Utter Trash--The Mother's Anger

Listen to Mother

An interview with A Mother’s Anger

By Dave Evans

The Mother's Anger (photo by Kristin Barnard)

I'm standing in the lounge area at The Tower (a new D.I.Y venue in Cleveland) a bit annoyed. The first band is slated for 9:00 pm and not a single band has shown up yet. I had an 8:30 meeting with A Mother's Anger for an interview. The place is kind of quiet and boring and the main attraction of the night, so far, was a Tetris video game. Just as I'm about to give up and leave Jimi runs up the stairs like he has been at The Tower a million times and greets everyone with hugs and handshakes as if they were family. Next David (stitch) walks in a little less energetic but sporting his usual friendly grin. It had been about three months since I've seen these guys and I was really excited to see them. So, after about a half hour of hanging out and catching up, Jimi invites me down to the tour van to do the interview.

Dave Evans: I know Stitch's main influences come from Nirvana's ‘Bleach’ album. What are your main influences?
Jimi: A lot of classic rock basically. What I love about Zepplin the most is the improvisation part. After awhile they got so tight they could just break into a jam and a song could end up being sixteen minutes. We love doing that too, just jamming to the music.

Dave Evans: What's the craziest thing you guys have seen on tour so far?
Jimi: The first thing that comes to mind is the Grand Canyon. That's some fucking crazy shit. We were on our way to California, crossing through the desert, and we decided we have to go see this thing. We got there about six in the morning just before sunrise and I woke up to Stitch yelling out the window "where's the big hole". The sun started coming up and.... it puts on a show. The desert inspires me.

Dave Evans: What was it that inspired you?
Jimi: Uh, inspiration from inhalation. I got to like visualizing ourselves driving in the van from like a birds eye. See the van riding through the desert.

Dave Evans: Stitch, what are your influences besides the 'Bleach' album?
Stitch: This guy (Jimi), he had a high school band going on and before that I was into heavy heavy metal stuff like Megadeth and Iron Maiden. Anyways, my parents used to have the worst records ever. I grew up in a musical environment but it was horrible.
Jimi: What was that one you used to be scared of?
Stitch: Oh, [he sings] "Send my love to my darling". I would just run every time my parents played it.

Dave Evans: Obviously, Israel must have their own music scene with Israeli bands. Is it mostly inspired by American bands or does Israel have its own sound?
Jimi: American and British. Oh, and French. We get rock n roll and all sorts of music from everywhere.
Stitch: You have to say, we do have some cool bands in Israel and most sing in Hebrew but most are influenced by American and British bands.

Dave Evans: Is the scene in Israel at the same point it is here or...?
Stitch: The same but different, you know, we have punk bands and metal bands. We even have a few boy bands [laughs]. Most of them sing in Hebrew but a few sing in English. But to come here or tour Europe is pretty far away, so most of them just stay there and...

Dave Evans: Do you have a record industry in Israel?
Jimi: Not for this kind of music, like punk or metal. And if you do, its really small and underground. Like a smaller label in America would maybe cater to one million people and in Israel its two thousand or three thousand tops. If you sell two thousand records in Israel its like, wow, a huge deal. The top ten artists, if they sell seven thousand, that’s good. Twenty thousand is gold.

Dave Evans: It’s the same here for the underground bands. You know, they usually sign to a small label like you guys and just hope to make enough money in one city to have gas and food to get to the next city.
Jimi: Well that’s just it, in Israel you wouldn’t even make the gas money.
Stitch: You have to do what you have to do just to stay alive and the rest of the time you spend doing music.

Dave Evans: You only have one guitar in A Mother's Anger. How do you get the bass sound and the high end guitar sound all at once? It sounds like a phantom bass player on stage.
Stitch: You just have to tune the E string way down, if I tell I'll have to kill you.

Dave Evans: I didn't want to ask you about politics, but I think I have to. America and Israel are almost the same country so.......
Stitch: No, no, don’t worry. You know in Israel on Independence Day, we raise the American flag.

Dave Evans: Do Israelis love America as much as America says they do?
Stitch: Fuck, yeah man, all the fucking music, the movies.

Dave Evans: Do think it was just to attack Iraq without any real evidence of weapons of mass destruction?
Jimi: That’s a tricky question. A real tricky question, because on one hand my first reaction would be no, that’s fucking horrible. Your administration is lying to you. Straight up lying to you. On the other hand, its really great to not have Sadaam Hussein right next to you threatening to throw missiles at you. So, that's a hard one to answer.
Stitch: About ten years ago he did. Everybody had to put masks on. About twice a day, you know, you had to put it on. And you had to wait, and you had to listen very carefully so you know if it's conventional missile or if it's GASSSS, you know.

