Type 3 Media: What's happening with Supagroup?

Chris Lee: We just got back from Spain. Did a tour there, but it was more like a vacation. I got a tan. We're about to start doing a bunch of radio tour dates to support the single "Jailbait." I figure we'll be doing a proper tour by the end of August or early September.

T3M: When is the album release due for Fire For Hire?

CL: The album is coming out in August.

T3M: You guys have been playing together for several years; how did this group come together?

CL: My brother and I have been playing together for a long time. When we first started it was a lot different. I played bass and we were a trio. We had another drummer, and we were in Alaska. We heavily influenced by Nirvana. At some point we decided that we weren't going to try to do stuff that everyone else was doing. We were going to try to make music that we wished was on the radio but we didn't hear anymore. Things like our favorite bands like Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Van Halen. It's pretty simple; guitar driven rock with solos. Once we decided to do that we realized we needed two guitar players.

By this time we're in New Orleans, so I switched to guitar. This is ancient history now so it's hard to remember what happened. We got a drummer and a bass player. We had to fire the bass player due to a drug problem. Leif was a guy who always came to our shows and was a friend. He played in another local band. He was the drummer... a terrible, terrible drummer. He always used to say "if you ever get rid of that bass player, you should hire me." So when we fired him, we tried out a bunch of guys, and he ended up being the guy we picked, mostly because we liked him.

Later we had a falling out with our drummer. Brueggen was one of my drinking buddies. He was in a band that I helped him get into. They happened to fall apart at the same time as our drummer had to go. When I asked him to be in the band he was like "but we're friends, I don't want to ruin the friendship". We had to woo him to join the band. Until Benji was like "I'm sick of this bullshit, bring your drums over and let's start playing." That's how he joined the band.

T3M: Prior to getting the band complete, you mentioned that you made a transition from Alaska to New Orleans; how long ago did you make that move?

CL: In 1998.

T3M: What made you pick New Orleans?

CL: I moved there from Alaska to go to college. When Benji got out of school, he moved down, and that's when the band started.

T3M: Was there anything about New Orleans that shocked you?

CL: It's a bit warmer than Anchorage. It's a pretty lawless town. If you don't fuck with people there you can kind of get away with whatever you want. You can drink on the street and you can smoke indoors. I like that. It's pretty free. I can't say it any other way than you can get away with a lot there. (laughs) Not a lot of people looking over your shoulder.

T3M: How'd you make out during the hurricane?

CL: Compared to most we did great. All of us had major damage to our houses. We couldn't go home for a few months. We were in the middle of a record cycle so we would come home, work frantically on our houses for whatever amount of time we had, then go right back out on the road, and worry about all the looting, shooting, and everything going on at home... girlfriends and family. It was like that for eighteen months. It was like living in Deadwood. Now it's sort of stabilizing, but the crime has gotten worse than ever. So it's still a pretty tough place to live.

 
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| 07.01.2008 | Interview by J. Pierson |