As I said in the first part of this interview printed in last month's issue of NO-FI, EEENIE MEENIE is a really neat band from North Hollywood. Denise Siegel is the lead singer and guitarist. David Lovering is the drummer. Kendra Sparks is the bass player. We did this interview at Melvin's on Melrose. We were there for hours and my girlfriend Holly got a parking ticket, but we were having fun. Food, friends and watching cool kids pass by.
C = Chris Beyond (Me Me Me!)
DS = Denise Siegel (Lead Singer/Guitarist)
K = Kendra Sparks (Bass)
DL = David Lovering (Drums)
H = Holly Hillier (Girlfriend-o-rama)
C: Has EEENIE MEENIE had any wacky, wild, or weird things happen at any shows yet?
DS: We've hade some weird things happen. One time this guy...he was...we were playing Conspiracy Theory. This was before David was even in the band...and we were playing at Eagles. When all of the sudden, we've started the song, this like homeless guy comes in and he just starts to totally freak out and throws himself against the walls! He's jumping on stuff! He's flailing around! By the end of the song, he threw himself against the wall and basically knocked himself out and had to be taken out by an ambulance! But he just like ran in at the end of that song. That was one of the weirdest things that ever happened at a show.
C: It was probably John from V L A.
(laughing ensues)
H: He's not homeless...we just went to his house today.
C: He throws himself around and stuff...
DS: Yeah, well, that was one of the weirdest things...can you think of anything else?
K: I can't remember the name of them, but that time we played at The Blue Saloon and the band that played before got into the big fight and we thought it was part of the show or something. The guitarist and the singer were dukin' it out on stage. They were an Orange County punk rock-y band.
DS: There was another weird thing that happened to us...this guy kept booking on these really bizarre shows. And one of them...we had no idea...he goes, "ah, I got you a show at Hell's Gate." and we were, "ah, ok, we'll be there." We get there and, you know what...it was actually a skinhead show. Everybody was a skinhead except for us. They liked us! That was the weird thing, but after we left they broke the toilet.
K: Yeah, the bass player came up to me and was like, "Oh, please let me use your cabinet." And I let people do it all the time, but this time I was like, "wellllll...I...nahhh...oooooh" He was this big drunk skinhead with an american flag tattoo on his arm and I just was like, "no." That廣 good cuz there was apparently toilet water all over the place.
DS: Yeah, they had to close it down and the guy who booked the show had to pay for the toilet.
C: Hmmm...toilets are expensive. Punks and skinheads surprise me with their musical tastes. At the first NO-FI Halloween show we had a lot of punks there and they loved and slam-danced to SIX VOLT SUNBEAM.
DS: It was scary though cuz we were the only people there who were not like them.
K: Some guy stomped on my foot really hard and I yelled, "OW!" and he looked at me like he didn't care.
DS: The tour we did was very interesting too...
DL & K: Oh, yeah...
DS: There廣 this sports bar...and uh...there's no P.A.! No microphones!
K: Cuz WE were supposed to bring them.
DS: They forgot to tell us that, though. There was no stage. No nothing in this sports bar in an agricultural area.
DL: In a strip mall.
DS: Luckily there's a radio shack right next door and we ran in and bought mics and ran them through our amps. It sounded like shit, but we saved the day.
DL: It was really personal and really bright...in your face.
DS: And people were yelling at us as we were setting up...like the locals saying "WHEN YOU GONNA GET ON?!? WHAT嘯 TAKING YOU SO DAMN LONG?!?" And then as soon as we started playing, they all left. Most of the kids that came to see us were all outside in the parking lot jumping around and looking in.
C: 21 and over. I've booked some odd shows, but you... What are your biggest influences?
DS: Not musically at all. I don't try to steal from anybody. My favorite...the most inspired I was by music in a long time was when I first heard David Bowie...and um...THE PRETENDERS and uh...THE CARS...and then THE BUZZCOCKS and THE SEX PISTOLS and all that kind of stuff...I don廠 know what that really means; Influence. What those people did was influence me to think that people could do pretty much anything you wanted in that context of music. Those people were doing their own thing. You could write songs that weren't formulaic.
C: That廣 cool. I get influenced by like movies and regular people and stuff.
DL: Um...STEELY DAN, RUSH, LED ZEPPELIN and DEVO.
DS: It's true! It's true.
C: I like DEVO.
DS: I thought I'd found my people when I saw DEVO on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE when I was a little kid.
C: Did they eventually ask you to stop calling, though? Like, "No, you don't understand! YOU'RE my people!"
DS: I totally love them. I thought they were so cool. It's like nerd rock or something.
C: Nrrrd rock rules!
DS: Yeah, it does! It廣 great.
K: I agree with her. I don廠 think the parts I come up with have any way shape or form with anything I've ever heard. The first record I ever bought was Magical Mystery Tour and then I fell in love with Cheap Trick. I've always loved music...international music...I went through a period when I was 12 years old when I listened to the type of music David likes.
(everyone laughs. David looks at his food. He is shamed deeply.)
