Don't Mess With Texas:
Two-Handed Man interviews
Speedealer

    It's nice to know that there are still rock bands like this out there. Discounting any and all trends and gimmicks, Speedealer play music that's heavy but also carefully crafted, skillfully played, catchy, and fun. Their June 2002 CD, SECOND SIGHT, was produced by Jason Newsted, former Metallica bassist, and their previous CD, HERE COMES DEATH is a great rock record. Their CDs, live shows and website www.speedealeronline.com are all highly recommended. I interviewed them on April 27th, 2002, when they came to Toronto in support of Motorhead. All four musicians--Eric (guitar), Harden (drums), Jeff (vocals/guitar) and Rich (bass)--turned out to be nice guys, and I enjoyed talking to them about politics, the state of the world, and of course, the rock music that had brought us all together. Their long-time bass player Rodney had just recently been replaced with Rich, formerly of Karma To Burn, so my first question was: What happened to Rodney?

Jeff: He had to leave the band. Um, it's a hard question to answer. Actually, it's a very easy question to answer, but I think I'd rather just leave it at that: he had to leave the band.

Two-Handed Man: So are you the only original member now?

Jeff: Yeah.

THM: Did Rodney play on the new record?

Jeff: Yeah.

THM: When you formed the band, what was your goal in terms of what kind of music you wanted to make? What was there in the current scene that you were reacting to or rebelling against?

Jeff: Well, we started in Lubbock, and there was just a couple bands around, there really wasn't a 'scene' around there, so there wasn't anything to go against, you just kind of did what you did. There were several different types of bands, and everyone played together, and I guess that was kind of neat. And there was never any 'goal,' we just played what we played, this is just what came out of us. There wasn't a set vision to make a certain type of music.

THM: Wasn't Lubbock the hometown of Buddy Holly and the Crickets?

Jeff: Yeah.

THM: How did the recording of the new record differ from the recording of the last one? Daniel Rey (who produced HERE COMES DEATH) had produced Manitoba's Wild Kingdom and a bunch of good records --

Jeff: Right.

THM: --so what made you not want to use him again, and how did you hook up with Jason Newsted?

Jeff: Well it's not that we didn't want to use Daniel. Actually, we wanted to use him with Jason. Basically, the timing was wrong, and Jason wanted to do it, and that was kind of a hard opportunity to pass up, you know? Something like that doesn't come along too often. Because of him, we had a bigger budget, and more time to make the record, and that made a difference between the two records--because of a bigger budget you have more time to try recording in ways you never would have gotten to. Our previous records were all done in almost no time at all, we just went in and played the songs out, and what we played was what was on the record, and that's not a bad thing, but we just wanted to try something different.

THM: From the listener's point of view, how does the record sound different? What were you specifically doing in the studio that you couldn't do before?

Jeff: We had the opportunity to go back and re-play certain things, fiddle with songs, and the tone, different kinds of amps to play through, different kinds of guitars, all the recording equipment in general, everything was up at an entirely new level we'd never been at before.

THM: How long did you spend recording HERE COMES DEATH?

Jeff: Ah, what was it? A week?

THM: A week?!

Jeff: Yeah.

THM: Like, five days, or a full seven days..?

Jeff: Five days in the studio.

THM: Wow. Had Jason Newsted actually worked as a producer before this, or was his name recognition the main attraction?

Jeff: I think we're the first band he's actually had producing credits on. I know he has a studio in his house and does a lot of things. And he has his own band, too, Echobrain. I mean there was the name factor, but also just from talking to him we could tell he understood what our music was about, having been in Metallica for so long. So he had a good understanding of it, and the name thing doesn't hurt.

THM: Describe the way you write the material. Is there input from the whole band? Do you write the lyrics first and then match up the music to it, or vice versa?

Jeff: The writing process involves the whole band. Everyone takes part, and it doesn't matter who writes what, because everyone put their own stamp on their part anyways, or comes up with something else to enhance the song. And as far as lyrics go, except for one song on the record, 'Kill Myself Tonight,' they were pretty much written in one sitting, or in one twenty-four hour period, and they were written after the music. And for HERE COMES DEATH, I just made most of them up on the spot, except for a couple songs, and then Daniel would make me write them down and decipher the gibberish I was saying, and make something to give him a reference when he was mixing, to tell him what the hell was going on, what part of the song he was in.

THM: So you didn't have the songs totally laid out when you went into the studio with him?

