Italian Version

THE MUGSHOTS
Monday 22nd August 2011
Brescia (Italy)

Mickey Evil: Vocal, Keyboards
MacFly: Guitar
Gyorg II: Drums
Erik Stayn: Keyboards
Eye-Van: Bass

1. Nice to meet you in your homeland in Brescia in Italy. You are The Mugshots, why have you chosen this name for your band ?



First of all we have to say that we are so happy to be on rock-interviews.com because it's an amazing site, we are so happy and proud to share a space with many amazing bands that we love and inspired us, The Stranglers for example. We chose the name of The Mugshots, I chose the name back in 2001 when I started this band, The Mugshots when I was in a small YMCA hostel room in New York City in Manhattan. I was looking at John Wayne Gacy's mug shot, who was the killer clown, the serial killer from Springfield near Chicago and I thought that The Mugshots could perfectly fit for our musical style.



2. You are 5 musicians, what kind of music do you play ?



We like to call this genre, this kind of music, Elitarian Undead Rock which means nothing and everything to us, and you know Elitarian because it's like for an elite, for a few people because nobody likes to listen to this music nowadays not this much as in the 70's, back in the 70's. Undead because it's a dead kind of music, it rose from its own grave it's alive once again and it's of course rock. Elitarian Undead Rock is an acronym : EUR which is Europe our homeland, Jean-Jacques Burnel will be so proud about this.




3. What are your musical influences ?



There are many musical influences in the Mugshots and I started this band because I wanted to play a sound like the Stranglers and also we have some influences by Alice Cooper, for the performances and then later on we started to introduce some new influences such as Joy Division, Killing Joke and especially The Lords of the New Church and The Damned, especially for the use of the vocals and the keyboards, I don't know how to call our kind of music but I think it could have fitted quite cool in the end of the seventies and beginning of the eighties in the post-punk scene and with some gothic flavour, performances and stuff, music, performances and killer, serial killer lyrics but no only this.




4. How did you meet ?



I am the original founding member, the original survivor member, all the other guys are alive and in a musical way I am the sole survivor, as John Wetton would say, I mean with these guys, I used to have a band many years ago before The Mugshots with these 2 guys MacFly on guitar and Eye-Van on bass and we used to play Genesis, Peter Gabriel, songs.

Mickey is singing the song of Genesis : Dancing with the Moonlit Knight : Can you tell me where my country lies?
and we did some covers but we never get out of the rehearsal room !

Mickey : Do you want to say something Eye-Van ?

Eyve-Van : No.

Mickey : It's good to remember. Then these 2 guys. This is the oldest member after me in The Mugshots, since 2005, he was introduced by a common friend for our former drummer, he is Erik Stayn on keyboards, he used to play in a Alice Cooper cover band so it's cool that he plays with us and Gyorg II on Drums, the newest guy, also the youngest guy and we met him here when we are rehearsing thanks to a good old friend Walter Fatevil, he is a nice guy and an amazing drummer from brescia. This is Gyorg II because our first drummer was named Gyorg I, it's like the popes !



5. You have been playing for 10 years and your 10th Anniversary was in June with special guests ?



Yes this is the flyer from our 10th Anniversary and it was meant to be with TV Smith from The Adverts and Jean-Jacques Burnel from The Stranglers. Unfortunately Jean-Jacques Burnel couldn't come for personal reasons and he was perfectly replaced by mighty Baz Warne from The Stranglers and we had fun, nights and days and we went to the lake and we played together. They did two amazing acoustic sets and then they played with us some Adverts and Stranglers songs together. There were many people and everyone loved the two guys because they are amazing, so kind and incredible musicians and we were so lucky and so honoured to host them because they are an amazing influence to us for example I mean TV Smith I used to listen to The Adverts when I was fourteen years old, now I am 34 so like 20 years ago I was drooling for TV Smith music and he came to our Anniversary and we also did a cover on our latest LP and also Baz Warne who is an amazing musician and a very good guy but you already know him, and also the people can watch Baz Warne on rock-interviews.com and Jean-Jacques Burnel too.



