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mikauzoran · 4 years

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LuXY/Lukadrien/Lukadrienette: Welcome to La-La Land: Chapter Four

@luxyweek

Welcome to La-La Land: Chapter Four: Kwami “Swap”

“Dude. I can’t believe you’ve never had nacho cheese,” XY snorted, sounding personally insulted at this failure on Luka’s part.

Luka winced. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t worry. I’m coming over there to fix this,” XY assured. “Where are you? The Liberty? Your place?”

“My apartment, but—”

“—No buts,” XY cut him off. “Six-Strings, this is an emergency. I’ll be right there.”

XY rang off, and all Luka could do was wait. He’d learned over the past two months of hanging out with Xavier-Yves Roth that once XY got an idea in his head, he was going to act upon it, and no one could stop him.

Luka got up off of his couch and went to change into something more flattering than the laundry he’d been lounging around the flat in.

“What kind of cheese is this?” Luka frowned at the golden liquid drowning the tortilla chips.

XY shrugged and replied with a full mouth, “Velveeta, I think.”

Luka blinked, pulled out his phone, and opened up a Google search.

“…Velveeta is not a cheese,” he hissed a minute later once he’d read the Wikipedia article.

XY frowned. “Sure it is. America is known for this stuff. It’s even more popular than American cheese.”

Luka pinched the bridge of his nose, imagining how Plagg would shriek if he found out. “I have a friend who would be personally offended if he heard you call this cheese. Like, he’d go on the rant.”

XY waved away Luka’s protestations. “Try it already. It’s delicious.”

With a sigh, Luka picked up a chip laden with the cheese-adjacent substance and brought it to his lips. It definitely wasn’t as bad as he’d been expecting, but the suspect origin of the product kind of unsettled him. He preferred his food fresh and from an identifiable source. Maybe he’d been spoiled on getting his food from street markets and local cheese mongers and butchers, but this super-processed, plastic-looking not-cheese kind of weirded him out.

“It’s okay,” he allowed, taking another bite and trying to get over himself. “Thank you for sharing.”

“‘Okay’?” XY snorted indignantly. “Dude, this is a delicacy from my homeland. It’s more than just okay. Your taste buds are whack.”

Luka paused with another chip halfway to his mouth, and a glob of the “cheese” dribbled off the side, landing with a splat on the kitchen table. “Wait. Your homeland? But…you’re French.”

XY’s eyebrow shot straight up into his hairline. “Dude. I’m American.”

Luka blinked. “No, you’re not. Xavier-Yves, your name is French. You speak French. You’ve lived here your whole life.”

“Uh, noooo.” He sang the word on an upswing. “Six-Strings, what’s my dad’s name?”

Luka frowned. “…Bob Roth?”

It suddenly occurred to him that that wasn’t a typical French name.

“Right.” XY nodded. “My mom’s French, but my dad is American. He had to take French in high school, and when his class went on a trip to Paris, he fell in love with the place, so he was back and forth a lot after that. That’s how he met my mom.”

“Oh,” Luka remarked, suddenly feeling rather dumb for never having known this about a guy he’d been periodically making out with for two whole months.

“I was born in the Bronx and didn’t move to France until I was ten. Why do you think my French sounds so funky?” XY laughed at himself. “My mom spoke to me in French a little when I was a kid, but my parents divorced when I was really young, and she moved back to France, so I didn’t start learning French for real until I was ten. I know I speak it all the time now because I’ve pretty much lived here the past twenty years, but it’s not my first language. I didn’t learn it at home, so it’s not, you know, natural like it probably was for you.”

“Oh,” Luka repeated, seeing XY’s occasionally odd speech patterns in a new light.

Luka knew from his experiences learning Russian and English that no matter how good you got at a second or third language, it was never quite the same as speaking your mother tongue.

A thought occurred to Luka: “But…wasn’t it hard, transitioning from school in the US to school in France, if you didn’t speak French?”

XY gave a mirthless snort. “Hell yeah, it was. I had to go to special classes the first few years, and by the time I was ready to join the French school system, kids my age were way ahead of me, so I got put with a class of younger kids.”

Luka winced, trying to imagine how ostracizing that must have been to be dumped in a country where he didn’t speak the language, didn’t have any friends his age, didn’t have a supportive parent.

“I’m sorry. I bet that was awful,” he mumbled hollowly, not sure what else to say.

He felt bad for sometimes thinking that XY was kind of dumb. Luka had thought that maybe XY wasn’t inclined to academia and that his father hadn’t helped matters, but from the situation that XY described, it sounded like things had been stacked against him from the start. No wonder XY hadn’t thrived in that situation.

XY nodded, scooping up more yellow gloop onto a chip. “I hated it. I quit school as soon as I could when I was sixteen, and then I started focusing on my music for real—well…that wasn’t really until I was eighteen, after the incident with you, but…sixteen was when I started putting out tracks and made my debut and everything.”

“I don’t blame you for quitting,” Luka hummed, picking up a tortilla chip and tapping it against the plate to get some of the excess goo off. “I probably would have quit as soon as possible too…. Do you ever think about going back to the US?”

XY shrugged. “As much as I miss America, Paris is kind of my home now. I go back to visit every year, and I’ve toured there before for stretches, but I think I’m happy in Paris.”

He gave Luka a look that felt almost soft as he added, “My life is here.”

“Yeah,” Luka agreed. “I could visit other places, but I couldn’t stay away too long. My family is here…and all the people I care about.”

XY nodded. “…Speaking of your fam, they’ve never had nacho cheese either, have they?”

“Prune, I’m sorry to slight your cultural heritage, but you’re not feeding my family this stuff. Juleka will hate you,” Luka warned, trying to cut things off before it got to that point.

“Hate me more,” XY corrected. “Rose and your ma would probably get a kick out of it, though.”

Luka hummed as he picked up another chip and tapped off some of the cheese-impersonator. “Maman is part Scottish on her mother’s side, so she grew up eating gross things like sheep offal wrapped in stomach. She probably wouldn’t have a problem with this…uh…Velveeta…substance. Rose, however, being a Frenchwoman, might be offended that this product is masquerading as cheese.”

XY shrugged. “I’ll make nachos for Anarka to try, and the rest of us can have Taco Tuesday. Rose is a little carnivore. She’ll love it.”

“Taco Tuesday?” Luka repeated, tipping his head to the side.

“Yeah. It’s like a religious holiday in America for people who don’t have a religion. Every Tuesday we have Mexican food,” XY explained.

Luka frowned, mentally questioning the authenticity of the “Mexican” food but afraid to challenge XY again. “Everyone in the US does this?”

XY nodded. “It’s a big deal. They make t-shirts.”

Somehow Luka had missed this aspect of US culture.

“Oh! I almost forgot,” XY exclaimed suddenly. “After we clean up, remind me that I have a surprise for you.”

The surprise turned out to be leather pants.

XY hijacked Luka’s bathroom and came out wearing leather pants with a cyan, teal, and dark green pattern.

It was a pattern Luka knew well, and not only because he was romantically involved with the designer.

“They’re based on Viperion’s suit!” XY informed needlessly, doing a little turn to show off the backside.

XY had a magnificent backside, and the leather pants only flaunted this fact.

“You know. The snake hero?” XY pressed, and Luka realized that he was waiting for a response.

“Yeah. I remember him,” Luka assured, admiring the way the material clung to XY’s thighs.

It was an aesthetically pleasing sight.

“You really rock those, by the way,” Luka added, knowing the praise would be appreciated.

As expected, XY puffed out his chest and strutted with a little more confidence and attitude.

“Yeah, I do look pretty dope, don’t I?” He crowed.

“Very dope,” Luka affirmed, checking out XY’s calves.

In all honesty, Luka found that a person’s butt was the physical feature that most attracted him after he’d fallen for someone emotionally. Marinette did this butt wiggle that made Luka lose his mind, and Adrien in skinny jeans was akin to a religious experience.

XY definitely had a nice butt.

“That dude was always my favourite,” XY remarked, pulling Luka from his thoughts. “I always thought Viperion+ was super cool.”

“Y-You did?” Luka could feel his face starting to color.

“Mmhm.” XY turned again and started on another lap of Luka’s living room. “I was really excited when Jagged mentioned that his niece made these Viperion-inspired pants. I got a pair for you too.”

All the warm fuzzies immediately fled from Luka’s system.

Maybe XY would-n’t make him put them on now.

“I want to see you in them,” XY quickly squashed that hope, going over to his bag and pulling out a pair for Luka. “Go change,” he instructed, tossing the pants so that Luka had no choice but to catch them.

“Thanks,” Luka replied, attempting to sound excited. “That’s really thoughtful of you.”

Luka headed to the bathroom to change, hoping that XY wouldn’t recognize him just from the lower half.

“Niiiiiiice!” XY cheered, giving Luka a wolf whistle as he came back into the front room. “Give us a turn. I want to see that tush.”

“Oh my gosh,” Luka groaned, covering his face with his hands as he turned around as asked.

XY stiffened, staring dumbly at Luka’s butt. He bit out a guttural curse.

Luka dropped his hands and turned to look at XY in concern. “What? What happened?”

It took XY a minute to form coherent sentences. “Just… Could you…? Could you turn around again and walk away?”

Luka slowly turned and strode away from XY.

XY clapped a hand over his mouth and cursed again.

“What’s wrong?” Luka demanded, beginning to panic as he went over to XY on the couch.

XY’s face was so red that he looked like he was going to spring a nosebleed at any second.

He shook his head. “Just…I’ve spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Viperion’s butt.”

Luka’s hand paused en route to XY’s cheek. He blinked slowly.

XY gulped, keeping his hand clamped firmly over his mouth. “You can go ahead and deny it, if you want, but…you were Viperion, weren’t you?”

Luka opened his mouth but then closed it. “…I’m willing to bet that that’s the first time anyone’s ever had their secret identity outted by their behind. Obviously, you can’t tell anyone.”

XY cursed again. Internally, he was jumping up and down because the hero he’d had a massive crush on for the longest time was none other than his boyfriend. He was dating a superhero!!!

“Xavier-Yves,” Luka called, redirecting his attention. “I’m totally serious. You have to promise not to tell.”

XY nodded vehemently.

Luka sighed, sinking down on the couch next to XY and running a hand through his hair.

