DATE: JANUARY 29, 1999 <br>
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FROM: AMANDA CAGAN <br>
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LOCAL H SPEAK OUT:
SOUNDBITES FROM SCOTT LUCAS & JOE DANIELS <br>
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Can you describe the on-stage chemistry in LOCAL H? <br>
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SCOTT: It's kind of a race to get to the end. There are so few moments where everyone is kind of laying back and settling in. It's more like speeding down the road and trying to get there first. It's definitely a lot of pushing that goes on, and it makes it more aggressive like a live show should be. A record is more about doing something to people that they can listen to straight through; the show is trying to capture that special thing. <br>
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JOE: It has changed over the years. When we started out, it was not about playing live. It was about getting into each other's minds musically. When we first got a bass player, we became this hard-core thrash band, and that was a formulated band. Usually what you see is three pieces or four pieces in a band, so when we became a duo it was different. Our stage presence changed, so we had to pick up the pieces of just being two people on stage, because visually that's all you see, but sonically you hear four or five people. It's aggressive, it's very energetic, and we're real energized. We get a lot of Nirvana comparisons in good ways and I think that's what it's from, because as far as the aggression level goes, we are on the same page as them. When we play live, we feed off the crowd and we want to feed the crowd back, so we really bash out. I play pretty hard and SCOTT is all over the place bashing and we pretty much let the music take over. 
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<br>It seems that cats are a recurring theme of the album; there's a photo of one on the album cover and there are cat sounds and references to cats on a few songs. Do you just really like cats in general? <br>
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SCOTT: No, I am not a cat fan. I don't like cats and I'm not too crazy about cat people. Cat references just kept coming up and weird things kept happening. I would go to a bar that had some cat name or go to a restaurant that was named after a cat, or go see a movie like "Gummo" that was about cats. So it just seemed like a good way to go. <br>
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How do you think working with Roy Thomas Baker has enhanced the Local H sound? <br>
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SCOTT: Everything sounds really big and it sounds clean, and it's bright. He's made everything sound really good. We were ready to make this record. We were not really interested with anyone who made records in the last decade. Everyone seems always to want to work with the hot guy, whoever that might be. For a while it was Butch Vig, and now its Michael Bienhorn. People just want to be with the same group of people. I don't understand what makes people want to make their record sound like everybody else's. Since we were going for more of a classic rock, `70s style of music, with lots of `70s references, we were just thinking who was one of the great `70s producers, and Roy Thomas Baker was definitely at the top. Roy and Jack Douglas were the only people we were thinking of. <br>
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What are your musical influences? <br>
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JOE: SCOTT and I are two very different people, and we were brought up differently. I started playing drums when I was three. I grew up with a big-time blues family background, grew up on Motown and stuff like that. Then I got into DJing, rap and break-dancing. Then I got into the whole Pixies movement, you know, R.E.M. and stuff like that. I started experiencing in the `80s and moved into the grunge explosion. I liked a lot of the Seattle bands and stuff like that. SCOTT grew up on Cheap Trick and bands like that. 
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<br>What inspired you to write "All The Kids Are Right"? <br>
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SCOTT: I came up with the idea of a band playing a really crappy show and the kids get together on the Internet, and put a campaign together to sort of punish the band. 
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<br>What about "Lucky Time"...is there anything special that triggered that one? 
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<br>SCOTT: I think people always overlook that kind of music that we do. People tend to think of us as just a screaming cursing rock band. They don't really look at the songs that we have had on all of our records like that. If you look at the whole record, it kind of starts off positive and grounded, then it takes a decline and keeps going lower and lower. That being the last song, it's kind of lyrically saying "I fucked up and won't do it again, I've learned my lesson." <br>
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Is there any other cultural stimuli like movies, books, or something that motivates you to write certain things? <br>
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SCOTT: For this record, I talk about Pink Floyd records being an influence like Dark Side Of The Moon and that is true. Something that got me into stringing everything together was that show on HBO, "Mr. Show." It's great, really funny, it's terrific, but it always seems to end at the same point were it started. And all the skits are joined together into this thing where it moves in a circular motion and it always gets to the beginning. I really wanted to do that with the record, have it all connect and have little things like "All-Right (Oh, Yeah)" and "Lucky Time"; at the end you have certain phrases that sort of interlock. It's kind of the same thing, good comedy shows like that. I think I'm into those than more than a lot of rock bands. I think comedians are a lot cooler, I hang out with them basically. <br>
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JOE: Films. I am a big Spielberg fan--"Schindler's List" is really a movie I love a lot. "It's A Wonderful Life," that is one of my favorite movies. I'm a big history nut, from watching TV. I love to soak in knowledge, so I'm always watching "Trauma Center" on TLC, the Discovery Channel or the History Channel. So basically whatever comes on there, I can't really pin-point a certain movie. Something dealing with history I am into. 
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Do you take a lot of CD's on the road with you when you travel? <br>
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SCOTT: Not a lot, just enough. You take the pot-smoking ones like Pink Floyd and Massive Attack for when you want to get stoned. You'll need Aerosmith and Cheap Trick records for when you want to start jumping around and yelling. <br>
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What five albums would you want to be stranded on a desert island with? <br>
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SCOTT: Dark Side Of The Moon (Pink Floyd), Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones), Cheap Trick (first album), Back In Black (AC/DC) and Trinity Sessions (Cowboy Junkies). <br>
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What are your top five albums of the 90's? <br>
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SCOTT: Nevermind (Nirvana), Gentlemen Don't (Triple Fast Action), Circa Now (Rocket From The Crypt), Superunknown (Soundgarden), Only Everything (Juliana Hatfield). <br>
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When you were growing up did you go to a lot of concerts? If so which ones? <br>
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JOE: No I didn't, I remember in `86 I went to see the Beastie Boys and Run DMC, and that was my first arena show. When I was seven, I was playing in blues bars with my dad's band. I was playing the drums so I was in and out of bars. I really didn't go to shows because I was a gymnast all through high school so I was in the gym. I wasn't really doing much, I really wasn't going to shows, I really didn't get into rock until after high school into college.