HEAD 2 HEAD WITH DEXTER FREEBISH

Music Head got the chance to sit down with Rob Schilz (drums, vocals) and Scott Roming (guitar, keyboard, vocals) of Dexter Freebish after their show on March 21st, 2001 at the Crowbar in State College, PA.  Adrenaline was pumping cause just minutes before our interview  Dexter Freebish finished up an  incredible show that brought the house down.  After their performance the guys took time to meet with a few fans before we traveled down the stairs, through a dark hallway and into the backstage area of the Crowbar.  This locale consists of a  small room with a few couches, more than a few beers, a walk-in fridge, and the markings of past performers sprawled amongst the walls.  Hanging out  with a member of Diffuser, the guys, and  the entry of a special guest, made for one explosive time.  Schilz and Roming entertained us with the answers to our questions.  The guys spoke of everything from tutus to crowd size,  topless dancers and shepherds, and with all that we still managed to get some serious remarks.  They talked about what happened during the gig at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they even reveal the mystery of Kyle's last name.

Music Head (MH):  How are things going for you guys?

Rob Schilz (RS):  Good.  They are going alright.  We just started this tour with SR-71 and it's been really good.  They are good guys.  You never know when you get on your tour what everybody is going to be like and what the vibe is going to be but, these guys have been really cool.  So, it's been good so far.  We had a week off recently which is nice.  We’ve pretty much been touring since early September.  We’ve had about two weeks off since September total.  So, it was nice to have a week off but, it's good to be back in it.  I get bored really fast.

MH:  What did you think of the crowd tonight?  How important is the crowd’s energy for your performance?

RS:  Oh, it’s crucial.  I mean, we know how to do it when they’re not into it.  We did the Everlast tour and we had a different crowd.  We learned from that situation.  We had a great crowd a lot of the time too, but, once in a while we didn’t.  There were a lot of hip hop folks and stuff.

Scott Romig (SR):  They weren’t there to necessarily see Everlast.  They were there to see House of Pain.

RS:  Yeah, but we learned how to turn those few.  Yeah, it's great like tonight, you saw it, like it was off the hook.  These people were even crowd surfing through our ballad.  That was like, when I’m up there, mostly I’m worried that someone is going to get hurt.  I’m watching all this stuff and I’m watching these girls in the front row just getting smashed and I’m thinking 'Wow, I hope nobody gets hurt.'  But, it’s good when you see people singing your songs.

SR:  Oh, it’s the best feeling in the world.

RS:  Exactly.

SR:  My favorite part of the show is before we go on stage and the crowd is just going, 'Aaaaaahhhhhh.'  You know, before we even get on or when we're getting on.  That’s really cool.

RS:  I love it when they sing back "Leaving Town."  I remembered the first time that happened in Austin and we were just like 'No Way!'

MH:  Do you prefer the intimate crowd of a venue like the Crowbar or the electricity of fans in a larger arena?

RS:  Both are fine as long as it's crowded it's good.  You know, and as long as people are into it.

SR:  As long as Rob wears his tutu then I can care less.

RS:  Yeah, that's great man.  As long as I can go commando and no underwear.  I'm good right?  Both are in a way, it’s like in a way, I like the smaller crowds because you can make eye contact.  When you play for 15,000 people it stops being one person and starts to be one big thing.  You know, one big mass and you feel a little more removed from it but, it's also cool cause you’ve got 15,000 fans.

SR:  You know my least favorite thing though is to play an intimate venue but then they have a barricade two feet between you and the crowd.

RS:  Yeah, I hate that.

SR:  You know that totally blows and a lot of the venues we’re gonna do on this run that we did with Everlast is that kind of deal like we’ll be on stage and the audience is like way, you know, by those couches (points to couches that are about eight feet away) and you're like 'Hello.'  It's not, we’re not the Beatles, you know.  

RS:  Tonight we should have had a barricade.

SR:  Only cause they kept on unplugging our gear.

