” Have you ever tried laying in your bed, staring at the ceiling in the grey morning light wondering ”why am I so pathetic that i still play rock´n´roll in my age and for no money?” Well have you?”
(Dimitri)

Two years ago my former band The Burnouts (RIP) played with this hardrocking band Burning Brides at two shows Philadelphia and Washington DC on our US-tour at VERY small clubs. The band was great and we all became very good friends, smoked some serious dope and had tons of beers together. Also I was glad to meet sweet bassist Melanie after being only with the boys for so long - all in all we had a real good time together …
A lot of things have happened since then. While The Burnouts broke up, BB suddenly got a favorable recorddeal with Virgin sub-label V2, a lot of hype, re-release of their debut album and the opportunity to tour with major bands like Audioslave and Queens Of The Stoneage. I was never in doubt that BB would take off to the starshimmering r´n´r heaven and if you listen to their album ”Fall Of The Plastic Empire” you´ll probably know what I´m talking about!!
BB played at Loppen, Christiania and I met my old pals Melanie(bass) M, Dimitri (vox/guitar) D and Jason (drums) J again (well, actually Jason is a new pal since he has only been the drummer of BB for a year. He used to play in Delta 72 and Mule). Some of this interview is quite chaotic with all it´s laughter and the very talkative BB overruling eachother - but hey, it´s rock´n´roll man …

Hellcat: First tell me one or two things about BB. Who are you?

M: We are three almost human beings, Melanie from …where ever I´m from …
D: We were all burned. We all lived in India seven hundred years ago, it was amazing we were able to find eachother. It took a lot of work you know cause you can´t see it right away …
M: It´s a certain mark that everone has that has died on the funeral fire …
D: Yeah - I swear to God … it only shows up on a black day. (???)
M: Har har har ha ha ha … (in a dark and daring voice).

Hellcat: How would you describe each members personality?

D: Extremely sensitive and … eh …
M: Har har ha ha ha …

Hellcat: Who? Are you?

D: No, all of us.
M: Har har ha ha ha …neh - funny, goofy, silly but then kind of can be very intense and …
D: well, you know, you generally run over the word ”skizophrenia” ...

Hellcat: Well, it makes sense! You just played at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden. How was it? …and please give me some sleazy details.

M: It was a lot of fun! We all got really drunk.

Hellcat: You went to the backstage party? I know it´s the only place to get some serious beers?

M: Oh my God, yeah …
D: yeah, we went to several backstage parties …
M: Yeah, we had a really good time ´cause a lot of the bands we´ve toured with were on that festival. We hung out with a lot of friends and some of them we hadn´t seen for a while. We felt it was just like a big summercamp reunion.
D: It was the first time, you know, being invited to play at a big summer festival like this. This is our first tour in Europe and our first big festival.
M: Yeah, it was really cool and we played a good show. We were supposed to play really late at night so the people showing up were just as wasted as us. And a lot of people did show up ´cause we were the only and last band playing that night, so everyone who were like drunk and had nowhere to go, just had to stumble over and see what was up with this band. Last chance for some rock´n´roll!
D: You know what was crazy though? Not very many people seemed to be doing drugs of any kind there…
M: no, they don´t seem to do that, I mean it was all drinking just like we do in our band. Also everyone in our band smokes a lot of marihuana including the crew so our soundguy was fucking out ´cause he couldn´t find any dope. No, they don´t seem to be very much into it.

Hellcat: They have some very strict rules regarding dope and alcohol in Sweden and in Denmark we often joke about how everything is forbídden there.

M: Hell, I´ll tell you this: the security there (at Hultsfred Festival), it´s frightening …
D: Be sure not to spill anything on the street … ha ha ha.
M: I was wearing my festival ID-badge around my neck instead of around my armwrist and it was 2.30 in the morning. The festival is over there´s no more bands playing and I was leaving the area and all I was doing was making a shortcut to our van walking across some grass out of the walkline, and they (the security) were like: ”You cant come through here unless your badge is on your wrist”. I said ”well, it´s right here” and they went ”Why are you not wearing it on your wrist?” and they like grabbed my arm and pulled me aside and they questioned another guy and more came over and I said ”what is this? The festival is over. Im going home. Whadda ya care now?”. So, yeah, they seem to be very ”a rule is a rule” no matter what.

Hellcat: Yeah, they are very strict. Also if you´re an audience you´re not allowed to drink outside certain ”cages” at the festival site and you have to show your ID to a policeman situated outside the cage. Hell, I had to show my ID when I was thirty-something. I take that as a compliment though he he …

M: Yeah well, thank god for backstage then..
(Here we had a longer chit-chat about Hutltsfred festival and all the delights there …)
M: We talked about last night that we´re very spoiled now as a band. For enstance now we can go and see a lot of concerts close up from the side of the stage and feel special about that. He he he - we´re babies.

Hellcat: Yeah, You got a whole new attitude now right? You´ve become megastars …

All: Laughing …
M: Well, it used to be like this: before I was going to see a lot of bands but I could always just hear them. I could never see anything ´cause i´m so short, so seeing bands from backstage I can actually see what is going on.
(The not very tall) Hellcat: ouh, I know that feeling - all you see is people´s backs.
Marco Burro (from The Untamed): But you just saw Sky Saxon, didn´t you? Ha ha ..

