KING KHAN
Lets start from the beginning, was the Spaceshits your first band?
My first band was called the Maury Povitch 3 with Skid Marks and Tonguesfrom the Spaceshits. We played Black Flag styled punk music. To be honest wewere kinda artsy fartsy too until garage punk took over our lives.
How did the Spaceshits get started?
I was the first drummer of the Spaceshits but due to my lack of ability andstamina I was reduced to being the bass guitarist. I replaced the originalbass player after he lost his mind to LSD AND THE WRONG PRESCRIPTION CONTACTLENSES. Please note that the combination of those two things causes a triplelayered reality to appear and schziofrenia to take over. Skid Marks and iknew eachother in kindergarten and he was my best friend. We used to playHe-Man together and talk about how cool calculator watches looked. Then hemoved away downtown and i didnt see him for over 10 years. We wound upbumping into eachother in college and decided to start a band. We shared thesame love for punk rock, girls and psychedelic drugs and to this day he isone of the greatest musicians I know. BBQ played in a notorious punk bandfrom montreal called PowerSquat and their shows were legendary for beingsome of the most violent shows in montreal, until the spaceshits came alongofcourse. So Mark wanted to sing for the spaceshits and the rest washistory. We toured the world together, spent our early delinquent yearstogether. Oily Chi married my sister and the family grows till this days as I used to always say the spaceshits never die we multiply!!!!
Mark told me you guys used to live in a house together..
We lived in several strange places together BBQ was homeless for a whileso he moved into my hallway, he used a jagermeister flag for a door and hada bed, a couch and a ghetto blaster. The Spaceshits all moved into a housein Vancouver where we all lived for a few months. We had no furniture, weused my bass guitar case for a coffee table and had sleeping bags ascouches. We would take acid and i would make a shadow puppet show for us alland we would laugh for hours. We adopted a small cat who kept coming overcuz we kept feeding it and we called it Dandero, Capt. Fantasic the catwound up giving us all scabes, and then we fried it and ate it, that wasquite disgusting. We once took robitussin DM, a pschedelic cough syrup, andwere tripping with the deadly snakes and we wanted to go outside for a walk.Mark wanted to stay in the basement so we left. When we came back we heardmark asking for help, we went downstairs and he wasnt able to walk up thestairs alone, he was tripping so hard he kept forgetting which direction hewas going he was stuck in the basement for an hour.
How did you come up with the king khan idea?
When I came to europe in 1999 with the Spaceshits I did not want to go backhome. I wanted to start a new life in this new undiscovered land. We hadalready conquered America and travelling with music was all i ever wantedto do. My biggest dream was to do a soul band like Otis Redding and JamesBrown, but way more like a psyched out freak show. My friend Jasper gave mea german war helmet made of latex and i would walk around germany all thetime witht that thing on my head. All the bums and street trash in Hamburgwere calling me kaiser so i figured i should be King Khan. With theSpaceshits we listened to lots of R&B and soul and in the back of my mind Iknew that the world needs that so badly. The deadly Snakes started doing itbut then they went more singer songwriter style and I wanted to go more BADASS Style. When i moved to germany that summer i also discovered Sun Ra andthe Art Ensemble of Chicago, two of my biggest influences for starting theShrines. I wanted to assemble the band beatnik style and not just find analready existing band and take over. So all the folks in the shrines werehand picked and polished by evil.
..and how did you find the members of the shrines from so many places inEurope?
Well I suppose you can call it destiny or maybe even just plain BAD LUCK. Ifound the funniest crazy freaked out motherfuckers put em in a band and thenall this strange magic shit started happening I would love to just callit the magic band but beefheart stole that already. I saw fredovitch playingorgan in a gogo dress one week before recording our first album in toe ragstudios and he learned all the songs in a week. John Boy Adonis didnt playdrums for five years and then i made him come to the practice room and jamwith me. I wrote my number on a piece of toilet paper and gave it to RonStreeter and told him Dont wipe yer ass with it he called me later andjoined the band. Speedfinger my guitarist owns a bar which has been givingme free drinks since 1999. My horn section were sonic youth fans whose liveswere saved by rock n roll. Multi-instrumentalist Curly Sam and Ben Radropped out of gynacology school to join this band. BBJ my bass player is atruck drivin gypsy anarchofreak with a huge red van that we call BIG RED. Itis our caravan of carnage also known as DeathMobile. In stockholm we fit 31people in the van after the show and had a nice beach party at the break ofdawn. The shrines at this moment have people from 5 different countries(Canada, Germany, France, America, and a new Brazilian member too!!!!)
How hard is it to get the songs as great as they are? Do you have aspecial formula for writing a soul song?
The formula is like this .H2O + LSD = PCPDont stare at that equation too long, it will give you brain bumps, or brainacne like it is called in my medical book.
Nobody else is playing soul/rn’b like yours anymore - do you feel aloneor is it good for you?
I only feel alone when I shower. I think that the world is dying for thismusic. But at the same time as soon as music gets too big it starts to suck.My music is to be enjoyed in small clubs where people can jump on stage andshow their best body parts. Make out music for make out people fuck therest. I chose to play this music because i wanna grow old with it as muchas i love punk rock it doesnt age well. R&B is like fine wine, the older youget the nastier you get, the dirtier your thoughts get, the more scars youget on your body, heart and penis.
Who are your biggest influences?Jean Claude Van Damme, Sun Ra, George Bush and the Misfits.
Tell us about a King Khan gig.. for those who havent seen you live Imean..
I dress up like a crackhead, put a huge donkey head on my head, dance aroundlike your father drunk on Christmas and all of this to the sounds of sweetpsychedelic soul music. Kinda like a Japanese animation monster tearing ayoung school girl into small heart shaped pieces yeah, whatever thatsounds like.
