Exclusive Interview With The Tossers!

That’s right… I mean, it’s not exclusive in that we’re the only people who ever get to interview them EVER, but this is the only place you’ll find THIS interview, and I think that’s what that means.

It goes without saying that last night’s show was absolutely awesome, of course. The Tossers were in fine form as always (as you’ll read, I quite enjoyed the stuff they played off their new album which hit the streets on Tuesday), I discovered that Murder By Death is absofuckinglutely fanfuckingtastic, and as far as the Reverend Horton Heat goes… he’s the Reverend Horton Heat. ‘Nuff said.

The Tossers were kind enough to let me n’ Tommy from Dog Germs hop on their tour-bus and shoot-the-shit all journalistic-style after the show. The interview is transcribed in full below; I resisted the impulse to make myself sound cooler than I really was. The interview was conducted with Tony, Dan, and Bones (vocalist, bass player, and drummer respectively) doing pretty much all the talking, though the rest of the group was in and out. Click ‘More’ to read it.

Me: What’s up, guys?

Dan: Nothing! <belch> Ok, you’re on tape, guys, you’re on tape.

Bones: Don’t put me on tape.

Me: Last time I interviewed you guys, I asked you who the greatest drummer of all time was, and you told me Buddy, Buddy whatsisname.

All of them: Buddy Rich!

Me: Yes! I’ve actually encountered him on YouTube, and – wow. I’m with you. Very good stuff. So anyways, what’s up, guys? You just played Richmond for the first time, as far as I know, ever. (band thinks it over and decides after some reflection and debate that this is true, and they haven’t ever actually played Richmond before) Richmond is a small and often neglected market, I think.

Dan: Yes, we did good, and I think we won a lot of fans over tonight, so I think it was great.

Bones: It was a good show. (Dan: It was really loud.) That stage was so loud. God was it loud.

Me: Is that bad?

Tony: Well it could be bad, for us. I mean, I think we did well, I think we played well. Sometimes it don’t matter how bad it fucking sounds on stage, as long as it sounds good out there. So as long as we perform well, then hopefully, it sounds good.

Me: For the record, you sounded awesome on stage tonight.

Tony: Well, thank you, thank you. I’m not saying we sounded BAD ONSTAGE IN RICHMOND VIRGINIA, I’m saying we sounded good, but it was really loud.

Me: I’m a fan of loudness, so I’ll ignore that.

Dan: Really? The Asian heavy metal band?

Me: Uhhhh…

Dan: Gotcha! I gotcha, bitch!

Me: Is there an Asian heavy metal band called Loudness?

All of them: Yeah. (someone mentions a song called Turn It Up, someone else verifies that was a Loudness song, and someone starts singing what I think must be the chorus. I am now looking for some Loudness on the internet. I must rectify my colossal ignorance.)

Me: The first time I interviewed you, you guys had pretty much just quit your jobs, and said “Hey, fuck it, lets go on tour and lets try and make a living at this.” This is two years later now – are you guys ‘making a living’ at this?

All of them: No.

Dan: Hell no, dammit, my job won’t hire me back, it sucks, I quit. (I think this was a joke; it doesn’t carry over into text very well)

Tony: None us are making a living.

Bones: If you could call it a living; I mean, we can come home. We’re not making a living, I mean, we’re squeaking by, we’re squeaking by – but I mean, fucking who cares?

Me: Did you expect more than just squeaking by?

Bones: No. I mean, we were squeaking by before. But we squeaked by-

Tony: But now we’re squeaking like a mouse!

(the Dave interlude. The band attempts to convince someone named Dave, who had apparently just woken up, to come hang out and interview. Dave declined. I think Dave must have been a roadie. He was described as the hardest working man in show-business. Dave, wherever and whoever you are, your presence was missed – if you’d like to email me what you WOULD have said, I’ll append your comments to this page)

Tony: What else you got?

Me: I don’t really know what else I’ve got. What else do YOU guys have?

Dan: Stuff we don’t want to put on tape.

Me: Oh, c’mon, put it ALL on tape. Hah, okay, have you slept in a van, recently?

Dan: No.

Me: Okay, then – that’s a plus. Since getting signed, you have not had to sleep in a van.

Dan: No, tha’s not true.

Bones: We’ve slept in a van. We toured in a van.

Dan: Took a conversion van, rented a trailer, and fucking – did a tour in that fucking jalopy.

Me: Okay, so the new album. Has it – have you guys changed? As far as, ahh, musically goes?

Tony: No. Not at all. Not whatsoever, no. I mean, the songs are better, the approach to it is better, the playing is better, but it’ll always be the same approach. Like I’ve said a million times, I grew up on the Ramones and Motorhead and I’m never playing different fucking music, ever. I think most of us are the same way. But – it’s gotten better. We’ve written better songs, and better music than we ever have. That’s absolutely the truth.

