Metal Hammer Interviews John Garcia
FUCK KYUSS! states an angry John Garcia. If there is one thing he no longer wants to talk about, it's his former band. Robyn Doreian catches up with Slo Burn's vocalist at the Boston date of the Ozzfest tour.
Slo Burn have completed the day's 40 minute set on the Ozzfest tour. John Garcia is relaxing in the small lounge area at the rear of the tour bus. The frontman is watching golf videos, knocking back a few beers and inhaling the odd pipe of Mother Nature's 'erb. He is insistent that the song 'In the Summertime' by '70s UK pop group Mungo Jerry plays over and over again whilst we speak. It is a tune he simply can't get enough of --what he calls "the ultimate fishing song".
The vocalist is an incredibly passionate man. He's passionate about music, animals, fishing, Slo Burn and the people around him. At the slightest provocation, he will wax lyrical about any of the above topics, but when you mention the "K" word, the usually mellow frontman almost jumps out of his chair.
"I am sick and tired of hearing about Kyuss! Fuck Kyuss right up the fucking arse!" he exclaims. "I even hate people bringing up Kyuss. We are going to have that comparison of course, but even if Slo Burn wanted to sound like Kyuss, we couldn't, wouldn't want to, and I am glad all this Kyuss shit is getting out of the way for a four song EP and not our album.
"Kyuss was good and it has got Slo Burn's foot in the door, but we will definitely make a name for ourselves. This is not John Garcia and Slo Burn, and I don't want it to be. We are a band of equally talented people who share mutual ideas of how we want to play together, yet you get these bands who want to sell a million records--fuck all that shit!"
"If I wanted to, I couldn't even try to do that. Kyuss couldn't sell a million records and Slo Burn won't either, I guarantee it. It's just that certain type of crowd, whether that's a 14 year old kid who listens to our music on the way to school in his mum's BMW through to the 45 year old speed freed who cooks speed out in the desert springs where we're from who listen to us. It doesn't matter, but Slo Burn will never sell a million records. It just doesn't have that appeal."
"I don't give a fuck if we play in front of five or 500,000 people, we'll still be doing what we want to do the way we want to do it. I will never stop playing our music no matter what. This is how passionate we are about our music."
He also holds reservations about the band's appropriateness for the Ozzfest bill.
"Slo Burn doesn't belong on this Ozzfest tour, but I would be a goddamn idiot if I had turned down a tour with Black Sabbath. You've got to be kidding!"
"We don't belong with some of the bands on the second stage like Downset, Drain STH, Vision of Disorder, no question in my mind! Our music has a lot of feeling and a lot of melody and a lot of heart behind it and there is nothing around that even comes close to it. Slo Burn doesn't belong, for lack of better words, because we're too pretty, we're too beautiful. Our music has too much emotion and feeling to be pigeonholed in something so metal. That is not to say that these are not great bands, as I really like Neurosis and Coal Chamber, but all we do is play music we want to hear. Everything else is just bullshit."
As a teenager growing up in Palm Springs, John couldn't help but be influenced by the sounds coming out of his elder brother's room--Earth, Wind and Fire, Maurice White, KC and the Sunshine Band--whilst his sister tuned into Kiss and Pink Floyd. But there is one man who is totally responsible for inspiring John Garcia to take up singing. You can blame it all on Ian Astbury, the former Cult frontman.
"I can remember being a freshman in high school sitting in a photography class when this guy there played me 'She Sells Sanctuary' and after hearing it, that was all I listened to. I collected
everything Ian did on vinyl--Southern Death Cult, Cult, badges, pins, stickers, patches."
"He has influenced me more than anybody, particularly the emotion he used when he sings. Some of his songs could be played at weddings or funerals and have such a diverse range of feelings. He is my idol. Ian Astbury means more to me than my family members! He is one of my all-time favourite singers, up there with Chris Goss, Jim Morrison and Robert Plant."
Does Ian know the extent of your admiration?
"I met him twice. Once at the Roxy in Hollywood, and then I spoke to him very briefly at this place called the Cat and Fiddle in Hollywood when he was doing an interview."
"I never really wanted to go up to him and tell him how much he meant to me. I left it alone. I didn't want to ruin anything. It is best left a mystery to me. I can never talk highly enough of him, how his music makes me feel; depressed, happy, sad, and even emotions I have never felt before. It is a phenomenon and whenever I think about him, I imagine him in the 'Love' phase. I hope he reads this."
