Interviews    The Cumshots
by Chris Barnes

The Cumshots devastate. They cum ...erm...come off like Entombed on microdot and Chinese diet tea. They just released their first full length, The Last Sons of Evil, produced by Cumshots/Thulsa Doom/Black Debbath producer Ole Andreasson (aka El Doom). As they say in their bio, "It ain't rock; Mr no-good-'whine, whine, I'm so miserable'-fuck. It's boner-rock asshole!" Hellride talks to frontman Max Cargo.

Hellride Music: Max Cargo, greetings from the States. Tell us a little bit about yourself and the history behind the Cumshots. You are a celebrity of sorts in Norway aren't you?

Max Cargo: Hi, Chris. I've just come down with the flu and some serious diarrhea over here. (Christ my ass feels mutilated.) So if this comes down as somewhat unfocused it's just because I'm running the long brown mile between the bathroom and my computer. Well, well. Let's go.

I've been playing in a lot of different bands up through the years. The most important ones for me (before Cumshots) being a lousy band called Gartnerlosjen. Musically shite, but live-wise something very much out of the ordinary. Hurra Torpedo (we still have our annual retirement-gig once a year)where I play "percussion" (I can't afford a drumkit so I hammer away on discarded washing machines, stoves etc. with pieces of iron). And DATSUN. We are up and about again after a couple of years doing nothing. We are hoping to get recording again this Winter. A follow up to our debut Preaching the Gospel of Porn. But most important of all is The Cumshots. I'm just so fucking proud of this band. Me and El Doom kicked this off because we HAD to. There
was nothing good at all to be said about the metal-scene in Norway. All make-up wearing, whining crap. At least earlier there was an evil spirit to it all, but then it just mutilated into this horrible arty kinda of
nonsense. Fuck that. We got hold of the other 3 guys and did the album. And then we started touring. And then bones got broken, heads started bleeding and the hospital bills got rolling.

As for myself, I suppose I'm kinda well known over here. But it's a small country. If you do something out of the ordinary you're bound to get noticed. I did a thing here last year, where I tried to see how far it was
possible to degenerate during one week. I layed in a hospital bed in a shopping window downtown doing nothing but overeating, watching videos starring animals in the main roles, smoking and generally trying to die the ultimate white trash death. This was on television every night during that week, and a lot of people hung outside every day to watch me eat, puke and eat my own puke for 7 days, so of course that got some attention.

Hellride Music: The Cumshots sound like the Entombed when Nicke was still around...crackling with energy and fuggin' furious... what prompted you and El Doom to record an all out metal CD?

Max: Thanks. Yeah, I guess it has that kinda Entombed'ish sound. For me that is the ultimate compliment. I still think there's no record ever that sounds so good as To Ride..... El Doom will disagree with me there, but I just love the production on that one. I just hope our next one will be even double the intensity.

Hellride Music: Please describe "Boner-rock" as you use it....

Max: If the Cumshots would someday get involved in some kind of freak accident where all our bodyparts got melted together we'd look like a gigantic penis. Scabby, dirty, big, blue and inflamed. But erect. VERY erect.

Hellride Music: Why did you guys pick the album cover you did? I mean it's pretty disturbing, not because of what is going on, but because of what you might imagine in going on... It's the ultimate in homoeroticism. Are any members of the Cumshots openly gay metal fans?

Max: It was either this or a picture of a guy frying a baby. We chose this one because it's just so downright disturbing. An upside down cross is nothing but that....an upside down cross. 3 guys in a room. One of them naked, wiping something off his chest, exhausted. Number 2 standing behind him terrified. And the third one, heading towards the camera, angry as hell, in camo-trousers and a tiny tank-top, a bundle of rubbergloves sticking out of his pockets, holding what looks like a gigantic carpenter-tool (but probably is THE antichrist of dildos) in his right hand. Now THAT is scary. Give me the odd cross and the stupid band name in unreadable letters anytime, but if you're looking for pure evil this is the real deal.

