| |
|
|
April 03-04
Meet Sugarcult’s Marko 72
By Jessica Roadhouse, Indian Springs HS
|
During the Feb. 20 Fuse concert tour stop at the House of Blues, featuring Simple Plan, MxPx, Sugarcult and Billy Talent, I had the opportunity to interview Marko 72 of Sugarcult.
JR: Tell me about the new album you have coming out.
Marko: We have a brand new record called "Palm Trees and Power Lines," and it’s got lots of songs on it. They’re all new songs, and they’re all by a band called Sugarcult, which is me on guitar, this guy Tim who sings and plays guitar, this other guy named Airin who occasionally shows up and plays bass, and another guy named Kenny who, aside from being the most stylish member of the band, is also the youngest member and the drummer. It’s a great record. We’re very proud of it, and we wouldn’t be releasing it to the world if we weren’t proud of it. We would be putting it up for adoption and selling it to another band that needs songs.
JR: What were the best and worst shows you’ve ever played?
Marko: The best show we ever played was the show we’re about to play tonight in Las Vegas because that’s how I go into every show. I always try to go, "Tonight’s going to be the best night ever." The worst show we ever played was quite possibly the other night in Houston, where we played this place and the echo was so bad. I ate way too much food earlier, and so I was jumping around on stage with all this, like … I went to a Greek restaurant, and it was just not a pretty sight. I don’t know. There are no bad shows. I mean bad shows become good shows because if they’re so bad, it’s like a bad movie. It’s so bad that it starts to become kind of entertaining, you know.
JR: What or whom do you miss most when touring?
Marko: I miss my dog. I have a dog named Jackson, and I just leave, like, a whole month’s worth of food out and hope that he doesn’t overdo it, and then just kind of get home and clean up the mess.
JR: If the band hadn’t come as far as it has, what would you be doing?
Marko: Probably still playing some dive bar in Santa Barbara, and calling our friends on a Tuesday night, trying to guilt-trip them into coming to our show, even though we go on at 1 a.m. and they have to be at work in the morning.
JR: What bands or artists are you currently listening to?
Marko: That’s a good question. The new record by a band called Nada Surf is really good. I’ve been checking that out. There’s a band called Lucero that I’ve been listening to that’s really good. And this band called Billy Talent that’s on the tour with us. They’re from Canada and they’re very unique. They kind of have a Fugazi element to them. They’re pretty cool. I listen to all kinds of stuff, but those are some things we’ve been listening to lately.
JR: Who are your biggest musical influences?
Marko: I would say the bands that started out in my hometown of Santa Barbara, the bands that made me realize I could play music myself like NoFx, Lagawagon and The Ataris. Those bands kind of paved the way and made it seem possible to just start a band in a garage and get somewhere. My favorite band of all time is probably The Clash though.
JR: Do you collect any music memorabilia?
Marko: Yeah, I’m a total freak. I have so much pop-culture junk that my apartment is becoming like a landfill. I’m going to be one of those pathetic guys when all this is over, and suddenly I find out that I’m turning 40, and it’s like, "Oh crap! I’ve got years and years of all this pop-culture refuse, and now I’ve got to figure out what to do with it all." I’ll have to open some junk shop and sell everything just to put my kids through college, you know. I buy toys, any toys that are rock music-related. I have a lot of fun traveling through thrift stores and garage sales. Other people’s trash is my score.
JR: What is the weirdest body part you’ve ever autographed?
Marko: Um … gosh. Well, I’ve signed a fake … (points to leg) what do you call it?
JR: Prosthetic leg?
Marko: Prosthetic leg. That’s probably the weirdest body part I’ve ever signed. But I’ve signed just about every body part you can imagine. I think that people who ask you to sign their boobs are really lame, and to me it’s not very classy.
JR: I think it’s tacky.
Marko: I think it’s tacky, and they need to get self-esteem and realize that there’s way more efficient ways to get someone’s respect than to offer them sex within five minutes of meeting you.
JR: What did you do when you got your first paycheck from "Start Static" (Sugarcult’s 2001 debut album)?
Marko: What did I do? I still haven’t got that paycheck. They still keep telling me it’s in the mail. I’d say the first thing we did when we got a little bit of money was we went out and bought some new musical equipment. We figured this is what we’re doing, the reason we’re getting money is because of our music, so the least we can do is have the respect for our music and for people who care about our music to go out and buy some decent equipment to play it on, stuff that’s going to be durable so that we can take it out on the road. It’s not that exciting. Nothing extravagant. No fancy cars. I still drive my sister’s 1987 Toyota Corolla because she lives in New York, and she left it at my mom’s house. So there haven’t been any extravagant expenses except for our amps and our drums.
JR: What made you choose Trinidad as the location to shoot the video for "Pretty Girl"?
Marko: Well, you know our travel agent offered us an array of different luxury package vacation options, and we thought that Trinidad was the nicest deal. No, we were actually going down there to play a festival. There was a festival of Caribbean bands, and they wanted some Western bands to play, and they happened to ask us. They were flying us down and putting us up in a hotel, and since we didn’t have a lot of money to do a video, we just decided why not just bring our friend down with a camera and shoot footage of us cruising around. So if nothing else, even if our video never gets play, at least we’ll have a good souvenir from our trip to Trinidad. You don’t go there every day, you know.
JR: Any closing statements?
Marko: I strongly encourage you to come see us live because we really do give our all every time we play a show. We work really hard on our records too. But if you have our records, you should come experience it live too, and if you come see us live, then you should, vice versa, experience it on our records too. Go to our Web site, www.sugarcult.com. We’re revamping it. And we’ll see you in April on our "Palm Trees And Power Lines" headlining tour.
-Return to April 03/04-
|
|
