That's Dishonest:  A Repository of Interviews with and Articles about Meat Puppets
  • Home
  • 2018
    • Catching Up With Derrick Bostrom: The Meat Puppets' Original Drummer Dishes on His Return (2018)
    • Meat Puppets Reunite With Original Drummer (2018)
    • In A Car by Jeff Schroeck (2018)
    • Meat Puppets Come Galloping Out Of The Stable With 'Warranty' (2018)
  • 2017
    • MEAT PUPPETS MAKE NOSTALGIC RETURN TO THE ECHO FOR SOLD OUT LA GIG (2017)
    • REVIEW: The Meat Puppets' sold-out show Monday was a mighty, messy joy (2017)
    • My Meat Puppets Misconception at The Echo (2017)
    • Meat Puppets’ Cris Kirkwood Was Shot in the Back and Imprisoned: Life's Magical (2017)
    • Concert review: Meat Puppets show why they’re alt-rockers for the ages (2017)
    • Meat Puppets Together for First Time in more than 20 Years (2017)
  • 2016
    • Meat Puppet Cris Kirkwood talks pre-Germs Phoenix cult band Exterminators’ 1st-ever LP (interview + song premiere) (2016)
    • The drugs that fueled the Meat Puppets’ first five LPs (2016)
    • Meat Puppets Bassist On What He Would Like For Christmas (2016)
  • 2015
    • Interview: Elmo Kirkwood Talks Meat Puppets, STP 1994 Tour & New Dance Project Supr3yes (2015)
    • Interview: Meat Puppets’ Shandon Sahm Talks Upcoming Tour With Soul Asylum (2015)
    • Gene Simmons ‘Hugely Influenced’ Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, According To Meat Puppets Drummer (2015)
    • Meat Puppets Drummer Was Told He ‘Most Likely Won’t See Scott Weiland, But The Other Guys Hang Out’ When Touring With STP (2015)
    • EASY ANSWERS: CRIS KIRKWOOD OF THE MEAT PUPPETS TALKS GRATEFUL DEAD (2015)
  • 2014
    • 2 Minutes with Meat Puppets (2014)
    • The AU Interview: Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets (Arizona) (2014)
    • Meat Puppets Bassist Cris Kirkwood Takes Us Through the Evolution of ‘Lake of Fire’ (2014)
    • Interview: Meat Puppets’ Curt Kirkwood Talks Nirvana MTV Unplugged & Band With Krist Novoselic (2014)
    • Meat Puppets Making Most of a Second Chance (2014)
    • Fresh Meat With No Strings Attached: Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets (2014)
    • Cris Kirkwood Remembers Comforting Frances Bean Cobain At Nirvana MTV Unplugged, Talks Art (2014)
    • Nirvana's 'MTV Unplugged' 20 Years Later: Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood Looks Back (2014)
    • The Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood Talks About His Love for Disney and Old Musicals (2014)
    • Elmo Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets Has Pop Ambitions (2014)
    • The Most Influential Arizona Punk Records: #5 - Meat Puppets, Untitled Seven-Inch EP (2014)
  • 2013
    • Meat Puppets Announce New Album Rat Farm SEt for April 2013 Release (2013)
    • Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets (2013)
    • Meat Puppets Announce UK Tour In June 2013 With Mudhoney (2013)
    • Meat Puppets Expand with Rat Farm (2013)
    • Too High To Die: Meet The Meat Puppets by Greg Prato (2013)
    • The Meat Puppets are Still Rockin' (2013)
    • More Meaty Music from the Puppets (2013)
    • Meat Puppets Let Instinct Pull the Strings (2013)
    • Interview: Meat Puppets (2013)
    • 20 Questions: Meat Puppets (2013)
    • Interview: Meat Puppets - The Flesh of It (2013)
    • Meat Puppets (2013)
    • Meat Puppets : Interview (2013)
    • Exclusive Interview: Meat Puppets’ Curt Kirkwood on His Relationship with His Brother, Nirvana, and Touring 30 Years Later (2013)
    • Meat Puppets I: “A Lawn Mower in the Process of Unclogging Itself” (2013)
    • Meat Puppets Now 31 Years Since First Album (2013)
    • Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood: I'm probably not cut out for a regular job (2013)
    • Esquire Live Sessions: The Meat Puppets on Their Nirvana Unplugged Performance (2013)
    • Long-Haul Grunge Gods (2013)
    • The Mystery of Meat (2013)
    • Phoenix Artist Derrick Bostrom Opens Photography Exhibit at Green New American Vegetarian (2013)
    • The Meat Puppets on Unplugged In New York: The Extended Interviews The full Q&As with the Brothers Kirkwood and producer Alex Coletti. (2013)
    • Interview with Curt and Cris Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets: Influences, Live, Playing with Nirvana, 20th Anniversary of In Utero (2013)
    • Meat Puppets Interview: Louder Than War Talk To Curt Kirkwood (2013)
    • Talk: Curt Kirkwood, Meat Puppets | Interview (2013)
