Jyrki Finnish TV Buzz interview

The interwiew comes from a finnish youth-tv-show called "Jyrki". The program doesn't exist anymore. They did some interviewing with other bands too, but with Fantomas they talked to Buzz Osborne. The guy who was asking questions from Buzz was terrible, he was speaking english worse than I do, and I really think he didn't understand everything Buzz said. Ofcourse this is a tv-interview so you got to picture the freaky looking Osborne who seemed to be a bit tired to answer to those questions. Also my opinion is that he wasn't very serious at all.

The place where they played and the interwiew was done is Ilosaarirock in Joensuu, Finland. On July 13th, 2000 if I remember correctly.

First intro-texts (short clip of Fantomas playing their opening song, which was that new cool sounding that I don't know what it is): Ilosaarirock's definitely most unique performance could be seen on saturday when on stage came ex-Faith no more Mike Patton's band Fantomas. The band has been said to be a super group -because with Patton there's Dave Lombardo, Buzz Osborne and Trevor Dunn- they all belong to the best musicians in the world, when playing their own instruments.

Q: I heard one rumor that first time you performed as a band you had the name spelled out Phantomas not with an F, just PH?

Buzz: I don't know, hard to say, could be ... What difference does it make?

Q: Really, 'cause I heard a story that some guy, name Mike Bordin from Faith no more had went to psychic who had said that PH is for bad luck and then you turned it to F?

Buzz: Sure, yes, sounds good...

Q: Are you guys superstitious?

Buzz: Oh absolutely, I hate everything. Superstitious is pretty much about everything in life, Mike Bordin I've never met him personally, but I know he's pretty weird dude, and he's got a lot of strange theories of things, this and that. Mike's confided to me on many occasions that Mike's kinda like his guru ... Do you know what guru is?

Q: Yeah.

Buzz: Sort of person that he takes all his spiritual guidance from. Mike Bordin or Puffy as he likes to be known is a very high-minded individual. And he sets his sights very high. Mike only wishes he could be that sort of lofty nature, and so he thrives sort of elegance and importance that Mike Bordin has achieved. And I think he pretty much listens to whatever he says, and basically bases his life and existence on Mike Bordin's .. you know personal experience ... and it's like an open book ... you know ... You go and fall on your knees, do what he says, that's pretty much how it works.

Q: So you changed your name?

Buzz: Me??

Q: No, the band.

Buzz: I, guess. ...He gets .. a kinda weird with that stuff. It's kinda personal, I don't wanna go there. Sometimes it's like a .. you know .., there's mike and there's MIKE! and you don't want to talk to MIKE!. It's little scary .. you know .. You wanna keep the things on like,

how-is-it-going, and how-was-your-day. And not to talk about these philosophical reasons behind Fantomas, then it gets really spooky and scary. And I don't want to go where MIKE! is. Very dangerous. It's ugly, you don't wanna go inside someone's mind and see what's really there, bad-bad-bad-bad...

Q: I heard that Mike Patton first got the idea to play these kinda songs from comic books?

Buzz: Yeah, well what's a better educational tool than a comic book. It's pretty much all there in black and white, or in color! .. you know.. some of those guys are really great artists and I think it's easy to write about things around .. all sorts of things that are in there. It's great! Mike reads a lot of comics ... I thinks you can tell

Q: Where are his ideas coming from?

Buzz: It's basically like a teenage .. like a political blatter .. teenage bullshit-type a thing, that he has come up to from a lifetime of reading nothing, but comic books. He doesn't go really much farther than that, you know. Sometimes he watches a little TV, like major TV movie type stuff, and gets things from there, 'cause those are always very sick and twisted. It's hard to say, I mean Mike does what Mike does. But other than that, it's a ..... you know .. what I mean. I don't know how much clearer do I have to say it. Isn't it pretty obvious?

Short clip of Fantomas playing one of the pages

Q: what's your music about?

Buzz (starting to speak really fast even before the question is completed): It's about time, it's about mess, it's about space, it's about in you're face.

Q & Buzz laugh a little.

Q: Yeah, but since you got no words, it's hard to say what the songs are about

Buzz: Don't look for meaning from where there is none. You know. It's about this! Whatever Mike want's it to be about .. you know. People hear somebody singing or screaming and they assume it means something, but ... Just because the ear is stupid. ... You know... I don't know...

Q: I've heard you guys play straight from the notes, is this true?

Buzz: Well ... you know. I have a cheat-sheet thing out there, but it's basically for Mike's benefit, 'cause I want Mike to think... you know that he has written something that is so totally complicated that I couldn't possibly do it without notes, but it's actually really easy to do .. juvenile you know. So I just do it that he thinks he's really...

Q: Is he so precise of things that he want's it to be exactly like..

Buzz: (fast answer) He's a crazy bastard there's no doubt about that. Yea .... No, it's complicated music, I mean it shouldn't take too ... It's not too hard to figure out that's it's not run out of mill, you know. It's hard. We have cheat-sheets we do what we have to. Chemical and balance things, you know.

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Thanks to Timo Hankala for transcribing this interview.

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