As for homosexuality, I haven't seen any guys sneaking out of the hotel rooms just yet. A lot of ugly women, but no guys.

Hellride Music: Why the name "The Cumshots" instead of "Satanic Ritual Loveslave" or something that's more metal sounding? Don't get me wrong, I love the name "The Cumshots" but it sounds like you guys might be doing soundtracks to pornos or something... like 70's bad jazz....

Max: Well, the name "Beaten to Death" was already taken, and we had some trouble finding something to match it. So after some alcohol-ridden brainstorm sessions we got a couple of names down. One of them Cumshots. For some reason this was not a name that came down too well with any of our friends. So what can you do. If everybody hates it, you stick to it. So that's what we did. I kind of like it now. It symbolizes speed in an idiotic way. And it's a nice little thing that can turn into something ugly. Like a baby (god forbid !). It's evil.

Hellride Music: Did you write all the lyrics to the album? What were your inspirations for the songs "Conquer of Canyons", "Dead Man's Hand" and "No, Nothing, Please Die". Those are some great songs with some brutal vocals...

Max: Yeah, except for the chorus on "Conqueror of Canyons". That was Morales' work. Actually he came up with a whole song there, but I just couldn't get it to fit with the music so I changed it. And "The Fear I Am" is an all Schlong song. Both lyrics and music.

"Conqueror.." is about sleeping around. Doing what must be done, for the sake of man. If it's there you take it. Ugly or not. "Dead man's hand" is all angst. Waiting for the downfall, and hurrying it. "No Nothing...." is where you give up.

It's funny you should pick those three, as they form a trilogy of some sort. First you've got the crime. Then you have the fear of getting caught, and finally you just don't give a fuck anymore. There will be a part four to all this on the next album. You know when you're out riding on an airplane and you just pray for it to crash ? That kind of feeling.

Hellride Music: Is El Doom OK to work with or is he a pain in the ass? Anyone in the band ever get into a fight? Anyone in the band every get into a fight with an audience member?

Max: Ha ha ha. El Doom is a very, very special guy. His stomach can't cope with hot chocolate, he does not approve of fat women and he absolutely detests Indian food. But he's very productive and gets things done. If it wasn't for him we wouldn't have done anything but playing mini-golf and hustling women.

But fights! Man, where to start ? Just this week I was at the Quartfestival in Norway and a guy started bashing me over the head with a bottle. (OK, I tried to take a piss on his leg, but hey). I'll enclose a couple of pictures from our Oslo tour where we just had to beat up a piece of dung that started bothering us during our set, just to give you the picture of what goes down at our gigs.

Hell, this summary of our Oslo tour really tells it all. It's from our homepage. http://www.thecumshots.org/news.htm

Monday; PALACE GRILL
A roots-joint on the west side of town. Didn't sound like the best way to kick off a short tour like this. Seeing as there was no stage (they had to play on the floor) and that the backstage was a freezing, cold room stacked with old ham didn't make things better. But they were wrong, oh so wrong. By 11 o'clock the place was packed. 50 people had to watch the show from the outside, trying to get a glimpse through the window. The fact that there was no stage proved to the bands advantage as they had to climb the bar every
once in a while to make themselves known. Tommy Dean (still in a cast after breaking his leg at the show in Horten) fell down from his barstool a couple of times. Max knocked down some of the lighting with his head, spreading glass and blood into the beers of the ones close by. Schlong sang "Fear I Am" with Cargo holding the mike between his feet lying on top of the bar. Some antiquarian meat disappeared. All in all a fantastic evening. 6 out of 6 according to Scooter-magazine. He could have said 7.

Tuesday; PARAGRAFEN
The most spoken of, but by far the best gig of the week. Mostly due to Max beating the shit out of a tiny fellow after he threw parts of the stage onto Max's head causing him to bleed his shirt into a late Picazzoish design. It was an all sold-out gig seeing Schlong taking a couple of good kicks to the kidneys, the backstage looking like the aftermath of a bottlebreaking-festival and 2 litres of Tequila being stolen by a guy who
looked like something Hanoi Rocks had found in their toilet.

