This month The Irresponsibles are releasing a new CD, Quality of Life, and theyre sweetening the event by also putting out a five-CD box set. Its as good a time as any to chat up these four cuties about what its like to live in their world.
Noise: Okay, so summarize the bands beginning.
Peter: The Irresponsibles have been around since 1985 in different incarnations. Mark and Dan have been in the band for ten years. Weve always had a revolving guitar player until Drew, and Drews been in it for two years.
Noise: (Pointing) Did you see Drew just jitterbug up to the bar?
Peter: Hes got charAZZZmaaa!
Mark: Drew joined just in time for the Adrian Belew tour.
Noise: Before we talk about touring, lets talk about the evolution of this pop music. You used to have a full horn section?
Peter: Weve done everything.
Mark: We had a string section, a horn section.
Noise: What era in your evolution was this?
Mark: Big Orange had a full string section.
Peter: Between Big Orange (1996) and When Pigs Fly (1999).
Noise: And was that the band format when you were on tour with Mr. Belew? And Im asking because I see that he did your string arrangements on When Pigs Fly.
Peter: Actually no, that was really scaled down. I was on acoustic guitar, Dan was playing a stand-up kit, Mark had an acoustic bass. It was originally only supposed to be me going out on tour with Adrian. I slowly slipped these guys in.
Noise: Like, one at a time? Youre like the wizard Gandalf introducing the dwarves to Beorn!
Peter: Thats exactly how it happened! This is like the Hobbit trilogy. Adrian was just by himself, had all this technical crap that the sound guy was doing while he played. He had all the backing tracks onstage, so he didnt want a full band to overpower what he was doing. Then I worked in Mark and Dan; Mark had to play acoustic bass. At first I was thinking, okay, Dan will play bongos, but then we came up with the two-drum stand-up thing. Drew came along to sell merchandise. When the tour took a break and we got like ten days off, I talked to Adrians manager and somehow cleared it to have Drew play for the second leg of the tour. But then we had to bring another guy to sell the stuff. And that guy sells STUFF, lemme tell ya.

Noise: So there was Adrian Belew all by himself, and in comes this whole big Irresponsibles posse.

Mark: He had a set-up where he could just walk on and plug in an acoustic.

Peter: Yeah, there were no amps involved, we just plugged in stuff.

Noise: That tour was a good solid two months, right? What happened after you got home?

Peter: Wed gained a fan base like, all over the place. A lot of people everywhere bought our CDs, pretty much through him. Produced by Adrian Belew. Liketheres Adrian Belew FANATICS. Theyre like Trekkies.

Dan: And we came back better players. And it was like a bonding thing, too, because Drew was pretty new to the band. We bonded, we wrote songs on the road.

Drew: (Returning with beers) Ask ME something, ask ME something!

Noise: Well, I was just learning about how you sold your soul to Rosie ODonnell to go on tour with Adrian Belew.

Dan: Oh, whoa. That was a bad deal.

Peter: Oh Jesus!

Drew: To Rosie ODonnell!

Noise: I was trying to think of something more evil than Evil. So you went from merchandising guy to lead guitar?

Drew: Yup, I was Merchandising Guy. I was also Security Chief. I had a badge and a toy gun. It was exciting stuff. No, it was very boring. And seeing these guys on stage? I was hungry for the rock. Finally we got a chance to rock.

Noise: In what ways do you think that tour changed the band?

Drew: It brought us together a little bit, made us more friends.

Peter: Yeah. And we got a taste of how it could be. I mean, we were getting paid a lot, we had like, food backstage. And just the experience of going from the East Coast to the West Coast. Were pretty fortunate that we got a chance to have all those new people see us.

Noise: So talk about the new CD, Quality of Life. I thought it was going to be called The Ballad of Lobster Boy?

Peter: The EP was called that. See, we have this problem of making things too jokey? Enough so that people dont take it seriously enough?

Noise: Whats wrong with that?

Dan: Its like an icebreaker.

Peter: Its an icebreaker, but you dont want your act to be like a HA HA HA!

Noise: Why the fascination with Grady Stiles? You saw the A&E special on him, didnt you.

Peter: Me and Drew did! After practice one night.

Drew: City Confidential.

Peter: The guy actually said, "The media was attracted to the Lobster Boy story like a TORNADO to a TRAILER PARK."

Drew: They kind of narrated the show in a jokey manner. We were a little stonesy, you know? And we were just laughing our asses off, but it was just such a horrible story.

Peter: It WAS horrible, but the way they did it was so tongue-in-cheek, it was so fucked up.

Drew: So a couple days later I called up Pete

Peter: He left it on my answering machine! "Its all right Monty, its all right about Lobster Boy. Its all right, everything is gonna be fiiiine." I go, "dude, thats good. We should fuckin do something with that."

Drew: The Irresponsibles have had some jokey songs in the past, meant for hilarity, and it just seemed right to do another one like that. Its also twisted.

Mark: I know the song sounds hilarious, but its not in the undercurrent of the story. The story is presented hilariously but

Drew: Thats the thing, its funny but its twisted. Warped. But we dont condone anything that Grady Stiles did. He beat up his wife and kids.

Dan: Its more storytelling than anything else.

Noise: From where else, besides City Confidential in the middle of the night, do you draw inspiration?

Peter: Like a paleontologist, as you go from the first CD to the latest CD, youll find that on the first CD I draw from clichés. Everyday household terms and clichés. And as I got a little more mature, they were actually like real thoughts.

Noise: Yeah! Okay, talk about each other. Drew, tell me something I dont know about Pete.

Drew: Jeez, I dont wanna be kicked out of the band! Pete is an extremely, uh, caringhes a good guy, hes very good with his hands. Did you know that about him? And hes a great lover. He works with his hands a lot so theyre kind of callused and rough, but even so, hes still gentle.

Noise: Thats a very nice thing to say.

Drew: I like him. Another thing about Pete is, when I entered the band I was a rudimentary guitar player. I still kind of am, but I didnt know how to put a song together, I didnt know how to do shit. Petes taught me a lot about being in a band, about how to write songs, and how to filter through the shit. Petes my rock n roll da da.

Noise: How about Mark there?

Drew: Marks sort of a Bill Wyman-type. He just does his job, concentrates on his shit.

Dan: Did you know that Pete used to take his pants off and iron them during the set?

Noise: I did not know that.

Peter: Its true about the ironing.

Drew: I heard that before I joined the band every rehearsal was like a funeral procession. And now theres energy and exuberance. (Laughter). Hey, what about my guitar playing? You like that? Huh? Yeah its alright, it SUCKS, I know, shut up.

Noise: What bands were you in before?

Drew: I was in a band called Funk Sandwich. I was also in a band calledwhat the hell was it, Squirrel something

Peter: Flying Squirrel.

Drew: Yeah. I was also in a band called Hot Carl.

Noise: Hot Carl? Those are some of the worst band names Ive ever heard.

Mark: Tell her what a flying squirrel is.

Drew: Flying squirrel, do you know what it means? Do you mind if I be a little

Noise: Go right ahead.

Drew: Flying Squirrel is like when you, uh, when a guy with an extremely large

Noise: Nutsack.

Drew: Yeah, and he can take it in his hands and actually I used to know a guy who took it in his hands and could stretch it out. And it would look like a flying squirrel. Isnt that wonderful?

Peter: Hot Carl is just as bad