ANDY G and the ROLLER KINGS
Every day I got the bossman breathing down my neck. I wish I could tell him where to go but baby needs a new pair of shoes and the ain't passing out checks down at the welfare office like they used to. After the hellacious drive home consisting of locking brakes, honking horns and middle fingers I don't want to put on a record that's gonna dig me deeper in mire. NO! I need something that gets me jumpin' around dreaming of warm summer days with the top down, the radio jammin' Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the Ramones and Eddie Cochran wavin' to the girls in sundresses.
The Fabulous Andy G is always the man for the season. The former Devil Dogs frontman had quite the low profile the last few years but he was busy working. Working on something new! Something that would get the guys bringing their girls out for a night of dancing and end up spending half their paycheck doin'so. He didn't want to repeat what he had done before so along with onetime Cramps bassist Candy Del Mar they started from scratch. He even ditched the Les Paul for a Fender Jazzmaster. There was something missing but what was it? Alas! A horn player...Not one but two! The right men found for the job were Pete Linzell (Raunch Hands) and Steve Greenfield (Fleshtones). Along with drummer Ron Salvo (Snuka) The Roller Kings have set out to right the wrongs that have been done in these dark days of Rock-n-Roll.
Me: Why two saxophones?
The G: Because with two, you can make a chord.
Me: Why not a second guitar player?
The G: Everybody has two guitar players and I didn't know any good ones.
Me: How you feel being a reference point?
The G: It's kinda cool but speaking as a reference point, I wish more people would hit the mark.
Me: Is it true that you wrote "My GTO" for TEENGENERATE?
The G: Yes I did!
Me: How did that come about?
The G: They were here in New York staying in a hotel and at the time I had a car and we were all hangin' out and Fink asked me to write a song about a car and I said "Sure. Okay." and then they asked me to mix the record.
Me: You mixed the record as well?
The G: I mixed the "Savage" 10 inch. I mixed it and thought "Fuck that lo-fi shit. I'm gonna do it my way. I did it a little cleaner than they way the usually do and the way they usually had it. They said "Thank you so much" and put my name on it and everything but they did what ever they do to make it all lo-fi. I didn't do that, they did something after me. They made it sound like a TEENGENERATE record.
Me: Do the Japanese bow to your feet?
The G: I really haven't seen any Japanese people in a while. Do they bow to my feet...I don't know. Maybe they bow to pictures of me and shit over there but I haven't been there in so long and none of them have really come here in a while either. I've never seen any of them do it so they probably do when I'm not lookin'. The Japanese culture is the type where they wouldn't want to embarrass the diety when they could very much easily bow to some sort of icon or photograph.
Me: Have you ever had a Coney Island Hot Dog outside of New York City?
The G: And what is a Coney Island Hot Dog?
Me: A Chili Dog!
The G: A Chili Dog?! Let me tell you something. They don't have Chili Dogs at Coney Island. I guess I've seen them called Coney Island Hot Dogs in other places but it just means a Hot Dog.
Me: Yeah, A Chili Dog!
The G: They DON'T have chili there! Chili is like a southern thing.
Me: Really?
The G: C'mon, think about it. It's chili. A tex-mex thing.
Me: So you don't have Chili Dogs in New York City?
The G: They have them here but not at Coney Island. It's just a straight hot dog with mustard and ketchup or whatever. You've heard of Nathan's right?
Me: Yeah! They're world renown!
The G: Nathan's is great
but the one in Coney Island is the original. They're a chain and you can get sour kraut at all of them except the original place in Coney Island.
Me: Every other restaurant in the Detroit area calls itself a Coney Island. All of the have Chili Dogs but not many serve sour kraut.
the G: (obviously flustered) Hang on a minute. (He sits the phone down an asks Candy if she's ever seen Chili Dogs at Coney Island. Her answer is "No.") They DO NOT have Chili Dogs down there. The Detroit places are wrong.
Me: Does Coney Island really exist?
The G: DOES CONEY ISLAND REALLY EXIST?! HELL YEAH!! It's an amusement park but it's in a really bad neighborhood. We go sometimes. There was one summer we went there a bunch of times. My parents used to take me there up until '75. It just got to creepy to take your kids there. Now, when you go down there and it's really crowded on a nice day, it's a place like where the guy gets out of jail, picks up his gal and their illegitimate kid and the head right to Coney Island. He whips off his shirt and shows all his new fuckin' jailhouse tattoos. You see a lot of that...It's a pretty seedy place.
Me: Is it the one part of New York that they haven't tried to clean up yet?
The G: No. I'm wondering if they ever will. It's too far from Manhattan. They may just let it rot.
Me: Y'mean Disney hasn't made a bid yet?
The G: I've thought about it and why wouldn't Disney buy it up? It's a fuckin' amusement park but they'd have to buy up the entire neighborhood to make it a place people would go to. I never really like going on the rides there except maybe the bumper cars. I still like going there though. It's got a vibe.
Me: Play the games?
