Finally, after years of waiting due to labels fucking up, the PARASITES have a new record out! Yay! I e-mailed Dave way back in April '98 to ask if he'd mind answering a few questions for the zine. He didn?t so he did and here they are!

After all the shit that happened with Wingnut and Lookout did you consider putting "Rat Ass Pie" out yourselves?
It's been a long time since we put out our own stuff, and I wasn't really entertaining that idea. Especially since we were flat broke at the time. It might have taken us years to release it!

Are you happy being on Go Kart? Are they doing a good job?
So far so good, they treat us like a real band, and Molly Neuman doesn't work there. What more could we ask for??

Did anything at all good come out of the Lookout fiasco?
Yes, us not being on a label that's running itself into the ground.

Do you think you got some new fans out of it, if nothing else?
I don't really know, actually I guess we'll see if people know the song from the "More Bounce to the Ounce" compilation. I guess I'll find out soon on our US tour, which starts later this month.

How does the new record differ from your old stuff, if it does? Are you pleased with how it came out?
We consider this album old stuff! The songs are faster and shorter, and it rocks more, mostly due to the fact that I finally have a decent guitar and amp instead of the pieces of shit I'd been using forever. I just got the reference CD to approve the other day, and hearing it on CD for the first time instead of a worn out cassette copy, I must admit that it sounds pretty good.

Do you have any plans to tour the UK? Please??
We'd love to tour there, but I haven't found anyone that will arrange it. We have been to Europe before and the shows were great but the general consensus was that no one's really heard of us in the UK.

Do you think that "pop-punk" is going to reach saturation point and maybe die from overkill, or do you think it's healthy that there are so many bands playing the kind of music that term loosely defines?
Well, Pop Punk already has reached the saturation point, and a good example of that is that there are a lot of totally generic bands that are really popular - way more than us, but I'd like to think that we're somehow a little different from the rest of the pack, and we'll still be here after the bad  bands go away.

What bands would you recommend that our readers may not have heard of?
Move to Japan, and stay there. All the bands are good there, and Cigaretteman is the best band anywhere.

Why did you compile the "Japan Punk Kills You" release? Who's on it? What type of bands are on it?
I compiled it so people from other places might find out about bands from Japan, but, of course, most of the copies so far ended up being shipped to Japan. It seems that countries are so closed minded when it comes to bands from different countries, it's dumb, people are missing out on a lot of good music, and the US is perhaps the worst offender. No one here cares about bands from anywhere else. They're too busy buying Lagwagon CDs. There are 20 different bands on the Japan Punk CD, punk, pop, and everything in-between. It's a tiny little sampling of the huge amount of bands there. I'm planning to do volume 2 later in the year.

Tell us a bit about the solo demos you recently released.
I always make demos of the songs to test out the best way to arrange them, and some of the demos turned out having certain qualities about them that I liked better than the regular recorded versions, so I picked out the best ones and put out the double EP set. I didn't have to pay for it, and figured even if no one else liked it, I wouldn't have to search through a drawer full of tapes to listen to them anymore.

You recently covered "It's Alive"... do you think it's healthy for bands to cover entire Ramones albums? Is the idea of covering Ramones albums passé or will it never get dull?
I hope bands stop doing the Ramones albums soon, as it's getting really close to the crap ones, who wants to hear some band cover "Animal Boy"? Not me. We did ours because the Japanese version had a completely wrong and completely funny lyric sheet, and I had always wanted to do a cover of that version. We wouldn't have done one otherwise.

Has the punk scene changed much since you started the Parasites?
Nope, people still hate us.

Why the name change from Nikki to Dave?
Too many Motley Crue jokes, and everyone started thinking that Nikki and Dave were two different people. Funny enough, when the Lookout single came out, we got a few letters from fans who thought ?Nikki? had quit, and ?Dave? was the new singer and songwriter. Geez, couldn't they tell that it was the same voice?? I guess they thought we'd lucked out and found someone who sounded and wrote exactly the same.

What is the best sit-com of all time? We need to know!
I'm not the one to ask, I never watch television. It rots your mind, you know.

OK, this interview is being conducted over the internet. Do you think the 'net is, in general, a good or bad thing? Is it useful for the band?
The internet is starting to break down human contact, although at the same time, I must admit that it's pretty cool to book shows by e-mail. It's fast and free. I'm afraid of how many e-mails will be waiting after tour, however.

Anything else you wanna say to our readers?
Hi, somebody bring us there, I've heard your scones are delicious.

Plug a record?
Our new album will be out on April 14th, and it's got the funniest pictures yet.

Say something inspirational? Anything at all?
Write to us at PO Box 40307 Berkeley, CA, 94704 or [email protected] but remember we might be on tour when you write so it might take awhile.

(from Scary Sheep #2)

 

Issue Three
Dina
The Donnas
Dugong
Eighty Six
Happy House

Sloppy Seconds

Issue Two
Discount
One Car Pile-Up
The Queers
Parasites
Skimmer

Issue One
Dagobah
Hooton 3 Car/Travis Cut
Midget
The Mr T Experience

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