58
FEAR
BB: Okay, first question. When did
FEAR originally conjugate or come to-
gether?
Philo: You mean ejaculate?
Lee: Ah, we started to fool around, uh...
Spit: Six months ago. We took sleep learn-
ing...
Derf: What was that?
Lee: Fifteen...four?...Fifteen months ago.
The Puerto Rican kids in the neighborhood
had all fooled around at eleven, ten...some
of them at nine. We tried, you know.
Philo: It was about four years ago for me.
I was thirteen then. (An unknown female
voice is heard exclaiming, "Oh, no!")
BB: You were sixteen? Well then you
youngsters are happening...
Philo: Oh, yeah, my pud went from here
to there back then.
BB: Yeah? What'd she do?
Philo: She 'splains, um, "Philo holds out
his hand across the river."
Lee: She just stood back and said, "Wow,
how buff is THAT?"
BB: How buff... Why the name FEAR?
Derf: Cause it's better than "The Butt-
hairs."
Philo: We wanted to call ourselves f--k,
but someone else called themselves that
Spit: We wanted to call ourselves Flap,
but somebody already called themselves
that
BB: (Laughing) How long have you
guys been playing music altogether?
Philo: Well we've been conjugated....
Derf: We're still trying.
Philo: We've been conjugated now for
about two years. (Someone whispers just
loud enough so that the recorder picks
"FOUR YEARS" out of the airwaves.)
Spit: If you take that four times the four of
us, it's sixteen together.
Derf: How many times can we each jerk
off a day?
Philo: Oh, I don't know...
BB: Who writes the lyrics for FEAR?
Derf: (speaking about Lee) He wrote...He
wrote the lyrics to all the music.
Lee: We all write 'em.
Spit: I wrote one of 'em.
BB: Really? You wrote a word or a
song?
Philo: I invented the slogan "GO DIE."
Lee: You have to give him that.
BB: Okay, we'll give him that then.
Philo: I saw that in a punk crossword
puzzle once and I was proud.
Lee: Incidentally, my name is Lee Ving
and I am responsible in a greater measure
for the lyrics.
BB: What Inspires your songs?
Lee: Real life experiences in the big city.
BB: What city is that, anytown. U.S.A.?
Lee: New York, Philadelphia, Madison,
Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago,..
Boston...
Philo: Tucson.
Lee: Amarillo, Dallas.
Philo: Tucson... Tucson.
Spit: As long as they sell beer.
BB: Conroe, Texas?
Lee: Right! Let's see. Midland, Odessa,
Stinkcreek.
BB: Stinkcreek! I've been through
there, smells pretty good.
Derf: Beer!
BB: Beer? Yeah. What cities are you all
from? Different cities?
Derf: Yeah.
Philo: Stinkcreek!
BB: What music does FEAR listen to?
Lee: Ah, The Ventures, Beach Boys...
Spit: Charlie's Angels.
Philo: I like the Carpenters.
BB: No one ever listens to Liberace
anymore, do they? (laughter: "No
way," "He's dated, "Yeah, he's too
old."
Lee: Sometimes I like Miles Davis and
Liberace, all those, all those, uh....
Derf: The...they...they've done so many
facelifts on Libera...Liber Ace that he
can't, it's a repetual smile.
Lee: His scholas don't even show.
Derf: Yeah, he can't stop smiling, when
he's frowning, he's still going. (Derf cracks
an ear to ear with that plasticc Liberace ef-
fect.)
BB: It's like his mouth is permanently
open, huh?
Lee: He's got that candelabra stuck in his
butt, too, from that accident he had in
1899 or whenever.
BB: Constant smiles, huh?
Lee: Constipation!
BB: Um, what kind of guitars, drums,
amps, any credit to be given to anyone
whose given you equipment?
Philo: I've got a broken guitar that's
perpetually broken...
Spit: Sakamoto Drums!
BB: Sakamoto drums? What kind of
guitar do you use, Lee?
Lee: I play a slushomatic guitar.
BB: Slushomatic?
Lee: And I have a uh, a Menjavowitz
Marshallbrain. That's a special edition that
was made in China before the fall of the
Peking war and the uh....
Derf: I'm...I'm strictly a Silvertone user.
Lee: Derf Scratch...He's the bass player.
BB: Well, let's Interview.
Lee: This is Philo Cramer. He plays lead
guitar. I'm Lee Ving. I play rhythm guitar
and do most of the vocals.
