Oxford, Mississippi’s Bass Drum of Death are playing our upcoming VICE Presents BRAUN parties in Sydney and Melbourne, which is sweet because the first time they tried to tour Australia, everything fell through. We caught up with guitarist/singer guy John Barrett a week before SXSW and talked about a bunch of stuff. He was also kind enough to make us a mixtape which you can listen to at the end of the interview. Hey John. What are you up to?
Nothin’. Hanging at the house. I’m about to go watch this basketball game.So you’re at home now. I was looking at your blog and you guys are constantly touring. How long before you ship back out?
We leave next week for SXSW and that’ll be about a week. Then we’ll be home for like two weeks before we head over your way.I saw your schedule for South By. How many shows are you playing? Like, 10? Is that crazy?
Yeah it’s definitely crazy. We played a lot last year but not this many. It’s one of those things. At first I wanted to do three shows, one a day. You know, keep it chill. And then we kept getting better and better offers for more shows with bands we like. After a while I was like, let’s just do it. We might as well play in as many places as we can and get in front of as many people as we can while we’re down there.10 shows in just a few days sounds exhausting.
We’ll probably play an abbreviated set. It’ll probably be like 20 minutes, and eight or nine song set. It definitely won’t be a full headline set.What’s the ideal amount of time for you guys to be on stage?
I prefer 30 minutes. It’s hard for me to pay attention to a band who plays longer than that. Unless I’m obsessed and I know all the songs.You guys were going to come to Australia a little while back but that tour got cancelled. Is there anything you’re looking forward to doing, seeing this is your first time out here?
I know we probably won’t be able to but I want to go see Uluru. We’re only over for four days so I don’t think we’ll be able to pull it off. Other than that I just want to go to the beach because I’ve heard nothing but amazing stuff about Australian women and beaches. Might be a good place to do some scoping.Oh for sure. Hey we were looking at your “Best of 2011” list on your website. One of the entries was: “Colin trying to eat 50 hard-boiled eggs in two hours.”
Oh yeah. Well you know that movie Cool Hand Luke, where the guy makes a bet where he can eat 50 eggs in an hour and he does it? Colin has for the longest time been talking about how he could do that. We’ve been like “fuck you, no you can’t”. We were on tour with Japandroids during that time and he brought it up again and they said, let’s do it. Let’s make it a kind of band bet. Our band versus their band and the loser has to give the winner a $100 bar tab.So we went a couple of days and didn’t think anything of it, still kind of talked about it but thinking it’ll probably never happen. Then we have an off night in North Carolina and they had some friends who lived there and they set the whole thing up. They got this guy to hard-boil 50 eggs and they called us and said it was on and we were like “Sweet”.Did he do it?
We were a little disappointed. I think Colin feels he could have done a bit better. I think he ate like, 22 in the first 45 minutes and then just stopped. He just couldn’t do anymore.Shit.
Yeah it was pretty disappointing but it worked out alright. We gave them a $100 bar tab and they ended up buying us drinks all night on that. Everyone was a good sport about the whole thing.22… that’s kind of a lot of eggs.
That’s a shit load of eggs. Especially hard-boiled. Those things are hard to swallow. He’s said it’s been hard to eat eggs of any kind since then.A girlfriend of mine in high school tried to eat twelve Mars bars in an hour. She got down to two thirds of a bar and threw up. Did that happen with Colin?
No, Colin didn’t throw up. I was proud of him.To come see John and Colin at our VICE Presents parties in Sydney or Melbourne (and challenge them to a ridiculous eating contest) RSVP here.
Advertisement
Nothin’. Hanging at the house. I’m about to go watch this basketball game.So you’re at home now. I was looking at your blog and you guys are constantly touring. How long before you ship back out?
We leave next week for SXSW and that’ll be about a week. Then we’ll be home for like two weeks before we head over your way.I saw your schedule for South By. How many shows are you playing? Like, 10? Is that crazy?
Yeah it’s definitely crazy. We played a lot last year but not this many. It’s one of those things. At first I wanted to do three shows, one a day. You know, keep it chill. And then we kept getting better and better offers for more shows with bands we like. After a while I was like, let’s just do it. We might as well play in as many places as we can and get in front of as many people as we can while we’re down there.10 shows in just a few days sounds exhausting.
We’ll probably play an abbreviated set. It’ll probably be like 20 minutes, and eight or nine song set. It definitely won’t be a full headline set.What’s the ideal amount of time for you guys to be on stage?
I prefer 30 minutes. It’s hard for me to pay attention to a band who plays longer than that. Unless I’m obsessed and I know all the songs.You guys were going to come to Australia a little while back but that tour got cancelled. Is there anything you’re looking forward to doing, seeing this is your first time out here?
I know we probably won’t be able to but I want to go see Uluru. We’re only over for four days so I don’t think we’ll be able to pull it off. Other than that I just want to go to the beach because I’ve heard nothing but amazing stuff about Australian women and beaches. Might be a good place to do some scoping.
Advertisement
Oh yeah. Well you know that movie Cool Hand Luke, where the guy makes a bet where he can eat 50 eggs in an hour and he does it? Colin has for the longest time been talking about how he could do that. We’ve been like “fuck you, no you can’t”. We were on tour with Japandroids during that time and he brought it up again and they said, let’s do it. Let’s make it a kind of band bet. Our band versus their band and the loser has to give the winner a $100 bar tab.So we went a couple of days and didn’t think anything of it, still kind of talked about it but thinking it’ll probably never happen. Then we have an off night in North Carolina and they had some friends who lived there and they set the whole thing up. They got this guy to hard-boil 50 eggs and they called us and said it was on and we were like “Sweet”.Did he do it?
We were a little disappointed. I think Colin feels he could have done a bit better. I think he ate like, 22 in the first 45 minutes and then just stopped. He just couldn’t do anymore.Shit.
Yeah it was pretty disappointing but it worked out alright. We gave them a $100 bar tab and they ended up buying us drinks all night on that. Everyone was a good sport about the whole thing.22… that’s kind of a lot of eggs.
That’s a shit load of eggs. Especially hard-boiled. Those things are hard to swallow. He’s said it’s been hard to eat eggs of any kind since then.A girlfriend of mine in high school tried to eat twelve Mars bars in an hour. She got down to two thirds of a bar and threw up. Did that happen with Colin?
No, Colin didn’t throw up. I was proud of him.To come see John and Colin at our VICE Presents parties in Sydney or Melbourne (and challenge them to a ridiculous eating contest) RSVP here.