Interviews

Dead To Me

Interview with Chicken on Jul 30, 2006 by Archive Bot

Dear Readers: Meet your new favorite band. You won’t find shit about them on Google and you can’t catch them on the Warped Tour. This is Dead To Me. If you read any band interview this month, read this one. If you go listen to any band you’ve never heard of, let it be this one. Their debut record, “Cuban Ballerina” was released by Fat Wreck Chords earlier this summer. It’s about the struggles of getting clean while trying to live in a very unclean world. It’s real; it’s Dead To Me. Prepare to meet Chicken, also known as Tyson, formerly known as…well, you’ll find out.
 
By: Katie Ellsweig [K-T@hvc.rr.com]
 
I know your name isn’t really Chicken; it’s Tyson. But what’s the real story behind Chicken. Can you let me in on the secret?
 
Hah! We’re a secretive bunch. Like you said, my real name is Tyson.  When I was a younger guy, at soccer camp I may have been a little bit chubbier.  There’s a food company out here called Tyson Chicken, and the kids called me “Tyson Chicken Chunks.” Luckily, it got shortened to just Chicken. The moral of the story is that you don’t get to pick your nickname.  Everyone calls me Chicken except my parents. Of course it didn’t feel good to be called Tyson Chicken Chunks, but everything that happens to me makes me stronger.
 
Do you eat chicken, Chicken?
 
Not at all. I’m a vegan.  Chicken is disgusting and what’s worse about it being disgusting is the way chickens are treated before they’re killed. I’ve been interviewed for PETA…and stop pretending like you don’t know that I was nominated for World’s Sexiest Vegetarian.
 
But you didn’t win! Why?
 
No, I didn’t win. I was nominated though.  Why should I have won? Once you’ll have the answer to that question because I was too hot for the PETA reader. They were going for a family demographic and if I was the winner, it would have been a slew of 18 year old girls flocking to PETA. If my shit had won it’d have been complete anarchy.  
 
Okay, we’re going to have a serious interview now! Your songs stem from both personal experience and world experience.  How are the two interrelated? How does your personal life pertain to the world, and the world to your personal life?
 
The best example of that on Cuban Ballerina is “Cause of my Anger.” That song deals a lot with personal shit; the personal stuff in that song is about right when I went into rehab and what was going on before.  It also involved the person I was in love with at the time doing some stuff that really bummed me out. I was at my bottom; I was pissing bottles. Things were really horrible in my life at that point and I was ready for a change. While I was in rehab, twice a week we got TV for half an hour in the main living room. They were talking about the US invading Iraq (it was March, 2003) and I was like what the fuck is going on. It was hard for me to concentrate on the bigger picture because there’s these kids in Iraq that are running for cover from bombs meanwhile I’m in rehab because my life was in this shitty place because of my own design.  But in the end if you’re not taking care of yourself, then you can’t do anything to create a positive effect on the world. If you’re fucked up in your room pissing in empty 40 bottles, you’re not going to do anything. If you change yourself, that’s the first step to changing the world.
 
How long after you for out of rehab before you started playing music regularly?
 
It was pretty much right away. I knew that when I got out, I was going to need something to stay busy. I was going to need something to keep me the fuck out of trouble. So I thought, what am I going to do after work and on the weekends? I ended up hooking up with some friends and playing some music and then after a while, it became something I had to do all the time. It became my new addiction, but in a good way not a destructive way.
 
Were you able to listen to music at all in rehab?
 
We weren’t allowed to have Walkmen, but they had a piano downstairs in the main room and there was this kid I met there who would play the piano and sing once in a while. That was really fucking cool. The last week I was there, they said it was okay if my sister brought me an acoustic guitar. When you first go in there, you can’t like show up with your guitar and your bongo and sing about your addiction; you have to earn those things.
 
That said, how does music help keep you safe now?
 
I get real weird if I don’t play every day. It keeps me grounded; it keeps me normal. It’s a constant in my life and it’s something I am able to do every day. It’s structure because I was at a point in my life where I had no structure.  I was being a fuck up, but now I try to have things that I do every day to keep me away from that. Also, it reminds me where I was especially now because it’s been a couple of years.  When I go back and sing those songs, I remember where I came from and what led me to writing them and it keeps me connected.
 
