It’s White Flag’s World, We Just Live In It: An Interview With Pat Fear

Pat Fear: You know we’re only up to year three of the band’s existence!

Popshifter: (laughs) You had said earlier about your sister bringing Os Mutantes to you. . .

Pat Fear: Which was a complete mind blower, let me tell you!

Popshifter: I didn’t know about Os Mutantes until I got the Tater Totz albums [a collection of members of White Flag, Redd Kross, plus Pat Smear, Michael Quercio, and others who released albums of off-the-wall covers in the mid-to-late 1980s including some by Os Mutantes].

Pat Fear: That’s where 99.9% of all people heard about them first in America. The other one percent heard about them from me, when I gave out cassettes of them, starting from when I was seven years old when I first got the record.

Popshifter: What does it feel like to read things about Beck or David Byrne getting the credit for spreading the word about the band?

Pat Fear: David Byrne infuriates me, but Beck was respectful. He and Kurt [Cobain] were two of the highest profile people in the alternate music universe, and Sonic Youth, too. I still have the postcard Thurston [Moore] wrote me when I gave him the Os Mutantes tape. “I cannot believe this tape!” And Sean Lennon was like, “Oh my god, this is insane!”

And then Sean ended up playing with Arnaldo [Baptista, one of the original Os Mutantes members] and doing the cover for the Tecnicolor album [originally recorded in 1971, but not released until 2000].

As long as the band got press and got popular. . . the new Os Mutantes record is dedicated to me, so I think I’ve been vindicated.

Popshifter: Aw, that’s really nice.

Pat Fear: Even more frightening, is when they were getting back together, Sérgio [Dias, another original member] asked me if I wanted to be in the band.

Popshifter: (laughing) “Even more frightening!”

Pat Fear: I said, “No, I can’t handle that responsibility.” And it wouldn’t be authentic, if you can’t get Liminha, the bass player back and Arnaldo on keyboards, you need to get somebody from Brazil. It can’t be me in there.

It was a very hard thing to do, but I think it gives me a little bit more credibility.

Popshifter: (laughs)

Pat Fear: Being in Os Mutantes. . . it would’ve been a long commute for me, personally.

Popshifter: (laughing) Yeah!

Pat Fear: But I did get to play with them on stage for “Bat Macumba” [from their self-titled debut and later covered by Tater Totz on Alien Sleestaks From Brazil in 1987] right around my birthday last year which was a big thrill.

I wrote songs with them, none that they actually recorded. . . although that’s not true.

You’re going to be the first one to break this—

Popshifter: Ooh!

Click to read more from Pat Fear on. . .

Dr. Demento & The Ramones
Causing trouble
The Malcolm McLaren Handbook
Battle of the Bands
White Flag Goes to Greenland
Those missing 22 copies. . .
Os Mutantes
The Shaggs
Motel Spaghetti
Gasatanka

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