STALKERS
By Morgan Y. Evans
photo By Sir Iain McKell

Andy Animal is trying to make his own Juggalo Juice and has concocted something even more frightening. The scene is a hot summer night in the strange and somewhat mystical woodlands at a campground in Phoenicia, NY, a small Upstate town somewhat close to the tourist zone of Woodstock. It is a beautiful night and the swaggering and intoxicated Andy has taken over the camp like a late 60’s guru from hell, followed by a small army of patchwork friends, posh ladies and retro rockers imported from such places as NYC, New Orleans and the surroundings hills and caves of the Hudson Valley. Flags, torches and pentagrams adorn the campsite as dogs run free and women scream from dark, plant covered recesses. Occasional explosions light the sky, frightening the monks in a nearby Zen monastery and doubtless breaking their trance like state. The Television Personalities blare from a rigged up stereo. Chaos, friendship and dangerous stunts with fire rule the pagan moment. It was a long weekend and one that would prove to be the start of several attempts to interview the enigmatic front man of NYC’s rowdiest garage punk band Stalkers.

Few who have seen the Stalkers already legendary live shows over the years have walked away unscarred, sober or unchanged. They touch a primal chord deep in your insides that says “Yes, it is ok to rock. If I don’t I am worse than scum.” Many people believe they are the greatest. This is of little matter to the band who soldier forth into the abyss of modern music like living embodiments of sunshine, determined to be themselves and make their own universe. I tried to ask Andy about this on the night of the camping party, his birthday Meltdown, as it was dubbed. He was tripping on mushrooms and while we started to try and attempt the interview, all I got from him was a grunted, “The beach boys saved my life…fuck, I can’t do this right now.”

A few weeks later I tried again and was rewarded with a great talk with the furnace of charisma known as Andy Animal. I found out all about what makes Stalkers tick and one of the great NYC bands still worth a shit (For proof, check out their video “In Your Street” www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySKpE_Zevp0). It should be noted, however, that before he was willing to be interviewed this time Andy insisted we travel all the way to the top of a fucking mountain! Of course, we did. This is Crusher Magazine after all.

(*Note: Since the time of this recent interview Lefty has left the band. Good luck to him.)

MORGAN Y. EVANS: So, man…how come you’re such a big shot? You kind of remind me of Van Morrison in THE LAST WALTZ.

ANDY ANIMAL: (laughing)

MYE: I mean that as a compliment.

AA: (laughing) I wouldn’t take that any other way.

MYE: So, let’s talk about making this record. How are you doing today?

AA: Alright. I’m gonna go to the big city tomorrow. Go see The Templars play. Haven’t seen them in a long time.

MYE: You gave me some of their stuff on a cassette years ago.

AA: Clockwork Orange Horror Show.

MYE: That’s good stuff.

AA: Those guys should be recognized for their talent more.

MYE: I wanted to ask you…I found this awesome book I am really enjoying called The Blessing Way. It was put out in 1970. According to The Denver Post it’s a “fascinating blend of Navajo magic and modern chicanery involving ancient ghosts and current greed. A romance and a real cliff hanger.”

AA: (laughing) And it has the shadow of a wolf man on the cover!

MYE: They find a body and its mouth is full of sand. There are no clues but the Navajo keep whispering of the “wolf witch.”

AA: That sounds like one of those trendy heavy metal bands. Wolf Witch.

MYE: So I wanted to ask if you believe in Native American Magic?

AA: I met a Mohawk once who convinced me he used to go out in the woods and see families of little teeny elf people. He was an Indian so I believed him.

MYE: Really? That sounds Irish.

AA: He used to be in a Metallica cover band that played on a reservation.

MYE: That sounds awesome. Are you sure it wasn’t that Irish guy from Woodstock…

AA: (laughing) Greg Rogers?

MYE: He wasn’t an Indian. (confused) Where are we going? I don’t know this way. We just got lost on the way to California Quarry in a town where we grew up!

AA: (turning down a weird country road) Am I just going in circles?

MYE: I feel like we’re not even in Ulster County anymore!

AA: For those in the know, a certain member of the Woodstock Town Board once got chased by the cops while he was tripping on acid and he fell off the cliff at California Quarry.

MYE: I jumped off that cliff once sober. Shit…maybe I had a couple beers. I remember free falling for a second. That was scary. I’m lucky.

AA: I’ve seen you jump off a roof into a campfire.

MYE: This is about embarrassing things about you, Andy. Not me. Although, you don’t get embarrassed.

AA: That’s not embarrassing!

