Interview: Mindless Self Indulgence, November 2nd 2007, Vienna Austria

I had a chance to do an interview with the band that was supporting My Chemical Romance on their short European tour this fall (and did a really good job of that by the way!), Mindless Self Indulgence, at their stop in Vienna. It turned out to be loads of fun, they are a really amazing bunch of people!

As we arrived at Stadthalle at 3 pm on the day of the gig, I decided to go see about the interview right away just in case. After a bit of trouble of finding the right entrance and a bit of waiting it was all set for the interview right then and there already. We (I had a friend with me) got led into this small room where the band (except for Lyn-Z – she joined in a bit later) was already sitting. I got offered a chair to sit right opposite to Jimmy and as I was taking out the questions and my voice recorder Jimmy immediately notices it has a little extra microphone attached to it that he has to test! This was definitely going to be fun! Here is what happened next...

Romana: Ok.. so I found this written in one of the articles about you where you were called: ´Shocking rockers of this generation´.
Everyone goes silent for a moment.
Jimmy: Really?
Romana: Well I was just gonna ask you if that’s like the right thing for you, or you don’t really care what you are called.
Jimmy: I don’t know if that’s like totally correct. I mean we don’t necessarily…
Steve: We don’t go out of our way to shock anybody, or to get a title. I don’t think that’s necessarily accurate.
Jimmy: I mean it’s not surprising!
Steve: If it is, it’s unintentional. I don’t like bands that are intentionally shocking; I think that’s pretentious.
Romana: You are just being yourselves and...
Steve: If someone doesn’t like us they don’t like us.
Kitty: Poor impulse control.
Jimmy: Yeah!

Romana: Ok, I’m not gonna ask Jimmy about music cause I’ve read you (I look at Jimmy) don’t like to talk about it...
Everyone: Oooh yeah!
Jimmy: Alright! So far so grantastic!

Romana: But can I ask you two (Kitty and Steve) if you have like any bands that are like inspiration to you? Or are you also more into movies and stuff?
Kitty: Well I think it’s more interesting that we have such varied tastes. I think it’s interesting that the music that we do like it’s like there is lots of like crossover between the four of us but each one of us definitely has something that they are very into that the others aren’t necessarily.
Steve: Yeah. It’s not like that he doesn’t like music so much, it’s just that he doesn’t want to talk about it… He likes music.
Jimmy: Just that it’s work, that’s the main thing, it’s work!
Steve: Also when you put something on it’s either like: I wish I would have done that, or what can I do to steal that and not make it obvious or that’s horrible, I can do better than that, why is that even on the radio… You can’t listen to it in the same way.
Jimmy: That’s why I like other people playing music.
Steve: That’s why I like older stuff. Cause it’s done. It’s done already. They’re dead.
Jimmy: Like Mozart.
Steve: Like Mozart. He’s alive, you know. He works at a pizza place.

Romana: Would you ever do a soundtrack for a movie?
Jimmy: Yeah! That seems kinda high class. I’d love to do that!
Romana: Any special movie that has been done already and you would like to…
Steve: I would like to redo Star Wars, relax it a little. It needs some jungle beats.
Jimmy: Any John Carpenter movie really.

Romana: You have just released a DVD, but only in US so far…
Jimmy: It’s gonna come out here in January. And the record is released on November 5th.
Romana: Anything you want to like especially recommend of the DVD for the European people?
Steve: They should look at the special features, the American audience waiting to come in. Yeah, that’s fun, the Americans, they’re a little (makes a movement with his hands as to say ´nuts´)
Jimmy: And with the European release of ‘You’re rebel to anything´, there’s gonna be different outlook and some extra tracks… So like if you bought the original one there will be more of other stuff…
Steve: Or if you didn’t there is a good reason to get it..

Then Lyn-Z joins us.

Steve (to Lyn-Z): Hey ghost! When did you join?
Lyn-Z: I’m a hologram.
Romana: Hey! You can answer some questions too.
Steve: She’s programmed.
Romana: You’ve been around for like 10 years already, you have released a lot of stuff and even some unreleased stuff is on some discography list that I have found…
Jimmy: On eBay?
Romana: No, on a list on some website.
Jimmy: Oh.
Romana: Some singles and some unreleased stuff like ´Pink´, is that gonna be released somewhere?
Jimmy: I don’t know. Right now I’m making some money selling it on eBay.
*Everyone laughs*
Romana: That’s a good point. You played this one song ´Mastermind´…
Jimmy: That’s on the new, new record, new American record. Not on ´You’ll rebel to anything´ but the one that we are finishing right now.
Romana: You’re recording this after you finish this tour?
Jimmy: No, we’ve recorded it already, we’re kinda mixing it and then it needs to be mastered…
Romana: So, the album should actually be out quite soon then?
Jimmy: Yeah early next year, we still haven’t decided about that yet. February, March, something like that in America and right after that here for you guys.

