Takin' A Ride

With special bonus interview with Fred Cotton about Spastik Children, a Metallica side-project they had going on at the time!

I was pretty busy in 1988 doing a ton of interviews with metal bands for my “Metal Til Midnight” show on KSDT, which was on the campus of UC San Diego. Again, I was really green doing interviews back then and I really had nothing to go on in regards to Paul’s new band Piranha, as nothing at the time had been written about them. They had only done 2 shows before this one. This was done at Fender’s Ballroom in Long Beach, CA when I just asked Paul if I could interview him for my radio show. Testament headlined and you can hear them doing a soundcheck later on in the interview. I didn’t want to ask too much about Exodus because I knew Paul and Fred wanted to get their new band going and some publicity for them. I didn’t want to be a jerk and keep asking about the past when they’re looking for the future. So not the best interview I’ve done, but at least you get to hear Paul’s voice again.

Later on, I found out that Fred Cotton was in Spastik Children, another band that no one really knew anything about. But one thing I did know was that they were a “Metallica side-project” where they try to out-Mentor the Mentors. After Testament played, I asked Fred if I could ask him some questions about Spastik Children and he said “if you buy me a coke”. So I gave him a dollar so he could buy a soda. First and only time I ever paid someone to do an interview. Again, not much was known about them and we were both on the spot and he was trying to leave, so we just winged it while the Testament crew was breaking down the stage. Of course had I been older and wiser, I would’ve been asking better questions. These 2 interviews were part of the first 20 interviews I’ve ever done, so I was a little inexperienced. I believe Fred is now a drug and alcohol counselor for addicts.

My memories of this interview:

We did it behind Fenders in Long Beach on a sidewalk
Paul was drinking a 32oz bottle of Budweiser, so I went to the Safeway down the street to get one too so I could drink with him
Paul was nice. As was Fred. I was pretty intimidated, but they didn’t kick my ass for being a “poser”, so I was happy I was able to sit down and drink a beer with them.
Nothing was known about Piranha at the time, so I did my best to see what was up with them and what they were all about. Questions are very basic.
Same with Spastik Children. Everything known about them was via word of mouth, so you have to ask basic questions like “how did this come about?”

Here’s the interview. Transcript below it.

Ted: Ted from KSDT and we’re speaking to Paul Baloff and Fred Cotton from Piranha. And Paul, as we all know, used to be in Exodus, of course. Why don’t you introduce the whole band and who plays what? You’re the lead singer, of course.

Paul: Okay, I sing. Paul. And Fred plays drums. Fred Cotton plays drums. Rotten Cotton. And, um, Ron Shipes, Ron Shipes plays, is one guitarist. And Chuck Sedlak, the other guitarist, is from New York, he’s from the band called Execution. And, uh, I can’t remember his other band…

Fred: Helldozer.

Paul: Helldozer. (laughs) HELLDOZER! And Al Voltage is our new bass player.

Ted: Did you purposely choose the name Piranha to show that your connections with Exodus?

Paul: we thought it was a good name and we didn’t want to put “ex-Exodus” all over the bill. You know, it’s like “ex-Exodus”, Baloff, “Ex-Exodus”, you know? So we figured a way of doing it, a way of pushing the “ex-Exodus” stuff less.

Fred: Plus Paul wrote the song anyway, so he has pretty much the rights to it.

Ted: You write songs too. Just lyrics, or you write whole songs, or what?

Paul: I write some riffs, but not too many. I write lyrics, yeah.

Fred: And if there’s one riff on the end of “Alone We Survive”. It’s one of our songs that me and Paul got together and wrote the riff to it. One of the heaviest riffs ever. Rock like a kick.

Ted: Do you guys play any Exodus songs live?

Paul: “Piranha”.

Ted: What about early shit like “Death Row”?

Paul: Yeah, we feel we can write anything we can write, you know, if we put enough time to it, it could be better than anything that was written by the week before. 

Ted: I hate to keep dwelling on Exodus, but…

Paul: That’s alright, everybody keeps doing that. We’re used to it.

Ted: But what happened with Exodus, exactly? I heard that you might have gotten kicked out or something, then I hear that you’re still friends with them, you even jump up on stage with them and stuff.

Paul: Yeah, I’m still really good friends with them.

