8 Ball Shifter

Hanson (Clamarama)
An interview with Ian Adams
by Mark Phinney

I knew going into this thing what was in store and I was ready for it. I’d been hot on the trail of these voodoo monsters for some time now, ever since the glory days when Ian and I would pose in art class trying to look cool. Of course, Ian is now really cool, in a band and all, and me… well, I’m still trying. This was the biggie, the night the demons would cycle out of their rest homes, and the leather-clad servants of the fiery one himself would kickstart into high gear as he smiled with pleasure up at his favorite sons. The room was being fine-tuned by the Krakens, swinging free in green masks and three-piece suits laying out the swamp land for the doomsdayers. I was ready for some oil-fueled trash darkness, and Ian and the boys never let me down. Writhing through the CD in furious attire our convicts sneak in and out of trancing lines and screaming vines to set the room aglow with their snake-charming ways. I looked and caught the dark sunglasses of Ian, Rick beating the piss out of those punishable skins, and Jim pulling those bass strings from the grave. This is the feeling and theory of the 8-Ball Shifter experience: loud crime, chicks from Hellish planets beyond our reach, and vampires in the back yard. By the middle of this freakshow, I was schlocking my ass from tile to tile searching for signs of the afterlife via Ian’s nifty riffs and the dark clouds looming over the room. After their turbo-fueled set, I took liquid solace in some brew with the boys, played paparazzi and was well on my way back to the streets, where the rock doesn’t roll, and the dead are really dead and not ripping up the the dance floor. And the streets will flow with the blood of the unbelievers…

Coming up from the seedy backwoods of Hanson, where “there’s always room for evil,” 8-Ball Shifter have left the mass of those who doubt to languish in their own rigor mortis as they have seized an upper berth in the Boston music scene in true trash fashion. With the release of Hanson, their Clamarama debut, and gigs with the likes of Southern Culture on the Skids and garage rockers Fireworks, the zombie boys have imprinted their trademark sound of darkness and dark magic upon our tremulous souls. I spoke with Ian (I was late for deadline as usual, so I missed out on chatting with Jim and Rick, but they were with us in spirit) and here’s what he said:

I know that you yourself are influenced by the likes of Iggy and the Velvets, but as a whole you three must be very diverse.
Yeah it is definitely Iggy and Lou Reed, especially in the early days, but it was just that time in music. I mean it’s also a lot of ’60s garage rock. It’s that perverted blues thing we’re doing, that perfectly-good-Bo-Diddley-song-gone-wrong by a bunch of kids who can’t play music. Jim is into a lot of early classic rock, Hendrix and that stuff, and Rick is very psychedelic, into the Strawberry Alarmclock, Zappa, and all those guys.

You get a lot of comparisons to bands like the Cramps and schlock-rock.
There is a subtotal of influences – Cramps, Elvis, Screaming Jay Hawkins – and when you borrow from these different arenas you ultimately come out with the same traits. We didn’t say, “Oh well, we’ll sound like this or that.” A lot of it is the Misfits as well, that whole cinema thing – you reach that point when visuals become sound. A lot of times when I need some inspiration, I watch some of those creepy B-movies.

You have a strong knowledge of dark and creepy things. Was this learned or just always there?
Well, it is hard to portray a monster without looking schlocky. You can see Dracula was the sexual being, the werewolf the violent human psyche, and Frankenstein the adolescent in us all, so in a sense it’s not really a taught thing as much as it is an obsession. Creature Double Feature was a great tool; sitting home on Saturday morning after lunch, munchin’ Fritos, and getting yelled at to go out and play… The way I see it, if rock music doesn’t work out, I’m going to become a horror movie host. I’ll call myself Hellvis,and I’ll host from a drive-in, in Hell of course, horns and all, rotting.

Young or old Elvis?
Oh… young, of course.

So how’s the CD doing?
Very well, getting lots of attention. We went into this like “Great, but will anyone else care?” It was a mindblower when we started getting these great reviews. We tip our hats to Clamarama, they’re really great people.

You guys have great stage presence, very voodoo.
It’s just so great playing with Jim and Rick, they’re great improvisational musicians. I didn’t get that with the other bands I was in, they just know how to keep it going and take it into so many different areas. But yes, there is genuine voodoo going on there, the whole horror schtick isn’t completly farcical, there are real aspects of the supernatural that we try to bring into the music. I mean 8-Ball Shifter is not going to save the world. Enslave, maybe.

Have you heard any criticism about this having been done before?
We’re not purists. That’s not to say we’re busting new ground here but I feel we take it to another level, like, say, Man… or Astroman?, they base themselves in surf but bring in that whole sci-fi thing, like a lot of the Estrus bands we like. Purists exist for a reason, and that’s great, but we can’t do that. We got bored trying.

What’s 8-Ball Shifter’s Top Five Flick List?
1. Night Of The Living Dead; 2. Nosferatu (Max Schreck version); 3. Blue Velvet; 4. Midget Porn (Rick); 5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

You got help from some very cool people.
Marc Schleiker of Quintane Americana is one of the biggest components of 8-Ball Shifter, a supercool guy. He gave us so much help with the CD and everything we needed. He is one of the biggest supporters, not only of us but of the Boston music scene as a whole. We relate to Quintane on a certain level – they’re humanly creepy, and we’re inhumanly creepy… and they drink a lot of beer, which we like.