Interview with M. Shawn Crahan and Stella Katsoudas of Dirty Little Rabbits By JohnB

EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview was conducted live and has been edited for content and length.

MWE: Shawn, describe in your words, DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS. What is DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS to you?

SHAWN CRAHAN: Full circle.

MWE: In what sense?

SC: Pure psychedelic fruition of life, rebirth. Complete, utter… comfortableness with starting over. Realizing what really is. What the truth is. Why I did this. Why I’m doing this. That’s how I can explain it.

MWE: Stella, what in your words, to you, is DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS?

STELLA KATSOUDAS: I think it’s kind of like the coming together of a super-group. Seriously, the most talented musicians all in one place, you know? We’ve all come together somehow…cosmically.

MWE: Shawn, you’ve been through a couple of other singers, and then you came across Stella. What was it about her that you knew that that was who you wanted to bring into the band?

SC: Well, I’d been searching a long time to bring what I feel my art is to fruition, to like bring it to reality. It’s been a real challenge, because I haven’t really been able to find people that I feel believe in the art as passionately and romantically as I do. I’ve known Stella for a long, long time, and you know, when the music became time to be really, really serious…and really get everything together, I just took a little time to really pan out my thoughts, left and right, both hemispheres, and figure out what I thought was right. It was strange because Stella came up, but like the minute it did come up, you know, it was a little frightening because then it was kind of like a new Mario Bros. level, you know? You’re glad you were going to do it, but it was a little frightening that it might end quickly because of what you don’t know. That’s what excites me, is the challenge and not knowing. Stella and I have been friends for a long time. She’s the shit, and I only work with people that I feel are crazy and fighters, mainly. This band, like Stella said, is a super group, but it’s all fighters. We’re all kind of like reclusive, a little bit, in our own way. We all love music, so we’ve socially kind of gotten together where we’re socially not happening. We’re kind of like having a lot of fun together. So, that’s what it is with Stella. I think it’s just the romanticness of the dream and what can be and what people think cannot be. I like returning to where I was, and pulling from a lot of energy that was real. I don’t know, it’s kind of destiny, you know. We met a long time ago, for whatever reasons we thought, and here, we end up doing this. It might have been all preparation to do this.

MWE: Stella, you lived in Hollywood and recently moved to Iowa. Was this specifically for DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS?

SK: Yeah, April 8th.

MWE: So you remember the date, exactly?

SK: Yeah. (laughs)

MWE: Shawn, as you see it, what is the future of DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS?

SC: Take over the world. I mean, I believe in the song and I believe the world is getting worse, and not better as we all feel it. I don’t feel like wrath, and I don’t feel like gluttony, and I don’t feel like greed and all these things that were what seems like a decade ago. I feel like, disappointment, and I feel like the future is to shed as much light on that disappointment for humans as possible, through… I believe one of the greatest gifts, at least for me in my life, is music and art. I think our future is to spread the good word. As funny or as stupid as that may sound, we’re here just to throw down a rock show. A lot of people tonight were…you can just see it. They come out and they hoard into these places to forget and to live and to become numb to a world that is un-relentless, because of our selves. I’m much older than I was when I started, and I want to start here because I feel like being here at this level is maybe the first step to the acknowledgement of the disappointment. By me stepping down from the stigma people think is, which is really just man made shit. So I’m down to this to try and spread some hope, and maybe some change. I think that’s what we’re doing. Maybe spread some hope and some change and grab a hold of the whirlwind and never look back.

MWE: Stella, you’ve got one of the most awesome stage presences that I’ve seen in a long time. Where does all your energy come from?

SK: I’m a little psychotic…from a very dark place. That’s how we kind of like, heal…I heal. Shawn fucking saved my life. He brought me out here just to heal, you know. That’s what this band does for me.

MWE: So, in a sense, being on stage and doing what you do, is your therapy, then?

SK: Absolutely, one-hundred percent my therapy. The best therapy, and definitely the cheapest.

MWE: Who does most of the writing of the songs that you have?

