MORGAN Y. EVANS: Fire For Hire is a kick-ass party record and a lot of fun but has depth, too. You admit in some songs that being a rocker is about prolonging adolescence, but it also touches on making sacrifices in many songs for what you love. Being an outsider in life for the sake of doing this.

BENJI LEE: Yeah, I mean, it really is. It’s not like having a regular job at all. In fact a lot of it is like not having a job at all.

MYE: [laughing]

BL: At least, not getting paid. It’s gotta be a labor of love if you’re gonna do this thing. You can’t do it and be able to do anything else and try to succeed in this business because really it’s fool’s gold.

MYE: I admire the extra care that comes from the dedication you have that even goes into guitar tones or approach or whatever. There are basic rock songs but its great stuff and sounds very big.

BL: Cool! Thank you.

MYE: And like you say about sacrifices, a lot of times people don’t know how much it takes to even be that competent in what you’re doing onstage or on record.

BL: It’s not for everybody, that’s for sure.

MYE: You guys had some tour video funny footage on your myspace of the bands antics and you were in airports a bunch. There was lots of airport drinking. I remember the first time I did that I definitely regretted it! Some people, it calms their nerves when they’re travelling but then all of a sudden you’re hungover on the plane and it’s like, now what do I do?

BL: I’m usually pretty good about it. I don’t get too loaded before getting on a plane, however, our drummer and our bass player, Brueggen and Swift, they see it as like, a total chance to get as fucked up as they possibly can! I’ve left Brueggen at the airport before. I was like, “Well fuck it, I can’t wake you up. Good luck catching the next flight!”

MYE: [laughing]

BL: I’ll just leave him asleep at the terminal. I can’t do anything for those guys. Both of ‘em are just total assholes when it comes to airport drinking.

MYE: I had to ask because you also wonder, when the safety procedures start in lieu of a crash, are you gonna be capable of doing anything to save yourself?

BL: They’re dead. They’re totally dead if anything like that happens.

MYE: If you fall from a great height it is better to be limp though. This dude jumped off a big bridge near me tripping and drunk and he lived cuz he hit the water like a rag doll instead of with friction. So maybe wasted is better! You don’t tense up.

BL: [laughing]

MYE: Partying so much and playing too, I give respect to people like Slash who can drink a whole bottle of Jack Daniels and still kill a solo live. You guys, you seem pretty much to rock out hard live but still really party. Is there ever a push and pull between those worlds?

BL: Well, there’s a trick to it. You’ve gotta drink all the time.

MYE: [laughing] Amen, brother!

BL: Practice is important. You get used to it and then if you’re not loaded you’re like “What the fuck? What do I do?”

MYE: Dude, I agree and have had so many arguments with former band mates about that. Cheers!

BL: A lot of it has to do with the band. This band we played with last week, they don’t even drink anything on the road. Not after the show, never.

MYE: Not even milk?

BL: [laughing] I couldn’t believe it. They said they party down at home but not on the road because they “have to be around each other”. Dude, that’s the reason TO drink! [laughing]

MYE: [laughing] Yeah, man. Fuck that! I don’t wanna watch you sort your socks all day!

BL: Yeah, but to each their own. Each band has their own approach.

MYE: Talking about completely different lifestyles, I thought your one song “Lonely At The Bottom” was really cool about being an outsider and I was thinking about this band who are mostly straight edge called Shai Hulud, who I love, and they have a new song called “We Who Finish Last” and it’s about how they are being outcasts but it’s also a badge. Or like you guys have “Born In Exile”. I love how even though you’re more of a party band than them, bands that have a true underground experience coming up can relate on these weird points no matter how different they roll. Dedication to your craft shines through.

BL: It’s hard to kind of have that perspective if you were a band for two weeks and then Columbia signed you and then you’re on tour with Metallica for two weeks and now have five million records sold. They’ve never played in a club or eaten Ramen or slept on a floor. It’s a different kind of band. There’s two kinds of bands, a band that just gets signed and goes straight to the top…

MYE: Good ones and bad ones. [laughing]

BL: Yeah. There’s a whole group that don’t pay any dues.

MYE: I don’t mean too…there’s some of those bands that kind of luck into it and some can be good and are just lucky. I agree with you about the dues.

BL: Hey, some of them are just awesome and if you can do it, there’s the argument, well, “Why not?”

MYE: Right. Exactly, everyone would’ve loved that probably to happen to them at some point. Shit!

BL: For the rest of us, that’s not how it goes.

MYE: Is it true you and Chris are really related to Bruce Lee or is that just totally a way to score extra ass?

BL: No, it’s true. It’s true. My Grandfather and Bruce Lee’s dad were cousins.

MYE: Wow!

BL: They are from the same village in China. We’re half Chinese. Like, my dad grew up with Bruce Lee. They all went to the same school. Bruce Lee was a child star in China.

MYE: He used to break the trees down with his shins and your dad would make guitars out’ve them for you guys?

BL: [laughing] Well, yeah, sure! I mean, in China there’s whole villages related to each other. We play other countries and they get it wrong. We played Norway and they said “Oh! The Grandsons of Bruce Lee.” [laughing] We were third cousins.

