by christina wagner
I first had the pleasure of meeting Grand Buffet back when I still worked at Thee Imperial. Jackson and I engaged in some of the most interesting and beautifully bizarre conversation. It continued throughout the years via email and led me back to Pittsburgh while on a winter tour with Whole Wheat Bread. We ended up crashing at Jarrod and Jackson's pad that evening and my mind exploded. There wasn't a free space on their walls. Nineties posters, random toy collections, everywhere you turn there was spectacular eye-candy demanding some form of explanation. I felt like that annoying kid, always asking why and where it came from, but the guys were always happy to oblige. Grand Buffet is more than great hip-hop, more than brilliant stage performance, it's a dynamic experience and attendance is a requirement I am now bestowing upon everyone that reads this. You be the judge, show your face at Jack Rabbits on Sunday, July 29th, and prepare yourself for the awesomeness that is Grand Buffet.
EU: You boys have toured with the great, late, Wesley Willis. How did your forehead feel after the tour?
Jackson: It was abuzz with all the new information being processed behind it, we cut our tour teeth with that great man.
Grunge: It felt awesome. What I wouldn't give for one more headbutt from wes.
EU: Sienna Miller once called your hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, Shits-burgh. Would you still make out with her if you had the chance?
Jackson: I wouldn't kiss Sienna Miller with Mickey Rourkes' penis.
Grunge: Not only would I make out with her, but I'd totally eat her english minge. That Shits-burgh comment didn't mean sh*t, it was a joke taken out of context. Besides, you can't expect a classist, snooty-assed English woman to be comfortable in a city as raw as Pittsburgh.
EU: Who is your favoritest, most awesomest person to hang out with, while you're visiting Jacksonville?
Jackson: Lord Grunge.
Grunge: I'm gonna have to go with la dama Hermosa, who used to run sound at Jack Rabbits.
EU: On your latest release, The Haunted F*cking Gazebo, you worked on a track with your boys in Gil Mantera's Party Dream. Strictly business or secret lovers?
Jackson: We all have a respect for our various sexual styles but choose not to collaborate.
Grunge: Business only. Those guys are pricks, especially Gil Mantera. What a miserable wretch. Ultimate Donny's been cooler, lately. He used to be the one I hated. Things switch-a-roo'd.
EU: How does this EP differ from your previous albums?
Jackson: It is more dynamic, better sounds, better thinking, better men.
Grunge: It's better.
EU: Last time I was at your pad, Jackson had an impressive collection of children's toy guitars that he had rewired and were used at a couple of your performances. Do you think they will ever make a comeback?
Jackson: I need to strike up a friendship with a skilled circuit worker to make things really pop off as I picture them in me skull. As far as using them on stage, they need better exoskeletons.
Grunge: I hope not. I'm sick of all this clown bullsh*t people have come to expect from us. Toy guitars, kids' songs, all novelty sh*t. It's our fault they expect it, but f*ck that. I want cats to remember how hard they were rocked, not what sort of goofy bullsh*t we had on stage.
EU: On the heels of your new EP, you are already working on your upcoming LP, King Vision. What's the deal with the cram session?
Jackson: Both the Mayan calendar and the Egyptian book of the dead prophesize the release of Mac's iPhone as the kick off to the apocalypse, so we want to hustle to see how many of our new albums can be downloaded for free before we, as a band, burn up in a sea of fire, spiteful and penniless.
Grunge: Well, King Vision was supposed to come out a full year ago. Year and a half, actually. It's already late and now it's not coming out until fall of this year, so we thought it'd be cool to have a little tasty morsel for hardcore fans to get down with while we finished up the LP.
EU: In 2002, Grand Buffet was awarded four songs alongside artists like Tom Waits and Igor Yuzov of "The Red Elvises" on the indie feature film Project: Valkyrie. How did you boys get hooked up with that gig?
Jackson: They chose Tom Waits for the soundtrack because they couldn't get Captain Beefheart and they got us because they couldn't get the Kottonmouth Kings.
Grunge: I wouldn't call that a "hook-up." The first time I saw that film, and actually realized that my band was "The band" in that movie, I had a strange feeling come over me. I didn't know what to make of it. Well, I understand now. That was God telling me to kill myself. No disrespect to those dudes who made that movie, they're great guys. And let's be honest, Project: Valkyrie is better than a lot of big budget, Hollywood crap. But I bought it on DVD and have watched it now three times and it still makes me want to suck off the hot-side of a shotgun.
EU: You have been at this for about six years. How do you feel about the mainstreamers put together by major labels that are currently all over the radio?
Jackson: I like the White Stripes a whole bunch, most of it is just payola though. Linkin Park perfectly represents broken dreams and starving children.
Grunge: Music is awesome. There are a lot of bad things happening today, but I don't think they're caused by large, well-known bands on the radio or on MTV. Those cats are not hurting anyone. They're doing their thing. I mean, the Clash signed to CBS and they never stopped being rad. They'll be rad forever. Hating "corporate rock" is a bullsh*t concept in and of itself. All "indie rock" bands still use gear that was manufactured by large corporations - patch chords, microphones, amplifiers. All those things are created by profit-seeking, capitalistic businesses. If you press a thousand copies of a CD, those CDs are still manufactured on expensive, hi-tech equipment that would not exist were it not for numerous "corporate" entities. Even if you only burn a few CDRs or are make f*cking cassette tapes, well guess what, man, those things are mass-manufactured by large corporations. If you claim you're indie rock as f*ck and you use email or phones, well, you're pretty much a corporate rocker. People arguing over indie cred and who's relevant and who's not is just a huge waste of energy. I think people - indie, corporate, and everywhere - need to get their heads out of their asses and check out some sh*t that's actually evil, some sh*t that's actually destructive; not someone who's making music and getting paid a lot of money for it.
EU: Do you have a favorite tour experience?
Jackson: Going to Graceland with Wesley Willis at the beginning of our touring career and hopefully being crucified to the outside of a Jacksonville Chick-Fil-A. At it's end, that would bookend all of our good and bad tour experiences quite nicely.
Grunge: Here's one: smoking ice in Oklahoma City. Awesome. Who says try once and you're an addict? It's just not so.
EU: Have you boys ever spooned with a unicorn?
Jackson: F*ck unicorns, they have been co-opted by people that don't really believe they exist.
Grunge: No, but I would totally eat a unicorn's minge.
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