Photo by Kevin Faulkner
The Men: "Electric" (via SoundCloud)
Guest List features our favorite artists filling us in on some of their favorite things as well as other random bits. For this edition, we spoke with Brooklyn guitar destroyers the Men: bassist/vocalist Ben Greenberg, guitarist/vocalist Nick Chiericozzi, drummer Rich Samis, guitarist/vocalist Mark Perro, and lap steel player Kevin Faulkner. Their latest record, New Moon, is out now via Sacred Bones.
Rich Samis: In high school, my friend and I had a band together and we got kicked out of my parents' house. We needed to find a place to play, so we went to this alleyway down the block from my house in East Meadow, on Long Island. We went outside and put all our equipment in shopping carts and plugged into a power supply in the back of this Radio Shack. We were just playing music outside in the middle of suburbia for like five hours, and no one did anything. So my favorite venue is that alley behind the Radio Shack.
Favorite TV Show
Ben Greenberg: I was only allowed to watch PBS when I was a kid, and they would show one music video after every episode of "3-2-1 Contact". In a lot of ways, that was my introduction to mainstream pop music. The first music video I ever saw was AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" at the end of an episode of "3-2-1 Contact". I was five years old and it totally fucking blew my mind. It's on PBS, on a children's show, but when you think about it, what's really bad about that video? They just rock really hard.
Favorite Video Game
RS: My cousin had this arcade game in his basement called Satan's Hollow. On the side, it had this huge demon with extended wings holding a globe. In the game, you're in a spaceship and you shoot these goblin things and the goal is to build this bridge to this castle. And after each level you fight this big demon character that is manifested in different names for the devil. So in one round you fight Beelzebub and another would be Lucifer and another would be like Mephistopheles. They scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.
Mark Perro: I used to go to this Hibachi place, Shiro of Japan, every year from ages six to 13. They would put a little samurai hat on my head and take a Polaroid of me. So I have like 10 Polaroids of me with a little samurai hat on smiling ear to ear with hibachi food in my face.
Weirdest Display of Fan Affection
BG: Someone brought a little wooden sword they had carved and painted "The Men" on it and gave it to the band. It had some lightning bolts. It was a pretty epic little gift.
BG: I fucking love water. It's the only thing I drink that keeps me alive without killing me.
Dream Merch Table Item
BG: Denim jackets
MP: John Wayne. I heard that when he died he had 30-40 pounds of impacted shit in his intestines.
MP: My all-time Knicks team would be Patrick Ewing, Anthony Mason, Charles Oakley, Walt Frazier, and Phil Jackson. Currently, Carmelo Anthony's my boy, he's a clutch shooter.
Favorite Purchase of the Past Year
Nick Chiericozzi: The guitar that I played on [New Moon]. It's a Gibson L6-S, and I bought it because my go-to Les Paul broke in Europe-- I'm gonna write the hell out of that off [on my taxes]. My second favorite thing would be a 12-string electric guitar that I bought for the next record that we're making.
Kevin Faulkner: In the van we'll watch VHS tapes.
MP: The one we watch the most is Uncle Buck. [laughs] It's been viewed at least 10 times.