Radio Bungalo #32: CIV Interview
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Gorilla Biscuits were one of those bands that never fit nicely into a punk rock category. They were too catchy for hardcore, too straightedge for punk, too heavy for Offspring fans, but the band had an energy that seemed to appeal to everyone that ever wore a leather jacket or a Champion hoodie and camo shorts. Tragically, most of their fans discovered them after they broke up in the early ’90s. Those that got to see them on their Start Today tour still brag about it, and rightfully so. Gorilla Biscuits are legends.
Luckily, fans got a surprise in 1995 when lead singer Anthony Civorelli reunited with a good chunk of Gorilla Biscuits to form CIV. The band was quickly snatched up by Atlantic Records, and released Set Your Goals, what might as well have been the third GB record (and a record that personifies the mid-90s punk scene just as much as Smash or Dookie). The band toured the country on the Warped Tour, and along with H2O and Sick of it All, breathed new life into a dying New York hardcore scene. Sadly, the mid-’90s punk revival was crushed under a wave of Neu Metal and bands like CIV were swept to the side. But they never faded away. The band’s hit single “Can’t Wait One Minute More” is still played at hockey games around the country, and CIV recently reunited Gorilla Biscuits for a sell-out tour that was nothing short of spectacular.
Kid Robot recently announced the release of a new tattoo series of Dunnys (coming April 5). Once word got out the packaging and one of the coolest figures in the lineup was made by CIV, Life In A Bungalo jumped at the chance to talk to the hardcore legend to learn more about his tattooing, his toys, and his music. Here’s what he had to say.
Did you ever collect toys?
I collected the big GI Joe figures and that’s about it. I wasn’t into collecting cause it was just too much stuff for me, and I’m a hoarder anyway. I never really knew what a Dunny was and luckily my girlfriend was like, “Are you completely retarded. They are so cool, blah, blah, blah. You have to do this.” I was like, “OK.” Then I started seeing all the stuff and I started looking at stuff Super 7 does and Kid Robot does. Now it’s cool. I like it.
The last time I saw you guys was at Hardcore for Hunger at Tramps and then you kinda of disappeared. You might have toured, but not around here.
The last show CIV played was in Okinawa in 2000 and then I went through a divorce and all this shit where I was just going to be a hermit and tattoo. I have been tattooing since ’92 and I just did music intermittently, but for the last seven years I have just been tattooing. Except for last summer when I went on tour with Gorilla Biscuits for five weeks. That was it.
Did you tattoo before the first Gorilla Biscuits incarnation?
I think we started with Gorilla Biscuits in late ’85, early ’86, and I started tattooing in ’92, so the music was first, and when Gorilla Biscuits broke up, I started tattooing.
Is [tattooing] a passion you always had? Were you an artist first?
I drew as a kid, but I had never been trained in any way. I think it’s like a curse and a blessing where I had a lot of friends who went to art school and they just draw and then I have other friends that don’t know what they are doing and they do great stuff. I feel like I should know how to oil paint or something better, but I don’t know technique. I just do what I do.
I know a lot of you [hardcore] guys were tattoo artists, but I wasn’t sure who actually was. I heard that Jimmy Gestapo was a tattoo artist, or owned a shop.
He actually owns a shop. Him and Vinnie [Stigma] own a tattoo shop, but neither one of them tattoos. They are owners.
Growing up in the hardcore scene, I just knew that a lot of you guys were covered and wasn’t sure who was doing them to people. Are you responsible for a lot of them being covered in tattoos?
Those guys were already pretty heavily tattooed. Vinnie and John Joseph and Harley and Roger got tattooed pretty early on by Mikey from Brooklyn. People that were working on the lower east side underground. I came up in the next generation of tattooed guys in bands, but those guys were the starters. Punks in those days didn’t have tattoos until those guys started getting them done.
I was referring more to bands that I grew up listening to like Toby from H2O.
Oh yeah. I wrecked Toby. He was one of the guinea pigs. I tattoo a lot of the guys in H2O. I tattoo Pete and Craig from Sick of it All. I kind of forget who’s in bands; they’re just people that I tattoo. A lot of those Alleyway guys–pretty much everyone we know–has been in a band at some point, or has been a roadie or a tour manager or whatever.
How did you get involved with Kid Robot?
The Toy Baroness called me up and e-mailed me asking if I’d be interested in doing it. That was it. She had a list of tattooists that she knew and thought their work would translate to the dolls. For me it was kind of out of the blue, and I thought it would be cool to make a toy.
As far as making your Dunny, as a platform, what did you think when you first received this template?
I couldn’t believe how small they were. That was my first reaction. “Oh fuck, how am I going to do this?” You need a jumping off point. Like if somebody says, “I want to get a rose on my shoulder.” Then you know you have free reign to do anything else besides that. When somebody says, “Do whatever you want.” My mind goes into a million different directions. That was the problem with the Dunny. And I also didn’t know what anyone else was doing. We didn’t know who was doing what. Was there going to be 15 skeletons? Was it going to be 10 dragons? Were they supposed to be tattooey? Are they supposed to be cool? Whatever–there were no restrictions. That was kind of hard. It took a while to really sit down and work it out.
I actually did another skinhead one that I submitted, because they wanted us to do two and they would pick. So I did a skinhead with a broken bottle (accessory). Up on his ears he has fringe and scars and tattoos and little camo pants on. But they picked the pink one that looks like a pink bunny Dunny that unzippers and it’s a skeleton underneath.
Why is it called Bella?
That’s my daughter’s name. I just put it on the bottom of its foot so that she could have her own doll.
