When did The Neckbones start and when did it end, and tell me who was in the band over the years. Also, please give me a complete discography including all the albums, seven inches, ten inches, compilations and the record labels who released them.

We started sometime around 1992 as a three piece that consisted of me, Forrest, and Robbie. Tyler joined maybe a couple of years or so after that. The line up was always the same. After we disbanded sometime in late 2000(?), we played a show with George Sheldon on bass, and a few shows with Scott Rogers on bass. The last show we did back in 2004 Robbie Alexander played bass, though. I believe this is a complete list of our recordings:

1. The Neckbones Painting In Trash – Full length album. Our first release as a three piece recorded a few months after we formed. This was a cassette only release on Fishtone Records (essentially self released as Fishtone didn’t really do anything other than put a logo on it).

2. Mississippi Dreaming compilation CD. I think this was on Fishtone as well? A song from Painting In Trash, “Alright”, was on this compilation.

3. The Neckbones (self-titled) EP. This was a 5 song EP released on 7” Mentality out of Memphis. It was a 7” vinyl only release. This was our first release as a four piece recorded shortly after Tyler joined the band.

4. The Neckbones Pay The Rent – full length CD only release on our own label Zee Bin records. This was our first full length album as a four piece.

5. The Neckbones Souls On Fire – full length CD and vinyl LP release. Our first release on Fat Possum.

6. Not The Same Old Blues Crap compilations on Fat Possum. There were subsequent volumes of these compilations and we had a song on two of them. I think one was "You Can’t Touch Her" and the other was "Crack Whore Blues." I might have that wrong though.

7. The Neckbones Hit Me/Bad Boy 7” vinyl single on Sympathy For The Record Industry.

8. The Neckbones The Lights Are Getting Dim on Fat Possum – full length CD and vinyl LP release.

9. The Neckbones 64 Days/We’re All Winners 7” vinyl single released on Misprint Records

10. The Neckbones Gentlemen Vinyl only EP released on Misprint Records

Tell me about the pre-Neckbones days. When did you start playing music? Who were you listening to? Who inspired the music you make? When did you move to Oxford originally? What other bands did you play in before the Neckbones? How did you guys meet and form The Neckbones?

I started playing around on the piano as a child, but never really learned to play it very well. I had one of those stiff creepy old school marm piano teachers, so I hated going there and quit after a few lessons. My mom used to play a lot and it always moved me. I used to sit in front of our record player and listen to the records my dad left at our house, some great stuff like Willie Nelson, and Elvis, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Queen, The James Gang and also some other not as good stuff he left too, like The Eagles, and Billy Joel. I think my first punk rock record was actually Chipmunk Punk, which really only had like maybe two actual “punk” songs on it. I used to stay up late and watch SNL, and seeing bands like The Clash on there really made an impression. I pretty much just loved all music though honestly. I’m not afraid to admit I was totally into John Cougar Mellancamp when I saw him on Solid Gold, and cliched as it sounds, I won’t lie, hearing Jimi Hendrix for the first time is really what made me want to play the guitar. My aunt bought me an old electric in Atlanta from a pawn shop when I was 14 or 15 and I’ve never been able to put it down since. I went through phases in junior high and high school and was into the regular classic rock stuff like Led Zep, Black Sabbath and Aerosmith, etc. I also was into whatever else I heard. I even went through a phase in early junior high for at least a few months, where I listed to a lot of Prince, New Edition, Whodini, Fat Boys, and stuff like that. It’s funny, but I think the first arena show I went to was New Edition, Whoodini, and The Fat Boys. In high school I always was a person who hung out with all the different cliques at school, so I’d be hanging with jocks one day, headbanger/stoners the next and skate punks the next, so I listened to lots of different music because they all kind of listened to different kinds of music you know. I used to go to a lot of house parties, and the bands were usually playing more on the fringe punk rock stuff. I wouldn’t know what it was, but I really liked it. I saw the Ramones at an Armory in Huntsville when I was in high school and that was a pretty defining moment for me. The movie “Dazed And Confused” really could have been shot at my high school. It’s kind of scary how closely it resembled that. When I went off to college I continued to get into different music, and Forrest, Robbie, and then Tyler really turned me onto a lot of music in the first few years we were playing together in The Neckbones. I’m inspired by a lot of different types of music. I think we all were and are. I remember playing a show out in Oxford and then going back to one of our houses and having a party and we’d be listening to Buddy Holly and some chick would say something like “it’s just so weird that you guys play the music you just played and then you are sitting here listening to Buddy Holly.” I didn’t think it was weird at all. It always struck me as odd that someone would say that. I think over time musicians evoke the same feelings in drastically different ways, but the feeling remains the same. I guess I understand how it can be hard for some people to make the connection, because they don’t have all the dots to connect. Meaning they haven’t heard a lot of music that makes everything you connect you know? How do you get from musical point A to point Q, you know? I have always kind of worked my way backward from music I think is great to see where it comes from, and you find a lot of amazing music that way. I also think people can be incredibly snobby about music, which I find ridiculous. I happen to like ZZ Top, and when I told the president of Epitaph records that, he looked at me like I just took a crap on his shoe. When I told him he looked like “Side-show Bob” from the Simpsons (which he really did!) he looked like I took an even bigger crap on his shoe. It’s funny because people like that base their musical tastes on one or two certain aesthetics and that’s all they like. It’s not really about the music at all, as much is it is the certain aesthetic of the way people dress and talk and things like that. I mean the majority of the bands on Epitaph are complete crap and all sound the same, but this guy was turning his nose up at ZZ Top because they aren’t en vogue. Don’t get me wrong there have been some good bands on Epitaph, but by and large most of them are just carbon copies.

