Gwen Mars: August 1995

In less than a year, Mike Thrasher wrote an album, signed a record deal, and immortalized his schoolteacher without blinking an eye. 

SLUG: It’s been six months since you weren’t together at all, now you have a record out and you’re signed to Hollywood records. 

MT: Well, now it’s been over a year. We got a deal in six months or so. It’s pretty insane. We totally weren’t thinking that way. We thought we were going to play for years. 

SLUG: Pay your dues you mean.

MT: Yeah, whatever. 

SLUG: Well, hey, if you don’t have to, why do? 

MT: Well, you know. I mean it’s not like I’d been playing all the way up till then. Right? But yeah, we formed the band and… 

SLUG: How did you know the other guys?

MT: I met them actually through this… the guy that produced our record got interested in some songs. Played them.

SLUG: Who produced your record?

MT: Richard Poddler. He did Born To Be Wild and all that kind of junk. And anyway, these two, one of them was an assistant that worked there and one of them likes to make coffee or something you know.

SLUG: John and Matt. 

MT: Yeah. 

SLUG: You’re kidding me? 

MT: No. And uh… 

SLUG: So wait a minute. Now you know Richard from somewhere? 

MT: He had seen me play guitar in this frat band I was playing in. You know went around playing frat parties and shit. And played them some songs, and he gave me some studio time to come in and put some stuff down and didn’t have a band and those two guys were just hanging out and John was making coffee and he played drums and Matt was a guitar player but, you know, it’s like, “Oh, I could probably play bass,” so we just started playing, man. The chemistry was just killer right away. 

SLUG: That’s the strangest story I’ve ever heard. 

MT: That’s how it was. I swear. 

SLUG: You met this guy and got the coffee maker and the janitor to be in the band. 

MT: Yeah, exactly. 

SLUG: How’d you come up with the name Gwen Mars? 

MT: It was my kindergarten teacher’s name. 

SLUG: Get out of here. 

MT: Swear to God, yeah. 

SLUG: Your dad was in a country band? 

MT: The Thrasher Brothers. You know it’s kind of like the Oakridge Boys or something like… 

SLUG: How come I’ve never heard of the Thrasher Brothers, besides the fact that I don’t follow country music at all. 

MT: Yeah, they were gospel for most of the time. So that’s probably why… 

SLUG: Cause when people look at your name they go, “Jesus, what a made up name that is.” 

MT: Oh, I know, God. I mean and it’s the stupidest thing. Michael Thrasher, I mean if I was going to change my name it would not be that. 

SLUG: Michael Thrasher, that’s funny. 

MT: I’ve often thought about changing my name to Tom Jones or something. 

SLUG: So you go into the studio with a bunch of songs that you have written and those guys play along and things hit off pretty well and the next thing you know you’ve got a demo? 

MT: Exactly, yeah, which ended up being the record. And the demo turned out so darn… we liked it you know, whatever… it sounded natural and you know you can’t really like going back and rerecording shit. It’s not going to come out as good as the first time. So yeah. 

SLUG: That’s pretty cool though. I liked the album a lot. I’m not really sure that I agree with all the reviews I’ve read about it. 

MT: Oh, yeah a lot of mixed things. 

SLUG: Well a lot of people said that it sounded like Smashing Pumpkins. And I didn’t really think so. 

MT: No, I think people hear heavy guitars, right? Real strong in the mix and I think that’s what, you know, kind of sets them in that direction. But you know, I’ve listened to the record, there’s like all kinds of different sounding songs. And you know how many rock records have had loud guitars on them. I mean, Jesus. Whatever. You know, I think people will have to base something new according to something that they’ve heard to know what it is or something. You know, whatever. 

SLUG: Did you read the CMJ review of your record? 

MT: Yeah. 

SLUG: Did you like it? 

MT: Hell, no. It was pretty sucky. 

SLUG: Did that prick even listen to this fucking record? 

MT: Yeah, he probably listened to the first two songs and said, “Oh, sounds like the Smashing Pumpkins.” 

SLUG: So, you did most of the writing, or most of it. In your bio it says that you don’t like to talk too much about what a song means to you and then they make you go through each song. 

MT: I know. Wasn’t that stupid? 

SLUG: I thought it was stupid. But I mean. It seems like they said, “Okay, well he doesn’t want to talk about the songs but we made him and here they are.” 

MT: Right. They did man, they totally grinded me on it. What’s this… It’s just like you know. I hate to, you know, put in somebody else’s mind what the song means to me because it could be something totally different to them. I don’t want to blow it for them. 

SLUG: Well you know, I mean, I guess I don’t know, if you’re a guitar player you understand things that non-guitar players don’t understand. You know, you’re like, “Well I was playing my guitar and I got this cool riff and that’s what the song’s about.” 

MT: Exactly. It’s just like a thing that happened you know. You put some words to it and there you go. See the thing is like Cosmic Dick, Heal Me, Fisher King all those were like the demo songs. And Stuck to the Sun, Hollowed, Ruined, Dragster were ones that we went back in and finished the record with. So you can see a growth period. 

