EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH IWRESTLEDABEARONCE
Last week, I wrote a piece about IWRESTLEDABEARONCE, my favorite new unsigned band. A lot of you reacted negatively to the two videos as I posted as part of the piece, but hey, guess what? One of the benefits of having your own website is that you can write about whomever the fuck you please. So I reached out to the band and asked them if they wanted to do an interview, and they agreed, and now I’m publishing said interview.
Let me tell you where my interest in this band lies: I concur that there are a lot of bands trying to pull off the same kind of genre-bending, doesn’t-take-itself-too-seriously, hydrogen bomb of metal these days, but I haven’t heard many who pull it off the way these guys (and girl) do, and I can’t be the only one – ’cause word around the camp fire is, they’re not gonna be unsigned for very much longer.
I tried to incorporate some of our readers’ criticisms into my interview questions so the band could address them. The entire band – vocalist Krysta Cameron, guitarist/programmer Steven Bradley, guitarist/programmer John Ganey, bassist Brian Dozier, drummer Ryan Pearson, and keyboardist/sampler/programmer Daniel Andrews – did the interview as one big group effort, so you get all their perspectives. Read the full transcript after the jump.
First thing’s first: what the hell does your name mean?
Our name is a quote from the bat-shit crazy actor Gary Busey. He had a TV show on Comedy Central for one season called I’m With Busey and at one point randomly blurted out “I wrestled a bear once.” And there you have it.
And what do you have against proper punctuation, like spaces?
Punctuation is for pussies! FUCKIN’ METAL! No ummmm… we think it started when we wrote the name like that once or twice for the hell of it, and it seemed to piss people off so we just kept doing it.
Please tell us a little about the formation of your band. Also, what bands/albums are heavy influences for you?
Well it started off with Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech…
Basically Shreveport, Louisiana where we’re from is a small-ass city and the five dudes in the band have all been in other bands together before iWaBo. Krysta and Steven met through their old bands touring together and she moved from Long Island to Shreveport because they started dating. iWaBo was formed about a year ago because our old bands had broken up and we all started to lose our fucking minds not playing shows and writing music. The original lineup was Krysta, Steven, John, and Brian and all of the 6-song EP was written and recorded in a bedroom in a couple weeks. About six months later we added our friends Ryan and Daniel so we could have a real drummer and someone to run all the electronics stuff live.
As for influences, here’s some bands we all like… we guess that means they influence us: Rush, Mars Volta, Radiohead, Tears for Fears, Billie Holiday, Muse, Deftones, Van Halen, Veruca Salt, Suffocation, Nirvana, Portishead, Refused, Bjork, Cryptopsy, Glassjaw, Tori Amos, etc., etc… basically we listen to everything.
There are a lot of crazy genre-bending young bands with tongue in cheek titles out there these days. So what makes you so special?
We really could give a shit less what is popular or what other people are doing. I guess we use the stupid song titles so people realize we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Obviously we take the music very seriously, but we’re all dumbasses and make fun of everything, including ourselves. We can’t stand bands who carry themselves in a way that alienates people and are just complete dickbags to people who want to talk to them. We really want to make it known that we’re just human beings and want to make new friends at every show we ever play. Nothing really make us special, except that we really do play whatever the hell we want and will never compromise on putting weird shit together that makes us happy. If people enjoy it too, then that’s amazing and we love them for supporting our dream of playing music in front of a crowd for the rest of our lives.
Some people think you’re actually making fun of metal music. Please refute or confirm.
I wouldn’t say that we’re making fun of it… just making fun of the people who take shit too seriously and just play open breakdowns for 4 minutes and call it song-writing. We also enjoy making fun of the serious metalheads who go to shows and act tough and then go home and beat-off to Enya. Diversity in music is gooooood.
Some people also think that having a female lead singer is a “gimmick.” Thoughts?
The fact that people can think that is fucking pathetic. One look at anything our band does should show that we definitely don’t go out of our way to make it known we have a female in the band. There are a shitton of bands out there who wrangle up sluts to push one button on a keyboard for a whole set or do backup vocals for 12 seconds and then put them in the front of the pictures and do what they can do sell them. THAT SHIT is a gimmick and makes females everywhere look like douchebags. There are plenty of girls out there doing music seriously and hopefully in the near future it will just be normal.
Why do you think that so many metal heads are completely fucking humorless and small minded?
It seems like a lot of them are just scared to open their minds because they are in a group of friends where the thing to do is to be as BR00TAL as possible at all fucking times. Our whole goal as a band is to open people up to new shit and maybe introduce them to something that they haven’t heard of/thought of before.
Your music obviously has little to nothing to do with traditional song structures. What is the writing process like in your band?
We all have ADHD and autism and can’t concentrate on something for more than 4 seconds without getting bored as fuck and wanting to strip naked and fist a donkey. I don’t know what that last statement means, but I’m going to stand behind it. When we started this band, we didn’t have a real drummer so we just programmed everything and put it all together in the computer. We still write that way, but now we can take all the ideas that we come up with on the computer and jam them live to organize them.
The songs on your EP were recorded using programmed drums. Do you think you’d want to re-record them with Ryan and Daniel when you eventually do your full length? Or would you rather concentrate on new material?
Both. We’re pretty sure we’re going to re-record a couple of the song off the EP because having Ryan and Daniel makes them waaaaayyyyyy gooderer. But of course the next full length will be primarily new songs.
If you could tour with any band in the world, who would it be and why?
Pretty much any of the bands we listed as ones that we like would be awesome to tour with. Our ideal tour package would be one that incorporates as many different genres as possible. Getting Cryptopsy to agree to go out with us and Bjork might be a pain in the ass though.
If you could have any metal band today eaten alive by a bear, which band would it be, and why?
That’s a tough one… There are so many shitty bands out there. Honestly though, who the fuck are we to judge anyone? We respect anybody who is doing their thing and playing shows… as long as they’re doing it for the right reasons and not to just make a quick buck. I think the worst thing EVER is those bands who just jump from fad to fad hoping to capitalize on something before it fades away.
Whose side do take in the following musical feuds, and why?
- Axl Rose vs. Slash
Slash. Axl Rose is a tool and annoying as shit…
- Eddie and Alex Van Halen vs. Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony
Eddie and Alex Van Halen. Bros before hoes.
- Hetfield and Ulrich vs. Dave Mustaine
Too close to call… but probably Mustaine. Both bands were fucking legit 15 years ago, but the stuff they’ve done lately is just re-godamn-diculous. Especially Lars… the whole Napster thing was just fucking hilarious.
- Gaahl vs. Infernus
Santa Claus.
- Eazy-E vs. Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre fo’ sheezy. The Chronic is where its at.
So, uh, what DOES Kevin Bacon taste like, exactly?
Ask our bass player… he was a child actor and he has some stories to tell.
Brian Dozier: All I can say is… Footloose. And I do mean “loose.”
-AR
IWRESTLEDABEARONCE are on tour now. Check out their MySpace page for tour dates, samples of their music, merch, and all that good shit.