The G: I like playing the games sometimes but there's also this bar on the boardwalk and there's nothing more beautiful than having a beer and looking out. It's the ocean...None of your fuckin' Great Lakes shit.
Me: Kinda like Belle Isle?
The G: What's Belle Isle?
Me: It's this little island in the Detroit River that's a city park. It was a place to take your kids on a Saturday. Now it's a place to watch people out try to out bad-ass each other.
The G: Coney Island is like that. There's projects across the street so it's an amusement park in a housing project. It's kinda bad news...All my friends that come to New York have to ride the Cyclone Roller Coaster there. Even though it doesn't have all the loops & shit they all say it is one of the scariest roller coasters they have ever been on. It's old and it rattles. It's wood and it rattles bad and it freaks them out.
Me: If your label, Sympathy, gave you money to make a video, would it have explosions in it?
The G: I've never thought about it. Videos are pretty expensive. Jeez...Now I gotta think about it cu a lot of people are out there hopin' I'm gonna say it's gonna have a couple of girls in bikini's, a hot rod and a monster driving around in the fuckin' hot rod with the girls in the back. That's what people are hopin' but it wouldn't have any of that shit in it. I dunno...probably some violence would be in it but I don't know about explosions. Maybe some fire, some busted glass, people getting hurt. It would probably get banned. I think if we actually made a video it would have a circus theme. I don't think the circus theme has been exploited enough in Rock-n-Roll.
Me: Would it have clowns? I'm not really cool with clowns.
The G: Oh! Are you scared of them?
Me: nah! I just don't think they're funny. "oh! Look at the clowns getting out of the car. Isn't that funny?"
The G: Well, now that you mention it, seeing people that get out of cars around here usually breaks me up...then you get a guy dressed like that and it is fuckin' hilarious.
Me: Yeah but 15 clowns getting out of a car is supposed to be sheer comic genius. "How do they do that?"
The G: But you see a guy...just one old guy getting out of a car cracks me up.
Me: Do you laugh when people fall?
The G: That's not funny...What are you? A child?
Me: I was at the gas station this past winter and watched a super fat guy go head over heels and I thought it was pretty funny.
The G: Laughing til the ambulance came I bet. Why do you have to be so negative?
Me: Yeah, you've seemed to have mellowed out a little bit through the years.
The G: Not really. I'm just trying to portray a mellowed out guy to the media...that would be you.
Me: Have you learned your lesson? You don't go around shouting off to people?
The G: Shouting off? What the fuck is that? Is it like a shoutout? Shout off or mouth off? I think I've done a lot of mouthing off to the media.
Me: I remember in a email you sent me you mentioned how you've gotten past yelling out car windows and flipping people off.
The G: That's not "shouting off" to the media though. That's mouthing off to people at bus stops.
Me: Just random people?
The G: Yeah, That's what I used to do for fun when I was young.
Me: What's more important to your Rock-n-Roll style. The shirt or the shoes?
The G: I Think the shoes. Whenever I have an exceptional pair of shoes people always notice but shirts, no one ever says anything about my shirt.
Me: But, as a man of style, you take more than one shirt with you when you're out on the road.
The G: I take a hundred shirts with me.
Me: So the shirt must be important.
The G: Y'know what's important? Dry shirts are important! That's why I take so many shirts...I like them not to smell too. When I'm out playing all the time I'll wear a different shirt every night. I like to have a clean one on.
Me: Speaking of shoes...How do you feel about Converse closing down?
The G: I've been out trying to buy sneakers the past week or two and all the places I go still have Converse but they're all like size 6.
Me: Some company will buy the trademark.
The G: I hear the Japanese are buying it. I don't believe they wont make them anymore. It s kinda weird though that all of a sudden you can't get Converse anymore then Joey Ramone dies.
Me: What's the most outrageous rumor you've ever heard about yourself?
The G: Let's see...Somebody once told me "Oh so-and-so is saying some really bad shit, and I mean REALLY BAD, about you." And I didn't really want to know how bad was REALLY BAD. Then I started thinking about it, and I never did find out, but just the implication of it being so bad that it couldn't even be mentioned...but the weirdest thing I've ever actually heard was that I was all strung out on Valiums.
Me: VALIUMS? That's a strange drug to be rumored to be strung out on!
The G: Yeah, How many people does that actually happen to?
Me: Like a Grace Slick thing.
The G: A Jerry Lewis thing. Actually he was strung out on Seconals. Those are more heavy. I mean, really, how do you get strung out on Valiums? There's much harder things than those so if you build up a resistance to them you don't go wild on them. You gotta get something better.
Me: I wonder what a guy all strung out on Valuims would act like.
The G: Probably really tired...Sleepy. Hanging out in places that serve coffee. I picture a person all strung out on Valium laying on a bed, watching TV for hours on end. But the other stuff about the thing that couldn't be mentioned...I figure it's gotta be some type of animal porno or some shit. Just what could it be that couldn't be said?