SLUG: So it was more the beginning of the album was your original stuff? 

MT: Yeah, so you know, you can see a little growth period. Cause hell, we’d only been together for… when we recorded the first song, we’d been together for like three months. So you know, there was obviously a growth period there. 

SLUG: Well albums should be like that. That’s why I hate random play buttons on CD players. I mean, when I was growing up, you listened to an album and it was cool because the album flowed from the first song to the end of the album. 

MT: Right, right. It makes sense. 

SLUG: This album makes sense in that way. But if you put it on random and it starts with Rover and then it goes to Cosmic, it’s like, “Fuck. Who is this? What the hell’s going on here?” Some of the classic albums of all time. Sgt. Peppers. That would totally suck if you listen to it in any other order than the order in which it comes. 

MT: Right and they planned it that way because that’s the way you listen to it. Yeah, totally. Those are the records that I listen to. I don’t know about you, but I went to high school in the 80s and it really sucked. I mean music sucked. It was terrible. I was listening to Zeppelin and shit like I was in the 70s or something. Because all the music sucked. 

SLUG: Well I’ll agree with you there. I hated all the music in the 80s except for Concrete Blonde and other than that. 

MT: Yeah, well you know. I’m really influenced by the early 80’s alternative like the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees and things like that. I’m really into that stuff but other than that it was horrible. 

SLUG: Did you hate Alabama? 

MT: You know the whole time I knew I was going to have to split. I mean you can’t do this sort of thing there. You know, nobody wants to hear it. I mean you know everybody thinks you’re a Satan worshipper or something. Everybody thinks you worship the Devil or something. I don’t know, whatever. 

SLUG: So old Zeppelin, Hendrix I’m guessing, Alice Cooper, stuff like that? 

MT: Yeah, Sabbath, Ozzy. Really into early Ozzy Osborn solo, Rhodes, David Bowie. 

SLUG: Really? 

MT: Yeah, Mick Ronson’s my favorite guitar player. 

SLUG: Really? I love Mick Ronson. 

MT: Yeah, he’s my idol. I love the guy. 

SLUG: I was like the only guy I knew besides my buddy Kevin who was really sad when he died. 

MT: Yeah, like Bowie’s influence, T-Rex and… and… mostly Bowie, not as much T-Rex. 

SLUG: So it sounds like on the album. I was going through that list of how you were talking about the songs and at first I thought, well maybe I should read them. Then I thought maybe they just drug this out of him. So it sounds like they drug it out of you. 

MT: Yeah, so I ended up like making up shit after a while.

SLUG: Really, okay, then I don’t need to ask you my next question then. 

MT: What is it? 

SLUG: I thought well, I think he’s bullshitting. I think that they’re just making him say shit about this stuff and he’s watching the TV while he’s answering the… 

MT: And after a while it’s like, okay, you want an answer, okay here you go, whatever. 

SLUG: That’s right. It was the one, what was it? I think it was Stuck to the Sun. You said, “This is a space song, not like NASA but like Vegas.” 

MT: I was like, “Yeah, it’s kind of like a Vegas space, yeah.” 

SLUG: And then they went, “Wow, he’s deep.” 

MT: “Wow, that’s cool,” and they put it in the bio. You know the record people, they’re just fucking weird. Totally, exactly. Well whatever. 

SLUG: The world according to you and me. 

MT: Exactly, but it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot to these big agencies and crap. Whatever. 

SLUG: Fuck ‘em. 

MT: Well, you know, you just go on tours. But you know we’re happy to have that tour, it’s killer. We’re going to be able to play in front of some people. We just came off the road. We went all the way up to San Francisco, Seattle, went up to Vancouver and back down to San Diego and Phoenix. Man I hear Salt Lake’s just a rocking place. 

SLUG: It’s the biggest surprise city that I think I’ve ever seen. 

MT: It’s the same thing in Alabama, man. It’s like everybody thinks, oh God, don’t go there. But man, there are all these kids like I was back then, like I hate it there. And they just die for somebody to come so they can just go nuts. 

SLUG: Cool. So you go on tour with Catherine Wheel when? 

MT: The 17th it starts in Washington, D.C. and then we work our way over. 

SLUG: Are you writing this whole time? 

MT: Yeah, yeah. I got the second record almost done. I’m constantly doing it. And hopefully I’m going to put out an EP before the end of the year. 

SLUG: What’s Magnosheen? 

MT: It’s a word I made up. It… I was writing… 

SLUG: Some hair product. 

MT: Yeah, I know, like Magnoshine. But we were… I was just writing a song you know and you know the symbols worked you know. What can I say, fuck, I mean. It described what I was going for in the song, you know. Just as you know, Magnosheen. It’s like one of those explosions in space, you know. 

SLUG: Magnosheen. It’s like it’s not regular space stuff, but Vegas space. 

MT: Exactly.

Read more from the SLUG Archives:
Circle Jerk: August 1995
A Shot of Blues: August 1995