An interview with The Coke Dares

But if the album is good, the band is even more exciting and hilarious live. Groth hosted karaoke at the Bloomington bar The Bluebird and he's quite the funny MC, riffing on topics like the Martinsville Starbucks, the Creation Museum and history, popping off one-liners while tuning between songs (and closing by noting that when the band refers to Coke during the show, they're actually referring to Diet Coke).

The band spoke to me last year via e-mail. Here are a few excerpts. Note that their show at Sam's Saloon isn't until next Saturday, but things are busy next week (what with Otis Gibbs and Kings of Leon), and this interview is too good to keep to myself much longer.

NUVO: When and where was your first show?

Dr. History Doctor: We played our first show on February 28, 2002, at Second Story in Bloomington. We played second. We played twenty-five songs.

We didn't talk much between them, but I nervously said "thank you" because I wanted to let people know the songs were over. I have always done that, all the way back to my first band, Cadmium Orange. I would say "thank you" because there was nothing more awkward to me than people not knowing when to clap. Immediately after that first show people identified the "thank you" with The Coke Dares, but really it's just a nervous tic.

After the show I went to the Video Saloon where someone said the following to me: "Are you in that band that just played, The Coke Dares? You weren't good. You weren't really good at all." I'm pretty sure I responded with "Thank you!"

Pervert: The St. Louis arch. We got paid in summer sausage and old wood.

NUVO: Why such short songs? Do you ever wish you were in a jam band?

Dr. History: Mark Rice (Hamburger Party, Pervert), Pete Schriener (Skye Miles), and Jason Groth (Dr. History Doctor), started with the idea of being a cover band. We were all in other bands at the time (Impossible Shapes, John Wilkes Booze, Turn Pale) and, for myself, I wanted to be in a band that made enough money to support my original music habit. Mark and I would play Bad Company covers at Impossible Shapes practices. Pete had called me previously and asked if I wanted to start a Led Zeppelin cover band with him. It seemed like a match made in heaven.

When we got together for the first time, though, none of us had any covers ready. We had some originals, though, and we learned them with the idea that the covers would follow.

I had always loved Guided by Voices; I loved the "Fingertips" section of Apollo 18 by They Might Be Giants; "Field Day for the Sundays" by Wire, etc. And Dan Pacquette (A.P.E., Abner Trio) and I once talked about starting a band that was all choruses. The originals I came in with were short. Then the idea that our songs could be short - full songs, though, with verses, choruses, guitar solos - became really appealing.

We kept on not learning covers (although we would, at the beginning, play a different one every show) and our songs kept getting shorter until we thought "why not 25 songs in 25 minutes?"

That first winter - 2001-2002 - we wrote our first 25 songs. It was awesome.

That said, there are no limits for our songs. They can be as short or as long as we want them to be. We just find, I think, that most bands play too long, most songs run their course and then keep going, and there's often not a lot of energy, or rock, on stage. Our preferred method of songwriting insures that things never get boring for us or the audience - that is, unless the audience gets bored of short songs. Then they're screwed. But, come on, only 82% of the songs on our new record are less than a minute. I mean, some of our songs aren't that short.

And, yes, we want to be in a jam band. Watch out for The Smoke Dares!

Skye Miles: We get to play more songs that way. Imagine "Wonderful Tonight" with one chorus and a short, or no, solo: it would be 80% better.

Pervert: Oh m'god, jam bands! All length and no width. Lets see... .my favorite jam bands have been the fake ones that we make up or that we prophesize about via the vehicle of bands stickers/posters on rock club walls. Metaphysical Jones rocks Bowling Green, Ohio. Unnecessary Modulation creates drum solos with sage leaves and smoke of the Druids. Can Candied Hamerica weaves intricate novelty "cultural" necklaces of deep-fried cloudy dank-dripping dirge for hours and hours... ... .etc.

NUVO: What's your day job?

