Lycia's pretty much my favorite band.  they're kind of an ambient angst band.
This interview was conducted by mail & cassette.

Mike – after playing in probably half a dozen different bands in the eighties & getting ready to quit music, I decided to give it one last shot, this time controlling the music myself & so in may 1988 I formed Lycia.  for about the first four or five months I did Lycia by myself  – pretty much just goofing around on the four track, doing a lot of mostly guitar only experiments, a little bit of synth stuff, not really any organized songs.  in november of 1988 John Fair joined the band & the band became much more song oriented.  John was in the band until may of 1990 & during that time the two of us probably wrote about two hundred songs together which includes all the material on The Wake release as well as the material on Across This Gray Land No. 2.  at that point he left Lycia to go on tour & play bass with Caterwaul, a band that some people might remember.  they were on IRS records, they had a couple albums out, they've since been dropped & broke up.  at that point in May of 1990 until probably about sometime in the spring of 1991 a guy by the name of Will Welsh joined Lycia & we probably collaborated on about a dozen songs none of which were released from that time frame.  though a year later on Across this Gray Land No. 3 which was released I believe in 1991, Will & I did a track for that, an alternate version of "Everything is Cold."  but backtracking, when Will was in Lycia we did stuff that was probably a little harsher than anything Lycia has done before or after, it's probably pretty comparable to what Bleak has been doing, which we'll get into later.  in the spring of 1991 I started working on music by myself for Lycia & I worked on music by myself until spring of 1993 when Dave joined up with Lycia.  during the period I worked by myself I did the albums Ionia & A Day in the Stark Corner.  since Dave's joined up, he took part on the Lycia tour, which was in the fall of 1993 in california which Projekt just released a live cd from that tour & Dave's included on that.  then Dave & I recorded last fall & into the winter on the first Bleak album which should be released on Projekt probably in january 1995.  then Dave also took part in the next Lycia album playing bass & keyboards & that should be released sometime in the spring on Projekt.  it's a long release, it's possible of being a double cd, also on the release will be two songs by a woman by the name of Tara Flower & I guess that's Lycia up to now.  as far a description of the musical style, a lot of people like to call it gothic or dark ambient or darkwave.  I think, & I think Dave will agree with me, we don't attempt to fit into any particular musical style. we just try to make the kind of music that we like to create & it just happens to come out this way.  it's not that we're negative towards any of the groups of people that like us, because I happen to find a lot of gothic kids interesting, but I just don't happen to find Lycia fits so easily in the gothic style.  you probably agree with me there don't you?

Dave – oh yeah, definitely.  (Dave's musical background) alright, basically I started music in about 1987 working with samplers & keyboards & stuff.  I was in two or three bands in & out trying to put together some sort of sound that I was familiar with or liked.  I worked a little bit with dark electronic music, sampling, industrial stuff, & ran into a person by the name of Jason Farrel & began working with him, collaborating on a project with him.  at the time we put together a compilation, I think it was in 1991, called meliorate & it was a small local compilation of tempe & what not.  that's when I met Mike & I guess two years later Mike needed some help with some live stuff, so he contacted me & we started working together & so that's about it.

QRD – so how's Lycia working out with the new member (Dave)?

Mike – well, we talked about that a little bit, & since that question's more directed towards me, I'd say really well.  after working by myself for a couple albums, it was sorta nice to have someone else involved  in the creative process so that I can maybe more concentrate on my parts instead of everything as a whole.  in Bleak it's basically a 50/50 collaboration between me & Dave & I think we've both sort of fed off each other in Bleak.

Dave – definitely.

