Within punk zine issue 7

Page 1


EDITOR Naomi Kelly

DESIGNER Jason Bolduc

PHOTOGRAPHY Jason Bolduc Heather Smith

REVIEWS Mike Mccarthy

COLUMNISTS Jim Smith Rev

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS MELANIE KAYE PR LESS THAN JAKE JIM ROSE MIKE MAGEE/STOMP RECORDS www.withinmagazine@hotmail.com



5 JIM ROSE CIRCUS

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LESS THAN JAKE

CONTACT withinmagazine@hotmail.com 26 Houghton Ave N,Hamilton ,ON L8H 4L2


INTERVIEW WITH THE LEGENDARY

JIM ROSE


WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF? JR: One day I had an epiphany. Give punk a new tentacle...do it with sideshow..the old ways weren’t working for that genre anyways so force this stuff in to rock clubs..most of these stunts haven’t been seen in 20 years..there is a lost generation..fuck it i’m going to try this..sure beats a cubicle”...best decision I’ve ever made. Now there are 100s of troupes all over the world doing it.. every time I see new performers or shows I get a tingle..half of them don’t even know about my show..that’s cool too...together we brought a slice of lost art back on our own youthful terms. If I was a complete virgin to the Jim Rose Circus and had never heard of you, what would be your description of it to me? JR: You’ll see the unexpected. Thrills, chills and doctor bills. A ticket’s good for a seat but you’ll only use the edge. It’s over-the top high-flying bone-jarring excitement. Not since Christians were fed to the lions has there been a show this hysterical. But I bet if I told you that there was an episode of the SIMPSONS where Homer ran away to the join my circus as the human cannonball, you would in fact realize that you are familiar with me. Or if I told you that I was in one of the most popular episodes of the X-FILES or had my own weekly tv show on the TRAVEL CHANNEL, you may go “oh, okay, I do know him.” But if you don’t have any of that reference to help you along, just expect the unexpected. The best place to start would be your beginnings, what was the family life like with your parents? JR: Christian. So there was a heavy dose of moral dogma? JR: Yeah, and it was always fluid, the doctrine was never set in concrete. It changed as the selfish needs of my parents needed them to. So what applied to the good book one day, didn’t necessarily the next; they were hypocrites but aren’t we all? Tell us about your early years. Where did you grow up, and how did you end up honing your skills in Europe before coming to national prominence in 1992? JR: I was born premature and cross eyed. My father was an amateur magician and mentalist. After birth I was so small I had to stay at the hospital in an incubator for 2 weeks. Standard cribs were too big so when I was brought home my parents fitted me in a shoe box to serve as my first bed. My mother used to joke that she didn’t remember how much I weighed but she did know I was a women’s size 7. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona as something of a freak myself, not getting corrective surgery for my crossed-eyes until the age of eight. I lived across the street from the fairgrounds and went to all the traditional circuses, monster truck shows, motorcycle daredevils, freak shows and legitimate theater that came to town. My first job was at the fairgrounds, doing odd jobs like going around selling soft drinks. I fetched soft drinks and cigarettes for the Lobster Boy, the Penguin Boy, the Frog Boy. I was doing that for awhile and then learned to do the human blockhead and learned how to be a motorcycle daredevil. That was my first real job, but I had a little motorcycle accident. I attempted to jump 27 cows and must have landed on some spent cud. I went a bit wobbly, I cleared the cows but still managed to crash. I hurt my back so that’s why when I speak to you today I have the posture of a jumbo shrimp. I kind of gave up on entertaining for a while: I attended the University of Arizona and studied political science, moved to Washington DC and dabbled in spoken word performances, played


