by Josh Tyson
Mario Andreoni plays guitar in an interpretive dance outfit that you may have heard of. They‘re called, !!!. You know, pow-pow-pow. He and I talked about their mysterious name, but my persnickety minidisc saw fit to cut that portion of the Q&A out. That’s good though. It makes Fran seem too fucking cool to ramble on about some played out information. However, Sam just adopted a kitten which he named, ;;;. Talk about riding some dick. Hope he bought a round-trip ticket or he’s going to be late for work. Luckily he can listen to ha-ha-ha’s new disc “Louden Up Now” as he races to the office. Biting his lower lip and finger-drumming the steering column while he sits in horrible traffic. I like their jams too, but what I like even more is that I assume at their shows, the people who normally stand around like fuck-me statues, have to shag ass–or they’ll look like total fucking losers. Yessss. Oh, I was just kidding a hundred words ago, Sam’s no fruity dude, the kitten’s name is Pillz.
What kind of stuff came before meow-meow-meow?
I played in a band called Popesmashers, and it was more, I guess, Clash inspired, mixed with like Sonic Youth noise. That was my main band for a while. The Popesmashers came on tour with us [!!!] in ‘98, but that was kind of the death knell for that band. With everybody in this band [!!!, get it straight], it feels like the momentum has always been there. We’re still sort of chasing something with it.
How were the crowds at first?
When we toured in the punk and DIY scene, it would change by region as to what bands we’d be playing with. Sometimes we’d be playing with all emo bands, or all straightedge bands. We always really stuck out on the bill. Nobody really knew what to do.
Why do you think people are like that?
We’d still find pockets where kids would slam dance, but it was really frowned upon. There seemed to be a long period of indie rock where you just had to stand there. We sort of came up in that period, where people were being, I guess respectful, and just standing there. Maybe it was seeing too many Fugazi shows.
But Fugazi is music you could dance to, or at least move to.
Exactly, but I saw Fugazi tons of times, and he [Ian MacKaye] spent more time telling kids not to slam dance, and to respect each other’s space, than anything. While I definitely wouldn’t put them on at a dance party, Fugazi has that groove to them. More so than any other band that tried to copy them.
Absolutely. But it seems like when I go to shows, I see people acting too self-conscious to be able to let loose.
We’ve had dance parties, and we go to dance clubs, and people are really packed in tight. At that point it doesn’t matter if you dance great, everybody’s just there letting the music move them. We’re trying to build people up like that, and work them into a frenzy.
After that Guliani song (“Me and Guliani Down by the School Yard, A True Story”) hit the dance charts, did people become more inclined to dance at your shows.
I think so. It’s been a slow progression, but you can see people having a good time. That’s what’s fun about playing live. You can see it in people’s eyes, when they’re reacting to certain parts of [a song]. Maybe they’re just paying attention to the music and letting little parts get them excited. That’s just as rewarding to me as seeing someone just going buck [wild].
Do you think that when people just stand still at shows, that they’re trying to look really cool at standing still?
Not necessarily.
Sometimes I just see people that seem to take a lot of pride in standing still.
We toured with Modest Mouse, and a lot of their fans reacted adversely to us. Just kind of standing there.
Was is strange to see your band next to stuff like 50 Cent on the charts?
It was pretty awesome. When you’re working at playing music, it’s kind of nice to see. It isn’t anything that I have framed, but I thought it was kind of cool. People will bring that up as a form of legitimacy, but I thought it was one of those moments where I was like, “What the fuck?”
How do you, personally, judge your success?
The more that we are able to tour, and travel, and keep making records … that’s kind of how I feel we’ve come a long way.
Was Barcelona [!!! recently played there] rad? That place is hot shit now, right?
It was so fucking fun. It was the best European city that I’ve been to so far; stunningly beautiful and people there are so nice. I can’t wait to go back again.
Hanging out in Europe, do you get at all bummed out about having to come back here?
Being in certain places at certain times, I think the words, “America sucks,” came out of my mouth a couple of times. But I think it’s from more of an architectural standpoint. Shit’s fucked up all over the place. There are obviously gorgeous places all over America, but Europe is so fucking amazing.
But their culture is being infiltrated by ours.
Yeah there was a Blockbuster in Spain that was right next to these buildings that are so amazingly old and beautiful, and it was just so ugly by comparison.
Do you think you’ll ever go to Africa?
There’s been talk. We improvise a lot on the road, and I would love to be in a place where we’d be free to improvise; where the culture of the shows doesn’t dictate that you only have forty-five minutes to play.
It just seems like an audience there would get something unfettered, or pure, from the music.
We’d be able to learn a lot too. This band changed once we heard Batukata music from Brazil, with the drum armies and shit like that. That music inspired us and changed our approach. So I think that being in a place that has such a rich history of percussive music would help us even further.
It seems like it would be cool playing for people who aren’t judging you based on any pre-conceived notions they might have about whether or not they are supposed to like you.
It’s just all about the music.
And in a situation like that, if you can get the crowd into it, then you know you’re really doing something right.
I agree. That’s why I feel a little bit uneasy when, on the flip side of that, people are just ready to go from the get go. It’s nice to see what you do to people versus, if they’re just primed and ready to go ... Usually shows, when nobody knows who we are, we can get a taste of that. It’s nice to see people’s unfettered reactions. Whether they leave or get into it.
Do people do bizarre shit at your shows like, uh…
Get naked?
They get naked? I was just wondering if people plan special things.
We played on Halloween and there were these girls that had this little dance worked out to parts of our songs. That was pretty cool.
I think I read about that, were they dressed like
cheerleaders?
Yeah, but they were dead cheerleaders. Then there’s the kitschy shit that I really hate, like guys putting fake beards on. I’m not really into that, but people do what they want to do. I feel like a lot of that stuff makes a mockery of what we’re trying to do ... some people are just, fruity dudes.
