Q101 Local 101 Interview
5/13/2001
transcript by kelly hageman
Chris Paine: ….Very special guests in the studio tonight. We have Kill Hannah. The guys are gonna be performing live from the Q101 Lava Lamp Love Lounge. We’ll also have a sitdown & chat, talk about what’s goin’ on with them & their show coming up: the 25th at the Metro.
[Plays “Big Shot” a few minutes later.]
Chris: Alright, It’s Q101’s Local 101. That was Kill Hannah with “Big Shot”, they’re gonna be at the Metro on the 25th, and they are in the studio with me right now. I’ve got Mat, Garret, Jonny, Greg and Dan, it’s Kill Hannah! Thanks for coming by.
[Boys mumble various simultaneous forms of “Thank you!”]
Chris: Mat! You and I are old-school Chicago, baby! Let me tell ya!
Mat: [laughs]
Chris: We go way back, don’t we?
Mat: Yeah we do, yeah. Back in the day.
Chris: It’s good to have you on the show….
Mat: Completely.
Chris: It’s good to see you again, and it’s REALLY good to hear the new EP that you guys finally got in the mail to uh…
Mat: Oh, thanks.
Chris: Now was that the final mix that we just heard, “Big Shot,” was that the final mix?
Mat: No, that’s unmastered, you know… It’s virtually demo stage and we’re happy with where it is, so…
Chris: This seems like that you have made, definitely, a leap in what some of your earlier stuff has sounded like. I mean is that intentional, or is that just the way that you and the band are sorta…..
Mat: Yeah.
Greg: I think we’re more of a band now and we’re finally capturing our live energy, I guess, on tape, you know? So…and it’s like we’re a little bit tougher now…
Chris: Yeah…..someone compared you guys to the Scorpions, right?
[They all laugh]
Dan: Yeah, that was me.
Greg: We’re not balding, though!
[more laughter]
Chris: Still got all your hair at least, thank God!
Dan[?]: Can I get some reverb on this mic?
Chris: Yeah, yeah, we got it comin’ right up! [laughs] When are we gonna have the full-length CD? Are you gonna put 10, 12 songs on it, or….?
Mat: We’ve got the songs, but we’ve got no plans for putting it out, unfortunately. No money right now.
Chris: Oh, it’s a cash thing?
Mat: Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, we’ll probably put some of, a lot of stuff on the internet on our website, which is www.killhannah.com.
Mat: Can we turn this into a telethon?
Chris: Yeah, let’s do it! You guys actually have a lot of kids, a lot of your fans that reach you through the website. How many hits do you usually get on average?
Mat: Yeah, right now it’s growing. It’s like 6,000 hits a month.
Chris: Is there like a Kill Hannah fan club or something like that?
Greg: Um, yeah. There’s a guy named Chris, actually….has this mailing list called Nerve Gas…dot…com?
Jon: Dot-org.
Greg: Dot-org, dot-org. He kinda gets all the kids involved and gives them kinda like an update list every week almost.
Chris: Right.
Mat: It’s as close to a fan club as we get.
Greg: Yeah, the closest to a fan club, right.
Chris: Is he just doing this on his own because he’s a fan of the band?
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: That’s pretty impressive, you guys’ve gotta love that.
Greg: Yeah, he’s great.
Chris: He gets free Kill Hannah tickets for life!
Greg: [laughs] We try, we try.
Chris: Yeah, ok you guys got a show coming up on the 25th at the Metro but you’re also involved in Mob Fest, which is only a month or so away too…..
Mat: Yeah. Are you guys involved in that?
Chris: Yeah! yeah, I got the Local 101 show. I’m going to be sitting on a panel too, in fact. I think it’s the new band demo panel. It’s guaranteed to be brutal.
Greg: At least they don’t throw it at the House of Blues and do that whole panel thing.
Chris: It’s gonna be at all the great Chicago clubs, man, it’s gonna be great. Do you guys know where you’re gonna be playing yet?