Me: The new music you guys played tonight seemed more up-tempo than the other stuff I’ve heard – the stuff that I have, actually. Have you guys gotten more fast-paced? More anything? Or is that just the selections that you choose to showcase live?

Tony: No, I don’t think we got more… Well, maybe, this record’s a little more fast-paced, maybe. But not only that, I mean, yeah it’s a little more up-beat than the last one. But it’s just the place we’re in at the time, when we’re writin’ shit.

Me: I think I read on the internet, and I think it’s correct, that you guys opened up for the Pogues recently.

Dan: Well, everything you read on the internet is true.

Me: See, I tend to believe that’s NOT the case, but in this case, from so many sources…

Dan: That is ALL TRUE.

Me: How was it?

Dan: It was fuckin’ great. It was awesome.

Tony: Awesome. Like Boney said, it was one of the best nights of my life.

Dan: Bones. Man of few words, but the words he chooses are so fucking well put.

Me: How do you go from opening for the Pogues, in what I assume was a marginally LARGER venue, to here?

Dan: It’s the same show that we played for the Pogues that we played for you guys tonight.

Tony: Basically. I mean, you know, every night we mix it up a little bit with songs, but…

Dan: But I mean, we didn’t do anything differently.

Tony: … exactly, we did nothing different between the Pogues and here.

Bones: This is an excellent tour. The Pogues show was excellent, but coming back here, wasn’t like a disgrace. This is GREAT.

Tony: We approach every show the same way. Every fucking show.

Dan: The Reverend Horton Heat tour has been GREAT to us. This whole tour. I can NOT complain.

Tony: Rev’s just a great fucking band. We tour with a lot younger bands, and y’know, we’re like right in the middle, we’re not too old, and we’re not too young. And I guess young doesn’t matter, there’s younger bands that are tough as nails. But a lot of folks learn to appreciate the road more, when they’re on it for long, y’know what I mean? And the Rev tour, we jumped at the motherfucker, and not just for anything, there was… we learned that the way they tour and the way we tour is a lot similar. And there’s smaller differences between bands that are younger than us.

Dan: Coincidentally, the fans for the Rev are eatin’ us up. Because people who come out to see the Rev are like, they like to see music. And it apparently has been really good to us.

Tony: Younger crowds are great too. Cuz’ they freak the fuck out, and guys and gals come up and say like, “You’re the best band I ever heard,” and the gals say “I wanna have your baby,” and all that shit, all the crowds say “We really, really appreciate… (Bones: I don’t want any babies) -…I told her that I’d fuckin’ sell her one.

Tommy: I listened to the interview he did with you last time, and y’all are on Victory records, and in the interview you said Victory’s been really good to you guys. I’ve been out of touch with Victory records until I heard your last album, but back in high school, back in the 90s, Victory was always a hardcore label. Have y’all been put on any of those hardcore tours? The last time I saw you, you were with Dropkick and the Horrorpops, and you seemed to fit really well.

Dan: No.

Tommy: Is Victory still strictly a hardcore label?

Dan: They’re just a label, doing their thing, and we’re just a band, doing our thing. And they really believe in us an like us a lot.

Tommy: I didn’t know if you played for the hardcore crowd, and how they accepted you.

Tony: Well, yeah we have. We have plenty of times. We did a tour with Murphy’s Law. We played a bunch of shows with them.

Tommy: See, I’m a big fan of that, shows that mix genres, but it seems like a lot of the time, especially here in Richmond, punk rock is huge here, and some people, that’s all they listen to, if there’s another style on the bill, they tend to not get into it.

Tony: That’s what’s been so great about the Reverend tour, that’s what we were just saying. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an older crowd, but the older folks aren’t with seeing ONE band, and not giving a shit about the OTHER band, as an older crowd, they’re a little more receptive, d’you know what I mean? And we JUMPED at the chance to get on this tour, because we LOVE the fuckin’ Rev, every fuckin’ one of us. And we didn’t even know Murder By Death, and they turned out to be a kick-ASS fuckin’ band. Which is even that much better. But that’s the fuckin’ thing is that, the old folks, they’re not so much as into seein’ one band and they could give a fuck about everyone else, or go home after that, cuz’ they’re not drinkin’, they’re not in for the long haul, y’know, whatever. The older folks tend to stick around, and at least TRY to give a shit, especially, just to see whether or not they like ’em, and then they’re gonna scream “Fuck you” at ’em and then they’re gonna fuckin’ fight ’em. And it ain’t no 17 year-old kid that’s gonna try to fight a fuckin’ band, that’s for damn sure.

Tommy: I know as I’ve grown older, I’ve gotten more open to different kinds of music.

Dan: That’s a natural progression.

Tony: Y’know, there’s younger folks like that too, I’m not saying it’s an age thing, I’m just saying in general, some trends seem to go some ways and some others.

