Interview with Meat Hammer - Podcast 1

Thanks for tuning in to SoundSceneRevolution.com, a podcast that's entirely devoted to local bands, subversive bands, underground music, where we have interviews and music from those bands. This is our very first broadcast, so if you guys got any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to hit us up at SoundSceneRevolution at gmail.com. If you can't spell that, take a look at the URL at the top of your little computer screen right there, and that should have it for you. My name is Richard, and I'll be the host on this show for as long as they let me do it. What we got in store for you today is we got some musical cuts and an interview with the San Jose-based band Meat Hammer, where we're going to be playing that throughout the next 20 minutes or so.

Before we get into the interview, we're going to play a cut from their latest EP, which you guys can buy at their shows, or if you email them, you may be able to get it. But I'm going to kick it off with the first song off of this EP, which is called Band Saw Bacchanal, and it's off their EP called Less Blabbin', More Stabbin'. This is San Jose band Meat Hammer.

♪ song played ♪

It's a little grainy at first, but once we get into it, it clears up pretty well, so sit down and enjoy. This is our interview with Ryan, Greg, and Alex, better known as Mac the Knife, Butch the Butcher Henderson, and Just Frank, the three guys who comprise the San Jose band Meat Hammer. Enjoy.

That's impossible. No one's more important than us. How many of you bands will have sold in the hundreds of thousands category? We're on the cutting edge, though. Our music really means something. Our music comes from the heart. Is that the new term? Oh, for Pete's sake. We don't like to borrow conformity and say the new hip thing. Yeah. We're picking an old school. I'm a non-conformist, just like all my friends that dress the same way as me, say all the same things. So, let's just try and get this started. Are we on? So, you can get to do more important bands that have sold in the hundreds of thousands. Ooh, they've sold, like, more than ten. Oh, gosh. All right. Whoopity-doo. They play more than twice a year.

Good for them. All right, so, let's just start. We're here today with the band Meat Hammer, who, where do you guys hail from? You can really tell that you've been practicing interviewing really good at this. Do you guys have a location? What's your home base, San Jose? San Jose. Well, pretty much my mom's house. All right. All right. And, uh... Wait, are we going to be in character? Are we... No, no. We should be in character. It's too hard, though. I'm too bad for a character. Yeah, it's too hard. All right. Let's try... Let's try this again. I'm here with the band... We're the exact same guys, but with different names.

All right. This isn't going to happen. A bunch of fucking retards. All right, so I'm here with the band Meat Hammer, so if you guys can just give me your name one at a time and what you do in the band, it'd be great. Well, I'm Ryan, and I play drums, and my stage name is Butch the Butcher Henderson. All right. Anyone else? Feel free. I'm Mac the Knife Latimer. I'm the guy that plays the bass guitar, and I club on children with mallets. And you are? There's the guy in the middle here. He's drunk. Giggly McGee. Shake out the sillies. Let's go. Go by the name of Greg, play guitar, and sing, and I get no blowjobs from this band at all. That's Greg. Maybe one or two. That's Greg, plays guitar, and sings, in case you guys are curious.

So, what's your guys' story? How long have you played? What started you guys playing? You know, the basic crap. I could field this one. I don't know how long we've been together. Six months? Maybe a year? No, it's like a year. Yeah. It's been like a year. It's been over a year. I think 17 years later, we played our first show in the spring of 2004 at that decrepit urine-burning-dead rat in the backyard house. Isn't that summer that we played that show? Yeah, because the rat smelled really bad because of all the heat. But in the backyard with people who were pissing literally during our set around us. Like, can I piss behind your drums, bro? Is that cool? I'm like feeling drips on my neck. That was our first show.

How is that different than any other Friday night at the Roman house? It sounds like an average show for you guys. So, what brought you guys together? What made you decide to play as a band? Basically, we were in another band. Yeah. Well, basically, the genesis of the whole project started with Greg having this wonderful idea of taking the concepts of a lot of the songs that we did in a former band, NME, which Ryan is currently drumming for, and just taking some of the better and heavier song ideas and running with them and doing something new as sort of a side project. And every time we would practice with Triton Crew and the other guys weren't around, we'd just noodle around and cover NME songs, a couple new stuff.

