999 ... Video Louis Elovitz ... punk rock

[click on the 'jumping dog'...]

LApunk13

999

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 2, 1986

SANTA MONICA CIVIC AUDITORIUM

[due to union rules we must do our INTERVIEW

at the band's hotel rooftop pool at the HYATT SUNSET]

NICK CASH ... VOCALS/RHYTHM GUITAR

GUY DAYS ... VOCALS/LEAD GUITAR

JON WATSON ... BASS

PABLO LABRITAIN ... VOCALS/DRUMS

..................................

[kiki] 999, after 4 years! How did you enjoy playing the Civic?

[nick] Absolutely!

[kiki]You didn't mind the Civic's restriction on video (taping) without a deposit!

[nick] Well, although they were not allowed, I think there was quite a bit of illicit use of video equipment and things like that.

[kiki] What is your most recent release?

[nick] Our last release was an album called "Face to Face". There was no single on it because we just wanted to put an album out and do a tour. So, that's what we did!

[kiki] Let's talk about some songs on "Face to Face"...

[nick] My favorite is a song called "Twenty Years". We premiered it here last night(nov.6,'86). It's a big step forward for us because it contains many sections and that it actually builds throughout the song. When we first started we just played the same all the way through it, as hard as we could. Now, we found a way of playing as hard as we can, but having it in different sections- so we are improving. Maybe that's why we have been together for nearly ten years now.

[kiki]How about, "This is Just a Lie"?

[nick] This is just a lie, lie, lie! I like writing songs where the audience can sing it. Actually, the song is a sort of expose of crematoriums and undertakers in England. We have a lot of very poor people, and they have to spend like $2000 on getting themselves buried. They live the latter half of their lives trying to save money for their funerals. The whole system over there is sort of corrupt. We do it (the expose) and nobody really bothers about it 'cause they try to keep us sort of suppressed on radio- we have had censorship wherever we have been! First, everyone thought their jobs were threatened. People in record companies and TV stations thought they would lose their jobs 'cause we shouted, "Let's make a change here", but we're still fighting the system- we're here nearly 10 years later with all the same guys. We are four people very much influenced by each other, but we are also very separate. Also, I can't stand Pablo!

[kiki] What do you think, Pablo?

[pablo] Well, we're still playing in the same band. I don't know what he's wittering about?

[nick] Pablo looks like an early Dick Bogart! Look at him. He's a man, he's royalty. He has a title, but we won'tell you which one, because it won't do for the credibility of 999. Pablo's Father is a farmer. You like fishing, don't you Pablo? He goes fishing quite a lot on tour. He has a collapsible, telescopic fishing rod. The last time Pablo went to a river, and 5 minutes there he caught this enormous fish called a Steelhead- a record catch for that area, and Pablo was this 'Limey' from England who had beaten them all in 5 minutes. Incredible!

[kiki] Pablo, A drummer, farmer, fisherman.

[pablo] I'm not a farmer! I have done some fishing here. Some of those were a bit suspect. Recommended not to eat more than once a week!

[kiki] What about "Hallilulia"?

[nick] No religious meaning whatsoever. I was walking in the bushes around a cemetary and I saw two guys around a very old tomb. They knocked a corner off it, and were just tipping the ashes, from the people they were charging 2000(pounds) to cremate, into this hole. That's really bad, isn't it? Imagine that Pablo had died from a fishing trip and he was cremated...if I thought somebody was tipping his ashes into the same old hole with about 1500 other people, I'd be quite mad. Worse than the amount of money, is the anxiety that it causes people.

[kiki] Who produced "Face to Face"?

[nick] We produced our 'latest' Lp. Sometimes we wanted to keep it really simple, sometimes we didn't. We tried to get it just like we sounded.Putting in almost nothing artificial, direct-to-disc.

[kiki] Have you experimented with digital?

[nick] Yes, we have done some new songs on digital. It makes you sound realer. You don't have the needle touching the plastic and it works a lot better.

[kiki] "I'm Alive", an old song of yours...was this a personal staement?

[nick] Yes, it was. When I wrote this song I had a job and everything and was fed up with that...going to work, coming home, paying for everthing you gotta pay for. I wanted to go out, write songs, play in a band and be alive like that.

[kiki] You don't hold down steady jobs?

[pablo] No, I'm too old.

[nick] I do a bit of this and that, now and again, sometimes.

[guy] I don't work. No.

[kiki] And we can't forget your song...

[nick] Homicide! They banned that in England you know.They said, "That's a sick title there. I said, "Well look, they are showing 'Kojac' on TV every night, homicide in da Bronx, you know... they play it a couple times now cause things wear out. They never used to show naked ladies on Television, now they do!

[kiki] Did you tour between '82 to this current tour?

