On June 7, 2002 I had the privilege to talk to the hilarious band, Home Grown. Their new album, Kings of Pop, comes out June 25, 2002 on Drive-Thru Records. You can to www.drivethrurecords.com to view the Homegrown e-card with all the songs from the new album on it. After listening to the new songs the band played at the show, I'm sure it'll be a killer album.

Matt: First I would just like to say what you guys did in Virginia, where you played outside because the venue was making kids under 21 pay twice as much for tickets as those over 21, that was so cool of you guys for doing that, and it boosted my respect a lot.
Johnee: I even told the guy to fuck off.
Home Gronw (picture courtesy of www.homegrownonline.com)
Matt: The manager of the club?
Johnee: Yeah, he got in my face.
Adam: We parked our cars right in front of his business too.
Matt: He deserved it, that’s so messed up to do that.
Johnee: And its 10 bucks to 20 bucks!
Adam: I would pay 20 dollars for Brittany Spears, but not for Home Grown.

Matt: You guys have a new CD coming out, Kings of Pop. What can your fans expect from the new CD?
Johnee: 12 songs. 45 minutes of music.
(Laughter)
Matt: What’s the style of music, old stuff, recent stuff, or does it have a new style?
Adam: It’s a little different.
Johnee: Its kinda like, Bad News Blair meets Suffer and Lesser Regrets.
Adam: It’s a little bit darker, I guess. Not darker in the sense of artsy emo, it's still pop, but with just a more mature edge.

Matt: You guys have been doing a lot of touring with Millencolin, and Reel Big Fish, do you guys ever get tour sick, or home sick?
Adam and Johnee: Oh yeah.
Matt: Do you guys like to tour?
Adam: Touring is cool, its just, you appreciate it every day because not everyone gets to do it. It’s a little after a month you just get….., you know.
Matt: And probably get sick of eachother.
Johnee: Oh yeah, we don’t like each other at all.
Adam: It's strictly a business thing.
Johnee: We're not really friends, just partners.

Matt: You guys are doing Warped Tour this year right?
Adam: yeah.
Matt: Have you done Warped Tour before?
Johnee: We did it, the summer of… 1998. For two weeks, the worst fuckin' two weeks of our lives.
Matt: Why is that?
Johnee: We had a van, we didn’t have a tour bus, so we had to drive over night and everything, it sucked.
Matt: Are you anxious for this year's Warped Tour?
Johnee: Oh yeah, we got a bus!
Matt: (Pointing over to the small van they came out of) So is this like your small venue touring van?
Adam: Yeah it’s pretty pleasant in there. We got a TV in there, DVD player, Playstation.
Justin (friend of the interviewer): See I told you they had Playstation in there!
Garrett (friend of the interviewer): Yeah we thought you had porno.
Adam: Well that too.
Matt: Home grown porno.
(Laughter)
Adam: Yeah we watch ourselves. Good work their Johnee!
Home Gronw (picture courtesy of www.homegrownonline.com)Matt: A lot of your songs are based around girls, do you guys have a lot of girlfriends, do you write songs about them or for them?
Johnee: We just like writing about bitches man. All about bitches and money.
Adam: See, you have to have a lot of respect for hoes. But we talk about bitches and hoes in the most respectful way though.
Matt: What makes you the maddest about girls?
Johnee: Everything.
Adam: Unnecessary drama.
(Laughter)
Adam: That sums it up right there.
Johnee: That’s why you just gotta fuck 'em and leave 'em dawg.
Justin: That’s why you tour!
Johnee: Just fuck them and go to the next spot, and start all over. We're the post politically incorrect band you could ever see.

Matt: You guys have been though a lot of record labels, throughout all your CDs, what finally drove you to Drive-Thru?
Johnee: Seeing how their bands do really well. We’re also friends with the CEOs.
Adam: They do a really good job with their bands. When they first heard our new demos, they just said lets do it, and that’s nice that they are supportive of you.