in punk bands and the like while working on fundraising events for social causes (as well as a stint in car sales). I used to perform at a place called D.C. Space that was back in the day of Henry Rollins and Fugazi, this was right about 1984-85. I was there when that happened, I didn’t break because I was not very good at that time, I only got started. At one of my shows I ran into a little French girl named Bebe who comes from a circus family in France. She has been my beloved wife for over 25 spectacular years. I was a heroin addict when we met, and she took me to France to kick, I did, and I began working with her family circus. She introduced me to the European tradition of circus spectacle, which inspired me to research it thoroughly. Her brother is the director of the Royal De Luxe, the largest circus in Europe; one sister and her German husband have the Randalini circus, and I used to travel with them, going around the Lake of Constance. So I learned a great deal about circus stuff and freak shows at that time, I didn’t know too much about how to run a freak show. It was hard to find anything about it in the US because it had disappeared for about fifteen years. So I brought some of the American stunts over there and I picked up some Euro stunts, brought them back to the US. I then went to Venice beach where I worked as Jimmy the Geek Rubber Man, I got my presentation skills up doing seven shows a day, seven days a week as a street performer. That is how I made my money - fucking with tourists... Then I started the Jim Rose Circus and reintroduced American audiences to freak-show attractions in Seattle and it seemed like likeminded monsters sat up in their crypts and started auditioning.Things went so well in Seattle that we went down to Portland,OR and that sold out, and soon we were asked to tour Canada. We became so well known in Canada that we started getting calls to do TV shows and then things exploded. It all happened in about a 6 month period. Considering the circus was put together before the age of Facebook and Craigslist, how did you manage to pull together all the people involved? JR: Yeah, like I said, like minded people sat up in their crypts and started to audition. There was a little click of people that were interested in it and there was no place really to perform this stuff. I would go around the clubs in Seattle and talk to the owners about it and they would look at me like I killed the Lindberg kid. I found this little Middle Eastern restaurant that was across the street from my house called Ali Baba’s, which on Thursday nights they had belly dancers. So I talked to the owners Ali and Baba, whatever I don’t remember their names, and I ended up doing a gig. I put up some posters and I thought that I would get about twenty of my friends; instead I got there two hours early and the place was packed with a line outside. Since everyone had gotten in early so they didn’t have to pay, I had to start the show going around getting money from everyone. There was this group of people outside who refused to pay and pressed their faces against the window of the restaurant. I was just winging it at the time, didn’t even know what my show was going to be since I thought no one was would show up; so I started the show off talking to those people staring through the window. In that melee of people were individuals like Kurt Cobain and a few other names that escape my mind, so I went outside with a plastic bat and told the people they had to pay a dollar or I would hit them over the head with the bat. The people on the inside who had already paid the 6 dollars to be inside got to watch. I turned the people outside INTO the show. Everyone inside was looking outside at me going around collecting those dollars, if they didn’t have a dollar I would bop them on the head with the plastic bat.


That is pretty much how the show got started, I got back in and did my shit, it was pretty punk. I guess that is why I get some kind of weird credibility, because before that show punk pretty much meant rock and roll, and I pretty much expanded it to include performance type art that wasn’t musical. In ‘92 your show saw its breakthrough point with Lollapalooza, how did you end up getting recruited for the festival? JR: I’d done a sold out tour of Canada and I’d done some national television in the US. Perry Farrell saw the Sally Jessie Raphael show and he asked me to join up. We did and we’ve not looked back since. At the time I had no idea who his band was. Hell the first day of Lollapalooza someone pointed out this band to me and said “look it is Jane’s Addiction!” I said “well I hope she gets treatment.” The festival itself was so beyond anything given to the public at that time, what did you think of the whole event? Any crazy stories that come to mind? JR: That is true because most of them were stationary at the time. As for the crazy stories, that time was really a spunk incrusted blur..Yeah it is pretty blurry. A lot of alcohol fueled nights? JR: No a lot of complete stress. I was on MTV everyday, so it was very hard to go out in public and the first time I ever had to deal with anything like that. Of course as soon as it stopped airing on TV everyone stopped recognizing me. From what I understand the festival was when you first began to be friends with Trent Reznor, what brought you guys together and how did that lead up to you touring with him for the Downward Spiral Tour? JR: Actually that is not true. I had gotten a phone call, I had heard that he had come to a few of my shows and watched it. I was a bit clueless...I was about ten years older than everyone on that tour and I had just gotten off of heroin. I get on Lollapalooza and go oh boy! So I picked up a copy of Spin Magazine and watched about twenty minutes of MTV and I said oh I see they have this new edit thing going on, where you see everything quick quick quick, these days you see it on every network but it was a new edit style back then. These audience wanted it fast with the F word. I was the first to do an MTV type of a live show, I


made it feel like you needed a swivel on your neck with how fast we were doing the performance, it felt like Biblical times, there were miracles happening everywhere. That was the type of feeling I was going for but with a little more of a growl as a character. You’ve appeared in a few culturally significant television shows, such as acting in the XFiles and being immortalized in The Simpsons. How did the X-Files gig come about? JR: Chris Carter, the producer, read my book (FREAK LIKE ME), he was a fan and so was David Duchovny. They originally got in touch with me to see if I could do something on the show. I’d never heard of the X-Files I was touring Europe at the time and I said no, and they came back again and again, they were very adamant and I said no. Then my agent called me up one day and said, you know this is a pretty big show, and said they will let me help write the script if I decide to be in it. Which I replied “now I definitely don’t want to be in it because that sounds like too much work”. They called back with a good offer, so I said okay, I won’t help write it; Darin Morgan wrote it and he did a really good job. The episode was Humbug from the second season of the X-Files and I was featured as Dr Blockhead. Trivia fans may be curious to know that Gillian Anderson ate a live cricket after a dare from me during the filming. It was the first real curve ball episode, I was the lead murder suspect in it, they do fan favorite voting and that episode comes in at number one or number two all the time. And then The Simpsons, well they got a hold of me, they wanted to do a Homer-palooza. They knew that my show was pretty much the vibe of that festival for many years. My wife Bebe is the Human Cannonball in the Jim Rose Circus, so Homer basically took her place in that episode. That’s quite some swap. JR:Yeah, I swapped my wife for a cartoon. After The X-Files and The Simpsons, things changed for us. People perceived us differently. We got the rock-and-roll tour buses and nice hotels. It was like some kind of pop-culture thing going on. Did the X-Files give you a taste for acting? Can we expect to see you in the movies? JR: There’s this movie out with Ben Affleck who I just beat in poker for a bit of money. His production company, Project Greenlight, did this thing in the US, called Outing Riley, and I’m a priest in it, and I actually play it straight. On the topic of film productions, there was a series on HBO called Carnivale which centered on a traveling freak show circus. Have you seen it and do you think it would have been better done with you and your crew? JR: Actually I was asked to be in it, but I was too busy. I had a really big career in Europe and Australia so I was not in the US as often as I would like to be. Out of curiosity, have you seen the 1932 cult classic movie Freaks? What are your thoughts on it? JR: Of course, but I hadn’t seen it until I already had a career...well I wouldn’t say had a career, but I was already doing it. I was still punkin it in Seattle...without a Mohawk, I had really long hair. I had hair in places that monkeys don’t. Any video games? JR: SSX Tricky. I am Psymon. And they liked that game so much I am also Psymon on the new


