Take an Interview with The Vacation

By: Sarah L. Myers

My mother was always afraid my obsession with rock n' roll might lead me to some bad influences. 25 years later I met The Vacation. After listening to their debut album, Band From World War Zero, it's tempting to pack that rattlesnake suitcase and head to Hollywood, following a night at the liquor store with a morning in the hills watching the sunrise. Debauchery flows in song and spirit, but twins Ben (vocals) and Steve Tegel (guitar) are actually quite subdued. Offstage anyway, and before the Budweiser. Frontman Ben Tegel takes 10 questions for The Crutch.

The Crutch: Which Sex Pistols songs did your cover for the 103.1 "The Filth and The Fury" screening?
Ben Tegel: We're covering "Holidays in the Sun," "Pretty Vacant," and "E.M.I."

What is your preferred brand of cherry cola?
BT: Royal Crown Cherry Cola Worst injury suffered onstage?

Anything resulting in the use of a crutch?
BT: I injure myself pretty much every time we play. I always wake up the next morning covered in bruises, scrapes, or severe chest lacerations. One of the worst injuries, though, occurred at a show in a terrible bar in San Marcos, CA (don't ask me why we were playing there). I was standing on a monitor which sat very close to the edge of a rather high stage, balancing myself and acting like a jerk, when I fell off, scraping my lower back severely on the metal edge of the stage. Then the monitor tumbled off the stage and landed on my back. We were actually able to finish the show but that hurt like hell for quite awhile. I have a strange looking scar there that looks as if I had some sort of spinal surgery.

Ben and Steve: any requests for Vacation "sandwiches"?
BT: Um....I make a damn good ham & swiss & fried egg on wheat toast....is that what you are referring to? Girls are gross, come on, that's not gonna happen.

Tell me about the story behind "W.I.I.F.M", with the lyric "Would somebody please exploit me?" That's a great concept.
BT: That song was an attempt to satirize the way that capitalism tends to co-opt and thereby minimize subversive energies.

Name five great songs.
BT:
"I Walk on Guilded Splinters" - Dr. John
"My My Hey Hey" - Neil Young
"Biological Speculation" - Funkadelic
"Rock N Roll" - Velvet Underground
"Fortunate Son" - CCR

The album has a song called "Hollywood Forever," which is a cemetery in Hollywood, where many celebrities are buried, including two of the Ramones. Have you spent time in the cemetery?
BT: Yeah, a lot. Steve's apartment, where we formerly lived together, is right around the corner from it. It's nice, it's like a park. It's funny that the closest thing to a park in Hollywood is a cemetery.

You're from St. Louis, but are definitely a Hollywood band. Do you still have any Midwest in you?
BT: I guess my answer to this is that Hollywood is full of a lot of people who come from elsewhere, including the Midwest, in search of fame or fortune or whatever. A city of immigrants and emigrants. So in that sense we are a typical Hollywood or LA band. I think there is a romanticized notion of LA in the Midwest. I mean, let's face it, Americans are obsessed with Hollywood and all that it represents. and LA is definitely more palatable to a lot of Midwesterners as a big city cultural center than New York City. It seems less snobby, maybe, to a certain Midwestern kind of defensive pride in one's commonness, or classlessness. And there is something inherently common, unsophisticated, about LA. And, for that matter, America in general.

The first song you heard that made you want to play rock n' roll?
BT: Let's say either "Rock N Roll" by Led Zeppelin or "Rock N Roll" by the Velvet Underground.

What's your worst habit or biggest vice?
BT: Gee, we have a lot of bad habits and vices. You name it, we've probably done it. We definitely abuse alcohol. Rather, it abuses us. Almost all of our other vices stem from alcohol consumption. My worst habit is probably fighting in public with my brother. Or buying tennis shoes.

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The Vacation - W.I.I.F.M.