When You’re Not Excited, You’re Not a Fan: An Interview with Nardwuar the Human Serviette

Popshifter: When I was right out of college a friend found Redd Kross’ Third Eye in a bargain bin and freaked out over it. Now I had heard Redd Kross on college radio before but I was never really into them. But this was now 1993 and I went crazy for them. Everything they mentioned—their influences, the bands they played with—that’s how I started getting into, not only their contemporaries, but other older bands that I had heard of but never really gotten into. So pretty much for me, everything connects back to Redd Kross.

Nardwuar and former Canadian
Prime Minister, Jean Chretien
Image from Nardwuar’s Gallery

I know you’ve mentioned them, like when you interviewed Jason Lee you talked about the video for “Jimmy’s Fantasy.” Why is it that you’ve never interviewed them?

Nardwuar: I’ve actually interviewed them twice but it’s not on the website.

Popshifter: Oh really?!?!

Nardwuar: Yeah, it’s just hard to put twenty years of interviews up on the site! I interviewed them over the phone, I think it was around the Third Eye period. And then later, I think it was when they were touring with Stone Temple Pearl Jam—

Popshifter: Oh god!

Nardwuar: What was interesting was that right after that Stone Temple Pearl Jam started sounding like Redd Kross.

Popshifter: (cracking up) Yeah, you noticed that?

Nardwuar: So I’ve actually talked to them twice. And they too, have influenced me. Because in one of their interviews they mentioned a Canadian band called The Naugahyde Five. They had a couple of girls in the band and one of them later dated this guy from The Leather Uppers. Yes, Greg from The Leather Uppers. And that got me excited when I heard about The Leather Uppers because of that connection.

Popshifter: I try to play the Six Degrees of Redd Kross Separation game. They’ve done so many things and for so many years. Speaking of Redd Kross, there is somebody else I feel I must ask you about and that is Bill Bartell aka Pat Fear from White Flag. You mentioned him in your interview with Sean Lennon because there’s some connection with him and Yoko Ono. I can’t even remember what the connection is, but as soon as you said it, I remembered that there was one.

Bill to me, is another person who is, in a way, a lot like you: he’s involved in music, he’s been in bands, he’s done a lot of music writing like for Flipside and he pretty much knows everyone and everything about the Los Angeles punk scene, including Seattle bands as well, and he’s a huge fan who’s managed to bring a lot of music to the awareness of people. Like Os Mutantes is a good example, and Shonen Knife and so on and so forth. Have you ever met Bill Bartell?

Nardwuar: My connection to him is two fold. The first one is to Ronnie [Barnett] of The Muffs. Ronnie used to be married to Lisa Marr of the rock and roll band Cub. And Lisa Marr played bass in The Evaporators for a little while.

Popshifter: Oh, now I didn’t know that!

Ugly Things Issue 19
with Kim Fowley

Nardwuar: And oftentimes when I’m doing an interview I think of Ronnie and I give him a call. And he’ll say, “Well, I’ll ask Bill Bartell!” Or, “Bill Bartell hung out with Yoko Ono” or “Bill Bartell says that Gene Simmons of KISS has a giant warehouse filled with Fresca.”

Popshifter: (cracking up)

Nardwuar: And I’m like, that’s amazing! So I asked that to Gene and Gene actually did verify that he has a warehouse full of Fresca.

Popshifter: (still cracking up) That’s hilarious!

Nardwuar: Another thing is that on the Welcome To My Castle DVD there is an encounter with Courtney Love—

Popshifter: Yes! From 1995.

Nardwuar: And if you look closely—

Popshifter: He’s in the background with Drew Barrymore.

Nardwuar: Yes, it’s like the story of his life! He’s always there. But not only is he in the background, he’s like hugging Drew Barrymore.

Popshifter: You should absolutely meet him if you get the chance. Bill’s really cool. He’s extremely enthusiastic but so am I, so you can’t fault him for that!

I also wanted to ask: do you have any favorite current music magazines? Other than the ones you contribute to, are there any that you think are keeping that DIY, independent journalism alive?

Nardwuar: My favorite is Ugly Things.

Popshifter: Oh, they had a really good interview with Kim Fowley!

Click to read more from Nardwuar on. . .

Inspirations and approaches to interviews
Music journalists and the early days
Can Rock and Chris Murphy of Sloan
Beck (Hansen) and Bach (Sebastian)
Digging into history and school dances
Redd Kross and Bill Bartell
Nardwuar’s fave fanzines, part one
Nardwuar’s fave fanzines, part two

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