J.V. Bastard and I crossed paths after he emailed me about our new Flesh Farm shirts. I soon discovered that J.V. is currently the bass player for Michale Graves, former singer of The Misfits, and a huge fan of The Flesh Farm. J.V. and I planned to meet up at their show in St. Paul, Minnesota for an interview and to slam back a few beers. Unfortunately, this was not to be.           I called J.V. to make sure our interview was still on but instead of getting a confirmation, J.V. informed me the show was canceled and we'd have to reschedule. So instead, we chatted for awhile about horror, The Flesh Farm and their tour bus from Hell.           Go see J.V. on tour sometime and tell him The Flesh Farm sent you.

          Before we get into the horror chat, what exactly happened with the tour?

          - Well it seems as if  every time we leave New Jersey we experience some sort of small to mid sized tragedy. Either we have mechanical problems, our gear gets stolen, we sleep over puddles of gasoline, and Michale sets the bus ablaze, or we're being followed by a ninja who will not rest until we have failed. I'm pretty sure we ditched The Ninja about two tours ago but who knows. On this last run our vehicle sustained a tremendous amount of damage we blew out 3 tires, cracked our gas tank, lost the septic tank and windshield wipers. Our driver's side window got stuck in the down position, the air conditioner and generator crapped out ,and to top it all off after Michale and I drove about 13 hours (that I was awake for) through the Rocky Mountains through what would be considered a blizzard in New Jersey, with our destination in the horizon, our transmission blew and we were stuck in North Carolina. Which resulted in us having to cancel the final week of our tour. Michale spent a week with the RV in Fargo, ND while the transmission was being rebuilt, and the rest of the band had the pleasure of spending two days on a Greyhound :). Basically our RV has ticked its last few tocks, and ran us completely broke. The morning we were to leave for the make up dates the thing was in no position to perform. Being an independent act were at the mercy of our bank accounts, and being an independent act, our bank accounts aren't very large.

          That just fucking sucks man, set that shit on fire. So tell us how you got hooked into the Michale Graves gig.

          - I met up with Michale through my friend "Loki" ,who had been a guitar tech for Michale's "Graves" project right after his departure from "The Misfits". I guess Michale wasn't happy with the guys he had in the band and after about a year Michale ended the "Graves" era. Afterwards, Michale kept in contact with Loki (whom I lived with) and Michale began frequenting my home. One thing lead to another and 2 weeks later Michale, Loki, and I were in a studio trying out drummers. The band under the assumed name "Graves" quickly evolved into what would become "Gotham Road", having a dark and heavy sound that was completely detached from Michale's days as a Misfit. We played hundreds of shows in the states for about 3 years, and were what I would call very successful for an unsigned act. Then Michale was approached with the opportunity to do a solo record through a new indie label known as "Horror High" as a return to the more traditional "Horror Rock/Misfits" sound that put him on the map. When it came to touring the record(s) Michale asked me to join him once again. Its been about 5 years now.....FUCK!

          Any other projects in the works with music, film, ect.?

          - Film, no unfortunately, It's definitely a medium I'd like to explore. As far as music I have a number of tricks up my sleeve, I just haven't quite decided which one to pull out yet. I feel very good about something just coming together naturally. I don't want to really rush into anything I'm not sure of, and I don't really feel the pressure of time. I just left my old band (Mister Monster) which I was writing material for, so I have a good head start. I'm surrounded by a lot of talent and have a lot of very different ideas . I'm very excited, very confident and very patient.

          So.. it's obvious from our conversation on the phone and photographs I've seen, you're a true fan of horror cinema. How did you become interested in the genre?

          - Well to be honest, I was never much of a movie buff when I was younger, I was a horror movie buff.  They were really the only type of movies that I was remotely interested in, mainly because I had a pesky little sister who had a knack for driving me crazy and was, and is to this day, terrified of even the lamest of horror. I found it as a great way to antagonize her, and it still is. For some reason in my life I've noticed the theme of searching for extremes, Like the first time I saw "It", I was terrified, but wanted it worse, and worse, and worse, and worse. So I would walk across the street to my extremely local video store and just look for whatever had an appealing cover. Granted I was about 11 years old, my knowledge of music and horror movies for some reason earned the respect of one of the clerks at the store, who would then rent me R rated movies for free and give me mix tapes of all the equally extreme music I was looking for as well. I wound up spending about 2 years in that store, I had no friends except for the twenty something year old video store clerks. I can honestly say if it wasn't for the music and movies that I was exposed to, I definitely wouldn't be who or where I am right now.

          What have been some of your favorite horror films?

          - Wow .....Brain Dead, Pet Semetary, Return Of The Living Dead, The Exorcist, Candyman, It, Dawn Of The Dead, Nightmare On Elm St. 4, Monster Squad, Ichi The Killer, Evil Dead 2, Child's Play, The Gate, Battle Royal, Sleepaway Camp, Creepshow, The Howling.............. I'm an 80's kid.

