Interviewed by Brian Rademacher
Date: July 21st, 2006

How’s it going today?
It’s as hot as hell here in New York dude.

Tell me a little about the youth of Buckshot.
I was actually like a dork. I loved school and hanging out with my friends. I played the saxophone when I was ten years old. I hung out with all the burnouts because I listened to heavy metal with my friends. I never skipped school and I went to college in New York with an anthropology degree and music minor. I went to Pyramid Sound, worked for him for awhile, he produced Testament and Overkill. I moved to New York City and formed a band after that.

So were you in a garage band?
Yeah dude, I picked up the bass and started playing in high school. We called ourselves Torment. A bunch of buddies, who were in the marching band, and I got together to play heavy metal. We started jamming and six months later we got our first gig and we were doing Death Angel, Megadeth and Metallica covers and shit like that. It was fuckin’ great.

Do you play with a pick or finger?
I prefer pick because I’m lazy. Everyone gives me crap about it, but I’m playing rock n roll, not a lot of crazy stuff on it. So the pick is just perfect for me.

Do you remember the first record you ever listened to?
Absolutely dude, first album I ever listened to was AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.” My aunt got me stoned for the first time and she put the record on and said this is my favorite band. Ever since then I was hooked on rock ‘n roll and metal and AC/DC is my favorite band of all time.

How about the first concert you attended?
On my sixteenth birthday my parents took me to see the Moody Blues. That was amazing, and I said this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, man (laughing). A week later I went to see Manowar who was awesome and loud. All I said was “Yeaaah.”

What was the first subject matter that you stood up for?
I am really big on patriotism. I love my country and my flag. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my dad, my uncles… were military and fought for their country. I was the first guy who didn’t go to the military because I wanted to play rock ‘n roll. I stand up for that, I got their backs. I don’t like it when people burn my flag and I don’t like when people come in my country and don’t speak English. I don’t like it when the government tries to take my rights as an American. I don’t like that, so I always stand up for that and if anyone wants to give me shit about it I will fight to the death for that.

You said you got high with your aunt, were there other drugs you took?
I was a college guy- I would do anything: acid, mushrooms, coke, anything man. I just love taking drugs but now since I am getting older I realized how serious you have to be to play music in a rock ‘n roll band. Now I just smoke weed and drink beer dude.

Both the Dirty Rig CD’s had DVD’s included with the releases. Tell me about the first DVD?
I am a big stickler man, I mean when you buy something especially today with the entire internet and illegal downloads and all that crap. I think bands should give something extra to the fans that are special to the package. On both DVD’s we gave them some live shows that came out really good, we did a five camera shoot. We spend some money to make it really nice for the fans. If we put out two separate products it would cost you, now for twelve or fifteen bucks you can say “Fuck yeah I get the DVD and the CD together.” If you’ve never seen Dirty Rig live, and you picked up the CD because you heard us on the radio or just for curiosity, you go home and crack open a beer. Throw that fucker in the DVD player and you’ll say, “Yeah man, this is fuckin’ awesome!”

The two songs I really like on the new “Rock Did It” CD are “Dogs” and “Cities”. You did a video for the song “Dogs:” tell me about that.
We wanted to catch our personalities, so we actually went to bars and drank. So we went to the local biker bar and had some of those dudes come with their bikes, having some girls dancing on the bar, kind of like an old school Motley Crue vibe to it.

Tell me a little about the song “Cities,” which was my favorite track. That was the only slow melodic song on the CD. Did you think about adding another track like that?
When we were writing the record, I was not too happy with that song at first. We already had the next record done and I was not sure if I wanted to hold that song, but I said “Fuck it” and put it on this record. It has grown on me so much now that I wished we did do another melodic song like that now on this record. The next record will have another one like that.

Will the European release have a bonus track or anything different from the US release?
We did have a bonus track and a different cover over in Europe and Japan but they said they don’t want the DVD, just the bonus track, so the US release has the DVD when the foreign release has the bonus track.

That is a great picture on the disc itself of the buck sticking it to the doe. Who came up with that?
[Laughing] That’s awesome dude. We had that logo since the beginning of the band. We think its hilarious dude. So we keep it around.

Do a lot of people ask about that?
A lot of people hated it man. We made T-shirts up of that and we couldn’t even give them away they said it was disgusting. It’s not rude, we’re a rock ‘n roll band man, come on now. So I said I’m going to put it on the CD discreetly (keeps laughing). Did you laugh when you saw that?

I noticed it right away. I thought it was funny.
Me too, I like naughty humor man. Thank you man.

How did you hook up with Escapi Records?
Our manager works with a band called Trouble, they’re fucking awesome. So he took care of that and the owner of the record company loved Dirty Rig and signed us pretty quick.

In September you’re headed for Europe. How many dates are you playing there, and will you be headlining the shows?
I can’t fucking wait. We are just ready to rock out over there. I am pretty sure we are playing dates with our label mates Tokyo Dragons. We are playing London, Germany and France and many more to come.

Are you playing dates in the states?
We are actually playing in Jersey on September 1st at Dingbatz which is a great room. I love it; Sue and Freddy over there are great to us, that’s our New Jersey home.

If you donated money to a cause right now what cause would that be and why?
Probably something with environmental issues… I think they should be addressed.

Buckshot, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to us with your new release just breaking the ice. Would you like to say anything in conclusion?
Yeah man, I just wanted to thank you for fucking supporting rock ‘n roll. It’s good to see people out there that have the passion for rock ‘n roll like I do. People who do college radio, webzines, fanzines and magazines - I raise my fist every night and say “Fuck yeah” to you because you’re all real dude. I wave the flag to you guys. Thanks!