Last week, we published the first link in this year’s SXSW chain letter, featuring Lizzo, Habibi, and Pile. Today, the chain continues as Habibi’s sexed-up queries fall to Mozes and the Firstborn’s young’un drummer.
Newcomers, how does the chain work? We ask each band we talk to give us three questions to ask the next band, who proposed their own for the following band, and so on. In today’s edition, we learn how to best induce morning-after vomiting from Mozes and the Firstborn, the secrets of Chick-fil-A with the Black Lips, and Guantanamo Baywatch’s potty and make-out preferences—including when the two combine.
MOZES AND THE FIRSTBORN
Outside of the Burger Records show at Whip In, just a few minutes after Netherland’s garage rock quartet Mozes and the Firstborn wrapped up an outdoor set to a relatively small picnic crowd, Raven Aartsen, the band’s youthful drummer, stepped away from the hum of satisfied munchies to talk about vomiting up dairy after drunken nights.
When did you lose your virginity?
I think I was 16 years old. It was with my first girlfriend. She’s actually still my girlfriend right now. Yeah, it was a lot of fun! [Laughs]
How old are you now?
I’m 19 right now.
What?! You’re so young! Yet you’re traveling around the world, playing in a band.
Yeah, it’s funny because, you know, here you have to be 21 to go to most shows so sometimes I’m illegally playing in the club. Sometimes I even have to disguise myself. Like, they wouldn’t let me in once, so I have to change my outfit before I try again.
Secret agent/drummer. Where was the last place you had a kiss?
It was in the airport, actually, before I left, by my girlfriend. Although, some of my bandmates try to kiss me sometimes. We’re on the road for so long, you know? Shit just happens. [Laughs]
And you have such pretty hair, I’m sure it’s confusing.
They think, “Yeah, that’s a pretty girl!” And I’m like, “Woah, what the fuck?” [Laughs]
What’s your hangover cure?
Dairy, like milk. That’s the best. When I’m real hungover, I drink a lot of dairy, and I go outside and just run. Sometimes I puke, sometimes I don’t. When I get back, I feel healthy. Then I get real tired real early and just go to bed.
[Laughs] That sounds awful! It doesn’t sound like a cure at all!
No dairy’s really good, actually! Cause you have all the acid in you, and dairy kind of neutralizes it. It’s scientifical [sic].
What are your three questions for the next band?
Do you keep a diary of where you take a shit on tour? I’ve heard many bands do!
Do you keep a regular diary, and if you do, what do you write about?
If you could choose any person, who would you make out with?
GUANTANAMO BAYWATCH
Although we missed them in their home city of Portland, Impose stalked surf-rock darlings Guantanamo Baywatch down the coast, first catching them in Seattle before they played our Thursday night show at the Longbranch Inn. Across the street after their Impose set, next to the island tunes pumping from the Jamaican food truck, we peeked into the band’s van to talk about making out in stinky bathrooms with She’s All That-era Rachel Leigh Cook (kinda).
Do you keep a diary of where you take a shit on tour?
All: Yes!
Jason: The best and the worst.
Chevelle: We don’t write it down like a diary, but each of us knows when one of us poops, for sure. And we all talk about it. Like, how good was the bathroom?
Jason: For instance, this bathroom [at the Longbranch]. It locks, which is, like, number one. It’s a single, which is number two. But it smells, like, terrible.
Chris: Sometimes you take it. You’re like, “Okay, I will take the stinky onesie over the no-locking, no-door public bathroom.” You know?
Chevelle: That opens up onto the stage.
Jason: I actually went into the girls’ bathroom to make out with someone tonight, and it was so stinky, we couldn’t make out!
[All laugh]
Jason: I’m not joking.
Chevelle: You’ve only been here, for like, an hour!
Well, last year we had our shows here, and the bathrooms were way shittier. This year, they put some tile up… it’s looking pretty nice!Chevelle: Well, the worst is gas stations. I’m stoked because I’m a girl and they separate girls and boys at most gas stations, so they have to wait in line after each other poops and smell the other person’s poop.
Jason: Worst bathroom experience: yesterday, at Hotel Vegas, in the porta-potty, someone had puked all over the seat, so I was lifting it up—
Chevelle: Why didn’t you go to a different bathroom?
Jason: They were all like that. That was the best one! But when I lifted up the seat, there was more puke underneath. Like, someone had puked and put the toilet seat down, and then someone had puked on top of it.
[All make sounds of disgust.]
Chris: I’ll tell you my worst bathroom story. It was last SXSW. We were on the way here from El Paso, and there was this shitty little rest stop. I had to poop so bad it was, like, making me nauseous. So there was this little, tiny shack. No door to the bathroom. It was like toilet, store. So it was like me doing this [mimes sitting on toilet] but also, like, looking at the chips. It was so gross, so awful. But I had to go so bad!
