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RRP: Which one of you runs the label Foot In Mouth Productions (F.I.M.P.)?
Jeff: Actually, we all have a hand in it. We all do different things, like John does the web site…
John: Whenever somebody wants to do something, it’s a Foot In Mouth Production.
Scott: I do very little. Jeff and John do most of the work. I’m kinda lazy, so they get most of the credit.
Jeff: Foot In Mouth Productions was something we made up to put out our own music and over time we put out a couple compilations that have other bands on them also. We put out every CD Truth product, some Mistletoe, some compilations, my solo CD, maybe some upcoming stuff. We have a couple releases somewhat planned releases for 2005-6 era.
Scott: We’re thinking about releasing some of the stuff we haven’t released yet: demos and recording sessions that never got officially released. Stuff that we put on cassette or whatever and listened to, but we’d like to clean out the closet, so to speak, and get some of that stuff out there. So hopefully in the next few months you’ll see some early years of CD Truth, some middle years of CD Truth, and some current years of CD Truth.
Jeff: We were formed in 1990, so we’re celebrating our upcoming 15th anniversary with old demos, new projects, and we have T-shirts too, finally, after 15 years.
RRP: You’ve never had T-shirts in 15 years?
Jeff: Well, no, this is actually the third time we’ve had T-shirts in 15 years.
John: It’s the same shirt, though.
Scott: But better, I think they’re a little bit better.
Jeff: Yeah it’s the same shirt each time with different printing but same design, so you can tell the different eras.
John: The first era was the best, because my red shirt is still good. That was the before-me era; I got the last shirt, and it still fits.
Jeff: John’s been in the band for ten years and he’s still the new guy. Scott and I have been in the band for full 15 years.
Scott: We actually played in a band before that too, so it’s been a while for me and Jeff.
RRP: What band was that?
Scott: We started out in Psyclops.
Jeff: Psyclops basically fell apart and then one member, Mike Schubert, formed the Nimrods and Scott and I formed CD Truth with another guy that was in Psyclops. The Nimrods were more of your pop-punk, beer-soaked punk rock, and we played weirdo rock’n’roll.
Scott: It was more cerebral stuff that we played back then. We were a lot slower.
Jeff: We were like a drunk King Crimson back then. We did more jamming. We trimmed our songs down now to under three minutes; we’re trying to keep it more at the bar person’s attention span. Like from a twelve minute instrumental, we’re down to a two and a half minute…
John: Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, done.
RRP: Don’t you guys also record in one of your houses?
Scott: Demo work, yeah.
Jeff: Shitsville USA. Motown had Hitsville, USA, we have Shitsville, USA.
John: Murder Avenue.
Jeff: CD Truth, Mistletoe, Professional Againsters, Kill The Hippies have all recorded there… Lester too…
John: Yesterday’s News…
Jeff: Yeah, there’s been a bunch of bands that have recorded at our house. We had a digital 8-Track for a while. John just got a 16-Track. We always demo our songs before we go into a bigger studio and pay money.
John: It’s a nice environment, a comfortable atmosphere to record in. It’s nice to be able to sit there and record in your dining room or kitchen.
Scott: We haven’t gotten a lot of great product out of the home recording studio yet, but I have high hopes.
Jeff: Yeah, CD Truth is the band where we experiment and learn how to use the machine, and then we have other bands come over and their stuff sounds better because we figured out how to use it when we did our own stuff. So usually we demo at home, get frustrated, and go to the studio.
RRP: So the neighborhood you live in is pretty interesting. I heard that you have a crazy cat guy…
John: Crazy cat guy?
Jeff: There was a heavy metal dude that used to live across the street from us who did have a lot cats, and some of them were really friendly. They’d come over, you could pet them, but you didn’t have to feed them. They would just go home. Yeah, we had that crazy weird metal guy. We live in the neighborhood where a woman ran out in the street while her ex-boyfriend was grabbing her hair and stabbing her. The neighbors call 911, but the police never came and she ended up getting stabbed to death. They didn’t come until like an hour later.
John: They could have walked quicker from the police station.
Jeff: So we haven’t gotten any noise violations because they’ll never come. Even if someone complains, the police don’t come.
Scott: There were a few murder complaints when that happened, but…
Jeff: Then there was a fight in the streets with baseball bats, but we survived that too. There were two groups of people and they had a stand-off and all the sudden baseball bats and golf clubs got broken out. I watched and they beat a guy really bad. Then the paramedics came and hauled him away.
John: Wasn’t he kinda askin’ for it?
Jeff: Yeah, he said “I dare you to cross this line…”
John: Yeah, he did, he went like this with the bat [makes the motion to draw a line]
Jeff: I think he used the N-word with the –er instead of the –a at the end, and next thing you know, he had to go away in the EMS.
