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Various religions suggest that there's a "special" hell for certain sins (hurting children, being cruel to animals, using the word "blog" as a verb, etc). Who else needs a "special" hell?
Tim Joyce: Pedestrians who pretend to do the little jog when the cross the street. Yeah, sure, it looks like you are running and making an effort, but you're not. You are taking smaller steps and it's taking you longer to get across the street, dumbass. (And also I think people in their cars who can't wait an extra second for a pedestrian should probably go to hell too.) I'm going to hell for doing both...
Due to poor financial planning, you've got to eat for an entire week on only US$10. What do you buy, food-wise?
Tim Joyce: White bread, American cheese, hot dogs, and pudding pops. Got a date? Ten-cent Wing Night might work, and you know nothing says "He's a keeper!" like a nice trip to the grocery store on sample day.
What's the biggest misconception that people have about you?
Tim Joyce: As a band I think most people think we are just kind of nice and ordinary, but nothing could be further from the truth. We are all real crazy... totally crazy. Greg likes to fly ultra-lights and jump motorcycles. I am an amateur diver that enjoys nude diving and shark taunting. When I'm feeling like a landlubber, I enjoy a good bear baiting or cockfight.
Mark Janka: When I've had one too many Earl Grays, I sometimes forget to floss and skip my one-a-day vitamin.
What's the worst injury you've ever suffered for your art (i.e. second degree burns from shorted-out mic, broken leg from failed stage dive)? Tell us about it.
Tim Joyce: Ohhhhh... All I remember is standing in the middle of the old Idful Studio in Chicago and stepping up to the microphone then... BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. All the lights go dim, my lips are killing me, and John McEntyre says "Does your amp have a ground lift switch?" Oh, and once I burned my left nipple because I put an "old" 9V battery in my shirt pocket and forgot there was a house key in there. It's a slow burn.
You've got unlimited funding and technical expertise to make an IMAX movie on the topic of your choice. What do you choose? Describe the obligatory vertigo-inducing camera shot that makes the entire audience clutch their stomachs.
Tim Joyce: I'd do a live action Adventures of Tooter Turtle. Everyone would toss their cookies when we went into the "Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome, time for this one to come home" sequence.
You've locked your car keys inside the tour van and don't have AAA. How do you get the door open?
Mark Janka: I've heard that you can unlock your car with a cell phone and a friend with the remote (even if that friend is half a world away). It goes something like this: If you've locked your keys in the car, but your wife is at home with the remote (you know, the one that goes on the key chain), you call her. Have her hold the remote up to her phone while you point your phone at the car. She hits the button on her end, and on your end the car opens.
Ever find useful stuff in the garbage? Describe your best-ever dumpster find and how you used it.
Tim Joyce: I bought my first electric guitar from a certain large chain guitar-selling center and was too poor to afford to buy the case that didn't come with it. Literally within hours I walked by the dumpster outside my dorm room and what is sitting on top? This ratty-ass, old hard-shell case,
exactly the same size.
In the UK, trying to kill the Queen is still technically a capital offence. If the Queen tried to commit suicide and failed, could she be sentenced to death? Explain.
Mark Janka: I don't know about all of that, but I heard this from a stand up comic. I think he was Irish. He said that all mail in the UK is "owned" by the Queen while it is being transported (Her Majesty's Post?). He proposed that you could mail a brick of hash to one of your mates and bust the Queen for possession -- you know, for grins.
If you were a 50ft high Tyrannosaurus Rex, would you use your powers for good or evil? Who would you go after first?
Mark Janka: Is killing Carrot Top considered a "good" or "evil" act?
What's your favorite board game? Why do you like it?
Mark Janka: Rack-o, though, technically, there is no board with Rack-o -- just cards and racks. I used to play Rack-o CD-changer with my sister, Amy. If you won a round, you got to put a CD in the five-disc changer. The discs in the changer would play on shuffle. Your goal was to dominate the CD player with music that you loved, but annoyed the hell out of your opponent. I usually went with things like Shorty and Cheer-Accident. Amy usually went with Roxette or Ace of Base.
