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Al: Tell us about that Zig Zag interview.

John: We were sort of interviewed in passing in Santa Cruz and it wound up in Zig Zag.

Al: What about the Attitude change?

John: Our attitude hasn't changed. We just honed in on what we were doing, we've grown into our skins more, we're more weird, more weirdos. As long as we're the Weirdos, we keep getting weirder.

Al: What's weirder?

John: Because its been a concentrated conscious effort.

X-8: The aesthetics of your band....

John: We have no aesthetics. Nobody's ever used that word, its never come upever.

Al: You were different a year ago and you're changing....

John: Because change is unavoidable. Everything changes. We all change. How could we not change?

Al: But you build your audience on one thing... John: No, what we build our audience on is what we are, and still are. Whatever we're doing at the moment is the Weirdos.

Al: Do you think maybe you're loosing your old audience?

John: What is it?

Al: Say... numbers that show up consistently.

John: No, look at the Stardust Ballroom, that was really great!

Al: But that was with the Screamers and it was well publicized.

John: That's all it is, promotion. We could get my dog, 16 years old blind and crippled and put it in a skirt and hulla hoop and promote it and people would come. It's whatever gets shoved down their throats. It's who is aggressive... We've been broke, I don't know what everybody thinks we are, or expects. I've been busting my ass and there's no money in this. I don't care about the money. I don't care about being a star or appealing to the trendy "in-crowd" or Slash, or Flipside. I'm not aligned with anything except myself, so don't try and peg us. We're un-pegable.

X-8: Is it like nobody appreciates you?

John: NO!

Al: How's Bruce Barf doing in the band?

John: Great.

Al: Why change his name to Bruce Blank?

John: Because we felt that Bruce Barf... "BRUCE BARF"....now think about that, isn't that a little bit disgusting? We're trying to be popular and make lotsa money.

Al: So that's his name?

John: No, its Bruce Moreland, woopdeedoo, Bruce Shithead, Bruce Moreland is his name. It has no bearing on if we're punk, whatever the fuck that is... the whole thing is individuals being put into little... "Ok these are punks, these are surfers, these are assholes, these are uh"....

Al: Weirdos?

John: Weirdos, workers, high school students, Republicans, Flipside readership... Everybody has an opinion and there's so many that they cancel each other out and you come back to just zero. Everybody's valid.

X-8: Do you have an opinion you want mass produced?

John: Just a record, an album, right now.

Al: What about an independent thing?

John: Yeah, we'll take whatever we can get, the most money we can get. With what we want to do, and if it comes down to doing it ourselves, we'll do it ourselves anyway. Actually we are gonna do it ourselves and just try to pawn it off.

X-8: Do you have any closet habits?

John: Just weird masterbation habits that if I told you would spoil all the mystery in it.

X-8: Lets say you were trapped in a space ship in outer space. What band would you take?

John: .... the Shondells.

Dix: Johnny Martinez.

John: The Lennon sisters.

Al: Have to do something on the space ship!

X-8: What's Dave Trout doing?

Dix: He's gonna have a baby.

John: Dave Trout junior, a miniature Dave Trout!

Al: Is this your airplane?

Dix: Yeah.

Al: Did you buy it for the bomb?

Dix: No, I got this somewhere else, this is the greatest death machine ever built.

X-8: What do you do when you take shits?

John: Sometimes I look at it.

X-8: Oh yeah!! what do you see??

John: You just get toilet paper, hold it and shit onto the paper and look at it, check out the texture...

Gerrard: I heard you shit in a drawer in San Francisco and then threw it out the window.

John: I just flicked little chunks, nothing big, just little pebbles.

Gerrard: You threw it out the window at people?!

John: Yeah.

X-8: Do you like gross things or pretty things?

Dix: I like both pretty things and gross shit.

X-8: Are you writing any new material?

John: Oh we're always writing new songs, I just wrote one, "Big Shot in the Head" and we're playing them better too.

Al: Does that have to do with Bruce's sound?

John: Yeah.

Al: The general opinion is, well alot of people don't like Bruce's sound because it changes the whole Weirdo sound around.

John: Well its a little late now, our sound has changed even since Dave. If you've heard us back to '76, it evolved. Bruce came along in a step.

Al: Are all these steps progressing; no steps backwards?

John: Oh, no.

Al: So anything you do will be progressing?

John: Yeah.

Al: In your opinion, what about audience opinion?

John: Its on a small scale, its... Who do you mean?