I really only played in a crappy high school cover band before the Neckbones. I moved to Oxford in 1990. Both my parents grew up in Oxford, so we were always there growing up, and I had fond memories of it, so I went off to school there. I wanted to get away from everyone I knew in High School, and I didn’t want to just stay in that same path that seemed carved for most people from Huntsville that went to Alabama or Auburn where everyone knew each other from high school. I met Forrest through a mutual acquaintance. This guy we both knew told me one day that he knew a drummer and gave me Forrest’s number. I’m pretty shy and don’t usually call people out of the blue like that, but I really wanted to play so I called him. He said he knew a guy who was moving to Oxford that played guitar but that would play bass. That turned out to be Robbie Alexander. Robbie sent a tape of some song ideas and came up and we kind of played around and decided we’d give it a go. Forrest got us a gig at Forrester’s because he kind of new Bill Forrester, and we learned like 25 cover songs in two days out in the trailer that Forrest and Robbie were living in. It was crazy. And we played this show, and it was the first time I had ever played anywhere besides my friends basement and some high school Halloween party, so it was pretty mind blowing for me. I was hooked. We also got paid money, which was nice. We didn’t want to play covers, though. We wanted to play our own songs and just a few covers here and there. That made it harder to get paid. We were all into and got into bands like The Clash, The Replacements, Husker Du, The Ramones, and all the original NYC punk rock scene like The Velvet Underground, Rocket From The Tombs, The Modern Lovers, Television, Talking Heads, Blondie, The Dead Boys, The Heartbreakers, The New York Dolls, and also Iggy Pop and The Stooges. Me and Tyler drove to Nashville back when we first started playing and saw Iggy live. He definitely influenced and clicked with the way we felt about live performance, and raw energy. We were also into all the American early Rock n Roll early on like Carl Perkins, Elvis, Gene Vincent, Link Wray, Eddie Cochran, Richie Valens, etc. At the same time we were all big fans of all the early American pop music, and British Invasion, like The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Beatles, The Who and things like that. We all got into the early “indie rock” thing to some degree or the other although some of that faded out for us for the most part. We were modestly affected by grunge really. It was so contemporary to us, and we were really trying to go for something completely different. It was like music went this certain way and we were going off on this completely different branch saying, “But what if it went this way instead”. Unfortunately, it didn’t really go the way we did, though, so we had very limited popular success. The influences we all share are really just too numerous to accurately reflect here I think. I’m certainly leaving out very important ones. How can I not have mentioned The Pixies for instance, but inevitably you wind up getting compared to one or two in each article you read about your band. The one thing I noticed often and liked was that usually every review I’d read cited completely different influences as a reference for what we sounded like. That was always my hope. Suffice to say that I think we are all kind of music historians in a way, and are influences would really span all of music. When you focused that through this little funnel that was our boredom and frustration with being young and living in Oxford and watching a lot of different fads from afar what came out is what came out for better or for worse.

The Neckbones played for a while before Tyler Keith joined the band. The first time I remember seeing the Neckbones was at Lafayette’s opening up for Blue Mountain in 1993. You guys were a three piece then. How long did you guys play that way and how did you hook up with Tyler?

