’m liable to do anything.It sounds like Mancini or something like that.He sent me a copy of the script so I’m thinking y’know, 50’s music and I knew that everybody else that was on the soundtrack was gonna play punkrock. I’m really gonna try and make 50’s music. You know, as close as I can anyway. It still didn’t come out as 50’s music but I mean, I did what I did. I was hoping to do more. To do more songs but I didn’t have enough time to do more songs than the three that I did. I said well I’ll just make a jazzy record. I’ll make a jazz record for this guy that’ll freak him out and it freaked him out. Haha.

Okay, thanks for your time.

Thanks to you for taking it.