Romana: That’s great! Ok, I have also watched some of your live performances and you seem like really fearless on stage, doing lots of crazy stuff. What about like in your real life, are you afraid of something?
Jimmy (points to Lyn-Z): She does backbends all the time!
Lyn-Z: Yeah, you just missed it. (laughter again)
Steve: Are we afraid of things?
Jimmy: Yeah man.
Steve: God, yeah!
Romana: Not like I don’t mean spiders or anything like that (a/n: lol, obviously!) (laughter again). Like I don’t know, getting old, or stuff like that...
Steve: Getting old? No!
Kitty: I would say that something happens when you go on stage though, with all those people and you’re really excited when you play music, the adrenaline kicks in…
Romana: It’s a different state of mind?
Kitty: Yeah!
Steve: You don’t notice until after, like last night I didn’t notice it until that chunk of mail came up on stage. That actually stopped me for a second.

Then Steve starts showing me his injuries from the night before: getting hit on the eye…
Steve: And here is the famous one (shows a big scar on his hip), a new hip.
Romana: Oh my God...
Steve: You want to see the insides? It´s on zips.
Romana: That’s horrible.
Kitty (laughs): Spoken truthfully!
Romana: Well, as long as you are having fun on stage…
Steve: Nah...

Romana: I have this one question... I don’t know if I should ask you...
Steve: No, no, go ahead, try it!
Jimmy: You’ve earned it!
Romana: Ok... erm, in one of the interviews you (I point at Jimmy) said, that you miss the days when people were still throwing bottles at you. Is that really not happening anymore… or did it ever really much?
Steve: Nowadays in venues they don’t allow bottles...
Jimmy: No, it used to happen...
Romana: I mean getting stuff thrown at you that could really hurt you…
Steve: It’s not that we would specifically want people throwing bottles at us, it’s kinda missing the days when we were struggling a little bit more... We’re working really well on that... like if people are hating us, that’s when we really thrive.
Kitty: And shine.
*More laughter.*
Steve: So… There was a big adjustment to when people started liking us and we had to sort of interact with them...
Romana: You’ve been like an underground band for quite a long time…
Steve: Yeah, we’ve got plenty of dirt under our fingernails!
Romana: Then you became quite big stars pretty much over night.
Steve: Yeah! We’re huge stars! (laughs again)

Romana: Do you ever think about what you want to do in the future? If you ever stop touring, if you ever stop being a band, like in 10, 15, 20 years?
Steve: Hopefully we can live off of whatever we make. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Jimmy: We should start thinking about that soon.
Steve: Thanks for ruining it all for us!
Kitty: I’m still planning for the reunion tour.
Steve: We should just break up now and do a reunion tour next year!
Romana: Yeah, that works for lots of bands lately. Or you could just be like The Rolling Stones and go on forever!
Kitty: Yeah, keep saying we’re gonna retire but never really do it.
Jimmy: Yeah, if we had a couple of hits!
Steve: Yeah, if we had ´Satisfaction´ under our belts…

Romana: Hm, ok.. I noticed you are like really connected to your fans, even now that you are quite a big band you still always take time to come out after the shows, reply to emails, even! How do you manage that?
Steve: Emails not so much, cause I’m just bad at that. I don’t know how we manage that. It’s odd really if you don’t. That’s the thing that we’ve always done, from the time when we were first on tour in 1999 and people actually wanted to meet us. Like, we didn’t know any better at first, we just went backstage after the show and then the tour manager came in and said: ´People want to meet you.´ and we were like: ´They do?!´. And that was it; I mean from then on that’s all we did. It’s kind of a part of the whole experience.
Romana: I think that’s really great. I mean lots of big bands don’t do it anymore, or can’t really do it anymore, it’s not safe anymore…
Steve: We’re in a spot where we can do it. People say they are not friendly, but they can’t! it’s not possible anymore.
Kitty: I think it’s especially fun when we go to countries we’ve never been to before and meet the kids who are there. Cause when you travel you really don’t know the kids who live there. I really like to have the full understanding. It’s sort of what it’s all about, you know. And sometimes it’s fun you know to talk to kids after the show like: Oh we’re into this, we’re into that…
Steve: And talk on the phone to their parents and get them in trouble…

Romana: You are currently on your European tour, some solo some supporting My Chemical Romance, some with some other bands…
Kitty: No all of this was headlining except with My Chem.
Romana: Oh ok, others were support bands then.
Kitty: Yeah. We had Scanners in UK, they were pretty good…
Steve: And last night we had The Chicken in Croatia…
Jimmy: And now My Chem..
Kitty: Yeah, and we are pretty much supporting My Chem for the rest of the tour.
Steve: Except for one at the end that we do it ourselves.