John: I went to sleep that night because I didn’t want to know anything about it. Jeff was yellin’ at them; I didn’t want to answer any questions.
Jeff: And then they said they were gonna kill me, and I was like “why are you gonna kill me, I just want some peace in my neighborhood.”
Scott: Does any of that filter into our music? I don’t know, maybe some of your lyrics. You guys live there, I don’t.
Jeff: Yeah, we have a new song that I have. I haven’t shown you the lyrics yet.
Scott: Is that “Murder Avenue”?
Jeff: “Murder Avenue.” That’s where we live. That where we make our music up.
John: There was that other murder too.
Jeff: Murderers don’t live there - just victims.
John: It’s really not that dangerous of a place.
Jeff: There is really not any bad people there, they just visit.
John: It’s a nice neighborhood, aside from the people that come there.
Jeff: Except for visitors with bats and knives.
Scott: So you wanna come over for a practice? I’ve never had any trouble walking to my car. I’ll tell you that.
John: That’s because they like us there. The first week we were there practicing and they told us to turn it up.
Jeff: The only neighborhood where they’ll knock on the door and say “turn it up,” instead of callin’ the cops.
RRP: [To Scott] So are you the big Who fan?
Scott: I am the Who freak of the band, although Jeff is a very big fan and John is too. But I’m the Who freak.
RRP: I’ve heard that you have traveled pretty far to see them.
Scott: I’ve gone to Atlanta, Boston, Detroit. John and I went to Detroit to see that show. New Jersey, New York City, Pennsylvania. Yeah, not often, but if they tour I’ll go see maybe three or four shows. This is not something I’ve been doing my whole life, it only started maybe five or six years ago, but I’ve been a Who freak all my life, over twenty years.
Jeff: That’s because they didn’t tour your whole life.
Scott: Yeah, there was a space in there where they weren’t touring.
John: You should see his apartment. There are Who posters throughout - on every wall.
Jeff: He’s got Who jigsaw puzzles, Who pins, Who posters, Who tickets, Who photos, Who bootlegs…
Scott: But since meeting other people via the internet, other Who freaks, I’ve come to understand that I’m more of a second class ticket than a first class ticket. I’ve got about 400 Who albums and CDs, but there’s people with thousands.
RRP: 400 Who albums?!
Scott: Yeah, I should say 410 albums and CDs actually.
Jeff: With cassettes, more towards 500.
John: You’ve got the only Who coyote in the world too.
Scott: It’s a Wiley Coyote little stuffed animal. I took a sharpie and gave him a little Who tattoo on his chest, so he’s been deputized to watch my Who collection when I’m out of the apartment. He does a good job too, although every now and then the son-of-a-bitch gets into my pot stash and I have to correct him.
RRP: [To John] I heard that you are a librarian…
John: I am not, although I do work at the library. I do payroll.
Scott: He pays the librarians.
John: I am the payroll clerk. I like to call myself the accounting ass…
Jeff: …istant.
Scott: Oddly enough, I work about five or six feet away from John in the same office. I work in accounts payable in the library’s business office.
John: He could soon be my boss.
Scott: That’s a possibility, but we don’t know yet.
RRP: Is that gonna be awkward when he’s your boss?
John: No, because I’ll get to come into work late, drink in the office [laughs].
Scott: We’ll see what happens…
John: Smoke pot…
Scott: We’ll see what happens…
Jeff: You can’t say anything about the library and smoking pot here.
John: They all smoke pot; they don’t drug test anymore.
Scott: Except for the drivers.
John: They don’t drug test them until they get into an accident.
Scott: News to me.
Jeff: I’m a cook. I melt cheese for a living, and everybody smokes pot where I work. You can put that in there.
John: Just say they eat burgers or something.
Jeff: They eat burgers when they are high as hell… “give me a damn burger and put some cheese on it goddammit!”
John: I know: here’s a few names of my friends who smoke pot! [laughs] I know specifically…
RRP: I’ll take them down like a good citizen and make a police report.
Jeff: I will say we’ve been in Rock-n-Roll Hell for a long time, it’s good know we finally made it to Purgatory. That means we only have what? …We’ve been playing fifteen years in Rock-n-Roll Hell, so how many more years until we get to at least like, Rock’n’Roll Judgement Day? How long is that? Probably pretty soon the way things are going.
RRP: So what is Mistletoe?
