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EMANEHT
members present:
Renee Mikkelson
Dean Suko

conducted on: January 2003
by: Joyce Sutedja
extras:
official website
shout-out to PZO





 
 

PZO: Who thinks up the band member biographies for your website, and what made you decide to take this approach to the site?
<Dean and Renee laugh>
Dean: Wow, gee, take a wild guess, um--
Renee: The wacko talking.
<all laugh>
Dean: Um, actually, the-the bios and stuff were kinda my idea. I just got tired-you know, you go to all these websites, and like, you know, I don’t want to seem mean or nothing, but some of these people just take themselves way too seriously, you know?
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: Their bios are all intense, and they talk about how they have this and this and that, and I’m just like, man, you know what? I-I just don’t want to read that kind of stuff. I figure, what’s going to make people, like, kinda want to stay interested and the-just make up some bullshit, and just be stupid. Make it entertaining and interesting. And it might actually just kinda, like, catch their attention and kinda make them go, you know, “Are they serious or are they joking?” you know what I mean?
Renee: <laughs>
Dean: They can’t kinda quite tell, ‘cause we have, like pictures, too.
<all laugh>
Dean: So they’re kinda like, “Is this real or not?” But by the time you finish, you know, you know--chances are, you know, our guitar player really didn’t-wasn’t really in a nuclear accident, you know?
PZO: Yeah. Right.
Dean: But, I don’t know, it’s just a stupid idea kinda thing, kinda makes people, kinda…kinda-kinda like hang around and listen, and, you know right from the bat that something’s not quite right here, but I like it.
Renee: <to Dean> And you did, like, incorporate some truth in-
Dean: Yeah, you know--
Renee: And things like--
Dean: One percent truth, and ninety percent, what is it, embellishment?
PZO: And, um, I-I love the picture with the glowing green, and the, for the radioactive-
<all laugh>
Dean: Yeah, that’s right, ‘cause you know-you know, he was in a nuclear reactor and it-it exploded, and that’s how he got in the super guitar playing ability.
PZO: Wow, okay.
<all laugh>
Renee: He should write comic strips, shouldn’t he?
PZO: Yeah, actually. I thought-I thought those were really great. I was like, “Wow, that’s just-“ I mean, I showed it to all my friends, and they thought it was funny, so…
Dean: Cool, thank you.
PZO: No problem.

PZO: As a band, what would you say are your best qualities?
Renee: Um, as a band, our best qualities is, um…musically, or-well, I’d say, really that we’re all like a big family, ‘cause that makes it fun, um, and we’re so used to each other, we’re like brothers and sisters, and…I think that makes us really-I think that’s our best quality, ‘cause it’s hard to find a band where everybody gets along really, really well.
PZO: Right.
Renee: And can handle it when somebody can--will criticize them, and, you know they can get on with it, they’re not going to be offended in any way because we’re all like brothers and sisters, we’ve been, on--you know, together for so long, and I think, you know, that’s really important. That’s a really good quality.
Dean: ‘Cause, you know, we can get into a big ol’ fight in the middle of Oklahoma at Applebee’s-
Renee: Yeah.
Dean: …And still play a show the next night.
Renee: Yeah.
<both laugh>
Renee: Oh yeah.
PZO: A fight at Applebee’s?
Both: Uh, yeah.
PZO: Hmm.
<Dean and Renee laugh>
Dean: Next question, please!
<all laugh>