Jeff: With who? With Daniel or Jason?

THM: Oh, well answer for both guys.

Jeff: The songs were always there, and for this record the lyrics were, too. The other records, there were no lyrics, every night I'd sing them different on stage every night.

THM: So would write the song and then test it out in different ways at your live shows before you took it into the studio?

Jeff: Oh, yeah. We always play the song live for a long time beforehand. I don't think we've ever had a song that we didn't play live before we recorded it. We were playing this whole record a year before we recorded it, and a couple of these songs a year-and-a-half or two years before we recorded them.

Harden: We had planned on recording a year earlier than we did, so we've been playing these songs for awhile.

THM: Yeah, wasn't this record supposed to be out a long time ago?

Harden: Yeah well, when you're dealing with record labels, things get delayed a lot.

THM: What is your take on the current state of the American music scene? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it?

Jeff: There's not much to like about it. There are some good bands out there...for the most part, I really don't pay that much attention to it. I don't have anything in common with most of the bands, and the music doesn't do anything for me, so I don't pay much attention to it.

THM: I get the impression that in America there's two kinds of musical acts: those that get their videos played on MTV, and...everybody else who doesn't get that exposure, and it's a lot harder to penetrate the mainstream consciousness without that kind of media exposure. Do you find that frustrating at all? Is that something you think about?

Jeff: No. I mean, (shrugs) look at us. Listen to our music. Maybe we'll be on it one day, but I can't see us being on MTV. Again, these are things we never think about. We're just doing our thing. Hopefully we'll be able to sell some records and be able to live a little more comfortably, but other than that...

THM: I guess things would be easier with an MTV-level of exposure.

Jeff: Oh yeah, sure, but along with that comes a whole new set of problems, too.

THM: What was the first record you ever bought?

Jeff: Um, I think a friend of mine gave me Van Halen 1.

Harden: I think mine was Toys In The Attic.

THM: Really?! That's a great record!

Eric: The first record I bought with my own money was Led Zeppelin 2.

Rich: I bought the single 'Convoy.' (laughter)

THM: You mean the 'Convoy' song, about trucking?

Rich: Uh-huh.

THM: Being from Texas, can I safely assume you voted for George W. Bush?

Jeff: I don't vote. Actually, we were in Europe when the election was going on.

THM: And you had no interest in choosing between Bush and Gore?

Jeff: Personally, no, not really. It doesn't make much of a difference, in my opinion.

THM: Would you be interested in talking about the events of 9-11 at all? (Jeff makes a face) Well, I haven't had a chance to talk to any actual Americans about it...I'm interested in the American reaction to it, how, after it happened, there were all these millions and millions of flags everywhere. And I can see how it would be helpful or comforting, but there were soooo many of them, it almost seemed like an expression of a superstitious belief that if we just wave the Stars and Stripes enough, all our troubles will go away.

Jeff: I don't think that was the case, although it all did get pretty obnoxious after awhile, I'll say that. But I think what you're talking about was just a renewed sense of patriotism, and a realization that we're vulnerable.

THM: Norman Mailer commented on all the flag-waving by saying something to the effect that the religion of America is not Christianity, it's really the concept of America itself...anyhow, since you travel a lot, and I don't, I was hoping you could talk about the difference in the way 9-11 is perceived in different parts of the world.

Jeff: We haven't been anywhere since then.

THM: Oh.

Jeff: After it happened, we went recording in San Francisco and Sausalito, so we were kind of isolated from the whole thing, except for television. As far as your Norman Mailer quote--I would hope so, separation of church and state, and if there is a state religion, it should be American, not Christianity.

THM: I was kind of struck by how American pundits said 9-11 is The Day The World Changed, when in the past, there were other places where tragedies with even higher body counts took place.

Jeff: Like in Somalia. That's a good example.

THM: Oh, yeah.

Jeff: Again, it awakened us up to the fact that we're vulnerable, we aren't just a world unto ourselves. The world's getting smaller and you can reach us in different ways. You know, I can't foresee a fleet of bombers and ships coming over here because the Cold War's over, and even then it was kind of a silly thought; if anything happened it would have been a nuclear war.

THM: Right. Everything would've been gone in five minutes.

Jeff: Those kinds of thoughts never concerned us, so we never thought that we would be hurt in such a way. It was a wake-up call. To be quite honest with you, I know several Canadians, and I have NEVER heard them bring up the tragedy in Somalia or anything...