Mike – bringing different things in, at first I think we were coming from a little bit different studio approaches, but working together I think it sort of melded together during Bleak.  the next Lycia, the next studio Lycia, which will be called The Burning Circle and then Dust, it's much more song oriented.  I think I, before Dave was even gonna be involved on it, I pretty much wrote a number of those songs & they were going to be more song oriented & what Dave brought into it was his bass lines basically added just a different sound to it.  I can't really explain it, you'll have to hear it when it comes out.  he also brought in a much more professional studio atmosphere in terms of engineering & mixing, as well as a different approach to arranging which I think is really... it will show on the next album.  like I said earlier, we both have come from different directions & different backgrounds, & I think working with some one else that actually knows what they're doing, but from a slightly different angle, it just ends up that we compliment each other all the more, that's what I feel.

QRD – are you planning on touring when your next album's released?  what areas if so?

Mike – yes, I think we both would definitely like to tour.  like I said The Burning Circle and then Dust will most likely not be out til spring & around the same time Lycia's planning to relocate to the midwest, so I would like to see a live situation getting ready next summer, & if that happens I'd like to tour as many places as possible – united states & europe.  but I'd also like to have Lycia somewhat live-ready to play shows on a somewhat regular basis & seeing that Lycia will be located in the midwest, I would say that probably starting late next summer Lycia will be playing maybe quite often in the midwest & on the east coast.  that is unless there is a bigger tour or something.  I would say that Lycia within the next year will become a much more live oriented band.  but that's still a ways off & we're really not concentrating on that now, we're just concentrating on getting the new Lycia finished & we try to just work on one thing at a time & not get too far ahead.  any comments on that Dave?

Dave – actually from what Mike & I have been hearing, the live Lycia's been getting really good comments which surprises both Mike & I considering we're two perfectionists who really don't like it.  Mike & I will listen to it & find a lot of mistakes.  as far as the next tour, we'd like to incorporate three other people.  this past tour we did for live Lycia was Mike & I & we were playing everything on that.  sometimes it was kind of challenging to try & pick all the pieces & figure out who's playing what & try to attempt & accomplish that all at once on stage.  but the next tour it'll definitely be at least five people on stage playing an instrument & no drummers, no live drums probably unless we find someone who we can deal with.  most likely it will just be a row of guitarists & some keyboard equipment & what not & a huge light show.

Mike – hopefully, if we can afford it.  it's what we desire.  I think the first tour, since Lycia was basically a studio band & Dave had basically functioned in a studio environment, neither of us had a lot of live experience. in the eighties when I played in other bands, my old bands used to play quite often, but it was real typical basic bar type bands that were pretty sloppy & for the tour we wanted to be very professional.  I think on the first tour we pretty much transferred our studio mentality live & because of that we ran into the obstacles that Dave was talking about.  like having a lot of things to be done & not enough people to do it & sound problems associated with taking a studio type setting live.  I think we learned a lot that first tour & when we start playing live again I think it will be a mentally more musically organized & because of that it will be more lively.  I'm like Dave, that live album, a lot of people have really liked it, I think it has its points, like "The Body Electric" came out very well & "The Last Thoughts Before Sleep" came out really well.  as a whole I think it's alright, but I definitely hear lots of room for improvement, which being the perfectionists we are we will make before we play live again.  We've talked about it a lot, we know the areas that need to be improved, we're going to go into it totally prepped.  it's gonna be totally controlled from the stage.  the mix & everything's gonna be controlled from the stage.  we don't want anyone not directly involved with Lycia involved in the mix.  we're just gonna show up wherever we play & just plug into the p.a. & control everything from the stage.  hopefully it will work out; I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work out.  so that's what we're shooting for.

QRD – how do people react at your live shows?  do they mainly dance or stare or what?

