Do you also find yourself bored sometimes after reading just a couple lines of text and loosing your focus, wondering what you just have read? Today we start with a new series of interviews, called: Out of the ordinary, which is about fun, craziness but also some serious stuff in between. At Welcome to the Future we had the opportunity to do such an interview with Thugfucker. Having read some of their previous interviews, I didn’t really know what to expect, seeing how every answer they gave seemed more bizarre than the one before. Luckily, this interview would be no exception. After their performance we sat down at the lake behind the Future stage so we could actually hear each other above the noise that was all around us.
“But seriously, a good pizza is always better than average sex”
G: Greg (from the US, an international aid worker turned DJ)
H: Holmar (from Iceland, former top model and security specialist)
The first thing that I would like to know is how you came up with the name Thugfucker.
H: Well Greg would say that it happened one way, and I would say another.
G: We both remember it differently.
H: Let me give you mine first. So…[I can’t really write down what Holmar said here because he would have unintentionally offended certain groups of people..]
G: No! I don’t remember it like that at all man! It went like this: I was in a Vietnam War protest in 1972 and Holmar was there and he was standing on top of cars, screaming and cursing at the authorities. Shouting things like: “Pigs! Thugfuckers!”. And then I thought “Holy shit, Thugfucker, that would be a really great name for us”.
Okay let’s just leave that for what it is then. Something that you often talk about in interviews is pizza.
H: We like the pizza lifestyle, which is something completely different than just liking pizza. We like to talk about pizza, we like to take pictures of pizza and we like the notion of how pizza can bring people together. So we subscribe to the pizza lifestyle, even though we don’t actually eat that much pizza.
G: Yeah we’re trying to cut down on pizza. I want to stop eating pizza entirely because I’m a Buddhist and I don’t like killing anything.
You don’t like killing pizzas?
G: No I don’t want to kill any more pizzas.
That’s nice of you. What I initially wanted to ask you though, was would you prefer pizza or sex?
G: Well I definitely enjoy sex with pizza. You can quote me on that. Wait, don’t.
H: But seriously, a good pizza is always better than average sex.
Who is the lady-killer of the two?
G: I probably shouldn’t say this but Holmar has actually killed three women. So, yeah, it’s definitely Holmar. Ok, kidding. He’s only killed pizzas but in his defense, he was starving to death and had no choice.
You guys are playing all around the world right now, what has been your most memorable event so far?
G: Burning Man was a very special gig. Playing in the middle of the desert is nice.
H: We also had this after party in Bristol one time at the Crack Fox. And there was just the smallest DJ booth ever.
G: It was crazy; it was like a closed broom closet with holes in the side.
H: Yeah and I got completely nauseous in that thing and threw up a couple of times during the gig. And there were only fifteen people attending the party. Everybody else was stuck outside in a queue that never got let in.
G: Yeah haha, it was the party everybody wanted to go to, but it was so exclusive that nobody could actually get in.
H: But we got the crowd going and we rocked the place for four hours or something. We played what was then a new song by Pillow Talk and people went insane. It was amazing.
Since you guys are a duo, do you have some kind of division of labour when working in the studio?
G: I do the toms and Holmar does the hi-hats.
H: Sometimes we pull tarot cards, you know those cards that gypsies read to tell your future, and then we associate a card to a certain key and then we get really freaky melodies.
G: It’s different every time. Sometimes we have dreams and try to make them real in the studio and sometimes we just talk about all kinds of crazy things for a while and then something is born and we work on that. But it’s never the same. As soon as we find a style of working that we’re comfortable with, we never do it again.
To keep things interesting?
G: It definitely keeps it interesting, yeah. The pace of work can sometimes be a bit slower that way but the result, for us, is always better. We don’t like to get bored.
What DJ could come and play at your wedding?
G: Sammy D from Pillow Talk.
H: DJ Three.
G: And Craig Richards would be a great one as well.
H: Yeah! Craig Richards, playing classics. That would be awesome.
What can we expect from your upcoming EP on Life and Death?
G: We have been touring non-stop so we haven’t had the time to finish it just yet. One thing we have coming soon is a remix for Crazy P that we are really proud of. We recorded live cellos and some other crazy stuff for that one. We also included a great vocal from Terence McKenna and have been working with his son on the graphics and concepts for the release. Terence McKenna was like a spiritual elder and an important figure in the psychedelic movement as well as a kick ass anthropologist with some amazing ideas about the development of the human species as well as where we’re all heading. After we had finished the remix using Terence’s vocal we ended up connecting with his son thru total synchronicity and that partnership has been really really rewarding…
Something I noticed again today is that you have a really diverse style of playing, the same goes for your production work. So could you tell me if there is some musical hook or angle you are going for with this EP?
H: We want to make future music.
G: Yeah, we want to make songs, not tracks, hopefully. Dance music songs. Something that will last longer than just a hit or a banger.
So you’ve got any plans for an after party when WTTF is done?
G: Haha I’ve been after partying the last two nights. But yeah, what the hell, why not?
H: Yeah we would like to go to the after at Studio 80 and see all our friends there, our family in Amsterdam, like Eric and Aron from Muscle Farm, Chris Julien, and all the residents at Chicago Social Club, where we always have a really good time. We always feel right at home here. The Amsterdam DJ scene is a really friendly and open one. We love those guys.
Okay, last question: Imagine a night in Amsterdam on mushrooms. What’s the thing that you would really want to do?
G: I would go and see the German black light puppetry group Mummenschanz. I already saw them as a child, and another time here in Amsterdam. We were sitting in this amazing little theatre downtown, filled with kids and their parents, and then there were some friends and me in the middle of all these kids, completely tripping on mushrooms, watching this crazy performance. It’s silent too, so you could literally hear everything, and when a kid would start laughing that sound would echo through the entire theatre. It was insane and hilarious.
H: Uhm, I would like to take my friends in Amsterdam and discover all their favorite places here, places that I otherwise would never come across.
G [To H]: That’s a terrible answer man, you should give him something better than that.
H [To G]: Well come on you already went WAY there. How the hell can I beat something like Mummenschanz? Where am I gonna go from there? Haha
Those dudes don’t seem too happy with us (we were on off-limits terrain of the festival and we were way past our ten minute access that security had granted us). Shall we go?
G & H: Yeah let’s get some drinks.
Thanks for your time guys, that was fun. I think it will be a while before I’ll be getting answers like that again.
