Excerpt from Mouse Questionnaire
Pepper Carleton:How do you feel about the album as it is recorded so far? Richie;The album itself is a collection of all the things we've been doing up to now; feelingwise, vibewise, what we've been experiencing as a band. It's not a theme album, it's a " this is who we are and this is what we do album". Maybe one day we'll do a theme album. But I don't know, you never know. The album is an introduction to who we are. It's a sample platter. PC: So you guys went on tour. What was your experience on tour? R: Tour was fun. Tour's a funny thing because it's part fun and part endurance challange. The first part is fun, then there'e the midway when you miss showering The best part is you get to interact with people on a much closer level when you're on tour, you essentially know how they tick after a couple of days. You know how they like to sleep, you know their musical taste right off the bat, when everyone is fighting to put music on in the car. You know who snores. You get to see some pretty impressive pajamas from some people. I'm not gonna name names but there were some massively impressive jammies. PC; Let's talk about your hometown, Santa Ana. A; Yeah we're from here and I don't have qualms or any kind of particular reason why I don't feel the way I do about the city I live in. I live in it, like it, but the band itself really doesn't have a kind of connection to it. I never owed anything to the town and the town never owed anything to me. And that's how I felt, and I still feel that way. And it was very refreshing being in the band with Bellhaunts it felt like I wasn't alone in that because it wasn't just me, it was just like, the other members of the band felt that way. R; I thought you were gonna ask me questions about my secret love affair with Olivia Dukakis. PC; Ok, yes I was gonna ask you that, but I thought that was off-limits so I was restraining myself. But since you kinda opened that door....tell me about Olivia Dukakis please! R; Well...it's a secret. But, she's beautiful, she's BEAUTIFUL. We have lots of fun. We go strawberry picking and we read books together. We took a cartography class last week, and we discovered that the world is pretty much mapped out. So we just started mapping over it again PC; Well, there are in theory, some missing continents and I think if anybody could find them it would be you and Olivia. R: ....and Robert Trudot. I'm sure all the young kids know what I'm talking about. PC; She's got good biking thighs. Do you guys go biking? R; All the time! We actually have one of those two-bikes-in-one. PC: Oh! A bicicle built for two? A tandem bike! R; Yeah, and we decorated it with lights so that cars know where we are. I think it's cute as hell. PC; I think it's very much a safety issue to have lights on your bike. R; Bellhaunts DO worry about safety all the time. Particularly moshing. Moshing's fun, but it sucks when.... QC: (interupting)....you have to go to the hospital? R;....microphones get shoved into teeth. QC; So you try to keep your audience at a minimum so that it reduces the chance of predictable moshing? R;Bellhaunts need their personal space. We have a zone. Do not cross it. We'll be highly uncomfortable.