Powerman 5000

Mega!! Kung Fu Radio (Dreamworks)
An interview with vocalist Spider One
by Scott Hefflon

You have a much different speaking voice than either your slickster rap or your hardcore roar.
So does James Hetfield. I hear that a lot. People always expect me to be a raving lunatic. There’s the reality of the band life and the reality of my personal life, and while they’re both different, they’re both important to me.

For those of us in the Boston area, Mega!! Kung Fu Radio is a remixed version of The Blood Splat Rating System with two new songs…
“20 Miles to Texas, 25 to Hell” and “Mega!! Kung Fu Radio.” Plus I repackaged the entire thing with all new artwork. Some of the more subtle differences are some recut vocals, and some redone guitar parts. We’ve been living with Blood Splat… for over a year, but when we made those changes, it felt like a new record. It gained a whole new life. You almost never get a second chance on a record, so it was a cool thing to go back and change the little things that were bugging us. The mastering job is so much bigger than the first, now it practically jumps out of the speakers.

What about the repackaging? Conscience still hasn’t sent me Blood Splat…
I liked the last album cover, but at the time, I didn’t really have a clear vibe of what the album was about. That artwork was done before the album was finished. This one was done almost a year after the album. I had a much clearer visual representation. Besides, I really enjoy doing all the artwork.

Oh yeah, back in the Boston days, you could spot your flyers from a mile away.
I almost miss making those. When you’re on tour, you can’t exactly make a different flyer for every show, so you end up using the same poster for the tour. I always thought that was a big part of our, ya know, success in Boston – we cared about the details.

You have a strong visual aesthetic as well as a strong musical aesthetic.
A lot of bands don’t seem to think beyond their music, and for some, perhaps that’s the purest way to do it. As musicians, they don’t care about anything else. But if you want to live in the real world, you have to care about all the other stuff.

Or you have to know or hire someone who does.
And then they screw it up and make you look like a fool.

Luckily, you’re an immediately distinguishable artist. The only band that even has anything similar is White Zombie.
How could they not be similar, growing up together and being into the same things? It’s certainly not intentional, it’s just natural for both of us. Yeah, OK, so I go through Rob’s trash and use all his throwaway sketches.

I heard the new title track almost didn’t get on the “new” record.
Originally, we were going to make a whole new record. That was our plan. Then we thought that was silly, because only a handful of people heard Blood Splat…, and it really represents who we are. We’d started writing new songs, but decided to remix the last album with a few new songs. “Mega!! Kung Fu Radio” snuck on at the last minute, and we were really excited about it. It completed the whole thing, it acted like the glue.

And it was your idea to put the Conscience Records logo on the record?
Yeah. What better way to pay back Conscience for all their hard work? Their logo will be next to Dreamworks logo in every store in America, on posters, in ads. That’s clout you can’t buy. And Dreamworks was totally fine with that. It’s just as much Conscious’ record as anyone elses. Why not give them the exposure? I’m hoping it gives them the attention they deserve.

What about True Force on Curve of the Earth Records?
They didn’t want to sell that EP, they wanted to hang onto it. I think they’re hoping it’s, as they say, their Bleach. They were pretty adamant about keeping it, so I hope it does well for them. It still sells pretty well in the Boston area. It does find its way out there, but only in limited quantities. We were long overdue to put something out, because every time we recorded something, we hated it. So that was the closest we ever came to thinking something was good enough.

Plus you had a demo cassette with an uncredited photo taken by one of our photographers, Rich Rodichok…
A Private Little War, yeah, well, yeah. That was a real limited quantity demo we had. I think we went to Allston Tape Duplication and had a few hundred of those made up. Sometimes I go back and listen to that, and it sounds like a different band. The songs were there, but the interpretation wasn’t fully fleshed out. I completely turned this band upside down – from a sequenced, sample-oriented band with no guitar, to a complete live rock band.

A Private Little War didn’t seem like a studio-only project.
Not by the time it came out. Before that it definitely was. If you missed that, perhaps you’re lucky. It was just me, Al, and Dorian – just a rhythm section – we had a DJ, a guy triggering samples, no guitar player, it was just a disaster.

I seem to recall you had another element in your live shows back then…
What?

Go-go dancers, I believe?
I forgot all about that. I don’t even start the band history that far back anymore. That wasn’t this band. I was like 12 years old.

I got that tip from Boston rock historian Joey Ammo of Birdbrain.
Great. Their record came out a week before ours did. They’re doing well, and it’s about time. They deserve it.

Same with you, this success is long overdue.
It’s been a long time coming, but all of our label experiences have been good ones. We haven’t worked with anyone yet that I have horror stories about our dealings.

Um, except that non-deal with Capitol.
Aw, that was so long ago, we’re totally over that. All I can say is, “Thank God!” All things worked out this way for a reason. We have such a smart team around us now, which we didn’t have then, so I think we’re fortunate things worked out the way they did. We had our final pick to make between Dreamworks and Maverick. It was a no-lose situation. Both labels are so new and so successful, it was a difficult choice. Dreamworks seemed to understand us a little more. We’re on a label that has nothing else like us, so we don’t have to worry about them giving more attention to another band.

Why was “Tokyo Vigilante #1” picked for the first single?
We wanted to show people what we were all about, rather than get people all hyped up over one particular song. It’s not very single-oriented. It’s not our hookiest song, and it’s not our sing-along.

And it’s not even the first track on the album.
Imagine that. I think it’s the ninth song. We chose the single after we sequenced the record. We wanted the whole record to have a flow. I think we’re at our best when we play extremes. Either when we’re super mellow and groovy, like “A Swim with the Sharks,” or really heavy. That’s when I think it gels the best.

“Neckbone” and a few of the others are really old, I mean to say “classic,” Powerman 5000 songs.
This is the first album. It represents years worth of work. Initially, that’s why we wanted to write a new album. Some of these songs are so old, but then we’d have to write a whole album in two months. We might have had sophomore slump with our first album…

Instead, for those of us around here, we essentially have a Greatest Hits album.
And the songs still feel new when we’re in front of a crowd that’s never heard us before. It’s like starting over again.