I think about two years.

In 1994 The Neckbones released a 7” inch record and your first CD, “Pay The Rent.” Tell me a little bit about those releases. Where were they recorded? Who put them out? Tell me some stories and anecdotes about your first recordings.

If I remember correctly The first 7 inch was recorded partially in Bruce Watson’s basement in Oxford and partially in this weird little studio in Memphis by the guys in The Simpletones (they later changed their name to The Simple Ones). I seem to remember that we put that out right at the same time The Oblivions put out their Jim Cole single or at least when I first heard it. For some reason those singles sound like brothers to me or at least first cousins. Maybe it was the Memphis sound of that time. It was a very creative and productive time I remember. Forrest and Robbie had moved out of the trailer into the decrepit house out on Highway 334 outside town and we’d go out there 4 or 5 times a week and play and write songs. I distinctly remember driving out 334 and writing “You Smoked It” just yelling and beating on my steering wheel on the way out to practice one day. The Memphis recording was strange. The studio was this weird little office type building and I remember walking in and hearing someone through a door in another studio in the same building singing a horrible rendition of “Brick House”. I remember that and vomiting green stuff and blood the next morning after sleeping on the studio floor, which was concrete with thin carpet and no pad, all huddled around this one little itty bitty electric heater…one of those little tiny black box things. I just remember really thinking that I was going to die I felt so bad.

The Oxford recordings for Pay The Rent was done in Bruce Watson’s basement studio. I think he had ADAT’s by then and that’s what it was recorded on. I’ve been trying to find the tapes, but haven’t been able to yet. It was done over a few days after we’d all get off work for the day. Bruce was managing a clothing department store in the mall back then, and we were in school and working in restaurants. John Stirrat came in and helped get some of the drum sounds I remember. I remember Cedell Davis being in the studio one night with a friend of ours who was playing with him, Dale Beavers. It’s fairly vague now. We drank quite a bit. I remember my guitar amp was in a closet and to get the feedback on “It’s True” I was actually crammed in this little closet playing the guitar kind of propped up against the wall. The radio talking at the beginning of “Radio” was just some random talk show and we just swirled a mic around by this little cheap radio, Bruce had. It was a fun time. We were all just learning about recording and so was Bruce, so it was very interesting. I think the guys in Blue Mountain were probably there at some point, though I believe at the time they may have been strictly sober so they didn’t hang around us as much, because we were decidedly not sober.

Lawrence Wells did the cover art for Pay the Rent. He also did the art for The Hilltops CD Big Black River. Talk about the art on this album as well as working with Lawrence.

I always got a real kick out of Lawrence. I didn’t really know him as well as the other guys, though. I’m pretty shy and kept to myself more than the others. I did like his artwork for the cover at the time, though. It always made me think of the cockroaches and the theatre at the Hoka. That’s what I always thought it was inspired by.

I remember you guys were so excited about the your first album and when you got it back there was a major error in the mastering of the disc. What happened there?

Well, here you had the most unprofessional bunch of musicians who had just made the most unprofessional of recordings, and we thought well, at least we’ll do something right to make up for our lack of know-how, so we took our record to Larry Nix at Ardent studios in Memphis to have him master it. I didn’t even really know what the fuck mastering was at the time, and thinking back it was probably somewhat disconcerting for him to have these four oddballs hanging out with him while he did this thing. When we got it back it one track, “Over There” starts and stops and starts again. We wound up not paying the guy, but we couldn’t get it redone at that point so it’s on all the records that were pressed. If I can locate the master tapes I’d like to re-release this album without the false start, but ……..it was par for the course with us. We always had this black cloud that followed us around and crap would always just go wrong like that.

Not long after “Pay the Rent” came out, you guys were signed by Fat Possum Records, a local label that was primarily known at the time as the blues label of R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. The Neckbones were the very first rock band on the label. How did you guys hook up with Fat Possum? What was it like being on a blues label? Was it a positive experience or negative?

Bruce had been recording us for a while and he became involved with Fat Possum. They were looking to branch out into something besides just the Blues, but wanted it match the same rawness, and we were right there. We had developed a nice following among the outside the norm people in Oxford. I think our live shows were sort of like bastard art events or spectacles or something. At the time we had been going out to Junior’s juke joint and seeing him and R.L. play out there for awhile, actually since before the Fat Possum guys ever had. I think Amos Harvey was the guys that took us out there first. So, we very familiar with the guys on Fat Possum and very into that hill country blues and both R.L. and Junior. Being on Fat Possum was both positive and negative; both a honor and a curse. I have very good memories and very bad. It’s hard to say if we would have had a better or worse experience with any other label. Probably would have been a little more productive with another.

