WORLD WAR IX By Janelle Jones
Anytime you go to a World War IX show, you pretty much know you can count on there being mayhem, drunkenness, and general debauchery galore – and, well, yeah, of course some highly-charged, kick-ass punk. And when LFR caught up with the band at the lovely 169 Bar in NYC at one of their early-April gigs, things were no different. In addition to the aforementioned guarantees, during our pre-show chat we couldn’t escape trashy, seedy surroundings and stealing some nice keepsakes. (Note that’s what the whole beginning of the interview is about. I included it because I thought it was funny. But you probably won’t.)
Adding to the lunacy of the night was the act who went on just before WWIX called THE SHAYDES, who were just out of control, all playing with various lampshades on their heads (hence the name), some replete with cut-out eye and mouth holes. One dude totally had a Leatherface shade going on there. But we’re not here to ruminate on THE SHAYDES, as loveable as they were. No, we’re here to delve into the minds of one of NYC’s best bands, WWIX, who’ve put out two releases thus far: 2004’s full-length ‘Panic Attack’ and last year’s single, ‘When a Good Time Turns to Shit’ (both on Elis Eil), which features this writer’s favorite song of theirs – “Treasure Hunt,” a morally-sound tune about searching for pills in someone else’s house. Intrigued? Read on to find out what makes these punks – drummer Jon Kleinman, bassist Annick Des Roches, vocalist/songwriter Max Strum, and guitarist/songwriter Justin Melkmann – tick.
DO YOU WANT THE PUKE BUCKET [TO SIT ON]?
MAX: I want the puke bucket. I want them to puke in that bucket.
JON: How about the dirty mop water?
MAX: This is a filthy… I can’t wait until I steal that CPR kit. That is fantastic.
JON: Someone might die!
[SARCASTICALLY] DUDE! THAT’S WRONG!
MAX: We’re racing against who’s gonna steal this first.
JON: What?
MAX: That CPR kit.
JUSTIN: What if someone chokes to death in this bar tomorrow?
JON: That’s just what I said. [Laughter] “Oh no! Where is it?”
OH IT’S PACKAGED. IT’S NOT READILY AVAILABLE ANYWAY.
MAX: I’m on that. I’m absolutely on that…All right. Let’s get this nightmare over with.
[LAUGHTER] OKAY, I’M THINKING TO START WITH THE TIRED, CLICHED QUESTION: WHERE’D YOU GET THE BAND NAME?
JUSTIN: From a band called DRUNKS WITH GUNS and they had a single where the guitar player’s six- or seven-year-old sister does all the vocals and it’s just crazy and nuts and disturbing and fun. So it comes from a DRUNKS WITH GUNS tune called “WW IX.”
SO YOU TWO [MAX AND JUSTIN] WERE THE ORIGINAL GUYS WHO STARTED IT UP.
JUSTIN: Yes.
MAX: I guess you could say that. [Laughter] You’re not trying to break us up are you?
YEAH. I AM.
MAX: He’s deeply offended.
JUSTIN: Right. We’re the Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of the band, if you will. [Laughter] I’ll be Gene if that’s all right.
MAX: We started the band and went through bassists and Annick came in early on.
ANNICK: I got a nice call one night.
MAX: Yeah. One night we [had to play a show] and the bassist didn’t show up, and I knew Annick, so she became the bassist. Then we went through some drummers.
WHEN WOULD YOU SAY THE LINE-UP WAS SOLIDIFIED? 2003 or 2002?
JUSTIN: When did you join?
JON: 2003.
SO YOU RECORDED ON THE ALBUM AND EVERYTHING.
JON: Mmhmm.
JUSTIN: We did a demo with another drummer that wasn’t nearly as good – I mean the demo.
MAX: The demo never went anywhere, and then we recorded the record with this man.
JON: Well I hadn’t seen Justin in about 10 years and I’d known him for a really long time. And I ran into him at a comic book show and he was saying they were looking for a drummer and I’d sorta said I’m not gonna play anymore in any bands. I hadn’t been playing for a while. But I listened to the demo and they’re right, it kinda sucked. And then I covertly came and saw them.
JUSTIN: The tunes were there.
JON: Right. I saw them and I said their songwriting was amazing. The songs were so great. And I remember listening to that crummy demo. I was working in Brooklyn. I listened to it like 100 times. I was so psyched to come down and play with these guys.
