Jello: Well A.T has a very diverse catalog. To some people it's the magic of the label and to the market in some ways it's the opposite because it's not like with some other labels where, when you buy one thing from the label, you will like all the others. We go all over the map. From the beginning, the mission has been the same, to provide people for people to make something cool the way they want to make it and operate outside the commercial pressures of the industry. The stuff I am usually attracted to obviously has to blow me the fuck away number one, and be powerful and special, and good memorable songs. Most of the people I have put on over the years are people that I got into by first seeing them live. We rarely have had anyone on the label that isn't good on stage. Of course there are way more cool bands and way more cool labels out there and the slices of the pie are getting smaller and smaller for damn near everybody. I constantly ask myself if Alternative Tentacles should continue to exist, what is the
point of a label in this day and age? People keep coming to us, people that started by putting out thier own stuff and say "look we are tired of all the leg work or we are only getting so far, or we don't want to exist only on bandcamp, facebook, or whatever", "We need help here!" Plus there are bands out there that are so unclassifiable that most genre or niche market companies wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.
When I saw Itchy-O in Denver I was completly blown away. They were nothing like I have ever heard or seen. They are like a thirty piece electronic marching band and they are all in uniforms and masks. It was incredible! They wander through the crowd and play, someone will even sneak up behind you with a leafblower at one point! But you have this wall
of sound, this tribal dance masterpiece. Ironically, they got a raving review in punk news of other places. You want something new and fresh and dangerous from people that have been giving it to you since 1979 go to alternative tentacles.com or better yet your favorite independent record store and demand your copy of Itchy-O. That's just of example of the bands on the label. I am really stoked that after all these years we get to do justice to the Really Red album. They are from Houston , so you better know about them! They where considered a punk band, but also considered a world class post punk band. The way I hear them now is anyone that listens to WIRE, or MISSION TO BHURMA owes it to themselves to emerse themselves in REALLY RED without further delay, they wont be dissapointed!
Mike: With your new band Jello Biafra and the Gauntanamo School of Medicine, how did that name and band come to be?
Jello: Well as far as the name, it's just one of those that I threw out there. I had pages and pages of band names which rotated out of one of my more infamous spoken word pieces. It was much harder to find a name for this one because I wanted my own name at the top, so people knew it was me doing music! Obviously, we would get a lot of better bookings right away because of that instead of start as a little rumor in the little dives in town,
"I mean right before the explosion in 77, things had gotten really grim for rock and roll"