Nerf Herder

Conducted backstage at Manchester University, with Parry (guitars, vocals), Dave (guitars) and Steve (drums). Justin (bass) was in the shower...

J: How did you get the gig doing the Buffy theme tune?
Parry:  Well, long ago when our record first came out, our first record that was released on My Records, came out while they were filming the first season of the Buffy show, and some of the cast members got the record – in fact I think the Xander fellow got it first. Anyway, they were listening to it on the set and they had hired some guy in Hollywood, some famous theme song composer to come up with a theme and they didn’t like the one he came up with so, they were kind of on a low budget, and what they did was asked a bunch of bands, local bands – we live about an hour and a half away from Hollywood – to come up with theme song ideas, and they liked ours, so it was really cool. About that time the cast would come to our shows and see us play and stuff – we didn’t really know who they were because the show hadn’t been on, but it was really exciting. And when they did finally decide to use our theme song, which coincidentally it just worked out that the song worked well with the music… with the thing that they had filmed, the title sequence… anyway, and that’s the story!

(at this point a couple of members of NUFAN start shaving right next to us!)

J: Who did you grow up listening to?
Dave: I kind of grew up listening to new wave, 80s, that kind of stuff… Valley Girls soundtrack bands, that sort of thing
Steve: My first band I listened to was Kiss, and Peter Kriss is the reason why I play drums today, some metal…
J: Iron Maiden and stuff?
S: Yeah, a lot of Iron Maiden. I used to practise drumming listening to Iron Maiden on my headphones, but Nicko McBrain was too good for me so I moved onto Motley Crue and stuff like that
P: A lot of Jesus Jones, and pretty much Jesus Jones…
D: And EMF and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin!!!

J: What kind of stuff do you listen to these days?
P: I listen to No Use For A Name every day (cue laughter)
D: We pretty much listen to… well, whatever CDs Fat Mike gives us for free!!!

J: What kind of stuff do you bring out on the road with you? Do you ask for stuff backstage?
D: Well, not really, we’ve tried asking for stuff before but we never get it, so…
P: (pointing at NUFAN) These guys always get vodka and we just drink it!
S: We ask for stuff like Kinder Surprise eggs! And Spam and weiner sausages!
P: Spam is gross…
S: The thing we learn from NUFAN, travelling with these guys on the bus, was Snackmaster Sandwich makers… cuts them in a perfect diagonal, so you get lots of bread and meat and cheese on the road and y’know, you’ve got to use up the meat and the bread, so you stick it in the Snackmaster and…

J: Which one of the band members has the worst BO?
P: I think we all three can agree that Justin does, since he’s not here!

J: What’s the worst thing about being out on the road, apart from Justin’s BO?
S: Erm… the worst thing about being out on the road is… probably finding a suitable toilet to take care of business…
J: hehe! What, no solids on the tour bus rule?
S: No, no solids!! Nah, that’s not the worst thing… what’s the worst thing? The language barrier can be bad… but y’know, it’s rare that you find somebody who doesn’t speak a word of English…
D: I kind of like the language barrier!! It’s one of the most entertaining things out on the road…

J: If you could have a superhero power, what would it be?
D: Some bionic thing… you know, like the 6 Million Dollar Man? Couple of bionic eyes… I dunno… and running in slow motion would be really cool too!!!
S: My super-power would be to liquefy all my faeces so I could just piss it out!!! So I never have to sit down on a toilet cos you never know what’s gonna crawl out…
D: Steve, how environmentally conscious of you!

J: Who would win in a fight between Pikachu and a Furbie?
D: The Smurf would kick their asses

J: Who in the world would you least like to see naked? Apart from Justin…
D: Too late for that!
P: I know!!! Bus driver Billy!!! He was the one who drove us on our last tour, the Bloodhound Gang tour [in the States] Fuck that Billy motherfucker!!! That became a chant of ours – “Fuck Billy!” We hated him!!!

J: How would you describe yourself on a blind date form?
(after some explaining of the whole blind date / personal ad thing)
P: I know, “undesirable loser seeks attractive lady!”
D: Not even that! “read no further”!
 

Big thanks to Fat Wreck for letting me do the interview, and bigger thanks to Nerf Herder for putting up with my crappy questions!!!!