THM: Do you think this newfound realization you speak of will be a lasting thing? There seem to be indications that the mass consciousness is reverting back to its frivolous, pre-9-11 state.

Jeff: Well yeah. That's the American way: you get over it, and move on. We're pretty shallow people. Even in Canada, they're shallow, even though they're the nicest people.

THM: Over a period of many years, Indonesia wiped out something like a third of the population of East Timor, and since that wasn't on CNN, nobody said, 'These are the Days The World Changed,' and because 9-11 happened in America, which is the centre of the world--

Jeff: Well, you just said it: America is the centre of the world. Look at what happened, look at the response. We flexed our muscles--we didn't even flex our muscles, we lifted our pinky finger, and look what we can do. That's just the way it is. That's why we're hated, and that's why we're loved.

THM: But it seems like a problem, where if you can't get your tragedy on to CNN, those deaths don't have the same currency that they would if they had died in America.

Jeff: Yeah, but is it on Canadian television? All those things?

THM: What?

Jeff: What you were talking about.

THM: Oh no, no. Many Canadians get their news from American sources anyway.

Jeff: Okay. Well then maybe it isn't a problem with America, but a problem with the rest of the world. I highly doubt that the Arabic news reported the tragedies going on in East Timor, or China. Hell, they don't know anything about what's going on outside of their own countries. They only know what their government wants them to know. So actually, we're probably better informed than the rest of the world. Even in Scandinavia and Europe--and Japan! My God! You can't learn anything about the rest of the world in Japan. They're the most xenophobic nation there is. They're obsessed with pop culture and their Prime Minister. So I don't think your assessment of America is fair. There's a lot of things wrong with the country, a LOT of things, but you say a tragedy is ignored by the U.S. when it's ignored by the rest of the world, too. It's always the rest of the world crying and screaming about how we ignore everything that happens to them, when they're guilty of the same thing. Look at the Kyoto Agreement. The French are crying about the U.S. not signing it-they haven't signed it either! You know? 'What are you waiting for?' 'We're waiting for YOU to sign it!' 'Oh, so you don't want to spearhead anything, you want us to take the initiative, you want US to do it, but then you want to cry when we DO take the initiative.' And it's not just the French, it's almost all of Europe. And again, it's all because we're the most powerful nation, we're the richest nation, so everyone wants to live here, everyone wants to be us, but they hate us, because they're NOT us. And that's just a sad fact, that's just the way life works.

THM: So you think that America, the way it is right now, is about as good as it could be, considering-

Jeff: No, at all. Far from it. But compared to any other place in the world, nothing supercedes it. I mean, Canada's fucked-up as hell! My God, you guys are so afraid!

THM: What are we afraid of?

Jeff: You're afraid of each other, you're afraid of us, you're afraid of the whole world.

THM: What do you mean?

Jeff: Well, you're afraid of America...I read the papers here, and it's just ridiculous. (laughs) The editorials. If you read the Calgary Sun, about the damn Olympics, it was retarded! (NOTE: I assume Jeff's referring to that incident where Canada's darling figure skaters, Sale and Pelletier, were robbed of their gold medals due to a corrupt French judge taking a bribe. And it WAS pretty embarrassing to see how much media coverage the story got in Canada when so many more important news stories from around the world weren't mentioned at all.--THM) And you're afraid of Quebec, Quebec's afraid of you, Quebec wants to be France, and France hates Quebec, and it's just a MESS up here! The only thing you have going on that I like is the medical coverage, and I'm for that, but even that's a pretty fucked system, up here...

THM: When I was a kid I spent a couple days in the hospital and had an operation that cost several thousand bucks, but my parents just had to pay a hundred, or something.

Jeff: Yeah, that's great. That's the way it should be. Actually, Eric and I have both benefited from the Canadian medical system. (Laughs) Get a fake ID, or take a friend's ID, and hey.

THM: That's great.

Jeff: Yeah, it is great.

THM: By way of explaining what you were saying before, one of the main things we have holding us together is a hatred, or at least a disdain for Americans--

Jeff: (laughs) Oh, I'm not saying that. I didn't say that at all. I said Canada seems be afraid of itself, and afraid of everything around it.

THM: Well, seriously, we tend to define ourselves by what we are not. If you ask what makes a guy 'Canadian,' he'll say, 'Well, Americans do THIS, but we do THIS...'

Jeff: So you're expressing a fear.That's fear. That's all it is.

