FRUSTRATORS
interview by pr!
Everything you liked about Green Day’s “Dookie” era is alive and churning in the Frustrators. Now, contrary to popular belief, Billy Joe is not Cobain-ing the Frustrators (in the same sense that Kurt wrote a good chunk of Hole’s first album) and just because both bands share the same bassist and that Frustrators are signed onto Billy Joe’s label does not mean they are influenced in any way by Billy Joe and/or Green Day. At least, that’s what they WANTED me to believe. Emotionally distraught by this flurry of gossip, I walked, no, RAN to my computer and went to www.thefrustrators.com for answers only to find that their chat room was empty! Certain this was part of a massive attack on the Frustrators credibility, I cowered in a pool of nervous sweat and vomit-induced neurotica until Jason, vocalist for the Frustrators, talked me out of it.
PR: I went to your chat room on your website, but nobody was there. What’s up with that?
Jason: I don’t know what to say about that. I guess we just don’t chat. I personally can’t chat on my computer, because of a firewall or something. The guy that does our website, Brian, he single handedly put the site together. We’re lucky we even have a website at all, I guess.
So your married now. How punk is that?
Well, how punk is anything? Getting married is good or bad, as everyone knows. If you meet the person you love, then yeah, it’s good. Not very punk, I guess.
Does Mike give you shit about marriage? He recently was married…
Yeah, he was recently married. (laughs) Um, so did he have an issue or conflict with it, is that what you mean?
Well, did he give you the ‘talk’.
Mike’s my friend, and we did talk about it. He said we he had to say and, you know, he had some points but he could see I’m pretty happy.
Does Mike Dirnt ever let you come over and roll around in his money?
One time he filled his swimming pool with money, and we swam around in it. It was fun!
Who wrote the pirate song off of “Actung Jackass”?
The Frustrators did! Actually, out guitar player kinda said that line, “have you see the look in a pirates eyes when he hears…” See, Terry says things that don’t make any since. Which is what we told him when he says that line, which is basically the chorus from the pirate song. Somehow, we couldn’t dismiss it and I just filled in around the song. It’s a funny little story. Fun songs are great to play; I love ’em.
Whose stupid idea was it to put the song “Trout” backwards on the CD? I’m such a nerd that I copied the track to my computer and reversed it; it’s a good song. why have it backwards?
That’s pretty nerdy. We basically… (stammers) Well, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. Um. We wanted to have a certain length to the CD, but we were too lazy to write another song. So, we had to put something on there. Right now, people are hitting me, telling me not to say this. Basically, we couldn’t get it together to put the song on the CD. I don’t know why; I don’t understand the record industry. So, we put it on backwards
Plan on touring again? Dates?
The last time we toured, it was for a tiny little Los Angeles stint, and I’d love to do it again; it was totally fun. We keep talking about doing an east coast tour, but I’m not really sure. Maybe a six city east coast tour.
Do you have material written for a new CD?
We have four songs written and pretty much finished; actually five. It’s really rough trying to get everyone together to record. Part of being in the Frustrators is that it’s frustrating. None of the songs have names yet.
Are you a guest spot vocal guy?
No, not really. Maybe some karaoke, or some answering machine messages.
So, aside from that, any new Frustrators stuff coming up? EP? Single? Dance remix?
Actually, we do have this one hidden song that we recorded but left off “Acting Jackass” and we might still put out a 45 with “Trout” on one side and the secret song on the other. Songs are easy and fun to write; the difficulty is getting together and recording it all at once.
Well, that’s all my questions.
I probably sound like an idiot. Sorry. Did I answer everything in the wrong way? Please make me not sound stupid.
Don’t worry about it; I’ll take your interview apart and finish it off out of context, so you sound like an asshole or something.
Cool, please do.
So, anything you’d like to say?
I love Mike the asshole. He is hitting on me. The record industry is stupid. Punk is easy and about the money and the website. Eric is an idiot.
