Mest Up Stuff

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"They're sick, they're wrong, and they write catchy songs!"
by Paul Semel

When we were hanging out drinking," confesses Mest guitarist/singer Tony Lovato, "someone will do something stupid, then someone else will do something even stupider, and so on. One time, we were trying to get somebody to piss on someone else for, like, $300, so I laid down on a towel like I was at the beach and our bassist pissed on my face."
Mest--which, in addition to Tony, features guitarist Jeremiah Rangel, bassist (and Tony's cousin) Matt Lovato, and drummer Nick Gigler--might be crazier than a pack of pit bulls on crank, but the band pulls it together for its latest, self-titled release (Maverick), a punchy, poppy slice of punk rock whose sound owes as much to Green Day as the band's antics owe to G.W.A.R. MTV-ready, but with enough edge to fuel any mosh pit, the Chicago quartet's fourth record is the result of a band that knows where its priorities lie: For Mest, the music comes first.
"There's a time and place for everything," says Tony. "There's a time ro be responsible. But I also like to do shit that shocks people. People are so boring, I've got to do something to keep myself entertained."

REVOLVER -- When you were 15, you got thrown out of school. I'm afraid to ask why.
TONY LOVATO: I actually wanted to quit freshman year, they just wouldn't let me. But three months into my sophomore year I'd already missed 37 out of 60 school days, so they just expelled me. I also used to get into a lot of fights.

Ever get into one with another band?
No, though a few months ago, when we were on tour with Unwritten Law, we played this club that had this rave afterwards. We went down to the dance floor, where everybody was dancing like idiots, and the next thing I know a brawl broke out. I actually hit a cop by accident. I didn't know it was a cop--it was all dark--but when I hit him he just threw my head into a door.

I've heard you've also done some crazy shit onstage. What's the wildest thing you've ever done?
Sometimes when I'm playing I'll daydream. One night when we were on the Good Charlotte tour, I was daydreaming so much I totally fucked up our song "Long Days, Long Nights." So I said to the crowd, "Because we fucked up, I'm going to break a beer bottle over my head," and I grabbed a bottle and busted it over my head. And everyone thought it was fake, so the next night we tried it again--but it just wouldn't work. I hit mysef for, like, 15 minutes and had all these welts all over my head, but it still wouldn't break. Then Matt came up to me and said, "Break it over my head," so I whacked him on the head, and he just dropped, but the bottle still didn't break.

Isn't there also a story about you eating vomit?
Yeah, though I don't want to make this piece to make us sound like we have some wierd fetishes. We used to do all this gnarly shit to this neighbor's car: puke on it and shit on it and stuff. Well, one night, I just couldn't puke, I don't know why. But Nick had puked into a glass, and every time he smelled it, he's puke again, so I took a whiff, thinking it would make me puke too, but it didn't smell that bad. So I said, "Dude, want me to eat it?" And he was like, "Please, please." And I did.

Souds like a very special episode of Jackass. Though none of it shocks me as much as the fact that you have a Britney Spears guitar.
Yeah, well, it's just this guitar that I covered with pictures of her. She's so hot--she's the Pamela Anderson of our generation. I think she'd be the ultimate person to fuck.

Of course, the irony of all this bad behavior is that you've just made a reall good punk-pop album.
Yeah. When we listened to it the first time, we were all just blown away. Everyone we've played it for has said, "Wow, you guys have become a real band." The thing is, I've always wanted to make music since I was a kid. But then I was also taught about the partying and the lifestyle from Motley Crue. And I'm sure when I'm 28 I won't be doing all this stupid shit, but I'm 22 right now. I don't want to look back and think, What if?