PERSUADERS
How long have you been doin’ the Persuaders?
Louie:A year…
Jason: A little more than ayear. I don’t know…
Louie:A little more than ayear but most of the time doesn’t count. I don’t know why it doesn’t, it justdoesn’t. It doesn’t matter.
When did the Splitsville 7” come out?
Louie: Five months ago.
Jason:Yeah, about six monthsago.
Louie: Five or six monthsago but it sat in our front room for about a month before we sold any. We wereusing them as frisbees for a while.
That’s the best way to use ’em.
Jason:Yeah.
Have you been doin’ a lot of shows?
Louie:A few. Yeah, we playedwith a few good bands.
Jason: We haven’t played ina little while but… We played with the Donnas, our rock’n’roll heroes.
Yeah.
Jason: They’re fuckin’great. We only play about once a month in New Orleans.
That’s cool.
Louie: We’ll only play ashow if we like the other band. We don’t waste our time playing with shittybands that we don’t like just so we can play.
Yeah, you played with the Dirtys I heard.
Jason: Yeah, we played withthe Dirtys. They’re cool. Spaceshits also played at the same show and they’refuckin’ great.
Yeah, I met… What’s his name… Andy?
Jason: Yeah.
He was with the Dirtys in Sweden.
Louie:Black snake baby!!!
Jason:Ha ha. Yeah, the Dirtys are cool man. They’re kinda messy.
Louie: They have some horrorstories.
Yeah? What?
Louie:One of the guys fromthe Dirtys got pissed off and took off with the van and left town and lefteverybody in New Orleans.
Yeah? Who? Larry?
Louie: The crazy one,whoever that is.
That’s probably Larry then.
Louie:It was okay, the otherguys got a ride to the next town.
That’sgood. So, you recorded with Jack Oblivian…
Jason:Yeah, yeah we justrecorded some stuff. We recorded a bunch of songs. A couple of them sound goody’know. We’re gonna use a couple of ’em on our next record I guess.
Yeah,on Royal records…
Louie:Yeah, yeah.
Ok,so it’s gonna be four songs right?
Jason:Yeah, it’s gonna befour songs. It’s actually two songs from the first session that we recorded forthe first record and then two songs we recorded with Jack.
Cool.So, Jason do you play in any other bands?
Jason: No I don’t play inany bands. This is the first band I’ve been in. Actually Louie forced me so…I’m innocent.
Louie,how’s it going with the Royal Pendletons? The album…
Louie:Album sounds likeshit. Yeah, there’ll be a lot of copies out there in the thrift stores, discoutbargain bins, cut out bins. You’ll see a lot of our albums. Wait three monthsand you can buy it for a dollar fifty. We played last night and Mike, who’s oneof the guitarists and Matt, who’s the other guitarist got in a fistfight onstage.
Oh.
Louie:It was funny.
Jason: Yeah, that was veryentertaining. They played at this hippie drop-dive shithole place for thisbenefit for the college radio station here which pretty much suck shit. It washippie infested so I think the vibe was y’know… for some rock’n’roll. Hit it upand spit it out.
Louie: They gave out a lotof free gay litterature. That was fun.
Yougave what???
Louie: I GAVE OUT A LOT OF FREE GAY LITTERATURE!
Ok.
Louie:It was fun.
No girls Iheard.
Jason: Ha ha ha.
Louie: Most litterature isgay anyway.
Jason: Oh yeah.
So,just hippie girls at the show?
Jason:Well, there were somegood girls there too. But there’s a lot of hippie chicks and lot of hippieguys. A bunch of other shitty New Orleans bands play that hippiemusic just like y’know punk, reggae just mixed with fuckin’ every other kind ofmusic that sucks to begin with anyway.
Louie: Yeah! People seem tothink that they wanna do something new instead of just playing rock’n’roll orinstead of playing funk or whatever jazz or whatever kinda shitty music theywanna play. They figure that it’ll be better if they mix it all together andthen it just sounds like one big pile of shit. Playin’ shitty music that’s onething but you don’t have to play every kind of shitty music at the same time.