    • Meat Puppets [Interview] (2013)
    • My People Call It Weed: Meat Puppets Get Happily Twisted (2013)
    • 2 Minutes with Meat Puppets (2013)
    • Meat Puppets – At The Rat Farm With Curt Kirkwood (2013)
    • Meat Puppets: Just a Band (2013)
  • 2012
    • Peer Inside the Colorful World of the Meat Puppets' Cris Kirkwood at Carly's Bistro (2012)
    • Finding Out What Makes the Meat Puppets Tick with a New Oral History (2012)
    • Curled Up with a Good Book (2012)
    • Los Históricos Meat Puppets Avanzarán en Diciembre Nuevos Temas de su Próximo Disco en su Primera Gira Española (2012)
    • Meat Puppets Announce Release of 14th Studio LP (2012)
    • Curt Kirkwood nos habla de Meat Puppets (2012)
    • La Semilla del "Grunge" (2012)
    • Meat Puppets, Las Raices y el Punk que Marcaron a Kurt Cobain (2012)
    • Mas Raros que un Perro Verde (2012)
    • Meat Puppets (2012)
    • Meat Puppets, Valencia, 18/12/2012 (2012)
    • Meat Puppets, Influx Emocional (2012)
    • Valley’s Elmo Kirkwood and His Dad, Meat Puppet’s Curt Kirkwood, to Team Up For Father’s Day Show (2012)
    • Too High to Die: an Interview With Curt Kirkwood (2012)
  • 2011
    • Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood on Making New Album 'Lollipop' and Their Summer Plans Plus: Band 'completely inebriated' while recording 'Meat Puppets II' (2011)
    • Meat Puppets with Roky Erickson (2011)
    • One Tough Question: Meat Puppets' Cris Kirkwood (2011)
    • Shandon Sahm Meets Meat Puppets (2011)
    • Meat Puppets Relive Gonzo Past, Open Up about Cris Kirkwood's Addiction (2011)
    • eMusic Q&A: The Meat Puppets (2011)
    • Meat Puppets: "We Built 'Lollipop' Like a Lego Toy" (2011)
    • Tonight: The Meat Puppets on the River (2011)
    • Curt Kirkwood's Tinker Toy Still Life with the Meat Puppets (2011)
    • Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets on the Band's Legacy and His Vivid Lyrical Imagery (2011)
    • Fans Hope for a Well-Done Meat Puppets Performance (2011)
    • Headed Back to the Slaughterhouse (2011)
    • The Meat Puppets Kill Chelsea's (2011)
    • Meat Puppets Survivor's Tale (2011)
    • The Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood (2011)
    • Q&A: Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood On Arizona Punk, SST Records, His Brother Cris Being Clean, and Not making it into "Our Band Could Be Your Life" (2011)
    • Meat Puppets Interviewed by Most Beautiful Losers (2011)
    • [LP Review] Meat Puppets – Meat Puppets (1982) (2011)
  • 2010
    • Interview: Cris Kirkwood from the Meat Puppets (2010)
    • TS5Q: Derrick Bostrom (2010)
    • Meat Puppets 1982-88: Acid Rock Baked by Desert Grunge (2010)
    • MEAT PUPPETS 1982-88: Acid rock baked by desert grunge (2010)
  • 2009
    • Q&A with the Meat Puppets' Cris Kirkwood (2009)
    • Meat Puppets Sewing it Together (2009)
    • Reunited Meat Puppets Evolved, But Still Intense (2009)
    • Meat Puppets Interview (2009)
    • The Meat Puppets' Name is Cool, and That's the Entire Story Behind It (2009)
    • Meat Puppets on Display (2009)
    • Lost in the Zone [Meat Puppets] (2009)
    • Interview with Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets (2009)
    • The Meat Puppets are still half-assin' it After All These Years (2009)
    • Meat Puppets Still "Sewn Together" After Nearly Three Decades (2009)
    • Rock City: Tourist Stop Helped Get Meat Puppets Frontman's Artistic Juices Flowing (2009)
    • Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets Speaks (2009)
    • Q&A with Shandon Sahm of Meat Puppets (2009)
    • Meat Puppets: "We Got to Do What We Wanted to Do" (2009)
    • The Meat Puppets (2009)
    • From the Chip Midnight Archive: Meat Puppets 1994 Audio Interview (2009)
    • A Testament to the Strength of the Human Gullet (2009)
    • Meat Puppets: Out Of The Weeds (2009)
    • No robots, no Celine Dion for Meat Puppets (2009)
  • 2008
    • Very Human (2008)
  • 2007
    • Meat Puppets Get a Major-Label Education (2007)
    • Meat Puppets Return to Their Trippy Psych-Rock Roots (2007)
    • Meat Puppets: On Your Feet (2007)
    • Lake of Fire: Meat Puppets Rise to Their Knees (2007)
    • Meat Puppets Reviewed (2007)
    • Reunited in Rock (2007)
    • New Day Rising (2007)
    • Reunited Kirkwood Brothers Help Meat Puppets Rise to the Occasion (2007)
    • Meat Puppets (2007)
    • Meat Puppets: O Brother, Where Art Thou (2007)
    • Who's Got My Extra: Curt Kirkwood (2007)
