I'm Your Man

Rip It Up, Issue 213, 1 May 1995, Page 17

I'm Your Man

Phil Owens of the Skatenigs

If Phil Owen didn’t have hair on his chest, he’d probably just sew some right on there, he’s that well ‘ard. The lead singer with Texas band the Skatenigs doesn’t want you thinkin’ he some kind of nancy-boy soft-cock, and he’s got an album called What A Mangled Web We Leave to prove it. The Skatenigs have been treading the boards since the late 80s, pounding out a hardcore industrial assault over a handful of singles, their debut record, Stupid People Shouldn’t Breed, and now, his new baby. Our conversation is like an episode of Tool Time, lots of male bonding, grunting and calling each other “buddy”, and Phil consistently turns the chat round to his favourite topics...

Wg)©® 9 fe®

Song five on Mangled Web is called ‘Ranch Apocalypse’, and is one tune he cherishes most. The Branch Davidian complex, ruled by David Koresh, was virtually over Phil’s back fence. The song tells of Phil’s disbelief that the National Guard were called out to bring down one man with more weapons than the A-Team.

©Mire©

“This guy had stockpiled an incredible amount of guns and ammunition, but this is America — if you’ve got money, you can get them. Guns are like drugs, they can make them absolutely illegal and all it will do is make them worth more. But I do think, outside of the use of automatic firearms, a person should have the right to own a gun and protect themselves... aside from the fact of hunter’s rights.” You hunt?

Mfcg

“Oh yes. Texas is a plethora of wildlife, and there’s tonnes of hunting acreage - deer,

turkey, quail and dove — it’s a big hunting state. I like to hunt Russian boar, we have a lot of European boar in South Texas. The dogs I have are boar hunting dogs and in my leisure time that’s one of the things I enjoying doing.” Do you do it for sport or do you have big barbecues?

“Big barbecues! I don’t hunt for anything I wouldn’t use. I’m a Texan, I eat meat.”

What’s Russian boar taste like?

“It depends on how big they are. If they’re older, dominant boars, they can taste fairly rank. They taste different to domestic swine, but that’s the closest thing to compare it to. So we’ll sit around with a few beers and have a great time.”

®@@g@

“Most of the beer we drink is Mexican beer. We also like Irish Whiskey and Russian Vodka, but nothing is habitual, nothing is addictive. Most of the drugs we would partake in I would see as no different than drinking a bottle of booze.”

This sure is fun. It beats talking to some mediocrity who thinks rock ’n’ roll is art and wants to talk about achieving a live sound in the studio. Phil says that talking music in an interview is not his idea of fun — if people want to know what the music means they should listen to it.

MO

“When you make a record you wait in anticipation to see what people think about it. You want to provoke a reaction, or make people think, or maybe just say something funny to see if any idiot will take you seriously. But it’s rock ’n’ roll, you don’t want to dissect it over the phone. I mean, what do people think we are, a fuckin’ MTV band.”

JOHN RUSSELL