intro by Rustin Dwyer/interview & photos by Christine Natanael
LINKS:
A rolling cloud of dust shrouded the bright July sunshine at Randalls Island in New York, one of the many stops for the 2005 Warped Tour. As a throng of thousands rocked out to the Dropkick Murphys’ unique blend of punk rock, hardcore and traditional Irish folk, the dust combined with the sweat of an army of moshers, and everything became a writhing, muddy mess. While this chaotic scene unfolded, one man, (who years before, was merely a face in the crowd,) now took the stage with a certainty that spoke for every kid, who’s ever picked up a guitar and wanted to play their ass off.
That man is Marc Orrell, guitarist for the Dropkick Murphys.
In his younger days growing up in Massachusetts (a silly thing to say, considering he’s only 23), an underage Orrell would have to sneak into shows and hustle for illicit beers. Of all the shows he got the chance to see, one band stood out from the rest — The Dropkick Murphys. The band, originally formed in 1995, was a constant presence in Boston in the years leading up to the millennium, and Orrell tried to avoid missing a show, if at all possible.
Imagine his surprise when in 1999, Orrell lucked into the audition of a lifetime. At only 17 years of age, he managed to land a tryout with the very same band he grew up idolizing. The Dropkick Murphys had just replaced founding member Rick Barton with James Lynch (of the Ducky Boys, another Boston band) and were looking to add another guitar player. Orrell made the initial cut and after multiple callbacks, the list was narrowed to himself and a much more experienced (and older) guitar player.
To secure his spot, Orrell told the band he could also double as an accordion player, an instrument he had never picked up before in his life. Impressed, the band asked him back to show off his accordion skill. He went home that night and practiced all night long; the rest is history…
(This interview took place on their tour bus after their set at the Randall’s
Island, NY stop of the Warped Tour ’05.)
CHRISTINE NATANAEL: So are both dogs yours?
MARK ORRELL: No, one of them is mine. The one that looks Like Lassie is mine. The smaller one, he’s very cute. His name is “Keef Richards.” Keef with an “F.” And the other is our mandolin player, Tim’s. His dog “Delmar” is out with us also.
CN: So have you guys been to Italy or Greece lately? (Pointing to two-tone coin on the floor of the bus.)
MO:
No, that’s from Canada actually. It’s all yours if you want
it. It’s worth two bucks.
MO: We kind of just show up and get whatever we take. We’re not whiney about what we get, the spots we get in the Warped Tour. We’re happy to be here.
CN: I wouldn’t be either, but you guys are one of the biggest draws, too. You have the biggest pits.
MO: We just go out there and do what we do.
CN: You guys have really rabid fans, and I love that.
MO: We have all the kids, all over, especially for the Warped Tours. We’ve been doing signings and stuff.
CN: I love the ones on the DVD, the Japanese ones drinking.
MO: That was crazy. That was my first tour. I was 17. I had never been out with them.
CN: I could see. I also loved your birthday with Roger and them getting you wasted.
MO: That was 21. That was my 21st birthday.
CN: You were wrecked!
MO: That was crazy. That started in Milwaukee and went to Chicago. My birthday is Nov. 7, so on the 6th at midnight, the second it turned - Because for as long as I have been in the band, everybody has called me 'the kid' - so like, I was watching my cell phone, so at 11:59 I was like, “I am so 21 in less than 60 seconds.” And then I completely forgot about it. I put my cell phone back in my pocket and started talking to somebody. The next thing I know, I’m being doused in beer by The Casualties and Matt and a bunch of guys in the band. Then we headed off to the bar in Milwaukee. I got shit-faced. There were all these shots, I can’t even remember. A lot of shots weren’t even on camera. I ended up throwing up outside.
CN: And
you were under the table, too.
MO: What happened was, at that bar, when I was screaming,
after that, I think I was a floor slug for a little while. I eventually
went outside because I was feeling a little nauseous.
CN: A little green.
MO: Yeah. So I’m like [makes vomit sound] Then I ran outside and got rid of it all. But it was on the steps, because I didn’t make it quite out and the fucking bouncer was not happy about the fact that I puked on his steps, and it was the Astroturf kind of shit.
CN: Oh, no.
MO: So I puked on some of that and the
guy’s just staring at me and I’m like [slurred] “I’m
gonna go back inside now.” You want a tissue?
CN: (Trying to clean the dust out of my nose from the photo pit.) Actually I’ll take a Wet One. There seems to be crustage.