    • Stereogum Q&A: Meat Puppets (2007)
    • Back on the Sun (2007)
    • Interview: Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets (2007)
    • A Lean Night for the Meat Puppets (2007)
  • 2006
    • Meat Puppets Spring 1984 (2006)
  • 2005
    • Curt Kirkwood, "Snow" (2005)
  • 2002
    • Derrick Bostrom - 2002 (2002)
  • 2001
    • Puppet Show (2001)
  • 2000
    • Meat Puppets: Back From the Lake of Fire, the "New" Meat Puppets Feel the Love (2000)
    • Golden Lies (2000)
    • Meat Puppets Desert Desperados (2000)
  • 1999
    • What is This? (1999)
    • Fresh Meat for Rotting Puppets (1999)
    • Meat Puppets’ Cris Kirkwood Jailed On Drug Charges (1999)
  • 1998
    • Shooting Star (1998)
  • 1995
    • Meat Puppets: Swimming in a Lake of Fire (1995)
    • Meat Puppets: The Morning After (There's No Business Like Show Business) (1995)
    • The Meat Puppets (1995)
  • 1994
    • Rockers for Pot '94 (1994)
    • Meat Puppets' Drummer Derrick Bostrom Interview from 1994 (1994)
    • A Vignette from the Early Years by Derrick Bostrom of the Meat Puppets (1994)
  • 1992
    • Meat Puppets: Cris Kirkwood Interview (1992)
  • 1991
    • Music Meat Puppets (1991)
  • 1989
    • Meat Puppets Interviewed (1989): Disney Avant-Metal Rock (1989)
  • 1987
    • Meat Puppets--Mirage (1987)
  • 1984
    • The Meat Puppets (1984)
    • Meat Puppets: The Ultimate Fusion Band (1984)
  • 1983
    • Meat Puppets (1983)
  • 1982
    • I Met the Meat Puppets and Lived to Tell About It (1982)
  • Audio-Video Articles and Interviews
    • 2019 >
      • MEAT PUPPETS Derrick Bostrom talks new material (2019)
    • 2019 >
      • MEAT PUPPETS Derrick Bostrom talks new material (2019)
    • 2018 >
      • 013: Meat Puppets - Forbidden Places (1991) (2018)
    • 2017 >
      • RSR077 – DERRICK BOSTROM – THE MEAT PUPPETS & NIRVANA (2017)
      • Meat Puppets albums worst to best (2017)
      • Meat Puppets - Induction Video Az.Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame (2017)
      • Acoustic Storm on KSLX Radio Promo for the Meat Puppets (2017)
    • 2016 >
      • Episode 12: Meat Puppets and Peter Kuper By Westerino Show (2016)
      • Interview Sneak Peak with Cris Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets (2016)
    • 2015 >
      • Cris Kirkwood Interview (2015)
      • Dad Rock: Cris Kirkwood on life in Meat Puppets (2015)
    • 2014 >
      • Meat Puppets - Cherry Rock 2014 - Part 1 (2014)
      • Meat Puppets - Cherry Rock 2014 - Part 2 (2014)
      • Meat Puppets - Cherry Rock 2014 - Part 3 (2014)
      • The Meat Puppets Q & A @ Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne (27th May 2014) (2014)
      • Meat Puppets Documentary -- Rough Pass (2014)
    • 2013 >
      • Curt Kirkwood Interview w/ Larry Flick (2013)
      • Meat Puppets Concert Review/Album Showing (2013)
      • Meat Puppets - Interview (Bing Lounge) (2013)
      • WTF with Marc Maron, Episode 428 - Curt Kirkwood (2013)
    • 2012 >
      • The Andy Derer Show Ep #51 with Cris Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets (2012)
    • 2011 >
      • Q&A with the Meat Puppets (2011)
      • Meat Puppets Interview Live in the Bing Lounge (2011)
      • Interview with Cris from Meat Puppets (2011)
      • The Meat Puppets interview w/ Across The Board radio show.wmv (2011)
    • 2010 >
      • Meat Puppets - What's In My Bag? (2010)
      • Meat Puppets: Bumbershoot 2010 Interview (2010)
    • 2009 >
      • Serene Dominic Show Episode 11 with Meat Puppets Curt Kirkwood (2009)
      • Amplified from ABC News Now : Meat Puppets (2009)
      • Amplified from ABC News Now : Meat Puppets, Part 2 (2009)
      • MEAT PUPPETS Interview and Soundcheck "Legendary Status.. Should Inspire Massive Guilt" (2009)
      • Meat Puppets Interview (2009)
    • 2008 >
      • Tempe Music Festival TV - Meat Puppets (2008)
    • 2007 >
      • How the Meat Puppets got their Name (2007)
    • 2005 >
      • Curt Kirkwood Interview (2005)
    • 1995 >
      • Meat Puppets Interview (1995)
    • 1994 >
      • Meat Puppets - Conan 1994 (1994)
      • Cris Kirtwood Interview of The Meat Puppets May 26th, 1994 (1994)
    • 1988 >
      • Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets) Interview Segment (1988)
      • 1988 Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets) Full Interview (1988)
    • 1984 >
      • Meat Puppets, 1984, Music View w/ Todd Miller (1984)
Lost in the Zone
[Meat Puppets]


