Kepi: vocals
Roach: guitar
B-Face: bass
Panic: drums
The Groovie Ghoulies are one of the best new bands added to Lookout Records. They're from Sacramento, California and they play good, catchy pop punk music with vocals that sound like The Ramones. They're known for the obsession with horror and halloween stuff. They just recently added Dan Panic of Screeching Weasel to their lineup and tonight they had B-Face of The Queers as a guest bassist. This interview was done in September 1997 with Kepi (bass, vocals) and Roach (guitar)in some "backstage" room at Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
SS: How did the rest of The Muffs/Chixdiggit tour go?
ROACH: Great...so much fun, Chixdiggit and The Muffs are the best. It was so much fun, it was like a family we all hated to say goodbye.
SS: Were there any highlights or unusual stories?
ROACH: God, every night was just so much fun (laughs). Everybody watched each others' sets and it was just tons of fun.
SS: Are you guys worn out at all from all this touring?
KEPI: No way! This is our third US tour this year. The Queers took us out in February and March.
SS: But this is like back to back, just finishing off The Muffs tour and jumping on with MTX.
KEPI: Yeah we were home for two weeks and then we go home for two days and then do 5 weeks in Europe. But I'm more careful, like the first time we toured with The Queers, we would drive all night and goof off and now this is like our third month in a row so I make sure we get good sleep. You know we might not be doing as many fun things but we're not tired and the shows are going real good.
SS: Some basic general questions like: How did the Ghoulies originally form?
KEPI: Um, I probably started it like years ago. Me and Roach have been playing 6 or 7 years with each other and we just met Panic on The Queers tour.
SS: What happened with Wendy?
ROACH: Wendy has a job, she can't tour. She has a house and a car...so it's a really good day job.
SS: So how did you get Panic to join?
KEPI: We were touring with The Queers and he of course drummed with them on Beat Off, and we met him at the show and he offered to put us up. Screeching Weasel just records right now, they're not touring, and he wanted to tour, he wanted to record, and they were just on hiatus. We were also finding out at the time that Wendy couldn't or didn't want to tour, so we asked him and he was like yeah!
SS: Do you guys know Stefan Britt really well?
ROACH: Oh yeah, he's a personal friend of ours.
SS: How did you guys get Sam Kieth to do the cover of the Running With Big Foot EP?
KEPI: He's friends with The Poison Pen, who did the Born in the Basement cover and that graveyard T-Shirt and Sam is a frend of his and he hooked us up and Sam is just awesome. In fact, those two guys are working on a film right now.
SS: Where do you get those toys you guys throw out at the shows, do you have like a huge load or do you get new ones in every city?
ROACH: We start the tour with a load but we try to buy more along the way, whenever we can find like a party supply store, good Halloween candy and stuff like that.
SS: What do you guys do when you're not doing The Groovie Ghoulies?
KEPI: This year, this is about all we've been doing, little bit of day jobs, catch a movie.
SS: When did you guys sign with Lookout!? How did you guys get discovered?
KEPI: Last February, February of 96 and the record came out in May. I think they were just getting curious with us and at the same time, The Queers, Hi-Fives, Mr. T, Pansy Division, everyone said "sign these guys" and really everyone came together at the same time and it worked out great.
SS: Let's go back to Panic...did you guys have to adjust some of your songs for him?
KEPI: I don't think so. He pretty much just nailed it.
SS: Is it different with Panic? The band used to be two girls and a guy and now it's two guys and a girl?
ROACH: No, no big difference. I don't have somebody to borrow makeup from!
SS: Are you guys affected at all by the Lookout thing?
KEPI: It never affected us at all because a lot of that was Larry and old contracts and we were the first band that Chris signed and Chris is now running the show. Not that it wasn't an issue but it really didn't affect us that much and it's kind of cooling down now and I hope it does. The bands are great and the label is good to us, you know, whatever has gone on predates our contract and predates us. So hopefully, things will just cool out.
SS: What do you guys think of Spinal Tap?
KEPI: (laughs) It's a great movie! It's a very good movie!
SS: So B-Face being on tour with you is so you can sing and dance around?
KEPI: Um, we just brought him along some shows from last tour and it was so fun that we did it again. As long as he wants to play he can. Yeah, I just like to sing and dance around, you can sing better, I think. You just have less to worry about. It's a lot of fun for me. I mean I might be able to play good and sing good, but it's definitely more fun. Tonight, it was over like that to me! And we did like 15 songs or something. We usually do like 13-14 songs a night and we did 15 songs and it was over like that which is a sign of a good show.
SS: I'm glad you guys sang "A New England," because I've seen you guys like 3 times and you've never sang it before at least not at the shows I went to.
KEPI: You know we always try to take some requests. It was good, it was mixed up. "Blood Beach" we haven't played that in a while, and something else like totally got pulled out of the hat..."Armageddon 2000," and something else. But it's fun. B-Face is great, we love having him along. You know we're just having fun.
SS: Do you have any last words, because I'm finished?
ROACH: Thanks for having us!
SS: I only like Smell The Glove myself.
KEPI: Yeah, I'm Smell The Glove only, but the movie rocks! Thanks.
KEPI: It was good. We're going to try to tour Canada with Chixdiggit probably next April or something.
KEPI: We went to the Smithsonian with those guys, and like after Virginia Beach we went mini golfing at this like 24 hour mini-golf. You know, just fun, the bands hung out together constantly. It's like that now, all our tours have been pretty good.
ROACH: Mr. T is totally fun!
KEPI: I used to work with him at this record distributor, he's just awesome.
KEPI: Because at home we have a store and we go buy toys and stuff. You buy like a shit load of toys and then you're doing like 40 shows and you break it up and it's like...nothing. So we augment it on the way.
ROACH: I still kind of work but probably not much longer.
KEPI: I haven't worked since January and three tours and record -- that's kept us real busy.
ROACH: We just told him what songs to learn and bam! We practiced a few times, had a show, and then recorded.
KEPI: He's really strong. Live it sounds great. He does little things that are his but basically the songs are still the same if anything stronger. He's really powerful.
ROACH: It's kind of funny because some of the songs have kind of leveled out. Sometimes I think they were a little faster before [Panic].
KEPI: Yeah, it's definitely sturdier. Tonight was crazy, tonight we just flew threw the set, but if the energy is there. Sometimes I'll stop and chat and sometimes I just want to go! And tonight we just went and it was good.
KEPI: Yeah, Roach is a little harder before shows but you know it's funny. Wendy has some fans and Panic has alot of fans. People come to shows just to talk to him and all that. As far as playing, it's great, we play confidently and have fun and we practiced with him maybe four times and that's it. He learns stuff like that, it's awesome.
ROACH: Totally funny, whenever we have to like walk anywhere towards the stage, you know, any kind of hallway I always think of them when they got lost! (laughs)
KEPI: We played in Cleveland at the Agora Ballroom or whatever and that's supposedly where they shot that "Hello Cleveland" scene. The guy took us on a little tour of some of the hallways where they got lost. I think it's good. I think it probably keeps a lot of egos in check nowadays because if you get too arrogant, you get too stupid, people will think you're Spinal Tap. You know, maybe we look like that, I don't know! But I like energy and I like visual stuff and I like Spinal Tap.
KEPI: Oh yes, Shark Sandwich, now I get the taboo. You know I'm only down with the first album. I don't know like Break Like The Wind and I never saw them live.