Fred: And you were kicked out…

Paul: Yeah, and I was kicked out, but I’m still good friends with them. I think I was mainly kicked out because I was losing a lot of inspiration because the management was taking over and doing a lot of stuff without asking the band. And the personal trip about it, you know, about everybody being friends and staying together, you know, as one for metal type thing, you know, just started falling through and it started becoming like a rat race, like government run. And, you know, I mean, they got real big, and I’m glad for them, but I’m sure it’s still pretty much government run, if not more so now.

Ted: So you guys are still good friends with Exodus?

Paul: Oh yeah, I’m even friends with Zetro. Hi Steve!

Ted: Yeah, I understand you helped him in San Francisco on stage during one of his first shows. What happened?

Paul: Well, I didn’t really help him, he was just being shelled by things. And so I got on stage with him and I guess he got shelled by things less.

Ted: And you sang “Bonded by Blood” or what was it, “Exodus”, with him?

Paul: It was some song, yeah, “Exodus” or “Bonded By Blood” or some song. It was kind of a last minute job, you know.

Ted: You’re based up in San Francisco now?

Fred: Yeah, we’re thinking about moving down to LA.

Ted: Really?

Fred: Well, it’s just that we’re all completely, we’re a real personal band and we all pretty much spend a lot of time together with each other.

Ted: Does half the band live up in San Francisco?

Fred: Yeah, we all live up there. We all live up there, we all live together and if it was our choice, so we wouldn’t be bothered, if we’d get a house out in the sticks and where we could jam and be alone pretty much. We’re a real tight group, like a family.

Paul: But otherwise, you know, we’ve worn out everything there is to do up there. So we see a little bit too much of each other and then we start arguing instead. So if we moved to LA, then we can all come down here and harass little girls. Have a good time.

Ted: So you guys got a demo now or something?

Fred: No, well right now we’re negotiating contracts and talking to a few labels here and there. We’re really kind of unsure. We have a few paths we can take and we’re just kind of in the decision process right now.

Ted: So there’s no real demo you guys are selling or trading?

Paul & Fred: No, no, no, no.

Ted: Do you plan to make a demo? To trade, go out through the underground?

Paul: It depends, you know, I mean if we can get what we want in a record contract, then we probably just go out and do the record contract. If they want us to do a demo and then a record and that’s what we would do. But you know, right now we’re looking at signing a major label contract and then just getting on and then doing that.

Ted: What labels are you looking at?

Paul: We’re looking for any label that has enough time, enough effort to put into you know, say a band like, you know, we’d be Metallica or something like that and money to our trips, you know. Any major label basically, with major distribution.

Ted: So give me some song titles. What some of these songs are about?

Fred: “Take and Take”. “Take And Take” is about taking everything that we want and not giving anything to anybody else as usual.

Paul: “Spawning”. “Spawning” is about, it’s kind of a two-way.

Fred: Yeah, it’s kind of “Piranha 2” type of deal

Paul: Yeah “Piranha 2: The Spawning”. It’s basically about old times with the Exodus and new times with (unintelligble).

Fred: “Organism”.

Paul: “Organism” is about the band on the road. And “Quality Break”.

Fred: “Quality Break”. It’s kind of an untitled song. It’s got a lot of breaks and tricky changes so we just call it “Quality Break” for now.

Paul: And “Alone We’ll Survive”. “Alone We’ll Survive” is basically self-entitled, you know, alone we’ll survive. And that was my first song I wrote, you know, kind of like the message to Exodus that alone I’ll survive.

Ted: How many songs have you guys got written?

Paul: Eight or nine. I think we’re doing eight.

Ted: So enough for a full album, huh?

Paul: Yeah.

Fred: We’re working on a new one. It’s called “Feeding Time”. It’ll crush your mother’s face. We don’t have it in the set tonight, but next time we come down, it’ll definitely be fun.

Ted: Okay, cool. What are you guys doing now? Just playing a couple of dates. Not actually on tour or anything, right?

Paul: No, we’re just doing it down here and then we’re going to do it up at the stone in SF. And we’re working with Bandwagon, the FBI, I guess it is now. The booking agency. So we’re ready to go out on tour. We’ve been pushing for that.

Fred: The other thing that’s kind of blocked us from doing that is we really don’t have… Any demo or anything out, from what they’ve heard and seen so far. We’re pretty confident that we will drop pretty much for the fact that everybody wants to see Paul out again. But I think we’re probably just going to hold off on a nice tour until we get something out.

Ted: So how many shows have you guys played yet?

Paul: This will be our third.

Fred: It’s our third show. So that’s going pretty fast, you know?

