Circus:Where are you now?

Rogers Stevens:I am in Seattle, rehearsing, preparing to go on tour.

C:Oh, how long is the tour?

RS:Well, it depends on the view, considering there's breaks in between. We're going to Europe at the end of this month for about 3 weeks, coming back, have a week off and then going out on a US tour.

C:Are you guys touring by yourself?

RS:Europe we are going to be doing festivals with larger bands and here in the States we are doing a club tour.

C:How do you like the club tours as opposed to large stadium tours?

RS:Well it depends if you can squeeze all the things on stage that you need (laugh), but I think its nice to have a balance between the two. I mean there's obviously a better link up between you and whoever may be listening in a club. I mean sometimes you feel completely removed in a larger show from what the crowd is doing and they could really give a rats ass what you are doing. That's what it feels like.

C:Right

RS:We´re not the most athletic bunch of guys (laugh), so it's hard to pull it off, ya know?

C:You guys got popular pretty quickly with the first album, so was it a big change for you? I mean you started getting more publicity and started doing the larger tours. Did you do a lot of club touring before that?

RS:Yeah, we toured for a year in a van before this record before anything happened and actually played some larger shows as well. People seem to have this misconception that our lives were so dramatically altered, but it's a myth. I am living out in suburban obscurity right now, so I don't really pay attention to that lifestyle. I think you can play up on that to a certain extent but we are pretty far removed from it. We couldn't care less.

C:How did it influence your music recording somewhere like New Orleans?

RS:It´s that sticky sweet air down there (laugh) the culture is very substantially meaty, I think. I was going out and hanging in bars and seeing brass bands all hours of the night. This whole brass scene that's going on there completely bowled me over.  It was one of those musical experiences that come come so rarely. Ya know, I wrote some horn parts and got a brass band on this record.

C:Oh right and that was Kermit Ruffin with the Little Rascals?

RS:He was in a band called The Rebirth of Brass Band, they have some records out. You can see them at Jazz Fest and things like that. Now he's doing his own thing. And then the Little Rascals Brass Band, those guys do a lot of street gigs so.....

C:So you must have felt some pressure when you went in to record this album, since the first one came out so strongly?

RS:Well, we are pretty far removed from the whole thing. In New Orleans we were 2,000 miles away from the closet weasel, ya know. No contact with those people at all and we weren't really concerned with it all. I suppose the only time I realized it was after the record was done and I stared reading reviews of it and people were just completely, maliciously destroying it.

C:´Soup´? You're kidding?

RS:No! Actually I am pretty confident in the record. I think that some people just don't really understand what we are trying to do or not trying to do.

C:So do you think ´Soup´ is a lot different from the first album?

RS:The first record, those were the first 13 songs we wrote when we got together. And this album is...we´ve had the benefit of playing 3 years worth of shows and seeing all sorts of different things.  So it is inevitable that we are going to improve somewhat. It sounds to me like we got a little better at doing our sound. Honing it down a bit.

C:Well you guys spent a considerable amount of time apart between albums.

RS:There were a few months there were we were writing individually, but off and on we would always get together. There were always things to do.

C:So all of the music is basically a collaborative effort.

RS:Yeah. Everyone has a song on this record and I am pleased. Whereas what happened the first time around, it was all of us together screaming at each other trying to get it done. This time we tried to get something really complete and then force it on them. It's definitely a sort of terse situation.

C:On a more personal level, how did you get interested in music?

RS:(laugh) I have cassette tapes of myself as a child, a five year old reciting the ´ The Billy Goats Gruff´and saying I am going to be a great musician.  If the goal has been achieved, I think that remains to be seen. I pretty much focused on it when I was a child, but when I started getting more into comics and doing comic art and things like that and into art work and I was really into super heroes, comics and stuff. Then when I was a teenager I saw Van Halen, I think, and sort of transferred my fixation from men in tights to Rock stars (laugh). I saw David Lee Roth jumping around on the stage and I found that impressive. I really wanted to move to NYC and be a Super hero (laugh). But I guess I realized that was not a realistic goal and so this was the next step down.

C:So you are one step down from a Super hero...........(laugh)

RS:Well then as I got older I realized it was all a bunch of hogwash and I didn't actually care about it anyway.

C:Being a Super hero or a Rock star?

RS:Yeah!

C:Which comics were you into?

RS:As a kid, I was into things like X-Men and Spiderman and then I got into things like Robert Crumb and things like that as I got older and the testosterone started flowing (laugh).

C:Have ever read any of Neil Gaiman´s work? The Sandman series is very good.

RS:I´ve seen his stuff and it is really amazing, but now I've moved into doing paintings and large stuff, so I am not as up on the comic scene as I was. But it really seems to have grown exponentially from when I was into it.