Is there a reason why you’re not touring right now? Is touring imperative to being in a band or is it possible to be influential while still being at home?
 
We can’t wait to tour, we’ve got a bunch of stuff lined up for the fall. But that’s a question we’ve been asking our booking agent a lot lately.  It’s hard during the summer to go up against the warped tour.  All you have to do is go to a Wells Fargo, drink a Monster Energy drink and sign up for the Navy and that’s the experience of going to the Warped Tour.
 
In your Myspace photos, you’re all masked. When people can’t see your faces, does it force them to listen more to the music? Does appearance cause judgement?
 
That’s why we put those pictures up there in the first place. They’re actually not us…we just put our names underneath there. They’re Zapatistas. The press down there in Mexico has been trying to get Marcos, their leader, to take off his mask for years saying that if you want to be a leader, take off the mask and lead. But he says that the second he takes his mask off, they’re just going to see him as this guy and they won’t want to listen to what he’s saying.  We can just let the rockin’ to the talkin’! There’s a picture of us now, but for the longest time it was just those masks.  The last thing the fucking world needs is another band on Myspace showing off their shitty haircuts.
 
Hah, has Myspace helped or harmed your band?
 
To be honest, it has helped. We played a secret show with NOFX through it and they made us one of the featured artists for a while. It’s helped u s for sure. It’s funny, when certain things become popular there’s always that argument where is it good or bad? When punk becomes popular, is that good or bad? It sucks because people get into it for the wrong reasons, but on the other hand it’s good because there are more people in bands. It’ll never be a bad thing that kids are out there playing music. On the flipside, you get a lot of bands out there playing for the wrong reasons. But what do I know about the right reasons? You get a lot of dudes who will comb their hair trying to get their dicks sucked. But it’s like anything else that gets big; there are going to be rad parts and shitty parts. Humans are really good at ruining stuff.
 
Now I know you said that you don’t know anything about the right reasons in general, but what are the right reasons for you?
 
This might sound cheesy, but nothing feels as good as playing music with my friends. When we’re playing together and it sounds good; it sounds the way it’s supposed to sound…nothing feels that great. All the stuff that comes out of it; we get to drive around in a van to places we’ve never been and meet kids we’ve never met and they get to jump around to some sounds they’ve probably never heard before. I get to talk on the phone with some weird lady from New York!
 
One website referred to the album as one of the best punk records of the year. What makes “Cuban Ballerina” so great?
 
I think one of the reasons why that was said is because there’s an honesty to our music which is lacking today because we don’t sing about bats and coffins and wear funky shit when we play. We just hang out with each other and play in a punk band and sing about what’s going on in our lives. I’ve always been a fan of intelligent songs and I’ve always felt way more of a connection with that. I’ve always considered punk to be smart; I think people feel a connection to our honesty and our straightforward approach. We’re serious, but as you can see I like to fuck around.
 
How do you feel about pop music right now? Where is it going?
 
Its kind of off my radar. I don’t pay too much attention to that.
 
You don’t own Fall Out Boy action figures?
 
No! Call me crazy. I’m more concerned with what my band is doing. One thing that I will say about those bands is that I’m not too impressed with their playing. They’re not very good at their instruments and I know because I’m not very good at playing my instrument. When you look at legitimate huge rock band, those dudes can fuckin’ play their instruments. You watch Fall Out Boy and stuff like that and they’re clowns. It’s just off my radar. Honestly, at the end of the day those dudes play in a band. I’m glad they’re in a band but it doesn’t really concern me what they’re doing.
 
The criticism for this record has been outstanding. What does that mean for you? Would you feel any differently about the record if the critics hated it?
 
I wouldn’t feel differently about the record personally. I’m so flattered that the reviews have been good so far. That makes me happy, but it’s also kind of weird because this is the first band where I’m a primary song writer. This is my baby; I wrote the shit and I sing the shit. Well, Jack and I work together obviously so he writes a ton of shit too. But it’s a trip; you sit at home in your room and you play the guitar and then go to this practice space and meet up with your friends and play the song with them. Then you play them for your friends and then go into this other room and record those songs that you wrote in your bedroom and you end up talking to some lady from New York and to me it’s all just so weird.