Christine Natanael: How did you like your set today?

Rus Martin: I thought our set was if you would call it like, what color out of all the color chartwheel, it would definitely be pink.

Gabe Garcia: Or fuchsia.

RM: I have never in my life, sat on a stage and looked out in a crowd and seen so many jocks in a fucking crowd. It fuckin’ made me sick to my stomach.

CN: You’re in New Jersey…

RM: Don’t get me wrong…there was some really cool people…mad cool people today, but, don’t you go to a fuckin’ concert to like, dance for a band? And not—I mean, literally, we saw like, slap-boxing and fighting to the band, and it just fucking made me sick.

GG: Shadowboxing?

CN: They call that moshing in the metal crowd. Of course, it’s a whole different animal at hardcore shows. Like, right now with Sworn Enemy on, it’s totally different.

GG: We’re used to that. You know, we play “The Bloodletting” and there are five fights during our set. But…we know all about that stuff, but this was like…these guys were like, jock…

CN: Oh, were they bitch-slappin’ people?

GG: They were slappin’ each other, but in like, the weirdest ways. Like, they would slap them and their hat would spin around their head. It was like a comic book.

CN: Comedy moshing?

RM: We had to throw water bottles on them to calm them down. It’s like, ‘Calm down. Calm down.’

CN: So your publicist e-mailed me and she says, ‘I hear from other publicists that you’re doing some interviews while you’re at Ozzfest.’ I was gonna call her instead of e-mailing her, so I had here e-mail up on the screen and I’ve got the phone in my hand, I’m in the middle of dialing the number, and everything goes BLACK! So I screamed to my son in the back room, ‘What the fuck did you just plug in?’ I thought he put the tv and the Playstation and 9,000 things in one outlet! He’s 10, and you know they plug everything in one outlet… So then I figured, you know, I live in Spanish Harlem. Last year it was Washington Heights that got the blackout, so maybe it’s our turn this year, right? But, no, it was half the East Coast. So it was like, the lights went out and we didn’t get bombed to shit yet, let’s have a party! So all the neighbors brought everything out of the refrigerator that might even somewhat sideways spoil, we fired up the grills, and we just had the biggest block party you’ve ever seen.

RM: I wish I was there.

CN: The thing is it was dead quiet…no music. All you heard was the radio talking about the blackout. And for the first time in the 18 years I’ve lived in Manhattan I looked up and I could see stars.

ALL: Yeah….

CN: And it was so quiet; it was amazing….

GG: I bet.

CN: Where were you guys when the lights went out?

GG: We were thinking that Ozzfest wasn’t going to happen. Like, ‘Oops, terrorists, see you later, we’re packing our bags. We’re going back to California where we only have to worry about earthquakes and stuff.’

CN: What part of California do you live in?

GG: Um, like LA area…Los Angeles. We’re all spread out along like, LA County. Like, one of us is in Hollywood. One of us is in Venice. One of us is in Sherman Oaks.

CN: Wow. That is kind of far to drive between.

RM: But in our bio, we’re from Bakersfield to get cool points.

CN: That’s the home of Dwight Yockum. He used to play all those alternative/punk shows when he started because they were the only places he could get to play.

CS: He was in Slingblade.

CN: Yeah, Dwight Yockum rules.

RM: (imitating character from movie) ‘There ain’t no fuckin’ band, Randy. Fuckin’ buzzard.’

CN: (laughing) Excellent. Who decided to start the band?

RM: We all did. We were just sitting around.

GG: We used to play together, in like, hardcore and like post-hardcore bands…you know, post- like emo and stuff like that…

CN: How do you define hardcore? Because, the singer of Boy Sets Fire described—says that his band came out of the hardcore scene—and they’re nowhere near fuckin’ hardcore.

CN: I would say the same thing though. I came out of the hardcore scene, but my band’s not hardcore.

GG: People all say the emo scene is the All American Rejects now…

CN: Well, emo did come out of hardcore, truthfully, in the beginning.

GG: It came out of the San Diego screamo like thing. That’s where it all came…

CN: No, it came out many years ago out of the Dischord bands like Fugazi and stuff.