Jason: There’s not a lot ofgood bands here. There’s a few but… Everyone here is pretty much just drunk allthe time.
Whatother good bands are there in new orleans?
Jason: There’s a band called the Macguillicuddys. They’re kinda like professional wrestling rock’n’roll. They’regreat.
Louie: They like the Dictators a lot andthey kinda sound like the Flamin’ Groovies too.
Jason: They’re good… and… and that’s aboutit. Ha ha.
That’s bad.
Jason: There’s a couple of teenage punkbands but y’know…
Louie: There’s a new band that’s gonnastart playin’ in New Orleans. They don’t have a name yet but it’s Matt fromthe Royal Pendletons and Peggy O’neil from the Gories.
Oh yeah?!
Louie:Yeah, it’s a two piece band. They’regonna be doin’ really raunchy r’n’b, Bo Diddley type stuff. They’re gonna dosome Troggs songs too. But I don’t know what their name is. They’re supposed tostart playing this month or next month.
Jason: Yeah, we’ve been trying to pressurethem for a long time, at least Peggy anyway ’cause she’s been living here for awhile, to get another band together.
Whatelse do you like? The Reatards I guess…
Louie: Yeah.
Jason: Oh man, the new Reatards albumthat’s gonna come out on Goner is fuckin’ gonna be the best thing. It kindapicks up where the Oblivians left off but more influenced ’77 punk shit. Itfuckin’ rocks. You guys are gonna love it. And everybody else in Europe. He really knows how to recordstuff so…
Doeshe still play everything himself?
Jason: I think he played drums and guitarand sang and then he had someone who played bass for him or whatever. But he’sgot a drummer that he plays with when they play live I heard.
Louie: He pretty much does all the stuffhimself but he does have a band right now.
Ok.
Jason: We’re trying to get them to comedown and play New Orleans. They haven’t done that yet.
Louie: They’re just so young. I think someof the members of the band might have trouble with their parents. Ha ha. Idon’t think anybody in the band is eighteen yet. Jay might be eighteen now. No,Jay’s seventeen. So, yeah, the Persuaders like rock’n’roll, we like realrock’n’roll. We like it cruddy and raunchy. We like New Orleans rock’n’roll, we like memphis rock’n’roll and we like regionalrock’n’roll. We like bands that come from a certain place, no matter where itis in the world and each place has it’s own sound y’know. And as long as youcan take that sound and make it really raunch and put a lot of energy into itthat’s what we like. That’s not maybe what other people like but we like thatand we’re gonna tell you. We’re gonna tell whoever it may be that we like thatand we’re gonna put it in your face y’know. Hope people don’t have a problemwith it and if they do we’re gonna have a problem with you. Know what I’msaying?
Yeah. Ha ha.
Jason: So that’s basically all you need toput in this interview.
So,Splitsville Records, is that like two releases so far?
Louie: Yeah, It’s got two but uh, Jasonand I are getting ready to put out a few more records that everyone’s gonnalike. And by the way, my wife Ashley helped start the label just so you can putthat in the magazine and she helps out a lot with it. I don’t think a lot ofpeople know that so she don’t get a lot of credit for it. But she does a lot ofhard work. Tell him about the records we’re putting out Jason.
Jason: Well, we’re putting out anothercompilation. It’s gonna be more focused on y’know rock’n’roll whatever punkshit. Gonna put a Blacks song on there you know. It’s probably gonna be youguys, us, maybe this band the Cheap Dates from San Francisco.
What’sthat?