Ok, your second album, “Souls on Fire” many people consider the quintessential Neckbones album. Wasn‘t it recorded in a warehouse in Oxford? Tell me some stories and anecdotes about this album.

It was partially recorded in a warehouse where the Fat Possum office used to be. And partially recorded at Bruce home studio that was a converted karate dojo. There was a lot of frustration involved in this record. Fat Possum had been telling us they were going to sign us for quite some time, but they were locked up in money and legal problems, so we were on ice for quite some time. There is nothing worse about being in a band than being in that situation. I moved to Memphis and got married and got divorced and moved back to Oxford in this time period. I was sleeping on Tyler and Scott Roger’s hallway floor for about a month. Scott had these puppies at the time, and I would wake up every morning literally surrounded by dog shit and convered in fleas and go to work washing dishes. I was a pretty angry person around this time, and playing was really my salvation. Once we finally got things moving with the label and recording I came out out the darkness somewhat, but it was always still there. I have always felt that the song “Souls On Fire” perfectly captured exactly what The Neckbones were about at that moment. It was written on the spot in the studio in a certain spontaneous fashion that we would sometimes do live where we’d just make up a song on the spot, and Bruce said play that again, and I think what you hear on the record is that second take where it all came together into a song. It was really one of the most wholly band written songs we ever recorded, and took place in less than 10 minutes. I think Robbie and Forrest started it with the bastardized Elvis riff, and I threw in the change to the bastardized Ramones chorus with Forrest following right along and setting the rhythm and fills, and Tyler of course provided the vocal. It’s one moment in the studio I’ve always remembered fairly clearly, because it so captured the emotion that the band held for me at that time. I think it’s the only song we plan on playing live that we didn’t go over when we got together to refresh our memories for these upcoming shows, because it’s all about the sponteneity of the performance (and it’s really simple). Most of the sessions were at the karate dojo and were done in about three days. We bought lots of beer and whiskey and pork chops and would just go out there every day after work. I think this was when the English journalist guy was out there and Jim Mize put his knife up to the guys crotch and threatened to cut his nuts off because he was “cock blocking” with some girl who was out there at the time. I can’t remember who she was, but Jim didn’t have a chance any way. I think the journalist kinda freaked out and ran away. Never saw him again. That kind of stuff was just a regular occurrence, though, really. I mean if you played in the little punk rock dive bars we did all over the country, you saw a lot worse really. This sessions were a lot of fun. It was always my favorite thing in the world to be in the studio recording. I was bummed that I couldn’t’ afford to take time off work to concentrate better, but that’s just the way it was. Wash dishes all day and then head to the studio.

Who is the girl on the cover of “Souls on Fire?” Tell me about that cover.

That is Emily, who was our good friend, Dale Beaver’s, girlfriend at the time. She was an aspiring clothing designer or something or other from New York. She was hanging around the studio with Dale and she showed us this photo she had taken of herself to give to Dale as a Valentine’s present. When I saw it I immediately said, “Oh, man, that would make a great record cover!” I had designed another cover that looked like a match book at the time, but wasn’t sure about it, and when I saw this picture I just had to use it for the cover. It wasn’t meant as a personal stab at her at all. She was a very sweet girl, but it was just so unbelievably kitschy you just couldn’t make that stuff up, you know. So, we got the photographer to get us the negatives. There was this one particular one where they had caught her kind of off, and she looked really funny like a deer in headlights, and I said, “That’s the one.” I think she was kind of mad, because she thought we wanted to use it because it was a great “pinup” shot or something and we chose the worst one, but it was completely intentional. I think it was unconsciously a stab at all those bands that use that type of retro artwork you know. We also used the negative sheet for a promotional tour poster that I thought worked quite nicely. I don’t have one, but would love to.

On the night Souls on Fire was released you guys had a record release party at Proud Larry’s. This night is infamously known as “One of the Most Shocking Moments in Oxford Music History.” This is, of course, the night that Dave Boyer punched out Fat Possum Records President Matthew Johnson. For the record, what happened that night?

