Black
Velvet: Where did you grow up?
Squirrel: I grew up in New York.
BV:
What was school like?
S: I used to do extremely well in school. If I came home with less than
an A + or whatever it may have been on my report card, because my parents
were very, very educated they freaked out and it kind of suddenly turned
out instead of just going to school to learn, I felt like I was working
for them so I rebelled against it. I think basically the fact that I
played hockey kept me in school longer than if I hadn't.
BV:
What music do you listen to?
S: I like a lot of Emo music. I listen to bands like Hum. I love Placebo
but I am also a huge fan of electronic music. I love bands like Wham!,
Portishead and Tricky. Bjork is one of my favourite artists. I pretty
much like anything that for me captures an emotion; where I can feel
something real is going on.
BV:
How did you meet the band?
S: I was doing some work with the band Orgy and Jake Warden asked me
if I wanted to come and produce a couple of Crazy Town tracks. I'd heard
a little bit about who they were and they were big fans of the other
bands I'd been in before. We met and just hit it off pretty instantly.
BV:
Who decided to start the band?
S: Bret, Sep, Shifty and Epic. They'd been working on in a strictly
hip-hop sense for a long time and Epic was a big time hip-hop record
producer. Basically Crazy Town was something that they did just for
fun for the two of them to play for their friends. Bret and Sep were
spending more time partying - they weren't taking anything too seriously.
Epic was producing some other stuff, which he eventually started to
dislike. After they both decided to clean up their act and they were
in rehab writing letters to each other saying let's make this Crazy
Town thing our priority; let's go for this.
BV:
Can you remember your first gig?
S: Yes I can. I was probably thirteen or fourteen years old and at my
high school on every Thanksgiving it was half day. There would be a
concert in the auditorium. My high school was very musical. You would
submit and apply to play in this big festival. The first show I ever
played was to a thousand people. I was like a little kid and my whole
hand went numb. I was playing bass at the time, so I was just kind of
hitting my hand against the strings because I couldn't feel it, but
the second song we played I felt totally at home.
BV:
Where did you get the name Crazy Town?
S: It comes from a lot of different places. In a way it's a reflection
of Los Angeles. Also Seb used to run with a bunch of kids, like a little
skateboard gang called the Westside Crazies. That's where the crazy
portion came from and they kind of ran LA which then makes it Crazy
Town.
BV:
How long did the album take to complete?
S: It took about a month and a half - two months. A lot of the songs
on the record were on the demo, 'Butterfly' was on the demo, 'Revolving
Door' was on the demo, before the band went in to make the record and
the two songs that I ended up producing pretty much went down as we
did them when we were just trying to get the down for a sampler.
BV:
Were there any funny incidents whilst recording the album?
S: Yeah, it was done in LA, which we're not going to do on the next
record because we're not capable of doing it. It becomes the place to
be for everybody in LA. It's on your checklist of places to go. You
know, you can go to this club then go to the studio. So were sitting
there trying to mix down 'B-Boy 2000' with a ton of people and loads
of other bands all crammed into the control room trying to clear people
out, but everyone keep going in there because that's the place to be.
It was a pretty crazy experience.
BV:
Do you socialise with each other?
S: Absolutely. I mean we're seriously like the best of friends. That's
the greatest thing about this and why none of us have really changed
is that we've been away the whole time this thing has blown up. The
whole world around us has changed, but it's been us six best friends
together so we've stayed the same. We came home from Europe last time
and we'd just come off another run of two months on the road. We're
calling each other the next day saying 'I want to go down the hall way
and come over.' We all missed each other. We don't like to be apart
from each other very much.
BV:
Did you think you would be famous in the beginning?
S: Yeah, but it was never a part of the reason why I do this. Been raised
in New York it's like a price to pay for doing what you do. It's all
about the music to me - making records that touch people and doing shows;
giving everything you have. That's why I do this.
BV:
Which is your favourite track off the album?
S: That's a tough question because there's no one specific track. The
translation of the songs… like now that we've got to spend all
this time with this material a lot of the songs have grown way beyond
what they were on the record. I really like 'Hollywood Babylon' for
what it's become not necessarily what it is on the record. I always
really like 'Dark Side'. I think it's a really cool combination of hip
hop. It's a pretty definitive Crazy Town song. If you had to sum up
Crazy Town in one song, 'Dark Side' probably comes closest to it. We
are looking to do different things on every song. You see you can't
really nail us down, but that's okay; that's what we are trying to do.
BV:
Do you find the ladies like 'Butterfly'?
S: The ladies love 'Butterfly'. Their boyfriends love 'Butterfly' because
they love it so much.
BV:
How would you describe your sound?
S: Punk rock/hip hop. That's kind of what it is.
BV:
What do your parents think of your music?
S: They love it. I mean I've been putting out records for a long time.
I remember I used to play them for my mum - her side of the family is
the musical side of the family. My dad kind of caught on when he saw
a band that I was in a long time ago headlining at the Palladium in
New York, we played for about 1500 people and when he saw what was going
on he was like "Oh, I kind of see what my son's doing here".
But I used to play stuff for my mum and she'd be like "turn it
down". The last record I made in the band before this my mum loved
and she didn't tell me to turn it down - if anything she'd say turn
it up. Basically I just kept on doing what I was doing and in a way
my mum came around and got it. All this press and TV we are getting
makes my mum happier. My mum she loves it.
BV:
Which of your contemporaries do you most admire?
S: I really admire the Deftones - love that band. I feel that they really
make their music for themselves. I listen to their records a lot. I
admire Korn for the way they have handled their success. When they broke
through they really tried to bring everyone else with them. That's what
we are trying to capture with our band. It used to be that bands would
fight with each other and hate on each other. We hate player haters
and we hate player hating. When someone player hates on us we try not
to player hate back. That's not what it's all about.
BV:
How much has your life changed since joining the band?
S: It hasn't really. We've been away the whole time and the six of us
have remained the same.
BV:
What are your hopes for the future?
S: For us to have more than just a good run, but be like a cornerstone
band of our day and age. If we could have a career like the Red Hot
Chilli Peppers; that's really what we're trying to do here. Then from
that produce a lot of other records for a lot of other bands who are
doing some cool forward-thinking stuff; keep trying to bring some real
music to the world.
Visit www.crazytown.com for more info.
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