Jason: My friend Pete plays guitar, thisgirl Michelle plays bass and it’s Jason White the drummer. He used to be in theRip Offs. And this other guy, I can’t remember his name, who plays guitar. They’regood. Yeah, they’re a rock’n’roll band. We’re gonna put out that compilationand we’d like to get a Reatards song on there too. Then we wanna do another 45of just another Persuaders thing on our label too so…
Louie:You know, after we put out the first45 we were writing a lot of songs thinking about doin’ an album. Which we wannado and everything but right now we’re just having a lot of fun concentrating onputting out singles. I don’t wanna put out some good singles that really rockand sound raunchy and that are really fun to listen to and then put out analbum with a bunch of songs just so we can put out an album. That’s a bunch ofbullshit. ’Cause the way I see it is, if you put out a 7” with three or foursongs that’s kinda like a mini album anyway. You don’t have to have a fuckin’12” album out just to have good records out. We could put out as many 7”s orEP:s, 45:s as we want to as long as they’re great. We don’t wanna just put outrecords, we wanna make records. ’Cause that’s what bands did . They went in andthey just made a record. Thay made a good record. That’s the kinda music welike to listen to.
Jason: Most people either don’t have thetime or patience to listen to a whole album all the way through anyway.
Howlong have the Royal Pendletons been going?
Louie: Since the 91st year ofthe 20th century. Too long to be any good. But we’re gonna go to Europe in the fall so you can see us thenand make your own opinion about that band. It’s a good band but we’ve just beengoin’ on for a long time. We all need to do something else right now. And thencome back and do another album that we really like. ’Cause I don’t thinkanybody in the band really like our first album. We put out some singles andall of the singles have been really good. That’s the thing with the persuaders,I don’t wanna put out some good records and then put out a shitty album. Andthe Pendletons are the same way. If the Pendletons are gonna stay together anddo another album I want it to be good. I don’t want it to be a pile of fuckin’shit.
Jason: Well, I guess you can tell Louiedoesn’t like the record. Ha ha.
Ohyeah. Your drummer, what’s the name of the drummer?
Jason: Uh, drummer’s name is Shaggy. Idon’t know where he’s at right now. Haven’t seen him for a little while buthe’s around.
So, he’s been in anyother bands?
Jason:He was in this band called Andon. Kindalike a hardcore 90’s band, trash whatever you wanna call it. He was the singer,screamed in that band.
Louie: They put out a really good singleand then they recorded an album but they all hate each other so they never putout the album. But they’re really good, they put out a single. If you can findit, buy it ’cause it’s good.
Jason: Shaggy also played drums in the McGillicuddys for a short period of time. They have a hard time keeping drummersbecause… I don’t know. Maybe they’re all just a bunch of fuck-ups. Mostdrummers are assholes.
Louie: We knew Shaggy could sing good so wefigured that we wanted him to be our drummer.
Jason:He could scream so we said: ”Here’ssome sticks, hit this thing over here”.
That’s good.
Jason: I think playing drums actuallytakes more practice than playing guitar and stuff like that so I guess that’swhy I don’t know that many people that play drums that are good. Anybody canpick up a guitar and fuckin’ play. I never until Louie fuckin’ made me. Anybodycan play guitar but playin’ drums I think takes dicipline.
Louie:I mean, if we could have found adrummer we could’ve probably started our band a long time ago. But we justwanted to start a band with everybody who was really into it. We didn’t wannajust get a drummer… To tell you the truth, none of us can really play thatwell. We just kinda turn it up really loud, beat on the instruments really hardand scream. But that’s the way we like it. If it comes to where anybody in ourband is not really into it we’re either gonna break up or they’re gonna getfuckin’ thrown out of the band and replaced quick.
Yougot anything to add, I haven’t asked?
Jason: We wanna come play in Europe, the Persuaders. We don’t reallycare about touring around the country, in the states ’cause people don’t reallygive a shit. We wanna come tour Europe before we leave New Orleans.
Louie: We’re not going to Missisippi,we’re not going to Texas, we’re not going to fuckin’ Florida. We’re going to Europe. We’re not driving five miles outof the city of New Orleans to play a show but we’re gonna fly a thousand milesto fuckin’ Europe.
Jason: We’ve only played out of town onceand that was with the Oblivians, their last show in America.
Louie:It was good.
Jason: It was really good. They werefuckin’ fantastic and we got really drunk and there were glasses flying andpeople were falling down. It was snowing in Memphis which is fuckin’ crazy. Yeah, Idon’t know, I guess we don’t have much else to say for ourselves other than… Yeah,that’s it.