Aug. 31, 2009
by Josh Barr

What happens on stage greatly defines a band. When live and stripped down to the goods, sans the smoke 'n' mirror Pro Tools, when left dependent solely on musicianship and showmanship, how do acts fair? Frankly, some barely muster applause, many disappoint, and others are revealed as the mediocre illusionists they've been all along. Often times, fans are left feeling victim to the ol' bait 'n' switch; the album is God's shoeshine-polished, the live show: sole-side crud. Where others falter The Meat Puppets thrive -- and have for nearly 30 years.

The Puppets have "it." In support of their latest, May's Sewn Together (review) (Megaforce), their 12th studio album fully, they're flaunting it once again this September through December all across North America. Aversion shared a phone line with Puppeteer frontman/guitarist Curt Kirkwood to talk touring, ADHD, the Frost/Nixon debate, and the now-and-again necessity of prompting certain audience members to contemplate gender re-assignment surgery and/or intentional self-asphyxiation.

One thing we've always admired about you guys is that you take the music seriously, but not yourselves. What do you think when you see musicians like Bono, Oasis, Kanye West and the like?
Curt Kirkwood: I don't know, I think they were probably into The Beatles just like everybody else but didn't watch Help enough times or something.

When writing and recording, you've said you're determined to streamline things and avoid over-thinking. What do you over-think?
CK: I'm kind of blessed with a short attention span. Tends to just be I'll over-think what I wanna see on TV over anything else when I'm channel surfing.

In your upcoming tour, what are you looking forward to, aside from the stops featuring [your son,] Elmo [Kirkwood] and [Brian] Dellinger [of Kirkwood Dellinger]?
CK: I tend to take that as it comes. I know I have what my obligations are, and outside of that, outside of trying to get a little bit of practice in, I keep my expectations kneaded. Generally what I'm looking for is good shows. It's tough to maintain that focus a lot of times, you know, ok, is everybody happy, are you fed, do you like the club, is the dressing room pissing you off ?these weird, petty things that everybody gets in to and I find myself constantly trying to bring it back and say regardless, let's just remember what we're doing here, we need to make sure that, no matter what, the shows are good, because people want to see a good show. And primarily, I also just drive on it. Being out there seems useless after you've had a show that doesn't go over the way you think it should.

