Bloodhound Gang Interview with Evil Jared Hasselhoff

Hooray for Drugs and Defecation

With a back catalogue of hits touching on such sensitive subjects as animal loving (in the non-paternal sense) and porn star sex, it’s easy to see why the Bloodhound Gang have made such a prominent name for themselves. Bassist Evil Jared Hasselhoff is bursting at the seams to enlighten us as to the ways in which he and his band of merry men can play a vital role in enriching our lives. Now living in Berlin as an act of rebellion against the Bush regime and having squandered all the money he made from album sales and touring, the evil one gives us the low-down on the band’s current movements and what treats they have lined up for us next.

After touring for a year-and-a-half back in 1999 there was a considerable quiet patch for the band which Hasselhoff clarifies: "We didn’t even like each other to begin with. After eighteen months I wasn’t thinking about another album, I wasn’t thinking there was gonna be a band, the only thing I was thinking is, tomorrow I can go home and never have to see these arseholes again."

In the end however, something clicked in his mind, "We, er, kinda ran outta money, so we went, ‘Hey, I got an idea, let’s get back together’… I know it [the album] could’a been written in a week, but it took us two years to write!"

When asked about the plans for release, he is characteristically facetious: "There’s a bunch of songs written and hopefully it’ll be out sometime next year, or the year after that, or the year after that." Right, so not much point holding our breath just yet then? There is a new single planned though, the beautifully titled ‘Screwing You on the Beach at Night’. A song written as a last ditch attempt to save singer, Jimmy Pop’s, flailing relationship: "cause his girlfriend was about to dump him because he’s not like romantic at all and is really just into hanging out with his idiot band mates and getting drunk". The video is a must-see, based on Chris Isaak’s famously cheesy ‘Wicked Game’ offering but, in true BG style, reinterpreted and featuring a hot chick and some senseless, ridiculous posturing.

This type of behaviour is what spurs the creative process for the band. The non-stop flow of booze, drugs and groupies play a huge part in the envisioning of new material. Hasselhoff candidly points out that their influences are: "Jaegermeister, Goldschlager, Bacardi 151, Brazilian cocaine…" and the list goes on, for miles. Name any form of inebriation and they’ve probably embraced it at one point, purely as a form of inspiration (obviously). It soon becomes apparent after asking just a handful of questions, that the band are more interested in partying and generally coming up with comedic scenarios to amuse themselves, than taking anything to do with the music business in any way seriously.

With a UK tour looming, we ask about the best gig that they’ve ever played. It was in Copenhagen and "we’d just been to Macedonia. You can’t drink the water… I had one ice cube in one vodka and Red Bull and I was literally shitting like a water barrel for the next week. Normally the bit we would do on stage was: the singer [Pop] would come out and he’d play a Depeche Mode song and I don’t like Depeche Mode ‘cause they’re a bit too gay… So, I’d pretend to get all mad and come over and take a piss on Jimmy. That day in Copenhagen I go over, we do our normal shit and I go up there to take a pee and I’m like ‘What the?’ and all the guys are like, ‘Urgh a ha look he’s gonna pee’ and I’m like, ‘It’s not pee’ and they’re like, ‘Go ahead’ and I’m like, ‘Well alright’ and instead of peeing on him I just laid a biiig pile of diarrhoea in my hand and planted his face in it!" It seems there’s not much that Hasselhoff wouldn’t do if he could get a laugh out of it. He even vaguely considers the prospect of giving a nun a ‘hot lunch’ (browse the Internet for the stomach churning definition) as something which could be incorporated into the live show.

Having been away for the best part of three years, it sounds like the band have some pent up frustrations which they need to release onto the unsuspecting world, yet again. Get down to the live shows for a piece of the action, just make sure you don’t get too close to the stage, unless you too fancy a faceful of Evil Jared’s bum juice.

Words: Naomi Misquita-Rice