I think this probably got blown out of proportion somewhat, and I never had any hard feelings about it myself after the fact. I mean, Me and Tyler punched each other on several occasions. I grew up with an older brother and we beat the crap out of each other on a regular basis. I don’t really want to go into the relationship between me and Matthew too much, but he and I were actually probably easily the closest friends out of all the members of the band at that time. But just for the record I’ll tell my side of the story this once so I don’t ever have to do it again. We were in the house Tyler and I shared at the time on Martin Luther King after our record release show, and this probably has a lot to do with my reaction. Matthew was a guest in my home, and we were excited and having a good time after waiting a very long time to get our record out, and for reasons his own Matthew was trying to sour it. He has that type of sense of humor, but it was really not the time or place. We were in Tyler’s bedroom with several people and Matthew was fucking with me trying to assert some kind of dominance in front of those present or some nonsense as he sometimes would. I usually just humored him and ignored him. He often tried to play some petty mind games and I think thought himself rather clever, but it was always quite transparent. He started out saying “The Neckbones are pussies”, and I just let it slide the first time figuring he was loaded and just being an ass, but he continued with this mumbling, “The Neckbones are pussies. You’re a pussy”. I looked him in the eye and told him this was my fucking house and if he called me a pussy again I’d fucking hit him, and then I turned to walk out the bedroom door. As I did he snickered and called me a pussy under his breath, so I turned and hit him with a spinning back fist in the cheek. He went down, and I threw my drink in his face. Everybody freaked out, and it made me feel guilty not because of what happened from an isolated perspective, but because I was afraid I had damaged the band, which I probably did. He was trying to press my buttons, and I suppose I let him. I was pretty amped up with adrenaline and booze, etc. from the show, and maybe I’m old fashioned, but I don’t let anyone call me a pussy after a fair warning in my own house. I doubt R.L. Burnside or Junior Kimbrough or anyone else on the label would have either. They probably would have done the same thing or a lot worse, so I don’t feel regret over my reaction, but I don’t have hard feelings either. I do regret that the entire incident took place, but I have to believe Matthew got exactly what he wanted. I don’t really know what else he could have expected, or maybe he just didn’t know me as well as he thought he did. As far as I am concerned it was settled right there and then end of story. If Matthew didn’t feel the same way, I think that was unfortunate for our relationship as a band with the label and for our friendship. I guess Matthew wanted us to be subservient to him somehow, but I would never put myself in that position and especially not for something as ultimately meaningless as a band/label relationship. I guess I ain’t no water boy.

Did the fight between Dave and Matthew affect the relationship between The Neckbones and Fat Possum? What was it like being on the label after the fight? It seems like the label held the fight against the band for the rest of your career and Fat Possum never really pushed the band like they should have. Is that an accurate statement?

I wish I could say it did not, but I do think it had a negative effect on our relationship with the label. It wasn’t the same after that. I don’t know if anything would have ultimately been very different, and I certainly do not blame our lack of success on that, but it sure didn’t help.

Let’s talk about your third album “The Lights are Getting Dim.” You recorded it with Bruce Watson in Oxford, but it was mixed by John Stirratt of Wilco? Talk about recording, mixing and releasing this album. What was your mindset going into this album?

I think the mindset is somewhat obvious from the title. The relationship with the label was a little tense. I think Tyler was pretty depressed, and my relationship with Robbie that had been very close before was distant. I think Robbie resented the influence Tyler had on me musically by that time, and perhaps felt somewhat betrayed. The band had evolved in a different way than I think we had initially envisioned, and I for one had started to have a musical identity crisis. All that said it was still a very positive time and experience overall. We were happy to be making another record and we had a great time recording it, but I think we all knew it was likely our last record we’d make for Fat Possum. I remember it being all recorded at Bruce’s converted dojo studio. I do think this is the time period when we were at our best as a tight live touring band. For all our dysfunction, we were actually an amazingly effective touring band when you take into account the routing of our touring and complete lack of support. We would go on a five week tour and have two days off the entire time. We were loaded every single night, and driving 6 - 16 hours to get to the next gig. I remember playing in Pensacola, FL and finishing the set, immediately loading into the van (completely blasted), and then driving a straight 16 hours to Virginia Beach and arriving 30 minutes before we were due on stage, doing that show and then partying until the 3 in the morning, and moving on the next day. We really liked the sounds John helped us get on some of the Pay The Rent stuff and so asked him to mix the record for us. We just trusted him to let him do his thing for the most part as I remember.