RS:  Yeah, I know, this kid landed on the pedal boards and Kyle couldn’t get to his microphone.

SR:  Ha ha ha ha.  Are the crowds here usually this nuts?

MH:  Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people get thrown out and stuff like that.

SR:  We’re not overly like a heavy band.

RS:  We did a headline show in Denver and it was a 1500 seater and there were people in line 3 in the afternoon and it was so crowded people were jumping off the balconies.  I was so worried someone was gonna get hurt.  I was sitting there going 'Somebody is gonna break their neck.  I just know it.'  But, it was awesome.  I loved it.

MH:  Besides sound check is there anything you do to prepare before you hit the stage?

RS:  We all kind of have our own little thing that we do and the worst is when you have like a promoter or somebody in the business end of it coming to you like 'You guys gotta get together.'  Kyle likes to go off by himself.  He likes to go off by himself and just chill out.  I like to sit and warm up.  I like to be in the crowd and just get the vibe but, I like to warm up just on my leg.

SR:  Charles, me, and Chris will hang back here, play guitar, have a beer, and relax.  The funny thing is everybody is always like 'How come you guys are so relaxed right now?  You gotta go on in like an hour.' We’re like...

RS:  We do this everyday.

SR:  ...Just give us til, you know, 2 minutes beforehand and that’s when our energy level is just [explosion noise] (motions upwards with hand).

MH:  Last year, at Yoko Ono’s request, you played the opening of the John Lennon Exhibit at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Did you feel honored to play and what was the experience like for the band?

RS:  It was awesome!  It was amazing.  That place, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is amazing anyway. The people that were there, I mean I met Alan White from Yes, the drummer from Yes, scared the hell out of me.  He comes up to me 5 minutes before we go on and we’re doing a short show, 20 minutes, so it's like tough to get warmed up.  He comes over, he’s like 'Man I checked you out at sound check and you're pretty good.  Man I’ll be standing above you on the balcony watching from up top for your show.'  It’s like 5 minutes before you go on and I’m completely nervous.  Yoko was cool, we had Yoko Ono and Jann, the editor of Rolling Stone, just front and center.  Just watching us.

SR:  You know, I thought it was ok, except when, uh, Yoko tried to break my marriage up.  That was not very cool.

RS:  Yeah, she tried to break up the band, but...

SR:  Nah, actually there’s a really good story behind this cause not only was it one of the most prestigious shows we’ve ever done, you know black tie all the donors for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame cause it’s a total like charitable non profit organization, you know, there’s all these people in tuxedos and then Yoko and Jann Wenner, from Rolling Stone, and we open up our set with "Life of Saturdays," which we have the acapella thing going into it, where Kyle, you know, 'I just wanna' (sings), so he does that and he’s at the end of it and that’s where Charles is supposed to come in with the 'wennanawennana.'  Well, he’s not coming in.

RS:  His guitar is not coming in.

SR:  His guitar is not coming in and Kyle is turning purple with Yoko Ono like 3 feet away in front of us.  Kind of like Axl Rose at the end of “Don’t Cry.”  I mean it was just ridiculous how long he had to hold that note.

RS:  Charles and one of the techs are scrambling on the ground on their knees.  It finally came in.  It was hilarious.

MH:  How did you guys meet each other?

SR:  Well, Rob and I were in the Boy Scouts together, Cub Scouts actually.

RS:  Yeah, I met Kyle in my coal mining days.  We all just met in Austin.  Chris and Scott grew up together.  I met Charles because he lived down the street from me.  Usually musicians, if you have any friends that aren’t, they try to hook you up like you're single or something and they try and make like all the musician friends meet.  I actually use to go watch these guys play when I wasn’t in the band.
          
                                        
                                    Life before the band:  "I was working as a topless dancer."

MH:  I understand your name comes from a roller coaster.  Did it have a special meaning to you? Can you tell me about it?