A thought occurred to XY: “It’s not weird that I’ve stared at pictures of your butt, is it?”

Luka contemplated this briefly but decided that he wasn’t one to judge, considering the amount of time he himself had spent ogling Adrien and Marinette.

He shrugged. “No. I mean, that would be kind of unfair of me, especially since I was just staring at your butt as you paraded around in those pants.”

XY burst out in a fit of giggles. “No way! Seriously?”

“Yep,” Luka came clean, admitting to his attraction. “You have a nice butt.”

XY squealed in delight, making Luka chuckle.

“…Can I…” XY bit his lip. He was feeling deliriously happy, and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin it, but… “Can I stay the night?”

Luka gave a slight start. He opened his mouth to reply, but XY cut him off.

“—Sorry! I know you don’t sleep with people you’re not in love with, and that’s fine. That’s not what I’m asking,” he rushed to explain. “I’m asking…do you maybe want to have movie night and then make out and snuggle?”

Luka took a deep breath and considered for all of five seconds before he nodded. “All right.”

It sounded like exactly the kind of evening that Luka wanted to have.

#LuXY #luxyweek2k20 #Lukadrien #Lukadrienette #Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction #Luka Couffaine/XY Roth #Luka Couffaine #XY #Xavier-Yves Roth #Mikau's Writings #Welcome to La-La Land

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current-mcr-news · 6 years

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Casual Interactions #1: Full Transcription

John: Welcome to Casual Interactions, a show about old friends getting together and telling stories. I'm John "Hambone" McGuire, and with me today are some of my oldest and dearest friends, Frank Iero and Shaun Simon.

Frank has been a traveling musician all his life, best known as the guitar player of My Chemical Romance, and singer of Leathermouth and Death Spells. He's currently fronting his own band and writing music as a solo artist.

Shaun is a writer and is best known for his work on The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Art Ops, and Neverboy. He's currently working on Wizard Beach for BOOM! Studios.

I'm a jack of all trades, and if I told you what I actually did for a living, I'd have to kill you.

So to say that we're busy is an understatement. We are a group of friends who are just looking for an excuse to get together more and hang out. We used to do it over breakfast and we figured that eating eggs on mic would be a little too gross, so we're gonna do this podcast instead. How are you guys doing today?

Shaun: Hey, man.

Frank: Doing good, man. Doing very good. I'm very excited to see you guys.

J: I'm very excited to see you too, man.

F: Especially in front of a mic without eggs on your face.

J: Well, you know, I often have egg on my face. I do say a lot of dumb shit. However, it is a little better to not be chewing on microphone, or slurping, or-

F: I do have hard boiled eggs in my pocket that I'm waiting to bust out for later.

J: Is that what that smell is?

F: That's what I have. I'm prepared, that's what I'm saying.

J: You were a Boy Scout for like 2 weeks. It's evident that you've actually survived your training.

F: When I was a kid though, I went to Catholic school and everybody wanted to be an altar boy, but I couldn't do it because I would see my dad on the weekends.

J: Right.

F: And I couldn't do Boy Scouts either and I was real depressed about that. I remember.

J: Yeah but you know, he taught you how to play drums so there's gotta be a-

F: That was the upside, upswing.

J: There's gotta be an upswing to it.

F: I didn't get touched-

J: Jesus, Frank.

F: -and I learned how to play drums.

J: We're not even a minute in.

S: I can't picture you as an altar boy.

F: I know, me neither.

S: You probably would've burned that altar down.

F: Well here's the thing, think about this-

S: Holding fucking fire in your hands on the fucking altar.

F: Later on, in my career as a grammar schooler in 8th grade, right before graduation, we were gonna have practice graduation. I don't know why you have to have practice for graduation.

J: They need to make sure you can walk in a straight line.

F: Yeah! Exactly. It's like a DUI, basically, yeah, for 8th graders. But we'd have them in the church. And I remember a few of my friends had these stink bombs, and they were like, "Oh, we should throw them in the church." And everybody was like, "No fucking way!" And I was like, "I'll fucking throw that shit!" And I took them and I threw them and I got-

S: Of course you did.

F: Of course I did. And then they wouldn't let me graduate.

J: You were an 8th grade domestic terrorist.

F: I think I was just pissed that I couldn't be an altar boy!

J: Well just think about how a church smells musty, base-line. Like any church you go into, you never walk into a church and go, "Wow! This place smells really good. They must be like, using Yankee Candles or something." It always just smells base-line musty. And then you add a stink bomb to it, in a room that's not very well ventilated either. Oh, Jesus!

F: Yes, I called it Frankincense. Later on though too, I remember I had to go to one of those retreat things because of this, and then I ended up getting in trouble there because we stole the wine and they caught us drinking wine.

J: How about you, Shaun? You ever an altar boy or a Boy Scout when you were a kid?

S: I was an altar boy.

F: You were?!

S: I was, yeah.

F: Oh!

S: I don't know if I have any stories, though. I just did the shit and left. Right?

F: But you have the knowledge and that's how you can judge if I-

S: Right!

F: -you could see me in that position.

S: That's why I can see you burning down the church... if Frank was an altar boy.

J: Now churches just burn when you walk into them. Which is like, gotta be a 9th level spell. Good for you getting to that level of wizardry... So why don't we take a second and step back and talk about how we met.

F: Okay, go ahead.

J: So we all grew up in different parts of town. Frank grew up in Belleville.

F: True.

J: I grew up in Clifton. Shaun grew up on the other side of Clifton. Now for those listening, the city of Clifton is shaped like a giant horseshoe, and this is in New Jersey. It borders 12 other towns, so where Shaun lived in Clifton might as well have been 4 towns away from where I lived.

F: Is it really shaped like a horseshoe?

J: It is shaped like a giant horseshoe.

S: It's shaped like horseshit.

J: Yeah. Just parts of it smell like horseshit. I actually did a report on it in the 6th grade and that's how I know it's shaped like a giant horseshoe. Borders 12 towns, don't ask me to name them now because I don't remember most of them.

F: I'm still thinking of like how- because I get lost everywhere, but maybe that's why I can't figure my way around Clifton.

J: Well you were only ever in Clifton, you'd never actually been outside of it. Like you went from Belleville into Clifton and you just never left.

F: That's true. That's true, yeah. We're talking about origin stories, right?

J: Yes!

F: Alright. I remember, because I met Shaun first.

S: Did you?!

F: Yes!

S: Oh, freshman year!

F: I don't even remember- freshman year orientation.

S: Oh!

F: I met you at the orientation.

S: That's like another world, though. Like, I feel like, I don't know.

F: It's alright, you can say you don't remember me.

S: No, I do remember you. I do remember you!

F: But you were friends with Eugene. And I was friends with Costa.

S: That's right.

F: And they were friends.

S: He used to steal cheese.

F: He used to steal cheese?

S: Didn't he used to steal cheese?

F: From who?!

S: I don't know!

F: I think you made that up, but maybe!

S: Maybe, maybe. He was just a really small kid and I used to think he used to steal cheese.

F: He might have!

J: I think you just projected that on him.

F: I definitely stole a lot of things with him. None of which I believe were cheese, but I mean, it's possible!

S: Maybe he was just mouse-like and I just- anyway.

F: So they would skate together and I remember finding out that you skated too, and then I would just bring a board and watch you guys skate.

S: Did you actually skateboard, though? Or did you just like-

F: I did! And then broke both my ankles, and I was never good.

S: Oh, okay.

F: I think I got as far as, like, I maybe landed 3 Ollies.

J: That's 3 more than me

F: So that's my first remembrance of you. But then you didn't stick around long.

S: I left after freshman year, yeah.

F: So we didn't even really hang out that much.

J: Now, I was 2 years older than Frank in high school, and so, I didn't even know up until we started hanging out years later that you were in the same high school as me because I wouldn't- not that I was like some cool older kid, I definitely was not. However, I wasn't at freshman orientation that year because I was a junior, so yeah. So years later we end up meeting again because of a mutual friend. It was Bruno right?

S: Bruno, yeah.

F: Oh yeah!

J: Because you went to Bergen Community College with Bruno.

S: Kinda went there.

J: Kinda went there. I mean, one does not simply really go to Bergen Community College.

F: Shaun didn't stick around any school for very long.

S: I didn't stick around very long.

J: He's just out there smoking cigarettes, hanging with the cool kids, being bad.

F: Yeah, and he can be an altar boy. I see, alright.

J: He can be an altar boy. He's quiet about it. He shuts the fuck up, he gets in there, does his job, and gets out. Like you, you had to make a production about it.

S: Yeah, Frank would've made sure everyone knew he was an altar boy.

F: This is true! This is true. Fucking drama... Drama boy! Drama altar boy!

J: I mean, I could imagine you like, "I'm an altar boy," and flashing your cross like you're a cop. "Yeah, here. I'm on the job. I'm on the job for Jesus."

F: Ah, shit. Alright, fine. Touché!

J: So, Frank and I played in bands together in high school, and we played with one of our friends named Bruno. Bruno brought Shaun along one night to hang and we've all been friends ever since! We've since played in bands together, we've since played in bands separately, and now we're here in Frank's basement recording a podcast.

F: Isn't that crazy? Fucking small world.

J: It's 20 years.

F: Is it really?!

J: It's about 20 years worth of friendship happening, culminating in this podcast.

F: I'm so old.

S: I don't feel like I'm 20 years older than I was.

J: No, neither do I, man. I still, like-

F: I do!

S: I also don't feel like I look it.

J: No, you don't.

S: I don't know if that's just me.

F: You kept your handsomeness.

J: You were always the looks of the band.

S: Yeah... I don't know about that.

J: So yeah, we love hanging out together. We are always looking for new reasons to hang out because it's hard when you get a little bit older. People have kids, people have different jobs, things that take you different places, some of us going all over the world. So what we're going to do every episode is talk about a different topic. So today we're really just gonna focus on our origin story. So that's how we end up all meeting, and then a little while after that... You know, Frank and I have been playing in bands together since high school, I played with a couple different people. Frank tried to go to college, I tried to go to college a few times, and then we ended up getting back together and deciding to start a new band, and that band ended up being Pencey Prep.

F: Yeah.

J: So we wanted a keyboard player, and we just loved hanging out with Shaun.