Talk about some of the special guests on this “The Lights are Getting Dim.” You guys brought in JoJo from Widespread, Jack from The Oblivions, Bob Egan of Blue Rodeo fame, and also Cary & Laurie of Blue Mountain. That’s quite a roomful!

Jo Jo actually was not present and had to add his parts at another studio. Jack as always was great to have around. Bob put some very nice steel and lap steel guitar down. Cary and Laurie did some great background vox and Cary added some nice slide guitar I believe. We wanted to add some different instrumentation to a few things without us trying to fake it, and we had such a great pool of talent to draw from, so we figured why not. There had began to be a nice collaborative spirit among many musicians in Oxford and Memphis at that time, which was a very cool thing.

Your final release was the Gentlemen 10” record, which came out on Misprint Records, not Fat Possum. This little known EP was arguably your best release, and that back cover art is classic! Tell me all about this record.

This record was made up of out takes from the Souls On Fire and Lights Are Getting Dim periods. They were mostly songs that it was decided did not fit well on those records. Unfortunately they were not necessarily the best recorded versions of these songs, and were never really fully completed recordings, but we didn’t have the means at the time to do anything else to them, so we just put them out as is. I believe there is still a far better recorded version of at least one of the songs, but it could not be located at the time. I do think it is a fairly true representation of the band as a whole, and perhaps in some ways more truly representative overall of the band than the other albums. The photos for the cover were taken from an old scrap book that came from the Western Steakhouse in Memphis. Supposedly this was one of Elvis’ favorites and they had a special Elvis booth. When it closed down someone grabbed the employee and owner scrap book which had some great photo of a house band entertaining the regulars. Me and Forrest went through them and assigned different photos to each of us as being what we’d look like in the future. Definitely my favorite cover.

Talk about some of the shows you guys played in Oxford.

I could go on and on about shows in Oxford, but that’s probably better for people that were in the audience to talk about. I do remember one particular show at Ireland’s when it was packed to the gills and some kind of fight or something broke out, and suddenly the entire crowd of people just fell over together. It looked so crazy to see these hundred people all pressed together and literally right in front of the microphones just topple over as one. I don’t think anyone was seriously injured somehow. The Cooter Estate parties were the best house parties of all time. That’s where I first met Scott Rogers, who was known as “Tiny” at the time. I just remember he had his head shaved he scared the shit out of me when I came in with my guitar to play, and he grabbed me as I walked in to collect some money for the show. I think I may have given him a couple of bucks even though we were playing. I always loved the Hoka, but honestly the shows for me were not that memorable as far as playing. I saw some other good shows there, though. When City Grocery used to have us play upstairs I always thought those were fun shows. Of course, we busted out the glass from the front door on three different occasions which caused some friction with the bar manager. We had a lot of good shows at Proud Larry’s, although, I always felt like many of the people that worked there hated us and they were usually pretty rude to us, just like the good pseudo-hippies they were I suppose. At least they let us play there, though, so I can’t complain, and some of the people were always great to us.

Talk about your experience in Oxford over the years. How much has this town changed from you perspective?

It’s being over run by wealthy retirees who will eventually completely destroy everything about Oxford that drew them there in the first place. That’s what happens with these people.

Tell me about some of the tours The Neckones did. Where are some of the places you played? Who did you play with? Tell us some tour stories!!!

I can’t remember anything, and I did most of the driving.

You guys did a show back in the day with Fugazi at Lafayette’s. That show ended up being in Fugazi’s movie, Instrument and the Neckbones can be heard playing during one segment of the movie. Tell me about that show and the movie. What other films were you apart of?

I remember Fugazi being great, and it being so odd and cool that they were actually playing in Oxford and that we playing with them. I didn’t even know about the movie until later. We were worried about the straight edge thing because we were big drinkers, etc., but they were really nice and not judgemental about that at all. I remember Ian gave Tyler a book to borrow for awhile that was really cool. Oh, and I remember they brought in their own washing machines before the show to do their laundry. My noiseploitation song "Skronky Tonk" was featured in a Christina Ricci movie, No Vacancy.

Ok, lets talk about the songs. You guys seemed to have three song writers and vocalist in the Neckbones, Tyler, Dave and Forrest. What was the typical writing process like? Collaborative? Were lyrics written after the music was made, or did lyrics inspire the music? How did you come up with lyric ideas?

