It's 2:20 p.m., and I'm at the TacoTime on Madison and 15th trying to score some magic Mexi-Fries for my hangover. A giant Winnebago—actually, a '91 Chevy Sprinter, complete with a Beware of Dog sign in the window—comes barreling into the parking lot, honking its horn. Through the windows, someone in mirrored sunglasses and a Detroit T-shirt is waving at me. It's Sean Wood, aka Sean Spits.
Instead of buying a cheapo minivan for the next tour, Sean bought a stinky old motor home with a Veterans of Foreign Wars sticker on the windshield. "Veterans" is appropriate, seeing as this is something like the Spits' 80 millionth tour since the band's inception 14 years ago. I haven't missed a single Seattle Spits show in eight years; this is the only band I've seen more times than Slayer, another group that's amassed their massive following over the years despite little radio airplay and sans a bunch of craptastic music videos.
We spend the rest of the day driving around South Seattle looking for pit bulls and plastic plants to spruce up the Sprinter and listening to the new Spits album, Self Titled #4. Here's the conversation we had.
How did the Spits come to be?
Well, it all started at Chili-Fest in Antarctica in 1962. Naw, it started in the '80s when my brother Erin and I were in the Allegan Juvenile Detention Center near Kalamazoo, Michigan. Part of the therapy there was that kids had to write songs. That's when we started the band Spit Out. We felt like weirdos, like we'd been spit out by everybody, our parents, teachers.
What were you and Erin listening to back then?
Twisted Sister, Black Flag. Twisted Sister is punk, so much more so than NOFX or any of those dumbfucks, all those Hot Topic "punks." NOFX is not punk rock.
When did you guys move to Seattle?
Around '93 or '94. It sucked. We didn't fit in anywhere. The garage rockers thought we were hardcore, and the punks thought we were garage. We were hated by all. We'd go to Gibson's downtown and get in a fight with the whole bar.
I think I saw you play Uncle Rocky's wearing ski masks.
Did you see the show where we dressed like Vietnam vets and Erin sat in a wheelchair the whole time? We just played shows all the time. And played and played. A lot of other bands grew up, got real jobs or got too ugly, and we just kept playing. We've seen a lot of bands come and go. I mean, we've gone through 12 keyboard players and four different drummers. But we're still the Spits.
Why is this new album, your fourth, still self-titled?
All of our albums are self-titled.
Who recorded the new album?
We did. Also with John Reis of Swami Records in San Diego, Red Lantern Studio in Portland with a four-track, and in a pole barn in Kalamazoo that used to be a meth lab. Then Recess Records—that's a label started by an old skate punk named Todd—offered to put it out.
You guys still skate?
Total. We still play skateparks, house parties.
You have a song on the new record called "Live in a Van." Did you ever really live in a van?
What band hasn't had a band member living in the tour van at some point? Constant touring makes it hard to pay rent sometimes. Eventually it'll turn anyone into a road dog. Rrarrf!
Tell me about the death cult you formed with King Khan.
You better ask him. But then if he tells you, I have to kill you.
What about Midnight? That death-metal band in Cleveland that put out a 7-inch of metal-fied Spits covers?
I believe they're black metal, Kelly. Get. It. Right! What band hasn't had some metal kids from Ohio cover their shit?
Um, well...
Bam! Sky five!*
*Sky five is a noncontact high five, best utilized when the person is too far away to actually touch and/or has a hand that's just too dirty to slap. 