Mike – well, the very first show we ever did was here in phoenix in april of 1993 at a festival called night of beautiful noise.  there was like six, eight, nine, whatever different local bands playing & this was Lycia's first show & we really didn't know what to expect.  there were about 600 people there & we just did one twenty minute piece, "The Last Thoughts Before Sleep," which is on the live album & people just sort of stopped in their tracks & watched us, not a lot of movement, just pretty much watched.  when we were done there was probably about five seconds of dead silence, in which Dave & I thought "oh my god they hate us," followed by some pretty loud applause, we got the loudest applause that night.  during the tour was a whole different story, we didn't really know what to expect, but what we basically found was that every place we would play the people would just sit down & listen to us & not really clap until the whole set was over, which made both of us nervous at times, wondering if they liked what we were doing.  but from the reactions we got, people outside said they liked us a lot & said that the music sort of put them in a trance, sort of like they didn't want to disturb the flow.  plus on the tour we sort of faded all the songs together & we extensively used a smoke machine so they really couldn't see us & we couldn't see them too well.  so it was probably just one big atmospheric cloud of sound.  it was definitely an interesting experience.  from my past experience in bands where people either stand up front & cheer really loud or sit back & throw crap at you, this was definitely a different experience.  people all just standing on the floor sorta with their eyes half closed & their heads tilted back just listening to music.

Dave – yeah.  especially at the night of beautiful noise I didn't know what to expect.  I had no idea what to expect.  I had no idea of what type of people were gonna be watching us.  most of the bands were moody kind of  manchesterous guitar grunge oriented jingle stuff, definitely mood oriented though.  but nothing really compared to Lycia unless Soul Whirling Somewhere....

Mike – well lovesliescrushing played that night.  I think Lycia & lovesliescrushing were the only two bands that really created a large slow atmospheric sound.  the rest of the bands, like you were saying, were pretty much guitar oriented, sorta moody pop.

Dave – I forgot about lovesliescrushing being there.  but I think I was spoiled by the reaction of the people after we had done that twenty minute set.  it's too bad that they had the microphones turned off because the applause was so loud it would have been nice to have it on the live Lycia. it definitely definitely surprised me.  then when we went on to the tour, & just watching these people with a glazed look over their eyes, & then after the song is over you get these people just standing there.  house of usher people in san diego & san francisco that are really just kind of entranced to the music & they don't really want to scream or anything, that's kind of inappropriate for that type of music, especially in doing a lot of the early Lycia songs.

QRD – do you do any covers?

Mike – well, we just did a couple covers for the black tape for a blue girl tribute album.  we did "Across a Thousand Blades" & "This Lush Garden Within."  besides that Lycia hasn't done any covers, there's a lot of talk of doing covers.  there's some covers I've been wanting to do, I won't say what they are so when we do them it's a surprise, but they're not stuff you'd probably expect.  but we probably won't do that for at least a year if ever, but it's something we toy around with doing.

QRD – do you like being on the Projekt label?  have you ever thought about leaving or forming your own label?

Mike – yeah, I like being on Projekt.  Lycia got on Projekt just about the time when Projekt began to take off.  so it's been very beneficial to Lycia.  it seems to me that Projekt is a label that's starting to get quite a bit of visibility.  I just got back a couple days ago from a trip to the midwest & the Projekt stuff's pretty well distributed through the stores there.  it's distributed well here in arizona & in california; most of the places I've been it's pretty well distributed.  Projekt gets a lot of coverage in magazines not only as paid advertisements, but also in reviews & stories.  it's a good label.  it's an honest label, they pay, which I hear a lot of labels don't do.  they promote very well.  it's a classy label in terms of its look & sound.  I'm very happy to be on Projekt.  Dave I guess is just new to Projekt now, because the live album just came out & that's the first thing that he was on that was released by Projekt.  but Bleak will be out within a couple months, & Dave's involved in that of course & that's with Projekt.  then the new Lycia is coming out in the spring & Dave's also involved with that, so I guess you'll have to ask him in a year when he's been on it for a bit.

Dave – well actually, it was during the tour one day I was talking to Susan Jennings from Projekt & I was wondering about my status in the Projekt family.  Susan explained how at first her & Sam took me as the extra musician that was helping out Mike & I'm slowly fitting into the mold, especially working on the new Lycia & Bleak & things like that now.  now I can actually call Sam up & ask him questions, so I feel important now.