The main idea often came from one person and then it would develop from there once everyone contributed ideas. Sometimes they would come out pretty much as envisioned originally and sometimes completely different. Occasionally, we’d write a song that came up originally during a practice, but usually there was at least a rough idea that someone brought in. I think Tyler often comes up with a title and then writes the lyrics. I almost always come up with music and the main gist of the lyrics simultaneously when I write lyrics. I never really actually think about lyrics when I write them. Either they come or they don’t. I also often come up with a main musical idea without lyrics that someone else would contribute lyrics to, like "Eyeful" for instance. Forrest would most often write lyrics over a musical idea of mine or sometimes Tyler or Robbie’s, and I would sometimes get Forrest to sing a song I actually wrote lyrics for like "Ocean Of Blue." There were main ways we usually wrote, but always different exceptions as well.

The Neckbones were notorious for not including lyrics in your albums. Why was that? I want to know more about some of the songs.

I’ve always enjoyed the way people misinterpret lyrics of songs. Sometimes they are just silly and sometimes they give a song an entirely differtent meaning to someone, so I always liked the idea of not including lyrics on an album. They also take up lots of space.

Please elaborate on these songs…

“64 Days”

My lament over the limited supply of available members of the fairer sex in a small town. I kind of thought you could actually understand these lyrics…..

“Eyeful”

I actually wrote this music on an acoustic guitar

“Skronky Tonk”

I was venting some anger and frustration on this. I don’t actually know what all the lyrics are as it was a crazed stream of consciousness rant recorded in my bedroom on a Tascam cassette 4-track. There are lines about Jon Spencer “Stealin’ blues off R.L.” and Lou Reed “ah, Lou Reed’s a loser” as well as lamenting the lack of Hee Haw re-runs available on my non-cable television toward the end…”Love my hee haw, love my hee haw…gotta have it, yeah.” I think there is something about girls in tight blue jeans in there somewhere, and perhaps the Beastie Boys. I am actually a fan of Lou Reeds music.

Tell me about your cover T-Model Ford’s “Nobody Gets Me Down.”

Tyler talked about wanting to do this for a while so we did it. We always felt T-Model was under appreciated. We love T-Model! (said in German accent)

What is your favorite Neckbones song?

"Souls On Fire"

Why did the The Neckbones break up?

Because we sucked and nobody liked us.

What have you guys been up to since The Neckbones broke up. Talk about not only your day jobs, but also the other bands you played after the Neckbones.

I work as a music business manager in Nashville. I played with Tyler and the Preachers Kids for a short time before moving away from Oxford. I played and sometimes play in The Cool Jerks with Forrest, Jack Oblivion, and Scott Rogers. I play in a band in Nashville called The Squibs. Forrest and I have a band in Nashville called The Faves. We have released one record available from us directly on Myspace or CD Baby, or as a digital download on iTunes, etc. I also played some US shows last year with a mad scientist Japanese guy who covered The Beatles Revolver album using his mother and other family members for musicians and a keytar.

On the back cover of the “Gentlemen” EP, you guys had state of the art computer edited photos to show what you guys would look like in 2019. Where do you see yourselves ten years from now? How do you see Oxford ten years from now?

I’ll probably be teaching school somewhere and still putting out records that very few people ever listen to, but that I like. I’ll also probably be recording young bands for very little money to help them get a start.

Ok, so I understand that Robbie is not playing bass during the reunion. Where is Robbie, what is he up to these days and who will be playing bass during the Neckbones reunion?

Robbie is somewhere in Florida as far as I know. Van from the Preachers Kids is playing bass and doing a damn good job.

What Neckbones albums and records are still available and where can music fans purchase them?

The Fat Possum releases are available directly online from them and Souls Of Fire is on iTunes, etc. as well. The Misprint Records releases are available directly from Misprint online. There are some in stores out there some places. You can get Pay The Rent directly from us via the SnoCap store on myspace and I am working on re-releasing this and getting it on iTunes, etc..

A few years ago you had some of his equipment stolen, including that famous Hagstrom guitar. What happened there and was your gear recovered? Did you catch whoever stole those items?

Jim Higgins found the guitar and amp online in a store North of Nashville and I drove up there on my lunch break and got it back from them. Never caught who did it, though I’m pretty sure it was the girl next door’s little shit head boyfriend from the description I got from the music store owner that bought the guitar.