Started in the Fall of 2010, this Rock N Roll super group comes from the vast, drity corners of the Swiss underground music scene. Featuring members from The Come N’ Go, Reverend Beat-Man’s Blues Trash Trio, The Licks, Unhold, The Fuckadies, Boob, Ray Wilko, King Pepe, The Pornostuntman, Bishop’s Daughter and dozens of more groups you never heard of, The Shit will deliver a pile of fuzzy filthy trash rock you’ll be sure to love!
01. How did your band get together?
To make a long story short, I was born in 1966 and grew up listening to tons of Rock & Roll music in Orange County, California. I played in a variety of garage bands, one in particular was named the Miracle Workers, and after some success with our recordings we toured extensively in the Europe and the U.S.A. in the late 80’s and early 90’s. During my visits to Europe I fell in love with the people and the town of medieval Berne, Switzerland. So much that I moved from Los Angeles to Berne in 1991.
While living and playing in a variety of bands here in Berne I met lots of amazingly crazy musicians and artists over the years. After a while I began spending my free time writing and recording my own songs, kind of a private side project. I played the songs to my close friends and the response to my tunes were so positive I decided I wanted to put together a real hard hitting Rock & Roll garage band. Somehow it became quite clear which guys to ask to join the band, and all of a sudden, we became The Shit.
02. Where did your name come from?
When we started the band we started discussing what kind of band name to come up with. I thought of a few facts that were important for a Rock band: 1. Something that you can remember 2. A name that will at least shock your mother. 3. It has to have ‘The’ in the band name. So I made a post on Facebook that we are searching for a band name with those requirements and after a few days we received over 100 suggestions (and quite a lot of cool names) and someone commented with The Shit. It just looked perfect, short and sweet, somehow, and says it all. So since then we are proudly called The Shit!
03. Who were your major influences and inspirations and who do you despise?
I tell ya, I’ve always been a sucker for raw, primitive 60’s punk music. I love the simplistic rhythms and arrangements by those musically unqualified teenagers, especially when LSD hit the scene. Bands like The 13th Floor Elevators, The Seeds, Question Mark & The Mysterians, The Chocolate Watchband and the 1000s of other bands from the mid-sixties have been my main influence from my early youth til today. I don’t think The Shit mold our sound like that, not in a retro way, but I see the 60’s garage movement more as a guiding beacon of light… ‘Pound the drums, ‘scream and shout’ about love gone wrong, and then add some fuzz guitar and a fat ass bass and loads of Yeah Yeah Yeah!’
And honestly, I can’t say I really despise any music, I just take the means to avoid listening to what does not reflect well with with me. And for what it’s worth, I dig shit like Black Metal, Hip Hop and Techno, I can hear it’s merits to society, but I just don’t want to listen to it all the time. But I will say something: Listening to crap like Lady Gaga does help me realize the kind of music I ‘Do’ want to play way more then bands I totally love.
04. What drove you to make music together?
When I put the band together I asked some of my best friends to join the band. There is chemistry that works in between us and I just trusted my intuition in asking each member to join. We all have our special powers and wield them like wizards, so I blame it on the gods for getting us together, we’re on a mission from the higher forces.
05. What can someone who has never seen you live before expect from your live shows then & possibly even now?
Expect to see four men getting really sweaty, screaming and playing their hearts out and churning some loud sonic trash that makes you feel alright and outta-site!
06. Who writes your songs? What types of themes and subjects do you deal with?
The tunes we’re playing span from an isolated songwriting phase I went in through from 1999 til 2011. They involve the meetings and break-ups of wives, girlfriends and other potential mates. Lots of sexy themes and broken hearts. You know… TheReal Shit.
I did throw in a few other themes on the new album that deal with crap like the taxman and how shitty the radio has become. But for the most part my songs are all about love and why it’s so bloody difficult to find the one you truly love.
07. How did your music evolved since you first began playing together?
I’ve noticed our music evolving after we began playing live shows. A band can rehearse a song so many times but until you perform it live, you can’t really say how the song’s effect will have on a listener. So we’ve taken quite a few of the songs back to ‘the drawing board’ to analyze them and loosen the arrangements up a bit, you know, to help make them boogie a bit more. I truly believe we are on the right track now.
08. What has been your biggest challenge as a band? Were you been able to overcome this? If so, how?
I think raising money to produce our latest recording was our biggest challenge, Though in the end I can proudly say I think we conquered that project with flying colors. We decided to create an online ‘crowdfunding’ project to allow people to donate to our project, and it worked out much better than we expected. In the end, it’s pretty rewarding producing your own records, and the challenge to finally send off 170 packages to our donators all around the world was exhilarating. And… it’s already feeling like we’re ready to do it again!
09. Do you play covers? If you could pick any song, which would you like to cover most and why?
Hmmmm…. we do play cover songs but only when we run out of our own songs. We’ve been dabbling with covers from Black Sabbath to Black Flag, as well as songs from Bo Diddley to The Sonics. They kinda just pop out, like a pimple. There is one song that’s had me by the balls lately called ‘Ain’t Nothing But A House Party’ by The Tremeloes. The J. Geils Band do a fuckin’ ripping version of that one, so I’m headed in that direction the next time we got a moment.
10. What do you love and hate outside of music?
Like I mentioned before, I don’t despise anything, I just love some things more than others. Honestly, I love everything.
11. Who would you most like to record with?
Well, we just did it! We recorded last Summer at the legendary Rancho De La Luna in the Joshua Tree Desert, California. We had the honor of some good old friends who’ve played in such bands like Queens Of The Stone Age, Masters Of Reality and Eagles Of Death Metal made their debuts on our new album. So needless to say, we’re just simply feckin’ stoked. And trust us, we’d love to do that all over again.
12. What should we be expecting from the band in the near future?
Well since there are more bands on the planet then ever before I am just happy to have some cool gigs coming up and really looking forward to recording some new tunes. We would have the reputation to start pushing our weight around, but we ain’t into that. No big plan for a World Domination tour. Actually, we are truly happy playing gigs around Switzerland at the moment, selling our music online and just building up a fan base that’s based on love and trust for dirty Rock, not that crap you read about in some fancy glossy magazine. We’re looking forward to what whatever come, because it will come anyway… and we’re totally ready for it!
Links
facebook: facebook.com/ILoveTheShit
youtube: youtube.com/brotherpantichrist