SP: So I bet you are sick of all of this.
Lars: What?
SP: You know, you have about 20 interviews a day... and they ask who are
you influences, and why you have so many tattoos.
Doopie: We were going to ask you about porn.
Lars: corn?
SP: Yeah, the band with the backwards K. They rule (laughter)!
Lars: No I'm into the corn you eat. Korny. Ready to start?
SP: What do you think about CHOKING VICTIM, the best new ska squat band?
Lars: Love them. I love that song, I'm a loser, I'm an anti-Christ, whatever.
They're just a great band.
SP: I heard that you jumped onstage at ABC (a snotty punk club in NYC) a
few years back, and got booed offstage.
Lars: What happened is that was at Coney Island (NYC) and BLANKS 77 asked
me to sing a song with them. There was three punk guys on the side of the
stage spitting at me, and one guy came up to me as he was going to hit me,
and I grabbed him by the shirt and I gave him three quick punches in his
chest. He fell down and some of his boys tried to tackle me, but I had about
a hundred of my friends there who pretty much rat packed these guys and beat
the hell out of them. Then we're outside and anyone who talked shit about
RANCID were getting clobbered. Bleeding in the streets. I stood my ground,
I walked out the fucking front door. I've been hated my whole life, you know
what I mean. I've been doing this before these kids.
SP: What do you think about the kids now?
Lars: I don't want to sound like one of those jaded guys. Here's the trick.
Some of these kids need to get off mom and dads laptop, get outside of mom
and dads little sheltered home, get a real job, get into the real world.
Not go to college, and in the summer, go to the punk show and go to the Main
St. and "spare change" . So I mean once they start doing that, they'll start
to understand what it's like to actually work for a living. I mean I grew
up in project housing, and my Mom still lives in the same shithole I grew
up in. So when some kid tries to say I'm not punk, you know. I don't got
to prove anything to anybody, I don't have to prove my street credibility
to anybody. I just do what I do. If you don't like me, thats your opinion.
If you want to fight me, I'll beat the fuck out of you or get my ass beat,
but I don't really care. I'll walk away with my pride intact. I got family,
I got a band, I got a crew. If you treat me with respect, I'll treat you
with respect. My humility glass is filled. Right around the corner of where
you are now, is where you came from.
SP: I know you have to cover your ass also, but do you take any money from
record sales to help out your parents?
Lars: I do my best. My mom is 63 years old and still working a job. My brother
is in and out of jobs and jail, so I'm the head of two households. I have
to take care of my wife and two cats, and my mom is a very proud woman. She's
a Danish immigrant, she came here with nothing in her pockets and didn't
know how to speak a word of English. I'm only first generation, and I don't
think she wanted me to go down the path that she did, and I think now she's
probably a little bit happier. She tells me all the time about her friends
at work who bring in things about us. Seems to stoke her out, but that's
cool. The bottom line is I can give it to people who really matter. My grandmother
too, my grandfather died and didn't leave her a pension. Even though they
weren't there for me in the beginning, it's still important.
SP: Did you ever bring your mom to a show?
Lars: She went to Lollapalooza cause she liked the RAMONES. It was funny
because I was trying to get her to hang out with me, and she went to hang
out with DEVO and the RAMONES. And they were hanging out and I would try
to get my mom out of there and they would say, "What are you doing, we're
talking to her." And Tim's mom is the same way. She asked if they would play
the "Hey ho" song. Mom, it's called Blitzkreig Bop.
(few minutes later talking about his old bands)
When I was about 16 I was really into heroin. I didn't have an identity,
I was a junkie. I wasn't punk rock, I was just a junkie, I was just a fuck.
For three years when it was really bad, I turned to guitar. When I wasn't
nodding out I'd try to play it. I would listen to whatever I could. My first
band was an Oi band, and we made sure to say Oi about 10 times in every song.
We didn't think there was any Oi bands in 1988.
SP: Well not in America.
Lars: We were going to change that. Then I joined the UK SUBS, the joined
Cojones which means balls, with Mofo who started Thrasher magazine. They
kicked my out, I'd show up with three strings on my guitar, 24 beers later
I thought I'd pulled it off.
SP: So are you straight?
Lars: I'm straight now. I take it one day at a time.
SP: Off everything? How long has it been?
Lars: Five and a half years. I'm not totally straight, I smoke, I have sex,
I drink coffee, I pet my cats, clean up their cat littler, clean the house
every once in a while. I have a very understanding wife. I try to fix shit,
but I'm not very mechanically inclined. I know how to vacuum.
SP: I\rquote m the same way, I tried building a bookcase, but it just leans.
Melissa: It holds things.
Lars: I kind of married a riot grrrl. She's a free thinker, I don't think
I could be in a marriage where people didn't think for themselves.
SP: Are you ready to start a family. Or not?
Lars: I was just watching Grosse Pointe Blank and theres that one scene where
he is looking at the baby, and that would be cool. I just don't want to be
like my old man. I haven't seen him since I was three. I don 't want to be
that guy. If I have a baby, I want to be there from day one. It's kinda like
with my godson, he was kind of my baby, and every time I go back to see him
he gets bigger. I just saw him in Lake Tahoe, and he goes, "hi Lars". And
I go, "hi, what are you doing?" He goes, "I'm playing with my Power Rangers".
I was like fuck, the last time I saw him he was (Lars makes some sort of
unintelligible baby garble). I don't know if I could put the better half
of me in that position, but yeah, one day - big family, I'm part Italian
too.
SP: Any last things you want to tell the kids?
Lars: Do what you gotta do. Stick to your guns. Don't listen to what anyone
says, pave your own path and good things will come. Keep it straight, and
don't step on anybodys toes getting to wherever you want to be. Just be humble,
and treat everybody on a human level.