Iron Maiden. XBXRX. One was one of the largest heavy metal bands to come out of Britain in the '80s, engulfing large arenas in some of the most absurd metal-melodramas ever concocted (and recently threatening to do it all over again with a reunited line up.) The other is one of the loudest, craziest punk rock bands to ever come out of Mobile, Alabama, engulfing small audiences in barages of silly string and punk rock mayhem. The only thing in common between the two is the fact that I listened to tapes of both at work today. Iron Maiden's A Real Live One, featuring a replacment singer, was some of the worst metal noodling and synthezer-drek heavy metal ever put on tape. In contrast, XBXRX's Love Songs for the Blind was an amazing blast of furiously loose punk rock, packed with fun and funny choruses, totally awesome synthsizer bleeps and squawks, culminating in a noise meltdown comaparable in intensity to the Stooges "L.A. Meltdown."

If I had to make a list of the worst ten albums of the '90s, A Real Live One would be somewhere on the list. Conversely, Love Songsfor the Blind has already made my list of top ten albums of the '90s. Thus, it was with much anticipation that I booked the XBXRX kids (and legal adults) a show in old New Orleans, opening up for another fave, the Morning Forty Federation. Although XBXRX played for not more than 20 minutes, it was really cool to see them bash out their songs in masks and their trademark kahki XBXRX uniforms. Afterwards, I spoke to three of the members, Chris, Michael and Steve, about their band, touring, UFOs, and their abs. Being in New Orleans, the interview was informal, with my friends (and abstract-expressionist painters) Eric Buchanon and Suzanne Saunders, and my-then girlfriend, Les, throwing in a few questions.

Press: I'm here with XBXRX. Is it Chris?

Chris: Chris

Press: Chris?

Chris: Yes.

Press: I thought you all had nicknames?

Chris: My name is Nix.

Press: Oh, you're Nixon?

Chris: Yeah, Nix.

Michael: I'm Michael, a.k.a. Timberwolf.

Steve: Steve, a.k.a., Steve-o.

Press: Is this your first gig in the Crescent City?

Chris: Yes.

Press: What did you think?

Michael: It took us a year and a half to get here.

Chris: It's beautiful. It's perfect.

Press: It was a great show

Michael: Thank you.

Press: despite the lack of a p.a.

(everyone laughs)

Chris: Who needs a p.a. though.

Press: It was still very, very high energy. How do you do shows? Are you in school?

Chris: Yeah, me and Steve are in high school.

Press: You just do them on weekends?

Chris: Yeah and sometimes, we just don't go to school and do shows anyway.

Michael: Basically like vacations and shit like that, we do a lot of shows.

Les: Are you not in high school?

Michael: No, I'm in college.

Chris: Yeah, our age range is from 15 to 24.

Press: How old are you?

Chris: Seventeen.

Michael: Nineteen.

Steve: Fifteen.

Press: You're the youngin'? How old is Kitty?

Chris: Nineteen.

Press: How did you get that older woman hanging around y'all?

Chris: It's a long story. Me and her were an `item' at one point.

Press: Oh

Chris: Me, her and Steve-o

(everyone): Whoooaa!

Chris: No, no, no This is what I'm leading up to, you see, one night we were in my bedroom

(everyone): Whoooaa!

Chris: and we decided to make music.

(everyone): Whoooaa!

Chris: So she grabbed the synthesizer

(everyone): Whoooaa!

Chris: I grabbed my axe

(everyone): Whoooaa!

Chris: Steve-o grabbed his axe and we went crazy and recorded stuff on the four-track.

(everyone): Whoooooooaa!

Press: That is stunning. This is Suzanne.

Suzanne: Yeah, I saw you guys in Mississippi... I missed you by a hair tonight, I'm sorry.

Press: Quintron said a UFO flew over during your set. I swear to God, did he tell you that?

Chris: Yeah, that's what he said.

Press: He said, "We came in right during the ending and right before we came in there was this huge, red fireball going down and it landed over in Metairie" or something like that.

Chris: It had something to do with us.

Press: It was like, the disturbance in the air was drawing UFOs. The unleashed power of XBXRX.

Les: Do you guys have problems getting into clubs?

Chris: Illinois was the only place we had a problem.

