Canada's

Long John, Scabby, Todd, Billy, and Dickey the rat (R.I.P.)

Gilbert: Howdy Doody. We are here with Thee Pirates at Rhythmstx. They played for us. Your name and what you do.

Todd: My name’s Todd and I play bass.

Gilbert: Todd plays bass.

John: I’m Long John and I rock.

Gilbert: Yeah.

Billy: I’m Billy and I play guitar and yell.

Scabby: Scabby, visual timekeeper.

Gilbert: So where are you guys from? You guys are from far and beyond, huh?

Todd: The Great White North.

Gilbert: I heard you played Cornerstone, what was that like?

Todd: Lots of people.

Gilbert: Mosh pits?

Todd: I didn’t notice.

Scabby: There was, it was nice.

Todd: Was there really?

Gilbert: Lots of big mosh pits?

Todd: Lots of people coming out to watch us play really bad.

Gilbert: So, when did the band start, Thee Pirates?

Todd: Almost 4 years ago. Our first show ever was the first Tom Fest in Washington.

Gilbert: Really? So who thought of the name Thee Pirates?

Todd: Billy did.

Gilbert: Billy tell us how the name came about.

Billy: I was sitting around tring to think of a name for our band and my roommate brought me a picture of a pirate so I named the band Thee Pirates.

Gilbert: Wow.

Billy: And I like ‘the’ bands. The Goblins, The Evaporators.

Gilbert: The Spivies.

Todd: The Cadavers.

Gilbert: How did you guys end up in California?

Todd: I don’t know yet.

Billy: Got in a hot van with no windows. Johnny’s rat died today.

Johnny: Yeah, Dickey died today.

Billy: And that’s all that really matters, so.

Johnny: It was too hot for her.

Gilbert: Did it really die?

Todd: It did.

Billy: Yeah.

Gilbert: So do you guys like driving around and stuff, or it’s probably horrible, huh?

Todd: It’s ugly.

Gilbert: So how is it playing with so many people in a band?

Todd: We started out as a three piece band and then we picked up John, supposedly so that Billy could be more free with his guitar, but it hasn’t really happened. He still kind of stands around his mic and does nothing.

Gilbert: He’s a rock star, I saw him on stage. So do you guys have any endorsements or anything?

Todd: Endorsed, no.

Gilbert: Record deals?

Todd: No.

Gilbert: I heard you guys were on a Tooth N Nail compilation, could you tell us about that?

Todd: Um, some guy who works in the Tooth N Nail mail order room who used to send us stuff without us paying for it, because we’re pirates, felt sorry for us one day and decided to put us on this compilation, and that was that.

Billy:  We went down and they set up this show for us to I guess to see if they wanted to sign us and we played so poorly that they didn’t even talk to us after the show.

Todd: But it was fun.

Gilbert: What’s your goal for Thee Pirates?

Todd: Get home and still have a band. I'm just doing it because it’s fun, but uh I don’t know how much longer it’s going to last because it’s kind of going nowhere. But it’s still fun to do so I’ll keep doing it until I hate it I guess. I like playing the shows but I just don’t like all the politics, even though that’s all we sing about.

Gilbert: How about you. What’s your main goal in the band Thee Pirates?

Scabby: Rock and roll until I’m 84.

John: 84? You’re supposed to say rock and roll forever, dude.

Scabby: I’ll be dead before I’m 84.

John: Still, rock and roll until you’re dead.

Gilbert: What’s your goal, your purpose?

John: Chics. (laughs) No, that’s really not why I’m in this band.

Todd: Get rich and pick up little girls.

John: I don’t know why I’m in this band. Because these guys needed another guitarist and I didn’t know how to play guitar so they picked me.

Billy: The first band that played have a song about how if you don’t preach from the stage. You see, he introduced it by saying, ‘some people say that we’re not a Christian band and we’re just Christians in a band.’ And the song was sort of yelling at people saying that you have to preach from the stage and stuff. And in the States there is like this kind of Christian music scene that we’re not used to and we don’t really understand. The goals in the band are to be a good band and have a lot of fun, but we’ve all got personal goals that go beyond that.

Scabby: My personal goal is to play music forever, be in a band until I die and to drink coffee.

Billy: And drink coffee?

Scabby: And get tattoos. And that’s it.

John: I don’t think that I have any goals.

Gilbert: You just like playing shows?

Billy: Yeah.

"I hate the USA, but the people are nice."...Todd

John: Even when nobody shows up.

Billy: Sometimes more when nobody shows up.

Gilbert: Did you guys have fun tonight?

John: I had lots of fun.

Billy: I would have had more fun if my guitar worked. We drove too far, like it cost us at least $50 to come play this show. It would have been more fun if we didn’t loose a ton of money every time we played, but it’s still fun.

Gilbert: Cool. So you enjoy doing it then?

Todd: If I didn’t enjoy doing it I would have walked out a long time ago.

Gilbert: So are you guys excited about the show tomorrow with Headnoise?

Billy: Very much.

Gilbert: So tell us about the shows you have left, I know you said you only have a few left and then you are going back home, or?

Todd: Our last show is Tom Fest in Washington. We might be playing with 90lb.Wuss in Seattle, but we don’t know about that yet.

Gilbert: So is there any future goals for the band?

Billy: We’re going to try to make it home without killing each other.

John: Chances are about 50/50 right now.

Billy: If we get home and don’t kill each other, we’re doing a CD with Declaration Records.

