UGLY KID JOE
THE WILL TO SURVIVE
(by Jennifer Fusco, Hit Parader - June 1997 - pp. 68-69)
© all rights reserved

Ugly Kid Joe stormed onto the music scene at just the right time six years ago with their strange little ode about telling it exactly how it is, Everything About You. That single surpisingly landed in the top ten of the charts, and the band quickly became MTV stars. Little did these California beach bums-turned-celebrities know as their were riding high opening for the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and selling millions of records, that things were about to change in rock and roll. Fun, folicking tunes were soon to be replaced with the dismal dirge emanating from Seattle. By 1995, when Menace To Sobriety, the follow-up to their smash America's Least Wanted was released, nobody seemed to be listening. But instead of packing it in, leas singr Whitfield Crane, guitarists Klaus Eichstadt and Dave Fortman, bassist Cordell Crockett, and drummer Shannon Larkin headed back to the drawing board and have now created an intense, hyperactive, eclectic mix of tunes on their latest offering, Motel California. With a new label and a new attitude, we recently caught up with Whit and Klaus to find out just how they've managed to remain as ugly as they wanna be.

Hit Parader: Where has the band been since we last heard from you?
Whitfield Crane: It's only been a year. Did you ever hear Menace To Sobriety? Everybody forgot about that one. We made that album, went on to play stadiums in Europe. But our record label sucked. We escaped the label, and we had some new songs so we went straight into making a new album.

HP: Did you ever feel discouraged?
WC: Yeah, the guys were like "What are we gonna do now?" But I was like, "Cool, isn't it good that we're away from that now?" I think if anything, it was the excitement of "Wow, we can do this ourselves."

HP: How do you look at your past experiences?
WC: It's all educational. We traveled the world. It was good.
Klaus Eichstadt: You can regret certain little things. But in general, I don't regret it. My dreams came true. We toured the world with Ozzy and Van Halen, sold tons of records. We had a good time doing it; we never got screwed up on drugs or tweaked out on personalities.

HP: What about the backlash of being an "'80's band"?
WC: It's a blessing and a curse. Without Everything About You, would I have any complaints at all? When we play a big festival and bust out that song, come sit on the side of the stage and see what really happens. It's incredible.

HP: So you don't feel like there's a stigma attached to you?
WC: Sure there is, but it's all good fun. We don't fit in - we never fit in. We definitely don't have a clique of bands we're with. We're from Santa Barbara. We're not a part of the L.A. chic-hip scene. We're definitely on an island unto ourselves. But as far as worrying about it, no we don't.
KE: Yeah, it's twisted, but I can totally understand ut. I do it myself. I'll watch MTV and I'll be like, "God, how did these guys get on MTV?" But the I'll go, "Wait, it is original." (Even if it is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. That's the one thing people gave us credit for being original.) It's the nature of the beast. But we're doing a lot better than a lot of the bands that were big just a year or two before us that were selling out arenas and now couldn't half-way fill a club.

HP: How has the band grown musically and personally?
WC: We've grown musically, just from the addition of Shannon. He takes everyone to the next level. He's the best drummer this side of the Milky Way. So just because of the rhythm section, we're much tighter. I've learned that you've got to let the music be the catalyst for adventure. Sometimes you can lose sight of that. You get caught up in interviews, photo shoots, all the things a label wants you to do.
KE: We've learned a lot, gotten tighter as a band. We've had some changes along the way, but for the better. And we're still having a good time making music together. We could've just quit but we didn't.

HP: There are some very heavy tracks on Motel California.
WC: You've got Shannon - his roots are Wrathchild America, Souls At Zero - that's where he comes from. So its actually like a West Coast meets East Coast player. It's a good match. You can hear a lot of that aggression.

HP: What songs on the new album stand out for you?
KE: I usually like the songs that aren't "hit material". My favorite riff is on Strange, but that's a weird song that we all liked playing that turned into this heavy metal thing. I like Sandwich for the simplicity and groove of it. We're all big fans of rap music too.

HP: How does writing songs in the band work?
WE: Every song is different. Everyone wrote songs on this album. Lyrically, we use everything from our voice mail to dicaphones for rhythms. It depends on what you pick up. Keith Richard once said something very profound. "You don't really write songs". No one really does. We all have these antennas and we cruise around. Like if you're in a grocery store and you hear a lose wheel clunking along. You go, "Whoa." How you hear it turns into a song. It's an interesting challenge to put it all together.

HP: Do you all work together?
WC: I'll sit down and I'll scat vocal and those will be the lyrics. Me sitting down and being all deep with a piece of paper wearing my turtleneck never really works out. Everything is very spontaneous, very cosmic for me.

HP: So a song like Sandwich just "came to you"?
WC: I don't really question it. It's just like "there they are." Who knows who's really talking? It could be the Exorcist.

HP: Nobody in the band asks "What is this about?"
KE: When you know somebody well and you've been friends for so long, you know where it comes from. We don't go, "What does that mean?" We just go, "O.K. Whatever."
WC: They've given up! They all know I'm completely out of my mind.

HP: Are you?
WC: I don't know. I don't think so. But there are some people who might argue that point.

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