BOYD RICE - Interview

On the night of October 22nd, 2000, GBS along with Archaic Idiot, Brandon Bones, Paul Morden, and Shane Talada (founder of "Anorexic Press") had the privilege of interviewing Boyd Rice after his sterling performance at The Vampiricus/Gothic Beach Studio/ Light thunder Productions/ Archaic Idiot "Bizarre Vampire Bazaar" event in Long Beach, California. Although interrupted many times, Mr. Rice still managed to conduct a very interesting, in-depth interview -- as seen below.
1:40 AM Boyd Rice Interview...

 AP: "The Way I Feel" is your new album on Soleilmoon and offers listeners an in-depth view of your feelings. We hear that album is a collection of collaborations from over the past 15 years and was influenced by Leonard Nimoy's album of the same name.

BR: Just the cover was influenced by that. The (original) cover was a collage of his face and all this "hippie-hippie" kind of stuff . I saw it and thought I'd like to do an album called "The Way I Feel" because I have lots of feelings to share. I'll use his exact same cover and put my face over Nimoy's face and then add some of my own images to the collage that's already there. So, if you've ever seen the Nimoy album, it looks exactly the same except there are key differences.

AP: You had the lead role in a movie "Pearls Before Swine". Are there any plans to have the movie released or screened in the USA?

BR: There are plans, but, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men...We've taken it to film festivals like the Stockholm International Film Festival. We were, just about six months ago, at the Puchon Fantastic Film Festival in Korea. There's a lot of interest in the film. It's been four years and I don't know what's happening with it. The guy (Richard Wolstencroft) is making big plans. He wants to do a movie of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and it's, like, I want to be in another movie, but I didn't want to be in a movie where I was in every single scene -- mentally having to memorize lines for every single scene. I would just like to have some small thing that's really interesting. I started looking at "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and I have no idea how that could be turned into a movie unless it's, like, a guy walking around, talking non-stop for two hours. I don't think that'd be very...I don't know, that's my personal opinion.

AP: What are you currently working on?

BR: Right now I'm working on a book with the editor of "Dagoberts Revenge", Tracy Twyman. It's a book about the lost luciferian legacy of the Holy Grail. If you look at the whole Grail myth, there are a lot fo very strange luciferian elements to it. We just filmed the segment for the Fox Network. They're doing a show called "In Search Of ". We just went over the Rennes-le-Chateau where this whole Grail mystery happened. We discovered a lot of really weird stuff there.

Archaic Idiot: Another connection to Leonard Nimoy too!

BR: It's another Leonard Nimoy connection. I thought about that. Don't think I didn't think about that.

Archaic Idiot: What about the workout video you're gonna put out? (Laughter)

BR: Yeah. "Bleeding To The Oldies", it's called.

AP: Why did you choose Denver to live in?

BR: Because I lived in San Francisco for ten years and it was getting more apocalyptic every day. It's like I ate at a certain restaurant every night and I would literally see scenes outside the window that looked like the cover of "Apocalypse Culture". I woud be eating and there's some guy leaning over, on the other side of the glass going, "BLEECH!", vomiting blood onto the sidewalk. I was there with some friends from Germany and there was a hostage drama, like, right out on the street. We were sitting there eating and I'm telling them, "You shouldn't carry around your camera. It's an expensive camera and it will get ripped-off. This is a real violent city." And they are going, "Boyd, you're such an exaggerator. We've been here for a week or so and we've seen no violence." Right when he says that, you can hear a police bullhorn going, "Please release the hostages and come out with your hands up!". My friend says, "Oh great! I'm going to videotape this." So he's at the window videotaping and a cop runs up and yells, "Hit the fucking floor! Tthere's going to be bullets flying everywhere!" So my friends from Germany learned I am not quite as paranoid as they may have thought. On the way to this music festival in New York, I stopped in Denver and had a good time. There were great thrift stores at that time, great restaurants from the 50's and stuff, and it was jus like travelling back in time.

Arachaic Idiot: ..and Bob Larsen!

BR: Yeah, my pal Bob Larsen. This was before a hundred thousand people came a year to Denver.

Brandon Bones: How long have you lived there?

BR: I've lived there ten years. So I was there before that.

Brandon Bones: Before the invasion.

BR: Yeah. It's, like, the first person to do something is a genius and the first person that replicates that is an asshole. So I was there in the genius phase, ten years ago.

AP: Tell us about a certain "lemon" incident in a Southern California city many years ago...

BR: What?

AP: In Lemon Grove...near San Diego.

BR: There's a lemon in the middle of this town I lived in and everybody loved it.

AP: We've seen it.

BR: Yeah, it used to be in a kind of different place. They moved it closer to the intersection. We just painted happy faces on it and the words "KRSNA" and "DADA". At the time I was very into Dadaism and European art movements of the early 20th century.

Paul Morden: What did you use to paint it?

BR: We used hairspray -- black hairspray. So they could have just washed the whole thing off with a hose, but they got all these Southeast Asian immigrants to repaint it. It was like, "even these newcomers to our country are so fond of the lemon that they've given their own time and donated the labor in order to paint this wonderful symbol of our town". (Laughter)

AP: Please elaborate on what Dadaism is.

BR: It's a nihilistic art movement that preceded surrealism.

Paul Morden: They were self-destructive.

BR: It wasn't really self-destructive. There were only a few of those guys that were self-destructive. It was kind of like nihilistic -- against all organized values.

Paul Morden: The art that destroys itself.

BR: Yeah, but to have an anti-art movement that's made up of artists is like singing a song saying "Destroy all music" and it's in a little rock & roll song. It's ridiculous! But, I was young..and what the hell.

AP: When you are in the confines of your own home, what music sould we find you listening to?

BR: I don't listen to a lot of music these days, but whatever is good. Lately, I listen to a lot of "French Girl Group" music from the 60's and "German Girl Group" music from the 60's ... like Peggy March.

Archaic Idiot: ..And Tiny Tim!

BR: And Tiny Tim will always...

Paul Morden (interupting): Are you a fan of the kind of music you used to present with "WSD"? The "trucker music", the old-time rock & roll music?

BR: OH! Everything I put out, I was into. Ralph Gean -- I am really into. Everything he does just becomes more and more amazing. We just went to Buffalo Bills funeral, because he was a "Master Manson", and Ralph brought along his guitar nad sang a bunch of new songs I've never heard, songs about sewer lines breaking and swimming in shit.

Paul Morden: Ralph has a grey way of making songs out of current events.

BR: Yes, like the "Lorena Bobbit" song.

Paul Morden: Oh, Lorena Lorena -- my little butcher wife.

BR: And the "Goddess of Love" is about "Xena, the Warrior Princess". He doesn't miss it -- every Sunday. He stands on the street corner until he gets enough money to go to this steak house. That's his favorite place. He gets a steak "to go" and then he goes home to watch "Xena".

Paul Morden: With Jim (Jim Goad) getting out (of prison) tomorrow, do you see any work with him in the future?

BR: No. He's probably not too please with the whole situation. With what happened with "World Serpent" and his CD.

Paul Morden: Well, "World of Serpent" has had... Dave, if you don't mind. Dave Gibson has cut off a lot of people. A lot of people have had some pretty big problems with him.

BR: Well, we cut the stuff off!! Me and Doug quit within days of one another. It took them six months before they realized that Doug was serious. And they only realized it when they saw a poster for his new CD. They then went on the internet making a statement saying, "We've kicked Douglas Pierce off 'World Serpent'". We left for our own personal reasons....