MYE: You’re right. That’s cool. I sound like a daredevil. I am a golden god.

AA: Let’s kick this fucker into four wheel drive! (accelerating up a steep, rocky incline)

MYE: So how’d you like the Meltdown? You have a good time? (Note: Readers, the Meltdown was a crazy birthday celebration Andy threw this past summer at a small camp in Phoenicia, NY way out in the woods).

AA: It was one of the most glorious times of my life.

MYE: I wasn’t there when it happened but one night police helicopters came?

AA: Oh yeah.

MYE: I was there when the first cop came the night before and he didn’t like your pentagram tent.

AA: (laughing) It was a buncha people in the stream there hangin’ out on the rocks and feelin’ great. A police helicopter came and circled the party!

MYE: Were you blasting Alice Cooper too loud?

AA: Some people say it was because of the Chelsea Clinton wedding in the area that weekend.

MYE: That was pretty far away in another county and across the Hudson River!

AA: These days a bunch of white kids with long hair isn’t really a threat on society as far as I’m concerned. Some of these small towns hate it, you know…

MYE: Yeah, they don’t want hot chicks to come to their towns! (laughing)

AA: (laughing)

MYE: Dude, where are we?! Right now we are going on some weird one lane mountain road. We are gonna try and find some ACTUAL cougars. So let’s talk about the band. You guys recorded at Olympic Studios in London, right?

AA: That was cool. We were excited because we were supposed to record at Toe Rag studios which is the only vintage equipment recording studio in England. The equipment is from the 50’s and you record everything at once. I was freaked out ‘cuz usually I have to do a lot of vocal takes. I was still looking forward to it. Then the record company told us we couldn’t get in there that day because Bjork was in there.

MYE: Did you finger bang her?

AA: No. I haven’t met Bjork yet. If I’m in the mood I might some day.

MYE: I wanna meet Linkin Park.

AA: (laughing) So the president of the record company told us we were gonna record at Olympic instead, where the Rolling Stones did Sympathy For The Devil. Every time I watched that I always imagined myself recording in that spot.

MYE: That’s cool. You manifested that, man. Dude, you let Lefty (guitars) loose on London? How was that?

AA: I’ll get to that in a minute. But yeah, the producer was someone who did Madonna and Oasis and shit. He kinda sat there and dealt with us.

MYE: Shhh!!! Look!!! Turkeys! (Note: a huge group of large wild turkeys are in the road ahead of us).

AA: (laughing) The second flock of turkeys I’ve seen today.

MYE: Flock of Seagulls is better. Drive into these turkeys! Just kidding. I got chased by a wild mama turkey once with Dave Bodie from Kayo Dot/Divest when I was hung over and I threw rocks over my shoulder to scare her off and they hit Bodie instead and he stumbled and got pecked. (laughing)

AA: (laughing) Turkeys are disgusting. They got all that shit that hangs off their faces.

MYE: My sister has a pet turkey. I think its' gizzard changes color depending on its’ mood!

AA: That’s disgusting!

MYE: When it’s happy it turns white or red, I forget which one. You change colors depending on your mood too, Andy.

AA: Sometimes I turn into a black guy when I’m feeling real cool.

MYE: You can be Power Man AND Iron Fist!

AA: (laughing) Getting back to Lefty, our second time going to London as a band was Lefty’s first time on an airplane.

MYE: Was this right when he joined the band?

AA: Yeah. He’d never been on an airplane. (pulling car into a weird secluded woodland area).

MYE: Why’d we come here? Are you gonna try and have “surprise sex” with me?

AA: (laughing) Yeah. So it was Lefty’s third show with us in London for the Reading Festival and whatnot. We had a fill in guitar player, Tommy who was in the Star Spangles at the time. Lefty was sitting in between us on the airplane and Lefty said, “Where’s the bathroom”? We looked at him and laughed and said, “What are you talking about, dude? Didn’t you see everybody go before they got on the plane?”

MYE: (laughing)

AA: Lefty was squeezing the seat freaking out! (laughing) Then we told him there was an unwritten rule about being in the Stalkers that whenever we go to London, whoever the president of the record company thinks is the cutest…they have to suck his dick. He believed us! He had the same expression on his face as when we told him there was no bathroom on the plane (laughing).

MYE: I wouldn’t say Lefty is gullible. He’s just…in the moment.

AA: Yeah (laughing).

MYE: I loved when he joined the band and I saw you play Motherfucker party a few years ago with The Cycle Sluts From Hell. Lefty just levitates when he is on stage and hits big chords. He flies into the air!

AA: He does. He turns into a different person, which I really like.