And we got this great idea that if a show ever comes up that Triton Crew can't play, we'll just go play it. And then, you know, we'll just go as, hey, why don't we go as Mean Hammer? That's a fun name. And then, so that's what happened. We had one show and then it just sort of like went off from there. And the next thing you know, we said, oh. And all of a sudden, Greg and Alex aren't in Triton Crew anymore. All of a sudden, a year later. And I still am. And I'm still an NME. Basically, any band we bring up tonight, I'm probably in it. So, what bands have you guys all played in? Like, one at a time on that. I'm still, well, I think I'm out of NME now. I'm not sure if I've quit officially yet or not. It goes on hiatus.

Yeah, like, yeah. So, I'm not kind of in NME and I'm still in Triton Crew and I'm in Meat Hammer. Same band as Ryan. NME, Triton Crew, Meat Hammer. But I started NME. And my first band I was ever in was called Underage Sex Partner. Weren't you also in the podcast? I was like 12. What's that? Weren't you in P.O.P.? P.O.P.S., yeah. But that's basically Triton Crew. It just, yeah, we switched names. Except not as heavy. It's not. People don't know that. It's tough. Okay, yeah, sorry. I just figured people follow my history, you know. Yeah, no. And as for myself, big surprise, same three bands. And then I was in, you know, I was in the short-lived high school bands. I had, let's see, like two or three. And then I had another, like, short-lived project with a friend of mine, friends of mine that are currently in Pint Night.

So, judging by your history, why shouldn't I believe this band will break up in a week? Feel that. Because we're really good. Because each of the other bands lasted at least a few years. Yeah. Because we have a shtick. Yeah. Which brings me to my next point. Hey, Rich, ask us how we got our shtick. So, how did you guys get us? That's funny, you should ask.

Basically, uh. You don't know. I'm really glad you asked that. I never thought you would. We were just a normal band who played really, really heavy music that everybody seemed to love. But we seemed to be missing something. And then we, I don't know if you've heard of Arnold Kaur, but they're like, they're, like, you know, they act like Arnold Schwarzenegger dress up. They're the greatest band of all time. Yeah, pretty much the greatest band ever. And then they, what was the show called? The world's deadliest bands, right. And they needed another band. And they said, and then there was another band opening up called Count Dante. The Chunky Rockabilly Broads couldn't play. Yeah. Mike to your face. The Chunky Rockabilly Broads couldn't play, so we got to play.

Basically, they needed another band that was, like, a shtick or whatever. Like, if you want to play, you've got to come up with something. So, Alex had this idea, like, well, we're Meat Hammer. Why don't we be, like, why don't we be butchers instead of, but we don't kill animals. Alex voted for Vikings. We work in a people factory and kill people all day. And, of course, Greg thought that was a great idea, so I went along with it. Now I love it. I didn't think it was a great idea. I thought of the entire damn idea. Oh, you did? And I thought of the band's name. And you guys are so good. I don't recall him thinking of the whole idea with the butchers thing. I mean, I just recall I did all the work. I didn't recall hating you.

I didn't come up with anything, but I just played in the band. But anyway, you played the show, and it went off really well. It was almost sold out, and, like, everybody went, I would say, crazy. Yeah, and then we, like, never played again. Yeah, and now we play, but we really want to play again. Yeah. But so, yeah, I think we're pretty committed to that. So we're coming up with our gay character names and all that stuff, so we can be a full-on shtick man. You're the gay character? I thought that was great. I thought with a name, like, Meat Hammer was implied. Yeah. It's just my take. I'm not even sure where you guys are going. We could start all over. No. So if you want to be offended, we'll just edit out the crappy stuff.

