Moby, you can get stomped by Obie — you 36-year-old bald-headed fag, blow me
You don’t know me, you’re too old
Let go, it’s over, nobody listens to techno –Eminem, “Without Me”

Those words may have seemed somewhat clever in 2002, but seven years later, Moby’s still here, and arguably as relevant as ever. Matter of fact, he’s just about to release his ninth album, titled Wait for Me, and to celebrate, he sat down for a chat with Bullz-Eye’s James B. Eldred in which he discussed the recording and creative process, his waning popularity in America, and what he thinks the future of the record industry holds.

“As sad as this might sound, I sell more records in Belgium than I do in America. Even though I was born in the United States and I live in the United States, in terms of status or in terms of my record sales, it’s quite a small country.”

Remarkably candid about everything from his creative process to his cost of living, Moby comes across as thoughtful and contemplative — just like Wait for Me, which is being described as a somber and meditative departure from his last album, the more upbeat Last Night. And, much as you might expect for an artist who runs a site full of free tracks from his vaults, he’s pretty pragmatic about this whole Internet filesharing thing:

“Honestly, I’m flattered if anyone makes an effort to listen to my music. If they want to pay for it, that’s great, but I’d certainly rather someone steal my music than not listen to it.”

To read more of Moby’s Bullz-Eye interview — and learn about his gear setup, what went into the making of Wait for Me, and what he’d do if given the chance to produce a Britney Spears record, click here!

Dhani Harrison…yes, you may know him as George’s son…has been making the press rounds, talking up You Are Here, the album by his band, thenewno2. While doing so, however, it hasn’t exactly required a great deal of arm-twisting to get him to chat about how he had more than a little bit to do with the folks at Apple Corps agreeing to license the Beatles’ music for their very own volume of “Rock Band.” But that’s fair enough, since “Yomp,” a song by thenewno2, was released as downloadable content for “Rock Band” on July 29, 2008, and another track, “Crazy Tuesday,” was released as one of 20 free songs for “Rock Band 2.”

“I basically did that for Apple,” admitted Harrison, “so that they could see it and say, ‘Oh, look, there’s Dhani, he’s a new media kind of person, and this is how he’s selling his stuff. Maybe we should consider doing that with the Beatles, seeing as we don’t have any digital deal or anything.’”

The Beatles’ “Rock Band” evolved out of several meetings Harrison had with Alex Rigopulos, co-founder of Harmonix Music Systems, the developers of “Rock Band.”

“He’s a genius,” said Harrison, “just the loveliest, loveliest guy. We were sitting around one day, and he just said to me, ‘Do you think they would ever go for a Beatle game?’ And I was thinking the same thing to talk to him about! ‘It would be amazing, wouldn’t it?’ I said to him. Actually, I think I said, ‘It would be amazing because I could kick your ass at ‘I Am the Walrus’ while dressed as a wizard in Shea Stadium.’

“Do you know what I mean? Or I could put on the ice skating outfit from ‘Help!’ and then beat you at ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ in the universe somewhere. I don’t know. Just make up whatever you can; ‘I Am the Walrus’ at the Cavern Club, even. Wouldn’t that be fun? And we both just started riffing on that kind of stuff until we both just were in hysterics, and it was obviously a brilliant idea, but I said, ‘Well, that’s never going to happen, is it?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s never going to happen.’ I said, ‘But I should talk to the guys from Apple, anyway. Because it is actually a no-brainer. It is the biggest no-brainer that I’ve ever, ever thought about, and if Apple don’t go for it, then they are shooting themselves in the foot, because someone else is going to do it. Someone else is going to get their own game.

“In the way the media works these days, in the way that music delivery systems work these days, I find it quite often best to be first,” Harrison explained. “If you were the first person ever to design an application for the iPhone and you patented it, you would be very, very better off than we are right now, you know? But you’ve got to be the first one to do it. So I figured that Led Zeppelin or The Stones were going to do it unless we just got on to it. So I got cracking with the guys from Apple. I kind of almost bullied them into believing how amazing it was. They really didn’t need much convincing if you looked to the fourth quarter, the month of December 2007, I think they sold something like 10,000,000 units of ‘Guitar Hero 2′ in just one month, and they are $50.00 each. I said, ‘If you do the math, if you go 50/50 with ‘Rock Band’ and you sell a Beatles ‘Rock Band’ game, that’s a big deal’ you know. And not to mention that, once the game is made, you can just keep adding songs to it. You could do the Bangladesh pack, you could do the ‘Live and Let Die’ pack, you could do the ‘Imagine’ pack…”

Are you salivating yet? Better clean yourself up. You’ve got ’til September 9th until the Beatles’ “Rock Band” hits stores.