Romana: How was playing in Slovakia? It was a festival (a/n Rockova Jesen Festival just few days before).
Kitty: Bratislava?
Jimmy: That was the first My Chem gig, that was good! Those kids are crazy.
Romana: You got a lot of your own fans there as well?
Jimmy: Oh, yeah.
Steve: ´Bring me Lindzy´ (he tries to copy the fans)
*Everyone laughs again.*
Steve: ´Pliiz! Bring me Lindzy, pliiiiiiz!´ We were out signing and it was like that all the time! ´Pliiiiz!´
Jimmy: I get off the bus and I expect there is nothing there…
Steve: We were surprised that they even knew our names! ´Jimmie!´
Steve: Last night was weirder though. (a/n in Zagreb)
Jimmy: They knew the words!
Steve: They knew.. what the hell?! Yeah! I mean how..?!
Kitty: Internet, I’m telling you.
Kitty: It’s working for us.
Steve: But there’s like a gazillion things on MySpace, why us? Oh I know why. We’re fucking great.
Kitty can´t stop laughing.
Romana: So.. even My Chem fans love you on stage?
Everyone: Yeeah…
Romana: I mean are they shocked or are they used to it by now?
Steve: When we played Projekt Revolution tour this summer with them, I noticed that if any two bands had crossover fans really, it was those two bands, us and My Chemical Romance. I mean obviously there’s gonna be people who don’t like us…
Jimmy: Like with everybody.
Steve: But there are a lot of people who do like both bands. And I’m not really that surprised.
Romana: Yeah, but on first sight you seem like completely different.
Jimmy: But we are actually very similar, we’re all entertainers.
Steve: We’re a lot a like, they put on a great show, they are all great individuals, with great personalities, we like the same things when we’re not on stage. We’re not that different as people.
Romana: So it works.
Steve: I think it works. Kids like to get a show and they put on a great show, too. I say too, because we put on a great show as well.
Kitty: Yeah, we’re talking about us.
Romana: Yeah, this interview is about you.
Jimmy: Yeah! Man, she’s… That’s it, you’re not leaving this place!

Everyone laughs again and Kitty says something about a good interviews being rare.

Jimmy: You don’t understand, that’s like a common law husband who beats you every night, right, throws stuff at you and then there is also this really nice guy on the street that brigs you flowers… that’s you!
Romana: Really? Aw. Well we can do this again in Brussels, hehe.
Kitty: Great!
Jimmy: We’ve been abused by interviewers…
Romana: I can imagine…
Jimmy: So we started abusing them… I mean if they start asking us retarded questions, we give them retarded answers. And then they get ashamed.
Romana: Well that’s a really good strategy!
Jimmy: That’s just how it is.
Steve: That’s how it should be in the real world.
Jimmy: Yeah, like don’t fuck with us, you know?

Romana (I finally have a question for Lyn-Z, she’s been pretty quiet all through the interview): I’ve read somewhere that you love going to Europe cause you love how the names sound in other languages or different accents of English… So what country do you…
Lyn-Z: Scotland! It’s my favourite, yeah!
Romana: Is there any country that you are not going to right now, but you’d really like to go to?
Steve: Everywhere!
Kitty: Anywhere!

Romana: Ok, I actually have just one last question: Do you remember your very first show? Where it was, when and what was that like?
Steve and Kitty smile: Yeah!
Steve (to Lyn-Z): You want to take this one?
Lyn-Z: My first show was different cause I joined the band two years after and we played at some crazy fetish ball and you (Jimmy) were wearing pyjamas and you (Steve) were wearing a gorilla suit…
Steve: With no head…
Lyn-Z:… and I was scared shitless and the curtain came up…
Steve: You peed a little..
Lyn-Z: I peed a little.
Steve: And that was it.
Jimmy: I liked that show, that was good.
Romana: Well I just want to thank you for this interview…
Jimmy & Kitty: Thank you!
Romana: If you have any final message for the readers of The Bullet Reviews?
Jimmy: Hm, I guess no, we’ve pretty much said it all, we talked about the DVD and the record…
Kitty: We’re gonna be touring a lot…
Jimmy: Next year we’re gonna do Australia, February… and try to do Japan… and we’re probably going to come back over here for some festivals like March-ish.
Romana: Hope to catch you somewhere again soon then. Have a great show and thank you again!
Everyone: Thank you!

I shake hands with everyone and we get escorted out of backstage area. Just as we walk out of the room we see Steve talking to Gerard Way a bit further down in the hallway and he waves us goodbye, too. What a nice and fun bunch! Huge thank you again to the band and the management for making this possible.

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Romana