Team Rockit

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Question: Can you introduce yourself?

Joe: Sure. I'm Joe. I play guitar and I'm the Leadsinger and I basicly write most of the songs. A little Dave & Matt help me. We all sometimes do jams, where we play off for each other and make up songs that way, you know. Birds and Butterflys is all mine. It's love song for my cat. I love my cat.

Question: And you?

Dave: My name is Dave Damask and I play bass for Team Rockit. And I write music for fun. I love to drink beer. You know? I like girls a lot but I like to have fun most of all.

Question: A very important question: Is the name Team Rockit an allusion to the TV Show "Pokemon"?

Joe: Well, sort of. I didn't know. We had a girl in the Band on the bass for five or six years ago and she said "hey i've got a free name for the band: Team Rockit". And I said "That's cool!" But I didn't know what Pokemon is yet, but I think that is really shit. It is! We spell it different though. Personally, I think Pikachu is cute. The little yellow guy. It is slowely transformed from meaning the Pokemon thing to just Rock'n'Roll. We are a team. Everything we do in a team. Team work. And we rock! It kinda fits that way. We want to rock.

Question: Do you have any idols concerning your Music?

Joe: Oh man! Jimmy Hendrix, Agnus Young, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, The Beatles. I like a lot of old music. I don't know, what you call it... Classic rock.

Dave: Ween.

Joe: Ween! It's very new. I like them a lot. Ween is probably my favorite band today. I also like pretty much any good punk. When I was a kid, I listened to the Black Flag a lot, Dead Kennedys was really really huge for us. Dead Milkmen. Thinks like that...

Dave: Bad Religion.

Joe: Bad Religion! So we kinda mix that style with the more musical beatelish pop songs ... turned in what that was, you know. Kind of a mix between old rock and new rock.

Dave: Mine is a little bit diffferent. I am a little younger. Even though I really appreciate your Rolling Stones and everything, one of my favourite bands is Black Sabbath. And I like Green Day...

Joe: I like Green Day, too.

Dave: ...Green Day, Rancid, so many punk bands, the Streetrats. That's actually my cousins band. They are really good at singing.

Joe: They are very, very good singers. Those guys are like punk with a lot of thought and a lot of care put into the vocals. Too many bands today, I think, scream. I like to hear notes, you know, music and his cousins band is good for that. They are really good singers, for sure.

Dave: Lately one of my favourite bands to listen to come from England, called The Herbrassers, a little bit more metal, a little bit more everything, but as a bass player I listen to hip hop, I listen to rap, I listen to rock, metal, death metal, country, jazz, blues. Back in the day we opened up with blues bands, so I bring up everything I've done to it. You know, when I was in a metal band, we jumped around a lot. So in this band I jump around a lot and kinda give some character and bring in difference.

Joe: You definitely do that.

Dave: I bring a different view to Rock'n'Roll.

Joe: Dave's only been in the band a couple of months. He actually, he's been in LA for a couple of months and he found out, that it's not all roses and cherries.

Dave: LA is very dirty.

Joe: Yeah. And we needed a bass player. Our bass player quit and I called Dave up and said "Man, you have move fast, 'cause it's time for you to join Team Rockit". It's been fun too, cause we also... you know when you are on tour and you stuck together for 24 hours a day every day for maybe like two, three weeks in a row, it's very important that you're friends with the people or can get along, because if you with somebody you don't like, you can be very brutal.

Dave: Back to the Team Rockit thing. We do have actually a secret name in Europe: Schweinefickers! It's a bad name too... Schweinefickers.

Joe: That's just what the girls call us though.

Question: So your name is Schweinefickers.

Joe: Not really, it's just a joke. It's one of the few things we know in German. The only thing I know in German. I think it's a very fun thing. For sure, for sure...

Question: Are there any artists you would like to play or work with?

Joe: Oh yeah. I'd love one day for Mick Jagger to hear me play and say "Let's do an album" or Lenny Kravitz or some super big rock star like that, but for the most part I enjoy playing with these two guys. Matt's been with for like five years, he's the drummer and I love the way he plays and he's got a lot of energy. Dave, I love playing with him. And he's also got a lot of energy. We are pretty much the same, although I did play with Eric Burdon, The Animals, "House of the rising sun" and I quit. I also played guitars for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I like these guys better, although the drummer from the Chili Peppers is good. Chad Smith, he can jam, for sure.

Dave: I like to play with a lot of local bands. It makes me see what else is out there. It influences me as well, 'cause sometimes they do things differently, especially when you are in different countries they do things differently and I see that and take that and do what I already do and mix it together, come up with something else all together. That's what influences me most. I love seeing new music.

Joe: And which is cool, 'cause on these tours we usually see those two bands and stuff I've never heard. It keeps it interesting. So it's fun that way as well.