Mat & Greg: Uh, Double Door.
Chris: Double Door show? That weekend?
Greg: With uh, Dovetail Joint and Pivot Man, I believe….?
Chris: Ok, yeah, cool. I didn’t know Dovetail Joint was even still a band. I thought they had like…
Greg: They’re still a band; they’re playing that show!
Dan: They’ll be happy to hear that! [laughs]
Chris: Really! I heard they called it quits and someone told me they got a show coming up in a week or so. Wow, I thought they were takin’ a break. Maybe they DID take a break! [laughs] Now they’re back. You guys have actually–I don’t mean to point all my questions at Mat, guys, but I know him pretty well from years back, but I mean Mat, I know you’ve worked with Chris and the guys in Stabbing Westward, you’ve worked with Billy of Smashing Pumpkins, in fact Billy and Joe Shanahan of the Metro really gravitated towards Kill Hannah……I hate to say it, but 6, 7, almost 8 years ago.
Mat: I…….oh, man!
Chris: I mean, that’s a long time!
Greg: No, not that long ago. GOD NO! We’re not dinosaurs yet.
[all laugh]
Mat: That’s painful to me.
Chris: How old are you, man? You’re a teenager!
Mat: Yeah…I don’t know if I should talk about this… [they laugh] I don’t know. I still, I act like……I feel like I’m 95. I probably look like I’m….15.
Chris: Well, I’m 45 in liver-years. [??]
[Greg laughs]
Mat: I behave like I’m 15, you know?
Chris: What collaborations did you do with….uh…..William?
Mat: Oh, um, this was actually recent. I think he’s been aware of us for awhile like you were talking about–
Chris: Yeah, he has.
Mat: They….he was at our show at the Metro a month or two ago and went out after, and I guess we worked on a couple songs at my place….hung out a little…. He gave me some sound songwriting advice. It was cool, we had just
a small…[pause] tutorial, almost, on songwriting. Ethics and approaches to music and it was cool. It was just totally enlightening for me and a really cool experience.
Chris: Hey man, the guy’s been around the block more than a couple times. He definitely knows what’s going on.
Mat: Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, we definitely have a lot of respect for him.
Mat: Yeah, I mean there are few people that I actually can trust. And there are very few reasons for us to actually stay in Chicago as a band and you know…..and he & the Pumpkins are one of them. Q101, number two!
[they laugh]
Greg: And our fans! The biggest ones of all….
Chris: Thanks, man! I’m definitely up to it. Alright, we are in the studio with the guys from Kill Hannah on Q101’s Local 101. Let’s play one of the live tracks that you guys did earlier today. They’re both awesome, I can’t believe how well they sound! The mixing was done great, the performance was phenomenal. I mean it sounds really good, but I don’t have to gush about it.
Mat: You don’t have to tell us about it! [laughs]
[Jon says something quietly in the background]
Chris: We can actually listen to it. Which one, “Ten More Minutes with You” or “Kennedy” ?
Mat: I wanna hear “Ten More Minutes with You”.
Greg: Yeah!
Chris: Alright….
Chris: Alright, this is Kill Hannah live from the Q101 Lava Lamp Love Lounge, it’s Q101, “Ten More Minutes with You.” Kill Hannah, Q101.
[He plays “Ten More Minutes with You”.]
Chris: Chris Paine in the studio, we got the guys from Kill Hannah in & we’re gonna talk to those guys a little bit more and also play another track that they recorded in the Q101 Lava Lamp Love Lounge.
[plays something by Today’s My Super Spaceout Day]
Chris: I’ve got the guys from Kill Hannah in. They’re gonna be doin’ a show the 25th at the Metro. I appreciate you guys coming in tonight!
Mat: Thanks again.
Greg: Thank you!
Chris: Great to see you again, Mat. You guys have done a lot of stuff in Chicago because you’ve been around so long, Mat, that you’ve got a new lineup of the band. Do you wanna tell me a little bit about the guys or do you guys wanna talk about how it all came together?
