Interviews

Shannon Larkin - National Noise.com

Q: How has the tour with Nothingface been going?

Shannon: "It's been going great, I must say that we love Nothingface.
The tour started slow, both bands didn't have records coming out, four weeks ago when we started this. So it was like winning over crowds of fuckin' 100 or 200 people, you know, but as the records or the songs went to radio and got some airplay, (metal radio, underground college radio). So then the crowds started getting better and then when Nothingface's record came out last week the crowds had gotten really good, but now it's the end of the tour, and now we must go and play with Gwar."

Q: Are you excited about playing with Gwar?

Shannon: "We are the most excited band, probably since uh, I don't know since Motorhead got the Ozzy Blizzard of Oz tour." 

Q: I heard that they specifically requested you guys.

Shannon: "It's amazing, they called our agent and said, 'is Amen available?' So, they were so legendary, that you must understand how much of an honor this is to us. Because Gwar is punk rock. It's real Punk rock."

Q: So Saturday night is the first night of the tour?

Shannon: 'Oh man I hope so !"

Q: Is there anything in particular that you are looking forward to with Gwar, besides their theatrics that they have?

Shannon: "Oh yeah. We're looking forward to playing in front of Gwar's crowd. Because these people don't give a fuck about Limp Bizkit and whatever this up and down movement, bobbing thing that the kids have now. Everything kind of has a groove, and Amen obviously isn't like that. Hence we don't get the best crowd responses all the time because we're playing with other bands that sound like the current new metal sound. Gwar is real punk rock. They sound like Misfits style music with a grittier vocalist. They are a punk rock band, they just simply have this gimmick that I don't know somebody like Slipknot now has but like 10 times that. It's about a show. There are giant worms on stage that eat the band members, so are we psyched to go out with them... hell yes!"

Q: Are you looking forward to playing with the Misfits, who are on a couple of the dates?

Shannon: "Misfits are playing two shows I heard. We are very, very, very looking forward to that. Shit, I will hang out with Eerie Von, and you know, those guys are just amazing."

Q: On a different note, on the last tour with Nothingface, are their any cities that stood out to you more than others, or where you had a really good crowd response?

Shannon: "Um, it's all a blur and, you know, the crowd is the enemy. We play for us , the five of us. But if you can feel something coming off the crowd, and hey you know, you dig us man, then that's cool, and we will love you. But when we walk on the stage, the crowd is the enemy, and we want to try and fuck their world up and be different from anybody else. A lot of times the enemy becomes the friend, but most of the times they don't. They give the courtesy clap because we don't sound like Disturbed and Crazy Town and Limp Bizkit, Korn. I could name probably 20 bands right now, but their names don't deserve to be mentioned, that all sound alike, that all get their sound from the basic Korn/Limp Bizkit resurgence of this rap metal thing that actually started years ago with bands like Urban Dance Squad, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More for that matter. Mixing rap and rock but then it became a resurgence."

Q: Here is a question that has probably been brought up in the past.... but how different do you feel from when you played with Ugly Kid Joe to playing with Amen.

Shannon: "Well that's an easy one, Ugly Kid Joe was a rock and roll band that played heavy metal kind of music and Amen is a punk band that has metal guitars. But drums and bass and lyrics are punk. But I will say this, everyone goes through times in life, and I've played for thrash metal bands for 12 years basically and uh, I discovered punk in 1983 when I heard Black Flag. '84, Dead Kennedy's, changed my life. Anyway, punk came and changed my whole life at that point and I had this metal band that was like, I was 16 making $250 dollars a week playing 4 nights a week in these local clubs or whatever, doing covers, but you know. My parents used to have to come to the club because I was so young. I was under the age where I could even get a work permit 14, 15. But it's always been my life, my parents have always backed me. They would come, and I remember my dad sleeping in the back of the club. I could see him when I was on stage. There's Dad, while we were playing, blastin', sound asleep. But they were there, they supported me from day one. They were always saying that's what I'd be best at doing when I was a little kid. You know...
I got a set of drums and 2 weeks later I learned the 'In A Gadda Da Vida' solo. I mean, I'd never played before. It just came naturally.. it was so easy, thank goodness. And now is a very different thing, a different animal, very different. Finally I'm in a punk rock band! Ever since I saw Black Flag in 1983 and got in my first pit and got a bloody nose, it changed my life. I became from this always a metal guy to a punk guy. I have all my ultra metal albums all the way back, still in plastic. All my punk albums I sold, for $350. I was desperate for money at the time. They were worth $1000 dollars easy. I had the Misfits 'Walk Among Us' original pressing there, with the stamp on it, whatever, I gave a lot of shit up. The fucking Sid Sings album, with the poster, I gave that up for like $30. It's a big regret yeah… but there you go." 

by Heather Bourgault