X-8: The clique.

John: Well what's the point, what's the idea behind the in-crowd?

X-8: What does absolute cool mean to you?

Al: The in-crowd is a step towards coolness.

X-8: That's what I'm saying. He tries to reflect absolute coolness, but I don't think he's agreeing with the clique.

John: Well, its great because it cultivates a new style or stance, but it should evolve, it shouldn't interbreed and stagnate, not get stuck in 1977. I don't think its stagnating here. It came about because of change. People change and... change brought it and it should keep changing.

Al: Could you see a change for the worse?

John: If I do, then I'm wasting my time, obviously I don't. It's alot easier for a band to break up and fall apart than stay together.

X-8: So you have your problems.

John: Shit yeah. There's been times... Nickey quits every couple of months and I get pissed off, nothing, really significant, just bullshit. It gets frustrating. I'm pissed off because we've been... some of our songs are two years old, we just want to make an album and move on. We have to write new shit. We can't play the same stuff. It just turns to mush and you get tired of it, so you write new material out of necessity.

X-8: If CBS would sign you if you changed your name...

John: We've been told to change our name so many times its stupid. I mean it's a dumb name, but its as dumb as "Doobie Brothers" or "Teenage Jesus and the Jerks," come on....

Al: OK, we came here and we're getting on your case, but for alot of people, me included, we used to love the Weirdos but...

John: Have we been replaced in that socket?

Al: No, where once you were thee band, the other bands have crawled up and...

John: We crawled up too, when we started there was nobody. We started by ourselves and we're still by ourselves. The only band I'm concerned with is the Weirdos. All the other bands I wish, whatever they're doing and for whatever reasons, let them do it.

X-8: Was it like an insult then to open for the Dickies or even the Screamers?

John: What difference does it make? We blow them off the stage anyway. We plan on making shambles of everything in our way and everybody will be singed before they come on.

Al: You think you blew everybody away but...

John: You gotta take my word for it. We're still the Weirdos and I guarantee you were gonna get Weirder.

Al: It's not weirder - it seems you're not weird anymore.

John: But we're the Weirdos, it doesn't matter. See, I think you guys have gotten spoiled. What did you have two years ago? Did you have "a scene' to wallow in or hang out with? You didn't have Flipside, like you said, Flipside is super-cool and you've tried to achieve your ideals of coolness.

X-8: No! Not necessarily.

John: Why? You're frustrated. My opinion is you guys are on a high horse. You think you're really cool which is great.

X-8: No, that's not it. We try to reflect the public.

John: You're not cool? Well, you said it.

Al: As far as high horse, the Weirdos were up there at one time, you had it.

John: We still do. You're letting your opinion drench your whole outlook.

Al: That's not opinion, its public attitude.

John: The Flipside public. You throw generalizations; you have to peg....

Al: You will just deny that the Weirdos are loosing popularity.

John: Oh, we've gained popularity, we're more popular now. No I agree with you, locally, the in-crowd, but who are they? You tell me! I don't know. You don't think we're weird like we used to be well....

Al: But the in-crowd can only make that judgment. Someone who sees you for the first time can only judge as absolute - good or bad, but the in-crowd can judge good or bad relative to what you used to be. Of course people are going to like you, you're still popular and a great band but....

X-8: What was Halloween like?

John: Oh it was great and the in-crowd wasn't there and they were all on the guest list.

Al: But there was the Germs at Roosevelt Hotel.

John: They had to pay for that, fools.

Al: Only a dollar. You were put up against the Germs costing money and you for free and everybody went to the Germs.

Not everybody. Al: In-crowd.

John: Well that's pathetic. We've gotten too good, and the other bands, the bulk of the in-crowd is musicians in other bands, its like a little junior high all over again. We're too fuckin' hot for them. We play them in fuckin' circles, you name a band and... its a joke. For sheer rock, all those other assholes look like fuckin' idiots. The Germs - every fuckin' one- they're all assholes! I don't give a fuckin' shit about the fuckin' in-crowd. They don't matter. It's 60 people! There's billions of other people on this planet. It doesn't amount to a hill of fuckin' beans. It's worthless! For everybody you name who thinks such and such about the Weirdos, I know somebody else who thinks the opposite.

Al: But will they always show up to see you?

John: Sure, well, we had more people at the Starwood than the Germs. The in-crowd wasn't there, but there were 300 people.

Al: How ya doing Dix?

Dix: Ok.