INTERVIEW – BOWLING WITH THE PONYS

The Ponys wanted to go bowling and drink beer instead of doing the interview at their posh hotel lobby. They said that they wouldn’t answer any questions if I didn’t bowl. They wouldn’t even look me in the eye before I laced up those stupid bowling shoes…

* See The Ponys play tomorrow night at the Old Blue Last

VICE: I suck at this.
Nathan: Don’t worry dude, I will definitely suck more than you. I can guarantee it.
Jered: If you want this interview you gotta bowl man. No bowl, no dice.

*Jered misses all the pins*

Ha! I thought you were good at this?
Jered: That’s my spin technique. I should give that a name. It works really well back home. This lane is real weird. It should like, glide and swing and spin. I think they need to polish it with the buffing machine.

Right. How are you finding London?
Melissa: We kind of had a bad experiences with it in the past. On our first tour we were on a really small indie label so we had no money and on the first day of the tour we got booted three times in London.

Booted?
Melissa: You know, like the things they put on the wheels to fine you? Clamps? They were £150 each. Everything we made on the tour basically went on paying those off hahah.

Ouch. It’s not all bad though, is it?
Brian: We have met some cool people but it seems kind of like New York in that it’s a lot of style bands you know? We heard that band The Cribs on the radio on the way in, Jesus…
Jered: It’s cool that kind of underdog indie bands get to be these super-big stars over here and be on the radio and whatever but some of the music is just, ugh…

OK, what bands are you into?
Nathan: We have been really lucky in that all of the bands that we really dig we have gotten to tour with. Deerhunter, The Black Lips…
Melissa: Black Lips are super awesome. They are our bros.
Jered: Yeah, we had such good fun with them. Me and Cole the singer guy spent all day looking to get hold of some crack in Baltimore just cos we thought it would be like that show The Wire.

Did you find any?
Jered: Nah we just got drunk instead.

* The Ponys are playing the Old Blue Last on June 7.