2 Skinnee J's by Brandon, labproductions.com About a month ago I decided that I was going to attempt to do my first interview ever for Lab Productions. Over my past few years of going to shows I have met many bands and partied till the early mornings with no problems, but for some reason actually sitting down with a tape recorder and musician scared the hell out of me. I had no clue where to even start with this project. I decided to pick a band that I knew would be fun to interview and would be an all around good time. So a few weeks ago I decided to look up the 2 Skinnee J's website and see what kind of contact info I could get. I found an email and shot off some ideas about doing an interview. The few weeks passed and I never received any kind of response from anyone. I figured this was one interview that was never going to be completed so I put the idea on the back burner and started to work on other projects. The day of the show had finally arrived and although I didn't get any replies I decided to go to the show anyways. Before I leave my house my cell phone rings and its none other than the 2 Skinnee tour manager. He apologizes for the short notice but asks if I still want to do the interview. Of course I said yes and got to work on some questions. In a matter of 15 minutes the questions were finished, and I was off to Washington DC to interview the band. Once I arrived at the venue I was greeted by the band and taken to the tour bus to do the interview. Once inside the bus, all nervousness was lost and I was at perfect ease. Maybe it was the amazing hospitality or just the timing but I was ready to interview this band they call the 2 Skinnee J's. I have been following the J's for a good three or four years now. I happened to catch them at a club while I was still in high school and the impression they left was good enough for me to be considered a fan. The music is somewhat unique and the band is at all times energetic while on the stage. Too much pop to be rap metal and too much rap to just be pop, 2 Skinnee J's have a unique sound that ranges from the vocals of Chuck D, to the sounds of the Beastie Boys intertwined with some 80s syth pop music. Of the four times I have seen this group perform I have never been let down. Hands down one of the best live acts I have seen perform. Three hours before the show, on a million dollar tour bus that is vibrating like hell I am sitting here with 2 of the Skinnee J's. With my ghetto tape recorder in position and my cheap 11-dollar Wal-Mart microphone in place, I am told to hit record and this is what spews from the loins of my thirty-minute conversation with the exclusive 2 Skinnee J's. J - J Guevara Eyeball - Eddie Eyeball Brandon - Interviewer J: No, absolutely not. Eyeball: I refuse. J: No, ummm... Oh great. All right I'm just gonna start. I'm a bootleg interviewer so I'm just going to read these questions right off. I'll try to not do the eye contact shit. J: Hahaha The Barbara Walters shit right here. Eyeball: In fact that's one of our rules. J: That's one of the rules. Don't look us in the eyes. All right. The new album's been out for a few weeks now. Any word on the sales yet? Eyeball: Right now we are about a little less then a million copies away from a million sold. So basically I am the only person that bought the album so far. Is that what you are saying? J: Well you are one of the elite few. Eyeball: Yeah, look at it that way. J: You are in an elite membership, an exclusive club. So with that in mind could this album be the one? The coveted, you know, MTV status album? J: Who knows. If we knew that sort of stuff, ya know. I dunno it could be the one, if they like it. Or it could not be the one. Depends on if they choose to keep listening to it. Eyeball: I think this could be the "Slippery When Wet" of the new millennium. (Bus erupts in laughter) Brandon: Hell yeah. How has the tour been going? I know it's only been, what, a couple days? J: We have been out for 3 weeks. Oh no shit, right on. J: Yeah, it's been going great. The shows have gone really well. Eyeball: The fans have been really amazing on this tour. They have been really supportive. The whole time we have been waiting for this record to come out, they have been coming out to the shows. They are just so supportive. It's great to see 'em all come out. They have so much fun, that's the emails I have been getting. "Loved your shows, had a blast!" So its been really good. So with that in mind with the new the songs, compared to the old songs, the fans don't know the lyrics so they can't really sing or dance to it, how has the reception been to the new songs live? Eyeball: Well, actually, "Volumizer" was available completely for download on the Internet, so our hardcore fans already knew the lyrics of the new album. So they already knew the music and were already getting into it when we first recorded it. J: Some of that stuff had already been performed live the year before that, but the new stuff has been received well. They react to it, especially after they get to recognize it and know it. (At this point the band's guitar player, Lance, gets on the bus with another interviewer and asks if someone can do an interview with him. Eyeball decides to leave my interview and go with him.) Eyeball: Well I'm leaving now. Don't take it personally. No, not at all. Eyeball: I got a better and bigger deal here. Haha. (to the other interviewer) Well, how many interviews have you done? Other interviewer: I've done a couple. Eyeball: Well this is Brandon's first. Yeah, this is my first interview so I imagine you will do a better job. Other interviewer: What are you doing it for? Labproductions.com, it's a website based out of Louisiana. (The recorder is turned off while we talk about the lead guitarist being from Louisiana and the other interviewer preps for his interview in the lounge of the bus.) (Recorder is turned back on.) J: B, you shouldn't turn the