MICHAEL LUX

1.0  What’s your vision for Michael Lux & The Bad Sons? I’m concerned at the moment with the city I live in.  There are very few ‘front’ people.  Most of the good ones are women, which is fantastic. Everyone really loves meandering at the moment. And I’m at times hard pressed to find anyone that gives a shit or two about lyrical content. None of this is really a problem for me, though. I try and do the opposite of those things. Though there is a chance I could be persuaded by some monitary sum to try being a woman for a short time.  The vision for me is my songs settling in people’s conscience for the long haul, the way the songs i love do in mine, i suppose.

2.0  What’s more important to you, the tunes or kicking ass live? The most important thing is the songs. with good songs you will always kick ass live. why do you think the modern ‘pop punk’ and ‘nu metal’ genres were as short lived as they were?  My guess is that once people got home from diving around like lunatics, they realized they were listening to essentially the same terrible song over and over again by countless bands trying to be the other one.  But they could do that cool thing where they flip the guitar round their head or maybe vomit on stage!  yep, songs win for me.

3.0 Were the songs all really “written in 30 minutes” or are you trying to say that a song either happens or it doesn’t? It sounds awfully pretentious, but the songs actually were written in 30 minutes.  It honestly wasn’t me showing off or some bullshit holier than though stunt i was trying to pull. In Hollus, I was always used to taking days, weeks to sort of, “perfect” tunes. I had a hard time writing material for myself in the past few years because I couldn’t decide what it should sound like. Finally I sat down with a bottle of pinot and once i had a riff, that was it. I just went stream of consciousness and said ‘done.’ Put it down on pro tools because i didn’t want any time to start rethinking.  And then a few days later, another bottle, another song, etc.  This must be working for me, because I’ve just written a few more tracks the same way in the last few weeks.

4.0  Since your name is on the door, did you write all the songs or were they collaborative efforts? All the songs on “Neat Repeater” were written and recorded before I had a band.  I wasn’t even planning on forming a band for it. Just releasing it for folks that sort of cared about what I was doing in Hollus.  I’ve always been a pretty singluar songwriter.  I’m never opposed to writing with others, but I know how I work, obviously. The live group really works within the ranks to bend and perfect things, and the licks and riffs are all interpretted by the players I have, which are sometimes different from show to show, which makes the shows varied and spontaneous.

5.0 What is your favorite song of your FREE EP “Neat Repeater”? “So Loud.”  It’s the song that kicked off this whole mess. It’s when I said, “ahhh, so that’s what it sounds like..” and made perfect sense.  The song itself is very much about Chicago and embracing life, even if it’s shit, fuck it, let’s fuck it out kind of thing.  I feel like a lot of people in the city, if they’re writing about it directly, write about escaping it, or they just avoid it all together and write about some place else for some reason.  I’ve done it as well, in the other band.  I was feeling like Chicago was giving me a giant wine kiss and it needed to be recipricated.

6.0  When did you fall in love with the idea of playing music? When I was 6 I was very in to Cypress Hill and I think MC Hammer. I had the fucking pants, man. Green and Black tiger striped if you care. I had a kid move in two doors down that tried for 4 months to play me a record that I refused every time.  It turned out to be The Beatles doing “Rock n’ Roll Music” – how fucking cornball of a story is that! It’s true though!  I flipped my pudding. I got a guitar and drum kit at the next christmas, though I broke into the attic about a month into November and started learning when my parents were at work. I had a fake band with that kid for the next 6 years, that ended in 3 original records we wrote before the age of 13. I was always completely bonkers for music.

7.0  Does the stage come naturally to you? People say I’m very natural on the stage.  I do feel very at ease.  Many times I feel like my life off the stage is spent waiting to be back on one, yeah. But going back to what I said before, I started playing in live bands when I was 14 and playing drums in church congregations before that, so I was always pretty used to it i suppose.

8.0  Do you guys do any covers live? Yeah, I always try to play a new cover every show.  I think it’s fun for everyone, as long as fucking Live Nation or the RIAA or whatever doesn’t sue me for it.  We’ve done “Moonage Daydream” by Bowie, “Crimson and Clover” and “Motor Away” by Guided By Voices.  WE’re always entertaining new ones, post one on the fuckbook if you have a suggestion.

9.0  Paul Stanley of KISS said that “most people listen with their eyes”, do you agree? God love him, He must have said that in the years he was wearing makeup right?  Like pre 1995 unplugged or whatever? Because after that, “Love Gun” only sounds good with the eyes closed. I do agree, actually, and I think it’s a good thing.  We need to have something to weed out groups, right? It’s incredible how many bands get away with looking like complete baffoons.  If the singer’s wearing shorts, I don’t care if it’s fucking Elvis Presley, i’m walking out. In fact, if anyone besides the drummer is wearing shorts, i’m throwing something at the stage.  New rule.

10.0  You’ve got one ‘ticket to ride’ in a time machine to a moment in rock history, what are your coordinates? Does in between Debbie Harry’s legs circa 1977 count as ‘coordinates’??  That’s dirty, forgive me.