Interview with Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence at Grünspan Hamburg - English Version

(Mindless Self Indulgence)

06.02.2009 von Melanie Schupp

Before their show in Hamburg we got the chance to talk to Mindless Self Indulgence singer Jimmy Urine. While I was preparing my interview stuff Jimmy immediately grabbed my voice recorder and checked it.

Jimmy Urine: Hello hello!

I think it works.

Jimmy Urine: I know… I like the oldschool voice recorders.

Yes me too. And these are the best ones.
Your new album is called “IF”…

Jimmy Urine: Yes got that, I know that.

Laughter

Really?

Jimmy Urine: Yah yah

Does the title have a meaning to you or did you just set a title to confuse all reporters and review writers to give them something to interpret loads of stuff out of it?

Jimmy Urine: No no. There is a meaning. There is a visual… we are a very graphic band. And by graphic I don’t mean dirty – I mean graphic arts. And so everything had been so long: we were doing long names, the world started using long names. So visually we just wanted to put a little thing that you can make really big. And out of all the little words that happens to be such a great word cause it can mean anything it’s very open ended. And that’s kind of what I like. Well I think loads of bands are like ‘This is what we believe and you should believe it, too!’ or ‘We are fighting for this blablabla…’ we are like you should think of this and then you’ll figure out. I could say something in a song and you get something else out of it. He hates it and this guy thinks I’m talking about suicide. That’s the way it is and everybody interprets art differently. This is open for whatever your interpretation is. And that’s kind of how we are even with the live shows. I mean loads of people don’t think of theirselves and follow people blindly. In Rock n Roll especially – when people think people are rockstars they follow them blindly a lot. And that’s all bullshit. You know nobody is like Jesus Christ.

You did a tour with The Birthday Massacre.

Jimmy Urine: Hm hmmm….

How was that? How did the audience like your show?

Jimmy Urine: I think you should put that question around: How did MY audience like THEIR music?

I did an interview with the guys from Big Boy before...

Jimmy Urine: Ah yeah they are nice.

They told me to ask you how you liked them…

Jimmy Urine: Oh I like… we do. I actually like them a lot. I’m sad that they cannot support us for the rest of the European shows. They are just supporting us in Germany. I like that it’s something still electronic, very dressy, some energy and they have been nice backstage. And it seems everytime they go out everybody seems to like them.

Who will play bass guitar tonight and how did you get in contact?

Jimmy Urine: Johnny is replacing Lyn-Z as she is pregnant and can’t be with us to these shows which is sad but it’s not a hospital stay like an injury or something like that. We’ve had that before. But this is nice – a baby! So that’s nice. So we choose Johnny. We needed somebody who knows the setup. But not just! You know you have to be dealing with playing bass and playing bass in a weird song with our timing. You have get on with the crowd you have to jump around. Nobody has ever seen that before. You have to show up with your bass and they gonna get freaked out. Johnny has seen us many times and he knows the deal.

Steve will become a father as well, soon. How about you? Will you become godfather maybe?

Jimmy Urine: Aaaah, I don’t know. They didn’t ask me yet.

Or thinking of becoming daddy as well?

Jimmy Urine: Well at some point but I’ve got some time. I want to wait a little bit. But godfather… I will eventually do that. You have to.

Imagine – if you had enough money to do the live show you’ve ever been dreaming of. What would it be like.

Jimmy Urine: I’m doing the live show I wanna to do. But if I had loads of money every night would be different. We would wake up we would be like ‘Goodbye elephants, I want to dress as a clock, let’s get 50 girls on stage’ whatever you wanna do just think about it and do it. That would be great.
I like seeing big enormous acts that have loads of money cause usually they like to spend it. You know whether it’s something exciting arty like the Nine Inch Nails thing where he spent the money on lights or like really pop like the Backstreet Boys. There’s so much money involved you can see a big production like interesting and something kind of special.

Last time we met we were talking about the Kinderschokolade guy. Did you meet him yet?

Jimmy Urine: No not yet. I’ve been trying I sent a couple of emails around and couldn’t get in touch with him. But people keep bringing me Kinder chocolate but the old ones with his face on it. I like that.

