Dirty Rotten Imbeciles interview from Ink Disease #6, 1984
D.R.I. were interviewed at the Cathey de Grande after their show on Jan 14.
Kurt-Singer
Spike-Guitar
Eric (Kurt's Brother)-Drums
Josh-Bass
ID: You're originally from Texas?
K: Yes, Houston.
ID: How many different band changes have you had?
K: We changed bass players three times.
ID: How come you changed bass players so many times?
K: We just couldn't find somebody who could do what we wanted to do. Which is touring a lot and living out of a van. Then we found someone who wanted to, we just couldn't get along with them for various reasons. Now we seem to have found our final line up.
ID: Are you living in San Francisco?
K: We were living there just to get our shit together as far as a vehicle & new songs. Now we're back on the road we don't plan on living in S.F. any longer. We're going to go to New York & make it our home base for a couple of months and play a lot of shows on the east coast.
ID: Did you always play that fast or...?
K: No, not at all. We started out really slow.
ID: How did you change?
K: We were influenced by fast bands, and went to see bands who were fairly fast and found it was much more fun than playing slow.
ID: Do you usually play about fifty songs?
K: We have forty three songs.
B: We'll write more along the way.
ID: What do you think about the S.F. scene compared to Texas?
K: It's much more healthy. People come from all over the United States to live in Frisco. Lots of places to play. There are lots of good bands from Frisco and the surrounding area. Lots of bands come up from L.A. so there are shows at least three or four times a week.
ID: What bands influence you?
K: Personally (lyrically) T.S.O.L., Black Sabbath. I like Black Flag a lot, Necros, Minor Threat, Red Rockers. Those were some of the first bands I was influenced by or ever heard. That's why they were a major influence.
ID: Do you practice a lot, you seem really tight.
K: We used to but our vat got closed down and we didn't have a place to practice. That's why we left when we did. We were just kind of scattered throughout the city.
ID: How do you make a living just on the band selling shirts and records?
K: Yeah, we are trying to become dependent on the band and independent on our own. We've gotten loans from our parents but nothing we don't pay back.
ID: How old is the average age of the band?
K: About twenty. (Cops finally left)
ID: Not much hassle today.
K: I saw some cops chasing some kids down the street. They hit a few people in the back and stuff.
ID: Were you guys hassled at the vats before you left?
K: The cops used to come around now and then; they were going to close it down and make a parking lot or something but when they got everyone out they decided not to. We got hassled last night in Bakesfield. The first stop on the tour and the cops pulled us over and checked our I.D.'s. If that is any omen, then we better really watch out. Last tour we had minimum problems with the police but we did have a few run ins.
ID: Do you write the songs?
K: I write most of the lyrics. Everybody in the band writes some though. The music is mostly written by the guitar player, and arranged by everyone else. Everyone put in their musical influences to form our own style.
ID: How many songs do you have?
K: Forty three, we play all of our songs. We have a few others that we don't practice anymore that we just kind of blew off.
ID: Do you use the same song list every show?
K: We're gonna be on this tour basically we don't change it around that much. As far as when we played shows in San Francisco once a week we would always change it around.
ID: Do you do anything like videos?
K: We've never really done any videos. Some people have done videos of us but I have never got to see them. It's kind of a drag. We're thinking of getting a video camera someday.
ID: Do you want to tour out of the country?
K: Definitely, that's what we're working on. Going to Europe before nineteen eighty four is up. We're gonna start recording an album in N.Y. and hopefully we're gonna meet the album as it comes out in L.A. Then we'll hang out here till it is released and hopefully distributed. Then we'll take off again, tour Canada and back to N.Y. city, and hopefully to Europe.
ID: When do you want the album out?
K: Out by fall '84.
ID: What label do you want to be on or are you working...
K: Well, so far all of our releases have been on Dirty Rotten Records. Some in collaboration with R Radical Records as far as distributing. The next album might be solely on R Radical if the can get us some recording time. Which hopefully we can do ourselves but if not they offered to try their best to get us some recording time. Eventually we'd like to break off on our own Dirty Rotten Records and have other bands record on our label if they wanted to. Definitely something to look forward to.
ID: When are you going to be on M.T.V., would you like to, or would you like to kill M.T.V.?
K: I would personally love our band to be on M.T.V. If they would let us put the kind of video we wanted on but of course they wouldn't, so fuck 'em.
ID: They have a good Kraut video.
K: Oh yeah, I heard they had D.O.A. and Black Flag on there but I've yet to see; if so it's not something they play all the time. I don't know how they did. We're a long way from trying that all though we do have ideas for some of our songs but they'd have to be real quick little videos.
ID: What's the average length of your songs?
K: Sh... I'd say... The newer songs are a little longer so now if you'd average them out it would be about a minute or a little under. There is about as much lyrics and musical content as most bands' songs, but when you speed them up they end up like that... they just disappear real quickly.
ID: How many people are touring with you?
K: Just us and one roadie. Sometimes we give people rides from town to town. It's much more fun than just having the same old assholes.
ID: You guys are kind of like a family.
K: Yeah, everything is divided up equally.
ID: What's the biggest show you ever played?
K: Perkins Palace, with the most people.
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