Friends, reviewers and industry reps alike say The Puppets still have it in concert. How do you think this is?
CK: I think it's largely a combination of luck and having had our passions requited in the past, knowing how that feels and knowing when we're in the zone. We have plenty of material, but it's also just kind of being familiar with how it feels like when we're in the zone, and letting that happen. And that turns out to be something that you can practice all you want, and I like to practice ?mostly to learn material and get it down right, in our case, what that means I think is that in these shows, even in the renditions, that there seems to be just something going on that you can't really put your finger on. We've always been kind of lucky to be regarded as a good live band.

It's been said our kind -- the meat puppet carriers -- are incapable of multitasking. When you're on stage playing, what else do you typically find yourself thinking or doing? Does you mind ever wander?
CK: Sure, sure. I don't know if I agree with that belief. I don't know if I'm actually multitasking but I can be fully involved in what I'm doing and have my mind wandering into different things. I mean it goes to weird places but a lot of times I'm just checking out the audience, the club, the lights --there's an element that's kind of strange when you're in a good show it's almost like you could do it in your sleep. [While performing] I could totally be thinking about the Frost/Nixon debate and still be doing the show. I mean it can get really abstract.

In Rip It Up and Start Again [: Postpunk 1978-1984 (Penguin, 2006)], you're quoted with saying, "We were really into pissing off the crowd." Has much changed?
CK: In the past, it seemed we'd get kind of weird for [the audience] and if they wouldn't be getting it, we'd just give 'em shit or try to make it even weirder, try to make 'em leave, or make 'em so uncomfortable that they wanna go home and start considering a sex change or something. Faced with that kind of aversion], you know -- you're out there and [like] here's our beautiful stuff and people are like 'ehhhhh' and it's just like well why are you even here then? You make your choices. Good for you and your open mind. And hopefully you go home and put a plastic bag over your head and knot it around your neck.

We could be at that point in a show and it could change where we would be, I wouldn't call it hostile, but we'd be aggressively trying to uproot anybody who wasn't well into it, like this is where we're going.

The Puppets have worked into their sound different elements likened to acid rock, country western and have even been called cowpunk and so on. How tired are you of hipsters and music snobs coining new micro subgenres?
CK: Well you know they've all stumbled across some sort of special world of novelty that would warrant a new moniker or it's the king's new clothes, one of the two. I wouldn't wanna be able to be the one to say that, I'm not a critic, really, I've felt left out since I started. I still feel totally left out. I don't have any genre. I never adhered to one, never cleaved to one, never been involved in one of my own volition and have been included in rosters, et cetera.

It's kind of like in the '70s, in the personals in the back of the New Times in Phoenix, the local weekly, they would have in the personals on-going wars between people going like "Disco sucks" or "Metal rules." It was rock or disco, and you could go through it. I liked disco, it was fine with me; my first band played plenty of it, none of it bothers me. It's all just stuff that people did and they all did it in about the same time. The timeframe is the same, you can't go back and forward in time; they're doing it now so they're contemporary. Everything is by the hand of time, it's contemporary. It doesn't matter if it's retro, it doesn't matter if it's created an anachronism.

That's the overriding kind of oath that I see in terms of any categorization, that everything is contemporary. The fun thing about art is that it can be criticized, categorized too. In another way, the subtleties of it are all being subjected, they all are relevant in the game. That gives it that abstract sort of thing that kind of makes it fun. You can supposedly genre-jump and do a ballad here, do a metal song or whatever ?to me, it's just music. It's just what I want to play ?here's the next song.

I can't go and listen to an old record that I like and not be influenced again. For instance, when we were doing No Joke (1995, London) , oh look, The Offspring and Green Day are popular, pop-punk like we played 15 years before that is popular now -- so there's a side of the band going and elements in the band going so we should play the punk rock we know so well. It's like, No, if we do that, we'll sound like Green Day now, even though they listened to us. You also have to be careful with what the perception is of your own stuff; it's not the devil may care, I just do what I want and you can deal with it. I'm not into repeating things or being seen as an anachronist necessarily, so there's some responsibility there.

Lastly, gonna work in a James Lipton technique. Just for shits. I'll say a word. You say the first thing that pops into your head. Progressive Car Insurance TV ads.
CK: Horseshit.
Flomax TV ads.
CK: Horror.
The Jack LeLanne Juicer.
CK: I want one.
God.
CK: Jack LeLanne.
Pro Tools.
CK: Acid.
Your playing a Gibson Hummingbird plugged into your pedal board.
CK: Yeah. Right on.
The Meat Puppets.
CK: Tools.

Accessed:  9/5/09

http://www.aversion.com/bands/interviews.cfm?interview=454

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