Ted: The second one was with Nuclear Assault.

Fred: Yeah, down here. Well, it was on a Sunday night right after Exodus. There was no promotion whatsoever. About four or five hundred people showed up. We took it basically like a practice.

Paul: that’s very generous. Very generous. I would say 200 at the most.

Fred: Really? 

Paul: But that’s good! (considering no one knew about it)

Fred: We just took it like a practice, you know? Big deal, you know? Get it out of the way so we can go drink, you know?

Paul: That’s the way you took it. That’s not the way I took it.

Ted: and what’s your favorite AC/DC album?

Fred: Mine’s “Powerage”. (To Paul) Yeah, what’s yours?

Paul: “High Voltage”.

Ted: (To Fred) You pick the fucking right one. I’ll buy you a beer.

Fred: Cool. Buy me a half pint of vodka or something.

Ted: I’ll buy you a half pint of vodka. The cheapest thing they got. 

Paul: Half pint of vodka at Safeway is the same price as the beer.

Ted: Those fuckers didn’t even fucking card me.

Paul: What?

Ted: Yeah, I fucking just walked up. I didn’t fucking get carded. Fucking pisses me off. (I had just turned 21)

Paul: They hella-carded me, man. How the fuck did they card me, man?

Ted: Well, thanks a lot. I don’t know if there’s anything else you want to talk about.

Fred: Well whenever you see Piranha come around, go see it becuase it gets better every time.

Ted: All right, thanks a lot! Appreciate it.

Paul & Fred: Thanks a lot. Thank you, man. Bye.

Speaker 4: Bye. Bye. Bye. Where’s my bill?

After the show, I found out that Fred Cotton was in Spastik Children! So I did an impromptu interview with him after Testament played.

Ted: Okay, hey, we’re talking to Fred from Piranha again. And, uh, what other band are you in?

Fred: Spastik Children.

Ted: And who else is in that band?

Fred: Flunky McDonald on late night guitar. And James Hetfield on drums. And Kirk Hammett on bass.

Ted: Really? Kirk Hammet? Cliff Burton was originally on bass? Or what? And how long have you guys been around?

Fred: Couple years.

Ted: And what’s been going on?

Fred: Super American Foreign Grand.

Ted: How’d this thing start?

Fred: Uh, fuckin’ around in my garage. Gettin’ drunk, playing… switchin’ instruments and stuff.

Ted: So, is there any story of how you guys got together or anything?

Paul: No. Just good friends of mine, and they wanted to fuckin’ do it. They wanted to jam too, so…

Ted: So you guys play a lot of shows together, or what?

Fred: We do some shows up in Bay Area, but we don’t travel or nothin’. It’s just a local thing, you know.

Ted: And how many songs you guys got written?

Fred: I don’t know. All it takes is like ten minutes to write a song, so… And I usually fuckin’ make up lyrics on top of my head. We got probably about ten songs or something.

Ted: Really? And you guys play a lot of shows, or…

Fred: Not really, just whenever we get bored. Something to do on a Tuesday night when we’re bored, just go and get drunk and play some songs.

Ted: Does everyone know about this (i.e. that Spastik Children is Metallica and friends fucking around)

Fred: Oh, yeah. I mean, we’ve gotten a lot of press on it. We’ve gotten a lot of fuckin’ write-ups and mags. I haven’t even fuckin’… No big deal here. It’s not serious. 

Ted: So is it like the Stormtroopers Of Death thing (that Anthrax does)?

Paul: No. Well, we started doing that shit before they did. They just came out with an album and shit and got more serious with it. We didn’t.

Ted: So do you think you guys will ever put out an album or anything like that, or what?

Fred: No. Well, we were thinking about it, and then Cliff died and we just shelved the idea.

Ted: I heard you guys like, well, when you play… Well, what are your songs like?

Fred: Drunk, fuckin’ noise.

Ted: Are they like punk or what?

Fred: Kinda. I mean, it’s just fuckin’ drunk silliness, man.

Ted: what are some song titles?

Fred: “Benefit Baby”, “Dirtbag Baby”, “Pus is Great”, “I Like Farts”, “Harold O”…

Ted: How long are these songs? Are these like 10 second wonders or…?

Fred: Depends on how drunk we are. Sometimes they’ll last 20 minutes, sometimes they’ll last 5.

Ted: So each song is different each time you play it or what?

Fred: Depends on how drunk we are. We make sure we get nice and ripped before we go on stage.