Band: Sugarcult
Label: Fearless Records
Official Site: Click here
Date: February 24, 2004
Conducted by: John Frank

TMF John: How would you give a dictionary definition to the band Sugarcult?
Marko: Um, I would say, rock band, guitar based rock band from Santa Barbara, Ca, born 1999, and released one album, start static in 2001, new album palm trees and power lines 2004, a collection of independent songs from before start static called wrap me up in plastic and uh, hot damn with 3 exclamation marks.

TMF John: Talking about your new release, Start Statichad a wide variety of inspirations from Elvis Costello to Green Day, what is the new album going to sound like?
Marko:Well, you know I could say that definitely the blue prints of this band are definitely carved with um you know Costello, a band called Superdrag, Green Day, Nirvana, and I think that we are you know, any band that starts - wears their influences on their sleeve a little bit, then you settle into your own groove, and um and kind of find your own vibration and I think that’s what palm trees represents more than start static, cause keep in mind when we released start static we had only been a band a couple of years, and we were still finding our own groove, the new album we are just that much further down the line. We are coming off two and a half years nonstop touring, our lives completely changed from being a small band from Santa Barbara to a band that travels all around the world and played so many shows, we’ve grown a lot as people, grown a lot as musicians, grown a lot as a band, palm trees reflects the natural progression of us further down the road, but it’s not like we heard the used and all of a sudden said we need to start screaming in our songs, Sugarcult has never been a trendy band, we have never been in style on purpose, if there’s ever been a time we happened to sound current or hip, it’s purely by coincidence. We are on our own mission.

TMF John: Now that you are playing the bigger venues, and you’re more popular, do you still enjoy playing the small clubs?
Marko: Oh, I love it, there’s nothing better than playing a place that doesn’t have a barricade, just getting that feeling of you know breathing in the evaporated sweat of you know 300 people that are tightly packed into a room, we still play places like that, it’s a lot of fun, it’s just a different kind of energy, I always like to use the analogy of like sex you know, just cause you managed to have a serious relationship and you live together and you have sex in a really comfortable bed, it doesn’t mean that getting really wasted and doing it doggy style in a bathroom stall every once in a while doesn’t still feel good, it’s the same kind of thing. Playing small clubs, playing big clubs, it’s all good.

TMF John: The first time I saw you guys was at a small club called trinity hall in Pismo beach.
Marko: Do you remember who was with us on that?
TMF John: Army of Freshmen, Fairview, and Yellowcard was scheduled to be there, but they didn’t make it.
Marko: It’s funny cause this summer we played a festival in Japan called summer sonic with like The Doors, Radiohead, The Strokes, and all these bands. And, The Army of Freshmen came out there with us. And, it’s like sometimes you’re out there playing these things and you don’t have any reference points other than your own band. You don’t have anyone else who saw you play in another situation to remind you of how gnarly it is, so it was great to be there with Army of Freshmen cause we both like pinched each other to make sure we weren’t dreaming, you know they were there to pinch us and we were there to pinch them. Those guys are really sweet guys and we are really proud of them because they are an example of a band that really works their asses off. And, you know in spite of the music industry, they just do their thing. They work their asses off. They build real fans and they tour. You know I have to say, they impress me, when I saw them in Japan playing in front of 10,000 people, they held it down and uh I was proud to say we were from the same area code as them, it was cool.

TMF John: What is something that looking back you wish someone would have told you when you were first getting started?
Marko: Um, I would say my one regret, when I think back to my first band that I had in the early 90’s called Popsicko when I was in college, um, I would say the most important thing to do, as soon as you can, get on the road. Cause that’s where you really learn, I would say to a person just starting out playing music the first thing you should try and do, rather than sitting around jacking off with different guitar lessons, and guitar magazines. Start a band with your friends. That’s the best way to learn cause then you have incentive, you know the faster you get good, the better our band is gonna be and you encourage each other. If it sounds good and people like it you’re gonna be inspired to really get into music. So if you wanna be a musician, start a band. If you start a band, as soon as you can, get on the road. There’s nothing that makes a band come together, and learn the ropes better than just going out there on the road. I feel that’s one thing I wish I would have done sooner, was toured.

TMF John: While touring around the world is it ever difficult getting around not knowing the culture or the language?
Marko: Ya, sure it’s difficult. But, I wouldn’t have it any other way, that’s what makes it fun. You know half the fun in Japan is like going through the experience of trying to order something. There’s a lot of bands that make the mistake of looking for America in Europe and looking for America in Japan. Of course you’re gonna find the America- places like that is crap like McDonalds, and you know, if you’re gonna waste your time eating that shit when you go over there, you’re not really going over there, that’s part of visiting the place. Part of visiting Paris, France isn’t just to see the Eiffel tower and getting your picture taken. It’s interacting with the people there, eating the food that they eat, walking on the streets that they walk on and that’s something we embrace. It’s an opportunity to travel to places and play music is so amazing that you might as well make the best of it, check the shit out you know.