MAX: Everything except the drums sucked. I mean, everything sucked except the uh...
JON: Are you trying to compliment me or...?
MAX: No, no, everything but the drums.
ANNICK: I think he’s saying that it’s a crummy demo?
EVERYTHING FIT EXCEPT THE DRUMS.
JUSTIN: Exactly.
YEAH, I GOT THAT. [LAUGHS] SO NOW YOU HAVE THE TWO RELEASES. ‘PANIC ATTACK’ AND THE SINGLE.
MAX: Yeah, we have ‘Panic Attack,’ which we call the LP and then the single, which has three songs on the disc.
THREE SONGS?
JUSTIN: The single is ‘When a Good Time Turns to Shit.’ That’s only two songs - “Treasure Hunt” and “Intervention.”
SO WHAT’S THE THIRD MYSTERIOUS SONG?!
MAX: That new one. It’s under lock and key.
JUSTIN: We’re in dispute with our friends right now.
MAX: A long-term plan. We maybe can’t give it up, right? Our long-term plan is to release these two- or three-song singles and then put them all together on one LP instead of recording songs we’ve played for the past few years.
JON: We’re gonna keep on releasing singles rather then go in and just record a whole new album. We’re gonna take all the singles and just put ‘em out as an album.
ANNICK: So we’re not gonna have a concept album?
WHAT WOULD THE CONCEPT BE?!
ANNICK: Penguins.
AY YES I READ ABOUT THAT ON YOUR SITE.
JUSTIN: What is your version of the ninth World War?
ANNICK: Oh you know penguins, robots. A giant squid.
ROBOTS. STEPHEN COLBERT HAS A THING AGAINST ROBOTS.
JUSTIN: He does! [Laughter]
JON: We recorded [‘Panic Attack’], the 11 songs in like three or four hours.
JUSTIN: One shot. No more than three takes.
MAX: We always refer people to our Website. We have a dedicated crew of people – Mike Perkins taking photos, Mike McGreggor, Annick’s valuable boyfriend doing the Website.
JUSTIN YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT THE ARTWORK FOR THE RECORDS?
JUSTIN: I do cartoons and so the artwork for the record is just the classic WWII nasty-ass photo but then I did drawings for each of the tunes and for the single I did the cover. I spent probably a good solid three years of my life living at Doc Holidays and so I was able to take all that imagery and put it into cartoons. So the single is that artwork. And now I’m doing a comic that comes out in the ‘New York Waste’ every month that’s about the band.
BUT ALSO ABOUT ‘PANIC ATTACK,’ I SAW SOME OF THE REVIEWS YOU HAVE POSTED ON YOUR SITE.
JUSTIN: Good stuff, right?
THERE HAPPENED TO BE ONE FROM A COLLEAGUE, ROB CORDDRY. HAS HE EVER COME OUT TO SEE YOU GUYS? [SEE, JUSTIN WORKS AT ‘THE DAILY SHOW’...]
JUSTIN: Oh yeah. The review said something about eating a pot brownie and freaking out. We put on a show, it was P5 ‘Pussy Magazine’ show. A fundraiser. And we hadn’t been playing out that much and the show seemed like it was gonna be hot shit, so I was like, “Hey Rob” ‘cause everyone at [‘The Daily Show’] gets along and I was like, “You gotta come down to the show.” Sure enough he showed up and the lovely P5 makes pot brownies and pot cupcakes. So he ate I think two of them and he freaked out. He was pretty much losing his shit...
JON: He quit doing drugs after that.
JUSTIN: Yeah, that was the last night he did drugs. [Laughter] And it was funny ‘cause we were all going nuts and it was just like totally bonkers and fun and it was just like a super show. Then we see like two years later a videotape and everyone’s standing around like mannequins. [Laughter] But it FELT like a fucking whirlwind hurricane show at the time. And we were standing as still as human beings can possibly get. [Laughter]
SO YOU DON’T DO THAT ANYMORE?
JUSTIN: Do what?
“THE POT.”
JUSTIN: Oh I do. Yeah.