Dr. History: I work in the Meetings Department of the Organization of American Historians. I and my boss are responsible for putting together the largest conference in the world dedicated to the dissemination of new scholarship related to American history. There are bigger history conferences, but none of them only focus on American history.

Anyway, The Coke Dares loves history because it's easy. We do not live in the past, though... that's impossible. And we also know that the past doesn't exist. Therefore, it's impossible to recreate the past, or, for that matter, make the same mistakes you have made in the past, because once it's gone it doesn't exist. In that way, we also hate history because we can't have it and don't understand it. Like most Americans we're afraid of what we don't understand — history, science, evolution, and especially science. We also embrace these things because people have told us we're punk rockers, and according to my non-historical dictionary, punk means doing everything you're told to not do or at least doing everything against tradition.

In other words, we say a lot of things about history on stage (not so much about organizing conferences though). Also, my job is awesome and they have graciously allowed me, and even encouraged me, to go on tour/make records/make a fool out of myself on public access television (maybe they haven't said to do the last thing explicitly, but whatever). I work a lot on the road but it keeps me from doing things like having constant drinking/eating contests. The world of wi-fi is wonderful.

Miles: I'm a carpenter. It gets hard to stay up late for shows during the week but, as long as I come to practice with all my fingers attached, it's fine.

Pervert: I put weather heads on houses, paint pet portraits, do interviews, destroy small objects, hit cylinders, sell trash at low low prices, and having a great attitude!

NUVO: Would you say you're all friends?

Dr. History: We all hang out when we don't have to. We all go see each other's bands that aren't our band. We actually call each other sometimes just to say hello. So, yeah, we're friends.

We're all in Magnolia Electric Co together. Mark and I play in the Impossible Shapes together. Pete and I played a couple of shows with The Watson Twins last spring. Pete and I were in a Neil Young cover band together. We do these things because we respect each other as musicians and we like hanging out.

If anything has threatened to undermine the band it's us being so busy with other things. One year Pete lived in St. Louis and we still managed to play a bunch of shows, put out an EP, and go on a couple of tours. We're dedicated to this because it's so much fun.

Miles: Laid-back hippies don't have time to fight.

Pervert: Skye Miles put a "COEXIST" bumper sticker on my truck. We high-fived and settled the dispute over a hot game of dice. Now Skye Miles owns that truck. He still gives me rides to the gas station into sometimes to buy chocolate donettes.

NUVO: How does it feel to have influenced knock-off bands in Bloomington?

Dr. History Doctor: It feels like an ice cold shower when it's 120 degrees outside and you've been wearing a rubber suit all day because you have to get your weight down so that you can wrestle the meanest wrestler in the state, Flip, but you still need to drop two pounds and finals are the next day.

It feels like a thick layer of milk chocolate inside of a sugar cone that's filled with French vanilla custard that you got for half price because you caught the guy behind the counter at the custard place staring at your teenaged daughter and the guy behind the counter must be, like, forty.

Like honey, lemon, and whiskey when your throat is killing you because you've been screaming at the TV because you can't believe Mr. Roper doesn't know Jack is in the closet and you know he's going to open it the closet and the dramatic irony is killing you.

Like a dog must feel when you're playing tug-of-war with it.

In other words, it's flattering.

It feels good.

It's unexpectedly satisfying.

It surprises me too.

Miles: I didn't know there we're more than one. It's funny kinda if someone has seen us first, but if not, it's just biting our style unless it's pushed to an excellent level.

Pervert: Guns and Roses and Michael Jackson are cool guys. They totally ripped us off and pay crazy royalties for it, but they're still cool guys.

NUVO: What kinds of things influence The Coke Dares?

Dr. History: History. Wire. The Minutemen. Guided By Voices. When people say things and they don't realize I'm listening and then I write a song using the exact words they said as the chorus. Grand Buffet. The Creation Museum. Bukowski? I mean, I've only read two books, but that style seems similar to ours, and I like it. Mark has read all of his books. Magazines - Pete writes songs after he reads magazine articles. NPR. Rush Limbaugh's drug habits. John McCain's polygamy and plastic surgery.

