Putting Faces to Names:
Introduce Surgeon General in the form of a haiku.
GARRETT:
A crew of young bucks,
Spry, lean, wise and curly haired,
Making lotsa noise.
LAILA:
Surgeon General:
Curly-haired band of brothers
All of us are scared
HARRY:
L-stat, J-Baby,
G-dog and Harry, a big
Crazy family
If you had to rename your band, what would you call it?
GARRETT:
Most of the good names seem to be taken already. My suggestion was “The Clash” but no one took me seriously for some reason.
LAILA:
The WHO (like the World Health Organization. Not those other guys).
HARRY:
Sturgeon Chokehold
What do you do when you don’t have any ideas?
GARRETT:
I often get really stumped with lyrics. Usually, I try to read things to get my brain going, and it takes a while for something to stick. A lot of the song’s lyrics have spawned as straight up ripping lines from books I like, or poems that I’ve read. We have a new one called “Hesitation” that’s about 50% appropriated collaged poetry from a collection I found in a Bennington professor’s office. There’s other methods to combat writer’s block, but that one is my favorite.
LAILA:
Plagiarize! Just kidding. Something that’s helpful to me in those moments is writing and playing with others. I love the feeling of hearing a half-baked idea develop as more people get their hands on it.
HARRY:
Skate
Would you guys have been friends if you met as children?
GARRETT:
I can’t tell. Part of me wants to say yes, but another part of me thinks that we all would’ve been too shy or intimidated by each other’s respective coolness to make the effort. I’m leaning yes, though.
LAILA:
Honestly, yeah. I think I would’ve been intimidated by all of them to the point where I’d just act super cool and trick them into being friends. Or like, bite them.
HARRY:
No.
Ever get inspiration from a dream? Or write things down in the middle of the night?
GARRETT:
I don’t think I’m elite enough to have had the “writing down things in the middle of the night” writer’s energy that it seems like a lot of people have. There are a handful of songs on the live record, though, that are about dreams pretty directly. “Torch” is definitely a dream song; I say “hailstorm of dreams” which gives it away a little bit.
LAILA:
Sometimes. There have been a few times where I’ve woken up and jotted something down, but more often than not I’ll wake up the next day and have no idea what I was going for. One time I tried to record an idea that I had in the middle of the night, but I fell asleep and wound up with a six hour long voice memo.
HARRY:
Unfortunately, yes. I try to avoid the subconscious, but once in a while a dream sticks, and I have to write some lyrics.
Nightmare karaoke song? Dream..... Karaoke song?
GARRETT:
“Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw functions as an answer to both of those questions, actually. I would kill it, but if I’m ever in a place in my life where I’m doing Tim McGraw karaoke, something might be terribly, terribly wrong.
LAILA:
Nightmare: Alec Baldwin by Surgeon General. Dream: The Referee by Aggie Miller.
HARRY:
Nightmare: I once did El Paso by Marty Robbins, that song goes on and on with the most repetitive melody. Plus I had to say “Mexican Girl” which are two hard words to pull off, at a bar, into a mic. Dream: Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush, oh and I am also Kate Bush in this situation.
Would you all get a matching band tattoo? If so, what?
GARRETT:
I’m personally not opposed to it. I’d throw out the idea of a pack of cigarettes, but I’d be open to other suggestions; maybe an anchor tattoo. That was a joke.
LAILA:
YES. I’m not sure what though. The first thing that comes to mind is a Tim McGraw-themed tramp stamp, but maybe come back to me on that one.
HARRY:
Yes....duh, all the lyrics to Hot Plate.
How would you rate these interview questions 1-10?
GARRETT:
Strong nine, light ten. The only thing that was missing was, “What’s your favorite Tim McGraw song?” And the answer to that question right now is “Good Taste In Women”.
LAILA:
Solid 12.
HARRY:
10
Funniest joke you can think of... GO
GARRETT:
Q: Where can you find out how much your pet whale has grown? A: At the whale-weigh station. Sorry.
HARRY:
It’s hard to make jokes with cleptomaniacs, they take everything literally.
