JOHNNY: Good morning to ya. What's up?

KEVIN: Not much. How are you guys doing?

ROBBIE: Good.

JOHNNY: You know, it's early but.....

VIRGINIA: I was intrigued by your bio's. I'm reading back here and it says that "nineteen year old Rzeznik has recently given up aspirations to become a plumber in favor of joining a punk band". Is that true?

JOHNNY: I went to a vocational high school and my chosen vocation was plumbing.

ROBBIE: Most kids aspire to be a rock star and they end up plumbers. John really like aspired to be a plumber and now he's all pissed off that he has to be a rock star.

KEVIN: Something to fall back on. Now, for the next album, do you guys have everything written up so far for the songs and all that or do you still have to do that process?

JOHNNY: No, no, no. Yeah, we've gotta write that.

ROBBIE: We've gotta come down from this trip first, it's been...

JOHNNY: Robbie's written a lot.

ROBBIE: Almost two years it's been.

JOHNNY: I haven't written anything.

KEVIN: Does that ever worry you when you're so far in between albums, getting back inthere and doing it again?

JOHNNY: Doesn't worry me now as much as it did, cause (laughs) we made a little money (all laugh).

VIRGINIA: Right.

JOHNNY: But, you know, I get the shakes. I get kind of weird about, you know, what am I gonna do next? I think, if you question it too much, you sort of choke yourself, which I've done but...

VIRGINIA: Right.

KEVIN: Where are you guys recording? Are you recording in Buffalo or do you go back out to L.A. to do the stuff now?

ROBBIE: We're staying in... We're living professionally in L.A. at the moment, but we're Buffalo guys.

JOHNNY: Yeah, it's like people always say "so you're living in L.A." and I'm like "nope, I'm hiding there".

KEVIN: Right.

VIRGINIA: So you don't like, hit the club scene?

JOHNNY: It's a good place to hide.

VIRGINIA: Is it?

JOHNNY: No man, it's a really good place to disappear into.

VIRGINIA: Do you find yourself able to go out without being noticed?

JOHNNY: Robbie?

ROBBIE: Me? No, no. I'm fine.

VIRGINIA: Both of you, you're both really good looking guys.

ROBBIE: Aw, come on now.

VIRGINIA: Aw, come on now!!!

ROBBIE: No, your life changes a bit.

VIRGINIA: Yeah.

KEVIN: Well, I see Johnny on TV all the time doing the me music commercials. I still haven't figured out what is the me, me, me part. What is the music thing? I don't even know what the product is still.

ROBBIE: I don't understand any of the dot com commercials.

JOHNNY: me, mine, me, mine, mine, me, me, me, me. It' all about ME. (laughing)

ROBBIE: I see like fifteen dot com commercials a day and I just have no idea what any of them are about.

JOHNNY: I haven't seen that, I haven't seen those Sonicnet commercials. I haven't seen that.

KEVIN: Yeah?

VIRGINIA: Well, if he doesn't know and he's in them, then I guess nobody's supposed to know.

JOHNNY: No. I did it. It took me ten minutes. I went in and I did it in ten minutes.

KEVIN: You had no idea what you were....

JOHNNY: It was funny. I just stood there...(makes funny noises)... See, like that.

KEVIN: And they didn't even tell you what you were gonna be doing. It was just like "just say me, me, me"?

JOHNNY: They just said "you're gonna go me, me, me, me, me".

VIRGINIA: And take the check home.

JOHNNY: No, I didn't get paid. I didn't get paid.

KEVIN & VIRGINIA: What!!!

VIRGINIA: You've gotta be kidding me.

JOHNNY: I swear to God. I didn't get paid because it's owned by... I don't know who it's owned by, but they're like one of those companies that like... it's getting like the rest of the music business. It's like the record companies don't wanna pay you and TV don't wanna pay you. Nobody wants to pay you.

VIRGINIA: Right.

JOHNNY: And then every kid in America's stealing your music off Napster. So, it's like "damn" you know?

KEVIN: Yeah, what do you guys think about that Napster controversy? Are you guys in to that?

JOHNNY: Damn them to Hell!!! How's that? No, really.

VIRGINIA: How do you really feel?

JOHNNY: No, really. If I ever run into that little bastard that..... (all laugh). No, I don't know. It was inevitable that that was going to happen. The record companies got caught with their pants down and I'm sure as soon as enough of the money is being threatened they'll figure out some kind of way to crush it.

VIRGINIA: Yeah.

ROBBIE: You know that Napster dude's just like a little twerp! You know that don't you? You know he's some little geek.

JOHNNY: He's like this little asshole that nobody wanted to hang out with.

ROBBIE: Absolutely! It's so weird you know?

KEVIN: He's gonna get Johnny to do his next commercial too.

JOHNNY: Yeah.

KEVIN: me, me, me, me, me.

JOHNNY: Yeah, and he'll go "I ain't gonna pay ya and I'm gonna steal your music"

VIRGINIA: ha, ha, ha

JOHNNY: I'll be like "oh, o.k., sounds good, me, me, me, me, me, me, me". It's just constantly. The first nine years of our career I didn't realize how tightly we were holding our ankles, you know?

KEVIN: Yeah, you guys are like the war story for all bands to watch and be like "oh man". You know, everything that you guys had to go through with everything.

JOHNNY: Yeah.

ROBBIE: It's been really tough keeping that grip on our ankles for fifteen years.

JOHNNY: It's a sort of grin and bear it sort of situation.

VIRGINIA: Oh yeah.

JOHNNY: Hey, you guys. I've gotta go catch a plane.

KEVIN: Well, you guys are selling obviously tons of albums as well and are hopefully getting a bigger chunk of the money this time.

JOHNNY: No, we're doing fine. We're doing fine.

ROBBIE: Everything is groovy now.

JOHNNY: Everything's great.

KEVIN: Thats good. Well, I'm glad to hear it man. You guys are great and keep on rocking. We'll talk to you guys soon o.k.?

ROBBIE: O.K.

JOHNNY: Alright man, take care.

VIRGINIA: Thanks guys.