The Pietasters

Interview with Steve of the Pietasters (in the van) with special appearances by Todd (not in the van).

1996

Steve: Pile on in.

Cool, I never thought I'd be in the Pietasters' van.

Steve: Well, what do you want to know?

How did you guys get started?

Steve: We all are from D.C., we all went to school together at a college called Virginia Tech, common friends we were in a band, we were all punks, skinheads, all kinds of different shit you know, like Ska and punk and everything played a bunch of different stuff and then we just settled in and started playing Ska and it just felt right so about seven years ago this coming Halloween was the first time we played. We've been playing Ska ever since, that's pretty much it, it just started out as a bunch of friends being drunk and having fun and that's the wayit'll always be.

Have you ever urinated on a crowd?

Steve: umm..., Not on the crowd, on other band

members and myself, yes, but not on the crowd because we respect and love our crowd.

Have you ever gotten naked on stage?

Steve: Oh, quite often, yes, we have quite a reputation for getting naked on stage, but that's also because we love everybody so much, we just want to share. Sometimes you can coax the girls into getting naked too so that's a good idea. Like this show we played in D.C...

Where do you play in D.C.?

Steve: Man, we play everywhere, I mean we play so many different places. Like this show in D.C... I got to let them out Todd, tell them to move out, I've got to back up to let them out, then I'll pull up again.

Todd: Yeah, I know (outside in the distance)...

Steve: Well, this particular show was at this place called the Nocturne and the fire department came and shut it down because there were all these naked girls running around there. That was fun, but that was a long time ago. There's this place called the Capitol Ballroom that we play in and the Black Cat club, and where ever really. The BossTones tour is going to put us in at the new Nine Thirty Club and that our home we played the old Nine Thirty Club and pretty much everything. That's where we come from.

Do you like playing New York?

Steve: Yeah, man, Fuck yeah, you saw everybody there tonight, how could we not like that? It was really cool, you know we had some cool opportunities to play cool places like the Roseland with theBossTones and Wetlands and a bunch of different places here so... We always have fun.

How did you make the transition from Slug Tone to Moon?

Steve: Well Slug Tone was just, at the time we,nobody else wanted to listen to us, you know howit is, you're a little band starting out and nobody wants to fucking listen to you and all and so we had a bunch of songs and we put it out on a CD and started our own label and went out on the road and played and played, and played some more, and played some more and finally Moon was like "O.K. they're fucking stupid enough to run around and play so they mine as well wanna put out more records". They were good to us, good guys.

How did you decide to put out that big collector's pack thing?

Steve: Well part of it was my old lady was talking about how when we were young there used to be a band called the Cynics and they put out the same kind of thing and she said that it was a pretty cool kind of deal because we had a lot of stuff that we were working on and it's probably going to be the type of stuff on the new record that comes out but it wasn't quite finished and ready to go out on record but we had some stuff and we knew that there would be people that wanted weird shit so we just put it all together and tried to keep the cost really low. It's limited and it's kinda exclusive for people who really want it. If you don't want it, that's cool, whatever, so, there's some pretty cool songs on there some of the stuff from the first couple of seven inches that are kinda hard to find so if you're really into that kind of thing you can get the stuff.

Did you re-press your old album?

Steve: Yeah, in fact we had some tonight you can write to us a P.O. Box 15624 Alexandria, VA that's Slug Tone records and we've got the first CD there and the Pietasters choice pack and T-Shirts.

If we're going to write to you we need the zip code.

Steve: 22309, sorry. P.O Box 15624 Alexandria, VA 22309 (in a real suave sports caster type voice)

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Steve: Oh man, not tongue twisters, I've been awake since 5:00 this morning. I'm tired we have to drive back to D.C. tonight, so not a whole lot probably. He's kinda tired. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Is it a lot of stress to tour?

Steve: Yeah, but it's fun it's just as much work as any other job. It's not really super easy to do but hey you are fucking singing songs and drinking beer so how bad can it be.

Is all the beer free?

Steve: Not all the time in fact we have to buy our drinks in there (wetlands) so, that sucks.

They're cheap!

Steve: yeah...

What's your favorite type of beer?

Steve: Whatever's free... Free Beer. Ummm... we like Red Stripe, of course, and mostly alot of the macro variety, like Bud, whatever's cheap, we're not rich men. When we do have money for high priced stuff we buy liquor, gin and whiskey and stuff but otherwise the cheap barley keeps us going.

Who wrote "Night Owl"?

Steve: Oh, Fuck, what was their name?... Um, the ad.., no not the ad-libs, some soul girl group from the sixties and actually the version we cover is from '63 or something like that, you know, some Supremes kind of rip off. Then there is this really, really old version from '57, this old blues guy is doing it, it is super slow and really bluesy but some of the lyrics are the same but the melody line is really different. It's one of those old standards. It's just out there.

All right, out of all of you guys who would you say is the biggest stud?

Steve: Todd right there, Mr. Leisure, no him ->(laughing at some guy). Rob is a pretty big stud, that's our drummer. Hey, Todd, come here...Who's the biggest stud out of the band?

Todd: It was Paul 'til he died of a heroin overdose.

Steve: Paul our keyboard player 'til he died of a heroin overdose.

Todd: I guess Al.

Steve: Al's got a small…(LAUGHTER BY ALL) Don't tell him we told you.

Closing statement, seeing as though you guys have to leave real soon.

Steve: Thanks for listening to me babble I'm sorry the rest of the guys can't be here, it's kinda hectic we have to drive back to D.C. so I'm not looking forward to that. Those are our final words.

Words of advice to anyone?

Steve: Don't fucking give a shit about what anyone else says and drink some more beer. Have a drink, GET YOUR DRINK GOING! Todd, Get your drink on! We gotta get some champagne on the way out of town.

Todd: Fuck Yeah.