Jon Stewart is a huge Springsteen fan, so naturally he treated Bruce a little better than how he treated Jim Cramer.

Bruce also performed a solid acoustic version of “Working on a Dream.”

U2 is currently tweaking their new album, No Line on the Horizon, and Rolling Stone visited the band to get a preview.

The journey was as spellbinding and energizing as you might imagine, and you’ll be able to read all about it when our new issue hits newsstands on Wednesday, January 7th. To tide you over, here’s a track-by-track preview of 10 choice songs (and you can dig deeper into all our U2 coverage in our archive):

“Get On Your Boots”
The likely first single, this blazing, fuzzed-out rocker picks up where “Vertigo” left off. “It started just with me playing and Larry drumming,” the Edge recalls. “And we took it from there.”

The preview goes through a list of 10 songs in the same manner, but don’t be surprised if titles change or the songs disappear altogether. Apparently, the album is still in a state of flux.

It used to be that “55” was the number most associated with Sammy Hagar, but wrap your head around this figure: the Red Rocker is now 61 years old. Not that it’s stopped him from rocking and / or rolling, you understand. Hagar has just released a new album, Cosmic Universal Fashion, and he’s making the press rounds to promote it, which is how Bullz-Eye came to speak with him.

Bullz-Eye asked Hagar about life as an elder statesman of rock, his thoughts about Van Halen, and playing in a new band with Chad Smith and Joe Satriani, and he offered up stories of being denied the right to change the lyrics to a Beastie Boys song, of how he screams to prepare for shows, and how he once tried and failed to win over an audience when opening for KISS.

“The worst experience I ever had was opening for Kiss. For some reason, it just didn’t work. I got booed off the damn stage. I had to bust my guitar up and say ‘fuck you’ to people and I left…and it was Madison Square Garden! But it was their first hometown gig after they made it ,and they came back and played Madison Square Garden for four nights for the first time. And I was on the bill and I played first, and I said to the guys, ‘Bye-bye! You guys can do this on your own; you don’t need me as a whipping boy.’”

Check out the chat here, or by clicking on the below image:

I count myself fortunate that, in my two decades as a journalist, I’ve had precious few interviews that were just really, really bad…although, for the record, whenever anyone asks me about my personal worst, however, I invariably cite a conversation that I had with Juliana Hatfield:

It started two hours later than I’d been told that it’d been scheduled, no-one had told her that it had been scheduled at all, and she clearly had no interest in talking to me at all, based on her general indifference to every question I had to offer and the constant stream of one-word answers that served as her responses. And to top it off, the most memorable part of the entire conversation - such as it was - came about only because I dared to close by asking the God-awful question, “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be, and why?” Her horrified response: “I don’t want to be a tree!” (Okay, keep your cool, Juliana. It was hypothetical.)

Still, as excruciating as that experience was for me…and the fact that it occurred in 1992 and it’s still tops on my list speaks volumes as to the level of excruciation, I think…it still doesn’t come anywhere close to this:

Luke Burbank’s recent conversation with Sigur Ros.

Wow.

Luke, brother, I feel for you.

You bet! It’s time for some fun with Mr. Zimmerman as New York magazine proudly presents The Ten Most Incomprehensible Bob Dylan Interviews of All Time. Dig Bob waxing weirdly throughout the decades. Fun for all.

Yes, that’s the headline you never saw for my chat with former Raspberries frontman Eric Carmen…and for good reason, as it’s quite awful.

There was a brief period during the 1970s when the funniest rock-related one-liner involved a teenager asking, “Hey, did you hear that Paul McCartney used to be in a band before Wings?” It’s a joke that isn’t nearly as funny today, what with Wings having been relegated to little more than footnote status in McCartney’s career timeline, but if you lived and died by the FM dial during the ’70s, you can still see the humor in it. In turn, you might also have been really amused in the late ’80s, when kids were thrilling to Carmen’s “Hungry Eyes” and “Make Me Lose Control” without having any inkling that, a decade and a half earlier, he had been fronting one of the definitive power pop bands of all time.