Mike – okay, have I ever thought about leaving or starting my own label?  well I think, like most people I know, the thought of having your own label is an appealing thought, but seeing how much work & how much hassle it really is & how much time it would take away from doing music, it's never more than a thought that comes & goes pretty quick.  you know I'm pretty happy with Projekt right now & the only way I'd really seriously think about starting my own label is if I just got in the situation where there was no good label out there that was interested in releasing what I was working on.  it's an appealing thought at times, but when it comes right down to it I want to work on music & not work on the business side of it & so it's in my best interest & Dave's best interest to just stay where we're at right now on Projekt & just work on the music & just kick things out & be musicians instead of business men.

Dave – definitely.  the only thing I can see closer to me actually dealing with creating my own label would be just dealing with the recording aspects of other projects since my interest is in recording & engineering also.  it wouldn't be out of reason for me to work with any other bands & I'd just create a studio & work with bands that are either on the Projekt label or possibly other labels.

Mike – yeah, just any band that would catch our fancy. I mean, I know right now there's a band called the Unquiet Void which did two songs on of these reminders, which is the black tape for a blue girl tribute cd, that is currently without label support which totally amazes me considering that I think it's way better than most things that are being released right now.  that would be the kind of situation.  a band like that even if it wasn't even on a label , I think if I was in the situation of recording people that would be the kind of band I'd want to bring in.  I think just working with people that you can appreciate their music & probably add in terms of your engineering.

QRD – how is the Bleak project working out?  I understand it should be released soon?

Mike – well as I said a second ago, it was originally scheduled for october of this year & then this month Projekt's been exceptionally busy releasing lots of stuff so things have gotten sort of backed up.  Bleak is completely recorded & mixed, it has been since last march.  right now Susan Jennings is working on the photography for the cover, of which Dave & I should be picking out the pictures next week for what we want for the cover.  so I would make a fair guess that it would be coming out in january though it could come out earlier or later.  it's sorta iffy right now, but it should be out in a couple months.  how did it work out? it pretty much was just november to march writing songs & recording them in the studio & we probably won't begin the next Bleak until the Lycia studio album comes out, which will be in the spring.  but I think the Bleak project worked out very well.  I think it's basically an evolution of some of Lycia's darker moments combined with Dave's darker side from where he's coming from.  I think it was a necessary thing to form.  I think Lycia was becoming a bit schizophrenic.  it didn't really show up that much on A Day in the Stark Corner, it did to a small degree when you have a song like "The Body Electric" & then you have a song like "Goddess of the Greenfields," which I really stylized quite a bit differently.  but after A Day in the Stark Corner the songs I personally started to write varied from very noisy chaotic pieces, like a song called "The Boiler Room" which is gonna be on the Bleak album which is called Vane, to writing things that are much more guitar oriented & much more atmospheric that are going to appear on the next Lycia album.  so I just thought it was necessary at that time to break those two styles apart so that I could concentrate on each more fully as oppose to going from one to another & back & fourth over the coarse of one release by breaking & going two separate directions.  Lycia concentrating on the more atmospheric more guitar oriented side & Bleak on the more noisy hectic side that we could delve into each one a little deeper & explore the possibilities a little bit more.

Dave – yeah, the original idea was to take Lycia to the more aggressive side.  with Wake you have a lot of aggression & it would be taking a Wake & making it more distorted, a little more angry.  & I guess after a few big long talks, we guessed that Bleak would be the best way to go.  so it's the split in personality kind of & we can work on each one of them more focused.