one Sled Storm II. You’ve relocated for a while from Portland, OR to Las Vegas. So what was once the “Jim Rose Circus Sideshow” is now an act in Vegas? JR: Yeah, we knocked off the “Sideshow” part in 1994 after we sold out three straight nights in Madison Square Garden. We’re the Jim Rose Circus now, not really much of a sideshow after that point. Is there a typical audience member you guys tend to attract? JR: There is no such thing anymore. I have been around too long. You will see a biker next to a cowboy, next to a punk rocker, next to a University artist, next to a lesbian. And they are all pointing at the stage, laughing, and slapping each other on the back. I pretty much bring communities together. God’s work. You were a precursor for much of the grunge performance art and circus sideshows, and things like Jackass, and Dirty Sanchez in the UK. Do you feel like you’re the grandaddy of this stuff ? JR: Well, a lot of the Jackass guys have said publicly that I am. I knew ‘em back when they were little mules.They are good guys. Dirty Sanchez, not very familiar, but I’ve been around since they were clean! I know in the United States and I don’t necessarily agree with this but publications like Time, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal give me credit for starting a fashion trend for piercing and tattooing: the circus brought it to national consciousness, prior to other entities. There are other reasons why that took off, but they do call me “the God of Bod Mod”! which is as close to hip as Newsweek can get! You have seen so many people jump on the band wagon how have you stayed ahead of your own curve to keep up? JR: Yeah, twenty years ago I started with a guy with a few tattoos and one piercing. Now, that guy’s your next door neighbor. But with Jim Rose Circus, I have a brand. I was on the covers of the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company... I’m not this trained business guy but I have an idea about what it takes to convince people that their life is incomplete if they don’t buy a ticket, plan an evening, get in their car and see something that their better nature tells them not to. Tell the bile beer story. JR:We do an act that has a performer thread 7 feet of tubing into his stomach via the nose and we use a huge cylinder and pump all kinds of stuff into the stomach (mostly beer and Pepto Bismol) then we do a reversal and pump the stomach contents back into the cylinder and pour the concoction into a cup and the performer drinks it.The joke with that stunt went “It’s the after after taste he worries about”. One night Chris Cornell of SOUND GARDEN walked on stage and drank it. Eddie Vedder of PEARL JAM saw this and came up the next night, then Al Jourgansen, Flea from the Peppers, Gibby from the Butthole Surfers, all came up the next night to partake. It made MTV. After that we needed extra security because at shows the audience would rush the stage to drink the vomit. Do you still do that stunt? JR: We still do the act, but it’s done in a more scientific and explanatory way. And audience