Has designing the Dunny lead you to collect vinyl toys?
Kind of, because Kid Robot and Super 7 have been generous and have sent stuff for my daughter mostly. I’m sure if toy collectors saw what I did with those toys, they would be bummed out. I started to collect, and I was looking through some of the magazines and I thought, “God, when I was in Japan years and years ago, I just walked past so many great toys and stores and I could have picked up so much cool stuff. Because I’m such a pack rat already with everything, I’m trying to be more minimalist with stuff in my house and in the shop. There’s not an inch of wall or floor space where there isn’t something. I can’t even begin to open a toy can of worms. But, I have 30 full-size GI Joes from ’65 to ’70 and every accessory, every hang glider, the submarine, the space ship–everything. I use to be very protective of them, but a few months ago, my daughter asked me if she could play with them and I was like, “yeah, why am I being so stupid.” So we just took everything out on the floor, and now they are in the bathtub and they are doing what they are suppose to do.
You mentioned that some times the offer to do whatever you want [as far as tattooing] is discouraging, but a lot of tattoo artists would rather just have a blank canvas to do whatever they want.
I just need one word. I love when they just say, “Here’s my back, draw a skeleton.” Then I’m good. But just saying, “Do whatever, man.” There are a million things that I want to do. And, plus, it’s there’s. I still feel like tattooists have the responsibility to do what the client wants, even if some times it’s a bad idea. You can try to talk them out of it, or lead them in a better direction, but ultimately it’s their tattoo. Once we are done it’s not ours any more–it’s theirs.
What do you think of tattoo culture today? Particularly with shows like Miami Ink and Inked becoming so popular?
I think initially I was kind of scared that there would be a backlash from it. I like that tattooing is underground and I like that it is low brow (or it was), but now that it is more acceptable, I guess from a business standpoint and financially, the more accessible it is the more money you make from it. But I kind of liked when it was more of a private thing. The same thing with punk rock and hardcore. We liked it when it was private and not everyone knew how to do it or where to go. The same thing with tattoos–I like when you use to go to a tattoo shop and it was scary–there was a mystery to it. Now people go by what’s on TV. The believe that it has to be true, so they like to come sit next to you and tell you a story about why they are getting a butterfly.
Some of the guys that are on those shows are my friends, and I’m like, “Oh my god. This is so killing them. They don’t care why you are getting that fairy.” It also seems like every kid in a band and actors and athletes are totally fucking covered in tattoos. And I see a lot of kids that are 18, 19, 20 years old that are fully sleeved up to their jaw line. Their hands are done, and it’s like, “Man, I hope your band works out, because your fucking tatted down now.” We still try to be the voice of reason with stuff like that. Maybe they should wait until they are 21 before they start doing both of their hands or write fuck off on their fingers.
Would you ever consider putting your shop on television?
Yeah. I think we have some interesting, fun characters. But it would be a lot more deleted and there would be a lot more beeping, because a lot of cursing, farting and taking pictures of poop goes on here. This is definitely more retarded. Those guys have more of a mature shop. If somebody wanted to see what goes on, sure, as long as we can still do business as usual. But, I wouldn’t say no, just because it would be fun to do it. I have been in this job for 13 years and I love it either way.
I caught your reunion show at BB Kings a couple of months back. Was it surreal playing Gorilla Biscuit’s songs in New York again?
We were nervous about it, because we hadn’t played for so long and we hoped that we wouldn’t fall flat on our face and ruin the memory of this. Me personally, I just thought there was no fucking way I was going to let that happen. I was going to do whatever I had to do every night to make it sick, and make everyone have fun. And I think everyone else in the band felt the same way. It was definitely the best tour I ever went on with any band. It was just perfect. For me, BB Kings that night was pretty surreal to play in New York to that many people and have such a good vibe with our friends and family there. That was perfect.
I was shocked that you were able to pull down the barricades in a club like BB Kings.
We had that in our contract and when we got there that day there was a stagehand that started setting up the barricade, and we were like dude we have it in our contract that there is no barricade. And he said, “Until someone tells me differently, I’m setting it up.” And we were like it’s our show we are telling you not to set it up. I was so pissed off. My road manager was freaking out, and we made a call, and the guy had to tear it all down. He felt really fucking stupid.
I just thought it was cool because I haven’t seen a stage in New York without a barricade or heavy security since the Wetlands closed.
We went across the United States without it and there were no problems. They actually cause more of a problem and kids get more hurt when there are barricades anyway.
Will Gorilla Biscuits continue?
We are actually going to play Europe this summer, but just to make things run a bit smoother, we are going to push it back to August so we can have a better time and be more organized about it.
Any plans for a new record?
We actually did two songs on a vinyl 7″. I don’t even have a record player, but we did 1,000 7″s on Revelation Records with one old song that we never recorded and one new song that Walter wrote and we thought it was the best thing ever. But when we put it out it sounded like the biggest piece of shit. We were shocked, and wound up not even playing the songs. We were like, “New songs on tour, it’s going to be so exciting.” But the kids were like, “No, no thanks.” We don’t want to be redundant about it. We just want to do reunion shows in the States and then reunion shows in Europe. Then we might go to Japan, but no plans yet.
Play List:
Faith No More: As the Worm Turns
The Stooges: ATM
Swingin’ Utters: Beached Sailor
Gorilla Biscuits: Start Today
CIV: Solid Bond
Gorilla Biscuits: No Reason Why
Turbo A.C.s: Chupacabra
The Horrors: Count In Fives
The Dwarves: Free Cocaine
Parasites: When I’m Here With You
Andrew WK: I Get Wet
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