Interview with The Tenafly Vipers at the Midway Cafe
By Jim Slimedog
The Tenafly Vipers are a band that mixes metal, hardcore, punk, classic rock until your head spins and it all blends into ROCK with the caps lock on. What follows is another interview in the bowels of the glamorous Midway Café Jamaica Plain, Mass
Johnny Black revs up a belt sander.
Slimedog- What is that? (He says excitedly)
Johnny (Guitar)- It’s a fuckin’ belt sander, dude.
Slimedog- A belt sander! What does a belt sander do? Sands belts?
Johnny- No, it sands shit- whatever you’re sanding it sands it. (he continues to rev the sander maniacally throughout the interview)
Slimedog- You just happened to find that down here, right?
Johhny- Yeah, I don’t know, it was right there.
Slimedog- And you know what it is? (He says in awe)
Johnny- Yeah and I know how to use it. I have these goods and I know how to deliver.
Slimedog- So how did the band get started? (He asks innocently)
Jeff (Vocals/Guitar)- I met Johnny in a back alley in the fens, prostituting for the evening and we jammed together and you know, we made some money and we went on from there. Really, I was starting up the band after the last band I was in and I put out the call and Johnny showed up and we said, “Holy fuck! He’s so hot! We have to have him in the band.” So that was it.
Johnny- What he didn’t tell is we weeded through a lot of people and we ended up with Eliahu on drums and Nate Bisbee on bass.
Slimedog- Weeds in the Fenway you’re referring to?
Johnny- We cut those down. We had to cut all those suckers down.
Eliahu (Drums)- This is the culmination of what’s been coming in the last five years.
Slimedog- Any recording plans coming up?
Jeff- We do, we’ve actually recorded seven new songs and we hope them to be all out soon.
Slimedog- Who writes the songs?
Jeff- Johnny writes most of the songs.
Johnny- I would say Jeff writes most of the songs.
Jeff- I do not. (He says peevishly)
Eliahu- We shotgun beer at the beginning of practice and then we sit down and hold hands and have a group prayer and the songs just kind of show up, magically. And then the drumsticks just leap into my hands!
Slimedog- How about the lyrics?
Jeff- I write most of the lyrics, Johnny writes all the good ones.
Slimedog- How would you describe yourselves with so many different forms of rock influencing you?
Jeff- We’re a rock’n’roll band.
Eliahu- Action Rock!
Johnny- We all come from different places. I’ve played in hardcore bands and Jeff did that, back when and the other guys are big into classic rock and metal and cool shit. And we all kind of play what we would want to listen to and that’s what happens- we don’t sit down and think about it.
Jeff- We’re like rock’n’roll and hardcore coming together, we’re hardcore rock. Our songs are – we have short bursts, just to fuck people up, it’s like we shoot our load very quick.
Eliahu- And then we don’t call.
Jeff- We don’t even text the next day.
Eliahu- We don’t want to go hiking. We don’t want to go to some stupid fuckin’ antiques shit.
Jeff- Exactly.
Eliahu- Fuck that, don’t waste our time.
Slimedog- I gotta ask, how’d you get the name?
Jeff- It’s from a movie called, “Street Trash,” it was a really bad horror/comedy movie from the 1990’s. And Tenafly Viper was a wine that bums drank and exploded.
Eliahu- That movie sucks, it’s hellaciously bad!
Slimedog- Who drinks the most in the band.
Jeff- Eliahu drinks the most, definitely shotguns the fastest. He can literally down a beer in four or three seconds.
Slimedog- Who’s most likely to become a serial killer in the band?
Jeff- Oh, he already is a serial killer. (He says, glaring accusingly at Johnny Black).
Slimedog- You have to say his name. (He says timidly)
Jeff- Johnny Black is a serial killer. (Everybody gasps) Remember the Swedish Nanny? Is it the nanny you dumped in the dumpster?
Johnny- I take the fifth, I don’t know shit.
Jeff- Remember that you dumped half her body in the Fenway (now the previous answers are making sense!) Most of the high profile serial killing that you’ve heard of, it’s probably him.
Slimedog- Any funny antidotes about your practice place? (He asks, nervously, trying to change the subject).
Jeff- We have two pictures, one that says, “Thailand, A Shopper’s Paradise,” that we got from the Bangkok Paradise (club) and then we have another one that is of this lovely bride on her Harley that her husband had framed and then left at the framers. She just left, apparently, she was a runaway bride.
Slimedog- Is their any question that I didn’t ask that you wished I had?
Eliahu- Are we done yet?
Jeff- You didn’t ask Johnny if he can stick one leg out all the way while he is in a standing position and go all the way down to a sitting position and go up again.
Johnny- I can. (He says eagerly).
Jeff- And then ask him to demonstrate that.
Slimedog- Johnny, lets demonstrate that.
Johnny proceeds to do that and I’m glad he was asked to demonstrate that instead of what his “hobby” appears to be- or what the belt sander is really for. Check out Jimmy Thrash’s review of their great cd and check out their powerful live show.