But you did it? Were there people in the store?
Chris: Oh, yeah. People were, like, by the cash register. I was sitting there, texting Chevelle, “There’s no door on the bathroom.” Texting her, like, “Do you guys want anything? They got Lays, they got Gatorade…”
[All laugh]
That’s my worst nightmare. Do you keep a regular diary?
[All share looks of disgust.]
Jason: The answer is no. Well, I can’t write, so…
Chevelle: He’s illiterate.
[All laugh]
Chevelle: We, like, Instagram.
Jason: Well, I have a sketchbook, but I don’t consider that a diary.
Chevelle: He doesn’t like to talk about his sketchbook, it’s kind of weird. His sketchbook is full of penis drawings.
Jason: No, no.
Chevelle: That’s actually not a lie, I promise. Every drawing is a penis.
[All laugh]
Jason: I draw vaginas.
Chevelle: I’d say 90 percent penises, 10 percent vaginas.
Jason: Next question!
If you could choose any person, who would you make out with?
Jason: Sarah McLachlan. I like the pixies. The short hair…
Chevelle: He likes lesbian-y, mannish women.
Jason: Specifically, Sarah McLachlan when I was 15. That porcelain face and short hair… I like that.
Chevelle: I’m going to say John Travolta in Grease. Or, like, John Stamos in Full House. I like that dark hair, Italian thing… especially John Travolta, that blue-eyed Italian. You don’t get those on the west coast.
Chris: I would make out with Rachel Leigh Cook from She’s All That.
[Unidentified person in van yells, “yeah, dog!” All laugh]
Chris: The beach scene where she’s got the black one-piece and that cleavage. She pulls up and everyone’s like, “Who’s that?” And I’m like, “I know who that is.”
Chevelle: I thought you were going to say Lady Gaga or Miley. Or Taylor Swift!
Chris: I was going to say Lady Gaga at first but…not my first choice.
What are your three questions for the next band?
Who farts the most in the van?
If you had to have gnar-gnar gay sex with anyone, who would it be?
Which fast food is the best fast food?
THE BLACK LIPS
The next morning, our late start puts the Black Lips behind schedule as we rush to meet them in downtown Austin’s Embassy Suites lobby before noon. With jovial management juggling our time slot, we nurse our hangovers and grumbling bellies until we can join the circle to ponder the nice-guy approach to fart attribution and Chick-fil-A’s secrets.
Who farts the most in the van?
Cole: I do. I just claim the farts.
Jared: It’s nice because people can be embarrassed by it, and Cole just takes it on.
Joe: He takes the Eminem technique: you admit your faults up front, that way no one can rip on said faults. That’s what he did in 8 Mile. That’s how he overcame being a white guy rapping against the black guys.
If you had to have gnar-gnar gay sex with anyone, who would it be?
Cole: There’s a male model that dresses as a girl and looks like a girl, Andre Pejić. I’d probably fuck her in the ass.
[All laugh and agree.]
Which fast food is the best fast food?
Cole: Oh, that’s a good question.
Joe: The best stand-by for least gross is Chick-fil-A. But that’s only in the South.
Cole: The thing about Wendy’s I like is that Caesar salad is, like, a dollar.
Jared: I think that whole, you know, everyone freaks out if they’re not from California about going to California and getting In-N-Out as soon as they get there… it’s like… you’re seeking out a fast food place? It’s not that great.
Ian: Panera’s pretty good, it’s pretty fast.
Cole: You can get espresso there. I love Taco Bell. It’s cheap-ass food, but even if I’m a millionaire, I’ll still go to Taco Bell.
Chick-fil-A has really good strawberry milkshakes.
Ian: I haven’t tried that, I’ll have to check it out. Their lemonade is pretty good.
Joe: The secret to Chick-fil-A’s chicken is they brine it in pickle juice overnight before they bread it and cook it.
How do you know that?
Joe: I just know.
Cole: I also heard they put saltpeter in their food.
Ian: To curb libido. Cause they’re a religious… chicken.
Cole: They use it in the military, too, cause they don’t want the troops all…
Joe: They use it to make dynamite and TNT and stuff, but it reduces your sexual urges.
Ian: Also, to make this interactive, where’s Chick-fil-A from?
Uh… Florida?
Ian: Nope, try again.
Uh…
Joe: Atlanta, Georgia.
Ian: And where are the Black Lips from?
Atlanta, Georgia!
Ian: So there you go.
What are your three questions for the next band?
Who’s your daddy, and what does he do?
Would you rather: Lady Gaga or RuPaul?
Have you ever dances with the devil in the pale moon light, and what was it like?
Tune in Wednesday to hear Philadelphia’s Potty Mouth shit all over Black Lips’ queries and close the chain with Bully and Big Ups.