C: SHE grew out of it then...you understand?
KS: I think I had RUSH on 8-Track plugged into my alarm clock.
K: I was in school band. I played the flute since fourth grade.
C: I hung out with our school band during lunch.
DS: You hung out with the band geeks?
C: Well, I moved on. (But DID I REALLY?) Oh, what's your favorite horror film and why?
DL: Evil Dead. The first one.
C: I saw the first one when it first came out in the theatre and I thought it was cheesy...but the 2nd one...GREAT!
DL: Yeah, movies don't scare me. One night I was at my parents house. I was downstairs smoking a joint. (everyone laughs) I put the tape in and turned off the lights and I actually had my heart going a couple times! Like "WOW!"
K: A long time ago I saw a movie called The Company Of Wolves which is a weird Red Riding Hood film. When I was a really little kid I saw a PBS production of Dracula which scared the daylights out of me.
DS: What about The Exorcist? I never saw that...I was too scared to see it. Same as Halloween. Too afraid to see the movie till I was older, but actually Alfred Hitchcock...My grandmother is really psychotic and she used to make me watch Alfred Hitchcock with her every week. I saw The Birds with her. That was the most scary movie I saw then.
K: The Abominable Dr. Phibes. That was one of he lamest, but it was scary when I was a kid.
H: I sat in Vincent Price's lap when I was a baby. I crawled over to him in an airport.
C: What's your personal most embarrassing moment?
K: I know my most embarrassing moment, personally. I was in high school at an awards ceremony. I as in a biology course...and I was already NOT a popular kid...and I went to an all girl school and my marine biology teacher stood up and said, "I have a very special award for somebody who was not afraid of anything I brought in for persistence in dissection...KENDRA SPARKS!!!" and then everyone was like as if I wasn't a big enough freak already. (Everyone laughs yet again.) It was either that or having to dress like a playboy bunny as a freshman in high school. It was like hazing...catholic school. I was just absolutely humiliated.
DS: One of the most embarrassing things that happened to me was recently...I was with Grant (Her husband Grant Lee Buffalo). He was playing at this festival. Me and Paul's girlfriend, at the time, were also over there. We hadn't taken a shower in days...there was no shower...so we were really desperate to take a shower and we went to this venue where they had showers set up. It's all outside and stinky and gross and sweaty...ugh It's really bad. It was in some quasi-Scandinavian country which shall remain nameless and so they had this whole co-ed thing going on there. No segregation in the showers. So we had to use this one shower room in the whole building...and so we were the two only women around so we decided to barricade the showers and go in there. We locked the door. We started putting soap on our heads and shampoo and everything and then there is this POUNDING on the door! We were told that we could lock the door cuz we asked people since we didn't want men to walk in there as we were taking a shower. These guys from a band called THERAPY?, You ever heard of them? With the question mark at the end. Their manager was pounding on the door screaming, "Open the door! God damn it!" and all this crap and we're telling him to wait just two minutes since we just got in here and we have shampoo on our heads. And he's "Open up right now!!! This is our bathroom as much as it is yours!" So anyway they opened the door while we were naked and we were caught there naked.
C: Well it seems like they wanted to just see you naked like, "whoah. Oops. Sooorry. hmm. hmm."
DS: It would seem that way, huh? Yeah, that was embarrassing and we were pissed off.
C: So there won't be any tours with THERAPY??
DS: No, I was really pissed off about that and also they sound checked in the middle of Grant's set so that was nice.
DL: Well I was having sex with this monkey once...um, the only thing I can think of is, well there's been many things, but when I was in kindergarten, I was wearing these shorts, this matching set that my mom got me, and the zipper broke and it traumatized me for life. That whole day I went around like that.
(awwws)
H: You were wearing underwear right?
DL: Yeah, but still it battered me kinda'.
(Denise relates a story about when her dog slept in her clothes and she went to school smelling like a dog.)
C: After a hard day at work, what does EEENIE MEENIE do to relax?
DL: Smoke pot.
(everyone laughs)
DS: Play TEKKEN II. I used to smoke a lot, but I stopped. Just recently.
K: I read a lot and I'm working on a quilt right now.
C: An american quilt?
K: Well I'm an american and it's mine.
C: After the first million albums sold, what will you buy?
DL: A big bag of pot.
C: A REALLY big one, I guess.
DS: I would buy my mom a house and start a fund for homeless people...and get a monkey!
C: And donate to No-Fi regularly?
DS: Yes, I'd definitely get a monkey...but you have to change them all the time.
C: What's your philosophy of life? Not you Dave, you're on this whole pot thing. Pot pot pot.
K: Be forgiving of yourself. Try your best and be willing to make mistakes. Cut other's slack. We're all only people.
DL: An eye for an eye.
DS & K: He means it too!
C: We're friends right?
K: He's more evil than you will ever know.
DS: He's sweet in an evil sort of way. You should always follow what your heart tells you to do and always follow.
(We talk a while more and split. THANK YOU EEENIE MEENIE!!!)