PZO: Your music has been featured on MTV’s Undressed, Road Rules, and The Real World. Do you guys watch those shows? And if so, what do you think of them?
<pause>
Dean: <sniffle> Um…you know--<laughs>
Renee: <laughs> I thought-I used to watch them. You know, I think I watched the first couple seasons of each one of those, and then, uh, after that, I figured, well if I want to watch it, I’ll wait till they do the weekend marathon.
<all laugh>
Renee: ‘Cause, I don’t know, I-I think they’re-they were really good in the beginning, and-they’re good now, but they’re a little cheesy. You know?
PZO: Yeah.
Renee: But I like them though, ‘cause it’s always fun to watch a lot of drama. <laughs>
Dean: I think MTV forces you to watch ‘em, ‘cause they put them on, like, every day.
PZO: Yes!
Dean: And you’re, like, stuck watching them, till you’re like, “Shoot, if it’s gonna be on, it might as well have our music.” You know what I’m saying?
<all laugh>
Renee: Yes, exactly.
Dean: And I think that’s how our management felt the same way. They’re like, “Look guys, let’s get on this.” <laughs>
Renee: And I think a lot of people really watch them just because you just want to see what’s gonna happen.
PZO: Right.
Renee: You know, it’s like the element of surprise, like what’s-what’s gonna happen next? Who’s gonna end up naked, or who’s gonna…
<PZO and Renee laugh>
Renee: So we figured, if it, you know, draws so many people in, we might as well be on there.
Dean: Exactly. When you think of naked, think of Emaneht.
<all laugh>
Dean: Are you-did you write that one down, Joyce? <laughs> Think of naked.
PZO: Well, yeah, I have it on tape, so…
Renee: Oh, no.
<all laugh>

PZO: In your opinion, what is the most important thing to get out of life?
<silence>
Both: Happiness.
Dean: Yeah, totally. I would say just doing what you want to do. I can’t tell you how many people, like, you know, they ask-if I’m in Michael’s room, they ask, like, “What do you guys do?” “Oh, I play in a band.” They’re kind of like, “Oh, I’m sorry.” It’s like, “Why, dude? It’s totally rad,” you know? We get to tour the country and play shows, and you know, at least in my job, people clap when I’m done.
<all laugh>
Dean: That’s pretty cool. How-how can you…Yeah, you know, we’re not the biggest band in the world. You know, we-we’re wor-we’re still ramping ourselves up there, but hey, that’s awesome. You know, every day we get to do something we really, really, genuinely enjoy doing, so.
Renee: Yeah.
PZO: Okay.

PZO: Name one recurring thought you had while you were on tour.
<silence>
Renee: Ooh. <laughs>
Dean: Renee?
Renee: One recurring thought?
PZO: Yeah.
Renee: Uh, oh-oh gosh. Boys are very different from girls.
<Renee and Dean laugh>
Renee: Boys talk about things that girls do not talk about. <laughs> And how I wished I had some female companionship. <laughs>
PZO: Aw.
Renee: That was a recurring thought. <laughs>
Dean: I could tell you a recurring-no, maybe I-maybe I shouldn’t tell you the recurring theme. <laughs>
PZO: Hmm.
Dean: I could tell you that I think our drummer was-his biggest thought was wondering if the next hotel would have the-the appropriate, um, porn on the ch-you know what I mean?
<all laugh>
Dean: ‘Cause you know, not all hotels have that.
<all laugh>
Dean: Delete mail. There you go. <laughs>
Renee: Okay, but just clean beds.
<all laugh>
Dean: Aw, man, we thought--you should have seen us in El Paso, Texas. Aw man, we were in the, like, the Murder Capital Hotel.
PZO: Oh my god.
Dean: There was big old holes in the beds, aw man! The TV station was the kind of thing like where, like, every channel was just, like, all static.
PZO: Oh god.
Dean: The only channel you could get was, like, something stupid, uh, infomercial that was on like ninety of the same exact channels, and you had to turn the dial, it wasn’t even remote. It was just like <makes clicking noises>.
Renee: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it was.
PZO: Oh, I-I actually have one of those.
<all laugh>
Renee: Oh, sorry!
Dean: I mean…I really love them!
<all laugh>
PZO: No no no, I, like, that was my old TV, and then, you know, I’ve had it since before I was born. Well, my parents did. And, I, like, I’d have to sit there and try to adjust it with the little knob thingy, it was horrible.
<Renee and Dean laugh>
Dean: Oh, no.
Renee: Use the pliers when the buttons are gone…
PZO: Yes! That’s exactly-yeah.
Renee: I had one too, when I was younger. Click, click. Thirteen channels.
Dean: That’s the hotel that we were in in good old El Paso, Texas.
PZO: There’s nothing out there.
Dean: Yeah, there isn’t. You know how you can tell there’s nothing out there? ‘Cause, like, when you set the radio to that thing where, like, it’s supposed to automatically stop at a station?
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: And you press up, and it just goes-it just goes <makes digital noises repeatedly>. Just keeps going, it just never stops. And it did that for hours, like, “Where the hell are we? Texas is huge!”
< talk about the size of Texas continues>

