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Casey Chaos - Kerrang! 867 - Evening Session Gig Guide “I
read about Reading my whole life, and in my mind it was always one of those
legendary festivals. When we played Reading and Leeds last year, that was one of
the best Amen shows ever. We’d wanted to play in Europe for so long, and to
finally play our first ‘proper’ UK gig in that tent was just a big
celebration for us. We got asked to play the main stage this time around, but I
fucking hate arena rock so I turned it down. And anyway it’s kinda beautiful
that we’re starting and ending the year on the same stage.
“There’s loads of
great bands playing at Reading this year, but because we’ll be moving on to
the Leeds show I’ll miss a lot of the bands I really want to see. I’d love
to see Snapcase, Rocket From The Crypt and …Trail Of Dead and my friends in
System and Queens Of The Stoneage, but we’re playing on different days so that
won’t happen. Then again that means I won’t have to put up with too much
‘victim rock’ either which is a good thing.
“The beauty of
European festivals is the eclecticism of the bills. There’s something
hilarious about the fact that …Trail Of Dead are following OPM, but I don’t
know if anyone is that eclectic. Americans like everything neatly packaged, but
people outside America have a greater bullshit detector and a greater openness
to art it seems, which makes these varied bills cool.
“I’ll definitely
try to check out some bands that I’m not familiar with this year. Like I
haven’t heard Ash, but if they do that Buzzcocks/Undertones punk thing I’ll
definitely be interested in seeing them. And I’m anxious to see The Strokes
too, because they’re all over the press at the moment and I’m interested to
see if they can cut it live. I met those guys the other night at the Trobadour
in LA at a Foo Fighters show and they were nice guys. One of them stopped me as
I was waiting in line for a piss and said, ‘Dude, you’re the dude, amen’.
I don’t know what he meant by that exactly…
“Mogwai are cool, I
have a couple of albums by those guys, so I’m pissed I’m missing them. And
I’ve heard nothing but great things about Murder City Devils, so it’s a
shame I’ll miss them. When you’re in a band you’re always on the other
side of the world when the bands you want to see play your town. I wanted to
check out Hundred Reasons too because you guys are always writing great stuff
about them and I’d like to see BS2000 too because they’re Adam from the
Beastie Boys’ band, so they should be fun live.
“We had Grand theft
Audio out on tour with us in Germany so it’d be cool to meet up with them
again. We hung out a bit in LA a few months back and they like a drink,
they’re good guys. I want to see My Vitriol too because we’ve run into each
other a few times on the European circuit and that Som is a really nice guy. I
don’t know much about Alien Ant Farm but the fact that they cover Michael
Jackson songs makes me think I’ll give them a miss. I’m not sure the world
needs another ‘80s cover band.”
“These shows in the
UK will be the last of Amen in Europe this year, because we’re going into the
studio in September. We had a great day at the Ozzfest this summer so I think
Reading will be cool too. I’m just hoping we’re not playing at the same time
as Iggy, man. Amen might not play out of respect to Iggy. No, we’ll play no
matter what, but Iggy is like the Pope or the Queen – you have to go and see
him whether he’s just picking up an acoustic guitar or showing you his
wrinkled 50-year-old ass. You have to pay the man his dues.” by
Paul Brannigan |