MO: Oh yeah, I’m familiar. So, welcome to the Warped Tour.
CN: It’s not so bad.
MO: Oh yeah? Do it for two months. See how you like it.
CN: I love being on the road.
MO: I love being on the road too, but, like after, you don’t have porcelain for two months, you start to crave it. I want a toilet that flushes!
CN: Yeah, or at least one that I can shit in!
MO: yeah!
CN: (Sniffle) Oh my, pardon me for picking my nose in front of you.
MO: Oh no, please, I might join you.
CN: ‘Cause I’m a punk chick right? I don’t give a fuck.
MO: Man, did you see me on stage snots coming down my face onto my shirt.
CN: Oh yeah man, when you start singing, like really belting it, you get real loogs.
MO: When you start jumping like that you really start \breathing pretty heavy out of your nose.
CN: You play a Gibson, right?
MO: Yeah, I have to do something to make me look cool.
CN: Yeah, I used to work for Gibson.
MO: Really, wow. I love Gibson.
[Al Barr (Dropkick Murphys lead singer) and friend walk in]
AB: Hey you guys doing an interview? How much longer?
MO: Uhmm, about 20 minutes.
AB: Can we smoke up while you’re doing it? We won’t say nothing. We just, uh, this guy’s gotta go in a little bit.
CN: I don’t give a fuck. Hey, I heard your shout outs to my DMS crew.
AB: Your DMS crew?
CN:
That’s my DMS crew.
AB: Excuse me, that is my DMS crew.
CN: You think?
AB: You know those guys?
CN: Very well.
AB: I go back with all those guys, like to the 80’s actually. I was in bands before this, so I go way back.
[More people enter]
CN: So you want your own tour bus?
MO: Yeah, but I don’t have one.
CN: I thought you were saying, if you could have your own tour bus, you could have all your dogs with you.
MO: Yeah, if I could have my own tour bus that would be amazing, but we could definitely never afford that. We would all love our own tour buses.
AB: When he goes solo he’ll have one. [Laughter] As long as he remembers me, I’ll be his chef.
CN: There you go. [Bubbling noises] You can cook?
MO: Oh, he makes great grilled cheese.
CN: You can make grilled cheese with an iron and some paper towels buddy. Women's House version.
[Coughing]
MO: He puts a lot of love into them.
[More coughing]
CN: But you never answered me, how many dogs do you have?
[Bubbling noises]
MO: Oh, sorry. Two, I mean, one. Well two actually, Tim Brennan lives at my house so I have two basically, and then one lives up stairs, too, Duke.
[More coughing]
CN: Are they all short dogs like that?
MO: Duke is actually wicked huge. He’s probably the fattest dog you will ever see.
CN: What kind is he?
MO: He’s ahh, he’s ahh…
AB: German Shepard.
MO: Oh yeah, German Shepard and Rottweiler.
CN: Oh man, he’s fucking wide and heavy. So, when were you born?
MO: Oh, I’m a young ‘un. I was born in 82.
CN: God.
MO: I was late '82. You know he graduated before I was born?
AB: You were accelerated weren’t you? You were one of the “smart” kids.
CN: Yeah, but I still graduated with my class. I was 17.
AB: You’re supposed to be 18.
MO: 17, or 18.
CN: I was born in July.
MO: But you said you were a little bit ahead.
CN: Back then they didn’t go by your birthday.
MO: I’m totally born into the wrong generation. I listen to Jimi Hendricks and the Stones.
AB: I hate to keep interrupting your interview, but the keyboard player from The Transplants was born the year I graduated high school, '86.
MO: Eighteen, yeah, he’s the young one on this tour.
CN: In‘86 I had been living in New York a year. I had taken photographs of Armored Saint, W.A.S.P., and Metallica.
MO: My first punk show was Sick of It All and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
CN: Good one.
AB: Kind of a hard ska.
MO: Yeah, a hardcore ska, Skacore if you will.
AB: Yeah, 'cause Sick of It All would be the hardcore.
CN: I’ve photographed the band before.
AB: I saw Agnostic Front in '83 where Jimmy Dresher beat up Dicky Barret from the Bosstones and all the beef let loose.
MO: [Boston voice] I saw Green Day at the Centrum in Worcester in '96 right when they came out with Insomniac.
AB: I bet you were stoked too.
MO: Yeah, I was [laughs] I can’t help it. I’m young.
