The lyric, and the boys who wrote it, are Wheat: Ricky Brennan (guitar), Kevin Camara (bass), Brendan Harney (drums), and Scott Levesque (vocals). Three of them gave the same answer to the telltale "Which member of Mötley Crüe would you be?" personality test. They'd all be Tommy Lee. Scott Levesque, like myself, would be Nikki Sixx, "Partly because he wrote the songs, but mainly because he has the coolest name."
So what's your biggest ethical struggle in life?
Scott: Um... wanting to kiss people I find attractive.
Brendan: Now that's it! That's the biggest one right there. Physical beauty just knocks me over. I cannot get around it. It's just a big struggle for me.
Scott: But not just physical beauty, it's wanting someone.
Brendan: For me it's totally not that. It's totally physical beauty. That's being honest.
Scott: Well having said that, about the attraction thing, I think that one and one works. One person and one person, that is.
I'm always single, so I struggle with trying to get a date. But my ethical struggle is kind of the same... the fear that monogamy doesn't work.
Brendan: Au contraire! I think monogamy does work. I think it's a big false rumor that monogamy is dead. It's like transgression. Everybody thinks that transgression is so cool, but you know what? Ultimately transgression just makes you feel really, really bad.
Ricky: It's that whole thing where it's exciting to be doing what you shouldn't be doing.
Scott: Love is special, and the more you spread it around, the more it thins out. Then it's not special anymore.
Brendan: We're just trying to bring a little romance back.
Since the new album has the word "hope" in the title, I thought I'd ask you what song you'd want to dance to at your wedding.
Ricky: If I marry the girl I'm with now, it would be "To the End" by Blur.
Scott: You know what's a really sweet song? That "Johnsburg, Illinois" by Tom Waits. The lyrics are like, "She's my only true love/She's all that I think of/Look here in my wallet/That's her." It's a really beautiful way to say "I love you" to somebody.
Kevin: I haven't gotten that far in my psyche yet.
Mine is "More Than A Woman" by the Bee Gees.
Brendan: Now there's a band! Not even because it's the older disco thing and it's hip now. You know I was telling these guys, when everybody crapped on the Bee Gees and disco went out, they put out three hit albums that they just wrote for other people. One was like Barbra Streisand's biggest-selling album ever.
I had a huge poster of Barry Gibb on my wall when I was a little girl.
Brendan: Well he's the good-looking one. Man those guys can write a tune!
So what genre of music would you put yourself into?
Ricky: [laughs] Modern soft rock.
Postmodern Air Supply?
Scott: I like that stuff too. There are a lot of interesting things you can do with soft rock, like Alan Parsons and ELO, the Moody Blues....
Brendan: We're all pretty big fans of soft rock, and we talk about it a lot. But an ABBA song to me would be so much cooler if they did something with production. We are very into production, getting all the sounds and the textures in there.
I saw you guys play the other night and I really enjoyed it. I'm going to be in London when you play at the end of the month, and I'm definitely coming to the show.
Brendan: It will be nice to have another person from the States over there.
Being a Yank there is fun, because you get really patriotic out of nowhere.
Brendan: Yeah, every sentence begins with, "You know what sucks about your country...."
You just have to tell them you don't want another cup of tea.
Brendan: And what's up with the joints? They fill them almost entirely with tobacco!
Scott: It's like only a couple of leaves in those things.
It's minimalism. You guys are indie rock. You should be able to appreciate the minimalism in their joints. It's just smoother that way. Like your music.
