Atlanta garage-rock band Black Lips have been together for 16 years, earning a reputation notorious for provocative and insane stage antics including vomiting, fireworks, electric R.C. car races, chickens, and flaming guitars just to name a few. Black Lips are always ready to having a good time.
Currently picked up by Red Bull to preform a four-city tour, Black Lips stopped by their home-away-from-home, Athens, GA to preform a free show. I sat down with Cole Alexander, one of the founding band members, to talk about touring, their new single "Freedom Fries," and what it’s like to be in a band for so long.
TRANSVERSO MEDIA: So you’re part of Red Bull Sound Select, how did you get involved with them?
BLACK LIPS: We’ve done some events with Red Bull in the past. They kind of regularly do events in Atlanta and I’m sure all over the country but they had good selection of music so we’re down to get involved. Sometimes it’s weird working with a corporation but they’ve been cool with the act they’ve picked. Like we got to play with Juicy J of Three 6 Mafia who is someone we grew up listening to in like the late 90s. I don’t think we would ever have gotten to play with him if it wasn’t for Red Bull. I think they’re doing a good job picking bands and putting together cool projects that makes the bands want to get involved.
You guys are known for crazy stage antics. I heard last time you guys were [at Athens venue 40 Watt Club] there were fireworks involved?
That was a long time ago! Um, sometimes some crazy things happen and those things get written about. Like, if you look at our Wikipedia it mentions these crazy things that have happened but it’s not like ever night we have this formal [plan]. It’s not indicative of our real band.
What’s the most insane thing that’s happened on stage?
I mean, we have fans attack us and stuff and kind of riot. Throw bottles and stuff. Sometimes crazy stuff happens but people get the wrong idea. We pretty much just play music like other rock bands with a lot of energy. Sometimes things pop off but we never want to do a forced thing. Like every night we are trying to start something, we just let it happen naturally.
Where is your favorite place to tour?
We haven’t really toured Mexico per se, but we’ve played a few cities there and I really like it. We played Mexico City and that was really nice. We played in Istanbul, I like that city a lot. Japan is pretty fun. There are a lot of cool places. There’s something fun about everywhere but those are some of my favorites.
Earlier this week you released a 7” with fellow Atlanta band Coathangers called “Freedom Fries.” What can you tell us about that?
Yeah, Coathangers is like our sister band. They’ve been going for a long time and touring. We’ve done a tour with them but never done some sort of project like that so we deicide to do a split 7” and used a left over song from our last album.
You guys have been a band since 1999. What would you tell yourself 16 years ago when you were just starting?
I guess, you know tough it out, it’s going to be better. In the beginning the first six years is really hard and it’s discouraging. We were kind of struggling the first six and I was working a day job to make the ends meet in between tours so it was kind of hard. There was a point where I wanted to quit trying to tour so much but they we held on just long enough and then the ball started rolling and we picked up some momentum to do it more comfortably now.
What’s your favorite song to preform on stage?
I don’t know… We were doing soundcheck for this song “Not Go Home” and I like doing that one.
If you weren’t called Black Lips what would you be called?
Labios Negros.
What’s a song you hate?
Um, I don’t like that Macklemore song about the thrift store. But I like talked crap about him in an interview and I felt bad because I heard he’s a really nice guy. I don’t like that song but I’m sure he’s a cool guy.
Since you’ve been a band for so long now, how do you guys stay relevant without losing yourselves?
Sometimes we get a little tired or rusty, but we’ve had some member changes so that helped us sort of reinvent ourselves a little bit. Like, we just got our old guitarist back so that’s brought new energy to the band and new chemistry. Me, Joe the drummer, and Jared the bass player have always been consistent in the band. So, like, the extra guitar has been always a wild card.
Anything else you want to add?
It’s good to be back in Athens. It feels like home-away-from-home because it’s so close to Atlanta and they have a good scene, so its good to be back!