Mike: Yesterday was the first night of the tour. How did everything go?
Steve: It�s crazy. It was awesome. It was a sold-out show. It was a great show.
Mike: How did this tour with Boris come about?
Steve: I guess our booking agents talked to each other. We met Tadashi - he manages Boris in Japan � and we hung out with them a little bit during South by Southwest and it came up. I guess they like our stuff. They just worked it out.
Mike: Meanderthal has been one of the most heavily discussed albums so far this year on StonerRock.com. Are you comfortable with the �stoner rock� label?
Steve: I don�t smoke. I don�t do any of that stuff. I just think it�s another way to pigeonhole a band. I don�t really consider us stoner rock. I mean, every band smokes weed.
Mike: It might be one of the only genres of music that is named more for the listeners than the bands themselves.
Steve: I think we�re too upbeat for the stoner crowd. I don�t know. I mean, I don�t smoke weed so I don�t really step in that frame of mind. I get drunk every once in a while. I prefer not to label us. We�re kind of all over the place.
Mike: Other terms that get thrown around when discussing your music are �doom pop,� �thunder pop,� and �sludge pop.�
Steve: That�s our record label trying to get people to buy the record. Like �Oh, this sounds interesting.�
Mike: You�ve also been pretty adamant that you�re not a metal band.
Steve: I don�t really like metal. I mean, I like old metal, and every once in a while there�ll be a good newer metal band that comes along. They�re good, but I just don�t like that hissy, metal sound. It sounds mechanical and it doesn�t have any groove to it. I�m kind of an old metalhead at heart.
Mike: You definitely upped the hook quotient on Meanderthal. Was that intentional or just kind of a natural evolution of the band?
Steve: Me and (guitarist) Juan (Montoya) have played in so many different bands - different types of rock bands - so I think our style together brought all this out. The first record, I was kinda taking too much of the past. Most of those songs were written by me and Floor, so I just wanted to release them. It was like �Am I gonna throw all this away? Let�s just do this.� So three months after we started playing together we recorded that record. And then the second one was recorded like two months after that. That was us, I guess, in metal mode. So after a couple years, I was just tired of the doom and gloom. I just wanted to do something fun.
Mike: The �bomb string� only appears on one song. Is it safe to assume that the title track of Meanderthal is the bomb string�s official curtain call?
Steve: No. I don�t think so. I think it�s so powerful, but there�s only so much you can do with it before everything just starts sounding the same. That�s why I don�t like to do too many of (those songs) back to back, �cause I�m like �This whole set sounds boring.�
Mike: Anytime a band�s sound evolves, there is a group of diehard fans who continually bitch about it and pine for �the old stuff.� Is that something you worry about?
Steve: No, because when we were doing it back then, nobody gave a fuck anyway. Everybody cares when you disband. I could tell you how many shows I played when there was more than 20 people there.
Mike: It�s kind of the same story with bands like Failure. Nobody knew who Failure was until after they broke up, myself included. Is it frustrating? Do you feel like you were ahead of your time?
Steve: (Floor) was also kind of a disaster for most of the ten years we were on and off. I don�t know. It was fun. We recently just got all these recordings together for a box set. Listening to it was kinda funny. I kinda cringed at most of them like �God, this is so awful. What was I thinking? You know what? I wasn�t thinking.� I was just doing a bunch of stuff, like �This sounds kinda ridiculous. Let�s record it.�
Mike: Do you still play any Floor songs in the set?
Steve: Every once in a while. Rick (Smith), our drummer, he�ll start a beat for one of the songs and I�m like �Man, I don�t wanna do this.� I mean, I like playing it, but it�s a new band. I don�t want anybody to expect it, where if we don�t do it, they�re gonna be disappointed. Every once in a while we�ll do it. We won�t do it every time though.
Mike: Meanderthal has pretty unique artwork and packaging. It�s got kind of a Maurice Sendak vibe going on.
Steve: Juan, our guitar player, he�s always drawing us and all our fucked up features and stuff. His personal drawings are probably the funniest, �cause he�s got big teeth, a big belly and skinny legs. He�ll draw me with a giant fat head and a big roll on my neck. We were just talking like �Why don�t you just do the artwork?� He�s gotten really good at it. It�s like �Just make us into these weird creatures. Make them kinda comic book-y looking.� I didn�t want it to be like we did on our last couple records. I did want it to be colorful and fun, but I didn�t want it to be psychedelic. It�s scary in its own way. After he started drawing and then we saw the artwork and everything, we were like �Think is kinda like KISS now. We can be these characters and keep creating characters.� It�s fun. It�s us. A lot of the characters, he captured our personalities and all our flaws. Like Rick�s go these kinda like neck rolls � we call them pancakes � so he�s got pancake neck and he looks like a box. It�s funny.
Mike: In light of file sharing, iTunes and the digital music revolution, is it almost a necessity to come up with creative packaging to sell hard copies these days?
Steve: I just want it to look good. I�d love it if all the music was perfection and then the packaging is great to look at. I�m not like a decorator or anything like that, but I want to put out a record that I would like to see framed on my wall, whereas my old band put out a bunch of seven-inches where I didn�t even care about it. I think the last straw was doing a Floor/Sloth split and then I saw the artwork and I was like �What the fuck?� The guy from Sloth, I think his girlfriend drew it. It looks like a little kid just scribbled some lines on it. That was the one record I was just giving away. But I don�t know. I think it�s necessary. I like records. I like artwork.
Mike: What�s up next for the band after this tour wraps up?
Steve: We�ll be back for three weeks and then we go to Europe with Pelican. That�ll be for about a month, and then we come back and do our own headlining tour. Then we go to Japan for the first time. We just got invited to All Tomorrow�s Parties, so we�re gonna do that in December.