Gilbert: Are you guys in any other compilation, or just this one compilation?

Todd: We’ve been asked to be on some compilation by this guy at Cornerstone that didn’t even see us play.

Gilbert: So what do you guys write your songs about?

Billy: I write all of the lyrics and mostly they are about my life. Now things are about like why are we over there bombing Kosovo when we don’t have any business being there. Mostly songs about that. Our new song is about America is an antichrist. There’s a song that’s sort of between me and God, like from me to God. There’s just stupid songs about being pirates. We have some political songs. Songs about how our foreign policy is killing the third world, that kind of stuff.

"Find out about the millions of people that are dying around the world because of your foreign policy."...Billy

Gilbert: So if you guys could get signed what label would you guys want to be on?

Todd: I don’t think we ever want to be signed.

Gilbert: You guys like the underground scene?

Billy: Yeah, at least we can’t stand the uh,

Todd: Politics of labels.

Billy: Yeah.

Todd: We don’t like getting told what to do.

Gilbert: You just like to play punk rock.

Billy: We’ll put stuff out on a label, like we are going to do stuff on that, what’s it called?

Todd: Declaration Records.

Billy: Because he’s a friend and stuff but we’ll never sign and stuff on somebody’s label I don’t think. We almost did because we were getting desperate, but then we figured out it wasn’t what we wanted.

Gilbert: So you guys are just happy playing music. Just playing shows, not getting signed.

Billy: Yeah. Some bands want to get big and be famous and stuff, but we don’t care. We like playing to punk kids and sleeping on the floors.

Gilbert: Last question. This is going to be online on our magazine, so it’s basically going to be everywhere so if you could say any last words, what would you say to the people out there?

Todd: I hate the USA, but the people are nice.

Gilbert: I’ve never been to Canada but I’d like to go fishing up there.

Todd: We came on this tour not knowing what would happen and it seemed like God wanted us to come on this tour and I think I’m maybe a little bit disappointed at the way things are going. Um, the tour’s been a flop overall but I’m really curious to know what God wanted to get out of this tour from us. Because I really haven’t seen anything, maybe I’m still waiting for it to happen, but it’s been a little bit frustrating. I don’t know if that’s really a good thing to say for my last words.

Gilbert: It’s cool. It’s how you feel.

"I’m sick of cheesy Christian bands that say throw away lines that they can’t or don’t back up."...Billy

Todd: That’s how I feel. I’m still curious to know what God has in store for the band. There were too many things that happened on this tour that couldn’t have been coincidence that could have only happened because God wanted us to come and do this. I’m just a little bit curious as to why.

Gilbert: How about you?

John: He pretty much about stole it. That’s exactly how I feel. We started out and I still don’t feel like we would have made it this far if God didn’t want us to. But I don’t see why He wants us to. I haven’t seen anything worth His while, why we’ve come out this far, I don’t know. We’ve been pretty well taken care of on this trip. Our shows get canceled and somehow we still find shows. I don’t know.

Gilbert: What about you, any last words?

Scabby: Huh? Last words? I haven’t prepared my speech yet. I feel the same way they do. I think that God wanted us here and so many things have happened that it’s obviously that He’s helping us out like we crossed the border too easily, we didn’t get checked for ID’s or anything. Usually we get searched for hours on end.

Billy: They didn’t find the heroin.

Scabby: They didn’t find the heroin, the AK47’s. It seems like God wants us here, I don’t know why yet and I hope that He shows us soon. So what do you have to say genius?

Billy: If there is anything that I could tell people to do especially in America, I’d say find out what your government’s doing. Find out about the millions of people that are dying around the world because of your foreign policy. Same thing in Canada. Especially, it seems like a lot of Americans, we watched this TV show last night the Newlywed Show or something and one of the questions was, ‘What’s different between American men and Russian men?’ And the answer was always something about how American men are more moral than Russian men. But, there’s just this American myth that’s so untrue. That they believe that American people are more moral than other people and the American government is more moral than other governments just lets the American government kill millions and millions around the world. And we do it thinking that we are a moral society or a Christian society, but, and we sort of do it in the name of God, killing people all over the place, but it’s all a lie. God isn’t in the government. Anything else I couldn’t say in a short time. But read Norm Chalmsky.  But I can’t put something like that on the Internet, it’s like wearing a cheesy Christian slogan or something. Or like, we went to this Sunfest thing and there was these booths selling T-shirts and bumper stickers and things with cheesy Christian slogans like,

John: I’m the Christian the Devil warned you about.

Billy: Yeah, just like stuff that calls non-Christians stupid and like, like the stuff I believe is the most important thing about who I am, but I need a relationship with somebody before they can understand really what that is I can’t really shout it or wear something like that on my sleeve. The booths with the stupid cheesy slogans that sort of have Christians set apart from non-Christians which shouldn’t be that way at all, are totally full. And the booths that were ‘Sponsor a starving child’ in some third world country there was nobody there the whole time we were there. It was really frustrating. Why am I talking about this? Obviously God is more important than politics and outside of space and time and politics and everything you know, but it’s harder for me, I can’t wear God on my sleeve. I’m sick of cheesy Christian bands that say throw away lines that they can’t or don’t back up.

Gilbert: So basically you guys are about the true punk rock scene.

Todd: We’re all about going out and having fun.

Billy: Our band is about having fun.

Gilbert: Cool. Well, you guys were bad tonight, thanks for coming and I hope your show goes well tomorrow.

Thanks guys.