How come the new record took so long to come out? Have heard rumours for ages..

Because we’re morons. It was recorded inJuly 2001 with Jerry Teel, then we moved to Chicago in August. Once inChicago, we had to finish the artwork for “Greater Than Ever” and finda new drummer (Dapper stayed in Buffalo). Then we spent most of ourtime teaching Billiams (our new drummer) our songs and seeing if anyonewanted to put out “Let It Be”. No one did so Bart from Big Neck pickedit up. We mixed it in July 2002 with Jerry but it came out wierd. Sothen we had to transfer it to 2″ tape because we wanted to remix itaround here and no one has the old thinner tape using eight tracks thatJerry used. The tape transfer came out wrong, so we had to have itredone and decided to do the remixing in town at Volume studios whereHollywood had worked recording with the Tyrades and producing a coupleother things (it’s also where the Dirges recorded).

How have the whole move-to-Chicago thing affected you?

Overall, it’s been positive. We knew thewhole Horizontal Action crew and everyone that had moved there fromNormal, IL (where we’d played before), so that made things a whole loteasier. Losing Dapper sucked bad, but we picked Billiams up when theGuilty Pleasures broke up, so that worked out since we were friendswith the them. We all have OK jobs so we’re not starving like when wefirst moved here and everything seems to be working out fine.

Seems to be a great scene in Chicago - who are your fave bands? It is good here. It could be way betterthough. It’s such a big city that people and different scenes seem tobe divided by where they live in the city. There is usually so muchgoing on that it takes a pretty big show to get someone to venture outof their normal area. We’re all guilty of this but it seems to bechanging slowly. We just played a great show with I Attack who are fromthe southside and they seemed interested in us playing down there toall the Mexican punk and hardcore kids, that would be cool. It’s also alot easier to get bands to town and set up shows than in Buffalo. Thereare a lot of cool bands here too: Headache City, Busy Signals,Functional Blackouts, Ponys, Krunchies, Alex White, Vee Dee, the Worst,MOTO, Manhandlers, Tyrades, I could go all day. Aside from good bands,its pretty easy to get together and play with whoever and record itjust for fun.

Didn’t you go on a tour last fall to support the new album? How was that?

Yeah, we toured the middle and western US inOctober. It went great. We started out playing three shows with DeadMoon and met up with the Mistreaters in Austin for the rest of thetour. Touring is a lot better if your out with people you know so youdon’t have to just hang out with the same three people for weeks at atime. Plus we witnessed a girl in San Francisco piss in her own kitchenall over the floor just for a T-shirt, and Hollywood and Christreatertook over this kid’s basement in Seattle and had their own bar up andrunning, kicking the owner of the house out of his own basement bar.

Have you got any new recording sessions coming up? You seem to be an album-type band.. Where’d you like to record?

Like I said earlier, we will probably recordin the months after we get back from Europe. For some reason, Odiedoesn’t like singles so he is always against them. I’m all for them,but when we record we usually do a whole albums worth plus an extra 3of 4 songs for a single or two. We actually have a single coming out inEurope (hopefully for the tour) on Alien Snatch. It’s 2 originals and aReatards cover (”Quite Alright”-complete with kazoo solo). So that willmake two albums, a 10″, four 7″s, and 2 comp tracks. We really shoulddo more singles because people ask but we never have anything recordedto give because we always use everything we do record. Maybe this timewe’ll do a bunch of songs for singles this next time. We’re looking atElectrical Audio which is Albini’s studio. It’s here in Chicago andrelatively cheap if you don’t pay the extra for Steve. The Ponys justrecorded there and it came out great.

Gonna be fun to see you guys in Europe - you haven’t been over before have you? Do you have any expectations?

I hope Europe is fun as fuck! Don’t have anyexpectations but I’m hoping that people will show up, get loaded andhave fun. Actually, I’m expecting that so don’t show up if you’reboring!! I think we actually have one day off in the 5 weeks we’ll bethere so it will be nice too actually see some things. It’s weird,being on tour, you never really get to see anything beside the club andwhere you stay. Hopefully the drives are shorter in Europe so therewill be time to explore the cities a little. So if any of you want tobe our guides, please let us know.

What’s a typical Furies show look like?

There is no typical Furies show. It dependson how drunk we are and how well each of us is handling it. Well, Iguess drunken would be typical.

Any words of warning to the readers?

No matter what you do, DO NOT fall prey to Backstage Willie. He is a homewrecker and will ruin your day. Mudsharks beware!!!