S: Wait, did you want a keyboard player-

F: I think we did!

S: -or were you just like, "We like hanging out with this dude, do something for us."

F: I think it was both.

S: It was a little bit of both.

F: Yeah!

J: A little column A, a little column B.

S: "Guitar is a little too hard to learn, here's a keyboard."

J: Right. And I was already playing bass. And that's what it was. We pulled a keyboard out from under the bed and said, "Learn how to play this and you can be in the band." Because we just wanted to keep hanging out with you. And that was it, you know, that's the real origin story of how Pencey Prep started. We just wanted to hang out more with Shaun.

F: This is true. Yeah! Here's the moral of it: is that we continuously manufacture things so that we can hang out with you, Shaun.

J: Like this podcast!

F: Yeah! That's just an ongoing thing. 20 years later, Hambone bought a bunch of mics.

S: Right, right!

F: Just to lure you to our house to hang out.

J: Because breakfast wasn't enough sometimes. I had to take it up a notch, recording you right now.

F: Yes, exactly. Goddamn it.

J: I mean, that's what it is. You look at a band like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, right? Like, what does Ben Carr really do? Well, apparently Ben Carr is a tour manager and he runs the whole day to day operations of the band. But back in the day, they just wanted to hang out with their buddy, they wanted something for him to do, so they said, "Well, just dance onstage."

S: Oh, that's right!

J: You should be happy, Shaun. We didn't make you dance.

S: Yeah, I wouldn't have done that anyway. We would've had to say our goodbyes back then.

F: Well, even early Pencey shows, there was a lot of playing verses- no, playing choruses! And then during the verses you would just smoke. Just smoke onstage.

S: So I was like, "Here's this dude, he's gonna stand there and look cool, smoking a cigarette."

F: Right, yeah. It was very Velvet Underground.

J: And you wouldn't even face the crowd either. You know, the whole band is going at it with the crowd, you were just turned sideways and just staring at whatever wall was in your direction on stage left, and just... smoking.

F: Judging. Just judging everyone. Yes!

J: Light it up during the verse, fly in for the chorus, Shaun Simon.

F: There it is! I mean, it worked.

J: That's what you did.

F: It did!

S: It worked.

F: That was a fun band to be in.

J: That was a fun band.

S: You know what's weird about that band? It feels like we were a band so much longer than we actually were. It wasn't that long, right?

F: You know what I think? I think that Pencey wasn't long. The time period after when we were doing I Am A Graveyard, that was longer.

S: Was that longer?

F: I think so.

S: Because we only had like 3 songs, didn't we?

F: Like 4 or 5. But I think that was the other thing too, we just liked hanging out so much that-

J: We didn't wanna stop.

F: We didn't wanna stop, yeah.

J: I feel like it was about a year and a half leading up to us getting ready to record the record. Then we recorded the record, we went on that one ill-fated tour across America, and then we just kinda restructured the band when Tim left.

F: Yeah.

S: No, actually we restructured the band and then we did I Am A Graveyard, and then Tim left.

J: Then Tim left. Then that was the end of the band.

S: Then Frank joined My Chem.

J: Yeah, I mean it was a really great time. The thing about that is to me , I look back on the record kinda cringing-ly. Because I just can't listen to it, it's really hard to get through. And it's funny when I look at kids who were our age, recording now and the kinda stuff they're doing. And granted, I know technology is very different, but the idea of our playing ability at 19, 20, 21, versus a kid who's 19, 20, 21 now's playing ability, it's like night and day.

F: Oh my god. Oh, I know.

J: It's like, god bless that it happened before the internet and nobody caught on that we stunk. We were tight! We were a good band but we were like the high school band and everyone else is doing laps around us.

F: I feel like that's the thing too is like, now you see these young kids, 11 and 12, going on YouTube and learning how to play, and really giving it their all. It's insane! I would just listen to records and smoke pot in my room and try to figure stuff out. And I don't know, there wasn't that outlet to get better. You actually had to go and take lessons from somebody. And it was like, "Fuck that."

J: And taking lessons sucked.

F: I know.

J: I mean I'm not shitting on anyone who does take lessons.

F: No, no!

J: But when I was a kid I was like, "Dude. I don't wanna take lessons, I just wanna go out and do this." However, I realize now that it takes a lot of effort to make something look effortless.

F: Yeah!

J: And I also look back at that record fondly because where I am today, kinda where we all are today, is because of that record. Like, the friends that I have and the family I have in my life, I met all because I was in the music scene. I think we all did, right? We all did.

S: Everything kind of originated from that band.

J: My friend Carrie hit me up from Tennessee the other day and she was like, you know, talking about the Pencey Prep record. And I was about to just shit all over it because it's- well it's hard for me to go back and listen to. But she gave me the perspective and she said, "Hey, because of that record, because you were in that band, we met. And because of that, your other friends have met and now they have families and they're all together because we were all kind of in that same place at the same time." I have a profound sense of gratitude for the record. I just can't listen to it.

F: I wouldn't change anything, because everything ended up the way it did. That's wonderful. But if I could Doc Brown it, and just tweak little things here and there, I'd definitely- there's a lot that I would tweak.

S: Yeah, if someone played to a click track.

F: Well, click- click would help!

J: Lots of auto-tuning.

F: But that's- yeah! I mean that's the thing. There are certain things that you listen back and it's cringy, but that's because you were a fucking teenager! It's supposed to be.

J: Right, and it was a very different thing being a teenager when we were teenagers, and being a teenager now.

F: Yeah.

J: Night and day.

F: I totally agree.

J: I would not survive as a teenager now.

F: No! Fuck no! I'd be naked on the internet somewhere.

J: Somewhere.

F: It would ruin my goddamn life! Totally. Doing some dumb shit.

J: Yeah, absolutely.

F: We had VHS recorders. Destroy that shit.

J: Yeah, absolutely. My friend George Bungle lores over my head that he definitely has pictures of me when I was wearing eyeliner and flat ironing my hair, and I was like, "Please!" I was like, "George, just let me find a wife first, because it'll be harder for her to leave me once those pictures come out. There would be lawyers involved."

F: Yikes. Yeah. Well, that's the thing too, is like, I do have minor interactions on social media. Just like, through Twitter and Instagram, stuff like that. Facebook is an animal that I can't understand so I just decide not to use it.

J: It's all racist

F: Is it really?! Jesus!

J: Facebook is where you go to figure out which of your friends have actually been racist this entire time.

F: Oh my god! Ugh.

J: Yeah, just stay off it.

F: That sounds terrible.

J: It's pretty bad.

F: So anyway, I'm not going on Facebook then. But people will send like, pictures of like, a moment in time, just this fucking split second moment in time, but, "Explain this." I'm like, "Motherfucker!

S: What do you mean?

F: Yeah, exactly! "What are you talking about?" You have to explain every goddamn moment of your life that's been captured in some sort of video clip or like still, or photo, like- So you'll see some questionable hairstyles, or styles of things. And certain things maybe made sense in a moment because you were making fun of something, but when it gets taken out of context, it makes no sense. But my response usually is like, "Alright, yeah, that may have been questionable, but I will show you 100,000 people that are wearing their hair like that still, right now, because I did that."

J: Absolutely! Absolutely.

S: What? Are they talking about your dreadlocks?

F: Oh, that's one!

J: That's one!

S: Is that one of them? Remember when we cut those off?

F: Yeah!

S: Threw them out the hotel window-

F: In Chicago!

J: Chicago, yeah!

F: Yeah, we planted them.

J: I mean, they're technically biodegradable, right?

S: Yeah.

F: No!

S: I don't know about that.

J: Oh, no, they're not!

F: No. Those are bad for the environment. That's why Chicago is the way it is. Because we threw them out the window.

J: Frank's old dreadlocks. I'm sure there's a tree growing where you threw that dreadlock outside of the hotel where I'm staying at next week.

F: I don't know if you remember this, though. That started out of a joke because we're all in the back of this van, and we were talking about the music that Tim liked, which he was really into nu-metal and weird shit.

J: Oh my god, yeah, I remember.

F: And I started tying knots in my hair, and they turned into that, and we put like, crazy glue in it

S: Ew.

F: And that's how it started. And then it just got real nasty.

J: I wonder if people like, because you know everyone like, lives on their phone now, like the distraction in the back of the van. I don't think a band would ever do that now because they're gonna be so distracted being on social media. Whereas, to pass the time you guys were really busy throwing my Thin Lizzy CDs out the window and gluing your hair together!

F: Oh man!

J: You left the case, though, which I always thought was funny.

F: Did we leave the case?

J: You did leave the case.

S: Why- who threw your CDs out?

F: It was a tape, it was a tape. I think-

S: Why did we decide that was a good idea?

J: How many times can you hear "Jailbreak" on the same tour?

F: That! Yeah, it was like, "The boys are not back in town. we have to stop." It just got to be too much.

J: It was the first intervention of many.

F: Alright, here's another thing about origin stories. I remember this like it was fucking yesterday, and Shaun will vouch for this. Those early My Chem tours in the van where you would have to bring these billfolds of CDs.

S: Oh, absolutely.

F: That was like 100 pounds of CDs that you were bringing with you every tour, to just pass the time, stuff like that. It was fucking horrible! Everything would be scratched and destroyed by the time you got back.

S: Start it all over.

J: Oh yeah, absolutely. Because every bump in the road-

F: Oh my god!

J: It's the same thing when we used to drive around. So we had a van, a yellow school bus van, that I bought for like 800 bucks. The thing was the drizzling shits. It was a terrible, terrible van, but we needed a van to go on tour, and all we wanted to do was tour, so we went and I got the van and we got it fixed up. And the very first night of tour, we were playing at the Loop Lounge for our tour kickoff party. And as we were driving the van to the rehearsal space to go and pick up the gear, I bumped into a curb, the timing belt jumped, and we almost missed the first day of the tour. And it was all downhill from there because this van also, the anti-freeze hose popped, and destroyed the van's on-board computer so we got stuck in Minnesota.