CN: How old were you when you started playing?
MO: Uh, 12.
CN: Twelve when you picked it up?
MO: Mhmm.
AB: Take it easy man.
[Someone leaves]
MO: Sorry about that.
AB: No you’re not. You’re high now, you jerk.
MO: Exactly, that's you Al!
CN: That’s okay, makes better interviews.
MO: Yeah exactly.
CN: So, what was you first memory of music?
MO: My dad was a movie buff, he loved taking me to movies. My favorite part of it--he loves comedies, and I used to really love certain spots of those movies with the music in there. I always thought with musical instruments, like to get access to them, it was like a myth. Like, no one owned stuff, at least not where I was growing up. Certain parts of movies, I can give you examples, like in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, when he does "Twist and Shout," I love shit like that: Back to the Future when he does "Johnny B. Good," and Planes Trains and Automobiles when John Candy is doing the "Mess Around" by Ray Charles. I just love that music. That was kind of like where I first realized, “wow, that movie would be nothing without that fucking part.” You know?
CN: Yeah.
MO: Certain things just like that. I was in kind of like a drawing club, where these kids that I knew, kids that actually played in Colt .45. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard o them--they’re out of California. I originally started playing with these two kids. Like I said, they were in this drawing club with me and one time they were, 'Hey come over to my house. Come down to my basement and close your eyes.' At first I thought it was kind of weird, yeah, kind creepy. [Al makes spooky noise] But I was in fourth grade, so I’m like, 'whatever.' So I go downstairs. I have my hands over my head and I open my eyes and there’s a drum set, like a guitar and an amp. I was like, 'woah.'
AB: Wow.
MO: I was like, 'Let me see those drums, man! Let me hit something!'
CN: I think kids naturally go for drums.
MO: Oh, of course.
CN: I know my son was into them at, oh God, how old?
MO: You can’t hit anything with a guitar, really. You know. Anyone can play drums. A caveman can play drums, but not like Matt Kelly, though.
CN: One of my friends is in a band, so they were in town and I went to say 'hi,' and my son was with me, and the drummer handed my son some drumsticks. When we got home my son actually fell asleep on the pillow hugging the drumsticks.
MO: It’s like, kids just love that stuff. I have these two nieces that live upstairs, they’re twins. I bought them a drum set for their fifth birthday, last year, and they have this little drum kit, it’s just like a bass drum, snare, two toms and a cymbal an a high hat, you know. They’re getting it. They’re like [makes simple drumbeat] and I’m like 'You’ve got it! Let’s rock!' But, you know, I originally started playing drums. That was the first thing I learned how to play when I was like 12. Around 13 I grabbed like, a bass and a guitar, you know. Like, my buddies would leave stuff over at my house, because we would practice over at my mom’s house. She had like a business. She does embroidery, so she has these giant machines that look like you can contact ET with 'em, and it’s so loud when it embroiders. It like “NA-NA-NA-NA”
CN: Oh yea, so you could play drums down there.
MO: Yeah, so I would play drums down there, and she would love it. She would groove out while she was working and stuff. She totally loved it. Actually, my parents got divorced and my dad left, and she was like 'Yeah, I don’t think your dad would have put up with any of that shit, man. So I guess it’s a pretty good thing we split up.' And I was like, 'Uhmm, yeah, I guess so, it’s for the best.'
CN: So then you picked up guitar?
MO: Yeah, they left, my buddy Jerry left this guitar over. Basically, when we first had the band we thought that if you hit the same frets it makes the same noise. Then this kid who knew how to play came over and tuned it you know, [hums musical scale]. He showed us the chords go like this. I used to make up my own chords. I took lessons for like, three months after the kid showed me how to tune it. I learned how to do like, a Bach solo, and basically that’s all I needed to know. I was like, 'All right, see you later,' and I took off. That’s basically what I’m doing here now. I used to play trombone in the high school band. I was like a real spaz, as you could see, on stage. I used to have like, ADHD, so I’d be like [makes buzzing noise] all shivering in my seat. I eventually, I mean I don’t concentrate; I’m not a real reader. I don’t read books a lot, I always just loved music.
CN: Maybe you learn by auditory?
MO: I don’t know. It gets inside me. It gets under my skin. I learned how to play piano, like last year because I just love music so much. I want to learn everything about it. I’m trying to get a tuba. No joke. Everyone laughs at me, but fuck you. I’m trying to get a tuba. I want to learn how to play the tuba. I just think it would be cool.