So I think we'll have about four, five minutes to roll with. So what are you guys' influences? Like, what do you guys listen to? What do you guys think influences the music that you guys make? I'd say Dream Theater, probably. Yeah. Number one. I listen to NPR, so all the incidental music on NPR, draw a lot of in Scraggie. PJ and Scraggie, yeah. Chumbawamba. Oh, totally Tori Amos.

Right. I'd say we're like a... Oh, Lilith Fair, yeah, yeah. We're probably like a mishmash of, like, S.O.D. and Anal Cunt. Guar. Guar. And then this band, really other offensive music. A little bit of influence from this awesome old, like, what do they call them? Grandcore, metalcore band called Doom. Stuff like two of you out there might have heard of. I'm surprised, because all those bands you listed were, like, good. Yeah. Yeah, I know. You think if you put them together, it would sound good, but it doesn't. No, not so much. You end up with us. We care not to some of our parts. That's not like... I don't listen to any of that stuff, though. These guys do.

But you're having fun. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty fun to play that stuff. It's definitely different.

♪ song played ♪

The farting. Yeah, just grab assing. We end up cracking each other up so bad that we can't make it through the songs half the time. I like when we have Naked Practice Day, too. Every Friday is Naked Practice Day. Yeah, that's the funny thing. Ryan likes it, and me and Greg always end up crying, and so obviously there's a problem. It sucks when your guitars and bass get in the way, though. I'm a carapist who's scheduled for this week. This is because I lost the back plate on my guitar and my dick peeps when I got caught up in the potentiometers. I thought your pubic hair was getting caught up in the springs. Thanks for your, uh, for your, uh, Treble-O. Guy top this interview, Jerry.

Potentiometers. What was the actual question?

What do you guys like about being a band? Oh. It, uh, in all honesty, uh, the Naked, no, uh, the, uh, just that we can be, like, total slap, obviously we're slapdicks, and you can tell from the interview, just, that we can just totally fuck around, and we don't have to, like, follow rules of the scene, and whatever. We're fucking, we're in blood, and fake blood, and it's ridiculous, you know what I mean? Like, this is a plug to come see us, you know? Yeah. But, um. It would be fake blood. Yeah, no, it's just, it's pretty ridiculous. And insults. And it's, like, it's really fun, because we can just be stupid, and we don't have to, we're, like, wait, you know, like, I don't have my pants rolled up, I don't have my jeans tight enough, or whatever, you know?

It's just, like, it doesn't matter, because we always have our same uniform, and we look gay, but at least it's fun. And plus, then, that kind of just, that's just, that makes it totally over the top, so any, any, you have to be completely brain dead to take even, like, one iota of our stuff seriously, because we're doing the shtick, and we've got the, uh, we've got the, uh, the characters, and the costumes, and the whole backstory, you know, so we can do this really offensive stuff, and pretty much get away with it. That's cool. So, uh, has anyone actually ever taken your stuff seriously? Has anyone been offended by anything you guys have done? I don't think enough people have heard us yet. I mean, well, yeah, you know, there's gonna, there's gonna be the random fatty who's gonna get offended by, I couldn't even get through it, I knew you guys, there's gonna be the random fatty who's gonna get offended by I'm fat, or, like, you know, like, the Rosie the Riveter, you know, Uber Dyke who's gonna get all pissed off about God made you a woman because he doesn't like you, but it's like, if you listen to being Uber Dyke, you'd be mad at that.

If I was a woman, I would hate us. Or if I was a child, or a human being with ears. So we basically play for people with no ears, yeah. But I mean, you know, obviously, you know, if you can, you know, I don't know, I mean, if you can't even be self-deprecating in any way to be able to get that it's all totally stupid, and we're trying to make fun of everybody equally, you know, because we hate dudes and dogs and, you know, broads and kids. We're just trying to have fun and piss people off, but do it in a funny way so that they won't beat us up, basically, you know, but we can still make fun of them and have a good time and, you know, follow up. I'm in it for chicks and money. Yeah. Yeah. You're totally gonna fail.