Question: What are you impression of the gigs in Germany?

Joe: Oh man, I tell you...

Dave: I love it!

Joe: I love it, too. The crowds here appreciate here Rock'n'Roll much more than in the States. In the United States there a so many bands and everybody is in a band and there's so many clubs, that they don't pay you well...

Dave: They don't pay at all.

Joe: They don't feed you ever, we go hungry a lot. And we travel, we go to Detroit, it's like seven hours from my home. New York, that's 14, 15 hours from my home and they can't even give us a free beer. In that way, they kinda treat the bands like dogs. Here at least the promoter is at the bar and they are nice and they treat us with respect and you know, we treat them with respect as well. Sometimes you feel like "Why is this person so mean to us?" at home and then we come here and we're like "Man, we should move here". Everybody is so much more appreciate, not only that. At home they want to hear cover music as background. Here we can play in an original set and people pay attention and they appreciate that. At home we play games and we play like 6 originals, sometimes 3 originals and we play for two hours. We play Creedence Clearwater Revival, Stones, The Beatles... they wanna hear anything, but original stuff. People are so lazy that they don't wanna think to learn about new things and they'd rather hear things they already know. In that respect it's much better here as far as the original music goes. I like it a lot more.

Question: What do you think about the Bavarian beer?

Joe: Oh man, the thing is it's spoiled, because when we go home, I can't drink. Everything is so shit, it's basically piss, you drink water. It's terrible. You don't wanna... but here beer is kick ass.

Dave: Yeah!

Joe: Oh yeah!

Matt: Are you from Munich?

Question: Schweinfurt.

Matt: Schweinfuuuurt!He ist he Schweineficker from Germany We saw a pig in TV and somebody said to Joe: "You have to learn some German words." And he was like: "Yeah okay, what?" "Call everybody Schweineficker!" and he was like: "Okay, Schweineficker!" He even didn't know what it means. Now he does. That was so funny at the first tour.

Question: You can name your next album like that.

Matt: Yeah!

Question: Name of the new album!

Joe: Yeah. Might be, you never know! It's been a joke for about a year.

Dave: But still funny.

Question: What is the most extreme experience you had with the band, on stage for example?

Joe: Once we were in a bar in... what's it called?

Matt: Freiburg.

Joe: In Freiburg.

Matt: It was illegal stuff.

Joe: Underground. They had egg carton on the ceiling for the sound. And they had a fog machine, a smoke machine. And they start to pump the smoke through the egg carton and we thought the place is on fire. We're ready to run, you know? Oh shit, we gonna die.

Question: That's Rock'n'Roll!

Joe: Yeah! That was the funniest experience.

Question: What kind of music do you listen privately?

Joe: Beatles, Fishbones, Ween, Jazz, The Figgs. I like them a lot.

Matt: They are great, man!

Dave: I personally listen to Green Day, Rancid... anything... anything and everything. I like a lot of poppy punk, Material Issue, great band. They played a lot of shows, not anymore. I think I use a lot of that to feel me to play in shows and make music.

Question: Your last album is "The Lowest Point in Rock'n'Roll History". In you opinion what was the highest point?

Joe: The highest point is when the Beatles came

Dave: The Rolling Stones were pretty high too.

Joe: Back in the old days, when all bands played guitars and were very good at their instruments. Today everybody hears hip hop and there are so little types of music and it's so broken up.

Matt: It takes away from Rock'n'Roll.

Joe: It takes away from main real Rock'n'Roll. We are on the lowest point of Rock'n'Roll history. One of the highest points in our new album.

Matt: The thing is, there are so many different kinds of rockmusik and so many different kinds of hip hop. It's so departed now. Formerly it was like Led Zeppelin - everybody knew Led Zeppelin. Beatles - everybody knew the Beatles and so on. Now there will be no band like the ones before, because today a band can sell a Million CDs and nobody knows this band. It's so departed, you can listen to music on your cell phone or at TV or whatever. That's just why we say it's the lowest point of Rock'n'Roll history. Now nobody can say, that they are really the kings. It's a shame.

Joe: I told you he spoke good German.

Question: How did you hit the title "Duck duck goose"?

Matt: Okay, that title sucks. In German it means nothing. Maybe it's a game for kids. Kids are in a circle and they say "duck duck duck..." and when you say "goose", you have to run. Something with fox...

Question: The fox is around.

Matt: Yeah, the fox is around. And we named the album like that, because everybody seems to know what is means and it is so funny, because it's so cute. They bash something and we laughed so much, 'cause it looks so cute.

Question: You really have cool names for your albums.

Matt: Yeah, but we played at some Punkfestivals and they said: "Ey what a shit!" Therefore we did it differently this time, with a naked woman, and everybody knows what's going on.