CN: I got my son a trumpet.
MO: James Lynch played the trumpet. He played one in high school. I’ve got saxophone fever recently. I want to play the sax. I love Bobby Keyes from the Rolling Stones. Nobody really knows him.
CN: The Rolling Stones have had a lot of really great players backing them up.
MO: Him and Keith Richards have actually done some stuff with Chuck Berry on “Hail Hail Rock N Roll” like back in the '80s,--'87. Great saxophone player. I just love the way he plays. He’s like Clarence Clemmons.
CN: Oh yeah. I like the blues saxophone.
MO: I like the real raspy, like “WAAAA” you know, I love that shit. Old time rock n roll.
CN: So you like the alto sax then?
MO: Alto and soprano are kind of high I like the barry and tenor. Those are my favorites. I like the “WAAAAA” in the Barry.
CN: The nice deep stuff.
MO: Yeah. I learned how to play the harmonica; pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I have a bunch of Irish instruments. I’m in the fucking Dropkick Murphys.
CN: I love how your band has the accordion and the bagpipes. I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned either of those.
MO: No, that’s how I got in the band. I was trying out for the band. I was 17 and it was between me and this other guy. They kept trying me back and I remember overhearing Ken say, 'Yeah, that would be real cool if we could have an accordion on this song.' My buddy left his accordion at my house and I was like, 'You know, I can play accordion.' Even though, I had no fucking clue. He did a double take and was like, 'Really? NO fucking shit! You can play guitar and accordion?' He was like, 'Oh my good God, this guy has got it in,' so that’s kinda how I got my foot in the door. So I had to go home that night and play the fucking accordion. I was like, 'What’s with all these dots? I’ve got this piano shit right here, but what’s with all these dots? I don’t get these.'
CN: Different keys.
MO: Yeah those are like the base note and like chords and shit. I don’t really use that shit. None of us really know how to do that. We’re like, 'I got the piano side and that’s it.' If you’re going to do some serious French accordion and like, 'Do-dee-do-do,' like polka shit, that’s all the base shit.
CN: And the bagpipes?
MO: I don’t want to touch the bagpipes. They can either be the most beautiful instrument in the world or the worst. They can sound like someone killing a seagull. They can sound the worst if you don’t know how to play them. Like I tried to pick one up and it was like [makes screeching sound]
CN: In Ireland and Scotland, they actually don't let you play in public until you’ve been practicing for seven years.
MO: Exactly. I dunno, I’ll leave that to scruffy. That’s his thing. I’m trying to get like as many weird things in as I can. In my life, you know, anything musical. It’s what I do. I feel bad. I feel like such a shithead sometimes, because I don’t read. I read magazines--I read what’s going on in the music world and stuff. I really can’t like, pick up a book, like, I could pick up a new instrument and just like, learn how to play it. That interests me. I can get my mind stuck on that. But if I try and read a book, I’m just like, “this is something I’m not interested in.”
CN: You don’t have enough time.
MO: I kind of have dyslexia and my eyes go really, really fast and I can’t slow them down. It happens with paragraphs. So I have trouble like that. That’s how I learned to play the piano. I just fucked around and annoyed the hell out of people, all day and night, just trying to figure out how to play this shit. Eventually, it turns out.
CN: [laughs]
MO: Okay, I fucked up on the piano today. Coming out I hit the wrong chord. It was like 'Oh' then 'Ahhh,' I fixed it. You didn’t hear that.
CN: Oh, I was busy having to worry about taking photographs without being kicked in the back of the head.
MO: I think I’d be kind of worried about that.
CN: Oh yeah, we step on each other down there. The best one was I was photographing down at CBGB’s benefit for Lou Koller of Sick Of It All. II was photographing Danny Diablo. I saw another guy come and dive into this pit. So I’m watching this guy with my left eye, and I’m taking pictures with my right eye. Then all of a sudden another guy jumps over my head, and he does not fly as well as he thinks he does, and he kicks me right in the tit.
MO: Awwww man, see I don’t know what that’s like but I’ve heard it’s the equivalent to a kick in the balls. So I can imagine.
CN: Yeah, he was about 6’2’’ and about 230 pounds.
MO: That must have been some speed and some weight coming at you.
