Show & Tell Online - interview with Mike Lewis of Lostprophets

MIKE LEWIS of LOSTPROPHETS

OZZFEST, TOM JONES & FIGHT CLUB
OZZFEST, NJ, 07.19.02

Ozzfest has become an institution. To young up and coming bands getting a slot on Ozzy’s annual summer festival is a coupe; gaining them both national and demographically friendly exposure.

With all due respect to the main stage acts, the backbone of Ozzfest is actually their second stage lineup. Playing during daylight, getting up hours earlier than they’re used to and performing for crowds that may or may not be fans, may or may not have even heard of them...

The second stage bands play with the fire of young gunshooters, out to prove themselves to the big guns each and every time they step on stage. This summer’s shows were no different.

We sat with second stage act lostprophets’ guitarist Mike Lewis and talked about Ozzfest, Tom Jones and Fight Club.

SHOW & TELL: This is actually the second time we’ve seen you. We saw you down at [Zeta’s Bonzai Festival in Florida]. We got some great pictures - it was a beautiful day that day.

Mike Lewis: Was that in Miami? Yeah, OK.

S&T: So how’ve the [second stage crowds] been?

ML: Awesome. Really good, yeah. We’ve had great reactions every day, every day. We’re not as "metal" as a lot of the bands on tour, so I wasn’t sure how we’d go down but it’s been incredible.

S&T: What about the early morning slot? [ed. note, bands playing the second stage rotate slots.]

ML: Yeah. We haven’t done the first slot yet, but tomorrow we’ve got the last slot. So actually, when we go down to West Palm [Beach], or the show before West Palm, we get the first slot I think, so it’s going to be interesting. I think the earliest we’ve played so far is around eleven.

S&T: That might actually be good to play early in Florida, get out there before the heat.

ML: Exactly, that’s what I was thinking.

S&T: Have you made any adjustments for playing during the day?

ML: No, because we did a couple of festivals in Europe before we came over here. We kind of already got used to playing during the day so it’s been cool. It’s just, the playing in the heat is bad, ‘cause we’re not used to it in the U.K. where it’s always raining or cold. So coming over here and playing in this humidity and this heat really is tough.

S&T: We talked to Chris [Volz, the singer] from Flaw. He actually had to go to the hospital the other day ‘cause he wasn’t adjusting, he wasn’t used to it.

ML: Exactly.

S&T: What about differences in fans at festivals in Europe and festivals here?

ML: I think my first reaction is that things are a little more open-minded, not quite as segregated. Like in the U.K., a lot of it is, punk kids like punk, metal kids like metal, emo kids like emo, whereas over here there seems to be a little bit more crossover. The punk kids will listen to metal, and the metal kids will listen to punk, and it’s cool. It’s kind of become a little bit cliquey in the U.K. right now, which isn’t too cool.

S&T: Is the music scene over there more delineated like that? Because over here, you can listen to a band and be like, "You know what? Maybe it’s punk, maybe it’s metal, I’m not sure." Over there is it really that punk is punk, metal is metal....

ML: That’s the funny thing, I think, where the crowds are becoming more elitist, I think that musically the bands are crossing over more. It’s like, a lot of the punk kids are starting punk-metal crossover bands, where there are a lot of punk influence in it but there’s also a lot of metal influences i n it, so I think whereas the bands are kind of opening their own minds, the kids are kind of closing their minds, it’s kind of weird. But there’s a load of cool bands back in the U.K. right now.

S&T: That we don’t even know about, or don’t hear about?

ML: Yeah, there’s a lot of cool shit happening over there right now.

S&T: Do people in the music scene over there aspire to come to the States?
ML: I don’t know about people in the music scene, but I think it’s more of a press thing, I think the media kind of instills it upon you rather than you instilling it upon yourself. It’s like, we were never bothered about...there’s a lot of shit in the media in the U.K. about breaking America and "Are the British bands going to go over and break America?" And it’s like, we don’t really care, not every one has to break America. We just thought of playing our music out to as many people as we possibly could, be it in Europe, be it in America or be it in South America, or be it in Asia or wherever, we didn’t really care. Look, we just want to go out and play, we want to play to as many people as we can, have fun, and just, you know, get as many people into our music as we can. I don’t care about record sales, I don’t care about how many records we sell, I don’t care if kids download our shit from the Internet. To me it’s all about them coming to see us live. I would rather play a killer show to a couple thousand kids who are going nuts, no matter where they got the music from, whether it’s from the Internet, whether they got it off their friends, or stole it or bought it from a store – I don’t care.

KS: Well, you did get great crowd response at both festivals that we saw you at. How was Monday night’s show in [New York] City?

ML: It was awesome. Really good. It was our first proper headline show in the U.S., and it was awesome. They were like, "Oh, we booked you into this club in New York," and we were like, "Ack," but we sold it out and it was awesome.

S&T: How long will you tour the first album?

ML: We’re going to finish up in October. We’re going to do Ozzfest until September 8th, and we fly to Japan and do, like, a week in Japan, then maybe go to Australia and then we go back and do six shows in the U.K. and then that’s it, we’re done. We’re going to do a new record.

S&T: Have you guys been playing around at all with new stuff?

ML: Yeah, yeah, we’re trying to write some stuff on the bus, we’ve got a couple of new songs written. We’ll play them live if we’re doing our own show, but here [at Ozzfest] we only have time to do five songs, so it’s like, when I go and see a band I want to see the songs I know....

KS: Right, and you want them [the audience] to jump around....

ML: Exactly. It’s like, play a new song and everyone’s just kind of standing there going...[shrugs] You know, so we just play what people want to hear at these shows, but at our own shows we play some new stuff.

S&T: What’s the new stuff? What’s it like compared to this record?