Spit: And I'm Spit Stix and I play the
drums.
Lee: He's the drummer.
BB: What makes a FEAR gig happen?
Spit: When we get booked!
Derf: When we get paid.
Philo: When we get on stage and all the
amplifiers are set up and we're all there
all at once and all the amps are turned on
and he goes, "One Two Three Four" and
we start.
Lee: There's a lot of people that come,
there's a lot of fast music that gets poured
onto them. They start to crunch into each
other, we play faster, they move faster,
they crunch harder, we play faster and we
do it for as long as before we pass out.
And then, that's what it is.
BB: Awright. Um, have any of you ever
rode a skateboard?
Group: "Oh, yeah," "Aw," "Yeah," "T've got
a knot right here."
Lee: Derf can do like 180's and 360's but
don't get him to do it, okay?
Derf: I can do 720's!
BB: Sure!
(laughter)
Lee: You can't do 720's! Don't let him try
it now!!!
BB: Are those your false teeth hanging
from your neck?
Lee: Don't tell him.
Derf: Derf.
BB: Those aren't yours, huh?
Derf: No.
Lee: Almost!
Derf: Almost. But they will be after tonight.
BB: Have any of you ever seen anybody
ride in an empty pool do aerials or any-
thing?
Group: "Oh, yeah," "Yeah."
Lee: There's this thing here up on Reseda
Boulevard called Skatercross. You ever
go there?
BB: Yeah, I was practically born there.
(At this moment the interviewer is stoked
that these guys are hip on skating and
especially to this spot where he formed
his abilities as a pro skateboarder. An
understandable moment of secret
recognition for himself.)
Spit: In that pool?
Lee: The concrete wave.
BB: In that second bowl practically.
The concrete wave? You guys heard of
that thing?
Philo: Yeah.
Derf: I like the skatepark down in Marina
Del Rey which they closed, that was a
cool place to go. Or down by the...
Lee: We're Surf Nazis.
BB: Surf Nazis?
Lee: The surf in Philadelphia was
unbelievable. The sets you just wouldn't
believe. They just kept rolling up Broad
street curling like a
Philo:...curling like a mothered fork.
Spit: In Canton, Ohio, in the winter when
the water slides are open, we took our
skateboards down the slides when they're
all dry. You really get going then.
Philo: I was really big in the LA River.
BB: Where'd you get those?
Lee: You can only find these at Army/Navy
surplus stores (showing the meanest pair
of black steel-toed lace-ups).
BB: Mambas! Those are steel-toed
gnarlers.
Lee: Yeah, good for Public Relations.
(laughter)
BB: Public Relations and Physical Con-
tact!
Lee: They're for communication with the
audience.
Spit: I'don't buy any clothes but I'll take
any clothes anybody gives me.
BB: Yeah, only if I get a FEAR auto-
graph. Do you want to give credit to
anyone who might have helped your
success?
Derf: Yeah, we've got it rehearsed.
Philo: Don't we have this answer re-
hearsed?
Spit: Murf the Surf.
BB: Murf the Surf?
Spit: Yes, Jan Brookhalter.
Philo: Don't we...?
Lee: I don't know.
Philo: I think we got it rehearsed.
Derf: Yeah, we do have it...
Philo: Everybody's got it...one...two...
three.
FEAR: NOOOOO!!
BB: Okay. What do you think of the
ones who jump up on stage, do you
think they are trying to ruin your act?
Don't you want to kick their asses off
stage?
Philo: Well, we pay 'em good money to do
that and I don't know why they don't do it
more often.
BB: So then, they don't get in your
way?
Lee: That's at least half the show.
BB: Yeah? Makes you play harder,
huh?
Lee: Definitely!
BB: A lot of your lyrics are about
screwing, screwing people up and
screwed up life. Is this life as it is, life
as it will be, or just a moment in the life
of FEAR?
Philo: Wait a minute, let me ohm on this
one..OHMMM.
Lee: You see grasshopper, it must be
seen that the butterfly flies not only from
the sun but through the caterpillar, and as
it changes, as the chrysalis emerges, so
also is life only one. OHMMM... (Derf and
Philo join in on OHMMMS.)
Spit: We only write about beauty.
Derf: Truly as we see it.
Philo: From the snoody trudy....
Lee: And the perfect wave.
Derf: And homosexuality.