PZO: What is one thing that you learned is extremely important to bring on tour? So I guess it’s a kind of learn by mistake kind of thing.
Renee: What, you mean to bring, or to not to bring?
PZO: Well-
Renee: Not to bring, well, I think I brought too much. <laughs> They were mad at me, they were lugging my suitcase around.
Dean: Like fifty-eight suitcases, ninety-eight different outfits.
Renee: You know girls, we’re overly prepared.
PZO: Yeah.
<all laugh>
Dean: What was the question? What-what to bring, or not-sorry.
PZO: Oh, what is one thing that you learned is extremely important to bring on tour?
Dean: Um. Don’t forget your cell phone charger.
PZO: Mmm.
Dean: That’s an easy one to forget. Then all of a sudden, a few days later, you’re like, “Damnit, my batteries are dead, I can’t charge it for the next month!”
<Renee and Dean laugh>
Renee: Um, let’s see, one thing to bring-
Dean: Bring your own pillow, damnit!
Renee: Yeah. Oh! <laughs>
Dean: And sleeping bag, just in case you’re in the El Paso Murder Capital Hotel.
Renee: Oh, yeah, we had to do that, too!
Dean: We did. It was so sad! That was nasty. You know, we had to be really worried when the venue’s like, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you guys hotel rooms,” and they’re, like, really open to it. Most places are like, “Oh, okay,” but this place is like, “Yeah! Sure! Don’t worry!” We’re thinking, “<pause>…Where are they putting us up?” <laughs>
PZO: So you’re, like, sleeping in the bathtub, kind of thing?
Dean: Aw man, actually-actually, the worst was actually, it wasn’t El Paso, it was San Angelo.
Renee: Oh, yeah.
Dean: When they--we actually, we didn’t even bother, we drove past the hotel. No joke, the windows were straight, like, broken out, and there was, like, boarded up, some of the windows were boarded up, and some of them were missing doors, and stuff.
Renee: Yeah, you could see, like, through. You could see right through. They had, like, no, um, dry wall.
Dean: Yeah. Aw, man! <laughs> We said, “We’re not even going into the parking lot.”
Renee: Don’t bother.
Dean: Turn around, and where’s the Holiday Inn?
<all laugh>
Renee: That was the worst.
Dean: Aw man, that was bad. But we played, what was it, that evening? We had an in-store appearance that evening.
Renee: I’d say AAA card. AAA is the number one thing you have to remember to bring with you on tour, because you never know when you’re going to get a flat tire, battery gone dead, and, uh, what else did we have going on?
Dean: There was a deer that hit you.
Renee: Yeah.
Dean: We got hit by a deer.
PZO: <laughs>
Dean: Hold on, Joyce, you got to hear me out for a second here. We didn’t hit the deer.
Renee: We were hit by a deer.
<Dean and Renee laugh>
Both: Oh, my gosh.
PZO: So wait, what, were you just driving along, and…
Renee: It was night time. It was really late. It was really pitch dark, and I was driving, and all you had was bright lights in front of you, and I saw the deer in the middle of-in the median, and I’m in the fast lane, and I thought I’d better move away from the deer, because, I don’t want them-I don’t want to hit him, in case he turned around or something.
PZO: Uh-huh.
Renee: So I started to drift over slowly, ‘cause I’m going, like, seventy-five miles an hour, I start to move over in my next lane. The deer just, he’s facing the opposite direction. He turns his head, looks at me, and just charges at me.
<PZO laughs>
Renee: He just charged, and I started to scream, and the next thing you know, we just heard, “Boom!” on the back of the van.
PZO: Oh my gosh.
Renee: It’s like, he barely missed the front of the van, but he hit the back of the van, and I just freaked. Dean was like, “Aah! Killed a deer!” But he-he was gone, we went back, and he was gone. I have never seen a deer charge at a car, it was like, how stupid. It was the classic deer in headlights.
<all laugh>
Renee: Don’t go--He was like, “Follow the light!” <laughs>

