Surfer Blood Interviewing The Thermals in Japandroids' Eco-Friendly Murder Van [Photo Gallery]

At Bumbershoot Monday, the Broad Street Stage had the awesome back-to-back-to-back lineup of Japandroids, Surfer Blood, and The Thermals.  Before their set, Surfer Blood briefly chatted with The Thermals in Japandroids' plush (souped up with a DVD player and wifi), creepy (tinted windows), environmentally friendly (biodiesel) Sprinter van.  All three bands play this weekend's MusicfestNW in Portland, The Thermals' new album, Personal Life, is out on Kill Rock Stars as of Tuesday, and Surfer Blood will be back in Seattle with The Drums, at Neumo's on October 4th.

Thomas Fekete, Surfer Blood guitarist: What famous people do you see from Portland in the grocery store?

Kathy Foster, Thermals bassist: Quasi-famous. Quasi.

Hutch Harris, Thermals guitarist/vocalist: I saw Danny Glover one time.  Danny Glover has a house in Portland.

KF: Steve Malkmus and I are on a softball team this summer.

HH: Except he kinda flaked out.

KF: He only played one game.

HH: What, Pavement had to tour?  Didn't they know he has a softball team?

TF: The first time I ever saw Steve Malkmus in person, he was sitting in a mall, cross-legged, eating an ice cream cone, by himself on a bench. It was pretty perfect.

K: What mall?

TF: It was in Barcelona.

HH: I made coffee for Art from Everclear one time.

TF:  Everlast tried to fight us.  Do you guys know the guys from Everlast?  Have they ever tried to fight you?  [laughs]  Because apparently they try to fight every other band in the world.

K: Really?

HH: Wait, Everlast or Everclear?

TF: Everlast.

HH: But Everlast was just one dude.

TF:  Well, his crew.

The SunBreak:  He's a white rapper, right?

HH: Was he related to House of Pain somehow?  The guy from House of Pain? [Ed: Yes.]

JP Pitts, Surfer Blood guitarist/vocalist: Maybe he was a guy from House of Pain. 

TF: Yeah, he called us "a bunch of faggots," so he’s a really intelligent dude, obviously, and then he tried to fight Marcos [Surfer Blood percussionist/keyboardist].  We were just like, "Is this real right now?"

HH:  Where was this?

TF:  Osaka.  It was insane.

HH:  WHAT?  Why?  Who does that?

TF:  And what do the Japanese people think?  "Oh, wow, two shitty American bands trying to fight each other."

JPP:  And then the next day, we heard that they hospitalized Sum 41.

KF:  What?

TF:  Sum 41 was djing a club called Rock Rock.

JPP: I don’t even know why we were there.  We walked in and were like, oh my god...

TF: I'm so embarrassed of this story, come to think of it.

Westin Glass, Thermals drummer: Anyway, Everlast put some members of Sum 41 in the hospital, is what you're saying.

TF: It was like, five minutes after we left. 

TSB: Derek whatever his name is.  [Ed: For the record, that's Deryck Whibley.]

TF: The singer, yeah.

KF: Is that the guy who was married to Avril Lavigne?

WG: Is he still married to Avril Lavigne?

K: No.

WG: That's a name that I haven't heard in a long time: Avril Lavigne.  Whatever happened to her?

HH: She's on the cover of YM or Ms. or whatever.  Or not Ms.--Ms. is a feminist magazine.  Is YM still a magazine?  "Skating tips for girls."

KF: She doesn’t skate

HH: She carried a skateboard.

Tyler Schwarz, Surfer Blood drummer: Dogs or cats?

KF: I like cats.

HH: I like cats, but dogs are pretty rad too.

TS: Mice or rats?

KF, HH: Mice.

WG: I think we can all agree on that.

TS: Scabies or bedbugs?

[collective groan]

WG: Scabies any day.

HH: No, bedbugs.

[collective "NO!"]

WG: You can get rid of scabies; with bedbugs you're fucked.

TSB: Just burn it down.

KF: Put your bed outside.  Put it outside in the snow so they freeze and die.

HH: And then sleep outside.

WG: But then it's too late--they're already everywhere else in your house.

TF: It's gotta be liberating, y'know, to get rid of everything?  To start fresh.

WG: No way.  I love my stuff.

HH: Someone burned down a couch outside my apartment.  TO THE GROUND.  It must've been going all night.  There were just springs and ashes [left], I swear to God.  I was taking pictures of it, and some guy rode by, and he's like, "I think a meteor hit it." [laughs]

TS: We actually got kicked out of our old practice space for burning a couch.  It was gross. 

TF: We pulled it out of a dumpster and burned it....We started off with the pillow and then we ended up burning the whole thing. The story gets progressively worse, so let's just keep it rated PG.

HH: There was this dirty mattress outside, and I joked about burning it down, and then someone burned that couch.  I'm on Belmont, and people are always throwing mattresses all over that street.  One had bedding on it too. End of summer move.