Wednesday; CAFÉ CON BAR
Described by many as the Caffe Latte Hell of Oslo, things could have gotten bad. Rich kids with wide nostrils and shoes the colour of boiled meat filled the seats. The Cumshots did one song at 11.30 just to test it out, and went upstairs to kick back before showstart one hour later. The man in charge came up with a bundle of beer and a low, whispery plea; "Please don't destroy anything else". Apparently there was a big hole in the ceiling (and there still is) caused by Cargos mikestand being force-fed into the tarmac. The place was packed as the band entered the stage, and in ruins as they left. Maniac of Mayhem saluted them with a guest-appearance on their final number (after showing his delicate ass to the nonpaying audience looking in
the windows ). Backstage it was the usual havoc. Glass everywhere, the Hanoi Rocker returned with the stolen goods, some crazy girl knocked a couple of illegal immigrants down with Tommy Deans crutch, Maniac carved SS into his tongue with a piece of broken glass, the owner of the place cried....

Thursday; BLITZ
This is anarchist-central of Norway. One of maybe 3 places in the whole of the country where adding dog milk to the waffles is still seen as sociably acceptable. A local troop of militant feminists seemed to have had their way in advance. Tearing out pieces of the poster that they found offensive, and hanging up a big banner across the stage that read something like "more violent feminists" etc. etc. The paper was there to report what they believed would turn into a riot, since Maniac had promised the day before that he would arrive at Blitz wearing a Mussolini T-shirt just to piss off the locals. The nachspiel of the day before proved far to hard for our hero as he was still fast asleep when the band got on stage at 9.30. Two hours earlier than the days before. (Kind of funny that a place that is supposed to be the very epicenter of anarchistic rebellion has to start their live shows at 9.30 to avoid bothering the neighbors.) The gig went smoothly. A local 5th colonist had given Max a T-shirt with the houses own motto ("kill the cop inside you") which just had to be used to see if anyone would catch the irony. Tom Schlong got thrown off the stage by the drummer; Morales, landing on his guitar, breaking it on a good mans nose. As he got back up someone threw the base of Cargos mikestand to his head, while another guy tried to stab Max with what was left of it. Good performance. Good crowd. Really ! They were.

Friday; GAMLA
Fucking crazy !! It looked like the rumors had finally gotten out that this was something that couldn't be afforded to miss. The queues were around the block. About 150 people couldn't get in. It was an all sold-out gig. New record both attendance-wise and in turnover. The band gave their best performance of the week; and that without any of them getting hurt. Some guy in the audience had to get rushed to the hospital for stitches after getting the mikestand thrown into the back of his head. Aside from that; nothing. El Doom managed to break half of the drumkit in a fatal attempt at impersonating Sonja Henie, standing on the bassdrum. In the fall his Gibson Explorer took a deadly blow and was beheaded like a 17th century French
aristocrat. None of the members can remember much of the actual playing but they do know that it was awesome. Tommy Dean still can't believe he's got a leg after three guys tried to get on stage using his cast as handgrips. Scooter gave another 6 out of 6. 8 would be more like it, but hell, who am I to judge?

Saturday; NYX
Now this is one fucked up joint. If there is a stinking pit of human sewer boiling somewhere in Norway, this is it. No-goods and lowlife creep around like flies on a dead girls tit. Even the old, skinny hippie behind the bar
is something that wouldn't be considered saving even if he was the last male on the whole face of the earth, and there were 350 horny, ugly women with rumbling ovaries waiting to get laid. (A dog left some sperm on the carpet, some hooker slipped on it; 9 months later...there he was.) To make things even worse there were a bunch of nazis in the crowd (presumably hoping to see some traditional Wehrmacht rock'n'roll that the band were not interested in giving them). There was no way The Cumshots were going to play with this
scum present. So, this being the place it was, the regulars finally made themselves useful. About 150 anti-nazis were mobilized, the bad guys left the building, riot police arrived by the numbers, there were some good old fashioned DDR-style fights outside and the band finally got on-stage. Needless to say it was an ecstatic gig. The railing between band and audience got torn down. El Doom got a black eye after Schlong jumped on him; guitar first. And a local magazine later reported that the band had played a bunch of Metallica-covers and a terrific song called "Dark Love". None of which any of the band members can say they have participated in. "Dark Love" ???

