Interview

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SR-71 is on top of the world. They have a huge hit song, "Right Now", and they are touring around the world, doing what they’ve always dreamed of doing. Find out what they are up to now and find out what’s up with ‘hurry up and suck.’


++ Has this all been a trip?
Yeah.

++ Is the trip fun or is it overwhelming?
It’s everything piled into one. That’s the best way to describe it. We’re out here living our dream, but at the same time there is just so many demands on our time, and the two things that get taken away from you is sleep and steady meals. But you can’t complain, because this is what we’ve worked for our whole life. It’s totally cool. We never want this to end, except to do the next record. We get to roll into towns where we’ve never been, and not only do people know our first single, but they sing along to the whole record.

++ Do you get time to hang with your tour mates, Wheatus and Harvey Danger?
Yeah. Sometimes we bring them up on stage with us and we’ll sing together. There isn’t a huge amount of time to party.

++ I know you have a day in Hawaii. Now are you going to be able to chill a bit there?
Yeah, we get one day off to lay on the beach.

++ That has to be one of the pluses. I mean, part of the job is getting to look over America and then Europe.
That is amazing.

++ When did you guys get together?
This band got together in ‘95, but Mitch and I have been together since ’92, and then in ‘96 we put out an independent cd. We toured the east coast and sold records out of the back of our van. Then, about two years ago, we focused more on playing in New York City and built a following there. The biggest shows for us was the Nashville Extravaganza and South X Southwest. We had interest from a dozen different labels.

++ Were there times between ‘95 and getting signed that you thought to yourself, ‘Maybe I need to find something else to do’?
We all went to college, so, not that we had a fallback, because I think our families tried talking us out of it forever, but I think they realized that once you get it in your blood there is no going back. There were frustrating times where we walked away from it for a little, but only to come back and reinvent ourselves. We did that probably three or four times. We’d take the time off and write some more songs. We thought just playing out and building a following was the answer, but we realized it wasn’t. We were an original band playing cover rooms. We were making a living, but we realized that we might have to get day jobs. Anyone from our hometown will tell you that we were about the bigger-than-life show. We had the biggest stack, lights, and fog machine. We were the Motley Crue of the pop scene. When we started playing in New York, we couldn’t do that. There is no sound check or light show. We called it ‘hurry up and suck.’ But it made us strong and appreciate sitting on our bus and the fact that we have a four-man road crew, and the stage looks like God each night.

++ What did you go to school for?
I went for Electronics Engineering. Mitch and Mark were Mass Communications and Dan had a Music degree.

++ Yeah. He was talking about it when we were chatting.
We wanted to tour with those guys, so we went out for three weeks with them and Tsar. We had so much fun on that tour. We still call each other every few days.

++ I still can’t figure out why the Marvelous 3 aren’t the biggest band in the world.
I think maybe Butch is ahead of his time.

++ So who were some groups you grew up listening to?
We listen to everything. The reason I play bass is because of Chris Squire, but at the same time I love Led Zeppelin, The Beatles. I mean, once I discovered Paul McCartney, I couldn’t believe how great he was. It’s so simple, but genius.

++ What gets you amped?
Before we go onstage we listen to Motley Crue, Poison, or Ratt and just crank it.

++ What about artists today?
Third Eye Blind, Stone Temple Pilots, and like Mark loves U2 and Kiss. We’re actually all over the place. Actually, Butch and I were having this conversation, and we were talking about how so many bands come out and all they listen to is like Korn or Limp Bizkit.

++ They get stuck.
Yeah, and it sounds just like that. Our problem is we have too many influences and everyone wants to pigeonhole our music and it’s just rock ‘n’ roll. It’s our own version of rock ‘n’ roll.

+ charlie craine
published: 11.06.00