Noel: What kind of kid were you? Were you the class clown or the big bully?

David Yow: I was definitely the class clown. I was a real dork. I've always considered myself to be a dork.

N: What was one of the most extreme things you did as a class clown nerd?

DY: Um...

N: I mean, was it to get attention or... ?

DY: I think it may have been to get attention because I'm pretty short and one time I was in 5th grade and Mrs. Wright, who was really really cruel, and she was about 6' 5", and she pulled me aside one day after I had been bad and talked to about her theory on why I acted the way I did was because I was short and because when she was a kid she did stuff like that because she was tall. So my guess it was probably to make up for feeling inadequate because I was a fucking midget.

N: Well, see, I'm a midget, too, so I can see what you're saying. Does that still affect you like some Napoleon-type complex?

DY: I don't think I do now, but I think I did then. I was really really small. In 9th grade I was 4'9". I was tiny.

N: I think that was shorter than me when I was in 9th grade. Did you fall on your head much when you were a baby?

DY: (Laughing) No, not when I was a baby. When I was an adult, well, yes.

Melissa: OK, do you have any fears, little things like clowns or big women or anything?

DY: I dunno, it never comes to mind. When you said clowns, it made me think when I was a kid, this house we moved in that was already furnished and there was this African, tribal sorta mask on the wall by the stair landing and it scared the shit out of me. I made my parents take it down, but generally no I don't think so. Soundcheck, maybe. I have terrible fears of soundchecks.

N: What was the best Halloween costume you ever wore?

DY: It was Halloween of 1986 and I wore a pin-striped suit that I had stapled fish skin to along with a long wig and a gas mask. I worked in this restaurant and we'd get these BIG fish in and on the day before Halloween, the head chef was skinning the fish and I asked if I could have it and I had four different ones that I could cover my arms and my back. I had a gas mask so I wouldn't have to deal with it and I went to this party where there were a bunch of people and I could hear these people going, "Damn! Holy shit, what is that!!" Every now and then I had to take it off to drink, but... I think that was the best one.

N: Why do you think you get pegged a maniac so much by the press?

DY: I guess it's the live show where I go... nutty. I kinda wish that it wasn't that way, that I didn't have this reputation because I think... I've seen videotapes, I think I come off as more of a fool than a maniac. A lot of times, the press is just trying to sell their magazine.

N: Nothing particularly self-destructive about you?

DY: No, as a matter of fact I'm really tired of getting hurt, I'm really sick of it. I busted my head open on the second show of this tour.

M: Did you have to get stitches?

DY: I should've gotten stitches but I didn't go. It was in Milwaukee and everybody's saying "Man, you gotta go to the hospital! You gotta go!" and I didn't want to. The next day we were home and my wife made me go to the doctor and had I gone when it happened I would've gotten stitches but they don't do that if it's like a day later.

(David proceeds to show us the scar on his head.)

M: Oh my God!

DY: It bled A LOT.

M: Are there any personal things you'd like to share with the Santa Cruz audience?

DY: Um... stay away from major labels and Alice in Chains and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and all that shit.

N: Wasn't there a recent major label hunt for you guys?

DY: Yeah, there was a short frenzy with major labels wanting us, but I think that we' ve made it pretty clear that we're not interested and they seem to have really left us alone now. It's weird, they'd called like friends of ours who are in "the biz" and asked them about us but I think that for about eight months or so they haven't called us which I think is pretty cool.

N: Actually, I don't see the point, you know?

DY: We're really happy with where we are and I'd really rather not get fucked in the ass by a major label. I don't trust 'em.

N: Do you prefer touring to recording?

DY: You can't really compare them, it's kinda like the apples and oranges thing. I really love them both, except recording makes me nervous and touring doesn't.

N: Why does recording make you nervous?

DY: Because I know what we're doing. (Laughs) And I know that it's going to be released and people are going to listen to it. Generally when we play live, I like to be lubricated with some alcohol, I really can't do this shit sober. I've tried and I can't. In the studio, to make myself more comfortable I do the same thing, and there have been a couple times when... let's see... on Head there is a song called "Pastoral" and one day we went into the studio after having been in there the night before and we were going over a list of songs that I still had to do and I said "Oh, and we've got to do 'Pastoral' too" and they said, "No, no, you did that last night" and I thought "I didn't do that song last night" and I guess that I was so blotto drunk I didn't even remember doing it, which is sort of funny because I don't think you can really tell when you listen to it that I was.

N: Somebody told me they have sex to that particular song.

DY: Do you know what it's about? Remember when a few years ago there was that plane wreck outside of Sioux City, Iowa? That plane wreck went cartwheeling down the runway into a cornfield or something like that. It's about that.

N: I think that was the best one. Just to backtrack a little, what's the strangest way of recording your vocals that Steve Albini has done?

DY: I'm glad you asked that question. Steve's really really inventive and experimental with especially vocal and drum miking techniques. There have been a few. We did one where we had this little tiny microphone sort of as small as the ones that newscasters slip on, we put that on the top of my headphones and I stuck my head and shoulders into a big filthy plastic trash can and sang. That was on "Nub" for Goat.

