SmartassRadio 48: Interview: Tim Millar of Protest the Hero
After what felt like three months without a post we’re back with a killer interview. To celebrate completing school my girl and I went on one of the most metal tears ever. My last day of class was 5/6/09 and I capped it with an extreme performance by GWAR at the Chance in Poughkeepsie then after a night of debauchery with Frank we were off to NYC. On Friday, we caugh the No Fear Energy Music Tour with Lamb of God, As I Lay Dying (who definitely deserve a new found respect from me), Children of Bodom (who only played three songs – Alexi “Avian Bone Syndrome” Laiho destroyed his shoulder and couldn’t perform) and God Forbid. On Sunday we were able to see Mastodon perform Crack the Skye at the Williamsburgh Theater in Brooklyn – if you have the opportunity, you have to go.
But Saturday is truly the important night right now. I had the opportunity to sit down with Protest the Hero guitarist Tim Millar and got a great interview. Tim was a great guy and the staff at the Blender Theater was one of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Being in the midst of the most metal weekend I’ve ever had, I didn’t have too much time to prepare so please bear with the interview as I stumble through the first few questions. Also worth noting is the fact that Roy coming to the interview wasn’t ever even an option, so I don’t know why I felt it necessary to say he “pussed out.” I’m a horrible friend. Below is the interview and a flash gallery. After the jump is another gallery if you have trouble with this one and a transcription of some of the highlights.
Lorraine took all the pictures, which you can see kick an insane amount of ass.
Live shows:
DJ: What are the crowds like at your shows?
TM: I know the people that like our music kinda come from… take something from it from all different genres so there’s not like a typical “Protest the Hero Fan.” For the most part, our music doesn’t cater to dancing or throwing down because it’s all over the place. So, there really hasn’t been any of that, which I like because I don’t really like seeing people getting punched out and stuff but there’s been like crowd surfing and people pushing each other around. For the most part people are pretty tame – by the time we get on they’re pretty worn out anyway so they just stand around and just look at us with weird looks.
On the next album:
DJ: What do you guys have on tap – are you working on songs on tour?
TM: No, we did a little bit of writing this year, but for the most part we’ve been touring so much. It’s like you get home and you don’t wanna see each other for a couple weeks. By the time we get back to practicing, we’re just like trying out a new set and everything’s tight to go on the road. But actually we’re taking the summer off and we’re gonna start writing again. So, hopefully, I don’t know how it’s gonna turn out but I think with each writing session we kind of have more, you know insight about what didn’t work and what worked and just kinda like take a different approach but try to focus on, you know, tightening the songs, making things full. That’s a big difference I’ve found between Kezia and Fortress. We knew what we fucked up and what was complicated and we tried to over-simplify things a little more, like look at the bigger picture and not just write the songs part to part to part.
His brutal beard:
DJ: Your beard is fucking great.
TM: Yeah I just shaved the moustache.
DJ: Probably a good choice.
TM: My mustache was a bit of a downfall I always thought, but I did eventually get a bit of the curls going, but it still wasn’t that thick… As far as I understand if you start waxing it, it’ll eventually start parting and kinda like learning to grow that way… I met this guy who had a really good handlebar mustache and he spent like, you know, an hour a day straightening it into a serious curl, but he said that the more you take time to do that, the more it will shape itself that way.
About a drunk girl at a show:
DJ: You mentioned before you had a particularly crazy story at the Houston show recently.
TM: Yeah, it was just a funny incident. You said before we’re a party band. I don’t know if we’re a party band, but we like to booze and get drunk… Sometimes I think people would take us as this, like, serious geeky band that just like can’t be separated from their instruments and is like trying to learn new things… We take a serious approach to songwriting… We don’t take touring or ourselves too seriously, we like to have a good time.
In Houston we played our set. It was a dirty, sweaty show as usual. But after the set, this girl came up to the stage and looked pretty upset and I was like, “Is there something wrong?” and she’s like, “Well, right before the show my fiance called it off.” I was like “Great, just throw this on me. Alright lemme pack my shit up and then we’ll go have a drink and you can tell me about it.”
DJ: Just somebody in the audience?
TM: Yeah, just some random, whatever. She’s like, “Yeah, we’ll drink some whiskey or something.” And that day we had got a big bottle of whiskey on the rider. So, I bring her upstairs and all the other guys are sitting around and I was like, “This lady has a story to tell. She had an unfortunate event happen today, but first you have to drink whiskey.” So she’s like drinking it back and then, like she started telling the story but wasn’t really getting to the point of it. So everyone was like, “What the fuck?”
DJ: She’s giving the whole history of the relationship…
TM: She’s going “I used to think there was something called true love… My boyfriend’s in a band and I’m the singer.” So eventually we got her singing, but she wasn’t singing any words she was just going (Tim does some silly ass singing) and she’s rubbing herself and getting all sexy and everyone’s laughing and it got out of control. She was the center of attention, people are spraying her with water and I felt bad. I was with a towel wiping her down. But, um, eventually – I don’t even know how to explain. Eventually, I was like standing here and she was grabbing me and was grinding me and biting my shirt. And all of a sudden she just blacked out and she fell over a table, hit her head and everyone’s looking around like, “Holy shit.” And so I picked her up and put her on a couch and she was just out. But she was breathing and looked like she was alright. Everyone’s just like, “What the fuck?” And we hear her phone ringing in her purse and it says “mom.” There was like eighteen missed calls, so we were like, “Oh my god…” I looked through her wallet – she was like 27, so it’s not like she’s a little girl. So our sound guy called her mom and was like “Look, are you at the show? She’s passed out, we’ll bring her out.”
So, three of us pick her up and carry her down through the venue and everyone’s just looking at each other like, “What the fuck?” George, our sound guy was holding her here, like around the waist, “She just pissed herself.” I was like, “No way, man.”
“Yes, it’s all over me.”
So, we got her outside and kinda put her in the recovery position and her mom came and was pissed and her dad came and just yanked her up.
DJ: God, imagine being like 27 and having to be like “Come get me ma, I’m sick.”
TM: Apparently it was a common incident. So, yeah that was the craziest.
