Interview with The Bad Lieutenants at O’Brien’s Pub
By Jim Slimedog
The Bad Lieutenants are a bad ass motherfuckin’ band (originally) from the wilds of Connecticut. Do they play punk rock or is it really thrash country or… electronica polka? Who cares? All I know is that they have funny, high energy songs, a great cd and are a blast to see live. They take all the best elements of progressive rock, jazz fusion and indie rock and flush them down the toilet and proceed to rock the fuck out. So cooperate when they pull you over or they’re taking you in.
Slimedog- So what do you think of an interviewer who got very excited yesterday when his boss told him that once he had to see The Spice Girls live?
Brian (Vocals)- Well being guys that have kids we might be a little concerned.
Slimedog- I know, he had to take his niece, and I realize that’s the only way I could go even though I’d be going just for the surreal-ness of it all. I was at the Watertown mall and they were going to have a puppet show and I knew I had to see it but I was the only adult without a kid there, and I think the security guard was watching me. Well, I’d like the whole interview to be about The Spice Girls and puppets shows but how did you get started?
Brian- It goes way, way back. I was living in Connecticut, at the time it was a little narrower scene, there weren’t that many bands. So there was a lot of crossover between punk, metal, hardcore bands and they’d all be thrown on the same bill. One of all the bands favorite bands was The Chinks, probably the greatest hillbilly, swamp, thrash, insane band ever from Connecticut. Everything then was brutal hardcore or 80’s metal but The Chinks stood out because they were exceptionally good as a punk band and they were different because they came from the thrash scene. They did things in odd times, their lyrics were insane. Little Stevie, whose dead now, got out of the joint in ’03 and wrote me a letter that he’s getting The Chinks back together, gonna move to Boston, this is how it’s gonna be. You know we loved this guy but we knew he didn’t have long for this world ‘cause he’s crazy, he was out of his fuckin’ tree. So, it was a question of how long would he live. So we slap a band together, did three rehearsals and went into the studio to record the first seven songs off of “When I Come Around,” (reviewed quite favorably on this site). The bass player left, moved to Texas, Javier came up and played bass, had one rehearsal, recorded the next 8 songs. So, four rehearsals, no live shows and one album done. Then Jerry came on playing bass, Javier moved to guitar.
Jerry (Bass)- So I joined a band I used to see a lot ten years before and it was great to be able to play these songs.
Slimedog- Any recording plans coming up?
Jerry- We got six or seven brand new songs we’re working on.
Brian- It’s a little hard getting together. The drummer lives in New Hampshire, I’m in Boston, Javier’s in three different bands. I’m in a new band, The Manglers, like a Johnny Thunders cover band.
Slimedog– Oooh (he swoons)
Brian- We’re doing all 75-77 punk. Dictators, all that kinda stuff.
Slimedog- Andy loves The Dictators.
Brian- So the thing with the Bad Lieutenant is we’ve had 20 or 30 rehearsals, total number of recorded songs is 30 plus, total number of albums is 3, total number of shows close to forty, fifty. So everything’s out of whack with us, it ain’t right.
Slimedog- How would you describe your style?
Brian- It’s an unfortunate accident. Little Stevie was an inspiration, he was a thrash guitar player, shredder and at some point he picked up a Supersuckers tape. He was thrash because he was from Connecticut. I only lived there three years, but I can tell you, Connecticut is the most metal place I lived in my life. So he sort of picked up country music and if you take a really good thrash guitarist and have him play country it’s gonna turn out something like punk rock. So we’re not a conventional punk band.
Slimedog- I think I called you high energy rock with funny lyrics.
Brian- That’s probably true.
Jerry- We play on punk shows but we’re not punk rockers.
Brain- You look at us and you can tell, (Laughter)
Jerry- But if you look at The Dead Boys, were they a punk band? I don’t know if they were punks themselves but a lot of punks liked them.
Brian- They were more a rock’n’roll band.
Slimedog- They certainly weren’t punk before they got to New York.
Brian- So I guess we’re a loud, thrashy, rock’n’roll band. Is it punk rock? I’d say no. If some punk rockers appreciate us, that’s fuckin’ awesome. The punk rock community’s been great to us and the bands and everyone’s been great.
Slimedog- Who writes in the band?
Brain- Everybody writes, I write the lyrics.
Slimedog- Want to say something about your record company Teenage Hearts?
Brian- Teenage Heart Records is a complete failure in the music business, (Laughter) but then most record labels are. We have no idea what the fuck we’re doing. Anyone wants to send me anything- I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll press 50 of those fuckin’ things; if you sell 50,we’ll press another 50. I mean people say, “Oh, that fuckin’ guy, he didn’t give me a contract. I wanna be signed.” Well, you wanna be signed to a fuckin’ dick, that’s what you want (Laughter) I ain’t gonna sign anything; it’s a handshake fuckin’ deal. We’ll press 50, you sell them for 10 dollars- fine, I don’t need the money. But slabs of plastics are not selling anymore so there’s no function for a record label. So mostly we just promote shows and try to expose bands we like, whether it’s online or whatever.
Jerry- It’s not about money, doing this costs us more money.
Brian- Right, it’s an expensive hobby.
Jerry- Really expensive, just to drive to gigs.
Brian- I should take up fuckin’ golf.
Slimedog- Who drinks the most in the band?
Jerrry- Right there (he points his finger, accusingly) Brian, and Javier next.
Brian- Hi I’m Brian and I’m an alcoholic. (He’s quoting from their very funny song, “AA Meeting.”)
Slimedog- Who’s most likely to become a serial killer?
Jerry- Ed (Drums) get’s a little wound up sometimes when he has those five hour energy drinks, he mixes that with coffee and he gets a little jittery.
Brian- But basically he’s a happy guy. If anyone would be suspected of being a serial killer I would say Javier, he just looks the most intimidating.
Slimedog- Any funny stories from the practice place?
Brian- Buttman #52, always Buttman magazines hangin’ around. The good thing is we don’t get exposed to Buttman too much because we don’t practice too much.
Check out their band profile here and their CD review here.