Hellcat: Yeah, but I had to stand on a chair to see anything until I got real dizzy.

D: You guys went to The Seeds show? Was it good?
Marco (Hell, what is he doing? Taking over my interview??): I think it was the best show I´ve seen the last couple of years.
M: Are they about to play in America or have they just played there?

Hellcat: I think they have done some shows with Sky´s new - and very cool - backingband.

M: How many origianal members are left?

Hellcat: Well - none, but the new band was totally cool and played very well and groovy … and they were not too young …

Marco (Hey??): I think they all used to play in surfbands?
(And here goes on a lot of cosy blabbering where we all just love to hear ourselves talk at the same time. Especially Marco and Dimitri!)

Hellcat: Shut up! I´m doing an interview here!!

M: Haaaarh …whooooaaaah ha ha .. (do I hear whisky in that voice, Melanie?).
D: Ups sorry that´s right. We´re doing an interview!?
M: Ha ha ha ha ha ha …
Marco: still blabbering …

Hellcat: Tell me in what way things have changed ´cause I met you guys two years ago when we were playing the smallest stage in the world and now you come to Europe in this big nightliner?
(Melanie is going on about how much fun we all had in The States and how drunk we got - and yeah, she´s right!)

M: No, a lot of things changed since then. I don´t know if our record was even out then?
Hellcat: Yes it was. It has just come out …
M: Oh yeah, that´s right …in 2001 …we released the record ourselves and toured around America for 1½ year selling records from the back of the van. After almost two years we thought ”Well, seems like no recordlabel is really interested. Let´s scrape up some money and do the next album ourselves as well” and then we played at the South By South West festival 2002 in Austin, Texas and suddenly a lot of labels were interested …
D: … and then we picked up a lottery ticket … and we WUN!!!
M: Yeah
J: Yep! (Way to go there jason!)
M: Yeah it did really feel that way ´cause after SXSW 2002 all the labels were suddenly willing to sign our band and that was really weird! But we got a great recorddeal (with V2) and they wanted to re-release our record. We just took that next step and it´s a real cool feeling.

Hellcat: Was the recordlabel satisfied with your album? You didn´t have to re-mix it or anything?

M: No, they were satisfied …
D: All we had to do was re-master it …
M: All the labels we talked to wanted to re-release our album …
D: (in a high-brow voice) ya know, when you got the touch the first time around…
All: Laughing.
M: But now it starts getting a little boring. It´s like ”come on” playing the same old songs live …

Hellcat: It must be about three years since you recorded the album?

M: Yeah, so now we play half´n´half you know, five songs from the album and then new songs …

Hellcat: How come you´ve changed your line-up?

M: We really wanted to. Jason (Mule, Delta 72) is a drummer that we´ve always wanted to play with from the very beginning.
D: We changed because we wanted a heavier sound. Our former drummer was good and he´ll be good in several bands …just …not in a cool rockband. We just came from different places. We got that guy ´cause he was physically able to pull it off but we were never soulmates, you know. And now we have a drummer who has a cool record collection and knows what we´re going for.

Hellcat: So maybe you gotta have at least some references in common?

D: Yeah … I kind of compare it to a bricklayer, you know, Mike was a really good bricklayer. He could build a wall, but you couldn´t raise him really high to the top of the cathedral to do the brickwork up there. It´s a whole different thing. He would vomit and …
M: ha ha ha ha ha …
D: …so we need a drummer who can stand the heights!
Marco (Hmm?Ok, then you go for it wise guy): I just heard your album right before we came here and I can tell you like a lot of different music …
M: We do …
Marco: You like 60´s stuff, you like Dinosour Jr., you like metal … and you also like 70´s stuff like Kiss?
M: yeah definetely …
D: Kiss got me believing in the dark side of rock´nroll, you know, these crazy, firebreathing bloodspitting …
M:… When we were teenagers we listened a lot to heavy like Van Halen and Mötley Crue …
D: … When I was wearing my Mötley Crue t-shirt and Jason went into the rehearsal room first time in his Kiss t-shirt, we simply just fell in love …
All: laughing

Hellcat: Do you have any plans for the future? Dimitri? Are you writing new songs?

D: Plans for the future? We really need some new cellphones that are working, that would leave me with a lot more time to be creative when we don´t have to spend a lot of time looking for eachother ´cause our phones don´t work …
M: No, we have a lot of new songs and we will start recording them this Fall. (Forgot to ask, if the new album will be out on V2 as well, sorry).
D: We´re just hidding for the big bucks (pointing at the big nightliner outside the window) …
All: laughing

(Here we had a solid talk about what it´s like to tour with mega bands , how it´s important that your instrument looks cool, how BB have been playing app. 300 shows, Christiania, nerds with still sealed albums, a lot of goofy talk about shit and vomitting, a lot of laughing and a lot more but the tape ran out - sorry - I´m a bassplayer - not a recording technician, god dammit!)

All the best to the Burning Brides in the future!!!
Check out: www.burningbrides.com