Way back at SXSW 2007, we stumbled across a band from Brooklyn who impressed quite a bit with their live show filled with energetic, rocking, sexy music. Now the rest of the world is finally waking up and discovering Semi Precious Weapons are here to make Rock n Roll beautiful once again. Just before flying on to Sweden to join up as support to Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball, a support slot that is taking them all over the globe, the band had a 30 hour stay in London, which included an intimate gig, we managed to meet up with Justin Tranter (vocals), Cole Whittle (bass), Dan Crean (drums) and Stevie Pyne (guitar), who was playing with a Japanese noise machine at Polydor’s office for a chat.
R13: How are you finding the UK? You have played London before but not the rest of the UK until the last Lady Gaga tour?
JUSTIN: We love it, we had a great time in Manchester, which was awesome
DAN: Awesome
JUSTIN: what was that town I had a blast in, that there was no reason I should have had a blast in?
DAN: Cardiff?
JUSTIN: I had a blast in Cardiff
COLE: We all did, we were wild in Cardiff
JUSTIN: For us it is always more exciting in the smaller cities. People in the smaller cities are much more excited, it is the same in America like we love playing to St Louis people who will go fucking nuts. For us to play in other cities in the UK is really fun. The audiences are just much happier to be alive.
COLE: People are spoiled in the cultural centres, even if their mum was on stage they would be like ‘fuck you’.
JUSTIN: We really enjoy it and we are so glad that we are coming back again.
R13: How are you finding the crowds compared to America?
JUSTIN: It depends, it changes city by city. People are more willing to take a risk on our band here, they are more open to things that are different but the people in America who have found us are fucking crazy. No matter where we go the people who have found us always seem ready to have a great time.
COLE: We are good at finding the crazy’s
JUSTIN: Or the crazy’s keep finding us
R13: Every time I look on the internet it just seems like an explosion of Semi Precious Weapons craziness
COLE: Arrgghhhh
R13: How are you finding the rest of the world, especially after playing Australia, New Zealand and Japan?
COLE: We did really well in New Zealand and Australia
JUSTIN: It is so exciting to see that, especially in New Zealand and Australia even radio stations really got behind us immediately, which we are not fucking used to. I just think it is amazing that the radio over there are willing to take a chance and play Jay Z, play Lady Gaga and then play Semi Precious Weapons. People don’t really care, in other countries we find, especially in America and the UK a little bit, people are really confused that we look like this and are a rock band, they want us to be electro or they want us to be whatever but in New Zealand and Australia they didn’t even flinch "oh you make Rolling Stones inspired rock n roll, awesome" no questions, no worries.
COLE: "You look like homeless people from the future, awesome"
R13: What is the best gig you have played so far on this Lady Gaga tour?
COLE: that’s tough, really fucking tough
DAN: Some of our favorite cities, that’s probably easier, I love the soccer. Japan was amazing.
JUSTIN: I would say the best gig was probably in New Zealand for us, in Auckland, just because we had already been on the radio there, we had already been on TV there, so everyone there knew us, maybe weren’t huge fans of ours yet but they knew who we were which makes a huge fucking difference because when you are playing to 15,000 people and only 2,000 of them have even heard your name if we are lucky, it takes a lot longer to get the audience crazy but in Auckland from the first note they knew exactly what was going down and it was amazing.
DAN: and the O2 shows were nuts.
JUSTIN: Well Dublin was fucking amazing.
COLE: All of them were great!
R13: You have that massive intimate feel to your shows, how are you capturing that on the larger stages?
JUSTIN: We are kind of doing the exact same show, we are lucky that they are in the big arenas, there are screens to make my face really really large, we bring 12 foot champagne bottles on stage with us in the arenas but besides that.
COLE: We are a really loud band so making us louder can only improve things.
JUSTIN: We want people to think, as you say, it is a bar show and we do the best we can to be as filthy as we can and break as many rules. In these arenas there are so many rules about you can’t go offstage, you can’t feed minors champagne and all this dumb things.
COLE: Which sucks for us as all we do is hurt ourselves on stage now, I’m looking down at an 11 year old and punching myself in the face and she is “awww”
JUSTIN: Actually that is really true, we just beat ourselves up and beat each other up more to try and get people to feel that bar ridiculousness
DAN: But before what Lady Gaga show is, this huge high tech production, seeing us just like, tumbleweed rolling around, crazy, we are no more than 3 feet apart from each other playing rock n roll, where every sound you hear we are actually making and I think that it translates really well, in a huge venue.
R13: Do you prefer the bigger stage where you can play to more people or the bar type?
COLE: We love both, just different things.
DAN: The crazy thing is going back playing smaller stages after having played a string of these arenas. Like when we went back to LA to play the Roxy it was like oh shit, it’s like beating up your little cousin to make him feel you are in such control.
COLE: Beat that cousin
JUSTIN: Beating up your little cousin, playing small clubs is like playing beating up your little cousin but playing the arenas we are the ones getting beat up
COLE: We’re the little cousins
JUSTIN: The best thing about playing arenas is that it is such an opportunity, the fact that Gaga is bringing a real filthy rock band on tour with her and we get to play to thousands of people every night is nuts.
COLE: Because we wouldn’t bring ourselves
JUSTIN: So the fact that she brought us is pretty ballsy
R13: How would you describe your sound to someone who is coming along for the first time?
JUSTIN: We would describe it as real rock n roll and dirty fucking showbiz
COLE: and loud band
JUSTIN: Real rock n roll, dirty showbiz and loud band or champagne and guitar solos
COLE: Tit hunters!
R13: How did you feel when you got signed and more importantly how did you celebrate?
