Pit Magazine Dale Interview
Interview by James Ballinger refuseinfect@hotmail.com for Pit Magazine
James Ballinger: I had to review a Gwar show last friday....it was horrible. I see why it was horrible for you.
JB: I got cum on my camera....
Dale Crover: I didn't know they were still around. They were nice to us.
JB: I was talking about the fans.
DC: I figured. How was the band?
JB: lame.
DC: Too bad.
JB: IT WAS PACKED, I'm talking like 2000 kids
DC: Wow! In Tampa? That's amazing that they can still draw that much.
JB: They said it was there biggest FL show ever.
DC: Sounds big.
JB: Hostile Ambient Takeover ... tell me the meaning behind the name of the new record.
DC: Kevin came up with the title. I can't remember where he stole it from. Sounds good though. H. A. T. for short.
JB: Every Melvins record is different from the next...how is this one going to be different?
DC: It's better than the rest, and it's the newest.
JB: Haha, you think so?
DC: Maybe.
JB: well then all of us are in for a treat.
DC: It came out good. We haven't recorded anything in over two years, though it looks like we work all the time. We just stack up the releases.
JB: You guys seem to be a very busy band both independently, and as a collective. How do you find time to keep it all together?
DC: None of us work day jobs. We have lots of free time when we're not on tour. We don't sit around. We have lots of songs. We work quickly.
JB: How long did it take you to record the CD?
DC: We spent three weeks. That's a long time for us. I think that's the longest session we've done for one record.
JB: Really? Even Stag? That's cool. Who produced the CD this time?
DC: Nobody. We just used an engineer. He was real good. A Japanese guy named Toshi.
JB: I've heard it was Ann Wilson from Heart...hahahahaha.
DC: It's was Nancy, not Ann.
JB: That's it... But that was a rumor right?
DC: Yeah. Funny though. We were listening to a Heart CD and noticed that they did some real cool recording tricks. Maybe she was there in spirit......
JB: I wonder where people get this stuff.
DC: The Internet of course. It's full of lies.
JB: Mackie is doing the artwork again then?
DC: Mackie did the art. My favorite cover so far. Nice and colorful. Looks like candy. I want to eat it.
JB: Have you seen the inside cover for the new Ween CD? It looks like Mackie's stuff...
DC: Really? I wonder if she knows about it. I've seen other art that looks like hers. Close enough that they had to know her work. We borrow ideas too, so I guess that's okay.
JB: The CD is called white pepper, the inside cover pullout thing is like a big stack of peppers different colors. Very Mackie.
DC: There's lots of books that have art you can use for free. It could be something similar.
JB: What's new with Altamont?
DC: Not too much at the moment. We hope to do a new CD in the summer. We hope to be on some of the Melvins tour in the fall. We'll see what happens.
JB: As far as the Melvins CD on Mans ruin, and the altamont stuff, any plans to get that on a new label?
DC: We hope to get all the Altamont stuff back out there. Our booker has a label called Hall Of Records that Altamont will be on. We hope to re-release Electro Retard at some point.
JB: what about the 10 songs re-release?
DC: We just remastered 10 songs. Now it's 27 songs. It will be out this year on Ipecac.
JB: So same as the G. P. T. CD, with demos?
DC: Demos and the original 7 inch, which is a different recording than what came out on 10 songs. We didn't have the tapes so we had to master 6 songs from my only copy of the first 7".
JB: You are really trying to play 100 dates this year? That seems like a lot...
DC: We want to play everyplace. Every shithole possible. It will be fun. It won't be too hard because the tour is broken into two.
JB: Do you have anyone else playing on the CD?
DC: Adam from Tool did something on a song. Dave Stone did some things too.
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