Teenage Kicks Meets The Makers!

Originally published in Teenage Kicks #3 (1997)
By Devorah Ostrov

The Makers are loud, aggressive, snotty, sexy, arrogant, smart, cool, cute, nice, funny, and completely crazy. Teenage Kicks interviewed Michael Maker following the release of the group's latest LP Hunger and the 2x7" EP "Tear Your World Apart," both available on Estrus Records.

"Tear Your World Apart," released by Estrus Records in 1997, 

features artwork by Love and Rockets co-creator Jaime Hernandez.

The Makers are...

Michael Maker — vocals

Don Maker — bass

Jamie Maker — guitar

Jay Maker — drums

How they met... 

   "We went to North Central. It was a shitty high school in a shitty neighborhood. We were always getting into fights with the jocks. That's how we met each other. We were always saying, 'I saw you getting beat up the other day.'"

What they listened to & where they bought it...
   "We went to thrift stores all the time. I don't want to say we were poor, 'cause that sounds stupid. But we always wanted to buy a ton of records, and new records or CDs were too expensive. So all the records we got were from thrift stores, and they would cost 25 cents. We would buy stuff that looked cool — like if there were a bunch of guys on the cover, like the Count Five, or a group that looked badass. That's how we found all our Sonics' records and the Shadows of Knight. It was the coolest music we'd ever heard in our lives!"

Michael Maker
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

There's no mom & dad Maker...

   "It was a stupid Ramones thing to do. We're over it now. I don't even like the Ramones anymore. I can't even listen to that shit."

What color are their eyes? I dunno, they're always wearing shades...
   "We played a lot of hick taverns in Spokane, and it was tough. We were really young, and we weren't all white. We would get into fights every night. At first, me and Donny decided we were going to wear shades just so it would be harder for people to tell who we were."

Everything's cool now...
   "We used to get dressed up for shows, but every night our clothes would be ripped to shreds. People would just attack us and rip our jackets off. I'd spend some money on a nice jacket and some idiot, hillbilly motherfucker would grab me and rip the thing off. So, I'd get pissed off and smash a bottle on him. And then all hell would break loose! When we were just starting out, that's how a lot of our shows went. But now everything is cool. People come to our shows to hear our music. We get along with each other, and we get along with the audience."

Whatever happened to Tim...
   "Tim had a lot of problems. He drank a lot and took a lot of bad things. But there's a happy ending! He's all cleaned up now, just like he used to be — just like when we were in high school. And he has his own band called the Vindictive. I haven't heard them, but they're supposed to be good."

Tell us about the new guy...
   "Jamie was always our buddy. We always considered him as one of us anyway. So, when Tim got fucked up, Jamie was just there. He's a really good guitar player, and he already knew our songs."

Michael Maker

Photo: Devorah Ostrov

The Great Northwest tradition...

   "It's nice to be a Northwest band. I'm proud of where we're from, but I also don't give a shit about it. It's all bullshit now. Nowhere is really all that great. Everything's been fucked around with and tainted. We don't even play that much in the Northwest; it's not worth our time. We do far better on the East Coast than we do in the Northwest. We do really well in Seattle, but mostly they couldn't care less about what we're doing. They don't think, 'Alright, somebody is carrying on the Northwest tradition!' They just want to hear Soundgarden. And we don't give a shit about them either. Fuck 'em!"

The mystery of the Young Lions...
   "It's a real righteous organization led by Tim Kerr of the Lord High Fixers. They're real good people, and everything they stand for is true and right. You can't really argue with them. They took us in because they like our music. They believe in our songs. But we don't really know who they are. They say they go to our shows, but they never introduce themselves. We get letters from them saying, 'I saw your show in New York. It was very inspiring.' Real simple, no return address. They're real subdued."

Love and Rockets...
   "That was a big deal for us. When we were little kids, we read that comic book and got all into the characters. It turned out that he's [co-creator Jaime Hernandez] a fan of our music, and he wanted to do this cover ['Tear Your World Apart'] for us. Every time I look at it, I'm blown away! It looks just like one of his comics — except it's us!"

Turning Japanese...
   "We went to Japan right before Hunger came out, and we did really well over there. We doubled in popularity! The women over there are really stoic. They'll have you sign all their records, but they don't go gaga. They don't play up being girlies. They're really respectable people. They don't make asses out of themselves like a lot of Americans do."

Cartoon panel from the Tales from Estrus Vol. 3 sampler

featuring the Makers, the Drags, Impalas, and Lord High Fixers.

The high cost of nonstop destruction...
   "We went to Europe after our first album. It wasn't as satisfying as playing in Japan, where everyone knew our songs and our history. In Europe, people came out of curiosity. They weren't real fans of our music. And I don't think we won too many people over. To tell you the truth, I don't think they'll have us back. Sometimes we talk about Europe, and we just look at each other and go, 'What the fuck were we thinking?'
   "At one point, we were playing on a dock... This was in the winter, it was freezing outside, and the dock was twenty feet above the water. Donnie took this rockabilly idiot, put him in a shopping cart, and threw him in the water. We almost started this huge Mods vs. Rockers battle! We went haywire at this one club and destroyed everything. The next day we found out it was actually an art museum. We destroyed it all! We didn't sleep a second on that tour; it was nonstop destruction! We actually ended up owing thousands of dollars. When we got back home, we got an invoice. That was the height of our fucked-upness."

The Makers - Hunger (Estrus 1997)

The writing process...
   "I write all the time. Something just pops in my head... I have a stack of napkins under my bed that I've written songs on. I've got tons of shit just lying around. When we go into the studio, I have a big folder full of paper flying everywhere, everyone's picking them up."

