an interview with the

by Al Quint
October 23rd 1985
@ the Rathskeller
Boston, Ma.

from Suburban Voice #17 - a fanzine from Swamscott, MA
© Al Quint
reproduced with permission of the author

photos by Lisa Aurbach

The interview with the MINUTEMEN didn’t take place under the best of conditions, in a noisy, crowded room above the Rat and there were time constraints, so this piece may not be the most complete, but it still provides, I think, a decent insight into the band. The MINUTEMEN are a prolific band, to say the least, having churned out record after record (I believe the total is 9), most recently culminating with the tremendous Double Nickels On The Dime, a 2 record set that showcases their many musical facets, from funk to jazz to hard rock, and Project Mersh, their attempt at a more accessible style. A recent 45, Tour Spiel, presents 4 of theirfave covers in a live setting. My First Bells, a cassette-only release, features everything the band recorded up to Double Nickels, 62 songs in 75 minutes. Terse social statements combine with a jarring, versatile musical approach that easily flows from one style to another, without losing a beat. Above all the MINUTEMEN are crack musicians, pulsating funky bass lines and jarring guitar chords surging forth, ricocheting off the senses, danceable, yet providing strong food for thought. The MINUTEMEN are truly swell guys, too, liberal thinkers, but taking a pragmatic approach, rather than radical, and their leftist lyrical impetus, even with the subtlety it encompasses, still speaks out loud and clear – "this ain’t no picnic!!"

At the MINUTEMEN ‘s Rat gig, their set was preceded bythe ingenious satire of Brother Awest and the World Salivation Ministry. The Brother is the ultimate evangelical conservative, the man who makes Wally George look like a pinko, gloriously pissing off several close-minded audience members, exactly the intent. As the Brother points out, "No one has a sense of humor anymore." Combining this spectacle with the brash, direct onslaught of the MINUTEMEN made it an evening of co-conspiracy not to be soon forgotten. The MINUTEMEN are D. Boon (vocals, guitar), Mike Watt (bass, vocals) and George Hurley (drums)…

SV: The last time you were through, you were handing out "U.S. Out Of Central America” stickers. It’s obvious there’s a political emphasis to a lot of your lyrics. Do you really think you’re reaching the audience?

Boon: Yeah. They took ‘em, they grabbed ‘em. This one girl grabbed one and said,” I love it. My father works for the CIA and he’ll love this." Then I had one guy come up to me as I was passing them out and I give him one and he goes, "I don’t want one – I’m stationed in Andreas." I have a lot of people come up to me and they ask me about it and tell me they’re happy to hear me say it. I wrote a really good song about that on the next record, 3 Way Tie For Last.

SV: Where did you get Brother Awest from? He said in one place they got shot at or something.

Boon: He baptized a whole audience of punkers and they bombarded him with horse manure.

Awest: Bags of piss.

Boon: Used condoms…

SV: About how many songs do you guys think you know at this point?

Boon: Maybe 80. We’re going to do a triple album during the summer. 3 dudes doing 6 sides, 3 live, 3 studio and we’re passing out this ballot where our compatriots in music can vote on what songs to put on the live records.

SV: What’s the inspiration behind Brother Awest?

Mike: The MINUTEMEN‘s kind of a dry, one-dimensional thing. Covers, different styles of music, but, as far as our political stance, it’s pretty cut and dried so Brother Awest has a sarcastic point of view to get people thinking another way. We’re all trying to tell the same story, just from different angles. We use rock; he uses, uh, subversion.

SV: You said punk rock changed your life (on History Lesson, part II). Do you still believe in it bringing about any sot of social change?

Boon: In that song, it didn’t really mean social change. In the song, it means, here I was working a job, going to college 2 or 3 years ago, and now I’m traveling around the country in a band, playing music, something I never thought I’d do. It changed my life. I don’t know about punk music trying to change society. Society has to change and music should be one of the means. What rock music has done for me is show me that people could actually not hate each other.

Mike: We want people confronting issues, whatever they’re going to pick. At least they’re confronting them. Me and Boon are very personal about our beliefs. We just want to point out the issue more than our opinion. A lot of people believe things because they’re told to. We’re not into brainwashing.

SV: I remember reading that you guys believe in the Democratic Party. Do you think they can get the momentum going again?

Boon: Well, they’d better. I don’t want to have Bush as president!

Mike: We’ve got to shame ‘em into being real Democrats.

(Someone asks if they consider themselves "legitimate” in their social message)

Boon: What we try to do is change our music and change people’s ideas, maybe reaching a larger audience, without selling out. All this is kind of hit and miss, but I love it. I’ve never gotten to see the East Coast in the Autumn, I’ve never seen red and lime green and purple – it’s beautiful. I can see why people paint it!

SV: Do you aim more for the college areas when planning a tour?

Boon: Yeah, we’re pretty much a college band. If you went to a bigger show, it seems there’s a wider audience.

Mike: We’re 28 years old. We hope some of our peers would see us, especially in the smaller towns. It’s open for everybody. No job’s too small for the MINUTEMEN.

SV: What’s  "Mersh"?

Mike: Career move. The lowest common denominator.

Boon: Commercial. We were sitting around and talking, "Oh, this next record, we want something different." We’re good friends with many different types of radio personalities and they’re always telling us "all you have to do is put a little more mid-range in, cut down the EQ, put in this and that, and you guys could be played right next to Thompson Twins on college radio, so we said to ourselves "Let’s try to do that." And in doing it, it was kind of a joke, in a way, but it was also a wholesome try.

Mike: How can you calculate mersh? It sold half as much as the art record Double Nickels.

SV: Anything to close with?

Mike: The idea is to touch people. Convince them that their heart beats. Everything’s a device to get that across…

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