Question: Matt has been living for some time in Munich?

Matt: Yeah I lived here fort wo years. I worked für Bertelsmann. So BMG, Major-label-shit. I was responsible for the Pop stuff, responsible for USA and Canada. That was cool, I met some Indie rock people. And then I went on.

Question: Now you are here with One&One. Since when?

Matt: Very short. Since four months. That was cool. We wanted to do a tour anyway and now we have some support. And we gonna go on with One&One, 'cause they signed the deal for about two years. They accelerate with the promotion and we need this at the moment. We see that each time, that it increases. The first time was super, the second time it was even better, because we had more money when we finished.

Question: The last two times One&One haven't been with you. Did you do it by yourself then?

Matt: Yeah, we did it on our own. We know some people here. It was just a try. We noticed that people like it and then we came back again. Then we did some other tours and that's it. I saw so many bands when I lived here, that we decided to bring only one band with us.

Question: What do you think about Munich and Germany?

Joe: Oh man, Munich is so nice. We played in this place before and it was cool. A lot of chicks out there and tonight I really want to go with that one blond girl. Just the fact, that they like our music is the most important thing to me and that they appreciate the originals, 'cause put a lot of hard work in it, you know. Coming up with songs, recording it, mastering it, coming up with an album cover. It's kind of discouraging and then we come here and it's kind of a pay off.

Matt: The conditions in Europe are better than in the States. When you go in a club, there is always something to eat and a place to sleep and the host is there.

Question: So they care about you.

Matt: Exactely. They work. In the States there a so many bands, thousands of bands, in Chicago as well. I mean, it's cool for us, we did some great gigs, bvut we have to work even harder and even more.

Question: How many people have been on those gigs?

Matt: The best this year was in Chicago with 1800 people. We've supported a big band.

Question: Name?

Matt: Do you know Marty Casey and the Love Hammers?

Question: No.

Matt: There is a TV show and everybody loves it and all that sit. The thing is, we also noticed it. And this time, with this album we've also been a little bit more at TV, because we have two videos now.

Joe: We shot this Video right before we left and came on tour. A few days before we left our homes.

Matt: At that time we were lucky. But at the end - we always say this: there are some bands which sound really good at CD and you wanna listen to them at home, Radiohead for example, but I don't have to listen to them live, because it's so different. But we love what we ever wanted to do. We are a band which accelerates live and it's always a great show. There are only a few bands which I like and which have a great show. You know how crazy Joe is and the other one. Today the stage was a little bit small, but usually we freak out. You can see what we want to see as well.

Question: There are so many bands which have great albums, but live they suck, because they can't make their point. I prefer bands with standard albums, but they rock live.

Matt: Exactely. The problem is, we can't show on an album how we are live. CD is ccol, but we couldn't show on CD what we are about. Usually people see us live and think "cool band!", sometimes live better than on CD. I think we are a little bit different.

Question: The live show is more important than the album?

Joe: In a way yeah. We get direct response, we know which songs are good and bad by the reaction of the people.

Matt: I mean, Joe played in hundreds of bands before this bands and I played in a lot of bands before this band...

Dave: And I played in a lot of bands before this band.

Matt: The thing is, you need people who have already been on the road and understand what music is about. It's really hard to find these people. I think I'm lucky that we found each other. He knows what he has to do live, I know what I have to do live, he knows what he has to do live and I think that's very very important.

Dave: And what it means you have to do what to do live: you have to fucking rock!

Matt: We are all Schweineficker!

Dave: Rock!

Question: Are there any German bands you know or listen to?

Matt: Oomph! Rammstein, Bad Religion, Scorpions.

Question: Scorpions!

Joe: When I was a kid I loved the scorpions. With the old guitar player, before the new guy. I loved that stuff.

Matt: Massendefekt

Question: Massendefekt? Cool!

Matt: We played with them.

Question: Where?

Matt: At a punkfestival. I mean, when I worked for BMG, I met some rockbands like Massendefekt ort he Guano Apes.

Dave: I really like Rammstein a lot. I think they do a good job bringing a different light to Germany. I listen a lot to Rammstein and the fact, that they speak German even though I don't understand it - now people have translated for me - I think it shows that they're not trying to impress anybody. They do what they wanna do by speaking their language and making good music. That's something we kinda share, 'cause we come here and speak English. We don't have any German songs right now.

Joe: But we gonna make one for our next album. We will!

Question: You can cover Rammstein.

Dave: It's kinda like Rammstein, they have a couple of English songs too.

Joe: Cool.

Question: Yeah. Then thank you.

Joe: Thank YOU!

Matt: Finished? Then drink a little bit beer with us!

Eingetragen von sk am 25.11.2006.