6. Your band is different from the others because, on stage you do a theatrical show, you put on some make up.



Even when it's so hot and the make up melt down on our faces. I am a huge fanatic quite mental, actually for King Diamond from Denmark now Dallas in Texas. He inspired me so much with the look, and also of course Alice Cooper. I had the luck to meet them both and on our website mugshots.it you can see pictures with me and King Diamond and Alice Cooper and I was so trembling because they are my masters and I like to quote a sentence by Alice Cooper, some people don't need makeup on stage but I do, and this is exactly what I think about The Mugshots, we do need the makeup for the music and for the effect on the audience. In Italy it's quite different and difficult also because people are very superstitious, you know they also think about us as grave robbers, this stuff, bad luck, bullshit like this, while I think in France, Germany, Northen Europe it's so different. Not in France ?

AM : In France it is also a bit like Italy, catholic people, you know...

Mickey : But I think it's not this, a good friend from us Father Klod because he is the priest in our show, he performs the priest in our show, he said that we are a comic band, like a band for comics and we have been painted as a comic but we can talk about this later.




7. How many albums have you released ?



We self-released a mini CD back in 2004 named the Doctor is Out, with a complete different line up, then in 2005 a full length album House Of The Weirdos followed the next year by Weird Theater, and we are the two survivor members from these two albums, House Of The Weirdos and Weird Theater, and we decided to re-released them in 2009 on one CD for a special price you've got two albums on one CD and in 2010 with the precious help from our management, Gun Club Management from Trento, Italy, we released a LP, it's a vinyl, a red vinyl which is called In Disguise. It's inspired by Zodiac, the serial killer who never get caught by the police and used to send the clues to the police and said okay, I challenge you, go catch me, and also there is an amazing movie with Robert Downey Jr, Zodiac you have to see it and we put as Alice Cooper used to do something extra it's a comic with the lyrics of the album, the song and the representation of what happens to this serial killer. Thanks to our Gun Club Management and Alka Records label from Ferrare, we also released the CD. It's available thanks to Alka Records on all the records webstores, you know them, I don't have to tell, there are many.




8. What are the themes developed in your songs ?



At the beginning it was entirely based on real life, true crime stories of serial killers. We were inspired by a band from Chicago, death metal band called Macabre and each song was about a serial killer, then I started to write something else, also personal experiences like for example there is this song, Pissed in Hell, on House of the Weirdos which spoke about the death of a good friend of mine in a comic way, he would have liked this, when he was speaking about his death, then with the second album Weird Theater, we tried to do something more horror related, horror movies such as, big influences from italian horror movies such as Lucio Fulci who is an amazing director from the 60's and the 70's, The Beyond, an amazing movie and now we try to talk about serial killers once again and also with a small tongue in cheek attitude, we're not that serious, we are very tongue in cheek.




9. What are you wishes for the future ?



Personally speaking I fulfilled a lot of dreams with this band, even if I can't live off music for now, but for example I started this band as a homage to The Stranglers and we played with them, we supported them, we have an amazing relationship with The Stranglers, with Jean-Jacques Burnel, Baz Warne especially and this is a true honour. We played with TV Smith, we played with The Damned, we played with Brian James and Dave Tregunna from the Lords of the New Church, and we played with The Lords Of Altamont and Koffin Kats, a lot of bands, UK Subs. Also another amazing experience will take place in September for me it means a lot because we will play at a party thrown by mayfair which is an amazing progressive dark rock, metal psychedelic band from Austria you have to check them out Mayfair the Facebook is Mayfair Reunion. I used to listen to Mayfair when I was eighteen with my friends we went to the forest at night, smoking joints with this music and now they are inviting us in their hometown to play and it's amazing for me.

AM : So that's it guys, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you because you drove 6 hours to come here in Brescia to melt yourself with this hot climate, thank you so much, rock-interviews, and now you can follow us to listen to some sounds because we are going to rehearse something now.



The Mugshots Rehearsal session - 1
The Mugshots Rehearsal session - 2