Pineal Ventana interview October 1995 this interview was conducted by mail & cassette.  at the time Pineal Ventana was: Mitch (percussion), Travis (guitar), Clara (vocals), Brian (bass), Kim (guitar & percussion), & Shane (sax & guitar).  They dis-banded around 2001.

Travis – heavy metal.

Brian – no... gothic, punk, tribal... I never heard metal.

Clara – yes, we have been placed in heavy metal.

Travis – I don't know, it's not really one particular genre we've been placed in.  usually if anybody reviews anything that we do, they have to scrounge up a couple of different genres & put them together.  but I guess it would be wrong to say we're goth because that could be associated with any number of bands we're not like.

Mitch – experimental gothic tribal punk?

Clara – yeah.

Travis – but gothic means dance music now, or metal bands that wear black & eye-liner.  so it ain't that.  I'd say everything that's good about good music we've got a part of & that's what makes us so special.

Clara – there's going to be a lot of sarcasm in Travis's answers.

Mitch – we don't really feel a part of any one genre.  I think genres are bad-bad-bad, but perhaps a necessary evil - especially for reviewers.

QRD – what bands would you like to tour with?

Mitch – who wouldn't you mind touring with, Caspar Bröntzmann?

Clara & Brian – sure.

Mitch – Einsterzende Neubauten?

Clara & Brian – sure.

Mitch – Foetus?

Clara – sure.

Travis – the Beach Boys.  any number of cool bands.

Clara – Death in June.  Sol Victus.

QRD – what constellation would you most like to be?

 Travis – the one that I am.

Mitch – stars that you are.

Travis – I'm a sagittarius & I'm quite happy with that because Keith Richards is a sagittarius & I basically want to be Keith Richards when I grow up.

Clara – that's not a constellation though, that's astrology.

Travis – isn't that what we were talking about?

Clara – I thought constellation....

Brian – oh, you said constipation, oh....

Mitch – which constipation would I like to be?  I'd like to discover my own constellation & become one with it.  what was the question?

Clara – a constellation is what, the big dipper?

Mitch – yeah, so there's the big dipper, there's the small dipper....

Clara – the teeny tiny dipper.

Travis – I'm the pink dipper.

QRD – how long have you been together?  how'd you get that way?

Travis – I still don't know that we're very together.

Mitch – go ahead & why don't you tell that story Clara.

Clara – now that you ask, we've been together for two & a half years.

Mitch – depends who you ask.

Clara – almost three.

Brian – it'll be two for me & Travis.

Clara – we've been together two years as Mitch, Brian, Travis, Kim Chee, & me.

Mitch – not present at this interview are Kim Chee, who plays guitar & extra percussion, & Shane Pringle on sax & sometimes guitar.

Travis – makes pizza during the day & blows a hard sax at night.

Clara – we got that way because Kim knew Travis & we met Brian at one of our shows, cause he knew someone that we knew.  & then we all just got together, right?

Travis – we all shared the same taste in a certain brand of toilet paper.  it brought us closer together.

Mitch – we were playing together as a four piece without bass & a different guitar player & that came together.  first it was just me & Clara, then we got Kim, then we got our guitar player.  we dropped him, he left. & we got a bassist by the name of Brian & Travis & our first show was with Crash Worship, a rather memorable show over which we were all nervous.

Clara – & then we got Shane a year ago.

Brian – Shane was the last to join.

Mitch – oh, here's Kim Chee.

Clara – welcome Kim Chee.

QRD – how close is your cd to coming out? how long is it? any songs from the seven inches?

Mitch – it's already out.

Clara – we do not believe in putting already released stuff on something else.

Travis – that's right.

Clara – we will do separate things always.

Travis – damn straight.

Mitch – exclusive tracks.

Clara – exclusive tracks.  how long is it? it's 52 minutes.