Les: Do you guys all grow mustaches before you go so you look older?

Chris: I can't grow a mustache. I can grow like, a dirty Mexican.

Suzanne: What are you all saying?

Press: Who here can grow a mustache?

Michael: Suzanne.

Chris: Maybe in about ten years I can grow something. Right now I have like patches of a couple hairs.

Press: Kinda like a wolfman?

Chris: I have patches just like my dad.

Press: Was that your dad taping the show tonight?

Chris: Yeah, he's the old guy.

Press: You seem like you got a lot of love, to and from the audience. I saw you hugging Kent, the bassist from the 40s.

Chris: I didn't know who he was, but I gave him a hug anyway.

Press: What was your craziest gig?

Steve: Webster, Massachusetts.

Chris: Webster, Massachusetts. See my pants with the duct tape? Well the zipper, and a big hole right there because the people ripped my pants off of me.

Michael: That wasn't in Webster, that was Palmer.

Chris: Palmer, Massachusetts.

Michael: Webster was where we played for two people.

Steve: Webster was cool because the guy who set the show up didn't show up 'til like, hours after it was supposed to happen and the venue didn't know there was a show.

Chris: We played for two people and it was our best show. There's some top-secret stuff that we did in Fair Hope, Alabama that we have to save for the Spellcaster show. It's top secret, you'll have to wait and see.

Press: Well you have like, an arsenal. You got the X'ettes

Chris: We have the X'ettes and T. Danza

Press: You got all these crazy moves.

Chris: We try to keep it that way.

Press: Did you always do that? How did the moves evolve? Did you just start doing it at a show?

Steve: We just got really like, bored doing the same shit and like, watching videos of our shows and falling asleep.

Chris: Our first couple of shows, we just like, stood there and we thought it was all great whenever we moved like this (motions back and forward). Nixon moving back and forth. Then we sat back and watched it and we realized it sucked a lot. We try to just like we can get away with losing our minds doing that. If we did it right now, people would think we're crazy. If we do it live, hopefully people enjoy it.

Press: You can hide behind the music.

Michael: We've been called bad musicians but good entertainers.

Eric: You want a backdrop? I'll give you my number, my name's Eric, Eric Buchanon. You want a backdrop, I got paintings. It'd be cool.

Michael: Is it anal sex?

Eric: No, they're just like

Press: Maybe you could do like a Frenchy-type, XBXRX painting. My friend Frenchy paints bands while they perform.

Michael: Cool.

Chris: Really? Serious?

Press: Yeah. You guys move so fast, I can't see him keeping up.

Eric: So how's your abs?

Chris: My abs?

(everyone laughs)

Chris: They're working.

Eric: That's good.

Michael: Did I miss something here?

Press (to Eric): You didn't even see the show! What are talking about? (to Chris) Do you break a lot of stuff? It looks pretty abusive, the whole show.

Chris: I have some bruises.

Michael: I have some scratches.

Press: It's kinda like Chevy Chase.

Chris: We usually get bruised.

Press: Where are you guys from?

Chris: Mobile, Alabama.

Steve: The Mobile, Alabama area

Press: Greater Mobile.

Steve: Yeah, greater Mobile.

Chris: The beautiful city of Mobile, Alabama, where you can't go out during the day because of the ozone alerts, unless you want to get cancer.

Michael: It's fucked up, like old people can't go outside, you can't go outside and exercise, and infants can't go outside.

Press: Really? It sounds worse than even New Orleans.

Michael: It's stupid chemical plants.

Chris: There's a bunch of stupid chemical plants.

Press: How long have you been together?

Chris: Sinceas a full band, April of '98.

Michael: Since December of '97 we were a three piece. The lineup we have now was December '98.

Chris: But the first set, as a three piece was just a complete racket. Just like, screaming and noise.

Press: Just total noise.

Chris: Yeah, basically.

Press: It was very noisy tonight. I could hear what you were playing, but it was kinda a barrage effect. I heard some of the melodies, but the rest of the crowd was a little

Chris: It's pretty messy.

Press: but there was such high energy it made up for it.

Chris: Stuff stopped working.

Press: Yeah, I saw the keyboardist was down, the p.a. went down.You didn't play "Fonzie."

