Page 23 - the NOISE November 2014

the original Mike WilliaMs intervieWs
red elvises:
Igor & The Red Elvises are a freaking weird band. Formed in 1995 out of traditional Russian folk band Limpopo, the band has toured the world numerous times over, playing surf-influ- enced party rock ‘n’ roll to the delight of anyone with a love of fun.
Plus, they were totally killed by Death in the 90s cult-flick Six String Samurai, a fine piece of art about Buddy Holly traveling a post-nuclear wasteland on a quest to become the new King of Lost Vegas.
We caught up with lead singer Igor Yuzov in anticipation of their upcoming show at the Green Room November 21. What follows absolutely must be read with the voice of the most amazing, thick Ukrainian accent ever. Enjoy!
Your bio states that, when growing up, rock and roll was an illegal form of music in the Soviet Union, yet you still managed to get your hands on it. What kind of punishment were you looking at if caught?
There wasn’t really a punishment, it was more that they just don’t let you have them. They don’t produce them, they don’t release them, and those who try to bring them, they get taken away. You know, the cops come. But, there were special places, like a market, that would do the illegal trades where people would meet in a park or something.
Before becoming the Red Elvises, you were performing as Limpopo and actually played when Mikael Gorbachav met Ronald Reagan ... Did either of them party with the band and what was their take on you?
No, no, we just played for him when he came, and took some pictures with us. It was great, like, hey, here is Ronald Reagan!
There’s the famous story about Elvis visiting you in a dream demanding you start this band. That’s pretty heavy, but was the vision of The King during his glory days or was this Fat Elvis? Was he eating banana, peanut butter, and bacon sandwiches or perhaps popping pharmaceutical amphetamines?
HA! No, he was old, but he wasn’t eating or taking pills. He just told me to call the band Red Elvises and I said I’d listen to him. And that’s what happened!
Six String Samurai was, hands down, one of the best movies of the 90s I had never seen. What do you remember about shooting the film? And did you have any artistic freedom when it came to your parts?
You know, it kind of just started as a college project ... Well, yeah, you know, we could pretty much do whatever we wanted. The guy was really cool. We were supposed to come for the second day of filming, but we were already booked, so we couldn’t make it and he just said, “All right then, we will kill you.” I said, “Okay, kill us!” Ha, ha!
We were supposed to make another appearance at the end, but we couldn’t make it, so they just killed us. They were very good guys, it was a very good film, and people still talk to us about it, you know, like 15 years later.
I wanted to ask about Oleg’s stay in the psychiatric hospital while he was enlisted ... What exactly did he do?
They were kind of evaluating everybody before they could go in the army and they told me to go, but when they evaluated him, they just said no, you cannot go.
And has he continued to exhibit strange tendencies still?
Ha, ha! Oh, yes!
Flagstaff’s beloved Green Room is catching you right at the end of five months running all over the world. What do the Red Elvises do in their down time?
We really don’t have any down time ... We like traveling, you know, I hang out in Thailand, then come home, and hang out in Venice Beach with my friends. I like just hanging out on the beach, swimming, going for a walk. Having lots of sand and an ocean next to me. That is what I like.
I absolutely adore Digger The Sadu Hobo from the Venice Beach Freakshow; have you seen him perform there? He’d be the one letting tourists staple money to his chest.
I saw that guy, but I don’t know him personally. It’s pretty crazy stuff! They have hard job and I think I have it much easier.
essential JaM, greensky Maaaaaan!
When someone says “Grateful Dead” to me, I generally expect to be handed a pipe at some point in the night and I’m “grateful” every time it happens. (See what happened there? Hey-o!) Greensky Bluegrass is a band that you need to check out if you’ve ever
enjoyed a String Cheese Incident or would like a random barefoot person in tie-dye named Earth Dolphin to re-align your chakras. Their ability to transcend genres and draw from a wildly expansive range of influences makes them one of the better acts on the festival scene today and I was lucky to snag an interview with fellow bassist-named-Mike, Mike Devol, as they gear up to blow minds at the Orpheum on October 29.
With a band name like Greensky Bluegrass, my first question is exactly what kind of grass are we talking about here?
Ahh! Well ... For the sake of legal interests, I won’t talk about how much weed we smoke. Ha, ha! It’s funny you mentioned the name; I joined up after the boys had been playing mostly locally and was a classical celloist who had just gotten a bass. I’d been asked to learn a few shows worth of bluegrass songs that were basically all the same. The pun in the name sort of served what we were doing at the time, but now we’re telling people that it’s not to- tally bluegrass, but Greensky. It’s our own take. And our shows have become a lot more of our own material and a lot less of the traditional bluegrass takes.
There’s been a distinct movement in the last decade or so of acoustic bands deliberately har- nessing sounds usually reserved for rock, punk, and even metal. When you were narrowing down what you wanted Greensky to sound like, who did you view as influences?
Ya know, last time we sat down to make any choices about what we wanted to sound like, we were just trying to decide if we were going to try and be a bluegrass band and market ourselves that way and try and exist in that culture or if we were going to try and be more a part of the rock side of that. We went for more of the rock-jam- side of bluegrass, but other than that there wasn’t much of a choice about our sound.
We came from a place of a lot of varied influences that weren’t so much the traditional bluegrass influences. That sort of made it so this is how we play. We’ve all just listened to eclectic and varied music so it’s natural for us to not turn out like a really traditional bluegrass band. We all came in playing out instruments from other instruments. But we all came into bluegrass through the Grateful Dead and Phish.
One of the hardest things about performing new music live has to be getting the jams flowing well. How are the improv parts of “If Sorrow Swims” coming through during the live shows?
Hah, not any f*ck-ups, really. Some wrong entrances, we’ve had a couple fumbles and had to pass off some solos and stuff, but this is our least sort of jammy-improvisation approach as far as studio albums go. Speaking in general, speaking on our albums versus our live show, we have choices and it sort of makes things more concise on our albums. “Sorrows Swims” wasn’t really “jam” oriented, it was more song oriented and texture oriented, we found; which was a cool experiment.
Is Greensky still touring in a van or is there a full bus at play here?
We’re sort of existing in the middle, we got this thing called a Vanwagon. These cowboys in Indiana make them and it’s more in the tradition of a bus, but it’s not the full-on tour bus. It’s kind of a custom RV ... If you google it, it’s not exactly the first thing that pops up, but we bought one of them from these guys. They just take a traditional truck chassis and engine then build a custom RV on the back of them. We’ve been rolling in that for about two years and, thank God, our van tour days are behind us. That’s a whole different world and we did it for a long time. It was a good way to do things, but we have our own little home on wheels.
What does Greensky require as far as tour essentials?
We all must have coffee. Ha, ha! We’re starting to try to figure out to get things on our rider that we need, mostly it’s just whiskey and beer and that stuff, but we’re starting to get more breakfast food, too. We’ll all usually eat our first meal of the day in the bus then go out on our own for lunch. Me personally, I just need coffee.
Start the day with an English muffin and an avocado, drink my coffee in the bus, and then I’ll bring my running shoes on tour. That’s become an essential lately, too, which is a good, healthy essential. But, you know, everybody has to have their own outlet, even more than an essential. Just a moment to escape and do their thing. For some people, it’s smoking weed or watching baseball, listening to music, taking a walk, or taking a run for me. We’re all pretty good now at being on the road a lot.
| Mike Williams is wry about his rye. mike@thenoise.us thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • november 2014 • 23
ghost inspired,
road Warriors of surf