Killer Squirrel Interview Killer Squirrel was interviewed on January 1st, 2007 at his shoddy apartment. The video footage he shot for a new song “What I’m Grateful to Forget” is real. It’s not Compton, but it’s worse than most areas in Seattle. The apartment building has big, heavy security doors, but the doors seemed to be more for keeping people in, than for keeping people out. Interview by Nick Levitan Happy New Year! Yeah, you too. I think that I’m still a little drunk from last night. (Burrrp!) Any resolutions for this year? I’m going to keep from getting shot, and that’s about it for now. You do live in kind of a seedy area here. Tell me about it. There were two groups of guys outside my window talking trash to each other earlier this week. I was waiting for gun shots. I’d like to get something like that on tape for a Killer Squirrel record. But I’d probably get shot doing it, and I’ve already set my New Year’s resolution, so . . . I guess that’s out. I can just see myself slipping a boom mic out my window to record something like that . . . (laughs) What makes you want to do all this work for the zine archive? To me, the zine archive is a way of bringing life back into dead issues – you know, the whole thing – layout, words, art, the history, all of it. There’s a huge amount of information in those little things. And I’ve never seen a zine in a public library, so there’s a sense of getting this stuff out to people. I can get a skateboarding magazine, tattoo magazine, and a whole legion of business magazines at the library – but no punk rock. Now you can get them using a computer at the library. Did you really ask Punk Planet to let you add their zine to the archive? I did . . . I did . . . and they decided they were too good to respond to me, which really didn’t surprise me, I guess. I emailed them about 4 times over a 2 month period. See, I was having some problems with the computer I was using at the time, and their website was set up kind of weird, and I didn’t know if I was selecting the right “department” for the email. It was a mess, so I tried a few different times, but I never got a reply from them. I heard their zine was about to go under a few years ago, so maybe they took my offer as a slap in the face. I have no idea . . . Would you have let them in, if they had agreed? Sure, I mean I don’t hate Punk Planet or anything. I’ve read issues, and I think the fact that they are still around after years of backlash, that’s impressive. Most people couldn’t have done that. You know, that Stinker guy took a lot of flack. Sinker. What? It’s “Sinker” not “Stinker.” Really? I thought it was one of those funny punk names. I’ve been calling him Stinker for years . . . Why didn’t anybody correct me? Well . . . hmmm . . . that’s embarrassing . . . Sorry dude, ah, Sinker. His first name is Daniel, right? Right. Well, at least I had the first part right. What am I supposed to be, fucking Rain Man? I’m a busy person! He probably didn’t want to do the archive because it’s free. If you offered him money, he would have done it. Oh, I don’t know . . . I don’t know anything about him, obviously . . . You think he makes good money off that zine? It wouldn’t surprise me. Well, even from a profit standpoint, it makes sense to go along with the project, though. It would be great advertising for Punk Planet. People can see how it has progressed, and readers don’t have to blow their money on old issues, so that leaves more to spend on issues that are in print and merchandise, etc. Whatever, who cares, there are plenty of other zines out there. Are you going to add more zines to the collection? As some point, yes. Slug and Lettuce would be great, but I can’t scan pages that size. I want to stick with focusing on the zines that I’m dealing with now – it should take about a year for the bulk of it. After that, we’ll see. It’s really not my choice if something gets added – the zine editors have to give me the thumbs up. I can only ask and wait. Do you have a favorite zine? No, not really because if I did, then I would only post that one. I like different zines for different reasons. With Flipside, they always seemed more relaxed and fun. MRR always seemed very driven and you know, out to accomplish something, and they’re still like that. Suburban Voice was unique to me because so much of it was Al’s voice, where as Flipside and MRR were a lot of different people’s voices mixed together. I always liked how Heartattack dealt with issues in the scene. And in a few weeks I’ll be posting 10 Things Jesus Wants You to Know, which was my favorite Seattle zine. Don’t be scarred kiddies, it’s not a Christian zine! I tracked Dan down to get permission for that one. Did he get a lot of questions about that title? I’m pretty sure that he did . . . I always thought it was a funny name for a zine, but most people know it just as “10 Things.” Dan is actually the first person who got me to think about doing my own zine. I mean there were tons of people involved in Flipside and MRR, but 10 Things was much smaller. It looked like something I could do with some practice. So how many of these zines do you have? How big is your collection? My MRR collection is about 98% complete, I would say. I’ve got a decent run of Flipside that’s about 70% complete – same thing with Heartattack. The Suburban Voice and 10 Things collections are OK, but nothing crazy. Did it cost a lot of money to put your collection together? Well, I guess it has been a decent chunk of money, but I’ve built the collection over a number of years, so that made it easier to deal with the cost. Plus, I’m very cheap, so I hold out for good prices. Actually, I just got a great deal to fill a gap in my MRR collection. I bought issue #2 through #35 for about $2.50 a piece, and they’re in perfect condition – literally, most of the issues had never been read. Some of them were still stapled shut from when they were mailed to a radio station in Stonybrook, NY. I was very happy with that deal, but most of my collection has been acquired like that. It has to be that way because I don’t have much money. My goal for 2007 is to not lose money hosting the site – I’ll add that to the one about not getting shot. That’s why you’re posting ads? To cover your costs? Yeah, I’m going to give that a try. I contacted some of the larger punk labels a while ago about posting advertisements, but the response was pretty much dead silence, so I just posted some info on the site in case people do want to advertise. We’ll see how that works out. So the zine archive is your way of participating in the scene? I guess, in my own nerdy way. But it’s all after the fact, so I don’t know . . . I don’t really feel like I’m in a punk scene – I mean, I read punk zines, make lo-fi punk music, and listen to a lot of punk music, but I have a hard time communicating. I’m not outgoing enough to strike up conversations with people I don’t know. I’m just not good at that sort of thing, so those “scene connections” don’t really exist for me. Just to give you a little insight, I spent most of this last Christmas weekend in my apartment listening to punk music and scanning pages of old MRR zines for the Internet. To me, that was a great time! Other people think it’s sad for whatever reason. Drinking coffee . . . spinning my records . . . messing around with zines . . . what could be better?! That does sound kind of anti-social. Well, it is, but that’s just me. I’m doing what I want – it’s not like I’m chopping kids up into little pieces in my basement. I’m sure your neighbors are taking care of that. (laughs) They probably are!