JUSTIN: It was Ron Fair, who is chairman of Geffen Records, he heard a verse and chorus of ‘Magnetic Baby’ and put us on a plane and by us I mean these two (Dan and Stevie) sadly had to drive our van from Portland, Oregon to Salt Lake City on a day off between shows while Cole and I flew to LA to meet with Ron Fair and he was just amazing, we met him on the Thursday and on the Monday we were in the Ocean Way Studios making a record with Jack Joseph Puig, which is a dream come true. To celebrate we didn’t really do anything, we were so shocked.
DAN: We didn’t really have time to celebrate, we had to fly back and play a fucking gig and then drive 40 hours straight back to LA.
COLE: And at that point we were like abused animals so we didn’t really believe it was happening
JUSTIN: We were sure something was going to go wrong.
COLE: Even when we set foot in the studio and they told us we were making our entire record right then, we were like no way this is real, they are not recording, there is no way that fucking tape is on.
JUSTIN: Yeah, we celebrated by Cole and I flying to Salt Lake to play a show and driving 40 hours to LA, that was our celebration.
COLE: I threw up in a Mexican restaurant that day.
JUSTIN: You did, literally an hour after we left Ron Fair’s office he puked in a Mexican restaurant
COLE: That’s how I like to celebrate any fine occasion, eat Mexican food and puke
R13: Was a good Mexican then?
COLE: Yeah, she was!
R13: Does this mean the end of the jewelry business?
JUSTIN: As I am sure you know, the jewelry was started just a way to pay for the band and music is my first love but when making the jewelry to pay for the band I realized I actually enjoyed doing it and people really liked buying it so we are going to keep it going, why not. I won’t have the time to sit there and make it all by hand like i used to but it will still exist.
COLE: I’m gonna miss the sweatshop, I think we should do a sweatshop a month.
JUSTIN: We had some good times sweat shopping
COLE: One solid 14 hour day might be better than all 14 hour solid days for 2 years. I don’t know, I am not sure how to live this life yet.
R13: You’ve got the new album coming out?
JUSTIN: June 22nd
R13: What can we expect on it, are some of the old tracks going to be on there?
JUSTIN: We re-did some of the old tracks, just because we had the opportunity in this amazing studio with this amazing producer to make our dream album. So some of the songs that we really love we wanted to do them how we heard them in our heads but never could afford to make them happen and then there are some new songs and I think for people who have been fans of ours for a while, there’s going to be some stuff that they will be really surprised about like that there is a huge amazing ballad with an orchestra and then the is also the last song on the album is like a really creepy, intimate, fucked up love song if you will but it is really mellow and beautiful, there is as far as most of the world is concerned will be the first thing they have heard from Semi Precious Weapons but as far as we are concerned it is more like new stuff for us.
R13: Hopefully this will mean the end of all the evictions in New York
JUSTIN: Hopefully we will no longer get evicted but I doubt it!
COLE: It’s hard to get evicted when you are homeless
JUSTIN: that’s true, we have no apartments right now.
R13: When are we going to see a UK headline tour?
JUSTIN: We are on tour with Gaga for a long long time, thank God, but there always seems to be a couple of weeks off in her schedule, like in the last couple of weeks we had not been in America for so long we went and did a small headline tour in America and so I am sure we will do a small UK headline tour at some point, hopefully in the next 6 months
DAN: Basically when we get a chance we will do a UK headline tour
COLE: We are just waiting for the UK to demand it
R13: We will make one demand, bring Nico Vega over with you, it’s about time they came over here
JUSTIN: Aren’t they amazing
COLE: Awesome
DAN: Great fucking band
JUSTIN: So great
R13: Justin, you have always considered yourself to be the most beautiful person in the world, which is obviously true, who would you consider to be the 2nd most beautiful person?
JUSTIN: Sharon Stone
R13: Any reason for Sharon Stone?
JUSTIN: Because she is the woman in the world
COLE: I will answer that, because she looks like him!
JUSTIN: That’s why she is the 2nd most beautiful, actually Sharon and I may be tied
COLE: J-Lo is too, right?
JUSTIN: J-Lo is maybe number two and me and Sharon Stone are tied for number one.
R13: And your favorite outfit you have ever worn on stage?
COLE: J-Lo
JUSTIN: I’ve just got this new jacket which I am obsessed with, a long time ago a friend of mine, Tommy, got me a jacket, basically this exact jacket but in black but now as I only wear the color nude our friend Jimmy had it re-made and I have two of them in two slightly different nude colors and I think for sure these are the favorite thing I have ever worn or I wore a cape of myself at the Bowery Ballroom, those are ties.
R13: If you was a kangaroo, what would you have in your pouch?
JUSTIN: that is the best question I have heard
DAN: Kangaroo Jerky, I don’t know
JUSTIN: You would have kangaroo jerky in your own kangaroo pouch?
DAN: Yeah, I am a cannibal
JUSTIN: Well Dan would have kangaroo jerky in his own kangaroo pouch and I would probably have............Sharon Stone, I would have Sharon Stone in my pouch
COLE: I would put my own little fucking cousin in there so I could beat his arse whenever I wanted
STEVIE: You’re looking at me aren’t you? Keeping me entertained.
COLE: Stevie’s answer is a circuit bent Japanese noise machine
DAN: Why don’t you tell him what you are doing?
STEVIE: You know, just messing around.
COLE: Semi Precious Weapons, just messing around.
R13: Thank you so much for your time
SPW: Thank you, see you soon
Semi precious Weapons will support Lady Gaga on her UK dates later this month, so if you are going to see the Gaga, make sure you get there early for lots of rock n roll filthy fun.
Source: Room 13
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