Tim Joyce: Stratego or Scrabble.
Everyone likes at least one cheesy/crappy song that totally kills their cred. What's yours?
Mark Janka: How much time do you have? I should have my bandmates fill this out for me. They have a better idea of what would ruin my cred than I do. I like Crowded House a whole lot. Fountains of Wayne gets me in trouble once in a while. I've found it very difficult to explain the merits of Richard Thompson to young, studded belt-wearing, star tattoo-having hipster kids, but I'm confident that one day they'll come around. Oh, I also love the hell out of the first New Edition record: "Mr. Telephone Man", "Delicious", "My Secret (Didja Get It Yet?)" -- great stuff.
Tim Joyce: I like Bread. I'm sure most people don't even care what song. I can't believe I am admitting it.
The standard touring vehicle is always a beat-up van. What has been the worst/weirdest method of conveyance you've had to use on a tour?
Mark Janka: My Dad's Astro van, while a sweet ride, is covered in gadgets that are secured to various surfaces of the dash with Velcro. Also it makes a sound like a garbage truck does when you put it in reverse. Not the ideal situation when leaving a club at 3:00 a.m. It's also troublesome if you're trying not to draw attention to the fact that your vehicle is packed with semi-valuable gear.
What was the best meal you were supplied by a tour venue? What was the worst?
Tim Joyce: Best meal? That is a tough call.
Mark Janka: I vote for steaks at Tim's parents' house (for best meal). Though for sentimental reasons, I might choose deli sandwiches at my Grandma Carey's house. For worst meal... I can't really think of any bad meals. When you're on the road, a meal's a meal.
Tim Joyce: Side note: Two days after those steaks, my dad went into the hospital for some heart surgery.
Will it ever truly be possible to "rock the vote", or will apathy, indifference and laziness always triumph over activism?
Mark Janka: People will rock the vote, but the rock won't vote for them. Yeah, hey, do you guys remember Pet Rocks? Those were great.
You discover a new disease, "(Your name here)'s Syndrome". What are its symptoms? What is the cure for "(Your name here)'s Syndrome"?
Mark Janka: Janka's Syndrome: A love of places and traveling combined with a terrible sense of direction and intense confusion concerning all things related to getting from point A to B. Victims of Janka's Syndrome often inexplicably find themselves in Memphis, Tennessee. Also, people with Janka's syndrome are be terrible at remembering names despite a sincere effort to do so. Also, spelling -- they're terrible spellers.
Tim Joyce: Other side effects include irritability, fear of enclosed spaces (say, perhaps, a mini-van), and the intense smell of garlic.
If you could watch one historical event re-enacted by a cast of chimpanzees, which one would it be, and why?
Tim Joyce: This is one of the best questions we have ever been asked because we love primates and history. The first thought is Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald...
Mark Janka: But, after consulting with my wife the historian, we're going to go with The Defenestration of Prague in May of 1618. I strongly encourage your readership to look it up. It's very punk rock. It involves dung heaps and government officials getting tossed out of a window. It touched off the Thirty Years War.
What is the coolest tattoo you've ever seen (and don't choose one of your own)?
Mark Janka: We've been trying to get our drummer Greg to get a tattoo of a mermaid with naked breasts on his arm for a couple of years now. I've also been trying to get my wife to agree to getting the inside sleeve artwork of the Vulgar Boatmen's Please Panic on her rear and I'd get the cover art on my rear. I've also always wanted at tattoo of a turtle with wings. I haven't actually seen these tattoos, so I guess I didn't really answer your question.
What is the most unusual item you've thrown up on/in?
