Is it true you had your own brand of coke mirrors?
Gabe: Yeah, for one or two tours. They were actually for whatever you wanted to do with them. They weren't necessarily for coke; you could look up skirts, or... I don't know.
So they had the band's logo on them?
Joey: Yeah, some friends of ours were promoting shit at colleges and they would hand out these little mirrors. They had a few thousand little round stickers and they just popped them on.
You rub a lot of people up the wrong way...
G: There's a new rumour that we made a girl drink piss. That just came out of nowhere and it's a horrible rumour but you have to deal with it.
So the rumour was you made her drink the piss of one of you lot?
G: Yes.
It is supposed to be healthy to drink your own, I thought you might be showing concern for your fans.
J: No, it was claimed we made her drink a bottle of our piss.
Was that why your tyres were slashed?
G: No, it was the rumours about us being racist.
J: The rumour mill always leads to us getting our tyres slashed. It doesn't matter what rumour, if we end up in a city that is, let's say, knife-friendly, then, well...
Do you know who it was?
G: A certain group of kids in Florida. And South Carolina.
Were they the same people who threw the watermelon at you?
G: A watermelon? No, someone threw some raw meat and porno at me but never a watermelon. It was hardcore porno torn up and pushed into the raw meat. It looked like the meat had been chewed as well.
J: It sucks cleaning up that shit. If you miss a bit and then open your case the next day after it has been in the hot sun it's disgusting.
The rumour has it you spat at them in retaliation and then the band got maced.
G: There has been mace going off in the
crowd before, but it is mostly just stuff being thrown at you.
Do you deliberately tour with bands whose fans hate you?
G: We tour with bands we like. Their fans hating us is just a bonus. They don't just hate us, they want us dead. One time, a guy went to the merchandise stall and asked if they had a gun because he wanted to shoot us.
J: Like they were selling guns...
G: They hate us. They fucking hate us.
Is it the music, the lyrics, or both?
J: I think it's the music, it is too tough for them.
G: It is too abrasive. You know when you first heard something like Death Metal and you didn't know what the fuck was going on? It's like that for them. You know what's crazy? I cut my finger last night and the medic who cleaned it wasn't even wearing rubber gloves. He had my blood all over him. He should know the dangers, right?
He just came up and started wiping it and he had blood all over his hands.
J: And he was rubbing his eye and picking his teeth.
I'd put gloves on before I came within six feet of you.
G: Fucking me too, man. I was shaking and he was like, "Have you been taking drugs?"
You had been, hadn't you?
G: No.
Do you normally go on stage sober?
G: Sometimes, well, no. I like to smoke as much weed as I can beforehand. I don't really like to drink much, maybe a few beers. If I'm drunk then I am just totally sloppy. I can't do it.
Is that how you end up covered in vomit?
G: I can puke on demand. I do it to keep Joey company when he's ill. There are plenty of pictures of us arm in arm puking.
What are your fans like?
G: Awesome. The kind of kids who throw rocks at trains.
Do they have the masks?
J: One kid had his own.
G: There was one kid who emailed us and asked us for blueprints.
Like a knitting pattern?
G: Yeah,
I suppose.
Plague Soundscapes is out now on Epitaph
MORE ENTERTAINMENT