Yeah. Yeah. You're screwed. But you gotta think the one chick that will like it, though, is gonna be a freak. It's gonna be ugly, yeah. Well, this is gonna be crazy. Let me talk about our last show. So, um, what's, do you guys, have you even played enough to have a favorite memory of playing live or a favorite show that you guys have done? I mean, it's the Arnachor show. Yeah. It was awesome, and, like, people were, like, like, trying to sing along, even though there's no possible way they could know our songs, because we didn't even record anything at that point, but, um, yeah, people were totally into it, and we even had, like, butcher hat, I don't know how you explain them, like, chef hat. Yeah, it's like, like, the paper, I mean, obviously the ubiquitous thing is you could say it, you know, like an In-N-Out style hat, and we had a bunch of those with Mean Hammer stickers on it, and we threw out in the crowd, and people were, like, wearing them on and rocking out, and that was awesome, because that was our first time in costume, and we didn't know if the shtick was gonna work, and so it was just, let's throw them out there, and people put them on, you know, that was, that was awesome.

Yeah, and we just got flashed by, like, a million hot chicks at the same time, and everybody was throwing money up on stage. That's nice. So, I got your demo-type deal here. Tell me about that, like, where was it recorded, and what, how did you decide what goes on there? We recorded at beautiful, uh, Castle Ultimate Studios, and, well, actually, at Castle Ultimate Studios in beautiful Oakland, California, uh, by Zach, last name unknown. Yeah, Zach. He's Zach, he's one of the two guys that, uh, works at Castle Ultimate, and, uh, we recorded six songs, uh, basically from the time we drove up to the time we drove off, it was a total of 20 hours work, mixed, mastered, and ready to go, which is pretty awesome, and, um, what was the other question?

I'm really, I'm really proud of it, I think, well, Zach totally knows what he's doing when it comes to, like, heavy music, and, like, I just, I think it, I'm not saying, like, we're awesome, or whatever, I just, I think the recording came out really well, like, everything that's supposed to be heavy is heavy, whether you like the music or not, I think it was recorded really well, and, uh, I'm really happy with it, and, uh, basically, the only, I think the other question was, why did we, which ones did we choose, those were just, we did six songs, because that's what we had done at the time. That's what you guys had at the time. Yeah. Yeah, we, we were kind of shooting for four, we figured, let's have six songs ready, just in case we, you know, in the middle of it, think we want to change, and then we just ended up recording all six, and, you know, we did it in less than three full days, and that was pretty bitchin', you know?

Yeah, it was cool. Do you guys have, uh, any personal favorites that you guys do? Off of that? Well, in general. Uh, like, uh, well, yeah, it's always fun to play God Made You a Woman because he doesn't like you, you know? Especially, especially when my girlfriend's there, you know, that's fun, or, like, just Do you want to say that title a bit more audibly, so everyone can make sure they heard that right? God Made You a Woman because he doesn't like you. Thank you. Get it? Uh, there's, that's a fun one, yeah. And then the band saw Back and All, Back and All. Yeah, that, that's, that's turning out to be like the, uh, what do you call it, like the fan favorite, you know, for our two fans. Yeah, that's right.

We end up hearing, I like the first song the best. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Probably because it's the least direct as far as, like, who, who we're trying to kill. It's just about killing people in general, so that way they don't have to worry about, oh, those poor people. It could be any. Yeah, it could be anybody. That's, that's, that's always comforting. Um.

Oh, I just had a thought. Oh, God, I don't know where to go next. I just wanted to be over. I was just total blank on that. Um, do you guys have any shows coming up that you guys are playing, like? Friday, November 18th at the, uh, Fabulous Caravan in downtown San Jose. Oh, fantastic. I'm in for that one. That one that was up in the air, yeah. Uh, uh, uh, the Caravan is, uh, 21 and over, no cover. It's a free show, Friday night, uh, November 18th. It'll be us and other band to be announced, or maybe just us again, but, you know, if you're... Jerry's band grows up fast, within the next two weeks they can play. Yeah, if you like, if you know, if you, if you actually like to have fun playing stuff and all your members are over 21, contact us and, uh, we'll, we'll get you on that show.