PZO: On the website, you were talking about looking for a new guitar player, so why are you looking for a new guitar player?
Dean: Um, our current guitar player that we have now, um, actually, he-he got married kind of recently, he has, like, a little baby.
PZO: Aww.
Dean: And yeah, so it’s cool, so I think he’s kind of at the point where he’s like, “You know, I’m going to focus on that,” kind of thing.
PZO: Uh-huh.
Dean: So, um, you know, and-you know, like when I said earlier, we’re kind of like family and stuff, so we don’t want to hold him back, we don’t want to need him, ‘cause I feel kind of badly sometimes, ‘cause he has a young kid and he’s trying to get things happening, so <clears throat> we were just kind of like, he actually came up to us and said, “Hey, what would you guys think if I really focus on this?” He still helps us out, like whenever we do shows, he still plays with us and stuff, he’s still totally supporting of it, he’s just like, “Hey, I’m going to kind of transition my way out, and, you know, if you guys can find somebody to replace me, that would be cool.”
PZO: Okay.
Dean: So it was just that kind of thing, he was just kind of moving on to something else.
PZO: Okay.

PZO: What is one of your favorite lines in one of your songs?
<pause>
Dean: Renee? You’re singing them all night long, you probably got to have a favorite line?
Renee: Uh, what song, what, um…
Dean: I would say what my favorite line is, mine is from a song we have called “I Refuse,” uh, where it’s, the line is, “That’s a great idea for the day after never.”
Renee: That’s the one! That’s my favorite line, too. That’s the one, that’s the one!
<both laugh>
PZO: I like that line!

PZO: If you could be any inanimate object, what would it be and why?
Dean: Go ahead, Renee.
Renee: The what? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the-
PZO: Oh, if you could be any inanimate object, what would it be and why?
Renee: You go first, Dean.
<all laugh>
Dean: Can I do the cheesy, like, 80s, uh, movies where, like, you’re the--you’re the dude in the girls’ bathroom stall, like in the girls’ bathroom, you know?
<all laugh>
Dean: I could be the, uh, the showerhead, or something like that, you know?
<all laugh>
Dean: Those old school ones?
Renee: It was like at the, uh, um-
Dean: I want to say…you know what I mean?
Renee: “Porky”!
Dean: Yeah, there you go. The showerhead in the girls’ bathroom!
PZO: Okay.
Dean: Just to look down and see what’s going on down there.
Renee: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think I-I don’t know.
PZO: Hmm.
Renee: How boring would that be? <laughs>
Dean: Well, it’s inanimate, that’s the whole thing.
Renee: Probably a book, ‘cause it’s filled with information, I don’t know.
<all laugh>
Renee: At least it’d have some kind of value over it.
<Renee and Dean laugh>
Dean: She’s a singer. She-she needs substance. I play bass. We just go, “Uhh, look at the hot chick in the front row.”
<all laugh>
PZO: That’s a good answer.

PZO: What are the benefits of having a female as a lead?
Dean: I’ll tell you what I think the benefit is. We do a lot of shows, and even though it seems, like, duh, though, there’s still not a lot of female lead singers out there. So when we do shows, most of the bills, the playlist, you know, how many bands are on, usually it’s like, you know, four or five bands, it’s usually all guys. And so we come on, we’ve got the-the, you know, female lead singer, so right off the bat, that kind of makes us different.
PZO: Right.
Dean: People kind of stop, and they’re like, “What’s going on there?” You know, it’s like they pay attention for a couple seconds. So that’s kind of cool, ‘cause, you know, regardless of what’s going on, we’re always a little bit different, and it works to our advantage. I think, on the whole tour, I don’t think we played a single band that was like, female-I mean, it was for a few weeks, and just all guy bands, you know?
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: Every-every show we’d be stood out, like, “Hey, what’s going on there?”
Renee: People would wait around, like, “Oh, female singer, I wanna see what they sound like.”
Dean: Yeah, yeah totally.
Renee: You know, “What are they about?”
Dean: Yeah, exactly.
Renee: And it just breaks up the-the monotony, because a lot of the guy bands, you know, a lot of them just sound a lot alike, you know, and it’s just pretty much the same old thing, but then we come in, it’s just like, change up the whole sound of the evening, people are like, “Whoa.” It’s like fresh-you know, fresh new music for them, so I think that’s a-that’s a big plus.
Dean: It’s also kind of a two-parter thing, ‘cause I think initially, we get kind of a lot of the people who are like, “Oh, they got a girl singer, that’s cool, but, you know can girls really rock?” You know, “Can these guys really kick ass?” You know?
Renee: Yeah.
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: And I think a perfect example was a show we did in Oklahoma, we actually opened up for the All-American Rejects, and, um, we’re in kind of this little punk rock kind of club, and we go on stage, and it’s like, “Hey,” you know, “Coming from California, it’s Emaneht!” And there’s-I mean the place is packed, there’s all these big guys, except, like, they’re screaming at us, like, “Are you guys any good? Hey, what are you guys?” We’re just kinda getting set up, and then you know, right from the first song, we just came out there and just kick ass, and the mosh pit started going, and people were jumping off the stage and jumping on the stage, and I think we pretty much answered their question right, you know, right from the first song, we’re like, “Hell yeah, we can rock.” And I think, like, the All-American Rejects were kind of like, “Uh oh, these guys just turned it out!”
<all laugh>
Dean: But they’re cool, man, we dig those guys.
Renee: It was so much fun.