[the KH boys laugh]
Mat: I found them all in an orphanage in Indiana. They were the cutest four.
[the others laugh in the background] They were really, you know–
Chris: You saw ’em in the window, they were just looking…
Mat: [finishing] –Pulling my heartstrings!
Greg: It’s funny, we put out ads and everything but that never worked, you know? Like I met Mat when I was working at a dance club in the city. He just approached me and said, “You look like a bass player.” I’m like, “What?!”
Mat: He complimented the band.
Greg: Right, because I saw them like a week before.
Mat: I’m like, “Do you play bass, by the way?” He’s like, “Yeah….” I’m like..”Great.”
Chris: Did you see Greg play, or…?
Greg: No no no no, he never heard me play and he asked me to play with him!
Mat: But he had the physique.
[they laugh]
Chris: Uh-huh.
Greg: He asked me to play with them….
Chris: You look like you could be in Kill Hannah.
[they laugh]
Greg: Well not before, let me tell ya!
Chris: “We’ll teach you how to play bass!”
Mat: Send him to the Kill Hannah Prep School in Connecticut.
Greg: And then Dan has always been a friend of ours, for a while, and like-
Chris: Dan the Drug Dealer. He supplied you with pills and stuff. So “Hey! Let’s let him in the band!” [they laugh]
Mat: Dan was actually out in L.A. modeling and shit like that….
Dan: Mat and I met when I was living in Los Angeles and he kept on sending stuff to my house. I call him and tell him to stop sending stuff, and then he
said he’s coming out to L.A. and then I said–
Mat: LIES!
Dan: No, seriously! [laughs] And he calls me—
Mat: Lies and deception!
Dan: And after one day of being there, he calls me and he’s like “Can I stay with you for the next 8 days?”
[Jon laughs]
Mat: He had a great place!
Greg: Sounds like Mat! [laughs]
Chris: I would’ve probably done the same thing. How about Garret, Jonny, how’d you guys get—
[Mat starts to say “Garret” the same time Greg says “Um”. They stop and do it again before Mat steps ahead.]
Mat: Garret’s old-school. Like he’s been around, he studied drumming.
Greg: I guess you uh, drum, Garret?
Garret: Sometimes.
Mat: I met Garret because I heard he was in, you know, he played drums with Prick, this band who I’m a huge fan of and I heard from a mutual friend that he lived in Chicago and I’m like “Dude, PLEASE bring him out to one of our shows,” and blah blah blah, and I finally met him, and he was hard-up enough to agree to play with us…..for a show or 2……and then-
Chris: Now Garret, you played with….you did some touring with—I’m trying to read some notes that you guys made—-with Nine Inch Nails and Bowie? Is that……?
Garret: Right. With the…on the Outside Tour.
Chris: How did that happen?
Garret: A friend of mine was out in L.A. He was my roommate in school; he ended up joining this Prick band. Prick was on Reznor’s label. They needed an opening band who kind of…fit the bill between Bowie and Reznor and that was kind of the Prick thing.
[Greg or Chris mutters about the Nothing label in the background]
Garret: Right, we were on Trent’s label too, so….that just happened.
[Someone’s having a coughing fit in the background; probably Jon.]
Chris: That’s pretty impressive.
Garret: Yeah, it was good.
Chris: How did that happen? Trent just heard you guys play and said, “Hey!” ?
Garret: No, the guy, the main guy in Prick….Trent played in his band, so he kind of knew him for awhile, so…. Trent started his label, and that was the first guy he signed.
Chris: I had a chance to meet Trent years ago. I mean, long time ago. I don’t even want to say how long it is, Mat, because I’ll even double my age then! But he’s a really nice guy. I mean I only met him once-
Garret: Yeah, he was great.