MYE: I remember at your birthday party it was so fucking funny. Lefty was tripping and he told me he’d lost his pants and didn’t know and when he sobered up people were telling him “It’s good to see you found your pants and your underwear finally.” He didn’t remember not having them on!

AA: People told me they were uncomfortable when I put my pants back ON at that party. It felt more natural to them when I walked around in my underwear.

MYE: I think I missed that.

AA: I don’t think you missed that.

MYE: (laughing) So this is a cool spot up here. We are on top of a mountain. You can see five states from parts of up here.

AA: Not here. There are trees in the way. I can only see trees (laughing).

MYE: I saw a bear the other day.

AA: Did you like his leather chaps?

MYE: Yeah. I was just in Chicago and saw some bears there and thought that was why they named the team the Chicago Bears. “Da Bears”!

AA: (laughing)

MYE: So the new Stalkers album Full Blown?

AA: We went out to Portland to record it.

MYE: Did you smoke any good West Coast grass?

AA: Oh, hell yeah! I have this jar of stuff called “Green Tiger Ganja Balm”. I save it for whenever I go out there. You rub it on your skin and it gets you stoned. Whenever you see me at a bar there’ll be someone standing by me rubbing their temples. I give it out to people. It’s a good way to make friends.

MYE: There used to be some stuff I had that you rub on your skin and we’d put acid on our hands and let it sit there and go through your hand.

AA: Was it...acid?

MYE: Oh. (laughing) Yeah. It was just acid (cracking up). Jesus! I thought there was some lotion I used on it also.

AA: (laughing) It puts the lotion on the acid. It puts the acid on its’ skin (laughing).

MYE: Somehow we’re still not talking about your record.

AA: The album’s great. What can I say? We rerecorded some songs we’d previously recorded.

MYE: You did an Abba cover, right?

AA: Yeah. That’s one of the songs we rerecordings we’re actually using. We threw away some of the others. We did a version of “In Your Street Today” that we added a glammy synthesizer to. It’ll probably be a bonus download.

MYE: I heard the new record driving around New Orleans with Marissa Phillips (note: mutual friend and sometime Stalkers guest). It sounded fucking awesome.

AA: Thanks. Josh (Styles-drums) has a problem with some of the handclaps. I guess one is off time or something. I don’t notice things like that but I guess a couple people agree.
He couldn’t be around for the hand clapping parts. Danny and Lefty and him came in and recorded the basic tracks. Me and Raze stayed for the rest of the time. It was a two week trip. Basically just partied up Portland, came back. We’d record a part and go get some donuts at Voodoo Doughnut.

MYE: So you did some of it overseas and some in Portland?

AA: One of the tracks from Olympic we’re using but we redid the vocals at a studio in upper Manhattan. “Lady Sonia”, that song. We added some samples. Ever been to Ladysonia.com?

MYE: No. I thought you meant Red Sonja the barbarian chic movie with Arnold. But that doesn’t seem your style. That’s more my style.

AA: (laughing) No, it’s a song about a porno site a lot of people like. She’s older and British. She refers to herself as the “masturbatrix”. She wears riding pants. We sample a whip sound in the beginning.

MYE: She’ll probably be flattered. She’ll probably do you guys!

AA: Yeah. There’s a couple of Youtube videos, one of us live and one of us playing it on television. They’ve gotten more views than any of our other videos. People looking for Lady Sonia. Thousands and thousands of views and…two or three comments (laughing).

MYE: (laughing) She looks different in this one! All that facial hair.

AA: (laughing) I did a song called “Go Little Sea Lion” that I did all the guitars on. I did that for my brother who passed away a little over a year ago. I wanted to go out and I did some field recordings of Sea Lions but we didn’t have the equipment.

MYE: Yeah, Marissa said…I think she said she saw you mix and you were yelling “More waves!” and “More sea lions here!”.

AA: More waves! It’s not new age, though. We got a really cool hard fast one Josh wrote called “It’s Gone” where I got some girls to sing backups. A couple girls I grew up with here.

MYE: Which one had the bigger orgasm on the record?

AA: Marissa was lead orgasm sounds. Well, there’s more orgasm sounds on “Three Way Weekend.” I used the girls for a few songs.

MYE: Seems like a good creative decision (laughing).

AA: (laughing) “Three Way Weekend” is supposed to be the sounds of me having a three way but I actually used three girls (laughing)! And me. But I’m making minimal man sounds, just like “yeah”. Subtle sounds.

MYE: Barry White shit. Neil Diamond stuff.