JON: No, we’re just talking about Rob Corddry. HE quit drugs after that night. Not any of us. …It was pretty cool to see that. I didn’t know that was actually a true story. It was kinda cool ‘cause he did this whole thing in ‘Filter’ magazine about the history of his experience with music. Music and drugs. And the whole thing, at the end of it he says, “I ate a pot brownie at a WWIX show and I never touched weed again.”
JUSTIN: And “Guided by Voices broke up.” [Laughs] All in one sentence.
MAX: And tonight we’re gonna do a Guided by Voices cover...
SO [YOUR SONGS,] YOU HAVE LIKE “INTERVENTION,” “FUCKED UP ALL THE TIMe"... THERE’S ALMOST A THEME GOING ON...
JUSTIN: A drug-problem theme. [Laughter] Well that we share. Drugs, alcohol, anxiety. That’s it. We write about drugs and alcohol and hanging out in bars and all the anxiety that shit provokes. And the fact that it is a cyclical situation that we seem to get ourselves into knowingly and rejoicingly. And that’s what the band’s about. I will wake up on a Sunday morning and beat the shit outta myself and be like, “Oh, I feel like crap, I feel like shit,” and then I realize, well, this is where some good songs come from and some good drawings come from. It’s a tough balance because it’s SO MUCH fun on Friday and Saturday and then it’s a nightmare. It’s a fuckin’ living nightmare.
JON: A living hell.
JUSTIN: Somewhere in between is where we all get our inspiration from.
JON: It’s more a cautionary tale. That’s what I like about Max and Justin’s writing. Because if it was just purely glorifying it, I couldn’t really get behind it. But it’s really about the self-humiliation, which is so funny. I mean, there’s something very funny, self-deprecating about it. It’s just humorous. But if it was all serious, I couldn’t get behind it at all. Like “This is so great.” It’s fucking terrible.
JUSTIN: If we were too serious or too jocular it would be not good. But it’s a little of both.
BUT ANOTHER THING I WANTED TO ASK YOU ABOUT WAS THE ‘NEW YORK SHITTY PUNK ROCK’ COMPILATION (ON ATTENTION PUNX RECORDS).
JUSTIN: Oh it’s great.
WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?
MAX: It’s just bands that we play with all the time and share being a part of current NYC music with. Most of all the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS and bands like that.
JUSTIN: We’ve played for a while where we’d just get calls to play shows and end up playing with some fucking blues band or some fucking like gypsy band. We played with all these gypsy bands, all these people with like Stevie Nicks-type looking things and we’d always be pissed off like what the fuck are we doing in this type of situation? And eventually we started to play out with some awesome bands.
OH AND I JUST WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW YOU PUT THE ALBUM AND SINGLE OUT. IS THAT YOUR RECORD LABEL?
MAX: Oh, Elis Eil, that’s Jon’s record label. Jon had a pre-existing record label.
JON: Yeah, I was doing the label up in Boston before I moved down to NY. I moved down here and started getting together with these guys and I’d done a couple of records and it wasn’t hard to do. It didn’t cost a lot of money. I was working with a NY company to get it distributed and play it on the radio and we went in and just recorded the thing in a day, and then it took a little longer to get the stuff back. And through the guys I was working with it got a lot of national, international airplay. It was really amazing.
I LOVE HOW EVERYONE IS LEAVING. THIS IS THE FUNNIEST INTERVIEW EVER.
JON: Yeah... [The label] is completely indie. We’re sorta doing everything we wanna do: We’re putting on our own shows with Lock It In Productions. We’re putting out our own records with Ellis Eil Records, and that’s fine. What I like about working with Justin and Max and Annick is it’s like you’re not trying to get somewhere. No, we’re doing it now. Just to be in a NYC punk band, to me, there’s nothing better that you could want.
www.worldwarix.com www.myspace.com/worldwarix www.eliseil.com
Crazy Glen Wernig, New York Waste
1. Let's start off with everyone introducing himself or herself so that the readers can have an inkling as to which you all are.
JM: I’m Justin Melkmann, and I play guitar. I used to be a dog person, but now I’m a cat person.
JK: Jon Kleinman, drums.
ADR: My name is Annick Des Roches. I’m 30 years old, live in Brooklyn, and I like ice cream, knitting and my brand new hobby, canoeing. Canoeing is fun, except if you tip over. I also play bass in the rock band World War IX, which is a fun can of worms to have opened!
