JE CLONE CL
It's lote September 1998. Kelly Fiyah and Liz E Beta-respective synth queen and bass
goddess of the collective known as Clone-have taken me to a Richmond district
safehouse for exiled pirates. Very hush-hush, this meeting is supposed to be; but
these girls hold their dusty bottle of tequila in the esteem of holy water. And we all
know what happens to our secrets when splashed with guilt's elixir...
Clone are in the business of producing musical evils, alcohol-induced and demon-
possessed. This is sci-fi horror rock from the gates of hell.
Two-fifths of Clone are
here right
now.
Introduce yourselves.
L: This is Liz E Beta, and
that's Kelly Fiyah.
How many girls are in
the band?
K: Three girls. Xtra.
Schneider is the vocalist.
Then who's the person
with the Betty Page cut
and the skirt who sits
behind the drums?
L: That's Mick Snake.
And the long-haired
guitarist?
K: That's Count Vlad the
Angry Russian.
L: Mick Snake is techni-
cally a boy but sometimes
he thinks he's a girl.
Maybe you should change
your name to Hanson.
L: Marilyn Hanson.
About Mick and Xtra:
are those two married?
L: No, they're just shack-
ley le just
ing up. Just living in sin.
Liz, you used to play
bass for 7 Year Bitch. But
you're not in 7 Year Bitch
anymore because...?
L: Because nobody's in 7
Year Bitch. 7 Year Bitch is a
ghost town, but I had a
good time.
How did Clone come to be?
L: Clone was already
brewing in Philly, then they
moved to SF and started
looking for a bass and key-
board player. For some rea-
son, I was sort of forlornly
looking through the classi-
fieds, and I saw this ad and
the names listed in the ad
were all bands which I really
love, like Big Black, Birthday
Party, and Chrome. I called
and talked to them on the
phone a little bit, but 7 Year
Bitch had just broken up and
it was too soon to play with
another band, so I went and
half-heartedly played with
them anyway so I wouldn't
be such a flake. From the
first second of playing with
them I knew I wanted to do
it. It was too perfect. We play
together extremely well. It's
organized confusion.
Kelly, you had never played
keyboards before. How did
you land that role?
K: Liz and I, before she com-
mitted to Clone, had been
kicking around the idea of
playing music together. I don't
know why I was so confident
that I could do it, but the key-
boards on the demo tape.
were pretty mood setting.
They created an atmosphere.
that I felt I had a natural abili-
ty to create anyway, just from
playing bass previously.
L: I knew Kelly could do it.
We had auditioned other
keyboard players, and they
were just the geekiest group
of fucking people. Don't ever
call yourself a keyboard
player, because keyboard
players are geeky fucks.
These dudes would come.
who
really
were
into
Emerson, Lake & Palmer and
stuff like that. If we had
someone who knew how to
play piano, they'd destroy
everything by trying to play
something pretty or some-
thing that makes sense. It's so
much better to have some-
one who's sexy and beautiful,
and likes the same kind of
music and can lose their shit
on stage. That's so much
more important than being
able to sight-read or knowing
how to play some Rush song.
Can you name three bands
that Clone has cloned?
L: People always want to
come up to me after we're
done playing and list a bunch
of bands that we sound like.
"Herbie
Hancock...meets
Deep Purple." Our most obvi-
ous collective influence is
Chrome, and everyone is
really into Six Finger Satellite.
I worship them. That shit
makes my hair move.
K: I think we're becoming
more rock/riff oriented
than we were before, which
can lend itself to Six
Finger in that there's more
of a groove.
You
recently recorded
with Billy Anderson-how
did you hook that up?
L: Billy did the last 7 Year
Bitch record, and the reason
he did the last 7 Year Bitch
record was because Neurosis
told us to do it. And when
Neurosis says jump, you say
how fucking high. You have
to heed Neurosis. Even
though the music he's known
for isn't the music Clone
plays, he's a killer engineer
and a good friend and I think
it's important to work with
your friends.
What's your album going
to be called and who's
putting it out?
Not
Like
L: Lauren wants to call it
Feeling Quite
Yourself Today?
K: Evil Eye Records. That's
Vlad and his wife's label.
How come you never play
any all-ages shows?
lever
L: Because SF can't get its
shit together. There are three
good things about Portland,
Oregon. One: no sales tax.
Two: Burnside. And three:
they combine 21 & over and
underage. Why can't every-
one do that? Who are they
protecting by not having all-
ages shows? Who's being
helped? If they were good
business people, they'd do it
because they'd make a lot
more money.
Do
you girls like
skateboarders?
K: I worked at Get Wet in
Ft Wayne, Indiana. I was
the grip taper but none of
the boys would let me grip
their boards.
L: Everyone knows that girls
can't grip as good as boys.
K: You know what? This
one guy would always come
in and finally he let me grip
his board and I did it perfect-
ly. I cut out the tape so that
there were all these little
Indy stickers all over. So I
proved myself.
Do you prefer hessian
rocker kids or funky
fresh Gs?
L: That's a tough call,
because there is some sort
of guilty pleasure/hessian
appeal for me. There's
something more authentic
about the heshers. I like
those kinds of boys where
when you're two blocks.
away, you think it could
be a really fine boy or it
could just be a homeless
person. You have to get
within twenty paces to
find out.
K: When I worked at
the skate shop, basically
all the music they played
was punk. Then when I
came back to visit a cou-
ple years later, all the
videos were happy, pot
smoke-a big cloud of
hip-hop.
L: Do you ever notice
how retarded people are
the happiest people?
K: Do you ever notice
how retarded people like
to fuck all the time?
L: Is this from personal
experience?
K: I just know.
Who wins in the ring?
Ozzy or the Nuge?
L: Definitely Ted
Nugent. Ozzy wouldn't
have a chance, even
though Ozzy is so much
cooler than The Nuge.
The Nuge is fit, man, plus
he's insane. Ozzy's soft.
Ted Nugent probably
does aerobics. He proba-
G-
bly has a rabbit skin
string that he made after
he ate the rabbit sushi
style. Ozzy would be
wearing a silk bathrobe
with eyeliner running
down his face and he'd be
yelling for his wife. I think
The Nuge would win. The
Motor City Madman.
Who deserves love
from Clone?
L: Billy, Lost Goat,
and the Little Deaths.
Putting the punk back in
punk rock.
----Ryan Henry
CHRIS PASTRAS
STARED
Stereo
Stereo
Smell My Finger
STERED
MFG
001
ASK YOUR LOCAL SKATEBOARD SHOP ABOUT STEREO'S SCRATCH & SNIFF GRAPHICS, THEY REALLY STINK!!!
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