INTERVIEW: FISHBONE
Monday, February 18th, 2008
Pussy, Politics and Pissing Their Pants
In the past 25 years ska-punk-funk-rock pioneers Fishbone have seen and done it all. Now vocalist/saxophonist Angelo Moore and bassist Norwood Fisher, the band’s creative backbone, recount some of their wildest antics during a memorable stop at HUSTLER headquarters.
HUSTLER: The new Fishbone CD, Still Stuck in Your Throat , has a track called “Let Dem Hos Fight.” So what do you guys think of the “nappy-headed ho” controversy?
FISHER: Well, what we did is we made a video with some stringy-headed hos so we could put a little balance to it. You know. We had some stringy-headed hos, some curly-headed hos and some nappy-headed hos. All that was missing was a bald-headed ho. That turns me on more than anything. Have you had a bald-headed ho?
FISHER: I had a bald-headed ho. She was my girlfriend for almost three years. She was a fine, bald-headed ho with a nice, round ass. I like all hos!
MOORE: That’s crazy as hell, loving all hos equally. Got any good groupie stories?
FISHER:Well, at one point or another they became girlfriends.
MOORE: That’s a trip how that happened.
FISHER: I got kids by a couple.
MOORE: I knew my baby’s momma before we were Fishbone.
Then the band came along, and she was somewhat of a groupie. We got married, had a kid and then the whole War of the Roses divorce. Now she’s just a bitch. Shit!
FISHER: There was a time these two girls took me to an abandoned house in Victoria, British Columbia.We smoked tons of honey-oil hash. Then I fucked them both in this abandoned house. A rat actually crawled over us while we were all fucking. Did it stop your flow at all?
FISHER: Didn’t stop a goddamn thing! It did freak me out a little bit. If that rat would have had at my nut sac, I would have been in trouble. Fishbone has always been the funkiest political band out there. What do you think about what’s going on in the world these days?
MOORE: What’s going on is very unfortunate, is very inconvenient and is the truth. Like that Al Gore movie with the global warming coming up and the glaciers melting and shit. The war in Iraq and Bush still being in office. It’s a big, fucking mess, man!
FISHER: I’m ashamed, and I think that the people of America should be ashamed that Bush is our President for all this damn time now. People just accept him as President when he really didn’t win either election? First time I was like, okay, people aren’t going to take this shit, and they’ll be rioting in the streets. This is America. I forgot that New York got tamed. If they tamed New York, then they can tame the fucking world! George Bush is in the same position that Hitler was in as far as he has just overrun a whole country of people, and those people just sit back and watch this guy act like a dictator over a democratic nation. And they just take it!
MOORE: How are you going to follow a President that got on TV and apologized for the war and said, “I fucked up”? Then after he does that, he sends more troops over there. So who’s really in control? The people certainly aren’t. Bush can say anything he wants to say. Are we doomed?
MOORE: It is going to take a big explosion or implosion. America is going to implode. They’re blowing up everybody else. They’re going to implode from the inside. Something big has to happen before change can come about.
FISHER: I would hope it would be like a revelation rather than a revolution— because you can stop a revolution. But if there is actual revelation where people’s mind are awoken, I don’t know what that might look like or what it might take. Something that couldn’t be stopped. What is the worst stage injury you’ve ever sustained?
FISHER: Angelo taking a gouge out of my shins with his brand-new Doc Martins, steppin’ right into my shins doing some spectacular dance moves. Now Angelo is the man of many injuries.
MOORE: Aw, shit! Where do we begin?
FISHER: Let’s start with what started it all—the Dead Kennedys. MOORE: Dead Kennedys’ 1984 “Dinner Is Served” concert at the Starlight Roller Rink. I seen them skinheads getting up there and jumping. I walked in there with a Jheri curl and a—
FISHER: Flight suit.
MOORE: Flight suit. A pop-lockin’ suit I got from Merry Go Round. I seen them punks run up there and jump off the stage and thought, That looks fun. I ran and did it, and the floor opened up, and I landed straight on my knee. I’m sitting off in the corner, holding my knee, going “Oh, damn! Oh, shit! My knee!” And that’s what started all my punk-rock career. “Oh, damn! Oh, shit! My knee!”
FISHER: You got dead people’s knees now. There were also many times I pissed myself onstage, or when Angelo shit on Japanese TV. Did you really shit on Japanese TV?
MOORE: Did I shit on Japanese TV? Really?
FISHER: Yeah, you did! It was a long time ago. I think we were promoting the second CD, In Your Face.We was on this Japanese TV show, and your insides was whirling—
MOORE: Uh, I was in the interview, and I had to get up and go to the toilet.
FISHER: You didn’t get up and go to the toilet. You shit your pants on fucking Japanese TV.
MOORE: Really? Wow!
FISHER: We were performing, and you went for a high note and lost your bowels. It ran down your socks.
MOORE: Could that have happened?
FISHER: I have pissed my pants several times myself onstage in my career. The first time [was when] we played a show in Baltimore. It was in the fucking winter, and I didn’t know anything about packing for snow. I’m cold as hell, and we’re playing this little room called the 8×10. I wanted to play there because it was one of the few places in America that the Sex Pistols had played. Fuck, yeah! It was so fucking cold, and outside we just got fucked up drinking Jack Daniel’s all day before the shows. In the middle of the set I tried to pinch off my dick, and I just started pissing my pants like crazy. All down into my shoes. I did pull my dick out and pissed on the back of the bass like three times again before the show was over.
MOORE: Shit like that happens—when you gotta go.
