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Music

Cole Alexander

Rating: NNNNN


Thoroughly demented ringleader of rock ’em, sock ’em Atlanta garage blasters Black Lips, who try to live up to Rolling Stone’s hype about their being “one of the best live bands in America” at the Horseshoe (370 Queen West) Sunday (September 23) at 8 pm. $18, advance $15.50. 416-870-8000.

What record changed your life?

The compilation of singles recordings on the Electro-Harmonix label by Peruvian band Los Saicos is amazing. The screaming on that stuff is more intense than any punk record I’ve ever heard, and that stuff is from 1965! That definitely changed my life and the way we did things in Black Lips.

What three important life lessons have you learned from being in a band on the road?

1) You don’t really need a day job if you can get some gigs.

2) You don’t need a roof over your head if you’ve got a van.

3) You don’t need a lot of money to survive, because there are always things to eat in trash cans and dumpsters.

What’s the oddest rumour you’ve ever heard about the Black Lips?

That we like pissing in each other’s mouths. It’s not even close to being true.

Have you got any hidden talents we should know about?

I was reading about telepathy and discovered mentalism, so I’ve been studying that lately. I’m getting pretty adept at muscle reading, at least good enough to use it as a lie detector.

What’s the strangest thing that’s happened during a performance?

At one show we were going to set the drum kit on fire for a big finish, but the people running the club found out and tried to put a stop to it. At the end of the set, all these bouncers started rushing the stage, and as we were wrestling with these big dudes, out of the corner of my eye I saw our former guitarist, Ben [Eberbaugh], barrelling toward one of them. He just put his head down and knocked this huge guy flying off the stage. That was pretty great.

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