We caught up with Donnie and Chip from Enuff Z Nuff after their gig on
8th May 2001, at Trillians Rock Bar, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. This is what
the lads had to say to us:
MM - What's the first thing that you like to do after a gig?
Chip - Sit down and just relax, not do anything for about 10 minutes. Then
go out and talk to a few people that came up to see us and that are
waiting for us. Spending quality time with people.
We might be in town 24 hours a day but really we are only there for maybe
an hour or two. I try to give them as much as we can, without blowing our
voices out.
MM - Has the band had any crazy fan
experiences?
Chip - Sure, one time one of our fans snuck up into our truck that we were
driving, and were going from city to city in, as she was so obsessed with
Donnie.
We had eventually seen her hiding in the back of one of the amplifiers and
so we pulled over at a truck stop and called her parents and left her
there.
Donnie - That's one of those questions that we could add like a whole
chapter and verse to. We are a crazy band and we have crazy fans, come on
who do you think you are talking to?
All we care about is having fun. Making cool music so we can have fun. It
pays the checks.
MM - So how old was the fan? Was she just
young?
Chip - Maybe 18 year old. Everything was fine, things just got a little
scary.
Donnie - Oh come on, she was covered in pimples and stuff and really
promiscuous and stuff.
We were riding along in the truck and we were all talking about her. We
were all like … did you see that chick with the pimples all over, and we
were all ha ha ha, all over the place. Then Chip looks back and he sees
these big beady eyes peeking out from the back. It was like … oh my god!
She was maybe only 14, 15 and running away from home to be with the band,
and here we were making fun of her. Oh man, we felt bad.
Chip - We made sure she was Ok though.
MM - Well that's the main thing.
Chip - We don't have any obsessed fans though, that have ever tried to
hurt the band or anything.
Although we have received a couple of fan letters from Italy and places,
and various places in the United States that have been written in blood.
Or talking about how we should look to God more, the ones that are
religious that most people get.
But for the most part of it they are just our average punter who likes our
group, all around the country. It's nice to see them.
MM - Do you think your UK/European fans are
different to those in the States?
Chip - Yeh, I think the UK fans are much more vocal. They are very loyal,
they fucking love their music, they love their football, they love their
beer, and they love their women. It's a great country.
Quite frankly all the bands that I have grown up to love, and the same
goes for Ricky and Donnie, they were all from over here. The Beatles, Led
Zeppelin, Queen, Mott the Hoople, T-Rex & Bowie, you guys have always set
the standard with your great fucking music.
Us Americans know it, they might not admit to it, but our band does. We
wouldn't sound like we sound if it wasn't for you.
MM - I think you can definitely hear your
Beatles influence in the songs.
Chip - Yeh, but you know when we set up the band we didn't say 'hey lets
be a Beatles cover band'. Even though we do sing some of their songs. We
just love the band, we love their songs.
The same for Queen, there's another band from out here, Freddie Mercury is
one of my favourite singers of all time, and Brian May is a great
guitarist.
Show me a band without influences and I'll show you a band that hasn't
written one note and doesn't have a record deal.
I think we are one of those bands that have always worn our influences on
our sleeves and have always been very proud to say which bands we like.
Those bands have left an indelible mark around the world musically, music
that will last forever.
Their music is timeless and that's one thing that all musicians hope for,
to be able to leave behind a legacy, a nice catalogue of material, an
indelible mark.
So far we have got a good start, we have 10 albums. We're touring our
hearts out but we are very proud of the material that we have released up
to this point.
MM - It's been good to see that even when
the music tastes have changed you have still kept going strong and are
still here today.
Chip - Well one reason for that is because of the loyalty of our fans. I
still am shocked. Another reason I think is that we put out a new record
every single year and we are not just touring on our old hits like Fly
High Michelle and Baby Loves You. We have new songs and we mix the songs
in the sets a lot and we put in old and newer stuff as we go along.
It a pot-pouri of songs. The fans appreciate that.
We aren't just going through the motions, we might have played New Thing
and Fly High Michelle thousands of times before, but I still enjoy it.
Seeing the crowds reaction, it's still fun. As long as it is fun for me
and as long as the people still enjoy it we will keep putting records out.
It certainly hasn't been easy for us, it's been an uphill struggle. We
seemed to have weathered the storm up to this point and now we are getting
ready to go on a major tour so that is going to help a lot.
MM - What's the best piece of advice you
have ever received?
Donnie - We haven't really heard a lot of advice from other people until
recently, we are usually giving it to each other.
Chip - 'Luck is when preparation meets opportunity'.
Donnie - The best piece of advice I would have to say is … 'Partying is
when your work is all done. Wait until you have something before you throw
it all away'.
I never got a lot of good advice. I did get a lot of great advice from my
grandpa when I was growing up, just typical things that your father would
teach you when you're growing up. Grandpa taught me.
MM - Do you think it is easier or harder
for bands starting out these days?