F: Can we dive into that story a little bit more? Because that was the whole reason of the tour, was this one show that we got booked. Was it with Les Savy Fav? J: It was Les Savy Fav at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis. So the 7th Street Entry is the smaller part of the First Ave. which one of the biggest and most famous rock clubs in America. You've seen it in Prince's "Purple Rain," and the whole point of the tour was that we got this gig at the 7th Street Entry with Les Savy Fav, and we were traveling out there to go and do this show. Now on the way, besides the timing belt jumping, we had a problem with the seal on the gas tank, so we could only ever fill the tank up-

F: This is true, I remember!

S: That's right!

J: We could only ever fill the tank up three-quarters of the way, so that was the second problem.

F: But you kinda didn't know how far you were going. You just thought, "Alright, that's three-quarters of a tank," and then it would seep in and you would smell gas all day.

J: And we would smell gasoline.

S: And wasn't it like, we were nervous about flicking cigarettes out the windows?

F: Yes! But it didn't stop us.

S: We just kept smoking.

J: No, and I remember going and getting that fixed, getting the seal fixed, and just sitting there, and the guy was literally- he had the van up and he's underneath it and he's smoking a cigarette and he's checking it, and I'm like, "This is how I die! This is officially how it ends for me." Thankfully, it didn't. So, take us back. Frank, we were driving to Minneapolis.

F: Driving to Minneapolis. This was the show, man. This is it, we were gonna make it. This is the like our big show! And so we stop off in Minnesota, right?

J: Right.

F: And we're like, "Alright, we're gonna get a good night's sleep. The next day, we're driving to this show, we're gonna play the biggest show of our band's career. We're gonna have our CD. It's gonna be great. We're gonna do this." So we head out and I think it was maybe 2 hours into a 3 hour drive, and the van was like, "No, you're not." Because it just like- you ever see like, in a horror movie where like, someone cuts a stomach and just the bowels fall out? That's how- everything. Like, the poor girl just fucking disemboweled on the highway.

J: So the hose popped-

F: Blood. Car blood!

J: Anti-freeze everywhere! And now I know what hot anti-freeze smells like. It smells like hot maple syrup.

F: Yeah.

J: So we pull over to the side of the road. Thankfully, there was a Ford dealership literally 1,000 feet where we were at the top of the hill. So we got them to tow us there. It cost $666.34 to repair, which I called my dad. I was like, "Dad, please! Please, let me use your credit card, we're stuck out here!" And he did. Like, my father has-

F: The greatest.

J: -always been so supportive of the music that I've played, the music Frank's played. So he came and he gave his credit card number over the phone to this car dealership outside of Minneapolis, and we never made the show.

F: Uh uh.

J: We didn't play the show.

F: Did not play the show. Did not pay him back either. Fucked up! Sorry. Oh shit.

J: He just put it on my tab. It's like, "How many times you drop out of college, John?" And just add it up, you know. So I mean, so that was the first Pencey Prep tour. You know we played- our friend, Neil, who was in the band, he booked the tour, and this is back when e-mail is just new. Like, you know, there is internet, but people have like Juno and AOL. There's no high speed internet, you know. You used to call CBGB's to get a gig, they didn't have an e-mail address. You'd have to call at like Tuesday or Thursday between these hours and if you did not call during those times, or you couldn't get someone on the phone, you weren't getting booked to CBGB's. So, this is so many years ago! Like you think about it, this was 2000! This is almost 20 years.

F: Was it 2000? Or was it 99?

J: Oh, maybe it was 99 at that point, yeah! I mean, you know, you and I have been friends- I graduated in 97, I met you in 1995. And then I met you a few years later so-

S: Hm...

J: Yeah, 99.

S: 99, yeah maybe.

J: 99 was the first Pencey- the first and only Pencey tour.

F: Right!

J: So you know, we made the towns, we played the clubs, then the van had another problem where we got to, I think, Missouri of all places, and had to fix the gas tank again. And we were at a point, our last show of the tour was Columbus, Ohio in this basement. I forget the name of the club but it was a basement club and the guy stiffed up for money, because he's like, "Well I'm not gonna pay you guys, you didn't bring anybody.” It's like, "Well, we're from fucking New Jersey!" So we gunned it all the way home, we would not turn the engine off because we were afraid it wasn't gonna turn back on. Do you remember the CD that was stuck in the CD player that we had to listen to the entire 10 and a half hour ride home?

F: No.

S: No.

J: "Stay What You Are" by Saves the Day.

F: Oh god! So bleak!

J: It got stuck in the CD player, because everything was going on, why wouldn't that go wrong?

F: Well, that's the thing. That's a great record, but like, to listen to over and over again on our- already being depressed. Fuck!

J: Yeah, we got our asses kicked on that first tour, you know? A little while after that, Neil wasn't in the band anymore. And then a little while after that, we became I Am A Graveyard, and we did a couple years of that, still slugging along, and then the rest is history for Frank.

F: For everybody!

J: Yeah.

F: You guys did The Hostage after that, too.

J: We did do The Hostage for a little while. The Hostage, I think, we lasted maybe 6-7 months.

S: I think we played, like, 3 shows.

J: We played 3 really awesome shows.

S: Really, yeah, really good shows.

J: We had a good buzz about us, but the other guys in the band were dicks. You know what, I take that back. Dan wasn't a dick, Paul wasn't a dick, it was the other guy that was a dick.

S: Yeah.

J: So... He got a little too big for his britches and the band had to break up.

S: Well the problem with Dan, he... I remember, I think I was talking to you, and you with My Chem, you were like, "Yeah, why don't you guys come out and open for us?" You remember that?

J: Yeah.

S: In like Pittsburgh, or something like that. And then Dan was like, "Oh, I have to work because I have to pay my car lease," or something.

J: Yeah, yeah.

S: And it was like, "Dude, where's your fucking drive to do this?"

J: The thing about being in bands and the things about doing any kind of like, artistry, or any kind of like, going into business for yourself, takes sacrifice.

F: It does.

J: Putting the time and effort into doing something that's outside of working 9-5, it takes hard work. Like, you could either make that decision to work 9-5 for someone else, or you work 18 hours for yourself.

F: My dad and my grandfather were musicians and they played all the time, and it wasn't always something they did full time, for a living. It was something they could do- you know, they had to have another job to support. But my dad would always tell me like, you know, "There's music and then there's a music business, and one, very often, has nothing to do with the other."

J: Absolutely.

F: And the thing about, you know, music- the business side of it is so cutthroat and unforgiving at times.

J: Right.

F: And there's no justice in it. Some of the best players are still looking for a fucking gig.

J: Absolutely!

F: You could have a degree that you spent thousands and thousands of dollars on, and years and years of your life trying to obtain, and you can't get a fucking job.

J: Right.

S: Yeah.

F: So it would behoove you to have a safety net, or like, a real job so that you can, you know, afford to do these things. But very often, that's not conducive to this life. Know what I mean?

J: Right.

F: So you kinda have to throw caution to the wind and say, "Fuck it. I'm gonna sleep on a bench if I have to, to do this kinda thing," and that's not the smartest thing I know.

J: Yeah, it's definitely not the smartest thing, and I'd never like-

F: It's not easy either.

J: I'd never begrudge Dan, uh, for doing that-

F: No!

J: The thing is, you know, where we- how we grew up, you have to go to college, you have to get a job, you have to do this, you have to be responsible. And not everyone is ready to go off and join the circus.

S: I just felt like with The Hostage especially, that you know, me and you, Hambone, were on the same page with that. And I felt other people weren't.

J: Oh, definitely not.

S: You know what I mean? I feel like me and you were ready to go, if go was a thing that happened.

J: Right.

S: And the others were like, you know, "I still have to do this so I have to work around my fucking flat tire on my fucking Mom's car."

F: It's very easy to say, "Hey, yeah, I'm down for the cause." It's another thing to do it.

J: Yeah, absolutely.

F: That's the scary part.

J: In the words of Jim Teacher, "Everyone wants to rock and roll, no one wants to pay the price."

F: This is true, man. If it were easy, everybody would do it, right?

J: Absolutely. Absolutely.

F: Fuck! But that's the thing, too, is- you know, the shitty thing is that- even if you have the talent and you have the heart and you take the risk, you still gotta have the luck. It's like, "Motherfucker!" It's like this perfect- it's like winning the lottery!

J: It is.

F: It doesn't make any goddamn sense.

J: For me, I didn't have the luck. My luck took me in very different directions and I'd never change anything about it, I'm super super grateful for it. You know, however, I hit a point where I was in my early 30s and I was like, "Shit, I kinda need to get like, a job job, and make some money because I got nothing." And that was cool, it was alright, because I have a work ethic. When you're a person who's passionate about their art and what they create, you know, whether it's Shaun's writing, Frank's writing music, I'm producing podcasts now, you always have that reason to get up in the morning and kick yourself in the ass and go take care of business. So I was able to go find a crazy job that if I told you what I did for a living, I'd have to kill you. Uh, made a bunch of money, and then I was able to kinda come back to the thing that I love the most, which is playing music, and being creative. Sometimes you just have to take a knee and reassess your situation. Redefine your ideas of success.

F: Yeah! Absolutely.

J: You know? So, I mean, I got my happy ending.

S: There it is!

F: There it is!

J: So do you guys have any final thoughts on the origin story?

F: Oh man!

S: I feel like we didn't cover a lot.

F: Yeah! We could probably keep going on the origin story, I think, for a couple- maybe we could take a break and then do another episode of origins.

J: Alright, so what we're gonna do is, we're gonna wrap this episode up. This'll be Origins-

F: Origins 1A!

J: Origin 1. This is part 1 of the origin story. Yeah, this is just the story of Pencey Prep and friendship, and next will be the story of Pencey Prep and Friendship: The Dark Knight Rises. So, you know, we'll find some catchy subtitle for it. Frank, where can people find you?

F: I live- New Jersey.

S: Don't give them your address!

F: I use Instagram. I have an Instagram called frankieromustdie, I have a Twitter that's @frankiero, and I have a website I guess, frank-iero.com. Because somebody had frankiero.com.

J: How rude!

F: Yeah!

S: Is that why there's no A in it?

F: Oh, what's that?

S: Isn't that- don't you do something where there's no A in your name?

F: I was- yeah, I was doing that for a while, too. So I could at least cut through some of the fakers. It's like faker He-Man, dude. Somebody has frankiero.com, I don't know who it is. I think, I don't know if there's like, I think there's companies that like, go out and buy, just domain names and then try to like, hold them ransom.