C: How long have you been playing the guitar?

RS: I started playing the guitar when I was about 15 or 16 years old. I don't really find it necessary in a rock format to take guitar lessons because you can always pick up any record from any great rock master and learn it. Best lesson there is. But I am more interested in jazz music now than I was.

C: Really. So who do you look to for inspiration Jazz wise?

RS:I listen to a lot of Thelonius Monk, Art Blakey, John Coltrane and then Jake O´Reinhart, especially for guitar.

C: The song ´Car Seat´ is a reference to Susan Smith, she was sentenced to life in prison recently.  Any comments on the sentence?

RS: Well, there is a tremendous amount of gray area there. I don't necessarily feel capable, because I don't know her or all the facts or whatever horrible things she went through, to decide her fate. I mean obviously she was a disturbed person. But I think it is a bit bold for me to sit here and say she should die or what ever.  I don't feel as if I have the capability to be god on this situation...you can't justify what she did, but there's obviously some psychological problems there.

C: Do you think anyone has the right to decide who dies?

RS: Honestly, I flip flop on this issue. I am 25 years old and my opinions aren't set in stone about the death penalty. My dad is a lawyer, so I grew up with all this. I think it is one of those things that has to be carefully thought out. But on the other hand, I think if they want to give someone the death penalty, they ought to put the switch in the hands of the victims family. If they are able to kill them, then let them do it. If not put them in prison for life.  It´s a hard thing. It won't solve the problem, but it might appease the family's of the victims more than anything else. Which is a valid argument.

C: I noticed you guys have an internet address, are you involved in that?

RS: None of us are very computer literate. I have one here and I could go on if I wanted to. Something about the internet freaks me out. I think the last thing this world needs is to keep people at home in front of another TV screen, rather than going out and having actual human interaction. But I think it's good for information and research and that sort of thing.  I think, as with anything, people overdue it. You hear all these crazy stories about people checking into the hospital because they've been in front of the screen for hours.

C: (laugh) I've never heard that one. However many people are concerned about the intrusiveness the Internet proposes, in comparison to the unintrusiveness of a TV.

RS: Well, I think that TV is just evil. So at least with a computer you have some sort of interaction in your brain. You could possibly do some work in the process. With a TV you are completely at the mercy of whoever wants to pummel you with whatever stupidity they choose.  But with a computer you can sort of find your own way, I think it's better.

C: So are you happy with the way things are going with you and the band?

RS: I think the world happiness is a very elusive and hollow term. I don't necessarily think it has to be all or nothing, just so long as I have a certain amount of creative output. It is life sustaining, the only thing that keeps you around.  It´s your existence. And for now this is doing it.  So yeah I am pretty happy. We're get ting an opportunity to record and make music and do all this things and travel. I mean you can't complain about that lifestyle.

C: Do you see yourself taking your painting further?

RS: Oh definitely.  Definitely. That's sort of the plan to move out of this into that at some point.

C: What are your subjects?

RS: It's pretty altered versions of people that I meet and see and sort of inconsequential things. Just people that I see walking around the streets that I find aspects of interesting.  I am one of these people that doesn't have a great goal or anything. I am sort of meandering about aimlessly.

C: Can you explain the song ´Mouthful of Cavities?´

RS:It´s probably about the convoluted nooks and crannies of Shannon´s brain. I am not really sure what that one's about to be honest with you (laugh.)

(The phone rings, it is Christopher.  So I say Adios to Rogers and tell him how lovely he has been. He corrects me on his name. Apparently I kept calling him´Roger´.  He is very forgiving though.)

Circus:Hi Christopher! How are you?

Christopher Thorn:All right.  What sort of a name do you have there?

C:Nickname.So do you find that the geographical distance makes for better communication in the band?

CT:Well, we spend a lot of time together on the road and in the studio the quarters are so tight.When you have time off it's nice to have a little space and not necessarily have to rehearse every night. I think it's fresher when we get together.  You sort of miss people if you are not around them but then again you start to hate them if you are around them all the time.  Space works well for us.

C:Did you find recording this album that you felt pressure to live up to the success of the first album?

CT:Actually I found the opposite with this record. On the first record we had no idea how we were going to be received and if we didn't do well then we'd probably be selling shoes at the mall right now! The fact that we have some success has been really nice and if we never had that again, that's all right because we at least had it once.  As far as performance and recording, the entire process, was much easier this time around because we had been recording and felt more comfortable. It seemed to follow faster and it seemed to be less hassled.  I don't think that anyone felt any pressure on this record at all. We just wanted to make a great record and not repeat what we had already done. It was fun after being on the road for so long.

C:So did you have a break after the tour?

CT:A little bit.Not a whole lot because we kept getting offers to do things like the Rolling Stones or whatever and we'd go right back out again.