Wives
interviewed by Elizabeth Barker

About nine hours after watching Wives destroy two amps at the Knitting Factory on a Sunday night in March, I went to the dentist for the first time in seven years and got my gums scraped up so bad that I had to stop every couple of minutes to spit out big scary mouthfuls of blood. But my dentist was so cuddly and adorable, and he told me I was a fabulous sport and praised my lack of cavities. I felt triumphant in my pain.

Wives probably won’t draw blood from your gums, but they do scrape your ears raw with this hyperactive, blistery, walloping noise that makes you want to run around and throw stuff and pogo ‘til your shins splinter. On their first full-length record, Erect the Youth Problem (released by Cold Sweat last September), there’s a few moments when Wives are the most exciting thing in the world—usually it’s when they’re shouting their throats sore and bludgeoning hell out of their instruments, which somehow never comes off all boneheaded and boring.

But they’ve got that cuddly and adorable side too. At the Knitting Factory, singer/bassist, Dean Spunt gave out a round of hugs and high-fives mid-song (he and guitarist Randy Randall and drummer Jeremy Villalobos played their crazy-breakneck set on the floor, to stay within snuggling distance of everyone up front).

Wives are used to the smallish, but very un-shy, crowds at The Smell, the Downtown LA all-ages cooperative where they’ve played somewhere between 60 and 100 times since spring 2002. Each from a different town in LA County, Dean, Jeremy and Randy met through friends and shows in their mid-teens and started playing together four years ago. Now they’re landing gigs at South by Southwest and Sundance, releasing a split 12’’ with Moving Units (on Dean’s label, PPM), and putting out a UK edition of Erect the Youth Problem (with bonus tracks and an accompanying DVD).

We all hung out in the alley outside The Smell during an after-party for a screening of High School Record, a feature film that stars Dean as a self-described visionary whose greatest wish is for the world’s children to eat better breakfast food. Over the course of the half-hour interview, about a dozen people came up to Dean, Jeremy, and Randy to give them hugs and presents. Wives love everybody soooo much. They’ll even come to your house and make spaghetti if you let them play for you—email them at reshapela@yahoo.com, and please provide vegan pasta sauce.

You guys aren’t a funk band?
Jeremy: Well, eventually—let’s not sell ourselves short here. We can do it all.

Randy: [to Dean]: How were you exposed to [your musical influences]?

Dean: Oh, wow, my aunt—my mom’s sister—dated a guy, and he was a skinhead. I don’t think he was the racist kind of skinhead, but he was a skinhead. And I remember being young and being weirded out by his pants, these really tight jeans that were a size 27 waist. I remember being like, “Who the hell wears size 27 jeans?” I thought he was a cowboy. I honestly didn’t know; I thought only cowboys wore their pants that tight. So we were talking about music, and my friend had let me borrow some weird punk band. And my aunt’s boyfriend was like, “Oh, I got some tapes for you,” and he gave me these crazy punk tapes that said “Skinhead” on them. So I was in sixth grade, and I had Minor Threat and a bunch of Oi! bands and weird punk rock stuff. But anyway, my aunt’s skinhead boyfriend was like, “Hey, dude, try this stuff out.” And it kind of freaked me out.

Is she still going out with him?
No.

How long were you guys out of commission when Randy had his bike accident [in June 2003]?
R: We didn’t play for a month. I had my neck brace on for three months, but we still practiced and played one show. It was a quiet show; we didn’t play guitars.

What happened?
R: I fell off my bike. I don’t really remember what happened cause I had retrograde amnesia. When Dean and Jeremy came to visit me in the hospital, I didn’t understand what was going on. We were supposed to leave in two days to tour the whole US with The Locust, and I thought we’d still be able to go. I thought I was only going to be in the hospital for a quick second. I didn’t know I’d already been there a couple of days. It was going to be our first US tour, but then we ended up going out with Lightning Bolt later on instead.

(to Dean) When did you start your label?
D: In 2001.

And you started it with the money you got after your accident with the Backstreet Boy?
D: Yeah. I was in an accident with one of the Backstreet Boys, with my ex-girlfriend. We were driving, and he pulled out of a gas station and hit our car. We got out of the car and we were kinda hurt. I was like, “This guy looks really familiar.” And I remember saying, “I think he’s in *NSYNC.” And my ex-girlfriend was like, “Yeah, he looks really familiar.” Then these guys came up to us and were like, “That guy’s in the Backstreet Boys! Oh, man, you’re gonna get fucking paid!” We were like, “Oh, this is insane.” He was like, “Are you guys alright?” I’d never been in an accident before so I was like, “Do we call the cops?” And he was like, “No, the cops just get your car towed. We’ll take care of it; here’s my number.” And it turned out that he didn’t have insurance for some weird reason. It stayed out of court, and I got a little bit of money.

Which one was it?
D: His name was Kevin.

So has anyone taken you up on your offer to make spaghetti at their house?
D: Yeah. A lot of times we’ll be playing and we’ll be like, “So who’s ready for spaghetti?” And people are like, “What?” And we’re like, “We’ll go home, go to your house. Can we go to your house?” “Um, yeah?” “Alright, everybody, we’ll go to that guy’s house and we’re gonna make spaghetti.” And everyone’s like “Yeah! Let’s make spaghetti!” It’s worked a few times, and we get free food out of it.


www.thesmell.org/ppm
www.coldsweat.org