Michael: We've never played that one. Our bass player can't sing it. He doesn't know the words anymore. It's like, the biggest regret of his life.

Press: I was hoping you'd do "Go Ape" for us. "Go Ape" must be a classic.

Chris: Yeah.

Press: I was hoping to see some "Go Ape."

Michael: Yeah. If we had a classic it's that. That was a work of art.

Press: Because I saw that in Mississippi and you had extra guys running around with bananas in their mouths.

Les: What happened to the cheerleaders tonight?

Michael: They stayed home.

Chris: There's like, a homecoming game tonight.

Press: Oh, the cheerleaders are at homecoming!

Chris: They sold us out for homecoming.

Michael: We sold homecoming out for you guys. Not that we would go anyways.

Chris: One day they're gonna replace us in the band.

Press: I got M&Ms in my bag. I was gonna give 'em to you to throw out during the show.

Michael: We had one show where people threw vegetables at us, like tomatoes and cucumbers. That was fucked up.

Press: The thing is, your show is so crazy, you can't damage it in any way.

Michael: It's already insane and chaotic.

Press: There's nothing negative that could happen to your show. The whole idea is high-energy chaos.

Chris: I'm glad the people here were like, responsive. That's what I like.

Press: You really should've played a lot longer. It would've been awesome.

Michael: That was long. We can't play longer.

Chris: That's our first long show.

Eric: Some day you'll be running marathons like the Morning 40s. They're just like, syrup. They just kinda flow real slow.

Michael: If we just play a fifteen-minute set, you're gonna want to buy our CD to hear more.

Chris: This is our theory on it: it's not about selling stuff. We'd rather have the people wanting more than getting bored with it.

Michael: It just sucks to see really good bands play for two hours and you fall asleep after the first hour.

Steve: The first 30 minutes.

Les: I'm not gonna be paying 20 bucks to see you guys for fifteen minutes.

Eric: I don't know, I'm a painter. I get more if I paint something big than if I paint something little. Unless you have this name that sells itself, you're not gonna get $1,000 for 15 minutes or $1,000,000 for fifteen minutes. But you gotta get your chops, you're young.

Press: You didn't even fucking see the show, Mr. Music Critique over here!

Eric: I'm just telling you as an artist, it takes a long fucking time.

Press: That's right.

Eric: Any art.

Press: "I've been through a lot, man."

Eric: Yeah, dude. You could be Rimbaud.

Chris: Rimbaud?

Eric: Rimbaud, the poet. He wrote all his shit like in a short amount of time, this young guy. Then he gave it all up and became a slave trader in Africa

Press: You could be like that. There's still slavery in Africa. You could really do it if you tried.

Michael: Open up a sweat shop or something. You want to hit it?

Chris: We're heading over to Qunitron's place.

Press: Cool.

Eric: You're just a three-headed Rimbaud.

Press: There's five of them, man.

Eric: Oh. Well, those three are the Rimbaud.

Press: Do you guys try to slip drinks in here or there?

Chris: No, we're not really big drinkers or anything. We're party poopers.

Press: Devin was saying some girl was buying him a bunch of drinks, she thought he couldn't drink either.

Michael: That was my cousin.

Chris: No, that was in New Jersey.

Michael: He got like, three drinks anyway and she kept buying him drinks.

Chris: When they found out he was 21 they got pissed off. Well, he's 24.

Press: How did you get a 24-year old in your band.

Chris: Well, we played with this band that had Devin in it, the Hell Tones, and then they broke up right whenever our bass player left, and it just kinda happened.

Michael: The four-string wonder.

Les: You guys getting back to that four-some, bedroom scene?

Eric: Are you talking about Darwinism?

(everyone laughs)

Chris: I don't know what you're talking about.

Press: They're from Alabama, man, come on.

Chris: No, I know what Darwinism is.

Press: It's illegal in your state, though.

Eric: "Yeah, get outta here with your Darwinism."

Michael: Not really. We gotta go down there, it's getting late.

Press: Do y'all have anything to add?

Chris: Well, thank you very much, it was a pleasure meeting you. Thanks a lot. Tell the Morning 40 Federation thank you very much. Thanks for making our short stay here very wonderful.

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