1997-08 Fizz
"They Might Be Cub! ...or... They Might Be Giants!"
By Carl Drunko, Fizz, August 1997
Archived from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tabloidfootprints/34932541473/
We had a chance to catch up with John (the larger) from They Might Be Giants and Robin and Lisa from Cub. Since we were tired of asking questions, we let them talk to each other. And of course, when Cub play within earshot of Vancouver, The Smugglersâ own Grant Lawrence will be in attendance. This time around, Ronnie from The Muffs got enlisted as a husband [to Cub Lisa] and general merchandise hawker. What follows is a little trashy and a little serious, but mostly a pain in the ass to transcribe.
John: OK, so Iâm going to ask you the most annoying questions that everyone asksâWhere did you get your name from?
Robin: From Lisa.
John: What kind of cub is it?
Robin: It is every cub imaginable.
John: Who are your influences?
Robin: I hate that questionâdonât ask that.
John: No, you have to answer these seriously.
Robin: Well, I just blew that one off. No, I guess that it changes by the day and by the month.
John: OK, I just wanted to throw out all the questions that you are asked over and over again. Like when a photographer wants to shoot us, it invariably comes to them wanting to surround us with little stuff and shoot us like we are giants. We just say that weâve done that a thousand times, even though we never have.
Lisa: We get the same thingâevery photo shoot there is a bear suit that they want us to climb into.
(talk turns to the acquisition of their names)
Grant: [to John] I like your name, though. If you ever become stadium rockers, you will have become giants. And if you donât, you can fall back in the fact that you said that you just might be giants.
John: It started out that we chose our name just because it was long, but not unwieldy. It seemed interesting at the time. Itâs become a bit of an albatross.
Lisa: Just like Cub has.
John: Cub is such a stealth name, though. Itâs not like one of those four letter names that those English and L.A. bands have. Those are amazingly unimaginative. Like naming your band after a utility object or something.
Lisa: The only problem with this is anytime that you have a name that is something people can send you, you get a thousand things. We have candy, a necklace, a knapsack, and there are a million bears around my house.
John: At least you have fans who do things for you.
Lisa: (while weâre enjoying the tasty free catering) I was nervous about this tour. Someone said that you got mad at someone for eating off of your deli tray.
John: Can we get down to who this person was?
Lisa: I honestly donât remember.
John: That sounds like some urban legend. I brought half of our tray down to your dressing room. Did you think that those cold cuts just appeared there?
Lisa: Oh, I know you did. Iâm just glad that I didnât have to sneak your deli tray while you were on stage.
John: We brought you half of the bounty of rocksâ excess down to your room. I donât know, thoughâweâve had tour managers who may have been the culprit. They have a weird job. Their job is basically to be an effective asshole even though they may be very nice. We have had creepy tour managers in the past.
Lisa: Weâve had creepy tour managers in the past, too. (eyes turn to Grant) Like the sleeping bag story in every issue: we have to mention the sleeping bag.
Grant: Not to be too derogatory, but what was the worst thing that a tour manager ever pulled on you?
John: Well, theyâre always really nice to me; itâs just some of the other people.
Ronnie: They are representing you, so you do want them to be cool.
John: Yeah, theyâve just blown up at some of the smallest stuff and screamed at people working the show. So it goes out into the ether that TMBG are assholes. Like, I donât know if David Lee Roth is a dick. You can see him in a conversation with Eddie Van Halen, saying that he just wanted to be a part of this. And they had done so much good work together.
Grant: Entertainers do have a stage persona. Like Lisa pretends to be nice when sheâs on stage.
Lisa: Thatâs a big misconception about meâthat Iâm very nice, and Iâm really not nice at all.
Grant: Sheâs a dragon lady.
Lisa: Thatâs right. Iâm the dragon lady of Vancouver.
Fizz: So what would you say is the biggest misconception about each of your band names?
Lisa: That we are young; weâre not so young. They also say that we are fun and quirky.
Robin: Weâre not so fun.
Grant: Both sets of fans have lots of time on their hands apparently.
John: I donât know if thatâs the truth.
Grant: Well, there are a lot of kids out there with sleeping bags, waiting in the freezing cold to get in here.
John: I read the thing in Rolling Stone about you, and having a [TMBG] piece early on in that magazine where we were radically misquoted, how much spin-doctoring do you think that you have to do on that?
Lisa: You think that I have to do damage control on that?
John: Well, it seemed relatively good.
Lisa: Why was I wearing a see through shirt with a black bra?