MS: I’m Max Strum. I’m the front man, teacher, idiot savant, amateur physician and linguist.
2. How long ago was the band formed? How do you know each other?
MS: WWIX was formed in October of 2001 when my new girlfriend introduced Justin and me. The moment we met we knew we had to form a band because we had uncannily similar interest in immature music, tawdry entertainment, bathroom humor, self-abuse and cheap booze.
JK: I joined in June of 2003. I knew Justin from years ago because he was a friend with my roommate in college. I ran into him again at a comic book release party on 14th street. I hadn’t seen him in years. It turned out that I knew Max’s girlfriend Alison (of The Pill) who also was friends with that same guy from years ago too. Next thing I knew I was in the band.
3. What are your musical backgrounds?
JM: I took piano lessons for about two years when I was in grade school and hated every fucking second of it. Practice was punishment. My pants were always too tight and my teacher had a turkey neck that made me gag. Other wise The Amazing Chord Finder has taught me everything I know. Oh, and back in college Simona from The Stags schooled me on Sympathy for The Devil
JK: When I was 10 I started playing the snare drum in the elementary school band, then in the Jr. high School marching band in seventh grade. I wanted to play the one set of cool tom-toms that a big eighth grader played. When he was sick one week I started playing them during band practice. When he got back to school he wanted them back and when I refused to turn them over he beat me up. I got a real drum set after that, it was safer.
ADR: Started playing violin when I was 4 and hated every second of it until I stopped at 15. I opted for the piano, which was a big mistake – except that it taught me all about the bass clef! About 5 years ago I decided I wanted to play in a rock and roll band, so I took up the bass guitar. It’s been thumpy ever since.
MS: Upstate punk band 1990-92 called Worried! It was awesome. Once when we played in a farm field my buddy killed a swan, cooked it right there in the field, and proceeded to eat it in a drunken stupor. He then got beat up by an angry crowd and the show ended. That was the band’s last show cause I hit the drummer with a mike stand in the riot that ensued. Other than that, no training.
4. Who are your musical and non-musical influences?
JM: Musical influences would be GG Allin, The Stones, The Ramones, Black Flag, etc…you know…same as every other asshole with a guitar below 14th street. Non-musical influences? GG Allin, early John Waters’s movies, The Little Rascals, having to go to work day in and day out.
JK: Keith Moon, John Bonham, The Clash, The Ramones, Comic Books, Woody Allen, The Marx Brothers, Psychology, New York City
ADR: Well, it all started back in 2nd grade when my Grandmother went into a Sam Goody’s to buy me a cassette tape of the 50’s vocalist/sex symbol Abbe Lane as a first communion present. The guy at the record store convinced her that she must really be looking for the Beatles’ Abbey Road, so luckily Abbey Road became my very first pop music album which I listened to pretty much non-stop until the tape began to squeak. With the advice of my brother, I started listening the Kinks, the Who and Rush, until about 10th grade when I was turned on to punk, post-punk and New Wave. Top 5 favorite bands: The Kinks, Camper Van Beethoven, The Smiths, and The Pixies
MS: I was a Sunday matinee guy at CB’s all through the 80’s. My favorite hang was The Pipeline in Newark, in CT The Anthrax etc. I know this question is about music but if you were at those places you know the music. My favorite bands have always been West Coast like Black Flag, The Adolescents, and Circle Jerks. I also love Discharge, Rudimentary Peni, Poison Idea, and GG. I love powerful as fuck entertainment what can I say. I love that tingling feeling you get when you see a band going above and beyond sanity and power. I love The Kinks, I love industrial music, I love metal like Celtic Frost, Slayer, Exodus, Merciful Fate, and Priest etc. anything that is honestly expressive.
5. What are some of your pet peeves?
JM: People who complain…I HATE people who complain. I hate waiting in lines, people who take up all of the sidewalk, shopping for anything besides music, subways that stop in the middle of the tunnel, terror, George W. Bush who ruined EVERYTHING………man, I could go on forever.
JK: When fast food places begin to refer to themselves by the nicknames that the public called them, then make it their official name, like when the International House of Pancakes started calling itself ‘IHOP,’ that really annoyed me. People who get wasted and repeat themselves all night long, talking about their big plans that are always forgotten about the next day aggravate me. I also try to avoid people (other than Justin and Max) that attempt to pull me into their anxieties.
