Ep 36: Trigger Happy with Ben Weasel
Did we create a Frankenstein-esque monster when we created the 21st Century man—and is he interesting enough to warrant a Netflix series? What are the BEST song-rhyming practices (according to Mr. T Experience’s Dr. Frank)? Why are millennials so obsessed with outdated musical formats? How can we continually strive to express the inexpressible through art—and why should we keep up that fight (even as the world so dramatically crumbles around us)? What was it like to work with 80s New Wave icon Josie Cotton? Pretty good answers to all of these riveting queries are explored on today’s Sparkle and Destroy podcast, episode 36 (published, I might add, on March 27th, for all you darling Weaselheads). Plus, we play a crap ton of songs from Screeching Weasel’s rad new album, Some Freaks of Atavism! Listen below or find wherever you get podcasts.
QUARANTINED WITH BEN WEASEL
It’s been a weird week!
YES, pioneering Chicago pop punk Screeching Weasel can totally brag about being the first non-West Coast Band to join the ranks of the legendary LOOKOUT! Records clubhouse. Now, Ben Weasel can attempt another first: FIRST DUDE interviewee to plant his tattered flag on Sparkle and Destroy’s glittery moonscape (well, besides a few cameos by Dr. Cain). Yes, it’s one small step for this 21st Century man; one giant leap for formerly closeted pop punk feminists everywhere. Like the llama-corn, we often feel like freaks of nature. Unlike llama-corns, we are very much real See: Liz Prince.
As you already probably know, Screeching Weasel, along with Operation Ivy and the Ramones, provided the first illegal explosives to blow the hinges off my young mind. That door creaked open and let me tell you: I walked through it a completely mutated creature.
You could say “pop” taught me how to sparkle and “punk” inspired me to destroy. Everything that came thereafter is a result of this. As baby daddy to all of pop punk (the twisted wasteland it is), Screeching Weasel will be part of my punk lineage forever. Like all family trees, it’s complicated.
You might be asking: Why, as a culture, do we still care to examine what comes out of Ben Weasel’s mouth, several decades after his rise to infamy in the pages of Maximum Rock n Roll? I think about this sometimes, too. I am known to ask, on occasion WWBWD? Even more interestingly why would a vintage millennial such as myself (to use a term from my touchy feely generation) “give a care?” Aren’t millennials too busy starting up their own feel-good life coaching businesses?
Whether we agree or disagree with Ben Weasel doesn’t matter. It is all in the delivery, shining bald-faced at us from between the lines. From a millennial standpoint, personal brand on fleek. We can be sure his content will be sharp, entertaining, unsettling, philosophically jarring, poetic, downright funny at times. He has a way of serving up irresistible venomous delights, with sprinkles on top. You take the first bite, hooked by the sugary groove, only to realize (to your horror) that you’ve now been tasked with confronting some searing truth about yourself or society that you never really wanted to examine. Of course, you can also just bop to the music and ignore all that pesky thinking. Either way, that’s punk!
Like one of his own heroes, the unsinkable Alice Cooper, Ben continues to don a compartmentalized comic book villain character sewn by his own design whenever he sees some unthinkable absurdity arise in the world.
This has a power and magic all its own, and I feel more artists should stop trying to convey some formulaic version of “authentic” (see: NORMCORE) and just really get down with their weird, freaky inner comic book character.
I can relate to feeling this surge of power, at least when I’m on stage with boots and guitar. Once Ben’s villain mask is slapped on, check your trigger words at the door. However, this is not the snarky, trigger happy guy you will hear on my podcast today.
This is the “sparklier” side of Ben, the Glitter Gal Ben (TM). : ) Like all musicians right now, he’s just trying to muster up enough elbow grease to release an album he can be proud of (without thinking too hard about the fact that each stream provides just fractions of a penny in return). Spoiler alert: THE ALBUM RULES.
Just a side note here: I really can’t stand musicians who continue pretend this music biz life is glamorous, especially ones who never lived through that cocaine dusted time. You look ridiculous! Plus, you’re making everyone else feel bad about how hard they’re slogging. We’re all in the same sinking ship, so we might as well share, laugh and commiserate. Heck, share tips for fashioning life rafts!
Even so-called punk bands these days seem to cling to the gloss and pomp of a distant era, when labels were more than just regular guys and gals in basements, trying not to loose their asses on the next release. (Bless you DIY label folks, I am proud to know you).
Ben encourages his friends, fans and mortal enemies to look, wide-eyed behind that silly curtain and—instead—focus on making good art. (In case you were wondering: good art has a point of view and often inspires or agitates the viewer). This perspective is endearing. It’s refreshing. Empowering, even. It is a reminder that we can all do this art thing, as long as we have the gumption and brain power. The instructions to make the bomb, er, the cake—are all here for you to use. It is evident that Ben wants US to make good art, too.
In a social climate where one dumb comment, action or unpopular mode of thinking can have you canceled literally forever and ever and ever, amen….even the most dedicated NPR listeners among us can feel kinda anxious to press “publish” on anything (I am raising my hand now).
Although he will certainly recoil at the idea, I have to say: Ben, if you are subconsciously woke enough to talk about the issues surrounding performative woke-ness, then I’m sorry, dude. You are, indeed, #WOKEASFUCK. : ) The truth hurts, don’t it?
At strange, uncertain Twilight Zone-esque times like these, the world needs more art, more sass and conviction. As Ben so sweetly says in this interview: Art will save us, and this something we can do, now. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Well, fear and pitchforks.