[nick] I can't remember! But we made "Face to Face", split with our management company. We did the biggest tour of England that we have ever so far accomplished. Three times we took on extra dates. We started our own record label and merchandise company and here we are.We do all our own albums (as cheaply as possible), it's the only way to be sure you don't get ripped off. What we're doing has expanded, we've become much more well known and have a much wider audience - very young people to old.

[kiki] Where will you be touring next?

[nick] San Diego, San Francisco, and Berkeley, then home to do a couple in England, and then we are going off to Europe.

[kiki] Hi Jon, how does it feel to be walking in during an interview?

[jon] Real cool, really cool. Right on baby.

[kiki] Well Jon, do you have any good bass stories?

[jon] Well, this is crude... In Omaha, some lady got on stage lifted her skirt up and got on the end of it! Quite interesting! Then she went into the dressing room crouched down and let a piss! Good bass story isn't it?

[nick] Really, she sat on the end of it onstage in front of everyone while he was playing!

[video louis] People confuse 999 with 666 somtimes...

[nick] It's terrible! We landed at the airport yesterday and on our baggage we have the 999 logo which turned upside down reads 666. The baggage handler came up to me and said, "Is that 666, the sign of the devil? I'm not going to carry that!" 999 is what you dial in England for emergency services, here it's 911, that's all.

[kiki Your logo has 'AS8502' above 999, what is'AS8502'?

[guy] It's like a lottery number. I desighned it and we stuck with it. It doesn't mean anything!

[kiki] Are you planning to put out any videos soon?

[nick] Yeah, we're putting out a new video but could you ask Jon about it, because he knows much more than I do.

[jon] I don't know anything about it at all. It's nothing to do with me at all! I'm on the video, but as far as the business part is concerned, I'm not involved with it at all. It's a number of shows which were recorded in the early days, live shows done in a venue in London which is gone now, doesn't exist!

[kiki] What's holding you back from being signed by a major label?

[nick] We've got a couple of contractual difficulties, no difficulties at all now, we've just managed to get off it. We wanted to come out on tour first so that they could see the band as well as know that we're doing really well and go "why is this band doing so well here in L.A.?" Nobody can believe out here in the States that we've returned without the product. Product, that's the old important American word. You've got to have product, product is music, right? What we wanted to do was go out and play a tour 'Face to Face'. That's why we called it the "Face to Face Tour"

[kiki] How do you enjoy working with Gary Tovar of Goldenvoice?

[nick] Very much indeed. Hey Gary, thank you very much! He's great and also I would like to say thank you very much to that most wonderful American star of radio, one of the best guys on radio in the World, Rodney Bingenheimer at KROQ. They had a Special in England on Phil Spector, and Rodney was there. I was speaking to Rodney last night on KROQ and he thinks that ever since he made that film, everyone was really bad mouthing him on it. He just thinks that!

[kiki] Just out of paranoia, is Aides bad in England nowadays?

[nick] Oh my God, yes! Not as bad as here. We're absoloutely horrified by this Aides.It kills more young men than anything else. There's a big political cover-up, it is politics again. Here we are facing governments who spend millions of pounds on missiles and bombs and yet educating the people on what will keep them alive is not there. They should have a massive public education program to educate everyone to try to stop the flow of this terrible disease. We had this one case in England, where somebody had a cut on their hand and saliva went into the cut and they caught it, which terrifies me, because I get cut and scratched by girls all over, then they spit on me, in England.

[kiki] How can all of you afford to stay at the Hyatt on Sunset?

[nick] It's the cheapest hotel on the Strip, actually!

[kiki] Sure beats the Tropicana on Santa Monica! "Oi" is too old, what's the latest new hip word in England?

[adrian] 'He had it away on his toes go'!

[nick] 'Had it away on it toes goes', he's running away, he's got something, pinched something, he ran away,he did a runnoff! You see, when we go to restaurants sometimes we look so bad.

[kiki] Does anyone realize it's sunset on Sunset?

[nick] Hello out there,please somebody, try and stay alive. Ban the Bomb!

[kiki] You're aquainted with Captain Sensible...

[nick] Last I say of him, I was playing somewhere and he came into the dressing room. When we play we get soaking wet, so does the Captain because he's very energetic, jumps around a lot and it's very nice to have a dry shirt. He came into the dressing room after I'd played and stole my shirt! Stole my dry shirt, nicked off again, so when I see him again, I'm going to smash your face in, I'm going to 'kill' you if I don't get my shirt back, Captain Sensible! You better watch it!

[kiki] How about Wattie from the Exploited?

[nick] Wattie! I've known Wattie since I was fifteen years old, in my first band, The Pentagon. U.S.A. military establishment! What does Superman say in the end? "For good, wealth and the American Way"?

[kiki] Don't forget apple pie and weekly pay! This is Kiki B., along with the 'baaad' (like American) the lottery (like still trying to win) and James Dean for the 'American Way of Life' in L.A., and Lady Liberty in N.Y., have bought.

THANK YOUZ, 999, Gary, and Scott, Craig, Tim and Dave at the Best, London Exchange!