Lee: You know that the surf in Malibu is
SHIT!! I'd like to take this opportunity to
tell the surfing world that all this bullcrap
about Southern California is up the gee-
FEAR
gee. There's about thirty yards of surfable
beaches in So. Calif, and if you try and
wade onto that beach with your board,
you will get bloodied right away!
Derf: Especially if you're not a local.
Lee: Zip, nothing. There's no surf here.
Huntington Beach has a couple of feet of
beach where they have good surf.
Derf: But ZUMA! It's great if you like to get
closed out Lee: What's that?
huh?
BB: Oh, yeah, Zuma's happening,
Derf: Where the wave just goes CEAE
OtAt5ce. But the real men go surf Zuma....
BB: Yeah. The real men do.
Spit: Manly Men.
Philo: Manly men with small skegs.
Lee: I got a boogie board. I got the big,
skegs, the double skegs on the back of it
and the yellow and blue flippers. I go out
all the time and sit on the beach and drink
beer waitin' for surf and by the time I get
it, by that time, I'm f-ked up and I don't
get any
BB: What are your thoughts on
American youth?
Lee: I dream of Skinhead Armies.
BB: Why is that?
Derf: 'Cause we're sick of long hair.
Lee: What else is there to think about? It's
time to take over.
BB: Again, who influenced your
musical tastes?
Lee: Sonny Barger, Leo Borsey.
Philo: The Carpenters.
Lee: Charles Manson.
BB: Is there a population following
FEAR?
Lee: Yes, there is, thankfully.
BB: Are you happy with that?
Lee: Definitely...hopefully.
BB: Who comes to see a FEAR gig?
Lee: Everybody.
Derf: My mom and dad...my grandmother
and my little n...n...niece.
Lee: A cross section of the population,
surfers, skinheads, bikers...
Derf: I invited my brother-in-law.
Philo: Surfboard riders.
BB: Punks?
Lee: Engineering students.
BB: Are there any scheduled tours
coming up for FEAR?
Lee: There'll probably be one by the end
of the summer. August, September.
Spit: Yeah, full U.S. tour.
BB: All U.S. cities?
Spit: Every city.
Lee: We're gonna do Las Vegas, Denver,
Sioux City, Minnesota, Minneapolis,
Milwaukee, Detroit, New York, Boston,
Chicago...
Spit: Philly.
Lee: Philadelphia, Winston, Mass., New
Haven.
Lee: Then back through the south, so like,
Tallahassee, Mobile, Atlanta, then come
back and do Texas, go to New Mexico,
Arizona.
BB: So you're not leaving any room for
any other bands, you're going to
dominate, huh?
Lee: We want to play as many places as
we can, if anyone else wants to go and
play those same places I hope they will.
There's room for everybody.
Derf: Domination is one of the newest
trends going around these days.
BB: Do you want to dominate?
Lee: We have a staff of dominatresses
that work for us.
BB: Really?
Lee: They wear all rubber and they usually
can't come to the phone cause they're all
tied up.
BB: Only way to have 'em. I heard that
FEAR isn't going to be playing L.A. for
a while. Is this true or a false rumor?
Derf: It's a rumor in our own room and a
legend in our own time.
Lee: What do ya call it?
Derf: The check's in your mouth and we
won't come in your mail.
Lee: No, we'll play a lot in L.A.
BB: What do you think of Slash Re-
cords?
Lee: They're an independent record label
from Hollywood that has recorded our first
record and, uh, we're selling a few copies
of the record and everything's jake.
BB: Is there going to be a war?
Lee: There's already a war. It just
depends on which one you want to talk
about. There'll always be one.
BB: What do you want to say to people
who are reading this interview?
Lee: Mostly I would to, uh, reach some
people who believe that Van Halen is the
only person who plays music.
BB: And tell them what?
Lee: That there is more life in some other
performances than theirs.
BB: I also found out that you have a
son running around here somewhere.
Lee: That's him there. Ask him a question.
BB: What's his name?
Lee: Deacon.
BB: Deacon, how old are you?
Deacon: Nine.
BB: What do you think of your dad
playing music?
Deacon: I don't know.
BB: Do you want to be a musician
some day?
Lee: You don't have to be polite, tell him
what you want.
BB: Tell me what you want, I don't
care. You want to be a musician?
Deacon: No.
BB: Why not?
Deacon: Because I don't want to get shot
or anything.
BB: Awright. Thanks, Deacon. Thanks,
FEAR.
THER
with FEAR by Brad Bowman
37
Lee Ving