Mike – that's interesting that you brought that up, because I'd basically forgotten that.  but initially, when Dave & I started working together after the tour on writing music together, initially what became Bleak was going to be the next Lycia.  I had a number of more guitar oriented things sitting around that I basically was going to shelf.  I went back & listened to them again & decided that I wanted to keep them & they seemed to fit more, I felt, in what I considered Lycia.  so suddenly we had all these noisier pieces, I didn't know what to do with them, so I suggested to Dave we form another project.  Bleak basically is about a fifty-fifty collaboration, about half the songs were initiated by me & the basics were recorded by me & then Dave would add his parts & then vice versa the other half he initiated & I would just come in & add my little parts, it worked out very well I have to say.

Dave – one thing that Bleak really helped out on was creating a formula that Mike & I can work well within.  I think if it wasn't for Bleak we'd probably have a problem on the new Lycia.  after recording Bleak we became so accustomed with the little formula of recording & writing songs that when we recorded Bleak within four months it sounded like years of work.

Mike – in a sense the first Bleak album was almost Dave & mine's going to school to learn how to work with each other.  I think that the first Bleak album is really good, but I look forward to working on the second Bleak album because with the extra equipment that we've purchased since then & plus working with each other more & learning how to write with each other more, I think the next Bleak album will come out very very experimental.  we're gonna really push the boundaries on the next Bleak, whereas the first Bleak is almost like taking Lycia & just making it very hectic & noisy, the next Bleak will be much more experimental in terms of the sounds we use & song construction.

QRD – what's the story that you may no longer be based out of arizona shortly?

Mike – Lycia will most likely, you never know what's going to happen so I say most likely, relocate somewhere in the midwest this spring.  basically just to have a change of scenery.  I personally am getting burnt out living here in arizona.  I've lived here for quite a while & my mind & my emotions are in need of some kind of a change.  also there's a much more of a musical advantage being there, more big cities to play shows.  it seems that the people in the midwest are much more receptive to the kind of music we play.  arizona has basically no scene whatsoever for this kind of music, which is surprising considering that there are a number of bands that are very good doing this kind of music.  there's lovesliescrushing from tucson, Skinnerbox from tucson, Soul Whirling Somewhere from tempe, Life Garden from pheonix that are somewhat along the same lines as Lycia.  then there's also some bands like Half String, more like moody pop bands, & Alison's Halo & there's probably a number of  bands that I forgot to mention.

Dave – don't forget the Gin Blossoms.

Mike – let's forget about them.  unfortunately these bands just record in their homes & have their cd's released all over the world, yet here in arizona it'd be difficult even to buy a show.  it's very discouraging to see national magazines do stories on your band & your local rinky dink little newspaper won't even mention you, cause they'd rather mention some garage rock band playing cover songs.  I was recently back in michigan & it's much more receptive to this kind of music & I think it would be a very important thing for Lycia to do to be in an area & a situation where we can possibly be appreciated.  I mean here in town, even our friends that are musicians don't even acknowledge that we have releases out & that we're making a living off of music.  they seem to think that we're just this goofy little local band that's sort of out to lunch & doesn't know what the hell's going on.

Dave – there's a very low appreciation of what we're doing.

Mike – yeah.  change is good.

QRD – who are some authors that influenced you or your music?

Dave – I hardly read, most of my time I'm working on music.  but when I read I have Edgar Allen Poe on my shelf & I've read a little bit of Crowley stuff.  I've read a couple books half way through, Interview with the Vampire & stuff like that.  I've been interested in stuff like Kafka which is real interesting, but that's about as far as reading material goes.

Mike – like Dave I really haven't done a lot of reading in the past year, basically due to the fact that we've been so immensely busy on music that when we're not working on music I'm sort of immensely brain dead & I sit in front of the tv set & stare like a zombie.  but in the past I was quite the avid reader.  I think when Lycia first started I was very into things like 1984, by George Orwell, & Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.  also like Dave I was into Franz Kafka & comparable things to that.  this is oppressive type literature.  I still like that stuff, but I've changed a bit over the past couple years.  I don't know if that's stuff I'd still pick as my favorite, but it's still stuff I appreciate & stuff that I like.  besides that over the last few years I've done a lot of reading from different kinds of mythologies, whether it be celtic greek or american indian.  I also enjoy stuff like The Iron Fist from Jack London, who tends to be this macho type writer with Call of the Wild & White Fang, even though I enjoyed those too, but Iron Fist was sort of a 1984 oppression type book & I enjoyed that.  actually I like a lot of science fiction short stories.  I like Ray Bradbury a lot, who keeps a very human aspect to all his stories & a lot of writers, especially in science fiction, leave that part out.