Tell me about the Kukamongas?
The kukamongas were a tribe, then they got old and died, oh yeah they playeda bunch of music and made some records too.Can you feel the bitterness? We started out as a young gang of nogoodniks,then we branched out into an international collective of scum and now we areback to being broke motherfuckers again shit I gotta get a job.
As King Khan you also play with BBQ - how did that come about?
BBQ and I have known eachother for over thirty years, even before we wereborn. I think the stuff we have done together is some of the best shiteither one of us has done in a long time. It comes straight from theblood kukamonga blood!!!!We just started jamming together when he would come visit me and peoplestarted dropping their pants for us everywhere Our record really toreAmerica a new asshole, King Louie told me that he played it for his motherand she thought it was from Louisiana!!!! And shes a real Cajun woman!!!
Thats also some of the most danceable music around, as was theSpaceshits - is that important to you?
I guess dancing was always the way i fell in love, so if something thatstrong can come from grinding your hump and doing the hunch then it must bemore than just a mating ritual. What started out as music to stealgirlfriends with evolved into something deeper and deeper and YAWWWWWN!!!!!I like to move it move it!!!
Describe the KK/BBQ SHOW..
We try and make the music of ten men with only two. A Death Punk Doo Wop PooPoo Platter.
What was the idea behind the SHOW?
That white bread and mayonnaise is a healthy alternative to weight loss.
Youre playing a lot with either the Shrines and BBQ - how much are youtouring?
16 tons of touring last year we hit the states twice, Brazil and europa.In a few weeks i will go on tour with BBQ and the detroit cobras in thestates for two months. I believe we will be coming to scandinavia in March.
The Black Lips also call you a member.. How come? And how did you meet?
When I heard their first single, I flipped out!!! “Stone Cold” is quite a ballbuster. When I met them it was their first show in europe, they playedtwenty minutes, I shot birthday cake all over them and there were about 50bottles smashed. I suddenly found myself believing in the rebirth of thedevil. Then we went on tour in the states together with the kkbbq show. Thatwas when the death cult was born, the day after my birthday. We were in neworleans (pre-Katrina) and i painted all our faces with fake blood, and wewent and brought a kilo of boiled shrimp each, we ate 6 kilos of shrimp alltogether.When a young black girl at the seafood shop asked me why we had those redmarks on her head i told her we were a death cult. She didnt even flinch shewas like Okay, thatll be 5 dollars. I guess that is a real common thingin New Orleans Anyways for the rest of the tour we planned our cult,rituals on how to control minds, influence people, make psychedlic moves We would paint our faces before entering the club, and not make eye contactwith people and then play the show completely painted white Peoplefreaked out, lots of southern redneck types were very uncomfortable watchingan indian guy and a bunch of young bandits running around with blood allover their faces and white paint. It was a little bit like the movie I SPITON YOUR GRAVE. Definately one of the greatest tours in my life. We exploredthe mississippi delta together and tried to find the devil with tarot cards.Last summer they came to visit me in berlin for a few weeks, they werentcompletely satisfied with their studio session in LA for the let it bloomrecord so i offered to produce some recordings in my living room and we usedall these baby toys and recorded about 12 songs, they did two of my songsalso and we even wrote a lullaby together called Lion with Wings which willbe exclusively on the best of moon studios record. I think there are foursongs on let it bloom from my house and the rest of the recordings i didwill come out on the Last of the White Niggers album which will come outsoon on in the red. Somoeone in Stockholm thought that i was dating one oftheir mothers I dunno how that rumor started but i think it might bebecause cole is sometimes my son and sometimes my father or maybe cuz I dowrite letters to his mom on a regular basis but not in a lovey dovey waymore of a hey mama kinda way. All in all the black lips are the flesh of myflesh and I hope they dominate the world soon so i can live in a treehousein atlanta for the rest of my life.What about the Death Cult? Who are the members?The members now are the black lips, BBQ (who is also the treasurer) and I,the shrines, the Spits, the gris gris, demons claws, bloodshot bill, OsVendidos (from Brazil), Jay Reatard and Alix and my wife and children. Ijust made a soundtrack for a german film called BlackSheep and thesoundtrack has all the death cult bands in it the film is quite amazingtoo, you can see the trailer at www.blacksheepfilm.com
How was it hanging out with Lemmy in the studio?
Lemmy said i looked like little richard, who also happened to be hisfavorite R&B singer. I gave him a nazi butter knife and that made him veryhappy, then I TRIED TO SHOW HIM A GUITAR WOLF show that i video taped thenight before but the sound was too much for him ha ha we had nice talksmostly about pornos and jimi hendrix. He used to buy jimi all his drugs!!!!There was some TV crew there and i was trying to get in as many shots withlemmy as i could, so i would sit next to him when he was listening to thetracks and pretend to dig what was going on. It was really funny, and to behonest the song was quite horrible, it was for the sponge bob moviesoundtrack.
What other new projects do you have?
I have been recording with my 6 year old daughter Saba Lou and should have arecord coming out in the next year. She writes really great songs somethinglike a mix between Nico, the Shaggs and the brentwoods. Die Slaughterhaus isreleasing the first of the BEST OF MOON STUDIOS VOL.1 which is a collectionof stuff i produced with my family and friends at our home studio. I thinkit should be out this year. Larry from in the red wants to do a box set ofmy moon studio recordings but that will take atleast a year or two to getready
What are the upcoming plans for the Shrines and the Show?
WORLD DOMINATION, complete and total mental collapse, mind numbing tranceinducing sounds that gives young lovers chronic diarreaha Shrines newalbum should be ready for next spring and the new King Khan & BBQ Show is out now on In The Red Records!!!!