Me: The Pogues seem to blame their whole breakup on the fact that they were touring non-stop.

Tony: Shane does.

Me: Even interviews with Phillip Chevron, and everyone else in that band, they all want to say that it was the rigorous tour schedule that caused the problem. (Dan: You’re right) You guys seem to be touring rigorously. Nonstop. I’ve seen you guys, 3 times in the last year, I think. You’re constantly around. Are you worried that’s going to be an issue, with y’all?

Tony: No way. No way. I mean, it’s gonna be, like soon, if we can’t pay our rents and shit. Then we’re gonna HAVE to split up, because we won’t be able to support ourselves. But I’m not worried about touring too much, because we LOVE it. And that brings me back to the Rev. I watch him play, and I watch Murder By Death play, and they fucking love it. The Rev will sit up there and play for two hours a night (Tommy: And he looked like he’d have played for two more, if he could have), yeah, right, and you might catch us in Chicago, you might catch a 2, 3, 4 hour fuckin’ set. It’s cuz’ we love it. And I’m not saying it’s because we’re old, young, I mean we’re right in the middle. Maybe we were always a little older than the other bands, but… Touring is never going to split us up, because we love it. And we enjoy each others’ companies because we were friends to begin with. We all, most of us, came from the same neighborhoods. And from our neighborhoods, there ain’t a lot of opportunity, and we really enjoy making money this way, instead of like… some factory fucking job.

Me: Here’s a question I just thought of… the song Chicago. I was thinking that the last half of that, it gets all electric and it’s all “They fucking gentrified my home, they fucking gentrified my home,” and … is that right? When you guys played it tonight, it didn’t have that tail-end.

Dan: Cuz’ we’re not a heavy electric-guitars swingin’ band.

Me: Well, I just wanted to hear someone screamin’ “They fucking gentrified my home,” cuz’ I feel like that’s kinda the situation I’m in right now. You know …

Tony: That’s the type of shit we put on our records. It’s like, if we wanna do something, then we’re gonna do it. On the record. But a live show is different. I mean, we got all these political fuckin’ songs, but you don’t hear us playing a goddam one of ’em live, because it ain’t all about that. It ain’t about me stuffing politics down people’s throats. And especially, making people happy or pissing ’em off, either way, I could care less to do that. It’s about fuckin’ everybody havin’ a good time, and enjoying themselves. So, no political shit. Besides, fuck that. What’s Mikey gonna do, switch from an acoustic to an electric in 10 seconds? It’s not possible.

Me: Yeah, I was curious how you were gonna pull it off.

Tony: Nah, that shit ain’t gonna happen. I mean, if we WANNA do something, then that’s for the records. If I feel obligated to say something, and I most often do, that’s for the records. And that shit is timeless. That shit will stay there forever, for people way after I’m long-gone. But y’know, for the people that are here now? Life is shitty. We wanna try to make’em happy. I’m not here to force politics down people’s fucking throats. Or… which is actually what that is, it’s a modern day (indecipherable), but Mikey couldn’ switch his guitar over anyway, so fuck it.

Me: I reckon this is… I’m outta stuff to ask. Anything you guys want to say?

Dan: Thanks for your support. Check out our new record, and I hope you love it as much as we do.

Tony: That’s bad of you, you’re a used car salesman sitting there!

Me: For the record, I heard the songs you did off your new record tonight, they were awesome. Among the high points of tonight. It’s really fuckin’ rare that you hear the songs that you’re not familiar with, and think that they’re just as good as the songs that you are familiar with, at a show. And that stuff was really good.

Tony: We’re doing it cuz’ we like it. And I know, at least when I’m writing songs, it’s because it’s the stuff I want to hear. And I know I can never write “Pair of Brown Eyes” or “I’m a Sailor Peg and I Lost My Leg” (note: what is that? I must look it up when I’m looking up Loudness), I could never write anything Flogging Molly writes…

Me: I have to say, I kinda put you guys a teeny notch above Flogging Molly, personally. The Pogues… I’m scared to rank anyone up with the Pogues. They’re so established and so classic. But Flogging Molly? You guys are up there. Maybe beyond.

Tony: I don’t know about that. They’re WONDERFUL songwriters. But anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that we’re none of those guys. We do this shit because we like it. And we try to make our own shit because it’s stuff that we want to hear, and we’re excited to hear our own record when it comes out. And we’re excited to talk to people that enjoy it. And, y’know, we might be just as excited to talk to people that DON’T like it, either way, it’s what we want to do, because we like it, and it’s what we know. It’s what we grew up on, and it came easy to us, and… we know that we can do it, because we all enjoy it.

Me: Well, I’m glad to have had this opportunity, and thanks for talking to us!

The Tossers’ Official Website

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Video for “Siobhan” on YouTubeÂ

— devlocke