ADR: Women who wear shoes that impairs their ability to walk up and down subway steps, Ronald Reagan lovers, code orange terrorist alerts, and alternate side of the street parking rules. I also hate when bands “step-out”, the cult of the celebrity and most-of-all, Tom Hanks.
MS: Ironic trucker caps. Too many others to list.
6. What, to you, is a successful show?
JM: The best shows are the shows that I completely loose myself. Tons of sweat, laughs, and if we can get people really shaking their asses, or fists, I like to play with bands that DON’T clear the room. Oh, that’s another pet peeve of mine, bands that TRY and clear a room.
JK: If I can’t really remember what happened during the show because we played with total abandon, that to me is a big success, it doesn’t matter if we played everything perfectly or how many people were there.
ADR: When I make a maximum of 2 small mistakes and when people dance.
MS: I’m with Jon on this one—when we play a show that would make my spine tingle watching it…when people forget the small shit that clogs up their everyday life. When its pure energy and I feel sated and happily exhausted—like seeing Black Flag play Rise Above, or Pig Champion, a 300 pound man flying through the air covered with blood. When we deliver the goods.
7. Where did you get your name?
JM: One of my all time favorite bands is this nutty little known sludge act called Drunks W/ Guns. They don’t have too much material, but they do have this insane collection of seven inches that feature the guitar player’s 7-year old sister on vocals, really, funny and creepy shit. One of their tunes is a 45-second song called World War IX and although it’s from uh…the late 80’s I think, it’s VERY timely.
8. Who writes songs and what are they about?
JM/MS: Max and I write the music and lyrics while Jon and Annick develop great arrangements and phrasing. I tend to write the pop tunes with the silly words. Max writes the more serious/dark songs. It’s safe to say ALL of our songs are about substance abuse and anxiety and either being enveloped in, or overcoming them. Good times. We do have one love song; it’s called, I like You. Other themes are serial killings in Body Dump, searching for drugs in people’s houses in Treasure Hunt, hangovers in Level 10 and shit media reporting: In The News. We also have a new one about the sad, degraded world of child modeling websites called Pre-Teen Supermodel. The whole band chooses the cover songs.
9. What do you guys do when you’re not blowing the top off of clubs?
JM: I work at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which is fucking great. I draw comics, that can be seen right here in The New York Waste and on our website. I like to hang out with friends and drink seltzer- like beer. I love taking walks and riding my bike around Brooklyn.
JK: Being a family man, hanging out with my wife and 6-month old son Joseph.
ADR: I think it’s easier to talk about what things I don’t do, which are not partaking in group sports, not watching group sports and most of all not talking about group sports. What else don’t I do? Hang gliding, bungee jumping and roller coaster riding – give me the tilt-a-whirl any day – I’ll leave those thrill rides to the rest of the band.
MS: I am an ESL teacher at a private school and just finished my Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics. I also bartend at a bar in Brooklyn called Matchless and am an avid motorcyclist. I love travel and am a returned Peace Corps volunteer: Ukraine 96-99, where I taught high school and explored the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. I also enjoy long walks on the beach and baths with perfumed water and rose petals and candles floating on the surface while reading light novels like Finnegan’s Wake while listening to the soothing sounds of Bridge Over Troubled Water.
10. What advice would you give your fans to improve their daily lives?
JM: TRY to be positive. It’s hard though, because pissing and moaning can be so much fun, right? Hobbies are the most important thing.
JK: Forget about being ‘right’ and making others ‘wrong.’ Once you give that up, it’s much easier to deal with everything. Also, contrary to popular belief smoking pot all the time doesn’t make you a dangerous rebel; it actually makes you kind of unmotivated and stupid. Do some pushups instead.
ADR: My dentist once told me to floss twice a day, and I have the utmost faith in anyone who can rid my mouth of pain.
MS: Firstly, buy our new CD Panic Attack and religiously visit our website at www.worldwarix.com! Learn geography and cultures. If walking around late at night always be aware of who is around you on the street so you don’t get jumped or fall victim to a blindside mugging. Also, when choosing meat at the supermarket take from the back where the newer product is placed. Drink to forget.