MYE: I’ll be sure to get it right.

BL: Clarify, you know. It’s just one of those things.

MYE: Hey, you know, a lot of people in the U.S. are like,” I’m part Native American,” and they are the whitest dudes in the world, but if I had even the smallest connection to Bruce Lee, remotely, I would brag about that shit every day. [laughing] Fuck that!

BL: [laughing]

MYE: You’ve played all over the place and in other countries and what is your favorite part of the country or elsewhere to play.

BL: Texas is great. Especially like Austin. We love the North East. New York, we love to play. Boston’s cool.

MYE: I know you are friends with my friend Donna from the She Wolves and ex Cycle Sluts From Hell from New York.

BL: Hell Yeah! We just saw Donna. We were hanging out. She came out to Barcelona with Chris’s wife and a couple friends.

MYE: Yeah, I read in the She Wolves blog. That’s cool!

BL: Yeah, that’s funny. But yeah, we like it where people get up a little more. It’s just, we’re kind of more sick of the radio stuff and all the actors, you know.

MYE: Yeah, that’s like your song “Hey Kiddies” where the lyrics talk about music “Shoveled down the throats of the innocent. You better buy ‘cuz that’s all you get”. I have sympathy because in some ways the kids in the Midwest love bands I’m totally sick of, but they’re not from New York or it’s more vapid there. I was exposed to more. I mean, cool people find cooler shit, but I realize you gotta see the people that have heart and try and see that, even if they are rockin’ so hard to stuff that sucks.

BL: Yeah. They buy their music at Walmart. If that’s where you get all your music, what else is there but what Walmart is offering?

MYE: I know. It’s sad, too, because the good thing with downloading is people know about more bands but they all make less money. And even AC/DC, who we all love so much, are thinking of making their new album only for sale at Walmart. Like, they are used to having millions of people come see them in Russia. To them it’s less about the morality and more about, "How do we keep doing this?" I guess.

BL: Well, in AC/DC’s case it’s, “How can we sell the most records.” Walmart? That’s it!

MYE: I was bummed when the Eagles did it, but they have so many touring bills to pay also.

BL: You can’t blame bands these days. There aren’t Tower Records on every block anymore like there used to be. Then they wouldn’t do it. The reality is all the stores are shutting down, you know. We wouldn’t turn down a deal like that with Walmart.

MYE: You guys have had some good movie stuff lately. You had music in Harold And Kumar 2: Escape From Guantanemo Bay. Your song’s part was cool. It’s a funny movie.

BL: I haven’t seen it yet actually. [laughing]

MYE: It’s really funny. There’s more exposed vagina in that movie than some losers will ever see in their lives.

BL: [intrigued] Really? All this time I had no idea there were exposed vaginas in that movie.

MYE: [laughing] There is!

BL: Awesome.

MYE: Speaking of which, the upcoming comedy movie College, you have a role in that, right?

BL: You know that scene in Old School where they are at a party and Snoop Dogg comes out? We’re Snoop Dogg. We are in the big party scene. It’s crazy how many tits are on screen!

MYE: It’s weird man. I heard about that and thought we were good friends! Where the fuck was my invitation?

BL: [laughing] It was pretty last minute for us too, otherwise you would’ve had one.

MYE: Cool. I mean, I know this is actually the first time I’ve ever talked to you and stuff though.

BL: You would’ve had one. It was rad. I had chicks in a glass cage above me making out. A whole line of them behind me. One in a glass cage dancing with “Mini-Me,” Vern Troyer.

MYE: He’s a scary, scary man, dude. I have huge respect for him!

BL: [laughing] He’ll take anything!

MYE: He’s a maniac.

BL: He was pretty cool, too. We talked about music for awhile. His favorite band is AC/DC, which is our favorite band. It was fun, man. We had three days to do five minutes on film. It was a very cool experience.

MYE: You guys have real good rock spirit but also there’s songs like “Mourning Day” on the record about friends who died too young, and there’s more depth to the record. Even “Bow Down” is more serious. There’s some real party songs like “Long Live Rock” and stuff that is Van Halen indebted, but it feels complimentary and not just biting them. Even the stuff like “Long Live Rock” reminds me of stuff I loved about Quiet Riot or Def Leppard. You guys aren’t as poppy as those bands, but it has the celebration of what rock is about!

BL: Our record was born out’ve frustration. We just keep waiting for rock n’ roll to be the new thing again. I’m tired of these bad bands, man! It’s kind of like, at some point you think “What the fuck? What is wrong with all these people? Don’t they remember rock n’ roll at all?” There are some bands out there that are trying to rock though.

MYE: How was the process of making the record?

BL: We have a really simple philosophy about making records. It comes through on the record. We don’t want over production. We don’t think about doing gongs on this part and it’ll be so rad, or something. We wanna have people have the record and it sounds like we actually sound like. For us we just rehearsed the crap out’ve these songs and banged them out live and that’s exactly what we did.

MYE: Yeah. It sounds powerful.

BL: We recorded together live instead of everyone going back over it later because I think it loses something when you don’t play it as a band.

