The Hi-Fives' Flecks of Spit!

The Hi-Fives

from Tiny Flecks Of Spit #3, England

During 1988, the most amazing thing in Arcata near San Francisco, probably came by the name of "Brent’s T.V. & Appliances". Most of their shows were held at laundromats where the band members as well as their friends were playing on the washing machines, dancing and singing along. One of their last & most memorable tours took them all the way up the US northwest coast, with Green Day turning up late on the tour in someone’s mum’s car to join them. Afterwards, besides another reunion show 2 years later, the band was over. Within the next 6 years, however, Brent’s T.V.’s singer-guitarists: Chris Imlay and John Denery would continue on to play some of the most enthusiastic, charming and exciting surf garagepunk around. Creating a number of lively bands and later recruiting Humboldt bassist-buddy Jesse Hilliard to form - The Ne’er do Wells, Judy & the Loadies, The Shatners, The Narvell Felts; amongst others. Well, we now jump to today, where they’re known best in the scene as those friendly BAMMIE winning lads who brought us top notch rocknroll in "Welcome to my mind" & "...and a whole lotta you!" Let’s meet THE HI-FIVES...

Can you give me a Hi-Fives intro for the folks over here?

Chris: I guess we’re a band, and... we like to play, er... I think our music does the talking for us!

John: I think it’s more entertaining than drinking beer and watching TV, and less entertaining than drinking beer... that’s it!

How’s Gary adjusting to his role as your drummer, with his last band (hc outfit: redemption ‘87) being quite different?

Chris: The two other guys in our bands are older than John and myself, and they’ve been playing instruments for 15 years. Gary was kinda in a Mod band, it was really like the Jam and stuff like that. He loves the Who, that’s kinda why he wanted to be in the band. He was originally really into the garage type thing, so he didn’t even need to adjust.

Have you had much contact with Jesse & Dan since they left the band?

Chris: A little bit, since the circumstances of their explosion it’s remotely friendly but Dan’s pretty friendly cos it mattered less to him, but Jess’ been in the band longer so there’s more potential for pain.

With Jesse gone, do you still get a lot of requests for the "peanuts" song at your gigs?

John: How do you know about the Peanuts song?! You haven’t seen the Hi-Fives live, right?

No I haven’t but I know you played it at the bam awards, but I haven’t...

John: Do you want me to sing it for you? OK, are you ready? Well, first it has a story, I was on an airplane one day and the stewardess comes up to me and she says "Young man, would you like some peanuts?" And I said... I like peanuts, P P P P Peanuts! (he breaks into the full song). The only kinda sad part of this story is that the stewardess didn’t think I was saying peanuts! There, you just heard it! Jesse sings it with me but since he’s no longer in the band, we no longer sing that song... that’s the first time I sang that song since Jesse left the band.

Oh wow... thanks for the exclusive!

John: And I remembered it... that’s pretty good!

Okay, even though all of your bands have been d.i.y., did you ever get hassled or rejected by punk police types due to your appearance & musical differences?

Chris: Sometimes it’s rejection, but just as much as acceptance. When we play at places where no one has heard of us and usually there’s 40 people there, there’s some that’s like "screw you, you’re not punk!", but there’s people who are surprised and excited about it! They didn’t know that there could be a fun, fast band and not have the backwards baseball hat, shorts and distortion. But that’s not what we’re here for, we’re here to rock!

John: Yeah, that’s always fun, every once in a while we’ll always play some place that’s really HC punk rock, and the kids would always think we’re dorks and fags. And it’s shows like those which makes you straighten your tie and make sure your hair’s combed! I’m thinking of the show in Canada, they were throwing things but eventually in between a song Chris said "Hey, WE’RE THE FUCKING HI-FIVES, hit it John!", and I think when he did that I think he won their hearts over!

Do you miss playing laundromat tours up the northwest coast (as Brent’s T.V.)?

Chris: Kinda, but now it’s not like all of our shows are like those Green Day shows (they supported them in big hockey arena shows a couple of years ago), we haven’t moved up with that band - we’ve gone up to nowhere!

John: Yeah, those were pretty good days, those are days where you can’t try to re-live though, it would be foolish foolish foolish for us to do a laundromat tour again. It would be like trying to date your ex-! Sometimes I don’t think that I’ve improved in anything that I do and so I think that the songs I write for the Hi-5s, I could have easily written for Brent’s TV! When that band first began and did the laundromat tour, it was entirely acoustic with an upside down spaghetti pot for drums!

With so many members coming in and out of your band - has there been many times that you two have gotten in big arguments and wanted to split up?

John: No way, Chris is me... sometimes when I wear funny clothes, I think I might be Chris. Chris and I, how should we put this? We are... "safe distance lovers..."!!

Chris: We have disagreements but we trust each other a lot. That’s why we write songs well for the little level at which we can write songs at.

Tell me about the "love warriors" band that you had going during the days of ‘dukes of burl’...

Chris: Oh wow, you have the arcane knowledge! That was the preliminary band to Judy and the Loadies, those were some of the J & TL songs before Judy inserted her dynamic presence into the band. And we would open for ourselves...

I was thinking... why did you choose that name?!

John: I think we chose "love warriors" because we thought that it was hilarious! Have you heard of Roger Miller at all? He wrote all of the songs like "king of the road" (starts singing that song)... and all of his albums I just think they’re phenomenal. All of our other bands we’re not trying to do anything, we’re just doing the only thing we know how to do. But that was the only band where I actually made an effort to write songs like someone else. So J & TL was my way of being a Roger Miller guy whether I was or wasn’t!

Under the name of "love warriors"...

John: Under the name of "love warriors"!