All interviewers ask you all those questions about music. Of course it’s your job but you are much more into comic books and movies. Does that part of your job annoy you sometimes?

Jimmy Urine: No I like talking about the music because I don’t think we just do music we do sort of entertainment – the whole act. I got the chance to not just do music. I can do a record cover and the whole artwork. We’re all like that so it’s fun. I think the only time it gets annoying is when people do like… see you do research and you know who we are. But if people come in like ‘What’s your favorite song’ and stuff like that. Somebody can answer that. Then they are very one dimensional.
But I love talking about what we are – our band.

Could you think of writing or drawing your own comic book?

Jimmy Urine: Oh yes. And it wouldn’t be anything like a Mindless Self Indulgence comic book. Noone here would probably like it. It would probably be very historical. I like history a lot. It wouldn’t be like this band. Not crazy, nutty, cartoony, funny… This is what the band is like. But if I would do a comic book it would not be anything like this band. I definitely would really much like to draw and write it at the same time. But I don’t have that much time so I might actually just write it and get someone to draw it. That’s a dream to actually do both on my own. I don’t really wanna do issues. I don’t have like sort of a superhero idea you know like ‘The Amazing Spiderman – issue one – issue two… 233’ I like those kind of stories but I can’t think of doing this. I like more the European guys like Möbius. I like loads of the French and European stuff – and the Japanese.

So you can’t think of your own superhero but what superpower would you choose for yourself if you had the chance to?

Jimmy Urine: I can pick a superpower like that (clicks his fingers). You know people always think of ‘Oh I would fly’ – ‘I’m gonna have lasereyes’ or stuff like that but the best one to get is to stop time. Because if you stop time you can do aaaaaaaaaaaanything.

But while you stop time will you grow older?

Jimmy Urine: Yeah you will grow older. But I would stop time like for a day. So you guys all stop and I keep going a day. But after all you might lose a year or two. But it’s cool: stop time when you want, turn it on again whenever you want. Stop time going to the bank. Stop time repairing the car. It’s much more fun and much more smart. It’s a practical thing.

If they’d do a movie out of one of your favorite comic books. Which one should it be in your opinion and would you play a role if they’d ask you to?

Jimmy Urine: hmm that’s good… I’m not sure if I would play the role if it was serious stuff but I would definitely love the voice over cartoons. That’s one of the things I haven’t done yet. Like I go on stage and I’m very satisfied with my job, I do some artwork and I’m satisfied, do my dancing and entertaining stuff and I’m satisfied. But I love cartoon voice overs I would love to do cartoon voice overs like Animaniacs. Probably I would pick something by Möbius. He did this thing with Alejandro Jodorowsky who did this movie called “The Holy Mountain” and they did a comic book together which was called “L’Inical”. That would probably be the one to make a movie out of it that would be good. And I would take any part I could get!

Is it sometimes hard for you being entertaining at the push of a button?

Jimmy Urine: You know when you have a lot of shows in a row – like six in a row – it gets a little hard. But also you don’t know. You can wake up and have a shitty day and feel like crap and then you hit the stage and you have the best show. For some reason it just clicked. And sometimes you can be totally ready you rested and you feel good and go out there and you kinda just walk through it. You know what I mean.

And how do you feel today?

Jimmy Urine: I feel like crap. So it will be a good show!

Laughter

On your shows you did things like shaving fans’ heads and so on. Did you ever get in trouble for something you did to the audience?

Jimmy Urine: No. Cause we never do anything really horrible sort of entertaining.

Yeah of course but maybe some people love their hair…

Jimmy Urine: They shouldn’t go on the stage. The thing is you’ve got so much power up there so you do stuff like that. You can be really avantgarde with it and that’s what’s fun. And if people jump up on stage you are like ‘Yeah go ahead do something’ and you can really push it. There is loads of stuff we don’t do anymore. On the one hand cause we want to be spontanous and we are like ‘We have done that already’ like the shaving the head thing and some things we don’t do cause you can’t. Because eventually people catch up and they go like ‘Don’t do that you won’t get a show in this club anymore.’ Or ‘You broke this girls finger…’ you know something’s gonna happen. And nothing we do is very violent. We are more violent to ourselves than to people.