Mat: Yeah…
Chris: He had no reason to be nice to me, believe me, because I’m a loser…
[they laugh]
Garret: We all are! We all are…
Chris: But did you have a chance to spend any time with him?Garret: Yeah, we talk with him on and off. He was always really nice to us-
Chris: A normal guy. Loves his dog, his girlfriend.
Garret: Yeah.
Chris: Well, that’s cool.
Greg: And Jon actually met Mat at a Nine Inch Nails…
Jon: Yeah! It was a… I used to intern at CRC and um, we were there for like a little private show last year-
Mat: It was a… Q101…
Jon: Yeah! It was the Q101 live sessions with Nine Inch Nails.
Chris: Yeah! Ok, because I was just thinking you look familiar.
Jon: Yeah, and uh… so I was there, and Mat approached me thinking I had something to do with Nine Inch Nails, you know, play with them or something… and uh, and I don’t know, he asked me if I played guitar-
Mat: You guys are REALLY trying to make me look cool. [They laugh]
Greg: Jonny really gave the attitude. “Who are you?!”
Dan: Just tell the truth, Mat made a pass at him, and that was it!
Jon: Yeah, yeah…..I didn’t really know who he was up until he said “Kill Hannah” and I’d heard of them before. I’d never really heard the music, though. And then I just gave him my number and he called back… and I guess I’m in the band now.
Mat: [nonsensical syllable that was probably “Yeah”.]
Chris: That’s awesome, that’s great. Now Mat, years ago, your first gigs, Kill Hannah was playing the Metro. How did you pull that off? That seems to be the premiere club that all of the new up-and-coming bands want to play at…
Mat: Yeah…
Chris: Will always wanna play at…
Mat: …Yeah…
Chris: … Wanna play at now and back in the day, wanted to get in. Now you-
Mat: Yeah, I don’t know. We had an inside.
Greg: Well, they did at the time-
Mat: We played Dome Room countless times. [laughs] We played any gig that we
could get, you know? Almost every week at some hole somewhere in the-then Kerry joined the band. She had an in, so… that’s how it happened. I didn’t… I think I sent my tape in originally and they rejected it. They sent me a note [that] said, like, “You sound like Echo and the Bunnymen.” [everyone laughs] “Call us in a year.”
Chris: Niiice. Well, I appreciate you guys coming on the show. Hey, what’s the website again? I want you to hit that up.
Greg: Uh, it’s www.killhannah.com. K-I-LL H-A-N-N-A-H. Dot com.
Chris: Do you guys have any mp3s available on your website so that the kids can get some of your new music on the website?
Greg: Yeah.
Jon: A lot of the new cuts we did, we put ’em on the site and people can download them. Mostly all this new stuff we’ll be doing will be on the site.
Greg: Yeah, we’re re-vampin’ the site too this week, so it’ll all be new.
Chris: It’s great. And there’s no release date on the EP, there’s no way that the kids can get a copy of the disc except the website?
Mat: Yeah, on the internet. We’ll probably do a lot of it.
Dan: And I think Napster has a lot of stuff.
Jon: Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, Napster’s got a lot.
Chris: Well, that’s gotta make you feel pretty good! [laughter] Your music’s on Napster?
Mat: Yeah, we love that.
[they laugh]
Chris: How do you feel about that?
Mat: I LOVE it! Because they’re trading-
Chris: You don’t have a problem with like, losing money… because kids are trading your stuff?
Mat: We’re not losing money.
Greg: We’re not MAKING money! [laughs] So how can we lose it?
Jon: I think it’s cool. I think it’s cool that you can find your band-
Mat: All we can hope is that people listen to it and dig it.
Greg: It gets the word of the music out all over the world. So it’s like…
Mat: It’s publicity.
Greg: Yeah.
Dan: It helps at this point.
Chris: It’s funny because some bands are like you guys: completely for Napster, and then there are other bands I’ve had on the show that are absolutely anti-Napster, hate it. I mean I think I’m sitting across from Lars or something.
Mat: I don’t think they know what they’re talking about.