          Fantastic choices! So on tour, do you have the space to bring a small collection of horror? If so, give us some of your travel goodies.

          - Well If I didn't have it, I'd make it, our tours usually provide a healthy share of real life horror but, I bring a book of about 65 movies with me, mostly the classics because we screen movies behind us live when the opportunity arises, lately I've been into a lot of Asian films so the guys ain't too into reading all the subtitles, but I finally got one of those portable DVD players which I'm stoaked to bring out with me next round.

          When you hear the word "Mondo"... what it the first image or scene that comes to mind?

          - The guy who I worked with at Tower Records who told me to buy the "Mondo Cane Collection" box set the day it came into the store cause it was rare and he had never seen it so cheap, that I never bought or seen like the asshole that I am. ::Kicking Myself::

          To tell you the truth, Mondo Cane isn't all that it's hyped up to be. I purchased the DVD collection and was unimpressed. It has history as being the first ground breaking mondo film, but it's extremely watered down compared to todays mondo. I've noticed your a fan of one of my favorites, Faces of Death. Do you have a strong interest in mondo film as well? If so, which collection is your favorite?

          - Well like I said I've been told of a few of the films, which I've been told make Faces Of Death look like an after school special, It's actually a sensitive subject, If I had a dime for every time someone asked me if I saw "African Addio", Or "Goodbye Uncle Tom", I'd be rich.

          Here on The Flesh Farm, we tend to get hate mail from religious organizations, claiming we are "poisoning today's youth." What are your thoughts on these assholes and their claims?

          - Well to me if there weren't assholes like that, assholes like myself would cease to exist. I like to see people cringe, I like to see people have to look away from the screen at the best parts of a movie! I find your web site to be Highly explicit, overly violent, and with out a doubt offensive to the average Joe. Hell if it wasn't I would have disregarded it with all the other shitty web sites on the net. Both fortunately and unfortunately good horror is still some what underground, I wouldn't expect little Timmy to stumble upon The Flesh Farm, and if he does... good for Timmy. If I was a parent and my kids were watching Seinfeld strap a lawn mower to his chest and landscape George ,Elaine and Kramer at seven o clock on basic cable, maybe I would see a reason to write some hate mail, but if little Timmy is Googling for gore ,and stumbles upon The Flesh Farm he's just as fucked up as we are, and that ain't your problem.

          I would imagine your band has run into similar situations, with morons claiming your music is destroying the fabric of today's youth. Does this happen often? Any stories?

          - Oh shit yeah, we were Satans soldiers in The Bible Belt. Our last tour we did was in support of the West Memphis Three, who are three young men (one of which sits on death row) from Arkansas who were wrongly accused of the "Satanic" murder of three young boys, in a court of law that accepted black clothing, Metallica lyrics, and a knack for Steven King novels as evidence, so all in all we were supporting "convicted child killers"... As you could imagine, that doesn't go over too well in some cities, we've had shows canceled ,venues changed, been contacted by organizations of mothers of murdered children, It gets fuckin' scary, people act as if we had murdered the three little boys.

          Yeah, I personally enjoy seeing people get overly offended. It seems as though just because their imaginary "pixie in the sky" said you were bad, in his best selling fictional novel, that it gives them the right to get all pissed off and rain on your parade.
 

          With that being said, how do you feel about the "horror films" and "horror film remakes" they're churning out? I, personally, can't stand these shitty-ass remakes. I find it offensive that they would assume such crap would fly with the loyal horror fans. Your thoughts?

          - I think they are few and far between, and I try to keep an open mind about them. I don't think Hollywood cares as much to cater to the gore hounds as they do to the general media, and the remake thing travels past the horror genre. There is an insane lack of creativity in the entertainment industry right now. We all know the basic plot of any new horror movie and what movie they ripped it from in the first half hour of any "original horror film". On one hand I understand, if it ain't broke don't fix it, but if your gonna put out the same movie over and over again, with different celebs, they might as well just remake the ones your trying to rip off. I look for the best in these remakes, I love the Dawn Of The Dead remake almost as much as the original (Crazy I know). I can respect them both for their own reasons, where the original was obviously so much eerier, the remake is more violent. Then there's "The Hills Have Eyes" which is a movie I didn't care to much for to begin with, that I'm still not so crazy about it but, it's much more visually pleasing to me in the remake. I'm not 100% opposed to the whole CGI thing, if used sparingly,and appropriately, it can definitely add things to some of these movies that simply weren't possible in the past.

          For my final question... What direction would you like to see the horror genre head?

          - Out of Hollywood, maybe to Asia, I don't know. It seems to me that the home for horror has always been The Underground. Collectively, all of our favorite movies were low budget B-films, and as bad as the acting could be sometimes, the scares were usually there! While I keep my mind open to new flicks, the quality of the plot seems to get worse and worse. I wonder if they even try any more? All I know is If I see one more rendition of the ever so popular "Texas Chainsaw" set up plot, I think I'm gonna Vom.