participation is not encouraged. We’re not really doing a gross and disgusting show anymore; it’s more of a thrill show. It’s like P.T. Barnum meets John Waters. It’s a much, much bigger show now. In your circus, there seems to be an element of returning to an almost Victorian sense of the macabre. Are you a fan of those old-style touring freak shows and carnivals? JR: You know I used to be, but I gotta tell ya, there were so many people that were I guess we could say inspired, other people would say imitating, my 1992 and 1993 act, word for word. It was my original inspiration but then I got into power tools and lawnmowers and chainsaws, the different things you can do with stuff like that, twenty-first century phobias like Super-Glue, etcetera. And then I morphed into kind of a big wrestling show for a few years like women Sumo wrestling, Mexican Transvestite Wrestling, etc.. It is an amazing thing though, I took out women Sumo wrestling and Mexican transvestite wrestling back in ‘97. That was my biggest selling show, I did 17,000 $35 tickets in just about every city doing theatre runs. Tell me about Mexican transvestites wrestling. JR: Yeah! The transvestite wrestling, with the face masks! I was just smoking pot one day and I thought to myself “Mexican transvestite wrestling? Now that would be cool.” First of all they wear dildos, and the rules of the contest are simple: the first sissy who can force into the other one’s mouth for a one-two-three count wins. Slapping is allowed, but fisting, kicking and biting is illegal. No holes barred. There will be no chickens at this cock-fight, all the action takes place below the belt, and it’s a fudge-packin’ grudge match. It is the Mexican Transvestite Wrestling Panty Weight Division Championship Bout. The belt is on the line, and the bras are gonna fly when these mix it up. We have Low Blow Ventura, Trailer Trash Guerrero, Pickles Valdez and Billy Martinez “The Barrio Bottom.” He is every man’s woman and every woman’s man, you will always find him at the bottom of the pile. I am not sure that he even wants to win. He will be going up against, probably the sexiest man alive, Tickles Valdez - now these two are former Fag Team partners, and they hate each other with a pansy passion because Tickles stole Martinez’s lover. Billy Martinez is probably the favorite, because he/she studied Filipino slap-fighting. Tickles Valdez, on the other hand, can take a good bitch-slap, and is known for breaking the rules. They’ve got a bone to pick, and they settle it all across the country! That is some of the patter. I know I didn’t want it to be like regular wrestling. The wrestlers were all contortionists and the audience didn’t know it, so when they started ripping each other’s arms and legs back, it looked very violent. And what about women Sumo wrestling? JR: I’ve got one young lady whose measurements are 36-24-36 and that’s just one leg. You’ll feel the earth shake when over 800 pounds of female flesh collide. We’ve got Tundra, Large Marge, Judy “The Bull Moose” Jenkins and Katie “The Pile Driver” Wilson

CONTINUED PG 24



LESS THAN JAKE INTERVIEW WITH

BUDDY SCHAUB @The Opera House Toronto,ON OCT 18,2014 Courtesy of Melanie Kaye PR Interview by J.B

J.B: You like my notes or what? BUDDY: Yeah those are like genius notes J.B: Yeah it is ..It’s how I keep track and let’s see where to start on this mad scribble? J.B: So you guys have been around a long time yeah first time I’ve seen you guys I was all chewed out with my head on sideways and when I came through all I remember was a Gorilla on stage bouncing around. And that I think was one of the very first Warp Tours, that sound about right?. BUDDY: Ah yeah that was Warp Tour. J.B: That was 97 I think? BUDDY: yeah that was 97 that was the first one we did. J.B: Was it here on the flats? BUDDY: I know we did 97, I believe we only did half of each 97-98 that was the first year we played Warp Tour it was 97 because we did the east and in 98 we only played the west coast. J.B: Yeah that’s when you guy had the old rocker van selling merch out the back for gas? BUDDY: Yeah but we never sold merch out the back at Warp though. Actually during the first Warp tour we actually upgraded to an old bus (Laughing).It was literally from the 70’s it was an old Eagle bus and the guy driving it had drove around Iron Maiden before. And I was like this is the best thing ever! But really in the back bunk area or where the back bunk area is suppose to be... modern buses usually have a front lounges and a back lounge or bunk area. In this one though the bathroom was in the back in bunk area. The first three months it was the bathroom instead,then we got the brilliant idea to pool all our laundry together. So now that we have a bus we can just throw our stuff in one big bag and throw it in the bathroom, At first it was a great idea then it turned into this big mound and you couldn’t even close the


CHRIS DEMAKES / LESS THAN JAKE

door anymore. You had to stand on the mountain in order to use the bathroom and Chris’s bunk was like across the hall beside the bathroom and he would be like trying to sleep and someone would be pissing and it would be splashing in his face. J.B: Ha ha ha..nice BUDDY: Right! So it probably would have been better in the van, we kind of ruined it. J.B: So the sound going from Pezcore which was a raw ska sound I guess you guys were trying to get it together and then it moved onto Losing Streak Which seemed a little better progression right?. BUDDY: Yeah there was some progression there you could say we were in the beginnings of song writing there too. There was a lot of weird arrangements and stuff there because we were trying to be different. I don’t know, Pezcore has a lot of punk rock stuff on it to so it’s hard to say there’s always a mix between the ska and the other stuff as

well. We always have about four different kinds of song writing, each record has about five to six different songs of each. J.B: So it’s pretty much a collaborative effort? BUDDY: Yeah always has been through the years but Chris and Rog will have like.. the shell of a song,they will either have a verse or a chorus or both sometimes musically. But then Vinnie writes all the lyrics which is weird because then he has to cram them into his melodies. And then whoever the horn player is with me at the time had to fiddle with the tracks. But now that J.R is with me we pretty much write all of our stuff and J.R actually writes some lyrics too so he’s gotten thrown into the mix of it all too. It’s like this thing in the middle of the room and we all take turns stabbing at it until it turns into a song. J.B: So on Borders and Boundaries, I found there was a different sound, it seemed like there was less horns and trombone than before?. BUDDY: Ahh it did get into a little more rock on Borders but there was still a lot of horns and trombone on there,but on Anthems it got the point where I felt they got buried a little