Chip - I would think it is probably more difficult because all the labels
from the United States and from around the world release around 30,000
albums a year. This is not a figure I am making up it is a fact. So 30,000
albums are released a year and there's too much cracking on and not enough
to manage the stores.
The stores don't have enough room to hold all the bands.
Therefore it makes it difficult and then you have to go to Mam & Pap
stores, not the Tower records or the big Rolling Stones, not those chains,
you got to go to the Mam & Pap stores and that's where you want to get
bands records in there.
They will try to find room in those stores for newer bands. It's just as
tough it really is.
My advice to bands out there is that you should try and play as many gigs
as you can, opening for national acts so you can steal their fans, that's
what we did when we first started out.
Eventually if you cause enough of a buzz where people are going to come
out and take notice, if your music's good then it will stand the test of
time.
Donnie - There's a lot of great music out there, but there's a lot of this
stuff that is manufactured. Now with the major labels they are serving up
lots of this topical stuff like Limp Bizkit and shit like that.
Lets go survey a couple of hundred of 15 year olds and see what you guys
like doing. Breaking stuff, ok lets go write a song about breaking stuff.
These guys are vice president of inner school records but do the kids know
that?
My God don't take it that I'm bad rapping Fred Durst because I'm not, I
would get such a fucking ass whipping from him.
What I mean is that they really don't have very many bands like what we
had when we were growing up to listen to, to influence us.
All their influences now is all this man made stuff. I mean there is some
good stuff out there, you have your Britney Spears stations that play all
that stuff, but for new bands there are no stations for that kind of
stuff.
There is no room on the playlists for new bands on the major stations.
There are no more DJ's on major stations that play what they want to play.
In the old days it was what the DJ played that made him what he was. Now
it's all shock jock talk, this and that, this and that, they will say
anything to reach to the kids. Whether it's a good positive influence or
not.
Even if that means that we can tell the kids to fuck Jesus Christ, that
they should fuck God, destroy this and then do that, and it's going to
make the corporate lots of money, then they will go out and say it.
They have to remember they have a really big responsibility when you have
that many people paying attention to you.
They will hang on every word and breath that you say. Which has never
been
our case, but we have always realized that we have hungry ears listening
to us, thousands of hungry ears. I mean we have a lot of fans too, but the
fans that we have are passionate about our band, they're passionate about
our material and our songs.
Eminem and some of that stuff that he sings … and Elton John's going to
play with that guy … I mean everything is just not making much sense to me
right now. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with me and why I
wanted
to be in this business.
Nothing, there's absolutely nothing that even resembles it. The only thing
that comes close to the old days is at an Enuff ZNuff show and backstage
at the parties afterwards.
People get mad at us because we still do that. We thought that's what you
are supposed to do! Come on this is a Rock N Roll band! I just get mad
about it all, the kids need their influences, they need to hear the music
and if they don't, whereas we had the old stuff, if they don't get into it
then all that great stuff is just going to disappear completely, it will
be extinct.
MM - Is there any of the new bands that you
do like?
Chip - I like Stereophonics. Yup they're a good band. I like Lemon Suede.
Donnie - Yeh! I like Oasis. I like good music, that's what I like. If it's
shit music then I don't like it.
I mean there was a lot of shit in the 80's that I considered just generic.
Chip - I like the new U2 stuff, the new Black Crowes album - they kick
ass. Aerosmith's record's great. There is some good rock n roll out there.
Sometimes it's just so over saturated that you miss the plan a lot.
What Donnie was saying before, he's not screwing all the bands because
there is some good stuff out there like we just mentioned, but there is a
lot of music out there that takes away from what the good stuff has to
offer.
It takes a lot of time and a lot of space away. Whatever trips the kids
trigger is what they are going to grab on to and it's not up to us to
judge it.
Eminem - am I a fan? No. Do I think he's talented? fuck yeh, he has a lot
of skill and good writing capabilities.
Donnie - In the old days maybe one song out of every thousand had a
bleeped word. Oh shit, he must have said shit or fuck there, he must have
said that, and people would go out and buy the album to see what had been
said
Now everybody does it in every fucking song, and the heavy stuff has it in
there or its not cool. The kids of today are our leaders of tomorrow and
we are just doomed.
MM - What do you love/hate the most about
being on tour and being away from home?
Donnie - The worst thing is the amount of rest you get. No, the worst
thing about being away from home is that you hate having to go back home.
The best thing about being away from home is everything.
Eating is the weirdest thing, even in the States, eating in the different
states they have different foods and that is strange. So that is probably
the worst problem we have.
One of the best things about going on tour is the obvious things when you
are with our band because it's such fun. So every night is just one big
party for you.
Chip - We get to sing the songs that we created. We sing them, we play
them, and we can change the sequences around backstage because we don't
have anybody plugging in.
We like to play them like the old guys used to do. I like that.
Donnie - We get the chance to stand there and act real famous and have
people know us. These people are hailing us, so it's an unbelievable
feeling.
