While at Warped Tour, I thought I would stop by and interview the insane group known as iwrestledabearonce, a band that seems to draw criticism and adoration all at the same time. Read on to find out more about their movie, what goes on behind the scenes of writing, and the story behind the now infamous black metal prank. (Editor’s note: this interview took place before Krysta Cameron dropped off the Warped Tour and Courtney LaPlante replaced her).
MAA: The unique insanity you all bring to the table of metal is loved and hated by thousands of people. Yet in the end, you all have fun doing it. How is it you all decided on doing things like throwing in fucking seagulls on “You Know That Ain’t Them Dogs’ Real Voices” and a choir in “Deodorant Can’t Fix Ugly?”
IWABO: Sometimes it’s the basis of a song. We’ll put something dumb in it and build around it. We’ll get done with a song and think “You know what needs to do right here? Seagulls.” We were really drunk when we came up with that. It’s just, lots of stuff happens when you’re high, but even if everyone in the band is totally sober, we can sit and think of crazy shit.
MAA: High on life haha. So why is the new album called Ruining It For Everybody?
IWABO: Because it’s what we do. It’s like you said before, people either love us or hate us, so we just give in to the hate and try to make it funny. We read reviews sometimes and we will see “It’s ruining metal, it’s fucking it all up, you’re ruining it for everybody.” So we figured, welp, Ruining It For Everybody. We always say that too, like if someone does something stupid, we just say “Well, thanks for ruining it for everybody else.” The actual coining the album of that name was a Jeff Foxworthy skit. I just like how a bunch of people think a few guys and a girl who care about nothing more than giving people high fives are “ruining it for everybody”.
MAA: Are you considering putting out more remix releases like you did for It’s All Happening?
IWABO: I think so. When we did the original remix album for It’s All Happening, it was like no one was really doing them yet, and now it’s like a huge thing, so I don’t know. We’re the kind of assholes where once something starts catching on, we are just like we don’t really feel like doing that anymore. But at this point, our band has a good eighteen or so remixes for the fans, so I think we may be good for now. We might do a couple more honestly pretty soon.
MAA: Have you wrote any new songs since releasing Ruining It For Everybody?
IWABO: Yes. We never really put things together until the very last minute, I swear to God. We don’t finish songs until we’re literally recording for the record. The last record we did ourselves, so it was like “oh, nothing wrong with doing guitars at four in the morning.” It wasn’t a tight schedule or anything like that, so it wasn’t stressful. We tour together so damn much, it’s really hard to piece together everything. It’s easy to write on tour, but not to really record or put together anything. We will write out little ideas on our computers and email them to each other, then someone else will take it and, say, put guitar on it. By the time we get into the studio, we have all these parts. Now to put them together. But we can work well under pressure. Most bands that can’t need to discover medical marijuana.
MAA: What is the song “It Is Bro Isn’t It” all about?
IWABO: The lyrics or the title?
MAA: Both.
IWABO: The title is an inside joke among us, like most of our other songs. It’s just that people go around and say bro all the damn time like “Hey bro,” or “What’s up bro?” So the song title just makes fun of that. But even we say bro all the time, so we feed into our own jokes. So were always making fun of stuff, but we make fun of each other a lot as well. Lyrically, you would have to ask Krysta. I think it’s about robots or aliens enslaving humanity or something like that. That song is the most screaming song, I guess, so we’re not too sure what it’s about haha. I know the words she’s saying, I just don’t know if she’s actually saying them. But she will say it’s open to interpretation, so when someone comes up and says “I love this song, it’s about this and it helped me through so much” and we’re just like “What the fuck? Cool, it’s great it helped you out, but that’s not what the song is about.”
MAA: How did that whole black metal prank come about?
IWABO: We just thought it would be funny. Jeremy Saffer, a photographer whom we’re good friends with, was like “I got it. I have a bunch of gauntlets, leather, and shit,” so we just got together and did it. Everybody does photos that are, for the most part, really lame and cliché. Everyone is looking up or to the side, against a wall or an old building, and there’s only so much you can do. Another reason was that we were looking at a book of his and we just said “Wow, you do all of these brutal death metal bands and then you have us doing the lamest shit.” So we thought that we should do photos like this, and why not? Why can’t we wear this shit? Do we have to be a black metal band? Image doesn’t matter and black metal people are so funny about that. They’re supposed to be the complete opposite of having any sort of image and going against society’s norm. I mean, how long do you take in putting on that paint and leather? I’m not dogging on it, but don’t give a fuck about what everyone else does. We all love our moms and we all drink beer. There might be some of that in our movie…
MAA: Yeah, tell me about the movie? When is the release of that expected and what will it contain?
IWABO: It’s the most offensive movie ever made. The most swear words you will ever see in a movie. A lot of nudity, and a lot of shameful things that we’re on camera doing. But I will say that it’s all acting… It’s not real, I’m doing it for my “career.”
MAA: Yeah, that’s what they all say bro ahaha.
IWABO: I mean, look at Brokeback Mountain. Look how good Heath (Ledger) did there. *Steven to Mike* which means that you’re going to die after or before the movie is released. I forgot where I was going with that, now all I can think about is Brokeback Mountain. Clown from SLIPKNOT is in the movie, he’s actually in it for a good bit. We built the sets, tore them down, and even used those multi-thousand dollar “red cameras” that are all the hype now. So it will be Blu-Ray quality. The acting is questionable.
MAA: When will it be released?
IWABO: We don’t have an exact date yet, but it will be in the fall. Probably…
MAA: Any last words for the fans and people who came out to see you all live?
IWABO: Thanks. Come by the merch tent and get a high five. If you give a shit about our band, then that makes you awesome.
by Ridge “Deadite” Briel
Tags: Century Media Records, iwrestledabearonce, metal, Rickshaw, Steven, whutmetal
