Channelling Wheatgrass and LSD with King Khan & BBQ

I Skyped Mark Sultan of King Khan & BBQ (he’s the meat) at 9AM Berlin time to talk to him about the band's upcoming Australian tour. He’d spent the morning looking for a café with an Internet connection after his sputtered out the night before while he was babysitting some friends' kids. The shitty café connection meant I was the only one with video, and for a minute and I sort of creeped myself out thinking, This is what a webcam model must feel like and then quickly shut the video off before I could wonder what that would mean Mark was doing on the other end.

He was up “way too early” and apologised for not being zany, but still strung together some potent thoughts on brotherhood, getting old, and how no one drinks piss at his shows anymore.

VICE: Where are you?
Mark Sultan: I’m in Berlin right now.

You’re from Montreal, yeah?
Yeah, but I live out here. My wife’s German, so, I’m living out here.

Is it still the place to be?
Uhm… I mean it’s changed a lot. I still enjoy it very much. It has changed, I’ve been coming here for years and years and whatever, I’m a tourist but also, I can’t say very much, “Well you know, it used to be so cool.” I mean, in my experience it was a lot different. I guess it’s become a cool destination for people to come and try living and stuff.

So what’s the deal, what brought you guys back? You’d broken up or took a little break a while ago, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It seems like you’ve always been doing things together and things like that. Was it a legit break?
No, no – it was like, [laughing] “meltdown style” we hated each other when we weren’t playing. Actually we were on tour with Black Lips and we were in Europe and we were on tour and things just started getting weird but it was a lot of fun and it was really crazy and everything was great and then right from Europe me and Khan went to Australia to do this Sydney Opera House show and then yeah, it just started, then it was maximum Hate Fest and were like “Ahhhh!”

You guys were in a band when you were kids, basically?
Yeah, like, that’s it. We’ve known each other for a long time and played forever. We had a band together when we were teenagers. It was one of those things – you’re brothers, you love each other and you hate each other. We hated each other and for a couple years we didn’t talk… well, I don’t know how long we were broken up for. Let’s say like two years we didn’t even talk we hated each other.

And what was it? Was it just being in such close proximity?
Yeah, I think it’s like, two crazy dudes versus being too close together all the time. Not all the time, but you know, it’s one thing to be friends, you know, when you’re buddies and hanging out drinking or doing whatever… watching a movie… I don’t know what people do but, you know, when you’re that close on tour and it’s just the two of you in some foreign countries and you’re just trying to get by and do stuff together it can get kind of weird depending on what your relationship is. It just kind of turned sour. It was funny – looking back, it’s like, “Oh man, that was ridiculous.” I mean we’re the type of band we wouldn’t get back together if we weren’t like, having a good time or being friends, so it’s cool. Now we love each other again.

What’s the dynamic? You guys have worked together for ages, is it sort of, like do you bring your own thing to it and he brings his own thing and do you try to make it mesh?
Recordings, because of the time when we were recording last we on different continents it was kind of that, you know, bringing in ideas. Or when we did hang out together just collaborating on the spot. Then live it’s just completely feeding off each other and just pure nonsense. Like we just love – if the crowd’s really fun that’s going to help. We’ve had shows where we’ve just stopped playing and we’re laughing at each other and we can’t help it, we’re like little kids, you know.

When you guys started in the Spaceshits you did these crazy sort of shows.
Yeah, I mean we were hyperactive LSD freaks.

And you got Blacklisted in Montreal. Is that true?
Yeah.

Is that a casual sort of, “These guys are assholes, let’s not book them.” Or was it a hardcore blacklist?
No, no, no, it was a Blacklist. A lot of it was because, in my opinion, we were like young kind of jerks and I guess people were bitter and jealous. We had like 45’s on international labels and were touring and were kind of renowned and I think that pissed people off.

Canada’s quite claustrophobic.
Well that’s it. It’s like, “How come my Pearl Jam cover band isn’t” isn’t, you know, doing this or that. There’s a lack of understanding and what we were doing was Rock n’ Roll and Punk or whatever and if you don’t know that scene it’s, it’s a scene where you can float. It’s almost like couch surfing or something. You can do it if you know what you’re doing. And I was like a punk kid so I knew who to hit and what to do and I think that we’d play shows and sure, they were sort of violent shows, but not violent in a bad way, but you know, lots of mess and nonsense. People were just too uppity about it and were like “Eh! Okay, fuck those guys.” It’s kind of one of those situations where we were like, alright, we’ll go to the States instead. It didn’t really matter. But I think they thought they were really ruining our careers.

You’ve been doing that for a long time, do you still feel like you are still legitimately…a bit nuts? Or do you sort of step into your BBQ role and you’ve got to be a bit nuts.
I was just talking to my wife about – in saying this, “I was talking to my wife” – it doesn’t sound too crazy – I’m recently married and I love my wife, I love my lifestyle too somehow, I guess because it’s such a break from my norm, but no, we’re still nut heads because we have to be. Neither of us have real jobs. This is our lifestyle and not to say this is our career either where we’re forced to do this. This happens to be how we live our lives and we get to travel and do all this stuff. I was listening to like DRI yesterday and I told my wife, it was like a, what’s that song? Anyway it was these anti-societal kind of songs and I was like “I’m glad I can actual live in this lifestyle and these lyrics still resonate with me because I’m still that guy. I’m still this piece of shit.” In that sense when we get on stage we’re still two pieces of shit and it’s fucking amazing. I love it.

Have you guys changed at all, with your music, or are you still just pushing what you’ve done before? Not like “pushing what you’ve done before” but do you know what I mean?
Obviously, we still have a very limited sound. There’s two of us. But I honestly think it’s the most energy the two of us have ever achieved together. I think we’ve channelled this new energy that’s a mix between wheatgrass and LSD residue. I don’t understand where it’s coming from but it’s pretty serious. I mean, there’s no more piss drinking and no more, you know, boners being inserted, scratching a lotto ticket, I don’t know what’s going on – but there’s other stuff that’s taken over that’s also causing the audience to react really crazily and it’s this really good energy. I thought we we going to turn into some like some kind of weird poopal state, turn into larvae and turn into slugs on stage but we’re actually more maniacal than ever. So it’s pretty awesome.

So you’re not the Aerosmith heritage tour?
No. I mean on some level, probably. I looked at my ass in the mirror and I was like “What the hell is happening to that thing?” We’re getting older. Our hearts are younger than ever. So it’s awesome.

King Khan & BBQ will be playing:

The Tote in Melbourne on the 11th and 12th of June  

Goodgod in Sydney on the 13th of June  

Deville's on the 14th of June.