Billie: Nice fruit salad. Are you eating healthily to compensate for all the drugs and late nights?
Jared: We don’t do drugs, but you have to achieve a balance, if you don’t then it really screws you up. I like life, I want to keep living.
Ian: We play almost every night so that means there’s always partying, so during the day you have to treat yourself good.
Wanna go on a spa date with me?
Ian: Sure.
Jared: I’m up for some massages.
I was more thinking steam room.
Ian: Those are cool too.
Jared: Would we be nekked?
Yes, we’re nekked. What methods other than detoxification and massages do you use to get in the zone?
Jared: Couple of beers, maybe a little bit of whisky. Not that we need alcohol to get in the zone. I’m in the zone right now and I have not a drop of alcohol in my body.
Ian: Carrot juice, and a little PMA (positive mental attitude) ‘“ I’m in the zone.
Jared: What gets you in the zone is a lust for life, a lust for fun, a lust for women.
Ian: We have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change’¦ and the willingness to know the difference. And we make sure that we execute life to its full potential’¦every day’¦ day in, day out.
Nice. Your shows are renowned for being crazy…you’ve been known to kiss, vomit, urinate’¦
Ian: Maybe’¦
Could you kiss now, please.
Jared, Ian: Nah.
Come on, why? Are you so uncomfortable with your sexuality that you won’t kiss your band mate for the sake of the fans who can’t see you live?
Jared: I’m comfortable with my sexuality, but it’s embarrassing. His breath stinks, he lost his toothbrush six months ago, his mouth smells like a butt hole.
Ian: Yeah.
How do you know what a butt hole smells like?
Ian: Well y’know, when you’re going down on a female counterpart, and you put your nose right up in there’¦ It’s ok! Its just a smell, its not a bad smell. We all smell. Girls shit.
I don’t. Well I do but my shit is pink and glittery and smells really nice.
Ian: I knew it..
Kiss.
Jared: I’m sorry it’s not gonna happen, not today. The reason we can’t is that it’s not in the moment. At our shows sometimes crazy things happen, sometimes they don’t, it depends on the atmosphere. It depends on what’s going on, if it’s not spontaneous then it’s a bullshit circus act.
Spontaneity is just raw human emotion, and that is what makes it interesting and fun, if you plan things out then it’s boring. Also I’ve never kissed Iain.
What are your tours like, are they mad?
Ian: Well, we have a van.
Can’t you afford a tourbus?
Jared: We could. We’ll get one for the next tour. We have a green sprinter at the moment. Its comfortable anyway. We have a Playstation 2.
Tell me about all the wild stuff that’s happened in that van.
Jared: We meet some fancy women on tour.
Ian: They’ve got better. They get better every tour.
Who are better, the British girls or the American girls?
Jared: We tend to get the good Americans who don’t overeat. The best looking women are’¦
Ian: My girlfriend.
Oh. So you don’t have sex with groupies. Ever.
Ian: Well I’m not saying that’¦
Jared: I’m single and ready to mingle. Girls are cool.
Tell us about the new album. I want cool anecdotes about where it was recorded and how it differs to the last record. That type of thing. Go.
Jared: I would call it nothing short of amazing. We recorded it in Atlanta, we bought our own studio, moved into a former art gallery, built it up. It’s in the summer in Georgia, where It’s mind numbingly hot and sweaty and there are mosquitoes everywhere. And I had to move into the studio about a week into the recording process because I broke up with my girlfriend and got kicked out of my house, so I had to marry my work instead of the girl. There’s a very southern feel to it. It was cool because we got to work on our own terms. We wrote our own schedule and just got of our friends to engineer the record.
Did it make it sound different, doing it yourselves?
Ian: I think it did. We’re in a different part of our lives, we make money now.
How much?
Ian: Two hundred million thousand dollars a day. I don’t know. We get by.. We don’t have to eat out of trashcans anymore.
Jared: I don’t have to have a real job. There were a few years of extreme poverty and homelessness, but I guess that builds character, we paid our dues. We didn’t have a comfortable ride, but now we’ve ridden through it.
Give me an acoustic teaser of the record.
(Jared and Ian sing Home of the brave and drum on the table)
Tuneful.
Ian: It’s a good thing we’re endearing.
Words: Billie Porter
