- Who are you and what would you
like to tell our readers about yourself?
- My name is Marko 72, I play guitar in a band called Sugarcult, and as you’ll soon find out
, I talk too much!
- Why the name Sugarcult?
- The Sex Pistols was already taken.
Our singer Tim used to live next to a lesbian gang that called
themselves the Sugarcult. Those girls still want to beat us up, we
can’t wait!
- How long have you been around?/ How did you guys all hook up?
- Close to 4 years with all four of us; they were a trio for a few
months before that. We come from a
pretty small town in Southern California called Santa Barbara, which has a
pretty good music scene (Lagwagon, Mad Caddies,
the Ataris, etc) all the bands drink at the same
bars and have gone out with the same girls, so we’re all very close! They had seen me play bass in some bands
I was in and liked my vibe. I was
really into the local scene; I booked shows, had a small label, and did a
weekly radio show that only played local music, Sugarcult
were my favorite new band in town. Tim and I
started bonding over records we liked (Elvis Costello, The
Clash, The Buzzcocks, Nirvana, Superdrag, etc).
They asked me to play guitar for them before they even heard me
play, which I thought was pretty punk rock in spirit, so I said “fuck
yeah, let’s go!”
- Should we know you from any
other bands?
- I have an experimental side-project band called Bad Astronaut with
- Your debut album is called
“Start Static”. Is it everything you dreamed it would be?
- Why should people go out and
- Start Static was successful before it even sold one copy, because
we were happy with the way it turned out.
We went in the studio with the goal of making an album that would
be exciting and interesting to listen to all the way through. You don’t have to skip through the
shitty songs, we already did that for you by
leaving them off the record. The
fact that it has sold well over here shows that people are telling their
friends about a record that doesn’t suck.
- In the States it was released
on Ultimatum Music and you are – I think – the only punkrock
band on the label. How did you wind up with them?
- We signed to Epitaph in Europe for the same reason we signed to
Ultimatum in the States, because the people who worked there were
genuinely passionate about our band and had their shit together enough to
get our record in stores and promote it properly, what more can you ask
for? Whether a label has “punk”
bands on it or not doesn’t really matter.
The term “punk” has become associated with too many rules and regulations, I liked it better when it was about
freedom and individuality.
- How do you guys write a song?
Do all of you contribute?
- We all write songs, but Tim’s songs seem to fit Sugarcult
the best. He’ll usually bring in
some basic ideas and we’ll work through them as a band, arranging,
revising, and adding our ideas. He
brings the colouring book, and we bring the crayons.
- Are all of the lyrics about
personal experiences? Or about stuff you picked up here and there?
- Tim writes the lyrics, because he has to sing them every
night. Most are written from things
that happened to him, or people that were in his life at the time. He has a pretty psychotic imagination
too; listen to the hidden track “Underwear” at the end of our album, it’s
about a fantasy situation where a guy kills people so people can read
about it in the newspaper, as if he’s providing entertainment for the
masses. I guess that’s what all
bands do, we bleed and you listen to our therapy; our songs.
- Most punkrock
bands sing about relationships gone sour and about girls they can’t get,… Why is there never a song about a relationship
that’s going great?
- When their relationship is going great, it’s because they are
spending their time enjoying the company of their girlfriend, instead of
sitting around the house all day in their underwear, growing a beard and
strumming an old guitar.
Songwriters tend to write about extreme highs and lows,
unfortunately our singer Tim has experienced more lows. Besides who wants to turn on their
stereo and crank up a song about how someone woke up, drank some carrot
juice, went on a jog, checked their mail and got a huge paycheck, went out bought an expensive car, met up
with a beautiful and intelligent girl on the way home, fell madly in love,
and lived happily ever after? Leave
that to the writers of romantic comedy movies, I want to hear another song
about heartbreak, addiction, and failure!!!
- If you had to pick one song off
of the album that sums your sound up nicely, which one would it be?
- I really like the first song, “You’re the One”, it’s less than 2
minutes long and paints a good picture
of Sugarcult using colors
from many of our influences: power-pop (Elvis Costello), new wave (the
Cars), 70’s punk (the Buzzcocks), classic rock (the Kinks), modern rock
(Green Day). I don’t think we have
one “sound”, if you listen to Start Static all the way through you’ll
experience everything from nervous punk songs, to slower songs with a
darker mood.
