You have just flown from from Brisbane to Melbourne to kick off the new tour, what do you do to entertain yourself when you’re on the road?

I try and write lyrics in my dairy while we’re driving but I get car sickness when I read so I’ve got to try and write one line at a time.

You played Newcastle Panthers about three months ago yeah?

We’ve been to Newcastle a few times. It seems to be one of the places that want to have us back.

Tell us about the new album…

I had this grand plan. I really wanted to release a double album. One album that was all rock and one album that was all hip hop but we ran out of money. Not only that but we ran out of songs.

After the first album I really wanted to work our way through the genres through the albums. Do a hip hop record and then do a rock record and then do a dub record and then a folk record. Just cover every style individually on each album. But I don’t think it’s a very good marketing plan. People don’t have that kind of attention span on a whole. If you’re changing genre every time people can’t keep up with it. But if you just say ‘we play hip hop’ then people can just say ‘cool, they’re hip hop, let’s listen to hip hop.’ It’s easier to pick it if you like it that way.

It’s not the people that are listening that we’ve got to worry about, it’s the people that aren’t listening yet.

On the spontaneity of the new recording process.

Pretty daunting, pretty scary. I’m used to having lots and lots of time to mull over what I think I should and shouldn’t say. I sort of came out so quickly that I didn’t have time to decide whether I liked it or not.

The philosophy of the first album, having it so mixed up was basically because I found it boring to do a whole album of the same genre music at one time so when the second came around and that’s what we were going to do again I was still fine with that but it seems almost too much I guess.

How often does your mouth get you into trouble?

It doesn’t because when I’m not writing songs I’m really polite. I’m a really nice guy, I don’t know where all this shit comes from.

We’ve had a couple of people write about us in local street press fully attacking us for being politically incorrect, but I’ve never really responded to any of it. Anyone can say whatever they want about it, I don’t really care.

So you have a different persona on stage?

Well, it’s not really a different persona, I still think the same way all the time but I guess I seem to hold back a fair bit more when I’m around people.

You’ve been playing guitar since you were eight and you’ve been playing in bands since you were thirteen. You’re twenty eight now, do you still love playing music?

Today’s the first day of the tour so you caught me on a good day to ask me that question. Ask me in two weeks and it might be a different story.

Do you get burnt out on tour?

Last tour I drank too much and didn’t get enough sleep and it’s really hard not to do that when you’re on tour.

We know what we’re doing a little better these days so everything isn’t such a fucking hassle.

How do you keep all the personalities in check?

We’re all really different people and I think that those of us that are capable generally just try not to talk and the other ones that aren’t, you just try not to get angry at them. It’s not always a tight and cohesive group. Last tour was tough because every one was fat up with each other at the end of it. No one spoke to or visited the other guys for like a month after.

Did you initially set out to cross genres?

Not really. I honestly didn’t want to be a Limp Bizkit kind of band, and I don’t think that we are but it’s hard to shake that kind of vibe when a live band is rapping and there’s rock songs as well.

I really wanted us to be a hip hop band pretty much from the start but with a live band. Pretty much everyone that’s in the band now used to be in another band years ago called Cable which was a straight up punk band so all those influences came through and so some of the songs from that band were brought back to life in Butterfingers.

Strangest request from a fan…

The strangest thing that has happened on tour is that this person gave us these fingers made of butter. Someone had molded their fingers in Plaster of Paris or something and then put melted butter in it and froze them. They then came to a gig with them in a cup full of ice and stood in the front row yelling and trying to get my attention. It looked like a beer because it was kind of yellow and in a cup. For about half an hour I was saying “I’m Good” and trying to get them to go away. I finally went over and had a look and went shit… someone has moulded their fingers in butter to give to us! It was just freaky. It was definatlely cool that someone was motivated to do that but it was kind of weird because they looked so real, it was like someone giving you their own fingers.

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