Another of John's passions is fellow desert band Masters of Reality, whose vocalist Chris Goss produced Slo Burn's 'Amusing the Amazing' EP and whose Palm Springs Monkey Studios they have used as a location to record their debut album. The band have toured extensively as a double bill throughout the States and are set to do the same in the UK. In a further outburst of enthusiasm, John lunges towards me, takes another toke from the pipe of death and, inches away from my face exclaims, "Masters of Reality's 'How High is the Moon' is one of my top five favourite records of all time. If this record does not sell and if people don't get into this, I am willing to take my dick and put it on a cutting board and chop it off myself!"
Such is the passion of John Garcia that he is close to tears.
"Chris Goss has produced all the Kyuss records and I cannot talk highly enough about him. He is totally amazing, but bands like Masters and Slo Burn are the last of a dying breed. Rock 'n' roll is about nothing but feeling and to Damon Garrison, Chris Hale and Brady Houghton, every piece of music means something different to all of us and is nothing but what we feel."
"It's not some punk, psychedelic, thrash, weird shit we do and we are the four most normal guys that ever came out of rock 'n' roll. We hate the words 'rock star'; they are dirty words in my book."
"When it comes to my past life and what I have been through, it has no real influence on the music I write. Me being hit in the fucking mouth with a red steel grip fucking work boot and going to the hospital for reconstructive surgery or my dad beating the shit out of me has no influence on me or my music whatsoever."
"We are recording the music we want to hear. We don't want to do anything more than that. The new record is not going to have any filler songs, no B sides. Fuck all that industry shit where you have people coming up to you telling you what you should be doing. We are recording the music we want to hear. We don't want to do anything more than that."
"When the album is released, the 'Amusing the Amazing' EP will be re-released on blue vinyl without the lyrics, something for collectors like myself. I love vinyl. We will always release it."
When Kyuss disbanded in 1995, John went back to college and took up his former position at a veterinary surgery caring for animals, but it wasn't too long before he was lured back by the love of playing music. So what was it like when you stepped out on stage again for the first time in a new band?
"It was actually horrible! The first time I performed after Kyuss broke up, we were booed and had shit thrown at us, but that shit didn't make any difference to me. I don't give a fuck if people like me or not, I'll still be doing what I do, working with animals, playing with three guys who have the same integrity as me and touring the countryside. I could never live in a big city. Just give me a small town, my soon to be wife, a little fucking truck, my horses and a little pond in the back to go fishing, and I'll be happy."
Did you put off playing at all?
"Oh no! In particular, I really want to play London again. I love England and Europe, but I'll have to be honest here: the first time I was in England, I didn't like it and it was only on the second trip that I got into it."
"I'm such a big fish 'n' chips fan and was really looking forward to having the original real deal, so when we got off the plane, I really wanted some. I went to this restaurant and I saw this cod or whatever the fish was and these chips there and they were already fried. They were under this heat lamp and then they put this fish that was already cooked back in the oil and fried it again, and likewise with the chips. I got all these bones and I didn't feel too well after eating them. That was my first experience of it and it kind of got off to a bad start, but I'd really like to get over there and try it again."
As is the custom on the Ozzfest tour, most second stage acts perform additional shows after their 40 minute minutes at nearby venues later that evening and on days off. The Slo Burn tour bus prepares to drive off to such a venue. By this time, John Garcia's best friend and traveling companion from the desert has joined him in the back lounge for more beer and further interludes with the pipe of death.
As I leave the bus, 'In the Summertime' is making its 30th rotation for the evening and a golfer is heading for the eighth hole on the video screen. I keep thinking about Masters of Reality and John's manhood endangering threat. If they don't sell any records, it may not only be John's fishing days that come to an end. For his sake I hope that record goes gold!
John Garcia's Fishing Tips
Music to Fish By
"'In the Summertime' by Mungo Jerry. It is the ultimate fishing record. I love that song"
When to Go Fishing
"I go every chance I get. I love it--it is my favourite pastime."
Recommended Bait
"Live worms, lures and that's pretty much it. I am a simple fisherman. I just dip my pole in the water and see if I catch anything."
Sport or Food
"The majority of the time, I don't eat them. I catch and release. Occasionally, when I am with some good friends and we're a little hungry, we'll cook them."