Sunday; LAST TRAIN
Final night. The house is packed 3 hours before they are meant to go on. The band entertain themselves downstairs by adding up the injuries (a black eye, a couple of cuts to the head, a sprained rib, shitload of bruises...), the amount of alcohol purchased (18 cases of beer, 9 bottles of tequila, a fuel tank containing some brown substance....) and the cash (a decent amount at the time. A shame that most of it had to be spent on repairs). They go on around midnight and finish it off like diesel and pesticide. Within seconds
Cargo's gushing blood from his mouth. Something has hit him square in the jaw. Probably the mikestand of misery once again. One of the doormen (Pete Evil, from the utterly brilliant HELLRIDE) can't resist the urge to take a dive from the stage. Doing so he hits a young girl in the head. She passes out, but is seen later, drunk as fuck, with her skirt all torn up, hammering down drinks at the bar. During the final minutes of the show Cargo is stripped of all but his undies while hanging from the roof, El Doom manages to break his most precious item (his Gibson Les Paul this time, not his penis) and Schlong is rushed off to hospital after a high-hat incident that would see 17 stitches on his left arm. Cargos lucky-undies that had been used for over 20 consecutive gigs without being washed was stapled to the wall beside the hat of Happy-Tom of Turbonegro. An hour before closing a good old bar-room fight including several band-members started, and the week
of touring Oslo was over.

Hellride Music: Have you guys ever nailed a groupie? Male or Female?

Max: By god, what kind of a question is that. Of course. We're not in this for the free booze, money or the frail hope of changing the planet. We are VD personified, and our music is the soundtrack to shame.

Hellride Music: Congrats on the victory at the 14th annual Rock`n`Roll World Championship in Bilbao, Spain. How many bands did you beat out and tell us of your experiences in Spain. What are you going to do with the 100,000 Kroner? Will you guys spend it all on coke and whores or will you save it?

Max: Spain was a lot of fun. About 1000 bands sent in their records. 15 bands got down there to the preliminaries. 3 of them got to the final. I wish I could tell you a lot about it, but I was so pissed out of my head that I have to trust the others telling me I had a good time. I remember Morales though. When one of the other bands came to collect second price he was up there pulling his scrotum out of his pants. He kept falling over and laughing until they turned on the lights.

We didn't bother getting a hotel room, since we were leaving so early. Sleeping on the tiles outside the airport toilet also gave some aroma to it all.

Hellride Music: Have you ever pissed on an audience like Mike Patton recently did? If not, would you like to?

Max: I've pissed on stage a lot of times, but never on an audience. If Patton's done it then there's really no need in me doing the same. I have inserted a cluster on a guy on-stage though.

Hellride Music: What will the Cumshots be doing next?

Max: Germany in Oct/Nov. Making up up for 9/4-1940. There is gonna be some serious hell to pay for the Krauts I'm telling you. And then there's a new record to record and further touring. Both nationally and internationally.

We're also working on getting national television to follow us on tour as there's always a lot of stuff going on that needs to get down on tape and out to the big crowd

Hellride Music: Thanks for the interview Max. Anything else you'd like to say?

Max: Thanks to you Chris. Await the coming of boner. 2003 will be tough on the weak.


Read the Hellride Music review of Last Sons of Evil

Purchase Last Sons of Evil at The Hellride Music Super Store

Listen to a Real Audio sample of Son of Evil

Check out the Cumshots website at www.thecumshots.org

Copyright 2002 HellrideMusic.com
Interview by Chris Barnes 7/10/02