Scott: That’s it, I’m leaving. [laughs]
Jeff: Mistletoe is a punk band that I am in. We started off playing all Christmas songs rock-n-roll style, like if AC/DC or the Sex Pistols were doing them. Then we branched out and learned a lot of glam rock style, a lot of Bowie, T-Rex, Sweet, that kind of era. Cheap Trick. We do covers songs, but nothing after 1980, that’s our cut-off zone. Christmas and rock-n-roll songs before 1980 is what we do. Everybody in Mistletoe is in an original band. I’m in CD Truth, Mike is in the Professional Againsters, Jim is in a band called Peep, and Dale is playing in Tripnotic. So we all have our original bands and we come together for Christmas in July and we do Christmas shows, but we don’t really do it 100% all year. We’re kind of incestuous with our other projects. You know, when you’re in band, it’s a relationship and you want people you can trust to watch your equipment, not steal your equipment, not fuck your girlfriend, or whatever. We’re all good friends. John is in the Professional Againsters too.
John: Three of us lived in the same house, so our projects would run together. I joined the Professional Againsters because Mike said “hey, the bass player didn’t show up, you wanna come on downstairs and jam?” And now it’s three years later and I’m still in the band, and Mike doesn’t even live there now.
Jeff: Everybody looks back and glorifies the Akron days of Devo, Rubber City Rebels, maybe even the Cramps, and even the Cleveland days of Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys, but after those people rose to the top, they all left. By the time we started going to see shows and playing music, those people and those clubs were gone. I think especially through the 90’s there wasn’t shit. There was no J.B.’s Downunder, no Lime Spider… barely anywhere to play.
John: There was the Mantis.
Jeff: Yeah the Mantis across the street, and maybe we could get a show at Thursdays, but I’m glad we made it until 2005 because people want to go and see bands now. It’s nice, because the 90’s were pretty bleak in Akron, Ohio. Right now downtown looks pretty good in Akron, but there wasn’t shit down there before and everything was falling apart.
RRP: You sing a lot of songs about Akron; you seem to have a lot of Akron pride…
Jeff: I’d say maybe 20% of our set is based on Akron.
RRP: How come you never re-located; what keeps you wanting to stay here?
Jeff: I don’t know… debt. Personal debt. [laughs]
John: Akron is a nice city, though. It’s affordable. I bought a house and I don’t make a lot of money.
RRP: How much did you get a house for?
John: $37,000.
RRP: Are you serious? 37?
John: Well, people break into it and people get killed on my street. Still, though. I bought a house, and I don’t make a lot of money. There’s a lot of houses that cheap. The house next door to me sold for $14,000. It’s small, but for 14,000 bucks… I mean, it’s a normal house.
Jeff: The other thing about CD Truth, how long we’ve lasted and stayed where we are, is because getting signed to a major label and getting on TV or whatever was never a major goal. We just wanted to write some songs and play some shows in our hometown. That makes us pretty happy. And we give each other space. Things happen in our lives, we can’t always practice twice a week and that’s okay.
RRP: The Akron/Kent scene doesn’t get much press either.
Scott: Jeff’s been nominated as best singer before, but it’s like best band…
John: Kill The Hippies all the way, man.
Jeff: Yeah, Kill the Hippies, why can’t they be nominated as best band?
John: Best hardcore band: Don Austin. Easy.
Jeff: But you know, there’s the popular kids and there’s the mutants. At least some of the mutants like us. I won’t say we’re really a punk band when it comes down to it. We’re just kind of like a weird rock band, but we’ve been accepted in this scene and made some good friends, and thank god for that. All those bands who get nominated, in a year or two where are they anyways? Where’s Junkman or Peacetree or Kid Wicked?
RRP: So why does your song say Cleveland is still #2 when they are #1 in poverty for the whole the nation?
John: The song was actually written before that. They’re #2 because they keep trying but not getting anywhere.
Jeff: When you look at other cities that lie upon the Great Lakes… look at Toronto, look at Chicago… Cleveland doesn’t even come close to that.
John: But then look at Detroit. Detroit’s nasty.
Jeff: Yeah, but the other thing is that when you’re an Akron band and you go to Cleveland, everyone forms a semi-circle around you and folds their arms. I think it’s a lot better experience for the Cleveland band to come down to Akron and get the hell out and go home. I’ll tell you we’ve, played in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, and we’ve been treated better in all those towns than we’ve ever been treated in Cleveland, and that’s our neighbor.
RRP: Even Pittsburgh was good?
Scott: Pittsburgh was great!
John: I think it’s just because…
Jeff: Maybe if you got a mohawk. [laughs]
John: I think it’s everybody here knows us, we’ve been around for a long time. We’re not gonna disappear. You can see us again.
Jeff: Or they think we’re just some kids.
John: I’m an accountant. I’ll fight you.
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