PETER “JR” WASILEWSKI / LESS THAN JAKE

more into the mix. BUDDY: We did kind of get stuck in the rock kind of things for a little while then we turned around and came back full circle. Yeah there was definitely more in there on Pezcore, Losing Streak, Rockview and then more rock on Boundaries and Anthem. Actually on Anthem we did the B side album as well so we literally wrote all 3 albums at the same time there was like over 30 songs written at the same time. A lot of the B sides album has a lot of the horns on it but it got shoved aside apparently (Laughing). J.B: To me Rockview seemed to bring it more to the forefront especially in the opening of the songs,so with the new one (See the Light) do you think it’s kind of going back to the roots and that specific sound? BUDDY: Actually previous to that one going back to GNV FLA we had some amazing writing on that one because we didn’t have any one adding

anything to the mix no record label or any way adding to the mix in any kind of way so it was justifiable for the horns and was super organic. And we did it all at Roger’s house so we didn’t have a producer or anything so it was just us and Matt our sound guy that had the only outside opinion. So it was real and it steered us back to our roots in that kind of way. And it really.. well the fact that it was so organic just the five of us sitting around a table with a guitar and just kinda banging things out. And just kind of working along as it’s coming out and it was a very steady progression. And you know we wanted to write our own record and before that we did the two EPs and the TV thing and we wanted it to feel more real and with See the Light we kind of went into it like lets write it all at the same time, let’s have a theme and lyrics and the song to go with it. It defiantly was more of a thought than the EPs were. J.B: So was it recorded on Pro Tools?


BUDDY: Yeah it’s all digital. J.B: Do you think it’s easier for bands to get recognized by using it? BUDDY: I think it’s not easier to get recognized,I think it’s easier to be in band! More people do it now, you don’t have to be a musician anymore you just have to be able to push a button. All you have to do now is push one chord on a guitar and write a whole symphony if you really wanted to! J.B: Ha ha that is so true. BUDDY: Yeah I really don’t have the time to do that, but what I found out is it really starts to

ROGER LIMA/LESS THAN JAKE

highlight who the real musicians are. There are bands that go out there that put a new album out that’s all shiny with these polished lyrics on it,and you know the singers are perfectly in tune because you can auto tune everything. Then you go watch them live and they sound nothing like that so you know what was all done in the studio. So you have to be able to back up what you put out there. I think Pro Tools is as it’s name is. Cool as a tool. If you use it as a tool to be able to correct a few things. If you use it to do everything for you and forget about being a musician then.. J.B: Well that’s why there’s still analog! BUDDY: Yeah that’s right and we’ve done both you know because we have been around for so long. We lived through all of that it was definitely a different world back then. It’s not like we do it all in one take and try to get a performance that’s good, we kind of piece together the best of the performances played over and over again and go with the best one. J.B: 365 Warp tour dates. I can’t do Warp anymore after seeing the


BUDDY SCHAUB /LESS THAN JAKE

Hannah Montana tent “ I was like Nope I’m out”. BUDDY: (Laughing) I was going to say it was because of your age .. J.B: what are you trying to say? Is there something about my gray hair? BUDDY: (Lol) It’s like as your walking by and a pedophile red flag goes up “Look Out” old man perv coming through. Yeah it’s getting sketchier for us to do Warp too! The first time I went out in the crowd I was like god I feel really old and that was 2006. Now over the last three or four years I feel really old and that’s just hanging out backstage you know that’s were it really hits you. Back in the day we were actually taken under the wing of Pennywise and Byron came over and grabbed us and brought us back to the tent. And he looked at me and was like “ Well your the next oldest ones out here so I guess we’re hanging

out together now” but Fletcher and the boys were awesome. I feel like I was grandfathered in to the old people you know. J.B: Yeah we met Fletcher that was great, he really is a wicked guy. J.B: Amnesia in Quebec is the biggest punk tour now here in Canada as far as punk goes so it’s gone back to the roots of a true punk tour kinda like the Warp was back in the day. So do you think that’s maybe more of a venue you would be interested in? BUDDY: Yeah that’s what I like about the band you know we do it all but we like the Warp Tour and I will agree with you it has become more of a sponsored event than what it used to be. The bands have gotten different over the years than what it used to be but Kevin has been