RM: Yeah, but our version of emo came through the San Diego wave…like Drive Like Jehu and Swingkids were playin’.

CN: Drive Like Jehu’s good.

GG: Three Mile Pilot, Christy Front Drive…

CN: But, when did you all start together?

GG: Three years ago. We decided to come up with the moniker Hotwire as the name of the band…

CN: Hotwire, as in hotwire a car?

RM: Hotwire, as in hotwire my microwave so it’s hotter.

CN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

RM: We were gonna call it Wirehot…

CN: Can I kick you now?

CS: We were gonna call it Hot Hot Heat, but it was already taken.

RM: Hot Chickens is what we were going for…

CN: Come on now, I’m tryin’ not to puke.

RM: Yeah. Don’t do that.

CN: Gabe, how old were you when you first started playing instruments?

GG: When I was five I started out on violin, and then I moved to like, drums and saxophone, and then I got a guitar at age six and I just started playing from there.

CN: And at what point did you decide that this was gonna be your career?

GG: I never really did. Actually, I kind of fought against it for like, so long. I was like, not into it. Like, to go on tour and then stress out about money and this and that, and like, I was gonna go to school. I was a philosophy major. I was gonna teach, like my dad. But it ended up kind of like choosing me. You know what I mean? It just kinda chose me. The music kinda just chose me. It said, like, ‘Look, this is kind of your destiny.’ It seemed to make a lot of sense to me, the most sense to me. I don’t remember the point. It just kind of like, evolved into it.

RM: I like that. I don’t really think there is a point.

CN: When did you first start in music?

RM: Probably, like, I don’t know, 12 or 13.

CN: And what were you playing?

RM: I was playing bass. My next door neighbor roadied for Def Leppard, and he had all this crazy equipment.

CN: For Lef Deppard, really?

RM: Lef Deppard? Yeah. It was crazy because he just—I don’t know. He had a bass in his garage, and I just wanted to play it because I was listening to The Exploited at that time. And I loved listening to Punk’s Not Dead.

CN: Do you like their new one?

RM: When The Massacre came out, I stopped listening to them.

CN: It’s not bad, though.

RM: I haven’t heard it.

CN: That’s ‘cause you’re on the road working, dammit.

RM: Yeah. It started pretty much that way. I’ve been playing since I was six years old, so I think I can.

CN: What about you, Chris?

CS: I started playing bass when I was 13, but I never like, knew. My brother got a guitar, and I didn’t want to play guitar because he did, and I couldn’t play drums because they were too loud, so, I just got a practice bass.

CN: What, mom wasn’t havin’ it?

CS: Nah. I’m sure she would have, but in our neighborhood that we lived it, it was pretty quiet and it was hard to play your drums. And I was so young at the age, so I couldn’t have transportation to go play them somewhere or whatever, so… I don’t know. My brother got a guitar and he just kind of taught me where to put my fingers, you know what I mean? I had no clue what I was doin’, and I still really don’t, so it works out.

CN: Well, we can get around that part, just smile a lot and jump around…. But when did you decide you wanted to do this professionally?

CS: Actually, me and Gabe used to be in a band called Countervail together. It was a hardcore band. And, I don’t know, I had been fast friends with the band, well, at least Gabe and Russ, for a long time, you know? They had an old bass player, and he wasn’t feeling it. He had been on the road, and Gabe called me from the road and said, ‘Yo.’ It was kind of meant to happen. You know what I mean? Like, we all knew at some point that – or I don’t know. I just felt like I should have been in the band always, you know? Just because they’re my good friends, and I wasn’t playing with them, and then, I don’t know. I just look at it as kind of, fate. Danny quit and Gabe called me two minutes later and was like, ‘Yo, you want to be in the band?’ So I figured the songs out at my house, or the best as I could, some of it wrong, and then we practiced for five or six days and we were on tour a week later.

CN: It sucks when somebody quits on the road.

GG: It was the best thing that ever happened to us.

CN: The best thing to ever happen to you, but a pain in the ass when it happens.

RM: I’m gonna quit after this interview.

CN: Good... What was your favorite show on Ozzfest so far?

GG: Favorite show? Which city?