Greg: On a local level, I don’t see how it can hurt you. But I guess when you release your major-label record, rather than having kids buy it in the stores… you know? That’s what they’re afraid of.
Mat: Also, I don’t think even statistically it’s been proven to be a detriment to sales. Period. So I don’t think people avoid buying the record because they have an mp3 of one of the tracks.
Chris: I have an assistant that works on the show, Porn Star, and that’s exactly what he says. He’ll go on Napster, he’ll download a song, he’ll listen to it, then he’ll go buy the whole CD.
Mat: Yeah, sales are up, man. Things are good.
Greg: The labels use it as a marketing tool, I think. Like hear the song on Napster, buy it, or make links or whatever.
Chris: Believe me, if the labels can find a way to manipulate and make money off a band in that way, it will be done, guaranteed. .
Greg: Yeah, exactly!
Jon: Definitely.
Chris: Alright, well you guys are doing great. Over a thousand people, kids at just about every single show you play at, I mean it looks like big things are coming. Is that what you guys are looking for? Are you looking for a deal?
Greg: Ohh yeah.
Chris: Are you looking for a major label, or are you just playing music and what happens happens?
Mat: My dream is to have a good label deal where I can afford to make a really cool-looking video and get our CD around the world.
Chris: You guys aren’t wearing any makeup tonight.
[KH laughs]
Jon: Nnnope.
Mat: We didn’t want—[stops, cracks up][Greg laughs at him] We’re not trying to impress anyone.
Chris: Are you still doing a lot of heavy makeup during the shows? I mean, is that-
Greg: Sometimes, I mean not as much as…way back. Whatever comes naturally, you know? It’s how we’re feelin’… whatever.
Jon: It’s more hair now.
[They all laugh and make various comments about hair]
Chris: Tattoos in, tattoos out. Goatees in, goatees out. Makeup in, makeup out. I don’t know.
Mat: Goatees ALWAYS out.
Chris: I can’t-it’s always out?-I can’t keep up with anything, man. I just know I’ll be a geek…
Mat: I think you look pretty good!
[Jon laughs]
Chris: Thanks, Mat! I appreciate that. You’re a sharp guy, too.
Jon: Heh heh heh.
Chris: Awesome. Well, thanks for coming in, guys. I really appreciate it.
Mat: Can I give a shoutout, please-
Chris: Yes.
Mat: –To all of the hot moms out there on Mothers Day? [they laugh]
Greg: I gotta say Happy Mothers Day to my Mom and my sisters…
Jon: I will too. [pause] Happy Mothers Day, Mommy! [laughs]
Mat: To all the M.I.L.F.s…
Jon: Heh heh!
[someone’s chanting “MILF” in the background–Greg?]
Chris: I love Moms. I think moms are hot. I mean you KNOW they put out. [they laugh] What’s wrong with that?
Mat: Hot moms turn me on.
Chris: Ummm, I wanna give away some tickets here to the show at the Metro on the 25th.
Greg: Great.
Chris: Is that an all-ages show?
Greg: All-ages show, yeah.
Mat: Yeah.
Chris: Alright, we’ll take uh… Alright Bobby, how many tickets can I give away?
[Female voice in the back, presumably Bobby]: 3 sets!
Chris: Alright, we’ll give away 3 pairs of tickets right now. We’ll take callers 5, 10, and 15. 591-8300, pair of tickets each to the Kill Hannah show the 25th at the Metro. Alright.
Mat: Thanks again, Chris…
Chris: Thanks for coming in and putting all this hard work into these tracks. I’m gonna play, uh, “Kennedy”. This has been released before, it’s on the –
Mat: Not really.
Chris: –One of the earlier EPs I have.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, we never released it though.
Chris: So all this stuff people can get on the website.
Mat & Greg: Yeah.
Chris: Alright, fantastic!
[more thank you’s, followed by studio version of “I Wanna Be a Kennedy”.]