Mitch – it's 52 minutes & most of it was recorded in the studio in one day & mixed down another day.  some of the other stuff was recorded right here in the practice space.  improv stuff that we recorded onto a four track.  & coming up soon is a picture disc that will have three songs on one side & one really long song on the other side.

QRD – what are the coolest socks you own?

Mitch – mine are these black ones that I can wear with my black shoes & they're not really anything special, but boy are they comfortable.

Kim – they hold in the sweat pretty well?

Travis – that's disgusting, Kim.

Brian – how about how they smell?

Clara – I actually own a lot of cool socks.

Brian – I own a lot of white socks.

Travis – what are your coolest, Clara?

Clara – my ones with the spider webs on them, my halloween socks.

QRD – when you play live, how do most people react?

Clara – with a blank look on their face.

Travis – they scream & yell, "rock on dudes!"

Kim – I've never heard anything like that before in my life.

Mitch – yeah, usually if somebody comes up to us they don't say anything bad.  the personal reactions that we get, we don't get a whole lot of them, but someone will come up & say, "wow, that was this-that or interesting or different or something."  even if they like it, they usually say they haven't heard anything like it, which is a compliment.

Travis – a lot of times what happens is we play a song & at the end of each song people clap.

Mitch – sometimes though, people don't clap.  we're like, "are they stunned or are they just bored or what?"

Travis – I've never really heard that with any other band before that after each song there's a clap & then after the next song there's a clap & even after the next song there's a clap.  it's just amazing.

QRD – you played with Crash Worship, was that a particularly strange experience?

Kim – no.

Clara – no, because we'd all been familiar with Crash Worship.

Mitch – it would've been strange if we'd never seen them before, but we'd all seen their show before, so it wasn't strange.  it's only strange the first time.

Travis – they're an odd cast of characters, but....

Kim – I don't think they're all as odd as a lot of people think they are.

Travis – they're just odd in the sense that they don't intermingle, they just stick to themselves.  which is kinda neat, they're like a big clan.

Mitch – I like watching them play drums because they know how to do it.  they play tight.

Kim – they're great, but it just wasn't strange because we'd all seen it before.

QRD – what was the "performance art show at dottie's?"

Mitch – let's not go through that again.  Clara?

Clara – go ahead.

Mitch – we need to start making it different every time we relate the story.  let's spread our own rumors since every time we tell it someone says something different about it anyhow.

Brian – that was the time when we brought a dead body from the morgue that we managed to get a hold of & people thought we were actually beheading a live human being.

Mitch – no, see what we did was we got this body & it already had rigor mortis so we were able to set it into the squatting position.  & I cut open its stomach & it had some shit in there & right at the perfect time I started squeezing the colon & shit came out onto the stage.

Clara – into my mouth....

Travis – I don't know if it would be considered art, it was a performance.

Clara – it was tasty.

QRD – what types of clubs do you usually play in?

Clara – any clubs that will have us.  rock clubs, bars.

Mitch – let's make this question more interesting, what kind of clubs would we like to play in?

Clara – ones that were more geared towards art...

Brian – ones that were more geared to giving free things.  food, beer....

Kim – coke's in the contract.

Travis – one that you can call up the promoter & he asks you what all you want & you say, "uh, I need my drugs man," & by the time we get there, there's fucking drugs.

Brian – they've got a whole plate of tranqs & acid & crack.

Travis – cause the fucking audience never gives me any fucking drugs.

QRD – what's your favorite Pineal Ventana song?

Kim – I like "Waterlogged" & "Every Beast."

Brian – "Waterlogged," that's a new one.

Clara – I like it.

Brian – they're all so special.

Kim – Brian adds his own charm to each & every one of them.

Travis – I like "Honky Tonk Woman."

Clara – mine's "Cities in Linger" & "Alimentary School."

Mitch – "Cities in Linger" is one of the most fun to play.  right now I think I like "Intrinsic" & "Vanilla in Red."

Clara – oh yeah, & "Vanilla in Red."

Mitch – & "Let Them Fuck."

Clara – I changed my answer, it's "Cities in Linger" & "Man Lies."

