Zeke

Kicked in the Teeth (Epitaph)
A Quick Chat with Blind Marky Felchtone (Guitar & Vocals) and a couple answers from Donny Paycheck (Drums)
by Jon Sarre and Viva Las Vegas

Ride With Zeke (And You’re Gonna Be A Couple Hours Late)

Nothing ever starts on time. It’s some kinda rock’n’roll rule like someone in the band announcing how great it is to be in [insert city name here]. Schedules are made to be thrown out the window, or at least fucked with. No matter what time the doors open, ya gotta wait and listen to piped in whatever and smoke and smoke and smoke (and maybe drink a bit).

Interviews are that way, too. No surprise there. Press-hungry or not, no self-respecting artist ever really wants to sit down with the fourth estate and answer said estate’s trite questions about his “work” or sex life or if a train leaves Los Angeles at 85 mph and nobody’s there to hear it does it make a sound? That’s the way it is.

These thoughts were running through the mind of this woefully underworked Lollipop scribe (that’s me, Jon Sarre) and my co-conspirator, Viva Las Vegas, as we fruitlessly bar-hopped back and forth to La Luna, the club hosting Seattle’s rock’n’pummel savages, Zeke. Two hours after the interview’s scheduled start, we were finally able to track Blind Marky Felchtone to a cramped equipment room where he was dealing with guitar or girlfriend melt-down (or both for all we knew). He agreed to sit down with us in the noisy walk-in closet labeled “Zeke Dressing Room.” Before word one, this obnoxious rocker chick burst in and hounded Marky for a coupla beers. Eventually, she left, at which point Marky looked over in our direction, expecting, I supposed, a question…

Jon: How often are you guys on the road now?
All the time lately, yeah…

Jon: Has that been since the record [Kicked in the Teeth(Epitaph)] came out?
Yeah, since June 11th…

Jon: Can ya go to the mall now and buy Zeke apparel?
Ya can’t go to the mall and buy Zeke apparel, I hope to God you never can do that, but… uh… the weirdest thing that happens is like, weird, ya know like… alcoholic guys goin’ “Zeke! Ride with Zeke!” when I’m walkin’ around.

Jon: Maybe that’s from… we went and saw Nick Broomfield’s movie Kurt and Courtney.
Right.

Jon: You guys are in that and I was kinda wonderin’ if you got death threats from Courtney Love’s legal team or anything like that.
Actually, I think they’re tryin’ to get us a tour with Hole… but, anyway, me and my girlfriend went to go see that movie and we pulled our collars up, you know, and wore dark glasses. I was real embarrassed about it actually, but I went to see it anyway…

Jon: That guy Roz [Rezabeck, Theater of Sheep vocalist & Courtney Love’s ex-boyfriend] was in it. We see him around all the time…
That guy was brilliant!

Jon: He’s always like “I just don’t wanna talk about Courtney Love anymore, so anyway, the other day Courtney calls me up…” He got a career resurgence out of that. But it was really weird, I’m watchin’ the movie and the voice-over’s goin’ “Seattle bands like Zeke…” Why are you guys in there?
You know, it’s cuz the guy totally misrepresented himself to us. He was like “I’m doing a movie about the Seattle music scene, you wanna be in it?” I was like, “Sure, fuck yeah, I’ll be in a movie about the Seattle music scene…” He neglected to tell me… it was going to be all about Kurt Cobain’s life and death, but he came over to our apartment… We’re like sittin’ around and he asked like three or four cover-up questions like “How’s the scene in Seattle?…” then “When Kurt…” and “Can you play a song similar, but not exactly like Kurt Cobain?” I’m like “Okay, I can do that,” then I was like, “Hey, wait, man, what’s goin’ on here?” He’s like “Nothin’. Everything’s cool, thanks a lot, see you later,” then they packed their stuff and left. And we were left goin’, “What the fuck?” Then when they sent us the contract, it still said… “A Film About the Seattle Music Scene,” no title… so whatever.

Viva: Are you from Seattle?
I’ve lived in Seattle a while… I was raised in Arkansas… until I was like 18 or 19…

Viva: They’ve got some good music down there, does that influence you, delta blues?
Well, it’s like the two kindsa music you play growin’ up in Arkansas are country and blues. I played all that stuff…

Viva: You’re the main songwriter, aren’t you?
I’m pretty much the only songwriter… definitely when you listen to Zeke, it’s more or less 12 bar blues… mostly blues.

Viva: Not country?
Definitely not country…

Jon: I hear a lot of Motörhead…
Definitely…

Jon: Who else influenced your sound, cuz you do some covers, too [Cheap Trick, Kiss]…
When I was a kid, the first stuff I was exposed to was Alice Cooper, not Alice Cooper…

Jon: Alice Cooper Band…
Yeah, with Mike Bruce, then I got really into Kiss. I was like the biggest, hugest Kiss fanatic, y’know, I don’t give a fuck what anybody says about that… Cheap Trick, y’know, I was a big Cheap Trick fan, you know this was all before I saw the Ramones, then I decided, yeah, that’s the shit. That’s really the goods, and Black Sabbath, definitely… I listened to the Ramones before I was into Iggy and the MC5…

Viva: How’d the Ramones get down to Arkansas?
Via HBO.

Jon: Rock’n’Roll High School?
I was babysitting these kids, y’know and uh… I was flipping through the channels and got, uh… all of a sudden there was the Ramones and I didn’t know who they were. It was just like… “rockin’!” It was like “Blitzkrieg Bop” and I was like, “Fuck, that’s it, man! That’s what I wanna do.” I was like eleven…

[Donny Paycheck enters the room. Talk shifts to bars, clubs, and tours]

Jon: The last time you were in Portland, you were supposed to play the Roseland with DOA, right?
Marky: We didn’t do the show…

Viva: The van broke down?
Donny: This guy [points at Marky] had to go see NASCAR truck racing, or something…

Marky: So we were running late…

Jon: Sonny [Zeke’s other guitarist] said you guys spend a lot of time at Pep Boys.
Marky: Yeah, not by choice, y’know. The thing used to be an airport shuttle… it looks like a cop van so people don’t really fuck with us.

Jon: What’s the deal with the letter you print in the inside cover of Kicked in the Teeth, not the one to Mark [Pierce, bassplayer], the restraining order… [to Donny] is that about you?
Donny: Yeah.

Jon: Did the guy get his restraining order?
Donny: Yeah, I didn’t contest it. I have no use for the guy… That was my revenge, I guess, putting it in there.

Jon: It was just kinda funny, you guys choosing to print that, like “Watch your back, punk!”
Donny: [laughing, quoting himself] “I’m not your friend!”

Jon: And the letter to Mark is like “everyone knows Marky writes all the songs.”
Marky: I had to put that in there, Mark was… “You really wanna put this in there?” I did it… we couldn’t print the first page… the very first page is not in there…

Viva: Why not?
Marky: It totally spells out the whole thing…

Donny: What does the first page of the letter illustrate… is it the whole motorcycle thing?

Marky: No, that’s in there…

Donny: Somethin’ to read while ya listen to the record.

Jon: Most people don’t follow along with the lyrics…
Donny: A lyric sheet with any fuckin’ record, first thing I do is put it down.

Jon: You guys aren’t really puttin’ in any pleas for world peace or “Save the Children” or any of that stuff…
Marky: If we did it would be a joke…

Jon: Like “Revolution”?
Marky: That was a tip of the cap to the MC5.

Jon: “Brothers and Sisters!”

[Sounds of the opening band, whose name I forget, drown out whatever witty banter they spew about working for Epitaph, and effectively end the interview.]
(2798 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90026)