PZO: Renee, what are your pet peeves about living with three guys while on tour?
<Dean laughs maliciously>
Renee: Farting!
<all laugh>
Renee: Farting! No, I’m kidding. <laughs>
Dean: She’s all, “The porn magazines in the van!”
Renee: Porn--The porn magazines in the van!
<all laugh>
Renee: And, uh, the farting. <laughs> Everything else I can pretty much handle. They’re all pretty clean. They’re all--they’re all, really, like, clean guys. You know, they’re not pigs or anything like that. But they’re boys.
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: Well, I’ve got to preface this by saying in Utah, you can’t get porn, okay? <laughs>
PZO: In Utah?
Dean: Well, Utah is, uh, their-their, their whole system there is very, very religious, very strict, like 90% Mormon or something insane number like that. But, so, when we actually came to town, we had some friends that we knew that stayed there, and they were telling us stories about how everything is, about the drinking laws and, like, the-everything, like during our show, they wouldn’t let a bunch of people in because you can’t-you have be sponsored in order to get into a club that has alcohol, and they only serve you one drink, and they don’t have anything, like they edit movies out if there’s any kind of, like, even remote, like, sexual scenes or anything in it.
PZO: Oh, wow.
Dean: Being they’re really conservative, so when we were driving through Utah, we made it a point of, of taking porn magazines and putting them up against the windows, like, of the van, so as people would drive by, they would go, “Look at that! What is th-oh my gosh! It’s naked people!” Freaked out everybody.
<all laugh>
PZO: So you pissed off the entire state of Utah?
Renee: I know, totally.
Dean: Oh, it was awesome. I kid you not, there was one couple, where, like, the husband looked, and the wife, like, caught him looking and she, like, smacked him, like, “Stop!”
PZO: Aww.
Dean: But the guy kept trying to look, and she got all pissed off at him, ‘cause he was trying to look.
<Renee laughs>

PZO: What were a couple things you learned this time around in the studio as you were recording?
Renee: This time around, or-I’m sorry.
PZO: What were a couple things you learned this time around in the studio as you were recording?
Renee: Um, not to eat and get really, really super full before you record.
PZO: Why?
<Renee laughs>
Renee: That was really bad. Eat a big burrito before you record.
PZO: Why, what does that do?
Renee: Oh gosh, I could not sing worth anything, I just, my stomach was upset, I could not use my support, I was just, like, very uncomfortable. <laughs> That’s a bad thing.
Dean: I think one thing we did this time that’s been totally helpful was a lot of the songs we’re recording now, we actually were playing while we were on tour.
PZO: Oh.
Dean: And we got really used to playing them.
Renee: Yeah.
Dean: We got into the studio. You know, a lot of times, you know, some songs, you know, you get in there you haven’t really kind of played them live or had a chance to work them out fully.
PZO: Mm-hmm.
Dean: So you kind of waste a lot of time in the studio kind of going, “Well, what if we do this?” “What if we tried that?”
Renee: Right.
Dean: Whereas now, I mean, probably about, like, eight-six, six or five of the songs we’re recording now, we were playing on the tour over the summer, so we know them, like, perfect, like totally know them.
Renee: Yeah, it saved a lot.
Dean: It’s not even a question about, “What should we do this on the bridge?” “What if we do that on the chorus?” It’s like, boom, we just nailed them.
PZO: Oh, that’s good.
Dean: That made-that made it a lot, lot easier, kind of, just, you know, you don’t feel quite as pressured in the studio as you did, like, on the first album.
Renee: Yeah. It seems to be going along a lot smoother than our last recording.
Dean: Yeah.
PZO: Well, that’s good.