J: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean I'm shocked that I got hamfistedproductions.com.

F: Dude.

J: I'm shocked that we got casualinteractions.com!

S: Do we have that?

J: Oh yeah!

S: The website?

J: Oh, I got it.

F: Oh, nice! See?

S: Oh shit! Look at you, man!

J: I'm proactive.

F: Now, here's the thing! You could use that for this.

J: Yeah.

F: Right? And it'd be alright. Or you could start like, a weird porno hooker thing and make a lot of money.

J: Oh no, that's why we're sitting on it.

F: Right, right!

J: I'm gonna wait until someone wants to pay us. When the money comes rolling in, we're splitting it three ways, we're going to Cabo! Shaun, where can people find you?

S: I don't use anything. I have Twitter, @shaunsimon.

F: You have a Twitter?

J: You do have a Twitter.

S: I have Twitter.

F: Oh, alright. I'll check it out.

J: He's been known to tweet. What do you have in stores right now?

S: What do I have in stores?

J: Yeah, what books out right now?

S: Oh, nothing! I just- one of my books just was announced a few months ago called Wizard Beach. It's coming out in December, I believe.

J: Alright, very cool.

S: It's a comic book. Not a prose book, so.

J: Maybe one day, you'll write some prose.

S: We'll see what happens.

J: Well, when this episode drops, Wizard Beach will probably be right around the corner so definitely check out Wizard Beach at your local comic book store.

F: Wait, if you write a prose book can you title it "Every Prose Has Its Thorn"?

J: Yes!

F: So good.

J: You can find me at- you can check out my other podcast. It's The Vintage RPG Podcast, it's a gaming podcast. We talk about Dungeons & Dragons and other RPG games. You could also find me at maitaitv.com, for my punk rock Tiki podcast Mai Tai Happy Hour.

So, for Shaun Simon and Frank Iero, I'm John "Hambone" McGuire. Join us next month for another episode of Casual Interactions. Until then, hold onto your friends.

#frank iero #hambone #shaun simon #casual interactions #1 #casual interactions 1 #full transcription

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theplaguezine · 5 years

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DEATH ANGEL

Interview with Dennis Pepa by Daniel Hinds

(conducted April 2004)

The boundless energy that defined the thrash metal movement of the 80s was perhaps most evident in the Bay Area's most vibrant and innovative act, the Filipino five-piece known as Death Angel. This is a band that is just at ease letting loose with a fast thrasher one moment and a somber acoustic number the next. After a decade absence from the scene, the band reunited (minus original guitarist Gus Pepa) for the Thrash of the Titans show in 2001, a benefit for Testament's Chuck Billy and his cancer treatment. That went so well, they quickly booked several local and European shows and proceeded to record a new album, The Art of Dying, which effortlessly combines everything the band has done before and incorporates several new elements as well. Bassist Dennis Pepa brings us up to date with unique outfit… You've always had slightly unusual album titles - how did The Art of Dying come about? It actually came up from Andy watching a Bruce Lee video, a documentary on TV. I think it was part of an old Bruce Lee proverb and Andy just brought it to us one day and it was definitely on the list on the wall of what album title we were going to use. After analyzing everything to death (laughs), we thought that would make total sense to put that on the album. Do you have a deeper meaning that you've ascribed to it? Some people look at it and are like, 'Well, you guys are coming back, shouldn't it be The Art of Living?' But if you look at it one way, yeah, but then the way we look at the title, it is the art of dying - not the art of death, it's what you do before you die, you actually live your life. So it's kind of a rebirth title, it's got a twist to it. We didn't want to make it that simple. The production has a pretty raw feel to it - were you setting out to avoid getting too polished a sound on this one? Definitely. Out of all the Death Angel albums, we try to do that for each one of them, because we've always liked the live feel and we feel we are more of a live band than a studio band. Brian Dobbs somehow captured it this time - he just turned the right knob and used the right mics and our chemistries just gelled as far as what the goal was. To me, it's our best production just because he did capture that live feel with a clarity - I mean, you can hear every single instrument on there. Again, we were trying to do stay away from what everybody else is doing, as far as production nowadays. The whole Death Angel, just use somebody not too many people are using, take a different path. Can you describe the general songwriting process in Death Angel? Is it any different from the early days? I think it has actually changed to where more of us are contributing a lot more to each song and there's definitely more input throughout the band. Rob is still the total main writer of the band, he probably wrote I'd say 75% of the music, but we definitely all have say in it now. It's cool because we don't take just one formula and write that way. Sometimes, somebody will come to practice with a whole song written, sometimes we'll all write a song in one go, and sometimes we'll give each other a riff and somebody will add to it. Each song was written differently, there's not really one formula to it. I think the break we had was really good as far as our musicianship and respecting what each other does. The arrangements on all of your songs seem very meticulous, very well planned out. Is that stuff all nailed down before you enter the studio? Yeah, pretty much. We try to nail that down during pre-production, just demoing and demoing a song. Nowadays, you can do that in your own studio because technology. Rearranging songs and playing with how things fall after each thing. I think that is definitely one of our strong points as far as writing.

I know you did some touring before you recorded this album - did you get a chance to try out any of these songs live before you recorded them? We started playing "Prophecy" and "Five Steps of Freedom" during the earlier legs of the last tours, just because those were the two newest songs to us so we just started playing them live. We just wanted to see what the response would be and it was pretty cool, people really embraced them. Aside from that, we didn't really play any of the other songs, we kind of wanted to keep it hidden. I read something about re-issues coming out on Rykodisc. What's happening is The Ultra-Violence is being remastered and the bonus tracks on that are the Kill As One demo, produced by Kirk [Hammett], and that's also remastered. Frolic is getting remastered and three unreleased Death Angels songs are on that, from that era, and a third CD is coming out that is called Rarities. It's twelve songs that Death Angel never released. Some of them are demo versions, some are studio versions, some of them are live garage tapes, but it's going to add up to a new album for us. It was all recorded in the 80s and it's all songs that were never on any of the three albums. It's more of a hardcore fan CD versus somebody who wants to pick up a Death Angel album, because it's older stuff and not the greatest produced stuff, but it's songs that we've never released and quite a few people out there know some of these songs from back in the day. They asked us why we never released them, so now is the chance to go out and buy it. All three CDs will also come in a box set which will include a DVD which has old interviews with us and I think our older videos, from the first two albums. As far as Act III goes, nothing is really moving on it yet. I think what's going to happen is I think Geffen has it right now and they're going to hold onto it until the new album launches and they see what the numbers are. I'm crossing my fingers, I hope they reissue it. Do you think you'll ever have a proper live album released someday? It's one of those things where we just need to be in the right place of this new career of ours. We don't want to rush into it and do a half-assed job, we definitely want to plan it out and do it right. We actually want to do a DVD version of it, too, so we'll probably release the live album as well as the DVD and the DVD will probably have more of the whole concert versus the album. We're hoping to do that within the next two years. When the band split back in the early 90s, was that a difficult decision to make or was it pretty obvious by that point that something needed to change? Yes and no. With all the shit we were going through, it wasn't too hard and we just wanted to walk away from it. But then again, there was all the work that we did as well, so it was both. I think it was actually easier than not because we wanted it to end and move on. That's why right after that we started The Organization. When you reformed for the Thrash of the Titans show, was it thought to be just a one-off thing? Definitely, the whole thing was for Chuck and his cause and we only rehearsed two days before that because we thought it was just going to be a one-off From the audience feedback and people telling us we stole the show and just the way it made us feel on stage, a few months later we re-established the band and announced it officially. Do you get a lot of younger fans coming to the shows? We're starting to. I mean we definitely want to hit the younger audience, that's always the prime market, but we want to do it with the right bands. We don't want to go out with any of these commercial nu-metal bands - we want to keep it at a level where it is respectable to us, too. About four months ago we played a show with The Deftones in Sacramento and the kids went crazy and their whole audience is like 12 to late 20s. I walked around after our set and all these kids were amazed, they didn't know who we were, they had never seen anything like us. We pretty much sold out of our merchandise and the Deftones guys were like, 'Man, nobody ever sells merch like that!' (laughs) I definitely think we have a niche in that market, we just need to be exposed to it. I think if we did like the Vans Warped tour, that would be perfect. You guys did a video recently? Yeah, for "Thicker Than Blood." It turned out really good. We filmed it in an abandoned train station in Oakland. Hopefully you'll see it on MTV. Death Angel has always drawn on more than just thrash metal, but what are your thoughts on the genre and its resurgence in recent years? To be honest, until we got back together three years ago, I really didn't pay attention to it. Like I said, I listen to punk rock and that's really my scene. I would now and then go see a metal band, but until we got back together, I didn't really know what was going on in the whole metal scene. I just knew that these bands were commercial sounding and they were on the radio and was kind of disgusted by it. Everybody was tuning down and playing three chords, everybody wanted to be crossover rap kinda metal thing. It lasted for over ten years but I think it's starting to crumble now, it just seems like so many people are tired of it that nu-metal is just like old-metal or used-metal, whatever you want to call it - it's just not hip anymore. I think thrash metal is definitely on an upswing and has the potential to be really huge this time.

https://www.deathangel.us

#Death Angel #interview #apr2004

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archergabriella · 4 years

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ecotone99 · 4 years

Text

[HM] A Very Successful Year

Logline: A man at a low point in his life makes a deal that he will have one year of good fortune, but at the end of the year, he will die and give his soul to the devil.

____________

It's just April 21st, and Ian Frazier's has already had a horrible year. As a broke inventor, he has created a set of cranks that are to be used in the kitchen to assist with repetitive movements. For example, "The Peeler" and "The Stirrer" were the two most popular cranks. The user would turn the crank, put the vegetables to be peeled, or the mixture to be stirred under the crank, and the peeler or stirrer would do the work for them. He also had other cranks, "The Chopper," "The Folder," and "The Dough Kneader." Ian introduced his cranks to the Shark Tank panel, a program where inventors could go and get funding for their ideas. No one on the Shark Tank panel funded his cranks; he only made money from people who purchased them to make parody videos of him on the Internet.

To top it all off, his wife left him, seeking a divorce, on New Year's Day, which was granted in March. His teenage son didn't want anything to do with him, because kids would make fun of his dad's crank commercials, at school.