THM: I guess we do fear being swallowed up by the States...

Jeff: Yeah, of course. Because there's a good chance it's going to happen in the next fifty years.

THM: (bows head) Yeah, we suck.

Jeff: I'd be afraid, too. (shakes his head) Deer in the headlights, people. Not you, personally.

THM: Thanks!

Eric: You're one of the good ones.

Jeff: Do not get me wrong. Canada is a great country. But there's a lot of fear here.

THM: That's interesting, I never noticed. The traditional generalization is that Americans are pushy and obnoxious, and Canadians are friendly and passive, letting the Americans cut ahead of us in line.

Jeff: Americans can be that way. We saw a disgusting scene in the Tokyo airport, remember that? That lady? Oh yeah, it was disgusting, it was terrible...

THM: What happened?

Jeff: This American lady was being rude as hell, pushing people out of the way. Those poor Japanese people. (laughs) Those poor sweet Japanese people...What you say is true in a way, but it's also quite a generalization.

THM: I remember David Cronenberg writing something like, "Americans love to travel, but when they travel all they want to do is meet other Americans and complain about how hard it is to find a decent hamburger."

Jeff: Then again, the guys in Motorhead always bitch about the water, and the tea...everybody does that, everybody bitches about everything. My mother has a friend from Germany, and all she does is cry about how great things are back in the Fatherland, and how terrible things are here-then go the hell back!

THM: Right.

Jeff: But everyone does that. That's just the human condition. You want home around you all the time. You want to feel comfortable.

THM: You travel around a lot--what place that you've visited did you like the most?

Jeff: Copenhagen was great. And there was this little town in Germany called Sausvitel, and I liked it there.

THM: What's Texas like? I guess all we know about it up here is what we see on the King Of The Hill TV show...

Jeff: There are people like that, just like there are people up here like Bob and Doug McKenzie. But it's a huge state. It's cosmopolitan, it's rural, there are idiots, there are intelligent people...it's very hot, oppressively hot. Bad thunderstorms.

THM: Do you get tornadoes there?

Jeff: Yeah.

THM: What are your favourite current bands?

Jeff: Zeke, The Melvins, Fu Manchu...I used to like Karma To Burn, but I guess they broke up. (laughs)

Harden: I like Ween, Slayer, and the bands that Jeff mentioned, I like them also.

THM: Eric?

Eric: I like the Tragically Hip. (We all laugh)

THM: NO!!! Is that your way of 'bonding' with the Canadian guy? (NOTE: The Tragically Hip are a band from Kingston, Ontario. They're not that well-known outside of Canada, and wildly popular inside of Canada, partially because of the way they frequently load their lyrics with 'quintessentially-Canadian' references. Personally, I can't stand them.--THM)

Harden: We were getting a little worried about our Canadian record sales, but Eric just brought 'em back up a little! (laughs)

Eric: No, it's fucked-up, but I fucking love that band. I've followed them since their first record. I've got them all. I love PJ Harvey, I love Slayer, I love a whole bunch of stuff.

THM: Rich?

Rich: I like Ween...

THM: Hadn't Electric Eddie, the drummer for the Toiletboys, done some of the art design on your last record?

Jeff: Yeah, he worked on it. He was working for Palm Pictures, I don't know if he still does or not. I know a couple of the Toiletboys, and they're nice guys...(NOTE: Please visit www.toiletboys.com--THM)

THM: What does the future hold for Speedealer? How long is the current tour you're on?

Jeff: This tour ends May 8th in Chicago...and after that (laughs) we're going to go out on another tour, and just keep touring and touring. That's what we do. That's all we know how to do.

THM: How much of the year do you get to actually spend in Texas?

Jeff: How long have we been on the road so far this year?

Harden: Two months, maybe. We spend between two and four months a year at home. But that isn't all at once, it's a week here, a week there.

THM: Wow.

Jeff: Hopefully we'll continue to do that.

THM: Since you're used to it by now maybe you can't answer this, but how do you think that lifestyle affected your social life?

Jeff: I don't think it hurts anybody. We probably have a lot more friends, by living this way.

THM: I think I read some article recently where the idea was that relationships last the longest and work the best when the two people have busy independent lives, and actually don't see each other very much...

Harden: Eric likes that idea!

Eric: Whoever thought of that idea, I'm all about it!

THM: Hey, if you can talk her into it...

Harden: We've talked SEVERAL into it!

