(insert title here) - Volume 1 Issue 2 - Interview: Jack Dishel of Stipplicon with Matt Hotham

Matt: First things first, how and when did Stipplicon come together as a group?

Jack: It started as a solo project, just me wanting to record a real album in the studio. I got a couple of my friends to play on it and then I liked the way it sounded so much that I asked them if they wanted to be a band. They wanted to, and so we did, and then this happened and then that happened, and all of a sudden we're a band and then we're a different band and then we're a different band. Now we're a different band. Lots of people have come in and out and lots more will, I hope. Stipplicon is a mutating organism - it is what it must be for certain times.

M: What does 'Stipplicon' mean?

J: Chris Ghiraldi, a good friend of mine (Velapene Screen, Terminal Sect) made it up. We sat around for the entire summer of '98 calling Pastor Bob Tilton (1-800-705-7000) asking for prayer requests and holy healing and all kinds of crazy religious shit. Every call we'd give ourselves a different name, and Chris was a fucking genius at it, still is. They asked him his name on call #28 THAT DAY, and "Trevor Stipplicon' fell out of his mouth. I shit my face out laughing, and then vomited my ass out anti-laughing, then repeated it for a few months, then sat around thinking of what to call my band for a few months, then realized that it was Stipplicon.

M: If you were pressed to categorize or label Stipplicon's sound, how would you describe it?

J: Ahhh, the hardest question. Self-categorization. I honestly don't know, man, honest. It's definitely born of rock, there's no doubt about that, but where it's ending up I can't really label. It's very rounded. It's like describing yourself. Who the hell can do that and not feel like they're cheating themselves? Where do you get song ideas from? Everything and everywhere. If I'm thinking musically (I go in and out of different creative modes) I convert EVERYTHING into music. The world is music, my brain is music. My farts are also music, great music, my girlfriend is music, my friends, their hearts, my mistakes, my wishes, my prophesies and fears and everything. It's all inside me in a strange wet knot and if I have the desire I can pick some thought-cloth apart and arrange them how I like them and just let my engine take over. It's just a platform for my desires and expressions to bathe on, really. Songs are like a commercial for the soul, you know? A little glimpse of the inside of the individual machine, their mechanical plans.

M: Who are your primary influences, musically?

J: Millions. But the easies are Clutch, The Beatles, Pixies, Built To Spill, early Guns N' Roses, pre-90's Metallica, Slayer, Elliott Smith, Smashing Pumpkins in some ways, a lot of varied stuff.

M: What's in your CD player right now?

J: Right now is...Jeff Buckley. Amazing. His version of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen kills me. And Will Oldham, too. "I See a Darkness", is it? Rips heart bones. And System of a Down. Excellent.

M: I noticed some line-up (and hairstyle) changes since the last time we saw you, what prompted these changes?

J: Well the line-up, like I said, is a fluid thing. The one I have now (Strictly Beats-drums, Uncle Glen - bass, Doug Keith - guitar) satisfies me a lot. They're all down for the long stay, you know. But there's always shit that comes up and I want to play guitar less so hopefully we'll get another full timer on my guitar so I can run around and writhe and shit. I get frustrated having to be strapped to both the guitar AND the mike. I have to roam. I mean I love playing it, I write all our songs on it, but it's like a slave-master to my gangly body. Not everyone has a gangly body like me and people have to see my gangles gangle or else what's the point of having fuckin gangles? So maybe we'll get a second guitar-tourist soon. There's already a coupla kind bastards that are perfect for the job.

As for my hair, I've wanted it long since about a year after I cut it in the first place. I had office hair for a while and walking past a mirror and seeing that made we want to fucking build pencilbombs and throw myself off a roof pumping a stapler. I had to quit that shit and grow mah muthafuckin wig back. As biblical as it sounds, I really do find power in the hair. Even the ass-hair. And especially the tongue hair and the elbow hair. I have rugs of my family's hair hanging in the dungeon of this awesome new castle I bought off this weird count I met in Vulginstaan. He told me he'd throw in the rug of my family's hair if I signed the papers in a toothpaste and wheat solution. So I did it, whatever. What do I know?

M: What can we expect from the new album that may be different or unexpected in relation to the first?

J: Well, first of all, it kicks about twelve times as much ass as the first one. I was still a little hesitant to display my big beautiful testicles on that record. Nice balls on this one. But heart, too. And brains. And everything else that a good sturdy new creation should have. It's more advanced - further down all the roads we've been walking the last few years. Some ideas that were scrapped in the first album were seen through to the end on this one. We took a lot more time on this one - we haven't been settling for 'almost' at all. It's surpassing expectations with every stage that it enters and passes through. I love it a lot.

M: What's the new CD called and when is it due out?

J: It's called "The Late Great Truth" and it's due out when it's done, which could be anytime from June to August. It was supposed to come out in January! Baaababababababaahahahhahahahahaha. Nope! We still haven't even mixed it yet.

M: Why do you make the drive all the way up to Colgate every semester, and when do you think you'll be back?

J: We'll be back whenever you guys ask us back! We do it because it's always fun. All of us have a good time. There's not many of you, but those that do come out for the gigs seem to really enjoy themselves and that's worth a lot to me. We play in NYC all the time, and it's nice to go upstate on a daytrip once in a while and get blasted and rock out and hang out and go home. And plus, it pays well too. You can take full responsibility for financing our second album. I mean it. If we didn't play there, it might have had to come out much later...

M: final question - Where do you see Stipplicon headed in the next few years, i.e. what kind of changes in sound, line-up, touring practices, etc. do you foresee?

J: It's hard to foresee sound, since it mutates so naturally. I see it growing and developing into more and more of it's own entity, more of a planet unto itself. I'll follow my imagination wherever it wants to go, you know, and that'll probably be a weird heavy sad funny good place. It's getting tighter all the time, more focused, less self-aware. I wanna rock for sure - we're definitely not gonna turn into some slowmobile molasses rock or anything. As long as all sides are represented we'll be good. It'll be a good honest thing no matter what because that's what we do it for anyway. If I'm getting my ass kicked by my own band, I'm happy. And if I'm happy, you'll be happy, too, because I'll smear happy-happy jack all over you until you're punching yourself in the lower back and singing along to whatever the hell I'm yelling about and sticking your hand in the mayo jar without asking and telling PhiLL you love him and jesus bro I can't believe we're almost outta here and what are you gonna do after college oh man I don't know the world is a big stinking pile of strange shit that could be a cake and I guess I'm gonna go join the team that's trying to make it a cake, man, but if I don't I'll make sure my kid will and oh god, man, I hope I can withstand all their shit and be a good person and not become what I hate and everything like that. I just wanna be one of the good ones.

Fin.

Interview: Jack Dishel of Stipplicon

with Matt Hotham following the S.C.O.P.E. concert 4/21/01