John: You donât have to explain that to me. Hey, if you got it, work it. I think that Lisa got the best of the layout with the big rack of clothes and her hair with that âjust got out of the showerâ sort of thing.
Robin: And she didnât have to wear the plastic dress.
John: it seems though, that a lot of the reviews of your recordsâespecially with Box of Hairâsay that you are trying to change. Do you think that youâre trying to change, or are you just evolving? People always seem to be pushing that âyouâve changedâ stuff on us. I wish we could change, but weâve been doing the same thing for so long.
Robin: People ask us in every interview why weâve changed.
Lisa: But that is sort of your job, as a good entertainer, to never change. That way people can identify with you and they know what they are paying for. Tom Jones kinda thing.
Grant: People like familiarity.
John: What is your take on that, do you feel that you have actually changed?
Lisa: The way that I usually put it is: think back to yourself four years ago; do you wish that you were exactly the same?
John: To follow that train... you put âFreakyâ as the first song on your record, and that one is really hard to mistake for being nice. We did the same thing, putting âSexyâ as the first song; just to see if reviewers would listen to more than one song before the facts are in. We got a lot of âYou made a very funky record,â âYou are really into the groove now.â
Lisa: I always like to start the records with a sort of one-two punch. It was very intentional. The last record had the same thing with âTicket to Spainâ.
John: When you open up the CD, there is that little thank you in the hole where the CD sits. What is the story with that?
Lisa: We had a big debate over whether we should put all the names of people who have helped us over the years. The list was just getting out of control, so we just decided on that. Like, on the newest record, do you drop someone who helped you four years ago?
John: Of course you do. We never used to do that, early on; because you would invariably forget someone, and they would get mad.
Lisa: We always seem to offend someone. Once I said that a town smelled bad, because it did; and they wrote editorials about me.
John: What town was this?
Lisa: Hamilton, Ontario.
John: We were in Sudburry, Ontario, and that smelled really bad.
Lisa: It stinks there, too, but not as much as Hamilton.
Grant: Thatâs good that youâre bringing this up in print again.
Lisa: Well, I come from a town that smelled really bad, and it wasnât a big identity crisis for us. The pulp mill was called Harmac and people would say, âIs that you, mac, or Harmac?â That was the little town joke. I learned that little lessonâdonât say a town smells bad when youâre on stage, even if youâre trying to find out why.
Fizz: How did you find the smell of Seattle today?
Lisa: Today it was alright, a little damp.
Grant: What are the smelliest towns in the U.S.?
Lisa: Hoboken smells awful, but I really like it. I donât mind a bad smell now and again.
John: Speaking as someone from Brooklyn, I really hate Hoboken.
Lisa: I want to know more dirt though, I want to know if youâre going to go hang out with Andy Richter when you get back to Brooklyn tomorrow.
John: I donât know if that really is categorized as dirt.
Lisa: Well, Iâm trying to think of something to ask. What does your wife think of you going on tour with three gorgeous babes? And do you have an open marriage?
John: To the first part of the question, I donât know; it really never came up.
Lisa: And what about Andy?
John: Heâs really cool. We got stoned with him. His wife is really cool, too.
Lisa: I bummed a smoke from Andy Richter. What would she say if we were to give you a ride in our van?
Fizz: When we transcribe this, you realize that Iâll italicize âride.â
John: And to the last part of that questionâI donât have an open marriage. And now we move on.
Lisa: I love gossip.
John: I do, too. When we get new crew people, Iâll ask them about their worst show experience, just so I have another story.
Grant: What was the worst one that you heard?
John: I heard an endless story about Yngwie Malmsteenâgoing into a strip club in Florida, and asking a stripper if she had ever heard of Yngwie, and her saying, âyeahâ even though she didnât have a clue. And then he said in his English-as-a-second language way, âHe is me.â
Lisa: Is that the guy from Accept?
John: No, he is this neo-classical heavy metal guy, very Germanic.
Lisa: Oh, I was thinking of Udo Dirkschnieder. Heâs the guy from Accept.
Grant: [you knew he would jump in with the potty talk sooner or later] Do you want to hear the worst roadie story that I ever heard? Itâs really disgusting.
Lisa: This isnât about your underpants, is it?
Grant: No. It is about this guy named Ska-t. He was on tour with some band and got a girl to go with him by saying that he was in the band that he was roadie-ing for. Anyway, he gets this girl, and theyâre at it, and she tells him and she wants it up the poop shoot. (groans all the way around) Now, I told you that it was dirty. So he is doing it. The roommate comes in, and he is forced to pull out too fast; and shit goes flying all over him.
