Interview: Jon & Troy – Qrt's Garage netzine

The last time Chokebore played in town we never got around to talk to them, so this time join us with singer Troy and guitar player John and hear about a band that not only kicks ass but also get their asses kicked...

Qrt's Garage: "Anything Near Water" - that's your debut?

Troy: No, it's actually our second album - our debut album was "Motionless", on Amphetamine Reptile also.

QG: So you come from Honolulu originally?

Troy: Yeah, Honolulu, Hawaii. Three or four years back, and we sort of had to get away, and try and play more shows elsewhere, you know, on the mainland of America, so we flew away from Hawaii, landed and started playing.

QG: Were are you located now?

Troy: We live in Los Angeles whenever we are back, but we are usually on tour.

QG: So you played here only a couple of months ago?

John: In September.

QG: Do you remember the show?

Troy: Yeah. I had fun that night.

QG: You said some things - I couldn't really work out whether you were sarcastic or what - something like how great it was to be on tour [which is reasonable enough, but it was more the way he said it.]

Troy: Oh, I was probably being serious. It's usually a fun time. And we really like to be on tours.

QG: So how about that thing you sometime says - that you are so happy that the audience can kick you if they feel like it?

Troy: Well, I guess they could. It would hurt - but they could.

QG: Anyone ever done it?

Troy: Yeah - they kicked my ass, in Sacramento.

QG: And you was still happy?

John: That wasn't the audience, that was the promoter.

Troy: That was the security guard.

John: Oh but in Hamburg they beat us - they tried to beat us up -

Troy: Oh yeah, in Hamburg, there was a big riot -

John: - they threw bottles on us and spit on us, but we ran away. They didn't get close enough to punch us or anything.

QG: But you still say that thing?

Troy: No, that was probably just that night.

QG: You said it here, and I read you said it somewhere else [in a Melody Maker live review from some festival, I think] so I thought it was your regular stage act or something.

Troy: No.

John: Sometimes he'll say the same thing for a week or something, and then he'll get in a different mood and say something else. He probably just felt so happy he wanted to be kicked that week.

Troy: Yeah, that was a good week.

QG: You're probably one of the most poppy bands on AmRep or what?

Troy: We're probably one of the most melodic bands on AmRep for sure. I mean, all we can do is what we're doing, you know.

John: And we get along with the label, and they like us, and we like them. Sometimes people like that you're more melodic, sometimes they wish you were tougher or something. But I mean, there's some really different types of bands on the label, like Supernova's totally really melodic punky pop stuff, so there's a lot of different type of stuff.

Troy: It's getting -

John: - much more diverse.

QG: But your record, it's not like it's a straight pop album -

John: Oh, hopefully not.

Troy: Definetely. We don't even think of it as pop. We just try and write good music. We don't think - pop, rock, any of that stuff. If it's good quality music, we like it.

QG: What do you think of that west coast punk rock thing that has now exploded on MTV and everything?

Troy: I don't even think of it.

John: We don't really have any connection to it, other than we live in the same part of the country, but other than that, it's a pretty different scene from -

Troy: - what we're doing. [I love it when they do that hewie, louie & dewie thing]

John: - and what we do in LA. If we were in LA, we basically would just write music and hang out with our friends. [This is getting a bit boring, so we change to another one of those classic rock interview cliches -]

QG: So are you gonna do some new recordings when you get back?

John: Actually, we're in the middle of a record right now. We have one more show tomorrow. We're recording in France while we're over here. We already recorded the music, and we have two more shows, and then we're taking a break before we start touring here in the summer again, and during that time we're gonna go back to France and mix down the record, and mail everything back to the States, and it should come out in September or October.

QG: Does it have a name?

John: Tennative title, right now we're most likely to call it "The taste for bitters" [or betters? I don't know!] But it's all open to change until we mail everything away.

QG: Who's gonna produce it? Yourself or what?

Troy: Yes, and we're working with a guy called Mike.

John: Mike?!? Oh...