AA: Real men don’t make a whole lot of sound when they are fucking.

MYE: Sometimes you can do a victory war cry at the end.

AA: Sometimes when I’m drunk I’ll yell a bunch of wild stuff at the end.

MYE: Did I ever tell you about the time when our friend Damien saw Neil Diamond in Vegas and he made out with a girl in the audience and her boyfriend was getting pissed
And he hands her back to him and says, “She’s ready now”. Ughh, ruined forever!

AA: (laughing) He’s cool, man. He’s a Jew.

MYE: I heard you might have a small part in the NWA movie?

AA: Yeah, well…they wanted me to play MC Ren’s father. I’m thinking about it.

MYE: Is he a Stalkers fan? I know you love NWA.

AA: Yeah, he’s a huge fan.

MYE: That’s awesome.

AA: He tried to get me to fill in for the NWA reunion to fill in for Eazy-E.

MYE: (groaning in pain)

AA: I didn’t think audiences wanted to see that.

MYE: It’s like a comic book movie. You’re better off sticking with the original. Nobody likes it when you fuck around too much with Wolverine’s origin or Batman’s costume.

AA: I have a Batman mask in the back of my car. Michael Keaton movie quality. I personally DO have bat nipples. I went to a high tech tattoo place and they shaped my nipples like sixties Batman logos.

MYE: I was thinking the bat symbol would be a cool chest tattoo but I didn’t want you to get jealous.

AA: (laughing) I have this wild boar on my chest, which is kind of similar.

MYE: I thought you had a Danzig skull? Right?

AA: Where the fuck are my cigarettes!!! (looking around frantically)

MYE: There’s one on the floor of the drivers side by the gas pedal.

AA: (chuckling) Floor cigarette! Somebody bought me these cigarettes from Israel.

MYE: Winstons?!!

AA: Winston Balanced Blue.

MYE: Dude, they are from Israel. There’s the writing…

AA: I asked him to get me a pack of Winston’s down south and he didn’t do that.

MYE: He got really lost!

AA: (laughing) Yeah, so he got me these in Israel.

MYE: Why do they have Winston’s instead of their own cool brand! How does it feel having been with Stalkers this long?

AA: I feel like it’s a prison that I can’t escape. We all feel that way (laughing). We kind of have no choice but to be in this band. It’s like a family. You can’t divorce your family, well…some people do. We’re taking a little break from each other right now just as families should do.

MYE: You’ll all meet back for Thanksgiving…and rock!

AA: (laughing)

MYE: We could catch a Turkey! Let’s bring Lefty a live turkey!

AA: We eventually started doing stuff with other bands. For the longest time we wouldn’t do side projects. Josh is with another band now too. He’s a drummer so he easily has that option. He plays with Daddy Long Legs and this band called The Out Of Controllers. Lefty has a side project that’s completely different. I’m starting up something with one of the Tough Shits and Daddy Long Legs. Yeah, we’re thinking about renting a house in Philly.

MYE: Isn’t that where the Tough Shits are from?

AA: Yeah. Their old house. Three stories for $750 a month. A place to go and play music. We don’t have anything like that in NYC. NYC kinda sucks at the moment. I like going there because there is a lot of action but…

MYE: It aint what it used to be.

AA: You can live in Philly and get a house for the amount you’d pay for a shoebox room in Brooklyn. I wanna convince all my friends to move here to Woodstock, too.

MYE: It’s kinda cool ‘cuz you bring them up here and they go crazy! Like ,”Wow!”

AA: They see a deer and shit themselves.

MYE: We are numb to it but they remind us it can be pretty fucking cool in the psychedelic forests.

AA: We’re fucking jaded.

MYE: We gotta chase off all the yuppies and get some rock n’ roll going.

AA: We could build a house right here and no one would know for awhile. But yeah, I’m going to see The Templars. Nobody sounds like them. I used to see them all the time. I was a young fan and eventually made buddies with those guys. We have a side project called Tartan Mushroom on Myspace, a glam rock kind of thing. A Bay City Rollers homage. We’re also gonna do another project of ours called Custard In The Boots. It’s a tribute to early 70’s skinhead glam kind of stuff. We wanna put out a split 7” of our two fake bands (laughing). Put pictures of totally different people in it. Get models and give them platform boots and suspenders.

MYE: Tell me about the guitar situation?

AA: It didn’t work out with Raze. He’s out in Portland now. We have a buddy filling in on second guitar. We’ve gone through a lot of guitar players. Lefty is the longest lasting guitarist we’ve ever had. If something doesn’t work out we get one of our friends. It’s no big deal. We’re not concerned about image…well, they have to look good (laughing) but there’s no uniform. They have to vibe with us and know us.