tape recorder off. That's when all the good shit gets said. So I just learned my first interview lesson. Interview 101. J: Just quietly leave it on until someone says, "Turn that thing off." Eyeball: Or until someone says "Don't print that." Well, everything you guys say that you don't want me to print will be up on the site in big pink font. That way everyone notices it. Eyeball: Greaaaaat! Well, the last question dealt with the new album. It was pushed back so many times, did you guys start to think, "Let's just do it our selves?" J: Um, it actually... well, we never got to the "Let's put it out ourselves" phase. It was about four months before Capricorn pulled the plug, and in that time Capricorn was lying to us the whole time so we had no idea what was going on anyway. They kept assuring us that there were imminent deals being made in various ways. And we didn't have the freedom to legally put it out ourselves. We really didn't care enough to put it out right away, and then Volcano picked it up and was immediately very supportive, so we really didn't have any worries. It was just more of, "Is it ever actually going to come out?" Even after we got signed to Volcano it took almost another year to put the album out. Yeah, because I remember when I saw you guys last summer on the tour with 311 -- J: Yeah we were like, "Our new album is coming out this summer." I was amped and then went to stores only to find it was pushed back to Sept. and then was pushed back to last month. Well, it's out now and that's all that matters. J: It's finally on the shelves. I hear Stumpy is the man, the pimp, and 100% legend? J: As far as I know he is not a pimp. He's 100% a businessman located in Vegas. I dunno, there are lots of stories that go around, some of them are true and some of them aren't true. I don't even know what are. Is he here tonight? J: Yes he is. I was wondering because I have never seen a show without Stumpy on stage. J: There has been very few, very few. He occasionally is not there but that is very rare. Usually he is there watching us like a hawk. Since the album is out now it's evident that you guys will be touring all year long. Any plans? Any festivals or big shows? J: Umm... I dunno, we're doing, like, this festival tomorrow in Columbia, SC. We have a couple radio shows here and there. We don't really know yet. We are touring between now and May and are extremely booked up. Doing an East Coast thing, and then later, a Midwest thing. But after that we are not really sure. We have to see how the new single takes off and take it from there. And the new video. Is it finished and how did Andy Dick come about to directing that? J: Yeah it's finished. Well, apparently a friend of his saw us live and told him about it. And then he heard the song "Grown Up," I don't know how but he did. He had been wanting to do a video for awhile. He called us and we got his number and called him up on his cell and he was so psyched about doing it. How the fuck could you not do it? It's Andy Dick. Yeah, he's amazing. J: Yeah, it's Andy Dick and he is excited about making a video for us, and it turned out amazing. I think it goes to MTV2 next week so it actually won't make the real MTV. That's only because they only play the songs that a label will pay 2 million dollars to see. J: Exactly. Apparently we are not a 2 million dollar backed label band yet. But, no, it goes to MTV2 next week, so hopefully, because we enjoyed making it. Hopefully someone will get to see it besides our friends. If it goes big like, daytime MTV, who's gonna be the first one to bling a mansion on Cribs? J: Hahaha! Not me! Not me. I don't want people coming through my home with cameras. I don't know, probably Special J. Really? J: Well, because he already has this dope pad setup already. That would be my guess, and it will be cool, because he will do it all cool and have some cool rooms and shit. Mine will be cool too; you'll just never see it. Brandon: The dancing that takes place on stage; Who does the choreography for that? I know you guys sit around and choreograph your moves right? J: It's all just sort of what happens and just evolves on stage. Like someone does something and gets an idea and then it evolves on stage and others start to follow and it becomes natural at the show. We don't actually sit around and say "And one, and two, and three, and four, and breath, and turn, and step." Hahahaha, in front of a big mirror with the socks on. J: Exactly, hahaha. Yeah, the leg warmers and all. Along with the dancing comes the outfits. Who does the outfits? J: It's basically me and Special J. Well, we are the ones that sort of get the stuff going. When we have to get stuff made we have a girl that lives in NYC who makes the stuff for us. She is a special costume designer in the city. But it's usually me and J who come up with the ideas and take it from there. What do you guys have for this tour? J: White. Is it the same as the last 311 tour, white with the flames on the legs? J: No, but they are still white. White is a good stage color because you just stand out. Well, if you have a good light show the colors can be amazing. J: Exactly. And the last question, the coveted last easy question. Anything you want to say to the fans that are going to be reading this? Like the 5 people who will actually read my interview? J: Hahaha! The five people, huh? How do five people know about this website? I'm just joking... What like some parting words of wisdom? Yeah, like I said I only had ten minutes to write this interview and I needed something to waste time. J: Of course, a filler question. J: I will say this. J: Ummmm.... J: I don't know. I am sorry, I have nothing. I was trying to find something profound, its like... you ever see "Almost Famous?" Yeah. J: Tell them my last words were "I'm on drugs!" Hahaha! Wait, no. Tell them... "I dig music." J: I did it because, "I'm on drugs!" Hell yeah. Right on. <====