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What is your worst memory of elementary school? Of high school?
Ali Smith: So many to choose from. Well, since every girl is going to write about the first time she got her period (and mine sucked), I'll say the first time I got a punk rock haircut because the boy I liked had one. In fact, it was the same haircut. Then he brought his friends to the door of my classroom during history class to point and laugh at me. I guess it was dorky, but shit!
You're about to -- ahem -- get lucky. What album is playing in the background? Why'd you choose it?
Ali Smith: Skylarking by Horace Andy... Well, there are lots for different moods, I suppose. That's a nice one.
If you could beat up anyone in the world and get away without the usual annoying real-world consequences --jail time, lawsuits, bad press, etc. -- who would it be, and why?
Ali Smith: George Bush. Do I really have to explain why?
Did you go to your high school prom? If so, who did you go with?
Ali Smith: I did, and I went with my buffoon of a boyfriend. They locked us in this room in a Times Square hotel (they thought it would be too dangerous if we went outside). One person was thrown off the roof of the hotel that night (we heard the scream) and a second was killed in the stairway. It sucked. And my boyfriend and I were both way too cynical and disaffected to dance or enjoy ourselves. Pretty in Pink it was not.
What movie would you recommend to absolutely anyone? Why?
Ali Smith: Papillon and Planet of the Apes -- any of them. I love Steve McQueen (on screen) and everything about how they made Papillon. Love the lepers sharing the cigar. And I love all the Ape movies -- I can't explain that one, though.
For reasons we won't bother going into right now, you're going to be locked in the back of a truck for a sixteen hour drive between gigs. If you could have any musician, past or present, back there to keep you company, who would it be?
Ali Smith: Steve Almaas. He's my boyfriend and we can laugh and fool around and talk and sing and stuff. Other than him...
What is your strongest, most unshakeable belief?
Ali Smith: That you won't print my answers. (Ha! -- Ed.)
What's the worst band you've ever heard? Why do they suck?
Ali Smith: I think that preachy religious band...Creed! They're so friggin' pompous. Shouldn't there be some humility involved in religion? Not making religious effigies out of yourself in your stupid fucking videos?! "Look at me! I'm just like Jesus Christ! Except I'm dressed in head to toe leather!" Them and every rap singer that calls women bitches and hoes. Unimaginative and sucky!
If you were a porn star, what would your "porn name" be?
Ali Smith: Hooters-a-plenty.
You're on your way to a show, and all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of a huge four-way battle between pirates, ninjas, robots and intelligent apes from the future. Your only hope of getting to your gig is to pick a side. Who do you join, and why?
Ali Smith: The apes. Didn't you see Planet of the Apes?!
If you could sponsor any beverage -- appear in their ads, receive a lifetime supply and never be seen drinking a competing product -- what beverage would it be?
Ali Smith: I would take the lifetime supply of Starbucks coffee, but I could never promote it in public because I'd be too filled with shame about it. I know they are satan and their coffee isn't even really that delicious. It's just a bad habit of mine and I'm going broke supporting it. For public, I guess I'd choose water cuz I try to flush out all the bad Starbucks coffee with it.
What's the best venue you've ever played? What's the worst? Why?
Ali Smith: The worst was probably a "festival" in a corn field in Germany. There was no one there and the promoter didn't want to let us leave till we hit him in the head with a stalk of corn. Or maybe it was the "festival" in the forest in Slovenia which may more accurately be called a hell's angels biker party/virgin sacrifice where we had to play the set twice because "they wanted to dance more and would kill us if we didn't". The best might have been in Atlanta. It was just one of those great times when the whole room is turned on and everything's alive and electric and there are bodies flying everywhere (in a good way). But I have no memory for where things happen, really.
What's wrong with Rolling Stone these days?
Ali Smith: The magazine, right? Not the band? It's packed with those little advertising cards that drop out every time you turn a page. I hate that with the power of Thor!
Why are frogs amusing?
Ali Smith: Because anything you can step on is somewhat amusing... not funny ha-ha, but funny like "I rule the universe. Isn't that funny..."
You've traveled back in time and met yourself, age sixteen. What do you think?
Ali Smith: Calm down. In 16 years it's gonna be a lot better.
Which would be worse: three hours on a bus full of four year-olds, or three hours on a bus full of eighty year-olds? Why?
Ali Smith: Can't I walk?
The US government is considering far more aggressive regulation of leather pants. Under the new rules, who should or shouldn't be allowed to wear them?
Ali Smith: Should: cows...and bikers who've been in accidents and have to walk with a cane...and Iggy Pop. Shouldn't: everyone else.
What, in your opinion, is the best porn?
Ali Smith: Home-made, I suppose. Except I could use some better lighting. And a diffuser filter.
What food item could you eat every day for the rest of your life without getting bored of it? What's so good about it?
Ali Smith: Popcorn. Because I'm a dork, I suppose. Or maybe because it always makes me feel like I'm watching a movie.
Will the next Star Wars movie suck? Why or why not?
Ali Smith: Yes. In case you haven't heard, George Lucas has lost his mojo! Or maybe when I was ten years old I was just a pushover.
How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?
Ali Smith: Is he wearing heels or flats?
Everyone's replacing their least-favorite body parts with cybernetic ones. Which part(s) of your body would you replace?
Ali Smith: My neurotic gene. Or the scar I thought it was really cool to give myself when I was a teen.
What topics or statements would inspire you to call in to a talk radio program?
Ali Smith: Bad cell phone etiquette...and people who take the elevator to the second floor.
What album(s) should everyone be given on their eighteenth birthday?
Ali Smith: Raw Power.
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In addition to collaborating with former Suicide Commando Steve Almaas on a new, self-titled album that our own Jennifer Kelly really liked, Ali Smith (you might know her from Speedball Baby) recently released a book of her photography, Laws of the Bandit Queens -- or rather, Three Rivers Press did. Is there anything this woman can't do?
-- George Zahora
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