MM - Do you still get an adrenalin rush
when you are on stage?
Donnie - When they're going crazy? Yeh, I mean of course you do. When some
guy walks up to you with 10 records for me to sign I might not always sign
them all, but I hug him, I ask if there is anything else I can sign for
him.
There are some situations when the whole thing is redundant and what have
you, but we haven't played here in over 5 years or something and all you
see when you look around in EZ signs on the clothes that people wear and
stuff like that.
They are going nuts and especially when you come out on a night like
tonight and the band know technically we were like shit. We sounded crap
because we had no monitors. I couldn't even tell what I was singing, I
couldn't hear what I was playing like.
I've had no pipes right now because I got a throat problem and because of
the hot soaks every night.
I'll be taking it easy for the rest of this tour because I like my pipes.
It's like going into a gunfight without any bullets. You gotta wear you
best rhinestone outfit and the coolest looking loudest gun you got,
because I got no bullets. So I just hope they don't shoot me!
How could you not get charged by the AC in here? It was crap but still
they loved it.
So yeh we came out and just kept going and then we played another one. If
we had been in Chicago then we would have been off the stage after 45
minutes.
Even if we had been in the middle of a song, after 45 minutes you turn
this shit off and you're out of here. We don't do that when the fans are
going crazy.
Chip - We have played through much better systems in the past let me tell
you.
Donnie - We've found ourselves on stage for almost 4 hours before just
because the people went wild and the people wanted us to carry on.
We have 10 albums out and could probably play for 10 hours, we could
probably just continue to play.
MM - What's your most precious/treasured
possession?
Donnie - I would have to say my larynx. My grandma and my grandpa, my
niece and of course my brother Chip.
My albums … but over all I would have to say my larynx, my larynx and my
61 Les Paul. My most treasured possession has to be my brother though.
Chip - Of course, it's my family.
Donnie - It's like what can you not do without right now. So I guess right
now Cody is my most treasured possession. I don't know can we call him a
possession?
Chip - Yeh right now he is probably our most treasured possession.
I would like to introduce to everyone our tour manager Cody who is on tour
with Queens of the Stone Age but he's helping us out this week.
Donnie - He has had 3 drink and drives, ha ha, but he's the best-looking
tour manager I've ever seen.
Chip - Our first major tour of Europe was with a really good guy, a guy
who did the journey stuff.
It's nice when you have professional people helping, it makes it a lot
easier. When the inmates run the asylum it does not run smooth.
Donnie - This is one of the most professional guys I have ever worked
with, and that is good for the other guys who aren't so professional.
We have one guy out here that kind of worked his way up and still doesn't
know how to deal with us. Everything he says to us he takes as a throat
punch.
We just verbally rip his ass out every time he says anything. But he's
learning and his hearts in the right place. But it's like he's a fan, and
now he thinks he can come up to me and tell me to do this and that, and
I'm like I don't think so. Not if you don't want to wake up with a big
brown stripe down your pillow or something.
MM - Now that you've seen Anti Product in
action what do you think?
Chip - Well I'm prejudiced because I really love Alex. He's very close to
me. I think he's a terrific artist, musician. He's left the States to come
over here because he had something else to say.
Donnie - He ran away across the Atlantic.
Chip - No, he had a lot of guts to come over here a take those chances.
They are a cool band and I really wish him the best of luck.
Donnie - Well you've just seen him play with us, imagine what it was like
when we were all in the same band together.
Imagine him with all the hair and the moods and things. He was a different
player.
When he's playing guitar and stuff and not fronting a novelty band. When
he's fronting that novelty band that guys a monster.
Chip - The guy certainly knows how to be a rock star. I admire that man.
Donnie - Our guitar player Jon came back on the bus after the gig and he
was a bit upset with me … he just said … get your guy back, just get your
guy back.
I was like hold on fuck face, we love you. I had to just start rubbing his
back.
Sometimes you gotta hate yourself …. Do we have his (Alex's) card? Did we
get his card? (laughs).
MM - Tell me one thing about yourself that
most people don't know.
Chip - I have a beautiful 16 year old daughter who lives in California.
Her name is Tara.
MM - Do you get to see her much?
Chip - No. I still love her and I talk to her, but I don't see her a lot.
Donnie - There's not a lot of things that people don't already know about
me. There's a few things, but I'm not going to fucking tell you! What most
people don't know is probably that I am a caring and loving, and nice guy.
It's just when you get knucklehead central in your face 24/7 sometimes you
get driven into things. I would have to say that I am and can be a nice
guy.
MM - Lastly is there anything you would
like to say to all your fans?
Donnie - Oh man there is nothing I could say that I haven't been saying
all night and that I won't be saying on stage every night except thank you
so fucking much for everything, we love ya.
Chip -Yes you are adorable.
(We would like to thank Chip and Donnie for
taking part in the interviews, also Tom and Cody for helping us make it
all come together and happen. We wish them all every success and hope to
see them all over here again soon).
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