MYE: You guys are rehearsed but not so anal. It still sounds fun.

BL: I totally know what you mean! That’s how my favorite records are. They’re not these epics. Queen makes great records, for instance, but I would never wanna make a record like that. First of all, it’s too much work for me. I’m lazy.

MYE: [laughing]

BL: The band is, too. I wanna rock and be moved by the music instead of analyzing…

MYE: …Movements. [laughing]

BL: Totally.

MYE: You come from the AC/DC school and people wondered how their music sounded like that, and it’s just good amps and awesome Gibson guitar shit.

BL: That’s totally it. Just playing it. That’s what they sound like. Wow! A band with a record that is what they sound like. It’s worked for us so far, and I wouldn’t change it.

MYE: So I wanted to ask you about the Alice Cooper connection. I’d heard that after Hurricane Katrina he was involved with the band and you’d toured before that, too, right?

BL: We’d toured with him for 8-9 weeks. Basically the whole country and all of Canada. So we became pretty good friends with the whole band and Alice is just the nicest guy and he’s such a class act rock star. He’s a legend, you know? When Katrina hit he actually found us and called us up and asked if we were ok, because they were on tour and watching New Orleans go under and he was like, “What are you guys up to?” We said we weren’t up to anything and were just waiting to get back into our city and he said if we wanted we could go back on the road with them, so we were like, ”Alright!” All I had to do was sneak back into the city and break into our practice space, which was funny ‘cuz when I did that I totally got rolled up on by the National Guard!

MYE: Yeah? Holy shit!

BL: They had their guns drawn and I was like “I got a key! I got a key!”

MYE: Better know how to play that guitar, sonny boy!

BL: [laughing] They weren’t fucking around. It was pretty scary. They were dealing with some crazy shit, so to see a guy pulling a bunch of gear out’ve a house, they were like “Hold it!”

MYE: A lot of stress.

BL: So we jumped on tour with Alice for another six weeks. We’ve done some other tours with big rock stars, like real rock stars, and with Alice, no one comes close.

MYE: As far as his persona or the stage show?

BL: The stage show, but also the way he is backstage and treats little bands like us. Very gracious. We were never denied anything and he wasn’t above anything.

MYE: It’s the coolest when people remember that. I always think it’s the lamest shit when people are the headliner and will give their opening bands shittier sound so they sound better than them. Fuck that! Give everybody equal sound and throw down. I’d rather have it be a challenge every night and have to be better than have some opening bands that suck or make a good band sound shitty. It’s not fair.

BL: Would you rather have a shitty band or a good band!

MYE: It also perpetuates shittier bands getting popular when people take crappy bands out as openers on purpose. [laughing]

BL: [laughing] Yeah.

MYE: What’s your favorite Alice song or period. I even like ‘80s stuff like “Poison” or the earlier stuff, of course.

BL: I always liked Love It To Death. He’s like a born again Christian and a Republican and like, plays golf with George W. Bush and stuff, but then he sings “Cold Ethyl”!

MYE: I know! I don’t get it! I was reading this Jello Biafra thing where he was saying he likes Alice Cooper’s music and that some punks say he shouldn’t as Jello is very liberal, but he says good music is good music. You can still like his music even if you don’t like where he’s coming from.

BL: Exactly. He’s a performer and a professional and it doesn’t get in the way of his personal life.

MYE: It’s just so confusing though because it’s like, “Dude! You chop off your head and wave snakes and stuff and your own severed head and Republicans don’t want people to see that.” [laughing]

BL: It’s funny. He’s got a great sense of humor. To him it’s like a big joke. Well, not a total joke, you know.

MYE: It’s funny and about making money, I guess.

BL: He’s great. He’s great.

MYE: A good songwriter. So, good luck with your record man. How did you come up with the name for Fire For Hire? It’s pretty funny.

BL: It’s an older song that we kept on the record. We just thought it was funny to have a song called “Fire For Hire” because we’re “the fire”, [laughing] you know? We just thought it was funny and fit with the themes of the record, and that song is probably one of our dumbest songs and also one of our best songs ever. The dumber the song, the better!

MYE: Hey, look at the Ramones, man.

BL: Yeah! C’mon. There’s a place for serious rock but it’s not us. We just wanna party and have a good time.

MYE: It goes well with the minimalism and your good chops but straight forward and even the record cover. Everyone’s seen explosive, crazy psychedelic art and stuff and that is great and has it’s place, but this is like about the band and your faces and we all remember that vibe, and it’s like the ‘80s but in a good way about “who we are” rather than only “hey, look at me”, even though that’s in there too, and you wear t-shirts of yourselves for a laugh sometimes.

BL: Yeah. I mean, we don’t have real big egos and everybody that comes to our shows we usually have drinks with them. I’ve met most of the people who are into the band and had beers with them.

MYE: You guys coming back to New York soon?

BL: Probably in August. You know that promoter Rocks Off? He’s become a good friend of ours and is trying to get us something set up.

MYE: I’ll keep my eyes out, man!

BL: Absolutely.

MYE: Thanks. Record’s fucking awesome. Keep the faith!

BL: I’ll talk to you later.