(Darren the drummer walks up.)
Darren: Hi I'm Darren, I'm late for the interview.

Matt: You are playing the Drive-Thru stage at Warped Tour, do you wish you were playing the main stage, or does it really matter?
Johnee: Nah, were just glad we have a bus.
Darren: They actually wanted us to play the main stage, but were like nah…
Johnee: We actually bitched about playing the main stage. We’re like, we want to keep it true to our underground roots and not play the main stage.
(Laughter)
Adam: No the Drive-Thru stage is actually really cool, it’s the first label to have a stage to be a part of the Warped Tour and that is pretty awesome.
Matt: So you get to play with other bands like Yellowcard and Finch, do you get to meet other bands on your label?
Adam: We just did a west coast tour with Yellowcard. And we also did some dates with Finch.
Matt: Yeah we went to that show, at Canes, with Yellowcard and Finch. Why didn’t you play at Canes, why did yo decide to play at the Epicentre this time?
Johnee: We wanted a change of venue. We can't play the same place every time, because there are a lot of kids around here that want to see us.
Darren: Because we like Canes a lot too.
Adam: Yeah it's nice and right by the beach.
Alex (friend of the interviewer): We heard from some friends of ours that the guys at Canes are assholes.
Matt: Yeah at Battle of the Bands, with a bunch of local bands, they treated them horribly.
Adam: Yeah but with a bunch of shitty little bands playing a show I would too. They got dance club afterwards you gotta get those bands out. Yeah Canes is cool, they treated us great.
Johnee: Its also depends too, like if its an all white band.
Adam: Yeah we add a little Asian love.

Garrett (to Adam): Dude, what’s with the ponytail?
Adam: First off, it isn’t a ponytail. It’s long enough now to be a rat-tail. You know how people brought back mullets, that’s out, I am bringing back the rat-tail. We just screw around, grow mustaches and beards.
Darren: We had a mustache contest, and no of us gave in to shave it, so we had the full rapiers.
Johnee: I worked at a clothing store full of all girls, and they love it, they were into it. They are stroking it, why do you think I am growing it back now?
Adam: It's nice to have a worthless job, you can do whatever you want.
Darren: Except when you go to the mall, and you see all your friends, and they don’t know about the contest so they don’t know what’s going on.
Johnee: A lot of girls hang out at the mall man.
Adam: But see we have to call ahead to the mall, so we get a police escort and everything.

Matt: Aren’t you guys selling CDs with a couple new songs at your shows?
Adam: We are but we’re sold out right now
Johnee: We sold out last night.
Darren: I would just like to say we tore it up last night at the House of Blues.
Adam: That was such a good show.
Johnee: So we’re all tired, and you guys will probably get a shitty show. You get leftovers.
(Laughter)
Justin (friend of the interviewer): We get sloppy seconds.
Johnee: Nothing wrong with sloppy seconds, you're still getting some, you know what I’m saying.

Garrett: What band do you enjoy touring with the most?
Adam: All of them, every single one.
Matt: That’s the cool part about Warped Tour, you get to meet and play with so many bands.
Adam: Yeah but with small venue tours it's more personal, but Warped is still cool.
Darren: It's still personal, because we all eat lunch together, so when I sat down Bad Religion came down and sat all around me. I was amazed, because those were my heroes growing up.
Johnee: You know I think I am going to keep my mustache this whole Warped Tour. I’m going to be that Asian guy with the mustache.

After Home Grown finished answering my questions, Adam and a roadie put on boxing gloves and helmets and went at it. The roadie won after connecting once with a right into Adam’s face. Johnee and Darren and the rest of the people around were laughing too hard to help him out, but Adam survived and played a great show that night.

http://www.homegrownonline.com
http://www.drivethrurecords.com

Home Grown interview conducted 6-7-02 by Matt Pierce and friends.
Pictures courtesy of http://www.homegrownonline.com.

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