ML: Um, kind of the same, but kind of different. [laughs] It’s like – this sounds really clichéd – but I think the new stuff’s going to be...the heavy parts will be heavier, I think, and the melodic parts will be more, you know...

S&T: Right, I think that’s pretty standard for the second album.

ML: Yeah, I think that’s what it’s going to be. Like, when we wrote this album, we’d never toured, we’d done like a handful of shows, and we wrote all the songs and then we went in to record the record. But we’d never had any real, live experience playing those songs before we recorded them, so I think we’re a lot more learned this time with our songwriting. I’m just looking forward to it, I can’t wait to go in and do a new record. We recorded this album nearly three years ago, so....

S&T: That’s long enough.

ML: Yeah, totally.

S&T: All right, I know you gotta run, so I’ll just hit you with a couple of more quick ones.

ML: Oh, that’s cool.

S&T: What’s a "British redneck?"

ML: A "British redneck?"

S&T: Yeah. I read in one of the articles where someone was talking about your hometown [Pontypridd, Wales] and they were saying it’s a bunch of British rednecks.

ML: Yeah, same as the rednecks over here, I guess. You know, bigoted and closed-minded, and stuck in their ways, you know. It’s like a small-town mentality. If you come from that town, it’s not a cosmopolitan-type area, and if you’re different from everyone else you’re an outcast, a freak.

S&T: It’s the same shit everywhere you go!

ML: Same shit world over, you know. Wherever you go, you always get bigoted people and you’ll always get closed-mindedness.

S&T: Right. Is [where you live] really [’70 & ’80s pop icon] Tom Jones’s hometown too?

ML: Yeah, yeah. Where I live now, he came from a mile down the road. My grandfather used to live on the street above him.

S&T: That’s funny. Now, if we have somebody in a town, say, that went to the Olympics, you’ll drive into that town and it’ll say, like, "Home of Bruce Baumgartner, Olympic Champion!" So when you go into your town, is it like, "Home of Tom Jones?" [laughs]

ML: No, not really, no. It’s funny ‘cause you get that in London, you’ll find houses with signs that say, you know, "Whatever poet lived here," blah blah blah. And Tom Jones is famous, but I don’t think it’s considered as cool as, like, "Willam Shakespeare Lived Here," or something, you know? [laughter]

S&T: Yeah, well, we’re Americans, what do you want from us? Our whole country’s just over two hundred years old. [laughs]

ML: Yeah, we’ve got a little bit more "back catalog," if you like. [laughter]

S&T: The first time I went to Europe, I came back home and everyone asked how it was, and I said, "We talk about trying to have a sense of tradition in this country and I was in places where people were using furniture older than our country."

ML: Oh yeah. There’s a bridge in our town which is older than America.

S&T: And it’s a functioning bridge that you use?

ML: It’s a bridge over the river, it’s an arched bridge made of stone, and you can walk over it. It used to be the only bridge across the river for, like, horses, but now they built a road bridge by the side of it as well. But yeah, that was built, like, early 1700s or something. And there’s a castle like ten miles away from us which was built in like, 900. Over a thousand years old.

S&T: Wow, that’s unbelievable.

ML: And then there are Roman baths that date back to the Roman times, like, thirty miles away. It’s very cool, you know. You come over here to these cities and everything’s brand, brand, brand spanking new and then you go to Europe, like to Cologne in Germany, and you see these huge, beautiful cathedrals – it’s an awesome sight, really.

S&T: All right, real quick – last book you read, last movie you saw, and last CD you listened to?

ML: OK, last book I read was "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk.

S&T: I just read that a few weeks ago. I love that guy.

ML: Yep, "Fight Club" - fucking the best movie ever made.

S&T: I have it on DVD and I still watch it, like, once a week.

ML: That shit is amazing. That guy’s a fucking genius, that book’s awesome. I read it in, like, a day.

S&T: Have you read his other stuff, like "Invisible Monster?"

ML: I’ve read a bit of "Survivor," and it seemed really wacked-out, like it starts at the end! So I started reading a little bit of it, but I’ve never gone any further, actually.

S&T: Did you read "Fight Club?"

ML: No.

S&T: You should read the book. The movie’s probably one of my top three movies, but the book is, like, phenomenal.

ML: I’ll check it out. I’m in the middle of reading this one right now, called "I, Lucifer" by this British author [Glen Duncan –ed]. I’ve just started reading it, it’s kind of weird but kind of cool.

S&T: What’s it about?

ML: It’s about...the Devil comes back and he gets one last chance or something, and he comes back and gets put into the body of this office worker in London, and it’s just like him trying to see life from the other side. It’s really cool. And I read another one as well, called "Dead Kid Songs" [by Toby Litt –ed.]. It’s like, totally "Stand By Me" meets "Lord of the Flies." It’s amazing, really good.

S&T: All right, we’ll give it a whirl. And you should really read the "Fight Club" book.

ML: Last movie I saw was "Reign of Fire," which was fucking atrocious. [laughter] Jesus Christ. It was like such a... I thought it was going to be... Usually I like weird movies. I’m more a fan of weird, odd, bollocks movies than whatever, so I went to see it and I thought, "OK, switch my mind off, action movie, it’s a great concept," and it was terrible. It was really bad. And what’s worse is also, it was set in Britain, and even though there’s British people in it, like, all the action’s really overplayed and over-acted, and you’re sitting there kind of cringing at all these English actors going "Cor blimey, guvnor," and it’s like, "aw, fuck." [much laughter] And the last CD I listened to was, actually, The Used – it’s amazing, really good. The new Blastula record’s cool. Um, also, Coheed & Cambria’s pretty cool.

S&T: All right, very good.

ML: Cool. It’s nice to meet you.

S&T: Thank you very much for your time.

ML: No problem, man.

interview by scott sisti