QRD – what's your chemical influence of choice?

Mike – well, I guess Lycia would be called a dry band.  basically I maybe drink a beer now & then & smoke a couple cigarettes & that's about it.  in the past it was a different story, but I was a confused person then thinking that things like that actually could enhance my vision, when one day I realized that all it did was numb my vision & ironically as soon as I started drinking water instead I found that I was much more creative musically.  that's strange ain't it?

Dave – I like Dr. Pepper.

Mike – so our chemicals, Dave's sugar & mine good old H2O.  though I have to admit I still am a nicotine addict, hopefully not for long.

QRD – any childhood or life experiences you'd like to share?

Dave – I guess I'd say the closest I ever came to ending my life was when I was six years old.  I remember this vividly, I was walking around the side of a pool, you know in arizona & phoenix & tempe especially there's a lot of pools, & I gazed into the water.  it must have been about december & I fell into the pool & I remember hitting the bottom & looking around.  I wasn't an avid swimmer, it was probably the first year I lived at a house that actually had a pool.  I remember what felt like minutes & minutes underwater, I remember just the feeling of drowning, the feeling of silence just laying at the bottom of the pool.  I remember staring at the drain because I was at the deep end & I decided to look up & I saw the light from the top of the pool & I swam back up.  it was really strange.  I can replay it in my mind in perfect clarity.

Mike – well I actually probably had a very non-eventful boring childhood, unless you count the ufo abduction.  seriously, when I think about when I was young & stuff I kind of remember my dreams more than I remember actual things in term of vivid emotional remembrances of things.  I could sit here & try to explain the dreams, of course they'd mean nothing to you because you can't explain a feeling.  I guess my head was always in the clouds as a kid.  a pretty uneventful life for me.  I'm sure there are some things that could be of interest, but I can't think of anything now.  I guess that's all I have to say on that.

Dave – actually, there's one little thing I'd like to add.  a real important change in my life, I think a lot of people's, especially growing up being a teenager in the eighties, especially in junior high & early high school years in '82-'84, real large paranoia of the world basically exploding in nuclear fire.  that was the biggest fear, I think, especially of my friends at that time.

Mike – that's funny, because being just a little bit older than you, not a lot of my friends when I grew up even really thought about that kind of stuff.  I think it's mainly because the media probably made it much more of an issue through television movies & stuff like that.  but a lot of people that I know that are right around your age tend to tell me that, people that write to me, different friends that I have, they tended growing up to have a lot of dreams like that.  I find that sort of interesting considering that I've never had a dream like that.

QRD – anything else new or important going on right now?

Mike – well I guess you could talk about Snowblind now.  whereas Lycia's sort of my band & my thing & Dave's a member of Lycia, but I'm still a dictator I guess.  Snowblind is Dave's thing where he's the boss & he's the dictator.  so we'll let him talk about what Snowblind has done, is doing, & will do.

Dave – Snowblind is basically a project that I've been working on for the past three years probably.  it's changed from time to time, I'm trying to find a format where I'm happy with the name Snowblind.  basically it's pretty much me doing all the music & then I'm getting other people to do vocals.  Mike VanPortfleet here has done a couple songs already & I have plans for other Projekt signed people to do vocals on some of the songs.  one of the songs actually was released on a sampler called Terra X which came out of ohio.  Snowblind, whereas Bleak is electronically aggressive & Lycia is kind of guitar oriented ambient ethereal kind of sound, the Snowblind is very orchestrated.  it uses a lot of classical instruments.  if you can picture an orchestra playing really hard, getting really good strong Wagner things, basically kind of like that & some very slow ambient piano pieces.  but it can be both real gentle & then sometimes get very violent , all encompassing the more orchestrated sound.  that's about it for Snowblind.