Dave Evans: So you think it's good that Sadaam is out of power, but you don't agree in the way we went about it?
Stitch: As for Israel, it's a good thing. But the way that America is trying to change the world to be like the America way, that's, that's bigger than me. I like some, but I don't like some. A few years ago, I came here, you know. I went back to Israel and then when I came back to America it was different. Freedom was great here but now it is different. It is really clear to me that everything changed, especially in New York.

Dave Evans: Right now (2004) Israel is pulling out settlements and giving some land back to the Palestinians for the sake of peace. Do you agree with this or do you think the lines should be set where they are?
Stitch: The problem is that there is no leadership. We don't have good leadership and they don't have good leadership. We have a big strong army and they have these crazy.... crazy people who want to fight.

Dave Evans: Do you think it will ever stop?
Stitch: Well, it does, and then somebody will kill a few kids and then we have to send a missile. And then we are pulling out and pulling in.

Dave Evans: Do you think democracy can work (as a whole) in this part of the world?
Stitch: I think it can work. But you know, if you got a few people who don't want it to work then they can ruin it for the rest. They’ve got some real extremists there.
Jimi: Obviously it's going to be really hard for it to work because you have countries that for ages and ages are used to their whole religious structure and social structure being built around a king or some type of leader. Being lead blindly, completely. So now they're going to have elections in Iraq right so.... It's going to take years for the people to get accustomed to democracy, to freedom.
Stitch: You know, I'm going to go in [the venue] and scream and say whatever the fuck I want and in Israel I can do that too, but in Sadaam's Iraq I would be killed for that.

Dave Evans: Many people think you can only equate freedom with democracy. Do you believe that or do you think you can have freedom with a religious based government?
Stitch:I think a monarchy could work. I think Israel should have a king.
Jimi: Israel use to have a king. In the bible it says god didn't want Israel to have a king but the people cried out to him to give them a king. So he gave them Job. Then there were a few others, some better than others, you know. But eventually it all went to pieces. Israel was divided into tribes and .... It seem like yeah, democracy is the only way. So God bless the French for giving us democracy!

Dave Evans: Ok, let's get back to music. Mike Davis from the MC5 produced your album. Did he try to force or influence your sound to go in any certain direction?
Jimi: He didn't force shit. He was the coolest guy in the world, unbelievable. He was just there, you know, with the right word at the right time, a little help here and there, and just encouraging us to do our best and do our thing. He gave direction and a line.
Stitch: I guess it's kind of hard to walk in and let people be themselves. I guess it's kind of stupid to say but I learned a lot about producing from him. So many producers would walk in and say do this and do that and that’s wrong, and he just like let us rock and said, “Yeah, that’s good”. And you know, you just cant be there barking, you have to really BE there. And Mike was there, he was great.
Jimi: Growing up, we never heard of the MC5 or Mike Davis, so when he came to produce our album, we had him play his music for us. We were blown away by their sound and all the things they went through. And when the album was done so many people said that we reminded them of the MC5. So in retrospect, I guess in a way, him just being there and learning about them, must have rubbed off on us. His energy, you know, it's not about the chords or nothing, it's the energy of the music.
Stitch: The MC5 are kind of known as a political band. Maybe they didn't want to be or they just fell into it but they just want to make music like us. Sometimes we are forced to be political just because where we are from so... You know, I'm going to say what I want to say and if someone is going to kill me for it down the line then so what. The MC5 were the same way. You can feel the politics in our lyrics and in the music because a lot of shit happens in Israel. You can't think about it anymore. The thing is too, I just seen this short video of busses blowing up(in Israel) and arms and legs are everywhere and a little baby with this part of his head opened up and this is what happens two blocks away. i was like lucky not to see it. And Mike taught us how to say what you want but keep it cool. You know, don't let it get so far inside you that you destroy yourself.

Dave Evans: How different do you think your second album will be from your first?
Jimi: We’re changing and progressing all the time. Even in our first album, we were evolving all the time. I can't wait to do it. It's psychedelic.
Stitch: The first album was just straight up rock n roll and I feel the next album will be more psychedelic. We just spent four months in Israel just getting a feel and, cause here it is a different feeling, you know, because you’re on the road. I have a feeling the next album will be really different.

Dave Evans: Do you guys ever see yourselves getting a bass player, a third member of the band?
Stitch: That's a good question. Yeah yeah yeah.
Jimi: No,no,no. We have to get smaller. We’re working on becoming a one piece. Were going to merge into one being, which, I don't know how our girlfriends are going to react to that.

The Mother's Anger and I returned to the venue (which had a pretty decent crowd now) and they awed Cleveland like they have every city thus far. They finally finished recording their second album and continue their dead-like quest of constant touring and um..... eating fish. Look for The Mother's Anger to be back in Cleveland sometime around Easter. To order their first or second album, go to www.dionysusrecords.com .