MYE: What else you got coming up? I heard you are the new spokesman for BP and Wal Mart?

AA: Yeah. I’d like to use this time to promote some of my favorite companies such as H & R Block. Target, especially. If this comes out in time , for next year, any year…Target has the best deals on back to school specials! If you don’t feel like going to Target you can shop right from the comfort of your own home at www.target.com and there’s thousands of reasonably priced items. Whether back to school essentials, holiday decorations or Christmas GIFTS!!! It’s crazy. It’s an amazing thing. But yeah, Stalkers plan on getting out’ve town again on the road sometime soon. We aren’t struggling with choosing. We do what we feel like. We’ve got enough people who know who we are and every time we go out there will be more. I am looking forward to getting out of town and letting more people hear us. I love being on that stage.

MYE: (getting back in car) How’d you come up with the record title Full Blown ?

AA: (driving back down the mountain back towards Woodstock) It’s what we are. We call it something close to home. Five guys that have their own thing going on. We don’t wear matching outfits. It’s like the Village People. Lefty’s definitely the Indian. I’d be the Biker. Danny’s the sailor. Josh is the construction worker.

MYE: Here come the turkeys again. Woah! Holy Shit! (note: A turkey jumped off a small cliff and flew right in front of us and kicked debris at us).

AA: He threw a stick at us!!!

MYE: That’s fucking crazy.

AA: (laughing)

MYE: That was the more advanced turkey like in Land Of The Dead where the one zombie learns how to use a machine gun. What’d you think of the Freddy Kreuger remake?

AA: Didn’t go see it. There are endless horror remakes coming out. The only one I am sort of ok with is Creature From The Black Lagoon.

MYE: They are doing that? I was thinking they should.

AA: Yeah. At this point he’s a classic monster like Frankenstein and Dracula.

MYE: He needs to actually have lagoon sex with the chic, though.

AA:“Surprise Sex”.

MYE: Lagoon “Surprise Sex”. Under the water all of a sudden some…stuff is going on.

AA: Fuckin’…she’ll hatch some eggs.

MYE: It’s the nineties. You can have stuff like that on TV now.

AA: Everyone loves dolphins so much.

MYE: Do you believe that dolphins are telepathic?

AA: Um…I couldn’t take that any further than “I guess in some sense.” I don’t know! I aint tryin’ to think about DUMB SHIT! Ask me some hard hitting questions!

MYE: What’s your favorite…season of the year?

AA: Autumn. I don’t want people to think I’m a pussy because I said that.

MYE: (laughing) You said “autumn” instead of Fall.

AA: (laughing) This is the time of year I listen to The Misfits and Samhain a lot. Especially Samhain.

MYE: I’m kind of bummed out the Turkeys are gone. Maybe we’ll have one more animal sighting before the end of the interview/

AA: Uhh…you’re in the car with one. (steers wildly towards edge of a cliff)

MYE: Woah! Asshole! Radio listeners, we are speeding down a steep ass hill right now.

AA: (singing) I’m a good old boy!

MYE: We were talking about porno stars earlier…

AA: John Holmes used to steal luggage at airports. Whenever we are at an airport and I see luggage I think of Lefty because he has that John Holmes look. Army jacket, glasses…

MYE: Big cock.

AA: (laughing) Twelve inch dick.

MYE: (cracking up)

AA: Sticking through his skinny little Levi’s. Lefty’s got something glorious just waiting to pop out of those Levi’s.

MYE: I’ve never asked him why his nickname is Lefty anyway.

AA: Did you ever ask him to fish his little cock out of his Levi’s?

MYE: No.

AA: And he fishes it out and it’s big and beautiful.

MYE: And it’s a nice surprise. “Oh man, I thought this was gonna suck!”

AA: (laughing)

MYE: So, while we’re on the topic of big dicks tell us about envy.

AA: When I go to Kingston, NY a lot I get a lot of dirty looks. I know people seem to know me and I don’t know them. I know they hate me and think I’m a hipster asshole or whatever. They talk shit ‘cuz they’re jealous. That just feeds into my ego. I like it. I can be a real asshole sometimes but have no remorse for it.

MYE: (looking out window at town of Woodstock tourists) Oh man, that girl was hugging a lifesize Bob Marley cut out.

AA: Hey, if that makes her happy.

MYE: Yeah, I guess she was feeling groovy.

AA: The only effect hatred has on me is a big boost of my ego. Thank you.

ANDY ANIMAL (in action)