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Death Ride 69!!
Okay, right now we're a 3-piece and really very heavily rhythm oriented and in fact the rhythm section's been working together for about 4 or 5 years, and that is Linda LeSabre on drums and myself on bass plus we both do vocals. We were both playing as a 2-piece unit out here in LA for a couple of months. We were just gonna do that for a while and then we had some guitar players express some in-terest in playing with us so we've just been jammin' around with a variety of guitarists. Our policy is to kind of have a "rhythm section to go".
HIP: So you guys don't keep a steady guitar player right?
Well that's been our philosophy up to now. We want to keep it really open and
flexible because we're really into exp-erimenting and don't want to get locked
in to any one mode or anything, but right now we're working with Wrex, who
used to be in the band Factory. We're having such a good time playing with
him that it looks like this will probably be an on-going thing but you know,
this is how these unplanned things work out.HIP: Can you give your music a name?
I would say neo-primal dirge...psychedelic primitive freak-out.
HIP: Pretty interesting. How'd you guys get the name Death Ride 69?
Actually it was inspired by a peyote vision we had in Death Valley. It relates to an actual automobile that a friend of ours used to drive, until he crashed it and died.(laughter)
HIP: Cool, what kind of car was it?
DON: It was a 1969 satellite. That car was the original "death ride".
HIP:How long has Death Ride 69 been around?
DON: About 6 months.
HIP: And where are you guys originally from?
DON: Myself and Linda are from Washington D.C. We were in a post-punk band out there called Grand Mal. We were very much in to the D.C. hardcore scene when it was at its peak of mayhem and we were one of the first bands out there to actually break into a post-hardcore mode. So we kind of cut some ground out there but we got bored with the scene because it was becoming very incestuous and it was really not developing.
HIP: What de you think about the music scene out here?DON: I think it's on the upswing right now, I also think that LA has traditionally always had the strongest music scene of any place, even when it's not happening it's a lot more fun than any place I can think of.
HIP: Tell me about the Elvis Christ EP, how's that doing?
DON: Excellent. It's been getting lots of airplay, in fact the first week it came out it was number one on K-XLU. Rodney(Bingenheimer) and other K-ROQ deejays have been playing us too, so we're gonna try to support the record by maybe getting it some airplay down at 91X in San Diego. Also, last week we were the record of the week at that Berkeley underground station, I don't know what it's called.
HIP: I think the name of the record was really sublime, who came up with that?
DON: Elvis Christ?
HIP: Yeah, was that another peyote trip?
DON: (laughter)actually it's a long standing fascination with the whole Elvis cult. It's really weird because we'd been into it very heavily for quite some time and of course with the tenth anniversary there's been a lot of curiosity and whatnots, so that's kind of worked to our advantage. The artist who did the cover art for the album, Bill Barminski, who does a lot of very interesting pop art like Tex Hitler comics, was very heavily into this Elvis Christ theme himself. He was doing a lot of art about three or four years ago along these lines, and all of a sudden it's gotten really popular again. Apparently a lot of artists right now are really very heavily into the pop culture. We were lucky enough to get hooked up with someone who was into it. He's got some very innovative, shocking stuff. In fact our record has been rejected by quite a few stores on the basis of the cover art which is kind of anti-christian.
HIP: Bill Barminski's work was exhibited at La Luz de Jesus(Melrose art gallery)
right?DON: Yeah, they had 25 artists from all over the country.
HIP: Yeah, I saw that. It was interesting.
DON: It was really cool. He had a couple of featured works there and it was just really interesting because he was into it before it became this trendy thing to do.
HIP: To change the subject a little, who writes all the lyrics for Death Ride 69?
DON: The songs are very heavily centered around bass riffs so I write most of the material. Linda emphasizes the rhythms behind it and then we have the guitarist flush it out.
HIP: Okay, is there anything you'd like to tell the readers of HIP?
DON: Yeah, that right now we're solicitating donations for the Death Ride 69 Day-Glo Foundation because we can't really keep up with the high costs of supplying enough Day-Glo paint for all the things we steal out of alleys.
Sonic-Boom interview with new Death Ride 69 member
Cover art for 1st LP: Elvis Christ, by Bill Barminski