Carmen and his fellow ‘Berries — Wally Bryson, Jim Bonfanti and Dave Smalley — were staples of the Billboard singles chart from 1972 to 1974, but creative struggles led to line-up changes and the band’s eventual dissolution. The 21st century, however, has found the guys getting back together and doing some live dates, one of which – a performance at L.A.’s House of Blues on Oct. 21, 2005 – has recently been released on Rykodisc as Live on the Sunset Strip. After a few scheduling conflicts and one missed opportunity (which was totally this writer’s fault), Bullz-Eye had a chance to speak with Carmen recently, and we quizzed him about the legacy of The Raspberries, his solo career and its notable difference to the sound he’d helped forge with the band, and how he can’t help but empathize with Kelly Clarkson these days.

Check out the interview here.

Sure, why not a crossover…?

BET is running a new series entitled “Hip Hop vs. America,” and on the panel for the show was none other than the legendary Public Enemy front-man, Chuck D. The show focuses on the different sides of the hip-hop genre, and the social responsibility that its performers have to those who are listening. Great concept, and I’m psyched to see it…but, still, I had to ask what I knew lots of other wanted to know:

Yours Truly: Chuck, guys like you and KRS-One have taken rap and made political statements and aided it in being taken seriously as an art form. How do you think a show like, say, “Flava of Love” has affected you being taken seriously, I mean, as far as the rap community in general?
Chuck D: I come from a black family, and one thing black folks know, we always got that one in our family. But we take them in as family. Jimmy Carter had Billy Carter. You all remember him, right? It’s just that we outnumber Flava 12-to-one, but you might not draw focus on the other 11 — and Flava is a one-of-a-kind, believe that. He ain’t never ever changed and ain’t gonna change. So, hopefully, more shows — maybe we’ll get 11 guys to have shows that balance out the “Flava of Love.”

Word.

By the way, Chuck said he wasn’t really interested in getting his own show…although he said he did think that Professor Griff would do pretty good with one (though, personally, I have to wonder if that wouldn’t have the potential to be even more damaging to hip-hop’s reputation than Flav’s show)…but he admitted that, if he did get his own show, he’d want it to be a one-on-one interview format. I said, “Oh, kinda like Henry Rollins?” I knew he’d been on Rollins’ show…but, damn, boyee, I didn’t know how much he’d enjoyed it. Chuck just lit up and was, like, “Oh, man, Rollins, I love Henry Rollins, I love him, I love everything he does, and I’d love to do anything like that guy.”

In closing, another writer asked Chuck if he thought Flava would ever find love, and he instantly offered up a laugh and a scoff, saying, “Flava found love. Flava got more love than he know what to do with!”

…you’d think someone would’ve stolen it by now. Then again, would you steal from Tony Bennett?

Bennett turned 80 this year (happy belated b-day, Tony) and to celebrate, director Rob Marshall (“Chicago,” “Memoirs of a Geisha”) teamed with Bennett to produce an hour long special that commemorates the career of the legendary singer. A portion of the show features celebrity narration from Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Robert DeNiro, and Billy Crystal, discussing the highlights of Bennett’s work. The best bits, however, are the song and dance numbers; Bennett duets with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Christina Aguilera, Diana Krall, and John Legend, with Marshall having recreated sets from various periods in Bennett’s history, including a ‘60s variety show and the stage of Carnegie Hall. Bennett and Marshall did a teleconference to promote the special, and Bullz-Eye was able to ask a few questions of Mr. Bennett…though we apologize wholeheartedly that we didn’t ask Mr. Marshall a single thing. Sorry, Rob, “Chicago” was great, but this is Tony freaking Bennett, man!

…when you’ve done an interview with notoriously long-winded Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, you’re gonna be a little punchy, so it’s only to be expected that you’re gonna take the easy way out and go with a headline like, “Make Room For Jello.”

In an interview with PortFolio Weekly, the Hampton Roads, VA, alt-weekly, Biafra got decidedly political, but, on the music front, he spoke frankly (what a shock) about how there’s no lack of love between himself and his former DK bandmates.

PortFolio Weekly: I know your lyrics have always been political, but do you ever find it hard to flip-flop between music and spoken word?

