Hailing from Voghera, Italy, The Nerds are my type of punk rockers – filthy, drunk and dangerous. Obsessed with B-movies, it was their dream come true to be included on the soundtrack for Annette Martinez and Lou Garcia’s “Cannibal Maniac” short blood spiller…and it’s a perfect match.
We recently spoke with Nerds guitarist Monkey M**********r about movies, music and all things sleazy.
How does it feel having your music connected to such a violent little flick? ^ Well I think it’s great!! We are huge horror movie fanatics and when Lou Garcia contacted us to be featured in his short film we were really excited. Being so obsessed with gore and weird movies you can guess that we were all for it. Contributing music for movies is a dream I’ve had since I was a child, and Cannibal Maniac is surely the start of something. I think our violent kind of punk rock is highly suitable for that kind of video weirdness, and I’m sure we will be collaborating more with WRP in the future… at the moment, they are about to start working on some new videos from our new full-length, which still has to be released, so interested parties can get in touch.
What are some of your favorite films? ^ You know, being Italian, I must say some of the best Euro horror and sleaze comes from my country: I love Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Aristide Massacesi (aka Joe D’Amato), Fernando di Leo and more and more. Speaking of my fave movies, I’d say “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is an all-time favorite, along with “Zombie Flesh
Eaters”, “Maniac”, “Halloween”, “Suspiria”, “Society”… but this is just talking about horror. I’m a B-movie geek, I own about one thousand titles in my personal collection – all kinds of movies. I love American science-fiction from the ‘50s and the ‘60s, stuff like “It Conquered the World”, “Invasion of the Saucermen”, “The Thing from Another World”, “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”… I’ve got a saucerman alien, Godzilla and the Creature from the Black lagoon tattooed on my right arm, eheheheh…. Anyway man, I love so many flicks I can’t even remember all of their names. Japanese science fiction and modern “category three” movies are a must in my opinion too…
Tell me about Garbage Dump. ^ Garbage Dump was my printed fanzine, which turned into a website because I didn’t sell the right amount of copies to keep it in printing. It was all English written, and this is probably why people were turned off by it, overall in Italy where just a few can read/speak a decent English anyway… but I wanted to reach as many people as possible. The website, www.garbagedump.tk, allows me to keep on writing and raving about my fave bands, movies and review records. The main focus is about wild and mean punk rock ala Confederacy of Scum bands, but I review every kind of music I get. I will now start a bigger thing, with more movie related articles, more interviews and more updates since my girlfriend Arianna started helping me out with the whole thing, and probably also Lou at WRP will contribute with art and writings too. Let’s say I’m enlarging the family, eheheh… it’s a completely free site, so I encourage anyone to take a look at it, contact the worthwhile bands and drop us a line to let us know if we are doing a good job. GARBAGE DUMP is also part of SCAREY RECORDS, the best label in Italy and probably Europe too, bringing up the best and most dangerous rock bands from the underworld… check it out at www.scareyrecords.tk.
If you were given the choice to either raise G.G. Allin or El Duce from the dead, who would it be? ^ Hell, I think those rock’n’roll terrorists have already done their fair share of raising hell worldwide. Plus, if we could bring GG back, I think we’d stop all the hype surrounding him, ehehehe…. About El Duce, I can tell you we will be probably touring Europe with the Mentors next year…of course without him.
Describe a typical Nerds show. ^ Balls nailed to the walls, pedal to the metal, ehehehe… joking aside, we’re loud, a*s kicking rock’n’roll motherfuckers. We even get to have highly visual performances sometimes also… you already saw the “BOMB RIDER” video enclosed in the Cannibal Maniac DVD version where I cut my forehead open, but blood isn’t always concerned, it just happens when we are really angry. I think our music is born of hate, anger and boredom. We live in a pretty rural area, stuck in the Northern part of Italy, which is not exactly a fun place to live in, and this surely reflects onto the music. Anyway, a typical gig is us playing and shouting at the crowd, who go nuts or leave the hall where we are playing. Last gig we played, the Boss put on a white hood with real goat horns on it, it was real fun, but I saw some people leaving the club horrified. That’s fun. We like to offend and hurt people.
What do you do on your spare time? ^ I’m about to finish my college course with a thesis on White Trash American Literature and The Redneck Manifesto by Jim Goad. Plus, I run the webzine, play shows with the band and organize some for other bands, attend gigs, watch movies and read books, I try basically to have fun and live a life entirely devoted to the arts I love.
If you ran into George Lucas on the street, what would that encounter be like? ^ He’d probably ask me if I wanted to perform the role of a rock’n’roll junky in his next film, since he’d try conquering the underground biz also. Just kidding, I dunno, I’d probably ask for an autograph like every stupid fan would do!!
Visit Monkey M**********r and the Nerds at their official website.