RS:  Doesn’t mean shit to me.  Could care less, we could be called Drinker.  It’s the roller coaster that the guys grew up riding.  I think it was Charles’ first roller coaster he’d ever been on.

SR:  I actually wasn’t in the band when they named it that.  But, it was like the first roller coaster I ever rode, funny or not, just coincidentally.  Well, I mean in Texas at the time there was two amusement parks.  You’ve got AstroWorld in Houston and then Six Flags in Dallas.  Now they’re both owned by Six Flags and you have a new one in San Antonio but, at the time...

RS:  Way too much information.  They’ve gotta put all that in there.

MH:  Yeah, a lot of work for me!

SR:  Anyway, when I was like 5 years old my grandmom took me there and that was the roller coaster I went on.

RS:  One of the old drummers for the band, he was not in the band for very long, his uncle worked at AstroWorld and he actually got killed by the Dexter Freebish.  He was standing on the track and it came and killed him, which is really bizarre. 

MH:  Speaking of names, any reason why Kyle only uses his first name?

RS:  Yes, but we’re not going to tell you.  Cause his last name is like 26 letters.

SR:  And he uses ‘z’s more than once.

RS:  Yeah, Czechoslovakian, I can’t even say it.

MH:  So, that’s the big secret behind it, even on the website they didn’t want to tell us.

MH:  Kyle mentions, “We worked crappy, crappy day jobs for so long while doing the band thing at night.”  What were these jobs and was there ever a time you thought Dexter Freebish wouldn’t make it "big?"

RS:  You always have your doubts and I played in a number of bands.

SR:  I was working as a topless dancer.

RS:  Yeah, I was a shepherd, which is cool.  It was a very tranquil job but, I hate the smell of sheep shit.  It reeks.

SR:  Actually we’re both computer geeks.  I worked at Apple and he was at a publishing company.

RS:  Yeah, I did sys admin, like network administration, played music at night and I did design.  Graphic design.

MH:  I understand MCA records gave you some money in ’98 to make a demo, but things did not work out.  How did you feel about this?

RS:  Well, in retrospect we’re really happy, but at the time we were like ‘What the fuck?’  Cause they were like 'Ok you guys have a lot of great songs, but we’re gonna hear that one single.'  Then we did the demo, "Leaving Town," which he (Scott) wrote;  he wasn’t even in the band at the time.  So, we brought the demo and they go, 'That’s the song, that’s the song, now we need one more.’

MH:  What was it like winning Song of the Year amongst 27,000 entries for "Leaving Town" in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest?  What do you feel that did for your career?

SR:  It definitely opened up a lot of doors.  We won the whole song of the year after we actually got the record deal with Capitol.  But, what also happened was like bam, bam, bam, bam, you know, it was within three months.

RS:  I remember when we knew they’re coming out with who was going to win the pop category.  Cause we were in the top 25 and we didn’t know how it worked and Chris calls.

SR:  And that was actually my first gig back with Dexter Freebish.

RS:  Yeah, and that day I was at work and it was like 8:30 in the morning and Chris calls me, I saw on the caller ID that it was Chris, and I’m like ‘OK, we must have won’ because he is never up that early ever and that was it.

MH:  Touring with Sister Hazel, Three Doors Down, Fuel, Kyle singing the National Anthem at a Bull’s game, and appearing on the  “Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn,” Dexter Freebish sure has a busy schedule.  Does life on the road ever get tough for you?

RS:  Yeah, it’s tough.  Honestly for me, personally, it's tougher when we’re not busy.  I hate when like the last two days we had off and your just like cooped up in a hotel for two days.  It's like I need to start collecting stamps or something.

SR:  I was thinking butterflies.

RS:  Yeah, butterflies would be nice.  I like being busy and it’s scary when we’re not cause we think there's more we could be doing.

