It
was like a scene out of the Coen Bros. Film The Big Lebowski.
You know the scene, the dude has just sparked a doobie when
the Nihilists walk in and toss the crazed marmot in the tub.
“We believe in nothing, nothing, Lebowski!”
“And tomorrow we come back and cut off your Johnson!”
Excuse me?
“Who told you to sit down?” says Chad Ginsburg, guitarist
of CKY as my ass lands on what appears to be an old IROC backseat
thrown backstage at the Boardwalk posing as a chair. I quickly
stand up.
“Who told you to stand up?” screams Ginsburg, Budweiser
in hand, dressed in black from head to toe, sorta resembling
a nihilist (“we cut off your johnson!”).
I quickly sat down, ripped out my mini-recorder and started
tape rolling. Fuck, this was turning out to be a more difficult
assignment than I thought, and Ginsburg (guitarist), sitting
to my left, and singer/guitarist Deron Miller, sitting across
from me seem to be in no mood to discuss things.
“The only reason I decided to do this interview was because
your magazine was in color,” says Miller as I begin the
interview.
“Geez, thanks!”
The only reason I chose to interview this band is because their
drummer, Jess Margera, has a rad lil’ bro named Bam who
makes some of the raddest skate/hijinx videos of the new millenium,
and has chosen to fill his films with his bro’s band, CKY.
The music is badass, sludgy unrelenting rawk cranked to volume
10, a throw back to days by gone, when bands like AC/DC and
White Snake roamed the world fuckin’ groupies, teasin’
hair, and coppin’ drugs--until “Keith Richards”
syndrome tookover and they had to lay low for about a decade
until reunion fever took over, but anyways, I am getting way
ahead of myself.
CKY has released exactly one full album. Island has just picked
it up and they are re-distributing it. Originally, Volcom distributed
the album, Vol. 1. The band won’t talk about what happened
with the Volcom deal. Universal, who owns Island, saw
CKY2K and is also distributing CKY3. It’s been a whirlwind
of a year for CKY, being picked up by a major label and all,
and Bam rising to fame through the videos and the now defunct
MTV gig, Jackass.
In an age where I’d like to think the cliche’s of
rock weren’t being revisited (drug use, tight black leather,
being total pricks) CKY has chosen to follow the norm.
If you’ve sold a million albums, and are filling up corporate
sponsored arenas every night, maybe, just maybe, you can be
a little shit, because your provin’ your worth, but karma
always come back to bite you in the ass, so be careful who you
let suck you off, umm k?
When you’re nothing more than a group of 4 friends fresh
from Philadelphia, just moved to the Golden State, and out touring
California in nothing more than an Econoline playing to less
than packed clubs, and tonight you’re playing Orangevale,
CA, home of the Boardwalk (White Snake Reunion, anyone?), you’d
better not act like your shit don’t stink.
In fact, all of our shit stinks, but just because you play music
doesn’t give you the “Be a dick to everyone card because
I rock!”
Personnel decisions aside, CKY still rocks and the music they
wrote to accompany CKY3 is nothing short of what I have to come
to expect from the band and I wholly applaud their effort to
keep the hesh alive in this age of fresh when the forces of
evil are numerous and we are small.
Awww, the humanity of it all. Where
are you from?
Deron: West Chester, PA and now I live in Costa Mesa, CA.
Chad: I was born in Philadelphia, my Mother lives there, and
I live in California right now, my friend. What town, sir?
Chad: Well Sir, I live in Huntington fuckin’ Beach.
So
you had to sellout and move out west, huh?
Deron: I wouldn’t call it selling out; I’d call it
moving away from the fucking people I don’t like. You like California?
Deron: No, I don’t like them, either. You guys like the nice, gated beach communities?
Chad: We like the swells, the ones coming out of your mouth;
not the oceans. We do not fucking surf! Deron, are you a skateboarder?
Deron: We do not fucking
skate, either!
Chad: I skate. No I don’t, I dislocated my arm on a mini-ramp
when I was a hardcore skater, many, many, years ago and it made
me who I am today, but I don’t give a fuck about skating
anymore because I gotta rock. How did Volume 1 come to be remastered and rereleased through
Island?
Deron: I know you think it’s funny that we signed to a
major label, and it must mean we’re going to write three-chord
pop/rock songs, but it’s not going to be like that. We’re
going to make you like us, instead of us liking you.
Chad: No, you’re going to have to make us like you, and
I don’t care if you do, or you don’t. You guys are trippin’ me out.
Chad: Do you think I like you? I don’t really care.
Chad: Good, that’s what I want everybody to say. Everybody
should care about their own liking. I love myself, do you love yourself, Chad? Like when you
wake in the morning?
Chad: Oh, in the morning I am a fucking asshole, more than you’d
fucking know, I’ll kill you. You’d kill in the morning?
Chad: I’ll kill you. Is that a threat?
Chad: I don’t know. We’re here to fuck up. Watch the
fuck ups in action! If the fuck ups join together we can fuck
up. So, let’s go fuck up some more but with big smiles
on our faces.
It
was like a scene out of the Coen Bros. Film The Big Lebowski.
You know the scene, the dude has just sparked a doobie when
the Nihilists walk in and toss the crazed marmot in the tub.
Where
are you from?