thebeatdown.com Fred interviewed Special J of TWO SKINNEE J'S and Stumpy their "owner" before their performance at The Mann in Philadelphia this October... MRBD: I first heard you guys in 1996 when I caught a couple of your shows on LBI. One of the things I remember most were the leisure suits and afros out in the crowd. What is the origin behind that, and why don't you see as much of that at shows anymore? J: We always like to promote a sense of doing things differently. Have fun being yourselves. It's great to be weird and have fun with yourself. Goddamn it, you're only young once, you might as well have fun doing it. It was awesome because people down there starting dressing interestingly. It was like a big party. MRBD: How long have you been together, and where do you call home? J: Eight years... NYC. MRBD: SUPERMERCADO! is your first major label release. How far has your fan base extended since releasing that album? J: That's hard to say. We sold about 60,000 copies of that album, so when you consider that we only sold 20,000 or so before that, it was 3 times as many. We're still very concentrated in certain areas like DC and the south. We have a big midwest following. The breadbasket of America. STUMPY: ...and they like us. J: The breadbasket loves us. MRBD: You guys combine a variety of different elements in your music, hip-hop, jazz, rock, of course the end result is something unique. What are your major influences? J: Really we are influenced by preformers like Tiny Tim and Rod Maquinn, as much as we are by people like Evil Kinevil and just the great preformers. All the people that went out just to say something! MRBD: A lot of bands combine rock and hip hop. You've seen a lot of that the past couple years and the result has been successful. Has your band seen a bigger reception from the fans recently... Have other bands helped at all in getting 2 Skinnee J's recogniton or expanding your fan base? J: Not yet. I think that the limitation that we have with the other bands in our genre is that they're all, well not all but for the most part they are metal bands. We're not a guitar driven band at all. We play guitar and we'll be hard when we want to be. But we're not a metal band, so I think kids that like all those bands, if they were to listen to us they'd probably like us... MRBD: Yeah, you aren't really as angst ridden. J: We're not as mad as they are. MRBD: A lot of bands are angry these days. J: Although frankly, I don't know what they're mad about. Fred Durst is really upset. I saw his house, where his mom lives and it looks pretty nice. I am wondering where is that anger coming from. I think he needed to pay a little more attention in high school. MRBD: What have you been up to as far as touring? Are you on the road constantly? J: We've been on the road for a year and a half supporting the album and we've been off the road since about June, and we'll be off the road pretty much consistently util Febuary. We're writing the new record right now so we're pretty busy. MRBD: What are some of the bigger shows you've played? J: Really the biggest thing we ever did was we went on tour with Sugar Ray and Everlast... it was a really good experience. Very exciting. MRBD: Who do you think that you would like to work with on a song? STUMPY: I'd love to have Mos Def on a song. J: Yeah, Mos Def, that'd be good. MRBD: Playing with some of the bigger names, do you find it intimidating? J: We're confident in what we do and we know we'll be fine. I mean we're intimidated when people hate our guts, that's never fun. MRBD: I notice a lot of parallels between you guys and parliment funkadelic, from the music to the live shows. J: Well, there are bands whose music and stage show insiriped us to do what we do, and there's no question that parliment is one of the greatest performing bands alive. I mean they're amazing and they're interesting and what's great about the bands like that, they aren't afraid to express themselves. I guess that's what depressed me about Woodstock '99. We went to woodstock and EVERYBODY looks alike, and they're all wearing fucking khakis. It's like the punk kids are wearing baggy khakis and the preppy kids are wearing tighter khakis. Its so boring. It seems like no one is having fun anymore. MRBD: I noticed that, it's like one big gap ad. J: Yeah, it's just ridiculous. I can honestly say I'm disappointed with the youth of America. They seem to have lost all spirit of individuality. MRBD: What else did you think of woodstock? J: I thought it was a bunch of angry white kids, mostly men. And I thought the riot at the end was disappointing. The problem was that the kids that were rioting had no focus... they had no political focus or awareness at all. Thats what's sad abut the whole rock/rap movement. It was started by people like Public Enemy, then you have Rage Against The Machine and The Beastie Boys, who are all very politically aware people, and then it's bastardized, really dumbed down by people like Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit who have no political agenda... They do it for tits and ass and money, you know, and it's the same reason hip hop sucks now too. Its not about revolution and making people hear a new kind of music, it's just shit you know. It's bullshit rock riffs, with bullshit rhymes and bullshit attitude and lame words and it's like a total loss of the spirit of what makes music great. MRBD: The internet, everything these days is about computers. There are video downlowds and MP3's. Has this effected your career at all? J: Well, I think it will only effect our career with our next album. It will happen right before the wave, when everyone can easily scan the shit out of the net just like that, and then I think it will take another two years before just anyone can get to it in an instant. So I think we'll be safe. I think that entertainment is pretty much going to suck because you won't be able to keep anything for your own and people will be ripping other people off right & left. It's going to be easily parodied. Its going to be too easy to get music... which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing because frankly, I'm a little bit of a communist. I'm all about everybody making the same amount of money. The problem is then you have people like us who don't make any money, will definitely not make any money ... MRBD: Its not bad to get paid for doing what you love. J: I don't need to be paid a lot, just enough so I can get by. I don't even need to be paid. You can pay me in food, it doesn't matter to me. MRBD: Amen brother... <====