TMF John: Has any trip to a certain country had a big influence on you?
Marko: Oh ya, we learned so much, in England you can…before I went to England with this band, I never knew you could eat something as good for you as uh, a deep friend mars bar, they have deep fried snickers over there it’s like imagine fish and chips, but it’s a candy bar deep fried, they have amazing flavors of potato chips like prawn cocktail and chicken, beef broth. You know, maybe we should go outside cause everyone’s afraid to talk in here, (talks to whole room) this interview is for playboy, this is Hugh Heffner.
(Moves outside)
Marko: Alright, this is good, so ya, it’s actually, going over there and um seeing the people in Japan and seeing the way they react and they way they behave. They are so polite and they are so um, their society is so efficient there because it’s as simple as this, people are courteous to each other, people are respectful of their environment. They don’t litter. If they smoke, they put out their cigarettes in little jars that they bring. And, there’s hardly any crime. The service workers aren’t bitter cause they get treated with respect. The guys washing windows, the guys driving taxi cabs are wearing suits and they take pride in their job. It’s not like some guy who just got out of prison, like “where the fuck do you wanna go?” The fans are very grateful and courteous. They show up to the shows with gifts and lovingly written letters for you. They find us in the airport or like the hotel lobby, and it’s like you know, part of it’s just like a little bit silly, kind of like Beatle-mania kind of thing, but at the same time you don’t take it like that, you take it like these are people that are very respectful and very appreciative that we came all the over to their country to share our work with them. And, that’s how I sort of take it. That’s rubbed off on us a lot and I feel like Japan sort of reminded us how to be human beings because, with all do respect, somewhere along the way, it became ok to just be crass in this country. There are people that are just so fuckin crass, and you know, spoiled. They are just like, I don’t care if I'm a big ol’ fuckin fat slob, I'm just gonna eat another bucket of Kentucky fried chicken and be lazy and fuckin watch what’s on TV and buy what I'm told to buy and think what I'm told to think and you know, to me it’s just we have this amazing fucking thing in this country that a lot of people take for granted in many ways. You know, freedom, just cause you have freedom doesn’t mean you should just…it isn’t freedom to be a fucking lazy bastard. It’s freedom to make something amazing of your life. You know, that’s like the second half of the sentence you know, and um, from going to other countries, it reminds you how lucky we are to have the freedoms we have and the opportunities we have. And you just come back and you take a lot less stuff for granted and you take the most of everything you have been given. It’s pretty cool.

TMF John: How did your days in college affect the band, how was that experience?
Marko: Well, I was in college a while ago, I'm 31, so it’s been a long time I graduated in 1994 from UCSB. I was in a band the whole time, I was in a band called Popsicko, and we rehearsed there so it was great, cause I had free parking, I would just park at my rehearsal studio, but it was great, I always knew that music was what I wanted to do, but I had the opportunity to go college and expand my horizons. It didn’t really hindered it if anything, the thing I walked away from college with, the thing I think most people walk away from college with, you’re not gonna the most important thing about college is that you learn how to research, you learn how to write, you learn how to be resourceful, you learn to trust yourself, and you learn…above all, you learn how to pull off the impossible. I still don’t believe anyone does all of the reading they are assigned, I think the reason you are assigned so much reading is because, it’s them teaching you how to budget your time and how to be resourceful, and if there’s one skill I definitely learned in college that I've applied to my music career is that when everybody’s telling you there’s no fucking way you’re gonna possibly be able to pull this off, it’s 4 in the morning and you’ve got a 12 page paper due the next day, and your entire grade depends on it, you find a way to do it, or you find a way to talk to the teacher or professor and present a case. When there is a class that you really need or wanna be in, and you go and they say this class is full, I stayed anyway, and I took the class and just kept takin notes, and the teacher goes, “you know what, don’t tell anyone I did this, but you’re in”. It’s the same thing with the music industry cause you’re goin out there and the odds are stacked against you. There’s so many bands out there.