No time for overdubs...
   "We just went in and cranked Hunger out. Then we mixed it the next day. And that's it. We don't want to do it like that all the time, but it costs a lot of money — you pay by the hour. A lot of times, I wish I could've had a second take so I could've said something differently or changed it completely. Sometimes I wonder, 'What the hell was I thinking?' And every time I hear it, it makes me cringe.
   "Not so much with Hunger, but all of our other albums — I just can't listen to them anymore because we did them so much quicker. And sometimes we're so fucking drunk we don't even know what's going on. I would just improvise the lyrics! It's fun at the time, and it makes for good stories. But when you're the person who made the record, you just can't listen to it, y'know."

No offense to engineers and dishwashers...
   "I write about personal stuff that I think most people can relate to if they're anywhere near like us. We get letters from people that say it means a lot to them. To say something in a song that's going to move somebody — you can't talk about bullshit that doesn't exist or stuff that's degrading. I just take it more seriously than that. I don't always think we make good music, but if we were making shitty music like that, I would never do it. Going on tour is pretty hard. If you don't think you're doing something important, it's a waste of time. You may as well go and get some shitty job as some fucking engineer. Unless you put something into it that is personal, or tough, or aggressive — it's just a waste of time. You may as well be washing dishes somewhere."

Estrus Records "coughs up a few tasteless treats for yer

rabid holiday appetites," including the Makers' LP.

Behind the lyrics on Hunger...
"Tear Apart"
   "It's about people who can't escape from relationships, who can't tear themselves away because they have all these memories. But there's memories to be made everywhere. Basically... tear apart from your childhood and fucking grow up!"

"Razor Blade"
   "That's like one of those moments, like at three in the morning, when you feel like complete shit. I'm not talking about actually using a razor blade to kill yourself. To me, razor blades are symbolic of suicide. It's painful, slow, and messy. You hack away at yourself and wait to die. But I like the word. It sounds threatening; it sounds powerful.
   "I was thinking about those times when you feel like, 'What am I doing? I'd rather be dead than be here.' It has a lot to do with other people too. Like, why are people I despise so happy? Why do they love this world so much? But people like me and my friends have to struggle. Why are we at odds with everything?"

"No Count"
   "It's just one of those self-loathing songs, y'know. You gotta throw in a few of those."

"Worlds Apart"
   "That's about people who get involved with other people out of convenience — their next-door neighbor, their boyfriend from high school. And they don't realize that even though they're living in the exact same world, they're complete strangers; they have nothing in common. You're not gonna find somebody just like you just because they're right there. The people closest to you, the people you see every day at work or school, are actually worlds apart from you."

Michael Maker
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

"Temper Tantrum"
   "Well, I've got this really bad temper... First, Donny came up with the music, and I thought it was like having a temper tantrum. It's got a nonstop beat to it! The whole song, I'm bitching and whining, and then right at the end I do what I have to do every day — pull myself back and say, 'temper, temper.'
   "You can't freak out all the time. I've spent enough years freaking out, getting onstage and smashing everything, making an ass out of myself having temper tantrums."

"Hard Times"
   "It's just a big whining song. I'm a big whiner! Just a Bunch of Whining and Bitching, that's the title of our next album."

"Live or Die"
   "That's about somebody who always wants you there. They don't necessarily need you; it just means a lot that you're there. Like I say in the song: 'She doesn't care if I live or die/As long as I do it by her side.' It's a pretty stupid song."

"Crash Ride"
   "It's about Tim, our last guitar player. A 'crash ride' is a cymbal. You ride on it, then you whack it and it makes a crash sound. It's my favorite thing on a drum kit! And I thought the two words together sounded quite profound.
   "Tim looked at the band in a different way. He wasn't expressing himself or having fun. He was just driving himself into the ground and fucked himself up completely; he couldn't handle it. I thought the words 'crash ride' pretty much summed him up. There's some harsh stuff in the song. I say: 'You're a waste/You're a victim of your mother's bad taste...' He understands that he was fucked up. At the time I wrote that song, I was really upset. We just totally lost him. He decided that getting loaded was more important than sticking it out with his friends. That's an insult. If he can insult me like that on a grand scale, I'm gonna insult him on our record. He was my best friend, y'know."

Michael Maker
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

"Fair Game"
   "That's such a kick-ass fucking song! Everybody is fair game. Especially if they don't do shit, if they're the fucker who sits around — 'like whatever' — they've got no response, no reaction, no input. Those people are always fair game to me for anything."

"Why Can't I Live Forever"
   "What I say in the song: 'Why can't I live forever/This life of stormy weather...' It's kind of tongue-in-cheek, and again, it's about people. I've got to an age in life where people start dying. I guess everyone gets to that age. All of a sudden, people start dying from car accidents, killing themselves... And all of a sudden, you realize everyone you thought you were going to see for the rest of your life is probably not going to make it — and you're lucky if you do.
   "For some reason, I feel like everyone is croaking, but somehow I keep going on. And I probably live a more dangerous existence than any of them! Why me? I don't necessarily consider myself worthy of this long a life, anyway.
   "But there's a lot of different meanings to that song. At the time I was writing it, it seemed real personal to me. I also say: 'Why can't I live forever/This life of tar and feathers...' because it seems like I'm humiliated a lot financially and personally."

To sum up...
   "Songs are like these moments you have, these thoughts, captured moments. My lyrics are all pretty basic and embarrassing. But at the same time, I understand that they're little moments I captured, little annoyances — and every once in awhile, something I think is beautiful. So, they're not necessarily that important, except to me. But I think the album turned out really well."