CN: Yeah I didn’t even see it coming because I was watching that other guy. I went up to him afterwards and said 'Dude, you kicked me right in the tit.' He was all ,'You shouldn’t have been there.' I was all, 'Yeah?' Then I knuckled him right in the chest.
MO: Ah man....I’m into artsy photo kinda stuff, but I wouldn’t know how to do it. I wouldn’t know how to operate a camera.
CN: It’s a lot of numbers.
MO: Me and James Lynch sometimes, we would get together and try and make home movies and stuff. We’d get all these great angles and stuff. We’re really into that kind of stuff.
CN: That’s fun. You guys do a lot of stuff like that. The DVD had a lot of fucking footage.
MO: Really?
CN: My god, I would watch it for three, four hours.
MO: It’s a lot. It’s mostly me getting my as kicked though. I look back and at first it was like oh, this is a timeline of me with the Dropkick Murphys, this is cool. Then I watched it again and I realized they were beating me up the whole time. What does this say?
CN: You are still with the band though and have been for quite a while. How did you come to get into their style of music?
MO: I knew James from when we both lived in Worcester, which is in central Massachusetts. There was this place that was called The Espresso Bar, which was like an all-teens, place to go and play. It’s not there anymore. I was in like the shitty ska band because I didn’t know anyone else in the town that played good tunes, other that those kids who taught me, but they didn’t really play anymore. I really wanted to play with somebody, so I was like, “I’ll play ska. Whatever. It’s kind of like punk, right?” So I was in this crummy band. James was actually in a really good band. A really good punk band. They didn’t get very far though. The band was called The West Ain’t So Great. We used to play shows with them, and we got to be friends with them, and I even got to fill in for them a few times. I was like 'oh shit,' this rock music, no more of that eh-eh-eh-eh,' you know, stuff.
CN: Yeah.
MO: I was like, 'Oh shit, punk rock.' I played a couple shows with them, and I’ve kept up with James over the years, and then one day when I was 17 he called me up and said, 'Hey, you want to try out for Dropkicks?' That’s how I got the call. I was working at Blockbuster Video. I had to skip out of work to go to try outs a couple times.
CN: So were you into the more Celtic style of punk at that time?
MO: Hell yeah. The first time I ever got drunk was at a Dropkick Murphys show. It was them, The Westies played actually too, and 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, Dropkick Murphys and The Business. The Business came to the Espresso Bar. Oh yeah. That wasn’t the first time I had ever seen (Dropkick Murphys), they were playing the Espresso Bar a lot and they were playing the Rat and kinds of places all over Boston and western Mass. They were becoming a huge name. They were working and working and working. People were starting to get sick of them, 'Oh god, Dropkick is playing again this weekend, let’s go see them, there’s nothing else to do.' They always put on a good show.
CN: Now you have to go see them every night. That’s your punishment.
MO: No, I never said. I never said that. I was saying, kids used to say that, but I never said that. I would love going to see them. I used to kill to go see them. I remember I went to the Rat one time and I was going to leave because it smelt like piss, hot garbage and trash.
CN: I hate going to bars like that.
MO: It just smelled terrible. You went in the cellar, the back way. It was like this big bulkhead door or some shit. You go down this long stairway, down all these stairs. There’s a bar and a hang out area, and I don’t know, it was real fucking smelly. It was disgusting. I only got to go to the Rat once because I lived in Worcester and I was 15 and didn’t have a license yet.
CN: Underage drinking.
MO: Yeah, the first time I ever got drunk was at a Dropkick Show. I remember seeing them ,and they had a bagpipe player. They had this bagpipe guy, Joe Delaney, who has done all the previous records besides this one The Warriors Code. He lived in Boston for a while, but he moved back to Ireland, though. He was a real good friend of ours and after Blackout, Spicy quit, so we were like, 'Oh, what are we going to do?' We need bagpipes. So we called up Joe, and Joe totally saved us. We were like, 'What the fuck are we going to do? We have to make this record.' Joe came in and suggested we do "Fields of Athenry" and stuff and helped out with bagpipe parts.
CN: Oh, I love that traditional stuff.
MO: He’s great. He sounds just like that when you see him play.
CN: I saw you here right after you put that out.
MO: Blackout. Yeah, that was when we had Scruffy back. That’s the thing Joe Delaney has a far better job than us and just plays bagpipes on the side. So he just came in the studio and did it for us.
CN: Did your parents want you to learn music?