Miles: Good music and writing are great. The American school-system is the one that influenced me most.

Pervert: Scientology. Is there anything else? I've got some websites that will change your life. Gimme a call sometime and we can chat. No pressure, I just want you to be CLEAR.

NUVO: Aside from a three-car garage, what goals do you have for the Coke Dares?

Dr. History: We wouldn't mind being the first band in space. Aside from that, our goals are to get to shows on time, play the shows well, make enough money to get to the next show, and find a place to sleep after the show where we won't get killed and our stuff won't get stolen. We'd like to have a band credit card. We want to start a podcast. We want to have a show where we discuss historical topics called "The Coke Dares Make History." We'd like to play on the Dean's lawn. We'd also like to play on the Bloomington courthouse steps. We wouldn't mind being picked up by a bigger label. I'd like to be sponsored by American Heritage Magazine and Ernie Ball Power Slinkys. Oh, and we'd like to have a barbecue sauce named after us. For a brief moment the Bluebird in Bloomington named a drink after us. Wow.

Miles: Stop being called "Neanderthals."

Pervert: Surfboards. Lanyards. Shoes horns. Flags, lots of flags. We're takin' it to the streets.

NUVO: Tell me a story about the Coke Dares on the road.

Dr. History: We were on tour with Grand Buffet back in 2005. In Toledo we were offered a place to crash with one of their friends. We decided to go there instead of spending money on a hotel.

When we got to his house the door was locked and, instead of knocking on the door, he broke into his house in the back and came around and opened the front door. He told us his wife would kill him if he woke her up. The room in which we were supposed to stay was covered in food and dirty socks. There was a snake in a jar in the kitchen. Dirty dishes piled on dirty dishes. A *huge* television set.

The guy whose house it was told us to be careful with his son, who, he warned, might kick the hell out of us when he woke up in the morning. The guy then asked us if we liked laptops or big screen TVs because he could get us really good deals. When none of us answered he said, "Well, I guess none of you are in to that" and went to bed. He tried to turn on the alarm system, which wouldn't work, and then stumbled up to bed.

We all slept really fast that night, and as soon as we woke up, got out. Before we could get out, though, the guy woke up and was talking to us and, all of a sudden, his son woke up, jump-kicked him, and then they both beat each other up in front of us.

A few months ago we stayed on a couch called "Old Stainy" in Kalamazoo, Mich. In Nashville, Tenn., we were listed as "The Coke Bears." We played in a barn in upstate New York after Pete and Mark chopped a cord of wood. One time we put two used cat scratching posts on our merchandise table and they were the only things that sold that night. That barn in upstate New York may have been the best show we ever played (which included me reading excerpts from an unauthorized 1990 biography of Vanilla Ice). The worst place is probably the Springwater in Nashville, Tenn., when we got paid in summer sausage. Hard to say, though.

Miles: On one tour the tripometer in the van kept ending on "999" in every city.

Pervert: Best = Starbucks. Awesome Coffee. Worse = Starbucks. Diarrhea.

NUVO: Why'd it take so long to put out a new record? Are you happy with it?

Miles: The executive producer Jose Mignorance never got back to us - still hasn't - so what can you do? You wait.

Pervert: I glued it in every CD player at Montgomery Ward. I haven't heard any complaints yet.

NUVO: How does The Coke Dares experience translate to record? Did you think about including monologues or is that for a live record?

Dr. History: We didn't really start talking a lot at our shows until late 2005 as a result of a bunch of things - mostly being on tour with Grand Buffet, who taught me that there shouldn't be any dead time on stage. Our songs are so short that tuning breaks seemed to take forever. Also we have a lot to say about things like Starbucks, especially the one in Martinsville, history, John McCain's plastic surgery and his obtaining a marriage license while still legally being married to another woman, the fact that John McCain doesn't know what words mean, how excited we were when the Creation museum opened, how pissed we were when we found out it was $25 to get in and that it isn't scientific and, in fact, it's not based on fact at all, that dinosaurs and man coexisted, at least in the Creation museum, and that we were responsible for all of the eucalyptus in Florida.

