Renee of Blanks 77
by Lou-cifer
Renee: Mike Blanks sings; I'm Renee, I play guitar. Tim is the bass player and Kid Lynch is the drummer.
L: He's a new drummer right? Where'd you guys find him?
R: Basically we have a mutual friend in New York City, and she knew he was looking for a band, and we were looking for a drummer. So, she kinda pointed us in each other's direction.
L: I noticed it said in the cd, C.B.H (Cunt Bitch Whore), "written in honor of Chad" (Blanks former drummer), why is that?
R: He (Chad) came up with the title. The song is about someone he dislikes quite a bit. The song wasn't written about Chad.
L: Oh, it kind of came off that way.
R: A lot of people were like,"Why do you hate Chad?" We don't! If he could have written it, he would have, and that's the reason its dedicated to him.
L: I have seen you do a Ramones and KISS cover, who else do you cover?
R: Before we went on this tour, we went into the studio, and we are going to be on a bunch of tribute albums coming out. We covered Black Flags "T.V. Party", we did "Anarchy in the U.K." for a Sex Pistols tribute coming out on Radical Records and we did another Ramones song, "Bonzo", for a Ramones tribute album. We've covered everyone from KISS, to the Dead Boys, to Bad Brains. We cover bands we like.
L: I've also seen you cover the Dead Kennedys.
R: Yeah, we used to do "Too Drunk to Fuck", but basically what would end up happening was that we would get to drunk to play it. It's a hard song to play, its all riffing and stuff. There's not many chords in it, so it's kinda hard to play unless your stone sober sitting in a chair or something. But we recorded it for a tribute as well, that came out a few years ago.
L: How was working with producer Daniel Rey (He's produced the Ramones and Rob Zombie) on the new album?
R: He was awesome, he really knows what he's doing. He is a lot more laid back, he has a take it as it goes kinda thing. We did the first two albums with Don Fury, but we wanted to do something a little different, get a little different sound going, and he was really cool. Really laid back and easy to work with, and he really knows what he is doing.
L: I thought "Johnny Cool" and "Car 24" sounded very rockabilly, and some of the other songs sounded different than usual.
R: We wanted to do some different kind of stuff, cause we like rockabilly, and rock n' roll and all that stuff, and we wanted to play it a little bit. Plus, we didn't want to write "Let's Riot", part three, because that gets boring after awhile, and you have to change it up a little bit.
R: I think a lot of the bandwagon kids have left, which is kinda a good thing. I think its bigger than what it was, which I think is kinda cool. I think my atitude on the whole punk mainstream thing is that some of those kids will start to get into the local bands. Everyone has to get into it someway. Everyone I know is always like," I heard "I Wanna Be Sedated" on the radio, and bought a Ramones album and it kinda took from there". I think some of the kids stuck around, and did it for the right reasons, to others it was a passing fad, and it went away.
L: Have you ever considered making videos?
R: Actually, we have made some videos. We know a lot of people who have public access stations, and we get a lot of air play by those people. That's actually kinda cool. I think videos are fun, I mean they can be done really well. MTV doesn't play videos anymore, you can make one, and send it to them, but their not gonna play it. They only play the Backstreet Boys.
L: They don't have a forum for stuff that's not top 40.
R: Yeah, I mean they don't play videos anymore. When they started out they used to play The Damned and the Cramps, and some old punk stuff. I don't know what happened, they got commercialized or whatever. Every time I turn it on its like the Road Rules marathon. I don't want to watch that. I have my own band I go on the road with, and argue with. I don't want to watch someone else do it! It gets boring after awhile, but videos are fun. I like, what's that one Blink 182 video? I don't like the song. but I love the fact they make fun of all those boy bands.
L: I know which one your talking about.
R: I saw that and thought, " there's a funny video". Occasionally you see a good one. but most of the time they're crap. Our videos are mostly live stuff. Live shots, but I don't think MTV will be playing us. For this record we decided not to even bother, we would rather sink the money into something else, put more ads out, rather than spend money to shoot a video that won't really get played.
L: So, what did you get for Christmas?
R: I got, you see, I'm a big New York Mets and Steelers fan...
L: Decent...
R: Yeah, even though they're doing crappy this year (Steelers...duh). It kinda upsets me.
L: You pick that up hanging out with groups like Submachine?
R: Well, I've been a Steelers fan since I was seven years old. That's when they were back winning Super Bowls. I've been a fan ever since, but they haven't done much this year. I'm not a fair weather fan. I was giving Submachine some shit the last time we were in Pittsburgh. I'm a Mets fan, so I got some Met's t-shirts, and this cool locker that holds cd's, it's a Mets locker. For the road I the got Pop Up Video triva game, which I'm very excited about because it will pass time on the road.
L: Anything else you wanna add?
R: Where's this printed, Pittsburgh?
L:Yeah.
R: I'd like to say hello to Submachine and Wiggy, and we will be back soon hopefully. Within the next couple months.
R: Actually we have a conversion van with a trailer, so we have a TV, and bring our Playstation along. We keep ourselves occupied, and if we aren't playing video games, then we watch movies or porn. Although NOT by my choice, make sure you note that. I usually sit there going,"Oh my God!"If we're not doing that, we are trying to catch more sleep, because of the partying from the night before. That's what we do, besides arguing with each other about stupid stuff.
L: Do you have a favorite Blanks song?
R: I really like a bunch off the new album. I like Radio Hits, We Are the Punks, those are really good ones. Some of the old ones are really fun, cause the kids know all the words, "I Wanna Be a Punk", and stuff like that. Those songs really get the kids dancing.
L: Where do you get the best reception?
R: We are pretty lucky, we do well all over the place. The midwest is cool because a lot of bands don't go through there. When touring, they do the circle, they go down the east coast, across through Texas, the west coast, and across the top of America, like through Detroit. So places like Laurence, Kansas, and Oklahoma City are really good to us. Iowa City, Iowa was really good. A lot of places like that, where bands bands don't usually show up, everyone shows up and supports the shows. They don't have the bands coming through every week like L.A., New York or San Francisco, although they're also good to us.