CS: San Bernardino was fun. It was our hometown and I really, I always have a bad taste of LA in my mouth, kinda, for some reason, but it was the fuckin’ craziest show I’ve ever seen. It looked like a twister was in the middle of our set. You know, there was fuckin’ dirt everywhere.

CN: Sounds like last year’s Warped Tour. The pits were churnin’ up the dust. And this year everyone showed up with the masks and it rained.

CS: Like SARS style?

CN: Yeah.

RM: I think the best show was today.

CN: Oh, come on. You’re gonna cliché me to death today. Fuck.

GG: (imitating a stoner) ‘Oh, we’re a heavy kind of like, rock cliché.'

CN: If you want me to make you sound stupid, I will. I can do that.

CS: Whoa. Don’t do that.

RM: If you’re gonna make us look stupid, do it really, really good.

GG: Like so bad. Like so bad.

CS: Where nobody’ll want to…

CN: Like, they’ll show up just to see if you’re that dumb?

RM: Yeah, exactly.

GG: There was such a funny question when they interviewed Queens Of The Stone Age …

CN: How about the philosophy major who’s slow…

GG: That would be the best. In Maxim they were asking QOTSA, ‘So you guys are on Ozzfest. I thought you were a lot smarter than those bands.’ And they didn’t know how to answer.

CN: So when did your record come out anyway? Because I’ve seen it on Headbanger’s twice and not too many other places.

GG: I don’t know if people listen to our music and they fuckin’—what they think. Because they put us on like, Ozzfest. I don’t know how to explain it.

CN: I was surprised that you were on Ozzfest because the video doesn’t seem that heavy.

RM: It’s not.

CS: Well, what’s the word ‘heavy’ mean? Beck is heavy to me and Radiohead is heavy to me. You know what I mean?

RM: Yeah, we’re not metal heads.

CN: Ugh.

GG: What does that mean?

CN: It means I don’t think that’s heavy. It may be mentally heavy or emotionally heavy, but it’s not, sound-wise, crushingly heavy or bombastic heavy.

CS: You see, I think the opposite way. I think bands out here that try to all use open chords and palm hitting, that’s not heavy to me. It’s like, how many bands on that stage have done what they’ve done tons. It’s redundant.

CN: It’s pugilistic, definitely.

GG: I’m not saying we’re an original band and no one sounds like us, but…

CS: We’re the only band that has a single kick pedal on this tour.

GG: Yeah, put it to you that way. Everybody else has double bass.

RM: You can hear it right now, rockin’ out there. It’s just so “heavy."

CN: Somebody’s gonna have very, very bad sore ankles in old age with serious arthritis going on...

GG: They can’t stop. Just everywhere they go they’re doing double bass.

CN: I couldn’t ever imagine playing double bass. Drums, to me, is just so foreign anyway.

GG: I couldn’t ever imagine going to a concert and actually wanting to listen to double bass—except for Slayer.

CN: Let’s see. Biggest influences?

GG: Our biggest influences? It tends to be like, bands like Radiohead or books or something. I operate more on feeling rather than on like trying to borrow someone’s sound.

CN: What kind of books?

GG: I don’t know. Anything, like philosophy. You draw feelings from things and then that comes out, sort of, in the music. It kind of comes back to what I was talking about earlier about how music sort of chose me rather than me being like, ‘I want to do this.’ It’s just like, you take things in and they come out through, like my guitar or whatever.

CN: Sometimes it’s easier to express yourself non-verbally?

GG: Exactly. It’s like, I’d be doing an injustice if I were to say that Metallica was my biggest influence. They really didn’t influence the way I play very much at all. The book Good and Evil by Nietzsche influenced me tremendously. He’s awesome. Things like that tend to influence me more.

CN: So, you’re heavily into philosophy. Who’s your favorite philosopher?

GG: It’s Nietzsche, probably.

CN: Rus, who are your greatest influences?

RM: Probably. Hunter S. Thompson and Edgar Allan Poe. We’re more people that like (I know this because I’m with these guys every fucking day) we draw our influences off of things that have nothing to do with what we do. And that allows us to do the things that we do with this band. Like Gabe was saying, once we start taking in these influences—even though there’s bands that we like, if we started doing that, then we’d still be becoming a product of something which is, you know what I mean?