So, you see, these things are all very temporary things that might not translate to record very well. So we kept the monologues off. Occasionally we do sets where there is no talking and every song runs into each other. We had, in fact, just won $3,000 doing that very thing right before we recorded the new album and thought it would be a good idea to make the record that way, too. So far we haven't won $3,000 again.

We'll, inevitably, put out a live record again. Maybe it will be all monologues. Our new record is live, actually, but live in the studio. The songs are apparent. The jumping is implied. The monologues happened between takes.

Miles: Most bands' recordings are different than their live concert, so come to a show and hear some bad jokes, or play the CD at home and smoke some bad weed.

Pervert: Monologues? Oh, you mean undeniable truths. These point are expressed subliminally on the record. Mmm, these new Camels are a pleasure to burn.

NUVO: Do you feel an affinity for GBV or other lo-fi miniaturists who don't flesh out even their poppiest songs?

Dr. History: Yes. I love Guided By Voices. I rerecorded all of Alien Lanes over a few years because that album is amazing and I wanted to figure out Robert Pollard's recording tricks (that's up on Musical Family Tree, by the way, under Jason Groth).

I never feel like any of our songs are unfinished. We just decide to finish them before other people would, probably. Some people question whether a song like "Don't Touch My Beer" is actually a song. It's got lyrics, a melody, harmony, rhythm, and it's of a certain length — that's a song. Just because it's only lyrics are "Don't Touch My Beer," we play "D" five times in a row, and all of us sing one note the whole time — how does that make it any worse or less song like then, say, any Red Hot Chili Peppers song that has come out since after Blood Sugar Sex Magic? Their new songs suck, they don't have any discernable melody, and I don't hear any harmonies. Then again they sell out stadiums, so it just goes to show you, people's opinions differ. "Gold Hick," on Alien Lanes, has more melody then REO Speedwagon's entire catalog.

Pervert: Apparently these guys have never heard of a record deal. A little tip: get one! It solves all your problems.

NUVO: What the story behind the following songs: "Oh No, Mailman!"

Dr. History: I don't even know who my mailman is anymore, but when I wrote the song it was a woman. Seems like one learns a lot about someone else based on the return addresses on envelopes that someone might receive. I just wondered how my mailwoman at the time thought of me — what kind of person she thought I was based on the credit card addresses, magazines, and the junk mail. Post office workers know more than we'll ever know about all of us. Watch out!

NUVO: "Mask Map"

Dr. History: The mask map has every mask you can imagine on it, especially old Halloween masks. Say these words together "Mask Maps," "Crisps," and "Grasp." That's inspiring.

Miles: Not those extreme sports kind.

NUVO: "There's a Meth Lab on My Street"

Dr. History: A few years ago I was driving on the street on which I then lived and saw a car getting scrutinized by a ton of police officers. They had the trunk open and there as a lot of stuff in the trunk. I figured it was a drug bust. Days later I heard that the car was basically a rollng Meth Lab. So, yes, all of it's true — but Pete (Skye Miles) wrote that one.

Miles: It was on one of our streets. You can fit anything in a big enough car.

NUVO: "I Wish I Could Get as High as Neil Young Does"

Dr. History: Someone said this in the van on an Impossible Shapes tour. Imagine that.

Miles: You only have to be in the frame of mind to smoke the good stuffe--you can be broke--you just have to bum some.

NUVO: "Martinsville Blues"

Dr. History : Pete wrote this one, but I'm pretty sad that the Martinsville Starbucks is under water, or was. Imagine how delicious that water must have been, though!

Miles: Never have just 'cause it's never come up as an option I think. We always like to stop at the Martinsville Starbucks (RIP temporarily) for free espressos.

Pervert: These songs are best experienced by searching all the primary words on Google.com and them piecing together the information into your own personal bible. Why not? Keep trying... .. it'll come together.