PZO: What do you have in your pockets right now?
<Renee laughs>
Renee: In my pockets?
PZO: Yes.
Renee: Nothing.
Dean: Chapstick.
PZO: Chapstick? <laughs> Okay!
Renee: You know girls. We don’t wear-we don’t have anything in our pockets, ‘cause then we’ve got bulges.
PZO: Yes!
Renee: And it just kind of like takes away from-
<Dean laughs>
Renee: You’re bigger.
PZO: Yeah.
Renee: “Does this make my hips look big?”
PZO: Yeah, pretty much.
Dean: I got Chapstick, and my cell phone is actually in my pocket.
PZO: Ahh.

PZO: In 60 seconds, tell everyone why they should buy your album, “Girl On Top.”
<pause>
PZO: Okay. Go!
Dean: Go!
<all laugh>
Dean: “Girl On Top” is just, you know, it rocks, even though it sounds like it’s, like, something, you know, uh-can I say sexual, maybe?
PZO: Okay.
Dean: It’s just a rockin’ fun good time, you know, you don’t-you don’t take yourself too seriously, you just want to put something in, so you can just put it in your car and rock out and up beat and have fun, and you know, don’t really have to think too hard all the time. You can just relax, and-and just go, “Yeah, this kicks ass,” and you’ll-you’ll probably identify with a lot of it, you know, a lot of the topics, what we’re talking about is in a lot of songs that are just like, “Hey, I know what that feels like,” or, “I’ve been there. Cool.” You know, I’m just glad other people can kind of feel that.
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: You know? Just more-more than anything, just have a good time and don’t take yourself too seriously. I think you’ll notice that from everything that we do, from the website, from even the CD, there’s just a bunch of, like, hidden funky things done in the CD itself, where you’re just like, “These guys are--obviously want to have fun, they’re having a good time,” and I think when somebody else is having a good time, and you’re around it, you have a good time.
PZO: Right. Okay. That was, like, forty-five seconds. That works.
Dean: So I get a few more seconds?
PZO: If you want.
Dean: It’s very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very good.
<all laugh>
PZO: There you go. There’s sixty seconds.
Dean: Perfect. A hundred words, on the nose. <laughs>

PZO: Is there a decision you hope you never have to make as a band?
Renee: Uh, yeah. Having to let anybody go, like, you know what I mean?
PZO: Mm-hmm.
Renee: That’s-that’s difficult.
PZO: If you had to, how would you do it, you know?
Renee: Like-I have no idea. I-I mean, I’d always be, like, behind the music, you know, where they say, “Well, you know, the record company says that that person’s not working out, so you need to get-get rid of them,” and I just-I would never want that to ever happen.
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah, it’s kind of tough, even though, we’ve been, you know, we’ve been together about two and a half years now, and we started it from, like, nothing to, like, moving our way up, we’re starting to do more shows, and you know starting to get the radio stuff and the TV stuff, and getting everything and the films, and getting all that kind of stuff, and you start building that, and everyone feels like-you know, you feel like you’re part of it.
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: And then, like, the label can come in and just say, “You know what? Replace that person. Just do it.”
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: For no reason, no anything. And you’re just like, “Wow, this-this person’s-this person’s a huge part of it.” You know, how do you tell them that-you know, somehow they’re less important or something. You know what I mean?
PZO: Right.
Dean: I mean, I think that would be a tough decision. I mean, something like we said earlier with Paul, it was very mutual, he came up to us, like, “Look dude, we-I gotta bail.” And we’re like, “That’s cool, we understand.” We can see what’s going on, and he still helps us out. He still goes, “I’ll play, I’ll do shows, I’ll help you out, but I-I definitely can’t go on the next tour or anything.”
PZO: Yeah.
Dean: So that was a little bit easier. But if, right now, we just had to say, “Hey, you know, you are gone. Leave.” <scoffs> You know, that’s-that’s a very tough one, you know.
PZO: Right.