MO: I am not going to push music on my kids, because music is something I wanted to do. My dad made me play all these sports. I’m not an athletic person. I’m not good at throwing or catching. He didn’t force me, though. He was like, 'You want to play this? Eh? Eh? Eh?'
CN: When did you buy your first really good guitar?
MO: My first Gibson was. . . It was the one that was on the Blackout cover. It actually got stolen from me; from my car. Someone broke into my car. It’s like, people don’t know what it’s like when you steal someone’s musical instrument. It’s like, why don’t you just take my fucking leg?
CN: I get emails constantly about some band’s van was broken into and they got all their instruments stolen. It got so bad at one time that I actually wrote an editorial about it on the website.
MO: I didn’t give a shit about my car, my fucking amp that was in there, the band’s bazooka, all my CDs that I had owned since I was 13. I didn’t give a shit about any of that. I just wanted my guitar. I was so upset. That was going to be my guitar that I would one day give to my kid. This is my first--when I got some money from the band, I went right to the Guitar Center and I bought this. Actually, I bought that in L.A. with Lars from Rancid. We went to Black Market Music. We were toying with a woodcut guitar. There was this Epiphone guitar and it sounded pretty good. Then I plugged in that Gibson.
CN: They’re both made by Gibson. They’re made at the same plant.
MO: My friend had an Epiphone Gibson or, SG too, and those sound good.
CN: There are some of those that sound good and some that don’t.
MO: I am addicted to the weight. I love felling that solid hunk of wood in my fucking hands.
CN: It sounds like a masculine thing.
MO: I don’t know, maybe it is, but I feel like I have power behind that motherfucker.
CN: You do.
MO: Steve Jones and Slash, they're the people who made Les Pauls cool again. Everybody had all those Ibanez and Jacksons, all those metal bands. Slash came along and Steve Jones came in and made it cool again. Back then Steve Jones was cool, and David Bowie-- they were playing Les Pauls and shit. The '0scame along and there was all this hair metal shit. I was actually in Memphis the night of that hurricane, which knocked out that whole wall of the Gibson factory. I was there. I slept through it. I woke up the next day the whole town was in shambles.
CN: I was in one once, I used to live in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and we had the National Guard come and knock on our door and evacuate us. We had to leave everything there. We weren’t allowed to take pets; that really pissed me off.
MO: If I had to leave my dog, that’s it, I’d tell them to fuck off. I’d say I’m not going anywhere.
CN: Yeah, but the National Guard would arrest you and take you 'for your own good.' I knew people who would just hide, but that is really dangerous.
MO: Man, I just couldn’t leave my dog behind.
CN: I didn’t have children then, so my pets were my first concern, but luckily my cat hid in the basement anyway.
MO: Nice.
CN: They had the mud pit today. When you looked out from the stage today, what was your view over my head?
MO: A dust clould and a couple kids running around in a circle. It’s pretty insane. I couldn’t believe there was enough space for these kids to move. It was packed. Sometimes it happens there are kids that are 'I want to mosh, but I can’t move.'
CN: They’re packed in so tight and the stages are so narrow. They were bigger two years ago.
MO: Then you got the sound guy out there too. You’re afraid you’re gonna hit that guy.
CN: I’ve watched a few sets from the sound board, they don’t really get trashed. In the front it gets crazy. I sometimes photograph the crowd just for the shit of it. I caught this cute girl in a cowboy hat that security was taking. I saw a lot of cute girls dancing in your pit. That’s unusual, most hardcore shows, it’s the dudes, but you guys got the pretty girls.
MO: I hope kids start dancing again, like Rock'N'Roll High School. You know? Kids mosh to like Gin Blossoms or something. I want to the kids to dance again, like, I don’t know, dancing looks like so much fun. You’ve seen Rock'N'Roll High School with the Ramones, all the kids are like, “Yay!” having a great time. Nowadays if you want to go in there you’re gonna get a black eye or a bloody nose; if it’s the type of music that you would do that to. I’d love to be in a band like, I don’t know, old timey Chuck Berry rock'n'roll stuff.
CN: That would be fun.
MO: I’m trying to get together either like, a Stones cover band or a Chuck Berry cover band. I want to play the piano. I wish I could play half as good as Johnny Johnson, from Chuck Berry. Johnny Johnson just died recently, a couple of months ago.
CN: If I knew how to play the piano, and I had the energy, I’d wanna be like Jerry Lee Lewis.
MO: Totally.