Jello Biafra: It is kind of hard to concentrate fully on both at the same time. And, plus, there’s Alternative Tentacles [the label Biafra owns] and all kinds of other things going on, so there isn’t always as much time for music as I would like. Especially with unending harassment from greedy former band members and great, big, nasty corporate lawyers.

PFW: Well, I was going to hold off asking about that, but now you’ve given me the perfect segue.

JB: Yeah, it’s as ugly as it ever was. I mean, I’m not allowed any say in how the band is pimped any more…and I emphasize the word “pimped.” I’m not allowed to see all the books; they’ve never adequately explained how “Viva Las Vegas” got into American Idol or an ad for The O.C. overseas. And, now, I guess they’re in negotiations with some big, slick Hollywood manager whose website lists experience with sports stars and Britney Spears.

PFW: Oh, geez.

JB: And no matter what they try, I will not be forced into that. I mean, they’ve alternately tried to arm-twist and sweet-talk me into rejoining the band, but, y’know, I have no interest in dumbing down something that means as much to me as Dead Kennedys does. I actually care more about the quality and integrity of the songs than they ever did.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Yes, in an interview with “Rolling Stone,” Nick Lacey finally opened up about the closing of his marriage to Jessica Simpson, and, more importantly to those who enjoy a bit of a giggle at someone else’s expense, started crying at various points during the interivew.

I haven’t read the interview yet…just the synopsis of it in this piece written by the fine folks at “Entertainment: Tonight” …but the description of the conversation actually makes you feel sorry for the guy.

He claims he found out his marriage was over when Jessica told him it was over…on the way home from the American freakin’ Music Awards, fer chrissakes!…and when he asked her not to make any rash decisions and to sleep on it, she apparently thought he said, “Sleep with someone else,” because when the next morning rolled around, her decision remained unchanged.

“I never wanted a divorce,” clarified Lachey. “I wanted us to be happy. I guess we differed on strategy.”

I guess.

After the untimely passing of Jam Master Jay, the other two-thirds of Run-DMC took an understandably extended break to figure out their place in the rap world. Rev. Run re-emerged in 2005, dropping his debut solo album and conquering another medium with his MTV series, “Run’s House.” Not be outdone, DMC has his debut solo album scheduled for release in March 2006, as well as a documentary on VH-1 in late February. He discussed these topics with Bullz-Eye, as well as the Run-DMC reissues, how an unlikely musical artist changed his mindset from suicidal to philosophical, and how he’s a little peeved that Run beat him to the solo punch:

DMC: So, yeah, I had a little help from my friends on the record.

BE: Nothin’ wrong with that.

DMC: People that are more than just celebrities. I’m talkin’ ‘bout real musicians and artists, as opposed to just working with people for the celebrity and the name value. I mean, these guys are big names, but they’re serious about what I do. I really needed musicians, because the album is really all about the music for me, and I wanted to make the best music I could, so I wanted some real cats I could get down with, if you know what I’m sayin’.

BE: I saw Sarah McLachlan is on the album, which is a name that could shock people the most…or surprise people the most, anyway.

DMC: Actually, she’s my favorite artist of all time.

BE: Wow!

DMC: Her music really inspired me…and, actually, that song “Angel” that she did? That was the record that saved my life.

BE: How so?

DMC: Because…I would say it was, like, 1997, and I was kind of going through a depression, and I was suicidal. And I was asking myself, am I here just to be DMC? There’s got to be more to life than this. I know it sounds crazy, but it was, like, because I did this and I did that. Aerosmith, “My Adidas,” “Walk This Way,” first to go gold, first to go platinum, I grew up in Queens, I went to the best schools…but with all this success, there was something missing. There was a void in me, but I didn’t know what it was. And I told myself, ‘cause we was over in Europe on tour…and, even then, it was fortune and fame, I was getting $70,000 a night, y’know, me, Jay and Run was tourin’ over in Europe and life was good…but I was, like, there’s something missing. Something ain’t right! And I was suicidal…well, okay, I wasn’t suicidal, but I knew something was wrong with me because I was having suicidal thoughts. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful or didn’t have gratitude about what I did, but it was more, like, if this is all that life is about for me, then I want to move on to the next plane of existence, ‘cause there’s gotta be something missing, but I can’t put my finger on it.

You can read the interview in its full entirety here.