And another show that's as good a time as any to tell you, if Greg hasn't told you, is it November 12th? Is that, you know about that? November 12th, Aptos Club, with Arno Corr and, I believe, Count Dante and the Black Dragon Fighting Society. That seems to be, like, your trio there. Well, we're in, we have mad, mad gay love for each other. Yeah. That's what it is. I've got the biggest man crush on Arno Corr. It's so fun to watch, so. And playing one isn't even better. We've gotten, like, hooked up with them. So, make sure you go now to the Aptos Club for that show. Where is that? It's in Aptos, right? Or is it actually in Santa Cruz? It beats the living crap out of me. It's Santa Cruz or Aptos. Aptos Club. They say it's pretty easy to get off.

November 12th. Uh, the one, the, the fucking, I don't know, the one, whatever. Yeah, probably not. You get off of Highway 1 like a dipshit and go wherever the hippies go and you get to see us. Follow the train of hippies. All right, fair enough.

Follow the stick lines. It's like a first date. I feel terrible for actually trying to promote this. So, do you guys, uh, have a website or anything? We've got a MySpace. Does that count? If you go to www.myspace.com backslash meethammer, you'll cut, you'll find us. Uh, ArnoCore's also on MySpace, uh, so you should look for them because that'll probably have more info about the show and Aptos or www.arnocore.com. Yeah, if you just search MySpace for you guys, it's like the new GeoCities, basically. It's, it's kind of replacing GeoCities in that, yeah, except of course it's not as much content, but. And you get a lot more ugly chicks emailing you for sex. Yeah. I always get, I always get the heifers, I always get the heifers of the gay guys that go, I only want to have hot guys with my friends.

Well, okay, then, then why are you bugging me? Yeah. Where's like the hot little like 16 year old that's showing all, you know, cleavage and stuff? We need to stop him. He'll go, he'll just keep going. So, uh, anyway, website's not done yet. This is a good time to see you guys before Alex is in jail for statutory rape, I suppose. Well, if you're 12 or under, don't come to the show, because Alex will get a hold of you. You'll never see your parents again. Um, alright, fantastic. So, uh, do you guys have anything you want to add before I finish this? It's absolutely nothing. Nothing. I've said everything I need to say. This entire interview has been zero content, and at this point you have nothing more to add.

Uh, just, just come see us, we kick ass. Just give us a chance. Alright, so, uh, that's Meat Hammer, you can find him on MySpace, they've got a couple shows coming up in November. Uh, go see them and pick up their demo. Six songs, what? We're recording, uh, in December too, but we should have a, we should have the full length coming out, you know. Hopefully by spring. Yeah, hopefully by spring, yeah. So, be on the lookout in, uh, at all the garage sales, and the big sales, your beds in the cutout bin, boutiques around town, the dollar bin at Camelot Records, Rainbow Records, we'll keep an eye out on that once again. Music for us. Meat Hammer would like to thank you guys for coming and helping us get this project off the ground.

No problem. And, uh, we got your CD, we'll be playing stuff off of that probably throughout the interview. Oh, and how much, uh, do we get paid for this? Yeah. About that, I don't know. Alright, thanks a lot, guys. Alright, bye-bye. So that was our interview with the band Meat Hammer. Thanks everybody for tuning in, downloading, or streaming this off of our site. Again, this is our first show, so it's a little rough around the edges. If you have any comments, questions, concerns, interests, uh, you can check us out. Send us an email at soundscenerevolution at gmail dot com. Uh, we're always up for advice, and you can check out our website. We should have more information on the band and some personal notes from myself.

Uh, if you want to hear more, we're gonna wrap this show up with one last track from the band Meat Hammer. This is called God Made You a Woman Because He Doesn't Like You. Thanks for listening, and tune in every Tuesday for more updates from soundscenerevolution dot com. We'll see you next time.