The
Anniversary
Interview by Brad & Mates Of State
Photos by Brad Oates
It was the same story you’ve heard a million times before.
Cocktail after cocktail, hell, I’d even made some new found
friends from Yosemite, or Sonora—I’d already smoked
the brains from my head, anyways. Think Burt Reynolds in Deliverance
and they were from there, and we were here, rain coming down,
smoking a bowl on the patio of the Bottom of The Hill in San
Francisco. I’d just driven 600 miles in a circle in an
18-hour period and things were starting to get a little blurry.
Tonight is the Anniversary’s second sold out show at the
Bottom of The Hill. It’s the last night of the tour, with
the dynamic married duo of Mates of State and Mars Volta. I
couldn’t have raised Bill Graham from the dead and assembled
a better line-up myself. Rewind to night before: Mates of State
have just gotten off stage. Jason Hammel, half of the hardest
working married couple in music since The Carpenter’s ripped
the 70’s a new asshole, is getting me all irie with his
end-of-tour present, the always welcomed, spliff. “Why
don’t you guys interview the Anniversary? You’ve opened
the whole tour, you must have some serious fucking dirt on these
wholesome white bread kids?” I blabber to Jason. It sounded
like a great idea at the time. Kori, the other half of MOS was
equally sold, and I knew we could count on her to dig real deep
for some tabloid scandalous crap on the innocent band from Lawrence,
Kansas who was set to release their sophomore album, Hey Majesty.
Their debut, A Nervous Breakdown (2000), was the sleeper hit
of the apocalypse. They had so much fun taking their layered
rock ruckus with a hint of new wave to the kids, night after
night, that they gave college the finger and pledged allegiance
to the rock ‘n roll almighty. Europe and sold out American
tours with The Get Up Kids followed. Scattered about the room
are three fifths of the Anniversary, their dedicated roadie,
all of Mates of State, and myself. You know what it’s like
when you have a house party in a one bedroom party? Try tape
recording this and you will get an idea of our evening’s
little adventure, most of it was indeciphrable due to the alcohol
and noise level that permeated the room. The events that did
unfold don’t trasmit well to tape, in person, or anywhere
else in the real world for that matter. In fact, most of this
stuff is bizarre, private info that most people don’t usually
know about their family, significant others, let alone rock
bands, but why should we wait decades until after the band breaks
up to get the dirt on Behind The Music? This is not an interview,
just a weird conversation with some great people about humping
the bed, porno music, and the always trusty hair stick. –Brad
Oates
Kori (Mates of State): Why is it that James and Adrianne sleep
together every night?
Adrianne (Vocals, Keyboards): What! Who else am I going to sleep
with?
Christian (drums-referred from here on as, Janko): When I sleep
with Kevin, our merch guy, man when I wake up he’s always
rolled over on me and I am pushed up against the wall.
Adrianne: I usually get my own bed. It got to the point this
week with Kevin where no one could sleep with him he sleeps
so bad. Why don’t you show them what you do in your sleep
Janko.
Jim (bass): He humps the bed.
Janko: Man, I did that one time. I had a good fucking dream,
I am not going to deny it.
Jim: Every night you can hear the bed shaking if you sleep next
to him.
Janko: Shut up.
Brad: Are you masturbating or is it more of a comfort sleep?
Janko: You tell me. I don’t know. I do that in my sleep.
Kori: Do you guys have balls?
Janko: Whose got the biggest balls? We have the biggest balls
of them all.
Adrianne: Can I ask Kori a question? Have you ever had diahrea
on-stage?
Kori: No, but Jason has.
Janko: Jason has had diahrea on stage!
Kori: Just a Hershey squirt.
Adrianne: Janko you shit your pants, what happened?
Janko: Okay, the song was called “The heart is a lonely
hunter.” The intro was up and right as I came in and sat
down, I farted and it was like, “Oh man! Oh shit.”
I started to move around and it sucked.
Kori: Did that really happen?
Janko: No, but it’s a good story.