But today, April 21st was the icing on the cake, not only did he have a product he couldn't sell, he was now being sued for copyright infringement by the maker of "The Peddler," a device in which you pedal to make the device move. He was served his papers for the lawsuit while eating breakfast. After meeting with his lawyers for three hours downtown, he leaves the law firm, and sees a bar across the street, looks at his watch, it's 8:30 p.m.

"Perfect," Ian says as he stumbles over.

It's quiet, just a bartender and another gentleman, an unimposing-looking guy, balding with patchy facial hair.

The bartender and the gentlemen are arguing about the afterlife; the bartender believes that you just return to the Earth, there is no significance to death at all. The gentleman, calling himself Leviathan, believes while the body dies, the soul lives on.

"Good evening, would you mind settling a debate for us?" Leviathan asks Ian. Ian shrugs and signals that he will.

"My dear barkeep says that there is no significance to death at all, no spirit, no soul, and that we return to the Earth, what do you believe?" Leviathan questions.

"Oh, I don't know, it's a little heavy for a bar talk, ain't it?" Ian says.

"If you could just humor us, and then we'll change the subject," Leviathan says.

"I guess if you put me on the spot, I don't believe in God, why would an all-powerful being allow such evil and bad things to happen? No God, no afterlife," Ian says.

"Ha, ha, pay up," the bartender says to Leviathan. He gives the bartender $20, the bartender puts it in his apron and then walks to the other side of the bar to help another customer that came in. Leviathan turns to Ian.

"May I ask, why so skeptical?" Leviathan asks.

"You want to know why I'm so skeptical; it's because this year has been the worst year of my life, I'm broke, divorced, a bad father, should I go on?" Ian says as he takes a swig from his beer.

"Haven't you ever heard the tale of Job? The man who lost everything but loved God, unquestionably anyway?" Leviathan asks.

"Yeah, I remember something like that, but I'll tell you what, he sure doesn't make it easy to believe," Ian says.

"What if I told you I could change your fortune and all it would cost you is your soul?" Ian says.

"I don't know, seems like a heavy price to pay," Ian said.

"But just a moment ago, you went on and on about how there is no soul, no afterlife, if you are right, and you're trading your soul for good fortune, you're trading good fortune for nothing, aren't you?" Leviathan says.

"I guess you're right, theoretically anyway, so what does it matter," Ian says.

"Right, let's test this theoretical experiment, let's say, I give you a year of good fortune, but at the end of the year you have to die, and I own your soul, would you take the deal?" Leviathan says.

"Yeah, I'll take the deal, as you said, I'm trading something for nothing," Ian says as he laughs, taking this as just the musings of a drunk man at a bar.

"It's a deal then," Leviathan says. The bartender comes back and replaces Ian's beer with another,

"Where did that weird guy go?" The bartender says referring to Leviathan. It's almost like he vanished into thin air. "Man, that guy had a $50 bar tab," the bartender complains.

The next day, Ian wakes up to find that the creator of "The Peddler" has passed away in his sleep, no more lawsuit for the crank. Feeling good, Ian goes out to get breakfast at a local restaurant. While waiting for his eggs, toast, and bacon, the manager of the restaurant complains that his best cook has to go out to have carpal tunnel surgery.

"He chopped the onions over and over, so I lost my best cook," says the manager. Ian never misses a chance to sell his crank, always bringing one with him. He pulled "The Chopper" crank out of his gym bag and gave it to the manager. Luckily for him, he was carrying "The chopper.” The manager is so grateful for the gift; he gives Ian his breakfast free of charge.

This made Ian think of a new marketing strategy; he had been mainly marketing to individual people who cook from home. Now he began selling on a commercial premise, restaurants that have sustained a lot of accidents as a result of repetitive motions, such as chopping, peeling, and stirring; there was money to be made.

Wouldn't you know it, the marketing campaign was a success, commercial vendors love the idea because they could keep their employees safe from repeated action injuries. Overnight, the broke inventor became a millionaire and started doing infomercials, and other talk shows. All it took was a little success to turn his outlook right around.

"Hello everyone, I'm here to show you my crank, you'll be glad I did," Ian says in his infomercial.

"Isn't it a pain, having to stir batter constantly to make sure the recipe is right, instead of stirring, why don't you crank!?" Ian says as he makes the hand motion.

"So, next time someone says chop up those onions, what are you going to yell back?" Ian asks the audience.

"Crank it!" the audience yells back.

Ian was the face and personality of the marketing campaign; he was everywhere, billboards, TV commercials, and courtside with movie stars. No longer the embarrassment that his son once thought he was, one night, his son called him.

"Hey Dad, I miss you, do you think you could come to my birthday party?" His son asked.

Of course, Ian agreed, it made him so happy that he was no longer the pariah that his son once thought he was. Now, he had the money to buy his son a great gift; he had given him a free crank for his last birthday, a little bit of a disappointment.

Ian attended the party, rich with confidence and success; he had an entourage eight deep with rappers, sports celebrities, and food network chefs. At the party, his ex-wife became attracted to his confidence. She dumped the man she was with and returned to Ian. Life was definitely on an upswing. On top of everything, he created two more cranks, "The Grater," and "The Mincer"; both flew off the shelves.

Ian became the king of kitchen equipment; his face was on a whole variety of products by the summertime. The money was rolling in; he was back with his family; he could do anything he wanted, opportunities were boundless.

All of a sudden, a year had gone by, time moves fast when you're successful. Driving home one day, he got a flat tire, right in front of the bar that he had visited a year ago. The tow truck said it was going to be an hour to get out there, so he went into the bar. It was like deja vu, there was the bartender, Leviathan, and nothing but empty seats, just like a year ago. He looks at his watch; it's 8:30 p.m.

"Ian, welcome back, how have you been since the last time we saw you?" Leviathan asks.

"Things have been going really well, it's a complete 180-degree difference from this time last year," Ian says as the bartender drops a beer in front of him.

"I don't suppose that you recall our conversation from a year ago?" Leviathan asks.

"Something about the afterlife, I don't know, my head was in a different place back then," Ian says.

"So, do you believe in the afterlife now?" Leviathan asks.

"Sure, I think there's an afterlife, it just all can't mean nothing," Ian says.

"Tonight is the night, barkeep, get a real drink for my friend," Leviathan says. The bartender pours a shot for Ian.

"Ian, do you remember last year's arrangement?" Leviathan asks.

"Yes, but that was theoretical, wasn't it?" Ian asks.

"No, it was very real," Leviathan said.

"Who are you?" Ian asked.

"I go by a lot of names, but one that you're probably familiar with is the devil," Leviathan tells Ian, who is no longer thirsty. Ian turns white as a ghost.

"Is it going to hurt?" Ian asks.

"It's almost like turning off a light switch," Leviathan says. The bartender comes back to that side of the bar, Leviathan and Ian are gone, no money has been left for the alcohol.

"Damn it; I have to start getting cash in advance when that weirdo comes in."

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ramblehound · 6 years

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You haven’t been to Spain, yet?

I’ve been in Spain three times now. The first time, I lived here and stayed a month and a half in Granada. It was an international situation. No need to go into details. The first time I got stuck in Granada (possibly the best place in the world to be stuck). Since then I’ve been around a bit, Gibraltar (even though technically it’s The UK), all over Andalusía and Costa Del Sol, Madrid, and Barcelona - to name the main points.

I’m not some Park Avenue dandy like Washington Irving, but when I read his expose “The Alhambra”, it resonated with me in a deep and beautiful way after everything I have seen here in Spain. Everything he wrote in that piece was spot, accurate and without embellishment, as much as I’ve been able to experience almost 200 years later after that work being published. Spain is an enrapturing and dramatic landscape that will dazzle your eyes, with a history that makes Lord of the Rings seem almost blahh. By the way, in case you didn’t know... Spain has an incredibly diverse landscape and has been consistently rated as one of the best culinary experiences in the world. Furthermore, they’re also the hot spot for handing out Michelin stars to restaurants the last 10 years. It’s kinda the place to be as a chef, or to start a restaurant. So, if you stop reading here, the synopsis is, *go to España*.

I’ve been to Italy, it’s one of my favourite countries / collection of city states; 1000’s of years of heritage and history. Yea. Cool. I feel fortunate that “I get it”, and I do, but Spain....Spain is the same, but a different animal in so many ways. It’s the same as comparing Rome with Paris, or Rome with Barcelona. For me I’ve just learned to just except the difference, agree there is this incandescent force around them, that makes you feel alive, and are enjoying being reborn, and move on. In the words of the great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, “buy the ticket, take the ride.”

Progress is everywhere here. They got hit pretty hard by the financial fiasco in 2008, the market tanked just like everywhere else in the world; but like anything truly Hispanic, when it’s up against the ropes, it fights its way out. The Spanish like a fight. Both times I’ve been in Spain, there are new buildings going up everywhere or revamping what’s already established. If you’re a big shopper, they’ve got it all and then some - weird / cool local second hand shops, and then of course your established brands, then climbing up into luxury / high fashion. Shopping isn’t my thing exactly so let’s just take hit the onramp and get back on the highway of this article and keep tracking.

In Spain, I can’t tell you how many high end autos / bikes I’ve seen. As a motorhead, I specifically have seen a few head turners. Porsche, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Triumph, Moto Guzzi. The roads here in general are a drivers wet dream. Sweeping curves, long straights and in general, well paved. Now to one of my more favourite aspects, economics. Business in general here in Spain is on a huge upswing. Property values are rising steadily. Barcelona is tied with Berlin for the #2 spot for startups in the EU. Barcelona and Madrid also, consistently find their way into Monocle Magazine’s annual quality of life survey. Portugal, is also no stranger to tough times, the country was close to bankrupt, but now, now the Iberian as a whole is blowing up! All of these things are clear indicators of a shift of not just economics, but a mentality.