going with the times and making it for the kids. And I think that’s what it’s about it’s not about what we thought was punk rock back in ‘97. That’s not what the scene is now and he tries to keep it current. I applaud him for that you know, getting it out there and getting the kids out there and you know he really does do a good job of it, But yeah there are definitely more punk rock things coming out now. J.B:I’ve seen a lot of strange bills going around and tour spots. I’m from Northern Ontario and I noticed you guys going up to Timmins? BUDDY: Yeah we just did it actually that was yesterday. It was frigging crazy, I mean it was kinda crappy weather so I didn’t really walk around too much so I can’t really have my full opinion on Timmins. Everyone that has interviewed us though is like “So you’re going to Timmins what’s that all ‘a-BOOT’”. And you know Winnipeg and Thunderbay was just as cold or wait..(In a contorted face) “TUNDERBAY” if you will. See that’s how you’re supposed to say it! I figured out why though because when you go to Tunderbay most of the people there have their front teeth missing. J.B: HAHAHAHHAHA!! BUDDY: ...So everything that comes out sounds like “Tunder Bay”. Actually Timmins was pretty cool though it was a small venue and reminds of us a place in Gainsville that we play at called Eddie C’s. And there was a back lounge there and when we were writing Anthem we would go there for hours and sit around and hang out to chill out. Then we thought hey “Let’s do secret shows here” and we got in good with the guy that ran the place “Eddie”.And yeah that place last night was just like that the barricade for the front of the stage was just this turned around bench couch that was kind of cushy and the monitors were just sitting there on a mat. So if anyone moved around they were kind of going with them and the amps were kind of sitting on a case of Pepsi. Really kind of thrown together for sure but it turned out and was really lots of fun. And the people were really stoked to be there “Ah whew..Less Than Jake”. J.B: Yeah you know Fat Mike was all about that back in the day when they started out touring around up here they made sure to hit every nook and cranny and to get it out there to the kids that wanted to hear them, making sure to hit up all the small venues. BUDDY: Yeah we do that too, we make sure to play all the small venues,especially in the States when you’re first starting out you had to play at the small clubs if you couldn’t play a certain city you would play just outside of it you know. J.B: So you’re back on Fat Wreck Chords. Do you like it there? BUDDY: Yeah we’re friends with him and Aaron so it makes sense to be there again and it’s awesome over there. It was like a ten year span from the last one. It was nice to settle back into a Punk Rock label and have him help us with some stuff. J.B: Any final thoughts on “See the Light”? BUDDY: You know I hate to be the guy in the band that toots his own horn but I think it’s the best stuff we’ve ever done. It’s what you said earlier it’s what we used to do but a better sounding version of that and it’s great. It’s hard for me to listen to some of the older albums and hear some of the notes that are out of tune or the production quality is not what it really was. I thought for a really long time I really liked the songs but it never really captured what we were like live. The energy that we put on and it always seemed like it was missing something. With this one I kind of feel like we’ve captured that energy. Musically I think it’s a collaboration of everything we’ve


ever done and lyrically I think it’s good too “I’M A FAN”. J.B: I do like the new one but I do love the old stuff too, there are some people that like the older stuff over the newer stuff. BUDDY: There will always be people that like the older over the newer and you know why that is dude? With age this has come to me. There’s certain bands that when I was in college I was really latching onto their music and what ever you were listening to at that time you’re going to be like “That’s the best thing ever”and no one can tell me I’m wrong and stuff. And as you get older some things start to change and the music changes and you go back to some of the older stuff like Supertramp from the 90’s and Joeys - like their older stuff is better. And that’s the thing, as you grow older you grow more emotionally with the music so you tag onto that music. What ever you listened to in the earlier years all through high school and college that is going to stick with you forever you know. That’s why you talk about your parents “Your music is old and shitty” and they’re like “This is what was happening for me”. J.B: It’s like All and the Descendants right?. BUDDY: Yes! Exactly! All of the All records were fantastic they were all good songs and great stuff I love all the songs. But I have people too that were listening to the Descendants when it was the thing and were like “Well ALL is different”, well actually no it’s not it’s just a different singer. J.B: (LAUGHING) Yep BUDDY: Well of course it was a different singer. I get Milo went to college and that whole thing,and he did bring a certain intensity to it. But I think the singers they have had since then it’s like wait...we just watched that film documentary on the bus the other day too it was great. J.B: Yeah that was awesome. BUDDY: So I think it’s just the curse of being in a band after the first three albums what ever you put out after that you are screwed no matter if you put out the best stuff you’ve ever put out people will still always think different if compared to the older stuff. And you know people would be like “Well your first album was better” and I’ve given up on caring about that. J.B: Well I can say I listen to you guys every single day ever since the beginning because it puts a smile on my face. And I mean every single day for the most part. BUDDY: (Looking at me questionably) SO YOU HAVE LOTS OF MENTAL PROBLEMS THEN? And back problems? J.B: Well usually it’s Rockview... BUDDY: Yeah Rockview is a high energy one for sure it’s uplifting energy all the way through that’s a good choice for sure, it’s defiantly one of my favorites too. Everyone hangs onto Rockview. I think Losing streak was kind of at a loss and Rockview was more upbeat and rocking. J.B: Yeah I think of Rockview as more refined and that’s where to me it seemed you guys found your sound and it stayed your niche and went with it. BUDDY: Yeah .