SC: We’re really in a stage now…the band is so brand new and the band is a dish that has important ingredients, so regardless of where it’s been, at this point, we’re just kind of all pinched together. We are just five ingredients, you know. What’s so beautiful about this band is we all know our place, and all places are important. We don’t have two guitar players in this band. We have one. We have one bass player. We have an organist/keys person. We have one drummer and we have one vocalist. We don’t have back-up vocals, so every person has an eighty percent job and art that they have to bring, and the other twenty percent of each person is this floating, magical thing that we give to each other that happens. We all write, and it all happens. This is a group that has effort, as driving home tonight, as loading, doing what we do. This is a group effort. This is where the change begins, because there’s five of us aligned trying to do something that we feel is correct and full of potential. It starts and ends with all of us, you know? It really does. It comes out of nowhere and it ends out of nowhere. Sometimes it starts in some places, and sometimes it ends nowhere. It makes no difference. It’s all of us. It’s a beautiful thing. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. There’s no right or wrong, there just is. You just live. You get older. You accept it. You get ready for death, and have as much fun as you can till “Z”. I figure I’m on at least “T” by now, so I gotta rock out, man. I gotta rock out and have as much fun as I can. We’re still going to get to that other side, too. My plans are to always infect as many humans as possible with music and art, so I’ve got big plans for this band. It’s hard work, but this is what matters. This is really what matters. I probably made a couple people really, really happy tonight. If that’s the case, then we’re doing something good.

MWE: The final song, you guys basically just tear stuff up. Do you carry extra equipment in the event that something really does get destroyed?

SK: That’s probably why it’s the end of the show.

SC: Believe it or not, what we’re doing is so not planned that the answer that you’re looking for is no, we don’t. The reason why is we’re so in the moment right now. I just got endorsed by Gretsch. That’s my very first endorsee drum set. I’ve paid for every drum I’ve ever played in twelve years, except for that one. That one’s got more scars, I’m more proud of that one, and I plan on that one not making it much more than a couple of more months, two more months. When it’s gone, it will find its place in history. We don’t take anything, because we’re living by the minute. We’re not living by your rules… It’s like a disease, you feel it come on. As much as you want to fight it off, you’ve got to kind of go with it because we’re sick.

MWE: What do you want people to be saying or thinking when they leave your shows?

SK: That that was the most unexpected, mind blowing thing ever, bottom line.

SC: I would have to agree. The most unexpected, beautiful performance of life, you know. None of our shows are ever going to be the same, and we’re brand new. We’re still changing up our set. We’re still writing songs. We’re still getting it on. We’ve still got a few tricks up our sleeves, even though we’re a baby band…I’m really in a special place, right now. It would be really nice to have lightening, not strike twice because it’s so hard, but because it’s just as easy as getting up in the morning. There’s no challenges to dreams. It’s just do, or do not. Live or die. Unexpected this is and beautiful this is.

MWE: Any plans for an album release?

SC: I’ll tell everybody the way it is, right now. I’m so against the record industry, and I’m so against the way they will do it, that
this band will not be stopped. This band is a band of the people, and we will have as much fun and do what we are doing right now, and pay to play, as long as it takes to actually feel, and earn the right, to have that right of passage. Right of passage only means that you spend a little more money, you spend a little more time, you have a little more sacrifice and you go out and make it a business. Your business happens to be your dream, your art form, your love. You have to treat it like a business. We’re just going to play right know. I’ve got some really high hopes for some really big tours. We’re bidding tours right now. Rock tours this summer. I’d like to get on a tour this summer. I’d like to go to Europe this summer for a festival or two. Big wish lists. I would say early fall, late summer, might hit a record. I’d say we get it out before SLIPKNOT hits the studio, and then probably tour as long as we could. I have every intention of going back and doing SLIPKNOT stuff. This band is really big to me. It’s very serious. It’s taken my whole life to get to this. I’ve waited a very long time to get this love out of my heart, and this pain out of my soul. So, we plan on a full-length. We plan on the whole thing. Anything you can imagine, I am envisioning for this. It just takes time, and we’re not going to push it this time. I’m not going to go in like a baby band and get everything taken from me. I don’t necessarily need anything. We’ve got all we want. We’ve got a car. We’ve got a trailer and we’ve got each other. We’ve got good friends that let us stay on the floor and feed us, and it’s good. We’ve got those all
around the world, and if we don’t have them yet, we’ll get them soon enough. I don’t mind, as long as the people don’t touch too much.

MWE: Shawn and Stella, I thank you so much.

SC: First interview, thank-you, EVER!

SK: Our first interview!