SR:  Part of the problem being all people that have been in the real world with our crappy day jobs, which Kyle put it as, we really don’t want to go back to that.  We’re over achievers in everything we do and anytime, like Rob said, we don’t feel like we’re busy we’re worried that we’re not doing enough that we can.

RS:  But, it's tough on your personal relationships.  It's tough on your family or if you have a girlfriend, or if you are married.  Scott is married.  You know that’s hard but, I mean I don’t know, everything in life and we thought ‘Wow everything will be perfect once we got signed, right?  It's going to be perfect all the time.’  But, everything in life is a trade off.  Everything you trade one thing for another.  I mean if you have a day job, a wife and kids, that’s stability and that’s a great thing.  You may have to trade something else but, you miss that when you don’t have it as well.  But, on the whole it’s good.  Like I said when we have two days off, I’m ready to go back out.   

Kyle, lead vocals and guitar for Dexter Freebish, decides to join in on the interview.

MH:  What home comforts do you miss and do you bring anything along to make the bus more livable?

Kyle (K):  Books, I read books.

RS:  He listens to a lot of music on his walkman.

K:  Yeah, I carry CD’s around with me.  I don’t read a lot though.  I spend a lot of time on the computer; email the fans back, you know.

RS:  Full body massages.  Makes you feel like we’re home.

K:  We do each others hair.  Have a little make over session.

RS:  We gossip.  Did you see what Kyle was wearing?

SR:  Ha ha ha, actually you know the saddest thing is that we’ll be on the bus and call each other on the cell phone.

RS:  Are you ok?  Are you ok?  I love you.  No I love you.  No I love you.

K:  Somebody will be in the bunk across from me and they’ll go 'What’s going on over there?'  And it's dark the windows and curtains are closed, 'Ok bye.'

RS:  You get to the point where you’re on the road and I’ve never been close to anybody, with the exception of my parents, as I am with the band and you get to the point where you really need to know where everybody is all the time.  Even when we’re on break.  It's like you call everyday.  'Dude you doing ok?'

K:  At the same time, though, you know there’s that time, the time that you just need to get in your bunk and get away from everybody cause you are around them 24 hours a day.

R:  Kyle likes to do that.  To swim in lake me.

K:  For me, to swim in lake me.  Ha ha ha.  These guys can sit and chit chat the business side of it and just go speculate all day and I’m like 'Ah’ and you know, I just gotta go climb in my bunk.

RS:  Pops on Coldplay and zones out.

K:  Yeah.

SR:  You know what we do actually bring on the bus?  Lots and lots of movies.

RS:  We’re all movies fans.

K:  We play spades.

RS:  We play boggle.

K:  We gamble.  Play spades for money.

RS:  We do a lot of gambling on tour.

SR:  You’d be amazed at how many Indian casinos there are in this country.

K:  How many?

SR:  I’d be speculating.

RS:  We learn on the road never speculate if you do preface it by saying you’re speculating it.

K:  Yeah, we used to do a lot of it and we came up with the fact that we speculate so much that it was wasting our time.  So we try to speak directly on facts.  Only facts.

RS:  Which is sad because it makes you really know how little you know.  'Hey where you guys playing in a week?  I don’t know.'  (laughs)

K:  And the thing is it's really silent on the bus quite a lot.

RS:  'So what town are you in?  I don’t know.'

SR:  'When are we getting there?'

K:  It used to be a lot of speculation as you can tell we feed off each other.  We have the same humor.

RS:  Actually, I have your sense of humor now.

K:  What?  No you don’t.

SR:  Ha ha ha.

K:  You have your own.

RS:  I have my own.  My unique sense of humor.

K:  The self loathing humor.

RS:  Yeah, the self deprecation.

SR:  I’m still trying to find a good outlet to buy some humor.

K:  You know sometimes you're funny.

RS:  It’s always when you’re not trying to be and that’s usually mine.

K:  Like today when you were acting like you were really mad for a second.  That was like the funniest thing I’ve see him do in a while.

RS:  He did do that?

