Not too much later after the interview with the Quill, I found Thomas Dwiger for the interview with Gluecifer. Backstage again, in Gluecifer’s dressing room where everybody was running around, I managed to talk with guitarist Captain Poon…
Rockpages.gr: First thing I’d like to ask you is about your influences…
Captain Poon: Ehhh, I guess all of us kind of grew up with punk rock from the 70’s and some metal stuff from the 80’s and pretty much classic stuff…anything between AC/DC, Sex Pistols, Judas Priest, whatever…like I said a lot of punk rock stuff as well.
Rockpages.gr: What was the first records that you ever bought, do you remember?
Captain Poon: I think it was the solo album of Paul Stanley, I bought it when I was 5 years old (he laughs).
Rockpages.gr: In this tour you are playing with two bands with different styles, The Quill are more heavy metal, Monster Magnet are doing their thing, and you are more rock’n’roll stuff. How do you think that the three different styles blend together?
Captain Poon: I think pretty good, because if you go to a concert and you see three bands who sound completely the same and have the same influences, I guess it’s gonna be kind of boring, it’s cool that there is a gap between us, so I think the bill is cool…
Rockpages.gr: How do you feel playing with Monster Magnet?
Captain Poon: Ahh, I think it’s nice…I’ve been into Monster Magnet for many years you know and they are a band we always wanted to do something together with, and it finally happened…
Rockpages.gr: Are they being a good host to you?
Captain Poon: Absolutely, I mean these guys are super nice you know, big egos, or any bullshit going on…they are just good friends.
Rockpages.gr: How did your name come up?
Captain Poon: I don’t remember, we were looking around for quite a while for a name that was kind of suitable for the music we wanted to play and it just came up with the idea…and we were all, yeah that’s pretty cool, a little bit of Glue and a little bit of Satan, that’s what rock’n’roll is all about…(he laughs)
Rockpages.gr: What about your nicknames, did you come up with them or somebody else?
Captain Poon: I don’t remember where they all came from, because nicknames came even before we named our band Gluecifer because we always wanted to do something outside Norway, playing the States or Europe and it’s much easier to have a nickname since the original boring Norwegian name…(he laughs)
Rockpages.gr: Actually, I saw this in your bio, in your website, “Gluecifer, is one of the main reasons not to bow your head in endless shame when you say that your are Norwegian.”. What’s wrong with coming from Norway?
Captain Poon: No, there’s nothing wrong with it. But, a few years ago I don’t think people cared about Norway at all. (Changing his voice) “Are you from Norway, where the fuck is that?” And nobody knew anything about it, but now it is a bit cooler because there are good bands coming out of there now and Norway is getting some kind of recognition, because earlier it was all about Sweden, (changing his voice again) “Yeah, Sweden is a great country for music”, and no one cared about Norway at all, but like I said…it’s shaping out, it’s getting better.
Rockpages.gr: How hard was it for your band to establish its name?
Captain Poon: Ahhh, it was kind of hard, because when we started out rock’n’roll was not truly what people were into at that time. The first shows we played in Norway nobody cared about us. In 1997 we actually started to tour a little bit around in the rest of Europe. There was some sort of rock’n’roll forming down here and also we got something to build the whole thing on…and then in 1998 we did a huge tour with the Hellacopters and that kind of established the whole thing, we got an audience and we got into to the sort of the rock’n’roll scene. So ever since we’ve been working our asses of you know, we love to play music, we love to be on tour and we love to record albums and all that stuff, and we are lucky enough to make a living out of it…
Rockpages.gr: What do you think was the secret of your success of doing all these and making it?
Captain Poon: The secret I guess is the love of music, because if you don’t love the music, if you are all about being a rockstar and being a cool hot shit guy and you don’t care much about the music then it’s just gonna get boring, but if you love what you are doing then some quality should come out of that…
Rockpages.gr: Something about “Automatic Thrill”. It sounds harder, heavier than “Basement Apes” did you intend to do so, or it just came out like that?
Captain Poon: We actually intended to do so, because after we have been touring on “Basement Apes” for quite a while, we tried to sit down and figure out what worked out best for us and what kind of songs was more fun playing live and all that, and we pretty much agreed all of us that we enjoyed the harder stuff more and we think that a band like Gluecifer who’s got like a very powerful drummer you know and is pretty much a powerful band why don’t we like take the best out of that and on the last album we did a couple of slower songs you know, our last record is more like a classic rock album, more like a 70’s album, this one is a bit more darker and heavier…
Rockpages.gr: So, are there any new bands you like?
Captain Poon: Ahhh, I don’t know, there are good bands out there, the bands everyone keeps talking about you know, all these…the White Stripes, the Strokes and all that stuff, I am not really that much into it, but some of this stuff is really good and I am really happy that today a lot of people prefer to listen to rock music instead of listening to Britney Spears, and that’s a good sign…
Rockpages.gr: Why do you think is that?
Captain Poon: I don’t know…I guess it has something to do with the timing. People get fed up with all the plastic stuff and they want something real and that’s where rock’n’roll music comes in…Because every ten years or something it’s coming back and people are getting into it and it becomes like short of old fashioned, and then it’s coming back again…I mean I’ve been a rock’n’roll fan since I was a little kid and it never wears out of me, but it’s all about the trends you know…
Rockpages.gr: How do you explain that the rock’n’roll thing is very big in Scandinavian countries? Like Sweden, Norway…all those bands like the Hellacopters, you, Flaming Sideburns, The Quill next door…
Captain Poon: There has always been good bands in Scandinavia and we have a long tradition when it comes to American and English culture and bands, both because we learn the language very early and it’s easier for us to get into the rock’n’roll thing than it is for people in Spain or Germany, or whatever…
Rockpages.gr: Or in Greece…
Captain Poon: Or in Greece (he laughs), I’ve never been to Greece, but I think it’s pretty much the same, as in the rest Southern Europe
Rockpages.gr: Actually it’s very bad that this tour is not going to Greece…
Captain Poon: Yeah, that’s too bad, I’d love to go there. So hopefully we’ll get a chance to go there…
Rockpages.gr: Do you have a message for them, your Greek fans?
Captain Poon: What can I say, I just want to come and play for you guys as soon as possible…