Brian – "Rid Rot."

QRD – which talk show would you most like to appear on?

Kim – Richard Bey.

Mitch – it only plays in new york, but the editor of Screw magazine has his own program.

Brian – Al Goldstein.

Travis – I would like to be interviewed by Bob Larson.

Clara – I would like to be on David Letterman or Regis & Kathie Lee.

Mitchell – yeah, that'd be fun.  we could really freak out Kathie Lee.  I'd like to see if I could make Kathie Lee cry.

Travis – I'd like to make her sing harmony with Clara.

Clara – & Conan.

QRD – what bands/music have been most influential to & what are your current favorites?

Clara – Butthole Surfers.

Kim – Joy Division.

Clara – Bauhaus.

Mitch – Butthole Surfers, Joy Division, Throbbing Gristle, Savage Republic.

Brian – Chrome.

Clara – Tuxedo Moon.

Travis – the list goes on....

Clara – Siouxsie & the Banshees.

Brian – Hawkwind.

Clara – current favorites?

Travis – really, Jesus & Mary Chain from ten years ago.

Clara – still is your current favorite?

Travis – yeah, I've been listening to that tape for ten years, every day.

Kim – I don't know.

Clara – you don't have a current favorite?  Swervedriver?

Kim – I like them, but I don't know that they're really my favorite thing that's out there.

Mitch – Shockhead Peters, X, the Birthday Party.

Clara – my current favorite for new music is the Country Teasers.

QRD – were you insulted when Maximum RocknRoll made you sound like another riot grrrl Bikini Kill rip off?

Clara – not insulted, because I think they're a good band, but I think that means they didn't really listen to the record.

Mitch – you know, I've just had it with journalists & critics. they're always putting us down & they don't seem to get it right.  I just wish that they would listen & just be a little bit more caring & sensitive towards us as a band.

Brian – you know what they say, critics are frustrated artists, therefore they criticize other people.

Clara – correct.

Brian – all critics are sterile.

Mitch – basically it seemed that whoever did the review heard one piece of one of the songs that was on our seven inch, it reminded him of a Bikini Kill tape he'd probably just been listening to.  so ding there's a similarity there that he heard & he said we were ripping them off.  for him to call it a rip off is a bit harsh.

QRD – do you have a chemical influence of choice?

Travis – wasn't it Yoo-hoo we agreed on?

Mitch – Yoo-hoo... uh, no.

Clara – yeah, Yoo-hoo!

Brian – everything we take in is chemicals.

QRD – are you involved in any side projects?

Mitch – sometimes I do some just noise stuff under the name Routerwelm.

Clara – & Shane is in Legion of Doom.

QRD – if you were the child of god, what line would you use to get a date?

Kim – god is my tranquilizer.

Travis – if I was the child of god I wouldn't need a pick up line; it'd just happen. dates'd just be... I'd say come on to me & that would be all there is to it.

Brian – I thought that was what the girl was supposed to say.

QRD – is there anything else important going on right now?

Mitch – the recording of our picture disc is in the beginning of november which has probably already happened by the time anybody reads this.  plus the song "Mended" on alleviation.

Clara – we're going to play another show with Karen Black & we're working on a tour for europe next summer.

QRD – what's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Travis – toffee bar crunch.

Kim – chocolate chip.

Mitch – vanilla bean.

Kim – I like rocky road.

Brian – I don't eat ice cream.

Clara – I don't eat ice cream either, my favorite's sorbet though.  strawberry sorbet.

QRD – what's your favorite fast food meal?

Kim – the monterey ranch chicken that wendy's has every so often & you get that with a biggie fries.

Mitch – I like the convenience store fifty cents hot dog & then I go to taco bell & I get the hot sauce & I take a pencil & drill little holes in the hot dog & I pour the hot sauce in there & then I wrap it in a piece of Laffy Taffy.

Travis – I'm a chinese buffet man through & through.  I eat it fast.