Stitch(Mushroomhead) by Andrea Leigh
It’s always exciting to see Ohio bands at ROTR and this year was no exception.
Mushroomhead has been a metal powerhouse in Ohio for as long as some of their
fans have been alive. They started out in the Cleveland underground scene and
while still a major part of that scene, they have seeped up on Main Street as
well. They are well known for their elaborate costumes with the x-logo masks.
I was able to catch Stitch for a few minutes and I do mean catch. By the grace
of the cell phone gods we found each other.
Cover: Mushroomhead is obviously a huge force in the heavy
metal/industrial/goth scene and you’ve been around for about seventeen
years now, right?
Stitch: Yeah, seventeen years. I’ve been in the band
for ten, but it’s been a long time going.
Cover: After all that time how do you keep things fresh and
new?
Stitch: We don’t even try to keep anything fresh or new.
The writers of the band don’t really listen to anything modern. Mushroomhead
has always done its own thing and it took eight years to even get noticed by
a major label. I think it’s more like music kind of caught up to what
Mushroomhead was doing. Not to sound like we’re the pioneers of something,
but we grew up with the school of “Faith no More” and “Mr.
Bungle” and all that late eighties, early nineties stuff. We were just
doing our own thing with that and then like I said eight years later Universal
came along and they released songs that were written eight years ago. So a song
from eight years ago became a single on the radio, then time caught up with
us. On our new record there are no real trends that the band is chasing, it’s
just the band’s sound. I think when bands sit around and chase trends
they fizzle out and die off. There are bands that are only concerned with what’s
hot in the music style and three years later no one gives a crap about them.
It’s about being honest and writing music that can age so that twenty
years later it still sounds like something that was written yesterday and not
sound like dated material.
Cover: Is there anything different on the upcoming album that
your fans can look forward to?
Stitch: Our new album won’t be out until late August
or early September. It got pushed back because of a bunch of label garbage.
We’re going to be doing a long Halloween run, which we’re talking
right now about possibly doing with some other Halloween themed bands. We’re
thinking like a Halloween tour. That’s all we’ve got planned so
far.
Cover: You’ve had a lot of change ups in the band, which
probably isn’t unusual in a band with eight members…
Stitch: Yeah, you do get a lot of changes. Honestly, that’s
the beauty of having a mask. You interchange it with somebody else and then
we just have a new character. It’s not just like some other dude. I think
when you can actually put a physical human face to a band, it’s when those
people leave, that people lose interest because they don’t see the face
that is recognized. When it’s our x-face and it’s a logo and it’s
an established image then it can keep going on like Kiss, they kept replacing
members, Gwar replaced members. I think slipknot still has all the same people,
but yeah bands change members and us having the masks keeps us ageless.
Cover: Do you think there has been an evolution in your sound
because of the changing members?
Stitch: Yeah, definitely, especially because of the singer
change that we went through. We have two singers, Jeffrey Nothing and Waylon.
Before Waylon was “J-man”, Jason Thompson, and he was more like
a hardcore, rappy, screamer singer and Waylon can sing and harmonize and do
all these other things which kind helped to make the music a little …I
guess…a little more sellable because it’s not so RAA RAA RAA RAA
all the time. He actually can sing and he brings more to the table as a vocalist
instead of just trying to imitate the guy that was there before. It was one
of those situations where we got a new singer and it actually benefitted us
and the band was able to survive. Most bands can’t recover from replacing
a singer. They replace a singer and their fans immediately go and then the rest
of the band is playing the bar and grill next door. We’ve been going pretty
steady and we still have an average of four-five hundred people everywhere we
play. Anywhere we play in Ohio we do over a thousand. It’s still been
good. It’s still that underground thing because we stick true to our fans
which is why I think they stick with us.
Cover: Is it different playing for your fans here in Ohio versus
other places?
Stitch: A little bit because they’re always more excited
in Ohio. I think it’s because they feel that they have something. There’s
not really much to Ohio. Trent Reznor, Manson, Chamaira were really the last,
but other than that there really is nothing coming out of Ohio that’s
worth a damn. I think we’re that local hometown hero type. Our shows always
sell out here and are over-packed. People are just everywhere and they all sing
along and it doesn’t matter whether it’s old songs or new songs.