PZO: What is the weirdest slang term you’ve ever heard and what does it mean?
Renee: Fuck-it six.
Dean: Yeah. Fuck-it six.
<laugh>
Renee: We need that one. What’s the other one? Vin’s-Vin’s, uh-uh, jale.
Dean: Oh yeah, we have two of them.
Renee: We have two of them.
Dean: We have jale, and then we have fuck-it six.
PZO: “Fuck-it six?”
Dean: Yeah. ‘Kay, let me tell you what fuck-it six means.
<all laugh>
Dean: Okay. We were-we were in Grand Junction, Colorado.
PZO: Okay.
Dean: Okay. And we were-we had a radio interview, and we had to be at the-at the theater in order to do the show, I mean, like, in order get the sound check and everything prepped. And we were super running late, and the theater itself was on, like, Third Street or something like that-it was on--
Renee: No, no, it was Third.
Dean: Something like that. And so we--we roll into town, and we look at the street signs, and we’re on street number, like, Thirty. Thirtieth Avenue. And we’re like, “Aw, man! We have to get all the way down to Sixth, and we’re on Thirty? This is going to suck!”
So we’re driving, you see Thirtieth Street and all of a sudden you see Twenty-Ninth…and One--
Renee: And Three-Quarters.
Dean: And Three-Quarters. And then you see Twenty-Nine and a Half. Then Twenty-Nine and a Quarter, and I’m like, “Aw, man, at this rate, we’re never going to fucking get there. This is ridiculous!” And it kept doing that!
Renee: Like all of them!
Dean: Like Twenty Six. Twenty Six and a Fifth. Twenty Fifth and a Fourth. Then all of a sudden, it goes Six!
<all laugh>
Dean: Like, what the hell? And we-we figured, like-when, you know--when they-when, uh-when they’re designing the place-when they were designing the town, it was just a bunch of total country bumpkins who didn’t know how to count. Like, <in country accent> “Twenty-Nine, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Seven, uh…uh…fuck it, Six!”
<all laugh>
Dean: ‘Cause they didn’t know the other numbers! So now that’s kind of our thing, whenever you’re just frustrated, you can’t do anything, just go, “Fuck-it, Six.”
<all laugh>

PZO: What about the other one?
Dean: Jale. Okay, this is a good one. Our drummer, um, was going, to, like, 7-11, okay. And on the door, it said j-a-l-e. And so he looks at it, and he’s all, “Jale (jah-lay)? What the hell does that mean?” And I guess the guy who works there behind the counter, every morning, uh, would always be like, you know, “Hello, my friend,” or, “How are you, my friend?”, you know, would always say something like that. So, he saw this thing on the door, he’s all, “Jale (jah-lay),” and he remembered the guy, so he’s all, “Jale (jah-lay), my friend!” and he thought that was, like, some kind of a greeting, like, you know, “Jale (jah-lay) my friend, jale, jale!” And it’s fun-what’s funny when he told us this, we were thinking, we were like, “J-a-e…wait a minute, is this on the door?” and he’s like, “Yeah,” and we’re all, “Dude, that’s ‘pull.’ It’s jale (ha-lay); it’s Spanish.” It says “jale” and it says “pull,” like to open the door.
<all laugh>
Dean: Like, “That’s Spanish for pull, you dumbshit! ‘Oh, it’s all jale (jah-lay)!’ Dude!”
<all laugh>
Dean: Here’s this new thing that I’m starting, it--it’s “cran-grape.” <laughs> Like if someone’s trying to, like, get in on your group or kind of get in when something’s going on, you’re just like, “Dude, stop trying to cran-grape your way in.”
<PZO laughs>
Dean: It’s like cranberry. You know, you can’t just have cranberry, it’s always cran-grape, or cran-apple, or cran-something, that damn cranberry’s getting in everywhere! “Cran-grapin’ their way in.”
PZO: <laughs> Okay.
Dean: Right on, we’re set.





 
 
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