JIM ROSE CONTINUED tipping the scale at a dainty six hundred pounds.. We’re also looking for full-figured ladies to challenge our world champions. I pay them by the pound. Their diet is pretty impressive, with lots and lots of hamburgers and rice. Mmmm... That’s some patter as well. Do you look for something particular in your performers, as in their history or presentation? How do you find the people you feature in your circus? JR: Actually, I come up with weird ideas and then I find people. It can be tough, like with women’s Sumo wrestlers. How do you recruit women Sumo wrestlers? JR: That was tough. You don’t just go up to a large woman and ask what she weights or if she wants to be a sumo wrestler because she will knock you into next week. The ad I wrote up in the Seattle Times saying “seeking full-bodied women willing to travel around the world” led to mixed results. Aside from the people calling back saying “’full bodied’ is a wine, you mean full figured” or girls calling up at 120 pounds thinking of themselves as big, or when a qualified applicant would call up, the phrase “women’s sumo wrestling” would get them to immediately hang up. If I approached a large woman on the streets, I’d get slapped. What did it was putting an ad out that said “seeking women, 250 pounds plus to tour the world with performance show.” Then they started calling in, all the right ones, and I would just start small-talking them about the Jim Rose Circus, and every year it is a different theme. This year the theme is wrestling and we will have all kinds of different wrestling; sumo, midget, Mexican, etc. and I’d ask “By the way how tall are you? How much do you weight? How long have you lived in Seattle? Do you like it?etc” Then I would close the conversation with “hey, I have a meeting, let me think about it and call you back tomorrow.” Then I would call back the next day and say “we had a great talk last night, I think we’d work well together, but there’s only one position open and it’s women sumo wrestling... I don’t think you’d really qualify but I’d be willing to give you a shot. Could you gain a few pounds?” As soon as I said gain a few pounds, they were all fine with it! “Sure! I’ll eat ten hamburgers a day!” That approach seemed to work. Chainsaw football? You refer to that as if it’s something that has made its way into common vernacular. Oh yeah, that’s a whole new meaning for “halfback.” It’s just like football, but instead of a ball we use a chainsaw. The blades are on, we touch stuff with them to demonstrate before we play the game. You’ve always been a performer as well as a ringleader, are you having as much of a hands-on experience with the show as you once did? JR: Yes, I come up with the concepts, write the stuff. I try to stay funny. Lately I’ve had a girl who comes out nude. I tell her to put her clothes on and she pulls her top out of her butt, her bottoms out of her vagina and then puts them on. And a girl that blows blue paint out of her butt. She’s a real, uhh... artist. Her rear-enderings are a mixed media. Seeing someone squirting blue paint out of their ass isn’t exactly something you see every week at the Saturday market...... She’s a Pablo Picasshole. They sell her paintings on eBay. You’d be surprised how many people want that painting when she finishes it. She basically takes an enema before she steps onstage, so it comes out all Grateful Dead tie-die-shirt-ish. You’ve had some extremely interesting performers get their starts and learn their


stunts from you, including pierced weight lifters (a man who is capable of lifting more than the average bodybuilder... with his dick), Enigma and the Lizard Man (tattooed head to toe) and The Human Pincushion. What has changed or evolved since 1994? JR: The show looks nothing like that anymore. It was a very imitated type of show, one that you could probably see on any corner anywhere today, but back then it was pretty hot. Tell me about the pierced weight lifter. JR: He’s actually changed his act now. He’s lifting a 17-pound car battery while receiving an electrical shock with his tongue. He also lifts the concrete block with the nipples and the irons with the ears, and he lifts ‘em all at the same time, all three. Of course, he still does his famous lift with the part of him that’s most a mister. That thing has gotten huge! It’s got an elbow! It gets its own lunch money! He’s looking for a significant other who can house his manhood. He may have to go to a Realtor. I heard rumors about his penis falling off. JR: Oh yes..we were in a shopping cart - the whole circus for a photo shoot, and he had the cart attached to his man hammer through a chain to pull us. He leans back, takes the cart to the precipice. The shopping cart didn’t move like it was supposed to, and I look down at the end of the chain, and his best friend is hanging on the floor. Thank god cooler heads prevailed, and we managed to get that head in the cooler. In his surgery, they did not add any length girth. They took skin off of his butt and grafted it to his shaft. He says that now when he scratches his ass he gets an erection. It is what it is - it looks like a dogs chew toy. Now that he has fully recovered from the John Wayne Bobbit-style operation it is now bigger, harder and meaner than the Alaskan Pipeline, and it carries more spew. It will freeze your seed before it hits the restroom tile. It has a heart, a lung, and a mind all its own. It is like a baby’s arm holding an apple. Any new favorites? JR: This year I’ve been really proud of The World’s Fattest Contortionist, we’ve been taking him out, along with this new kid who’s been featured on my TV show. Any more accidents to report? JR: Oh sure. I mean if you could see me right now, you would say “Jim - next to you, the Elephant Man just looks a little puffy.” We do this thing in each show where we come up with challenges for the others to do. And we know each other pretty well, so we know what each other hates. So I pulled out “Spray yourself in the face with bear repellent.” I have been sprayed with pepper spray. Lots of times. Pepper spray is a no-brainer, double entendre intended. Now pepper spray is the premature little sister of bear repellent. I mean - I know it sounds cool to spray yourself in the face with bear repellent, but I want the readers to know that it is not a good idea. We also had a performer lose a little toe in a chainsaw football game. That’s a very underrated toe. You’d be surprised how much a little toe helps with balance. You don’t realize it until you lose it. For all your fame for presenting human oddities is there anything that you wouldn’t do in your show, or let one of your performers do? JR: Well, anytime there are stunts done successfully and it still creates blood, or if it has to do


