This is an interview I did with Theo from the excellent Lunachicks on Thursday 27 February at around 7pm. Theo is a real nice gal, a great laugh and provided some great answers, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did doing it.
To start things off, the Lunachicks have been going for quite a while now… Uh-huh …nearly 10 years yeah?
Almost, one more year.
So has it been difficult to maintain things with the band with respect to members and you know, you might have changed attitudes over the years as you’ve got older ?
Oh definitely I mean that’s one of the things that you learn being in a band this long. You know everyone way better than you ever wanted to! Everyone knows exactly what annoys the other person about everybody else, you know it’s like a sick, fucked up family. So yeah, it has been hard definitely because we all do have different tastes but that’s the thing about us that makes us Lunachicks. It’s because we’re all such individuals and all our different tastes have made up whatever this band is. So yeah, there are difficult moments like we changed drummers obviously but that’s like been almost 4 years ago now.
So they’re all your little sisters are they ?
Errm.. Yeah! Ha, Ha… some are big sisters even if they’re little!
Right, so who’s the most dominant out of all of you, you know who takes charge of everything ?
Er… everyone has their moments it’s like sometimes it’s one person and then sometimes it’s another it’s really weird. It’s kinda of the chain of the years, like in the beginning it was Squid and Cindy took care of a lot of stuff because they had more time and then it switched over, like today I’m doing the interviews and that’s like my thing for today, Cindy orders T-shirts and like Gina dealing with renting vans, so it’s like everyone has their job.
OK, you’ve just released a new album called Pretty Ugly which we really liked here…
Thanks, Cool!
I know it’s only been out like a couple of weeks here, have you had any feedback form it yet ?
Oh Yeah, it’s been really good feedback and I’m really excited about it because you know it’s really scary when you put it out because you don’t know… I mean I love this record and I have really good feelings about it and high hopes but you never know what people are going to say, the press is so moody…
Fickle ?!
Yeah! Totally.
You recorded it about 8 months ago didn’t you ?
Yeah.
So does it feel strange coming out now, you know like maybe some of the songs feel a bit old to you ?
Not really, part of the reason we waited this long was political, because we had to wait to be a priority at Caroline but part of it was that we were doing these great tours and this Fall we toured with the Reverend Horton as support and then we took the Swingin’ Utters out with us to Canada and so it was like we had these other things going and we had to kinda of wait, you know…
To like fit it all in ?
Yeah, exactly so because we did those tours we like started trying out the new songs but we’re not like totally sick of them or anything. In the past some of the other records, the albums came out after we’d had the songs for so long that by that time the album was out it was like "Oh my god, I can’t believe that we’ve got to play this song!" (laughter) but these songs I really love and they’re really fun to play live and they’ve been getting great reactions.
So why the title "Pretty Ugly" ?
Erm well I think it’s a kind of play on words you know like "oh, that’s pretty ugly" and like that’s pretty un-ugly at the same time. Part of the Lunachicks thing is like taking the glamour to the point where it’s disgusting you know…
Like over indulgence ?
Yeah exactly and we also have a song Pretty Ugly that didn’t make the record which it on the Go Kart Vs The Corporate Giant record - it’s a funny song.
So was the cover photo a Girl’s World ?
Was it what ?
Ha, ha...was the cover art a Girl’s World ? Maybe in America they’ll called something else but in England there was this toy for girls with like hair growing through its head that you could cut and stuff… or maybe you didn’t do the cover art ?
Ahh, no we did that and I have her sitting here right next to me all burnt and everything…
Right...
She’s a dual hair mermaid Barbie styling head and we then kinda or…
Played with her ?
Yeah and made her pretty ugly ! (laughter) She’s all burnt and one side of her head is all burnt.
I dig out a copy of a Peel Session that you did in 1989 which I had and it sounds a lot slower and heavier than what you are doing now, has the passing of time either softened your sound or have you just become better songwriters ?
Er, I think a combination of both, like we definitely have our slower sort of moodier songs and we seem to throw at least one of those on per album. But I think it’s just like the focus and the period of time and focus writing of this album and playing live so much and stuff. We’re like really up.
The songs are a lot more pacier and I don’t know, seem more energetic were any written on the road ?
Er some of them… maybe but I think most of them were written at home, you know in the studio. The older stuff was obviously like when we first came over to England and also like you know I really love Black Sabbath and like a lot of slow, heavy metal dirgey stuff so…
That like came across in the early stuff
Yeah, that’s like the passing of time thing.(laughter)
I also believe that you’ve been doing some acting in films ?
Yeah.
Is that something that you’ve always wanted to do or something that just happened ?
Kinda both, I wanted to but never like really pursued it and then it just kinda happened and I love it.
Yeah ? So are you going to be pursuing a Hollywood career in the future then ?
I would love it, I make no bones about it. I like want to see myself as a mega star (laughter) and I’ve always felt that way and it’s like any form of show business that I can do I love. I love being in front of the camera, I love being on stage, I love… you know all that stuff.
So what would your ideal film role be then, if you could have been in a recent film what would it have been ?
There’s one film that bombed that I would have loved to be in and that’s Barbed Wire…
Oh Yeah ?
With Pamela Lee Anderson.
You’d like to have done the lead role for that ?
I’d have loved to, I mean to be like a total ridiculous glamour puss but like kick ass at the same time, that rules!
(laughter) yeah, OK moving on with show biz a bit more you’ve been doing some commercials and fashion shoots with like Calvin Klein and stuff. So are we going to see Theo Lunachick turn into Theo Supermodel ? Is that what you’re like after ?
Well you know, hey… I don’t know, whatever. It’s like that thing came as sort of a luck thing and I’ve been like doing modeling for years now here and there and done like Runway and all kinds of shit. It’s like another thing that I like and it pays really well..
I bet it does...
...and it’s so easy, it couldn’t really be easier you get all dolled up and people are like falling all over you… (laughter) … and then like you work for like 5 minutes or 10 minutes and get paid a lot, how could you not like that ? and the commercials are cool because like I’ve been getting residuals and I think that whole campaign is coming out in Europe around now (it’s on your TV now folks - Ed)
Is that the Calvin Klein ones ?
Yeah.
What products were you advertising ?
For that it was the new scent CKbe and it’s like (sarcastic) about being yourself ! (laughter)
Oh right. Is it another multi purpose male/female job then ?
Yeah, but in the commercials it’s like each person they use is shown by themselves and then you get someone else’s voice. So like on one commercial you’ll get like my voice and then some guys voice at the end, etc. (sarcastic) …it’s a fragrance for people, you know!
(laughter) Right, so how much free stuff do you get then ?
I didn’t get anything!
What ?! You just get paid for it, no freebies ?
They offered me like some of the clothes but they were like a tanktop and some jeans that were sewn up to the butt because they like make them fit you completely perfectly.
Yeah, I’d seen something recently about all that, how they like scrunch everything up real tight and so they look like they fit perfectly, the perfect image type of thing.
Yeah, totally.
OK, you’ve got a European tour coming up fairly soon ?
Yeah, we leave here on 19 March and it starts up in Finland and I think it like finish up in Scotland in April.
Is it just you on your own ?
Were supporting the Offspring and the Vandals are coming too, so it’s going to be great.
Well that’s me all out of questions is their anything you’d like to add ?
I hope all our fans who haven’t seen us in a long while will all come on out and we’ll be pleased because we’ve got so much better and for the younger ones you better come on out too. We’ve been getting some great mail from younger kids, it’s been awesome.
They are the future and all that!
Yeah exactly, I mean I still love the bands that I like when I was that little.
That’s great, thanks for ringing.
OK. Thanks a lot Rick.