THM: Solid! Rich, what's it like to be the 'new guy' in the band?

Rich: I've been in the band about a month, and I wake up every day smiling, whereas I used to wake up every day and just go right back to sleep. That's the biggest difference I notice.

THM: Wow. So is being in Speedealer as much fun as it seems?

Rich: Yes! Actually, it is. I'm not going to lie to you.

THM: Eric, this is the second time I've seen you open up for Motorhead--what's it like hanging out with the world's finest rock band?

Eric: They're just...great guys. Actually, we heard a rumour that Speedealer is now the only band that opened up for Motorhead as many times consecutively as we have, or for as many tours, and been asked back, without being booed off the stage, and without getting hassled by the band themselves.

THM: That's great.

Eric: Yeah, that's a great feeling. We just really get along with these guys really well. ALL of them. Like, Phil has asked me to play rhythm guitar with them for a song at the New York show, and that means something. That shows how well we get along. We trust each other. It's a good time. Our music is kind of in the same pocket, and it runs over well with the Motorhead crowd. We always seem to win them over.

THM: Do you find the band has any problems in terms of being hard to categorize, and therefore making it harder to sell the band to people? You know, it's not metal like Judas Priest, it's not like the kind of punk that people in the mainstream think of when you say 'punk...'

Eric: Right, right, but to me that's a good thing, not being able to tag it with some label. An old-school record collector, or some young punk kid, or some young metal kid, they might not know what to say about it, but the bottom line is: they like it. They can't say anything bad about it.

THM: I kind of pictured the sound as like, what the Nugent sound was in the 70's, this is like the 21st century version of it.

Eric: (nods) Yeah, that's a good one.

THM: I mean his good stuff, like 'Great White Buffalo,' stuff like that, only faster.

Eric: Yeah, definitely. It's probably taken a lot of the good from the 70's and early 80's and just pumping it up a notch, in terms of tempos. But we like to slow down too. We just like whatever works best for the song, and makes it a good song, a good, well-crafted song. But I guess because of the tone on the guitars, it does have that 70's feel to it. We don't do that super-huge weird nu-metal sound, that over-produced wall of mud.

THM: That stuff's horrible, just horrible.

Eric: Exactly. We're just straight plug-and-play. Marshalls and old guitars.

THM: It's always bugged me how most people tend to associate hard, heavy music with morons...

Eric: (laughs) Yeah...

THM: People who thought I was intelligent would always lower their opinion of me once I told them I like Motorhead, right?

Eric: Right.

THM: And one thing I noticed on HERE COMES DEATH, on 'Hit It and Run,' for example, there are these interesting tempo changes and things in the middle of this song that a dummy could happily bang his head to, oblivious to all this interesting stuff.

Eric: Exactly, exactly.

THM: But it was obvious--

Eric: --that a lot of thought went into it-

THM: --and that you guys weren't idiots, and really knew what you were doing.

Eric: Exactly. We're all thirty-somethings with record collections from hell. We've got an obvious taste and love for music, first and foremost, and we want to make the best kind of song that entertains us, first and foremost. And that's what comes out of us, songs that entertain us, as well as other musicians, and people who've been listening to music for a long time.

THM: And that really does come through in your sound. With a lot of bands, I can listen to them and go, 'Okay, this guy's favourite bands are obviously this and this,' and with you, it was a bit harder to guess.

Eric: Exactly! And that's a good thing. All four of us have this vast collection of thoughts and memories and different tastes. And that's how we write: everything comes together.

THM: I think Jimi Hendrix said something to the effect that, 'There are two types of music in the world: good music and bad music,' (Eric laughs) and yeah, if it's good it's good.

Eric: Right.

THM: I once described your sound and a cross between Nugent and the Butthole Surfers, but an old-school Nugent fan probably wouldn't listen to the Butthole Surfers, and a Surfers fan probably wouldn't give Nugent a shot, but I'm like, why NOT? They're both good...

Eric: Well, I guess that's where fellow musicians and music fans are going to have to find us, and we're going to have to find them. We'll have to meet somewhere in the middle, and hopefully, everybody's entertained.

THM: Well, I know I'LL certainly be entertained. Thank you for your time, Speedealer!

*

Below are some Speedealer photos (the first one is of Eric and me) as well as some miscellaneous shots from around Hamilton. Send emails to darrellepp@hotmail.com. Keep this site alive by buying Consolation Prizes.