CN: Derivative?

RM: There you go. Exactly. People are just afraid, I think to let go of those bands because their world is so secure with those bands that they like.

CN: Okay, Chris, influences…

CS: The early stuff is from my parents, stuff like The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and shit like that, Bob Seger, Journey. Then when I started skating, I got into shit like Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys and punk bands and then moved in from the punk skating scene to the hardcore scene to bands like The Broken and old hardcore bands from California and catching all the bands from the East Coast when they’d come out. You know, Sick Of It All, whoever it might be back in the day. Slowly, like when I kind of decided that this is not the hardest thing to do, you know, I could do it. That’s when we started doing our band and trying to open up for those bands. So that’s where I came from.

CN: So then you started heavier, actually, and then progressed.

CS: Oh, I think that hearing stuff like The Eagles, which had like, great melodies and beautiful stuff, it comes out in our music. At least I think so. There’s not one band on the second stage—there might be a few that have melodies that I want to sing in my head. You know what I mean? It’s like, I don’t hear it.

CN: Like the vocals of Timothy B. Schmidt, he’s the one that sings a lot of The Eagles songs that you don’t really recognize as Eagles songs, with that high tenor.

GG: It’s like, mature songwriting.

CS: Steve Perry’s the shit, too.

CN: And Geoff Tate from Queensryche…

CS: He’s the shit. That was my first concert. That guy can sing, man.

GG: That’s like, all stuff that’s mature musicianship, you know what I mean?

CN: They were the ‘thinking man’s metal’ in ’88. They were beyond anything else that was out there considering it was Winger and Poison and all that.

CS: Yeah, that’s true.

GG: But, beyond that, it’s not like, you know, stuff like The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and stuff that he was mentioning. You know? That’s like, such a far cry from the go-get-it attitude today of like, ‘let’s write the catchiest chorus and put like 15 harmonies on it and try and look, you know, like we just came out of the Hot Topic store’ or something…

CN: What one statement would you like to have your fans know that no journalist has ever asked you the question for? (Silence.) Let’s watch the brain cells explode…

CS: Yeah, right.

GG: It’s so ambiguous, though.

RM: The brains start coming out our ears…

GG: That’s just like, when someone goes like, ‘hey, what do you sound like?’ It’s so hard, you know, such an open-ended…

CS: Ask the question, we’ll answer it.

CN: That was the question.

GG: But I can’t make a question out of it.

CN: It’s like Jeopardy. The answer is in the form of a question.

RM: I want our publicist to just start making out with me in the middle of an interview and release…

CN: Your publicist?

RM: No, the interviewer…

CS: Let me think. I would want someone to…

CN: No, this is about what you would want your fans to know…or maybe he does want them to know that he wants to make out with the interviewer…

GG: That it’s okay to like us ‘cause we’re on a nu-metal tour but we’re not nu-metal.

RM: That’s it. That’s exactly what we’d like.

CS: That’s an answer?

GG: Put that shit in bold.

CN: You gave the answer, now what is my question?

CS: What is the question?

GG: We have to make up the question.

CN: What do you want your fans to know most about you that no interviewer has ever asked you. What is most important to your heart and soul that you want to convey…

CS: That pretty much all the bands we’ve ever toured with we didn’t want to tour with, we just had to because the record label wanted it.

GG: Do you miss your monkey guitar tech? We had a guitar tech that was a monkey…

RM: And ate bananas while he changed strings.

CS: Really though, that would be mine. That half the bands that you see us playing with or 3/4s that we play with… If I could just go out and go through my record collection and go, ‘I want to tour with this band, this band, and this band.’ It doesn’t happen like that.

CN: Why not?

CS: Because, we can’t tour with a band like Radiohead or Aesop Rock of Cannibal Ox or Sigur Ros or whatever might be the shit we listen to. It just doesn’t work. We’ve done it. You know what I mean? Just like us playing with nu metal bands. It doesn’t work. We’re not a fucking nu metal band. I don’t know what we are. I just think we’re a rock band. I’d like to tour with Rocket From The Crypt.

CN: Rocket From The Crypt rules.

CS: Of course. If I could tour with them, that would be fucking awesome.