- It seems things are moving
really fast for you: your songs are getting played on MTV, you’re touring
in
- We do this because it’s more normal to us than a “normal
life”. We believe in our band so
it’s a great feeling to see others catch on. To be able to set up our gear and play
in other countries is a dream come true.
We’ve been working non-stop for 4 years straight, playing shows,
recording, rehearsing, writing songs, etc.
To me it’s all been a natural progression, because we haven’t
skipped any steps. Before we had a
record label, we recorded and produced our own songs and pressed up as
many CDs as we could afford, we made our own t-shirts, booked our own
shows, kept an email list of our fans and sent weekly updates to them, etc
while holding down other jobs to pay the rent. We did everything ourselves on a local
level, so it’s easier to do it on a professional level, and we get free
drinks!
- What is the hardest when you
are on tour? What do you miss the most?
- I read a good interview with some band that said it best, “We play
the shows for free, the pay is for all the time
spent travelling and being away from home”. The long drives can get to be tedious,
and I hate junk food which is almost unavoidable on tour. I miss close friends, family, good food,
my records, books, toys and familiar things. However, my two favourite things in life
are music and adventure so I love touring, it’s
what I’ve worked hard for years to achieve. In a way, now I define shows and the
road as where I actually live, it’s where I feel the most comfortable with
myself. Getting sick on tour is the
worst, you can’t stay in bed all day and sip tea while your mom feels
sorry for you, instead you wash down some medicine with a warm beer and
get your ass onstage!
- Which three songs in the entire
history of music would you like to have written?
- I have a huge record collection (over 1000) so this is nearly
impossible. “Surrender” by Cheap Trick is quite possibly the best
power-pop anthem ever; off the top of my head “Everlong”
by Foo Fighters is a timeless modern classic,
but so is “Get the Time” or “Clean Sheets” by the Decendents;
and maybe an old standard like a Christmas carol or the birthday song,
think about how cool it would be to have so many people knowing your song
for generations.
- Suppose a critic really trashes
the album when it comes out and after that you get the chance for some
old-fashioned revenge without the risk of getting caught…what would you do
to him/her?
- It depends on how cavalier the writer is, I don’t mind if someone
doesn’t like our music. What makes
me mad are critics who get on a platform of elitism and hipster snobbery,
tossing anything that isn’t “officially” cool to like in the trash without
really listening objectively. For
them, I’d look back a few years and dig up an embarrassing photo of them
wearing a Candlebox shirt or something and put
it up all over town with their name and a sample of their reviews. Or we
could always find them, blindfold them, strip them down and duct-tape them
to a pole outside of a sold out Sugarcult show
so everyone could see them naked and criticize them accordingly; if it’s a
male, hopefully it wouldn’t be too cold outside!
- If you were to write a punkrock musical, what would it be about and what
would the name of the love theme be?
- Here’s the plot: 2 twin brothers have their dad walk out on them in
their teens, they channel their angst by listening to crust punk records,
getting tattoos, and writing pop songs, eventually they hit the big
time. One of them falls in love
with a young Canadian girl that sounds like Alanis
Morissette but dresses like a member of
Pennywise in a neck-tie. They go
through good times and bad times and eventually move to
·
The love theme would be, “Safety Pin
Stuck In My Heart” by Patrik
Fitzgerald an acoustic guitar slinging punk with a thick British accent from
the late 70’s.
- In the A-Team there were four
guys and there are four of you in the band. If you were to play them, who
would be
- That’s an amazing question!
I think all of us have a little of each in us. I’d probably be Hannibal because I’m
always planning things, although I fucking hate cigars; Tim is pretty
crazy so he’d be Murdoch; Ben has a Mohawk and big muscles so he’d have to
be BA; that leaves Airin to be Face which is
okay ‘cause he can go weeks without a shower and still have girls say he’s
the best looking guy in the band.
- In the movie “Almost Famous”
there’s a scene where the band is in a plane and they think they’re gonna crash and they come out with all these big
confessions. If you were in that situation, what would you confess to the
other band members?
- That I lied when I said I could play guitar!
- Any last words for our readers?
- Get some rest because we’re coming to party with you all this
summer!