Mark Metzger

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Interview

Mark was the original Chainsaw Kittens guitarist who played on “Violent Religion,” “Flipped Out in Singapore,” and the “High in High School” EP. (We know these questions are ridiculous, so we would like to thank Mark for playing along…) – Interview by Clint

CM: During a live performance, what is more important – Sounding good or looking cool? metzger
MM: I think that looking cool on stage is the most important aspect of a live performance. You can always blame how you sound or the quality of your musical performance on forces that are beyond your control; for example, I was really drunk, the soundman was really drunk, the opening band blew us away so I didn’t even bother to try, and so on. On the other hand, looking cool falls squarely on the shoulders of the performer and there are absolutely no excuses in rock music. When I played (it was really more turning the distortion knob on my boss HM2 pedal all the way up than actually playing) my guitar tone was so distorted, so heavily saturated that you really could not distinguish any specific chords or notes, it was just a massive fuzz tone with very little articulation. This really worked to my advantage when playing live as I really didn’t have to concern myself with what I was playing, it all sounded the same, it was just a screaming, sucked-out mids, buzz tone. I could really concentrate on what cool rock moves I could bust out while playing. As most rock people know, certain rock moves are extremely difficult to pull off when you are actually trying to play your instrument at the same time, so I don’t even recommend trying to play. Really, when you think about it, people come to “see” a live show, they don’t really come to “hear” it, so sounding good is pretty overrated.

CM: Have you ever been so drunk on stage that you were not able to see?
MM: No, but we once had a bass player that was really drunk and one night he decided to eat potato chips through our entire set instead of playing. It was awesome. In general, we set the bar so low for our live performances that on any given night one or two of us could not bother playing and it really didn’t have a severe impact on the way we would sound.

CM: When you hear your songs on the radio, do you tell everyone around you that that is you on the radio?
MM: I only heard us on the radio once in my lifetime and that was in our van while we were on the road, but I did let everyone in the van know that it was us. The only reason I did this was because I wasn’t sure if our drummer would know or not.

CM: Did you guys let the drummer have any creative input, or were you guys like most bands and just told them what to play and not give them any songwriting credit? chainsaw kittens poster
MM: No offense to drummers out there, but there is a reason that the Alesis SR16 is so popular. Really the only thing they do is pick out which cymbal to hit (hmmmm should I go with my 13″ crash, or go with the China here?). So I guess if you consider this “songwriting”, it should have been Lennon/McCartney/Starkey.

CM: I have an old poster you autographed “Mark “the Shark” Metzger”. Did you get the nickname “the shark” because you’re a fan of Great White?
MM: No, I got that nickname because I was actually IN Great White, but only for about 2 hours. Just after I quit the Kittens, Joey Ramone talked to the singer and said that they should give me a try. They asked for a promo pic and I didn’t have one, so I sent them a high school yearbook picture of our bass player, Clint McBay. Upon recieving it they said “you’re in dude…, but you need a nickname, we’ll call you “The Shark”". At this point I panicked because I didn’t think that I had the right look so I went to Super Cuts for a quick mullet. I showed up for practice and we played “Once Bitten/Twice Shy”, “Rock Me” and a kick ass cover of the Smiths “Girlfriend in a Coma”. I thought everything was going great, but then they told me they were going for a more modern, 90′s style grunge look, and my mullet wasn’t too cool. So they kicked me out. So after the Kittens and my brief stint with Great White I had to resort to selling stuff to make money for beer and cigarettes, you must have bought one of the autographed posters I was selling….

CM: What obscure or under appreciated bands would you recommend people check out?
Overwhelming Colorfast
Radio One
The Muffs
Love/Hate
Slush