Mindless Self Indulgence: As If
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I'm having a tough time believing Jimmy Urine is tired.
Known for their insanely energetic, hamster-wheel-on-meth paced live sets, Mindless Self Indulgence aren't a band you can imagine ever sleeping, much less being out and out "tired". Could this be the same Urine I saw jump off a drum riser approximately ten feet in the air while simultaneously spinning a mic stand like a baton just days earlier?
"Blame it on the video we've been shooting all day," says the liberty-spiked frontman from his tour bus in San Francisco. "The tour's been fine, I've been pretty on point. But when you shoot a video you need to do it over and over and over again. It's like lifting weights. I feel like hell."
Working hard is definitely something MSI know a little about. The only break in their tour schedule in recent months was to record their latest album If, and the road stretches across the globe for much of the remaining year.
"It doesn't take a lot to knock the dust off," admits Urine. "I feel like a kid in summer school getting ready to go back to school. We never stop."
So is retirement in his future?
"Not yet," he laughs. "Although we've had some real serious injuries, like a punctured lung and a broken hip. MSI is not Pink Floyd. I don't see being ninety and going out on stage saying "here's a little number called "Tornado"!" It's just not gonna happen. It' a very kinetic type of show, where we want to jump around and we want the kids to go crazy. I'm not gonna go up there and try to do it when I can no longer do it. I'd rather do something else. I'll just go home and draw a comic book."
Not that MSI fans would let him. Notoriously fanatical and cheerfully obnoxious, the band's army of diehards keep coming back for more, yielding some of the most eclectic crowds you're liable to ever see.
"This band is a very unique thing. It doesn't matter where you are coming from; you can be completely outside of any sort of scene or you can be the biggest metal head in the world, if you see us and like us then you're in," says Urine. "I think the crowd at a Mindless show is the accumulation of all of those different types of people - you'll see teeny boppers, goth kids and metal heads. After the show they may all go back to their scenes, but for that night they are all there to just come together and get down to what we do. If someone is into MSI then they are probably smarter than the crowd around them."
Not bad for a band consistently ignored by pop culture media. While there's no denying that the band's insanely catchy album You'll Rebel To Anything or If's new single "Never Wanted To Dance" would become overnight hits if given the spotlight, modern rock radio, much less MTV, simply doesn't get it.
"We're definitely a word of mouth type of band. We've never relied on radio or television, which also means we've never had to cater to them. We've never had to write a "Hey There, Delilah" song for radio," sneers the singer. "I can write "Two Hookers and an Eight Ball" and still rest easy that we're gonna sell some places out. If the mainstream wants to hop on now they are more than welcome to, but they need to pay for a ticket."
Urine pauses thoughtfully.
"In cash."
