Interviews

Recover

Interview with Jimmy on Nov 30, 1999 by Archive Bot

Thank you to Aaron at Fueled By Ramen for setting up this interview and Jimmy from Recover for answering these few questions and the guy with the big hair for joining in the fun. If you get the chance pick up their new EP "Ce Ci N'est Pas Recover" on Fiddler Records and their full length "Rodeo and Picasso" on Fueled By Ramen. If they are in your town don't even think twice about going to see them, because these guys are really, really funny and know how to put on an amazing show. Check www.killrecover.com more information and tourdates. This interview took place september 15th at the showplace in Buffalo.

PB: You guys used to be a Green Day tribute band, is this right?
Jimmy: Well, when we were about 12 or 13 we weren't exactly a Green Day tribute band, we covered all of our favorite bands and Green Day was one of them, Face to Face, other stuff like that. It was just something we thought would be funny to put in our bio and now we get asked about that.

PB: Okay so you guys are now like a, I guess, hardcore band.
Jimmy: Uh, I wouldn't say hardcore. We get called that a lot but we just like to be called a rock band. Actually we don't even like to label our music because it's always changing. We just rock and roll.

PB: So you guys covered all this punk rock stuff and now you're a rock band, obviously you have different influences and like different types of music and have an evolving style. Why do you think it's important to listen to all different types of music?
Jimmy: Just because there is diversity and it's something you need. You need to listen to everything you can to get as many influences as you can. Like everything influences us.

PB: Can you give me some examples?
Jimmy: Well just everything from hip hop to rock and roll, like Queens of the Stone Age and Nirvana, and hardcore stuff like Cave In and then oldies like Led Zepplin. All that stuff.

PB: Did you guys really throw bacon and hot dogs at people?
Jimmy: *Laugh* When we're home we like to cause a lot of trouble and one of our activities was to, it was a few summers ago, to get packages of bacon and hot dogs and drive around...

PB: Were they raw?
Jimmy: Yeah. And we'd pull up to a red light and slap them on peoples windows and throw them at girls and film it all. We have hours and hours of footage of hot dogs and bacon being thrown around, actually lots of other things like whatever peppers, whatever food we could get our hands on. We all worked at the same sandwich shop and we'd just take all the leftovers. It was harmless though.

PB: Did you ever get in trouble for it?
Jimmy: No. We'd get chased by people, but we'd get away. We'd also do this other thing called trash can bowling. It's where you go out on trash night and pull your car up next to a trash can and reach out and grab it and then you start driving while you hold the trash can, like the passenger is hanging out the window dragging this trash can and you go like 30 miles an hour and then when you see another pile of trash cans you let go and the one you were holding hits the rest of them, like bowling pins. It's crazy. It used to be a big thing of ours.

PB: You're from Austin right?
Jimmy: Yeah.

PB: What's the scene like there? How did you guys get started?
Jimmy: Um, well, we've grown up together since we were 12 years old and we would just learned how to play instruments together. We have brothers in a band called the Impossibles and they, when they started getting big in Austin, we started picking up after them and playing shows with them and they got big and so they took us on our first tour. But we had always played in bands together. When we got serious we went out with them and from there it just went. They broke up though. All the other bands in Austin are also great to play with and there are thousands of bands coming out of Austin right now. It's a really good thing, the shows are always really big and your friends are always there and it's just fun.

PB: I read your influences are drugs, sex, hangovers, depression, fancy hotels and the smell of rain.
Jimmy: *Laugh* I'm not sure about he smell of rain. I'm not sure about that one, that sounds like Dan. Depression? That sounds like Dan, he's pretty moody sometimes and fancy hotels? We stayed in a Motel 6 last night. That's not so fancy at all.

PB: You get hungover a lot?
Jimmy: Well I don't drink. Smoke. I'm the driver. Everyone else in the band drinks and stuff like that but I just don't.

PB: Can you explain the cover of your EP?
Jimmy: There is a famous painting called "This is Not a Pipe" and it's this painting of a pipe. So it's not a pipe but it's a picture of the pipe. We really liked that painting a lot and so we wanted to incorporate that in our album layout and so we did "This is Not Recover" in French and it's kind of a portrayal of what we aren't. On the cover it's us looking all fancy with leather jackets and stuff and it's not our style. I don't dress like that. And the seminude models inside, it's just off the wall, crazy, not us.