Which is great...

John:(laughing) It is great, at one party we played without our shirts. I had "love" written in lipstick and Jess had the words "warriors", and that was the love warriors’ very first show. We were all about love...

Yeah, that’s cool, speaking of love, how did the the valentines gig go at the transmission theater with the incredibly strange wrestlers?

John: It was totally close to being awesome, I thought that we were gonna be able to play inside the ring and with my microphone that the referee uses, hanging from the ceiling, you know? We actually played on the stage just behind it, it was one of those great moments where you’re backstage tuning your guitar right next to this fat guy in leotards, stretching his hamstring! (Pause) Oh God... (John then falls silent over the phone, as though he was ill)

John? are you okay???!!! what’s up?

John: I’m doing fine, er... I’ll tell you a little bit later!

Chris: There were wrestlers... and anyone could come and try out beforehand and then they match people up. There would be a wrestling match or two and then a band, it was pretty fascinating! I was talking to this guy for half an hour and he said "hey, my name’s Klaus" (!!!) and we ended playing with his new band, it’s a surf band called "Jumbo Shrimp"; at the Purple Onion. These are the sweetest, nicest guy you’ve ever met, I love their first Dead Kennedys record, that’s pretty darn good! I’m a fan of their early work... not unlike the Beatles!

Have you heard much of this brit-pop thing over here?

Chris: Oh, a bit! I’m a big Supergrass fan, believe it or not.

Well, what do you think of it being classed as something parallel to the Beatles and Kinks era?

Chris: Well, even though I think that it’s over-rated, myself, I think Oasis has some decent songs - I don’t think that they’re charming or innovative and they lack the qualities that the original movement had. Oasis reminds me more of Herman’s Hermit than the Beatles, I just don’t like them. Whereas Supergrass are young, they seem to be honestly playing their guts out, I appreciate that more than posturing!

Did you hear that they got offered a deal by Steven Spielberg to do a Monkees kinda...?

Chris: did that happen?

No, they said that they wanted to continue with their music first and see what happens later on. I was wondering do you intend to re-vamp any more of your older tunes like you’ve been doing as the Hi-Fives?

John: Yeah, we have been playing older songs that we haven’t played in years, are you familiar with the song "Hypnotizer"? That’s an old Ne’er do wells song and even when we recorded it, we never played it. We’re leaving on tour this Friday and we actually have that in our set! It’s funny you should ask that question cos last night... OK, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me. Jen, I hope you forgive me but I got really drunk last night, I usually never wake up hungover and I feel terribly hungover! I walked in last night really drunk and playing records which is what I like to do. So I started listening to the Ne’er do wells, and I usually can’t listen to that CD because it embarrasses me! But I was thinking last night that we should re-do some of these songs!

Have you had the chance to play with Thee Headcoats recently?

John: No, not recently! (laughing) We played with them once and it was a big thrill. The only downer part was that was the show right after the tour when Jess and Danny got into the fight. Do you know I met Joey Ramone the very next week?

No!

John: That week I could have quit everything just then but I met Billy Childish and Joey Ramone the next week! Chris and me walked up to him and he went (in a Joey voice) "Hey, it’s the Beatles!!!" (laughing). You treasure those moments.

Does it get tiring that you have to explain that "screw the pooch" is about planes and not dogs?

Chris: Well, the only thing that happened is that John’s parents noted that I was singing "don’t screw the pooch", but instead of saying "pooch", what rhymes with pooch - "bitch". Wow... thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Denery (!) That’s entirely the wrong message... but it’s purely an aeronautical term!

What is your fascination with "cow pizza"?

John: Cow pizza?! Cow pizza?! I don’t... oh man... (laughing) The Hi-5s were touring Canada and it was when the Smugglers and we were just getting to know each other. Whenever the Hi-5s and the Smugglers get together, it’s always trouble. It had something to do with ordering a pizza, Jess was in a man sized cow-suit and I think he went out to get the pizza, and the pizza delivery boy got really scared and ran back into his car and drove away. We called up the pizza place asking where our pizza was, and the guy said that he was having a really rough night cos one of his workers had quit his job because he was "attacked by a man in a cow-suit!!!" (laughing) It was just one of those things where people were crying with laughter...

Are you excited about going to Japan with the Mr. T Experience?

John: Oh yeah! I have two good friends living in Japan now, and I can’t wait to see them!

Have you spoken to Grant (Lawrence, from Thee Smugglers) about his trip to Japan?

John: Yeah. Have you spoken to Dave Carswell? Well, I’ve spoken to him about it, he just told me this great story about him and Chrisser from Lookout Records getting lost in Tokyo. As Dave put it... he said "John, we walked for like 7 hours.." they didn’t have a clue where they were and he thinks he saw CHRISSER starting to cry, just with complete frustration and worry! (laughing)

Do you have any plans to tour Europe possibly next year?

Chris: We’d love to! We’re gonna tour now, and then record a record, and then see what opportunities we have...

Last question, make up your own question and answer it!

John: My question is... John, what are you gonna do today? My answer is try to feel better... I think someone put something in my drink! I think then I’ll go buy toiletries for my tour, and I’m gonna buy a toothbrush, a razorblade, shaving foam, shampoo and soap.

How many suits do you bring on tour?

John: We bring one, and then we go to a thrift store for another one. They get too disgusting and you bring as few suits as possible! Like the suit I’m wearing now has been sweat in so much that I can literally stand it up. They are so stiff, I can take my pants and stand them up as though I’m inside them, and have like an imaginary friend! That is the single worst thing about tour, is putting on your suit!

You shouldn’t be saying that!

John: Oh is it, Jennie! We need to re-vamp our costumes...