K:  He was like, ‘Man, I hate. . .’ and he acted like he was going to kick something.  Then he stopped and that made me laugh cause I’ve never seen him do that before.

SR:  I’m pretty much one trick funny.

RS:  We find that the more time we’re on the road our humor just gets worse and worse.  Like more in the gutter.  There is no limit to how bad it can get anymore;  there are no boundaries.  Holy cow, holy moly. 

MH:  Kyle says, “We want millions of people to hear our message and to be moved.”  Could you define this message?

RS:  He’s lying.

SR:  I thought you said 5 people.

K:  Just 5 people.  What do we have 3 people here?

RS:  Yeah, 3 ½.

K:  The ½ is you.  You aren’t quite there yet.

RS:  I’m not quite there;  I’m the ½.

SR:  No, you know it’s not quite an SOS, but it is...

K:  I think it is to make people look at their own lives.  I meant it to just kind of ,you know, look at your own life.  Be introspective in a way and go 'Is this really what I want to do?'  I think that is one of our big messages.  You know, live your dreams.  You know like what do you see?  Is it wonderland?  Is this the life you wanted to have or what you see it's like working in your cubicle everyday and it's not really the thing you’re wanting for life.  That’s one of the messages that I think we want people to get from our album.  Definitely just rock and also kind of just one of those albums you want people to roll the windows down in their cars and just turn on and feel good and sing along.  There are a lot of negative angry bands out there.

RS:  I think we’re pretty positive.  I think our lyrics tell a story.  I really like that.

K:  We can talk abut deep serious subject matter.  Our music just isn’t real heavy so, we get classified as a pop band.  I really think we’re a rock band.  You know, what is rock and roll?  What is pop?; it's so broad.  I mean I think if you saw the show tonight we’re a rock and roll band, basically.

RS:  Jimi Hendrix used to play pop festivals.

K:  It used to be the Who, the Newport Pop Festival with the Who, Jimi Hendrix, so.

SR:  Bob Dylan.

K:  Bob Dylan, I mean, so we just want to be known as a good rock band and give our all every night.

RS:  And then there’s the naked time.

K:  We didn’t do the naked time on stage.

RS:  We forgot.

MH:  What does the future hold for Dexter Freebish?

SR:  The question isn't what the future holds.  It should be what doesn’t the future hold for Dexter Freebish?

MH:  Ok, what doesn’t it hold?

RS:  What it doesn’t hold, it doesn’t hold, uh...

SR:  I think it is highly unlikely that we will be going into outer space in the next 6 months.

K:  I think that is pretty unlikely.  I mean I'm not thinking that we’ll necessarily go deep sea diving anytime soon.

RS:  Yeah, that would be cool though.

K:  You know the future for us, I think is we just want to keep on playing our music, keep on playing great live shows, writing songs and hopefully, like we say, just affecting people, just grabbing people and they can hear our music and get something from it.  They can live their lives and they can evaluate where they’re at and say 'Is this what I want to do?'

RS:  Literally the high point of our day everyday is getting up on stage.  That’s the best thing that could happen no matter how good your day is.  No matter how bad your day is that’s the best part of your day.  I mean if we didn’t have that I would go crazy.

K:  Yeah, we had 10 days off and I was...

RS:  I was so pumped for that first show, man.

K:  You get used to that kind of adrenaline that kind of rush every night.

SR:  Totally, yeah.

MH:  Anything else you would like to add or comment on?

K:  Yeah, I don’t have any of those SR-71 passes.  I’m feeling left out.

RS:  I’d like to say hello to my mommy.

That would not be the end for Dexter Freebish.  Soon after the interview the guys helped SR-71 finish the concert playing  KISS's, "Rock And Roll All Night."  No one really knows what the future will hold for Dexter Freebish.  Maybe some space exploration or deep sea diving but, one thing is for sure- the crowd hopes these guys will come running back to this town. -Todd Wojtowicz