Fizz: Now, waitâweâve all heard that before. Thatâs some sort of an urban legend. Iâve heard that about Marsha Brady.
John: I fell for that one urban legend about the guy who goes to the singles bar and wakes up without a kidney or something. The guy who told me this is reliable and writes for a real high-brow magazine. When I heard the story, I was just going, âThat is so weird.â Now Iâve been waiting to see this guy again, so I can go, âYou asshole!â
Grant: I know I have read similar stories, but this one is true.
Lisa: I guess there is no reason to make that up. If that happened to you, youâd think youâd want to store it away in your personal file.
Fizz: What is the weirdest thing that anyone had ever sent to you?
Lisa: The weirdest thing?
John: I think that the worst was the âIâm going to kill youâ note.
(right then a package arrives)
Lisa: I think that this may be the most frightening thingâitâs addressed to Cub from âYour Canadian Husbandsâ. We usually just get cute things, fuzzy things.
Fizz: You have to open that package.
Lisa: OK. We get a lot of Shrinky DinksÂŽ, and people bake us things.
Fizz: In the interim, what do you think of Norwegian Death Metal? Like the lead singer that killed the other lead singer, because he was a pussy Satanist and the killer was a real Satanist.
Lisa: I donât really know that much about Norwegian Death Metal.
John: I would really promote that sort of thing.
(enter Ronnie Muff)
Ronnie: I heard something about ass fucking, and I had to see what that was all about it. Was that the story about Tabatha Soren and the #2 pencil?
John: (changing the subject) I was talking to a guy about Marilyn Manson the other day, and I was saying how they, um...
Fizz: Completely ripped you off?
John: No, that the shock rock isnât really very shocking. Itâs sort of Dead Ringers and Alice Cooper thrown together for a Catholic school guilt thing that just isnât very frightening at all.
(finally the package is opened)
Lisa: Letâs see what we got here⌠got some sort of gum thing, a little Buddha with a cell phone, some paper dolls. It is actually from girls.
John: I donât know about those Manson guysâthey have a very normal version of what is supposed to be grim and scary, and it just doesnât work. They need to get some real excitement in their show, like yanking out one of their eyeballs or something. They just really arenât pulling it off. Like David Lee Roth and his hair. If anyone could pull off a wig, it would be him; but he goes ahead with that comb-over thing.
Fizz: Thatâs all easy to say when you have nothing to worry about.
John: No, all men worry about their hair; itâs like penis length or something.
Lisa: Hey, Iâm worried about penis length.
Grant: Thatâs why she married Ronnie.
Ronnie: No problems there.
Lisa: Go ahead, Grant. I know what you want to say,
Grant: Do you know the urban legend... can I tell this, Ronnie? (an affirmative nod) Did you know this?
John: Iâm not really sure what youâre talking about. We did only meet yesterday.
Grant: The background is that youâre sitting with an urban legend. You know the Plastercasters?
John: Psssh, know 'em.
Grant: For the longest time since the '60s, there was a tie for the longest cock between Peter Tork and Jimi Hendrix.
John: Iâve partied with Peter Tork.
Grant: Well, then youâve partied with a big cock.
John: Not just one.
Grant: Anyway, they are still actively doing casts. And guess who shattered the record for the biggest cock in rock? That man right thereâRonnie from The Muffs. He is the biggest cock in rock and roll. He has the biggest hard cock!
Ronnie: I let him do the talking, actually Jimiâs is bigger around and Jello Biafra has a bigger helmet part.
Grant: OK, so you have the longest cock.
Fizz: Who has the smallest?
Grant: Itâs Rollins, right?
Ronnie: No, itâs Mookie Pitar from The Ruttles.
John: So you were approached by them?
Ronnie: Yep, and I did it. Iâm number 00050. We actually stayed with Cynthia Plastercaster.
Lisa: Her whole place is a shrine to the male form.
Grant: What was the weirdest thing about that, aside from the obvious?
Lisa: That Tom Snyder had handled his cock.
Ronnie: John doesnât like the sordid turn that this interview has taken.
John: No, Iâm just amazed. You seem like a sensible guy.
Grant: Iâm sorry. Everytime I open my mouth itâs like lifting a lid on a toilet.
Ronnie: Oh, I was very uneasy. She asked me to whip it out and whatever. It is a very weird thing. She is one of the most famous groupies of all time. She really is a nice woman. Iâll hook you up, John.
Lisa: Maybe sheâd come up for the show in Chicago.
John: Great.