Genghis Tron are pure evil - the proverbial Devil's henchmen. One listen to their black
metal/electrocore sophomore record "Dead Mountain Mouth" and the mind conjures up images
of the hounds of hell, virgin sacrifices, the howling of demons, and...ahem...bowling.
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Appeared Sep 7: San Francisco, CA @ Knockout w/ Ox Bow, Flying Luttenbachers, The Mall
streamimg audio: www.myspace.com/genghistron
Tuula: Where are you right now?
Mookie: (inaudible mutter that sounds vaguely like "Boulder".)
Tuula: Ahh, Boulder, Colorado.
Mookie: No, Bowling. (There is an awkward pause.) We're bowling in Kansas City. We're
on a mad bowling kick. Our roadie Ryan always wins though.
Tuula: Well, thats not very rock and roll of you. Shouldn't you be doing lines of coke
off of strippers or something?
Mookie: Come on, we're drinking beer!
Tuula: One rock point for you.
Mookie: we're not very rock and roll, we're nerds. Do you want me to stop bowling and
talk to you?
Tuula: No, this is good.
Mookie: It's my turn to roll, hang on, here's Michael.
Tuula: (to Michael) I've heard you guys are like, totally hardcore and like, drinking
beer.
Michael: Oh, god, we're totally nerds. (This phrase will be uttered at least 3 times by
each and every member of Genghis Tron.) We all wear glasses. We just graduated from
college.
Tuula: Well, you can answer the boring standard questions for me. Tell me your
influences.
Michael: Well, Hamilton has a real metal background, lots of grindcore. Black metal.
And Botch and Dillinger Escape Plan. Nine Inch Nails was a big influence, I think on all
of us. Mookie was really into indie rock.
Tuula: Hence the glasses.
Michael: Yeah, a lot of Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes. Oh, it's my turn...
(Phone is passed to Hamilton)
Tuula: Okay, Hamilton, you can answer all the fluffy questions. Like, whats your
favourite color?
Hamilton: Blood red. But our band t-shirts don't incorporate it.
Tuula: What's your favourite food?
Hamilton: I don't have a favourite food. Although I must say...SF is the home of the
burrito.
Tuula: What about Britney Spears' new hair colour change?
Hamilton: Britney? The laughing stock of the tabloid media? I guess she's letting her
white trash roots shine. White trash...Vegas. We're going to Vegas for a few days, try
to gamble a bit of the bands money to make it back home.
Tuula: Sounds like a bad scheme.
Michael: Maybe...At least it'll pay for some buffets. "Hey!" (Screaming in the
background.) Mookie just rolled a spare!
Mookie: (breathless from excitement) I just rolled a spare!
Tuula: So you guys are on tour now, what plans do you have for the future?
Mookie: Well, we've been in New York for the past couple of years finishing school.
Tuula: And doing the band, that must have been hard.
Mookie: Yeah, it made our parents nervous and touring kinda difficult, but we've all
graduated and now we're gonna get a house in Philly together.
We're going to go on tour in November to the UK. Then we'll tour some more. With
bowling in between, of course.
Tuula: You sure talk about bowling a lot for a "metal" band.
Mookie: Predominately metal. But we do have a huge chunk of the band that is
electronically based, Aphex Twin style, Boards Of Canada, etc.
Tuula: Is it hard to play live with no drummer?
Mookie: At the point that we're at, on a small label, it would be almost impossible to
have a drummer good enough to play all the stuff we program and to have the equipment to
pull it off. I'd love to be one of those hybrid bands. In the future, if things go
well, we could maybe have a live drummer.
Tuula: The name...
Mookie: Genghis Tron is the name because all we had was these horrible ideas, and a friend of ours
was in this terrible fusion funk band in high school and said we could use the name.
It's very fitting, it combines the metal and the electro sides of our band.
Tuula: No, your name.
Mookie: It's my real name. It's after Mookie Wilson, from the Mets. I didn't get
teased about it in school though, everyone thought it was cool. Oh! It's my turn. Do
you want to talk to our roadie, the bowling mentor?
Tuula: Sure. (To Ryan, the roadie.) Now is your chance to talk mad shit about Genghis
Tron.
Ryan: They're big dorks, they dont party at all. You should see them, they're in a
bowling alley right now, all excited because the alley started playing Metallica's first
album.
Tuula: Do they play Dungeons and Dragons on the bus?
Ryan: Close. We play dice, this game called 'Freeze'. There is absolutely no skill
involved. I'm the best bowler. I'm kicking their asses.
Tuula: Yeah? What's the score?
Ryan: Mike has 85, Mookie has 80, Hamilton has 4 and I have...(dramatic pause)...172.
Tuula: Oops. Maybe I should have just interviewed you for ESPN.
An interview with Genghis Tron
By Tuula Ala