Spain is, and has always been a jewel in the world, and there’s always a mix of cultures here. It’s an inherent quality in it’s nature, unquestionably. Geographically it’s impossible for it not to be. I realised that imminently looking across to Morocco and Cetau, from Gibraltar. My friend asked me, “Isn’t it amazing that many people from there are so close and want so badly to be living here, and this is all that really divides us?” Am I bringing this up to be political? Yes. But, I’m not digging deeper into it, aside from saying, if you’re willing to do things legally, work hard and make a real contribution, then you should be welcome anywhere. If you’re not willing to do those things, get the fuck out, or keep your ass parked where it is. Secondly and more to the point though, I’m bringing it up to illustrate it’s ideal geographical placement as a crossroads of cultures while being lavishly shrouded in its own. If you travel more than a little, you know just how singular that dimension is and how rare it is to find.

Geographically you have a peninsula (Iberian) that is a main factor in every aspect of what Europe is in every facet. On top of that you have a culture that was a part of, and lived through however many different shifts. The Phonecians, The Romans, The Moors, The Castilians, The Catalonians, The French and Franco. What that equates to is the truth of their culture, and that it’s as malleable as quicksilver and titanium strong; while maintaining something decidedly luminescent. They’re as fun loving as they are relaxed. When business is on the table, they make moves. They get the balance of work / play on a level most never will. I find it so comical, in the worst of ways, that Hispanics are thought of as lazy. They’re some of the toughest sons of bitches I’ve worked with. They never miss a siesta, BUT they’re never without a bone to break.

Marbella seems like the quiet Monaco of the Mediterranean, while Cagliari, the secret. All too many designer shops, but many more, and more important, the backbones of a local economy. You can hear 5 languages a day, 7 maybe, easy. Today I talked with a local street vendor in Pidgin mixed with Spanish, we seemed to sort things out well enough. His English was well enough, but why deprive myself the opportunity? It was worth the shock slapped across his face from hearing a white boy speak Pidgin.

The local economy of restaurants here is thriving with all local products that make you wonder why you put so much faith in Rome, Paris and others for your culinary standards. The access to fresh seafood is absurd. Even the local market has fresh catches of seafood exclusive to the region for pretty damn cheap. I’ve bought local fish here to barbecue at a market price that couldn’t rival local markets anywhere else in Europe. Let alone a local supermarkets price. Vegetables, local everything for a € or 2€ per kg., maybe slightly more from time to time. This is an appropriate time to laugh at the “5 star or nothing” crowd who are missing out on the 2 or 3 star gems that are ridden by locals who don’t give two shits about writing a review. They know where to get their fix.

I’m a hole in the wall cafe / bar kind of guy. The local joints. I’m more into places that are devoid of the frills, and the types of marketing that lead to impulse buying the weird condoms in the checkout line. I’m not the kind of guy to get bent out of shape about being noticed at the “right places”. I much prefer the awkward feeling of being the new kid on the block when I walk into a local place. That’s the “right place”.

I recently got off the phone with a friend of mine in Firenze (Florence). He’s one of those guys that you’d shake your fist at, and say, “lucky bastard”, when you hear his job. Basically put, he’s a professional rockstar. He lives on the road, he rarely hangs his hat for too long in one place. But he recently got back to Firenze for the 2,977th time, or something like that, and planned to run into some American friends of his who have never travelled outside the country. That’s right. They exist, it isn’t just a myth, somehow. Instead of taking it all in, they were buried in their phones on travel apps. Making sure wherever they stopped was at least 4 stars or 5. As soon as my friend told me this, I said, “Fuck that! Just open your eyes and channel your inner wolf, and put your nose to work!” Don’t be this person! This is a core principle of the difference between a tourist and a traveler.

I’m posted up at a local joint now that I found the same way. I used my basic senses. I didn’t fucking use an app! People forget so often that the apps / websites are there to assist you, not guide you! Where’s your sense of adventure?! I walked by the other day and scoped the digs. Locals? Check. Basic table and settings? Check. The clear smell of something amazing going on in the kitchen? Ample wine supply? Check. That’s it, I’m parking it here. Another dead give away, that places like this have are the jamón legs hanging from butcher hooks behind the bar. They don’t need the 5 star reviews, although they would be nice, they don’t need the expensive marketing campaign and a squeaky clean, amazingly designed website. In fact I’d be surprised if some places like this had one. Things like that are the epitome of an afterthought to places like this. They’re betting on getting your ass in a chair at a table with you walking by and having a butchers. Like waving a red cape in front of the bull. And before you know it, you’re hooked.

Even as I write this now, sitting here with an amazing glass of Rioja, I’m watching a tourist tapas bar across the street getting the grease down. Even from 20 meters I can hear the Brits, Russians, French and Germans, even if I couldn’t hear them I can see them as plain as the nose on their face. Nope, I prefer the sanctuary of this local bastion, the simple, but effective approach of marketing involving nothing more than displaying the legs of jamón and the myriad of bottles of the fruits of Andalucía. There’s no buy 2 get one free deal running here. There’s no guy waiting to hand me a towel to dry my hands in the bathroom like in Ferris Bueller. Christ, even if there was I’d like to see how the hell he could fit. It’s more like a bath*closet*. This is as about as far as you can get from the Embassy Suites or the Four Seasons as possible, and I fucking love it.

I’ve been more of a wino the last 5+ years, and if you enjoy “sunlight trapped in water” (thanks Leo) like myself, then you will find even more of a paradise than you could have possibly predicted. One thing I can say for as much as I’ve experienced is that some of the best wine in the world comes from Spain. Spain holds a dead tie with Italy, with (in my opinion) France just beneath at number 2. You can buy a bottle at a local market here for 3€ - 5€ and be blown away. Start with the 3€-5€ options before you graduate to the 10€+ crowd. Pace yourself, slow yourself down and enjoy the ride. Totally worth it.

Practically everything in the Spanish culinary culture is built to be paired with wine, or alcohol in general. The beer scene isn’t lagging at all in Spain, they’ve got the hipster craft beer thing going, but in a less utterly excessive way (like some places on the globe) but each region usually has its own brewery that’s been adding to the siesta experience for decades or longer. C’mon... who the hell doesn’t enjoy an ice cold beer, in the shade on a hot day?! If we’re talking Spanish beer though, the front runner is absolutely Alhambra Cerveza. Like the New York saying goes, about the pizza there and why it’s some of the best in the world, “there’s just somethin’ in tha water”, concerning the dough, the same holds true for Alhambra, the mountain spring water used for the beer makes it incredibly top notch, Tasting is believing, look for the Alhambra Reserva Roja (Red) or Verde (Green).

Each city or region usually has a local after dinner spirit that ranges from 20% - 45% alcohol. Similar to why the Italians have limoncello. And similar to how people (like myself) actually read Playboy for the articles, this after dinner drink isn’t just about nailing a shot, it’s mean to be sipped and actually helps with digestion.

We talked about the alcohol and the food scene, sure, but let’s talk about something else more healthy and sometimes more fun than a glass of wine, green. Cannabis, in case you’ve been living under a rock, or are just someone who’s wound to tight; has been gaining more and more global acceptance. Why? Because governments are actually using science and logic. They’re also realising they can cut off a piece for themselves in an open and regulated market. The best potweedmarijuana in Europe, is not, contrary to popular belief, Netherlands. 40% - 50% of any ganja lit up in the EU comes from Spain. It’s a fact. I have had some amazing strains in Netherlands, but España edges out just past the Dutch. If you wanna smoke in a 100% legal scenario while you’re here, research the Private Clubs. But the same as with alcohol, don’t be a jacksss. Be respectful of others and have your head on straight.

I’ll stay here for 2 more orders of tapas and then walk around to catch some more shots of the city on a Saturday night, but I’m pretty damn content posted up here. There’s a La Liga game live, on the TV over the bar, an ample of supply of everything amazing a person could want in Andalucía (or anywhere) - nothing left, but to enjoy the minutes spinning off the clock. The owners gotten pretty chummy with me. He’s the 3rd generation extension of the establishment. He sees me look over across the street at the touristafied tapas bar and asks me why I chose his place. I tell him, “¿por que no?” He points to a tapas joint two doors down, another one on the boardwalk a block away on the corner and the finally the one across the street and then shrugs as if to say, “I know my turf, caballero.” I tell him in Spanish, simply, “Your place is real Andalucía. It’s real España. You can see the difference, and taste it.”

You might be thinking, “yeaa... but what kind of crowd? Is it a bunch of pensioners? Families? What about the younger crowd? I haven’t got Spain 100% figured out, but one thing I have sorted is that the legit, local spots, got a full mix. Spain gets the community / family thing a little better than most countries. Whether you’re hitting up a tapas bar, going to a local shop, stopping to catch a flamenco street guitarist (support your local street performers!) or strolling around, people are coming together, loving life and sharing it. When you come to Spain, and when you’re doing life here, time slows down in only the most desirable ways.

Which brings me to the one negative that I can mention with absolute certainty; coming to Spain as someone in a relationship with out your significant other is going to not give you the 100% experience. I’m not gonna get all puppy dog, but when you’re in an environment that so clearly embraces life and getting the most out of it, you feel your other half missing. This country and this region make you as romantic as you will feel in New York, Rome or Paris. I’ve never taken the time to rate the most romantic places in the world, but Spain has to be in the top 10. If you’re single and ready to mingle, Spain is definitely going to be happy hunting. I don’t miss being single myself, but sexuality is, and always has been a strong part of Spanish culture. It’s clearly visible here. Macho y Feminina. Spain is a Mecca of passion.

Synopsis: if you haven’t checked your schedule for the next month yet, or gotten on to the internet to start scoping prices for airfare and accommodations, do it ASAP. If you’re thinking about the job market or starting a new company, Spain. Thinking about buying a new property? Spain. An extended leave of absence? Thinking of going Expat? Holiday? Weekend getaway? Spain. It’s as cost effective as it is luxurious, and it’s as enchanting as it is beautiful.

Buy the ticket, take the ride and get lost.

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Important notes:

- Bring your preferred method of credit, but always have a good supply of €. A lot of places here hang a middle finger attitude to the tax / banking system. The fees involved with running electronic payment systems have yet to reach an apex in popularity.

- Some places around the globe, you can live WiFi to WiFi, not Spain. If I could call the odds, I’d say you got a 50/50 when you go out, of catching a signal at a cafe, restaurant or shop. Trust me when I say though, sometimes it’s real nice being off the grid.