Mike – I'll add this for Snowblind.  he has the one song on Terra X, but he has probably about half a cd's worth of material recorded.  I believe he'll be shopping it soon to some labels & it's very good stuff.  it should probably be available in about a year, that's my guess.  anything else new for me, well, just recently Dave & I as well as John Fair, who was mentioned earlier as part of Lycia in the early days, & Will Welsh, who was also briefly in Lycia, & Josh Grant, who is a friend of ours, got together to do a project which is called Tetsuo after the japanese movie.  which is very different from Lycia or Bleak or anything.  Josh really comes from sort of the metal industrial background.  Will comes from a very heavy industrial metal type background also, even though lately he's very much into progressive type music.  John likes a lot of the same things Dave & I like, but lately he's been very much into stuff like Godflesh & everything.  so this Projekt is much harsher.  we did three songs & a label, which we won't say because you never know what's gonna happen, a different label than Projekt, a label more appropriate for this kind of music, seemed slightly interested in what we were doing so we gave them a  demo.  & there's another label we'll be sending a demo.  & if there's an interest we'll proceed with the project, if there isn't an interest from these couple labels we'll probably just let it slide & everyone will go on to their other projects.  but hopefully it works out, because the three songs we got done were very interesting & very different than what I've done in other projects in the past.  so if anything happens with that, it would probably be about six months from now that we seriously start working on it.  but who knows, with our move & everything, it's hard to say.  I think John & I might do another side project before we leave too, just me & John.  there's some talk of that.  I've also toyed with doing a one off side project with Tara Flower, who sang on songs for the next Lycia disc.  it would be basically just guitar & vocals, but that's just in the talking stages.  there's also been talk about me collaborating with Jason Wallach from Unquiet Void, but that's probably several years away.  I like his music a lot & probably one day we will collaborate.  but all these last things I talked about are just things that have been talked about, but nothing really solid or anything I'm actually working towards right now.

QRD – if you were a pretzel how big would you be?

Dave – one day I was asked if I was a chair who would I want to have sit on me.  I don't think I'd be a pretzel first of all, but I guess if fate had it that I was a pretzel I'd be one of those that you put in the microwave that is kinda mushy & then gets really hard.

Mike – I guess the real question is, "if you were a pretzel who would you let sit on you?"  Johnny Cash?

Dave – no, uh, I don't know about that.

Mike – well if I was a pretzel I would be a mighty damn big one, with lots of salt.

Dave – low salt's no good, I always like lots of salt.

Mike – so I guess with these answers you're going to quickly look up in your freudian dictionary to figure what the hell's wrong with us.

Dave – psychological book of disorders, I think.

Mike – well, I probably fit a lot of those, but... have a good day, eat lots of cheese, &....

Dave – cheese rules the world.

Mike – & cheese is very tasty with very big pretzels.

Dave – cheese is good with spaghetti.

Mike – I think Dave's hungry....

Dave – I'm sick too.

Mike – I can attest to that.

Other QRD interviews with Lycia:
Interview with Mike VanPortfleet of Lycia (September 2013)
Couples Band Interview with Lycia (February 2008)
Interview with Tara VanFlower of Lycia (July 2006)
Interview with Mike VanPortfleet of Lycia (July 2004)
Interview with Lycia (September 2002)
Interview with Mike Vanportfleet of Lycia (July 2000)
Interview with Tara VanFlower of Lycia (July 2000)
i heart fx - Mike VanPortfleet (June 1998)
Interview with Lycia (May 1997)