RAD, MAN

Dinowalrus is the rock and roll brainchild of architect and tall man Pete Feigenbaum. They put out their first album,

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, last year and it blew a few people's minds, but it was not critically well received by either Pitchfork or noted cultural pundit Nick Gazin, rendering it a horrific failure in CD terms. In the year since

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's release, Pete's been through a couple of lineup changes and reconfigured the Dinowalrus sound from what I liked to think of as "no wave space metal" into something that is more "shoegaze meets Madchester." Fortunately I don't know how to write about music and don't have any broad opinions on how genres rise and fall, so we wound up talking about strip clubs.

Vice: What's this track "Radical Man" about?

Peter:

It's about raves, acid baths, aging hippies, and blowing your load early in life. Truthfully, our songs are never really about anything, just free associative verbal riffing. Good songwriting, as Keith Richards would say, is about good vowels and graceful vocal diction. The words follow behind the diction and flow in importance. Diction, then melodies, then words. Otherwise, you are probably going to be playing the Bitter End eternally like a young Stefani Germanotta. If you let the words take precedent, then you are truly a hopeless singer-songwriter. That song kinda sounds like "Home Sweet Home" by Mötley Crüe, doesn't it? Ask me some better questions.

I think you casually said something to me over the phone about how Dinowalrus intends to dominate the world in 2011. Let's assume you pull it off. What happens next?

Well, even if you manage to dominate the world, you only hold that hegemony for six months because the internet has made people especially fickle and their attention spans short. In a sense, you can already dominate the world in a small way. For example, today we had a track played on BBC Radio 6, and some kids in Indonesia tweeted about it. So that's quite worldly, but sadly, it doesn't suggest domination. Not at all.

Maybe Dinowalrus should be making nihilistic Japanese crust thrash like G.I.S.M.

Yep, or party-sleaze metal like RATT.

No offense but you don't seem like a party-sleaze metal metal kind of guy.

Yes and no. I suppose I just wish my life was more hedonistic than it is. I don't know, I really enjoy having "get pumped up" music in my life like the KLF or Crystal Castles or bombastic 80s metal.

What is the best RATT song?

RATT actually has some serious chops and sweet dueling leads, so I'll go with "I'm Insane." The solo really shows off Warren DeMartini's fast fingers. And "You're in Love" is the perfect strip club jam.

Where can I find a strip club that plays RATT?

Probably the Sunset Strip clubs immortalized in "Girls Girls Girls" like the Body Shop or the Seventh Veil. Certainly not Pumps in Brooklyn though. Which is why I wanna do a DJ night at Pumps. The new Growing album was named as a tribute to Pumps, by the way.

What else can you tell me about Pumps?

Its good for a laugh and a $7 bud. That's about it. [audio: http://viceland-assets-cdn.vice.com/blogs/en/files/2011/01/radical-man.mp3]

Dinowalrus - Radical Man

MATTHEW CARON