Sometimes when we go on tour we’ll play some songs from the old catalog
and a bunch of people are just like “uh, I don’t know this song”
because it’s not “The Sun Doesn’t Rise”. We love playing
the Midwest. That’s kind of our home.
Cover: That is so funny, that used to be my favorite song until
my sister-in-law put it on as her ringtone…
Stitch: …and you just got sick of it.
Cover: Right. Originally Mushroomhead started the masks to
stay incognito because the members were all in other bands, but then it stuck.
Was that planned?
Stitch: It really wasn’t planned at all and I wasn’t
in the band when that happened. I was around as a fan going to their shows back
then, because I was like fifteen when they started. But, yeah, they originally
did it because they had other bands and they wanted to do something different.
They started opening up for the other bands that they were in at the time which
was like Hatrix and Unified Culture so they threw on some stupid Halloween masks
and it actually caught on better than their main bands. So, all of the sudden
there was this huge buzz about this masked band doing crazy sex acts on stage.
There used to be a stripper and this bondage dude that got his ass beat the
whole time. It was a bigger theatrical show back then. It started so many rumors
that all this stuff was going on and they surpassed their main bands so then
it just switched and the members decided to stick with Mushroomhead. The other
bands then became the bands that opened up for Mushroomhead and the other bands
got put on the back burner.
Cover: I have actually heard that Mushroomhead puts on a huge
show so is it more dialed down these days?
Stitch: As far as getting arrested...yeah, it’s dialed
down. We don’t have girls in the band anymore. Sometimes, we do old school
shows in Cleveland in July and we only play the old stuff, we only wear the
old costumes, and we bring back the dancing girls like back in the day. It’s
very cool for the Ohio fans because they love that genre of the band so we make
it a once a year thing because we do have fans that are like “uh, I like
the old stuff better.” So, once a year you can hear the old shit and you
can see the old costumes and how it used to be. We used to throw out baby dolls
and confetti and all this stuff. Now we tour and we take it more seriously.
We have the water drum trick stuff and try to make it a little more serious
and a little more pushable. Of course, everyone is getting older too and we
don’t really want to do certain things anymore.
Cover: That probably works to keep it new too…
Stitch: Yeah, to keep it new and you don’t want things
to be expected. We’re completely revamping everything again once the album
comes out. We’re holding out on releasing the new masks, the new image,
and the new sound until the record is out so it’s all one big push. The
new masks are awesome and the costumes are going to be insane. We’re going
way more movie/video game villain style for this one with way more elaborate
outfits and crazy masks. It’s very three-dimensional.
Cover: For a ROTR festival type show what can your fans expect?
Stitch: Well...we’re playing last on the Jager stage
and it’s kind of cramped up there. I mean we’re happy as hell to
be here, but obviously we thought we were gonna be on a bigger stage since we’re
from this area, but it is what it is. It’s a throw and go situation today.
We have forty minutes to set up the stage and then play. So, the only thing
we’re really able to do is hopefully get the water drums in place so we
can use those, but aside from that there’s not really much except to rock
out for a half-hour. And it’s a half-hour set too so we don’t really
have time to put on a full show so we’re going to just knock out six songs
real quick and then hustle off stage.
Cover: Are festival shows always more difficult to play instead
of the normal headlining shows?
Stitch: They are because it’s seems like speed-dating.
Like with these interviews, you have fifteen minutes to get your point across
and then out there you have a half-hour to sell people on your band. I love
these types of shows because it reminds you of the things you wanted to do when
you started a band like all the cool events with cameras everywhere and press
people everywhere, and the catering tent. I love that compared to “go
to this 200 seat club and maybe you’ll get bottled water and maybe you’ll
get towels.” Here it’s smooth sailing and everything is done for
you, but it is chaotic and I would hate to be a staff person at this thing.
I would hate to be the PR guy for this show…having to tell people “no”
all day long. But, I love this shit, it’s definitely the payoff to all
the work all year long. To be a part of these kinds of show is solidifying more
of your mark and that you matter when you’re asked to do things like this.
Like last year, we were on four of the main dates to fill in for Bullet For
My Valentine. They pulled us in for Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit and I can’t
remember what else but those were awesome. They had us on the main stage for
those dates too which was cool as hell.