Someone at CAKE Magazine summed up Cowboy Mouth better than I ever could, and I know that because their quote in the band’s press sheet appeared three quotes ahead of what I wrote about the band (Let me tell you, nothing is more surreal than seeing your own words on a band’s press sheet). CAKE said, “…on a bad night, they’ll tear the roof off the joint, and on a good night, they’ll save your soul.” Truer words were never spoken.

When a guy repping the band asked me if I wanted to chat with a member of Cowboy Mouth, you can imagine the different number of ways I tried to say, “Hell to the yes.” Here’s a sample of the conversation, which covered subjects from former members of the band, to Morrissey, to what appeared to be the worst touring partner they ever dealt with.

BE: Is the subject of “Joe Strummer” based on a true story?

FL: Yeah, the chorus is based on a true story. I was dating a woman who was, ahem, significantly younger than me. And Joe Strummer had passed away – and I had met him about five or six months before – when we played in Vegas. And I called her up, and I’m like, “Oh, my God.” She’s like, “Honey, what’s wrong?” I said, “Joe Strummer died.” There was this long pause on the phone: “Who was that?” At that moment, it ran through my head, “Oh, man, you’ve gotta go.” But the rest of the song is pretty much made up. Paul (Sanchez, rhythm guitarist) came up with the melody for the verse, Mary helped with the lyrics, and Mitch (Allen), our producer, helped with lyrics. It was an all-inclusive thing. But I always wanted to write a song called “Joe Strummer,” it’s just such a fucking great name.

BE: It has a certain rhythm to it, too.

FL: Exactly.

BE: And that’s one of the reasons I asked the question, because I wondered if it was actually about Joe Strummer, or if it was someone whose name didn’t roll off the tongue, like Mark Mothersbaugh or something.

FL: (laughs hard, starts singing melody to “Joe Strummer”) “Mark Mothersbaugh…” Ah, what’s the bridge? “She started talking ‘bout being my wife, but why would I want to be with someone who doesn’t know that Devo saved my life?” That doesn’t work.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

The Hives took a circuitous route to fame, recording a couple albums and EPs in the 1990s and getting the greatest hits packaged all together in one magic hit CD, Your New Favourite Band, a couple years ago. Last year the Swedish punks came back with the all-new Tyrannosaurus Hives, a clean, punchy set that clears the sinuses of music fans who’ve just about had it up to here with wussy stuff from the likes of Dave Matthews and Sheryl Crow. The band’s new concert DVD “Tussles in Brussels,” released in time for the Christmas shopping season, gets the Hives phenomenon down for the record: The hard licks, the black-and-white outfits the band wears, and of course, the singular sound of lead vocalist Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, with whom we sat down for the following chat:

Bullz-Eye: Describe a Hives concert for those in our reading audience who haven’t been.

Pelle Almqvist: If you’ve been to a rock concert–I’ll assume that much–if you take what you’ve seen there and multiply it by ten, that’s pretty much it. It’s like a rock concert except there’s more of everything else. Except color, because we’re dressed in black and white. It’s a bid louder, more intense, a bit more energetic. The only thing it isn’t a bit more of is…calmer.

BE: I’m sure you’ve been asked this about 5,000 times, but here’s 5,001: why do you dress that way, anyway?

PA: It looks good, but also, we’re convinced it makes us sound better. Like some hippie bands had some statues on their amps and stuff because it made them sound better? This makes us sound better. The treble’s a bit clearer.

BE: I’ve been listening to your stuff for a couple years now….but describe your music for those who haven’t heard it.

PA: Well, it’s rock music, that’s what it is, I’ll tell you that much. Very very very energetic rock music. If you like the classic values of rock – first it has to be entertaining and exciting, and after that you can do different things with it – it’s fast and loud and fun.

BE: Does the DVD cover one show or a series of shows?

PA: We just recorded one show and we had to just trust that we’d be good enough to put it out, otherwise we’d have to record another show. It’s one show straight through, not edited. It turned out really well. We spent a lot of time cutting between cameras and making sure the sound was as good as it could be.

BE: What do you remember about the gig?

PA: I was going into the crowd and this guy was pulling on my leg and I fell and did a jump and I landed with my shins on the barrier. I think you can maybe see where it happens. My leg was bleeding and swelling up halfway through the show, and I keep getting stiffer and stiffer. But the good thing is that I was wearing black pants, so you can’t see the blood.

To read the read of the interview, click here.