- Not all tapas are free. The usual case / scenario is, you buy a drink, they bring you a plate. Tapas is Spain’s way of fighting alcoholism and being hospitable. Food + alcohol = less drunk ass holes staggering around their streets. A real tapas place will be free or really cheap and they will have multiple options made with fresh, local ingredients. Steer clear of the jokers advertising 15€+ for a drink and picking 6 tapas if you can. This 15€+ jazz is the normal style of tapas in Madrid more so, and also often in Barcelona; not in the rest of Spain though.

- Gazpacho is the perfect thing to eat for lunch in Spain. All fresh vegetables, served cold, and engineered to keep you pushing in the hot summer heat. The best time for Gazpacho is May - July as the best vegetables of the year are grown then.

- Learn some Spanish before you go. Don’t show the fuck up in someone else’s country and expect them to speak your language 100%. Don’t be a tourist, be a traveller. Even if you don’t nail the pronunciation, this small little piece of advice is applicable everywhere, globally. The little effort you put in will show the locals you care, and aren’t self absorbed, ignorant, nationalist.

¡Hola! - Hello!

Adios - Goodbye!

Yo quiero - I want

Buenas - Hello! / Goodbye! (Spanish equivalent of Ciao in Italian)

¿Donde esta el baño? - Where is the bathroom?

- Leave room in your bags for all the olive oil, jamón and wine you will be bringing back.

- The drivers are a bit crazy. 50% or more know what they are doing. The other side of the spectrum knows better, but just don’t give a shit.

- Marijuana is legal in certain cities and has been decriminalised in general throughout the country. Like many other parts of the world, governments are embracing the truth about cannabis. The best marijuana in Europe, and definitely some of the best in the world, is in Spain - hash, green or moonrocks.

- Siesta isn’t just something from a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon, it’s for real. 75% of everything closes (roughly) between 15:00 - 17:00. Why? Because it’s the hottest part of the day and people are staying out of the sun and also because they’re preparing for the dinner rush, and taking a break.

- Try not to call someone Spanish. Are they from Spain? Yes, but try to detail it to the province they are from if you can. ie: Cataluñya, Andalucía, Castile. Something small, but they will value it a lot. Don’t be a tourist, be a traveler, someone cultivated trying to absorb the culture, not just take from it.

- Everyone advertises for live Flamenco shows. Research which ones are best. 75% of them are a sham compared to the real thing. The best ones are in Granada, Ronda or Seville.

- You can live off just tapas. 100% life hack certified. If you’re really on a budget or if you just want a lot of variety, find the real and local tapas bars. For 5€-7€ you can have a full, and very often, healthy meal.

-Put The Alhambra / Granada at the top of your list of places to visit, the other top choice is absolutely Barcelona. Don’t make the mistake of trying to cram each city into 3 or 5 days. Take 7 and really soak it in and explore.

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dorukhaber06 · 7 years

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pop's best new hope: Billie Eilish may only be 15 years old.

New Post has been published on http://www.dododailynews.com/billie-eilish-only-years/

pop's best new hope: Billie Eilish may only be 15 years old.

Billie Eilish may only be 15 years old but she’s already a formidable talent (and a real-life pirate but more on that later).

A member of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus she wrote her first song – about falling into a black hole – when she was four. But it was her dance instructor who unlocked her talent for smart dark pop songs when he asked her to submit a song for class. Along with her older brother Finneas Billie came up with Ocean Eyes – an astonishingly assured ballad which compared falling in love to falling off a cliff under “napalm skies”. She posted it on Soundcloud so her teacher could hear it went to bed and woke up to a flurry of emails about her burgeoning music career.

Ocean Eyes has racked up nine million plays since Eilish uploaded it to Soundcould last summer

Since then she’s been on a steep upswing signed by Interscope Records and releasing one head-turning track after another. The highlight (so far) is Bellyache in which she sings from the point of view of a conflicted psychopath. “Where’s my mind?” she trills as an acoustic guitar trades blows with a gut-punch drum loop. “Maybe it’s in the gutter where I left my lover.” It’s the pop equivalent of a Tarantino movie – finding comic absurdity in the midst of eye-popping gore. The lyrics might keep it off the radio but Billie isn’t too worried. “I don’t need many people to care” says the singer. “Even if other people don’t like it I like it.” As she gears up to release her first EP Eilish sat down for a frank chat with the BBC about her lyrical fantasies getting to grips with the music industry and her very unusual middle name.

Hello Billie Eilish… Have I pronounced that right? Yes! It’s eye-lish like eyelash with a lish. Your family name is O’Connell though so is that a stage name? It is my middle name. So I’m Bille Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell. Pirate! That’s an amazing name. Pretty weird right? Pirate was going to be my middle name but then my uncle had a problem with it because pirates are bad. Then Baird is my mother’s name.

The singer co-writes most of her material with her brother Finneas who you may recognise as Alistair from the TV show Glee

It’s been a year since Ocean Eyes went onto Soundcloud. It was written for a dance class right? Oh yeah! My dance teacher knew that I sing so he asked us to make a song and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. My brother had written Ocean Eyes and we recorded it basing all of the production around contemporary and lyrical dance. I think of most songs that way – if you can’t dance to a song it’s not a song. Anyway we put it on Soundcloud literally to send the link to my teacher and then it just grew from there. It’s been played more than nine million times now. When did you notice it was taking off? It was really confusing. I didn’t understand what was going on. I literally thought it was like my popular friend had reposted it. ‘Wow it’s getting so many listens!’

What happened next? A lot of meetings!

“I don’t like it when people know my age” says the singer.

What are those meetings like? Do you go in super-confident like “I’ve got the goods what are you going to offer me?” or is it totally nerve-wracking? I was 13 when this started so I didn’t know anything about anything. I’d go into meetings and they’d say “So Billie what do you think?” and I’d just be like “Am I supposed to know? Because I don’t”. But eventually I got the hang of it. And now the meetings I have are a bit more like “OK Billie what exactly do you want?’ and then I explain every single detail of every single thing that I’m thinking; and people do it! It’s insane. You have stuff floating around in your mind and you tell somebody and they go “Oh yeah we can make that happen”. It’s like “What? WHY?”. So it’s like Spider-Man. With great power comes great responsibility. I am exactly like Spider-Man. I promise. I get the impression from your lyrics especially that you have a very clear idea of the things you want to talk about. How do you approach writing? Lyrics are so important but they’re really underrated. So many lyrics right now are just the same thing – “Oh I love you but I’m sad because you don’t love me and… blah”. You can say that in a more interesting way. Me and my brother write a lot of fiction. Like in Bellyache obviously. I don’t kill people. That’s a relief. Right? But you can put yourself in a character or a situation you would not normally be in. You don’t have to be in love to write a love song. You don’t have to kill somebody to write a song about killing somebody. It’s like jumping into another world.

The singer says she’s been approached to write songs for other people after her own music got noticed

So do you consider it like acting? Or do you really want to murder someone but haven’t got round to it yet? Yikes! Maybe… But both of my parents are actors and I was in plays when I was younger. Then I went to an audition and I came back going “I hate this. I’m not doing this ever again.” What happened at that audition? Some lame stuff dude. But it’s just fun to get to tell a story [in a song]. If you just write about things you’ve been through you might get to a point where you go “I don’t feel like this any more so it’s not worth pursuing”. No. No. It’s especially worth it. What’s the lyric you’re proudest of? Well I wrote Bellyache with my brother and he wrote Ocean Eyes and we have a ton of other songs on the EP that I’m really excited about. Do you find you write better with him than anyone else? We’ve had sessions with artists and writers and producers and not that those sessions were bad but when we write just us together it’s so much more raw I guess. And straight from the heart. Tell me how Bellyache came to be… I wasn’t like “Let’s write a song about killing someone!”. We were sitting in my garage rehearsing for a show with my brother’s friends. Finneas started riffing on the guitar and one of them started playing on the piano and I sang the first line – “Sitting all alone with a mouthful of gum in the driveway”. Then my brother sang “My friends aren’t far in the back of the car” and I was like “Lay their bodies” like I had killed them. And he just said “Woah that’s so cool!”.

The video for Bellyache sees Billie on the run after her crime spree pulling a trolley full of cash

It just grew from there. He came into my room a couple of days later and he was like ‘dude I wrote the chorus for this’. And he sang it all and the last line was “And now I got a bellyache” and I was like “That is genius”. It’s such a childish line. No grown up says “I have a bellyache I gotta go”. But it’s kind of part of the song because it’s about someone whose really young and knows they’re a psychopath. They’re like “Maybe I shouldn’t steal this money and kill these people… but I’m going to anyway”. It’s a very cinematic lyric. You can see the film opening on you in the car then the camera cuts to the bodies in the boot. Some people don’t really realise what I’m saying until they’ve listened to it a couple of times. My friends would be like “Dude I was listening to Bellyache the other day actually listening to it and what the hell were you writing about?”. And then you say “I’m glad you’ve heard it. Now never cross me again”. Exactly. Don’t wrong me. Your new song is called Copycat. What’s that about? You’ll understand when you hear it but it’s about people who feel justified in copying everything you do. It’s not about someone particular I just wrote it. I had two sisters growing up – and that sort of thing seemed to happen quite frequently in their peer groups. Is it a girl thing? It probably is and it’s tortuous. Especially if it’s somebody close to you. It’s like “Be your own self – don’t try to be me!”.

The singer who turned 15 in December is accompanied on the road by her mother

You’ve just played your first headline show in the UK. Do you get nervous? Not really. I don’t get nerves I just get excited. Does your dance training help with confidence and stage presence? Yeah. I mean I was really a dancer. Then I got injured so I haven’t really danced since Ocean Eyes came out. Oh no what happened? I strained my growth plate. My bone separated from my muscle in my hip. It was really bad. It’s so weird because it can’t happen to you if you’re over 16 – but I was in a class with a bunch of seniors because I was at that level. We were doing hip-hop and it just popped. So I haven’t really danced since then which was like a year-and-a-half ago which has been horrible. There is a dance video for Ocean Eyes though so are you on the mend? I was injured for the dance video actually. I had sprained my ankle in Decemberand I had also strained my groin and I have shoulder problems. That’s a sign to concentrate on the music. I guess it is but I’m trying to get back into dance slowly. I love movement. I love moshing. I always heads right for the front and dig in there and mosh really hard with all the guys. None of the girls want to mosh so I’m like the only girl getting punched in the face.

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