The Reds are a Punk Rock band hailing from Denton, TX.  Their new
self-titled Lp came out on Rip Off Records in July 2000.  In case you are
unaware, it it's a smoker. The Reds are a rare band that actually backs up
their trash talk with great music.  If only all bands could do
that..anyway,Chris and Mark
were interviewed by their friend Dillion Strange, aka D. J. Old
Milwuakee,  after a 14 work day at Skyview Living Center (a home for
the mentally retarded).  It was hard to decipher everything
over the sound of  beer cans and a whiskey bottle being slammed down on the
beat-up coffee table where the microcassette sat, but
here's the jist of it.

DJOM:  Okay, so how long have the Reds been around?
M:  Come on! Can't you come up with a better question than that?
DJOM:  Every MRR interview starts out with that kind of question.  I've read
'em all.
C:  Fuck the format.
DJOM:  Okay, fuck the format then, alright.  So, are there any confirmed
alcoholics in the
band, or are you just a bunch of dabblers?
C:  Burgeoning alcoholics.
DJOM:  What's your drink of choice?
C:  Whiskey in a jar.
M:  Killians Red.
DJOM:  How about Rip Off records, can you talk about that?  What it's like
to be on Rip
Off.  A lot of bands want to be on that label.
C:  It's true.  I can think of 6 or 7 bands that want to be.
DJOM:  I noticed that before the second to the last song on the LP someone
says "Fuck you Greg Lowery."  What's up with that?  Is he an asshole?
C:  Pppfff, yeah.
M:  Well, not to us.  He seems to like what we do.
C:  I mean, you know, I'm an asshole.  But he's really good at it.
DJOM:  What else can you tell me about Rip Off?
C:  Oh, let's talk about the Jade Tree/Rip Off rift.  Very similar the
L.A./New York rap thing.  There's a lot of animosity between bands on Rip
Off and Jade Tree.  You know, we've gotten into it with the Promise Ring on a
few occasions.
DJOM:  What, are you gonna shoot out the windows of their mama's house? 
Man, there are babies in there, you can't do that!  They're just tryin' to
live
in this game.  You know what I'm sayin'.
C:  Shit!  You know, we go through the same distributor and they sell 20
times more records than we do and that just pisses us off!
DJOM:  Let me just tell you this.  You got poor fans.  All your fans are
strapped for cash. All those other bands you're talking about...
C:  Middle class, upper middle class.
DJOM:  You guys make music for like grease monkeys or people like you who
work with retards.
(At this point the minicassette-corder gets knocked over and cuts off as
everyone laughs.)
DJOM:  Anyway, Ya'll got any tours coming up?
C:  Not right now.  We've toured a bunch this year.
M:  We've gone on four tours in the past five months and one in January. 
Well, one wasn't a tour.  We took a trip out to Las Vegas for the Shakedown.
  Now, we've got to take a break and catch up.  We're all broke.
DJOM:  Any horror stories?
C:  No, every show is really boring.   Nothing ever happens to us.  We show
up, we get paid, we leave.
M:  That's not true.  On our last trip out to the west coast one of our last
shows was supposed to be in L.A. with the Candy Snatchers at the Garage. 
First, after getting some food at this shitty Mexican restaurant, I hit this
pedestrian with my van.  He wasn't even
hurt at all, but now I got lawyers calling me from L.A. trying to sue me or
something. Second, we show up at the club and no one is there.  The show was
cancelled.  The Dictators were playing at another club a few miles away and
the Candy Snatchers had cancelled their whole tour.  That was our one and
only L.A. experience.
DJOM:  What about Vegas?
C:  You were there.
DJOM:  I was there.  I liked it a lot.  I thought your show was great.  But
you guys didn't get paid for that, right?
C:  Well, sort of.