with mutilation, I won’t do it. If I put my face in broken glass and let people stomp on the back of my head and I come out looking like a hamburger, that’s not success. I mean, there is no blood or any of that in the show. I can’t seem to get away from the myths of ‘91 and ‘92. And at this point the legend around those shows is so skewed, it’s nowhere near reality. There has never been live mutilation or blood in The Jim Rose Circus. But I’ll be damned if you ask some kids out there who think they knew what happened back in the old days, they are going to tell you all kinds of stuff... I had a guy one time who said ‘Look Jim, here’s what I can do: Audience members can hold my eyes open while other audience members dump buckets of dirt in them.” And I knew he was wearing the thick contacts, and I knew he was microwaving the dirt to keep a lot of the potential for infection away. Still, I was noticing that the weight of dumping that dirt all at the same time was letting dirt get through the contacts and scratch the retina. And I just thought that it wasn’t foolproof enough to be in a professional circus. The Jim Rose Circus has always relied heavily on a bizarre kind of comedy and that’s what the audience expects, and the stunts are not secondary but they are vehicles to spin comedy around. Has anyone faint in your shows? JR: The Human Dartboard is the first human marvel act that made my jaw drop. The Dartboard’s response is something I haven’t forgotten. Hundreds of people have fainted during that act over the years. You only get a lot of people to faint if you tell them they might ahead of time. It’s all the power of suggestion. It’s an instruction I have used well in my own exploits as freak-show provocateur. We used to have a fainters’ corner during the Human Dartboard act where significant others with a rag You guys are all performers. Do things change when the reality show cameras are on you? JR: Well, I think everybody is aware there are cameras the first couple of days. But then you


just get used to them. We’re all crammed into a bus, which is a giant test tube on wheels. I know none of the footage where we were aware made it to the final shows, so you’re getting a pretty true depiction of elements of what it’s like. Have you ever been arrested? JR: Yes I got arrested for Mexican Transvestite Wrestling in Lubbock, Texas. Of course, that’s the buckle on the Bible Belt. The cops said we were simulating a sex act. If so, then they are fucking weirder than we are. The best compliment I could give my arresting officer was: “nice tooth.” If you could be any one person from history, who would it be and why? JR: Winston Churchill. I hear Ron Jeremy picked Churchill, too...Great minds think alike. One time Winston was taking some journalists around his pig farm, and one of the journalists asked him why he liked pigs so much. And he said “Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you, and pigs treat you as an equal.” I always liked that. Do you ever find yourself assimilating into popular society, or do you just say “fuck you, I’m Jim Rose, I do what I do.” JR: I have a lot of assimilation issues. Lots of anxiety problems. I know I’m this guy that looks larger than life onstage, but I’m just this geeky individual. I’m not certain how to handle stuff in social situations real well, I’m not too good at it. I don’t go out much. Could you imagine a parallel universe where you ended up working in an office? JR: I gave it a really good try in my youth, but it just wasn’t working out for me. So I can’t imagine a parallel universe at this stage of my career and life. I don’t need to work really, I’d rather go fishing, it’d be impossible to get me into an office at this point. When I was younger I tried politics, but the attrition rate, the way they use people, was just something I couldn’t stomach. Aside from all of this madness and debauchery, what dreams are left to achieve? JR: You know what, it’s like an AA meeting, I take it one day at a time. I honestly just don’t know and to tell you the truth never have known. I never put any stress into it. I did Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and Jerry Falwell, I smoked pot right in front of John Kennedy Jr., back before he got his pilot license. Trent Reznor used to be my roommate, I know David Bowie, I did Ozzy Osbourne’s retirement party, and Sharon made the kids leave the room, William S. Burroughs used to come to my shows before he died, I was on the X-files, Homer ran away and joined The Jim Rose Circus on The Simpsons as a human cannonball. My only dream was a pop-out couch and a toaster, so I have to pinch myself daily to believe that all this is possible. Is there anything too freaky for the Jim Rose Circus? JR: Yeah - lunch with a lawyer. Do you have any advice for any young, aspiring freaks out there? JR: Try to stay away from bear repellent. SPECIAL THANKS TO JIM ROSE FOR THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW SENT TO US KINDLY. AS ALWAYS A INSPIRATION AND STILL AN AMAZING SHOW TO SEE.


PRESENTS UPCOMING SHOWS www.collectiveconcerts.com

Lee’s Palace Presents THE ATARIS Teenage Kicks Fri, November 14, 2014 Doors: 9:00 pm 19+ Show only Lee’s Palace Toronto, ON Collective Concerts Presents THE FLATLINERS The Dirty Nil Fri, December 12, 2014 Doors: 7:30 pm All Ages The Opera House Toronto, ON CONTACT 370 Queen Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 2A2 Canada Phone: 416.598.0720


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