Did some fan ever strike back?

Jimmy Urine: They do. I got punched a couple of times right in the face.

Punched? That’s not funny.

Jimmy Urine: Bam! And usually not because they hate me. Usually it’s because they want me to punch them. They want to get in something nutty like ‘Yeah let’s go crazy, let’s have a crazy time!’. That’s not fun but I never strike back cause that’s what the security is for.

But they never stroke back in a funny way? Cause punching someone is not funny.

Jimmy Urine: Oh they do. Our fans are smart. A loads of people who come to our shows are smart and creative. For example more often a kid who is into MSI will become a hacker than become like a banker. You are so smart that you could be using that to become a doctor but you’d rather smash the system. And that’s kind of the people who show up. So usually they do jokes on us and we do jokes on them… it’s like a little lovefest in a way.

You were in jail for one week a time ago and in an interview you said you made loads of friends. Have you ever thought of doing a concert in jail for your friends there? Just like Johnny Cash did?

Jimmy Urine: Haha I just wanted to say like Johnny Cash. I walk the line in my pink suit. No I have never thought of that. That’s a good one. Maybe next time I’m in jail so seems as if I gotta go to jail again. Let’s get arrested.

Have you been to the redlight district in Hamburg this time?

Jimmy Urine: NO! No. No. I wanna go really. Steve already went up and down and all over the place. He was like ‚It’s like the 70ies in New York all over again!’ – you know it’s not longer like this in New York. We grew up in Manhattan and New York used to be like this in the 70ies and 80ies… even in the 90ies. Sexshops, hookers all that stuff but nothing of this exists anymore. It all got cleaned up. But people watch movies like „Taxi Driver“ and they think it would still looks like that but it doesn’t. But HERE it is way like that.

Can you see the audience has changed since the last tour?

Jimmy Urine: Yeah our audience continuously changes. I basically say that we are highschool teachers because it’s like a 4 year program. Basically a new kid will come in and be like ‚Oh I’ve never seen this – they are great!’ and then will come again and again and will be there regular. You will see the face at the crowd. Then they start getting a little pissy and be like ‚Ah you know you did that last time’ or ‚You didn’t play that song’ and then they get too big like ‚I remember when I used to listen to MSI – I was such a child!’ and they move on.
And since we started til now it has been like that. It’s like an endless door – you go through and go through and go through… so everytime I go out I always see kids between the ages of like 13 the youngest and maybe when they starting to going to college. Of course there are people who are older who still come – but they are usually at the bar like ‚Oh I saw you in 1999’. But basically it’s the 13 to 20 year olds. So it’s weird I feel like a highschool teacher. I see them again and again and maybe 5 years later they are like ‚I got a real job!’

After graduate your highschool…

Jimmy Urine: Yeah after they graduated MSI academy. It’s a phenomenon. It’s cool it’s like you teach the littler brother, the little sister… the whole family!

Do you like playing bigger venues or do you prefer playing smaller shows with a more intimate atmosphear?

Jimmy Urine: The best thing about the small shows is there is an intimacy. You can make a face and everybody gets it. But if you play in a big place it’s fun cause you have aaaaall these people you can work with. It’s giant! You can make them sing or make them jump around or even more bizarre stuff. I really like them both.

Does it frustrate you when it’s quite empty and people aren’t motivated?

Jimmy Urine: Sometimes it does. But it all motivates me to do something. There were nights where Steve, Kitty and me were trying to make each other laugh. We like doing the thing with the finger. You know when everybody is doing his thing, playing guitar or drums stuff like that and then you just walk up and do like ‚Tadaaa’ (shows his middle finger) and you don’t realise it’s coming.

Then the interview time was up. We’d like to thank Jimmy Urine very much for this interesting interview. We’d also like to thank FKP Scorpio who made the interview happen. We are looking forward to the next MSI show + interiew – always a great pleasure!