N: Yeah, see, I was curious about that because a writer for Spin was trying to make Steve Albini out to be a misogynist because they said he drowned out the vocals on PJ Harvey when he produced that and I'm thinking, well, he does that to everybody.

DY: Yeah, I'd like to hear what PJ Harvey had to say about that considering she's got this enormous crush on Steve.

N: Does she really?

DY: Yeah. She wants him.

N: That's not a rumor?

DY: Yeah, that's what Steve told me, I mean, Steve doesn't make those kind of things up. As a matter of fact, he said that if he didn't have his "Little Swan", which he calls his girlfriend, that he would of, uh... well, you know.

M: (Sighing) Little Swan. Do you have any names for your wife?

DY: Million(?). When we first started going out, her name is Suzy, and I used to call her "Squeezee" and just everything I could think of that was like that. Our newest one is... I just call her "Little Girl in the World" and she calls me "Little Boy in the World". (Laughs a plenty all around) You know, stuff like "Skermy Skermish" and "Nerby Berbie".

(More laughs)

N: When did you get married?

DY: July 30th (1993).

N: Did you have a big bash or...?

DY: No, we were going to have a real wedding, but her mother was organizing it and due to budget, she kept wanting us to cut back on the number of people we were inviting and, well, how do you do that? How do you say, "Well, gee, Noel you can come but Melissa I'm sorry you can't"? That'd be like dividing up our best friends, so the two of us went down to Jamaica and got married on the beach.

M: What religion was it...?

DY: We wanted to not have God mentioned in it at all, but it was such a pain in the ass to get them to do it anyways, we just dealt with it anyways. I don't even know what religion the preacher man was. I would guess he was probably baptist, this old black Jamaican guy, it was really funny. There's a video tape of it and it's fucking hilarious. I was cross-eyed retarded laughing. I was laughing the whole time.

M: What were you wearing?

DY: Blue jeans and a cowboy shirt.

M: And Suzy?

DY: Just sort of this loose cotton dress. It was cool. Neither of you married?

M & N: No.

DY: Man, it's a rush. It's a fucking rush, man.

N: Did you ever think you were going to get married?

DY: No, I've always been really opposed to it, but then I've never met someone like Suzy. I always thought it was a stupid idea because people change and you grow tired of each other and whatever, but it's different with her. Once the ceremony started, I felt like we were dragracing or on a rollercoaster, just this thing haulin' ass and you can't stop it and "Here we go! Lookout!" It was really something, man, it was a rush. Mac, our drummer, he's married too and he said his was pretty intense. It's just a really weird thing.

N: Do you talk about kids?

DY: We'll have kids, but not for a while. Mac just became a father January 9th which puts some restrictions on our touring. He doesn't want to tour for more than three weeks at a time.

N: Was it a girl or a boy?

DY: It was a girl. Elsa McNeilly, seven pounds ten ounces. She's cute as a fucking button.

M: Aww!

DY: She was born January 9th which is the same date as Suzy's birthday which is a really good birthday to have because it's 1-9-whatever year, so all you have to do is remember the year they were born and then you remember their birthday.

(Melissa's friend, Hope, was sexily posed on the next car, waiting for us.)

N: You know, you saved her life one time.

DY: I saved her life? How did I save her life?

N: How did he save your life?

Hope: You got me out of [the pit] of your last concert at the Kennel Club, you were playing with...

DY: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion? I got you out of it?

H: You helped me get out of it. You jumped right on my head and you smashed my rib cage, then you got me out.

DY: What, onto the stage?

H: On the stage.

DY: Did we dance?

H: Kinda. Yeah.

DY: Yeah I remember that. [To us] I like this, man--naked is my favorite way.

M: Well thanks a lot.

DY: Sure, that was painless. It was fun. That was a lot better than most. "What's yer influences?" Yeah, well why don't you suck my ass?

N: "How long have you been together?" "How did you meet Duane?"

DY: At the Kennel Club, we did an interview with Maximum Rocknroll and this stupid fucking girl said, "Where you guys from?" And I said, "Chicago." And she said, "Really? What city?" So I said, "Interview is over." It was Duane and I doing the interview and she and this guy were doing it, and he asked, "How many guy's in the band?" and I told him, "Oh, just the two of us, Duane and I." He said, "Really? How do you do all the drums and stuff live?" And I said, "It's just tapes." I don't expect people to do their homework and study up on us, but that's... pathetic.

N: That's pretty bad.

M: That's not specific to you guys, that's just offensive to all Americans.

DY: "Oh really? What city?" You're the dumbest person I ever met!

N: Haven't they interviewed you enough?

DY: Probably. As far as magazines like that go, I just don't care for Maximum Rocknroll. They put too much uninteresting stuff into too little space. Too much to read and no fun.

N: Yeah, it's got too many stupid letters about Nirvana and sellouts, whatever that's supposed to mean.

DY: Man, that bums me out when people think Nirvana soldout. I don't think they've changed anything, they haven't changed their values or their music in order to make more money. It's just that the average Joe has "sold-in".

M: That's a nice way of putting it!