M:  We spent about an hour walking around the Gold Coast after the Dictators
played on Sunday night looking for Ralph Carrera, the promoter, because we
wanted to get paid with the help of Greg and our friend Time-Bomb Tom from
Green Bay (who owns the
Concert Cafe',  the Reds favorite place to play in all of America). 
Finally, we got his room number.  He ended up giving us 40 bucks out of his
wallet.
C:  We also had to swap out our slot with a shitty Sub Pop band, because
they're on Sub Pop and we're on Rip Off.  That was the official reason.
DJOM:  So, you went on at about 3:00 AM on Saturday night, right?
C:  Closer to four.
M:  The Yo-Yos had their own sound guy, so when it was our turn to go on the
Shakedown sound guy was nowhere to be found.  He was off doing coke or
something, but we started playing anyway.  It sounded fucking awful.
C:  All the amps were blown.  But people seemed to like the show, which we
couldn't believe.
M:  It turned out all right because the sound guy from the main stage came
down and adjusted the levels.
DJOM:  Yeah, like I said before, I thought the show was great and there were
a bunch of people there even though it was so late.   Everybody had a good
time.  I wonder how much money was made?
C:  Well, apparently money was lost thanks to all the damage done by all the
Johnny Thunders and Betty Page clones.
DJOM:  Mark, what's on your record player right now?
M:  The Boys.
DJOM:  Chris?
C:  Charlie Patton.
DJOM:  What do you think is on the other guys record players?
M:  With Mike, who knows?
C:  Does Jeff even listens to music?  I don't know.  We don't know what he
does.
DJOM:  Where are Mike and Jeff for this, anyway?
M:  We don't allow them to give interviews.  It's a misconception, we're not
really communists or socialists, we're fascists.
DJOM:  So, there is a political element to the rock?  Is there a message? 
Are the Reds preaching a message?
M:  Man, why don't you go interview some emo band.
C:  Yeah, if you want politics go buy a Noam Chomsky book.
DJOM:  Um, I'm feeling very threatened right now.
C:  Are we going to talk about the Dirty South or NOT!!?
DJOM:  I was just about to go into influences, cause, ya know you're sort of
unique compared to other Rip Off bands.  So, here's the real question, East
Coast?  West Coast? Or Dirty South?
C:  East Coast, with a hint of the Dirty South.
DJOM:  So, y'all are big rap fans.
M:  No, not really.
C:  Me either, but I watch Rap City everyday.  "Bombs over Baghdad" is
officially the best song going right now.
DJOM:  So, are you guys going to tour with any big acts, like Motorhead? 
And are you being courted by any major labels?
C:  We should be so lucky.
M:  You know, our true goal is to have someone pay us an obscene amount of
money for what we do.  I want to be filthy rich from the Reds.
C:  Bling bling.
DJOM:  I know you've done all your own recording in the past, are you going
to do the same for the next record?
M:  Yeah, we like doing it ourselves.  Jeff is the man with the skills at
turning the knobs. We hope to finish recording a new album in a couple of
months, that is, unless carpal
tunnel syndrome or a lack of time and money prevents it.  Oh, and Mike's
trouble with the
law and my pending lawsuit.
DJOM:  Then what?
M:  We're probably going to each drop our own solo joint.
DJOM:  Oh, really.  Kind of like Kiss did?
C:  No, Better.  Kiss sucks.  Why does every member of our generation think
that Kiss is
something to behold?   Shitty, sub-grade arena rock.
DJOM:  Man, Kiss had some great songs!  (DJ Old Milwaukee breaks into
"Strutter".)
).  Okay, what are some other bands you hate?
C:  How long can this interview be?  Do we have to limit this to just bands?
  That could
get boring.
DJOM:  Whatever.
M:  Let's see, we hate all other bands on Rip Off, all other punk rock bands
for that
matter, MRR, Hit List, Greg Lowery, all our friends and family, God...
DJOM:  So, you guys hate everybody.
C:  More or less.  I'm a very bitter young man.  This interview is over.