Mark Janka: On New Year's Eve 2000, I got inebriated and proposed to my then-girlfriend (see reference to wife above). I was wearing a yellow plastic top hat. Later I crawled into the pantry and said, "I think I'm gonna puke." My new fiancée suggested that I throw up into my yellow plastic top hat. I did. A moment later, the host of the party walked by. I confessed, "I just threw up into my party hat." He said, "Right, now, you're the best-behaved guest we've got." I put the puke-filled hat into a plastic grocery bag and went to dispose of in the dumpster in the alley. On my way out, I understood what he meant. Some guy was streaking along the street out front, my friend Ron was throwing up in the kitchen sink, and in the alley my friend Kirk was simultaneously threatening to fight passers-by, removing his pants, and trying to climb a chain-link fence. He was doing all of this while three of my other friends were physically trying to subdue him. He can be freakishly strong when he's drunk. I found out later that some chick passed out on the host's bed and wet it. Anyway, I proposed again the next day under less suspect circumstances. Less climactically, I also threw up off the roof of my parents' house when I was a teen. (I was not drunk, Dad. I was just sick.)
Do you prefer the term "underwear" or "underpants"? What does that say about you?
Tim Joyce: Underwear. It's something you wear, well -- under something else; it doesn't necessarily have to be pants... Undershorts? Now that may make a little more sense. They are shorts you wear under stuff.... Hmmm, understuffs?
Mark Janka: I never say "underpants", but I think I prefer it. It sounds more poetic. It evokes a heightened sense of reality. It sounds like something I'd like to have next to my nuts.
You've been asked to submit an anecdote or "tip" to a book called Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned On Tour With My Band. What do you tell them?
Tim Joyce: Beano.
Mark Janka: Vulgarity and sexual innuendo.
Due to a breakthrough in technology, it's possible to learn any skill, no matter how complex, pretty much instantly, by uploading the information directly into your brain (yes, like in The Matrix). Unfortunately, you can only do it once. What skill would you learn, and why?
Tim Joyce: Dang! The music side of me wants to say pedal steel guitar... because that just seems like the most complicated thing around, but it sounds so damn cool. And the brain side of me really wants to understand quantum mechanics (seriously). But the oil spots under the front right side of my car will make me make my decision more practical: car repair...
Mark Janka: While I'd like to be able to do that trick where you run up a wall and do a back flip (you know, like the guy in the Rick Astley video), I think I'd rather know everything there is to know about the wild plants of North America: which ones are edible and which are poisonous, which ones can be fashioned into rope and which ones can be rubbed onto a mosquito bite to ease the itching, which roots can be made into tea and which ones do you carry in your pocket for good luck.
You've been given the resources and financial backing to create a new satellite TV network that caters specifically to your tastes and the tastes of people like you. What's it called, and what does it show?
Tim Joyce: MVRTV! Monkey vs. Robot Television: Your digital primate headquarters. With a Tuesday night lineup up featuring Which Robot Is My Monkey's Daddy?, Pimp My Monkey, and Desperate Robots, what could go wrong?
Mark Janka: My wife would like to pitch Monkey Design Invasion. It would involve lots of poo throwing and banana peels in Manhattan condos. She also suggests Monkey in the Middle, which would be just like Malcolm in the Middle, only with an all-primate cast.
There are literally hundreds of euphemisms for masturbation. What's the best one you've heard?
Tim Joyce: "Reeling off a batch."
Mark Janka: And, for the ladies, there's "Making soup."
A few years ago, anal sex was still taboo; nowadays it's trendy. What will be the next major sexual taboo to fall?
Mark Janka: Wait. When did anal sex become trendy?
Tim Joyce: I heard the phrase "donkey punch" on regular television the other night -- CSI or Law and Order or something like that... Nexxxxxxxxxxxxxxt!
Right this very second, what are you most looking forward to, and why?
Mark Janka: Anal sex. Because, apparently, it's what all the trendy kids are doing.
Tim Joyce: Sweet Lord!
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Lesser Birds of Paradise just finished a short tour. They're playing in Chicago in a few days. You should go!
-- George Zahora
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