PO: Name, age and what you play. Generic interview question.
John: John, owner of the mathusala skin flute.
PO: Good.
Justin: I am Justin, and I play the guitar.
PO: First of all, I noticed that you guys have a new guitar player.
John: Ha, ha, ha, ha.That's not really true...
Justin: He's just really helping us out, because he's the sax player for The Toasters and he happens to play guitar. During the Independence Day Tour, I fell ill and I was gone for about two weeks. And due to lack of finances forced the Skoidats to go on without me while I was recovering. And so they formed the "mock Skoidats" which played about five tour dates before I came back. And that line up was John here who usually playes saxaphone on vocals. Silly Mike from the Toasters. He plays saxaphone for the Toasters. He was playing guitar John: And Ross played tenor
Justin: and Ross from Slow Gherkin played Tenor Sax. So when I got back we decided to keep him up there to add to the sound.
John: right
Justin: and we were having fun.
PO: He's only temporary right? I mean for the Toasters. Cause Rocksteady is away in Europe.
Justin: Right, right.
John: The thing with those two, Chunk and Rick Faulkner... or I should say Rick Faulkner and Freddie Reiter.
Justin+PO: yah...
John: well they're pretty involved with the Ska Jazz Ensemble so I don't ....
PO: So they're not in the Toasters anymore?
Justin: Well we don't know about that.
John: Yah, I don't know. That's all a rumor. But, uh, Mike's position is kind of teporary there. We've been kind of talking about snagging him up but, that's sort of a wait and see sort of thing.
Justin: Yah. He's just up there cause we're having fun.
John: and I'll tell you what, it really fills out the sound. Just having that 6th person up there on stage really makes us feel a little bit more comforatable.
PO: Oh yah, you guys moved to.. New Brunswick is it?
Justin: No, actually we're in Livingston. Which is northern Jersey
PO: So, uh. Why'd you guys move?
Justin: Because we decided to do this full time. Try to pay the bills by playing the music, instead of punching a clock.
John: Plus, over here its a lot easier to get gigs, where as in Montana you end up driving so far that it's not worth it.
Justin: You can't play enough gigs out there.
John: and to get to NYC is like 8-10 to 14 hours. Unless we wanted to take up the life of a bar band. Learn three hours worth of music and play the same old sh!t.
Justin: Yah, and we didn't want to become a cover band.
John: we haven't really tried it out yet. Because as soon as we got here we went on tour. So the next few months will be the test. Our endurance. And whether we can make it or not.
PO: that's cool, that's cool. Where would you say most of your influences come from?
John: they come from so many places it would take an hour.
Justin: You could ask each individual person and get a different answer.
John: yah.
Justin: Mainly I'd say, ska music in all of it's forms. Lots of jazz. Oi! Oi!. Street punk.
John: and rock and roll.
Justin: and rock and roll.
PO: If you had to describe your band to someone who's never heard you before... what would you say?
Justin: Contemparary Ska music, with a dash of Oi!
John: Yah,
Justin: or maybe more than just a dash.
John: definitaly more than a dash. I say a ska oi! band.
Justin: It's a fifty fifty mix.
PO: have you guys toured Europe?
Justin: No, we were supposed to go....
John: ... No, no no NO NO NO NO! GOD DAMNIT!!!
(we all laugh, be cause he was jokingly getting angry)
John: we may go in March. March and April.
Justin: And now may I ask you a question?
PO: yah sure.
Justin: Where the hell did you get that V neck thing?
PO: Oh, well see, it was a long sleeve...
John: ...oh, I see, you sewed that on..
PO: and it got too short for me, so I made it a short sleeve by hand and sewed your patch on.
Justin: Yah, we've got to get some of those. They look sharp.
the rest of this inteview was kinda killed by my P.O.S. of a recorder, but basically we talked about they're new album that's going to be recorded in February, and the split with Inspector 7.