TMF John: What’s your favorite luxury on the bus when traveling?
Marko: Well the bus, we toured forever the first couple years were a convoy of compact cars, we graduated to a van with no trailer and uh then we went to an RV, this is the first tour we’ve actually been able to have our own bus, and that is an amazing luxury we didn’t even know existed. You know, it’s just so nice cause for the longest time, it was all of us crammed in a van, and we would get one hotel room a night, and one of us would sleep on the floor, there’s 5 of us on tour the 4 guys in the band and one guy selling merch, now we’ve got more people working for us, and this is our life, this is what we do all the time, so we finally found a way to make it a little bit more comfortable. You know we were sick all the time, we never got a full night’s sleep, you know cause even if you get a hotel room, you still gotta get up at the crack of dawn to make the 13 hour drive or whatever, so this is the luxury that we’ve afforded ourselves, as expensive as it is, we found a good drive that we really like, his name is cookie, we’ve got a tour bus and we rent it and it works out really good, it’s the most comfortable thing. After our singer is through with the back lounge, we usually have to get the shocks changed on the bus about twice a tour, no I’m just joking.

TMF John: When you were a kid, what was the first CD-or cassette that you could remember buying?
Marko: Ya, I like how you tailored that for my age range. First cassette I ever bought, the first band I ever really got into when I was a kid was KISS. The first cassettes I bought at the same time, one was ACDC “For Those About to Rock” and the other one was Men at Work “Business as Usual” I think it was you know, so I got one really wimpy pop CD and one really bad ass rock and roll CD. (Starts singing “We Come from the Land Down Under).

TMF John: You have an upcoming headlining tour, how is that gonna be different from the other tours you have done?
Marko: Well, ya, we’ve really only done one other headlining tour over America, that was with a band called Story of the Year opening for us. That was awesome, but the reason this is gonna be cool is it’s right around the time our new record comes out, so we go out and have 2 albums worth of material that people know, we have a new drummer, and um, I don’t know, we are just really excited about it. It will be nice. We will be playing at least an hour long set and be able to really dig into some of our material. We are really excited about being able to return the favor, you know so many bands took a chance on us, when we didn’t mean shit and gave us the chance to get in front of some fans and win them over so we are taking a lot of care in hand picking the bands that we are bringing out. We are bringing out like the first like a band called Motion City Soundtrack. We had them open for us in Europe. And, we just love those guys. They are one of the best new bands out there. Another great new band called Letter Kills on Island Records. And then for the second leg of this tour is a band called Mae, and Maxeen, another band that we love. So we are really excited to go out there and be able to play with bands that we think are great. It’s inspiring.

TMF John: Which of the new songs have you played live that have really hit well with the fans?
Marko: We have our song "Memory," and that seemed to go over real well with people, so we decided to make it our first song released off of Palm Trees as a radio single, it’s not really our choice to decide what the single is gonna be, cause to tell the truth none of us listen to the radio. We listen to our CDs and our iPods. But, the fans are an example of the general public, and if they really seem to dig a song, then fuck it. You know that’s how we released bouncing off the walls. We put a poll on our website, and so we just kinda felt like people were responding to "Memory." People seem to really like a song called “What you Say.” It’s kind of just a 2 chord rock song. It’s kind of fun to play. I think it’s hard to go out and play new songs to people when they have become accustomed to Start Static cause they don’t know the songs yet, so once the record comes out it will be interesting to see which songs resonate with people the most.

Marko: These girls are just like, “when is he ever gonna stop talking?” You have good questions though. Most of these are not as interesting as these are.
TMF John: Thank you, we spent a long time coming up with them.
Marko: I really appreciate you asking original questions.

TMF John: What do you think was the best album that came out in 2003?
Marko: I can’t pinpoint what the best album was, I can just give you a gut instinct of an album that as a band we all really liked a lot. It actually came out on a major label, it came out on Virgin. It’s a band called Ima Robot. It’s a really kind of wacky band. It’s the old bass and drum player for Beck, his backing band. This singer guy that just has this wacky David Bowie mixed with Devo sort of vocal style. They are really quirky and really interesting. I really liked that Motion City Soundtrack record. It has grown on me a lot, I think that they could very well kick Weezer off the map. Like everybody else in the world, I liked that white stripes record, elephant, it’s a great rock record. One of the most amazing musical moments this year was that Led Zeppelin DVD. To see something that was like exhumed from the dead and brushed off, and remastered and put out on DVD, it’s almost creepy to watch something that was filmed in 1973 and watch it like it’s happening in the next room. We watched that almost every single day on the tour with Story of the Year, that was really a neat musical moment. I’m sure I'll think of like 5 others while I’m going to bed tonight and I’ll just be like “oh, I need to call that guy John, fuck, I told him the wrong record.”

TMF John: Ok, last question, in 60 seconds, sell Palm Trees and Power Lines.
Marko: In 60 seconds, sell our new record, um “hey, anyone wanna buy a burned copy of palm trees and power lines right now? You got about 50 seconds left” I don’t think I got any takers. Do either of you guys want a copy (speaking to some observers) I’ll give you a discount, a dollar for a burned copy. Promise not to put it on the internet? All right, there ya go, I just sold our new record. Cool man, thank you.