Jim: Janko how many times have you masturbated on this tour?
Janko: Oh shit. Under a dozen.
Kori: We’ve only done 25 shows. That’s every other
day.
Janko: That’s way too much then, I’ll say six times.
Every morning dumps and pumps.
Kori: Is it true Justin uses lotion to do his hair?
Adrianne: He used to, but now he got a hair stick, like a greasy
hair stick.
Jason (Mates of State): You just wipe it in your hair and it
makes it stick.
Kori: How is the new album?
Adrianne: We really like it. Kori:
There is this one part where I think it’s a porno keyboard
part. Did you write it while watching a porno?
Adrianne: I’m not a really big porn fan, but when I wrote
the part, I was going to lie and say something funny, but I
couldn’t. So.....
Janko: Kori, have you ever tried to watch porno and put it on
mute and grab your keyboard and make up music to it?
Kori: Sometimes.
Adrianne: You know what I think is really porn? Mars Volta.
Jason: My first 7” was a Ron Jeremy single.
Kori: Really?
Jason: He does porn.
Janko: I’ve seen his work. He’s pretty good. He’s
a hairy guy.
Kori: What’s your favorite new song to play?
Janko: “Sweet Marie.”
Jason: Because you have the opening drum thing?
Janko: Yeah. (Janko proceeds to re-inact the drum opening to
“Sweet Marie”)
Kori: How did the cover of “Sweet Home Alabama” come
about?
Janko: We were in Florida that’s how that came about. It
was still the Superdrag leg of the tour. I had already had two
jack and cokes so I was kind of drunk myself.
Jim: It’s a tradition that on the last night of tour you
buy the other bands a round of shots.
Adrianne: Except for Mates of State, they didn’t do it
for us.
Janko: I swear, last night was the cheapest night of shots.
The last Superdrag show it was a buck for a shot of Jaegar Meister,
yes! We get on stage, and I am on my third whiskey by now, and
it’s sitting next to me you know, while I am playing. I
usually have water so I can sober up. Jim’s parents are
there to watch the show and it’s great. It was the first
song and I am feeling good. Everyone in the band was looking
at me going, “Great, there’s our alcoholic drummer!”
By the second song Superdrag had bought me a shot of Jaegar
and I was chasing that with Jack and Coke. By the fourth song
we were playing an acoustic song, “Ghosts of The River”
and we were like, “We’ve got to finish this set fast.”
Just as the song finishes I get up from the drums go over to
the Superdrag guys and yell, “I am going over to the bar
to get some shots!” So I walk over to the bar, I am drinking
whiskey, right, come back and I am like, “Fuck” Jason
(Mates of State) is sitting on my drums with a shaker, and I
am like, “Hey, can I get back?” and he is like, “Sure,
man!” We get up and I sit down and Jason ends up standing
there the whole song with the shaker in his hand. Then I got
the crowd to start chanting, “All Things Oridinary.”
Jason: I didn’t want to look stupid? What was I to do?
Just get down?
Kori: Then he was like, “Do you guys know that Nirvana
changed the face of music? Do you guys know that? If anyone
out here is in a band and says that Nirvana is not an influence,
you’re bullshit, you’re bullshit!” Janko was
up there talking for a good twenty minutes.
Janko: My people were there, my people.
Adrianne: We came back to the hotel and there were a pile of
his clothes outside the door. They had puke all over them.
Jason (Roadie): Comes out of the bathroom naked and just falls
onto the bed. Kevin had to wrap him in blankets. For some reason
you took all your clothes off.
Janko: I took a shower! I get drunk and stuff just comes out,
I guess you could say I have a problem with the bottle.
Now that we’ve let you in on the secrets go buy their new
albums:
The Anniversary – Your Majesty (Vagrant)
Mates of State – Our Constant Concern (Polyvinyl)
Kori (Mates of State): Why is it that James and Adrianne sleep
together every night?
Kori:
There is this one part where I think it’s a porno keyboard
part. Did you write it while watching a porno?